of trader and settler between the high country and the low country. The eastern slopes of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia are wet and forested. Indeed, so heavy is the rainfall that the valley floors are in places swampy; and some situations are unhealthful owing to stagnant or semistagnant drainage as, for example, a portion of the Yungas. Thus it appears that in spite of its subtropical character, its undoubted productivity, and the great demand for its products on the plateau, the eastern slope region labors under a physical handicap that has not been removed down to our own time. Moreover, the eastern slopes of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia lie in situations far inland. Eastward, several thousand miles of distance separate them from the Atlantic, and there are no great settlements calling to them for the products of forest and held. Their markets are overseas, and in addition to the ocean distances are the difficulties of the river passage. Their geo- graphical position has resulted in settlement and trade as a consequence of stimuli that have issued from the mountain sone; and it is the mountain zone to which they send their products and in which they must find their coastal outlets. Though the improvement of navigation and the building of railroad lines in the Amazon country have been regularly forecast for sixty years, the only railroad is the Madeira-Mamoré line and the transportation service of the streams is still confined to the small launch and the canoe.
In much the same way the Puna de Atacama, the altiplano of western Bolivia, and the high basins of Peru were long tied to the Pacific; and that indeed is the situation of the two last- named regions today. By contrast the population of the valleys on the eastern border of the Puna de Atacama have now established relations with larger settlements east of the mountains, like Salta, Tucuman, Andalgalé, Tinogasta, and this to such a degree that their trade is definitely oriented toward the southeast. While the connections with the Pacific are by no means broken, they are of less importance on the whole than they were in the centuries of colonial trade. In short, the plain draws the mountain life down to it, whereas in Bolivia and Peru it is the mountain toward which gravitates the life of the eastern valleys and the bordering plain.
