rovide for their own
necessities or else permitted to draw on official stores. In colonial
days a more greedy and less paternal government took advantage of
the ancient system and enforced it without taking pains to see that
it should not cause suffering. Then, for generations, thoughtless
landlords, backed by local authority, forced the Indians to work
without suitably recompensing them at the end of their labors or
even pretending to carry out promises and wage agreements. The peons
learned that it was unwise to perform any labor without first having
received a considerable portion of their pay. When once they accepted
money, however, their own custom and the law of the land provided
that they must carry out their obligations. Failure to do so meant
legal punishment.

Consequently, when an unfortunate Pampaconas Indian found he had a
dollar in his hand, he bemoaned his fate, but realized that service
was inevitable. In vain did he plead that he was "busy," that his
"crops needed attention," that his "family could not spare him," that
"he lacked food for a journey." Condore and Mogrovejo were accustomed
to all varieties of excuses. They succeeded in "engaging" half a dozen
carriers. Before dark we reached the village of Pampaconas, a few small
huts scattered over grassy hillsides, at an elevation of 10,000 feet.

In the notes of one of the military advisers of Viceroy Francisco de
Toledo is a reference to Pampaconas as a "high, cold place." This
is correct. Nevertheless, I doubt if the present village is the
Pampaconas mentioned in the documents of Garcia's day as being "an
important town of the Incas." There are no ruins hereabouts. The huts
of Pampaconas were newly built of stone and mud, and thatched with
grass. They were occupied by a group of sturdy mountain Indians,
who enjoyed unusual freedom from official or other interference
and a good place in which to raise sheep and cultivate potatoes,
on the very edge of the dense forest. We found that there was some
excitement in the village because on the previous night a jaguar,
or possibly a cougar, had come out of the forest, attacked, killed,
and dragged off one of the village ponies.

We were conducted to the dwelling of a stocky, well-built Indian named
Guzman, the most reliable man in the village, who had been selected
to be the head of the party of carriers that was to accompany us to
Conservidayoc. Guzman had some Spanish blood in his veins, although
he did