Through Five Republics on Horseback, Being an Account of Many Wanderings in South America by Ray, G. Whitfield

What has Romanism done for the Indians of Bolivia in its four hundred years of rule? Compare the people of that peaceful, law-keeping dynasty which the Spaniards found with the Bolivian Indian of to-day! Now the traveller can report: "The Indians are killing the whites wherever they find them, and practising great cruelties, having bored holes in the heads of their victims and sucked the brains out while they were yet alive. Sixteen whites are said to have been killed in this way! These same Indians are those who have been Christianized by the Roman priests for the past three centuries, but such cruelties as they have been practising show that as yet not a ray of Christ's love has entered their darkened minds." How can the priest teach what he is himself ignorant of?

Where the Indian has been civilized, as well as Romanized, Mr. Milne, of the American Bible Society, could write:

"Since the Spanish conquest the progress of the Indians has been in the line of deterioration and moral degradation. They are oppressed by the Romish clergy, who can never drain contributions enough out of them, and who make the children render service to pay for masses for deceased parents and relatives. Tears came to our eyes as Mr. Penzotti and I watched them practising their heathen rites in the streets of La Paz, the chief city of Bolivia. They differ from the other Indians in that they are domesticated, but _they know no more of the Gospel than they did under the rule of the Incas."_

What is to be the future of these natives? Shall they disappear from the stage of the world's history like so many other aborigines, victims of civilization, or will a hand yet be stretched out to help them? Civilization, after all, is not entirely made up of greed and lust, but in it there is righteousness and truth. May the day soon dawn when some of the latter may be extended to them ere they take the long, dark trail after their fathers, and have hurled the last malediction at their cursed white oppressors!

For four hundred years Bolivia has thus been held in chains by Romish priestcraft. Since its Incan rulers were massacred, its civilization has been of the lowest. Buildings, irrigation dams, etc., were suffered to fall into disrepair, and the country went back to pre-Incan days.

The first Christian missionaries to enter the country were imprisoned and murdered. Now "the morning light is breaking." A law has been passed granting liberty of worship.

Bolivia, with its vast natural riches, must come to the forefront, and already strides are being taken forward. She can export over five million dollars' worth of rubber in one year, and is now spending more than fifty million dollars on railways. So Bolivia is a country of the past and the future.

CHAPTER V.

JOURNEY TO "THE UNEXPLORED LAKE."