On another occasion they passed a melancholy troop of Indians who were being driven to their forced labour on a Spanish farm. José divided his little store of coca amongst them, and then complained bitterly to Fray Fernando of the hardship of their condition. But the monk said it seemed not unfair that they should pay tribute in the form of personal labour. “I thought they did so,” he added, “even under your Incas.” “True,” replied José, “they tilled the lands of the Sun and of the Inca. But after this fashion: First, the lands of the Sun, as was meet and right. Next, the lands of the widow and the orphan, of the sick man, and the soldier who was fighting the battles of his country. Then each man tilled his own tupu.[25] These tupus were given them according to their need. If a man had a child born to him, he had a little piece added to his share of land. And they were all taught to help each other in their labour. Lastly, and not until all else was done, they tilled the Inca’s land; such was the Inca’s law. The work was a happy festival: men, women, and children, in their holiday dresses, thronged to the fields together; and as they drew the plough, or sowed the maize and quinoa, they chanted merry songs, or yaravis about the great deeds of the Incas. Always they had abundance of good food and chica. Neither in the field, nor in the workshop, nor yet in the mine, was any man’s health ever known to suffer from the labour he did for his lords. And in all Tahuantin Suyu there was no man that had not food enough, and clothing suited to the climate in which he dwelt. The Spaniards know this.[26] Ask them, when you go to Cuzco, and they—even they themselves—will bear witness that never were a people more happy, more peaceful, more content with their lot, more loyal to their lords, than were we when they came to us. Why God, who governs all, let them come, He knows—I do not.” Nor did Fray Fernando. Long did he ponder over the problem thus set before him. For the first time in his life, a great grief and wrong, with which he had personally no concern, was sinking into his heart. He used to satisfy himself that the natives of the New World received a full indemnity for their injuries and sufferings in the introduction of Christianity, with its creed and its sacraments, by which their souls might be saved from everlasting perdition. But this thought was losing its power to content him. He was beginning to learn that wrong remains wrong for ever, and cannot be changed into right by virtue of any benefits, real or supposed, which may eventually accrue from it. That night, as they rested together in a deserted tampu, he said to José, “My son, it is not fit that I should conceal from you what I truly think. I think my people are verily guilty concerning yours. May God forgive us, and in His own time turn our evil into good.”