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Russell C. Coile
cousins and live at higher altitudes than the others. When the
Spanish soldiers arrived about 1500, they found that only the
Inca royal family was allowed to wear clothing made from
vicua wool. When I was there in 1939, it was illegal to kill
vicua, but the poachers who did so would bribe the warden
of a prison in the mountains to make women prisoners make
vicua wool to knit into scarves and sweaters.
I don't believe in hunting myself, but it was such an unusual
experience I was glad Max had invited us. We were probably
above 17,000 feet and it was snowing lightly. Max had four
Indian shepherds with him. They spotted several vicua about
300-yards upwind of us. Max, Wilhelm and I dismounted and
Max got one of his Indians to hold the horses and Max's dog.
We slowly went closer to the vicuas and fi nally crawled for
fi fty yards or so. Max was an excellent marksman and shot his
vicua at a distance of 150 yards. The Indians took the body
back to the Hacienda to skin it and distribute the meat to all
of the Indian families.
Max had about 10,000 sheep, more than 1,000 cattle, and a
beautiful dog. Apparently it was just a mongrel but Max had
trained it to obey every command. I was surprised that the
dog only understood German and would not respond to any
commands in either Spanish or Quechua.
About June, 1940 Mrs. Ledig and her teen-age daughter
Ruth arrived in Huancayo. Mrs. Ledig had not come earlier
with Paul Ledig because they wanted Ruth to graduate from
high school. In retrospect, it probably was a bad decision for
Mrs. Ledig and Ruth to have come at all, because it turned
out that Mrs. Ledig was planning to divorce Mr. Ledig.
Furthermore, here was an 18-year-old girl, two hundred miles
from civilization (Lima). She was pretty lonely. All observers
were supposed to go down to Lima at sea level for a week
every six months. Mr. and Mrs. Ledig and Ruth did this, and
Mrs. Ledig and Ruth made some extra trips so she eventually
met some young Americans at the Embassy. Her mother met
some families at the Cerro de Pasco copper smelter about