Descending the eastern slopes of the Cordillera, the Montaña region stretches away gradually into the Amazon valley, covering an immense area. This Montaña country comprises more than two-thirds of the total area, and lies wholly within the Torrid Zone. Watered by mighty rivers that have their source in the Andean snows, and graded in elevation, its varied productiveness and fertility are phenomenal. It is in the Peruvian Andes that the Amazon begins its long course to the Atlantic; the river, however, goes by the name of Marañon throughout its length in Peru. In the beginning it is augmented by the Huallaga, Ucayali, and Yavarí and a dozen more mighty streams having their sources in the same heights or in the foothills on the eastern slopes, and, while still within Peruvian territory, becomes a river of such immense depth that ocean liners steam clear across the continent to Iquitos, thus giving to Peru a port accessible from the Atlantic for her shipments of rubber and other tropical products. The disposition of the country’s population of 4,500,000 inhabitants is significant of the history of the nation’s development and suggestive of the prosperity that awaits her when the Andean barriers shall have been gridironed with the railroads that will open up the Amazon region to colonization some day. The coast areas now support a fourth of the total population, the cordilleras two-thirds, while the rich forests and fertile plains of the Montaña—the country of Peru’s present-day opportunity—support but half a million. The bulk of these inhabitants are of Indian and mixed Indian and Spanish descent. But little impression has yet been made by European immigration, as in the established agricultural republics of the Atlantic seaboard. It is confidently expected that the birth of the New Peru—the Peru of railroads, colonization, and great agricultural and mining activity—will reverse this disparity in distribution and increase the population to many times its present numbers, for now it is less than that of Holland, although Peru is three times the size of France. The New Peru, which is heralded by all recent visitors to the west coast republics, is building an industrial and commercial nation on the long smoldering ruins of Spain’s golden empire, and it will be a worthier and more lasting structure than that with which Pizarro remorselessly smothered the unique civilization of the Incas. The war with Chile seemed to awaken her to the necessity of keeping pace with the times, not only in military but in commercial affairs. Since then she has made great strides.