contrast of yellow plain and deep green foliage is most marked and lends to the view, in that otherwise cheerless land, an indescribable charm. There is a universal appeal in this aspect of home and a certain comfort and beauty amid the inhospit- able surroundings of naked desert.
Each town has its patron saint, appropriate to the specialty for which the town is known or the condition amid which it exists. ‘Thus at Pica, where excellent wine is produced, it is San Andrés, the patron saint of wine; at Canchones, a seat of chacra sin riego, it is San Isidro, the patron saint of farmers. Frequently the saint of one village is taken on a trip to a neighboring village. ‘Thus, at the time of our visit to Pica, the Virgin of Candelaria was brought from Macaya, a copper- producing town of 600 inhabitants 60 miles northeast of Pica. She came asking for alms, for it had proved a hard year at Macaya, and an appeal was thus made to the generosity of the inhabitants of Pica. Their patron saint was carried out to meet the visiting saint, and with fife and drum the united procession returned to the village, parading the streets to the church of San Andrés.
Throughout many portions of this thinly populated, arid region of South America there is the most curiously interest- ing mixture of primitive and Christian worship. The old rites of the Indians are grafted upon a new creed, often with but a change in name and not in principle or symbol of worship. The rivers and the harvests are the forms in which they under- stand the Deity. The spirit of the old prayers for abundant rivers and rich harvests breathes through the new devotions, and the melancholy chants of the ancient Quechua or Aymara tribes or of the folk about the border of the Puna de Atacama often follow upon a fiesta in which the rites of the Christian religion are but new forms for an old and simple speech.
Relation to the Nitrate Settlements
The oases people are deeply rooted in the sites that they have chosen for settlement. Aloof from the sea, with no herb- age afield, they have become sedentary to a high degree. Each
