Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/95

Rh high tableland—to the first valleys of Lower Peru on the coast, cutting off an arid and thinly-peopled district. The central plain, well peopled but inclement, is the natural road from the Argentine Republic to Lower Peru, and was the theatre of operations during the preceding campaigns. The eastern range, with lofty peaks covered with perpetual snow, looks down upon a truly intertropical paradise. At its foot extends to the west the smiling valley of Clisa, where stands the city of Cochabamba, with easy access over the hills to the central plateau, and to Chuquisaca by valleys on the south-east. Behind Cochabamba and to the east of the range lies the Valle Grande, which collects the mountain streams and delivers them to the Amazon. More to the north-east lies Santa Cruz da la Sierra in the midst of a vast grassy plain, which slopes gradually away to the confines of Brazil, Paraguay, and the Argentine Chaco.

The social organization of Upper Peru was a continuation of the system of the Incas, complicated by the antagonism of races. Europeans had established themselves in six cities, whose former inhabitants, driven out to the ice-covered hills or to the torrid valleys, worked as serfs for their lords and masters as cultivators of the soil or as miners. The lower class in these cities consisted of half-breeds, and formed the greater part of the population. All the rest of the country was peopled exclusively by two indigenous races, who paid a capitation tax, and had no civil rights. The language of the conquerors was unintelligible to the mass of the people.

In this country the first rebellion against the domination of Spain was quenched in blood in 1809, but news of the revolution of Buenos Ayres in 1810 rekindled the smouldering embers. The movement was supported by Argentine troops under Balcarce, who won the first victory of the war at Suipacha, but was afterwards totally defeated on the Desaguadero. The Patriots of Cochabamba being thus left alone, fought another battle by themselves at Sipe-Sipe on the 13th August, 1811, but Rh