South American 
 Impressions 
 
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 BY GEORGE AND FREDERICK W. WOODRUFF 
 
South American 
 Impressions 
 
 BEING A SERIES OF NEWSPAPER ARTICLES 
 
 WRITTEN BY 
 
 GEORGE AND FREDERICK W. WOODRUFF 
 
 SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE JOLIET SUNDAY HERALD 
 
 > 
 
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 Copyright 1910 
 
 BY ARCHIBALD S. LECKIE 
 
 Joliet, Illinois. 
 
 CCU278933 
 
THE CARIBBEAN SEA 
 
 And Something of the History of South America. 
 
 Colon, Panama, August, 1910. — For 
 many years after the discovery of 
 America it was thought that the West 
 Indies and South America were far 
 more valuable than North America, 
 and as a result the energies of all the 
 great nations of Europe were put 
 forth in an effort to obtain a foothold 
 in this part of the world. However, at 
 this time Spain was the predominating 
 power in the world and as she had been 
 the pioneer in the discovery and pre- 
 liminary exploration of the West In- 
 dies, she naturally was the first to 
 hear of the great riches of the west 
 coast of South America. 
 
 At this time, practically all of the 
 West Indies were under the Spanish 
 flag and Castillian expeditions were 
 fitted out for the purpose of crossing 
 the Isthmus of Panama and proceed- 
 ing as far south as Peru. This they 
 did, finding there not only gold and 
 treasure, but also the wonderful civil- 
 ization of the Incas. The Inca empire 
 was one of the greatest semi-savage 
 civilizations the world had ever seen, 
 and the arts and agriculture of these 
 people were a great revelation to the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 Instead of accepting the friendship 
 and hospitality of the Incas, the 
 Spaniards, true to their ideas of con- 
 quest and colonization proceeded to 
 exterminate this great people and fi- 
 nally succeeded in reducing the whole 
 west coast of South America to a 
 state of servitude. The same methods 
 were eventually employed in other 
 parts of the continent and the whole 
 of South America and the greater part 
 of the West Indies fell under the ab- 
 
 solute sway of Spain. 
 
 In Brazil, however, Spanish power 
 was early wrested away by Portugal 
 but her colonial policy was not unlike 
 that of Spain and at the beginning of 
 the 19th century all of South America 
 was under the harsh rule of Spain and 
 Portugal, the resources of the land 
 were exploited for the sole benefit of 
 the mother countries and the people 
 were largely reduced to a state of 
 serfdom. 
 
 Shortly after the year 1800, discon- 
 tent had grown to open dissention and 
 for the next twenty years the conti- 
 nent was torn by revolutions. Finally, 
 there appeared in Venezuela a wealthy 
 young man of education and attain- 
 ments, Simon Bolivar by name, destin- 
 ed to be known as "The Liberator." 
 After several years of strife, he suc- 
 ceeded in driving the Spanish power 
 out of Venezuela and Columbia and 
 established the independence of those 
 countries. 
 
 He then marched to Equador and 
 freed that country and then proceed- 
 ed on to Peru, where, after desperate 
 fighting he succeeded in establishing 
 independence. One of his generals 
 then proceeded to Bolivia and liberat- 
 ed that nation from Spanish rule. 
 
 In the meantime, the Argentine 
 states and Chili had thrown off the 
 yoke of Spain and shortly afterward a 
 bloodless revolution made Paraguay 
 an independent state and a treaty be- 
 tween Buenos Ayres and Brazil estab- 
 lished Uraguay as a republic. Thus 
 by 1830, all of South America was un- 
 der a Republican form of government, 
 except the three colonies of British, 
 
Dutch and French Guiana and the em- olution. The population has not been 
 pire of Brazil which afterwards in the made up of the elements that have made 
 year 1889, became a republic. North America, but has been composed 
 
 
 ^ c ^ Q^J^j 
 
 
 However, from 1830, until recent of the descendants of Spaniards, In* 
 years, the history of South America dians, and some Negroes and the feel- 
 has been the history of continual rev- ings of unrest, cruelty and degrada- 
 
tion that have characterized the 
 Spaniard everywhere have come prom- 
 inently forward in South America., 
 and until the end of the nineteenth 
 century revolution has followed revo- 
 lution and South America has been 
 drenched with blood and development 
 and progress have been throttled. 
 
 Of late years, European and Ameri- 
 can immigration has had a beneficial 
 effect on the various republics and the 
 governments of those to the south 
 particularly, have become much more 
 stable and agriculture and trade have 
 gone forward with great bounds. In 
 the north, conditions are still very un- 
 settled and the wonderful natural re- 
 sources of the country are consequent- 
 ly at the present time, practically un- 
 touched. 
 
 The approach to the Caribbean 
 Sea or "American Mediterranean," 
 from New York is heralded by the 
 appearance on either side of the ship 
 of the numerous Bahama Islands 
 which are scattered along for a con- 
 siderable distance before the wind- 
 ward passage is reached where the 
 traveler gets his first sight of the 
 greater Antilles, the beautiful moun- 
 tainous shores of Cuba lying to the 
 right, and in the very far distance the 
 hazy outline of Haiti appearing to the 
 left. 
 
 Ahead is the warm blue Carib- 
 bean shut in on the north by the 
 greater Antilles, guarded at the east 
 by the lesser Antilles, and flanked 
 on the south and west by South 
 America and Central America. 
 
 Cuba, Porto Rico and Santo Do- 
 mingo are well known to the readers 
 of the Herald, and their attractive cli- 
 mate, semi-tropical vegetation and 
 odd customs have brought them many 
 American visitors since the war times 
 of 1898. 
 
 Jamaica, which lies south of Cuba, 
 in the course of the ships from New 
 York to Panama, is not so well known 
 to Americans. It belongs to Great 
 Britain and is a most attractive win- 
 ter resort. Rising somewhat back 
 from the shore are the beautiful Blue 
 Mountains and the climate and 
 quaintness of the country appeal 
 strongly to the visitor. Odd build- 
 ings, good roads, cleanliness, strange 
 customs and dusky faces greet the 
 newcomer on all sides, and make of 
 
 Jamaica a most pleasant little isl- 
 and to visit. Many miles to the east 
 lie those wonderful little islands 
 known as the lesser Antilles. Among 
 them are found the familiar names of 
 Antigua, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Mar- 
 tinique, Barbadoes and Grenada. 
 
 These are the islands which a cen- 
 tury or so ago were looked upon as 
 the richest in the world and over 
 which wars were waged and around 
 which great struggles took place. 
 
 From these little islands came such 
 men as Alexander Hamilton and Du- 
 mas and here was born in the shad- 
 ow of the world famous tropical gar- 
 den of Martinique, the Empress Jo- 
 sephine. Here George Washington 
 visited and from these islands emin- 
 ated the highest western civilization 
 of those times. Every inch of land 
 was then cultivated and the great 
 sugar estates brought huge riches to 
 their owners in England and else- 
 where. 
 
 Now everything is changed. The 
 wonderful climate is still there, the 
 tropical vegetation still covers the 
 valleys and mountains, but the garden 
 of Martinique is overgrown, the cane 
 fields have turned back into jungle, 
 the great English homes are crumb- 
 ling, the people are poor, and civ- 
 ilization does not eminate from there 
 any more. And all of this because the 
 slaves were freed and because the 
 United States placed a tariff on sug- 
 ar. It is doubtless a fact that if 
 these islands belonged to the United 
 States and their products were en- 
 tered free of duty, much of the old 
 time prosperity would return and 
 the superstitions and voodooism of the 
 negroes would be replaced by the civ- 
 ilization and modern methods of 
 America. 
 
 To the south of the Caribbean lie 
 Venezuela and Columbia, both vast 
 countries of tremendous natural re- 
 sources, but possessing governments 
 that are a disgrace to the civilized 
 world. Venezuela is drained by the 
 great Orinoco river, and contains 
 great mineral wealth in its moun- 
 tains and great opportunities for ag- 
 ricultural development on its plains and 
 plateaus. Its chief city is Caracas, 
 located among the mountains twenty- 
 two miles from the sea, and reached 
 by a wonderful scenic railroad. Car- 
 
acas was destroyed by an earthquake 
 early in the last century, and has been 
 rebuilt along modern lines and is now 
 a beautiful and attractive city. How- 
 ever, it is the only city of any im- 
 portance in all Venezuela. 
 
 The Republic of Columbia is a rich 
 country which is cursed with a cor- 
 rupt government and wretched sani- 
 tary condition. Its mineral wealth is 
 enormous, but as yet not thoroughly 
 developed, and its opportunities for 
 agriculture are great on its plains or 
 "llanos." 
 
 Bogota is the chief city and only 
 place of any great importance in the 
 country. It is beautifulty located 
 among the mountains and has a pleas- 
 ant climate. It is fairly well con- 
 structed and has a number of modern 
 conveniences, among which is a street 
 railroad operated by Americans. Owing 
 to the Columbians' hatred of the Uni- 
 ted States, since Panama became inde- 
 pendent, they will not ride on the 
 American street car system, and at 
 present are boycotting anything and 
 everything American. 
 ■ The Caribbean is bounded on the 
 west by Mexico, which is, of course, 
 well known to Americans, and by the 
 Central American republics, which are 
 never free from revolution long enough 
 for any great progress to be made in 
 them. As the ship from New York 
 sails south from Jamaica through a 
 climate not so warm in August as 
 New York or Chicago, it approaches 
 the isthmus of Panama and the blue 
 seas, flying fish and great southern 
 cross just above the horizon all tell the 
 voyager that he is in southern seas. 
 Gradually the outline of the coast of 
 Panama appears and the blue waters 
 blend into a band of light green next 
 to the beach and the palm trees and 
 jungle of the tropics appear on the 
 sides and tops of the cliffs. 
 
 Rounding a sharp point the harbor 
 of Colon stretches out in front and 
 the stars and stripes are seen floating 
 over the entrance to the great Panama 
 canal. 
 
 THE PANAMA CANAL. 
 
 Panama, August, 1910. — When the 
 good ship Colon pulled up to the 
 wharf at Cristobal, Panama, our 
 eyes fell upon a palm-lined ave- 
 nue, on both sides of which had been 
 constructed houses which looked like 
 
 huge bird cages, and which had been 
 built by the United States govern- 
 ment to house the men who are work- 
 ing on the great Panama canal. 
 These buildings are all elevated on 
 stilts and each story is surrounded by 
 a balcony, and the whole house is 
 screened in with wire mosquito net- 
 ting. 
 
 All of these peculiar arrangements 
 have been made in order to help main- 
 tain a sanitary condition in the isth- 
 mus, and all of the buildings and 
 streets in Cristobal and its neighbor- 
 
 ROUTE OF PANAMA CANAL. 
 
 ing city of Colon show the strictest 
 attention to cleanliness and artistic 
 care. 
 
 Looking upon the hillside above the 
 town of Cristobal over towards the 
 entrance to the canal, we saw the 
 great statue of DeLesseps in front 
 of the building known as DeLessep's 
 Palace. This sight recalls to the 
 mind of every visitor the history of 
 Count Ferdinand DeLesseps, who 
 came to the isthmus in 1882 expect- 
 ing to dig the canal. 
 
 DeLesseps had finished the task of 
 building the Suez Canal between the 
 Mediterranean and the Red Seas, thus 
 shortening the route to the Orient 
 
by the thousands of miles around 
 Africa, and he was eager to attempt 
 the conquest of the greatest barrier 
 to trade in the new world, the Isthmus 
 of Panama. He figured that he could 
 dig the canal in a period of eight 
 
 A BLAST ON THE CANAL. 
 
 years at a cost of §214,000,000, and 
 knowing of- the tremendous financial 
 success of the Suez canal, which by 
 the way cost $100,000,000, every 
 working man and peasant in France 
 invested his life savings in the shares 
 of the French Panama Canal Com- 
 pany. 
 
 This was the beginning of one of 
 the most stupendous business failures 
 in all history. It is true that DeLes- 
 seps had dug the Sue--; Canal through 
 the low level sands of the Isthmus of 
 Suez, but a canal cut through the 
 solid rock of the Isthmus of Panama 
 was a different proposition. 
 
 The story of the ten years occupa- 
 tion of Panama by the French is one 
 round of horrors. The engineering 
 difficulties were far greater than De- 
 Lesseps had dreamed of. Further- 
 more, millions of dollars worth of 
 French machines were strewn along 
 the banks of the canai without ever 
 having been set up for use, the only 
 
 object of buying the machines being 
 to plunder the company's treasury. 
 
 The men began to die by the thous- 
 ands of yellow fever, plague and 
 smallpox, and Panama became the 
 worst center of disease and death in 
 the whole world. At the end of the 
 ten years', the French company went 
 down with a crash chat was felt in 
 almost every family in France. It 
 was found that about $300,000,000 
 had been spent and the canal was less 
 than two-fifths finished. The officers 
 and important men in the company 
 had stolen over a hundred million dol- 
 lars and wasted almost that much 
 more, and the poor people of France 
 had lost their savings of a life time. 
 The French had failed, and the Isth- 
 mus of Panama remained a barrier 
 to the trade of the world, to be con- 
 quered by greater men of a greater 
 nation. 
 
 It will be recalled by the readers 
 of the Herald that in 1903, President 
 Roosevelt took active steps leading 
 toward the construction of a canal at 
 Panama by the United States govern- 
 ment. A short time thereafter, the 
 Republic of Panama having become 
 an independent nation, the United 
 States entered into an arrangement 
 permitting the construction of thv 
 waterway. All of the rights and prop- 
 erty of the old French canal com- 
 pany were purchased for forty mil- 
 lion dollars, and ten million dollars 
 was paid to Panama for permission 
 for the United States to govern a 
 strip of land fifty miles long and ten 
 miles wide across the isthmus be- 
 tween the cities of Colon and Para- 
 ma. This strip is known as the Can- 
 al Zone, and is under the absolute 
 control of the United States govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The first great problem to be met 
 was that of disease. Since the days 
 of Columbus the Isthmus of Panama 
 had been afflicted with yellow f?v"r 
 and plague and it meant certain fail- 
 ure to begin work on the canal un- 
 til such conditions were changed. 
 
 Colonel W. C. Gorgas was ma.U- 
 chief sanitary officer of the Cai: 1 
 Zone, with instructions to clean it up 
 and make it a fit place for white men 
 to live in. Now Colonel Gorgas was 
 the man who stamped out yellow fev- 
 er in Havana, Cuba, through the ex- 
 
termination of the mosquitos, and he 
 knew his business thoroughly. For 
 two years he worked with a large 
 force of men killing the rats that car- 
 ry the plague, draining the swamps, 
 and killing the mosquitos with crude 
 oil. The streets were paved with 
 brick and good water and drainage 
 systems installed, and today the 
 death rate in the Canal Zone is low- 
 er than in New York City. 
 
 As we wandered about Cristobal 
 waiting for a train to take us out 
 
 mer resorts. 
 
 August being one of the months in 
 the rainy season we experienced fre- 
 quent hard showers and ocasional se- 
 vere thunder storms. However, these 
 rains lasted but a short time, and we 
 soon became used to them. Although 
 the nights are very comfortable be- 
 cause they are so cool, nevertheless 
 they are very damp, and everything 
 not placed out of reach of the out- 
 door air will be found to be wet in 
 the morning. 
 
 THE GATUN LOCKS. 
 
 across the Canal Zone, we met many 
 of the mosquito oil men. It is their 
 duty to see that all tall grass is cut 
 and burned and that every drop of 
 stagnant water on the isthmus is 
 covered with mosquito oil. As we 
 passed by a little Panamanian hut, 
 the interior of which had been made 
 germ proof by Uncle Sam's wall pap- 
 er brigade, one of the natives threw a 
 bucket of water out of the side win- 
 dow and before the water had hardly 
 touched the ground, the oil men had 
 fixed it so that no mosquito could live 
 near it. 
 
 We had expected to find Panama, 
 exceedingly warm, but were surprised 
 to find that in the middle of the day 
 it was not as warm as in New York, 
 and that at night it was always as 
 cool as at one of our American sum- 
 
 The little profile of the canal 
 which accompanies this article will 
 give a fair idea of the manner in 
 which it is being constructed. Start- 
 ing at the left of the profile from the 
 Atlantic Ocean, the channel of the 
 canal is dug at sea level for a dis- 
 tance of about eight miles to Gatun, 
 where the great dam is being built 
 to catch the water of the Chagres 
 river and form Gatun Lake. This 
 dam is a huge structure almost a 
 half mile thick at its base, and four 
 hundred feet thick at the surface of 
 the water. It is a mile and a half in 
 length and rises to a height of over 
 one hundred feet above the sea level. 
 
 In the center of the dam will be a 
 spillway lined with concrete, and so 
 arranged with gates that the height 
 of the water in the lake may be rog- 
 
lualed. The water level in the lake 
 uLove this dam will be eighty-five 
 feet above the level of the canal be- 
 low the dam, and it is so arranged 
 that the largest ocean liners will be 
 lifted this eighty- five feet by means 
 of a flight of the three largest locks 
 ever constructed. These locks are 
 each one thousand feet long and one 
 hundred and ten feet wide, and it 
 is estimated that four million fiv.e 
 hundred thousand barrels of Portland 
 cement will be used in the construc- 
 tion of these and the locks at the 
 other end of the canal. It is the 
 intention of the government engi- 
 neers to develop the water pow- 
 er and operate the big locks by elec- 
 tric power generated from water tur- 
 bines in the dam, and this electric 
 power will also be used to tow the 
 ships in and out of the locks. 
 
 Standing on Gatun dam and looking 
 on up the canal, one will see a broad 
 artificial lake which will flood an 
 area of over one hundred and fifty 
 square miles and through which the 
 largest ships may sail at full speed 
 along a course marked by buoys for 
 a distance of twenty-four miles to 
 Bas Obispo. This lake has not been 
 filled as yet, but it is estimated that 
 it will take at least a year to fill it 
 after the spillway in the Gatun dam 
 has been closed. 
 
 There are many natives living In 
 the valleys which are to be flooded, 
 and although the government is us- 
 ing every effort to warn them, it is 
 certain that some of them will be 
 drowned when the waters of the lake 
 begin to rise. 
 
 From Bas Obispo to Pedro Mi- 
 guel is what is known as the great 
 Culebra cut. It was this cut of nine 
 miles through the solid rock and 
 sliding earth that finished the old 
 French Canal- company, and has also 
 presented the greatest difficulties to 
 our own engineers, but with all its 
 difficulties and, notwithstanding the 
 fact that such a cut has never before 
 been attempted in the history of the 
 world, every day sees the channel 
 sink deeper and deeper into the heart 
 of the mountain. 
 
 As one stands in the center of this 
 great channel which is being hewn 
 straight through the backbone of the 
 Isthmus, and looks up on either side 
 at the miles of earth and rock which 
 
 have been cut and blasted away, and 
 as one's eyes are lowered to the base 
 of the cut where the powerful steam 
 shovels are eating their way toward 
 the level of Gatun Lake, a great 
 charge of several tons of dynamite 
 sets the earth to swaying and the 
 conviction grows strong that in 1915 
 American ships will be sailing through 
 Culebra cut on their way to the Pa- 
 cific. 
 
 At Pedro Miguel, which as we have 
 said, is the Pacific end of the Cule- 
 bra cut, the ships will be lowered a 
 distance of thirty feet to another 
 small artificial lake about a mile and 
 a half in length. This lake is about 
 fifty-five feet above the level of the 
 Pacific Ocean, and when the ship has 
 sailed the length of it to Miraflores, 
 it again passes through a flight of 
 two locks and is lowered into a sea 
 level channel through which it sails 
 for a distance of eight miles and 
 emerges into the calm, deep waters of 
 the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 It will have traveled a distance of 
 about fifty miles from the deep wa- 
 ters of the Atlantic to the deep 
 waters of the Pacific, and the time 
 required to pass through the canal 
 will have been about twelve hours. 
 Today it takes a ship about two 
 months to sail from Colon to Pana- 
 ma around South America. In 1915 it 
 can do the same thing in twelve 
 hours. 
 
 Having finally gotten on board the 
 train at Cristobal, we started on an 
 inspection tour of the canal. For 
 eight miles the train ran through the 
 most beautiful tropical vegetation and 
 jungles, surrounded on all sides . by 
 great swamps and huge palms. The 
 tops of the trees were filled with tan- 
 gled vines and clinging all over their 
 branches were orchids, which grow as 
 parasites. 
 
 Shortly before arriving at Gatun 
 we crossed the famous black swamp 
 and our train hardly moved as we 
 went across this dangerous part of 
 the route. Here it was that the bot- 
 tom seemed to fall out when the en- 
 gineers were constructing the rail- 
 road, and thousands of tons of scrap 
 iron and waste material were dumped 
 into the quick sands before the rail- 
 road could be constructed. Several 
 times during recent years the road- 
 bed has disappeared at this point, 
 
and it has been necessary to recon- 
 struct it. 
 
 Arriving at Gatun a scene of great 
 activity met our eyes. The huge dam 
 which blocks up the end of the val- 
 ley is three-quarters completed, and 
 the great white concrete locks are 
 fully half done. On every side is 
 heard the rush of steam and the 
 groans of great steam shovels and 
 cranes, and down in the channel men 
 are as thick as ants. 
 
 The view from the Gatun railroad 
 station shows plainly the genius and 
 power of the great American nation, 
 for no such sight has ever been wit- 
 
 a number of these workmen we 
 swapped Chinese yarns and told each 
 other of many experiences f hat had 
 happened to us over there and of a 
 great many that hadn't. 
 
 About 34,000 of the workmen are 
 negroes from the West Indies, to- 
 gether with a few Spanish and Ital- 
 ian laborers. These men are all paid 
 in Panama silver, and are therefore 
 known as "silver men." The United 
 States government furnishes sanitary 
 dwellings free of charge to the men. 
 These houses are in most cases well 
 furnished, and it is not uncommon to 
 find a piano in the living room 01 ihe 
 
 THE CULEBRA CUT. 
 
 nessed on earth before. 
 
 After leaving Gatun and traveling 
 on across the canal zone, stops were 
 made at the various construction 
 camps, each one of which resembles a 
 little town. Living in these towns 
 are the men who are digging the 
 canal. Abou L 5,500 of these men are 
 Americans, who are paid in American 
 gold, and are consequently known as 
 "gold men." We were interested to 
 learn that a large part of the Amer- 
 ican army that fought at Pckin, Chi- 
 na, in 1900, came down to Panama, 
 and are working on the canal. With 
 
 higher salaried men. Wherever a 
 piano is seen, there will be an elec- 
 tric wire running to it, and an elec- 
 tric light burning inside of it. This 
 is done to°keep the piano dry, as the 
 climate is so damp that a piano 
 would be ruined in a short time if 
 some heat were not applied to it at 
 all times. Each house also has a "dry 
 room," which is fitted up with elec- 
 tric lights and used to store clothes 
 and other articles which must be pro- 
 tected from the heavy damp air of 
 the tropics. 
 
 Even in these clean, dry govern- 
 
ment houses it is so damp that need- 
 les rust over night, and a pair ot 
 shoes which have not been worn for 
 two days will become mouldy. 
 
 All through this country between 
 Gatun and Bas Obispo, which will 
 form the bed of the great Gatun 
 Lake, we found the timber cleared 
 away from what will be the main 
 channel, and the hills excavated so 
 that this section of the canal is prac- 
 tically completed. 
 
 The life in the camps scattered 
 through this part of the zone is very 
 picturesque. In one of the camps we 
 witnessed a "gentlemen's boxing 
 match" of some twenty or thirty odd 
 rounds, between the champion of the 
 Canal zone and the "Peruvian Kid", 
 who evidently hailed from Peru. After 
 countless rounds the "Kid" became 
 tired and lay down on the floor for 
 a rest. We spoke to the zone cham- 
 pion about a possible fight with 
 Johnson, but he said he was down here 
 to dig the ditch and that fighting was 
 a mere pastime for him. 
 
 At another camp we witnessed a 
 wedding ceremony at which the bride 
 appeared in need of a shave. Not- 
 withstanding her flowing silks and fin- 
 ery, she could be recognized as one 
 of the section foremen. Good nature 
 and good fellowship prevails gener- 
 ally on the Big Ditch, and probably 
 never before was such a high class 
 body of men assembled on a construc- 
 tion job. 
 
 Traveling on toward Panama we 
 arrived at Bas Obispo, and entered 
 the nine mile area known as Culebra 
 Cut. Here indeed is seen the engi- 
 neering prowess of a great nation 
 which has cut a gash hundreds of 
 feet wide through a mountain range. 
 
 The great Culebra Cut is about 
 three-quarters finished and shows 
 that nature is not a match for hu- 
 man enterprise. 
 
 Coming out of the cut and passing 
 the locks at Pedro Miguel and Mira- 
 flores, which are similar to the locks 
 at Gatun, we reached the Pacific sea 
 level section of the canal, which is 
 now practically completed, and soon 
 found ourselves in the railway station 
 at the city of Panama. 
 
 We were surprised to learn that at 
 Panama the sun rises over the Pa- 
 cific ocean and sets over the land. It 
 is equally strange to learn that Colon, 
 
 at the Atlantic end of the canal, is 
 forty miles west of Panama, at the 
 Pacific end. The reason for both of 
 these peculiar facts is the large bend 
 in the Isthmus at this point. The Isth- 
 mus runs East and West at this place 
 instead of North and South. 
 
 Leaving the railroad station we went 
 up to the Tivoli Hotel, which was 
 built by the United States govern- 
 ment, at a cost of $450,000. It is as 
 modern and as convenient as a hotel 
 can be made, and one can live as 
 comfortably in it as any place in the 
 world. 
 
 We were having dinner one evening 
 with the manager of the Tivoli and 
 a young lady from New York, who had 
 evidently never been far from Broad- 
 way. She asked the manager if he 
 kept a cow, and he replied that he did 
 not, as he purchased canned milk 
 from London. The young lady looked 
 over the table and seeing nice, fresh 
 honey, remarked, "That honey is so 
 delightfully fresh that the hotel most 
 certainly must keep a bee." 
 
 The city of Panama is an attractive 
 old Spanish place, with several typi- 
 cal plazas, which are the center of life, 
 and with many old and interesting 
 cathedrals and works of ancient ar- 
 chitectural design. Among these is the 
 famous flat arch, which has stood for 
 many generations, and about which an 
 interesting tale is narrated. It seems 
 that many years ago in Panama there 
 was a builder who claimed he would 
 construct an arch that was not curv- 
 ed. After much labor, the props were 
 taken away, and to the builder's dis- 
 may the arch fell with a crash. 
 
 Once more he set about his work, 
 and after a number of years, com- 
 pleted his second great arch, but when 
 the props were taken away the arch 
 again fell. He studied on this problem 
 until he became an old man and then 
 he built his third arch. When the 
 props were being taken away he sta- 
 tioned himself directly underneath the 
 arch, determined not to live to bear 
 the odium of another failure, but this 
 time failure did not come, and the flat 
 arch of Panama still stands an ex- 
 ample of a lost architectural art. 
 When the lock type of canal was be- 
 ing talked about the argument was 
 advanced that the locks were liable 
 to be destroyed some day by earth- 
 quake. 
 
 9 
 
The engineers who favored the lock 
 type of canal advanced the theory that 
 earthquakes were unknown in Panama 
 and proved their contention by point- 
 ing out the flat arch, which could not 
 have existed all these years if it had 
 ever been shaken by an earthquake. 
 
 Passing through the funny little 
 streets of Panama with their odd 
 buildings, dark skinned population, 
 odd little horses and carriages and 
 bright Spanish colors, we were at- 
 tracted by the crowd around the Pan- 
 ama National Lottery, where $7,500 
 is distributed every Sunday morning. 
 From there we drove out to the cock- 
 ing main, where the Spaniards shout 
 themselves hoarse over their chicken 
 fights, and then returned to the at- 
 tractive plazas, where we listened to 
 
 the fin d music of the Panamanian 
 band and witnessed the gay parade of 
 Panama's fashionable set. 
 
 For many years the life of Panama 
 has been characteristic of the Spanish 
 race, but since the great canal has 
 been started, things have awakened 
 and these are indeed palmy days. 
 
 Looking back over this great canal 
 undertaking stretching from the At- 
 lantic to the Pacific ocean, one is con- 
 vinced that this is a task that could 
 have been accomplished by no other 
 nation but the United States of 
 America, and when the first ship sails 
 through the finished canal, January 1, 
 1915, the entire world will congratu- 
 late the American people on having 
 a complished the greatest wonder of 
 all the wonders of the world. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT OF PANAMA. 
 
 Panama, August, 1910. — As represen- 
 tatives of the Herald we have today en- 
 joyed a very pleasant interview with 
 Carlos A. Mendoza, president of the 
 Republic of Panama. 
 
 The readers of the Herald will recall 
 the fact that prior to the year of 
 1903, Panama was a province of the 
 Republic of Columbia, but that it had 
 several times engaged in revolution 
 and that it had always been badly gov- 
 erned by the Columbians. In 1903 the 
 United States Government had offered 
 Columbia ten million dollars for the 
 right to govern a strip of country bor- 
 dering the Panama Canal and for per- 
 mission to build the canal. 
 
 The Columbian government was con- 
 trolled by a party of selfish politicians 
 at Bogota, who finally rejected the 
 proposed treaty with the United 
 States, thereby breaking the pledges 
 which they had made to our govern- 
 ment. This action was embarrassing 
 to the United States and was also a 
 crushing blow to the interests of Pana- 
 ma. Thereupon, some of the leading 
 citizens of Panama, with the full 
 
 knowledge of the American adminis- 
 tration, declared Panama a free and 
 independent republic. 
 
 This republic was immediately rec- 
 ognized by the United States and the 
 presence of American gun boats and 
 marines prevented Columbia from of- 
 fering any resistance. This was the 
 first instance of the formation of a 
 free Central American state practically 
 without bloodshed, but one man being 
 killed throughout the whole affair. 
 
 A constitution was soon adopted and 
 a provisional government put in power 
 and then a treaty was negotiated with 
 the United States, by which permis- 
 sion to build the canal was granted, 
 the right to govern a strip of land on 
 each side of the canal was conceded 
 and the power to enforce law, order 
 and sanitation was conferred upon out- 
 government. In return the United 
 States paid the new republic ten mil- 
 lion dollars and agreed to protect it 
 as a free nation and guarantee its in 
 dependence. 
 
 It Mali be seen, therefore, that the 
 United States is vitally interested in 
 
the political situation in Panama and 
 tl at its influence is paramount there. 
 
 At the present time Panamanian 
 national politics are claiming the at- 
 tention of the American officials on 
 the Isthmus and at Washington. When 
 the republic was formed Manuel Am 
 odor Guerrero was appointed president 
 for four years. He belonged to the 
 Conservative or Clerical party. At the 
 time of his election Carlos A. Mendoza. 
 whose father had been a senator 
 in the Columbian congress and later 
 on had been governor of Panama, was 
 a leading figure in the administration 
 and had been in charge of the finances 
 of the new republic. 
 
 The new president offered to make 
 Mr. Mendoza secretary of finance, but 
 he declined the portfolio as the presi- 
 dent belonged to the Conservative par- 
 ty and Mendoza was the leader of the 
 Liberal party and he did not wish to 
 c mbarrass the administration. 
 
 Mr. Mendoza therefore continued at 
 his profession as a lawyer and repre- 
 sented the United Fruit Company, a 
 large American corporation in connec- 
 tion with its business in Panama. 
 
 In 1908, the Liberal party joined with 
 a part of the Conservative party under 
 the name of the Fusion party and Mr. 
 Obaldia was nominated for president. 
 Mr. Mendoza came into public notice 
 again at this time, taking charge of the 
 campaign and electing Obaldia presi- 
 dent. This was the first time in Cen- 
 tral American history that the admin- 
 istration candidate had been defeated 
 by the votes of the people and not by 
 a revolution. 
 
 Mendoza was appointed as 2nd vice 
 president of the republic, and soon af- 
 ter, by reason of the death of the 1st 
 vice president, he became the ranking 
 official of the government after Presi- 
 dent Obaldia. Early in the present 
 year Mr. Obaldia also died and since 
 that time Mendoza has been president 
 defacto. 
 
 The president of Panama is a fine 
 looking man of mulatto colored skin 
 and prepossessing appearance. He 
 greets the visitor after the manner of 
 a high class American business man. 
 and after inviting him to sit down by 
 his side on a luxurious sofa in his 
 private office, and having offered him 
 a cigarette, proceeds in very good 
 English to extend him a cordial wel- 
 come to Panama. 
 
 Mendoza is a shrewd man, possess- 
 
 ing all of the appearances of the high 
 class American business man or poli- 
 tician, and he understands American 
 methods and ideals very thoroughly. 
 He is very friendly to Americans. 
 
 Discussing the political situation Mr. 
 Mendoza said that his government, of 
 course, owed its existence to the friend- 
 ship of the United States, and there- 
 fore the tie binding the countries to- 
 gether was a strong one and had led 
 the Columbia 1 government and people 
 t;> ft.fcl a b.tt-r enmity toward bo in 
 countries. He- .said that the Columbian 
 government Iv.u'i not ye", recognized the 
 index endenc3 or Panama and that the 
 Columbians still appointed men to rep- 
 resent Panama in the Columbian con- 
 gress. Notwithstanding these facts, 
 Mr. Mendoza states that his govern- 
 ment entertains no malice toward the 
 old mother country and while adher- 
 ing strictly to the policies and wishes 
 of the United States, will nevertheless 
 always treat Columbia fairly and hon- 
 estly. 
 
 Mr. Mendoza wishes to say through 
 the Herald that Panama is a country 
 of stupendous resources, containing 
 thousands of acres of magnificent tim- 
 ber and tropical agricultural land, 
 great mineral deposits and consider- 
 able trade opportunities and that his 
 administration is inclined to throw 
 the door wide open to Americans. 
 
 He recognizes the fact that this great 
 store house of wealth lying so near 
 American markets is practically un- 
 touched as yet and he intends to en- 
 courage American capitalists to de- 
 velop the country. 
 
 Mr, Mendoza states that his govern- 
 ment is willing to grant necessary 
 concessions to reputable American 
 business men who wish to build rail- 
 roads, cut timber, develop the agricul- 
 tural lands or take contracts for the 
 improvement of the country. He 
 wishes it known that the present 
 healthy state of his nation makes it 
 possible for Americans to reside there 
 in perfect safety and it is the policy of 
 his administration to encourage a high 
 standard of living and to spread edu- 
 cation throughout the land. He is par- 
 ticularly anxious to have Americans 
 furnish capital, teachers and men of 
 practical experience who will instruct 
 the natives in regard to farming meth- 
 ods. 
 
 Mr. Mendoza guarantees that taxes 
 
will not be excessive and that no hin- 
 drance will ever be put in the way of 
 honest American enterprise in his 
 country. He thinks that the greatest 
 opportunity at the present time lies in 
 the development of the natural re- 
 sources of the country, but he also 
 thinks that an ever -increasing trade 
 can be built up which will undoubtedly 
 grow much larger as the wealth of the 
 people increases. 
 
 He believes as do others who have 
 looked into the matter that the Amer- 
 ican salesman does not sufficiently 
 study the needs of the people he is at- 
 
 P RESIDENT CARLOS MENDOZA 
 of the Republic of Panama, who 
 was interviewed by the Herald, 
 and who said that he wanted Ameri- 
 cans to come to his land. 
 
 tempting to sell to, and that the 
 American producer is careless about 
 packing and shipping his goods. These 
 things certainly hurt American trade 
 all over the world. 
 
 Mr. Mendoza states that he will urge 
 the assembly when they meet in the 
 
 fall to change the land laws, making 
 them more favorable to Americans 
 and guarantees that laws Will be pass- 
 ed from time to time as they may be- 
 come necessary protecting the interest 
 of foreign capital. 
 
 In conclusion, he said: "You may 
 tell your friends in the United States 
 that Mendoza is a good friend of the 
 Americans." 
 
 In September, there will be an ef- 
 fort made to supercede President 
 Mendoza. The chief charge against 
 him seems to be that his skin is not 
 white and some of the citizens of Pan- 
 ama are inclined to use this against 
 him. 
 
 It is anticipated that the officials of 
 the United States will also be against 
 him, as it is reported that they do not 
 think it is to the interest of the Uni- 
 ted States for Panama to have a pres- 
 ident who is quite so liberal and who 
 is inclined to go ahead quite so fast. 
 Furthermore, it is said that the ele- 
 ment of color also arises here, as it is 
 thought that it will not help Ameri- 
 can influence in South America to 
 have the United States officials sup- 
 port a man whose color is not white. 
 
 The death of Obaldia left the presi- 
 dency vacant until 1912 and in the 
 meantime, the executive head of the 
 nation is the first vice president which 
 position Mendoza now holds. However 
 the first, second and third vice presi- 
 dents are elected every two years by 
 the assembly and not by the votes of 
 the people. Consequently the assem- 
 bly will elect a new first vice presi- 
 dent in September and it is said that 
 the opposition together with the influ- 
 ence of the United States officials on 
 the isthmus will be against Mendoza 
 and probably in favor of Samuel 
 Lewis, now secretary of foreign rela- 
 tions. 
 
 On the other hand Mendoza is a 
 shrewd and able man and he stands 
 an excellent chance of being returned 
 to power for the next two years by be- 
 ing elected first vice president when 
 the assembly meets in September. 
 
 THE JUNGLES AND THE 
 GUAYAQUIL. 
 
 Guayaquil, Ecuador, August, 1910.— 
 Sailing out of the Bay of Panama on 
 
out 1 way south, we passed the ruined 
 towers and walls of the old city of 
 Panama, which was destroyed in the 
 year 1671 by Henry Morgan, one of the 
 world's most famous pirates. A few 
 years before this date, Morgan had 
 sacked the Central American city of 
 Porto Bello and flushed with success, 
 he had sent an insolent note to th? 
 Governor of Panama saying that he 
 v/ould soon return and treat Panama 
 as he had treated her sister city. True 
 to his word he appeared on the Car- 
 ibbean side of the Isthmus of Panama 
 with thirty-seven ships and two thous- 
 and men, and having marched across 
 the Isthmus under great difficulties, 
 be was met by a large force of Span- 
 iards. These Spaniards had collect- 
 ed over two thousand wild bulls and 
 these bulls were turned loose and driv- 
 en toward the pirates, the Spaniards 
 expecting to thereby disrupt their 
 ranks. However, the buccaneers man- 
 aged to turn these bulls back on the 
 Spaniards and such confusion was 
 caused that Morgan finally captured 
 the city which was looted and destroy- 
 ed. 
 
 The new city of Panama which was 
 soon commenced was built at some dis- 
 tance from the old. Today, the ruins 
 of old Panama show all the marks of 
 the destruction and conflagration dealt 
 out by Morgan's men. 
 
 Sailing on into the peaceful Pacific, 
 we approached the shores of Colum- 
 bia, where we had determined to learn 
 something of the real tropical jungles. 
 At about five o'clock at night we start- 
 ed on a launch up a river leading to 
 the interior. The launch was owned 
 by the officials of an American lum- 
 ber company which has organized a 
 little camp far up in the jungle and 
 two of the representatives of the com- 
 pany acted as our guides. We steam- 
 ed up a beautiful broad river until 
 about eleven o'clock 'it night at which 
 time the tide was running so strong 
 against us that our launch could not 
 make any headway and we were com- 
 pelled to anchor until three o'clock in 
 the morning. Pending the resumption 
 of operations, we all wrapped up in 
 blankets and went to sleep on the floor 
 of the boat. At three o'clock the tide 
 changed and we then went on up the 
 river at high speed arriving at the 
 lumber camp in a couple of hours. At 
 about six o'clock we all woke up and 
 crawled out on the bank of the river 
 
 and a beautiful sight lay before our 
 eyes. The blue winding river had now 
 become quite narrow and was hemmed 
 in on both sides by a great embank- 
 ment of trees, giant palms, tangled 
 vines, and beautiful flowers. Large 
 green birds were flying back and forth 
 and all the stories of jungle life were 
 indeed surpassed by the reality. 
 
 The camp consisted of a collection 
 of huts and tents inhabited mostly 
 by natives and negroes from Jamaica. 
 The natives are very dark-colored, be- 
 ing a combination of Indian, Spanish, 
 and negro blood, in which the Indian 
 element seems to predominate. They 
 are extremely primitive in their cus- 
 toms, but appear to be bright and 
 some of them are fairly industrious. 
 After having breakfast, which con- 
 sisted mostly of Armour & Co's. can- 
 ned food, we started on tip the river 
 ir the launch and for fifteen mile? 
 witnessed the most gorgeous pano- 
 rama of tropical vegetation and life 
 that can be imagined. 
 
 The tropics are indeed teeming with 
 life, the jungle being filled with game, 
 the trees abounding with rare birds, 
 and the water swarming with odd fish. 
 On all sides is a great chattering and 
 rustle of life. We finally landed and 
 struck off into the heart of the forest. 
 Here were trees of the rarest species 
 and strangest shapes and vegetation. 
 The underbrush was one solid mass of 
 tangled palms and vines and the trees 
 were so lofty and so thick that the 
 sun did not penetrate to where we 
 were but we seemed to be surrounded 
 by a sort of greenish twilight. Trees 
 ever forty feet in circumference ex- 
 tended up through the canopy of veg- 
 etation above which made it impossi- 
 ble for us to see their tops. There 
 were many strange trees which we had 
 heard of but never seen, such as ma- 
 hogany, coco-bolo, and lignum vi- 
 tae, which is so hard that a spike can- 
 not be driven into it unless a hole is 
 first drilled in the wood. 
 
 In these countries lignum vitae is 
 used for foundations for buildings as 
 any other species of wood is soon at- 
 tacked by the giant ants and eaten 
 by them. And speaking of ants, we 
 saw them as large as caterpillars, and 
 all about us through the forest were 
 bright red land crabs and very large 
 green lizards. Above our heads among 
 the trees was a drove of small mon- 
 keys which kept up a great racket as 
 
 13 
 
we went along. It would, indeed, be 
 hard for a man to starve to death in 
 this part of the world for the foresL 
 abounds with food and drink. Cocoa- 
 nuts, bananas, and scores of other 
 tropical fruits grow wild while occas- 
 ionally we came across specimens 
 ot the great water vine which grows 
 from the ground high up in the trees 
 and which it is only necessary to cut 
 with a knife in order to get drinking 
 water. 
 
 The parasites that hang from the 
 trees appear very beautiful to north- 
 ern eyes, among these being different 
 colored mosses and millions upon mil- 
 lions of brilliant orchids. After having 
 spent a pleasant and instructive hour 
 or so in the forest, we worked our 
 way back toward the river cutting our 
 
 and on the wall of one of them we 
 were surprised to find posted up a 
 picture taken from the front of the 
 Saturday Evening Post. Here we 
 went back inland for a ways and 
 found that the forest gave place to a 
 large plain which was covered with a 
 tall coarse grass of the palm variety 
 which grew as* high as our heads. 
 
 Returning toward the native village, 
 we persuaded one of the native boys 
 to climb a cocoanut tree for us and 
 the way he went up that slender tree 
 trunk made it very evident that he 
 would be the undisputed champion in 
 an American greased pole contest. 
 When he arrived at the top of the 
 tree he struck the great clusters of 
 cocoanuts with his knife and they 
 came crashing down to the earth 
 
 Sunset View of Inland River in the Jungles. 
 
 way through the creepers and under- 
 brush with machetes, which are huge 
 knives carried by all the natives. 
 
 Again boarding our boat we drop- 
 ped down the river a few miles and 
 landed at a small native village con- 
 sisting of huts built of bamboo, mud, 
 and palms. The walls of these huts 
 were loosely woven so that the air 
 could circulate freely, but from every 
 other standpoint they were indeed un- 
 sanitary. Each hut seemed to have 
 from six to twelve natives living in it, 
 
 where we gathered up a dozen of them 
 and put them on our boat. Continuing 
 clown the fairy-land-like river, our na- 
 tive boatman showed his dexterity 
 with a machete. He not only cut the 
 heavy bark or shucks off of those 
 cocoanuts, but he also cut the hard 
 shell off and presented us each with 
 a pure white cocoanut, the surface 
 of which did not show a scratch. We 
 then cut holes in them and drank the 
 cocoanut milk and ate native fruit 
 until our appetites were somewhat 
 
spoiled for the dinner which awaited 
 us at the camp. 
 
 At about 6 o'clock in the evening 
 the tide turned down stream, and we 
 started for the ocean. As the sun was 
 sinking we were again impressed with 
 the abundance of life on all sides. Not 
 only were the trees filled With beauti- 
 fully plumaged birds but as the dusk 
 settled down over the water we could 
 see the long diverging ripples caused 
 by the alligators as they swam just 
 under the surface of the river, and 
 there were literally hundreds of these 
 alligators' in the water, some of which 
 We shot at with our revolvers. As it 
 became darker, the prow of our boat 
 stirred up the phosphorus in the water 
 
 Loading Bananas. 
 
 so that the effect was very attractive 
 and several times schools of porpois- 
 es jumped out of the water and seem- 
 ed to be racing the boat. Finally, we 
 reached the ocean and slept- all night 
 in the bottom of the launch and the 
 next morning boarded the steamship, 
 Aysen bound for the western ports of 
 South America. 
 
 Many stories have been told of the 
 hardships connected with travel on the 
 west coast of South America, but we 
 have not found these stories to be 
 true. The Aysen is one of the clean- 
 est, roomiest, and best arranged ships 
 we have ever had the pleasure of 
 traveling on. The service is good and 
 the Spanish cooking is not at all dis- 
 tasteful, everything being very palat- 
 able except the meats. These are very 
 tough and make the average Amer- 
 ican resolve never again to abuse the 
 American meat packers. 
 
 After having been out two or three 
 
 days, we crossed the Equator and 
 our surprise was great, indeed, when 
 we found it necessary to sleep under 
 heavy blankets. This was due to the 
 fact that our ship was traveling in 
 the antarctic current which is very 
 cold and which runs from the antarctic 
 regions up the west coast of South 
 America as far north as the Equator. 
 
 Our first stop was to be Guayaquil, 
 Equador and shortly before arriving 
 there, the sea on the port side of the 
 ship was lashed into foam by thousands 
 of porpoises which kept jumping out 
 of the water. A little further along a 
 large number of whales were en- 
 countered. They swam quite close to 
 the ship and could be discovered by 
 the little fountains they created when 
 they spouted the water. 
 
 Proceeding up the Guayas river the 
 ship passed many of the floating is- 
 lands which are written about by 
 travelers. These little islands are made 
 up of debris covered with green vege- 
 tation and float up and down the river 
 with the tide. 
 
 Guayaquil is not an unattractive, 
 city, and is built entirely of wood but 
 possesses the worst reputation for di- 
 sease of any city in the western hem- 
 isphere. Its very unsanitary condi- 
 tion is its worst drawback as other- 
 wise it is quite a live place and at 
 night is brilliantly illuminated with 
 electric lights and makes a very pret- 
 ty appearance viewed from the river. 
 
 In this port every precaution is tak- 
 en against the possibility of bringing 
 disease on board the ship. Every piece 
 of-.*aggage is disinfected before leav- 
 ing the dock and is marked with large 
 -letters, "Disinfectado." It is worthy 
 of note that the ships in the west 
 coast trade are each provided with a 
 fumigating system which carries sul- 
 phur fumes to every part of the ship 
 and each country requires a thorough 
 ■ fumigation of any ship arriving from 
 •' one of the other countries. 
 % This necessitates a pretty constant 
 use of sulphur in order to comply with 
 "the various shipping rules. Each pas- 
 senger, received at Guayaquil was care- 
 fully examined by the ship's doctor, 
 his pulse counted, and his tempera- 
 ture taken. At Guayaquil is located 
 the eenter of the Panama hat indus- 
 try for 'strange to say all of the Pana- 
 ma hats are made in Equador and none 
 at Panama. They were given the 
 
name "Panama" hats because of the 
 fact that Panama dealers introduced 
 them into the United States. 
 
 As is of course known to all Her- 
 ald readers, Guayaquil is the only im- 
 portant port possessed by the Republic 
 of Equador, and it is therefore quite 
 important commercially. 
 
 It possesses several attractive 
 squares, a number of churches, and 
 numerous wooden structures more or 
 less pretentious in size. 
 
 While lying in the harbor at Guaya- 
 quil, we witnessed all of the settings 
 of an American musical comedy. The 
 sub-tropical vegetation, the queer old 
 Spanish city, the hazy distant moun- 
 tains, and the beautiful sheet of blue 
 water forming the harbor looked ex- 
 actly like the product of the scene 
 painter's art. In the near foreground 
 lay the Equadorian navy consisting of 
 one ship, in appearance not unlike a 
 large American tug boat. The small 
 boats of the war ship were lowered 
 and the admiral of the navy was row- 
 ed over to our ship and came across 
 the gang plank ful'y decked out in 
 naval costume with brass buttons and 
 gold epaulettes. Frank Daniels or 
 Jefferson De Angelis never looked more 
 magnificent. 
 
 With the admiral of the navy came 
 ex-President Cordero, the old rascai 
 who broke the usages of international 
 law at the time of the Japanese-Chi- 
 nese war by helping to transfer a 
 Chilean warship to the Japanese af- 
 ter hostilities had broken out. Cordero 
 was defeated by Alfaro, who carried 
 on a revolution against him, but nev- 
 ertheless they are the best friends at 
 present and Alfaro has appointed Cor- 
 dero to represent Equador at the big 
 September celebration in Chile. Down 
 in these countries where the people 
 truly indulge their time in riotous 
 living, it is no great crime to get up 
 a revolution as this is merely the 
 South American way of holding an 
 election. After the revolution is fin- 
 ished, the victor is elected president 
 and everything proceeds quietly until 
 some other patriot gets the ambition 
 to become president. 
 
 The citizens of these countries are 
 a peculiar race who must be thorough- 
 ly understood before any business can 
 be transacted with them. They are 
 very vain, proud, touchy, and exceed- 
 ingly petty. Above all things on 
 earth, they value a uniform or a lit- 
 
 tle authority. While our ship lay at 
 anchor a number of the government 
 officials ate dinner on board. However, 
 the captain of the port of Guayaquil 
 v/as not invited to join the party and 
 our captain even forgot to ask him to 
 have a drink. As a result his Equa- 
 dorian dignity was severely disturbed 
 and when we were ready to sail he 
 refused to deliver the ship's papers. 
 There was considerable strenuous ar- 
 gument out on deck as the captain 
 wished to get his ship out before the 
 
 The Fort that was the scene of a 
 near "Opera Bouffe" combat. 
 
 tide changed as otherwise he would be 
 compelled to wait until morning. He 
 therefore informed the captain of the 
 port that if he did not deliver the pa- 
 pers he would sail out without them. 
 The captain of the port with profound 
 dignity informed him that he would 
 telephone to the fort at the river en- 
 trance and have the Aysen fired upon 
 and stopped. The captain then told 
 him with considerable emphasis that 
 
if he so much as fired a pop gun at 
 the Aysen, he would lower his life 
 boats and take his "blankety blank" 
 fort. 
 
 It began to look like a newspaper 
 "scoop" and we made inquiry in regard 
 to the nearest cable office, but finally 
 after several hours exasperating de- 
 lay, the captain of the port extracted 
 the papers from his pocket and allow- 
 ed the ship to . proceed. However, he 
 had not finished with us yet, for when 
 we got outside of the harbor, there 
 was no boat to take the pilot off. It 
 was then quite late at night and the 
 captain decided to get even. So he 
 tied down the steam whistle and also 
 the steam siren and proceeded to wake 
 up everybody in Guayaquil. It was 
 not very long before the captain of 
 the port sent a boat for his pilot and 
 we continued our journey on down the 
 coast toward Callao and Lima. 
 
 ECUADOR 
 
 Guayaquil, August, 1910. — We have 
 interviewed on behalf of the Her- 
 ald, Colonel Alfaro, son of the 
 President of Ecuador, and Commander- 
 in-Chief of the Ecuadorian army. 
 
 Senor Alfaro is a comparatively young 
 man, in appearance not unlike an 
 American, who speaks very good Eng- 
 lish and entertains advanced ideas in 
 regard to South American problems. 
 He is well groomed and polite, but is 
 forceful in his language and appears to 
 be very business-like. 
 
 The readers of the Herald will re- 
 call the fact that in times gone by 
 Ecuador has suffered from continuous 
 revolutions. However, some ten or 
 twelve years ago, Eloy Alfaro over- 
 threw the then existing government 
 since which time his influence has 
 been paramount in Ecuador. During 
 these later years there have been 
 numerous disturbances in the country 
 but they have been put down in a sum- 
 mary manner. Notwithstanding the 
 fact that comparative peace has reign- 
 ed, there is at the present time, as al- 
 ways, a disaffected political faction 
 which would be inclined to cause trou- 
 ble were it given an opportunity. 
 
 All Americans were interested in the 
 war-like attitude assumed by Peru and 
 Ecuador a few months ago over the 
 boundary line question. This boundary 
 line question had been in dispute be- 
 
 tween these two countries for a long 
 time and finally it was decided to re- 
 fer the whole matter to the King of 
 Spain and both countries agreed to 
 abide by his decision. Last April, it 
 was expected that the King's decision 
 would soon be made public, but at this 
 stage of the negotiations Ecuador flat- 
 ly stated that she would not be bound 
 by the decision as she had advance in- 
 formation that the King would decide 
 against her. 
 
 Thereupon, attacks were made 
 against Peruvian citizens in Ecuador 
 and similar attacks were made upon 
 Ecuadorian citizens in Peru. Both 
 countries rushed soldiers to the frontier 
 and war seemed unpreventable. At this 
 stage of the proceedings, the United 
 States, Argentine Republic and Brazil 
 tendered their good offices which were 
 accepted by both countries. 
 
 Commenting upon this situation, 
 Senor Alfaro stated that the reason his 
 government withdrew was due to the 
 fact that it had positive information 
 that some of the ministers surrounding 
 the King of Spain had been bribed and 
 that the decision would consequently 
 be against his country and they con- 
 sequently felt justified in breaking 
 the arbitration agreement. He stated 
 that chances of war between the 
 two countries were now remote and 
 that a new arbitration arrangement 
 would doubtless be arranged by the 
 interested parties; Ecuador preferring 
 to leave the whole matter to the de- 
 cision of Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 According to Senor Alfaro, Amer- 
 ican goods are welcomed with open 
 arms by Ecuador but he feels that at 
 the present time there is a distrust of 
 Americans all over South America and 
 particularly in his country. This, he 
 ascribes to the policies of the state de- 
 partment of the United States which 
 have not been in accord with the poli- 
 cies inaugurated by Secretary of State 
 Root which did much to advance 
 American prestige in South America. 
 
 In the South American republics, it 
 has been generally hoped that the in- 
 fluence of the United States would be 
 used to put an end to the constantly 
 recurring South American revolu- 
 tions, and that as a result, peace and 
 prosperity would eventually reign in 
 this disturbed part of the world. It is 
 felt that the influence of the United 
 States should be in favor of the ex- 
 
 17 
 
isting governments, and should be us- 
 ed to put down revolutions against the 
 established authorities. 
 
 However, the United States first used 
 its influence in connection with Pana- 
 ma, but this influence was extended 
 to the revolutionists and was against 
 the Columbian government. The in- 
 terest of the United States in the Pan- 
 ama canal was thoroughly understood, 
 according to Senor Alfaro, and the 
 action of the United States would 
 have been entirely overlooked had it 
 not at a more recent date espoused 
 the cause of the revolution in Vene- 
 zuela against the government, and 
 were it not at the present time allow- 
 ing itself to be made the backbone of 
 the revolution in Nicaragua against 
 the government. Senor Alfaro stated 
 that the position which the United 
 States government is taking in these 
 matters is very unfortunate as instead 
 of insuring peace in South America, it 
 is leading to disturbed conditions 
 throughout the continent. 
 
 There is not a republic in South 
 America that does not have its revolu- 
 tionary party and these agitators 
 against the various governments are 
 all inclined to cause trouble at the 
 first opportunity expecting that the 
 United States will support their cause 
 as it has in the cases cited. Senor Al- 
 faro does not blame the officials at 
 Washington for the position which has 
 been taken but feels that the incom- 
 petency of our consular service is the 
 real cause of the trouble. By way of 
 passing, it might be interesting to note 
 that we have heard similar statements 
 expressed by competent people all over 
 the world. 
 
 Senor Alfaro believes that Guaya- 
 quil is to be one of the greatest cities 
 in South America. It is the port of 
 entry for all of the commerce of Ecua- 
 dor and has the only protected harbor 
 between Panama and Callao. He feels 
 that its present unsanitary condition 
 is its only drawback and he states that 
 
 this matter has been taken up by the 
 United States government, that its 
 sanitary engineers have visited Guaya- 
 quil, and that the state department is 
 now endeavoring to arrange a loan in 
 the United States, the proceeds of 
 which are to be used in paying the 
 cost of the cleaning up of Guayaquil 
 by the United States officials. 
 
 He states that the amount of this 
 loan will be $12,000,000, and that it 
 will be issued by the municipality of 
 Guayaquil and guaranteed by the gov- 
 ernment of Ecuador. Senor Alfaro 
 feels that American business expan- 
 sion in his country cannot reach its 
 greatest development until there is a 
 branch of an American bank located 
 there. It is surprising to him that the 
 United States does not pass some law 
 allowing a bank to take out a national 
 charter which will give it the privilege 
 of not only transacting business in its 
 own country but also of maintaining 
 branches in foreign countries. 
 
 Senor Alfaro stated that the German 
 manufacturer had an advantage over 
 the American manufacturer because 
 the American manufacturer had no 
 American bank to furnish him credit, 
 information or report to him on Ecua- 
 dorean conditions or handle exchange 
 on New York, all of which is now 
 drawn on London. 
 
 Furthermore, he stated that an 
 American bank could handle bond is- 
 sues covering Ecuadorean improve- 
 ments and would thereby be placed in 
 a position to dictate that American 
 manufacturers get the contracts. At 
 present all such bond issues are han- 
 dled by European banks and European 
 firms therefore get the contracts. 
 
 In conclusion, Senor Alfaro said that 
 he believed that the opening of the 
 Panama canal would mark the begin- 
 ning of a new era in South American 
 history, and that close commercial as- 
 sociation with the United States would 
 go hand in hand with a lasting peace 
 on the South American continent. 
 
PERU. 
 
 Lima, Peru, August, 1910. — A day or 
 so after leaving- Guayaquil we came 
 wihin sight of the barren, sandy, and 
 mountainous coast line of Peru and 
 were told that all the way on to Val- 
 paraiso the coast would look like a 
 barren desert, the great sand colored 
 mountains that are so close to the 
 shore, becoming higher and more rug- 
 ged as we proceeded further south. 
 
 Our ship having pulled in quite 
 close to the land, we could see that 
 the hills close to the shore were dot- 
 ted with great wooden scaffolds, which 
 upon nearer approach, turned out to 
 be the hundreds of oil wells that make 
 up the famous Lobitus oil fields. Not 
 far from Lobitus is the port of Payta, 
 where we stopped. Payta is a little 
 cluster of wooden buildings, situated 
 on the beach and inhabited by about 
 six thousand people. 
 
 In the little cathedral is located the 
 famous bleeding statue. It is said that 
 when Sir Henry Morgan, the pirate, 
 came down this coast and sacked the 
 old City of Payta, he showed his con- 
 tempt for the church by cutting a 
 great gash with his sword in the neck 
 of the image of the Virgin that was 
 located in the cathedral. Sir Henry 
 Morgan then sailed away, but from 
 that day to this on the anniversary 
 of the pillage of Payta the wound in 
 the neck of the image bleeds, and ev- 
 ery man who has tried to stop the 
 blood has died within twenty-four 
 hours. We asked some boatmen on the 
 beach if this story was true, and they 
 assured us with great solemnity that 
 it was. 
 
 After taking on a large cargo of 
 cotton, which was neatly and strongly 
 baled, we pulled up anchor, bound for 
 Eten, which was the next stop. 
 
 At no place on the western coast of 
 South America are there any piers 
 which will accommodate a large ship, 
 
 and it is always necessary to land in 
 a small boat. Furthermore, there are 
 practically no harbors, nearly all of 
 the ports being merely open road- 
 steads in which the swell causes great 
 breakers. There are hardly ever any 
 storms in this part of the world, but 
 there is a very stong swell from the 
 south that at times makes it almost 
 impossible to land. The morning we 
 arrived at Eten, there was such a 
 great sea running that a small boat 
 could not get alongside without being 
 crushed like an eggshell. Consequent- 
 ly the passengers for Eten were trans- 
 ferred from our ship to a lighter, by 
 crane and basket. Four people at a 
 time were seated in a large iron bas- 
 ket, which was placed on the deck of 
 our ship. Then a heavy cable running 
 from one of the ship's cranes, was 
 attached to the basket, which was 
 hoisted into the air and swung out 
 over a lighter, which was nearby, and 
 the crane then dropped the basket in 
 this lighter, where the people got out 
 and were rowed to shore. 
 
 From Eten we went to Pacasmayo 
 and then on to Sallaverry, both of the 
 latter towns being small ports, where 
 we took on large quantities of sugar, 
 oranges, and bananas. 
 
 The next day we arrived at Callao, 
 which is pronounced "Ca-yow," with 
 the accent on the "yow." Here, for the 
 first time on the west coast, we saw 
 what appeared to be a real commer- 
 cial port, filled with the shipping of 
 all nations, except the American, 
 which is hardly ever seen on any of 
 the high seas, owing largely to the na- 
 ture of our shipping laws. Callao is 
 rather a good sized city and is the 
 port for Lima, the capitol of Peru, 
 eight miles away. We took an Ameri- 
 can-owned interurban car for Lima, 
 and arrived in about twenty minutes, 
 and found that the city possessed a 
 
fairly good hotel, which we made our 
 headquarters. We were fortunate in 
 meeting some friends here, who took 
 us in charge and we proceeded to see 
 the town. 
 
 Nearly everything in Lima is mod- 
 eled after the old Spanish style and 
 of course everybody speaks the lan- 
 guage cf Castile, but we were surprised 
 to find many American articles in the 
 shops, and to notice a good many 
 Americans on the streets. This is due 
 tc the fact that nearby are located the 
 great Cerro de Pasco copper mines 
 which are owned by Americans and 
 which are reached by one of the 
 world's greatest engineering marvels, 
 a railroad climbing 14,200 feet toward 
 the sky. 
 
 Lima is filled with Cathedrals, 
 monks, and lottery tickets. There are 
 few places that one can go withoul 
 coming across cathedrals or monks 
 and there are absolutely no places 
 where one can wander without being 
 confronted by a lottery ticket. The 
 boatmen sell them, the newsboys ped- 
 dle them, the cripples, invalids, beg- 
 gars, street car conductors, butchers, 
 bakers, and candlestick makers all 
 insist that you buy them. 
 
 The Cathedrals are very ancient 
 and very magnificent for such a far 
 away country, but there are so many 
 services continually going on that it 
 is hard to understand how the peo- 
 ple find time to do anything but pray. 
 We were told that Pizarro, the great 
 Spanish explorer and conqueror, was 
 over in the big Cathedral on the pla- 
 za, and so we went to call on him. We 
 were somewhat disappointed as was 
 the Chicago Alderman who visited Eu- 
 rope for the first time and kicked be- 
 cause he said he found that all the 
 people he wanted to meet, such as 
 Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, had 
 been dead a thousand years. Old Pi- 
 zarro was there all right, and we saw 
 him, but he was in a glass coffin and 
 couldn't talk. It will be remembered 
 that Pizarro was the scoundrel who 
 trapped and betrayed Atahuallpa, the 
 last of the great Incas. 
 
 Atahuallpa had come to welcome Pi- 
 zarro to the Empire of the ancient 
 Incas whose civilization was one of the 
 marvels of the world of antiquity. Pi- 
 zarro accepted the Emperor's kindly 
 welcome and as a reward threw him 
 into chains and carried him away a 
 captive. He then agreed to free Ata- 
 
 huallpa providing he would fill a room 
 as high as his head with gold. The 
 Inca empire was scoured from one end 
 to the other and the gold was produced 
 according to contract whereupon Pi- 
 zarro killed Atahuallpa. This cruel 
 act of Pizarro's was but in keeping 
 with the policy of Spain throughout 
 the world and throughout the centu- 
 ries. 
 
 Lima is regularly laid out and most 
 of the buildings are constructed of 
 mud which is plastered on the outside 
 and painted. A few weeks' hard rain 
 would doubtless wash away the city, 
 but in Lima it never rains. In the 
 center of the city is located the plaza 
 where is situated the great cathedral, 
 and around the other sides of which 
 extend arcades resembling some of the 
 streets in Paris. In these arcades can 
 be seen all of the types that go to 
 make up the population. Mixed in with 
 the Peruvians, who resemble Spaniards, 
 are many Indians and a few Europe- 
 ans, and the number of beggars, crip- 
 ples and blind men is remarkable. 
 Most of the women wear either "mar- 
 tas," which are large black shawls 
 drawn down over the head and around 
 the body and tied tight at the neck, 
 or else "mantillas" which are made of 
 lace and are usually black. 
 
 The people are very polite to each 
 other, a great deal of bowing and 
 bobbing up and down being indulged 
 in whenever friends meet. Instead of 
 shaking hands, they have a peculiar 
 way of patting each other on the back. 
 
 The public buildings of Lima and 
 the foreign bank buildings are very 
 modern and quite imposing and the 
 street car system and public utilities 
 generally are quite up to date. 
 
 A little way out from the center of 
 the city is a long promenade some- 
 what resembling the Prado in Havana, 
 and at one end of this is located a 
 beautiful park and the Lima Museum 
 and Art Gallery. The vegetation in 
 this park consists of very beautiful 
 tropical trees and shrubbery, and in 
 among the palms and flowers trickles 
 a little artificial stream on the banks 
 of which is located the "zoo" contain- 
 ing specimens of native animals and 
 birds. Conspicuous among these are 
 the llamas which are the camels of 
 South America and the condor which 
 is the national bird. The museum is 
 verv extensive and contains the 
 
world's largest collection of Inca rel- 
 ics. Among these are many examples 
 of the peculiar ornaments which 
 these Indians fashioned out of cop- 
 per, gold, and silver, and also many 
 examples of their pottery and handi- 
 work. On the walls are hung many 
 specimens of the blankets and 
 clothes which the Incas made out of 
 feathers. Many of their blankets re- 
 semble the well known blankets of 
 our North American Indians, but 
 upon close examination it is found 
 that they are made of feathers, the 
 various colored plumage of the birds 
 producing the different colors in the 
 
 destroyed and the facial resemblance 
 was similar to that possessed in life. 
 The specimens in the museum are 
 very perfect and most interesting. 
 
 During the night we were some- 
 what annoyed at first by the police 
 whistles. There is a policeman on 
 every corner in Lima and each one 
 of them possesses a very shrill whis- 
 tle. Every half hour, the policeman 
 in front of the police station blows 
 several shrill notes with his whistle 
 and this signal is repeated in turn 
 by every policeman in the city. It is 
 odd to listen to this 1 whistle and hear 
 it gradually travel up and down the 
 
 GRAND CATHEDRAL OF LIMA, A NOTABLE CHURCH IN A CITY OF 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 blankets. 
 
 In a large case is a collection of 
 very small Indian heads which look 
 as though they had been taken from 
 mummies and which are only two or 
 three inches in diameter. It seems that 
 certain of the Indians in the interior 
 possessed the secret of shrinking the 
 heads and skulls of human beings to 
 a very small size. The hair was not 
 
 streets from one end of the city to 
 the other. In case any policeman fails 
 to whistle when his turn comes his 
 nearest colleagues immediately look 
 him up to see if any harm has come 
 to him. It seemed to us that this sys- 
 stem was a fine thing for the crooks 
 as it would show them just where 
 the police were. 
 
 We were surprised to find that in 
 
Lima we could not readily cash our 
 American money orders, and even the 
 steamship company refused to take 
 anything but "pounds sterling." We 
 have cashed these orders all over Eu- 
 rope and they went without a mur- 
 mur in Siberia and China, but in Lima 
 our patriotism was considerably ruf- 
 fled by having the inhabitants almost 
 to a man "demand cash." 
 
 It is perhaps a sign of the times to 
 note that in almost all of these coun- 
 tries bull fights are a thing of the 
 past, and even in Lima they are get- 
 ting to be few and far between. 
 
 Our visit to the Capitol of Peru was 
 
 indeed a pleasant one notwithstand- 
 ing the bugs. However, by this time 
 we have met so many brands of bugs 
 that any new local species has no ter- 
 rors for us. 
 
 Returning to Callao, we transferred 
 our baggage from the Aysen over to 
 the British steamship "Orissa," which 
 will save us five days' time into Val- 
 paraiso, and it was with considerable 
 regret that we said good-bye to Cap- 
 tain Graham who was currently re- 
 ported to carry a tomahawk in his 
 belt, but who doesn't and who had 
 helped to make our voyage thus far 
 a most pleasant one. 
 
 WHERE LIMA 
 
 RESTS— THE PLAZA OR CITY SQUARE OF THE 
 PERUVIAN CAPITOL. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT OF PERU. 
 
 Lima, August, 1910. — We have today 
 joyed an instructive interview With 
 Augusto B. Leguia, president of Peru. 
 
 It will be recalled that throughout 
 Peru's more or less stormy career, 
 there has existed a strong friendship 
 between the Peruvians and the people 
 
 of the United States, and large 
 amounts of American capital have been 
 invested in Peru. Probably the largest 
 American investment in the country 
 is embodied in the great Cerro de 
 Pasco copper mines buft there are, 
 however, many other large undertak- 
 
ings controlled by American capital. 
 
 The country is enormously rich in 
 mineral resources, and lack of trans- 
 portation has been the only great 
 drawback to development, but now 
 that this problem is gradually being 
 solved there will be more and more 
 opportunities to develop profitably the 
 mineral resources of the country. 
 
 Politically, Peru has for a long time 
 been surrounded by enemies. The 
 feeling against Chile is of long stand- 
 ing and will probably not be eradicat- 
 ed for many years to come. 
 
 At the end of the Chilian-Peruvian 
 war, Chile took certain provinces away 
 from Peru and Bolivia, and in addition 
 specified in the treaty of peace that 
 she was to govern the two provinces 
 of Tacna and Arica for a period of 
 ten years, and at the end of that time 
 a vote was to be taken in these two 
 provinces as to whether they should 
 be ruled by Chile or Peru and the 
 winning country was to pay the oth- 
 er country the sum of ten million 
 dollars. 
 
 Now, these two provinces contain 
 the famous nitrate beds and guano 
 deposits from which a tremendous 
 revenue is derived by the nation con- 
 trolling them. For this reason both 
 nations desired to get control, and so 
 at the end of the specified ten year 
 period a disagreement arose in regard 
 to the terms of the treaty of peace. 
 
 The Chilians had sent many of their 
 people into these provinces and claim- 
 ed that every inhabitant residing 
 within their boundaries had a right 
 to vote on the question as to whether 
 the provinces should belong to Chile 
 or Peru. Under these conditions, Chile 
 would, of course, win. On the other 
 hand, Peru claimed that as the pro- 
 vinces originally belonged to her, the 
 only persons who had a right to vote 
 under the provisions of the treaty of 
 peace were the Peruvians living with- 
 in the boundaries of the two pro- 
 vinces. Under these conditions, Peru 
 would, of course, win. 
 
 This wrangle has dragged on for 
 years, Chile still holding the provinc- 
 es and Peru claiming that she has no 
 right to so hold them. This situation 
 is the most dangerous in South Amer- 
 ica, and is the cause of much uneasi- 
 ness and continual agitation and bad 
 feeling. It is said that the United 
 
 States, Brazil, and Argentina have 
 been trying to settle this dispute and 
 that they are still using their influ- 
 ence along these lines but at the 
 present time success is looked upon by 
 most people as rather remote. 
 
 Peru has lately been involved with 
 Brazil, Bolivia, and Columbia over 
 boundary lines and for a time serious 
 trouble with Bolivia threatened but at 
 present these disputes have been sat- 
 isfactorily settled and the only argu- 
 ment which Peru now has outstand- 
 ing is with her only other neighbor, 
 Equador. This dispute over the Equa- 
 dorian boundary seriously threatened 
 war a few months ago, but the inter- 
 vention of the United States, Brazil, 
 and Argentina leads to the belief that 
 the matter will now be peaceably set- 
 tled. In addition to all of these out- 
 side troubles, there has been consider- 
 able agitation inside of the country 
 which has even gone so far as to sug- 
 gest revolutionary measures. 
 
 However, at present while there is 
 a spirit of unrest in some quarters, 
 nevertheless it is pretty well subdued 
 and does not menace business interests 
 at the present time. Notwithstand- 
 ing all of these difficulties, together 
 with others of an economic nature, 
 Peru has been steadily advancing and 
 will doubtless keep on the upward 
 path. 
 
 President Leguia is a very small 
 man in stature, but is genial and cor- 
 dial. He speaks excellent English and 
 impresses one immediately with his 
 thorough knowledge of business and 
 commerce. Before his election to the 
 Presidency of the Republic, he was a 
 successful business man who had 
 amassed a considerable fortune, and 
 as a result of his training he is par- 
 ticularly interested in the commercial 
 development of his country. He greet- 
 ed us in the Presidential palace in a 
 cordial American manner, asked us to 
 make ourselves at home and assured 
 us that the Peruvians always felt that 
 they were connected by the strongest 
 ties to the Americans. 
 
 After outlining the financial and the 
 economic conditions of the govern- 
 ment and country, Senor Leguia refer- 
 red to the great American investments 
 ir his country and assured us that ev- 
 ery dollar of American capital was 
 fully appreciated and would be care- 
 fully protected. 
 
 He is a great optimist on the future 
 
c.P. Pefu and if he lived in America 
 lie would be termed a "booster" of the 
 first order. He called our attention 
 tc the development which had been 
 made in agriculture in the valleys be- 
 tween the ranges of the Andes, but 
 stated that the chief source of the 
 wealth of his country was in her min- 
 erals. He feels that if these minerals 
 are properly exploited and the agri- 
 cultural possibilities of the country 
 fully developed that Peru will be ca- 
 pable Of holding and supporting fifty 
 million people and as the population 
 of the world increases he believes that 
 the overflow from the United States 
 wili find its way down the West coast 
 of South America. 
 
 AUGUSTA B. LEGUIA, 
 President of Peru. 
 
 President Leguia believes that the 
 opening of the Panama canal will 
 start an entirely new era in South 
 American development and that as a 
 result, United States trade will un- 
 questionably dominate the west coast. 
 His study of statistics covering condi- 
 tions in our own country leads him to 
 believe that from now on American 
 markets will not be large enough to 
 take care of all the manufactured out- 
 
 put of the country and that as a in- 
 sult the American manufacturer will 
 be forced to seek foreign trade out- 
 lets. 
 
 At this stage of the interview, the 
 president grew eloquent in defense of 
 South America's claims on the earnest 
 consideration of American manufac- 
 turers. He compared the South 
 American field with that in the Orient 
 and it must be confessed that his ar- 
 guments were convincing. From the 
 standpoint of distance, environment, 
 protection, transportation difficulties, 
 and mutual interest, South America 
 would seem to furnish the ideal field 
 for the exploitation of American 
 goods. 
 
 But the president feels that the first 
 and foremost requisite to the further 
 advancement of American commercial 
 influence in South America is the ab- 
 solute necessity of an American bank 
 with branches throughout the conti- 
 nent. He stated that he could not un- 
 derstand why such a bank had not 
 been established and when we ex- 
 plained to him the difficulty of incor- 
 porating such a bank under the Uni- 
 ted States laws,, he expressed great 
 surprise that such a condition should 
 exist. 
 
 He cited the many branches of for- 
 eign banks in South America, and ex- 
 plained that the English and German 
 trade could never have been extended 
 as it has been without the aid of the 
 English and German banks. The presi- 
 dent stated that the absolute necessity 
 of the establishment of an American 
 bank in his country did not seem to be 
 understood by Americans and he went 
 on to explain why American manu- 
 facturers could not compete to advan- 
 tage with foreigners unless they had 
 their own banking connections in this 
 part of the world. 
 
 His arguments and theories on this 
 subject coincide with those expressed 
 to us by Senor Alfaro of Equador. He 
 believes that an American banking in- 
 stitution will pay from the start and 
 explained a number of reasons which 
 prompted this belief. Incidentally, it 
 might be noted that first class local 
 bank loans draw from eight to four- 
 teen per cent interest in this country. 
 
 Commenting upon the methods em- 
 ployed by American manufacturers in 
 this part of the world, President Le- 
 
guia voiced the sentiments that are 
 heard on all sides — carelessness on the 
 part of the manufacturers, lack of 
 study of the needs of the people, 
 "fresh" salesmen who cannot speak 
 Spanish and who will not accustom 
 themselves to South American ways, 
 miserable packing-, and general ineffi- 
 ciency. 
 
 These charges against our manu- 
 facturers seem inconceivable to people 
 who reside in the States and who are 
 familiar with the efficiency which 
 these manufacturers maintain at home 
 
 but nevertheless all of these charges 
 are perfectly just and constant criti- 
 cism from our consuls and represen- 
 tatives in this part of the world does 
 not seem to lead to much improve- 
 ment. 
 
 At the conclusion of this very inter- 
 esting interview, President Lequia 
 bade us good-bye with many senti- 
 ments of personal esteem for the 
 American people, and we left the pal- 
 ace with very pleasant impressions of 
 the president of the Peruvians. 
 
 THE COAST OF CHILE. 
 
 Valparaiso, Chile, September, 1910.— 
 Prom Callao to Mollendo is a two days' 
 sail along a bleak and barren coast and 
 when the "Orissa" pulled into the road- 
 sted everybody on board scrambled into 
 the little boats and we were rowed 
 ashore. The landing at Mollendo is the 
 same as at nearly all of the other west 
 coast ports — rough and dangerous. There 
 is usually a long rope hanging down 
 from above the landing stairs and each 
 passenger in his turn reaches up and 
 gets a firm hold on this rope before 
 attempting to step from the small boat 
 to the landing. Thus, should the swell 
 take the small boat out from under- 
 neath his feet just as he is stepping 
 ashore he can at least hang to the rope 
 until the boatman gets the boat un- 
 derneath him again or somebody fishes 
 him up on the dock. In South Amer- 
 ica the landing rope is certainly a 
 great institution. 
 
 Mollendo is a struggling frame town 
 located on the beach at the foot of 
 great mountains of sand and is unat- 
 tractive from every standpoint except 
 that of commerce. Commercially, it 
 is important because from here runs 
 the railroad to Bolivia and a consider- 
 able part of the exports of Bolivia come 
 
 to the Pacific by this route. 
 
 In Mollendo we saw for the first 
 time a donkey tied in true South Amer- 
 ican style. A native wished to leave 
 his donkey while he went into a shop 
 and instead of tieing it as we would in 
 cur country, he simply took a small 
 piece of rope and tied its two front 
 legs together near the hoofs. We were 
 much interested in this, but imagine 
 our surprise when presently the don- 
 key, which looked very hungry, hop- 
 ped across the street with its legs 
 tied together and ate some banana 
 peels that were lying on the pavement. 
 Throughout South America, the 
 costumes of the people are interesting 
 and quite varied. At Mollendo we saw 
 the first of the ponchos. These are 
 large square blankets of all sorts of 
 colors, each one of which has a slit 
 cut in the center through which the 
 wearer sticks his head. 
 
 The railroad from Mollendo runs 
 through a great sand plain with con- 
 stantly increasing altitude to the an- 
 cient city of Arequipa, and on the way 
 can be seen the famous traveling sand 
 hills. The sand is piled up by the 
 wind in the form of huge crescents 
 and the top of the crescent is con- 
 
 25 
 
stantly being blown down in front of 
 it. Thus the crescent gradually moves 
 forward and is irresistible in its slow 
 onward march. 
 
 Arequipa is a very old and historic 
 city in Peru, and is the center of cler- 
 ical power and learning. It has many 
 interesting churches and cloisters, is 
 located at a Very high altitude, and is 
 surrounded by magnificent mountain 
 peaks. 
 
 In this part of the continent the 
 electric storms are very severe. The 
 thunder and lightning snaps and 
 cracks in a way to make the average 
 American hunt around for a cyclone 
 cellar. Most people stay in Arequipa 
 at least a day in order to become ac- 
 
 
 
 Tying a Donkey. 
 
 customed to the altitude, and then 
 continue on the railroad to Lake Titi- 
 caca, which is the highest fresh water 
 lake in the world and around which 
 cluster many of the traditions and 
 much of the romance of the old Inca 
 civilization. Here can be seen many 
 of the famous straw boats of the In- 
 dians. These boats are made entirely 
 out of a peculiar sort of straw, many 
 of them being very large in size, and 
 are very seaworthy. Whenever they 
 become water-logged, the Indians 
 merely pull them up on the shore and 
 let them dry in the sun. A boat takes 
 the traveler down Lake Titicaca at the 
 other end of which he again takes a 
 train bound for La Paz. La Paz is the 
 chief city of Bolivia, and has one of 
 the most peculiar locations of any city 
 in the world. It is situated at the 
 bottom of a great round bowl which 
 sinks twelve hundred feet below the 
 
 surface of the surrounding plain. The 
 city is made up mostly of picturesque 
 Indians and foreigners who are inter- 
 ested in the mighty undeveloped min- 
 eral resources of Bolivia. The return 
 trip to the ocean can be made by a 
 wonderful railroad to Antofagasta or 
 the traveler can retrace the route by 
 which he came. At present there is 
 under construction a much shorter 
 railroad which will connect La Paz 
 with Arica. 
 
 From Mollendo, we sailed on down 
 the coast passing Arica with its great 
 rock resembling Gibraltar, and steam- 
 ed into the roadstead at Iquique. And 
 here we got our first real sight of 
 bird life in this part of the world. Fly- 
 ing from south to north were actually 
 millions of birds keeping close to the 
 water and flying very swiftly in long 
 lines and great groups. The long un- 
 broken mass of birds extended as far 
 as we could see, and they seemed to be 
 coming out of the horizon in countless 
 thousands. As long as the daylight 
 lasted, we could see this unbroken col- 
 umn of birds flying swiftly by. 
 
 Inside of the roadstead were many 
 more birds, most, of them being gulls, 
 buzzards, and large pelicans, and it 
 was interesting to watch these birds 
 fish. At times, thirty or forty of 
 them would plunge into the water at 
 once, being attracted by a school of 
 fish and the possibility of getting a 
 good dinner. 
 
 We had been told that the people of 
 Chile were a live and hustling race, 
 and the truth of this statement was 
 impressed upon us when we compared 
 slow, easy-going Mollendo, the last 
 Peruvian port we had visited, with 
 Iquique, our first stop in Chile. Here, 
 the boatmen raced each other and 
 fought all the way from shore to the 
 "Orissa" and swore like Americans. It 
 made us homesick to see them hurry. 
 When they finally got us in their small 
 boats and rowed us ashore we were 
 met by a band of shouting newsboys, 
 who wanted to sell us a "special ex- 
 tra," and it looked so much like home 
 that we bought the papers, even 
 though they were printed in Spanish. 
 
 Everybody in Iquique seemed to step 
 lively, and on all sides could be seen 
 Chilian flags and other evidences of 
 the patriotism of the population. In 
 Iquique there are several attractive 
 public squares' or plazas, and several 
 
 26 
 
good business streets with nice look- 
 ing shops. We stopped in at one of 
 the shops and took our first lesson in 
 Chilian finance. We purchased a pack- 
 age of chocolate, and tendered a five 
 dollar gold piece in payment. Imagina 
 our surprise when we received twenty- 
 two dollars in change. The Chilian 
 paper currency is much depreciated 
 and as a result a pair of shoes costs 
 from twenty to thirty- five dollars. 
 
 Iquique is, of course, rough as it is 
 built on the sand hills, and has abso- 
 lutely no natural advantages. Never- 
 
 Arica's "Gibralter." 
 
 theless, it has many public utilities 
 and is a great nitrate and guano port. 
 The nitrate beds lie some miles back 
 from the coast and are Chile's chief 
 source of national revenue. They are 
 owned by individuals but the heavy 
 export tax on nitrate pays nearly all 
 of Chile's national expenses. A high 
 rate of export tax can be maintained 
 as there are practically no nitrate beds 
 in the world outside of Chile. It is - not 
 known how these nitrate beds were 
 formed, but they have been there for 
 a great period of time and have not 
 been dissolved because of the fact that 
 it never rains in this part of the con- 
 tinent. The surface of the beds is 
 broken up by dynamite and the debris 
 is then taken to a plant, where it is 
 dissolved and by a system of condens- 
 ation the nitrate is extracted and then 
 crystallized, packed in bags, shipped 
 to Iquique, or one of the other nearby 
 ports, and sent to the United States 
 or Europe. 
 
 Iquique is also the port from which 
 a great deal of Guano is shipped. This 
 
 guano is collected from islands and 
 from along the coast, and is sent to 
 Europe to be used as a fertilizer. 
 
 Sailing from Iquique late in the af- 
 ternoon, we were impressed with the 
 suddenness with which night comes 
 on. There is no twilight and the 
 change from daylight to darkness 
 takes place in a very few moments. 
 At 6 o'clock it is as dark as the pro- 
 verbial pocket. 
 
 To the astronomer and the admirer 
 of the heavens a trip to this part of 
 the world is most interesting. The 
 sunsets and cloud effects are very 
 beautiful, the after-glow that follows 
 the sunset being particularly fine. 
 Many of the northern constellations 
 cannot be seen here and at night the 
 
 Loading Copper. 
 
 strange constellations of the south 
 prove as surprising as does the sun 
 in the daytime, which, of course, ap- 
 pears far to the north at noon. 
 
 The next place we visited was Anto- 
 fagasta, whose harbor is filled with 
 seals and sealions. These sea animals 
 
 27 
 
arc protected by law and are very 
 fearless. A school of them appeared 
 near our small boat and carried on an 
 animated warfare with the gulls which 
 were trying to get all of the little 
 scraps of food that were floating in the 
 water. 
 
 Antofagasta is very much like Iqui- 
 que. The people seem to be very much 
 a?ive as the mountains back of the 
 town were covered with huge adver- 
 tisements, and nearly every street in 
 the place was torn up preparatory to 
 the installation of water mains and 
 sewers. 
 
 It is interesting to note that all of 
 ihe west coast cities are compelled to 
 pipe their water supply for from fifty 
 to two hundred miles as it never rains 
 
 A Chilean Village. 
 
 on the coast and there are no wells or 
 springs. Many of them also have con- 
 densing plants which condense the sea 
 water. 
 
 In Antofagasta all the flags were 
 out at half mast as a mark of re- 
 spect to the memory of the late pres- 
 ident of Chile. On one of the streets 
 are clustered together a number of the 
 consular offices of the great nations 
 of the world. Each one of these of- 
 fices had a bright, new, fine looking 
 flag flying from the pole. However, 
 ii the center of the group was the 
 office of the American Consular Agent 
 and tied by a string to a pole on top 
 of his home was a red, white and blue 
 fiag that had seen better days, and the 
 
 better days were a long time back. We 
 decided on the spot to buy him a new 
 flag if one could be purchased on this 
 side of the Andes and went up to the 
 office to ask the agent where we could 
 get one. After climbing a long flight 
 of dilapidated looking stairs, we arriv- 
 ed at a landing which was partly oc- 
 cupied by a broken gas meter and 
 some other debris and rang a bell 
 which was located at the side of a 
 door which contained a broken pane 
 of glass. The ring was never answer- 
 ed, and after ringing and waiting for 
 some time we gave up in despair as 
 the Consular Agent of the United 
 States was not on the job. 
 
 From Antofagasta our ship steamed 
 to a little copper port where a smelter 
 was located and here we landed and 
 tramped over land to Coquimbo. On 
 the way across we met many of the 
 native boys who offered to fight each 
 other for pennies which showed that 
 Americans had gone that way before. 
 
 Coquimbo is quite a little city built 
 on the side of the mountains and in 
 many ways resembling Algiers. Its 
 streets are very steep and are filled 
 with numerous pack trains of donkeys 
 and llamas. It has a little plaza as d;> 
 all of these cities, and its people seem 
 fairly prosperous althought they do 
 not seem to be quite so much alive as. 
 the other Chilians we have met. 
 
 The "Orissa" having arrived at Co- 
 quimbo, we again proceeded south. A 
 hundred miles or so to the west of this 
 part of Chile is located Jaun Fernan- 
 dez Island, which was the home of 
 Robinson Crusoe during the time he 
 was shipwrecked. Once a year an ex- 
 cursion leaves Valparaiso for this is- 
 land, and many of the Chilians go out 
 there for a little vacation. 
 
 Bright and early on the eighteenth 
 day out from Panama, we steamed in- 
 to the harbor of Valparaiso, feeling 
 much like old sea dogs after our long 
 trip on the water. 
 
 Valparaiso is built on a narrow 
 beach and steep hills and extends all 
 of the way around the bay. It is there- 
 fore a very long distance from one end 
 of the city to the other and this fact, 
 together with the further fact that it 
 is partly built on the hills, makes it a 
 difficult city to get around in. There 
 is, however, a good system of tram 
 cars which traverse the streets that 
 are on the flat land and each one of 
 the many hills in the city has a little 
 
 28 
 
Cog--elevator that takes passengers up 
 and down. These elevators are opera- 
 ted by women and the conductors on 
 the tram cars are also women. These 
 conductors are usually well able to 
 take care of themselves and do not 
 permit any "mere man" to get gay on 
 the trams. They wear a black patent 
 leather sailor hat pinned on with a 
 hat pin and bearing the name of the 
 company and the conductor's number. 
 Each one of them also wears a little 
 white apron in the pocket of which 
 she carries her money and a large roll 
 of tickets, one of which is given to 
 each passenger as a receipt for the 
 money he has paid. 
 
 It will be remembered that Valpa- 
 raiso was almost entirely destroyed by 
 the great earthquake of 1906, and re- 
 ports from there during the next few 
 succeeding years were to the effect 
 that reconstruction was proceeding 
 slowly. However, at the present time 
 the main portions of the city are en- 
 tirely rebuilt and look prosperous and 
 modern, although many of the build- 
 ings are constructed entirely of gal- 
 vanized iron in order to stand the 
 earthquake shocks which are always 
 of frequent occurrence in this part of 
 Chile. 
 
 As one gets a little way from the 
 center of the city, many evidences of 
 the terrible trembler can still be seen 
 and in the beautiful cemetery, which 
 is located on a high hill in the center 
 of Valparaiso, a considerable number 
 of magnificent monuments and tombs 
 are still in a wrecked condition. In 
 this cemetery is one of the old burying 
 places copied after the Roman style. 
 This consists of a very long solid wall 
 which is divided into little square 
 compartments into each of which is 
 fitted a coffin. The earthquakes 
 broke these compartments open and 
 threw the coffins out in a heap so that 
 
 there was actually "a great rattling of 
 dry bones." At present the damage 
 has been repaired and the departed 
 again rest in peace. 
 
 The business of Valparaiso is loca- 
 ted on four streets which run in the 
 same direction on the level ground, 
 but sometimes the hills encroach so 
 much upon this level ground that the 
 four streets are all jumbled up to- 
 gether and occasionally even cross 
 each other. The new buildings in the 
 business part of the city are very fine, 
 the banks' and newspaper buildings 
 being particularly noticeable. The 
 Hotel Royal, the proprietor of which 
 is an American, is a very high- class 
 hostelry. Most of the great commer- 
 cial houses of Chile are located at 
 Valparaiso, and it bears the same re- 
 lation to Chile that New York bears 
 to the United States', while Santiago, 
 which is the great distributing center, 
 is from a business viewpoint not un- 
 like Chicago. The comparison is", of 
 course, not very exact, but gives some 
 idea of the position held by each of 
 these cities in Chile. 
 
 Everything in Chile is very high 
 priced while labor is low, and as a 
 result people are either very rich or 
 very poor, and so there can be seen 
 on the streets of Valparaiso many of 
 the poorest sort of people invariably 
 carrying great loads on their heads, 
 and at the same time numbers of 
 prosperous men and women dressed 
 in the very latest Parisian styles, their 
 appearance making one forget for a 
 moment that he is in far away Chile. 
 
 For a city that has been so recently 
 destroyed and that is located in a 
 country that has for the last few years 
 been suffering from a severe financial 
 depression, Valparaiso furnishes a 
 striking illustration of the progres- 
 siveness and recuperative power of the 
 Chilian nation. 
 
 29 
 
A CHILIAN PRESIDENTIAL POSSIBILITY. 
 
 Santiago, Chile, September, 1910— We 
 have today enjoyed a very pleasant talk 
 with Senor Don Augustin Edwards, 
 statesman, millionaire, and newspaper 
 magnate, in connection with the pres- 
 ent conditions in Chile. 
 
 Owing to the recent death of Senor 
 Montt, Chile is without a president for 
 under their constitution the vice pres- 
 ident does not succeed the president 
 as under ours, but instead an election 
 is held within ninety days after the 
 death of the president at which time 
 a new president is elected. This elec- 
 tion will take place on the sixteenth 
 day of October but at the present time 
 the various parties have not even made 
 their nominations and as there are rive 
 distinct parties and a large number 
 of candidates already in sight, it is 
 impossible to say at this time who will 
 even be the nominees. However, in 
 discussing various candidates it has 
 seemed to us for a number of reasons 
 that Senor Edwards may perhaps be 
 the next president of Chile, and he 
 being one of the great men of his na- 
 tion we felt that an interview with him 
 could not fail to be interesting to 
 American readers. 
 
 Senor Edwards is a tall, fine look- 
 ing man of winning personality, ap- 
 parently under forty years of age, and 
 possessed of large wealth, and of un- 
 doubted attainments. He received us 
 ir the office of "El Mercuric" the 
 greatest newspaper in Chile, of which 
 h(, is the proprietor. The paper is 
 published in Santiago and Valparaiso, 
 in both of which places it owns mag- 
 nificent buildings equipped with read- 
 ing and writing rooms, rest rooms, and 
 various conveniences for the free use 
 of the public. 
 
 Senor Edwards has done much for 
 the accommodation and betterment of 
 the general public, and has been much 
 before the public eye, having recently 
 served as a member of the president's 
 
 cabinet. He welcomed us in a most 
 cordial manner, and immediately 
 plunged into a review of the recent 
 commercial history of his country, call- 
 ing our attention to the terrible losses 
 by earthquke and the disastrous con- 
 sequences of the panic of 1907 which 
 was followed by a business depression 
 lasting until the present day. Not- 
 withstanding these calamities, Chile 
 has managed to show progress and 
 he believes that from now on condi- 
 t'ons will constantly improve. 
 
 During the recent depression, the 
 Montt administration has given the 
 people employment by the expenditure 
 of huge sums of money for great pub- 
 lic improvements. These improvements 
 will unquestionably prove a great boon 
 to Chile, but Senor Edwards pointed 
 out that these large sums of money 
 had been appropriated and spent out 
 of the current revenues of the coun- 
 try, and a deficit had been thereby 
 created which had injured the finan- 
 cial standing of the nation. He stat- 
 ed that in his opinion the new admin- 
 istration whch is to be elected in Oc- 
 tober would continue the public im- 
 provements but would discontinue pay- 
 ing for them out of the current reve- 
 nues, and instead would bond them as 
 is done :n most other countries. These 
 b( nds will be offered to European and 
 American bankers, and this new capi- 
 tal coming into his country he felt 
 would improve conditions generally. 
 
 At the present time, Chilean paper 
 currency is much depreciated inas- 
 much as it is merely an unsecured 
 promise of the government and is not 
 convertible into gold. However, a 
 large sum of gold is being accumulat- 
 ed and placed upon deposit in Europe 
 for the credit of the conversion fund, 
 and it is promised that in 1915 the 
 government will make this paper con- 
 vertible into gold and thereby bring it 
 up to par. However, this promise is 
 
hot looked upon with much confidence 
 by the business community as there 
 are reasons why the Chilean vested 
 interests prefer a depreciated cur- 
 rency, and furthermore, the fear is ex- 
 pressed that should Chile be drawn 
 into a war the gold in the conversion 
 fund would be used for the purchase 
 of armaments and the currency would 
 be still further depreciated. Senor Ed- 
 wards does' not feel this way. He pre- 
 dicts that from now on the currency 
 will go up in value and that it will 
 eventually be redeemed in gold there- 
 by removing the greatest obstacle in 
 the way of stable trade conditions in 
 Chile. He scoffs at the idea of Chile 
 becoming involved in war with any 
 power, as he states that the most 
 friendly relations exist between his 
 country and all other nations except 
 Peru. 
 
 The Chilean possession of the two 
 provinces of Tacna and Arica makes 
 it impossible for Chi'e and Peru to 
 be friendly, and Senor Edwards ac- 
 knowledges that Chile will never give 
 up these provinces' or even submit to 
 arbitration. However, he does not 
 think that Peru will ever be strong 
 enough to go to war with Chile over 
 the wording of the old treaty of peace 
 in connection with these two disputed 
 provinces. He further called attention 
 to the practical impossibility of inter- 
 nal disturbances, and cited the present 
 political situation as an illustration of 
 the fact that presidents are elected in 
 Chile and not created by revolutions 
 as in so many of the other South 
 American republics. 
 
 The proprietor of El Mercurio is 
 enthusiastic about America and Amer- 
 ican goods, but acknowledges that 
 Americans have long been unpopular 
 in Chile owing to the very unfortunate 
 misunderstandings that have so fre- 
 quently existed between the two na- 
 tions,. 
 
 He states that every time American 
 trade has seemed to be getting on a 
 firm foundation in Chile, one of our 
 numerous differences has arisen to 
 act as a hindrance to its development. 
 On the other hand during fifty or sixty 
 years of trading with England and 
 Germany, there has never been a dis- 
 pute o.- misunderstanding. As a con- 
 sequence these countries have enjoyed 
 most of the trade, although American- 
 goods would be much in demand ii 
 properly introduced. 
 
 It seems to be a habit in South 
 America to criticise our state depart- 
 ment. In Chile it is contended that 
 we should not push so-called Amer- 
 ican methods so far as to insist on the 
 instantaneous settlement of all ques- 
 tions in dispute but should take ac- 
 count of the characteristics of the 
 Latin races, and while forcing settle- 
 ments in accordance with our national 
 interests, nevertheless do it a little 
 more tactfully and not try to force 
 matters quite so fast among this race 
 of people as we would among our 
 own. 
 
 Senor Edwards thinks that American 
 and Chilian business men should be- 
 come better acquainted and says that 
 an American bank should be estab- 
 lished in his country and high grade, 
 tactful representatives should be sent 
 there by American manufacturers. 
 
 He is a great admirer of former 
 Secretary of State Root, and in this 
 connection it is safe to say that ih 
 South America Mr. Root is more pop- 
 ular than any other citizen of the 
 United States. Many times we have 
 heard the hope expressed that Mr. 
 Root would some day be president of 
 our country. 
 
 Mr. Edwards is a strong, up-to-date 
 and learned man, and if at this time 
 or in the future, he should be elected 
 president of Chile, he will doubtless 
 acquit himself with ability and honor. 
 
 8) 
 
SANTIAGO AND THE ANDES MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Buenos Ayres, Argentine, September, 
 1910. — Leaving Valparaiso, a thorough- 
 ly comfortable and up-to-date railroad 
 traverses a country very much re- 
 sembling Southern California until it 
 arrives at Santiago, a hundred and 
 fifly miles away. 
 
 In the course of the journey the 
 railroad crosses the coast plain which 
 is filled with the eucalyptus trees, 
 little pink apricot trees, great masses 
 of mistletoe and other parasites, and 
 a large orange buttercup-like flower, 
 all of which are so familiar to the 
 traveler in California. 
 
 After crossing this plain the rail- 
 road climbs over the first chain of the 
 Andes Mountains and descends into 
 the great interior plain of Chile. The 
 scenery among these mountains is 
 very beautiful but this chain of the 
 Andes is not nearly so high as the 
 second chain which lies further to the 
 east and many little farms can be 
 seen scattered about the mountain 
 sides and in the valleys. Far to the 
 south with the City of Conception as 
 its distributing point is located the 
 great agricultural section of Chile. In 
 this section, which is being rapidly 
 developed at present, the lands are 
 both fertile and cheap and great op- 
 portunities for money making exist. 
 
 As the railroad leaves the first chain 
 of the Andes' and runs along through 
 the plain, nothing is seen on either 
 side of the track but a boundless ex- 
 panse of grazing land, spotted with 
 herds of cattle and sheep, until direct- 
 ly ahead appears the snow-capped 
 peaks of the main chain of the Andes 
 Mountains. 
 
 Santiago is located very close tu 
 these mountains and as we approached 
 them the scenery became as beautiful 
 as that in Switzerland. The sun was 
 just setting and it threw a glow upon 
 the enormous snow covered ranges 
 
 and peaks that rivalled the much 
 talked of glow on the Alps. 
 
 After traveling for days down the 
 barren west coast, the arrival in San- 
 tiago was certainly like getting back 
 to God's country, for here is a large 
 modern city with beautiful boulevards, 
 parks, and plazas with well construct- 
 ed buildings and most attractive 
 shops and resembling in architecture 
 and general appearance certain parts 
 of Paris. 
 
 We stopped at the Grand Hotel, 
 where the management and what is 
 still more important, the Chef, are 
 French and where every modern con- 
 venience is supplied except heat, which 
 is the one thing which cannot be ob- 
 tained for love or money in Chile. It 
 seems that the winter is so very short 
 that it doesn't pay to put in stoves or 
 heating plants, and so the people have 
 learned to drink their native "fire 
 water" and sleep in their overcoats 
 and shoes and wait for spring, and 
 we were compelled to do as the peo- 
 ple do. The two most prevalent dis- 
 eases in Chile are pneumonia and 
 smallpox, the first being caused large- 
 ly by lack of heating appliances and 
 the second by the fact that vaccina- 
 tion is not required. 
 
 The meals in Chile, as in all of these 
 Spanish countries', consist of coffee in 
 the morning, breakfast at noon, and 
 dinner at about 7 o'clock, and it is 
 interesting to note that all business of 
 every description closes up at 11 
 o'clock and does not open up again 
 until 1 o'clock in order to give every- 
 body an opportunity to go to break- 
 fast. All of the shop keepers put up 
 their heavy wooden shutters in front 
 of their doors and windows during 
 these breakfast hours, failing to realize 
 the advertising value of their shop 
 window displays during the hours 
 when the streets are most crowded. 
 
 -,i-2 
 
Driving down the beautiful Alameda, 
 which is the principle avenue of the 
 city, and which is several hundred 
 feet wide, finely parked, and lined 
 with beautiful buildings, one's breath 
 is almost taken away by suddenly 
 coming within sight of Santa Lucia 
 Park, the most beautiful down-town 
 play ground in the world. Upon all the 
 plain on which Santiago is situated, 
 there is but one elevation and that is 
 a great pile of rocks rising up five 
 hundred feet in the very heart of the 
 city. These rocks' were originally a 
 fortress and the city gradually grew 
 around them. Finally, at great ex- 
 pense these rocks were turned into a 
 park find they are now beautified by 
 
 they furnish an ever-changing display 
 of the latest Paris clothes and the 
 very finest horses and equipages. And 
 the horses of Santiago are truly re- 
 markable. There is hardly a mounted 
 policeman on the street whose horse 
 does not look worthy of a blue rib- 
 bon, and most of the carriages are 
 01 the most beautiful design except 
 that the public depot coaches look 
 like mourners' wagons. 
 
 The public buildings in Santiago, in- 
 cluding the Capitol building of Chile, 
 are very attractive in design and a 
 number of the newspapers are partic- 
 ularly noteworthy as they maintain 
 very fine buildings fitted up expressly 
 for the convenience of the public. 
 
 Before arriving in Chile, we had 
 
 AN AUGUST SCENE. 
 
 magnificent buildings and arches and 
 luxuriant tropical vegetation, and on 
 top is an attractive open air theater, 
 dance hall, restaurant, and observa- 
 tory. From this observatory can be 
 seen the numberless streets of Santi- 
 ago running far out into the plain 
 with here and there a great cathedral 
 or large public building and to the 
 east towering above Santa Lucia her- 
 self are the mighty peaks of the An- 
 des. 
 
 The main business streets of the city 
 run from the Alameda to the central 
 plaza and both in the day and at night 
 
 Chilians, but we had about made up 
 our minds that they were not so black 
 as they had been painted when we 
 heard much of the crookedness of the 
 had an experience which sent all of 
 cur good opinions scurrying to the 
 fcur winds. We were driving along 
 the Alameda when a man suddenly 
 threw a pocketbook through the win- 
 dow of our carriage and then jump- 
 ed on a street car which was follow- 
 ing a few yards behind us. We open- 
 ed the pocket book and found that it 
 was filled with money and after hav- 
 ing gone about a block and the street 
 
 33 
 
car having caught up to us the man 
 jumped off and claimed the pocket 
 book, saying that some one had stolen 
 it from him and had thrown it into 
 our carriage. We promptly surrend- 
 ered the pocket book and were glad 
 to get rid of it as we were expecLing 
 that some one would "catch us with 
 the goods" and have us put in jail for 
 thirty odd years. As soon as the man 
 got his hands on the pocket book 
 he ran so fast that we could not see 
 him for dust, and we later on learned 
 that he first picked the pocket of a 
 passer-by on the Alameda and rushed 
 
 Real August Snow Drifts. 
 
 across the street, throwing the pocket 
 book into our carriage so that it would 
 not be found on him in case he were 
 followed. He then hopped onto the 
 street car and when he was sure that, 
 no one was on his track he calmly 
 presented himself to us as the owner 
 who had been robbed. After this ex- 
 perience we proceeded to our hotel, 
 and there found a letter awaiting us 
 which was signed by a Spanish gen- 
 tleman who said that he understood 
 that we had bought the Longitudinal 
 Railroad and who stated that he would 
 call upon us at eight o'clock that 
 night. 
 
 We decided that this was another 
 pocket book game in enlarged form 
 and so bought a couple of butcher 
 knives and awaited the gentleman in 
 the parlors of the hotel. Promptly at 
 eight o'clock he arrived with an in- 
 
 terpreter and said that he had about 
 five hundred men working upon thu 
 right-of-way and wanted to know if 
 we wouldn't increase this to a thous- 
 and men. We wanted to know if he 
 couldn't get three thousand men, and 
 he thought he could and we told him 
 to go ahead. He said he couldn't stay 
 very long because he had to start thai 
 night for the works so we told him 
 gcod-bye in English and Spanish and 
 several other languages and he de- 
 ported looking as though he was pleas- 
 ed with the way we did business. At 
 this stage of the game we were some- 
 what puzzled, but the next morning 
 brought an explanation. One of the 
 large South American exporting firms, 
 who were friends of ours, had made 
 arrangements for our rooms by tele- 
 phone from Valparaiso before we ar- 
 rived in Santiago, and prior to oui 
 arrival these rooms had been occupied 
 by one of the officials of this corpora- 
 tion, and he was the gentleman who 
 lad actually bought the railroad. The 
 contractor knew what rooms he oc- 
 cupied, but did not understand his 
 name and consequently had come to 
 us with his troubles, it took a great 
 deal of telegraphing to prevent those 
 three thousand men from going to 
 work, but after that we were more 
 careful how we suspected the natives 
 without going into details at length. 
 
 The Chilians are certainly a very 
 progressive people and every one of 
 them is intensely proud of his coun- 
 try, and it is hard to find any place 
 in the world a more patriotic nation 
 As the Chilian race is made up of an 
 amalgamation of the unconquered 
 Araucanian Indians and various emi- 
 grants from Europe, a large number 
 of the family names resemble those 
 of European nations, and so we find 
 pmong their heroes and great men 
 the names of O'Higgins, Cochrane, 
 Frat, San Martin, Edwards, Tupper, 
 Day, Mackenna, and others. Of their 
 heroes, perhaps the most popular is 
 Arturo Prat and everything from bar 
 rcoms to parks are named after him. 
 When war broke out between Chile 
 and Peru the latter country was in 
 possession of the two formidable iron- 
 clads, Huascor and Independencia, and 
 these two ships met at Iquique the 
 two wooden gunboats, Esmeralda and 
 Covadonga, which belonged to Chile. 
 Prat was in command of the Esmer- 
 alda, which was sunk by the Huascor, 
 
tut before his ship went down he ram- 
 med the Huascor and with six men 
 climbed on board and demanded her 
 surrender. He was instantly killed by 
 the Peruvians, but in the meantime 
 the other Chilian ship had manoeuvred 
 in such a way as to force the Inde- 
 pendencia upon some submerged rocks 
 and her loss so weakened Peru that 
 the lost control of the sea and thence- 
 forth was practically at the mercy of 
 Chile. 
 
 It must be confessed that the Chil- 
 ians are not very friendly toward the 
 United States and their patriotism 
 sometimes gets the better of their dis • 
 cretion. In measuring the strength of 
 Chile with that of the United States, 
 one of them called our attendtion to 
 the Chilian navy and when we defer- 
 
 four girls who play various stringed 
 instruments and sing at the same 
 time. 
 
 Santiago is just getting ready for 
 the centennial celebration of the in- 
 dependence of Chile, and the build- 
 ings are being put into repair and 
 everything is being cleaned up and 
 freshly painted and in all directions 
 can be seen many thousands of in- 
 candescent lights that will illuminate 
 the city like broad day light. This 
 electrical display is going to be truly 
 remarkable. The buildings are all out- 
 lined with lights, the telegraph poles 
 are covered with them, and hundreds 
 of illuminated arches span the prin- 
 cipal streets. The Alameda and Santa 
 Lucia park are one solid blaze of 
 lights and it is safe to say that at no 
 
 CLIMBING THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 tntially said something about sixteen 
 battleships he said, "do you mean tnose 
 sixteen paraffine cans that sailed 
 around here?" 
 
 One night we went to see the fa- 
 mous Chileno "Cueca Dance." It is 
 danced by a young man and young 
 woman, each of whom waves a hand- 
 kerchief from their uplifted hands, 
 and the gestures and poses are not 
 unlike some of the dances of the 
 Japanese geisha girls, but the music 
 is much better than the Japanese va- 
 riety, it being furnished by three or 
 
 place in North America has there 
 ever been seen such a display of 
 electricity. 
 
 Chile is certainly a great little 
 country and all appearances point to 
 its becoming still greater. 
 
 Until this year Argentina could be 
 reached from Chile by way of the 
 Andes only during their summer 
 months, which correspond to our win- 
 ter months, and then it was necessary 
 to go over on muleback or in moun- 
 tain coaches. During the winter por- 
 tion of the year communication across 
 
the Andes was entirely cut off and in 
 traveling from one country to the 
 other it was necessary to go around 
 the horn. However, this year the 
 great Andes tunnel was opened up 
 and trains have been running through 
 with more or less regularity ever 
 since. Only a short time before we 
 crossed a train was caught in a 
 snowstorm high up in the mountains 
 and delayed for eight days, and so it 
 was with some little trepidation that 
 
 Eating Home Made Ice Cream. 
 
 we set out from Santiago on our way 
 to the Argentine. 
 
 We left the capitol of Chile at 
 about six o'clock at night and traveled 
 on a very finely appointed train until 
 about 10:30 o'clock, at which time we 
 arrived at Los Andes, a little town 
 situated in the foothills of the Andes. 
 Here the train stopped as they do not 
 run late at night, and we went to a 
 little railroad hotel built at the side 
 of the tracks, and which was very 
 comfortable except for the cold. This 
 experience reminded us somewhat of 
 Shan-Hai-Kuan in Manchuria, where 
 we stopped over night in a similar 
 hotel because our train did not run 
 after dark for fear the dragons might 
 get it. 
 
 At six o'clock in the morning we 
 were awakened, given a cup of coffee 
 and bundled on board the narrow 
 guage railroad train which climbs up 
 through the mountains. It was a 
 beautiful sunshiny morning and as 
 we crawled along through the valleys 
 
 we were interested in the little 
 huts in which the natives live. 
 These huts are made entirely of 
 reeds and are doubtless very com- 
 fortable during the greater part of 
 the year, but in the chilly morning 
 air . it was noticeable that there was 
 a fire burning on the ground in the 
 center of each hut and that the entire 
 family was sticking pretty close to 
 the smoke. 
 
 Constantly climbing higher with ev- 
 ery little while a rack and pinion sec- 
 tion, we soon rose above the line of 
 vegetation and plunged in amongst 
 the most stupendous scenery on the 
 continent. At one time it seemed as 
 though we were going to run straight 
 into the face of a tremendous cliff, 
 but on nearer approach it could be 
 seen that a very narrow crack sepe- 
 rated the mountain into two parts 
 and across this our train ran on a 
 little concrete span which bore our 
 weight over a thousand feet above 
 the bottom of the canyon. This pe- 
 culiar formation is what is known as 
 a cooling crack. At the time these 
 mountains were thrown up by vol- 
 canic action they began gradually to 
 cool and this cooling process led to 
 the contraction that produced this 
 crack in the side of the mountain which 
 finally came in so handy for the rail- 
 road builders. Winding around 
 great horseshoes and always climb- 
 ing higher we finally ran into the 
 snow fields where the snow was 
 banked up on both sides of the track 
 higher than our train, and after tra- 
 versing numerous tunnels we finally 
 stopped at a little lake almost 
 ■ eleven thousand feet above the sea, 
 surrounded by great glaciers and en- 
 ormous masses of snow and ice and 
 on all sides of us towered the peaks 
 of the higher Andes, a great many of 
 which reach the enormous height of 
 20,000 feet, and one of which — Mount 
 Aconcagua — over 23,000 feet high, is 
 the tallest peak on the western hem- 
 isphere. The grandeur of the scenery 
 here among the great peaks and 
 snowfields of the Andes can be equal- 
 ed only among the Himalayas of Asia. 
 
 Our train was now almost as high 
 as the top of Mount Blanc in Switz- 
 erland. A short distance from this lit- 
 tle lake we entered the great tunnel 
 which pierces the Andes range, and 
 in ten minutes we emerged on the other 
 
side of the mountain and in the Ar- 
 gentine Republic. 
 
 The descent from this point was 
 rugged and very beautiful, but ex- 
 ceedingly cold, as we had run into the 
 outskirts of a snow storm and when 
 
 we finally arrived about dark at the 
 city of Mendoza, where we were to 
 change cars, we were very glad to 
 get our feet pretty close to a welcome 
 fire and indulge in a few cups of hot 
 coffee. 
 
 ARGENTINE AND BUENOS AIRES. 
 
 Buenos Aires, Argentine, September, 
 1910 — 'The trip from Mendoza across the 
 six hundred miles of pampas to Buenos 
 Aires is made in a first class modern 
 train with sleeping cars, Which, how- 
 ever, are exceedingly dusty, and takes 
 about twenty-two hours' time. The view 
 for this whole twenty-two hours is ex- 
 actly the same, absolutely flat, rich, 
 black plains extending to the horizon 
 With never a sign of a rise or eleva- 
 tion and with few trees, but literally 
 covered for the whole six hundred 
 miles with herds of magnificent cattle 
 and droves' of fine looking sheep. Here, 
 indeed, is a country whose agricultural 
 wealth is beyond all of the wildest ex- 
 pectations of the traveler, and one does 
 not travel far across the Argentine 
 plain before the great republic of the 
 south has won his profound respect. 
 For hours our train traveled through 
 this wonderful agricultural country re- 
 sembling so much the western part of 
 the United States, and occasionally we 
 passed through little towns and vil- 
 lages where could be seen clusters of 
 picturesque cow-boys and ranchmen. 
 
 At one place on the trans-Siberian 
 railroad the train traverses an exact 
 mathematical straight line for eighty 
 miles and we thought that this was 
 very wonderful, but at one place be- 
 tween Mendoza and Buenos Aires this 
 Argentine railroad runs a hundred and 
 seventy miles without varying a frac- 
 tion of a degree from a straight line. 
 It can be truthfully said that at no 
 time during the entire trip across the 
 plains were we out of sight of cattle 
 or sheep, and the monotony was only 
 varied by the large quantities of wild 
 
 game. 
 
 In all directions could be seen wild 
 ducks and other birds more or less 
 familiar to us and beside these we saw 
 great numbers of a large bright pink 
 bird somewhat resembling a crane. 
 Then on all sides there were numer- 
 ous hares, many of which were as 
 large as small lambs, and it was in- 
 teresting to watch them run away 
 from the train. But perhaps the most 
 surprising sight of all was the wild 
 South American ostrich. These great 
 birds could be seen by the thousands 
 running in among the cattle and many 
 of them came up very close to the 
 railroad tracks as we passed by. 
 
 All in all this trip across the pam- 
 pas of Argentine impressed us with 
 the wonderful richness of the country 
 and the great opportunities existing 
 there. 
 
 We had no sooner arrived in Buenos 
 Aires than we were convinced that We 
 had come to out- of the world's great- 
 est cities. We drove to the Plaza Hotel 
 which is a great fire-proof skyscraper, 
 resembling in every way our great 
 New York hotels, managed by the Ritz- 
 Carlton company of London, and pos- 
 sessing such luxurious appointments 
 as to entitle it to be rated as one of 
 the world's finest hostelries. 
 
 In Buenos Aires we found all of the 
 life and beauty of Paris, the Avineda 
 de Mayo resembling the famous Paris- 
 ian boulevards except that it is finer 
 than they are, the Florida which is 
 the best shopping street, reminding 
 one somewhat of the crowd in the 
 Rue de la Paix, and the park known 
 as Palermo with its magnificent race 
 
 yr 
 
track and artistic little park restau- 
 rants bringing to one's mind the beau- 
 ties of the Paris Be is. And then there 
 are the many vistas and squares that 
 take one's memory back to Paris and 
 besides these, the architecture, the 
 little sidewalk cafes, the characteristic 
 boulevard news-stands, the little one- 
 horse cabs, the Latin characteristics 
 of the people, and above all, the 
 clothes remind one of La Belle France. 
 However, surrounded by all of these 
 reminders of Latin Europe, there is 
 noticed another element which is not 
 found on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 This is the spirit of Americanism and 
 is evidenced by the hustle and mitia- 
 
 In the central section of the city the 
 buildings are higher and the new capi- 
 tol building, somewhat resembling our 
 own and located in a newly created 
 plaza of great beauty, looms up prom- 
 inently in the near distance and not 
 far from it is seen the opera house, the 
 interior of which is unequalled in the 
 world. Down at the other end of the . 
 Avineda can be seen the large gov- 
 ernment offices and nearby is being 
 constructed a real American sky- 
 scraping office building. 
 
 To an American, it is surprising to 
 note that there are only about fifteen 
 large chimneys within the range of 
 
 ON THE ARGENTINE PAMPAS. 
 
 tive of the people. Here, old time^ 
 worn customs do not count for much 
 and the people are anxious to try any- 
 thing new providing it is better than 
 the old. 
 
 From the roof of a ten-story build- 
 ing, we looked out over this city of a 
 million and a quarter inhabitants, and 
 a solid mass of buildings extended out 
 in every direction as far as the eye 
 could reach. The great area covered 
 by the city is doubtless due to the fact 
 that the European style of architec- 
 ture predominates, and consequently 
 the buildings are not very high, but 
 extend over a large amount of land. 
 
 vision. This is due to the fact that 
 the Argentinas manufacture almost 
 nothing and immediately impresses a 
 practical business man with the great 
 trade opportunities where over a mil- 
 lion people are clustered together with 
 no factories to supply the necessities 
 and luxuries of life. Lining the River 
 Plate can be seen the docks and huge 
 grain elevators .and off to the West ex- 
 tend miles of beautiful residences and 
 parks while far off in the distance to 
 the east can be dimly seen the city of 
 La Plata which proved the ruin of 
 the Barings of London. "We afterward 
 visited La Plata and found it a rather 
 
 38 
 
slee v old town of about seventy-five 
 thousand people. 
 
 La Plata is the capitol of the pro- 
 vince of Buenos Aires and scattered all 
 through it are the magnificent build- 
 ings of the provincial government, and 
 there are many beautiful plazas and 
 boulevards. These buildings and 
 boulevards caused the famous Baring 
 failure. It seems that the Barings 
 were the bankers for the Argentine 
 Republic and at that time there was 
 great rivalry between the cities of La 
 Plata and Buenos Aires. Each city 
 felt that it was entitled to be the 
 capitol of the Argentine but La Plata 
 being located further down the river 
 toward the sea, the bankers felt that 
 it was in a position eventually to sur- 
 pass Buenos Aires. As Buenos Aires 
 was then the capitol of the Republic 
 and I a Plata had been made the cap- 
 itol nf the province, the Barings ad- 
 var "" the money to build the impos- 
 
 Plaza Hotel, Buenos Aires 
 
 ing buildings and lay out the beauti- 
 ful boulevards thinking that the mag- 
 nificence of La Plata would put it so 
 far ahead of Buenos Aires as to make 
 of it the greatest city in the Argentine 
 and eventually the capitol of the na- 
 tion. However, bad times came upon 
 the financial world, and the Barings 
 being unable to sell the La Plata se- 
 curities, failed with a crash that was 
 
 heard round the world. This was the 
 end of La Plata and the beautiful 
 buildings stand there today as monu- 
 ments to a scheme that didn't work. 
 
 The restaurants, cafes, theaters, 
 shops, department stores, etc., in 
 Buenos Aires are probably as modern 
 as can be found in the world, and the 
 people are remarkably well-dressed 
 and well-groomed. There are no bull 
 fights or similar public amusements, 
 but the national lottery is much in 
 evidence and in every money chang- 
 er's shop and cigarette stand the tick- 
 ets can be procured. 
 
 At the present time the traffic prob- 
 lem is uppermost in the minds of the 
 officials and arrangements have been 
 made looking toward the construction 
 of a subway system which will great- 
 ly relieve the crush in the down-town 
 streets. 
 
 One of the principle sights of Buenos 
 Aires' is the magnificent home of the 
 newspaper known as La Prensa. This 
 famous paper, recognized as one of 
 the greatest publications in the world, 
 maintains this large building prim- 
 arily for the benefit of the public. It 
 has beautiful reading rooms, writing 
 rooms, and rest rooms, and furnishes 
 medical treatment and legal advice 
 free of charge to all who apply. In 
 addition to these conveniences, the 
 building is furnished with magnificent 
 banquet rooms and beautiful private 
 apartments which the paper puts at 
 the disposal of visiting personages of 
 note. La Prensa is truly the owner of 
 the greatest newspaper building in the 
 world. 
 
 The great world's fair being held at 
 Buenos Aires would be a huge suc- 
 cess were it held under one roof so to 
 speak. As there was not an available 
 piece or' ground located within reach 
 of the center of the city that would 
 be large enough to accommodate the 
 exposition, the Argentinas selected five 
 different sites within the city and di- 
 vided the fair into five sections. This 
 was a mistake as it is not conven- 
 ient to get from one section to the 
 other and a separate admission is 
 charged to each section. The indi- 
 vidual exhibits are of the highest or- 
 der and the buildings are in keeping 
 with our ideas of world's fair struc- 
 tures, and had the whole exhibition 
 been put together it would have been 
 a great show. The United States was 
 
/airly well represented in the various 
 industrial sections and also had a good 
 collection of pictures in the art sec- 
 
 L 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 
 Home of famous Argentine news- 
 paper, "La Prensa." 
 
 ticn. 
 
 This art section was particularly 
 fine, representing as it did, paintings 
 
 fvom nearly all of the principal coun- 
 tries of the world. The success of 
 this section was due largely to tho 
 individual efforts of Paul B. Cham- 
 bers, the vice president of the exhibit, 
 who escorted us through the galleries 
 and paid us the compliment of having 
 the band play Yankee Doodle and The 
 Star Spangled Banner. 
 
 One day we attended the races and 
 they were very exciting and a huge 
 crowd was present. As soon as the 
 races were over, everybody from the 
 highest to the lowest climbed into a 
 carriage and joined the great parade 
 in Pale.rmo. Here for an hour the car- 
 riages drive slowly up and down, some- 
 times four abreast, each line driving 
 in the opposite direction to the next 
 line and furnishing a great display. 
 While there were many fine horses and 
 carriages in line, nevertheless it did 
 not seem to us that Buenos Ayres 
 quite lived up to its reputation in this 
 regard for the horses of Santiago 
 seemed to us to be somewhat super- 
 ior. 
 
 Before leaving the land of the Ar* 
 gentinas, we had the pleasure of at- 
 tending a reception given by the North 
 American colony to United States 
 Minister Sherrill, and here we met ths 
 leading Americans located in Buenos 
 Ayres. There are about two hundred 
 cf them and they are all high-class, 
 good-natured, prosperous looking peo- 
 ple, who treated us so cordially and 
 made us feel so much at home that it 
 almost made us feel homesick when 
 we sailed from Buenos Aires for 
 Uruguay. 
 
 AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES 
 IN THE ARGENTINE. 
 
 Buenos Aires, September, 1910. — In 
 Buenos Aires we have ha.d the oppor- 
 tunity of interviewing softie of the most 
 prominent Argentinas, together with 
 leading Americans and influential for- 
 eigners, and their opinions lead Us to 
 
 belieVe that the American manufac- 
 turer has a great field open to him in 
 this country which he is nevertheless^ 
 failing to take advantage of. 
 
 Here is a magnificent country of 
 ehortnous wealth and with a constant- 
 
 40 
 
ly increasing purchasing power. It is 
 true that no such population is found 
 here as in China and the oriental fields 
 for trade development, but on the oth- 
 er hand it would seem as though our 
 manufacturers would do well to exploit 
 this field first and take care of China 
 afterwards. The Argentine and South 
 America are nearer to our shores than 
 China, and what is most important, 
 these countries lie within our own 
 sphere of political influence while 
 China is under so many conflicting 
 political influences that we cannot ex- 
 pect our business interests to be as 
 well protected there as in South 
 America. Furthermore, the opening of 
 the Panama Canal will materially in- 
 crease American political influence in 
 this part of the world. Then there is 
 the most important fact of all to be 
 considered — the character of the peo- 
 ple. In China we have a people whose 
 ideas are entirely alien to our own, and 
 it is necessary to first educate them 
 and create a demand for our goods. 
 On the other hand, we find in South 
 America the civilization of Europe 
 combined with some American ideas, 
 and here there already exists a press- 
 ing demand for the necessities of life 
 and also for all of the luxuries. Add to 
 this demand the fact that the Argen- 
 tinas do not manufacture to any ex- 
 tent, and it is readily seen that some- 
 body must supply the goods and there 
 is no good reason in the world why 
 America should not be the nation to do 
 so. 
 
 Of course, some American manufac- 
 turers feel that they cannot compete 
 against -England and Germany in these 
 countries because of the high labor 
 cost in the United States but in the 
 great re-adjustment of prices and con- 
 ditions of labor and production which 
 must unquestionably take place in our 
 country sooner or later, this disad- 
 vantage under which the American 
 manufacturer claims to suffer at pres- 
 ent will most certainly be minimized 
 and in the meantime proper methods, 
 superior goods, and superior service 
 will unquestionably bring many orders 
 to America that now go to England 
 and, particularly, to Germany. 
 
 In this connection it is interesting 
 to note that America is already some- 
 what over-produced and that in the 
 future it will constantly become more 
 
 necessary for our manufacturers to 
 find a foreign outlet for their produc- 
 tion, and also from the standpoint of 
 our trade balance it will constantly 
 become more necessary for us to ex- 
 port manufactured goods to take the 
 place of our exports of foodstuffs which 
 from now on will doubtless constantly 
 decrease. 
 
 The present economic position of our 
 country is, indeed, an interesting top- 
 ic for discussion but in the short space 
 of a newspaper article it is of course 
 impossible to go into the details which 
 make up the present situation. Suf- 
 fice to say that in the past, the Ameri- 
 can manufacturer has not made a 
 great success of the export trade be- 
 cause of the fact that he has not had 
 to go out of his own country to find 
 a market, but in the future conditions 
 are going to be otherwise, and we be- 
 lieve that the American manufactur- 
 er, as soon as he learns the game, will 
 excel in it just as he has excelled in 
 every undertaking which he has seri- 
 ously attempted. 
 
 In Argentine, the most friendly feel- 
 ing now exists toward Americans, this 
 friendliness having increased particu- 
 larly during the past year or so due 
 to the popularity, tact and business 
 ability of United states Minister Sher- 
 rill. The strong points of Mr. Sher- 
 rill make up for a lot of the weak 
 points of our diplomatic and consular 
 service elsewhere, and the spirit of 
 closer friendship which he has en- 
 gendered has been followed by very 
 large trade increases, the reports for 
 each year since Mr. Sherrill has been 
 our representative in Argentina show- 
 ing heavy increases of American goods 
 purchased. 
 
 Now that our friendship with the 
 Argentine is on such a firm basis, it 
 would seem that the time is ripe for 
 us to remove some of the difficulties 
 in the way of our trade with this na- 
 tion, and let it be understood, by the 
 way, that every word in this article 
 referring to Argentine is equally ap- 
 plicable to a more or less extent to 
 each of the other principal nations on 
 the South American continent. 
 
 The first and foremost difficulty in 
 the way of our trade with Argentina 
 is the lack of transportation facilities 
 and the absence of a decent mail ser- 
 vice. There is only one line of ships 
 sailing from New York to this part of 
 the world, and that is maintained by 
 
 41 
 
£h English company, and the accom- 
 modations are poor, the sailings very 
 infrequent, and the time consumed en 
 route out of all proportion to the dis- 
 tance traversed. Furthermore, the mail 
 service is abominable. Thus, if an 
 American salesman receives an order 
 in Beunos Aires and advises his firm 
 by letter and they promptly pack and 
 ship the goods, it will be from ter to 
 twelve weeks after the order is placed 
 before the customer in the Argentine 
 receives the articles that he has pur- 
 chased. Because of these conditions, it 
 is necessary for American representa- 
 tives to use the cable service which is 
 \ery expensive and is an unsatisfac- 
 tory method of transacting business. 
 Most of our mail is sent to France or 
 England, and then forwarded to the 
 United States, and it is a matter of 
 considerable shame to our countrymen 
 that it is necessary to send the Amer- 
 ican mails into the Eastern Hemis- 
 phere in order to get them from one 
 point to another, toth of which are 
 ir. the Western Hemisphere. 
 
 We have been against the subsidi- 
 zation of our merchant marine, be- 
 lieving that other methods would be 
 more effective in putting our flag on 
 the high seas, but if a subsidy or any- 
 thing else will put a swift, frequent, 
 and regular shipping service between 
 New York and The Argentine, we, to- 
 gether with all Americans who are 
 familiar with conditions as they ex- 
 ist, would most certainly be for it. 
 
 The next most important factor in 
 the establishment of American trade 
 on a firm basis in South America is 
 the organization of an American bank. 
 This subject has been touched upon 
 in every country we have visited, and 
 in Buenos Aires particularly, the need 
 for such an institution is prominently 
 in the minds of the American colony. 
 
 At present the banking business is 
 handled entirely on European lines, 
 and it is difficult to purchase bills on 
 New York except through the foreign 
 banks at high rates, and in most 
 countries bills against New York are 
 not looked upon as good payment, 
 but must be sold at disadvantageous 
 rates and payments made by means 
 of bills on London. Furthermore, as is 
 to be expected, the influence of the 
 great banking institutions of South 
 America is exerted entirely on the 
 side of the European manufacturer. 
 
 and the American not only has no 
 bank to influence business or handle 
 his remittances, but he has no trust- 
 worthy channel through which he can 
 obtain credit information. Not only 
 is a bank necessary in South America 
 but it will pay, and in time, under a 
 tactful, energetic, and careful man- 
 agement, it will pay handsomely. 
 
 Another reason why American trade 
 is not larger in South America is the 
 ignorance of the manufacturer in re- 
 gard to this continent. A large num- 
 ber of our business men do not know 
 the difference between Buenos Aires 
 and Rio de Janiero, and could not tell 
 you v/ithout looking it up, which is 
 in the Argentine and which is in Bra- 
 zil. What we need is to have the boss 
 come down to South America himself 
 and look the field over carefully. He 
 will then realize that the purchasers 
 in these countries are just as par- 
 ticular about the goods they buy as 
 are the people in our own country, 
 and he will stop sending out the sec- 
 ond-class articles that he now fre- 
 quently ships down south for the use 
 of what he terms "the natives." 
 
 We visited a number of stores that 
 were advertising American goods for 
 sale and were astounded at the dis- 
 play of rubbish which had been sent 
 down from the States. There was a 
 store full of flimsy furniture that was 
 for sale at outrageous prices, and that 
 would not have been taken home by 
 American purchasers even if given 
 away as souvenirs. 
 
 This sort of trash comes to be look- 
 ed upon as "American goods," and 
 the man who sent it down here ought 
 to be expatriated. When the boss 
 himself visits this part of the world 
 f~e will learn that he must change his 
 methods of selling goods and become 
 more closely acquainted with the 
 country. 
 
 At the present time, the average 
 manufacturer picks out the salesman 
 who is not good enough to sell goods 
 at home and ships him down to The 
 Argentine with a box of samples', and 
 the salesman without any knowledge 
 of the Spanish language and without 
 any insight into the wants of the peo- 
 ple, breezes into an establishment, 
 spreads his samples all over the place, 
 and through a poor interpreter in the 
 hustling American way, tries to sell 
 a bill of gc ods on the spot. If the Ar- 
 
gentine merchant insists that he can- 
 not sell soap unless it is very highly 
 scented because his people like it that 
 way, the salesman generally tells him 
 that he does not know what he is 
 talking about, and proceeds to inform 
 him as to how many million bars of 
 that soap were sold in Missouri last 
 year. 
 
 Now, the American merchant will 
 have to change his tactics. Instead of 
 picking out the poorest salesman he 
 has, he must pick out the best man 
 he can obtain in America; a man of 
 the utmost tact, patience, and common 
 sense and a man who will study the 
 customs, manners, and peculiarities of 
 the people, and who will go to The 
 Argentine and temporarily become an 
 Argentina. 
 
 Some firms employ foreigners to 
 represent them outside of the United 
 States, but it seems to us that Amer- 
 ican goods should be represented by 
 Americans, and there is not a better 
 representative in the world than the 
 American providing that he is a high- 
 class American, and not an unsuccess- 
 ful salesman who cannot make a liv- 
 ing at home. It is absolutely essential 
 that every salesman coming to this 
 part of the world speak the Spanish 
 language, and if he cannot do this 1 , it 
 is a waste of money to send him five 
 miles out of New York harbor. After 
 the right salesman is selected and sent 
 to The Argentine, he should be given 
 sufficient money to advertise the goods 
 he is trying to push, for these people 
 are great advertisers,, and furthermore 
 the boss at home should not forget all 
 about him but should do all in his 
 power to help get the goods before the 
 Argentine public. 
 
 The world's fair at Buenos Aires 
 showed that the manufacturers at 
 home were not doing their part along 
 this 1 line, for while they finally man- 
 aged after a great deal of hammering 
 from this end of the line to send down 
 fairly creditable exhibits they failed to 
 have anybody here to properly look 
 after their goods, and as a result, the 
 finish was marred and scratched off a 
 number of the articles and they made 
 a poor display along side of the great 
 exhibits of England and Germany, all 
 of which were covered with bright new 
 paint and were most attractively dis- 
 played. 
 
 The manufacturer at home does lots 
 of funny things in connection with this 
 trade. One Argentina told us with a 
 laugh, of his experience with one of 
 our large firms. He had received some 
 goods which were not according to 
 sample and was compelled to write 
 several times before he finally got an 
 adjustment. In closing the matter, he 
 wrote to the American firm and told 
 them of the annoyance that he had 
 been caused, and further made note of 
 the fact that he had been compelled 
 to spend thirty cents in postage in 
 settling a little account of a few dol- 
 lars. 
 
 The American concern promptly sent 
 him thirty cents in United States post- 
 age stamps. Now, what the American 
 firm thought that the merchant could 
 do with United States postage stamps 
 in the Argentine has not yet been ex- 
 plained, but it is just these little tiling 
 that count down here. 
 
 Another complaint that is as old 
 as American trade itself, is in connec- 
 tion with the way in which we pack 
 our goods. We are accustomed to al- 
 low the office boy to do our packing 
 at home, but if the boss would come 
 down here and see his goods hauled 
 out of the hold of a ship by a derrick, 
 swung out over the side, and then 
 dropped in a lighter as it rose on the 
 crest of a great swell, he would feel 
 like going home and having his ship- 
 ping crates made of cast iron. A few 
 years ago American goods were not 
 ordered down here because when they 
 arrived they usually consisted of a 
 pile of splinters, but this is changing 
 for the better very rapidly now. How 
 ever, there is still room for larre im- 
 provement. 
 
 Our competition in South America 
 is largely from the British and the 
 Germans, the British selling the high- 
 er grade of goods, and the Germans 
 the lower grades. Both of these na- 
 tionalities have had large experience 
 n all parts of the world, and they know 
 how to go about this business in the 
 light way. They both use every en- 
 ergy and every argument to belittle 
 American trade, and although we laugh 
 a f the slow-going Englishman, never- 
 theless, he knows what he is doiny 
 just about all the time and he often 
 manages to beat us out of a contract 
 in such a quiet way that we do not 
 realize how it all happened. 
 
 The Germans are more unreliable 
 
 43 
 
than the English and in their tactics 
 sometimes resemble the Japanese. 
 However, they send out clever men 
 who speak good Spanish and who 
 know enough to entertain their pros- 
 pective customers and get to be good 
 personal friends with them before they 
 even broach matters of business. They 
 know that patience and care not to 
 offend are of the utmost importance 
 in South America. 
 
 The difficulties, real and fancied, in 
 the way of entering this market have 
 led most American firms to place their 
 goods in the hands of large commission 
 merchants located on the ground. This 
 method would doubtless prove fairly 
 satisfactory iTi view of present condi- 
 tions, were it not for the fact that it 
 is said many of these commission 
 houses do not honestly represent their 
 clients. It is pointed out that some 
 Icuses represent two hundred or more 
 American firms but do not actually 
 push more than ten or twelve lines. 
 They sign up with the rest in order 
 to keep them out of the field, and be- 
 cause only an occasional order is re- 
 ceived the American manufacturer gets 
 the idea that trade in his line does not 
 exist. As a matter of fact, most of 
 these commission houses are of British 
 or other foreign nationality, and while 
 sending most of the desirable business 
 to their own countrymen, they sell just 
 enough of our goods to keep us off of 
 the map and the head of the concern 
 at home never comes down here and 
 so never finds out. 
 
 One other factor must be taken into 
 consideration, and that is the standard 
 of business morals is not high. Many 
 contracts are based largely on graft, 
 and dishonesty among individuals is 
 rather common. This disadvantage, 
 however, can be largely overcome by 
 familiarity with the people and cus- 
 
 toms as in our own country where such 
 things are certainly not unknown, we 
 are able to keep them from entering 
 seriously into our business affairs by 
 knowing how to avoid them. 
 
 Believing that as the years go by our 
 country will be forced more and more 
 into the export trade, it would seem 
 that we as a nation should do all in 
 our power to build a solid foundation 
 for our future world-trade, and along 
 this line let us suggest the good that 
 would come from the establishment of 
 a national school "' diplomacy as has 
 been several times suggested by emi- 
 nent men, and the further extension of 
 the principles of civil service to our 
 consular organization. 
 
 Another matter that seems to us to 
 be of the utmost importance to Amer- 
 ica today, is the teaching of Spanish 
 in all of the public schools. Not only 
 will the future development of our for- 
 eign trade demand a knowledge of the 
 Spanish language, but this being tho 
 universal language of all our newly ac- 
 quired colonial possessions together 
 with such countries as Cuba and Pan- 
 ama which are so closely connected 
 with our political interests, it would 
 seem that a knowledge of Spanish 
 will certainly prove of great advan- 
 tage to the majority of the men of 
 the coming generation. 
 
 All indications point to the ultimate 
 development of the American export 
 trade, and with a considerable knowl- 
 edge of American goods and American 
 methods, and with also some famili- 
 arity with the capabilities of various 
 ether competitors amon ' the nations, 
 it seems certain to us that after a 
 reasonable term of years, the words 
 "Made in the United States" will be 
 more often seen than the like phrase 
 of any other nation. 
 
 PROM BUENOS AIRES TO RIO DE JANEIRO. 
 
 Rio de Janeiro, October ISlO.— At 
 Buenos Aires we boarded the north 
 bound steamer which had just arriv- 
 
 ed from its frigid trip around through 
 the straits of Magellen. The passen- 
 gers oh board reported the straits as 
 
resembling the usual descriptions of 
 the north or south Poles for as they 
 came through just at the end of the 
 winter season, the valleys and moun- 
 tains of Patagonia and Tierra del Fue- 
 go were covered with great masses of 
 ice and snow. 
 
 It is said that in the summer time 
 this part of the continent becomes 
 very comfortable to live in but never- 
 theless, the fact that it lies close to 
 the Antarctic circle and that this is 
 the stormiest land in the world, makes 
 one hesitate about recommending it 
 as a summer resort. 
 
 In Tierra del Fuego there live what 
 are' considered the lowest type of hu- 
 man beings in the world. They exist 
 in much the same manner as animals, 
 many of them wearing hardly any 
 clothes even in the midst of winter. As 
 the ship came out of the straits on 
 the Atlantic side, it was forced to slow 
 down because of the near approach of 
 a huge iceberg, the presence of which 
 made it necessary to use caution in 
 handling the ship. After a day's 
 steaming, the Falkland Islands were 
 reached where a short stop was made 
 for coal. These islands have the dis- 
 advantage of an exceedingly stormy 
 climate, but nevertheless they contain 
 a considerable amount of good sheep 
 grazing land which is now practically 
 all taken up by ranchers. 
 
 These islands belong to Great Brit- 
 ain, and this is consequently one of 
 the very few places in the southern 
 part of the Western Hemisphere where 
 the flag of a European nation flies. In 
 the past, these islands have been un- 
 der many different flags, and it is in- 
 teresting to note that at one time the 
 stars and stripes were hoisted here. 
 This was shortly t.fter the Revolu- 
 tionary war at which time everybody 
 had deserted the Falklands except a 
 few American whalers who raised the 
 American flag. However, the United 
 States did not consider these islands 
 of any value whatever, and did not 
 take any steps to occupy them per- 
 manently, and a number of years later 
 the English took possession of them. 
 
 From the Falklands to Buenos Aires, 
 where we joined the ship, the voyage 
 was a cold and stormy one with little 
 to excite the interest of the traveller 
 except the great white bird called the 
 albatross, a number of which followed 
 the ship for a long distance. 
 
 From Buenos Aires, we crossed the 
 
 La Plata river to Montevideo in Uru- 
 guay. At this point the river is one 
 hundred and twenty miles across and 
 is much the color of the Yellow Sea 
 due to the mud that is brought down 
 by the Uruguay and Parana rivers. 
 
 It will be recalled by the readers of 
 the Herald that the Uruguay river 
 runs north along the west boundary of 
 Uruguay while the Parana flows north 
 through the Argentine unt:i it is join- 
 ed by the Paraguay river which takes 
 its course through the heart of the 
 Republic of Paraguay. 
 
 A Difficult Journey. 
 
 Practically the only way to reach 
 Paraguay at the present time is by 
 the route which traverses these rivers, 
 and although it is a long and diffi- 
 cult journey, nevertheless it is said to 
 be one of great interest to the travel- 
 ler. Paraguay has been so isolated 
 that little has been known of the coun- 
 try or its products except for the Yerbe 
 Mate or Paraguayan tea and the won- 
 derful Paraguayan lace. 
 
 At one time Paraguay seemed to be 
 making considerable strides ahead but 
 at this time came forward Francisco 
 Lopez, a corrupt, and unscrupulous dic- 
 
 San Paulo Municipal Theater. 
 
 tator, who imagined himself a second 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, and who pro- 
 ceeded to get into a war with Brazil, 
 Uruguay, and the Argentine. For six 
 years he fought these nations and was 
 then finally captured and killed, but 
 crdy after his country had been ruin- 
 ed and most of her inhabitants de- 
 stroyed. When the war began, there 
 were over 1,300,000 people in Paraguay, 
 and when it was over there were only 
 220,000 left, and these were mostly 
 women, children and old men. 
 
 During the last few years, Paraguay 
 has begun to show signs of returning 
 political importance, and Asuncion, the 
 only city in the nation, is now taking 
 
 45 
 
on quite a modern appearance. The 
 development of railroads is opening up 
 various sections of the country, and it 
 is said that wonderful opportunities 
 exist for obtaining the very highest 
 class of producing land for practically 
 nothing. 
 
 The trip across the Le Plata river 
 took almost the entire night, and in 
 the morning we landed at Montevideo. 
 Here, we found a fine large city with 
 substantial buildings and the usual 
 attractive parks and plazas. 
 
 The city is spread out over a great 
 amount of land, and is bounded on 
 two sides by the sea, making it a very 
 healthful place, and one that is very 
 popular during the summer months 
 with both the Uruguayians and the 
 Argentinas. The noise and hurry of 
 Buenos Aires are missed in Montevi- 
 deo, but nevertheless it is an interest- 
 ing city to visit, and one is attracted 
 by the various nationalities met on the 
 streets, the cosmopolitan nature of the 
 .shops, and the charms of the bath- 
 ing beaches. 
 
 Uruguay, of which Montevideo is the 
 capital, is one of the most interesting 
 little countries in the world. Practic- 
 ally all of its land is taken up by 
 ranchers and fruit growers, and its 
 resources along these lines are enor- 
 mous. Its past history has been filled 
 with revolution and wars, but it al- 
 ways managed to recuperate rapidly 
 and is now covered with a network 
 of railroads, and seems to have en- 
 tered upon a period of peace and pros- 
 perity. 
 
 There are a number of large foreign 
 enterprises in this country, the best 
 known of which is the famous Liebig 
 Extract Co. But few people in Europe 
 and America, who enjoy the Liebig 
 Beef Extract, know that it comes from 
 Uruguay. The government of this 
 little country is now fairly stable but 
 it suffers, of course, from that com- 
 mon complaint in South America, 
 graft, which usually takes the form, 
 among others, of pensions or gifts to 
 the friends of the men in power. 
 
 Sailing north from Montevideo, we 
 encountered a good old-fashioned 
 South Atlantic "blow" which piled the 
 water up in big chunks and sent most 
 of the passengers scurrying to their 
 cabins where they remained for two 
 days. During this storm we were driv- 
 en somewhat out of our course, and 
 as a result were twenty-four hours 
 
 late in arriving at Santos, Brazil, 
 which was our destination. 
 
 Approaching the green shore of Bra- 
 zil, which was covered with palms and 
 tropical plants, we passed a beautiful 
 seaside resort with large hotels and 
 pavilions, and steamed about four 
 miles up a winding tropical river to 
 the city of Santos. After having 
 grown accustomed to continual shiv- 
 ers during our trip through the more 
 southern countries, we were, indeed, 
 glad to feel the hot sun of Brazil, and 
 to again be able to don silk clothes 
 and Panama hats. At this port, for 
 the first time since we left Panama, 
 we were able to land without the use 
 of small boats, for here have been 
 constructed first class modern docks. 
 
 Santos is the greatest coffee ship- 
 ping port in the world, and all that 
 one sees or smells there, is coffee. The 
 ships at the docks are loading it on 
 board, the warehouses all over the 
 city are filled with it, the colored la- 
 borers are carrying it, the ox-carts 
 are hauling it, the people are drinking 
 it in the cafes, and the little berries 
 are scattered here and there over the 
 streets and sidewalks. 
 
 Santos, once' known far and wide 
 as one of the most unhealthful places 
 in the world, is now clean and sani- 
 tary, but aside from its pretty loca- 
 tion on the river bank surrounded as 
 it is by hills and mountains, and its 
 importance as a coffee port, not for- 
 getting, however, its typical Portu- 
 guese architecture, Santos is not es- 
 pecially attractive to the traveler. 
 
 From here, we traveled by way of 
 the famous San Paulo railroad to the 
 inland city of San Paulo which is one 
 of the largest and most important 
 places in the republic of Brazil. This 
 San Paulo railroad, which winds its 
 way over a mountain chain, is one of 
 the finest railways in the world owing 
 to the fact that the company is only 
 permitted to pay a specified rate of 
 dividends, and as they have earned 
 huge profits they have put back into 
 the road bed all of the earnings over 
 the permitted dividends. 
 
 The road bed and rolling stock are 
 kept in magnificent condition, all of 
 the hills being drained by means of a 
 most elaborate system of concrete gut- 
 ters in order to keep the rain off of 
 the right-of-way, and many of the 
 mountain sides are paved with stone 
 
in order to do away with the danger 
 of possible land slides. "Wherever the 
 railroad runs over a mountain, an end- 
 less cable is so arranged in the center 
 of the track that a train going up on 
 one track and also a train coming 
 down on the other can both be at- 
 tached to the same cable. Then the 
 schedule is so arranged that whenever 
 a train goes up the mountain, one al- 
 so comes down, and they thus balance 
 each other on the mountain side and 
 make it much easier for both locomo- 
 tives. 
 
 The trip to San Paulo is very fine 
 from a scenic standpoint, and the 
 country and vegetation on all sides re- 
 srmble very much that of Cuba. 
 
 Arriving at San Paulo, we were sur- 
 
 ular rows of ornamental trees which 
 are trimmed in a uniform way, and 
 help enormously in giving the place ;i 
 dressed-up look. 
 
 The truly magnificent public build- 
 ings, palatial residences of the owners 
 of the coffee fazendas, and the crowd- 
 ed and modern business districts filled 
 with tram cars and taxicabs, make the 
 stranger open his eyes with astonish - 
 ment. 
 
 One of the odd things about Brazil 
 is the currency system. The standard 
 of value is the "reis" but it takes 
 3,200 of them to make one of our dol- 
 lars, and consequently this is one of 
 the greatest places in the world for a 
 poor man to acquire the feelings of a 
 millionaire. It is hard to remember 
 
 MONROE PALACE AND AVENUE OBELISK 
 (Where Pan-American Congress Was Held.) 
 
 prised to find such a fine modern city. 
 Every familiar sight of the large cities 
 of the world is here encountered, and 
 prosperity seems to abound on all 
 sides. A fact worthy the attention of 
 our North American cities is the in- 
 terest which these South American 
 people take in civic beauty. Practi- 
 cally every street in the city of San 
 Paulo is lined on both sides wilh reg- 
 
 that a reis is not a dollar, and there- 
 fore it is easy to understand the feel- 
 ing of exhilaration which we experi- 
 enced when we slipped 2,500 reis to 
 the porter who looked after our bag- 
 gage, paid 15,000 to the boy who 
 ran our taxicab, and presently signed 
 a dinner check for 17,000 more. 
 
 The people of San Paulo, or Pauli - 
 tas as they are called, are evidently 
 
 47 
 
very resourceful. As an illustration o' 
 this characteristic, we were told about 
 a company that was formed to start 
 a "bacon factory," as they expressed 
 it. After they had constructed a large 
 plant, they commenced buying hogs, 
 but after a few months they had killed 
 all of the hogs for miles around, and 
 were forced to close down because of 
 lack of raw material. For a very short 
 time, it looked dark for the stock- 
 holders, but the board of directors 
 promptly turned the bacon factory in- 
 to a brewery and to use th.. words of 
 our informant, it is now a "howling 
 success." 
 
 Among the odd sights of San Paulo 
 are the little one-horse, two-wheeled 
 public vehicles called "tilburys" and 
 the great number of umbrellas seen. 
 Notwithstanding the fact that the sun 
 may be shining brightly, everybody has 
 an umbrella tucked under his arm. We 
 learned to respect this custom, how- 
 ever, for as we were walking along 
 the street about three blocks from our 
 hotel, the bottom suddenly fell out of 
 the sky and the proverbial drowned 
 rat must have looked dry by the side 
 of us. 
 
 The people of Brazil differ from the 
 people of the other South American 
 countries in that they speak Portu- 
 guese instead of Spanish, and are, if 
 such a thing is possible, more immoral 
 than the people of the Spanish speak- 
 ing countries. The officials of the 
 Catholic church are fully aware of the 
 state of affairs in South America, and 
 have on several occasions publicly de- 
 plored the conditions' existing there. 
 However, the customs and usages of 
 centuries are so firmly rooted here that 
 it will doubtless take a long time to 
 properly reform the church in South 
 America. Various Protestant denomi- 
 nations have entered the field, and are 
 doing a great work in connection with 
 the schools and universities which 
 they are founding in the various re- 
 publics, but as yet they have no ex- 
 tended religious influence with the great 
 masses of the people. It would seem 
 as though the condition of the Christ- 
 ian religion of this continent should 
 have the earnest and energetic atten- 
 tion of both churches. 
 
 At San Paulo, we boarded what is 
 known as the "train de luxe" which is 
 run daily over the government railroad 
 leaving the San Paulo station at 8 
 
 o'clock at night and arriving in Rio de 
 Janeiro at 8 o'clock the next morning. 
 We have had the pleasures or misfor- 
 tunes of riding on various "trains de 
 luxe" in various parts of the world, 
 but here, indeed, was a new one on 
 us. The cars are constructed without 
 vestibules and without springs but the 
 inside arrangement is very comfort- 
 able. Both sides of the car are divided 
 into sections' by means of fixed wood- 
 en partitions, and in each section is 
 constructed a little bed. In front of 
 each section, curtains are arranged 
 which can be drawn and fastened to- 
 gether, and on the side of the parti- 
 tion is a large mirror. When the pas- 
 senger draws the curtains, he finds 
 himself occupying a little square room 
 which has as its furniture a bed, a 
 mirror, and the traveler's suit case. 
 There are no upper berths and the 
 sheets and blankets are laid on the 
 end of the bed and the passenger is 
 given a little exercise before going to 
 sleep by the necessity of making up 
 his own bed. In the day time the beds 
 are still beds and an extra chair car 
 is carried on the end of the train in 
 order to supply the passengers with 
 some place to sit down. We presumed 
 that if the chair car happened to be 
 lost off from the train in the night, it 
 would be necessary for the passengers 
 to "stay in bed all day or else stand 
 up. 
 
 After traveling through part of the 
 province of San Paulo, with its thou- 
 sands of coffee plantations that sup- 
 ply the larger part of all of the coffee 
 that is consumed in the world, and 
 that have made this part of the nation 
 rich and prosperous, our train entered 
 the Province of Rio de Janeiro, and 
 winding its way through the coast 
 range of mountains, finally reached the 
 extended suburbs of the City of Rio de 
 Janeiro, and shortly afterward steam- 
 ed into the station located in the cen- 
 ter of the capitol of Brazil. 
 
 Rio de Janiero. surrounded on all 
 sides by beautiful scenery, its many 
 hills decked with clusters of palms, and 
 possessing what is probably the finest 
 and most picturesque harbor in the 
 world, is a place not soon to be forgot- 
 ten by the visitor. And this city of a 
 million people covering a great amount 
 of territory and extending for a long 
 ways up the valleys between the sur- 
 rounding mountains, was only a short 
 
 48 
 
time ago dirty, unhealthy, and unat- 
 tractive. However, in the course of 
 one or two years' time these conditions 
 were reversed, and Rio de Janeiro is 
 now one of the world's cleanest, 
 healthiest, and most beautiful cities. 
 
 A new street or avenue was pro- 
 jected straight across the city, the 
 land was purchased, the old buildings 
 demolished, and the most beautiful 
 street in the world, the Avenida Cen- 
 tral, was constructed. This wonderful 
 thoroughfare is already lined on both 
 sides with huge buildings of beautiful 
 architecture, and at one end connects 
 with the Avenida Botafogo, which sur- 
 passes anything we have seen in the 
 world. For over four miles this boule- 
 vard skirts the harbor, a sea wall be- 
 
 tractions. From the other end of the 
 Avenida Central, connection is made 
 with another drive on the other side 
 of the city. This is what is known as 
 the Mangul Canal. On each side of this 
 canal there has been constructed a 
 road, and on both sides of each of 
 these roads have been placed rows of 
 giant palm trees, and the effect pro- 
 duced is, indeed, attractive to northern 
 eyes. Many other streets and avenues 
 have been broadened and beautified 
 by the administration, and in the cen- 
 ter of the city is located a perfectly 
 kept up tropical park where peacocks, 
 and many peculiar little animals run 
 back and forth across the drive. 
 
 On some of the newly constructed 
 streets, there have been built theaters. 
 
 BOTAFOGA AVENUE AND CORCOVADO. 
 
 ing constructed on the outer side, and 
 the inner side being lined for almost 
 the entire distance with beautiful trop- 
 ical parking. The boulevard is 1 divided 
 into several sections for the accommo- 
 dation of ordinary vehicles, automo- 
 biles, saddle horses, etc., and the drive 
 out and back is one never forgotten, 
 involving as it does a continuous 
 panorama of extraordinary scenic at- 
 
 government buildings, newspaper of- 
 fices, and public institutions that for 
 architectural beauty cannot be excell- 
 ed in the western hemisphere, but on 
 the other hand the authorities did not 
 wish to obliterate entirely the old city 
 of Rio and so left the busiest business 
 district untouched and here among the 
 tangle of little narrow streets stand 
 the banks and great commercial hous- 
 
es, and through the center of this dis- 
 trict runs' the famous Rua Ouvidor, 
 the best shopping street in the city, 
 where every conceivable article can be 
 purchased, and where all the types of 
 Brazilian life are accustomed to meet 
 and promenade. 
 
 There are a great many beautiful 
 little squares and plazas in Rio as in 
 all of these southern cities, and by the 
 side of one cf these is located the 
 landing place where the passengers 
 from incoming ships are landed in 
 small boats, for the new harbor works 
 are not yet completed and large ships 
 are still compelled to anchor in the 
 harbor. 
 
 We were considerably interested in 
 the Brazilian warships which were 
 
 more important republics. 
 
 The discussion of international pol- 
 itics in this part of the world is most 
 interesting, and involves not only lo- 
 cal conditions and ambitions, but also 
 extends to a lively consideration of tho 
 aspirations of other foreign powers. 
 Of these supposed aspirations, per- 
 haps the one most often referred to 
 is the reputed desire of Germany for 
 a controlling voice in the affairs of 
 Brazil, and in many South American 
 countries we have been told that the 
 United States would some day be com- 
 pelled to fight Germany or give up the 
 Monroe Doctrine. It is pointed out that 
 Germany has recently frightened all 
 Europe by her war-like preparations, 
 and particularly, by the extraordinary 
 
 MANGUE AVENUE. 
 
 moored just opposite the city, and 
 which were very modern in appear- 
 ance, the "Minas Geraes" being one of 
 the largest battelships in the world. 
 Several more huge warships are be- 
 ing constructed for Brazil and will 
 soon be delivered, and there is much 
 speculation in South America as to 
 the necessity for the war-like prepar- 
 ations on the part of several of the 
 
 enlargement of her navy. 
 
 All of the European nations have 
 been asking the question as to what 
 plans Germany had in mind that mads 
 it necessary to build up such an arma- 
 ment. Then, the thickly populated 
 condition of Germany is referred to, 
 and it is pointed out that the German 
 Empire is in need of some other plar-c 
 besides German Southwest Africa, to 
 
 50 
 
send its future surplus population. At 
 this stage of the argument, a map of 
 the world is produced, and it is shown 
 that German colonization on a large 
 scale cannot be carried out advan- 
 tageously in any part of the world un- 
 der existing political conditions unless 
 it be in Brazil. Great numbers of 
 Germans are already in Brazil, several 
 of the richest provinces being virtually 
 controlled by them, and it is contend- 
 ed that the only thing that stands in 
 the way of a great enlargement of 
 German influence is the Monroe Doc- 
 trine, and it is, of course, claimed that 
 the Armanent of Germany is being ac- 
 quired for the purpose of knocking the 
 Monroe Doctrine into a cocked hat. 
 Of course, we have heard this story 
 in the United States, and have failed 
 to become very much frightened, but 
 down here it seems to have made quite 
 an impression on a number of people. 
 The peculiar thing about it is the fact 
 that every time we have heard the 
 story we have been able to trace it to 
 an English source, and we are re- 
 minded of the tactics of the British 
 when they were afraid of the Russians. 
 At that time they used all of their in- 
 genuity to help along the misunder- 
 standing between Russia and Japan, 
 and their plans certainly met with 
 success. Perhaps, now that they fear 
 the growing power of Germany they 
 are inclined to push forward this 
 Brazilian story for a serious misun- 
 derstanding between Germany and the 
 United States would be a great thing 
 for England. 
 
 This continent seems to be an un- 
 healthy place for presidents, for Bra- 
 zil, like a number of the countries 
 through which we have passed, is at 
 present without a regularly elected 
 president, the late chief executive hav- 
 ing died some months ago and the new 
 president not having yet been inau- 
 gurated. 
 
 The resources of Brazil are distri- 
 buted through the republic in zones. 
 At the north is the rubber country 
 with Para as its chief export city. A 
 little further south is the sugar dis- 
 trict with Peruambuco as the principal 
 port. Next comes the cotton belt 
 which has contributed most to the 
 building up of Bahia. The entire cen- 
 tral zone is devoted to coffee and has 
 as its most important places, Rio de 
 Janeiro, San Paulo, and Santos. The 
 
 great southern section Is given up to 
 cattle raising and general agriculture, 
 and Porto Alegre in the province of 
 Rio Grande do Sul, is the most im- 
 portant export point. These zones and 
 their cities are dependent for then- 
 prosperity entirely on their respective 
 crops, and a crop failure means wide- 
 spread suffering throughout the zone 
 where it occurs. 
 
 The dependence upon a single crop 
 is so great that the coffee zone was 
 threatened with bankruptcy a few 
 years ago, when the annual crop was 
 twice as large as usual. This great 
 production of coffee threatened to 
 flood the markets and break the price 
 of coffee so severely as to produce 
 disaster to all of the growers. 
 
 The state of San Paulo floated a 
 bond issue, a part of which was taken 
 in the United States, and with the 
 proceeds bought up half of the crop 
 and stored it. A small amount is sold 
 each year and some of the bonds are 
 paid off, and in this way the abnormal 
 crop was handled so as to prevent a 
 break in the price of coffee. 
 
 In addition to these main products 
 of the soil, there are the famous Bra- 
 zilian diamond mines, and all through 
 the interior there exists untold wealth 
 in the shape of mineral deposits of all 
 kinds, a very small proportion of which 
 has yet been prospected. Iron ore 
 abounds in tremendous masses in 
 many places, but it is not being work- 
 ed as yet nor are manufacturing indus- 
 tries being developed with the excep- 
 tion of a few undertakings. 
 
 Brazil is certainly a wonderful coun- 
 try of such large proportions as to be 
 unwieldly at the present time from a 
 governmental standpoint, but possess- 
 ing great trade opportunities and ex- 
 tending much friendship to Americans 
 and it is now perfectly safe for trav- 
 elers to visit all parts of the 
 country with the exception of the city 
 of Para and the Amazon Valley, where 
 yellow fever and other diseases have 
 not yet been entirely stamped out. It 
 seems certain that Americans as soon 
 as they come to know the true condi- 
 tions in Brazil will visit in increasing 
 numbers this, the largest of the South 
 American republics. 
 
 After having been in South Amer- 
 ica for so many weeks and having 
 come to know the people somewhat, it 
 is almost with a feeling of regret that 
 
 51 
 
we are boarding- the steamer at Rio could for our comfort and enjoyment, 
 bound for the Cape Verde Islands off and treated us much like long lost 
 the west coast of Africa and from brothers. We are leaving South Araer- 
 there for Lisbon, Portugal. ica with memories of many pleasant 
 The hospitality and kindness of the hours', with great respect for the won- 
 people of all of the South American derful accomplishments of these re- 
 cities we have visited has been very publics to the south, and with a full 
 noticeable, and at every place we realization of the unbounded oppor- 
 have stopped they have entertained us tunities that exist in this least known 
 at the clubs, done everything they of the continents. 
 
 H 
 
15 1910 
 
e copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 3A85. . 6 Wtl 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 015 811 380 6