"
P.T.W.
* * * * *
PERU: SIMPLICITY OF PASTORAL LIFE.
_(To the Editor of the Mirror.)_
After all that has been written and said on South America, by many
recent travellers, it may probably be thought that the following remarks
are rather out of time; but as a single fact may sometimes serve to show
the state of a country more forcibly than volumes, I am induced to
relate an anecdote which will throw a little light on the present
situation of one portion of the natives of Peru.
The Andes take their rise literally at the "end of the World;" for Cape
Horn certainly deserves that epithet, and the Straights of Magellan,
which divide Terra del Fuego from the continent are comparatively no
more than a mountain stream in a hilly country, so that that island may
without any impropriety be deemed a part of it. The Andes are not one
continuous chain of mountains; but an immensity of piles raised one on
another, at different elevations of which are extensive plains, termed
"Pampas," some of which appear as boundless as the horizon, and totally
divested of herbage. On one of these plains, called the Pampa of Diesmo,
in the province of Junin, I was detained some days at the only hut to be
seen for leagues.
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