say mass on those festival-days until a due proportion of the
presents was delivered. And this case of extortion is not told of one
of the priests of old. It occurred in the second quarter of the present
century. Another priest summoned a widow to make declaration of the
property left her by her husband, so that he might fix the scale of his
burial fees! He made a high demand. She implored his mercy, reminding
him of her large family. He was inexorable, but offered to give up his
claim if she would give him her eldest son--a boy of eight--to be sold
as a slave or given away as a present. (It seems that the senhoras of
those lands want such boys to carry their kneeling carpets.) The civil
authorities could not be appealed to in this case. There was no
redress, so the widow had to agree to give up her son! Doubtless both
in camp and in church there may have been good men, but if so, they form
an almost invisible minority on the page of Peruvian history.

In short, tyranny in every form was, and for centuries has been,
practised by the white men on the savages; and it is not a matter of
wonder that the memory of these things rankles in the Indian's bosom
even at the present time, and that in recent books of travel we read of
deeds of diabolical cruelty and revenge which we, in peaceful England,
are too apt to think of as belonging exclusively to the days of old.

But let us return to our friends in the little canoe.

"To tell you the truth," said Pedro to the Indian, "I am deeply
disappointed with the result of my mission. It is not so much that men
do not see the advantages and necessity for union, as that they are
heartless and indifferent--caring nothing, apparently, for the welfare
of the land, so long as the wants and pleasures of the present hour are
supplied."

"Has it ever been otherwise?" asked Tiger, with grave severity of
expression.

"Well, I confess that my reading of history does not warrant me to say
that it has; but my reading of the good Creator's Word entitles me to
hope for and strive after better times."

"I know not," returned the Indian, with a far-off, pensive look, "what
your histories say. I cannot read. There are no books in my tongue,
but my memory is strong. The stories, true stories, of my fathers reach
very far back--to the time before the white man came to curse the
land,--and I remember no time in which men did not desire each other's
property, and slay each other for re