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 year an immense number of merchants from northern .\rgen- tina, Bolivia, and Peru. They trade in all manner of products of mine, forest, field, and garden. It is one of the principal bartering places of Hispanic America.

Information concerning the great fair at Huari is not easy to obtain because the right to manage the fair is sold to the highest bidder and whatever records are kept are widely scattered, and | have no doubt practically all of them are soon lost. [had made many inquiries at different places throughout the Central Andes in the hope that I could piece together an accurate description of the fair. Quite by accident I met one of the concessionaires who had bought from the government the state and municipal duties in 1907 and had kept all in- formation concerning the fair in a record book from which I copied the data that follow. His name is C. J. Bosman, and in 1913 he was the proprietor of the Hotel Atacama at Copiap6.

Huari is governed by the municipality of Challapata, a town on the railroad east of Lake Poopdé on the high plateau, or altiplane, of western Bolivia (Fig. 1). At Challapata every year the municipal dues are put up at public auction and sold to the highest bidder. In 1907 the number of people who came to attend the fair from outside the town and district was estimated at 7000 to 8000, Before putting up a shop the out- sider must pay a tax. If he does not take this precaution he is fined, and the fine goes to the Rematador de los Impuestes, or the person who obtains from the government the right to manage the fair.

All liquors that come in pay duties to the concessionaire, who controls their import, with the exception of alcohol and chicha, the latter a local native drink made, as a rule, from the fermented juice of corn, While the fair lasts for fourteen days, it passes its climax in three days. In 1go7 it was held on April 24, and it is the custom to open it the day after Holy Week, or ‘Semana Santa.” The concessionaire in 1907 em- ployed five persons to collect dues and administer the trade.