n goods, particularly printed and plain cottons, coarse
woollen stuffs, knives, hatchets, fishing-tackle, &c.; with these goods
they pay their laborers, charging them for every article five or even
six times its value. As there is throughout these forest regions a great
want of men, the plantation owners endeavor to get the few Indians who
settle voluntarily on their property, fixed to it for ever. They sell
them indispensable necessaries at an extravagant price, on condition of
their paying for them by field labor.

I have seen an Indian give five days' labor, from six o'clock in the
morning to sunset, for a red pocket-handkerchief, which in Germany would
not be worth four groschen. The desire to possess showy articles, the
necessity of obtaining materials for his wretched clothing, or
implements to enable him, in his few free hours, to cultivate his own
field, and, above all, his passion for coca and intoxicating drinks, all
prompt the Indian to incur debt upon debt to the plantation owner. The
sugar-cane is seldom used in the forest plantations for making sugar.
The juice is usually converted into the cakes called _chancacas_, which
have been already mentioned, or it is made into _guarapo_, a strong
liquor, which the Indians spare no effort to procure. When they begin to
be intoxicated, they desire more and more of the liquor, which is
readily given, as it is the interest of the owners to supply it. After
some days of extreme abstinence they return to their work, and then the
Mayordomo shows them how much their debt has increased, and the
astonished Indian finds that he must labor for several months to pay it;
thus these unfortunate beings are fastened in the fetters of slavery.
Their treatment is, in general, most tyrannical. The Negro slave is
far more happy than the free Indians in the haciendas of this part of
Peru. At sunrise all the laborers must assemble in the courtyard of
the plantation, where the Mayordomo prescribes to them their day's
work, and gives them the necessary implements. They are compelled to
work in the most oppressive heat, and are only allowed to rest thrice
for a few minutes, at times fixed, for chewing their coca and for
dinner. For indolence or obstinacy they suffer corporal punishment,
usually by being put into a kind of stocks, called the CEPO, in which
the culprit stands from twelve to forty-eight hours, with his neck or
legs fixed between two blocks of wood.

The labor of bringing the