The gobernador said that the reason the town was deserted was that most of the people were now attending to their chacras, or little farms, and looking after their herds of sheep and cattle in the neighboring valleys.

When they were so fortunate as to find the man of the house at home or working in his little chacra they greeted him pleasantly.

The Indians who raise sheep and white potatoes in that cold region come to San Fernando to make chacras or small clearings.

In the chacra we saw corn stalks eighteen feet in height, near a gigantic tree almost completely enveloped in the embrace of a mato-palo, or parasitic fig tree.

In the little chacra, cassava, coca, and sweet potatoes were growing in haphazard fashion among charred and fallen tree trunks; a typical milpa farm.

Sí!" We got rid of our paisano with difficulty, and only under a promise to visit his chacra, somewhere in the vicinity, next morning.