Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-07-02

Indians. My trunks are carried from one
place to another on the backs of Indians
and L pay each man about eight cents
trunk. The bread carrier of La Paz is a
donkey with skin boxes in which the bread
is kept swung across his back. The beer
wagon is mule who has large case OF
bottles upon each of it's sides, and the fur
niture movers. whe Their the thing moved be
a table or piano, are Indians, who carry
the articles upon their backs, heads or
shoulders, from one house to the other.
Freight is brought into the city on mules,
llamas, donkeys and Indians. The fuel of
the city Is, as 1 have said, llama manure
This all comes i'll on the backs of llamas in
bags Cocoa is brought chiefly on donkeys
and Peruvian bark and rubber from the
hotter lands lower down come the same
way. l saw an odd load on mule yester-
day. 1t was limp bundle about five and
a half feet long and perhaps eighteen
inches in diameter thrown over the mule,
so that the ends hung down at the same
distance from the ground on each side.
Beside 1t on another mule rode a policeman
and a crowd of Indian women came wailing
behind 1t was the dead body of woman
rolled up in blanket She had been muir
dered a few days before for about $50
which she was known to have saved, and
the policeman was bringing the corpse and
the criminals to La Paz.
The stores of La PaZ are many and some
carry large stocks of goods These are.
however, chiefly in the hands of the Ger
mans. who. here elsewhere, seem to
have monopoliZed the trade in all foreign
goods. The most of the smaller stores
are in the hands of the Cholos, or half
breeds. the onspringS Of the Indians and
the whites. These people do the real bust
ness of the city. Most of their establish
ments are little more than boxes or holes
in the walls. In space from six to ten
feet square tailoring, a dressmaEing or
saddlery business will be carried on.
There are no windows to these stores.
The light comes in through the door and
you can look in and see the employer and
his hands at their work. Nearly every
merchant is manufacturer as well.
Many of the establishments are managed
by women. All of the fruits of the city is
sold by them and doubt if there is =
chicha beer saloon in La PaZ which has
not its Cholo woman as proprietor. Chi
cha is, you know. the beer of the Bolivians.
In the Markets of La PM.
A vast deal of the business of La PaZ is
done in the markets. There Is one square
in the center of the city which is filed
with stalls and in which all week long the
buying and selling goes on. On Sundays
the streets outside of this for many blocks
are taken up with market women and
everything under the Bolivian sun is
bought and sold. Sunday Is the chief
market day at La Paz. Upon that day
the Indians come from miles around.
They buy little outside of that which they
purchase in the markets, and here we shall
see all the characters of La Paz. and Its
life. better than anywhere else. We leave
our hotel on the Plaza in the center of the
city and walk past the police station, down
the hill to the point where Market street
crosses our way at right angles. The
streets are filed with buyers and sellers
and we pick our way in and out of three
blocks of Bolivian humanity before we
take our stand in the center of a living
cross of all the hues of the rainbow made
by the market people and their customers.
In front and behind us, on our right and
on our left, the streets are filed with
these curious people moving to and fro in
waving lines of Kaleidoscope colors such
you will see nowhere else in the
world. We talk of the oriental hues of
Cairo and Calcutta. La Paz has dozen
different colors to Cairo's one and the cos
tunes of Calcutta would seem tame II
mixed with these about u.s. Reds yellows
blues and greens are ever mixing one with
the other. making new combinations every
second. The most delicate tints of the
Andean sunsets seem to have been robbed
to furnish the dresses for the Cholito girls
There arc hundreds of them clad in shawls
of rose red and skirts of sky blue There
are hundreds who wear skirts of sea
green and not few with skirts as red as
the sua at its setting. Their skirts are
propped out with hoops and they reach
only to the full curve of the calf.
Some Of the Cholltos wear shoes of bright
yellow kid with Partisan heels under the
fnsteps. and with high tops which end in
some cases, In rose-colored stockings, but