aboriginal race inhabiting the highlands and the coast lived then, as they do to-day, in a manner distinct from each other. The highland and coast people were those who formed the population under the Inca government, and under whose control they had reached a high degree of aboriginal civilisation; whilst the indigenes of the forests were more or less roving bands of savages, dwelling on the river banks, without other forms of government than that of the curacas, or petty chiefs of families or tribe. The influence of the Incas did undoubtedly extend into the forest regions in a degree, as evidenced by remaining customs and nomenclature, but the Incas did not establish order and civilisation in the forests as upon the highlands. The Incas and their predecessors built a series of fortresses which commanded the heads of the precipitous valleys leading to the forests, whose ruins remain to-day, and are marvels of ingenuity in megalithic construction. After the conquest the Inca population of the highlands and coast became Christianised, and at the present time the whole of the vast territory of the Pacific coast and Andine uplands, extending throughout Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia for two thousand miles, is under the regimen of the Romish Church, and every village contains its iglesia and village priest. In very different condition are, on the other hand, the aborigines of the forests, who live neither under civil nor religious authority. But there was probably no fundamental or racial difference between the upland and forestal Indians, and they resemble each other in many respects, with differences due to climate and environment. Remains of ancient civilisations, in the form of stone ruins and appliances, are found east of the Andes, in the Amazon forest regions, and the Chaco plains, arguing the existence of prehistoric conditions of a superior character. Legends and customs among the forest tribes seem to refer in a dim, vague way to ancient conditions and happenings of other environments; and there can be little doubt that the archæology and origin of the South American people are far from being fully understood. Further exploration of this little-known region may produce much of interest, and unravel mysteries which the dense forest at present conceals.

One of the principal tributaries of the Amazon is the River Marañon, which flows from the south for a thousand miles between two parallel chains of the Andes, and breaking through a remarkable cañon, known as the Pongo de Manseriche, turns suddenly to the east and forms the main Amazon waterway. Above the Pongo, or rapids, the river is navigable only for very small craft, but below it forms the head of steam navigation. The upper Marañon flows down through a high, difficult territory, with many fertile valleys, and upon its headlands and the adjacent slopes of the mountains are freely scattered the ruins of the Inca and pre-Inca peoples, who inhabited the region in pre-Hispanic times and even contemporaneously with the Spaniards.[4] From this district, and from the valleys to the west of Cuzco and Titicaca, it was that the Inca influence mainly entered the forest regions of the Peruvian Montaña.

It is interesting to note that the “Mongolian” resemblance to the Huitotos Indians of the Putumayo is again observed in Sir Roger Casement’s Report.[5] The resemblance between the aboriginals of the Andine and Amazon regions of South America and Asiatic peoples is striking, as indeed it is with the natives in some parts of Mexico. The present writer has dealt fully with the matter, as bearing upon the possible peopling of America by Tartars in remote times, in a book recently published.[6] The subject is one of great interest. One school of thought denies any imported origin for early American culture, and considers the Aztec and Inca civilisations to have been autochthonous, a natural reaction of man to his environment; whilst the other points to the great probability, as adduced in archæological and other matters, of some prehistoric Asiatic influence.

The abuses connected with rubber-gathering in the Amazon Valley are not a new or sudden condition. The ill-treatment of the Indians in the rubber-bearing regions of Peru were brought to public notice in England and the United States in the book before mentioned, published in 1907, showing that the aborigines were being destroyed, sold into slavery, and murdered by the white rubber-gatherers or merchants several years before the matter culminated in the publication of the Putumayo atrocities. The present writer also wrote to various London periodicals in an endeavour to arouse interest in the subject, but none of the journals specially took the matter up.

The Peruvian Government and the Press of the Republic have long been aware that the Indians of the forest regions were brutally exploited by the rubber merchants and gatherers. Reports and articles have been made and published both by officials and travellers. That Indians were sold at Iquitos and elsewhere as slaves and that there was a constant traffic in Indian women has been known to the authorities ever since rubber-gathering began. In 1906, in Lima, the Director of Public Works, one of the most important of the Government departments, handed the present writer an official publication[7] dealing with Eastern Peru, which contained among other matters an account by a Government official of that region of the barbarities committed upon the Indians, a translation of a portion of which is given here. The present writer had undertaken to make a preliminary survey or reconnaisance on behalf of the Government of a route for a railway from the Pacific coast to the Marañon, which would give access to the interior and be of considerable strategic importance.

The following translation of part of a Report in the official publication, dated February, 1905, by a Peruvian engineer in the service of the Government[8] shows that the abuse of the Indians was a matter of current knowledge:—

“Marked changes have been produced among the savage tribes of the Oriental regions of Peru by the industry of collecting the ‘black gold,’ as the rubber is termed. Some of them have accepted the ‘civilisation’ offered by the rubber-merchants, others have been annihilated by them. On the other hand, alcohol, rifle bullets, and smallpox have worked havoc among them in a few years. I take this opportunity of protesting before the civilised world against the abuses and unnecessary destruction of these primitive beings, whom the rapacity of so-called civilised man has placed as mere mercantile products in the Amazon markets; for it is a fact known to every one that the native slaves are quoted there like any other merchandise. Throughout the forest region under the control of the Governments of Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and Brazil the