ogether with the quinua-tree, form here and
there little thickets on the banks of rivers.

These regions, so favored by nature, have from the earliest period
been the chosen dwelling-places of the Peruvians; and therefore in the
Sierra, which, measured by its superficies, is not of very great
extent, the population has increased more than in any other part of
Peru. The valleys already contain numerous towns, villages, and
hamlets, which would rise in importance, if they had greater facility
of communication one with another. But they are surrounded on all
sides by mountains, which can be crossed only by circuitous and
dangerous routes. The few accessible pathways are alternately up
rugged ascents, and down steep declivities; or winding through narrow
ravines, nearly choked up by broken fragments of rock, they lead to
the dreary and barren level heights.

The Serranos, or inhabitants of the Sierra, especially those who dwell
in the smaller villages, are chiefly Indians. In the towns and larger
villages, the mestizos are numerous. The whites are very thinly
scattered over the Sierra; but many of the mestizos are very anxious to
be thought white Creoles. A rich serrano, who bears in his features the
stamp of his Indian descent, will frequently try to pass himself off to
a foreigner for an old Spaniard. Here, even more than on the coast, the
mestizo is ambitious to rank himself on a level with the white, whilst
he affects to regard the Indian as an inferior being.

The few Spaniards who reside in the Sierra are men who have served in
the Spanish army, and who, at the close of the war of independence,
settled in that part of Peru. Many of them keep shops in the towns and
villages, and others, by advantageous marriages, have become the
possessors of haciendas. Those who have enriched themselves in this way
are remarkable alike for ignorance and pride, and give themselves the
most ludicrous airs of assumed dignity. The Creoles are the principal
dealers in articles of European commerce. They journey to Lima twice or
thrice a year to make their purchases, which consist in white and
printed calicoes, woollen cloths, hard-wares, leather, soap, wax, and
indigo. In the Sierra, indigo is a very considerable article of traffic:
the Indians use a great quantity of it for dyeing their clothes; blue
being their favorite color. Wax is also in great demand; for in the
religious ceremonies, which are almost of daily occurrence, a vast
qu