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CROWELL'S TRAVEL BOOKS 
 
 RAMBLES IN SPAIN. By John D. Fitz- 
 Gerald. Map and 135 illustrations. 8vo, $3.00 
 net. (Postage, 30 cents.) 
 
 SWITZERLAND. Its Scenery, History, and 
 Literary Associations. By Oscar Kuhns. 
 Map and 32 illustrations. 8vo, $2.00 net. (Post- 
 age, 20 cents.) 
 
 A MEXICAN JOURNEY. By E. H. Blich- 
 FELDT. Map and 32 illustrations. 8vo, $2.00 
 net. (Postage, 20 cents.) 
 
 THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA. By H. W. 
 Van Dyke. Introduction by Hon. John Bar- 
 rett. Map and 32 illustrations. 8vo, $2.00 net. 
 (Postage, 20 cents. ) 
 
 CHOSEN DAYS IN SCOTLAND. By 
 
 Josephine Helena Short. Map and 32 
 illustrations. 8vo, $2. 00 net. (Postage 20 cents. ) 
 
 EROM GRETNA GREEN TO LAND'S END. 
 
 By Katharine Lee Bates. 32 illustrations. 
 8vo, $2.00 net. (Postage, 20 cents.) 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. Scenes and People in her 
 Novels. By Charles S. Olcott. 24 illustra- 
 tions. 8vo, $2.00 net. (Postage, 20 cents.) 
 
 OBERAMMERGAU. By Josephine Helena 
 Short. 32 illustrations. 12mo, $1.00 net. 
 (Postage, 10 cents.) 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
 
See page 125. 
 'THE SOLDIER'S LEAP" — GORGE IN THE ANDES, ACROSS WHICH ONE 
 OF OHIGGINSS CAVALRY LEAPED HIS HORSE TO ESCAPE 
 THE ROYALISTS. 
 
THROUGH 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 BY 
 HARRY WESTON YAN DYKE 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 JOHN BARRETT 
 
 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE FAN AMERICAN UNION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
l-zzot 
 ■Vzf 
 
 Copyright, 1912. 
 BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY. 
 
 Published October, 1919. 
 
 \7 
 
 $> 
 
 -tf1 
 
 ©CI.A32825S 
 
TO 
 MY FRIEND 
 
 JOHN BARRETT 
 
 IN TOKEN OF MY ESTEEM AND MY APPRECIATION OF 
 HIS MANY KINDNESSES 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 By Hon. John Barrett, Director-General op 
 the Pan American Union and formerly 
 United States Minister to Argentina, Pana- 
 ma, and Colombia 
 
 1HAVE real pleasure in complying with 
 the suggestion that I should write an in- 
 troduction to this interesting and instruc- 
 tive work by Mr. Harry Weston Van Dyke. 
 As it was through me that he was led to make 
 his studies and investigations which resulted 
 in the preparing of this book, I naturally find 
 much gratification in the success with which 
 he has handled the responsibility. No one can 
 read his travel story of South America with- 
 out being impressed with the importance of 
 these countries, the enjoyment and value of 
 visiting them, and the advantage of the devel- 
 opment of closer relations between all of them 
 and the United States. 
 
 As the executive officer of the Pan Amer- 
 ican Union, an international organization 
 
 vii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 maintained in Washington by all the Ameri- 
 can republics, twenty-one in number, includ- 
 ing the United States, for the advancement of 
 commerce, friendship, and peace among them 
 all, it is my lot to realize, possibly better than 
 any one else, the remarkable growth of inter- 
 est which is being manifested now, not only 
 throughout the United States but in all parts 
 of the world, in the countries of the southern 
 portions of the American continent commonly 
 classed as Latin America. 
 
 When the Pan American Union was re- 
 organized about five years ago, and it be- 
 gan an active propaganda for making the 
 twenty Latin American republics better 
 known in the United States, and correspond- 
 ingly, the United States • better known 
 among them, there was little cause for en- 
 couragement. The average newspaper editor, 
 the man in public life, the manufacturer, 
 the exporter, the importer, the traveler, and 
 the student seemed to be largely absorbed 
 in studying and watching the development of 
 our commercial relations with Europe and 
 the Orient, and not with Latin America. The 
 persistent and continued effort, however, of 
 the Pan American Union in educating the 
 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 world to the importance of the Latin Amer- 
 ican countries and to an appreciation of the 
 commercial opportunities and moral respon- 
 sibilities of the United States in its relations 
 with them, has now resulted in a complete 
 change of conditions which is indeed gratify- 
 ing. To-day the manufacturers and mer- 
 chants in all parts of the world, the editors of 
 American and European and even Asiatic 
 newspapers, special writers on foreign sub- 
 jects, lecturers, members of Congress, pro- 
 fessors and students in universities and col- 
 leges, librarians, professional and amateur 
 travelers are corresponding with the Pan 
 American Union or visiting its headquarters 
 in order to gain accurate information about 
 the Latin American republics. 
 
 As an illustration of this growth of in- 
 terest a few comparisons can be made. Five 
 years ago the total number of printed re- 
 ports, pamphlets, and other publications 
 distributed by the Pan American Union was 
 approximately one hundred thousand. This 
 year, the total will approximate nearly one 
 million. None of these have been sent 
 broadcast in a careless way. Five years 
 ago there was little or no demand for 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the "Monthly Bulletin" of the Pan Amer- 
 ican Union; now the demand for it is greater 
 than can be supplied. Then it was an unin- 
 teresting public document; to-day it is an 
 attractive and instructive illustrated maga- 
 zine, descriptive of the progress and develop- 
 ment of the American nations. Five years 
 ago the Pan American Union was housed in 
 a small building, used formerly as a private 
 dwelling, on the corner of Lafayette Square 
 and Pennsylvania Avenue; to-day it occupies 
 a building which a great French architect has 
 described as combining beauty and utility 
 better than any other public building of its 
 cost in the world. 
 
 The library of the Pan American Union, 
 which is a practical collection of books useful 
 to all persons who wish to study those coun- 
 tries, has been increased from twelve thousand 
 to twenty-three thousand volumes, while its 
 collection of photographs has grown from 
 one thousand to eleven thousand. 
 
 During this same period the foreign com- 
 merce of Latin America has grown from 
 one billion seven hundred million dollars 
 ($1,700,000,000) to two billion three hundred 
 million dollars ($2,300,000,000). Of this, the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 share of the United States has increased from 
 less than five hundred million dollars ($500- 
 000,000) to nearly seven hundred million dol- 
 lars ($700,000,000). 
 
 The total annual contributions of all the 
 American republics, including the United 
 States, for the maintenance of the Pan Amer- 
 ican Union in 1906 was $54,000; now the to- 
 tal of their quotas for support approximates 
 $125,000. 
 
 All these facts I mention, not to call atten- 
 tion to the Pan American Union especially, 
 but to emphasize with actual truth the evi- 
 dences of the growth of interest throughout 
 the world in the countries which are described 
 in part by Mr. Van Dyke in this practical 
 volume. If its reading stimulates further in- 
 terest in them, the Pan American Union will 
 be only too glad to furnish any information 
 in its power. 
 
 While this book will perhaps be most ap- 
 preciated by persons who are contemplating 
 a visit to Latin America, it should be read by 
 all those who wish to know more of what the 
 American nations aside from the United 
 States are doing. What is their interesting 
 history, what are their resources, what are 
 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the characteristics of their peoples, what is 
 the progress being made by them in national 
 and municipal government, in education, and 
 in solving social and economic problems? 
 Most of the people of the United States and 
 even of Europe have been so absorbed in their 
 own histories, development, and general prog- 
 ress that they have given little attention to 
 the twenty republics of southern America. 
 After reading Mr. Van Dyke's story they 
 cannot fail to appreciate that there are other 
 important nations and peoples in the world 
 than those of northern America, Europe, 
 and Asia. 
 
 Possibly a few general facts may be men- 
 tioned here which will enable the reader bet- 
 ter to appreciate what follows in the chapters 
 of this book. It must be remembered that the 
 twenty republics lying south of the United 
 States in the Western Hemisphere occupy an 
 area of nine million square miles. This is 
 three times greater than the connected area 
 of the United States. Their total population 
 now exceeds seventy millions. This is seven- 
 ninths of the total population of the United 
 States. Their foreign trade — and commerce 
 is often called the life blood of nations — now 
 
 xii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 exceeds two billion three hundred million dol- 
 lars ($2,300,000,000) a year, which in turn 
 represents an increase of nearly one billion 
 dollars ($1,000,000,000) during the last ten 
 years. Nearly all of these countries secured 
 their independence under the leadership of 
 generals and patriots who were inspired by 
 the example of George Washington. Nearly 
 all of them have written their constitutions 
 with the constitution of the United States as 
 their example. All of them to-day are watch- 
 ing the United States in its efforts to solve its 
 endless variety of social and economic prob- 
 lems, and they will profit by the example 
 which the United States sets them. 
 
 They are not to be classed as lands of revo- 
 lution, because two-thirds of all Latin Amer- 
 ica has known practically no revolution dur- 
 ing the last fifteen or twenty years. The 
 revolutions which occurred should possibly be 
 called evolutions, and are efforts of their peo- 
 ples, even though sometimes crude, to im- 
 prove their permanent conditions of prosper- 
 ity and progress. They are not by any 
 means solely "tropical lands," as is often sup- 
 posed or as may be judged from a glance at 
 the map. The great southern section of 
 
 xiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 South America, including southern Brazil, 
 Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and a large sec- 
 tion of Bolivia, are in the South Temperate 
 Zone, where they have climatic conditions cor- 
 responding to those of the United States. 
 The countries, moreover, which are actually 
 under or near the equator have a mingling of 
 high lands with low lands which means much 
 for their future development. There are high 
 plateaux ranging from three thousand to 
 twelve thousand feet above the sea, covering 
 oftentimes individual areas as large as that of 
 Connecticut or Massachusetts, where the cli- 
 mate the year round is like that of New Eng- 
 land in June or September and where the 
 white man can live in corresponding climatic 
 comfort. 
 
 Although, because of the slight seasonal 
 changes, the average temperature of the low- 
 lying lands of the tropical sections is some- 
 what trying to the resident of northern bring- 
 ing up, yet under the influence of modern 
 methods of sanitation and practical meth- 
 ods of living, they are being transformed 
 into healthful sections of growing population, 
 commerce, and influence. The example which 
 the United States has set at Panama, and 
 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the demonstration which this government is 
 giving there of the possibility of white men 
 thriving in the tropics, is having its influence 
 throughout the tropical belt of our sister re- 
 publics and great changes are resulting. 
 
 The approaching completion and opening 
 of the Panama Canal gives a special interest 
 to this work of Mr. Van Dyke's. Only the 
 person who has thoroughly studied what the 
 Panama Canal means, its effect not only upon 
 the commerce of the world but upon the com- 
 merce and influence of the United States, and 
 what it will do for the Latin American 
 countries, as well as for the United States, can 
 appreciate fully how important to the future 
 of the relations of North and South America 
 is the completion of this mighty waterway. 
 Its opening should be followed not only by 
 a great development of the export trade of 
 the United States to those countries but of 
 their export trade to this country. It should 
 cause a remarkable increase in the travel be- 
 tween North and South America. There is 
 no better influence for commerce and friend- 
 ship than that of mutual acquaintance of peo- 
 ples of different countries. When the Canal 
 's completed there should be a great increase 
 
 XV 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 in the number of North Americans going to 
 South America and of South Americans com- 
 ing to the North. 
 
 When the shipping of the world goes 
 through the Canal, it will have direct access 
 to a remarkable coast line which heretofore 
 has been so isolated that it could only be 
 reached from the eastern part of the United 
 States and the western part of Europe by 
 the long journey around South America. The 
 coast line which is made immediately acces- 
 sible by the Canal reaches for eight thousand 
 miles from the California-Mexican line south 
 to Cape Horn, three thousand miles from 
 Panama northwest to San Diego in Califor- 
 nia and five thousand miles south from Pan- 
 ama to Punta Arenas. This coast, without 
 the Canal and in its isolated position, con- 
 ducts now an average foreign commerce val- 
 ued at four hundred million dollars ($400,- 
 000,000). With the opening of the Canal 
 this should be doubled or trebled in the next 
 ten years. It is a safe prediction that the 
 Panama Canal will have the same influence 
 upon the western shore, comprising the fol- 
 lowing countries: Mexico, Salvador, Nica- 
 ragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecua- 
 
 xvi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 dor, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, which the con- 
 struction of the transcontinental railways had 
 upon the Pacific coast of the United States. 
 The fact that their population and their com- 
 mercial and industrial development to-day is 
 somewhat limited is no argument against 
 their possibilities in the future. There was a 
 time when the best experts and judges in 
 the public and official life of the United States 
 declared that the Pacific coast of the United 
 States was not only of little value but never 
 would be of great consequence. There were, 
 however, some wise men like Seward who 
 recognized the mighty potentialities of our 
 Pacific coasts and of the Pacific seas. There 
 is every reason to believe that western or 
 Pacific Latin America, in view of its varie- 
 ties of resources and climate, will, under the 
 influence of the Panama Canal, experience a 
 development and progress that will astonish 
 the world. 
 
 In conclusion, a word can be added of per- 
 sonal appreciation of our sister republics 
 which I believe will be shared by all those 
 who read this book and later visit Latin 
 America and study carefully its possibilities 
 and potentialities. It was my privilege, be- 
 
 xvii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 fore being elected by the vote of all these 
 countries to the position of Director-General 
 of the Pan American Union five years ago, 
 to have served as Minister of the United 
 States in such representative countries of 
 South America as Argentina, Panama, and 
 Colombia. My association with the officials 
 and the rank and file of the peoples of these 
 countries, and my travels both in a public 
 and private capacity throughout the Latin 
 American countries, have developed in me a 
 regard for them that approaches real affec- 
 tion. The more I have learned and seen of 
 them, the more I have admired them. They 
 have their faults and weaknesses, as have the 
 government and the people of the United 
 States; but they have a great many virtues 
 and numerous favorable features which are 
 too often overlooked by the critics who have 
 not studied Latin America from a sympa- 
 thetic standpoint. 
 
 If we of the United States will remem- 
 ber that they are our sister republics, that 
 they gained their independence under our 
 example, that they have written their con- 
 stitutions upon that of the United States, 
 and that they will learn to love or hate us ac- 
 xviii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 cording as our attitude is that of sympathy 
 and love or of selfishness and material con- 
 cern, we shall in turn gain their confidence 
 and sympathy and they will join with us in 
 that spirit of Pan American unity and of 
 solidarity which will make the Western Hemi- 
 sphere the world's leader in civilization, in 
 business, and in enduring friendship among 
 
 all nations. T t> 
 
 John Barrett. 
 
 Washington, June 1, 1912. 
 
 xix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Historical Sketch 1 
 
 II. Brazil 133 
 
 III. Argentina . 190 
 
 IV. Uruguay 228 
 
 V. Paraguay 239 
 
 VI. Bolivia 257 
 
 VII. Chile 275 
 
 VIII. Peru 314 
 
 IX. Ecuador 352 
 
 X. Colombia 375 
 
 XI. Venezuela 400 
 
 XII. The Guianas 424 
 
 Bibliography 429 
 
 Index 433 
 
 xxi 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ' "The Soldier's Leap" Frontispiece 
 
 OPPOSITE PAGE 
 
 Map of South America 1 
 
 ^Francisco Pizarro 38 
 
 Inca Burial Tower near Lake Titicaca ... 56 
 Cloisters of Dominican Monastery, Cuzco ... 56 
 Cathedral at Lima, built by Pizarro .... 76 
 - Pizarro's Palace, Lima — Now the Government 
 
 Building 90 
 
 ' San Martin's Passage of the Andes 126 
 
 •Statue of Bolivar, in Lima 132 
 
 •The City of Bahia 156 
 
 • Botafogo Bay, Rio Harbor . . between 162 and 163 
 Bay and City of Rio de Janeiro . . . .' . 166 
 Avenue of Royal Palms, Rio Botanical Gardens 170 
 
 Avenida Central, Rio de Janeiro 170 
 
 Coffee Plantation, Brazil 184 
 
 Colon Theater, Buenos Aires 204 
 
 Federal Capitol, Buenos Aires 204 
 
 'Jockey Club's Grand Stand at Race Track . .210 
 
 Prize Winners from "the Camp" 216 
 
 xxiii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OPPOSITE PAGE 
 
 The Uspallata Pass 222 
 
 Iguazu Falls 226 
 
 Solis Theater, Montevideo 232 
 
 Cagancha Plaza, Montevideo 232 
 
 Government Palace, Asuncion 242 
 
 View of Asuncion and River Paraguay . . . 242 
 
 Shrine of Our Lady of Capacabana .... 266 
 
 Town and Mountain of Potosi, Bolivia .... 266 
 
 Church of the Conservidas, La Paz 272 
 
 Old Spanish Residence, La Paz 272 
 
 Punta Arenas 312 
 
 Plaza Mayor, Lima 326 
 
 Scene on the Oroya Railway 330 
 
 Church of La Merced, Lima 350 
 
 Street Scene in Guayaquil 362 
 
 Condor of the Andes 362 
 
 Room in Old Palace at Quito 374 
 
 Overlooking Bogota 386 
 
 A Posada or Country Inn 392 
 
 Battlemented Wall, Cartagena 392 
 
 View of Maracaibo 404 
 
 A Coffee Plantation, Venezuela 414 
 
 XXIV 
 
70 jjPaumim & «0 
 ~X CARIBBEAN \ \^ S E A 
 
 centra; ; \ 4S, £ 
 
 J° X-Colonl 
 
Through South America 
 i 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 A LITTLE more than four hundred 
 years ago, when Europe was emer- 
 ging from the darkness of the Middle 
 Ages into the era of printed books, when 
 the Field of the Cloth of Gold had impressed 
 the official stamp of culture on her civiliza- 
 tion, when gunpowder was changing the as- 
 pect of war — in an age that produced such 
 intellects as those of Machiavelli, Copernicus, 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, Cardinal Wolsey, 
 and John Werner — wise men were still 
 groping blindly for knowledge about the 
 world in which they lived that is regarded as 
 elementary by the school children of our day. 
 What was its shape? What lay beyond the 
 western horizon of the Atlantic, the vast and 
 stormy Mare Tenebrosum of fabled terror 
 
 1 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 to mariners? What was south of the African 
 countries bordering the Mediterranean? How 
 far east did Asia extend? No one knew. 
 
 In the year 150 a.d., the learned Alexan- 
 drian Claudius Ptolemy had made a map of 
 Europe and of those parts of Asia and Af- 
 rica which were then known, or supposed to 
 exist; and on that map, for the first time in 
 history, the world was represented as a sphere 
 — though a stationary one. Therefore, spec- 
 ulated those who thought about it at all, as- 
 suming Ptolemy's theory to be correct, how 
 could a mariner, even were he successful in 
 navigating his vessel down the awful decliv- 
 ity on one side of the globe, hope to make it 
 climb up again on the other? How could he 
 cross the equator, which Aristotle and Pliny 
 had declared was an uninhabitable zone, so 
 torrid that the earth around was burnt up as 
 with fire and only marine salamanders, if 
 such monsters existed, could live in the super- 
 heated waters? And, even if the equator 
 were passable, how could the frightful abysses 
 into which the ocean was supposed to dis- 
 charge itself at the pole be escaped? 
 
 Some time in the sixth century a monk 
 named Cosmas had attempted to answer 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 these questions by means of a theory evolved 
 from a study of the Bible and more consistent 
 with its descriptions and metaphors. In the 
 map he made, the world was represented as a 
 level rectangle, its sides composed of blue 
 walls, supporting a dome that separated the 
 mortal domain from the Paradise where dwelt 
 the Creator and his angels; and, fanciful as 
 was this cosmos of Cosmas' devising, his map 
 was regarded as the standard of geographical 
 knowledge down to the time of Columbus. 
 Even after his time the famous astronomer 
 Galileo was imprisoned as a heretic partly for 
 reasserting the theory of Ptolemy. No one 
 but a few scientists even imagined that the 
 east could be reached by sailing west ; no one, 
 not even they, yet knew that Africa could 
 be circumnavigated and the treasures of 
 gorgeous Far Cathay (as China was then 
 called) brought to Europe's doors by water. 
 Yet it was to accomplish that very object 
 that the series of voyages was begun that led 
 eventually to the discovery of America. 
 
 Venice and Genoa, grown rich and power- 
 ful through trade with India and the nearer 
 countries of the Orient, had for a space en- 
 joyed a prosperity and revival of culture that 
 
 3 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 were felt throughout Christendom. Then had 
 come the conquest of Spain and domination 
 of the Mediterranean by the Moors, and, 
 afterward, the wars of the Crusades, which 
 had checked the Saracen advance but inter- 
 rupted all other commerce with the infidels. 
 Meanwhile, as though to compensate for this 
 loss, the great Mongolian conqueror Genghis 
 Khan had fulfilled his remarkable destiny 
 and, instead of adopting measures to prevent 
 it, invited western intercourse with the coun- 
 tries he had brought under his sway, and 
 China, about which almost nothing was then 
 generally known, was visited overland by 
 traders, adventurers, and missionaries. Marco 
 Polo, a Venetian, after spending more than 
 twenty years in the far east, part of the time 
 in the service of the Great Khan Kubilay, 
 had returned by way of India and Per- 
 sia, laden with jewels of enormous value, and 
 had written a book descriptive of the coun- 
 tries he had seen and the wealth and customs 
 of the people. In the fourteenth century, 
 when the Mongolian dynasty was overthrown, 
 the Asiatics had again turned hostile and the 
 land route was closed. 
 
 But during this open season it had become 
 4 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 known that Cathay was not the end of the 
 world, as had been supposed— that there was 
 an ocean beyond and the wonderful Island of 
 Cipango (Japan) and other islands rich in 
 spices and costly products; and Europe be- 
 gan to wonder, since the Tartars barred the 
 route by land, whether these desirable places 
 might not be accessible by water. "Between 
 wondering and the attempt," says Haw- 
 thorne, "there was a considerable interval, 
 for the idea was too novel to be digested all 
 at once. But it was an age of unbridled li- 
 cense of imagination and of desperate cour- 
 age. The mere possibility of encountering 
 perils never until then conceived of was 
 allurement enough, as, even to-day, our 
 young adventurers go forth to die on the ice 
 fields of the north and south poles, or in the 
 mysterious heart of savage Africa, or on the 
 ghastly plateaux of Tibet. In addition, 
 there were the fabulous rewards that success 
 seemed to promise." 
 
 At first, though, if the plan of sailing west 
 was even thought of, it would seem to have 
 been regarded as less feasible than that of 
 rounding Africa. Prince Henry, a son of 
 King John I of Portugal — for it was the 
 
 5 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Portuguese, not the Spanish, who were the 
 pioneers in this series of discoveries — deter- 
 mined to devote his life to the work. Retir- 
 ing from the splendors of the Lisbon court, 
 he built an astronomical observatory on the 
 promontory of Sagres (in southern Portu- 
 gal), extended its hospitalities to all the wise 
 men of the age and sent out expedition after 
 expedition to the south. "Until then," says 
 Dawson, "nautical knowledge was very 
 meager. The compass served only to indi- 
 cate direction, not distance or position, and 
 did not suffice for the systematic navigation 
 of the open Atlantic. The Portuguese first 
 made that possible by using astronomical ob- 
 servations and inventing the quadrant and 
 astrolabe." 
 
 This knowledge, once acquired, was 
 promptly applied. Madeira was discovered 
 in 1418, the Canaries in 1427, the Azores in 
 1432. To the west the Portuguese ventured 
 no farther, but, continuing south, they 
 reached Cape Blanco in 1441, Senegambia 
 and Cape Verde in 1445, the Cape Verde 
 Islands in 1460, and the Gulf of Guinea in 
 1469. In 1471 they were the first Europeans 
 to cross the equator. The idea was then con- 
 
 6 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 ceived that they had only to keep on and 
 they could round the southern extremity of 
 the continent and reach Abyssinia and India 
 by sea — a hope that was realized in 1487 
 when Bartholomew Dias arrived at last at the 
 Cape of Good Hope. A few miles beyond, 
 however, he was compelled by the condition 
 of his crew to return and it remained for his 
 compatriot Vasco da Gama some years later 
 to double the cape and complete the voyage 
 up the eastern coast and across the Indian 
 Ocean to Hindustan. 
 
 II 
 
 The significance of these early voyages 
 of the Portuguese lies in the fact that 
 thereby it was demonstrated that a shorter 
 route was needed — that with the very small 
 and badly equipped vessels of the period 
 the trip around the Cape of Good Hope, at 
 least for commercial purposes, was imprac- 
 ticable; also in the fact that with Dias had 
 sailed the Genoese navigator Bartholomew 
 Columbus, & brother of the discoverer of 
 America. 
 
 Years before that first great achievement, 
 7 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Christopher Columbus — who had studied at 
 the University of Pavia and had himself 
 taken part in one or more of Prince Henry's 
 African expeditions, and even ventured to the 
 northwest, probably as far as Iceland — had 
 been converted to the theory that the world 
 was round and that the oceans west of Eu- 
 rope and east of Cathay were the same. As 
 a consequence, he had concluded, the East 
 Indies (as India, China, Japan, and the other 
 countries and islands east of the Indian Ocean 
 were indiscriminately called) could be reached 
 from Europe by sailing west. Eighteen years 
 before he was finally enabled to put this the- 
 ory to the test, he had written Toscanelli, 
 one of the foremost astronomers of the time, 
 asking his opinion as to this possibility. Tos- 
 canelli sent him a copy of a letter he had 
 written shortly before to King Alfonso of 
 Portugal on the same subject, in which he 
 said: 
 
 "I have formerly spoken of a shorter route to the 
 places of spices than you are pursuing by Guinea. 
 Although I am well aware that this can be proved by 
 the spherical shape of the earth, in order to make the 
 point clearer I have decided to exhibit that route 
 by means of a sailing chart, made by my own hands, 
 whereon are laid down your coasts and the islands 
 
 8 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 from which you must begin to shape your course 
 steadily westward, the places at which you are bound 
 to arrive and how far from the pole or equator you 
 ought to keep away." (Neither in the chart nor in 
 the description was there indication of anything what- 
 ever resembling the continents of North and South 
 America.) "From the city of Lisbon as far as the 
 very great and splendid city of Quinsay" (Pekin), 
 he continued, "are twenty-six spaces, each of 250 
 miles. This space is about a third of the whole sphere. 
 But from the Island of Antilia, which you know, to 
 the very splendid Island of Cipango" (Japan) "there 
 are ten spaces. So, through the unknown parts of 
 the route, the stretches of sea are not great " 
 
 In his letter to Columbus he congratulates 
 him on having undertaken an enterprise — 
 
 "Fraught with honor, as it must be, and inestimable 
 gain and most lofty fame among all Christian peoples. 
 It will be a voyage to powerful kingdoms" (he pro- 
 phetically added, though he had never even dreamed 
 of the empires of the Aztecs and the Incas) "and to 
 cities and provinces most wealthy and noble. It will 
 also be advantageous to those kings and princes who 
 are eager to have dealings and make alliances with 
 the Christians of other countries. For these and 
 many other reasons, I do not wonder that you, who are 
 of great courage, and the whole Portuguese nation, 
 which has always had men distinguished in such 
 enterprises, are now inflamed with a desire to make 
 the voyage." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Columbus began his ef- 
 9 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 forts to secure patronage and money for the 
 expedition. He tried in his birthplace, Genoa, 
 and in Portugal and Spain, even in England, 
 where he was accompanied by his brother 
 Bartholomew after the latter 's return from 
 the voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 suffered many refusals. Toscanelli had been 
 dead eight years before he at last succeeded; 
 and then, had he known that the distance from 
 Lisbon to the coast of Asia was in fact some 
 13,000 miles, or twice that which the astron- 
 omer had estimated, and that, even so, the 
 route straight across was barred by the Isth- 
 mus of Panama — had he known that Cathay 
 did not, as his mentor believed, extend some 
 thousands of miles farther east than it does, 
 even such a man as Columbus might have 
 abandoned the project as chimerical when the 
 cockleshells then available for ocean travel 
 were taken into consideration. Nor, if she 
 too had not been misled by the same "val- 
 uable pieces of ignorance," is it likely that his 
 plea would have prevailed on the practical 
 Isabella of Castile, however elated and invin- 
 cible she may have felt over the taking of 
 the last of the Saracen strongholds at Gra- 
 nada and the expulsion of the Moors from 
 
 10 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 Spain, for in that she was engaged when Co- 
 lumbus finally succeeded in securing her aid. 
 Fortunately, however, whatever might have 
 happened if Toscanelli had not held the voy- 
 age to be practicable, Columbus was not only 
 a man of indomitable spirit but possessed of 
 a presence that inspired in others the confi- 
 dence he felt in himself. A man of striking 
 personality, he is said to have been about 
 forty-five years of age at the time, tall, well 
 formed, and dignified, with sharp gray eyes, 
 alight with "that divine spark of enthusiasm 
 which makes true genius," and hair prema- 
 turely white. And so, in spite of his many 
 disheartening failures, he did not abandon the 
 project; so also was Queen Isabella suffi- 
 ciently impressed by his learning and appear- 
 ance to agree, in consideration of a fifth share 
 in the profits, that he should have the rank of 
 Admiral and govern, as Viceroy, all the lands 
 that he might discover and bring under her 
 dominion. With the great astronomer's chart 
 before him, therefore, and vowing to devote 
 his share of the profits to the rescue of the 
 Holy Sepulcher, he set out from Palos, 
 Spain, on the 3d of August, 1492. His ves- 
 sels, the Nina, Pint a (well named the "Pint 
 
 11 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Cup"), and Santa Maria, bore a company of 
 but ninety, including the crews. 
 
 After a voyage of ten weeks, filled with 
 difficulties and hardships, even threats of 
 mutiny, that taxed his courage and diplomacy 
 to the utmost, he came to land on an island 
 (now known as Watling's) on the outward 
 bow of the Bahamas, to which he gave the 
 name of San Salvador. The wild beauty of 
 the foliage, the tropical luxuriance, the clear, 
 fresh-water streams, the soft climate and per- 
 fume-laden breezes, more than ever delightful 
 to men who had given themselves up for lost, 
 and the natives themselves, bedecked with 
 gold ornaments and dusky-skinned as those 
 of Cathay were said to be — all seemed what 
 might have been expected in the outlying 
 spice islands of the east. So, supposing this 
 to be one of those islands of which they were 
 in quest, the adventurers cruised about for 
 ten days more and finally arrived at Cuba, 
 which they assumed to be Cipango. 
 
 In his infatuation, Columbus now saw his 
 journey's end. He had, he thought, but to 
 sail a few courses farther to reach the main- 
 land of Cathay, exchange compliments with 
 the Great Khan at Quinsay, and return in tri- 
 
 12 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 umph with the wealth he was to amass and 
 herald the news of his wonderful achievement 
 to a skeptical Europe. And all the while 
 Cathay was ten thousand miles away — due 
 west! Sailing across the strait to Hayti, he 
 was directed south by the natives when ques- 
 tioned as to the source of their gold; but 
 there, for the time being, his explorations 
 were brought to an end. The flagship was 
 wrecked on a sand bar and Pinzon, captain 
 of one of the remaining two, stole treacher- 
 ously away, to anticipate the Admiral in an- 
 nouncing the discoveries in Spain. Leaving 
 a volunteer colony of about forty men to 
 await his return with reinforcements, how- 
 ever, he at once set sail, overtook and cap- 
 tured the deserters, and, on the way back to 
 Palos, was driven into the port of Lisbon by 
 a gale. 
 
 "The news of his exploit set all Portugal 
 afire," says Hawthorne. 
 
 "The King was urged to have Columbus run 
 through the body and to appropriate his discovery; 
 but John II perceived that there was more peril than 
 profit in such a scheme, and he invited him to court 
 and made much of him instead. In due time he re- 
 sumed his voyage and reached Palos on the 15th 
 of March. This was Columbus' apogee. He was 
 
 13 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 called to Barcelona and welcomed in triumph; he was 
 even allowed to sit down in the august presence of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. The half dozen Caribs he had 
 brought with him were assumed to be East Indians 
 and the Admiral's interpretation of his discoveries 
 was accepted without question. The little detail that 
 nothing of oriental magnificence — no Great Khans, no 
 mighty cities — had yet been revealed, was passed over. 
 Land had been found and it could be nothing but 
 Cipango and Cathay. The short route to the Indies 
 had been discovered for Spain." 
 
 This so completely overshadowed all that 
 Portugal had accomplished that an intense 
 rivalry sprang up between the two powers. 
 The Pope, as the Vicar of Christ on earth, 
 and accordingly the repository of the title to 
 all lands still occupied by infidel peoples, was 
 appealed to to confirm the discoveries to 
 Spain. He issued a bull granting to His 
 Most Catholic Majesty the lands then, and 
 such as might thereafter be, discovered in the 
 western sea, and to the Portuguese such as 
 they might discover by way of the African 
 route. This was supplemented by a second 
 to the effect that only those lands lying west 
 of a meridian of longitude a hundred miles 
 west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands 
 should belong to the Spaniards. Dissatisfied 
 
 14 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 even with that division, the Portuguese de- 
 manded a line still farther west, and, by a 
 treaty signed at Tordesillas in June, 1494, 
 Spain agreed that it should be advanced in 
 that direction 370 leagues. This resulted 
 eventually in giving Portugal title to the then 
 yet undiscovered country of Brazil. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the 25th of September, 
 1493, Columbus set out on his second expedi- 
 tion—this time with seventeen ships and fif- 
 teen hundred men, among them his brothers 
 Bartholomew and Diego and many adventur- 
 ers of noble rank, for there was no lack either 
 of men or money now. "Their dreams," 
 Professor Fiske tell us, "were of the marble 
 palaces of Quinsay, of islands of spices and 
 the treasures of the mythical Prester John. 
 The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought 
 that such untold riches were vouchsafed them 
 as a reward for having overcome the Moor at 
 Granada. Columbus shared these views and 
 regarded himself as a special instrument for 
 executing the divine decrees. He renewed his 
 vow to rescue the Holy Sepulcher, promising 
 within seven years to equip, at his own ex- 
 pense, a crusading army of fifty thousand foot 
 and four thousand horse." When the fleet 
 
 15 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 arrived at Hayti and the company landed at 
 the place where the little colony had been left, 
 it was found that it had been annihilated. 
 Not a whit dismayed by that, however, Co- 
 lumbus ordered a town to be built and the 
 island, which he named Espanola (Little 
 Spain), became the base of hundreds of ex- 
 ploring expeditions undertaken by the hordes 
 of adventurers that followed in his wake and 
 soon overran the neighboring islands. 
 
 Columbus himself made two other voy- 
 ages, in the course of which he discovered Ja- 
 maica and the Island of Trinidad at the 
 mouth of the Orinoco, reached the southern 
 shores of Cuba, and, having heard rumors 
 of another ocean to the west, coasted along 
 the Central American mainland in search of 
 a passage through. There he found stone 
 houses and towns and what appeared to be a 
 semi-civilized people, who wore clothes and 
 knew how to weave cotton, embalm their 
 dead, and carve ornaments on their tombs, 
 and who had plenty of gold; and all this only 
 confirmed his conviction that he was drawing 
 nearer the countries of his quest. During this 
 period, however, his fame was in turn over- 
 shadowed by that of Vasco da Gama, who 
 
 16 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 had at last succeeded in discovering the Af- 
 rican route to the Orient and had actually 
 seen some of those spice islands and mighty 
 cities that Columbus was still only searching 
 for on the other side of the world so many 
 thousands of miles away. 
 
 In 1506, soon after his return from his 
 fourth expedition, he died at Valladolid, dis- 
 credited and defrauded of his viceregal pow- 
 ers, a victim of treachery, jealousy, and in- 
 trigue, yet still believing that he had found 
 the western route to the Indies. Even then 
 "nobody had the faintest idea of what he had 
 accomplished," says Professor Fiske. "Noth- 
 ing like it was ever done before and nothing 
 like it can ever be done again. No worlds 
 are left for future Columbuses to conquer. 
 The era of which this great Italian was the 
 most illustrious representative had closed for- 
 ever." 
 
 in 
 
 Having, in the interval between the sec- 
 ond Columbian expedition and the discovery 
 of the African route by Vasco da Gama, in- 
 duced Spain to agree to the extension of the 
 Papal meridian 370 leagues farther west, the 
 
 17 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Portuguese continued their activities with 
 renewed ardor. In March, 1500, on his way 
 to the Cape of Good Hope, Pedro Alvarez 
 Cabral, a Portuguese nobleman in command 
 of an expedition intended to resume the work 
 begun by Da Gama, was blown across the At- 
 lantic to the coasts of Brazil, where he touched 
 at a point in the southern part of what is now 
 the State of Bahia. Under the impression 
 that it was an island, and assuming that it lay 
 east of the Tordesillas treaty line, he landed 
 and took possession in the name of his King. 
 The news having reached Portugal in the Fall 
 of the same year, no time was lost in asserting 
 title and sending out a small fleet to ascertain 
 the extent and resources of the region, also 
 in the hope that a wealthy and civilized peo- 
 ple like that of Hindustan would be found. 
 This expedition was placed under the com- 
 mand of Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine as- 
 tronomer and navigator, who had already 
 made two voyages for Spain and skirted the 
 coast of Yucatan and the northern conti- 
 nent, around Florida, as far north as the 
 Chesapeake. Setting sail now to the south, 
 he made a systematic examination of the Bra- 
 zilian coast for two thousand miles. All he 
 
 18 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 found that seemed to have any immediate 
 commercial value were immense quantities of 
 a dyewood known in Europe as "brazil" (the 
 color of fire) ; it was from this, of course, that 
 the country took its name. The Portuguese, 
 being by that time, however, too engrossed in 
 their African mines and sugar plantations 
 and East Indian trade to think it worth while 
 to found colonies in such a region, did noth- 
 ing to develop it until thirty years had passed 
 by and it became necessary for them to pro- 
 tect their rights, particularly from the French, 
 who had been tempted by the great demand 
 for the dyewood to engage in coastwise poach- 
 ing on a large scale. 
 
 For this reason, to his contemporaries, the 
 most interesting feature of Vespucci's report 
 was the conviction he expressed that this 
 country south of the equator was neither Asia 
 nor an island, but a new continent, or, as he 
 himself called it, a "new world" — "for it 
 transcends the ideas of the ancients," he said 
 in a letter to his friend Soderini, "since most 
 of them declare that, beyond the equator to 
 the south, there is no continent but only the 
 sea which they call the Atlantic; but this last 
 voyage of mine has proved that this opinion 
 
 19 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of theirs is erroneous, because in these south- 
 ern regions I have found a continent more 
 thickly inhabited by peoples and animals than 
 our Europe or Asia or Africa, and, moreover, 
 a climate more temperate and agreeable than 
 any known to us." In 1504 this letter was 
 published under the title "Mundus Novus." 
 The term "new world" caught the popular 
 fancy, and although, in 1497, Columbus first 
 of all, and later Vespucci himself with Alonso 
 de Ojeda, had cruised along and touched at 
 points on its Caribbean coast, by virtue of his 
 Brazilian explorations Vespucci was ac- 
 claimed the discoverer. 
 
 And therein was the source of the con- 
 fusion that gave to South America, and event- 
 ually to the northern continent as well, the 
 name they bear rather than one commemora- 
 tive of Columbus. No one suspected that 
 there were two oceans instead of only the 
 Atlantic between Europe and Asia; that the 
 land Amerigo Vespucci had explored south 
 of the equator was of a piece with that dis- 
 covered by Columbus to the north. It was 
 conceived to be entirely detached from and to 
 the south of Cathay, which Columbus was still 
 supposed to have reached, and to lie in a po- 
 
 20 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 sition somewhat similar to that which Aus- 
 tralia was afterward found to occupy. Con- 
 sequently, when in 1507 Mathias Ringmann 
 published his "Introductio Cosmograpliie" 
 he proposed that this (as he estimated it) 
 "fourth part of the globe" be called "Amer- 
 igo" The following year Martinus Waldsee- 
 muller published his map, whereon for the 
 first time the name "America" appeared. In- 
 vestigation has made it clear that fhere was 
 no attempt, as Vespucci's maligners charged, 
 to immortalize his name at the expense of 
 Columbus. The southern continent was not 
 named for Columbus simply because it was 
 thought to be distinct from his discoveries; 
 the northern, because it was thought already 
 to have been named Cathay. 
 
 At last, when the existence across the At- 
 lantic of a continuous stretch of land had 
 been comprehended, and when, in the light of 
 the Portuguese discoveries by way of the Af- 
 rican route, it was realized that these strange 
 coasts did not in the least coincide with the 
 ideas formed of them by those who had as- 
 sumed them to be Asiatic, the conviction grew 
 that the fabulous treasure lands of the Orient 
 had not been reached by this western route 
 
 21 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 at all. The whole stretch must be embraced 
 in the new world, it was concluded; there 
 must be another ocean than the Atlantic be- 
 yond. "Rumors of it had been heard, or 
 glimpses caught, perhaps, at one time or an- 
 other," says Hawthorne, "before the actual 
 fact was understood. Meanwhile Spain was 
 very anxious to get through or around this 
 singular barrier of islands, or whatever it was 
 that was keeping her from sharing the profits 
 that Da Gama had brought to Portugal from 
 Hindustan, and she sent out expeditions to 
 accomplish it." In 1505 Amerigo Vespucci 
 (who haci returned to the Spanish flag), with 
 La Cosa, explored the Gulf of Darien and 
 penetrated two hundred miles up the Atrato, 
 thinking it might prove a strait leading to 
 the Asiatic waters. Juan de Solis was try- 
 ing to find it when he explored the Rio de la 
 Plata and met his death at the hands of the 
 natives. Jacques Cartier was seeking it when 
 he explored the St. Lawrence, D'Ayllon when 
 he tried the Chesapeake and James, and 
 Hendrik Hudson when he ascended the river 
 that bears his name. 
 
 In 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Governor 
 of Darien, a valiant adventurer who had been 
 
 22 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 prominent in the conquest and colonization 
 of the Isthmus, undertook by means of an 
 expedition by land to ascertain whether such 
 an ocean did really exist. Starting with a 
 company of about a hundred and ninety 
 Spaniards and a few Indians, he skirted the 
 coast of Panama to a point near Cape Ti- 
 buron, and there disembarked and headed in- 
 land. For twenty days his party persevered 
 over forest-clad swamps, valleys, and moun- 
 tains, fought a pitched battle with the na- 
 tives, and finally cut its way through the 
 dense undergrowth to the heights overlook- 
 ing what is now known as the Gulf of San 
 Miguel, on the Pacific side, and thus resolved 
 all doubt into certainty and completed an 
 event which, declares Dawson, "was second 
 in its far-reaching consequences only to Co- 
 lumbus' first voyage." Balboa dubbed it the 
 Southern Sea, little thinking that it was a 
 body of water more vast than the Atlantic 
 that he had found to bar the way to Cathay. 
 "So elated was he over his epoch-making 
 discovery," says Mozans, quoting from an 
 early chronicler, that — 
 
 "With no lesse manlye courage than Hannibal of 
 Carthage shewed his souldiers Italye and the pro- 
 
 23 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 montories of the Alps, he exhorted his men to lyft up 
 they re hartes and to behoulde the land even now 
 under theyre feete and the sea before theyre eyes, 
 which shoulde bee unto them a full and juste reward of 
 theyre great laboures and trauayles now ouerpassed. 
 When he had sayde these woordes, he commanded them 
 to raise certeine heapes of stones in the steede of 
 altars for a token of possession. Then, descendynge 
 from the toppes of the mountaynes, lest such as might 
 come after hym shoulde argu hym of lyinge and fals- 
 hod, he wrote the Kyng of Castelles his name here and 
 there on the barkes, of the trees, both on the ryght 
 hande and on the lefte, and raysed heapes of stones all 
 the way that he went untyll he came to the region 
 of the nexte Kynge towarde the south, whose name 
 was Chiapes." 
 
 "The act of taking possession was so 
 typical of similar formalities of the Conquis- 
 tadores," continues Mozans, "that I tran- 
 scribe from Oviedo his account of the man- 
 ner in which Balboa and his companions 
 claimed for his sovereign the Sea of the 
 South, all islands in it and all lands border- 
 ing on it, in what part of the world soever. 
 Armed with his sword and bearing aloft a 
 banner on which were painted an image of 
 the Blessed Virgin and the Divine Child 
 and the arms of Castile and Leon, Balboa, 
 followed by his associates, entered the water 
 
 24 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 until it rose above his knees, when in a loud 
 voice he said: 
 
 " 'Long live the high and mighty monarchs, Don 
 Ferdinand and Dona Juana, Sovereigns of Castile, 
 of Leon and of Aragon, in whose name and for the 
 royal crown of Castile, I take real and corporal and 
 actual possession of these seas and lands and coasts 
 and ports and islands of the south, and all thereunto 
 annexed, and of the kingdoms and provinces which 
 do or may appertain to them, in whatever manner or 
 by whatever right or title, ancient or modern, in times 
 past, present or to come, without any contradiction ; 
 and if other prince or captain, Christian or infidel, or 
 of any law, sect or condition whatsoever, shall pretend 
 any right to these islands and seas, I am ready and 
 prepared to maintain and defend them in the name of 
 the Castilian Sovereigns, present and future, whose 
 is the empire and dominion over these Indias, islands 
 and terra firma, northern and southern, with all their 
 seas, both at the arctic and antarctic poles, on either 
 side of the equinoctial line, whether within or without 
 the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, both now and at 
 all times so long as the world shall endure and until 
 the final judgment of all mankind.' And then the 
 Notary, who always accompanied such expeditions, 
 was ordered to make on the spot an exact record of 
 what had been said and done, which was duly signed 
 and authenticated by all present." 
 
 It was to the Portuguese navigator Fernao 
 de Magalhaes (Ferdinand Magellan in the 
 English rendering of the name) that the 
 
 25 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 honor finally fell of being the first, not alone 
 to find the passage through the new conti- 
 nent that was being so eagerly sought, but 
 to cross by the western route to the East In- 
 dies and thereby blaze the way to making 
 geography an exact science. He had already 
 been to the Moluccas by the African route, 
 and, disgusted by the failure of his King 
 suitably to reward his services, had trans- 
 ferred his allegiance to Spain and managed 
 to secure from the Emperor Charles V a 
 commission and five ships, the largest of 
 but 120 tons' burden. On the 20th of Sep- 
 tember, 1419, he sailed from the Guadalquivir, 
 with a crew numbering 280, all told, and, 
 having entered the Plata River and satisfied 
 himself that it was not a strait, ran down the 
 Patagonian coast through many storms un- 
 til he found shelter in the harbor of St. 
 Julian, where, on Easter Sunday, a mutiny 
 broke out that only a man of such remark- 
 able courage and resourcefulness as Magellan 
 possessed could have suppressed. It had 
 been a hard voyage, the chances of finding the 
 strait seemed slim, there was only the pros- 
 pect that there they must remain throughout 
 the antarctic winter in idleness and discom- 
 
 26 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 fort; it is small wonder that they wanted to 
 desert. 
 
 However, during the last week in August 
 spring began (the seasons are reversed south 
 of the equator, it must be remembered) and 
 the fleet, without the Santiago, which had 
 been wrecked, proceeded to the south. After 
 experiencing much more bad weather, they 
 made Cape Virgins on the 21st of October 
 and entered a large bay, which was flanked by 
 lofty mountains, crowned with glaciers and 
 snow. This at last was the entrance to the 
 passage, but at that very point one of the 
 vessels, the San Antonio, seized an opportu- 
 nity to make its escape and return to Spain. 
 "For five weeks," as Hawthorne relates, "the 
 remaining three ships wound along through 
 the tortuous channel. Provisions were run- 
 ning short, yet Magellan would not turn back 
 'even if he had to eat the leather off the 
 ships' yards.' At length his persistence was 
 rewarded by a sight of the open sea. 'When,' 
 to quote Richard Eden, 'the Capitayne was 
 past the stray ght and saw the way open to 
 the mayne sea, he was so gladde thereof that 
 for joy the teares fell from his eyes and he 
 named the poynte of the lande from whense 
 
 n 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 he first saw that sea Cape Desiderato.' And 
 the broad ocean which lay before him was so 
 calm, after his many stormful days, that he 
 called it the Pacific." 
 
 "But months of a voyage as trying as any 
 they had encountered still lay before them," 
 Hawthorne goes on. "Could the planet be so 
 vast? Until December they kept a northerly 
 course, then struck out boldly across the un- 
 known waste. They ran across one or two 
 islands, but erelong were swallowed up in 
 the seemingly endless immensity of ocean. 
 They were reduced to the utmost extremities 
 for food and water; scurvy broke out; nine- 
 teen men died and thirty were too ill to work. 
 Finally, on the 6th of March, they reached 
 the Ladrone Islands, so named because of 
 the thievishness of the natives. Here they 
 got fruit and other food, and the worst was 
 over. Ten days later the Philippines were 
 sighted and Magellan knew the extent of his 
 achievement. He had sailed round the world. 
 Happier than Columbus, he did not survive 
 this mightiest exploit of his time; in a fight 
 with the natives the great sailor was killed." 
 
 Only one of the little vessels ever got back 
 to Spain. Returning by way of Africa, she 
 
 28 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 arrived at the Guadalquivir in September, a 
 year after she had set out, and with but 
 eighteen survivors of the expedition. "What 
 a picture!" the historian exclaims — "those 
 eighteen seaworn mariners in their battered 
 craft, survivors of the greatest feat of navi- 
 gation that has ever been performed. What 
 a poem is their story, what an event in the 
 history of mankind! What reward did Ma- 
 gellan have? None that mortal could bestow. 
 He was dead and his wife and son had also 
 died. Del Cano, the captain of the ship, was 
 given a crest, with the legend, on a terrestrial 
 globe, 'Primus circumdedisti mej together 
 with a pension of five hundred ducats, and 
 Espinosa was likewise pensioned and en- 
 nobled. But every mariner who sails the seas 
 knows Magellan and the story of his exploit, 
 and mankind accords him the honor that 
 Spain could not bestow. Of all the great 
 explorers, he is perhaps the one whose char- 
 acter and deeds we can contemplate with the 
 most unalloyed satisfaction." 
 
 rv 
 
 Until the great Dutch navigator, Willim 
 Cornells Schouten, found the way around 
 
 29 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Cape Horn nearly a hundred years later, how- 
 ever, no practical advantage over her rival re- 
 sulted to Spain from Magellan's discoveries 
 — so far as trade with the East Indies was 
 concerned, that is. The passage through the 
 Strait was too perilous for sailing vessels, the 
 distance across the Pacific too great. Yet 
 only a year before Magellan set out on his 
 famous voyage an era began in her new pos- 
 sessions that was to pour into her coffers a 
 stream of gold in comparison with which the 
 profits Portugal was deriving from her trade 
 with the Orient seemed trivial. For in that 
 year Hernando Cortes, the greatest soldier 
 and statesman Spain ever sent to the new 
 world, began his conquest of Mexico. 
 
 Except for the spirit of emulation it in- 
 spired, except for the knowledge it brought 
 of the existence in the newly discovered coun- 
 tries of a people less barbarous than the 
 aborigines of the Antilles, of mines that 
 were worth while and of enormous hoards of 
 treasure, the story of that conquest has no 
 place in the history of South America, and, 
 therefore, will not be gone into here. It is re- 
 lated somewhere as an interesting commen- 
 tary that in an obscure little house in the City 
 
 30 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 of Mexico still lives a modest, well-educated 
 gentleman who is directly descended from 
 the Emperor of the Aztecs. Sefior Monte- 
 zuma entertains no hope of a restoration, it 
 is said, but quietly accepts the meager pen- 
 sion allowed him by the present government, 
 while the heirs of Cortes receive immense 
 revenues from their Mexican estates and the 
 Marquis del Valle, as the present-day Cortes 
 is called, lives in luxury and is a man of influ- 
 ence and power in the land. 
 
 In 1526, Sebastian Cabot was commissioned 
 by the King of Spain to locate the Papal 
 meridian in America and then to follow in 
 Magellan's track and determine the corre- 
 sponding longitude on the Asiatic side; but, 
 when he put in at the mouth of the Rio de la 
 Plata, he heard rumors of a great and wealthy 
 people who dwelt near the headwaters of the 
 river — rumors like those Grijalva had heard 
 respecting the Aztecs and which had led to 
 the Mexican conquest by Cortes; only these 
 wonderful accounts were of a South Ameri- 
 can empire. In proof of what they said, the 
 Indians of the Plata exhibited silver orna- 
 ments that had passed from hand to hand 
 from the highlands of Bolivia and Peru, along 
 
 31 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the river to the Atlantic; and, too strongly 
 tempted to resist, and trusting that the dis- 
 covery of the rich mines from which this sil- 
 ver came would excuse their disobedience, 
 Cabot and his company abandoned their sur- 
 vey and spent three years exploring and 
 prospecting along the Uruguay and Parana 
 is far north as the present site of the city of 
 Asuncion. As their forces and provisions 
 were inadequate to enable them to penetrate 
 farther, the search was in vain; and so, hav- 
 ing found, on their return to a fort they had 
 established, that it had been taken by the In- 
 dians and the garrison massacred, Cabot 
 abandoned the effort and went back to Spain 
 to make what explanation he could. 
 
 The news of this supposed encroachment, 
 added to the ever increasing poaching of the 
 French, proved what was needed to stimulate 
 the Portuguese at last to make a serious at- 
 tempt at colonization in Brazil. One Chris- 
 tovao Jaques and a few settlers had already 
 established a small sugar factory in the neigh- 
 borhood of the present site of Pernambuco, 
 and it had been found that much of the land 
 in the northern part of the country was 
 admirably adapted to the cultivation of that 
 
 C10 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 staple, the demand for which in Europe was 
 constantly increasing. Five vessels were sent 
 out, therefore, under the command of Martim 
 Affonso da Souza. Early in 1531 he drew 
 near Cape St. Roque, captured three French 
 ships laden with brazil wood, sent part of his 
 own fleet north to explore the coast beyond, 
 and with the other ships sailed south and 
 dropped anchor near the site of what is now 
 the great coffee port of Santos. There he 
 established Sao Vicente, the first permanent 
 colony in Brazil. 
 
 There also they came across one Joao Ra- 
 malho, a former sailor who had been put 
 ashore for mutiny years before by a ship on 
 its way to India and was living among the 
 natives of the neighborhood with his half- 
 breed children. Glad enough to welcome his 
 countrymen, he disposed the Indians to peace 
 and showed the Portuguese the way up the 
 mountains to the vast plateau that begins only 
 a. few miles from the sea. There, near the 
 present site of Sao Paulo, was founded an- 
 other settlement, from whence they could 
 stretch out in all directions over what was 
 destined to become the greatest coffee-pro- 
 ducing country in the world. 
 
 33 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 A year or two afterward, encouraged by 
 Da Souza's success, Duarte Coelho set out 
 with a carefully selected and more numerous 
 company and founded the colony of Pernam- 
 buco. Here, as in the south, the country back 
 of the coast was fertile and easily accessible 
 and there was little trouble with the Indians. 
 Sugar planting proved wonderfully profit- 
 able, Coelho turned out to be a good man- 
 ager, and so politic was he in the relations 
 with the mother country that within a few 
 years the colony had become self-supporting 
 and, like the other, possessed of all the ele- 
 ments of permanence and prosperity. Soon 
 afterward Sao Salvador da Bahia was estab- 
 lished. With such a beginning, it was not 
 long before the Portuguese began flocking 
 to Brazil as the Spaniards had to the Carib- 
 bean. 
 
 In the meanwhile in this region of the 
 Caribbean much progress had been made. 
 Towns had been built, not only in Espanola, 
 but in Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico and in 
 Darien an$ other places on the Isthmus, 
 landed estates (repartimientos) had been ap- 
 
 34 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 portioned, as rewards for services, among 
 such as desired to cultivate them, mining 
 rights had been allotted. These plantations 
 and the mines were being worked by natives 
 impressed into slavery, some of the communi- 
 ties had become large and thriving, in Spain 
 a Council of the Indies and in the islands lo- 
 cal governmental tribunals (Real Audiencias) 
 had been created. 
 
 Whole fleets of ships plied back and forth 
 across the Atlantic, those setting out from 
 Spain laden with implements of agriculture 
 and war, clothes, and fresh companies of ad- 
 venturers, coming over as colonists, or to 
 continue the work of conquest and the search 
 for treasure; those returning, laden with the 
 products of the tropics and with gold and 
 precious stones. Emeralds had been found 
 near the coast of Colombia, and Balboa had 
 discovered in the Gulf of San Miguel — that 
 famous group of islands where, as Mozans 
 tells us, "pearls were so common that the 
 natives used them for adorning the paddles 
 of their canoes" — pearls "as large as filberts 
 and of exceeding beauty of form and luster," 
 many of which, "found in the same fisheries 
 a short time subsequently, at once took place 
 
 35 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 among the largest and most perfect of the 
 world's gems." 
 
 Nevertheless, neither there nor anywhere 
 else in the Caribbean region, had any vast 
 wealth and civilization comparable to that of 
 the Mexicans been discovered. Balboa, how- 
 ever, had married, according to the Indian 
 custom, the daughter of a cacique (na- 
 tive chief), and, being in the confidence of 
 the Indians of his province, had heard ru- 
 mors, even before the conquest of Mexico, 
 of a rich and powerful empire to the south 
 (the same that were afterward heard by 
 Cabot) ; and, after he had been succeeded 
 as Governor by his jealous rival, the no- 
 torious Pedrarias Davila, was commissioned 
 to take charge of an expedition to go in 
 search of it. Already he had accomplished 
 the unheard-of task of taking four ships to 
 pieces on the Caribbean shore, transporting 
 them across the Isthmus and reconstructing 
 them on the shore of San Miguel, and, when 
 about to sail, had been arrested by order of 
 Pedrarias, tried on a charge of treason, and 
 executed before he could appeal to Spain. 
 Some years later, having forestalled his great 
 rival in that summary way, Pedrarias en- 
 
 36 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 trusted the venture to one Francisco Pizarro, 
 an opportunist, without money, rank, or 
 credit, and then nearly fifty years old, yet 
 one who startled the world by an achieve- 
 ment equaled only by Cortes' own. 
 
 Francisco Pizarro had been but a swine- 
 herd in his boyhood, but later had served 
 under Gonzolo de Cordova (El Gran Capi- 
 tan) in that splendid body of infantrymen 
 which fought its way to the foremost rank 
 in Europe, and was a son, too, though an 
 illegitimate one, of a Spanish officer of 
 noble blood. For such a man, as Dawson 
 says, "an admirable soldier, conscious that 
 he possessed powers of the highest order yet 
 hopelessly handicapped in old Europe by 
 his base birth and illiteracy, the discovery of 
 the new world opened up a field for his 
 talents" that led him "eagerly to embrace 
 the opportunity to embark with Alonso de 
 Ojeda in 1509 for the Darien gold mines." 
 His first appearance in history is as a 
 member of the party that went with Balboa 
 to search for the Pacific; afterward he was 
 among the first of "the adventurers that 
 flocked to the new city of Panama, looking 
 over the mysterious sea, like a pack of wolves 
 
 37 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 eager for a share in the spoils of its unknown 
 shores;" later he happened to be the officer 
 chosen by Pedrarias for Balboa's arrest. 
 
 As he had no funds of his own, and since 
 it was the custom of the times for the Con- 
 quistadores who undertook such expeditions 
 to do so at their own expense, he associated 
 with him a priest named Hernando de Luque, 
 who had some capital, and Diego de Almagro, 
 a soldier of still more advanced age but of 
 ability and good reputation. It was agreed 
 that the Padre de Luque should contribute 
 the funds, that Almagro should attend to the 
 collecting and forwarding of troops and sup- 
 plies, and that Pizarro himself should have 
 the active command. Whereupon they 
 bought one of the ships that had been carried 
 across the Isthmus by Balboa and set out on 
 their first expedition in 1524. As so fre- 
 quently occurred in such cases, however, in- 
 adequacy of provisions caused the venture 
 to fail. 
 
 Eighteen months later they sailed again, 
 with a much larger stock of supplies and 
 this time with 160 men. For hundreds of 
 miles they found nothing but the same 
 swampy, forest-clad wastes along the Co- 
 
 38 
 
FRANCISCO PiZARRO. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 lombian shore, inhabited only by naked tribes 
 of savages. Pizarro's disheartened compan- 
 ions, too ready to believe that the country 
 they were seeking was but a myth, would 
 have had him return; but one day the pilot, 
 who had been sent on ahead, suddenly reap- 
 peared with the news that he had penetrated 
 south of the equator and had there met a 
 large trading raft on its way north, bearing 
 cloth, silver work, vases, and other things per- 
 taining to civilization and manned by a crew 
 that wore clothes. These men, the pilot re- 
 ported, had told him that they came from a 
 town called Tumbez, which lay in a fertile 
 valley behind a penetrable coast — that the 
 whole interior of the country was inhabited 
 by a civilized people, subjects of an emperor 
 whose capital was a great city, high up in the 
 mountains still farther south. On this con- 
 firmation of their hopes, the commander suc- 
 ceeded in inducing his men to push on until 
 they had reached nearly as far as the north- 
 ern boundary of Ecuador, where he landed 
 most of the company on an island called 
 Gallo and sent Almagro back to Panama for 
 more provisions and supplies. 
 
 At Gallo the climate proved unhealthful; 
 39 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 fevers soon decimated the party; even their 
 clothes were rotted by the almost incessant 
 rains and steamy heat, and, as though that 
 were not enough, when the Governor learned 
 from members of the crew who had returned 
 that the men were being held there against 
 their will, he flew into a rage, instead of send- 
 ing supplies and reinforcements, and des- 
 patched a ship to bring back all who wished to 
 desert. Only emboldened by these misfor- 
 tunes, Pizarro "drew his sword and traced a 
 line with it on the sand from east to west," 
 says Montesino in his Anales del Peru. 
 "Then, turning toward the south, 'Friends 
 and comrades,' he said, 'on that side are toil, 
 hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, de- 
 sertion, and death ; on this side, ease and pleas- 
 ure. There lies Peru with its riches; here 
 Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, 
 what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my 
 part, I go to the south,' and, so saying, he 
 stepped across the line." He was followed by 
 the pilot Ruiz, a Greek cavalier named de 
 Candia, and only eleven others. There is, in- 
 deed, as Prescott comments — 
 
 "Something striking to the imagination in the spec- 
 40 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 tacle of those few brave spirits consecrating themselves 
 to a daring enterprise that seemed as far above their 
 strength as any recorded in the fabulous annals of 
 knight-errantry. A handful of men, without food, 
 without clothing, almost without arms, without knowl- 
 edge of the land to which they were bound, without 
 even a vessel to transport them, were left there on a 
 rock in the ocean with the avowed purpose of carrying 
 on a crusade against a powerful empire, staking their 
 lives on its success. What is there in the legends of 
 chivalry that surpasses it? " 
 
 For weary months they awaited the return 
 of Almagro with the provisions, and the mo- 
 ment they arrived set sail for the Gulf of 
 Guayaquil. Landing at Tumbez, says Daw- 
 son, "with their own eyes they saw confirma- 
 tion of what the Indians of the raft had told 
 them. Irrigated fields, green with beautiful 
 crops, lined the river bank; eighty thousand 
 people, all comfortably housed, lived in the 
 valley; commerce was flourishing ; large tem- 
 ples, profusely ornamented with gold and sil- 
 ver, testified to their wealth and culture; the 
 government was well ordered and stable, and 
 the people received the visitors with open- 
 handed hospitality." It is easy enough to 
 imagine with what longing eyes these forlorn 
 adventurers who had risked and endured so 
 
 41 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 much must have gazed on such a scene as 
 this! 
 
 Yet, concluding that his force was too 
 small even for a raid, and thinking it wiser, 
 anyway, after what had happened, to be in- 
 vested with independent powers before mak- 
 ing any attempt at a conquest, Pizarro made 
 his way back to Spain and related his ex- 
 periences to the King, who was so greatly 
 impressed both with the story and the peti- 
 tioner's noble and commanding presence that 
 he did more than merely commission him to 
 undertake a new expedition: he legitimized 
 him and created him marquis, appointed him 
 Adelantado (governor) of such countries as 
 he might conquer, created Almagro marshal, 
 and made the thirteen who had so gallantly 
 stood by them gentlemen of coat armor. 
 
 On Pizarro's return to Panama, he brought 
 with him a few kindred spirits selected from 
 among the very flower of the fighting men 
 of the Peninsula, including his brothers Her- 
 nando, Juan, and Gonzalo and his half- 
 brother, Francisco Alcantara, his equals in 
 valor if not in audacity and intellect. And 
 then, as he believed from what he had seen of 
 the fighting on the Isthmus, that a few scores 
 
 42 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 of good men, mail-clad and well provided with 
 artillery and horses — for these, unknown in 
 the new world before the advent of the 
 Spaniards, had never failed to strike terror 
 to the natives — would be as effective as 
 thousands in overcoming undisciplined masses 
 of Indians, armed in their inferior fashion, 
 instead of attempting to assemble an army 
 he got together only a small company com- 
 posed of men of whose courage and experi- 
 ence he was well assured. Having arranged 
 with Almagro to follow with what reinforce- 
 ments he could recruit from among the un- 
 employed adventurers in Nicaragua, he set 
 out once more. 
 
 This time he happened to land first 
 among the less civilized tribes in Ecuador, 
 where he had the good fortune to find a 
 rich store of emeralds and gold, which he 
 sent back to Almagro to encourage him in 
 his work. Then, marching down the coast 
 to Guayaquil, he crossed to the island of 
 Puna to await the reinforcements, conquered 
 the fierce inhabitants of the place, and was 
 afterward joined by a detachment sent out 
 by his associate under the command of Her- 
 nando de Soto, an adventurer who had served 
 
 43 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 with Cortes in Mexico and was later to 
 attain still greater fame as the discoverer 
 of the Mississippi. Even with those De Soto 
 brought, the whole force numbered less than 
 two hundred and fifty. 
 
 Though they had not the faintest idea of it 
 then, the empire they were destined to bring 
 under the Spanish sway covered a territory 
 along the plateaux and eastern and Pacific 
 slopes of the Andes extending from Quito 
 in Ecuador to the river Maule in Chile, a 
 distance of nearly three thousand miles, in- 
 habited by hardy and warlike races, that 
 numbered, according to the estimate of the 
 early historians, somewhere near twenty mil- 
 lions of people. 
 
 VI 
 
 So great was the empire of the Incas. But 
 from whom were these remarkable rulers de- 
 scended who brought their people to a state 
 of civilization relatively so superior to that 
 of the savages east of the Andes? To what 
 race did they belong? From whence did 
 they originally come — Europe or Asia? — and, 
 if so, how did they get to South America? 
 How did they acquire the knowledge of the 
 
 44 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 arts and sciences that they possessed? "Stu- 
 dents of archaeology have essayed in vain to 
 answer these questions," says Mozans. "All 
 is still shrouded in mystery — in mystery even 
 darker than that which veils the advent of 
 the Toltecs and Aztecs to the valley of Ana- 
 huac, more profound than that which ob- 
 scures the first beginnings of the civilizations 
 on the elevated Pamirs and in the valleys of 
 the Nile and Euphrates. In all this uncer- 
 tainty and mystery, however," he adds, 
 
 "One fact seems to remain incontrovertible, and 
 that is that Manco Capac and Mama Oello" (the 
 founders of the dynasty) "first appeared on the shores 
 of Lake Titicaca" (a body of water nearly as large 
 as Lake Erie, lying between the two main Cordillera 
 of the Andes in southeastern Peru, two miles and a 
 half up above the level of the sea). "On this point 
 tradition and the concurrent testimony of the earlier 
 historians are practically at one. . . . Another 
 fact, too, is unquestioned. Whether Manco Capac, 
 the Minos of Peru, was of foreign or of native birth, 
 it is certain that he was able, in the space of thirty 
 years, to lay the foundation of that vast empire which, 
 under the Inca Yupanqui, extended its conquests to 
 the Maule in Chile, and, under Huayna Capac, 
 planted its victorious banners above the fortresses of 
 the Shiri" (the Cacique of the Caras), "in the ex- 
 tended territory of Quito, and which gave its laws 
 and religion and language to hundreds of conquered 
 tribes." 
 
 45 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 "What is one to do with no historical rec- 
 ords to study over?" asks Hawthorne. 
 
 "The Aztecs did have some sort of writing, and, 
 though we have not yet learned how to read it, we 
 may solace ourselves with the hope that enlightenment 
 may sometime come ; but the people of the Andes 
 did not even use hieroglyphics. Their sole documents 
 were knotted strings. These strings, which they 
 called quipus, were of course merely aids to memory — 
 in the same way that a knot in a handkerchief enables 
 a husband to remember the instructions his wife gives 
 him when he sets out for the city, and which could 
 not be written down in many pages. . . . Never- 
 theless, we have traditions in plenty. . . . Start- 
 ing with the reasonable assumption that there must 
 have been a very considerable past before the Span- 
 iards appeared, we may construct various more or 
 less plausible surmises, based on the Cyclopean archi- 
 tectural ruins which are distributed about the country. 
 Marvelous works they are, though their form, and 
 the carvings with which they are decorated, are less 
 impressive than their mere size and weight. . . . 
 It has been very generally thought that they were 
 the handiwork of the prehistoric Piruas ; yet, since 
 the Piruas are prehistoric, it is not to be expected 
 that much historic information concerning them is 
 obtainable. . . . The ruins had been abandoned long 
 before the Spaniards came and the Indians knew 
 nothing of their origin." 
 
 "Still, it is indisputable," he goes on to say, 
 
 "that in Peru the grade of culture found in Mex- 
 
 46 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 ico at the time of the conquest must have been 
 reached and passed many ages earlier. In proof of 
 this we have the fact that the Peruvians alone had 
 succeeded in domesticating animals. Only the dog 
 had been adapted to man's service in other parts of 
 America. Here the domestic llama, for instance, was 
 derived from the wild huanacu and the alpaca from 
 the vicuna. Many centuries would be required in 
 order to bring about these results. Several varieties 
 of maize were also produced under cultivation, and 
 the Peruvian species of cotton plant is known to 
 exist only as it appears under cultivation. Wild 
 tubers were found in Peru from which the potato was 
 educed. Now, it has been proven by experiment that 
 wild potatoes require a very long time to put on 
 a civilized complexion. It was in Peru that the 
 potato, as we know it, was first discovered. It was 
 not cultivated north of Darien. Raleigh brought 
 the first specimens to Ireland in 1568, but it was not 
 until the end of the eighteenth century that they 
 came into general use in Europe. The Peruvians 
 practiced irrigation and manured their crops with 
 guano." 
 
 And he continues: 
 
 "The materials for this nation were provided by 
 the four tribes — Incas, Quichuas, Canas, and Cauchis 
 — scattered over the northwest of South America. 
 They were all mountaineers, short but strong and 
 active, with soft, brown skins, black hair, and arched 
 noses. At first the tribes were composed of clans, but 
 the Incas settled in the lofty valley of Cuzco and 
 
 47 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 from that coign of vantage gradually subdued the 
 other tribes. Unlike the Aztecs, they confirmed their 
 conquests, not by exacting tribute, but by military 
 occupation of the subject territory. The town of 
 Cuzco was built about the end of the twelfth century 
 and the work of internal organization was begun. It 
 is at this point that solid historical information first 
 comes to hand. A succession of head chiefs or kings 
 had already been instituted. These monarchs were 
 called Incas par excellence — the Inca of all minor 
 Incas. To this general name, nicknames were added, 
 by way of distinguishing them. Finally, the eighth 
 of the line was called Viracocha, which means Sun- 
 God, and indicated that by that epoch the Incas had 
 acquired something of the divinity that doth hedge 
 a king. 
 
 "Viracocha annexed the land of the Aymaras" (in 
 Bolivia), "who are suspected of descent from the 
 builders of Tiahuanucu" (where are some of the most 
 interesting of the ruins). "In the next reign the 
 strong tribe of the Chancas, living close to the 
 equator, resisted the march of conquest, but were 
 finally defeated under the walls of Cuzco and their 
 country afterward annexed. The Chimus, who gave 
 its name to Chimborazo, were the next victims of the 
 Incas, who now ruled the region from Lake Titicaca 
 to the equator and from the Andes to the sea. It 
 was under the Inca Yupanqui that this conquest took 
 place, and he is regarded as the great hero of Peru- 
 vian history. To him was applied the name Pacha- 
 cutec, Changer of the World. The successor of this 
 champion extended the dominion of his people so much 
 farther that it became necessary to found the city of 
 Quito to keep watch over the northern portion of the 
 
 48 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 empire. He brought in the valley of Pachacamac, 
 where there was an ancient and desirable temple, and 
 also penetrated far into Chile. . . . 
 
 "The Inca language was spoken throughout the 
 empire. Garrisons were distributed at strategic 
 points and were connected by the famous roads which 
 have been the wonder and admiration of the world. 
 . . . There was a central highway from Quito 
 to Cuzco, and thence southward, which is thus 
 described by the historian Cieza" (de Leon): "'I 
 believe that since the history of man has been recorded 
 there has been no account of such grandeur as is to 
 be seen on this road, which passes over deep valleys 
 and lofty mountains, by snowy heights, over falls of 
 water, through the living rocks and along the edges 
 of furious torrents. In all these places it is level 
 and paved, along mountain slopes well excavated, 
 through the living rock cut, along the river banks 
 supported by walls, in the snowy heights with steps 
 and resting places, in all parts clean-swept, clear of 
 stones, with posts and storehouses and temples of the 
 sun at intervals. Oh, what greater thing could be 
 said of Alexander, or of any of the powerful kings 
 that have ruled in the world, than that they had 
 made such a road as this and conceived the works 
 that were required for it! The roads constructed by 
 the Romans in Spain are not to be compared with it.' 
 The post houses were some four or five miles apart and 
 in each were two Indians who carried messages to and 
 from the next house in line, whereby the government 
 was kept constantly informed of what was going on 
 in all parts of its dominions. In this way messages 
 could travel at the rate of nearly a hundred and fifty 
 miles a day." 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The Inca deities were the Sun and Moon. 
 The Sun they regarded as God the Father 
 and the Moon (believed to be the Sun-God's 
 sister and wife) as the Goddess- Mother. The 
 people called themselves Children of the Sun. 
 The reigning Inca was at once the Chief 
 Priest and absolute temporal ruler. Follow- 
 ing their conception of the divine relationship, 
 he could marry only his sister of the full blood 
 and only their eldest son could inherit the 
 throne. If no son was born of this first in- 
 cestuous marriage, or if he died and no other 
 was born, the Inca married the next sister, 
 and so on until there was one capable of in- 
 heriting. But there were morganatic mar- 
 riages, as a result of which each of the reign- 
 ing Incas left numerous sons and daughters, 
 whose descendants constituted a privileged 
 class, and in the course of ages the throne 
 came to be surrounded by thousands of men 
 of the royal blood who were devoted from 
 their birth to warfare, learning, and state- 
 craft. A subject, however, could have more 
 than one wife only by favor of the Inca. The 
 government, though exercised in a kindly 
 spirit, as we are told by the ancient chron- 
 iclers, was in form a military despotism. 
 
 50 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 There was no money or other medium of 
 exchange; gold and silver were used only for 
 purposes of adornment; such trade as there 
 was, was by barter. Every man was obliged 
 to work for the common good at some form of 
 industry or occupation suitable to his strength 
 and age and, if able, to take his turn at the 
 maintenance and extension of the irrigation 
 systems, which in that way were brought to 
 such a state of perfection that modern Peru 
 still lives on the half-ruined fragments of 
 their canals and conduits and reservoirs. 
 Hardly a spot of arable soil was left uncul- 
 tivated. Whole mountains were terraced for 
 thousands of feet up their sides. 
 
 Private ownership in land did not exist; it 
 belonged to the communes. The custom was 
 to divide it into tracts, each large enough to 
 support a family, and parcel it out; for every 
 child born there was an additional allotment, 
 and, at intervals, a general revision and redis- 
 tribution. The produce was divided into three 
 parts: one for the Inca and his establishment, 
 one for the priesthood, and one for the com- 
 mune. When one section of the country was 
 impoverished by war or some other casualty, 
 its needs were supplied by assessments levied 
 
 51 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 on the others. The occupations of the women, 
 both in town and country, were essentially 
 domestic. Some were brought up from child- 
 hood and specially educated to serve in the 
 religious rites and in the household of the 
 reigning Inca. These were known as Virgins 
 of the Sun. 
 
 The capital, Cuzco, was located in a valley 
 about two hundred miles northwest of Lake 
 Titicaca and at a lower elevation, yet still 
 more than two miles up above the level of the 
 sea. A colossal, massive-walled citadel loomed 
 over it from the heights of Sacsahuaman 
 above the town. Strong walls and towers 
 inclosed it on every side. In its midst was 
 a great square, from which started the re- 
 markable roads leading to the four corners 
 of the empire, referred to by Hawthorne. 
 One whole side was occupied by the tem- 
 ple, and near by were the dwellings of the 
 priests and the palaces of the Inca and 
 the Virgins of the Sun. This sacred space 
 was a citadel in itself, protected by five heavy 
 walls. 
 
 Describing the temple, the historian of 
 the conquest, Garcilaso de la Vega (and 
 there was no one better qualified to write on 
 
 52 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 the subject, for he was himself, on the mater- 
 nal side, a grandson of one of the last of the 
 Inca kings), says that "All the four walls 
 were covered from roof to floor with plates 
 and slabs of gold. In the side, where we 
 should place the altar, they placed a figure 
 of the Sun, made of a plate of gold of a 
 thickness double that of the other plates 
 which covered the walls. The figure was 
 made with a circular face and rays of fire 
 issuing from it, all of one piece, just as the 
 sun is represented by painters. It was so 
 large as to occupy one side of the temple 
 from one wall to the other." Even the door- 
 posts were of gold. One door, encased in 
 silver, led to a hall dedicated to the Moon- 
 Goddess, where the images and furnishings 
 were all of silver, as were also the decorations 
 of the mummies of the Incas' wives. 
 
 "The walls of their palaces," Markham 
 says, "were built of stone, of a dark slate 
 color, with recesses and doors at certain in- 
 tervals, the sides of the doors approaching 
 each other" (narrowing toward the top) "and 
 supporting huge stone lintels. The side walls 
 were pierced with small square windows, as 
 in the ruins of Manco Capac's palace, and the 
 
 53 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 roofs were thatched with the ycha, or long 
 grass of the Andes. The interior consisted of 
 several spacious halls, with smaller rooms 
 opening into them, and the interior walls were 
 adorned with golden animals and flowers, 
 executed with much skill and taste. Mirrors 
 of a hard stone, highly polished, hung on 
 stone pegs, while in the numerous recesses 
 were utensils and conopas (household gods) 
 of gold and silver, fantastically designed. 
 The couches were of vicuna cloth of the soft- 
 est and finest texture." 
 
 Of the palaces of the Incas, Francisco Lo- 
 pez de Gomara tells us that "all the service 
 of their house, table and kitchen, was of gold 
 and silver, or at least of silver and copper. 
 The Inca had in his chamber hollow statues 
 of gold, which appeared like giants, and oth- 
 ers naturally imitated from animals, birds, 
 and trees, from plants produced by the land 
 and from such fish as are yielded by the 
 waters of the kingdom. He also had ropes, 
 baskets and hampers of gold and silver and 
 piles of golden sticks to imitate fuel prepared 
 for burning. In short, there was nothing 
 that his territory produced that he had not got 
 imitated in gold." 
 
 54 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 Cieza de Leon says of the magnificence 
 of the harvest festivals celebrated in the 
 great plaza of the temple: "We hold it 
 to be very certain that neither in Jeru- 
 salem, nor in Rome, nor in Persia, nor 
 in any other part of the world, was such 
 wealth of gold and silver and precious stones 
 collected together." In his later years, while 
 living in Spain, Garcilaso de la Vega, who 
 had been just as enthusiastic in his descrip- 
 tion, and seemed to fear that he might be 
 suspected of romancing, took occasion to 
 write that "this is not hard for those to be- 
 lieve who have since seen so much gold and 
 silver arrive here from that land. In the 
 year 1595 alone, within the space of eight 
 months, thirty-five millions of gold and silver 
 crossed the bar of San Lucar in three car- 
 goes." 
 
 "Many generations of culture and Inca 
 rule had produced men of a very different 
 physical type," Markham tells us, "from the 
 Peruvian Indian of to-day. We see the Incas 
 in the pictures at the church of Santa Ana 
 at Cuzco," he continues. 
 
 "The color of the skin was many shades lighter 
 than that of the downtrodden descendants of their 
 
 55 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 subjects. The forehead was high, the nose slightly 
 aquiline, the chin and mouth firm, the whole face 
 majestic, refined, and intellectual. The hair was 
 gracefully arranged, and around the head was the 
 llantu, the sign of sovereignty. The llantu appears 
 to have been a short piece of red fringe on the fore- 
 head, fastened around the head by two bands. It 
 was habitually worn, but, when praying, the Inca 
 took it off and put it on the ground beside him. 
 The ceremonial headdress was the mascapaycha, a 
 golden semicircular miter on the forehead, to which 
 the llantu was fastened. Bright colored feathers 
 were fixed on the sides and the plume" (of black 
 and white falcon feathers, he says in another place) 
 "rose over the summit. Long golden eardrops came 
 down to the shoulders. The tunic and mantel varied 
 in color and were made of the finest vicuna wool. On 
 the breast the Incas wore a golden semicircular breast- 
 plate, representing the sun, with a border of signs 
 for the months. 
 
 "The later Incas wore a very rich kind of brocade, 
 in bands sewn together, forming a wide belt. The 
 bands were in squares, each with an ornament. The 
 material was called tocapu. Some of the Incas had 
 the whole tunic of tocapu. The breeches were black 
 and in loose plaits at the knees. The usutas, or 
 sandals, were of white wool. The Inca clad for war 
 had a large square shield of wood or leather. There 
 was a loop of leather at the back to pass the arm 
 through. In one hand was a wooden staff, about two 
 feet long, with a bronze star, of six or eight points, 
 fastened at one end — a most formidable warclub. 
 In the other hand was a long staff with a battle axe 
 fixed at one end. The Ccoya, or Queen, wore the 
 
 56 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 lliclla or mantle fastened across the chest by a very 
 large golden topu or pin, with head elaborately 
 carved with ornaments and figures. The lliclla or 
 mantle and acsu or skirt varied as regards color. 
 The head was adorned with golden circlets and 
 flowers. . . . The nobles wore headdresses of egret 
 feathers and gold breastplates over their tunics. The 
 princesses wore long mantles of various colors, and 
 the Virgins of the Sun long white mantles, secured 
 across the bosom by large gold pins." 
 
 Mozans, writing of the spot they held most 
 sacred of all, says: 
 
 "It would be difficult to find any place in the world 
 richer in legends and traditions than is Lake Titicaca. 
 Every cove and inlet, every rock and island has its 
 myth, and many of these places were held in special 
 veneration by the Incas for long generations. This 
 was especially true of two islands — Titicaca, sacred 
 to the Sun, and Coati, sacred to the Moon, the Sun's 
 sister. What a fascination there was about these 
 two islands! Beholding the cradle and sanctuary of 
 Inca civilization, it was easy to fancy oneself a spec- 
 tator of one of those long processions of reed balsas" 
 (boats) "conveying the children of the Sun from 
 the mainland to the sacred islands of their race, where 
 were the rich temples dedicated to their Sun-Father 
 and Moon-Mother. Adorned with gorgeous trap- 
 pings of gold and silver — royal colors — the Inca's 
 barge, manned by stalwart young oarsmen, specially 
 selected for this service, led the way. Immediately 
 following the Sphinxlike Inca came the members of 
 his court arrayed in gaudy vesture. Next to them 
 
 57 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 were the ministers of the temple and the officers of the 
 army, gleaming in barbaric attire. The rear of the 
 procession was made up of the humble tillers of the 
 soil, who had gathered from all parts to greet their 
 idolized ruler and to swell the number of worshipers 
 congregated about the effigies of the Sun and Moon, 
 or in front of the sacred rock decked with richest 
 tissues and plates of burnished silver and gold. . . . 
 "In these temples and palaces, according to the 
 old chroniclers, were immense treasures, rivaling those 
 in the temples of Cuzco. The riches in the temple of 
 the Sun were especially great, for 'here,' writes Gar- 
 cilaso, 'all the vassals of the Inca offered up much 
 gold and silver and precious stones every year, as 
 a token of gratitude to the Sun for the two acts 
 of grace that had taken place on that spot. This 
 temple had the same service as that of Cuzco. There 
 was said to be such quantity of gold and silver heaped 
 up in the island, besides what was worked for the use 
 of the temple, that the stories of the Indians con- 
 cerning it are more wonderful than credible. Father 
 Bias Valera, one of the earliest Spanish chroniclers, 
 says that the Indian colonists, called Mitimaes, who 
 lived in Copocabana, declared that the quantity of 
 gold and silver heaped up as offerings was so great 
 that another temple might have been made of it, from 
 the foundations to the roof, without using any other 
 materials. But as soon as the Indians heard of the 
 invasion of the country by the Spaniards, and that 
 they were seizing all the treasure they could find, they 
 threw the whole of it into the great lake.' " 
 
 58 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 VII 
 
 Fortunately for Pizarro, at the time he 
 made his appearance on the scene, it hap- 
 pened that these people were either still en- 
 gaged in or had only just terminated a civil 
 war that had been brought on by an attempt 
 of Huascar, the then reigning Inca, to im- 
 pose his will on his half-brother, Atahualpa, 
 a rebellious vassal. It appears that Huas- 
 car's father, the Inca Huayna Capac, hav- 
 ing completed the subjugation of the Car as 
 and their brave allies in Ecuador, had found 
 it necessary to remain in Quito nearly all the 
 rest of his life, to keep the inhabitants in 
 subjection and suppress revolts that fre- 
 quently occurred. As a political move, per- 
 haps, he had married the daughter and heiress 
 of the defeated Shiri and by her had had a 
 son. This was Atahualpa. As he, too, had 
 continued to live in Quito, he had come to be 
 regarded rather as a scion of the ancient 
 Shiri dynasty than as a prince of an alien 
 conquering house. 
 
 And so when in 1525 Huayna Capac died, 
 he left this northern kingdom to Atahualpa 
 and only the southern to Huascar, his eldest 
 
 59 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 son of the full Inca blood, born of his sister- 
 wife; but, to preserve some sort of unity in 
 the empire, he commanded that Huascar, as 
 the only legitimate heir, should be paramount. 
 Huascar, nevertheless, had declined to ac- 
 quiesce in any such virtual division of do- 
 minions that he regarded as his by right of 
 succession, and at the first opportunity had 
 quarreled with Atahualpa and invaded the 
 territory apportioned to him. In the battles 
 that followed Atahualpa's forces had been 
 uniformly victorious, for, always superior in 
 prowess to the now more effete soldiery that 
 had defeated them in their former less organ- 
 ized state, years of Inca rule had taught these 
 northerners how to make better avail of their 
 energy and courage. Suffering enormous 
 losses in every engagement, the forces of 
 Huascar had been driven farther and farther 
 south, until at last, in spite of reinforcements 
 which, it is said, brought his army up to fully 
 seventy thousand, he was beaten before the 
 walls of his capital and made prisoner. 
 
 As soon as his capture had become known, 
 what was left of his army had dispersed, the 
 city had surrendered, and Atahualpa, if we 
 are to believe the chroniclers, had taken a ter- 
 
 CO 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 rible revenge, first causing all Huascar's sub- 
 jects that were of royal blood, and who 
 could be found, to be put to death, and 
 afterward the captured officers who had 
 fought for him. His cruelty, Garcilaso 
 de la Vega tells us, "was greater than that 
 of the Turks. Not content with the blood of 
 his own two hundred brothers, the sons of the 
 great Huayna Capac, he passed on to drink 
 that of his uncles, nephews, and other rela- 
 tions, so that none of the blood royal might 
 escape, whether legitimate or not. They were 
 all murdered in different ways. ... He 
 ordered all the women and children" (of 
 royal blood) "to be assembled, of whatever 
 age and condition, reserving only those who 
 were dedicated to the Sun in the convent of 
 Cuzco. He ordered that they should be killed 
 outside the city, by little and little, and by 
 various cruel tortures, so that they might be 
 long in dying." 
 
 When Pizarro and his party reached 
 Tumbez, Atahualpa, accompanied by a small 
 army, was at the baths near Cajamarca, a 
 town on the Peruvian plateau not far from 
 the Ecuadorian boundary. It was to him 
 there that the report came that strangers had 
 
 61 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 landed — strangers of a different color, who 
 had long hair on their chins and wore strange 
 clothing and armor, who had weapons differ- 
 ent from any that had been seen in the land 
 and bestrode terrible monsters that carried 
 them over the ground with incredible speed. 
 The effect of such startling news may be im- 
 agined. Pizarro, however, after having fully 
 informed himself respecting the political 
 status of affairs, thought he saw an opportu- 
 nity to further his ends by diplomacy and 
 protested that his mission was a friendly one. 
 It would seem that Atahualpa must have 
 realized that the strangers were far more for- 
 midable than was indicated by their mere 
 number, for he sent his brother Titu to wel- 
 come them and make inquiries as to their de- 
 sires and the purpose of their visit. By him 
 Pizarro, having first expressed his thanks, 
 sent a message to the effect that he would go 
 at once to Cajamarca and call on Atahualpa 
 in person. What then occurred is thus related 
 by Dawson: 
 
 "On receiving Pizarro's answer to his friendly mes- 
 sage, Atahualpa resolved to await the promised visit, 
 apparently suspecting no evil. The audacious Span- 
 iard had, however, conceived the design of capturing 
 
 62 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 the victorious claimant of the throne of the Incas, 
 well knowing that in its actual distracted condition 
 the country would be left without a center about 
 which it could rally. Open war, no matter how over- 
 whelming his first victory might be, could hardly be 
 ultimately successful. Atahualpa, once safe at Cuzco 
 or Quito, and surrounded by the disciplined soldiers 
 who had overthrown Huascar, a defensive campaign 
 might be undertaken in which Pizarro would find 
 every step toward either capital bitterly disputed. 
 Hundreds of thousands of Peruvians pouring up from 
 the numberless provinces of the empire would be 
 thrown in a never ceasing succession of armies against 
 the little band of Spaniards and the latter would 
 infallibly be driven back to the coast by starvation 
 and fatigue, if not by defeat in the field. 
 
 "Apparently foolhardy, in fact Pizarro's plan of- 
 fered the only chance of success. Never dreaming 
 that such a step was in contemplation, Atahualpa took 
 no precautions. Leaving fifty-five men at the little 
 port of San Miguel in the Paita valley to secure his 
 retreat, Pizarro marched south with one hundred 
 and two foot soldiers, sixty-two horses, and two small 
 cannon, two hundred miles along the coast plain to 
 a point opposite Cajamarca, and ascended along an 
 Inca military road, meeting a friendly reception from 
 the wondering natives, and supplied with provisions 
 by Atahualpa's orders. On the 15th of September, 
 1532, he entered Cajamarca. He found an open 
 square in the middle of the town, surrounded by walls 
 and solid stone buildings, which he received permission 
 to occupy as quarters. From his camp outside Ata- 
 hualpa sent word that on the following day he would 
 enter the town in state and receive the Spaniards. 
 
 63 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 "Marvelous good fortune favored Pizarro's designs. 
 The Indians had furnished a trap all ready made, and 
 now Atahualpa deliberately walked into it. On the 
 morning of the 16th the Indian army broke camp and 
 marched to Caj amarca, followed by the Emperor, who 
 was borne in a litter and surrounded by his personal 
 attendants, the great chiefs and the nobles belonging 
 to his own lineage." (Those belonging to Huascar's 
 he had caused to be killed.) "At sunset he entered 
 the square, accompanied only by these unarmed at- 
 tendants and found Pizarro and a few Spaniards 
 awaiting him. The rest were hidden in the houses 
 around the square with their horses saddled, their 
 breastplates on, and musketry and cannon ready 
 charged. From among the group that surrounded 
 Pizarro, stepped forward Friar Valverde and ap- 
 proached the Inca monarch, who, reclining in a litter 
 raised high above the crowd on the shoulders of his 
 attendants, waited with dignity to hear what these 
 strangers had to say. 
 
 "The priest advanced with a cross in one hand and 
 a Bible in the other and began a harangue which, 
 clumsily translated by an Indian boy, the Inca hardly 
 understood. But in a few moments he realized that 
 this uncouth j argon was meant to convey an arrogant 
 demand that he acknowledge himself a vassal of 
 Charles V and submit to baptism. With haughty 
 surprise, he threw down the book Valverde tried to 
 force into his hand. The priest shouted: 'Fall on, 
 Castilians — I absolve you ! ' and into the helpless 
 crowd burst a murderous fire from the doors of the 
 houses all around. Aghast and bewildered by this 
 display of powers which to them seemed necromantic, 
 the survivors nevertheless stood manfully to the at- 
 
 64 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 tack of the mail-clad horsemen who rode into the 
 huddled masses, ferociously slashing and slaughtering. 
 The Indians strove desperately to drag the Spaniards 
 from the horses with their naked hands and interposed 
 a living wall of human flesh between the murderers 
 and their beloved sovereign. At length Pizarro's own 
 hands snatched Atahualpa from the litter. The 
 Indian soldiers outside, hearing the firearms and the 
 noise of the struggle, tried to force their way into 
 the square, but the Spanish musketry and cannon 
 mowed them down by hundreds and they fled before 
 the charges of the cavalry, dispersing in the twilight." 
 
 Atahualpa was then confined in a small 
 stone house adjoining the palace of the Vir- 
 gins of the Sun (the latter is now a convent, 
 occupied by Sisters of Charity), and every 
 precaution possible under the circumstances 
 was taken to prevent his rescue. Pizarro's 
 next move in the conquest was to murder him. 
 But, in the meanwhile, he had suggested in 
 conversations with his prisoner that Huascar's 
 followers would probably take advantage of 
 the opportunity afforded by his capture to 
 reorganize their scattered forces and make an 
 effort to regain the throne; he had hinted, 
 too, at the advisability of arbitration, and 
 Atahualpa had taken alarm and secretly or- 
 dered Huascar's execution; whereupon Pi- 
 zarro had, feigned the greatest indignation 
 
 65 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and had contrived to frighten his victim into 
 offering his famous ransom. "I will fill this 
 room with gold," he said, "as high as I can 
 reach, if only you will liberate me." (The 
 room in which he was confined was 32 feet 
 9 inches long, 20 feet 9 inches wide, and 10 
 feet 9 inches high.) Pizarro accepted, a truce 
 was agreed upon, Atahualpa ordered all 
 preparations for war on the Spaniards to be 
 suspended, and arranged for the collection of 
 the gold. When the amount stipulated for 
 was at last assembled, it was found to have 
 a value equivalent to more than seventeen 
 millions of dollars in our currency. Some 
 historians say much more. Dawson, for in- 
 stance, says it was more than twenty-two 
 millions. One-fifth was sent to the royal 
 treasury in Spain and the rest was divided 
 among the adventurers. The share of the 
 private soldiers even was large enough to 
 make each of them rich for life. 
 
 Nevertheless, Pizarro had not performed 
 his part of the agreement by setting his pris- 
 oner at liberty. Whether or not he had ever 
 intended to can only be conjectured. It is 
 clear only that, even if he did enter into the 
 agreement in bad faith, as was charged by the 
 
 66 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 chroniclers, he was afterward confronted by 
 a problem which, in the opinion of recent 
 writers, justified his perfidious behavior. 
 Quizquiz, the general whose ability had en- 
 abled Atahualpa so often to defeat his late 
 rival, was known to have taken the field with 
 a large body of troops. Could a man such as 
 Atahualpa had proven himself to be, re- 
 leased and at the head of a great army once 
 more, be expected to permit these foreigners, 
 who had so treacherously captured him and 
 slain his attendants while on a friendly visit, 
 to depart in peace with their loot? It did not 
 seem likely. On the other hand, retreat 
 through a then hostile country with the pris- 
 oner still in custody was out of the question, 
 and, if he should continue to hold him in Ca- 
 jamarca, Quizquiz, who had only been await- 
 ing the word, would no longer hesitate to 
 attack. 
 
 No; a bold coup de main of some sort was 
 imperative. If Atahualpa could be gotten rid 
 of altogether, for instance, there was a chance, 
 in the confusion that must follow, to reach 
 Cuzco and form an alliance with the par- 
 tisans of the murdered Inca, with a view to 
 ousting the usurper's party and restoring the 
 
 67 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 throne to the legitimate line. Such a chance 
 had only to exist to be appreciated by one so 
 clear-sighted and audacious as Pizarro. It 
 was his life and his friends' — and, of course, 
 the Indian treasure — against only the life of 
 Atahualpa, and the prisoner's fate was sealed. 
 There was a mock trial, wherein he was con- 
 victed of the murder of Huascar, conspiracy 
 against the Spaniards, and other high crimes 
 and misdemeanors, and then he was strangled 
 to death in the public square — strangled 
 rather than burned, says Hawthorne, as an 
 act of grace, in consideration of his having 
 professed at the last the Christian faith. 
 
 Some weeks before this, Almagro had 
 joined the Conquistadores at Cajamarca with 
 reinforcements that brought the Spanish 
 force up to about five hundred. As soon as 
 Atahualpa had been disposed of, the com- 
 mander, with all his men, began his advance, 
 by forced marches, on Cuzco, an advantageous 
 position near which he was fortunate enough 
 to secure without having encountered Quiz- 
 quiz, though some of the cavalry under De 
 Soto were engaged by a detachment on the 
 way; all efforts to interpose the main body 
 of the Indian army were frustrated by their 
 
 68 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 speed. However, though "the true heir to 
 the crown was a second son of Huayna Capac, 
 named Manco, a legitimate brother of the 
 unfortunate Huascar," says Prescott, "Pi- 
 zarro had too little knowledge of the dispo- 
 sition of this prince and he made no scruple 
 to prefer Toparca, a young brother of Ata- 
 hualpa and to present him to the Indian 
 nobles as their future Inca." So, to make 
 assurance doubly sure, he did not, before he 
 set out, announce his purpose of driving off 
 the enemies of the rightful heir, but took the 
 boy with him, "attended by a numerous 
 retinue of vassals and moving in as much 
 state and ceremony as if in possession of regal 
 power." Before they reached Cuzco, much 
 to Pizarro's chagrin, the boy fell sick and 
 died. 
 
 But the misfortune was soon repaired, for, 
 sure enough, when the adventurers went into 
 camp outside the walls of the capital, no less 
 a personage than Manco Capac II himself 
 called on the commander in person and pro- 
 posed the hoped-for alliance; and, just a year 
 from the day he had taken Cajamarca, he 
 entered Cuzco as the protector of the real 
 Inca, whose coronation he permitted to be 
 
 69 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 celebrated with all the splendor of the ancient 
 rites. The Indians of central Peru hailed 
 him as their deliverer from the tyranny of the 
 usurper. Manco Capac, for his part, soon 
 assembled a great army, and, with the help of 
 some of the Spaniards, decisively defeated 
 Quizquiz and drove him back to Ecuador. 
 
 VIII 
 
 But there was a sad awakening in store for 
 the Inca on his return from that victorious 
 campaign. He had permitted these allies of 
 his — rapacious, recklessly daring as they were, 
 and unscrupulous, cruel, and fanatical in their 
 attitude toward infidels — to obtain a foothold 
 in the very capital of the empire. And what 
 manner of man was it of whom the great 
 body of his subjects was made up? He was 
 brave, yes — physically; he could fight, and 
 conquer, too, when ably led, but also he was 
 morally utterly irresponsible, "a slave," as 
 Mozans puts it, "utterly devoid of energy 
 and individual initiative," accustomed to look 
 to the ruling class for guidance, to regard the 
 Inca "with superstitious awe, as a being of a 
 superior order." Centuries of despotic gov- 
 
 70 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 ernment, rigid religious ritual, communal 
 ownership of property, and labor, not for 
 himself but for the commonwealth, had 
 robbed him of all ambition and instilled into 
 him the habit of accepting with patient res- 
 ignation whatever fate might decree. 
 
 And now, after all these centuries of com- 
 plaisance, what must have been his mental at- 
 titude at the end of such a succession of 
 events ? First, the late legitimate Inca Huas- 
 car, omnipotent as he was supposed to have 
 been, directly descended from the Sun- God 
 and Moon-Mother themselves, had been over- 
 thrown and put to death by an illegitimate 
 rival. Then that rival, also of the Inca blood, 
 had in his turn been captured in the very face 
 of his army, and put to death despite another 
 and much greater army, by a little band of 
 mysterious strangers, against whose mail-clad 
 bodies the battle-axes and spears of the In- 
 dians had been powerless — strangers who 
 had made fierce, "fleet-footed monsters" 
 (horses) subservient to their will and who 
 carried terrible weapons that went off with a 
 noise like thunder and vomited fire and 
 smoke, and with which they killed their ene- 
 mies before they could come near enough to 
 
 71 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 get in a blow. Had not these invincible 
 strangers, and apparently by supernatural 
 means, overcome even the legitimate Inca's 
 conqueror? Surely, then, they must be some 
 still superior order of beings, sent by the Sun- 
 God to accomplish some wonderful purpose. 
 Therefore they must be obeyed. Pizarro 
 himself could not have created a people more 
 suited to the carrying out of his designs had 
 he had the power. 
 
 Probably realizing this, he promptly aban- 
 doned all subterfuge. As a consideration for 
 the help he had been given in the campaign 
 against Quizquiz, the Inca had been induced 
 by stress of circumstances to acknowledge the 
 supremacy of the King of Spain. It was 
 only as a matter of form, he had been led to 
 believe, but Pizarro now exacted the fullest 
 compliance. As Adelantado by appointment 
 of the overlord, he established a municipal 
 council to govern the city, transformed the 
 great temple into a church, made use of cer- 
 tain of the public buildings as officers' quar- 
 ters and barracks for the soldiers, seized all 
 the treasure that was to be found — even the 
 private dwellings and tombs were searched 
 and stripped of it — and required the authori- 
 
 72 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 ties to supply troops and carriers to accom- 
 pany the exploring parties he sent out. "Pi- 
 zarro, on entering Cuzco, had issued an order 
 forbidding any soldier to offer violence to the 
 dwellings of the inhabitants," says Prescott: 
 
 "But the palaces were numerous and the troops 
 lost no time in plundering them of their contents as 
 well as in despoiling the religious edifices. The in- 
 terior decorations supplied them with considerable 
 booty. They stripped off the jewels and rich orna- 
 ments that garnished the royal mummies in the 
 temple of Coricancha. Indignant at the conceal- 
 ment of their treasures, they put the inhabitants, in 
 some instances, to the torture and endeavored to 
 extort from them a confession of their hiding places. 
 They invaded the repose of the sepulchers, in which 
 the Peruvians often deposited their valuable effects, 
 and compelled the grave to give up its dead. No 
 place was left unexplored by the rapacious conquerors, 
 and they occasionally stumbled on a mine of wealth 
 that rewarded their labors. In a cavern near the city 
 they found a number of vases, richly embossed with 
 figures of serpents, locusts, and other animals. Among 
 the spoils were four golden llamas and ten or twelve 
 statues of women, as large as life, some of gold, others 
 of silver, 'which merely to see,' says one of the con- 
 querors, with some naivete, 'was truly a great satis- 
 faction.' . . . The magazines were stored with curi- 
 ous commodities — richly tinted robes of cotton and 
 feather work, gold sandals and slippers of the same 
 material, for the women, and dresses composed en- 
 tirely of beads of gold.' ... In one place, for 
 
 73 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 example, they met with ten planks or bars of solid 
 silver, each piece twenty feet in length, one foot 
 in breadth, and two or three inches thick. They were 
 intended to decorate the dwelling of an Inca noble. 
 . . . The amount of booty is stated variously by 
 those present at the division of it. According to 
 some, it considerably exceeded the ransom of Ata- 
 hualpa." 
 
 Fully appreciating also the desirability of 
 establishing a capital of his own at some 
 strategic point much more easily accessible 
 from Panama, Pizarro made a careful study 
 of routes and possible sites and finally chose 
 one beside the river Rimac, on a fertile, ele- 
 vated plain near the base of the Cordillera, 
 only about three leagues from one of the best 
 harbors on the coast, and at the point where 
 the Inca military road began its ascent to the 
 plateau. Here, only about a year after he 
 entered Cuzco, he founded La Ciudad de los 
 Reyes (the City of the Kings), so named in 
 honor of the Three Kings or Wise Men of the 
 East, because their feast day, Epiphany, oc- 
 curred at that season of the year. Soon it be- 
 came known as Lima. "Before the erection of 
 a single house was permitted," he had a plan 
 drawn up, Mozans tells us, providing for 
 large squares and streets unusually wide, "and 
 
 74 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 in making this plan he had in view, not the 
 small number (only sixty-nine) of those who 
 were then prepared to make their homes 
 there, but the future greatness of 'The Em- 
 pire City of the New World.' Moreover, 
 as the city had to be in God and for God and 
 in His name — en Dios y por Dios y en su 
 nombre — to use his own words, work was 
 first begun on the church, which was named 
 Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion. The first 
 stone and the first pieces of timber were put 
 in place by the hands of the Adelantado him- 
 self, who wished, like the other Conquista- 
 dores, to emphasize his zeal for religion and 
 his devotion to La Santissima Virgen, Madre 
 de Dios" 
 
 In the meanwhile his brother Hernando 
 had gone to Spain with the King's fifth of 
 the loot, and on the way had spread the 
 news. Once more all was excitement on the 
 Isthmus. It was not long before Pizarro's 
 forces were augmented by three or four 
 hundred soldiers that had been led into 
 Ecuador by Pedro de Alvarado, Governor of 
 Guatemala, who consented to abandon his 
 expedition when persuaded by Almagro, who 
 went at once to meet him, that he was tres- 
 
 75 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 passing on Pizarro's preserves, for which act 
 of grace the Spanish King added the province 
 of Honduras to Alvarado's jurisdiction, and 
 Almagro gave him a large sum of money ; and, 
 when communication was established between 
 Lima and Panama by sea, adventurers of 
 every degree began to flock to the new city 
 as they had before to Mexico and Central 
 America. 
 
 This enabled Almagro, with an army of 
 nearly six hundred Spaniards and fifteen 
 thousand Indians, the latter under the com- 
 mand of one of the Inca's brothers, to make 
 an excursion into Chile for purposes of ex- 
 ploration, for it had been agreed that he 
 should have the southern half of the territory 
 they might conquer and Pizarro the northern. 
 Sebastian de Benalcazar, another of Pizarro's 
 lieutenants, went to Ecuador with a force of 
 two hundred Spaniards and a large Indian 
 contingent and completed the defeat of Ata- 
 hualpa's adherents, took possession of Quito 
 and founded the city of Guayaquil at the 
 mouth of the Guayas River, which provided 
 for that country, too, independent access from 
 the sea. 
 
 Also by this time any illusions the Inca 
 76 
 
CATHEDRAL AT LIMA, BUILT BY PIZARRO. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 may have had as to the continuance of the 
 ancient dynasty under the protection of the 
 Spaniards were dispelled. By this time even 
 his complaisant subjects must have discovered 
 that these superhuman deliverers, as they had 
 thought them, were mere men — or else, if they 
 were indeed a different order of beings, that 
 order, they must have concluded, was infernal 
 rather than divine. The sovereignty of the 
 Inca had become little more than a fiction. 
 As in the islands of the Caribbean and else- 
 where, the fairest lands in the country had 
 been divided into vast estates and great num- 
 bers of natives practically reduced to slav- 
 ery and set to work them for the benefit of 
 their new masters. With respect to their 
 treatment in general, though Pizarro him- 
 self seems to have been guilty of few acts 
 of wanton cruelty, he either could not, or 
 did not if he could, restrain the oppression 
 of them by his followers. If their behavior 
 was not quite as atrocious as that of other 
 Spaniards toward the tribes in the north, 
 there was an utter lack of considerateness in 
 it and disregard of their property and rights 
 that galled even them. 
 
 Roused at last, the Inca took advantage 
 77 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of the opportunity afforded by the scatter- 
 ing of the Spanish force and made his escape 
 from Cuzco, where Hernando Pizarro and 
 his younger brothers Juan and Gonzalo were 
 in command, and, finding his subjects ripe for 
 revolt, had no difficulty in raising two large 
 armies. One he sent against the Adelantado, 
 who was in Lima; with the other he returned 
 to Cuzco and took the great citadel of 
 Sacsahuaman, overlooking the town, and be- 
 gan a siege that was to last more than six 
 months, and during which Juan Pizarro was 
 killed in an attempt to recapture the citadel. 
 The army that went to the coast was am- 
 bushed and defeated by the Spaniards and 
 their local adherents before ever it reached 
 Lima. All that what was left of it could 
 do was to prevent the sending of reinforce- 
 ments to Cuzco despite the desperate straits 
 to which the Spanish force there was reduced. 
 Pizarro was himself compelled to send to 
 the Isthmus for help. Just before it was too 
 late, however, he managed to get away two 
 hundred and fifty men to the relief of his 
 brothers, and just at that juncture also, Al- 
 magro, on his way back from Chile, turned 
 up with his followers, and, caught between 
 
 78 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 Cuzco and these two new detachments of the 
 enemy, the Inca was overwhelmed and con- 
 cluded to retire into the wild region of Vilca- 
 bamba, where the Spaniards could not follow 
 with any hope of success, and there held out 
 for some years. But with his retreat all that 
 remained of the Inca dominion came to an 
 end. There were a few other attempts, but 
 neither he nor his descendants ever succeeded 
 in recovering the throne. 
 
 As for Almagro, he had had a frightful 
 experience during his excursion into Chile 
 and had met with nothing but disappointment 
 and disaster. The route unwittingly chosen 
 had been over the bleak Bolivian plateaux 
 and across the mountains where the Cordillera 
 reaches its highest, at a season when the 
 passes are buried in snow and swept by 
 furious storms, and his men had perished 
 by thousands, some of the best of his Span- 
 iards among the number. When he had at 
 last made his way to the beautiful central val- 
 ley between the Cordillera and the coast range 
 and down to the river Maule, he had found 
 nothing of the opulence of Peru, but only 
 a poor but brave, warlike people who in a 
 fierce battle had succeeded in checking his 
 
 79 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 advance. And now, disgusted with this 
 country of his to the south, he returned and 
 made claim to Cuzco as being within his half 
 of the conquered territory and demanded of 
 the Pizarros its surrender. On their refusal, 
 he promptly carried it by assault, made 
 Hernando and Gonzalo his prisoners, and 
 went out to meet the troops that had been 
 sent to their relief by the Adelantado and 
 defeated them. 
 
 And then, as Hawthorne puts it, "had he 
 cut off the heads of both of these gentlemen 
 on the spot, he would have saved himself 
 years of struggle, with a death on the scaffold 
 at the end of them. But he was not of the 
 right fiber for the work that was laid upon 
 him; he was not what the English would call 
 'thorough' " ; he temporized and listened to 
 his wily associate. "Civil disturbances went 
 on for eleven years," continues Hawthorne, 
 " 'in the course of which,' as Professor Fiske 
 remarks, 'all the principal actors were swept 
 off the stage as in some cheap blood-and- 
 thunder tragedy. It is not worth while to 
 recount the petty incidents of the struggle — 
 how Almagro was at one moment ready to 
 submit to arbitration and the next refused 
 
 80 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 to abide by the decision; how Hernando was 
 set at liberty and Gonzalo escaped; how Al- 
 magro's able lieutenant, Rodrigo de Orgonez, 
 won a victory over Pizarro's men at Abancay 
 but was totally defeated by Hernando Pi- 
 zarro at Las Salinas and perished on the field; 
 how at last Hernando had Almagro tried for 
 sedition and summarily executed. On which 
 side was the more violence and treachery it 
 would be hard to say. Indeed, as Sir Arthur 
 Helps observes, "in this melancholy struggle 
 it is difficult to find anybody whom the reader 
 can sympathize much with." ' " 
 
 Then, once more Francisco Pizarro entered 
 Cuzco in triumph, this time wearing an 
 ermine robe that had been presented to him 
 by Hernando Cortes, and again he devoted 
 himself to organizing his government and 
 extending the Spanish dominion over the 
 distant provinces. The number of his com- 
 patriots had increased to eight thousand. 
 Gonzalo was appointed Governor of Quito, 
 from whence he strayed to make a disastrous 
 journey down the eastern slope of the Andes 
 in search of the mythical Eldorado, which he 
 did not find, but which resulted in the dis- 
 covery of and voyage down the Amazon, from 
 
 81 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the mountains to the sea, by Francisco de 
 Orellana, his second in command. Hernando 
 went to Bolivia to search for the mines from 
 which the Incas were supposed to have gotten 
 their wealth, a labor that was rewarded by the 
 discovery of Potosi, which has yielded more 
 than two billions of ounces of silver — and 
 silver and gold were of equal value in Europe 
 in those days. Pedro de Valdivia undertook 
 the conquest of Chile and Alonso de Al- 
 varado, one of the most generous and hu- 
 mane of the Conquistadores, that of the 
 mountains of northern Peru. The Adelan- 
 tado himself traveled over most of the empire, 
 founding cities at strategic points in the more 
 populous and fertile valleys, among them 
 Arequipa, and here in Bolivia as in the 
 country about Cuzco he divided the most de- 
 sirable of the lands into repartimientos and 
 apportioned them among his favorites. 
 
 In the meanwhile Almagro's adherents, 
 helpless and impoverished, were burning with 
 envy of their more fortunate comrades, who 
 were, by favor of the successful rival, rapidly 
 enriching themselves with Indian tribute and 
 gold and silver taken from the mines. At 
 last, unable to stand it, they sent the news 
 
 82 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 of their leader's illegal execution to Spain, 
 with a demand for justice against the Pi- 
 zarros. The rest of the story is told by Daw- 
 son as follows: 
 
 "The Spanish government was not unwilling to 
 secure a selfish advantage from the disputes among 
 the original conquerors and sent out Vaca de Castro 
 to investigate and report. When the Royal Com- 
 missioner arrived at Panama early in 1541, the latest 
 news from Peru was tranquilizing. Pizarro was busily 
 engaged in enlarging and beautifying Lima, in reg- 
 ulating the revenue and the administration, in dis- 
 tributing 'encomiendas,' and in restraining the rapac- 
 ity of his Spaniards. However, Lima was full of the 
 'men of Chile,' as Almagro's adherents were called, 
 all bitter enemies of the Governor. They passed him 
 in the street without saluting, and their attitude was 
 so menacing that Pizarro received repeated warnings 
 and was urged to banish them. Absolutely incapable 
 of personal fear, magnanimous when his passions 
 had not been aroused, he only replied : 'Poor fellows. 
 They have had trouble enough. We will not molest 
 them.' He even sent for Juan de la Rada — the guide, 
 counselor, and guardian of the young half-breed who 
 was Almagro's heir — and condescended to try to 
 argue him into a better frame of mind, saying, at 
 parting: 'Ask me frankly what you desire;' but the 
 iron had entered too deeply into Rada's soul. He 
 had already organized a conspiracy to assassinate 
 Pizarro. 
 
 "At noon, on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1541, 
 Pizarro was sitting at dinner in his house with twenty 
 
 83 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 gentlemen, among them his half-brother Francisco 
 Alcantara, and several of the most illustrious knights 
 who had taken part in the conquest. The great door 
 into the public square was lying wide open. The con- 
 spirators, to the number of a score, had assembled 
 in a house opposite. All of a sudden they rushed 
 into the square fully armed and carrying their swords 
 naked in their hands. A young page standing in 
 front of the Governor's house saw them and ran back 
 shouting: 'To arms! All the men of Chile are com- 
 ing to kill the Marquis, our lord.' The guests rose 
 in alarm from the table and all but half a dozen fled 
 to the windows and dropped into the garden. Pizarro 
 threw off his gown and snatched up a sword, while the 
 valiant Francisco Chaves stepped forward through 
 the ante-room to dispute the passage at the staircase. 
 The ferocious crowd of murderers rushed up and laid 
 him dead on the stairs. Alcantara checked them for 
 a few moments with his single sword, but was soon 
 forced back into the dining-room and fell pierced with 
 many thrusts. The old lion shouted from the inside: 
 'What shameful thing is this ! Why do you wish to 
 kill me ? ' and, with a cloak wrapped round one 
 arm and his sword grasped in the other hand, he 
 rushed forward to meet his assassins and strike a 
 blow to avenge his brother before he himself should 
 fall. Only two faithful young pages remained at his 
 side. Though over seventy years of age, his prac- 
 ticed sword laid two of the crowd dead before he was 
 surrounded. The two boys were butchered, and, in 
 the melee, Pizarro received a mortal wound in his 
 throat, and, falling to the floor, made the sign of the 
 cross on the boards" (with his blood) "and kissed it. 
 One of the ruffians had snatched up an earthen water 
 
 84 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 jar and with this pounded out the old man's brains 
 as he lay prostrate, disdaining to ask for mercy. 
 
 "Thus perished by the sword this great man of 
 blood. The measure he had meted out to Atahualpa 
 and Almagro was measured to him again. He who 
 had shamelessly broken his oath times without number 
 to gain his own high ends was slain by treacherous, 
 cowardly assault. But his great vices should not blind 
 us to his greater virtues. Courageous, indomitable, 
 far-sighted, patriotic, large-minded, public-spirited, 
 possessing a God-given instinct to see straight 
 into the center of a problem and the energy to strike 
 at the psychological moment, he was equally great 
 as an explorer, a soldier, a general, a diplomatist, 
 and an administrator. Even his shocking moral de- 
 linquencies lose something of their turpitude when we 
 consider the greatness of his aims and the baseness 
 of his origin. . . . But that his real nature was 
 magnanimous, generous, and truthful is proven by 
 the many instances in which he forgave his enemies 
 and kept his word to his serious loss, and that his 
 ambition was not too sordid is shown by his self- 
 sacrificing devotion to the public good during the 
 later years of his life. Formed in nature's grandest 
 mold, circumstances and environment had much de- 
 formed his character, but the original lineaments are 
 plain." 
 
 Pizarro thus disposed of, young Almagro 
 assumed the governorship and transferred his 
 headquarters to Cuzco, where his father's 
 party was stronger than at Lima, and the 
 Royal Commissioner, appointed Governor by 
 
 85 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the King, sailed from Panama, got together 
 an army with the help of Pizarro's friends, 
 and proceeded to Guamanga, to which point 
 the usurper was advancing with his forces 
 from Cuzco. The battle that ensued was 
 more hotly contested than any that had there- 
 tofore been fought. Of the twelve hundred 
 Spaniards engaged, less than five hundred 
 escaped death or wounds. Almagro's troops 
 were practically annihilated. Two days af- 
 terward those of the Adelantado's murderers 
 who had survived were executed in the public 
 square and young Almagpo himself, who had 
 succeeded in making his escape, was recap- 
 tured and put to death. Then for the time 
 being Vaca de Castro administered the office 
 without further opposition. 
 
 Before this, the great-hearted Padre Bar- 
 tolome de las Casas, the Indians' indefati- 
 gable champion and friend, had written his 
 famous book exposing the horrors of their 
 treatment and had so successfully appealed 
 to the King in their behalf that it had been 
 decided to abolish native slavery and grad- 
 ually do away with the system of re parti- 
 mientos and encomiendas (allotments of land 
 and Indians) ; and, since manifestly such a 
 
 86 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 course would result in trouble with the Con- 
 quisitadores, it seemed best to appoint a vice- 
 roy who would not be subject to their in- 
 fluence and invest him with absolute power. 
 This dangerous office was bestowed upon 
 Blasco Nunez de Vela, whose integrity, piety, 
 and rigid obedience to the King had already 
 gained for him high positions. Arriving in 
 Peru early in 1544, he promulgated the new 
 laws abolishing personal service by the In- 
 dians, providing that encomiendas might not 
 be sold or descend by inheritance, and, worst 
 of all, that those granted to participants in 
 the war between Pizarro and Almagro should 
 lapse. To set the example, in his journey 
 down the coast, the Viceroy sternly insisted 
 that no Indian be compelled to carry a bur- 
 den against his will. 
 
 To the Spaniards this seemed an out- 
 rageous violation of the natural order of 
 things. The whole fabric of their fortunes 
 was based on enforced Indian labor. With- 
 out it how could they work their mines and 
 estates or transport their goods? In the 
 general dismay, armed resistance was decided 
 on, and Gonzalo Pizarro was called from 
 his estate in southern Bolivia and induced 
 
 87 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 to take the lead. He seized the artillery and 
 stores at Cuzco and was soon at the head of 
 some four hundred desperate men, well 
 armed and provided. "The Viceroy retreated 
 north beyond Quito to Popayan," says 
 Dawson — 
 
 "But, being joined by more recruits, rashly re- 
 turned to the neighborhood of Quito to offer battle. 
 He was defeated and killed. Pizarro went back to 
 Lima, while his lieutenant, Carbajal, hunted down and 
 put to death every loyalist who remained under arms 
 in southern Peru. Gonzalo's administration lasted 
 three years. They were golden ones to the Spanish 
 adventurers. The marvelous silver mines of Potosi 
 and the gold washings of southern Ecuador were dis- 
 covered. Encomiendas were lavishly granted; the 
 Indians were sent back to their fields ; the mining 
 industry began that marvelous development which 
 soon made Peru the treasure box of the world and 
 Potosi the synonym for limitless wealth. But the 
 dazzling sunlight of prosperity was dimmed by the 
 shadow of Pizarro's scaffold slowly creeping across 
 the Atlantic and down the coast. His chief lieuten- 
 ants, knowing that they had sinned past forgiveness, 
 urged him to declare himself King of Peru, but he 
 was at once too proud and too patriotic to fling away 
 his right to die a loyal Spaniard. Philip, the leaden- 
 eyed, close-mouthed despot, was regent of Spain. Bit- 
 terly chagrined that the stream of Peruvian gold had 
 ceased to flow into the royal treasury, his vindictive 
 heart had no mercy for the gallant soldier whose 
 sword had helped win the riches now temporarily di- 
 
 88 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 verted. He selected a man after his own heart — Pedro 
 de la Gasca, an ugly, deformed little priest, hypo- 
 critically humble, though astute and untiring, whose 
 success as an inquisitor was a guarantee that he would 
 be as pitiless and cruel as even Philip could wish." 
 
 This man, says Hawthorne, was — 
 
 "A real diplomatist, with a tongue capable of mak- 
 ing the worse appear the better reason and of winning 
 support from the ranks of the enemy. He was en- 
 dowed with official powers, but chiefly with brains 
 and with the tongue aforesaid. His first step was 
 to repeal such parts of the abolition laws as were 
 hardest upon the colonists, and thereby he won their 
 favor. Not until after these good news had been 
 promulgated did Gasca venture to leave Panama for 
 Peru. The captains of Pizarro's fleet had been 
 despatched to Panama to meet and watch the new 
 emissary and either stop or bribe him, as might seem 
 most expedient. But allowance had not been made for 
 that tongue. Gasca wagged it with such good effect 
 that they thought perhaps they were not Pizarro's 
 captains after all ; at all events they put their fleet at 
 his disposal and to Peru he came, landing at Tumbez 
 in June, 1547. . . . Captain Diego de Centeno, 
 acting for Gasca, captured Cuzco, but was defeated 
 in the battle of Huarina. Hereupon Pizarro pressed 
 on, nothing doubting — and indeed one can hardly 
 blame him for his confidence, since it lay not in human 
 foresight to anticipate the magical seductiveness of 
 this Gasca's conversation. The armies met, but Gasca 
 did but open his mouth and Pizarro's soldiers began 
 deserting by troops. The thing was inexplicable ; it 
 
 89 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 was uncanny. We would call him a magnetic man 
 nowadays, and Pizarro's men were the iron filings. 
 Even those who stood by him could not be induced 
 to fight. By great efforts fifteen men contrived to 
 get themselves slain, and then Pizarro, losing pa- 
 tience, got on his horse, rode over to Gasca's camp, 
 and gave himself up." 
 
 With his execution, Spain's conquest of 
 Peru was complete. 
 
 IX 
 
 In 1525, at the foot of the great outlying 
 mass of mountains on the peninsula that lies 
 between the Gulfs of Maracaibo and Darien, 
 and not far from where the Magdalena River 
 empties into the Caribbean Sea, the town of 
 Santa Marta had been founded — the first 
 Spanish settlement in Colombia beyond the 
 Isthmus. It was nothing more than a slave 
 station for a time, from whence kidnaping 
 parties made raids into the country round 
 about and captured natives to sell to the gold 
 miners in Espafiola. Real attempts at col- 
 onization were not begun until Pedro de 
 Heredia founded Cartagena, farther west, in 
 1533; but it was from these points that the 
 
 90 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 explorations were undertaken that led to the 
 discovery of the next great stores of gold and 
 also to fresh, and this time seemingly trust- 
 worthy, affirmations of the truth of the story 
 told by the Indians of the Isthmus, of the 
 king the Spaniards called El Dorado (the 
 Gilded Man), in whose country the rivers 
 were said to run over sands of silver, where 
 the palaces were of gold, with doors and col- 
 umns studded with precious stones and the 
 king bathed in aromatic essences and covered 
 his body with gold dust. 
 
 Heredia had found that the hills south of 
 Cartagena contained profitable gold washings 
 and had learned from the Indians of a region 
 called Zenufana back in the mountains of 
 the interior where the deposits were more 
 valuable still, and this story, having proven 
 true, had brought about the conquest of the 
 rich valley of the Cauca and the development 
 of mines that have yielded hundreds of mil- 
 lions in gold. The shares, even of Heredia's 
 men in the first outcroppings, are declared 
 by the chroniclers to have been greater than 
 those of the followers of Pizarro in the ran- 
 som of the Inca. And, at about the same 
 time, Pizarro's enterprising lieutenant, Se- 
 
 91 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 bastian de Benalcazar, the conqueror of Quito, 
 had continued north and fought his way- 
 through the warlike, semi-civilized tribes that 
 inhabited the high plateaux around Pasto to 
 the lower country now known as Popayan, 
 where the Cauca gathers its headwaters, and, 
 in rapid succession, had overcome the tribes 
 that opposed his progress until he had met 
 the expedition from Cartagena, after which 
 he had gone back to Peru. 
 
 His purpose was to return and undertake 
 the conquest of the region of the upper Mag- 
 dalena and the rich Indian communities on 
 the broad table-land on top of the eastern 
 Cordillera; but, before he could set out, an 
 expedition from Santa Marta, under the 
 command of the gallant young Gonzalo Jim- 
 inez de Quesada — ranked by many as the 
 greatest of the Conquistadores after Cortes 
 and Pizarro — had forestalled him. Quesada 
 too had heard the stories of El Dorado and 
 had been directed to a lake called Guatavita, 
 two miles high in the mountains, that was 
 supposed to be in the country over which El 
 Dorado ruled, and also the dwelling place of 
 a powerful goddess to whom the people of- 
 fered jewels and gold by throwing them in 
 
 92 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 the water. "They had a legend," says Haw- 
 thorne — 
 
 "To the effect that the Goddess of the Lake had 
 been the wife of a former chief who had thrown her- 
 self into the lake to escape a whipping, and, like the 
 maidens of Greek mythology, had been made one of 
 the immortals. . Pilgrims came from afar to add their 
 offerings of gold and emeralds to the divinity. At 
 every installation of a chief there was an imposing 
 ceremony. First marched a squad of naked men 
 painted with red ocher, as mourners, then men adorned 
 with gold and emeralds, with feather headdresses, 
 then warriors in jaguar skins. These shouted and 
 made an uproar on horns, pipes, and conch shells. 
 Black-robed priests accompanied the procession, with 
 white crosses on their breasts, and in the rear came 
 the nobles, bearing the new chief on a barrow hung 
 with gold disks. He was naked, his body rendered 
 sticky with resinous gums and then smeared over with 
 gold dust. Having reached the shore of the lake, 
 he got on a barge and was rowed to the center, where 
 he dived into the water and washed off his gold, 
 while the assemblage on the shore shouted with joy 
 and flung their offerings into the transparent abode 
 of the Goddess." 
 
 This, it seems, had once been true, but, 
 although the Indians of the lowlands may 
 not have known it, the custom had ceased to 
 exist long before the coming of the Span- 
 iards. Many of the bravest were lured to 
 
 93 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 their death in the vain quest, not only in the 
 Colombian Andes but in the valleys of the 
 Orinoco and Amazon, and even south along 
 the Paraguay and Parana, before the dis- 
 covery was made that the custom was a thing 
 of the past. 
 
 In the belief that it still existed, there- 
 fore, Quesada and his company of nearly 
 eight hundred men had left Santa Marta 
 sometime in 1536, and, harassed by bands 
 of savages, forced their way, with almost in- 
 conceivable difficulty, through the wild for- 
 ests and undergrowth, along the foothills 
 bordering the Magdalena and up the steep 
 side of the Cordillera to the delightful series 
 of plateaux which were then, as they are yet, 
 the populous heart of the country and the 
 principal seat of her wealth and culture. In 
 the continual fights with the Indians and from 
 starvation and fatigue, three-fourths of the 
 company had died, but here the survivors 
 found themselves at last in a beautiful, fertile 
 region, where the climate is perfect and all the 
 products of the temperate zone grow luxu- 
 riantly, and where the inhabitants, the Chib- 
 chas, had reached a state of civilization not 
 much inferior to that of the Aztecs of Mexico 
 
 94 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 and the Caras of Ecuador. Quesada, after 
 having subdued them, had founded Bogota 
 near the site of the Chibcha capital, on the 
 7th of August, 1538. 
 
 Later the same year, to his dismay, Benal- 
 cazar, who had come down the Magdalena 
 from Pasto, in the opposite direction, reached 
 this same plateau, and, a few days later, to 
 the confusion of both, another expedition, 
 under the command of Nicolaus Federmann, 
 which had started from Coro in Venezuela, 
 crossed the mountains south of Maracaibo, 
 continued in that direction along the llanos 
 (plains) at the eastern base of the Cordillera 
 and ascended at that point, also put in an ap- 
 pearance. Thus these three adventurers, be- 
 lieving they had almost reached the goal for 
 which many were yet to search, found them- 
 selves simultaneously in the very neighbor- 
 hood of the former domain of the gilded 
 chiefs, but each confronted with the prospect 
 of losing all that he had toiled so hard for 
 unless he could overcome his rivals. 
 
 What was to be done? Undoubtedly Que- 
 sada had the right to possession by virtue of 
 his prior discovery and conquest, but the other 
 two made claim on plausible grounds, and he 
 
 95 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 had not been commissioned by the King. 
 With his depleted force he could not hope 
 to defeat their forces combined. Besides, as 
 all realized, if they should fight, there would 
 probably not be enough of the men left to 
 hold the country against the natives, who 
 would only be emboldened by such a dis- 
 sension. So when it was found that Quesada 
 had already gathered in all the spoils in 
 sight — which consisted of several thousand 
 emeralds and gold vases and ornaments that 
 made a pile so high that a man on horseback 
 could be concealed behind it — Benalcazar and 
 Federmann allowed themselves to be per- 
 suaded to accept shares in the loot and sub- 
 mit to the King's arbitration their re- 
 spective claims to the country. Soon 
 afterward the three captains set out for 
 Spain in the same ship, leaving Quesada's 
 brother in command. None of them ever 
 returned. Federmann and Benalcazar were 
 censured for exceeding the authority given 
 them by their superiors and undertaking con- 
 quests on their own account, and, instead of 
 appointing Quesada Adelantado, the King 
 sent over another governor with considerable 
 reinforcements, after which the process of 
 
 96 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 assimilation and settlement went on about as 
 it was going on in Peru. 
 
 Very different was the experience of Pedro 
 de Valdivia in Chile. Unlike these other ad- 
 venturers, when he set out it was not in 
 the expectation of finding any great store 
 of gold, since Almagro had reported that 
 the inhabitants were poor, but with the in- 
 tention of conquering the country and con- 
 verting it into a province of Peru. In ac- 
 complishing only a part of this purpose, he 
 was to have a far more difficult task, had he 
 but known it, and many more Spanish lives 
 were to be sacrificed, than in all the other 
 conquests put together. It had already been 
 discovered by Almagro, however, that as far 
 south as he had gone, the natives were sub- 
 jects of the Inca and that their civilization 
 and system of irrigation and agriculture had 
 been brought to almost as high a standard. 
 He had advanced down the great central 
 valley as far as the river Maule, finding 
 everywhere a population as dense, probably, 
 as that which exists to-day, and had met with 
 
 97 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 little resistance, probably because of the pres- 
 ence in his party of the brother of the Inca, 
 until he reached the boundary of the empire 
 and encountered the independent tribes be- 
 yond, and there met his reverse. 
 
 As a consequence, misled by this favorable 
 experience with the northern tribes and his 
 own with the easily conquered natives of Peru, 
 Valdivia took with him, besides his Indian 
 auxiliaries, only about two hundred Span- 
 iards and a number of women belonging to 
 their families. He soon found that, since 
 they had learned of the execution of Huascar 
 and Atahualpa and that the new Inca, Manco 
 Capac, was little more than a mere puppet 
 of Pizarro's, the disposition even of these 
 northern tribes had changed; that they now 
 regarded themselves as released from their 
 vassalage. He found also that, although they 
 all spoke the same language and appeared 
 to belong to the same race, they still main- 
 tained their tribal organizations, each with 
 its own Cacique and entirely distinct from the 
 others; that the Inca socialistic system had 
 not been adopted, and that individually they 
 were democratic, resentful of encroachments 
 on their liberty, and self-reliant. Hardly had 
 
 98 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 he entered their country when his troubles 
 began. To this second invasion, these people, 
 who had only looked askance at Almagro, 
 now promptly showed their hostility. Their 
 lack of efficient military organization and 
 concert of action made it easy, however, to 
 overcome what resistance they could offer on 
 the spur of the moment, and Valdivia suc- 
 ceeded in pushing on for several hundred 
 miles until he came to the section of the 
 valley through which flows the river Mapocho. 
 There, fascinated doubtless by the gor- 
 geousness of the environment, he selected a 
 site at the river side, at the base of an isolated 
 hill (called Santa Lucia), in the midst of the 
 broad plain that lies between the two great 
 mountain ranges, two thousand feet above the 
 level of the sea, and founded the city of San- 
 tiago, which has ever since remained the capi- 
 tal. Following Pizarro's example, among the 
 first buildings he caused to be erected were 
 the Cathedral and Bishop's house, and after- 
 ward, and only just in time to save the colony 
 from annihilation, he fortified Santa Lucia, 
 for the town itself was soon attacked by an 
 overwhelming force of Indians and half the 
 houses burned to the ground before they 
 
 99 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 could be driven off with the help of an ex- 
 ploring party that opportunely returned. 
 This was only one of many such vicissitudes, 
 in the course of which, so beset were the in- 
 vaders and so reduced did their number and 
 the health of the survivors become by priva- 
 tions and fighting, that all but Valdivia were 
 for abandoning the conquest and making a 
 dash for Peru. 
 
 Mutiny was only prevented by the dis- 
 covery of gold in the mountains near by and 
 the arrival of reinforcements from Lima. 
 After that he was enabled to found the town 
 of Coquimbo on the coast about two hundred 
 and fifty miles north of the capital, and visit 
 Peru to arrange for the sending of more 
 colonists and supplies. While there he as- 
 sisted in the suppression of Gonzalo Pizarro's 
 revolt, and had no difficulty in inducing a 
 large body of adventurers to go back with 
 him, for Lima now was swarmed with men 
 who were eager enough to win lands and 
 slaves or take their chance of making their 
 fortunes in the mines. "With their help," 
 says Dawson, "the conquest and settlement 
 of all Chile as far south as the Maule was 
 effectually completed. The land was appor- 
 
 100 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 tioned among the cavaliers, each becoming 
 a sort of feudal baron, and in effect creating 
 a landed aristocracy which has continued to 
 rule the country to the present day." 
 
 In 1544, Valdivia founded Valparaiso, the 
 seaport of the capital, and rebuilt Coquimbo, 
 which had been taken and burned by the 
 neighboring Indians during his absence in 
 Peru. He then devoted several years to 
 making good his conquest and firmly es- 
 tablishing the colony, and in 1550 turned his 
 attention to the country south of the Maule. 
 Between the Maule and the Bio-bio were the 
 Promaucians and their kindred tribes, and 
 south of the Bio-bio was a confederacy com- 
 posed of tribes, also related by blood and 
 language, which inhabited the forests and 
 mountains and lake region for a stretch of 
 two hundred miles. Chief among these were 
 the Araucanians — the one unconquered ab- 
 original race in the new world, the one 
 aboriginal race in America, North or South, 
 that never was conquered by Europeans, the 
 one race that checked the victorious march 
 of the Spaniards and compelled them, after 
 more than a hundred years of almost incessant 
 warfare, to acknowledge their independence 
 
 101 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and accept the Bio-bio as the southern bound- 
 ary of the Spanish possessions — not warfare 
 of the usual desultory, treacherous Indian 
 sort, but warfare abounding in formal cam- 
 paigns and sieges and pitched battles, in 
 which large armies were engaged, in numbers 
 often evenly matched. 
 
 Inferiorly armed with clubs, spears, and 
 bows and arrows, their bodies protected 
 only by leather cuirasses, they met the Span- 
 iards and their native auxiliaries in open 
 field and charged and fought them hand to 
 hand, and defeated them too in many a 
 Homeric fray in spite of the steel armor and 
 swords of the Conquistadores and their cav- 
 alry, artillery, and firearms. Inspired by ad- 
 miration, a chivalrous Castilian, the soldier- 
 poet Alonso de Ercilla, who was himself in 
 some of the fights, has told the first part of the 
 story in his historical epic in thirty-seven can- 
 tos — the story of how their lion-hearted chief, 
 Caupolican, undismayed by defeat in the first 
 encounter, persisted until he had destroyed 
 an army of the invaders and driven the sur- 
 vivors back to Santiago; how, when wounded 
 and helpless, he was captured at last and 
 underwent torture and death with the stoicism 
 
 102 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 of a Mohawk; how his wife, indignant at his 
 having permitted himself to be taken alive, 
 ran to the scaffold and threw their baby at his 
 feet, crying out that she would no longer be 
 the mother of the child of a coward; how the 
 brilliant young Lautero took three Spanish 
 strongholds, invaded the country north of the 
 Bio-bio, defeated every army that was sent 
 against him, and laid siege to Santiago it- 
 self; how the fiery Tucapel, while besieging a 
 Spanish fort, scaled the wall alone, ran the 
 gantlet of the garrison, killed four mail-clad 
 Spaniards in fighting his way through, and 
 escaped by leaping from a cliff; how an- 
 other of their chiefs, moved to pity by the 
 straits to which he had reduced a town he 
 was besieging, gallantly challenged the Span- 
 ish commander to single combat, on condition 
 that if he should defeat him the town must be 
 surrendered, but that if he were himself de- 
 feated the siege would be raised, and how, 
 when he was killed, the Indians kept the 
 compact and withdrew — and many other such 
 stories, some of them rivaling those told of 
 the Scottish chiefs.* 
 
 * The story of the Araucanian wars is told in full in Han- 
 cock's " History of Chile." 
 
 10S 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 These Araucanlans "had not felt the influ- 
 ence of Peruvian culture," says Hawthorne; 
 they were "still in their healthy, primitive con- 
 dition. In person," he goes on — 
 
 "Most of them were tall, strong, and active, with 
 a complexion of light, reddish brown, sometimes ap- 
 proaching white. They had a copious language, 
 cooked their food, made bread and brewed a dozen 
 kinds of spirituous liquors. Cities, in the Peruvian 
 sense, they had none, but lived in patriarchal hamlets, 
 ruled by ulmens, who were in turn subject to a cacique 
 of the tribe. Each farmer was master of his own 
 field; there was none of that land ownership by the 
 state that obtained in Peru. . . . They made cloth 
 garments, which their women adorned with embroid- 
 ery and dyed with vegetable or animal extracts. 
 They manufactured a kind of soap, and their uten- 
 sils were of well-fashioned pottery, wood and marble. 
 . . . They went to sea in canoes and fished with 
 fish hooks. They knew something of astronomy and 
 physics and had some rather crude notions of draw- 
 ing and carving. They called themselves Children 
 of the Sun, and are supposed to have worshiped the 
 sun and moon ; they had the red man's vision of 
 happy hunting grounds after death, and believed that 
 those who died fighting in battle were certain of a 
 happy immortality. . . . Cleanly they were in the 
 extreme, in this respect offering a sharp contrast 
 to their invaders. . . . They took particular pains 
 to keep their magnificent teeth white and clean, and 
 were careful to remove all hairs from their faces and 
 bodies. The women were dressed in woolen garments 
 
 104 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 of a green color, with a cloak and girdle; the men 
 wore shirts and breeches, woolen caps and footgear, 
 and over all capacious woolen ponchos (capes). The 
 military system was efficiently organized." 
 
 Having learned that the Araucanians and 
 Promaucians were hereditary enemies, Val- 
 divia's first step toward the conquest of the 
 former's country was to form an alliance with 
 the latter and to establish a base of supplies 
 at the mouth of the Bio-bio, where he founded 
 the city of Concepcion, and, during the year 
 1551, occupied himself in fortifying it and 
 making preparations for the invasion. On 
 the arrival of reinforcements he had sent for, 
 he advanced a hundred and fifty miles south, 
 and, encountering but little opposition, found- 
 ed the city of Imperial, and from that 
 point pushed on a hundred miles farther 
 and founded the city to which he gave his 
 name. On the way back in 1553 he built 
 several forts and at Santiago found awaiting 
 him a fresh body of troops and horses. Two 
 hundred of the men, with an Indian contin- 
 gent, he sent across the Andes to begin the 
 conquest of what is now the Province of 
 Mendoza in Argentina; and then, as Haw- 
 thorne relates it — 
 
 105 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 "The Araucanians, uniting with local tribes, made 
 ready to clear the country of Spaniards. An army 
 of four thousand Indians crossed the bloody Bio-bio 
 and gave battle to Valdivia, but that stout warrior 
 succeeded, after a desperate conflict, in driving them 
 back for the time. In the following year he carried 
 the war into the enemy's country. . . . There 
 was among them a remarkable old Ulysses named 
 Colocolo, who added to ardent patriotism a wonderful 
 sagacity in both war and intrigue. He traveled 
 over the country preaching a crusade against the in- 
 vaders. A great conference was held among the 
 various tribes, and a chief named Caupolican was, at 
 Colocolo's suggestion, chosen commander in chief. 
 This hero was modest and valiant, a giant in stature, 
 and wise in counsel as he was brave. His first ex- 
 ploit was the capture of the fort of Arauco, which 
 he accomplished by an unexpected attack, compelling 
 the garrison, after severe fighting, to evacuate and 
 retire to the fort at Puren. The garrison at Tucapel 
 fort was in like manner driven to Puren, from which 
 place word was sent to Valdivia of their peril. 
 
 "He started for the seat of war with two hundred 
 men and five thousand Indians. . . . The two armies 
 came in sight of each other on the 3d of December, 
 1553, and maneuvered for position. The right wing 
 of the Araucanians was led by Mariantu, the left 
 by Tucapel, the Murat of the host. At the opening 
 of the battle Mariantu attacked and cut to pieces 
 the Spanish left, and served in the same manner a 
 detachment sent to their support. At the same time 
 Tucapel swept down on the Spanish right. The lat- 
 ter's artillery wrought terrible havoc among the 
 Indians and they were thrice repulsed, though with- 
 
 106 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 out being thrown into confusion. At the critical 
 moment of the fight, a young man saved the day for 
 the Araucanians. His name was Lautero. He had 
 been previously captured by Valdivia, baptized and 
 made a page, but he seized this opportunity to escape 
 from the enemies of his country and join his friends. 
 He called on them to follow him in a final charge. 
 They caught the contagion of his valor, and, collecting 
 themselves, swept the Spaniards and their allies from 
 the field with awful carnage. 
 
 "Valdivia himself was captured. He begged hard 
 for his life, even promising, if he were spared, to quit 
 Chile with all his followers. Nor did he scruple to 
 entreat Lautero to intercede for him. This the mag- 
 nanimous former page did, but in vain. The grim 
 old ulmens knew too well the worth of Spanish prom- 
 ises, and, disregarding Valdivia's screams for mercy, 
 one of them crushed his skull with his war club. And 
 the next day the trees that grew in the great plain 
 again bore Spanish heads as fruit, and Lautero was 
 appointed Caupolican's second in command. At the 
 council which was forthwith held, it was resolved, in 
 accordance with the advice of old Colocolo, to make 
 a general attack upon all the Spanish strongholds. 
 Angol and Puren were promptly abandoned by the 
 invaders, who congregated in Valdivia and Imperial. 
 Lautero fortified himself on the precipitous mountain 
 of Mariguenu, in order to prevent possible Spanish 
 incursions southward. Of a band of fourteen Spanish 
 cavaliers who were riding from Imperial to Tucapel, 
 seven were slain by the Araucanian Lincoyan. 
 
 "The inhabitants of Concepcion were terrified at 
 these catastrophes. Villagran was chosen Valdivia's 
 successor. He made careful preparations and ad- 
 
 107 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 vanced with a strong army of Spaniards and native 
 allies toward Mariguenu. In a narrow defile Lautero 
 fell upon him. The Spaniards tried to scale the 
 mountain but were checked by slings and arrows, and 
 a body of the Indians, falling furiously upon the 
 Spanish cannoneers, captured the guns. An attack 
 was then delivered upon the Spanish front and it 
 gave way, Villagran flying headlong with the rest 
 and barely making good his escape. The remnant 
 of the Spanish army was pursued by Lautero to the 
 river Bio-bio, where the Araucanians paused, and the 
 fugitives staggered into Concepcion. There Villagran 
 stayed only long enough to gather together what 
 property he could, and then, with all the inhabitants, 
 he fled to Santiago. When Lautero entered Concep- 
 cion the next day, he found nothing but empty 
 houses, which he destroyed. The seven cities were 
 having a hard life of it. 
 
 "An attempt some time afterward to retake and re- 
 build Concepcion was prevented by the Araucanians, 
 who met and defeated the Spaniards in open plain 
 and again drove them back to Santiago. ... In 
 the next campaign Lautero went against Santiago, 
 while Caupolican attempted the siege of Imperial 
 and Valdivia. Lautero laid waste the country of the 
 Promaucians and fortified himself on the Claro. A 
 Spanish reconnoitering party was surprised and cut 
 to pieces and Santiago was in danger. Villagran, 
 being ill, gave the command to his son Pedro, who 
 was led into an ambuscade by Lautero and his army 
 slaughtered. But this was Lautero's last victory, for 
 a few days later, standing on his battlements to watch 
 the approach of a Spanish party, he was killed by 
 a chance shot, and though in the battle that followed 
 
 108 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 the Araucanians fought valiantly, they were finally 
 overpowered. The death of Lautero was for three 
 days celebrated by the Spaniards ; and indeed his fall 
 meant much to them. He had invariably defeated 
 them in battle and outgeneraled them in maneuvers, 
 and at the age of only nineteen had made a reputation 
 as a warrior such as any veteran might envy." 
 
 From then on the war continued with vary- 
 ing success, the Spaniards stubbornly per- 
 sisting in their efforts to conquer their in- 
 domitable opponents, the Araucanians always 
 resisting, and, when beaten for a time, re- 
 treating to the mountains, only to recruit and 
 return to the contest with renewed vigor, and 
 this even when their enemies had grown so 
 numerous that they could put thousands of 
 their well armed and trained soldiers into 
 the field instead of hundreds. Gradually, in 
 the course of many years, the Spaniards se- 
 cured more and more of a foothold, until 
 the great leader Paillamachu took command 
 of the Indians and began an uninterrupted 
 series of victories. He burned Concepcion 
 and Chilian, a hundred miles to the north, 
 ravaged the whole country as far up as the 
 Maule, carried Valdivia by storm and cap- 
 tured, besides the garrison and inhabitants, 
 
 109 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 $2,000,000 of booty and a large store of arms 
 and ammunition, afterward reduced Imperial, 
 Osorno, Villarica, Cafiete, Angol, Coya and 
 Arauco, and, by the time of his death in 1603, 
 every one of their cities and forts on the 
 mainland; and, at last, when the Spaniards, 
 after many other attempts, had failed to re- 
 cover the lost ground they were forced to 
 resort to a treaty. Says Hawthorne: 
 
 "Another term of raids and reprisals ensued, with 
 no conclusive results to either party. Spanish gov- 
 ernors and Araucanian chiefs succeeded one another 
 year after year; the operations now favored one side, 
 now another, but the Spaniards on the whole lost 
 more than did the Indians. It was not until 1640, 
 about a hundred years since the outbreak of the war, 
 that anything approaching a settlement was made, 
 and the initiative came from the Spaniards. At the 
 village of Quillin the Spanish Governor, the Marquis 
 of Baides, met the Araucanian chief Lincopichion, 
 both being attended by a great retinue. The treaty 
 was ratified by speeches and the sacrifice of a llama. 
 The Spaniards and Araucanians were mutually to 
 refrain from incursions and the Araucanians were 
 not to permit the troops of foreign powers to land 
 on their coasts or to furnish supplies to the enemies 
 of Spain. This clause was inserted in view of recent 
 attempts of the Dutch to effect a lodgment in Chile. 
 This compact was kept by the Indians, in spite of 
 temptations to break it, for ten or a dozen years, 
 when hostilities broke out afresh owing to bad faith 
 
 110 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 on the part of Spain. The Spanish were overwhelm- 
 ingly defeated in 1655 and during ten years the 
 power of Spain in lower Chile was broken. In 1665 
 the Spaniards were glad to make another treaty with 
 the Indians, which was kept for half a century. The 
 invaders from the first had gained much more by 
 their treaties than by their arms." 
 
 "Thenceforward," says Dawson — 
 
 "The Bio-bio remained the southern boundary of 
 the Spanish possessions. An army of two thousand 
 men and a line of forts guarded the frontier; and, 
 though hostilities were frequent, for centuries no real 
 progress was made toward depriving the Araucanians 
 of their independence. In the progress of time the 
 slow infiltration of Spanish blood and Spanish customs 
 modified their characteristics, but it was not until 
 1882 that they became real subjects of the Chilean 
 government." 
 
 It may be that the Spaniards ought not 
 to be blamed for these efforts to complete 
 their conquest of Chile and the appall- 
 ing amount of bloodshed and distress they 
 caused. After all, they only did what the 
 Aztecs, Caras, and Incas had already done 
 to the peoples of their neighboring countries, 
 what the European peoples were constantly 
 doing to each other, what England soon after- 
 ward did in India, and what, within the last 
 
 111 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 century, our own people did in Mexico, the 
 French in Algiers, and the English in South 
 Africa. It may be true, as is asserted by 
 their apologists, that the motive that actuated 
 the Spanish in their conquests was not alone 
 greed of land and gold, but in large part 
 to Christianize a pagan people and bring 
 them into the true fold; but for the long, 
 brave fight these Araucanians made, for their 
 high standard of patriotism, for their ad- 
 herence to their convictions, both religious and 
 political, we can feel only admiration and 
 sympathy. For these things, as Hawthorne 
 puts it, "they merit the thanks of all friends 
 of manhood and liberty." 
 
 The northern areas of Argentina submitted 
 more quietly to the conquerors. In 1542, 
 Diego de Rojas led the first expedition from 
 Peru down through the Humahuaca Valley. 
 Though he was killed in a fight with a wild 
 tribe near the main Cordillera, his followers 
 continued their march. Near the site of the 
 present city of Tucuman they passed out 
 from the mountain defiles, and, leaving the 
 desert to their right, penetrated through Cor- 
 doba to the Parana River country beyond. 
 Lured by the reports of peaceful and wealthy 
 
 112 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 native communities in the irrigated valleys 
 and the magnificent pasture lands in the pam- 
 pas stretching away to the east — now the 
 scene of Argentina's enormous stock-raising 
 and wheat industries — other adventurers soon 
 followed from Peru and Chile and were met 
 by expeditions from the Atlantic coast, 
 marching west in quest of another Peru. No 
 permanent settlement was made on the site 
 of the present city of Buenos Aires until 
 1580. The two parties that had attempted 
 it, the first commanded by Juan Diaz de 
 Solis, the other by Pedro de Mendoza, had 
 been defeated by the Indians and driven off, 
 but Mendoza had penetrated into the interior, 
 and his lieutenant, Domingo Irala, who re- 
 mained and founded a colony, became the 
 dominant figure of the new agricultural em- 
 pire. 
 
 XI 
 
 The system adopted by Spain for the gov- 
 ernment of her vast colonial possessions is 
 set forth in the famous code known as the 
 Compilation of Laws of the Kingdoms of the 
 Indies, framed in the reign of Philip IV and 
 published in 1680 in the reign of Charles II. 
 
 113 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The American possessions had originally 
 been divided into two great political entities 
 by the Emperor Charles V in 1542. These 
 were known as New Spain and New Castile 
 and were governed only by Real Audiencias, 
 (royal audiences, or tribunals that had both 
 legislative and judicial functions). Later 
 they were created Viceroyalties, and the 
 name New Castile was changed to Peru. 
 "We order and decree," said the King in 
 Law 1, Title 3, Book III of the Compilation, 
 "that the Kingdoms of Peru and New Spain 
 be ruled and governed by Viceroys who shall 
 represent our royal person. These shall ex- 
 ercise superior power, do and administer 
 justice equally to all our subjects and vassals 
 and apply themselves to all that will promote 
 the tranquillity, repose, ennoblement and paci- 
 fication of these provinces." 
 
 At that time the Viceroyalty of New Spain 
 embraced all the provinces of Central Amer- 
 ica and the islands of the Caribbean, and 
 Mexico and (west of the Mississippi) pretty 
 much all the land to the north, and in the 
 Viceroyalty of Peru were included Panama 
 and all the land in South America, except, 
 of course, Brazil. These viceroyalties them- 
 
 114 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 selves were subdivided into great provincial 
 districts, each administered by a Real Au- 
 diencia. These audiencia districts were in 
 turn divided into lesser governmental juris- 
 dictions known as Gobernaciones (provin- 
 cial sub-districts), Alcaldias May ores, Alcal- 
 dias Ordinarias and Corregimientos (muni- 
 cipal districts of greater and lesser extent), 
 and, in harmony with this political ar- 
 rangement, there was also an ecclesiastical 
 division: into Archbishoprics, coextensive 
 with the audiencia districts, Bishoprics, cor- 
 responding with the gobernaciones and al- 
 caldias mayores; and Parishes and Curacies, 
 corresponding with the alcaldias ordinarias 
 and corregimientos. The Viceroys were re- 
 spectively Presidents of the Audiencias and 
 Captains- General of the military forces at 
 Lima and the City of Mexico, the viceregal 
 capitals; the provincial audiencia districts 
 were presided over by Gowned Presidents 
 (Ministros Tog ado) and were under the mili- 
 tary command of Captains- General, both of 
 which officers were subordinate to the Vice- 
 roys. 
 
 Within the jurisdiction of the Viceroy of 
 Peru were seven royal audiencias: Panama 
 
 115 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 (created in 1535), Lima (created in 1542), 
 Santa Fe de Bogota, now Colombia (created 
 in 1549), Charcas, now Bolivia (created in 
 1559), San Francisco de Quito, now Ecuador 
 (created in 1563), Chile (created in 1609) 
 and Buenos Aires, now Argentina (created 
 in 1661). In the eighteenth century two 
 more viceroyalties were created from dis- 
 tricts withdrawn from the Viceroyalty of 
 Peru: New Granada and Buenos Aires. 
 That of New Granada, established in 1717, 
 was made up of the Audiencias of Santa Fe 
 de Bogota, Panama, San Francisco de Quito 
 and Venezuela; that of Buenos Aires, estab- 
 lished in 1778, included the territory now 
 embraced in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, 
 Patagonia, Bolivia (Charcas) and the south- 
 ern part of Chile. Afterward the Audiencias 
 of Venezuela and Chile were constituted in- 
 dependent Captaincies- General, subordinate 
 only to the Council of the Indies in Spain, 
 and the Audiencia of Charcas was returned 
 by royal decree of 1810 to the Viceroyalty of 
 Peru. From these colonial divisions logically 
 sprang the South American republics as they 
 exist to-day — of course, again excepting Bra- 
 zil, which, after she had secured her inde- 
 
 116 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 pendence in 1822, retained a monarchial form 
 of government until 1889, when she became 
 a republic like the others. 
 
 Under this Spanish colonial system, there- 
 fore, the King was absolute sovereign, and 
 governed, not through his ministers of the 
 cabinet — for the various provinces were re- 
 garded as appanages of the Crown — but 
 primarily through his Council of the Indies, 
 to which his officers in America reported 
 directly, and secondarily through these offi- 
 cers themselves — the Viceroys and Captains- 
 General, and their subordinates. In addition 
 to these executive officers and the royal audi- 
 ences, there were Cabildos (municipal coun- 
 cils), which had jurisdiction of local affairs in 
 their respective communities, but there were 
 no elective officers or tribunals, or legislative 
 bodies representing the people. The King 
 regarded the provinces as his personal prop- 
 erty and their occupants as instruments for 
 their development for his benefit alone. Inci- 
 dentally, they might derive for themselves 
 what profit out of it they could, but only in 
 ways consistent with his interests and policies. 
 
 Consequently, during this colonial period, 
 the Spanish Americans had no opportunity to 
 
 117 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 develop a representative and self-sustaining 
 body politic, which, in the course of time, 
 might by peaceful means have altered this 
 theory and corrected the evils of such a sys- 
 tem — as was the case in Brazil, where the 
 Portuguese King in person resided in the 
 country for several years (during the period 
 of Napoleon's Peninsula invasion) and in 
 that way became familiar with local conditions 
 and the needs of his people. He, on his re- 
 turn to Portugal, opened the Brazilian ports 
 to the commerce of the world and created 
 Brazil a vassal kingdom, with a form of 
 government almost wholly autonomous. 
 
 In contrast with this, no Spaniard (and 
 certainly no foreign trader) was allowed to 
 freight ships for the colonies, or to buy a 
 pound of goods anywhere else, without ob- 
 taining special permission and paying well 
 for the privilege. Cadiz was the only port 
 in Europe from which ships were permitted 
 to sail for America, and the whole trade was 
 farmed out to a ring of Cadiz merchants. 
 Every port in Spanish South America was 
 closed to transatlantic traffic except Nombre 
 de Dios on the Caribbean side of the Isthmus 
 of Panama, near the present city of Colon. 
 
 118 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 Not a merchant ship could enter Buenos Aires, 
 Valparaiso, Callao or Guayaquil. Imports 
 from Spain must first go to the Isthmus, there 
 be disembarked and transported over the An- 
 dean passes and the Bolivian plateaux on the 
 backs of llamas, and finally be carried down 
 over the Argentina pampas to Buenos Aires, 
 or along the arid coast to the Peruvian and 
 Chilean settlements. Under such conditions 
 in the southern provinces European manu- 
 factures, agricultural and mining implements, 
 and other essentials for a people's advance- 
 ment were to be had only at fabulous prices. 
 On the other hand, also, the system made 
 exports impossible, except the precious metals 
 mined in the north, and drugs, and other 
 easily transportable products. Hides, hair, 
 wool, agricultural products and hard woods 
 would not stand the cost of such long and 
 difficult hauls. The Peninsula authorities 
 acted upon the theory that America should 
 be confined to producing gold and silver. 
 The Plata settlements, especially, and all 
 others south and east of the Peruvian-Bo- 
 livian mining region, suffered from this ruin- 
 ous suppression. Having no mines, they were 
 considered worthless, so far as the royal 
 
 119 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 treasury was concerned, and were in conse- 
 quence ignored — until they came in conflict 
 with home industries by the cultivation of 
 olives and grapes, and then, to protect the 
 Peninsula growers, the Argentinos were 
 forced to cut down their olive trees and uproot 
 their vines. The inevitable results followed. 
 Smuggling, bribe-giving, evasion and con- 
 tempt for all law, and hostility to the fiscal 
 authorities of the Peninsula grew up when, 
 in their stead, the colonists could have been 
 developed into a bulwark for Spain, which 
 was so soon to totter from her proud position 
 as the greatest of the world powers. Where 
 science of government and national up-build- 
 ing should have been taught and fostered, 
 revolution became the only political refuge. 
 
 In 1808, when Napoleon forced the ab- 
 dication of Charles IV, held him and his 
 successor, Ferdinand VII, prisoners in 
 France, and established his brother Joseph 
 on the throne, came the colonists' oppor- 
 tunity. In April, 1809, a Junta (national 
 assembly) was formed in Caracas; in July of 
 the same year the example was followed in 
 Peru, and in August at Quito; in May of 
 the next year, Santa Fe de Bogota and 
 
 120 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 Buenos Aires followed, and Santiago elected 
 the Chilean Junta in September. The col- 
 onists expected by these steps to release the 
 Indians from slavery in the mines in the north 
 and west; to restore and develop the culti- 
 vation of grapes, olives and tobacco, and 
 build up their grazing and agricultural in- 
 dustry in the south and east; also to open 
 their ports to commerce with Europe, so that 
 they might buy commodities essential to their 
 growth, and export their own products by 
 way of exchange; also to lighten the crushing 
 imposts and internal taxation, to abolish the 
 tithe system, and reclaim and parcel out the 
 vast feudal estates which had gradually been 
 absorbed by the Spanish officials in the course 
 of an administration which could only be 
 likened to that of the rapacious Roman pro- 
 consuls against which Cicero inveighed so 
 impotently. 
 
 But the ambitious attempts at reform met 
 with immediate and successful opposition. 
 The country was full of Spanish office-holders 
 who saw in them their dismissal and the 
 death blow to their spoils system. In the 
 short struggle that followed, the success of 
 the royal forces was almost universal. The 
 
 181 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 colonists had had no training in warfare, nor 
 had they yet developed as a people the unity 
 of purpose and sturdy self-dependence which 
 was eventually to bring them their freedom. 
 The junta governments were everywhere 
 effectively suppressed, except in Bogota and 
 Buenos Aires, where the fires of revolution 
 smouldered during the succeeding years of 
 Peninsula chaos that preceded Waterloo, 
 and the colonists, with eyes opened at last to 
 the true and only remedy for their ills, were 
 formulating their great resolve to separate 
 themselves entirely from the mother country; 
 for, while their measures of reform had been 
 suppressed, the ideas that called them into be- 
 ing could not be obliterated. Furthermore 
 their unsuccessful clash with the viceroys and 
 lesser officials brought even more glaringly 
 before their eyes the extortions and brutal 
 indifference of the ruling class. The attitude 
 of the Peninsulares toward the Creoles and 
 mestizos of the colonies had always been con- 
 temptuous, and now at last the Creoles, being 
 for the most part of unmixed Spanish de- 
 scent (they were called Creoles only because 
 born in America) found their resentment of 
 that attitude more than they could endure. 
 
 122 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 The series of military successes that was 
 destined to lead to the desired result began 
 with the fights at Tucuman in the northern 
 part of Argentina, in the fall of 1812, and at 
 Salta, a little farther north, in February, 
 1813. By these battles the persistent efforts 
 of the royalist forces in Peru to put an end 
 ,to the junta government of 1810 in the Plata 
 settlements, were checked under the leader- 
 ship of Manuel Belgrano. But on the first 
 of October following, the Royalists, in viola- 
 tion of the armistice entered into after Salta, 
 almost destroyed Belgrano's army at Vilca- 
 pujio. Disastrous as was the reverse for the 
 v time-being, this before long proved a dis- 
 tinct service to the colonists, for it placed 
 in command of the remnants of Belgrano's 
 army General Jose de San Martin, one of 
 the two great patriots who finally brought 
 the war to a successful issue, and who had 
 then just returned with the experience and 
 prestige acquired by twenty years' service 
 in the Peninsula armies against Napoleon's 
 famous marshals. The other of these great 
 patriots was Simon Bolivar. 
 
 San Martin recognized at once the futility 
 of pursuing the campaign and attacking the 
 
 123 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Royalists in the mountainous regions of Bo- 
 livia, with over a thousand miles of difficult 
 roads between his army and base of sup- 
 plies. He conceived, therefore, the idea of 
 compelling Spain to defend her own bases 
 at Lima and Callao, and to this end elab- 
 orated a plan for the invasion of Chile and 
 capture of Valparaiso, and, from thence, a 
 combined military and naval attack on the 
 capital of Peru, the seat of Spain's conti- 
 nental power. With this purpose in view, 
 he repaired to the almost inaccessible town 
 of Mendoza on the Argentine slope of the 
 Andes, on about the same parallel with the 
 Chilean capital, Santiago, and remained there 
 two years, recruiting and training a strong 
 force and accumulating equipment. 
 
 Shortly after he had established his camp 
 of instruction, the Chileans under General 
 Bernardo O'Higgins had extorted from the 
 Royalist General at Talca a truce whereby 
 the protracted struggle to maintain the junta 
 government in Chile was for the moment sus- 
 pended. This truce of Talca, however, was 
 repudiated by the Viceroy at Lima, and 
 General Ossorio was soon on his way south 
 with another Royalist army, against which, 
 
 124 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 weakened by local political dissensions, the 
 Chilenos were unable to prevail, and were 
 decisively beaten at Rancagua in October, 
 1814. As this meant a complete restoration 
 of Spanish authority in Chile, O'Higgins and 
 a few of his officers made their escape with 
 the wreck of their army, crossed the Andes 
 and placed themselves under the command of 
 San Martin. 
 
 In January, 1817, San Martin's army, four 
 thousand strong, was ready to move against 
 the unsuspecting Spanish in Chile, who had 
 been led by a stratagem to believe that he 
 would enter the country through one of the 
 more easily accessible of the Andean passes 
 to the south. San Martin, however, chose 
 the highest and most terrible of them all, one 
 four thousand feet higher than St. Bernard, 
 and which lay to the north instead of south 
 of Aconcagua, and accomplished a feat which, 
 in endurance and skill, is thought by the 
 historians to have surpassed Napoleon's fa- 
 mous crossing of the Alps. Descending the 
 western slope, he fell upon the Spanish out- 
 post at La Guardia on the 7th of February, 
 and on the 12th, surprised and defeated Os- 
 sorio's main force at Chacabuco. Two days 
 
 125 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 later the liberating army entered Santiago. 
 The patriot government was at once re- 
 established and the directorship conferred on 
 O'Higgins after San Martin, refusing to be 
 diverted from his plans for the liberation of 
 the entire continent, had declined the honor. 
 
 On the first day of the ensuing year the 
 independence of Chile was proclaimed. De 
 facto independence was not achieved until the 
 decisive defeat of the Royalists on the plains 
 of Maypu, on the 5th of April, 1815, and 
 then, with Chile cleared of Spanish troops, 
 and the port of Valparaiso at his service as a 
 base of supplies, San Martin was ready to 
 enter upon the next stage of his work — the 
 liberation of Peru. 
 
 Another period devoted to recruiting, or- 
 ganizing, and drilling elapsed. In August, 
 1820, his combined military and naval expe- 
 dition set out from Valparaiso with some 
 4500 troops. Thus far this stronghold of 
 Spain had undergone less violent revolution- 
 ary disturbances than any other part of her 
 American possessions. In 1820 it was fully 
 under the control of Don Joaquin de la 
 Pezuela, the forty-fourth successor of Pi- 
 zarro. But it was three years now since 
 
 126 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 Pezuela had reported to the Madrid govern- 
 ment that he stood over a volcano liable to 
 burst into action at any moment, and had 
 received no aid, a situation San Martin un- 
 derstood. In this expedition he was ably 
 seconded by Lord Cochrane, a former Brit- 
 ish naval officer, who was to render most 
 valuable service in the naval warfare that 
 was at once begun against the Viceroy. Coch- 
 rane's first success was the capture of Val- 
 divia, Spain's best harbor on the Pacific 
 south of Valparaiso, in spite of the fact that 
 his rockets were filled with sand instead of 
 powder, the Chilean authorities having im- 
 prudently employed Spanish prisoners in the 
 manufacture of ammunition. 
 
 Arrived off Callao, the seaport of Lima, 
 the liberators entered upon operations and 
 negotiations lasting several months, during 
 which effective missionary work in the cause 
 of independence was done throughout Peru 
 by San Martin's lieutenants. At last, on the 
 6th of July, 1821, the Spanish leaders, 
 neglected by their home government, and 
 realizing the . ineffectiveness of their forces, 
 evacuated Lima, which was at once occupied 
 by San Martin. He did not come, he said, 
 
 127 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 as a conqueror, and it was with much hesi- 
 tation that he accepted the supreme power 
 offered by the patriots; he styled himself 
 Protector of Peru, promising to surrender 
 the government to the people as soon as the 
 Peruvian congress should be assembled to 
 take over the burden, and retained his con- 
 trol of the embryo republic for a year, not- 
 withstanding the hostility that was engen- 
 dered by misconception of the high purposes 
 embodied in the title he assumed. The wis- 
 dom of his retention in power at such a crit- 
 ical period is hardly to be contested. 
 
 This was the decisive campaign of the 
 war of independence on the continent. The 
 future of Buenos Aires and Chile, of New 
 Granada and Venezuela, and of all the Span- 
 ish settlements depended on the battles that 
 were now to be fought in the mountains of 
 Peru, where the Royalist forces had concen- 
 trated, for this was the very heart of the 
 Spanish stronghold. San Martin was not to 
 fight these final battles, but to him is due the 
 credit of conceiving the plan of action, of exe- 
 cuting it almost to the end, and of showing, by 
 his retirement in favor of a more convincingly 
 popular fellow-patriot of the north, a mod- 
 
 128 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 esty, soundness of judgment, and generosity 
 almost unparalleled among statesmen — for 
 in the meantime the northern movement, 
 under the direction of Simon Bolivar, was 
 approaching Peru. It arrived at the coast 
 town of Guayaquil in the spring of 1822. 
 San Martin immediately repaired to that port 
 for a conference, leaving his administration in 
 the hands of the Marquis of Torre Tagle, 
 a member of the old nobility who had turned 
 revolutionist, and Bernardo Monteagudo. 
 
 The meeting of the two Liberators marked 
 the close of San Martin's military career. 
 He saw clearly that there could be no room 
 for himself and a brilliant, ambitious, mag- 
 netic leader like Bolivar in the same sphere 
 of action, that it was necessary for the wel- 
 fare of the common cause that one of them 
 should retire. He was great and patriotic 
 enough to make the sacrifice. Returning to 
 Lima, he resigned the supreme authority and 
 retired to Europe. There was no place for 
 him in Buenos Aires, except as a leader in 
 the civil wars which by this time were dis- 
 tracting the country, and this role he dis- 
 dained. In 1850 he died in France at the 
 age of seventy-two, after a thirty years' 
 
 129 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 struggle with sickness and poverty, but at- 
 tended always by his devoted daughter. 
 After his death his body was brought to 
 Buenos Aires and reverently placed in a 
 tomb, one of the handsomest in the world, 
 about which stand three marble figures rep- 
 resenting Buenos Aires, Chile, and Peru. 
 
 Bolivar's career had begun in Venezuela, 
 where he was born. After Spain's suppres- 
 sion of the junta established in Caracas in 
 1810, Bolivar, with the revolutionist Miranda, 
 had landed in Venezuela and called into be- 
 ing the first congress of the people, and the 
 independence of the country was proclaimed. 
 In the fighting that followed, the movement 
 thus started met a speedy end — literally shat- 
 tered by an awful earthquake that occurred 
 on Holy Thursday of 1812, which the Roy- 
 alists claimed was a stroke of Divine ven- 
 geance against those who would have over- 
 thrown the anointed of the Lord. 
 
 Miranda was captured and ended his days 
 in a Spanish prison, but Bolivar escaped into 
 New Granada and soon had full sway in the 
 revolutionary councils of the northern prov- 
 inces. In 1813 he founded at Bogota an 
 active revolutionary junta and a military 
 
 130 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 organization. With the latter he struck the 
 Royalists at Cucuta, just within the eastern 
 border of Colombia, and passed over the 
 mountains to Caracas, proclaiming war to 
 the death. Here his role of Dictator be- 
 gan. His career, however, was punctuated 
 by many disasters before the decisive battle 
 of Boyaca placed Bogota permanently in his 
 hands and gave assurance of eventual suc- 
 cess. But from this triumph Bolivar hurried 
 to the revolutionary congress he had some time 
 before called at Angostura and procured the 
 enactment of a law providing for the union 
 of Venezuela and New Granada, to form 
 the Republic of Colombia, and was elected 
 President; and by the end of the year 1821 
 all of this territory, except Panama and 
 Puerto Cabello, near La Guayra, had been 
 freed from the control of Spain. 
 
 The famous battle of Pichincha, won on 
 the 24th of May, 1822, by Bolivar's great 
 lieutenant, Antonio Jose de Sucre, gave 
 Ecuador also to the northern federation; 
 later it was formally incorporated into the 
 new Colombian Republic. Still for two 
 years the final clash between the Royalists 
 and the patriots was deferred, during which 
 
 131 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 time the confusion of sectional interests and 
 negotiations by the now desperate mother 
 country threatened to undo the great work 
 of the liberators. But once more Bolivar 
 triumphed. By the withdrawal in his favor 
 of San Martin, harmony was restored; with 
 his victory at Junin on the 6th of August, 
 1824, and the decisive battle on the plain of 
 Ayacucho, midway between Lima and Cuzco, 
 on the 9th of December, the war came to an 
 end. In that brilliantly fought battle the 
 patriot army, again under Sucre, defeated a 
 largely superior force commanded by the 
 Viceroy in person in less than eighty minutes. 
 The Viceroy wounded and a prisoner, and 
 his men having deserted by hundreds, his 
 second in command sued for terms, and that 
 afternoon fourteen generals, five hundred and 
 sixty-eight officers of other grades, and three 
 thousand two hundred privates became pris- 
 oners of war. 
 
 Following this victory, Sucre proceeded to 
 Charcas and convened the patriot congress 
 which in August, 1825, proclaimed the Re- 
 public of Bolivia, and became its first Presi- 
 dent. Bolivar was then at the head of affairs 
 in Peru. He soon, however, relinquished his 
 
 132 
 
STATUE OF BOLIVAR, LIMA. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 dictatorship and returned to Bogota to re- 
 sume, for a brief term, his functions as 
 President of the federation of Colombia. 
 From that time on he sank rapidly from his 
 apogee and, beset on all sides by the enemies 
 his supposed imperial designs had made for 
 him, died on his estate of Santa Marta on the 
 17th of December, 1830, at the early age of 
 forty-seven. Disheartened, his personal for- 
 tune gone, he had abandoned any designs of 
 that character he might once have had and 
 only a few days before the end wrote to the 
 Colombians: "My last wishes are for the 
 country's happiness. If my death can con- 
 tribute to the quieting of party strife and to 
 the consolidation of the union, I shall go 
 down to the grave in peace." To him also in 
 after years his people erected monuments in 
 tardy recognition of his matchless services. 
 
 The Portuguese provinces were the only 
 ones to continue the monarchical system. 
 They too, however, declared themselves inde- 
 pendent, and became known as the Empire 
 of Brazil, until 1889, when the present re- 
 public was declared. 
 
 133 
 
II 
 
 BRAZIL 
 
 THE United States of Brazil, next to 
 our own United States, form the larg- 
 est of the American republics. Brazil 
 has an area fifteen times greater than Ger- 
 many's, sixteen times as great as that of 
 France, 250,000 square miles greater than 
 ours, excluding Alaska and our island pos- 
 sessions. At its greatest width, the country 
 extends inland more than 2000 miles and its 
 coast line on the Atlantic is more than 3700 
 miles long, twice the distance from Portland, 
 Maine, to Key West; yet the population, al- 
 though it has doubled in the last forty years, 
 is not quite a fourth as large as our own. 
 It is estimated that if the whole country were 
 as densely populated as France, the inhabi- 
 tants would number 622,000,000, or, if as 
 densely populated as Germany, 955,000,000. 
 
 134 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 Some time it may be. Except in the regions 
 near the large cities, only a small part is even 
 sparsely settled now. 
 
 It argues well for the industry and en- 
 terprise of what inhabitants there are, how- 
 ever, that Brazil's international commerce is 
 relatively nearly as great in proportion to her 
 population as ours. Some idea of the re- 
 markable progress she has made is given in 
 the following extract from a pamphlet re- 
 cently published by the Commissdo de Eoo- 
 pansao Economica, entitled "Do you Know 
 the Wealth of Brazil?" 
 
 "In the colonial days, the foreign trade of Brazil 
 Was done exclusively through Lisbon, under the pro- 
 tection of Portuguese men-of-war. . . . The colo- 
 nial produce was distributed among the principal 
 Portuguese commercial centers and the imports 
 came exclusively from Portugal to the ports of Bahia, 
 Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, Para, and Maranhao. 
 Until the end of the eighteenth century, the foreign 
 trade of Brazil was continued more or less on this 
 basis, but the exports were considerably more than 
 the imports. By decree of January 28, 1808, the 
 King of Portugal, Don Joao VI of Braganza, lately 
 arrived at Bahia" (when he fled from the Peninsula 
 as a result of Napoleon's invasion), "resolved to 
 open all the ports of Brazil to the commerce of for- 
 eign nations, until then closed for the benefit of Por- 
 tugal. The first consequence of this decree was the 
 
 135 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 establishment of commercial relations with England. 
 English agencies were opened at Rio de Janeiro, 
 Bahia, and Pernambuco for the purpose of importing 
 manufactured articles and exporting sugar, alcohol, 
 gold, cotton, hides, coffee, cocoa, timber, and indigo. 
 After the proclamation of independence in 1822, the 
 trade developed enormously, France, the United 
 States of America, Germany, Holland, and Sweden 
 following the example of England. . . . From 
 1846 to 1875 the imports increased 110 per cent, 
 and the exports 175 per cent. From 1876 to 1905 
 the imports increased 175 per cent, and the exports 
 272 per cent. ... In 1909 its total value was 
 £101,844,549 (over $500,000,000)." 
 
 In 1910 it was $545,581,275, in which we 
 participated to the extent of $142,437,986, 
 including $58,808,467 worth of coffee and 
 $47,409,030 worth of rubber that were ex- 
 ported to us. For the principal industry is 
 still, as it has always been, agriculture, though 
 in the mountainous sections there are vast 
 regions containing gold and precious stones 
 and minerals of incalculable value, millions 
 of square miles in the interior still covered 
 with virgin forests; and yet even the rela- 
 tively small sections that have been culti- 
 vated produce more than three-fourths of 
 all the coffee consumed in the world and more 
 than three-fifths of all the rubber, not to 
 
 136 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 mention the other products. But within the 
 last few years immigration has been encour- 
 aged and many conditions that were prevent- 
 ing development have been improved. Won- 
 ders have been accomplished in making the 
 cities as healthful as any in the world. The 
 railroads have been, and are still being, 
 extended tremendously and facilities for com- 
 merce along the great inland waterways con- 
 tinually increased. 
 
 The first of the important seaports of 
 Brazil that are accessible by steamer from 
 New York is Belem, the capital of the State 
 of Para. It ranks only as the fifth in size, 
 but to the tourist it is of surpassing interest 
 because it is situated on the Para River, the 
 southern or commercial mouth of the Amazon, 
 that mightiest and most majestic of all the 
 rivers in the world. 
 
 Imagine! — a river more than 3400 miles 
 in length, with its source in the Peruvian 
 Andes, 16,000 feet above the level of the sea 
 — a river which, with its vast tributaries, 
 many of them themselves from a thousand to 
 two thousand miles in length, drains a ter- 
 ritory of 2,300,000 square miles, two-thirds 
 as large as our United States, and so rich 
 
 137 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 in indigenous resources, and so fertile, that 
 many, years ago, when it was wholly a wilder- 
 ness, the great scientist Von Humboldt said 
 of it that "it is here that one day, sooner or 
 later, will concentrate the civilization of the 
 globe" — a river that is a mile and a half 
 wide at Tabatinga, the last Brazilian port to 
 the west, and gradually broadens on its way 
 to the sea until it attains a width of 150 
 miles at its northern mouth alone, and dis- 
 charges into the Atlantic a volume of water 
 more than four times as great as the outpour 
 of the Mississippi— -a river that is navigable, 
 that is now actually being navigated by 
 ocean liners, for 2000 miles, clear across 
 Brazil to Iquitos in the frontier of Peru. 
 
 Yet, although as early as 1541 Francisco 
 de Orellana, one of Pizarro's little band of 
 conquerors, who had crossed the Andes in 
 quest of the fabulous country of El Dorado, 
 and, after having traversed the whole course 
 of the river through Brazil with a few com- 
 panions in a canoe, had made his way back 
 to Spain and told amazing stories of the 
 wealth of the region he had discovered, and 
 although a century later the astronomer La 
 Condamine, and still later Baron von Hum- 
 
 138 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 boldt, Castelnau, and others had successively 
 published alluring accounts of their explo- 
 rations in the same region, it was not until 
 1867 that the river was opened to free navi- 
 gation. 
 
 It is gratifying to reflect that, probably 
 more than to any other outside influence, it 
 was due to the publication of the report of an 
 expedition undertaken in 1851 by William 
 Lewis Herndon, a lieutenant in the United 
 States Navy, and to the explorations of 
 Louis Agassiz, a Harvard professor, that 
 the interest was aroused which at last brought 
 this about. Lieutenant Herndon, like Orel- 
 lana, started from Lima, and, braving the 
 passes of the Andes, entered the Amazon 
 from one of its western affluents and made 
 the journey in a canoe, with only a Peruvian 
 guide and a few Indian rowers, all the way 
 to its mouth. Professor Agassiz, whose ex- 
 plorations were begun fifteen years later, 
 started from Belem and traveled in a steam- 
 boat, such as it was, accompanied by his wife 
 and a corps of scientists, and was given every 
 assistance possible by the late Emperor Dom 
 Pedro, who took a lively interest in the expe- 
 dition. But even then in Brazil, the Pro- 
 
 139 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 fessor says in his book, "so little was known 
 of the Amazon that we could obtain only 
 very meager, and usually rather discourag- 
 ing, information concerning our projected 
 journey. In Rio, if you say you are going to 
 ascend their great river, your Brazilian 
 friends look at you with compassionate won- 
 der. You are threatened with sickness, with 
 intolerable heat, with mosquitoes, jacaraes 
 (alligators), and wild Indians." 
 
 Lieutenant Herndon, however, had already 
 made known to the scientific world that the 
 climate is healthful, notwithstanding the mos- 
 quitoes; that, humid and hot as it is during 
 certain hours of the day, the nights are al- 
 ways cool, and that "the direct rays of the 
 sun are tempered by an almost constant east 
 wind, laden with moisture from the ocean, 
 so that no one ever suffers from the heat; 
 and, when he got back to Rio de Janeiro, 
 Professor Agassiz assured the Brazilians that 
 this was so. Arthur Dias indignantly pro- 
 tests (in his Brazil of To-day) that "it is not 
 true, as they say, that the climate of this 
 region prevents the existence and the ex- 
 tending of the population." "It is a legend, 
 a fiction," he adds. Mozans, who made a simi- 
 
 140 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 lar journey to Herndon's very recently, also 
 testifies to the same effect. 
 
 Here in this Amazon country, Lieutenant 
 Herndon had reported, "we see a fecundity 
 of soil and a rapidity of vegetation that is 
 marvelous and to which even Egypt, the 
 ancient granary of Europe, affords no par- 
 allel. . . . Here trees, evidently young, 
 shoot up to such a height that no fowling- 
 piece will reach the game seated on their 
 topmost branches. This is the country of 
 rice, of sarsaparilla, of cocoa, of tonka beans, 
 of mandioca, black pepper, arrowroot, ginger, 
 balsam, tapioca, gum copal, nutmeg, animal 
 and vegetable wax, indigo and Brazil nuts, of 
 India rubber, of dyes of the gayest colors, 
 drugs of rare virtue, variegated cabinet woods 
 of the finest grain and susceptible of the high- 
 est polish. Here dwell the wild cow, the fish 
 ox, the sloth, the anteater, the beautiful black 
 tiger, the mysterious electric eel, the boa con- 
 strictor, the anaconda, the deadly coral snake, 
 the voracious alligator, monkeys in endless 
 variety, birds of the most brilliant plumage, 
 and insects of the strangest form and gayest 
 colors." 
 
 More than forty years of progress and 
 141 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 improvement have passed since Dom Pedro 
 decreed that the river should be open to inter- 
 national trade, yet all these wonders may 
 still be seen there — the vast expanses of 
 water, the shore lines varied by lofty bluffs 
 and low plains of sand, rugged rocks and 
 dense masses of foliage, the river surface 
 dotted by islands, large and small — the mag- 
 nificent forest still crowding to the banks and 
 teeming with all the exuberant life and bril- 
 liant hues of the tropics — giant sumaumeras, 
 their crests towering high above all other 
 trees, their huge, white-barked trunks and 
 limbs standing out in striking relief from the 
 masses of green; tall cocoanut palms, tufted 
 at the top with fan-shaped leaves cut into 
 ribbons and bedecked with creamy blossoms; 
 slender, graceful assai palms, tall and clean- 
 stemmed like the cocoanuts, but with fluffy, 
 feathery crowns; wine palms from which the 
 flowers hang in long, crimson tassels, studded 
 with berries of bright green; jupati palms 
 with plumelike leaves forty to fifty feet long 
 that start near the base of the trunk and 
 curve upward on all sides in the form of a 
 vase; the familiar fan palm, and a legion of 
 others. 
 
 142 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 And there are rubber trees, which resemble 
 in this region our northern ash; stately cas- 
 tanhaSj the trees on which the Brazil nuts 
 grow, and cacaos, that look like our cherry 
 trees, only they give us our chocolate and 
 cocoa beans instead and have blossoms of a 
 saffron tint; mahoganies, rosewoods and sat- 
 inwoods and great sheaves of whispering bam- 
 boo; myriads of ferns and exquisitely tinted 
 orchids, acacias, scarlet passion flowers, be- 
 gonias, yellow and blue — flowers innumerable 
 in the wildest profusion. Not little ones like 
 our violets hiding modestly among the mosses 
 and grass, but big blossoms growing lux- 
 uriantly on bushes and on the parasite vines 
 that twine about the trunks of the trees and 
 hang in festoons from their branches, until 
 the whole river border seems ablaze with 
 their vivid lights; and there are still the 
 monkeys and beautiful butterflies and hum- 
 ming birds, and the parrots, macaws, herons, 
 egrets, toucans, and countless other gor- 
 geously feathered birds, and the Indian vil- 
 lages, too, in the midst of their orange and 
 banana groves or huddled near the beaches 
 where the turtles breed. 
 
 Only now all these may be seen from the 
 143 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 decks of ocean liners, or, if one starts from 
 Belem or Iquitos, from river steamers as 
 safe and comfortably equipped and setting as 
 good a table as most of those in our north- 
 ern waters. Now the alligators and snakes 
 and tigers have been driven far from the 
 beaten tracks — not too far, though, for the 
 sportsman who loves the excitement of hunt- 
 ing big game — now the negro slaves have 
 been freed and the Indians are no longer 
 hostile; now, in many places, lands have been 
 drained and clearings made in the forests, 
 and waste marshes and giant trees have made 
 way for pastures and thrifty-looking planta- 
 tions, where grain, coffee, sugar, tobacco 
 and cotton, and pineapples and many other 
 things are cultivated; now the rubber and 
 cacao and nut gatherers penetrate far into 
 the woods; now small, isolated communities 
 have grown to be large ones, that send their 
 produce directly from their own docks to 
 the markets of the world. 
 
 There is Manaos, for instance, the capital 
 of the State of Amazonas. Manaos is sit- 
 uated at the mouth of the Rio Negro, which 
 empties into the Amazon a thousand miles 
 from the coast. When Lieutenant Herndon 
 
 144 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 was there in 1851, it was a wretched little 
 town, containing but four hundred and sev- 
 enty houses, most of them one story in height, 
 and had a population of about four thou- 
 sand — whites, Indians, mixed breeds, and 
 negro slaves all combined. To-day it is a 
 modern, rapidly growing city, with a popu- 
 lation already numbering fifty thousand, 
 perhaps more, including many foreigners. 
 There is an imposing stone State House, a 
 white marble Palace of Justice, and a splen- 
 did monument commemorating the opening 
 of the Amazon to international trade. It has 
 broad, shaded, well-paved streets, lined with 
 handsome buildings; it has electric lights, 
 trolley lines, a telephone system, water and 
 harbor works, an ice plant, banks, hotels, 
 newspapers, up-to-date shops, ^ warehouses 
 and public markets, a good library and ex- 
 cellent educational institutions, and is rated 
 among the greater ports of South America 
 because of its extensive shipments of rubber 
 and other products of the country round 
 about. 
 
 A visit to the beautiful public gardens, 
 where an orchestra plays in the evenings, and 
 to the Amazonas Theater is well worth while. 
 
 145 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 It is said to have cost $2,000,000 in gold, 
 that theater — which is not at all surprising 
 to any one who has seen it, for it is truly 
 superb, a structure of stone with marble 
 supporting columns, that stands on a great 
 causeway of masonry occupying a command- 
 ing site on the Avenida Eduardo Ribeiro, the 
 principal thoroughfare and fashionable prom- 
 enade, and has a lofty, brightly colored dome 
 that can be seen from the harbor, and a mag- 
 nificent foyer adorned with paintings by a 
 famous Italian artist. 
 
 Obydos, too, perched on the bluffs beside 
 an old fortress near the mouth of the Trom- 
 betas, and Santarem, at the mouth of the 
 iTapajos, about midway between Manaos and 
 the coast, are other progressive cities that of- 
 fer opportunities for agreeable breaks in the 
 long journey. As it was in the Tapajos that 
 gold was first found in the region, Santarem 
 is one of the oldest if now one of the most 
 up-to-date of the towns. It is possessed, be- 
 sides, of a peculiar interest for North Amer- 
 icans because after our civil war it became 
 the home of quite a number of our "unrecon- 
 structed" Confederates. 
 
 But Belem, or Para as it is more generally 
 146 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 called by foreigners (one may take his 
 choice, since the full corporate name is Santa 
 Maria de Nazareth de Belem do Grdo Para), 
 is by far the largest and most interesting of 
 them all, for not only has the wealth that 
 has poured into it in recent years trans- 
 formed it into a big city of about two hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants, boasting, like 
 Manaos, all the modern public utilities and 
 conveniences, but it is old and rich in relics 
 associated with its romantic history, much 
 care has been taken in the adding of the new 
 to beautify it, its climate is much more de- 
 lightful than the others (the mean annual 
 temperature is only 82° F.), and it is also 
 charmingly clean and picturesque. "Who 
 comes to Para," runs a local proverb, "is glad 
 to stay; who drinks assai goes never away" 
 — though assai need have no real terrors for 
 that reason. It is nothing more seductive than 
 a most refreshing beverage made from the 
 fruit of the assai palm. 
 
 Almost at the very threshold of the city, 
 on the approach from the sea, one encoun- 
 ters some of the wonders in which the region 
 abounds — first the "pororoca" which is the 
 name originally given by the Indians to the 
 
 147 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 huge waves that are created by the conflict 
 of the descending waters of the river with 
 the inrushing current of the Atlantic and 
 follow each other in series of three or four, 
 with thunderous intonations. For nearly an 
 hour in the progress through the great es- 
 tuary the conflict can be observed. Then the 
 river seems to prevail; its surface grows more 
 placid, the color changes from the dark hue 
 of the ocean to light green, and, on beyond, 
 to the tawny yellow of the Amazon. Yet they 
 say the ebb and flow of the tide is perceptible 
 as far up as Obydos, 700 miles away, and, 
 when it ebbs, that the tawny yellow can be 
 seen many miles out at sea. Then, scattered 
 about, here, there, and everywhere on the 
 twenty-mile-wide bosom of the Para, as 
 though in the titanic struggle some larger 
 body had been broken into bits, are hundreds 
 of wooded islands, moist and radiant in the 
 sunlight, their varied greens in delightful 
 contrast with the silvery sheen on the waters 
 and the bright turquoise of the sky. 
 
 The city, seen from a distance, with its 
 background of forests and rows of white- 
 walled, red-roofed houses, separated into 
 clusters by the parks and tree-lined avenues 
 
 148 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 sloping down to the shores of its own spa- 
 cious bay, has the gay, holiday appearance of 
 a summer resort. Only a closer view dispels 
 the illusion, for its harbor is filled with ves- 
 sels of every size and description, from the 
 little monatriaSj or canoes, of the Indians, to 
 the great liners of the Brazilian Lloyd. Its 
 compact business section in the vicinity of 
 the quay, the Custom House and market and 
 the warehouses of the steamship companies 
 present a commercial aspect substantial and 
 busy enough to command the respect even 
 of a Chicagoan or New Yorker. As already 
 stated, more than three fifths of the rubber 
 supply of the world comes from Brazil, and 
 two of these three fifths pass this very port, 
 to say nothing of the cacao, nuts, oils, to- 
 bacco, woods, and other things shipped there, 
 or of the importations. 
 
 One of the features of a stay in Belem, by 
 the way — that is, for any one interested in 
 seeing how the first crude form of an article 
 so familiar in its finished forms is produced, 
 is a trip to one of the near-by rubber estates. 
 It has not yet been necessary in this section, 
 if anywhere in Brazil, to resort to cultivation 
 to any great extent, and so the huts of the 
 
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 seringueiros (gatherers) are located right in 
 the woods, where the rubber trees grow 
 promiscuously among the others, and each 
 seringueiro is allotted as many as he can at- 
 tend to. The sap, which resembles milk in 
 color and consistency, is collected in cups 
 placed under incisions in the bark, then 
 brought into camp in bucketfuls and reduced 
 by a primitive process of evaporation to the 
 slabs or cakes forming the raw article of 
 commerce. One does not have to leave 
 Belem itself, however, to see rubber trees and 
 most of the other species, too, for there the 
 people have been generous enough to pre- 
 serve within the city limits a large tract of 
 primeval forest, which has been cleared of 
 underbrush and converted into a park, known 
 as the Bosque Municipal. Also there is a 
 wonderful botanical garden and a museum 
 where the rarest specimens of the vegetation, 
 and animals and the birds and reptiles of the 
 country are assembled. 
 
 And even in the business section there are 
 charming public squares. The one nearest 
 the quay, named for the Bishop Frei Caetano 
 Brandao, whose statue is in the center, is par- 
 ticularly interesting because facing it is a 
 
 150 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 fine old seventeenth-century cathedral of the 
 Portuguese type, massive and grave, an old 
 marine arsenal now used as a hospital, and an 
 ancient fortification, called the Castello, which 
 has been maintained because of its historical 
 associations. Then there is the Praca da In- 
 dependencia, where the Governor's Palace is, 
 and a quaint old blue-walled City Hall, built 
 in colonial times for a Portuguese minister, 
 the Marquis de Pombal, who dreamed of the 
 permanent transfer of the seat of the Lusi- 
 tanian empire to the banks of the Amazon. 
 In the heart of the city, on its most elevated 
 ground, is the celebrated Largo da Polvora, 
 now commonly called the Praca da Repub- 
 lica, after a superb monument it contains — 
 of marble surmounted by figures in bronze, 
 symbolic of the republic proclaimed when the 
 Emperor Dom Pedro was dethroned in the 
 bloodless revolution of 1889. It is from this 
 point that the four principal avenues extend 
 through the city in the cardinal directions. 
 
 "The Largo da Polvora," Arthur Dias 
 pays it the compliment of saying (though 
 this may, perhaps, be rather too enthusias- 
 tic), "shames our Avenida da Liber dade in 
 Lisbon; if they could place there the 
 
 151 
 
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 Arc de Triomphe, it would rival the Champs- 
 Elysees." It may be that for most its fas- 
 cination lies not so much in its beauty as 
 in its other attractions, for it is the great so- 
 cial and amusement center of a prosperous 
 and pleasure-loving community, the thor- 
 oughfare along which the best of its hotels 
 and clubs and the fashionable cafes and con- 
 cert halls are located and many of its finest 
 residences. It adds the lively mundane touch 
 that is needed to relieve the impressiveness 
 of a region where all nature is so overpow- 
 eringly beautiful. In the midst of the gar- 
 dens, which are separated by luxuriantly 
 shaded streets, is the Theatro da Paz, re- 
 garded as one of the best in Latin America, 
 and the Apollo Circus and Paz Carrousel. 
 Near by is the handsome Paz Hotel, with its 
 popular cafe. 
 
 In the evenings, when the cool breeze sets 
 in from the ocean, the whole scene becomes 
 animated. The brilliantly lighted avenues 
 and driveways in the park are thronged 
 with the carriages and motor cars of the 
 "four hundred," the sidewalks with crowds 
 of pleasure - seekers, cosmopolitan and well 
 dressed. Then the cafes all have out their 
 
 152 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 little zinc tables, jammed with customers 
 of both sexes (these cafes are not mere 
 drinking places, most of them, but a sort of 
 peculiar combination of cafe, candy store, 
 and ice-cream saloon), dozens of orchestras 
 play, the places of amusement are in full 
 blast, and music and gayety reign supreme. 
 
 ii 
 
 Because of peculiar economic conditions, 
 the railroads of Brazil, as originally planned, 
 were not intended, like ours, to facilitate com- 
 merce among the States, but only for the 
 purpose of bringing the products of the va- 
 rious developed sections of the country to 
 the nearest shipping points. Thus Recife, 
 the seaport of the State of Pernambuco, is 
 the focus of one system, Sao Salvador da 
 Bahia of another, Rio de Janeiro of a third, 
 Santos, the port of Sao Paulo, of a fourth, 
 and Porto Alegre, the chief port of Rio 
 Grande do Sul, of a fifth. Not long ago, 
 when these conditions began to undergo rad- 
 ical changes, the government realized the de- 
 sirability of establishing connections by 
 means of lines running north and south. The 
 
 153 
 
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 Rio de Janeiran system was extended north 
 to the growing port of Victoria, in the neigh- 
 boring State of Espirito Santo, and con- 
 nected with the systems of Sao Paulo and 
 Rio Grande do Sul, and in 1910 pushed still 
 farther south into Uruguay, so that by the 
 end of the year it was possible to travel by 
 rail from Victoria to Montevideo, a distance 
 of more than two thousand miles. 
 
 The lines north of Victoria, however, have 
 not yet been connected and the nearly twenty- 
 five-hundred-mile journey from Belem to 
 Rio, therefore, must still be made by sea. 
 But, long though the trip is, it is very far 
 from being a monotonous one, if only the 
 tourist has the time to make it on a coast- 
 wise steamer that stops at the principal ports 
 of call. Sao Luiz da Maranhao, "the City 
 of Little Palaces"; Fortaleza, the port of 
 Ceara, regarded as one of the loveliest in 
 Brazil; Pernambuco, with its canals and la- 
 goons and bridges, a city that inspired a 
 famous Brazilian poet to exclaim: "Hail, 
 beautiful land ! O Pernambuco, Venice trans- 
 ported to America, floating on the seas!" 
 and terraced, crescent-shaped Sao Salva- 
 dor, enthroned on the hills beside its mag- 
 
 154 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 nificent bay — all these are so interesting that 
 they richly repay a visit. All are older than 
 the oldest English settlement in the north- 
 ern continent, yet, unlike Jamestown, there is 
 not one of them that has not kept pace with 
 the national progress. 
 
 The huge breast of land on which these 
 cities are located, that reaches out in a direct 
 line toward the western extremity of Africa 
 and lies in the track of all ships bound by 
 way of the Atlantic to and from the country 
 south of the equator, is the great sugar, cot- 
 ton, and tobacco region, and was the first in 
 Brazil to contain a large European popula- 
 tion. The French coveted and poached on 
 it and were the first to settle Sao Luiz in 
 Maranhao; the Dutch seized it in 1630, while 
 Holland was at war with Spain and Portu- 
 gal and her possessions had fallen under 
 Spanish suzerainty, and held it for twenty- 
 five years in spite of all the Portuguese and 
 Spanish could do, only to be driven out at 
 last by the persistence and courage of the 
 colonists themselves. 
 
 It is doubtful whether anywhere else could 
 be found such a mingling of the classic, 
 medieval, and modern in architecture, such 
 
 155 
 
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 quaint old institutions and customs of living 
 in an atmosphere permeated with up-to-date 
 business methods, such strangely attractive 
 displays of primitive ornaments and curios 
 as may be seen in their shops side by side 
 with importations from Paris. In few other 
 places could such results be studied as have 
 come from the process of racial assimilation 
 that has been going on for centuries in the 
 mestizo classes — the Indian by the Cauca- 
 sian, the African by both; for in Brazil? as 
 in the islands of the Caribbean, immense 
 numbers of blacks were brought over in the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries after the 
 enslavement of the Indians had been forbid- 
 den. Nor could more cordial courtesy be 
 met with anywhere than that with which one 
 is here treated by all, as a rule, from the 
 highly cultured, thoroughbred Portuguese to 
 the poorest and most illiterate mixed-breed 
 or negro laborer — though this is true of nearly 
 every place in South America. 
 
 Of all these cities, though, Pernambuco is 
 perhaps the most interesting. After Rio, 
 Sao Paulo, and Bahia, it is the largest and 
 most important in the country. Its canals 
 and lagoons and handsome bridges, which 
 
 156 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 give it an attractiveness distinct from the 
 others, are accounted for by the fact that the 
 city is divided into sections by the channels 
 of the river at the mouth of which it lies, and 
 a few hundred yards out from the shore is 
 a long reef, running parallel with it, that 
 forms a natural breakwater, which encloses 
 the harbor and protects it from the heavy 
 rollers in time of storm. It is from this reef 
 that the section known as Recife, the old city 
 proper, derives its name. 
 
 Recife is the commercial and shipping sec- 
 tion now. There is not much to commend it 
 to the sightseer except a few fine old churches 
 and the Praca do Commercio, a place of gen- 
 eral resort facing the local Wall Street, where 
 almost every one who is engaged in business 
 down town is to be seen taking a breathing 
 spell at some hour or other during the day. 
 Near by is a large hucksters' market, which, 
 it must be confessed, serves better than the 
 hotel menu to disclose the peculiarities of the 
 fare with which the denizens of the neighbor- 
 hood regale themselves. And good fare it 
 is, too, and wonderful to behold — to a north- 
 erner unaccustomed to such luxuriance. 
 
 The section in which the government build- 
 157 
 
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 ings and custom house and the principal re- 
 tail stores, theaters, and places of amusement 
 are to be found is the one called Sao An- 
 tonio, on a large island a little to the south- 
 east. This part of the town is much better 
 built. Many of the old houses, as in Recife, 
 are reminiscent, some of the early Portu- 
 guese, others of the Dutch occupation — tall, 
 pointed-roof structures, painted white or pale 
 blue or pink — but the newer ones, and the 
 streets generally, are more sightly and char- 
 acteristic of the indulgent, easy-going, artis- 
 tic temperament of the people. The fash- 
 ionable residence district is called Boa Vista 
 and lies back on the mainland, where the 
 bishop has his palace. Most of the houses 
 here are the charming one-story affairs, sur- 
 rounded by beautiful gardens, so suited to 
 life in the tropics. 
 
 Three or four miles to the north is a 
 suburban section called Olinda, where many 
 of the old families still have their homes. 
 In colonial times, as Dawson tells us, when 
 this part of the country was supplying Eu- 
 rope with nearly all of the sugar it used 
 and the planters were rolling in wealth, 
 this "was the largest town in Brazil and 
 
 158 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 the one where there was the most luxu- 
 rious living and the most polite society. 
 Great sums were spent in fetes, religious 
 processions, fairs, and dinners. The simple 
 Jesuit Fathers were shocked to see such vel- 
 vets and silks, such luxurious beds of crim- 
 son damask, such extravagance in the trap- 
 pings of the saddle horses. Carriages were 
 unknown and, instead, litters and sedan 
 chairs were used, and these remained in com- 
 mon use until very recent times." Lots of 
 these old houses and customs still exist, and 
 there are many new features of the town that 
 are worth seeing. 
 
 Sao Salvador da Bahia, "where the wicked 
 Brazilian cigars come from," was the pro- 
 vincial capital once, and the seat of govern- 
 ment of the whole Portuguese empire when 
 the King was forced by Napoleon's aggres- 
 sions to take refuge in Brazil. Formerly, too, 
 it was the headquarters for diamonds, before 
 the mines in the south and in South Africa 
 were developed. Now it is the capital of the 
 rich Bay State, and is the third of the big 
 cities in point of size and importance — 
 though here the percentage of negro blood 
 is much higher than anywhere else in the 
 country. ll5 9 
 
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 Its location is delightfully picturesque, the 
 upper section built on bluffs several hun- 
 dred feet above the level of the bay, the 
 lower along the shore. In this lower sec- 
 tion, behind the docks, are the warehouses 
 and factories, the arsenal and a great light- 
 house, and, aside from defensive works of 
 modern type, the old fortifications which the 
 Dutch had made the most formidable in 
 America in colonial times; and on the up- 
 per terraces are the Governor's palace and 
 public buildings, one of the best public 
 libraries in the country, the cathedral and 
 convents, the municipal theater, and the bet- 
 ter class of residences and amusement re- 
 sorts. In general, the streets are much like 
 those of Belem and Pernambuco: paved with 
 cobblestones and narrow in the shopping and 
 cafe districts, with long white rows of two 
 and three story houses built closely together, 
 many with balconies above the show windows ; 
 and the parks are as beautiful and the resi- 
 dences out along the wide, palm-lined drive- 
 ways are fully as sumptuous. 
 
 But, interesting as are all these places, 
 their attractions are fairly dimmed by Rio's, 
 and especially by her gorgeous bay. From 
 
 160 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 the Guianas to its southernmost boundaries, 
 in fact, Brazil is one grand series of pris- 
 matic forests, majestic rivers and cascades, 
 immense rolling plains and mountains — a 
 panorama that is matchless anywhere in the 
 world — but, if I were asked to point out 
 some one feature that was pre-eminent 
 among them all, I should not hesitate to se- 
 lect that bay. The bay of Naples, the Golden 
 Horn of Constantinople, all those wonderful 
 aspects by the mention of which writers have 
 sought to impress those who have not seen 
 the Rio bay with its grandeur and beauty, 
 can but suffer by the comparison. "Extrav- 
 agant language must be used in writing of 
 it," says Burton Holmes, "for there all is 
 extravagance — extravagance of color, extrav- 
 agance of form." It is so incomparably sub- 
 lime, says the Rev. James C. Fletcher, the 
 author of one of the most noted of the de- 
 scriptions — though no pen or brush could 
 possibly do it justice — that "the first en- 
 trance must mark an era in the life of any 
 one. I have seen the rude and ignorant Rus- 
 sian sailor, the immoral and unreflecting 
 Australian adventurer, as well as the refined 
 and cultivated European gentleman, stand 
 
 161 
 
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 silent on the deck, lost in admiration of the 
 gigantic avenue of mountains and palm-cov- 
 ered isles, which, like the granite pillars of 
 the Temple of Luxor, form a fitting colon- 
 nade to the portal of the finest bay in the 
 world." 
 
 Entering the outer bay, we see to the left 
 the huge, fantastic figure of Gavia looming 
 up from the shore, rock-capped and bald, 
 and, a little beyond, the more symmetrical 
 crests of the Three Brothers. Just distin- 
 guishable, off behind where the city lies, the 
 summit of Corcovado (the Hunchback) ap- 
 pears. On the right are mound-shaped 
 islands called the Father and Mother, that 
 protrude from the water like tops of moun- 
 tains partially submerged, and, off in the 
 distance, the pinnacles of the Organ group 
 mount higher than all. In the center, on a 
 point jutting out from the mainland, is an 
 isolated peak fifteen hundred feet high, 
 called the Sugar Loaf, that stands like a sen- 
 tinel guarding the narrow entrance to the 
 harbor. As we draw nearer, the coloring of 
 the mountain sides and shores, only a con- 
 fusion of vague tints before, grows more and 
 more vivid as the foliage begins to take form, 
 
 162 
 
Copyright, 1911, by W. D. lloycc. 
 
 BOTAFOGO BAY, HARE 
 Photograph used by courtesy of Mr. V 
 
F RIO DE JANEIRO. 
 
 loyce and the Pan American Union. 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 and we see that on the hills above the rocks 
 at the extremities of the peninsulas that ex- 
 tend from either side to form the gateway, 
 are white- walled forts. These are known as 
 Sao Joao and Santa Cruz, and, passing 
 through, we are confronted by still another 
 called Lage, midway between but a little be- 
 yond. It is steel-clad like a man of war, this 
 one, and frowns down from an island of big 
 rocks, dominating the passage. Once by 
 this, we are in the harbor itself. 
 
 Just within are shapely arms of the bay, 
 Botafogo on the Rio side and Jurujuba on 
 the other, that sweep around in wide, grace- 
 ful curves to two other and much larger 
 peninsulas opposite, like those of Sao Joao 
 and Santa Cruz; and on one of them, the 
 one to the left, is the old or commercial dis- 
 trict of the national capital, on the other the 
 pretty little city of Nictheroy, the capital 
 of the State of Rio de Janeiro — for the city 
 of Rio is the national capital and located 
 in a separate federal district, like our city 
 of Washington. Above these larger peninsu- 
 las the water broadens to a vast expanse, a 
 sort of inland sea. Inclosing it like a wall, 
 and on beyond as far as the eye can reach, 
 
 163 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 stretch the serried peaks of the Coast Range. 
 
 Everywhere, bathed in the intense golden 
 sunlight, are the same gradations of green, 
 the same riot of brilliantly colored flowers, 
 that we saw on the Amazon — only here the 
 water is not muddy but deep blue, and the 
 beaches are lined with almost snow-white 
 sand. Then, as we steam slowly across to 
 the anchorage, which lies over between the 
 Villegagnon and Cobra islands near the quay, 
 we have the first view of the city, dense in the 
 center where it covers the peninsula, and 
 stretching along the shore and here and there 
 back between the foothills, for miles and 
 miles to the north and south. The roofs of 
 the houses are tiled in reds and browns; the 
 walls are cream or rose-tinted or else dazzling 
 white. "It looks like a fragment of fairy- 
 land," as Curtis expresses it — "a cluster of 
 alabaster castles decorated with vines." 
 
 Perhaps I ought to give warning that some 
 of the writers on Brazil, after going into 
 raptures over the scene in the bay, express 
 themselves very differently respecting the 
 experience on entering the city. That same 
 Mr. Curtis, for instance, goes on to say that 
 "the streets are narrow, damp, dirty, reeking 
 
 164 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 with repulsive odors and filled with vermin- 
 covered beggars and wolfish-looking dogs." 
 But he was writing of experiences encoun- 
 tered many years ago, before the reforms 
 and improvements were undertaken, which, 
 when completed, will have cost some sixty 
 millions of dollars. It is still true, no doubt, 
 that in the commercial district several of 
 the ugly old sections remain, where there are 
 narrow, tortuous streets and dingy ware- 
 houses, ship-chandleries, saloons and stores 
 that cater to the stevedore class of trade, such 
 as there are in all great shipping centers as 
 old and as busy as Rio, and of course there 
 are the districts in which the lowest classes 
 foregather. But since he and Dr. Fletcher 
 wrote their books, the old passenger landing 
 place called the Pharoux quay has been trans- 
 formed into a handsome square ; adorned with 
 gardens and a big bronze fountain; hills have 
 been leveled to permit extensions and relieve 
 the congestion ; literally thousands of marshy, 
 mosquito-breeding places have been filled in 
 and reclaimed; a fine drainage canal has been 
 constructed, an adequate sewerage system 
 installed, and a system of masonry docks is 
 nearing completion that will rival the cele- 
 
 165 
 
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 brated docks of Santos and Buenos Aires; 
 some of the streets have been broadened and 
 more have been repaved, and the sanitary 
 conditions and healthfulness generally have 
 been so improved that yellow fever is a thing 
 of the past. 
 
 Besides all this, many magnificent new gov- 
 ernment buildings have been erected, notably 
 the Congressional Palace on Tiradentes 
 Square. The estimated cost of this build- 
 ing alone was $15,000,000 and it is proudly 
 claimed to be one of the finest in South 
 America; also the Palace of the Supreme 
 Court, of rose-tinted stone and marble, with 
 bronze ornamentations, and the Post Office 
 and Mint, National Printing Office and Na- 
 tional Library, all of great architectural 
 beauty, and the City Hall and Municipal 
 Theater. This last is an ornate, high-domed 
 marble and stone structure of Moorish design 
 that cost $5,000,000 to build. And, to facili- 
 tate traffic, a superb hundred-and-flfty-foot 
 wide avenue, the Avenida Central, has been 
 constructed clear across the business section 
 of the city for a mile or more, opening a vista 
 from bay to bay. To do this more than six 
 hundred houses had to be purchased and torn 
 
 166 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 down; they have been replaced by others of 
 a pleasing general uniformity and elegance of 
 appearance, of which any city in Europe or 
 America might well be proud. The Jornal 
 do Commercio building, for example, looks 
 more like one of our fashionable metropolitan 
 hotels or apartment houses, than a business 
 establishment. The sidewalks are paved with 
 mosaics and kept perfectly clean. 
 
 Beginning at the southern end of this ave- 
 nue and following the contour of the shore 
 past the elegant residence districts of Gloria 
 and Flamengo, they have constructed an 
 esplanade a mile long, called the Avenida 
 Beira Mar, and, farther on, around the ex- 
 quisite inlet of Botafogo, where some of the 
 handsomest of the residences are, have con- 
 verted the semicircular beach into a still 
 lovelier avenue, adorned with alternate rows 
 of trees and arc lights like the other, and 
 flower beds and formal lawns. Unless it is 
 the more comprehensive one from the top of 
 Corcovado, there is no more enchanting view 
 than that of this whole ensemble from the 
 Morro da Viuva at the northern end of the 
 semicircle, especially looking straight across 
 at the hills on the opposite side, where the 
 
 16*7 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 rose-tinted buildings of the Military School 
 nestle in the green depths of a rocky cleft, 
 with the Sugar Loaf towering behind. 
 
 And then, up near the business section 
 again, there is the Paseio Publico, with its 
 park and lakes and broad waterside terrace 
 overlooking the whole southern part of the 
 harbor, and the naval barracks and fortifi- 
 cations on historic Villegagnon, quite close at 
 this point. It was here that the adventurer 
 for whom it is named made the first at- 
 tempt at colonizing the neighborhood: with 
 a party of Huguenots sent over by Ad- 
 miral Coligny to escape religious persecutions 
 in France and to found a place of refuge for 
 those of the Protestant faith. The Paseio 
 Publico is regarded by many as the most 
 charming of the parks, but there are lots 
 of these beautiful spots. One of them, the 
 Botanical Garden, which is larger and more 
 complete than the one in Belem, is known the 
 world over from the thousands of pictures 
 that have been published of its magnificent 
 avenue of royal palms. Few visit Rio with- 
 out going there; and now that a good cog- 
 wheel railroad has been built from one of the 
 trolley lines up to the summit of Corcovado, 
 
 168 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 the whole mountain side has become a wild- 
 wood park. With reference to the view from 
 the summit, I cannot resist quoting from 
 Arthur Ruhl, who describes it so delightfully. 
 "The Corcovado is a rock jutting over 
 the trees," he says, "so sheer that you look 
 down on Rio and the blue harbor as from a 
 balloon — down two thousand feet of velvet 
 green descents to the terra cotta roofs and 
 sun-washed walls and the wheel-spoke streets 
 like lines on a map. Not one of our smoke 
 hives, but a city of villas and palms and show- 
 ering vines and flowers, meandering about 
 over the foothills, immersed in the blazing 
 sun. The cool, laughing sea envelops it — 
 blue, and bluer yet in the sun; and, all about 
 in it, islands — agate in turquoise — jut out 
 as though the gods had tossed a handful in 
 the water. It is, as I heard an American 
 say of the backward look toward Rio as the 
 train climbs to Petropolis, as though one had 
 been taken up into the mountains to see the 
 kingdoms of the world and the glory of 
 them." Petropolis, though, is not simply 
 another viewpoint, but one of the loveliest of 
 the suburban mountain cities, where the late 
 Emperor lived, surrounded by the ambassa- 
 
 169 
 
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 dors and ministers of the foreign countries 
 and the nobility and aristocracy of the old 
 regime. It is still the home of the diplo- 
 matic corps, and the most fashionable of the 
 suburbs. 
 
 Do not imagine for a moment, however, 
 that the pleasures of a visit to Rio are limited 
 to such things. Like all cities of its respect- 
 able age and size — for it has almost, if not 
 quite, reached the million mark now — it has 
 its antiquities and places of historical interest, 
 its museums, art galleries, libraries, statues 
 and churches (the paintings and decorations 
 in the beautiful Candelaria Church are the 
 richest in South America), and its theaters 
 and amusement resorts of every description; 
 and, down town in that same commercial part 
 that Mr. Curtis scored so heavily, is the noisy, 
 vivacious old Rua do Ouvidor, of all things 
 Rio de Janeiran the one that possesses the 
 most individuality, the place where everybody 
 who is anybody is to be seen. It is only about 
 twenty feet wide — just think of it, the 
 "Broadway" of a great city like Rio! — so 
 narrow and crowded that vehicles are not 
 allowed to go through at certain hours of 
 the day, but most of the old somber Portu- 
 
 170 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 guese-style buildings have been replaced by 
 modern ones, and what it lacks in width is 
 compensated for by the attractiveness of the 
 stores and cafes. 
 
 These cafes, principally devoted to the 
 service of the demi tasse, are everywhere in 
 Brazil, but here particularly they are the ren- 
 dezvous for the official, military, professional 
 and more prosperous commercial classes, who 
 drop in at all hours to talk things over to 
 the music of the orchestra — everything from 
 business, religion and politics to the idlest so- 
 ciety gossip — only they sip coffee, for the 
 most part, instead of highballs and beer. And 
 such coffee! A North American never real- 
 izes what a perfectly delectable flavor cof- 
 fee really is capable of, how deliciously rich 
 and sirupy it is when brewed by those who 
 know how, until he has drunk it in the Orient 
 or down there in Brazil. 
 
 There was a time, and not so very long ago, 
 when these crowds along the Rua do Ouvidor 
 were all of one sex. The ladies of the upper 
 classes — when they went shopping at all, in- 
 stead of simply having samples sent to their 
 houses to choose from — remained in their 
 carriages while the shopkeepers brought out 
 
 171 
 
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 to them for their inspection the various qual- 
 ities of such articles as were desired; but this 
 old world idea of seclusion, like many others 
 at the capital, has given way to more ad- 
 vanced ones now. Brazilian metropolitan 
 womanhood is beginning to awaken and fol- 
 low the general trend toward emancipation. 
 In these days ladies not only appear on the 
 streets and go from shop to shop on foot, 
 as do the ladies of our cities, but drop in at 
 certain unexceptionable cafes for luncheon, or 
 perhaps at a matinee or some moving picture 
 show, unattended by their husbands or fathers 
 or brothers. The Avenida, Saturday after- 
 noons when the weather is pleasant, reminds 
 one of a Parisian boulevard, so densely is it 
 thronged with smartly gotten up prome- 
 naders and so well patronized are the little 
 sidewalk tables under the awnings in front 
 of the cafes. Needless to say, on these oc- 
 casions the ladies do graciously suffer the at- 
 tendance of their admirers or the male mem- 
 bers of their families. 
 
 " 'Superb' is the word that best fits the 
 beautiful Brazilian woman," no less an au- 
 thority than Burton Holmes enthusiastically 
 declares. " 'Striking' is the word that best 
 
 TO 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 describes her dress." Then, referring to their 
 appearance at the opera: "The belles of Rio 
 seem to have taken the styles of Paris and 
 given to them a strange, exotic something 
 that makes the toilettes seen at the Munici- 
 pal Theater far more striking and effective 
 than those at the Paris opera," he goes on. 
 "Mere man cannot say in what the difference 
 lies, but the fact remains that while the 
 gowns may have been made, or at least de- 
 signed, in Paris, they are not Parisian; they 
 are instead pronouncedly Brazilian. The men, 
 too, deserve a word of mention, for they are 
 very well-dressed men, much better dressed 
 than the men of Paris or of Lisbon — all of 
 course in evening dress, all looking as if they 
 were accustomed to wearing it. The women 
 in the boxes retain their hats. The men might 
 as well retain theirs, for they are quite in- 
 visible behind the massed millinery of their 
 fair companions." 
 
 Rio, of course, has all the up-to-date public 
 utilities — electric street-car lines, lights, tele- 
 phones, taxicabs and the rest; but, as Arthur 
 Ruhl so aptly puts it, "Before the things seen 
 and heard and vaguely felt," in this city of 
 such strange, peculiar charm, "the endless 
 
 173 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 procession of vague, unrelated things that 
 baffle and allure — semi-antique humans liv- 
 ing languidly in the midst of a sun-drenched 
 nature, which, by its very luxuriance, might 
 seem to have overpowered them — Latin sen- 
 sibility tinged with African superstition — 
 negro coachmen in top-boots, such as Puss- 
 in-Boots might have worn — dusky, velvet- 
 eyed donzellas — palms, blazing walls and 
 indigo sea — one loses interest in railroads and 
 power plants and the things we do better at 
 home. Brazilians must interest themselves 
 in such things, for therein lies their salvation. 
 If I seem to neglect them, it is because it 
 seems absurd to visit a conservatory full of 
 orchids and spend one's time seeing how the 
 steam-pipes are put in. By the same token," 
 he adds — 
 
 "There is a certain mellowed dignity in the Bra- 
 zilian scene — the natural inheritance of the empire, 
 and doubtless, also, a reaction of race and climate — 
 lacking in the more energetic Argentina. It was only 
 in 1889 that good Dom Pedro — that kindly, cultured, 
 old-school gentleman — was dethroned and shipped off 
 to Portugal. It is only since 1887 that the negroes 
 ceased to be slaves. Brazil's foremost statesman, the 
 big, able Minister of Foreign Affairs, who, as he 
 moved amongst his slender Caribbean brethren at the 
 
 174 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 1906 conference, looked like the senior partner of 
 some old firm of Wall Street bankers, is still called 
 'Baron' Rio Branco. You can still see in Petropolis 
 the house of the Princess Regent and her husband, 
 the Conde d' Eu, overgrown somewhat with vege- 
 tation and buried in somber shades. Rio's great 
 public library was started by King Joao VI him- 
 self when the Portuguese court was transferred to 
 Brazil in 1808. 
 
 "There is still a suggestion of the old world and 
 grand manner. They have their Academy of Forty 
 Immortals ; their politicians are often pleased to prac- 
 tice the politer arts. Senhor Joahim Nabuco, who 
 presided at the conference, has written his 'Pensees.' 
 These litterateurs may be, as Senhor Bomfim 
 suggests in 'A America Latina,'' 'inveterate rheto- 
 ricians whose abundant works are taken as a proof 
 of genius.' Yet at least they have a certain way with 
 them. Pompous, grave, they go through the solemn 
 motions. In spite of the vast majority who neither 
 read nor write, Brazilians of the upper class are prob- 
 ably more 'cultured,' in the narrow literary sense of 
 the word, than our average man of the same class at 
 home. They speak and write French as a matter of 
 course in addition to their own language, and most of 
 them make fair headway with English. They enjoy 
 and encourage music and painting and poetry. 
 Opera not only comes to Rio each winter as it does to 
 Buenos Aires, but they have their National Institute 
 of Music and their native composers, one of whom 
 especially, the late Carlos Gomez, has heard his operas 
 successfully produced in Europe. They have their 
 National Academy of Fine Arts and a gallery which, 
 I am sure, is visited and appreciated more than the 
 
 175 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 really excellent one tucked away upstairs in Buenos 
 Aires' Calle Florida." 
 
 Ill 
 
 As already said, from Rio one may go to 
 Sao Paulo, the second largest — and, with the 
 exception of Rio, the most important — city in 
 the country, by railroad, and almost as com- 
 fortably, too, as one may travel from New 
 York to Chicago. The city of Sao Paulo is 
 the capital of the State of that name, the 
 great land of coffee, the land in fact that 
 produces more than half of all the coffee 
 grown in Brazil, and Brazil as a whole pro- 
 duces more than three- fourths of all that the 
 world consumes. The city has a population 
 of about 350,000, and is located in the moun- 
 tains, about forty miles back from the coast 
 and three thousand feet above the level of 
 the sea. It is connected by railroad with 
 Santos, its seaport, where the best docks in 
 the country are now. These two cities, 
 though founded in early colonial times, are 
 not quite as interestingly characteristic as Rio 
 and the others that have been mentioned, for 
 they are far enough south to be in the tem- 
 perate zone, and have, therefore, attracted a 
 
 176 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 very much larger foreign element, particu- 
 larly German, Italian, Portuguese and Span- 
 ish. There are not so many negroes and 
 mixed breeds among the laboring classes, and 
 their institutions, business methods and social 
 life more nearly resemble our own; and, as 
 a consequence, they have certainly not been 
 behind the rest of Brazil in development. As 
 in Rio, enormous sums have recently been 
 spent for sanitation, public buildings, and im- 
 provements. 
 
 Sao Paulo has thus been transformed into 
 one of the most healthful cities in the world, 
 and one of the handsomest. Its climate, uni- 
 formly mild like that of southern Europe, 
 has never left anything to be desired — except, 
 perhaps, snow and ice, if there are among the 
 residents there any homesick northerners who 
 prefer the sharper seasonal contrasts to which 
 they are accustomed. The site is too near the 
 tropics and the mountains are not high 
 enough for freezing cold, yet so high that 
 the air has a bracing, invigorating quality. 
 As Senator Root declared when he was vis- 
 iting the country: "There is something in the 
 air of Sao Paulo that makes strong and vig- 
 orous men." Their strength and vigor are not 
 
 177 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 attributable, however, to the climate alone. It 
 is an inheritance. The early Paulistas were 
 of the sturdiest type, men who were com- 
 pelled to maintain themselves and extend and 
 defend their possessions by fighting and the 
 hardest kind of work — an instance, they were, 
 of the survival of the fittest. It is small 
 wonder that their descendants, with their 
 rich heritage of health and vitality and tra- 
 ditions, and their enormously productive 
 lands, should be distinguished for their enter- 
 prise as well as for their wealth and social 
 and intellectual culture. In political and edu- 
 cational progress they have always been 
 prominent. 
 
 A splendid monument to their patriotism 
 and enterprise is Ypiranga, a great build- 
 ing of classic design, erected on the site 
 of the proclamation of independence on a 
 hill overlooking the city, and intended both 
 to commemorate the event and to be used 
 as an institution of learning. Among other 
 interesting things, it contains a remarkable 
 museum. They have a polytechnic school in 
 the city that is the pride of the whole coun- 
 try, and the graduates of which are in de- 
 mand everywhere because of the particularly 
 
 178 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 efficient system of training; an institution 
 known as the Lyceum of Arts and Crafts, 
 devoted to the practical instruction of the 
 artisan classes, which graduates skilled work- 
 men by the hundreds every year; and an ex- 
 cellently equipped normal school that occupies 
 a whole square, facing the Praca de Repub- 
 lica — these in addition to primary institutions 
 and conventional colleges and law and med- 
 ical schools, that are attended by students 
 from all over Brazil. 
 
 There is even a well-patronized non-sec- 
 tarian North American institution, known as 
 the Mackenzie College, which has been in 
 existence for thirty-five years or more, and, 
 of all surprising things — and this is only one 
 of many indications of the liberal Catholi- 
 cism of their views respecting other religious 
 beliefs, notwithstanding the fact that, as 
 everywhere else in South America, Roman 
 Catholicism is the religion of the state — an 
 Episcopal seminary, conspicuously located in 
 a beautiful building opposite the Jardim 
 Publico. By mentioning particularly these 
 institutions, I do not mean to imply that 
 there are not excellent educational facilities 
 elsewhere in Brazil — especially, of course, in 
 
 179 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Rio — but the people of Sao Paulo seem to 
 devote more attention to education than in 
 the other parts of the country and the per- 
 centage of illiteracy there, among the people 
 as a whole, appears to be much smaller. 
 
 The Governor's Palace and the principal 
 office buildings of the administration are lo- 
 cated around two large squares, one called 
 the Largo de Palacio, the other the Praca 
 Municipal, in the heart of the city. Several 
 of them are spacious, imposing-looking build- 
 ings of stone and marble that compare fa- 
 vorably with those of the national government 
 at Rio ; all are in keeping with the importance 
 of the city and State — particularly their 
 superb big theater, which is another of those 
 surprisingly costly and attractive places of 
 amusement maintained by the municipality 
 that one sees so many of in South America. 
 The streets in the Triangle, as the com- 
 mercial district is called, are crowded and 
 busy. There is an air of briskness about 
 them that is refreshing — although many of 
 the busiest are narrow and unattractive in 
 appearance, this being the old part of the 
 town. 
 
 Even the Rua Sao Bento, the principal 
 180 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 shopping street, is not much wider than 
 the Rua do Ouvidor in Rio; but from this 
 district a viaduct eight hundred feet long and 
 fifty wide leads to the new parts, where there 
 are broad, handsomely built-up avenues and 
 shaded promenades, detached houses of mod- 
 ern type, surrounded by gardens, and an 
 atmosphere of ease as well as luxury, as in 
 the less bustling cities to the north. The 
 Avenida Paulista is charming. There are 
 few handsomer thoroughfares in America, 
 either North or South, than this — and it is 
 the common boast that along the Rua des 
 Palmeiras, their most fashionable residence 
 street, and in certain of the suburbs, the 
 palatial homes of their millionaires are un- 
 rivaled in Brazil. 
 
 The great coffee port of Santos, once 
 numbered among the dread homes of Yellow 
 Jack, but now as healthful as any port in 
 the tropics, is only sixty or seventy miles 
 away by railroad — an excellently equipped 
 road that runs down the slope from the 
 mountain range to the coast over a route 
 strikingly rich in scenic effects and grand 
 views. The city, which has a population of 
 about sixty thousand, is situated on the west- 
 
 181 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ern shore of a landlocked bay connected with 
 the ocean by a narrow but deep riverlike 
 channel, ten miles long and flanked, like the 
 city itself, by picturesque hills. The streets 
 are well paved and clean, the residence sec- 
 tion and suburbs attractive, and a narrow- 
 gauge railroad affords an opportunity for an 
 enjoyable trip to a seaside resort near by, 
 where there are good surf -bathing and plenty 
 of places of amusement. 
 
 It is said that more than 10,000,000 bags 
 of coffee, each weighing 132 pounds, are 
 shipped from this port every year. The ex- 
 tensive system of masonry docks and cranes 
 is famous for its efficiency and is the best 
 in South America next to that in Buenos 
 Aires. The big steamers and sailing ves- 
 sels lying broadside to these docks and an- 
 chored in the broad harbor, the custom house 
 and warehouses facing the quay, the groups 
 of dealers and agents standing bargaining 
 out in front, the sailors scurrying about, the 
 heavy teams heaped up with sacks of coffee, 
 the long lines of negro stevedores, each with 
 a bag or two balanced on his head, carrying 
 them aboard the ships, all working in the 
 blazing sun in this labyrinth of white-walled 
 
 182 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 streets, with their background of green hills 
 and blue water, make up a scene that is both 
 lively and bizarre. 
 
 The custom of coffee drinking is relatively 
 of rather recent development among peoples 
 of Europe and their descendants in America. 
 For some reason, for a long time after it made 
 its way west from Arabia and Turkey, it 
 was under the ban of the church. Maybe this 
 was because of its Mohammedan origin. It 
 was not until 1652 that the first house that 
 made a specialty of serving coffee was opened 
 in London, and about the same time it was 
 introduced in France. From then on it has 
 spread until the amount now consumed the 
 world over is simply enormous, especially in 
 the United States, where we take somewhere 
 near half of all that is grown. At first it 
 came only from northern Africa, Arabia, 
 and Turkey; then the Dutch began experi- 
 menting and succeeded in cultivating it in 
 Java, and the French in the West Indies. 
 For a while these were the principal sources 
 of supply. The story goes that in 1760 a 
 Portuguese, Joao Alberto Castello Branco, 
 planted a bush in Rio, and from that small 
 start, thanks to her peculiarly favorable soil 
 
 183 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and climate, Brazil soon outstripped the 
 others and took the lead. And it is in these 
 uplands of the State of Sao Paulo that more 
 than half of all of this enormous amount of 
 coffee that is consumed in the world to-day- 
 is produced. There are between fifteen and 
 twenty thousand cafezals, or plantations, em- 
 ploying hundreds of thousands of laborers, 
 and some of the plantations are so vast that 
 they grow millions of trees. Here it is that 
 most of the immigrants flock. There is a 
 million of Italians alone. 
 
 The general contour of the country is not 
 flat but rolling. In great patches the bushy 
 little trees cover the hills and valleys in long, 
 parallel rows, from six to eight feet high, for 
 they are kept pruned to a certain height to 
 facilitate cultivation. The leaves are dark 
 green and glossy, somewhat resembling 
 myrtle, only not so dry and thick; the flowers 
 are white and grow in clusters from the axils 
 of the branches ; the fruit, when ripe, is about 
 the size of and resembles a dark red cherry, 
 and grows in clusters, like the flowers, and 
 the air is fragrant with perfume. No more 
 beautiful sight could be imagined than one 
 of these plantations in full bloom. Each of 
 
 il84 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 the red berries contains two coffee beans, em- 
 bedded in a yellowish, sweetish pulp. The 
 bean, in its natural shape, is convex on one 
 side and flat on the other. As sold on the 
 market, with the shell, pulp and skin removed 
 by a mechanical process that requires an 
 expensive outfit of machinery, the product is 
 the result of a development in agricultural 
 methods that is not surpassed in the wheat 
 industry of Argentina or our own country, 
 and which is very far ahead of that of the 
 rubber industry in the north. It is said that 
 no new trees have been planted since 1903 
 because the production has been so great 
 that the government has thought best to 
 restrict it until the demand shall once more 
 have equaled the supply. The reverse of this 
 condition has existed for several years. 
 
 The neighbors of the Paulistas in the State 
 of Rio Grande do Sul are principally en- 
 gaged (with Paraguay) in supplying the 
 twenty or more millions of consumers in 
 South America and growing numbers else- 
 where, with the leaves from which the bev- 
 erage is made that is known as yerba mate, 
 or Paraguay tea, which those who drink it 
 contend has all the stimulating and nourish- 
 
 185 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ing qualities of the tea we use, but none of 
 its injurious effects. Next to coffee and 
 rubber, this is the greatest of Brazil's sources 
 of revenue. These southerners also raise 
 cattle and sheep on a large scale — though not 
 yet sufficiently large for export — and do a 
 good deal of canning and manufacturing. 
 Their principal seaport, Porto Alegre (Smil- 
 ing Port), has a population of nearly 150,- 
 000, and, as in Pernambuco and Rio, and 
 all the big coast cities in fact, extensive har- 
 bor improvements are under way. This city 
 too is to have a system of masonry docks 
 and hoisting machinery and new warehouses 
 along the quay. A few miles north, and 
 connected with Porto Alegre by railroad, is 
 Sao Leopoldo, the port of a large German 
 colony that was founded in the State nearly 
 a hundred years ago. 
 
 From Rio it is possible also to go by rail- 
 road to Bello Horizonte, the remarkable capi- 
 tal of Minas Geraes, the most densely popu- 
 lated of all the Brazilian States. This city is 
 unique in that it did not have its beginning in 
 the usual way and get itself chosen as the 
 capital; it was built only a few years ago 
 on a previously unoccupied site for the very 
 
 186 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 purpose, and at a cost, for only the buildings 
 owned by the government, of more than $30,- 
 000,000. It is located in a lovely, wooded, 
 farm-dotted valley, through the length of 
 which flows a river, interrupted at inter- 
 vals by cascades. Near the city, both sides 
 of the stream have been converted into a 
 delightful park. One of the avenues that 
 run through the center of the city is named 
 for its founder, Affonso Penna, and is a 
 hundred and fifty feet wide and shaded by 
 three rows of trees. The hotels are com- 
 fortable, train service good, and the journey 
 through a country of beautiful scenery and 
 interesting people and towns. 
 
 This is the great mining State of Brazil. 
 Of it Marie Robinson Wright says: "Few 
 countries can boast of such an abundance and 
 variety of mineral resources as Minas Geraes, 
 which derives its name, signifying General 
 Mines, from the industry that gave it ex- 
 istence, and which owes to this principal 
 attraction the preponderance of its popula- 
 tion." Gold was not discovered during the 
 first two hundred years after settlement had 
 been begun by the Portuguese, but, when it 
 was at last discovered, the yield was very 
 
 187 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 great. In 1792 the amount registered in Rio 
 — and this record, of course, was incomplete — 
 was 360,000 pounds in weight. An English 
 authority has estimated the total output up 
 to within recent years at £200,000,000 ster- 
 ling. "Of all the fabulous tales related of 
 bonanza princes," Mrs. Wright goes on to 
 say, "the palm for extravagance belongs to 
 the history of the early mining days in Brazil, 
 when horses were shod with gold, when law- 
 yers supported their pleadings before judges 
 with gifts of what appeared at first sight to 
 be the choicest oranges and bananas, but 
 proved to be solid gold imitations, when 
 guests were entertained at dinner by the dis- 
 covery of gold pebbles in their soup instead 
 of grains of corn, when nuggets were the 
 most convenient means of exchange in the 
 money market;" but here, as in some of our 
 own mining regions, with the gradual ex- 
 haustion of the surface deposits and the im- 
 possibility of continuing by primitive meth- 
 ods, mining came to be more and more 
 neglected. Modern methods and machinery 
 are once more bringing the industry into 
 prominence, and a considerable amount of 
 gold is even now being taken out by the 
 
 188 
 
BRAZIL 
 
 few companies that have already installed 
 up-to-date plants. 
 
 The diamond mines in the neighborhood of 
 the old town of Diamantina (also easily ac- 
 cessible by rail) have been famous since the 
 first discoveries were made in 1727. In these 
 parts several of the most valuable gems in the 
 world are said to have been found — for 
 instance, the Braganza, the richest of the 
 Crown jewels of Portugal, the Regent, 
 named in honor of Dom Joao VI, the 
 Estrella do Sul (Star of the South), that 
 weighed a hundred and twenty-five carats 
 after lapidation and was purchased by the 
 Rajah of Baroda, it is said, for $15,000,000, 
 and the Dresden, which weighed sixty-five 
 carats after lapidation and was also bought 
 by an Indian prince. For many years, until 
 the South African mines came into competi- 
 tion, this was the chief source of the world's 
 supply. The country is also rich in ame- 
 thysts, tourmalines, topazes and aquamarines. 
 The State of Bahia is still the principal source 
 of the black diamond, known as the carbo- 
 nado. The largest carbonado known was 
 found there in 1835. It weighed 3150 carats. 
 
 189 
 
Ill 
 
 ARGENTINA 
 
 NO nation of the southern continent is 
 better qualified than Argentina to re- 
 buke the stupid jest that refers to the 
 Latin- American countries as opera bouffe re- 
 publics. It has a domain one-third the size 
 of the United States, or as large as the ter- 
 ritory lying east of the Mississippi, with 
 Texas added, stretching from tropic heat to 
 antarctic cold, and possessing a frontage on 
 the Atlantic as extensive as our own coast line 
 from Portland, Maine, to Key West, Flor- 
 ida. It has over 500,000,000 acres of its 
 1,135,840 square miles of area available for 
 the cultivation of life-sustaining products and 
 distributed over vast, treeless, well-watered 
 plains, every one of which is easily accessible 
 to the seaboard with the simplest of railway 
 construction. These plains have no such 
 
 190 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 natural obstructions to transportation as our 
 Alleghanies or Rockies, and have for their 
 produce a much shorter haul to the European 
 world of consumers. 
 
 Argentina has the further advantage of 
 over 18,000 miles of up-to-date railways ra- 
 diating from its port cities, and five river sys- 
 tems, one of which, La Plata, the outlet for 
 the waters of the Parana and Uruguay, is 
 second only to the Amazon among the world's 
 great rivers. It is 180 miles wide at its 
 mouth, and pours into the Atlantic a flood 
 greater by eighty per cent, than that cast by 
 the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 The timber regions of the country are rich 
 in structural and cabinet woods. It has a 
 grazing industry that ranks second only to 
 Australia in sheep, second only to the United 
 States in cattle, and second only to the United 
 States and Russia in horses. In 1910 it ex- 
 ported to Europe 190,430 live animals and 
 $130,000,000 worth of frozen beef, mutton, 
 pork, hides, and other animal products. Its 
 total foreign commerce amounted to $702,- 
 664,810 in value. It has an agricultural 
 output that places it in the first rank of ex- 
 porters of maize and linseed, second to Rus- 
 
 191 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 sia in the export of wheat, and among the 
 leaders in corn, a soil that can grow still 
 greater quantities of sugar, tobacco, rice, al- 
 falfa, grapes, fruits, yerba mate (Paraguay- 
 tea), olives, corn, barley, and oats, besides 
 medicinal, textile, and tinctorial plants, en- 
 abling her to export more foodstuffs, includ- 
 ing meats and grains, than any other nation 
 on the globe — a productiveness so great that 
 farms are measured in some sections by the 
 square league, instead of by the paltry acre, 
 as with us, and grains are sold by the metric 
 ton of 2205 pounds, instead of by the bushel. 
 Its mountains contain profitably workable de- 
 posits of gold, silver, and copper, and oil has 
 been found in paying quantities. 
 
 It has a metropolis and seaport (its cap- 
 ital, Buenos Aires) reckoned as the sepond 
 Latin city in the world, possessing a popula- 
 tion of over a million and a quarter, and 
 adorned with buildings, parks, surface im- 
 provements, and evidences of wealth and 
 culture that stamp it as one of the finest cities 
 of the Western Hemisphere. 
 
 It has a stable and enlightened government, 
 constituted on the same general plan as our 
 own, and advancing rapidly to a near ap- 
 
 192 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 proximation to our own in efficiency. It has 
 a history rich, in its later years, in traditions 
 of statesmanship and patriotism, bearing on 
 its roll of honor the names of such statesmen, 
 soldiers, educators, and executives as Bel- 
 grano, San Martin, Alvear, Puyrredon, Riva- 
 davia, Mitre, and Sarmiento, names worthy 
 of special reverence among a people familiar 
 with the standards set bji Washington and 
 Lincoln. In a word, with all this material 
 greatness, and such a record cf energetic and 
 enlightened adaptation to world progress, 
 Argentina may, in the not distant future, 
 turn the jest against its northern perpetra- 
 tors; for a country with a population of 
 seven millions, which could feed two hundred 
 million people and give lodging to half that 
 number, is a competitor to be reckoned with 
 seriously in the struggle for commercial su- 
 premacy. 
 
 Such, then, is the country of superlatives 
 that opens up before the visitor who enters 
 at its gateway, Buenos Aires, and breathes 
 in the wholesome, equable breezes from the 
 pampas — the vast green plains that stretch 
 away for hundreds of miles in three direc- 
 tions; he agrees at once that the City of 
 
 193 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Good Airs was well named by Pedro de 
 Mendoza when he planted his ill-fated settle- 
 ment on its site in 1535. 
 
 It is to be regretted that this wide-awake, 
 rapidly growing community buys so much 
 more largely in the European markets than 
 ours. In 1910, of the total amount they paid 
 for imports ($351,770,056), our share was 
 only $48,418,892.. But then, as they point 
 out, they are our competitors in the markets 
 of Europe. Their cereals and beef and hides 
 and wool have no place in the United States, 
 a country that produces and exports the same 
 things, and they manufacture no articles that 
 we want; so it is only fair that they should 
 deal with those who buy of them. When it 
 came to a question of who should build their 
 last two big battleships, however, they did fa- 
 vor our shipyards with the contracts. Both 
 of these are of the super-dreadnought type 
 and have already been launched. 
 
 The Parisian is pleased to say, "Paris is 
 France"; with even greater significance may 
 the Buenos Airean say that Buenos Aires is 
 Argentina. Out of his pride in his great city, 
 the Porteiio will tell one that Argentina really 
 has but two parts, as a matter of fact: the 
 
 194 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 one, Buenos Aires; the other — all the rest of 
 the country — called El Campo (the Camp), 
 regardless that he includes in this sweeping 
 assertion such other railroad centers and 
 ports as Rosario, La Plata, Parana, Tucu- 
 man, Cordoba, or Bahia Blanca — all of them 
 cities exceeding fifty thousand in population 
 and one of them, Rosario, exceeding one hun- 
 dred thousand. And, indeed, the Bonarenses 
 may well be proud of their metropolis. One- 
 fifth of the country's inhabitants is absorbed 
 into its teeming life of industry and luxury; 
 it is the crystallization of all that this mod- 
 ernized young giant stands for in the world 
 of commerce ; it is the greatest Spanish-speak- 
 ing city in the world. 
 
 Its dominant position was not achieved, 
 however, without years of contention with 
 other centers of industry in the country. Dur- 
 ing the three hundred years of Spain's stifling 
 economic policies in this, once the agricul- 
 tural unit of her golden empire, Argentina 
 made small progress. The settlements 
 founded in Santiago (1553), in Tucuman 
 (1565), and in Cordoba and Santa Fe 
 (1573), by the immigration of Spaniards 
 from Peru, Chile, and the early settlement 
 
 195 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of Buenos Aires, all led an isolated and 
 neglected existence during the colonial period 
 up to the year 1776, when Spain, awakened 
 from her dream of endless mineral riches in 
 South America to a realization of the im- 
 portance of the fertile country of La Plata, 
 and erected it into a separate viceroyalty, in- 
 dependent of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The 
 viceroys, freed from the poisoning influence 
 of Andean gold lust, did much to develop a 
 sense of nationalism among the scattered ag- 
 ricultural centers. With the growth of this 
 nationalism, the protests against Spain's re- 
 pression increased until 1810, when the peo- 
 ple asserted their right to an unrestricted, 
 independent national life. May twenty-fifth 
 of that year is their Fourth of July, and is 
 perpetuated to-day in the name of the superb 
 Avenida de Mayo in their capital city. 
 
 During the formative period that followed, 
 Argentine politics revolved chiefly about the 
 question of Unitarianism or Federalism — 
 whether the rich and progressive province at 
 the gateway of the nation (Buenos Aires) 
 should form a separate unit of government, 
 or remain part of a confederation and be ac- 
 corded the leading role in national affairs 
 
 196 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 that its importance merited. In 1862 fed- 
 eralism prevailed and the integrity of the 
 Argentine Republic was assured, under the 
 presidency of General Mitre. The capital 
 was later removed from Santa Fe to Buenos 
 Aires and the latter city erected into a fed- 
 eral district (of some seventy square miles) 
 somewhat similar to our own District of Co- 
 lumbia. The capital of the Province of Bue- 
 nos Aires, however, is La Plata, a few miles 
 distant from the national capital, on the 
 shores of the great river. 
 
 This period marks the beginning of the 
 real history of the Argentine nation. Under 
 the enlightened statesmanship of Bartolome 
 Mitre and Sarmiento, the two chief figures 
 in Argentina's rapid development from this 
 point, the great influx of British and German 
 capital began. Immigration was encouraged 
 for the working of the fields; a solid founda- 
 tion was given to educational development; 
 railroads were constructed, and the machinery 
 of government made adequate to the vig- 
 orous strides of the solidified nation. In the 
 short space of time that has passed since 
 1881, over two billions of dollars of British 
 and German gold have been invested; some 
 
 197 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 eighteen thousand miles of well-equipped rail- 
 ways have been constructed, almost wholly 
 by English capital; immigration has doubled 
 the population of the country so that now 
 half its present inhabitants are foreign-born 
 — during the last ten years alone two mil- 
 lions have come in — and a thorough system 
 of education has been perfected, embracing, 
 among all sorts of primary, military, and in- 
 dustrial institutions, three great universities, 
 one of which, at Buenos Aires, graduated 
 over five thousand young men last year and, 
 with the University of Cordoba (founded in 
 1613), ranks with Harvard and Yale. In 
 1910 they celebrated the centennial anniver- 
 sary of their independence with a superb 
 industrial exposition that was a revelation 
 even to themselves, and festivities that are 
 said to have cost $20,000,000. 
 
 The city of Buenos Aires has not the 
 picturesque environment that adds so much 
 to the natural beauty of the cities of Rio de 
 Janeiro and Mexico, nor the harbor capac- 
 ity of New York; nor are its culture and 
 civic personality, perhaps, as deep-rooted as 
 in Boston; it makes little pretension to the 
 aristocracy of blood boasted by the still es- 
 
 198 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 sentially Spanish Lima; nor has it yet at- 
 tained such distinction as a national center 
 of art, literature, and music as has the Bra- 
 zilian capital. It may be best compared with 
 Chicago, for it is conspicuously modern, its 
 present development having been begun and 
 achieved within the last quarter of a cen- 
 tury, although the city itself is nearly four 
 hundred years old, and is the industrial com- 
 plement of an agricultural and pastoral ac- 
 tivity even greater than that of our Middle 
 West. Indeed, its banks and clearing houses 
 are said to transact quite as much business 
 as those of Chicago. 
 
 The docks of Buenos Aires, like those of 
 our great lake city, are most impressive; they 
 represent an outlay of $50,000,000. Only 
 fifteen years ago the visitor was bundled 
 ashore in a rowboat and deposited on a 
 marshy beach. Now his vessel enters one of 
 the numerous basins of the vast dock sys- 
 tem and confronts row upon row of massive 
 masonry and cement wharves, behind which 
 spreads a network of railway lines. In the 
 background are public gardens with flowering 
 bushes and statuary to beautify the approach 
 to the city. For mile after mile, flanked by 
 
 199 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 a seemingly endless procession of great trans- 
 Atlantic ships and up-river produce boats, 
 these docks stretch their length, not in a se- 
 ries of slips, as along the congested water- 
 front in New York, but so arranged that the 
 vessels can moor broadside to them and have 
 their cargoes loaded or unloaded by enor- 
 mous traveling cranes; and, without, lying at 
 anchor in the river awaiting their turn for 
 a berth, are many more — for this giant en- 
 terprise, with towering grain elevators and a 
 veritable forest of powerful cranes, already 
 fails entirely to satisfy present needs. They 
 are not only to be extended but so enlarged 
 that they will accommodate vessels of the 
 heaviest draft. 
 
 Not even the New York wharves with 
 their vast commerce give such a picture of 
 vivid bustle. The big German "Cap" boats 
 — Cap Ortegal, Cap Frio, and the rest; 
 French, Spanish, and Italian liners with 
 champagne, aperitives, opera companies, auto- 
 mobiles and immigrants — always immigrants; 
 Newcastle freighters unloading bolted sec- 
 tions of steel bridges; up-river boats laden 
 with yerba mate or fragrant oranges from 
 Paraguay, and the aristocrats of these seas, 
 
 200 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 the Royal Mails from England — all con- 
 tribute to the pell-mell, reminding one of the 
 blurred babel of tongues that whispers across 
 the decks of the world's ships in the drowsy 
 passage through the Suez Canal. 
 
 And, parenthetically, a most telling com- 
 mentary on our indifference to Argentine 
 possibilities lies in the fact that of the many 
 thousand vessels that transferred cargoes at 
 these docks in 1910, only four bore the stars 
 and stripes; whereas, prior to our Civil War 
 (which, of course, absorbed our merchant ma- 
 rine) — in 1852 — there were in the harbor of 
 Buenos Aires six hundred vessels flying our 
 flag, or more than double the number from 
 all other nations combined. In those days the 
 influence of our people over the commerce 
 of the southern half of South America was 
 predominant. A Pennsylvanian, William 
 Wheelright, was looked upon as its father. 
 
 On leaving the docks and driving up into 
 the city, the visitor is at once impressed with 
 the fact that Buenos Aires is not so wholly 
 wrapped up in the purely material as is our 
 commercial center on Lake Michigan. It has 
 broadened along more aesthetic lines and is 
 cultivating the graces, not alone the sordid 
 
 201 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 features, of cosmopolitanism. In the newer 
 parts, particularly in the fashionable suburb 
 of Belgrano, the buildings and shaded boule- 
 vards and beautifully landscaped parks re- 
 semble rather those of Paris; although it is 
 not behind our own big cities in public utili- 
 ties. Even in the business district there are 
 no skyscrapers or elevated railroads to dis- 
 turb the harmony of the architectural scheme ; 
 not even the usual promiscuous, blatant ad- 
 vertising posters are permitted to be dis- 
 played until they have been censored by the 
 proper official, and when approved they are 
 affixed to ornamentally tinted and paneled 
 billboards, erected for the purpose. So keen, 
 indeed, are the Bonarenses to enhance the 
 beauty of their city that a prize is offered 
 each year for the handsomest structure to be 
 erected. And yet there is much that is pos- 
 sessed of the charm of antiquity. The occa- 
 sional glimpses of blossoms and foliage one 
 gets through doorways opening into the court- 
 yards, or patios, of the old Spanish houses 
 is most refreshing in the midst of so much 
 that is modern. 
 
 It is from Paris, too, that they have ac- 
 quired their culture, and their taste in dress 
 
 202 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 and amusements and in literature and art. 
 They buy their clothes in Paris and sip their 
 French liqueurs in the cafes in true Parisian 
 style, and they are entertained by opera and 
 comedy companies from the best Parisian 
 theaters. They have absorbed into their city 
 life an Italian colony that exceeds in num- 
 bers the population of Genoa, and more 
 Spaniards than could be crowded into To- 
 ledo, besides a multitude of British and Ger- 
 mans and a goodly sprinkling from the rest 
 of Europe, and even Asia. Having taken so 
 much from France and Italy, and being 
 Spanish in descent and in speech, the over- 
 tone of the city is distinctly Latin, while 
 their industrial and governmental institutions 
 bear the mark of the Anglo-Saxon. Next to 
 the Italian and Spanish, the British colony is 
 the largest. Then follow the German and 
 the French. The North Americans are small 
 in number ; less than three hundred responded 
 to a recent effort to organize a North Amer- 
 ican Society. 
 
 The Bonarenses, however, like the deni- 
 zens of the Camp, are intensely patriotic and 
 passionately insist upon a recognition of their 
 own distinct personalities. They are the Por- 
 
 203 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 tenos of the great Argentine nation. Nor 
 do they and their compatriots throughout 
 the country welcome the inference that they 
 are Spanish; they are Argentine. One asks 
 a child of the streets whether he speaks Span- 
 ish or Italian. He answers haughtily (in the 
 former language) : "At home we all talk Ar- 
 gentine." Strangely enough, their jingoism 
 is not offensive; it is displayed with an 
 amiable candor that is quite disarming. Not 
 satisfied with being Argentine from top to 
 toe, they seek to Argentinize even the tran- 
 sient guest. The rabid Argentinism of the 
 Porteno, and his success in amalgamating the 
 kaleidoscopic horde of Europeans and Asiat- 
 ics living in his city, is illustrated by the an- 
 swer of another youthful immigrant who, 
 unable to deny that he was born in Genoa, 
 murmured apologetically, "I was so little." 
 
 One of their leading daily newspapers, 
 La Prensa, which has the handsomest news- 
 paper building in existence, displays its 
 patriotism by devoting a large part of its 
 home to public uses. At its own expense it 
 provides physicians and a consulting room, 
 where the poor can have medical attention 
 free, a law office where those who cannot af- 
 
 204 
 
,.,. ..,.,..(,. , . .... ^jrv^-r 
 
 
 COLON THEATER, BUENOS AIRES. 
 
 FEDERAL CAPITOL, BUENOS AIRES. 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 ford to pay for it can have legal advice, an 
 excellent museum of the manufactures and 
 products of the country, a free technical li- 
 brary for the use of students, a large hall 
 for public meetings, a charming salon des 
 fetes, in which literary, scientific, and chari- 
 table entertainments are given. This paper 
 has a circulation of more than 150,000. So 
 have La Nation and La Argentina, the two 
 other big morning dailies. There are 225 
 periodicals published in the capital all to- 
 gether. 
 
 In this most cosmopolitan of cities the for- 
 eigners foregather in little worlds of their 
 own. Most are represented by newspapers 
 published in their own languages, most have 
 clubhouses, more or less pretentious. On 
 the same evening one season recently "The 
 Merry Widow" was produced in Spanish, 
 French, and Italian in as many different 
 theaters; and there are all sorts of places of 
 amusement where foreigners can enjoy them- 
 selves, each after his own fashion — from an 
 immense artificial ice skating rink (a very 
 fashionable resort, by the way) to a tropical 
 coffee house, from a golf or race course to 
 a pool room or bowling alley, from the most 
 
 205 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 attractive and elegantly equipped of modern 
 cafes to a little French domino parlor or 
 German beer saloon, from a magnificent 
 opera house to a cheap vaudeville or moving- 
 picture theater. It is said that the fore- 
 most European artists are as likely to visit 
 Argentina as the United States, and often 
 do, and that many, of all but the first rank 
 in their own countries and who do not come 
 to North America at all, visit Buenos Aires 
 regularly and present European successes 
 long before they are seen in New York. 
 
 Their great opera house, the Colon, that 
 cost $10,000,000 and occupies a whole square, 
 is one of the most beautiful in the world. 
 There is none in New York or Chicago, or 
 any of our cities, to compare with it. It is of 
 French design and built of stone, and the in- 
 terior is finished in white marble, gold-bronze 
 ornamentations and rich red drapery and up- 
 holstery. It is not quite as large as the 
 Metropolitan in New York, but, as in the 
 Metropolitan, the two lower tiers of boxes 
 are occupied by the families of the "Four 
 Hundred," for their grand opera down there 
 is just as much of a social function with 
 them as it is with the smart set in our great- 
 
 206 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 est city; and, as their season is in July and 
 August — winter months with them — not a 
 few of the singers that are heard at the Met- 
 ropolitan later on are heard there in their 
 season. Above the boxes are two balconies 
 and a gallery where the gods congregate 
 and howl for encores for all the world like 
 our own. It appears that they are not very 
 fond of Wagner and the German music, these 
 Bonarenses, but are keen for the Italian and 
 French; so, aside from the opera, competent 
 French and Italian companies are brought 
 over every year for long engagements at 
 other theaters. Also there are French opera 
 comique, Italian farce, and English musical 
 comedy companies, French cafe chantant, 
 English music hall and our own vaudeville 
 entertainers without end, and dramas, even 
 Shakespearean occasionally, and the other 
 classes of performances, following each other 
 at the many theaters continually. 
 
 Club life is one of the most attractive 
 features. The Britishers (the heaviest in- 
 vestors of foreign capital), of course, have 
 their inevitable cricket, polo, and races — at 
 Hurlingham, near the city — and have erected 
 a substantial country clubhouse, devoted 
 
 207 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 largely to the ritualistic five o'clock tea. The 
 scene on the broad verandas and well-kept 
 lawns is brilliant in the afternoon, with the 
 white lace gowns of the women and the white 
 flannel and broadside panamas of the men. 
 As the guest looks on at the leisurely game 
 of cricket and tea — for these rites are sol- 
 emnized together by the comfortable Briton 
 — he can easily imagine himself at Shanghai, 
 Hong Kong, Singapore, or Cape Town, 
 where the same function is taking place at the 
 same hour of the day, on club grounds almost 
 identically the same, and to the accompani- 
 ment of the same elaborate conversation: 
 "Well played, old chap." The Germans, 
 Italians, and Spanish also have luxurious 
 clubhouses, and for the transient visitor the 
 Club de Residentes Estranjeros affords a 
 delightful retreat. There is even a big, hand- 
 some building for the Y.M.C.A. 
 
 Among the fifty or more social organiza- 
 tions in Buenos Aires, the Jockey Club is the 
 Argentine cercle par excellence. Its home 
 on Calle Florida is of a splendor unsurpassed 
 in clubdom. The guest who is fortunate 
 enough to enjoy its courtesies will be im- 
 pressed by the perfect taste and sumptuous- 
 
 208 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 ness of its appointments; the superb marble 
 stairway, the banquet hall, and the famous 
 pictures and sculptures are equaled in but 
 few of the palaces of Europe. Its wealth, 
 derived from an initiation fee of $4000 and 
 annual dues of $1500 for each member, and 
 a "rake-off" of ten per cent, of the amounts 
 wagered at its racetrack, together with gate 
 receipts, accumulate so rapidly that it is a 
 source of genuine embarrassment to the gov- 
 erning board. 
 
 A short time ago the club voted to de- 
 vote its surplus to the purchase of a dozen 
 blocks in the heart of the city, the idea be- 
 ing to transform the tract into a beautiful 
 boulevard. It would have cost nearly $14,- 
 000,000 in our money. The project was 
 abandoned, not because of the cost, but on 
 the ground of impracticability. During the 
 racing season, held under the auspices of the 
 Club at Palermo Park, the Porteno is seen at 
 his best. Paris gowns and picture hats are 
 displayed in profusion in the grandstand, 
 lawns, and luxurious victorias and automo- 
 biles that line the course, and with the correct 
 dress and animation of the men, and the 
 prodigality everywhere in evidence (last sea- 
 
 209 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 son $25,000,000 was placed on the horses), 
 the scene takes on an aspect truly Parisian. 
 
 As might be expected in such a vigorously 
 modern city, the severest of the restrictions 
 on social intercourse familiar in Latin capitals 
 are here impatiently thrust aside. In the five 
 o'clock parade of the fashionables that wends 
 its way toward the beautiful Palermo Park 
 on Sundays, there are no closed carriages or 
 dark mantillas to conceal the allurements of 
 the sefioritas, although many may still hud- 
 dle demurely at the sides of their duefias 
 while they distribute the most decorous of 
 smiles among their eager acquaintances of 
 the opposite sex. Here palm-bordered Sar- 
 miento Avenue is crowded with carriages and 
 motor cars six, often eight, rows deep, two 
 stationary in the center and two moving on 
 either side, in which ride as smartly gowned 
 women as may be seen anywhere in America. 
 In the same throng glimpses may be caught 
 of reigning music-hall favorites, at whose 
 sides are usually to be found care-free horse- 
 men just in from the Camp, mounted on 
 superb stallions heavy with silver trappings, 
 and generally with an air of somewhat less 
 sophisticated enjoyment of the event. 
 
 210 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 There is a prodigality about the Porteno 
 in his pleasures that staggers the visitor from 
 the North. Backed by an almost limitless 
 wealth from cattle ranch or plantation, he 
 scatters his pesos with a princely hand. And, 
 of course, there is the obverse of the picture. 
 There is the under world here, peopled 
 largely by immigration from the centers of 
 European unrest, in which there is to be 
 found an extreme of destitution. This is the 
 breeding place of anarchistic ideas, that fre- 
 quently find expression in violence and that 
 are surely becoming one of the city's most 
 serious problems. 
 
 The zest for amusement among all classes 
 finds many outlets. Strolling along the Calle 
 Florida, or the Calles Cangallo, Esmeralda, 
 Cuyo, Maipo, and other well-paved, brilliantly 
 illuminated streets of the theater district, 
 after the fever of the business day has sub- 
 sided, one drops in at the "English Bar," the 
 "Bierhalle," "Confiteria," or "Cafe Parisien," 
 and is sure to find a compatriot to join him 
 in the refreshment of his predilection. Or, 
 for the more solid enjoyment of dinner, the 
 visitor, whether French, North American, 
 Briton, or Turk, can find his favorite national 
 
 211 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 dishes excellently served — at the Restaurant 
 Charpentier, where an orchestra, really good, 
 will for the moment take the homesick 
 Parisian back to his native boulevards; or 
 at the "Sportsman," where the North Amer- 
 ican is beguiled from his nostalgia by 
 Sousa's marches, perhaps, or by biograph 
 pictures of steeple-chasers and Oriental 
 dancers; or at Monsch's Restaurant, which 
 specializes in the Briton's needs — where, with 
 a look of acute understanding, the head waiter 
 will permit the guest to select his own Eng- 
 lish mutton chop or steak from the glass- 
 doored ice chest. 
 
 The outdoor cafe life is not as well known, 
 so narrow are the streets; even Calle Flor- 
 ida, which is the essentially fashionable shop- 
 ping street of the central town, is lamentably 
 narrow. With the exception of the Avenida 
 de Mayo, which runs from the plaza con- 
 taining the Cathedral and President's palace 
 to the new chambers of Congress, and divides 
 the city into its northern and southern sec- 
 tions, and the Avenida Alvear, which leads 
 from the main part of the city to Palermo 
 Park, flanked with costly homes and inter- 
 spersed with gardens and plazas that lend a 
 
 212 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 wealth of verdure and flowers to the broad 
 avenue, the streets are so narrow that in the 
 business section vehicles are required by city 
 ordinances to move in the same direction, 
 down one street and up the next. But in this 
 splendid, stately Avenida de Mayo of hers, 
 which, except in appearance, has the charac- 
 teristics of the business part of New York's 
 Fifth Avenue from Madison Square to the 
 Park, Buenos Aires has a thoroughfare that 
 rivals Rio's Avenida Central in beauty, and, 
 with its finer hotels and cafes and French 
 architecture, possesses even more of the at- 
 tractions of a Parisian boulevard. 
 
 Buenos Aires is not a city that calls for 
 the usual precautions taken by travelers. All 
 the creature comforts may be had here, al- 
 though, it must be confessed, at a cost greatly 
 in excess of prices familiar to North Amer- 
 icans. There are good physicians and den- 
 tists, and no less than sixteen hospitals — one 
 of which, the British Hospital, is a mag- 
 nificently equipped institution, and the one 
 patronized by the American colony. There 
 are electric street cars (which carried 125,- 
 000,000 passengers last year), splendid trains 
 that carry passengers in thoroughly modern 
 
 213 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and well-served coaches to almost every part 
 of the settled country, first-class carriages, 
 taxicabs, hotels, department stores, and shops 
 of every description. 
 
 ii 
 
 Leaving the capital for a general tour 
 through Argentina, the visitor will soon come 
 to appreciate the Porteiio's division of the 
 republic into the two parts : Buenos Aires and 
 El Campo. For the greater part, the Camp 
 is a vast plain, covering five hundred million 
 acres of flat, fertile soil, with scarcely a nat- 
 ural hillock higher than those thrown up by 
 the ants, and no depression more marked 
 than those which the cartwheels have plowed 
 — stretching from horizon to horizon, north, 
 west, and south — vast, silent, and awe-inspir- 
 ing in the majesty of its enormous extent 
 and productiveness — the calm, inexhaustible 
 bosom which suckles the prodigious infant on 
 the Plata. 
 
 These pampas are the homes of the es- 
 tancieros, the name given to the masters of 
 the great breeding ranches and plantations. 
 Some possess estancias that are really feudal 
 
 214 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 in extent; one, in Patagonia, is as large as 
 the State of Rhode Island. Their homes and 
 outbuildings are about the only objects that 
 give a human touch to the mile upon mile 
 of cattle ranges, of green maize and golden 
 wheat, of purple alfalfa and vivid blue lin- 
 seed flower, unless one comes upon the black 
 mud hut of the colono, or small farmer who 
 works the field on shares. An occasional 
 clump of man-planted trees may also be met 
 with, and on the fringe of the pampas are a 
 few widely scattered Indian settlements; but 
 there is little to modify the metaphor of the 
 ocean so universally used to describe these 
 almost limitless plains. Even the. seagulls 
 sweep inland for hundreds of miles to add to 
 its effectiveness. When the very heart of the 
 country is reached, the traveler may scan the 
 horizon from every point of the compass and 
 know that in every direction what lies beyond 
 is exactly the same. 
 
 The seasons, which are much like our own, 
 although exactly the reverse in their occur- 
 rence, bring their appropriate activities. Dur- 
 ing the busy harvest period the Camp takes 
 on an aspect of bustle which convinces the 
 traveler that this great business republic has 
 
 215 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 cast the word "manana" (to-morrow) for- 
 ever from its "bright lexicon of youth." Har- 
 vesting machines cutting a swath, not four 
 or six, but fourteen feet in width through 
 the wheat fields, threshers with powerful 
 blasts that pile the straw in great stacks, 
 and on the ranches the great armies of 
 horned cattle add the convincing touch to the 
 scene of prosperity. 
 
 "A recent census," says the Bulletin of the 
 Pan American Union (July, 1911), "shows 
 that in Argentina there are over 29,000,000 
 bovine cattle, 7,500,000 horses, about 500,000 
 mules and 300,000 asses, over 67,000,000 
 sheep, almost 4,000,000 goats and 1,403,591 
 pigs, with a total value of about $700,000,- 
 000, gold. ... It is an interesting fact 
 that all the animal food so abundantly sup- 
 plied by this country is the result of stock- 
 ing this incomparably rich land with animals 
 introduced from European sources. In pre- 
 Columbian times the only domestic animals 
 possessed by the natives were the alpaca and 
 llama. The alpaca was grown for its flesh and 
 its fleece, while the llama was used as a beast 
 of burden. In 1535 the Spaniards brought 
 in horses and asses, and, shortly afterward, 
 
 216 
 
PRIZE WINNERS FROM "THE CAMP. 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 bovine cattle were taken to Asuncion (Para- 
 guay) by a Portuguese. In 1569 four thou- 
 sand head were distributed along the regions 
 of the Rio de la Plata. Sheep came later. 
 At one time, when the natives were exceed- 
 ingly hostile, a few horses and asses were 
 abandoned on the pampas, and from that 
 stock have descended the innumerable herds 
 which to-day cover the almost limitless plains ; 
 . . . but during recent years Argentina 
 has imported the best animals obtainable and 
 has bred with the direct intention of improv- 
 ing the stock as much as possible." 
 
 With the cattle rides the gaucho, the cow- 
 boy of the pampas. Dressed in smart poncho 
 (a sort of cape, with a hole for the head to 
 go through), and bright-hued zombachos, or 
 wide Turkish trousers, tight-fitting boots, 
 and sombrero, and sitting astride his sad- 
 dle, richly ornamented with silver, he pre- 
 sents a sight worth seeing. To the gaucho 
 the Camp is indebted for its only romance 
 and picturesqueness ; he has given to it its 
 songs and tales of adventure, its tragedies 
 and the brightness of its life. Lithe and 
 graceful, he is a consummate horseman and 
 rivals his Texan counterpart in feats of 
 
 217 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 horsemanship and skill with the lasso. He 
 is proud, simple-minded, and faithful in his 
 friendships, but when aroused to anger by a 
 slight or by deceit, he is as elemental in his 
 vengefulness — for there is a strain of the old 
 fierce Tupi- Guar any in the blood of most of 
 them — as the early types of his race who 
 ranged the pampas during the so-called me- 
 diaeval period of Argentine history. Need- 
 less to say, he has contributed his quota in the 
 wars of the republic and has furnished the 
 inspiration for many a stirring drama in the 
 literature of the country. 
 
 The story of the pampas and the life and 
 habits of their workers and of the denizens 
 nature has sent to share in their richness, has 
 been told by many writers of our day, notably 
 by W. H. Koebel, an Englishman, in his re- 
 cently published "Modern Argentina." It 
 is the story of a great country and a great 
 business enterprise that is fast spreading its 
 activity farther and farther north, west, and 
 south — to the north, toward the still savage 
 Chaco country and the mountainous provinces 
 of Jujuy, Salta, and Catamarca; to the west, 
 toward the Andean uplands, and southward 
 to the federal territories in the region that 
 
 218 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 was once referred to on the maps as Pata- 
 gonia. Gradually the cattle ranch is being 
 pushed farther afield to give way to agricul- 
 ture, while the ranchmen in their turn are 
 penetrating the field of the timber industry. 
 There is practically no village life in Ar- 
 gentina; there is no middle class between the 
 lordly estanciero and the laborer. The very 
 necessary element of the small farmer, work- 
 ing his own independent property, is grad- 
 ually being introduced, as the owners of the 
 great estates are beginning to subdivide their 
 holdings. When this new element shall have 
 been thoroughly absorbed into the common- 
 wealth, and the nation shall have acquired 
 a "volk" the prosperity of Argentina will 
 be assured for all time. The development 
 of the country is still in its infancy; for 
 years to come there will be room for an 
 increasing influx of capital and men who 
 can take part in the most modern and great- 
 est wealth-producing enterprise on the globe. 
 So far the English and Germans are the 
 chief among the foreign capitalists who have 
 sought out this present-day Eldorado. The 
 better acquaintance with Argentina and the 
 other countries to the south of us, so intel- 
 
 219 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ligently and industriously fostered by the Pan 
 American Union at Washington, will, it is to 
 be hoped, induce a North American financial 
 invasion of Argentina, an invasion that will 
 be more than welcomed by the "Yankis" of 
 the South. 
 
 The traveler who takes* the seven-hundred- 
 mile journey westward through the Camp, 
 luxuriously housed in the coaches of the 
 Great Western Railroad, comes upon a dif- 
 ferent scene and a different life when he 
 reaches the ancient city of Mendoza in the 
 foothills of the Andes. Here it was that San 
 Martin recruited and organized his Army of 
 Liberation, the army with which, emerging 
 suddenly from its isolated hiding place, he 
 startled the world by his crossing of the 
 Andes to fall upon the unsuspecting Span- 
 ish. Mendoza is now the center of the wine 
 and fruit industry. It is a thriving, well- 
 supplied little city, with a population of be- 
 tween thirty and forty thousand, comfortable 
 hotels, a theater, and a broad boulevard of 
 its own, overhung with trees and named for 
 the great revolutionary leader, where they 
 have their band concerts and afternoon car- 
 riage parade just as they do in Buenos Aires. 
 
 220 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 Only here, in their rather more dusky com- 
 plexions, lots of the raven-haired, black-eyed 
 occupants of the carriages show traces of In- 
 dian descent. 
 
 The development of the wine trade is in 
 keeping with the phenomenal progress of the 
 rest of the country. Although the great bulk 
 of the product is not of the highest quality, 
 the presses turn out each year enormous 
 quantities that bear the labels of Bordeaux, 
 Burgundy, Moselle, and Muscatel, produced 
 from the very best imported vines. Other 
 fruits have been found to grow equally well 
 in this section: peaches, pears, and plums 
 reach a high state of culture, while apples, 
 quinces, and cherries do very well. It is the 
 boast of the Argentino that his country is 
 capable of producing every conceivable kind 
 of fruit, and it is not an idle boast. 
 
 At this point — Mendoza — a change of car 
 is made to the less comfortable narrow-gauge 
 road that takes the traveler through the 
 fastnesses of the Andes. The route leads 
 first through the peach orchards and vine- 
 yards, with the snow peaks easily distin- 
 guishable in the background. The Mendoza 
 River, fed by the melting snows on the moun- 
 
 221 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 tain tops, tumbles along its way and is 
 crossed and re-crossed many times en route. 
 Distant about, one hundred miles, one comes 
 to the Puente del Inca, the famous natural 
 bridge spanning a chasm one hundred and 
 fifty feet in width, about which are many na- 
 tive legends of Incarial times, for the bridge 
 formed part of the great system of roads 
 built by the Incas. A little farther on, mount- 
 ing to a still higher altitude, the station of 
 Las Cuevas is reached, the last stop in Ar- 
 gentine territory, and the entrance to the 
 tunnel through the mountain, half a mile be- 
 low the Uspallata Pass — an engineering feat 
 deserving of a chapter by itself. The eleva- 
 tion here is in excess of ten thousand feet, 
 and the scene one of impressive grandeur, 
 fascinating in the kaleidoscope of color that 
 floods the gorges and the giant peaks. 
 
 Above, at the Cumbre, as the pass at the 
 top is called, if one forsakes the comforts of 
 the passenger coach for mule-back, he can 
 view the now world-famous "Christ of the 
 Andes," a bronze figure of the Prince of 
 Peace rising to a height of twenty-six feet 
 above its massive granite pedestal. It was 
 erected to commemorate the peace treaty that 
 
 222 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 brought to an end the long-continued dif- 
 ferences between Chile and Argentina. Grow- 
 ing out of the boundary dispute, this con- 
 troversy had become more and more acute as 
 the long-neglected Patagonian territory in- 
 creased in promise. The boundary, finally 
 fixed in 1902, by Sir Thomas Holdich's com- 
 mission, runs along the summit of the An- 
 dean ridge. On the base of the monument 
 a tablet bears the words: "Sooner shall 
 these mountains crumble to dust than the 
 people of Argentina and Chile break the 
 peace to which they have pledged themselves 
 at the feet of Christ the Redeemer." 
 
 From Caracoles, the Chilean terminus of 
 the tunnel, the Transandino-Chileno carries 
 the traveler to the station of Los Andes. 
 From here to the port city of Valparaiso, 
 Chile, the route is over the Chilean State 
 Railroad, which is of standard gauge and 
 passes through some rich and fertile valleys 
 on its way toward the Pacific. 
 
 in 
 
 To the east of the Cordilleras, and south 
 of the river Negro, stretches the territory 
 
 223 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 long known as Patagonia, first in swelling 
 plateaux and then flattening out into a con- 
 tinuation of the upper level pampas. This 
 is now the scene of Argentina's advancing 
 sheep industry. For Patagonia, east of the 
 Andean summits, and the east half of Tierra 
 del Fuego were awarded to Argentina by 
 the boundary arbitrator, King Edward VII, 
 following the report of Sir Thomas Holdich's 
 commission, and is now divided into the Fed- 
 eral Territories of Rio Negro, Chubut, and 
 Santa Cruz. The land of Patagonia ? so 
 named by the early explorers from the big 
 feet (pat a goas) of the Tehuelche Indians, 
 is now reached by steamer to Punta Arenas 
 in Magellan Strait, the southernmost city 
 on the globe, for the railways of Argentina 
 have not yet penetrated this country to any 
 considerable extent. In climate it ranges 
 from the temperate to extreme cold, like that 
 of northern Michigan in the winter months. 
 From the time of Darwin, who first took 
 the country out of the category of terras 
 incognitas, Patagonia has lost most of its 
 mystery and is now being settled by the di- 
 verted immigration from Buenos Aires. The 
 Scots, English, and Germans have taken up 
 
 224 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 large allotments of land, and many New Zea- 
 land sheep men have come over to add their 
 skill to the leading industry. There are also 
 colonies of Boers and Jews. 
 
 The Fuegian Archipelago, at the south- 
 ern extremity of South America, covers a 
 territory as large as Nebraska. A tortuous, 
 wind-swept labyrinth of waterways separates 
 the hundreds of islands that constitute this 
 group. The largest is Tierra del Fuego, 
 half as large as Illinois. It is divided lon- 
 gitudinally between Chile and Argentina, by 
 far the larger and more valuable portion hav- 
 ing been awarded to the former by the Royal 
 Arbitrator. The name was given to the archi- 
 pelago by Magellan, when he saw the trails 
 of smoke from the signal fires of the natives 
 who followed his epoch-making course through 
 the strait that now bears his name. Very lit- 
 tle of the Fuegian country is under cultiva- 
 tion, although thousands of sheep graze over 
 its rich valleys and verdant plains. The 
 southernmost point, Cape Horn (in Chilean 
 territory), is a monster rock, bleak and for- 
 bidding, against which the antarctic storms 
 beat with such terrific force that, in the old 
 days of sailing vessels, it was called the head- 
 
 225 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 stone of the mariners' most populous grave- 
 yard. 
 
 A vastly different scene awaits the traveler 
 who penetrates into the tropical wilds of the 
 northern territories of Argentina. Going 
 aboard one of the fine steamers of Nicholas 
 Mihanovitch — the kings of the river traffic — 
 at Buenos Aires, the traveler follows the 
 course of the Parana, which is the main water 
 highway of Argentina. The trip will take 
 him through the richest provinces of the 
 Camp, past the busy miniature Buenos Aires, 
 the city of Rosario, which is the port of 
 shipment for the grain of this region, and 
 up into the tropical scenery and mystery of 
 the Chaco and Misiones territories, opening 
 up vistas of prodigious natural growths and 
 riotous beauty, differing in every way from 
 the somber majesty of the Fuegian country. 
 The Chaco and the territory of Formosa, 
 adjoining it on the north, are still almost 
 wholly occupied by uncivilized Indians. Up 
 to the present time this region has been ex- 
 ploited chiefly for the wood of the quebracho 
 (qui-bra-hacha — axe-breaker) tree, which 
 yields the best quality of tannin and timber 
 
 226 
 
ARGENTINA 
 
 for railroad ties; it is richer in the former 
 product than any other tree yet discovered. 
 
 The picturesqueness of the Parana River 
 scenery along its upper courses has excited 
 enthusiastic descriptions from all the trav- 
 elers who have penetrated this marvelous 
 country. A thousand miles up the river, in 
 Misiones, near the point where Argentina, 
 Paraguay, and Brazil meet, are located the 
 famous Iguazii Falls. The great cascade, 
 fifty feet higher and with a lateral extent 
 1250 feet greater than Niagara, lies in the 
 midst of a primeval forest. The enormous 
 volume of water bursts through a series of 
 thickly wooded islands with a roar that is all 
 the more impressive to the spectator because 
 of the solitude that reigns throughout this 
 scantily populated region. The hand of man 
 has done nothing here — no attempt has been 
 made to harness the mighty power; nature 
 has been left alone to revel in utter abandon. 
 
IV 
 
 URUGUAY 
 
 ONE of the first inquiries that engages 
 the mind of the visitor to Uruguay 
 and Argentina is why the great body 
 of water that separates the two countries — 
 apparently an arm of the sea — should not be 
 called the Gulf of La Plata. After a brief 
 stay in this region of great cities, great pro- 
 ductiveness, and great opportunities, it will 
 probably occur to him that dwellers among 
 such great things could be satisfied with noth- 
 ing less than an estuary of the broad Atlan- 
 tic to serve as a river for their capitals. If 
 the Parana and Uruguay — mighty rivers 
 which rank in size immediately behind the 
 Mississippi — had joined their floods some 
 miles above Buenos Aires, instead of flowing 
 separately into La Plata, a stream of un- 
 questionable status might have satisfied their 
 demands; but the God of Waters willed oth- 
 erwise, evidently not anticipating the great- 
 
 228 
 
URUGUAY 
 
 ness of these people and their illimitable am- 
 bition. 
 
 The exact point at which La Plata River 
 merges with the Atlantic is also a matter of 
 speculation among geographers. For all 
 practical purposes, however, Montevideo, the 
 capital, metropolis, and chief port of Uru- 
 guay, lies just beside this phenomenon. One 
 can say, therefore, that the eastern side of the 
 little peninsula on which the main city is built 
 faces the ocean, while the southern and west- 
 ern fronts, bordering the bay of the actual 
 port, look upon the river Plata. 
 
 Taking the night boat at Buenos Aires, 
 one arrives in Montevideo in the early morn- 
 ing after a pleasant ride of just a hundred 
 miles diagonally across the river, and is im- 
 mediately impressed with the picturesqueness 
 of El Cerro, an ancient fortress that still 
 poses as the guardian of the entrance of the 
 river. Much more important to-day, how- 
 ever, is the lighthouse that rises from this 
 height. Entering the port the visitor comes 
 upon a modern city of almost four hundred 
 thousand inhabitants, possessed of all the at- 
 tributes of the present-day metropolis; an 
 adequate and up-to-date system of docks, 
 
 229 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 fine business blocks, public buildings, plazas, 
 boulevards, and broad streets laid out on the 
 checkerboard scheme, sewer, water, and light- 
 ing systems, and extensive and well-managed 
 electric tramway lines. 
 
 To the Buenos Airean, naturally enough, 
 Montevideo is a second Brooklyn, for the 
 "ferry" trip of a hundred miles is not in- 
 congruous where people think in superla- 
 tives. Here the Buenos Airean may come, 
 after a period of consuming activity in his 
 own more closely built city, for rest and soul 
 expansion among the leisurely and dignified 
 Montevideans, and, at the expense of his 
 neighbor, even permit himself a bit of friendly 
 chaff in which he might venture to use the 
 word "soporific." The Montevidean by no 
 means resents the imputation. There is no 
 resentment because, although a restful at- 
 mosphere does pervade the city, there is not 
 the slightest taint of stagnation. The Mon- 
 tevidean is conscious that his sturdy, vig- 
 orous, and even bellicose race has built up a 
 nation unique in South America in its prom- 
 ise of material prosperity; that his country 
 is among the richest in the quality and varied 
 productiveness of its soil of any on the con- 
 
 200 
 
URUGUAY 
 
 tinent, and that his city, housing a third of 
 the country's population, is the pivot of the 
 nation's astonishing commercial activity and 
 one of the most healthful and delightful res- 
 idence cities in the world. 
 
 Montevideo was founded in 1726, but re- 
 mained a comparatively unimportant way sta- 
 tion until some thirty years ago, when it 
 began to imbibe the modernism of its big 
 rivals in Brazil and Argentina. To-day it is 
 almost as cosmopolitan as Buenos Aires, the 
 Italian element predominating among the 
 foreigners, with the British preeminent as 
 investors of capital, as in the latter city. To 
 the superb Solis Theater come all the Euro- 
 pean companies that appear in Buenos Aires; 
 club life is best represented in the Club Uru- 
 guay and the English Club, situated on oppo- 
 site sides of the Plaza Matriz; and afternoon 
 tea has come to be an important feature of the 
 social life, several tea houses being now dis- 
 tributed over the leisure sections of the city. 
 
 The pride of the Montevidean is Prado 
 Park. He has made of it one of the fairest 
 gardens imaginable — its lakes and rolling 
 lawns and great variety of trees and flower- 
 ing bushes, its intersecting avenues of tow- 
 
 231 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ering eucalyptus trees rivaling Japan's fa- 
 mous avenue of cryptomerias, on the road to 
 Nikko, all give pleasure to the city's thou- 
 sands, who, like Parisians, seek the country 
 scenes for their holiday amusements. Driving 
 along Agraciado Road and other plane-tree- 
 shaded avenues, the visitor reaches either of 
 the pleasure suburbs of Colon or Pocitos. 
 
 In these excursions he has an excellent op- 
 portunity to note the varied styles of architec- 
 ture coming into vogue in the more progres- 
 sive cities of South America; they range from 
 the comfortable bungalow of the British resi- 
 dents, to that strange development of the 
 old Spanish home (the quint a) in which the 
 wealthy Spanish- Americans love to house 
 themselves on the outskirts of the cities. Un- 
 til recent years the Spanish house in town 
 and country was bare and unlovely on the 
 outside; its beauty and richness were con- 
 fined to the interior surroundings of the 
 patio, where, in feudal privacy, the family 
 secluded itself. To-day, in the new era of 
 civic pride and the freer association of society 
 in the modern boulevard and cafe life, the 
 adornment is extended to the outside, and 
 the effort made, by the addition of pinnacles 
 
 232 
 
SOLIS THEATER, MONTEVIDEO. 
 
 CAGANCHA PLAZA, MONTEVIDEO. 
 
URUGUAY 
 
 and towers and much delicate tinting, to add 
 to the attractiveness of the "city beautiful." 
 In the business sections, of course, the mod- 
 ern architecture corresponds for the most 
 part with the type seen in the great cities of 
 Europe and North America. 
 
 In October, when the summer comes into 
 these latitudes south of the Equator, the 
 quintas assume a most entrancing aspect. 
 Some of them, set in the midst of gardens 
 many acres in extent, are veritable haunts of 
 delight. Toll has been levied upon every 
 resource to add to their charm. The gardens 
 are inclosed within hedges that blaze with 
 the color of the hedge-rose, honeysuckle, 
 bougainvillea, wistaria, and other creeping 
 vines. Inside, forming a background, may 
 be seen a goodly growth of ivy-covered oaks 
 or chestnut trees. Within, nearer the fairy- 
 like home, and in the random of artistic dis- 
 order, are many flowering bushes and trees — 
 lilacs mingling their scent with magnolia, 
 orange, myrtle, and mimosa— while the lawns 
 are carpeted with a brilliant profusion of 
 periwinkles, pansies, marigolds, arum lilies, 
 and carnations, the whole yielding up the de- 
 lights of its ever changing fragrance as the 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 wondering guest wanders about in company 
 with his courtly host and hostess. 
 
 In entire harmony with this perfection of 
 nature is the beauty of the women. They are 
 justly famous. To the far-famed grace and 
 natural Spanish stateliness of her sisters 
 throughout South America, the Uruguayan 
 senorita adds a freshness of complexion and 
 sprightliness of temperament that go to make 
 a most bewitching consummation of feminine 
 charm. Her praises are sung by all visitors; 
 not less appreciative, her own kith and kin 
 liken her, in their poetic way, to all pleasant 
 things from a dove to. the moon. 
 
 It is with genuine regret that the traveler 
 leaves the hospitable capital for a trip 
 through the country; but he will soon dis- 
 cover that the delightful climate (like that of 
 Tennessee, but without the snows of winter) 
 is characteristic of Uruguay as a whole. 
 From the capital radiate some fifteen hun- 
 dred miles of good railways penetrating Bra- 
 zil at several points, and also tapping the 
 commerce along the Uruguay River. 
 
 The country he will see is one great roll- 
 ing pasture as large as all New England, 
 and with occasional ridges of mountains. 
 
 234 
 
URUGUAY 
 
 None of these, however, exceeds two thou- 
 sand feet in height. Until recently Uruguay 
 was given over almost entirely to the raising 
 of cattle and sheep; now it promises great 
 strides in products of the soil. Indeed, it is 
 the boast of the Uruguayan that not an acre 
 of his country's 72,000 square miles of terri- 
 tory is unproductive. Here can be seen 
 growing corn, wheat, and potatoes, and a 
 great impetus has of late been given to viti- 
 culture — and there is no fear of either drought 
 or frost. So far, however, only about three 
 per cent, of the territory is under cultivation 
 in foodstuffs. In 1909 Montevideo handled 
 imports to the value of $35,000,000 and ex- 
 ports amounting to $32,000,000, while the 
 ports of Rocha, Maldonado, and Colonia, on 
 the south coast, and Salto, Paysandu, Fray 
 Bentos, Mercedes, and others on the Uruguay, 
 handled three millions more of imports and 
 exports. Her production in cattle in that 
 year amounted to 6,827,428, in sheep 16,- 
 608,717, and in pigs, horses, mules, and goats 
 700,000. 
 
 At Fray Bentos, on the Uruguay River, 
 the Liebig Company has located a great 
 plant, slaughters over three hundred thousand 
 
 235 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 head of cattle a year, and does an enormous 
 business in extract of beef, canned meats, 
 hides, tallow, hair, horn, and other by- 
 products. A day's sojourn in the prosper- 
 ous, if soup-laden, atmosphere will give one 
 a proper appreciation of the rest of the 
 country, for nowhere has Nature been more 
 lavish with her favors, nowhere has she dis- 
 tributed more favorable conditions for life and 
 national prosperity — everything man needs 
 for food or clothing is here capable of being 
 raised. Every section is reached by nav- 
 igable rivers, which also furnish abundant 
 water for irrigation and mechanical purposes. 
 The country being on a gold basis, its credit 
 in the European money markets is excellent. 
 Uruguay, as one historian expresses it, has 
 always been the cockpit of the southern half 
 of the continent. From the time of the ap- 
 pearance of the first whites in the Plata 
 region — Diaz de Solis in 1515, and ten years 
 later Sebastien Cabot — down to the period 
 of Hernando Arias and Garay, who, in about 
 1580, permanently established the power of 
 Spain on the river Plata, the Spanish and 
 Portuguese settlements on the Plata and 
 Uruguay had to contend with the incessant 
 
 236 
 
URUGUAY 
 
 hostilities of a race of Indians — the Charriias, 
 who, next to the Araucanians of Chile, had 
 the distinction of offering the most vigorous 
 and successful opposition to the dominion of 
 the Europeans in South America. 
 
 Throughout the colonial regime, Uruguay 
 constituted the eastern border province (Ban- 
 da Oriental) of Spain's La Plata colony, 
 and was the storm center of the Spanish 
 and Portuguese strife for territorial control. 
 Following this period came the abortive in- 
 vasion of the English in 1806, and, a few 
 years later, the wars of independence. When 
 Spanish rule came to an end in the Plata 
 country, the Banda Oriental became the bone 
 of contention between Brazil and the newly 
 born state that is now Argentina — a veritable 
 new-world Flanders and the theater of many 
 fierce battles. Brazil held the province from 
 1817 to 1829, and called it her Cis-platine 
 Province. Finally, on May 1, 1829, Uru- 
 guay achieved her independence and set up 
 a government of her own under the style of 
 the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. 
 
 There is good reason, then, why the Uru- 
 guayans should have emerged from these 
 three hundred years of turbulent character 
 
 237 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 building into independence with a bellicose 
 personality exactly suited to the Montague- 
 and-Capulet existence that prevails in her 
 politics between the Blancos, or reactionists, 
 and the Colorados, who now hold the political 
 power and stand for progress. The force- 
 fulness of the nation is now finding its ex- 
 pression in industrial and commercial enter- 
 prises and has made of her chief port a pow- 
 erful commercial rival of the busy mart across 
 the Plata. 
 
 238 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 PARAGUAY is in the longitudinal cen- 
 ter of South America, and, with the 
 exception of Bolivia, is the only coun- 
 try on the continent that does not border on 
 the sea. Next to Uruguay it is the smallest 
 of the South American republics, possessing 
 a territory of 196,000 square miles. Until 
 the break with Spain, in 1813, it was, like 
 Uruguay, part and parcel of La Plata col- 
 ony, under the jurisdiction of the Viceroy 
 of Buenos Aires, and was known as the 
 Province of Paraguay. As will be observed 
 from a glance at the map, it is hedged in by 
 Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina, and is sepa- 
 rated from its twin sister, Uruguay, by an 
 arm of the mother country (Misiones Ter- 
 ritory) that reaches up into Brazil between 
 the Parana and Uruguay rivers. 
 
 For a proper acquaintance with the coun- 
 try it must be conceived as a dual personality, 
 
 239 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 for it is divided longitudinally by the river 
 Paraguay into western Paraguay, or the 
 Chaco, and eastern Paraguay, or Paraguay 
 proper. It is in the latter region that the 
 republic has its being and in which the vis- 
 itor's interest is naturally centered. El 
 Chaco is a vast, thickly wooded, and, for the 
 most part, savage and unexplored section 
 that was awarded to Paraguay by our Presi- 
 dent Hayes as arbitrator of its boundary 
 dispute with Argentina; in gratitude the gov- 
 ernment named the chief settlement in the 
 territory Villa Hayes. The region is now 
 given over almost wholly to the immigrant 
 Swiss, German, Italian and other communi- 
 ties that have been started on the west bank 
 of the river, and to nomadic bands of still 
 uncivilized Indians. 
 
 With a climate similar to that of southern 
 California, Paraguay, throughout its entire 
 extent, is blessed with abundant rain the 
 year round. It is well watered and quite 
 thickly wooded, and thus protected from the 
 intense heat usual in low-lying countries. 
 
 Eastern Paraguay resembles Uruguay in 
 its rolling, fertile areas, but is more moun- 
 tainous. On the northern frontier is the 
 
 240 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 range known as the Quinze Puntas. In- 
 closing the country on the east are the Cor- 
 dilleras of Amambay and Mbaracayu, while 
 down the center, from north to south, run 
 a broken series of lesser sierras and the range 
 called Caaguazii, forming a ridge or backbone 
 that subdivides this half of Paraguay into 
 the two great basins drained by the Parana 
 River on the east and the Paraguay on the 
 west. 
 
 Almost the whole of Paraguay proper has 
 forests of valuable woods with occasional 
 clear places, where settlers have made serv- 
 iceable the marvelous fertility and luxuriance 
 of the soil. For centuries this region has 
 been the barrier between the two distinct 
 phases of Spanish civilization in South Amer- 
 ica — the golden empire of Peru and the 
 agricultural colonies on the Plata and its 
 tributaries — just as Uruguay has been the 
 buffer state between the Portuguese and 
 Spanish peoples. These phases have merged 
 but little and to-day present a most interest- 
 ing contrast. 
 
 From the time of Cabot's fortified settle- 
 ment of Asuncion (now the capital of Para- 
 guay) at the junction of the Paraguay and 
 
 241 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Pilcomayo rivers, in 1536, whence his lieu- 
 tenant, Domingo Irala, made his vain attempt 
 to penetrate into Peru, down to the present, 
 Paraguay has been isolated to a considerable 
 degree from the march of progress. The six 
 hundred adventurers who followed the for- 
 tunes of Irala stayed on the land, inter- 
 married with the Guarany Indians and bred 
 the mixed race that was the foundation of the 
 nation of to-day; and the Indians developed, 
 along with the mestizos, to a status unique in 
 South America. Evading the abject slavery 
 that decimated the aboriginal races through- 
 out the Andean region, the Guaranies were 
 taught the arts of the soil and war by the 
 Jesuits, and, during the hundred and fifty 
 years of the latter's sway, achieved a stage of 
 development corresponding to that of the 
 peasantry of France. 
 
 The story of the Jesuit missions which oc- 
 cupied the Parana basin, is an important and 
 thrilling chapter in Latin- American history. 
 Early in its life, the Society turned its at- 
 tention to the evangelization of South 
 America; it was the genius of its founder, 
 Ignatius Loyola, that perfected the organi- 
 zation to accomplish this. In 1550 the Jesuit 
 
 242 
 
GOVERNMENT PALACE, ASUNCION. 
 
 VIEW OF ASUNCION AND RIVER PARAGUAY FROM ROOF OF THE CENTRAL 
 RAILROAD STATION. 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 Fathers began their work on the Brazilian 
 coast settlements, but were driven farther 
 and farther inland by the Portuguese as it 
 became apparent that their policy of educa- 
 tion and uplift would put an end to the 
 enslavement of the natives which was the 
 basis of the economic scheme of the colonists. 
 Eventually, some time about 1586, the Jesuits 
 entered the Paraguay region, won the con- 
 fidence of the Guaranies and purposed to 
 "reduce" the tribes of the whole Plata coun- 
 try. They met with the same opposition 
 from the Spanish colonists and their strong- 
 hold became restricted to the secluded and 
 isolated region mentioned — the Parana basin 
 and Misiones territory of Argentina. 
 
 Here, for over a hundred years, under the 
 protection of the official sanction won from 
 the Spanish King, Philip III, they worked 
 among their proselytes. They learned and 
 perfected the native dialects; taught the men 
 to cultivate the soil, and the women to spin 
 and weave cotton; induced them to clear 
 the forests and to build and live in towns, 
 and even organized them into an effective 
 militia, which more than once enabled them 
 to preserve the integrity of the remarkable 
 
 243 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 state — a state unique in a way, since it was 
 virtually under the direct control of the Gen- 
 eral of the Order, although within the terri- 
 torial sovereignty of Spain. This "republic" 
 lasted until 1769, when the famous decree of 
 the King of Spain banished the Jesuits from 
 all his dominions; but the effects of their 
 presence are still noticeable throughout Para- 
 guay and Misiones. 
 
 It is a matter of wonder to this day how the 
 Jesuit Fathers, even taking into consideration 
 their unquenchable zeal and marvelous energy 
 and determination, ever succeeded in reach- 
 ing so isolated a territory and in traversing 
 it in every direction, as they did, in pursuit 
 of their campaign. Even to-day it is well- 
 nigh impossible to reach the heart of the 
 region — the great cataract of Guayra, which, 
 hundreds of miles from the habitations of 
 man, isolated by jagged mountains, fiercely 
 swirling waters and the wild tangle of under- 
 brush that make headway through the awe- 
 some tropical forest very difficult, constitutes 
 one of the most majestic of nature's wonder- 
 works in South America. Situated about a 
 hundred miles up the Parana River from the 
 better known Iguazu Falls, the Guayra cata- 
 
 844 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 ract lies on the frontier with Brazil. A vol- 
 ume of water twice as large as that which 
 thunders over Niagara is forced through a 
 gorge two hundred feet wide from a stream 
 two and a half miles in width. The roar of 
 its plunge of fifty-six feet to the lower levels, 
 adds the essential note to this tremendous 
 symphony of primeval nature. Outside the 
 Arctic regions, one explorer declares, no part 
 of the world is less accessible than the Parana 
 above the Great Cataract. 
 
 After the expulsion of the Jesuits the 
 Parana basin reverted to forest and the 
 nation pursued its checkered career in the 
 section drained by the Paraguay. This river 
 intersects the republic from north to south 
 and is navigable through its entire course by 
 ocean steamers, which pass up from Buenos 
 Aires through the Parana, and past Corri- 
 entes, where the two great streams join 
 forces. 
 
 On the left bank of the Paraguay, at the 
 point of its confluence with the equally great 
 Pilcomayo, the traveler comes to the ancient 
 city of Asuncion, the capital of the country. 
 Here was the seat of the colonial authority 
 over Plata settlements until Buenos Aires 
 
 245 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 grew into importance. It has a population 
 of 52,000, and is now thriving and prosperous, 
 rapidly taking on the cosmopolitanism that 
 characterizes the other ports of South 
 America. The capital, and indeed the whole 
 country has but recently entered into a new 
 life, a life as sharply contrasted with its period 
 of political storm and stress as the transition 
 was sudden. 
 
 For, during the first sixty years after the 
 country had attained its freedom from Spain, 
 Paraguay's progress was stifled by a succes- 
 sion of tyrants — remarkable men, all three of 
 them, but men who, as a result of their rule, 
 well-nigh cost her her national existence. The 
 first of these, Dr. Jose Rodriguez Gaspar 
 Francia, had been the dominating figure in 
 the revolutionary junta, and afterward, with 
 his confrere, General Yegros, had been ap- 
 pointed Consul and invested with the supreme 
 power. "He was a lawyer," Dawson tells 
 us, "who had become a sort of demigod to 
 the lower classes by his fearless advocacy of 
 their rights, and inspired almost superstitious 
 reverence by his reputation for learning and 
 disinterestedness." A year later, the historian 
 continues — 
 
 246 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 "He forced Yegros out, and, with general consent, 
 assumed the position of sole executive, and, in 1816, 
 was formally declared supreme and perpetual dicta- 
 tor. For the next twenty-five years he was the gov- 
 ernment of Paraguay. History does not record 
 another instance in which a single man so dominated 
 and controlled a people. A solitary, mysterious fig- 
 ure, of whose thoughts, purposes, and real character 
 little is known, the worst acts of his life were the most 
 picturesque and alone have been recorded. Although 
 the great Carlyle includes him among the heroes 
 whose memory mankind should worship, the opinion 
 of his detractors is likely to triumph. Francia will 
 go down to history as a bloody-minded, implacable 
 despot, whose influences and purposes were wholly 
 evil. After reading all that has been written about 
 this singular character, my mind inclines more to 
 the judgment of Carlyle. I feel that the vivid imagi- 
 nation of the great Scotchman has pierced the clouds 
 which enshrouded the spirit of a great and lonely 
 man, and has seen the soul of Francia as he was. 
 Cruel, suspicious, ruthless, heartless as he undeniably 
 became, his acts will not bear the interpretation that 
 his purposes were selfish or that he was animated by 
 mere vulgar ambition. . . . 
 
 "He absorbed in his own person all the functions of 
 government; he had no confidants and no assistants; 
 he allowed no Paraguayan to approach him on terms 
 of equality. When he died, a careful search failed 
 to reveal any records of the immense amount of 
 governmental business he had transacted during 
 thirty years. The orders for executions were simply 
 messages signed by him and returned to be destroyed 
 as soon as they had been carried out. The longer 
 
 247 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 he lived, the more completely did he apply his system 
 of absolutism, the more confident he became that he 
 alone could govern the people for their good. He 
 adopted a policy of commercial isolation, and inter- 
 course with the outside world was absolutely for- 
 bidden. He neither sent nor received consuls nor 
 ministers to foreign nations. Foreign vessels were 
 excluded from the Paraguay River and allowed to 
 visit only one port in the southeastern corner of the 
 country. He was the sole foreign merchant. The 
 communistic system inherited from the Jesuits was 
 developed and extended to the secular parts of the 
 country. . . . Dreading interference by Spain, 
 Brazil, or Buenos Aires, he improved the military 
 forces and began the organization of the whole popu- 
 lation into a militia. His policy, however, was peace- 
 ful. ... 
 
 "As he grew older he became more solitary and 
 ferocious. Always a gloomy and peculiar man, ab- 
 sorbed in his studies and making no account of the 
 ordinary pleasures and interests of mankind, he had 
 reached the age of fifty-five and assumed supreme 
 power without marrying. . . . His severities against 
 the educated classes increased ; he ordered wholesale 
 executions and seven hundred political prisoners filled 
 the jails when he died. He feared assassination and 
 occupied several houses, letting no one know where 
 he was going to sleep from one night to another, and, 
 when walking the streets, kept his guards at a dis- 
 tance before and behind him. Woe to the enemy or 
 suspect who attracted his attention ! Such was the 
 terror inspired by this dreadful old man that the news 
 that he was out would clear the streets. A white 
 Paraguayan literally dared not utter his name. Dur- 
 
 248 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 ing his lifetime he was 'El Supremo,' and, after he 
 was dead, for generations he was referred to simply 
 as 'El Defunto.' . . . He did not rise by any 
 sycophantic arts. Indeed, he never veiled the con- 
 tempt he felt for the party schemers and officials 
 around him. When he had supreme power in his 
 hands, he used it for no selfish indulgences. His life 
 was austere and abstemious ; but, though parsimo- 
 nious for himself, he was lavish for the public. . . . 
 In his manners'and life, he was absolutely modest; he 
 received any one who chose to see him. If he was 
 terrible, it was to the wealthy and powerful; the 
 humblest Indian received a hearing and justice. Dur- 
 ing his reign Paraguay remained undisturbed, 
 wrapped in a profound peace ; the population rapidly 
 increased, and, though commerce and manufactures 
 did not flourish, nor the new ideas that were trans- 
 forming the face of the civilized world penetrate, 
 food and clothing were plentiful and cheap and the 
 Paraguayans prospered in their own humble fashion." 
 
 Following the reign of Francia came a long 
 period of open intercourse with the neighbor- 
 ing states and foreign countries under the 
 dictatorship of Carlos Antonio Lopez, and 
 some measure of progress was made, but still 
 there was no development of republican insti- 
 tutions. His death made room for his son 
 Francisco, who was a man of thirty-five at the 
 time of his accession, and, having spent some 
 time in Europe, had returned permeated with 
 
 249 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the vices of the great capitals and a consum- 
 ing ambition for military renown. A very 
 different character of man morally, he is said 
 to have been, from the first of his line. He 
 is described as vain, licentious, gluttonous, and 
 unscrupulous to the last degree, though good- 
 looking and an eloquent speaker. "He began 
 his reign like a Mohammedan sultan," says 
 Dawson, "ridding himself of his father's most 
 trusted counselors, imprisoning and execu- 
 ting the most intelligent and powerful citizens. 
 . . . He ordered his best friends to execution ; 
 he tortured his mother and sisters and mur- 
 dered his brothers. The only natural affec- 
 tion he ever evinced was a fondness for a 
 woman he had picked up in Paris, and for her 
 children. He seems to have treated her well 
 to the last, but his numerous other mistresses 
 and their children he heartlessly abandoned." 
 He soon raised an army of more than 
 eighty thousand, the largest that had ever 
 been assembled since the conquest, and, by 
 assuming the aggressive in certain boundary 
 disputes with Brazil and Argentina and inter- 
 fering in civil disturbances that were going 
 on in Uruguay, involved the country in war 
 with these three powers, which, alarmed at 
 
 250 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 his Napoleonic aspirations, promptly formed 
 an alliance for the purpose of resisting him. 
 This war lasted five years and for Paraguay 
 was one long succession of appalling disasters. 
 Before the first battle was fought her popu- 
 lation numbered more than 1,300,000; when 
 Lopez was finally defeated and killed in 1870, 
 but 221,079 remained, of whom only 28,746 
 were men. "No modern nation has ever come 
 so near to complete annihilation," says Daw- 
 son. "Not less than 225,000 Paraguayan men 
 — the fathers and bread-winners, the farmers 
 and laborers — had perished in battle, by dis- 
 ease or exposure or starvation. One hundred 
 thousand adult women had died of hardship 
 and hunger, and there were less than 90,000 
 children under fifteen in the country. The 
 surviving women outnumbered the men five 
 to one; . . . but the integrity of Paraguay 
 and her continuance as an independent power 
 had been mutually guaranteed by Brazil and 
 Argentina when they began the war against 
 Lopez, and neither of them could afford to 
 let the other take possession of her territory, 
 so the country was left substantially intact." 
 Asuncion shows on its face the two phases — 
 the modern business houses, residences and 
 
 251 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 public service improvements of the new era, 
 and the ruined districts and wrecks such as 
 those of cathedral, presidential palace and old 
 public buildings that emphasize the lessons 
 of the old. To-day the visitor looks with a 
 shudder at the ruins of the uncompleted 
 mausoleum in which the last tyrant expected 
 his remains to rest and at the two-million- 
 dollar palace where, in rooms hung with rare 
 laces and crimson satin, his unspeakable orgies 
 were held; he turns with relief toward the 
 modernism now beginning to be apparent 
 which proves the substantial worth of a 
 people which can arise from such a past and 
 prosper. The survivors of the old regime 
 have been severely tested for fitness to enjoy 
 the fruits of their well-favored country. 
 
 The republic — no longer such in name 
 only — is governed under an enlightened con- 
 stitution modeled after our own. The present 
 administration has opened wide the doors to 
 immigration and foreign capital, and the arti- 
 ficial barrier erected by her political system of 
 the nineteenth century no longer exists as the 
 complement to the natural barriers that have 
 stood for four centuries between the northern 
 and southern countries of South America. 
 
 252 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 Those who may be so fortunate as to obtain 
 control of Paraguay's highways, the Para- 
 guay and Pilcomayo, and supplement them 
 by extending its 155 miles of railway into a 
 system that will develop the vast agricultural 
 and mineral empire of central and southern 
 Brazil and Bolivia, and carry the produce to 
 the Argentine seaboard, will gain a prize 
 unequaled in the railroad world, and make 
 of Paraguay a country of first importance on 
 the continent. 
 
 Throughout the country the forests are 
 being cleared to make room for potreros 
 (cattle ranches) and the growing agricultural 
 industries. Yerbales are coming more and 
 more under the scientific culture which 
 greatly enhances the value of the country's 
 leading product, yerba mate, or Paraguay 
 tea. - 
 
 Paraguay is the namesake and chief pro- 
 ducer of the famous yerba mate or Paraguay 
 tea, which is the national drink — the cup of 
 ceremony and popular tipple throughout 
 the central part of South America below the 
 coffee belt; that is, on the Argentine Campo, 
 in Uruguay, Paraguay, the lower part of 
 Brazil, Bolivia and Chile. So well adapted 
 
 253 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 is the beverage to the climate that the German 
 colonists forsake their beer and the Euro- 
 pean-Latins their sweet cordials for the stim- 
 ulating and non-alcoholic native product. 
 
 The yerba leaf is prepared by steeping in 
 boiling water, as in the case of the tea with 
 which the rest of the world is familiar. The 
 mate is the dried gourd in which the tea is 
 brewed. Into the aperture left by removing 
 the stem, a tube (the bombilla), made of reed 
 or bone, is inserted and through this the 
 drinker sucks the refreshing brew. When- 
 ever the occasion offers "Toma usted mate? " 
 is almost a form of greeting in the yerba 
 mate countries, so universal is its popularity. 
 Among the rich the mate and bombilla are 
 fashioned in costly metals, but elsewhere the 
 gourd and reed serve their purpose with 
 equal, if not greater, satisfaction. 
 
 The ilex yaraguayensis, to give the herb 
 its botanical name, is an evergreen tree or 
 shrub from twelve to twenty-five feet high, 
 with bright green leaves clustered in a bushy 
 mass that cause it from a distance to re- 
 semble the orange tree. Although much of 
 the yerba mate is still obtained from the 
 immense natural forests, the ever-increasing 
 
 254 
 
PARAGUAY 
 
 demand has made cultivation a necessity. 
 Many plantations have been successfully laid 
 out, and crops of leaves have recently been 
 gathered with commercially profitable results. 
 The scientific methods now being adopted in 
 the yerbales (yerba plantations) of Para- 
 guay to supplant the destructive system of 
 the past will insure for this growing industry 
 a rich return to the owners. 
 
 The drink is taken without the addition of 
 condiment and for the most part hot, like the 
 Japanese sake. It is stimulating and sus- 
 taining, and soothes instead of irritating the 
 nervous system. Unlike the concoctions made 
 from the coca leaf (cocaine), sugar cane 
 (rum), pulque, sake, vodka and other stim- 
 ulants stumbled upon by native peoples and 
 become destructive habits, yerba mate has no 
 deleterious effects either immediate or after 
 prolonged use. 
 
 Dr. Lenglet, President of the Interna- 
 tional League of Pure Food, says of it: 
 
 "The noteworthy point of the effect of mate on 
 the system is its stimulating action on the cerebro- 
 spinal organs. Taken with sugar the first thing in 
 the morning it is very wholesome. It gives great 
 capacity to undergo fatigue and invigorates the 
 
 255 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 brain, and although it prevents feeling hungry, one 
 does not enjoy one's meals any the less. It does not 
 appear to affect the intestinal organs; the nervous 
 system is, nevertheless, insensible to the organic losses 
 caused by the want of nourishment which are made 
 known by hunger. 
 
 "In mate is found one of the most important means 
 to obtain a maximum of strength and energy. It can 
 be compared to a reservoir of vitality." 
 
 256 
 
VI 
 
 BOLIVIA 
 
 IN the heart of the continent a vast table 
 of land as large as all our Middle States 
 has been crowded up into the air by some 
 titanic convulsion to a height of more than 
 two miles, or fourteen thousand feet. The 
 surface in many places is deeply encrusted 
 with salt, suggesting the upheaval of a great 
 mediterranean sea and a spilling of its waters 
 over the succession of terraced slopes that 
 finally break off abruptly and merge in the 
 summer valleys of Brazil and Paraguay; for 
 from these heights innumerable streams shim- 
 mer off toward the distant Amazon. 
 
 The plateau is hemmed in by the Cordillera 
 de la Costa (the coast range) and the Cor- 
 dillera Real, the main range, on the east, and 
 is intersected in various directions by cross- 
 sections, the whole producing a topography 
 of a grandeur that makes all attempts at 
 description pitifully inadequate. The majes- 
 tic snow-clad peaks of Guallatiri and Miniquis 
 
 257 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 in the coast range, and Illampu (Sorata), 
 Illimani, Chachacomani, and Karkaake in the 
 Cordillera Real rise to a height of over 22,000 
 feet. A dozen more in both ranges exceed 
 20,000. On the northwestern border along 
 the Peruvian frontier, lies Lake Titicaca, 
 unique also in that it is the highest navigated 
 body of water on the globe. It is 160 miles 
 long by thirty wide and is fed by the melting 
 Andean snows. 
 
 This plateau is the center of Bolivia's life 
 to-day, as it was the cradle of successive ab- 
 original civilizations that finally culminated 
 many centuries ago in the Inca empire. It is 
 the highest inhabited land on the face of the 
 earth, with the possible exception of Tibet. 
 The evidence at every hand of nature's tre- 
 mendous activities must have left its impress 
 on the races that formerly had their being 
 here. The gigantic relics which are now the 
 enduring monuments of these peoples are 
 proof of the bigness of their point of view. 
 They saw largely and the range of their 
 vision embraced great distances, great alti- 
 tudes, and great depths. There is evidence 
 also that the newly awakened present race will 
 prove worthy of its surroundings. 
 
 258 
 
BOLIVIA 
 
 The people now inhabiting this great An- 
 dean Massif have in their veins the blood of 
 both the intrepid Conquistadores and the 
 hardy Aymara and Inca stock, and it is in the 
 nature of things that the present-day Bolivian, 
 now that his republicanism is established after 
 a century of turbulent assimilation, will make 
 great strides in industrial progress in jus- 
 tification of the spirit that is his birthright. 
 In this altitude, so high that at first most 
 foreigners suffer from its effects, the Bo- 
 livians have built their capital and chief cities. 
 Here the first blow was struck against the 
 oppression of Spain, and in the mountain de- 
 files of the Peruvian Andes leading down to 
 the Pacific coast the last shot was fired that 
 drove the viceregal army to its transports. 
 With the departure of the Spanish came the 
 establishment, in 1825, of the Republic of 
 Bolivia, the name given to the old Buenos 
 Airean province of Alto-Peru by its first 
 president, Bolivar's famous lieutenant, Gen- 
 eral Sucre, in honor of his chief. 
 
 Bolivia is fourth in size among the South 
 American republics. It covers 708,195 
 square miles, and could include within its 
 limits the combined areas of California, 
 
 259 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Oregon, and 
 Washington. The republic lies wholly within 
 the torrid zone, but the gradation of its 
 topography extends from the yungas ("hot 
 valleys") at the border of the Amazon basin 
 to the punas, or high table-lands, ranging 
 from four to fourteen thousand feet, so that 
 animal and vegetable life of every clime is 
 represented — from the brilliantly colored fla- 
 mingo and butterfly of the Amazon plains to 
 the dread condor of the Andes; from the 
 rubber tree, through all stages of arborial 
 and plant life, to the little yellow bitter po- 
 tato, grown near the point at which vegeta- 
 tion vanishes in the Arctic cold of the higher 
 peaks. 
 
 Of course, the shortest and most direct 
 route to Bolivia's capital and chief cities is 
 by rail from either of the Pacific ports of 
 Mollendo, in Peru, or Arica or Antofagasta, 
 in Chile. The quick change of view from 
 the arid coast to the grandeur of Andean 
 mountain scenery, and the familiar comforts 
 of railway travel incline most visitors to the 
 approach from one of those points. But, as 
 the greater part of Bolivia's territory is that 
 which falls away from the plateau, like a 
 
 260 
 
BOLIVIA 
 
 lady's train, northward and eastward to the 
 frontiers of Brazil and Paraguay, a more 
 comprehensive and impressive acquaintance 
 with the country can be had by entering 
 either from the north, via the Amazon and 
 Maderia rivers to Villa Bella on the Bra- 
 zilian frontier, and thence over a thousand 
 miles on horseback to La Paz, or from the 
 east, starting from our last resting place at 
 Asuncion in Paraguay. From Asuncion one 
 travels up the Paraguay River to Corumba in 
 Brazil, thence, by a small affluent to Puerto 
 Suarez, eighty-one miles distant on the fron- 
 tier, thence by a zigzag course of eight hun- 
 dred miles up the rising elevation to Santa 
 Cruz, a thriving city of 20,000 population, 
 and thence to Cochabamba, still larger and 
 8000 feet in altitude. From here there is a 
 stage line over one hundred and ten miles of 
 mountainous country to Oruro, where con- 
 nection is made with the Antofagasta-La Paz 
 railway to the capital. 
 
 Or one may go by railroad from Buenos 
 Aires via Rosario, Cordoba and Tucuman to 
 La Quiaca on the frontier and then north for 
 only two hundred miles by stage-coach to 
 Uyuni, through which the Antofagasta-La 
 
 261 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Paz line passes on its way to the capital. 
 But, in any event, the approach from the east 
 or north richly repays the visitor for the time 
 consumed and discomfort he may have to 
 undergo on the way. The noted naturalist, 
 D'Aubigny, says of the yungas region, 
 through which one must first make his way 
 on leaving the Paraguay: "If tradition has 
 lost the records of the place where Paradise 
 is situated, the traveler who visits these re- 
 gions of Bolivia feels at once the impulse to 
 exclaim, 'Here is the lost Eden.' ' 
 
 Leaving the dense and weirdly impressive 
 tropical forests of the hinterland, the rolling 
 areas of the yungas ascend toward the 
 plateau — a succession of vast gardens deli- 
 cately scented and brilliant with color. As 
 the country is coming more under cultivation 
 each year the traveler's eye rests frequently 
 upon plantations of coffee, cacao, and coca, 
 the plant from which we get cocaine. The 
 coca leaf is highly prized by the native as a 
 stimulant; he chews it as a Northerner would 
 chew tobacco but with a better excuse, since 
 by its use he can perform great feats of en- 
 durance and go many hours without food. 
 With his pouch filled with coca leaves and a 
 
 262 
 
BOLIVIA 
 
 small supply 01 parched Indian corn, he can 
 run fifty miles a day, for these fleet-footed 
 Indians constitute the telegraph system of 
 this region. The output of the cocales, or 
 coca plantations, was nearly nine million 
 pounds last year. 
 
 This is also the home of the highly nu- 
 tritious if impossibly named jamacch'ppeke 
 plant, which, when dried and powdered and 
 mixed with water, produces a delicately fla- 
 vored milk much used in hospitals and even 
 for babies. Higher up in the valle zone wheat 
 and corn fields may be seen as well as the fa- 
 mous chincona tree, so named because, in 
 1638, the Condesa de Chinchon (wife of the 
 Peruvian Viceroy) wrote of her wonderful 
 cure from malaria by an Indian draught pre- 
 pared from the bark of this tree. It has been 
 known since as chincona or Peruvian bark, 
 but it was not until 1820 that the French 
 chemist, Pelletier, extracted from the tree 
 the calisaya or quinine with which we are 
 now familiar, and which, by the way, is said 
 to be one of the two or three natural specifics 
 ever yet discovered for disease. 
 
 On these slopes also grows the new sub- 
 stitute for wheat, quinua, a grain more nu- 
 
 263 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 tritious and more cheaply produced than its 
 northern prototype, also the delicious camote, 
 a delicately flavored type of sweet potato, 
 the palta, known in Cuba and Mexico as the 
 aguacate and in Florida as the alligator pear, 
 which makes the rich salad, and all vari- 
 ations of the sweet, pulpy fruits like the 
 pomegranate, granadilla, capote, etc. This 
 is also one of the homes of the nutmeg, olive, 
 and castor bean, and of sugar, cotton, oranges, 
 cinnamon, vanilla, saffron, indigo, and ginger ; 
 also of a remarkable variety of medicinal 
 plants: for instance, those from which are 
 derived aconite, arnica, absinthe, belladonna, 
 camphor, quassia, cocaine, digitalis, gentian, 
 ginger, ipecaque, jalap, opium, sarsaparilla, 
 tamarind, tolu and valerian. The Indians of 
 this belt are the most artistic leather workers 
 in the world, and their beautiful ponchos (a 
 sort of circular cape the mountaineers wear, 
 with a hole in the center for the head to go 
 through), woven from native silk, are eagerly 
 sought by all visitors. 
 
 Leaving this richly endowed agricultural 
 region for the still richer location of Bo- 
 livia's mineral wealth, the traveler ascends to 
 the great plateau on which the capital and 
 
 264 
 
BOLIVIA 
 
 important cities are built. At Potosi one is 
 in the heart of the great silver country. From 
 one mountain here, the Cerro de Potosi itself, 
 over three billion dollars' worth of silver 
 has been taken since its discovery in 
 1545. The luxury and almost unbeliev- 
 able extravagance told of in the annals 
 of this city have given it a world-wide fame. 
 Its principal building, the mint, cost the then 
 unprecedented sum of two million dollars, an 
 expenditure that brought many qualms to 
 the miserly ascetic, Philip II, who would 
 have preferred to pour the flood of wealth 
 into the coffers of the church. The author 
 of "Don Quixote" refers to Potosi as the 
 synonym for fabulous wealth, and there is 
 hardly a writer of the early days of the col- 
 ony who did not mention the silver mountain 
 to illustrate the idea of lavish abundance. In 
 those days silver was regarded as equally 
 valuable with gold. 
 
 Bolivia's marvelous wealth in tin is un- 
 excelled even in the Malay Peninsula. Al- 
 ready one of the chief centers of the tin indus- 
 try, this metal promises to bring to the 
 twentieth-century Bolivia as much commercial 
 fame as the gold mines brought Alto-Peru 
 
 265 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 in the sixteenth century. Copper, iron, lead 
 and bismuth, as well as topazes, emeralds, 
 opals, jasper, and marble, are also present in 
 large quantities throughout the plateau. 
 
 After descending from Potosi, which is at 
 an altitude of 15,380 feet, one should visit 
 the white city of Sucre before proceeding to 
 the present seat of government, La Paz. In 
 Bolivia the name of Sucre is as omnipresent 
 as Bolivar's in Venezuela and Colombia, and 
 most naturally when the new republic was 
 formed the name of its chief city, Charcas, 
 was changed to Sucre to honor the hero of 
 Ayacucho — Antonio Jose de Sucre — when 
 this "right hand" of Bolivar became its first 
 president. The city is ancient, kindly, and 
 romantically beautiful in its setting on the 
 eastern slope of the royal range, and once, 
 under a law enacted some eighty years ago, 
 it was the capital. 
 
 Its extreme altitude, however, made im- 
 possible the cosmopolitanism that must per- 
 tain to a capital city — the foreign diplomats 
 in most cases refused to reside there be- 
 cause of the severity of the siroche, or 
 mountain sickness, that nearly always as- 
 sails the newcomer to these altitudes. So 
 
 266 
 
SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF CAPACABANA, ON BOLIVIAN SHORE OF 
 LAKE TITICACA. 
 
 TOWN AND MOUNTAIN OF POTOSI, BOLIVIA. 
 
BOLIVIA 
 
 the seat of government was removed to 
 La Paz, and now it is the tribunal of the 
 Supreme Court and Archiepiscopal see only. 
 Here also are located the University of San 
 Francisco Xavier and the homes of many of 
 Bolivia's most aristocratic families. Thus 
 far, modernism has had a beneficial influence 
 on the city in many respects, but has not 
 changed its appearance. Its public works 
 have made it healthful and comfortable, but 
 its stately old dwellings and public buildings 
 preserve their peculiar charm unaltered to 
 suit the modern architectural taste. 
 
 Farther north, and not yet connected by 
 rail with Sucre, lies the present capital, La 
 Paz, the actual seat of government. There 
 for many years have resided the president, 
 the congress, and the representatives of the 
 foreign governments, so that the Paceno is 
 justified in looking upon his city as the 
 metropolis. Like its predecessor in this 
 distinction, it was rechristened when the 
 Spanish regime came to an end. When the 
 Conquistadores exterminated the Indians res- 
 ident on its site and built the present city, 
 for some occult reason they named it La 
 Ciudad de Nuestra Seiiora de la Paz! Our 
 
 267 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Lady of Peace clung to the name, no doubt, 
 with grim humor during the turbulent times 
 that followed, until the decisive battle of 
 Ayacucho brought to the nation a more 
 effective peace from Spanish oppression, and 
 to-day La Paz de Ayacucho is the official 
 name of the seat of government. 
 
 La Paz, Quito, Bogota, Caracas, and Mex- 
 ico are the five highest capitals in the world, 
 but the first-named is loftier by half a mile 
 than any of its rivals. The visitor is always 
 surprised at the location of La Paz. Hav- 
 ing been told of its great elevation — 12,300 
 feet above the sea level, he naturally ex- 
 pects to see a city perched on a high moun- 
 tain; in fact, it is at the bottom of a deep 
 canyon, backed, however, by the giant peak 
 Illimani, which towers above, to a height of 
 22,500 feet. Its startling location results in 
 daily variations in temperature that greatly 
 incommode the stranger; frequently the ther- 
 mometer drops from 80° F. at noon to below 
 zero at night, although generally these ex- 
 tremes vary but little during the year. 
 
 Winding cautiously down the canyon to a 
 depth of some 1500 feet, the train comes to 
 a terrace overlooking the city and then un- 
 
 268 
 
BOLIVIA 
 
 folds before the traveler one of the most re- 
 markable and picturesque scenes in South 
 America. The reds of the roofs of the flat, 
 two-story houses and the softer tints of the 
 walls that make Caracas so alluring are here 
 given a more brilliant and positive tone. The 
 Oriental atmosphere is tempered by the 
 rugged surroundings and the crisper, clearer 
 air of the higher altitude. Everywhere the 
 bright, elemental colors — red, green, and 
 yellow — worn by the Indians, add to the 
 brilliant scenes of outdoor life. The streets of 
 the city are a series of steep ascents, admirable 
 for drainage, no doubt, but affording little 
 pleasure to the visitor who is fond of walk- 
 ing, for to the newcomer the rarified at- 
 mosphere makes exercise a trial. Surpassing 
 Rome in one respect, La Paz seems to be 
 built upon at least fifty hills, but many level 
 areas are laid off in beautiful parks, a dozen 
 or more in number, and here the Paceno 
 brings his guests for the delightful social 
 intercourse — perfected here for long cen- 
 turies for want of many of the other amuse- 
 ments — that makes his city memorable to the 
 visitor. 
 
 One of the most attractive parks, the 
 269 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Plaza Murillo, is named to commemorate the 
 inspiring genius of the revolution against 
 Spain: Pedro Domingo Murillo. The Ala- 
 meda is a broad driveway of five parallel 
 avenues that run for over half a mile through 
 rows of fine shade trees. At night it is 
 lighted with electricity and makes a delightful 
 pleasure ground for the people. An exten- 
 sion of this boulevard, the Avenida Doce de 
 Deciembre, leads to Obrajes, about three 
 miles distant. 
 
 The most notable building in the city 
 is the great cathedral. For more than sev- 
 enty years it has been in course of construc- 
 tion and when completed will be the largest 
 and most impressive church erected in Latin 
 America since the war of independence. In 
 style it is Greco-Roman, with a central cupola 
 150 feet high and two towers that rise to a 
 height of 200 feet. The interior work is of 
 exceptional magnificence. Like many of the 
 old cathedrals of Spanish origin, its altar is 
 of wonderfully carved wood. Besides the 
 cathedral, La Paz can boast more than a 
 dozen places of worship that compare fa- 
 vorably with the churches of other South 
 American capitals. 
 
 270 
 
BOLIVIA 
 
 Only a short distance from La Paz by- 
 railroad are the prehistoric ruins of Tia- 
 huanaco, which Squier tells us 
 
 "Have been regarded by all students of American 
 antiquities as in many respects the most interesting;, 
 important and at the same time the most enigmatical, 
 of any on the continent. They have excited the won- 
 der and admiration alike of the earliest and latest 
 travelers, most of whom, vanquished in their attempts 
 to penetrate the mystery of their origin, have been 
 content to assign them an antiquity beyond that of 
 the other monuments of America and to regard them 
 as the solitary remains of a civilization that disap- 
 peared before that of the Incas began, and contem- 
 poraneous with that of Egypt and the East. . . . 
 Tradition, which mumbles more or less intelligibly 
 of the origin of many other American monuments, is 
 dumb concerning these." 
 
 They are on a broad, arid plain, overlook- 
 ing Lake Titicaca, about twelve miles from 
 the shore, and occupy about a square mile. 
 In his description of them Mozans says: "In 
 addition to a number of shapeless mounds, of 
 earth, there are remarkable traces of five 
 different stone structures, which writers, for 
 the purpose of classification" (and because 
 of their resemblance to plans of such build- 
 ings elsewhere), "have agreed to call the 
 
 271 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 fortress, the palace, the temple, the sanctuary, 
 and the hall of justice." 
 
 "The materials used in their construction, " 
 he goes on, 
 
 "Are trachyte, basalt, and red sandstone. The 
 fortress, to judge from its present condition, orig- 
 inally resembled a Mexican teocalli, or the pyramid of 
 Sakkarah in Egypt, and must, when first erected, 
 have presented a very imposing appearance. It is 
 a great, terraced mound of earth, supported by stone 
 walls, is 50 feet high, 620 feet long, and 450 in 
 width. It is, however, in a very dilapidated condi- 
 tion, owing to the depredations of treasure-seekers 
 and to its having been for centuries used as a quarry 
 whence material was obtained for buildings in the 
 neighboring towns, for the railroad and for struc- 
 tures in La Paz. The temple is in the form of a 
 rectangle, 388 by 445 feet. It has been very ap- 
 propriately called the American Stonehenge, to which, 
 at least in some of its monoliths, it bears a striking 
 resemblance. 
 
 "The other three edifices, especially at the hall of 
 justice, are likewise remarkable for the area they 
 occupy and for the cyclopean masses of stone that still 
 remain to attest the extraordinary character of their 
 construction. It is these wonderful megaliths, rival- 
 ing anything found in Italy, Greece, or Asia Minor, 
 that have excited the astonishment of travelers since 
 the time of the conquest. The platform, for instance, 
 in the hall of justice, is paved with immense slabs, 
 some of which are 25 feet long, 14 feet broad, and 
 nearly 7 feet thick. But the most remarkable fea- 
 
 272 
 
BOLIVIA 
 
 ture in these cyclopean structures is the great mono- 
 lithic gateway, of very hard trachyte, ornamented 
 with numerous well-executed sculptures, apparently 
 of a symbolical character. This is more than 13 feet 
 long, 7 feet above ground, and 18 inches thick. Some 
 of the stones are in a rough, unhewn condition, but 
 most of them are cut and fashioned in a most re- 
 markable manner. Squier, in referring to this feature 
 of these extraordinary ruins, writes: 'Remove the 
 superstructures of the best-built edifices of our cities, 
 and few, if any, would expose foundations laid with 
 equal care and none of them stones cut with such 
 accuracy.' " 
 
 In a short time the new home of the 
 president and national congress will be fin- 
 ished and occupied, and the stately old pal- 
 ace where the president now resides will be 
 devoted to other uses. The city is well en- 
 dowed with public service conveniences, elec- 
 tricity, telephones, and handsome public 
 buildings, and its hotels are among the best 
 to be found anywhere on the continent out- 
 side of Buenos Aires, Rio and Valparaiso. 
 
 Of the 80,000 inhabitants, but one thou- 
 sand are foreigners. As soon as the rail- 
 ways now projected to radiate from this cen- 
 ter are completed, the city will be thrown 
 open to all the bustle of cosmopolitanism, and 
 much of the charm given it by the old 
 
 273 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Spanish characteristics will be swept away. 
 But the nation will profit vastly by the 
 change. The development of its agricultural 
 and mineral resources should multiply its 
 population of 2,500,000 by ten, and make 
 of the country a Mecca for the capitalist from 
 the North as well as the tourist in search of 
 nature's wonders and beauties. 
 
 274 
 
VII 
 
 CHILE 
 
 "y^HILE," which, by a curious coinci- 
 ly dence, had about the same signifi- 
 cance in the Inca language that our 
 word "chilly" has in English, is the name that 
 was originally given by the Incas to that part 
 of the Pacific slope of the Andes which lies 
 beyond the river Maule, the southern boun- 
 dary of their great empire. At the time of 
 the Spanish conquest, the first Governor, 
 Pedro de Yaldivia, dubbed it "Nueva Es- 
 tremadura," after his native province in 
 Spain, and so called it in his official commu- 
 nications, yet not only did the Inca name 
 cling to the country south of the Maule but 
 soon it was popularly applied to that in the 
 north as well, as far up as Peru. And so 
 when, some years afterward (says the his- 
 torian Rosales), the Emperor Charles V of 
 
 275 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Germany, who was also King of Spain, was 
 negotiating the marriage of his son Philip 
 with Mary, Queen of England, and was told 
 that, being a sovereign in her own right, she 
 would enter into such an alliance only with 
 a reigning monarch, he caused Philip to be 
 crowned King of Chile and Naples, and thus 
 incidentally, in distinguishing the province 
 above his other American possessions, con- 
 firmed its original name, and Chile it has 
 been called ever since. 
 
 The territory of the present republic con- 
 sists of a strip of land of most extraordinary 
 conformation lying between the main Cor- 
 dillera of the Andes and the sea. It has an 
 average width of less than a hundred miles, 
 yet stretches for nearly three thousand miles 
 from a point in the tropics considerably above 
 the center of the continent, clear down to 
 Cape Horn, crossing thirty-eight degrees of 
 latitude and embracing an area of nearly 
 291,500 square miles. A strip of the same 
 length in North America would reach from 
 Key West to northern Labrador, or, if 
 measured along the Rocky Mountains, from 
 Mexico to the Yukon in Alaska. Reckoned 
 in square miles, it is larger than any country 
 
 276 
 
CHILE 
 
 in Europe except Russia, though it has a 
 population, according to the last census 
 (1907), of only 3,254,451— less than that of 
 the city and suburbs of Paris or of New 
 York. In foreign commerce Chile ranks third 
 among the South American republics. In 
 1910 it amounted in value to $228,604,198.64. 
 The principal exports are silver, copper, ni- 
 trates, borax, sulphur, vegetable products, 
 wines and liquors. Her exchange of com- 
 merce with the United States amounted to 
 $38,050,652. 
 
 On ordinary maps this narrow Chilean half 
 of the Andean region looks like a mere strip 
 of coast traversed by a single range. As a 
 consequence, it is not generally understood 
 by those who have not visited the country 
 that there is really here, as in Bolivia, Peru 
 and Ecuador, a double formation, connected 
 by transverse ridges in places, but perfectly 
 distinct, known as the Andes proper, or main 
 Cordillera, and the coast range, or western 
 Cordillera. Between the two systems is a vast 
 plateau, called the central valley, which be- 
 gins in the northern Province of Atacama, 
 and, gradually decreasing in height, extends 
 south for seven hundred miles, with an aver- 
 
 277 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 age width of from fifty to sixty miles, 
 through the Province of Llanquihue, about 
 two-thirds of the way down the coast, where 
 it disappears, with the coast range itself, in 
 the long series of groups of islands into 
 which the shore line is broken up. From its 
 culminating point back of Santiago, the main 
 Cordillera also decreases in height toward 
 the south, but, instead of disappearing with 
 the coast range, extends throughout the whole 
 length of the country, from Peru to the 
 southernmost islands of the Fuegian archi- 
 pelago, forming the most magnificent back- 
 ground imaginable to the view from the sea. 
 
 In the northern section, between the Boliv- 
 ian frontier and Coquimbo, there are more 
 than thirty extinct or dormant volcanoes of 
 great altitude — Toroni (21,340 feet, or about 
 four miles, high), Pular (21,325 feet high), 
 Iquima (20,275 feet), Aucasquilucha (20,260 
 feet), Llulaillaco (20,253 feet), San Jose 
 (20,020 feet), Socompa (19,940 feet), and 
 many others over 17,000 feet. Imagine these 
 in contrast with Etna (10,875 feet) and Ve- 
 suvius, which is only 3800 feet, not as high 
 as the cones of some of them alone. South 
 of the Province of Copaibo, the main range 
 
 278 
 
CHILE 
 
 itself develops a plateau formation that is 
 crossed by several relatively low passes, such 
 as the Portezuelo de Come Caballo (14,530 
 feet), Los Patos (11,700 feet), and, farther 
 south, on a line with Valparaiso, the Uspal- 
 lata Cumbre (12,795 feet). Although little 
 used even now because of its extremely rug- 
 ged character, Los Patos is associated with 
 perhaps the most memorable event in the war 
 of independence. It was there that, in the 
 execution of that strategic movement which 
 South American historians say excelled that 
 of Hannibal in the Pyrenees and Napoleon's 
 crossing of the Alps, the Liberator San 
 Martin safely made his way through with 
 his whole army in 1817 — artillery, impedi- 
 menta, and all — and, within five days, joined 
 forces with the Chilean hero, O'Higgins, sur- 
 prised the Royalist army awaiting him on 
 the plain opposite the Cumbre below, fought 
 the great battle of Chacabuco, and entered 
 Santiago in triumph. 
 
 But this lower Uspallata Pass, which has 
 always been the principal means of land com- 
 munication with Argentina, was destined to 
 become famous in another way, because (as 
 already mentioned in the chapter on Argen- 
 
 279 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 tina), it was the place chosen as the most 
 suitable for the route of the Chilean- Argen- 
 tine transcontinental railroad, connection be- 
 tween the eastern and western sections of 
 which was established in April, 1910, by- 
 completion of a tunnel through the mountain 
 two miles long and half a mile beneath the 
 Cumbre — a work of the utmost importance, 
 for, aside from the matter of comfort and 
 saving of time, it has made it possible to go 
 from one country to the other by the land 
 route in winter, when the pass above is cov- 
 ered with drifts and the deadly winds and 
 snowstorms are so likely to whirl down on 
 the traveler at any moment that few except 
 the hardy mail-carriers ever dared attempt it. 
 In this neighborhood the mountains at- 
 tain their greatest altitude. A few miles to 
 the north and visible a little distance from 
 the Cumbre is the "Monarch of the Andes," 
 Aconcagua, which, according to the record 
 at the Harvard University Observatory in 
 Arequipa (Peru), is 24,760 feet (more than 
 four miles and a half) high — the highest in 
 the world, it is now regarded, next to Mt. 
 Everest in the Himalayas. In his interesting 
 story of the ascent of Aconcagua, Sir Mar- 
 
 280 
 
CHILE 
 
 tin Conway, one of the very few who ever suc- 
 ceeded in accomplishing it, gives a good idea 
 of the region, viewed from a point near the 
 lesser of the two summits. "At last I heard 
 a shout and looked up and saw Maquignaz a 
 yard or two above my head," he says, 
 
 "Standing on the crest of the bed of snow that 
 crowned the arete. In a moment I was beside him and 
 Argentina lay at our feet. The southern snow face, 
 delusively precipitous though actually as steep as 
 snow can lie, dropped in a single fall to the glacier 
 two miles below. To the right and left for over a 
 mile there stretched, like the fine edge of an incurved 
 blade, the sharp snow arete that reaches from the 
 slightly lower southern summit to the northern. It 
 forms the top edge of the great snow slope down 
 which we were looking, and is only visible from the 
 Horcones valley side as a delicate silver crest, edging 
 the rocks. At many points it overhung in big cor- 
 nices, like frozen waves about to break. The day 
 had thus far been fine, but clouds were now gathering 
 in the east. Fearful lest the view might soon be 
 blotted out, I took a few photographs before moving 
 on. The view abroad from this point differed little 
 from that which we finally obtained. To the south 
 was Tupungato (22,408 feet), a majestic pile of 
 snow, over which even more majestic clouds were pres- 
 ently to mount aloft. To the north was the still 
 grander Mercedario (22,315 feet), beheld around 
 the flank of the final rocks. In the west were the 
 hills, dropping lower and lower to the Chilean shore, 
 and then the purple ocean. To the northeast, like 
 
 281 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 another ocean, lay the flat surface of the Argentine 
 pampas. Elsewhere the Cordillera, in long parallel 
 ridges running roughly north and south, stretched 
 its great length along, crowding together into an 
 inextricable tangle the distant peaks, partly hidden 
 by the near summits, which alone interrupted the 
 completeness of the panorama." 
 
 All the high peaks are said to be of vol- 
 canic origin. Those from Mercedario to 
 Tupungato are precipitous and craggy and 
 decked with great glaciers. The sky line is 
 jagged, like the walls of a ruined castle. Be- 
 low the snow, the rocks are richly colored. 
 There are vast palisades of dark reds and 
 browns, slopes of purple streaked with yel- 
 low, and all sorts of other gorgeous combina- 
 tions, and, down in the lower valleys, brilliant 
 greens. The streams of melting snow pour- 
 ing down the sides seem to take on tints that 
 correspond. In some places they flow red, as 
 with blood from the breast of a giant ; in others, 
 with the sun gleaming on them, they look 
 like molten gold. The main branch of the 
 Rio Mendoza, for instance, above Cuevas on 
 the Argentine side, seems pink at first, and, 
 lower down, after mixing with the waters of 
 its tributaries, changes to a golden brown. It 
 
 282 
 
CHILE 
 
 is one of those scenes that artists are always 
 accused of exaggerating and adding fanciful 
 touches to when they attempt the poor repro- 
 ductions that the greatest only can give, so 
 far are they beyond human skill to portray — 
 one of those scenes that few mortals are gifted 
 enough to comprehend the unutterable maj- 
 esty and magnificence of even when they have 
 an opportunity to view the originals. Even 
 Burton Holmes, the great globe-trotter and 
 lecturer, in relating his impression in a re- 
 cent article, confesses that he could not ap- 
 preciate it at first. 
 
 "Naturally, we were eager at least to see 
 this monarch mountain — Aconcagua, the 
 King of the Cordillera," he says. 
 
 "Accordingly, we organized a little expedition, 
 and, under the guidance of the capable young Brit- 
 isher who is in charge of the livestock of the camp 
 at Puente del Inca, and his Chilean 'Capitaz,' or chief 
 man, we rode away up a lateral valley toward a well- 
 known point of view, whence Aconcagua could be 
 clearly seen. A snow-clad mountain looms up at the 
 end of that barren valley. 'That's a rather fine peak,' 
 I remarked. 'Well, rather,' replied the Englishman. 
 'That's the one you have come to see; that's Acon- 
 cagua.' We were astounded, for the mountain seemed 
 no huger than the Jungfrau, as viewed from Inter- 
 laken. In fact, it greatly resembles the Jungfrau in 
 
 283 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 form and outline, and its setting, from this point of 
 view, is similar. We had expected to be overwhelmed 
 at sight of some sharp, tremendous, towering shape — 
 some magnified Matterhorn. What we beheld was 
 like a section of a snowy range — a culminating sec- 
 tion of that range, perhaps — but not a sharply de- 
 fined peak. Yet we were looking at the highest crest 
 of the Western Hemisphere. Everything about us 
 was on a scale so vast that even Aconcagua was 
 dwarfed by the tremendous setting." 
 
 The next great division of the range is 
 defined on the north by the Maipo Pass and 
 by Las Demas Pass on the south. Its princi- 
 pal heights are between 16,000 and 17,000 
 feet. From Las Demas on, few are over 
 10,000 feet, and, beyond Copahue, near the 
 source of the Bio-bio River, the average is 
 about 9000. Beyond the volcano Tronador 
 (the Thunderer), in the latitude of Lake 
 Llanquihue, and as far as Lake Buenos Aires, 
 it consists of a series of Swisslike mountains, 
 still decreasing in height, but with an oc- 
 casional high peak, such as San Valentin 
 (12,720 feet), and glaciers growing ever 
 larger and more numerous. San Valentin 
 towers in the midst of an elevated ice field 
 eighty miles long and thirty wide and sends 
 down two great glacial streams, one to the 
 
 284 
 
CHILE 
 
 south and the other into the San Rafael Lake, 
 where the ice glides along the bottom until it 
 breaks into fragments that drift away in the 
 channel of Morelada. All these places can 
 now be reached by railroad or steamer. 
 
 No conception of the Chilean country as 
 a whole can be formed, however, unless it is 
 understood that it is naturally divided into 
 zones, as characteristically dissimilar as are the 
 various grand divisions of the United States. 
 For instance, there is the Magellan and 
 Fuegian region, where, to the east of the 
 mountain ranges, the great Argentine pampa 
 extends clear down through Tierra del Fuego, 
 and where, as the climate is too rigorous to 
 invite agricultural pursuits, the principal in- 
 dustry, and the only important one, aside 
 from a small amount of lumbering and gold 
 mining, is the raising of herds of sheep and 
 cattle. With the exception of the ranchers 
 and the ten or twelve thousand people of 
 Punta Arenas — which is the only port of call 
 in these parts, and is, therefore, the dis- 
 tributing and shipping point for all the enor- 
 mous expanse of country round about, includ- 
 ing the southern section of Argentine Pata- 
 gonia — the inhabitants are of the lower order 
 
 285 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of Indians and live in the forests, supporting 
 themselves by hunting and fishing, just as 
 they did before they ever saw or heard of a 
 white man. 
 
 Then there is the island, lake, and forest 
 region between Smyth Channel, say, and 
 Valdivia. In the southern part, the princi- 
 pal industries are lumbering and fishing, but 
 in the north, especially in the Province of 
 Chiloe (both the island and mainland) and in 
 Llanquihue, there are also wheat and barley 
 fields, and the fruit, dairy, and cattle-raising 
 industries rank ahead of the timber and fish- 
 ing, though in Chiloe this last is among the 
 most important. The inhabitants are mostly 
 immigrants, mestizos, and Indians, though of 
 a better and far more amenable class than the 
 races farther south. Most of them are de- 
 scendants of those famous Araucanians, whom 
 it took nearly four hundred years to subdue. 
 Here, throughout nearly the whole of the 
 country, in the uplands as well as near the 
 coast, is the towering alerce (the Chilean 
 pine), often two hundred feet high, sometimes 
 two hundred and fifty, which has a superb 
 white trunk, varying from ten to fifteen feet 
 in diameter, according to height — the rival of 
 
 286 
 
CHILE 
 
 the California giant redwoods — and here is the 
 dingue, that resembles the mighty German 
 oak, and supplies wood for railroad cars, 
 carriages, casks, and ship-building, of won- 
 derful toughness and durability. There are 
 cypress, walnut, cedar, ash, beech, and others 
 excellent for general building and cabinet 
 purposes, too, and other species of value for 
 their barks. 
 
 Then, from Valdivia north through the 
 Province of Coquimbo, comes the great cen- 
 tral valley, which is excelled by few, if any, 
 of the temperate agricultural regions of the 
 world. It is here, of course, that the princi- 
 pal centers of population are located — Val- 
 paraiso, the most important seaport south of 
 San Francisco, and Santiago, the capital, and 
 the ports of Concepcion and La Serena, or Co- 
 quimbo. In this region all the cereals, fruits, 
 and vegetables are produced in abundance. 
 There are immense vineyards and sugar-beet 
 and tobacco plantations, stock and dairy farms, 
 copper, silver, and coal mines, and factories 
 of almost every description. 
 
 North of Coquimbo are the desert provinces 
 of Atacama, Antofagasta, Tarapaca, and 
 Tacna, where the rain so seldom falls that no 
 
 287 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 useful vegetation can thrive except in a few 
 places where irrigation is possible, yet which 
 are the chief source of Chile's revenue and 
 wealth. These constitute the fourth, or al- 
 most exclusively mineral zone, and, aside from 
 their gold and silver and copper, contain the 
 famous nitrate of soda beds, the only known 
 extensive deposit of the kind in the world, 
 though here they are found thickly scattered 
 over a strip four hundred and sixty miles 
 long, averaging about three miles in width. 
 Every year more than 2,000,000 tons (in 1910 
 it was 2,367,000 tons, worth $86,018,000) are 
 exported to fertilize the fields and make the 
 gunpowder of Europe and the United States, 
 to say nothing of the iodine and other by- 
 products extracted in the process of prepara- 
 tion. "Plants make use of nitrogen only 
 when it is present in the soil in the form of 
 nitrates," says the Pan American Bulletin 
 (Review Number, August, 1911) — 
 
 "And nitrate of soda is the only fertilizer that con- 
 tains this food in a suitable and available form. The 
 manner of using it, once it is applied, is the subject 
 of technical, agricultural chemistry, but every year 
 it is better understood and results are more satisfac- 
 tory. On the first discovery of the value of nitrate, 
 it was scattered promiscuously in the soil in its crude 
 
 288 
 
CHILE 
 
 form, just as it was taken from the beds in Chile. 
 As the industry advanced, it was found that it was 
 more economical to export a purer mineral, and that, 
 also, the purer the mineral, the more plant nourish- 
 ment it offered, provided that the need of the plant 
 was carefully investigated. The results have been a 
 more highly developed agriculture and the saving of 
 certain by-products, of which iodine is one, the profit 
 from which aids the manufacture. Another use for 
 nitrate is in the manufacture of nitric acid, and, ulti- 
 mately, of many kinds of explosives. . . . 
 
 "Saltpeter, or nitrate of soda, is found mixed with 
 other substances. The beds contain four layers of 
 material, the next lowest being that of the nitrate 
 itself. Above this are the chuca, on the surface, 
 which is nothing more than the accumulation of ages ; 
 the costra beneath, a harder and older mass, but still 
 a somewhat worthless debris ; the caliche, the real 
 nitrate of soda, and, finally, the stratum of bed rock 
 called gova. To obtain the nitrate, a shaft is sunk 
 to the gova, on which powder is placed and exploded ; 
 the overlying mass is thrown up and the caliche con- 
 taining the nitrate scattered over the ground. This 
 is then collected and taken to the refining works for 
 preparation into refined or almost pure nitrate of 
 soda, ready for export. In the oficinas" (refining 
 works) "machinery of the most economical and effec- 
 tive pattern is used, and the methods of refining the 
 salt are according to the best researches of industrial 
 chemistry. The same is true of the facilities for 
 transportation to the steamer. Many small but well- 
 equipped railways are in operation in the fields, and 
 they carry the product to the coast towns, from which 
 they are finally shipped abroad. . . . Great Britain 
 
 289 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 takes about forty per cent., Germany and the United 
 States each about twenty per cent., France about ten 
 per cent., and the remainder goes to such far-away 
 places as Egypt, Japan, the Hawaiian Islands, and 
 Australia. In fact, without nitrate the great agri- 
 cultural producers cannot advance" 
 
 And it is well for Chile that these nitrate 
 deposits have proven of such great value — 
 they were acquired only at the cost of a long 
 and expensive war. Formerly the Province 
 of Antofagasta belonged to Bolivia and the 
 Provinces of Tarapaca and Tacna to Peru. 
 The dividing line between Chile and Bolivia, 
 it appears, had always been a bone of conten- 
 tion, and, in 1866, while these republics were 
 allied in a war with Spain, a treaty had been 
 entered into between them, fixing a boundary 
 and agreeing that the citizens of either should 
 have the right to engage in mining operations 
 in the territory of the other, and export the 
 products free of all taxation, within a certain 
 limited area. It appears also that in 1870 
 Bolivia, for a money consideration, granted 
 to a company composed of Chileans and Eng- 
 lishmen the right to work the nitrate beds 
 both in and north of the treaty area, also to 
 construct a mole at the port of Antofagasta 
 
 290 
 
CHILE 
 
 and a road to Caracoles, where rich silver 
 mines had been discovered. The mole was 
 constructed and not only a road but a rail- 
 road, and the company is said to have invested 
 heavily in various plants for the preparation 
 of the nitrate and the reduction of the silver 
 ore. As a result, as it was contended, it was 
 Chilean and British capital, and principally 
 Chilean energy and labor that developed the 
 wealth of the region. 
 
 It further appears that, in 1873, Bolivia and 
 Peru had entered into a secret alliance, by the 
 terms of which each was to protect the others 
 independence and territorial integrity from 
 foreign aggression, and that in 1874 another 
 treaty between Chile and Bolivia was negoti- 
 ated, having in view the settlement of certain 
 differences, but which the Bolivian Congress 
 had refused to ratify except on condition that 
 an export duty on nitrates should thereafter 
 be paid. Chile remonstrated, contending that 
 such a tax would be in violation of the treaty 
 of 1866. Bolivia, it was charged, sought to 
 impose it nevertheless and seized the property 
 of the Chileno-British company on default in 
 payment. The situation having thus become 
 acute, Chile sent a fleet to protect the in- 
 
 291 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 terests of her citizens and blockaded the port 
 of Antofagasta. At this stage Peru, doubly- 
 concerned because of her secret alliance and 
 because Chileans had acquired rights in her 
 own nitrate fields in Tarapaca, offered her 
 services as mediator, but no agreement could 
 be reached and she became involved in the 
 dispute herself, and, because of her more ac- 
 cessible situation, it fell to her lot to bear the 
 chief burden of the defence in the war that 
 followed. 
 
 In spite of the heroic sacrifices of her offi- 
 cers and the desperate courage with which 
 her soldiers fought, especially toward the last, 
 in nearly every battle, on both land and sea, 
 the Chileans were successful, and at last, 
 when they had taken Lima itself and made 
 their victory complete, the provinces in ques- 
 tion were ceded to her provisionally and have 
 been developed to their present importance 
 under her protection. The half-breed de- 
 scendants of the Aymaras and Incas, of which 
 the rank and file of the Peruvian and Bo- 
 livian armies were composed, were no match 
 for the virile roto, in whose veins flowed the 
 fiery blood of the Basque and Biscayan 
 pioneers, mingled with that of the spirited, 
 warlike aborigines of Chile. 
 
 292 
 
CHILE 
 
 If, in making the grand tour of the conti- 
 nent one goes first to Bolivia and visits Chile 
 by way of the railroad from La Paz instead 
 of going directly from Argentina over the 
 transandean road or by steamer through the 
 Strait of Magellan, one comes to the end of 
 the trip at this very port of Antofagasta, 
 which lies basking in the tropical sun on a 
 strip of coast at the foot of a low table-land, 
 seven hundred miles north of Valparaiso, in 
 the heart of the rainless desert. It is very 
 different, this region, from the bleak plateau 
 up the twelve-thousand-foot slope, with its 
 llama trains and poncho-clad natives. Antofa- 
 gasta has a population of about 20,000, good 
 broad streets, and a very businesslike appear- 
 ance. It is a city that looks like one of our 
 Western mining towns, and impresses one at 
 first glance with its evidences of a more vigor- 
 ous and ambitious civilization. There is a 
 large oficina for the preparation of nitrate, 
 steam tramcar lines, smelters for the treat- 
 ment of copper and silver ores, long rows of 
 barracks for the housing of the laborers, cor- 
 rugated iron warehouses, crowds of ships in 
 the offing taking on cargoes of nitrate and 
 metals or unloading supplies; yet there are 
 a plaza and promenade and hotels, and most 
 
 293 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of the residences of the officers of the compa- 
 nies are decidedly attractive. 
 
 For, in addition to being a nitrate and min- 
 ing port, this is one of the principal gateways 
 through which Bolivia's commodities still come 
 and her own products are sent out, and is the 
 distributing center for the Chilean province 
 besides, where the land is so barren that the 
 inhabitants are dependent on the outside world 
 for almost everything. There was a time 
 when even water had to be imported into the 
 city itself — it used to be said that they drank 
 champagne because water was too expensive 
 — but not long ago a conduit was constructed 
 and now it is piped from the mountains, 250 
 miles away; and they have even brought soil 
 from the south with which to make gardens to 
 adorn their plaza and promenade and the 
 grounds near the club where the Britishers 
 have their tennis courts and five o'clock teas. 
 It is said that of the $127,000,000 invested 
 in the hundred or more oficinas generally 
 throughout the region, $53,500,000 are Eng- 
 lish, $52,500,000 Chilean, and the rest Ger- 
 man; so here, of course, as in the greater port 
 of Iquique in the Province of Tarapaca, a 
 large proportion of the people, other than the 
 
 294 
 
CHILE 
 
 laboring class, is English, and certain it is 
 that the brisk, clean-cut Anglo-Saxon is very- 
 much in evidence, both in town and out along 
 the plants lining the railroad. 
 
 ii 
 
 As Antofagasta is not connected with 
 Valparaiso by railroad, the only practicable 
 way of getting there is by steamer. This is 
 rather unfortunate for the tourist, because, 
 although the accommodations are comfort- 
 able enough, the progress is slower and what 
 is to be seen along the coast is nowhere near as 
 interesting and attractive as in the central val- 
 ley. Except at widely separated intervals, 
 where the hills part at the mouths of the few 
 shallow rivers or about the bays, the shore all 
 the way down is dominated by steep, rocky 
 cliffs, so high, when the ship's course is near 
 the coast, as to conceal the country be- 
 hind. The only signs of life are where little 
 ports, usually mere clusters of tin-roofed 
 huts, are huddled on the beach, sometimes 
 with a railroad climbing up the cliffs and 
 back into the mining country beyond. Occa- 
 sionally there is a city, such as La Serena; 
 
 295 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 but, unless one has plenty of time to spare, 
 these do not repay a stopover until the next 
 boat. 
 
 Valparaiso (Vale of Paradise) is built at 
 the foot of a mountain ridge, divided by deep 
 ravines into nineteen separate cerros, or hills, 
 that slope down to a wide bay, opening into 
 the sea on the north. Encircling the beach is 
 an embankment of masonry, called the Male- 
 con, which considerably broadens the water 
 front and serves as a protection — though 
 there have been occasions when it has not 
 proven a very effective one — from the heavy 
 seas that are driven in by the "northers" dur- 
 ing the two stormy winter months. The prin- 
 cipal streets run parallel with the embank- 
 ment and increase in number in the sections 
 where the cerros recede, diminishing again 
 where they extend almost to the water's edge. 
 In one section, away around near the end, 
 there is scarcely room enough for the tracks of 
 the railroad that connects the city with its 
 beautiful, fashionable suburb, Vina del Mar. 
 Many have their homes on the terraced sides 
 and tops of the cerros, which are connected 
 one with another by handsome bridges and 
 made accessible from the streets below by 
 
 296 
 
CHILE 
 
 inclined railways and elevators, so that, viewed 
 from the entrance to the bay, the city has the 
 appearance of a huge amphitheater. 
 
 The city has a population of nearly 250,- 
 000, but, as some one else has remarked, "As 
 the principal port of the west coast, and, in a 
 way, the 'downtown' for the capital and the 
 rest of Chile, Valparaiso seems more im- 
 portant than its mere population would indi- 
 cate, and, although the newspapers and street 
 signs are in Spanish and Spanish is the lan- 
 guage generally spoken, it has little of the 
 look of the old Spanish- American town." A 
 large element of the population is foreign. 
 The Germans are said to have the largest 
 colony and the Italians and French to come 
 next in order. These are mostly retail mer- 
 chants of the better class; but it is here also 
 that the men live who design and control the 
 vast nitrate and mining enterprises in the 
 north and the capitalists who finance the big 
 industrial projects and railway development, 
 the exporters and importers, bankers, brokers, 
 and insurance men, and among these the ten 
 or twelve thousand English in the city pre- 
 dominate. The better-educated class of Chil- 
 eans speak English as well as Spanish and 
 
 297 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 French. The French have almost a monop- 
 oly of the retail trade having to do with fash- 
 ionable apparel and luxuries, for Paris has 
 always been the Mecca of the smart set here 
 and in Santiago, just as it has in Rio de 
 Janeiro and Buenos Aires. 
 
 Although there are parts of the city that 
 still retain something of the old-world aspect, 
 the buildings generally are modern — many of 
 them new, since it had to be largely rebuilt 
 after the great earthquake in 1906, which was 
 relatively as disastrous there as the one in San 
 Francisco of the same year was to our prin- 
 cipal Pacific port. There are few tall build- 
 ings and no skyscrapers, yet the main busi- 
 ness street, the Calle Victoria, which parallels 
 the Malecon almost the entire length, pre- 
 sents an array of government buildings, 
 banks, hotels, theaters, cafes, retail shops, and 
 office buildings larger and more substantial 
 and elaborate than can be seen almost any- 
 where in cities of that size. The shops are of 
 good size, and leave nothing to be desired in 
 the way of assortment and quality of their 
 stocks. Probably the most attractive of all 
 the streets is the Avenida Brazil, which is 
 at once a shaded boulevard, business thor- 
 
 298 
 
CHILE 
 
 oughfare, and fashionable promenade. There 
 are trolley cars — with women conductors — 
 and arc lights, libraries, first-class educational 
 institutions, beautiful parks and plazas where 
 they have public band concerts in the even- 
 ings, attractive residence districts, and near 
 by, at Vina del Mar, there are sea bathing, 
 tennis, racing, football, golf, country clubs, 
 and a first-class hotel for those who are not 
 so fortunate as to have their own houses. 
 Only about sixty miles away (though it is 
 farther by the railroad, which has to make a 
 detour to get through the coast range) is 
 the capital, Santiago, the real metropolis of 
 the country. 
 
 "Santiago, the Andean city of the snow 
 white crown," as Marie Robinson Wright 
 was moved to describe it — 
 
 "Is unique in the charm of her unconventional 
 beauty and the rugged splendor of her surroundings. 
 Like a queen in the giant castle that nature has given 
 her, with walls of the imperishable granites of the 
 Cordilleras and towers reaching to the skies, she seems 
 created for the homage of those who gaze upon her. 
 Her face is toward the sunset, as if in expectation 
 of the high destiny that awaits this land of promise in 
 the golden west of South America; and, from the 
 snowy peaks behind her, marked clear against the 
 
 299 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 blue sky, to the farthest limit westward, bordered by 
 the boundless Pacific, there is no alien territory to 
 limit the prospect of her fair domain. Her jewels, 
 rare and resplendent, are the rich emerald of the 
 Andean valleys, the matchless sapphire of Andean 
 skies, the pure diamonds of Andean streams. Her 
 royal robes are woven of the marvelous purple and 
 gold of Andean sunsets, unrivaled in brilliancy, and 
 imparting to her gracious beauty the glow of infinite 
 loveliness, as they envelop her utterly, catching even 
 the snowy peaks of her sovereign diadem in their 
 magic folds." 
 
 Nor is this in the least overdrawn. No city 
 could be more delightfully situated. It lies 
 in the great central valley, on a plateau forty 
 miles long and about twenty wide, nearly 
 two thousand feet above the level of the sea, 
 where the climate is as perfect as that in the 
 Pyrenees, and is almost completely enclosed 
 by a magnificent border of mountains. Lu- 
 zerne and other show places in Switzerland 
 are mere miniatures compared with it. The 
 level portion of the ground is highly culti- 
 vated with all sorts of fruits and crops that 
 grow in the temperate zone and is divided 
 into large haciendas or plantations, nearly 
 all with fine cattle and horse-breeding farms 
 attached, and princely mansions as of feudal 
 
 300 
 
CHILE 
 
 lords, and there are splendid avenues of 
 giant eucalyptus along the roads and sepa- 
 rating the fields. In the heart of the city 
 itself is a hill called El Cerro de Santa Lucia, 
 that rises to a height of three hundred feet 
 and is half as big around as Central Park in 
 New York, a spot which such a connoisseur 
 as William E. Curtis declared he had 
 "long held to be the prettiest place in the 
 world." The summit is reached by a num- 
 ber of winding driveways and walks, lined 
 with trees, flowering shrubs and overhanging 
 vines and flanked by battlemented walls and 
 towers, picturesque beyond description; there 
 are terraces ornamented with flower beds and 
 fountains, and grottos, balconies, and rustic 
 seats; all along, at intervals, are kiosks for 
 music and refreshments; half way up is a 
 theater where light opera and vaudeville per- 
 formances are given both afternoons and 
 evenings; a little farther on is a restaurant 
 that is a favorite resort for breakfasting and 
 dining out, and, best of all, from the summit 
 there is a glorious view of the whole country 
 around. 
 
 Across the city from Santa Lucia to the 
 Central Railroad depot, an avenue called the 
 
 301 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Alameda de las Delicias extends for a dis- 
 tance of three miles. It is three hundred and 
 fifty feet wide and all down the center is a 
 beautiful park containing statues and monu- 
 ments to Chile's heroes. It is her hall of 
 fame, not shut in by four walls, but placed 
 in the midst of this most frequented of her 
 promenades, among the trees and flowers 
 and the fountains and lakes, where "the 
 stories told in marble and bronze may inspire 
 the multitude to patriotism and courage;" 
 and, facing the driveways along the sides, are 
 many of the handsomest of the residences. 
 The old center of the city is marked by the 
 famous Plaza de Armas, with a marble mon- 
 ument representing South America receiving 
 her baptism of fire in the war of independ- 
 ence. On one side are the Cathedral and 
 Bishop's Palace, on another the splendid 
 Municipal and Intendencia Buildings, low 
 and massive, and Government Telegraph Of- 
 fice; on another, two long series of shops 
 opening out on fine arcades that extend the 
 whole length of the sidewalks from corner to 
 corner. 
 
 Opposite the Plaza O'Higgins, a few 
 blocks away, is the Congressional Palace, 
 
 302 
 
CHILE 
 
 which occupies the whole square and is one 
 of the largest and handsomest buildings in 
 South America. In architectural design it 
 looks somewhat like the Senate and House 
 wings of our Capitol at Washington, only of 
 course it is much larger than either mere 
 wing; and in the same district is the Casa de 
 Moneda (the Mint), in which the President 
 and Cabinet have their offices, a massive struc- 
 ture as big as our Washington Treasury, and 
 the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts. 
 
 It is around the plaza that society takes its 
 customary stroll in the evenings and the 
 dusky-eyed, black-haired senoritas } according 
 to the Latin custom, flirt as much as they dare 
 with the young exquisites, who frankly and 
 boldly admire with glances more eloquent 
 than words. Writing of this custom, which 
 would not be tolerated in our cities, Arthur 
 Ruhl says that — 
 
 "They are dapper and very confident young men" 
 (these oglers), "combining in their demeanor the gal- 
 lantry of their Spanish inheritance with a certain 
 bumptiousness rather characteristically Chilean. 
 They stare at those who pass — some in mantos, some 
 in French dresses with Paris hats — and in Spanish 
 murmur, half audibly, such observations as, 'I like 
 the blonde best,' or 'Give me the little one.' And, as 
 
 303 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 they still retain some of that simplicity which in the 
 interior causes a stranger to be watched as though 
 he were a camel or a calliope, they will stare even at 
 the gringo, comment on the cut of his clothes or 
 facetiously compare his blunt walking boots with 
 their long, thin ones. They are rather irritating 
 sometimes, especially the young officers in their smart 
 German uniforms, and one dreams of home and a 
 Broadway policeman marching down upon them 
 leisurely with a night-stick and fanning them away." 
 
 Though why he should have mentioned 
 a "blonde" in illustrating their comments, one 
 must wonder. Maybe it was because there 
 are so few. As a rule their hair and eyes, if 
 not black, are a dark, rich brown, and their 
 complexion of the clear, cream-tinted, bru- 
 nette type. "But," he continues — 
 
 "The young women do not mind it at all. . . . 
 And you will not make yourself at all popular by 
 sympathizing, for they would only laugh and say: 
 'Oh, they're all right. That's only their way of be- 
 ginning. They're quite sensible and nice when you 
 come to know them.' There are ways and ways, and 
 in South America a girl who may not receive a formal 
 call from a man without having her mother and half 
 the family in the room at the same time may blandly 
 listen to repartee that would make our maidens gasp 
 for breath. ... It is at dusk, particularly if the 
 band is playing, or if it is Sunday, that the prom- 
 enade begins round the Plaza — a row of spectators 
 
 304 
 
CHILE 
 
 on the inside benches, on the outside young idlers and 
 officers two or three deep — between two shuffling con- 
 centric circles, in one of which are the men, in the 
 other the shrinking senoritas, two by two, or hang- 
 ing on the arm of a protector. Every man who can 
 sport a top-hat and a pair of saffron gloves, if it 
 is Sunday, and all the women except the very austere 
 ones, gather here and circle round in that armed 
 neutrality of the sexes which is the tradition of their 
 blood." 
 
 In general style Santiago is not as mod- 
 ern as Valparaiso, though it is far more in- 
 teresting and attractive, and is not behind 
 in public utilities, educational facilities, and 
 energy — or in the attractiveness of their 
 street-car service, for here, too, the conduc- 
 tors are neatly uniformed women, lots of 
 them young and good-looking. Many of the 
 more pretentious residences are old family 
 mansions of the Moorish, characteristically 
 Spanish colonial type and, therefore, charm- 
 ing to a stranger from the north. Most of 
 them are like those described in the chapter on 
 Uruguay — built around a large square central 
 court or patio, filled with flower-beds and 
 palms and with galleries around the sides onto 
 which the rooms of the upper stories open. 
 These galleries serve the same purpose as our 
 
 305 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 interior hallways. They are usually sup- 
 ported by substantial but graceful stone 
 arches and piers, and are reached by handsome 
 stairways, also of stone, leading up from the 
 court. Very often there is a fountain and 
 sometimes statuary, and through the big gate- 
 ways when the ponderous iron-studded doors 
 happen to be open, delicious glimpses may be 
 caught in passing. The windows opening on 
 the streets are usually heavily barred, and the 
 outer walls are in many cases frescoed and 
 tinted and ornamented with wreaths and vases 
 of stucco. Some few of the great houses are 
 massive stone affairs of modern construction 
 that resemble the mansions on the fashionable 
 residence streets of our principal northern 
 cities. 
 
 Like all the greater South American towns, 
 Santiago has her museums, libraries, magnifi- 
 cent municipal theater and places of popular 
 amusement; and she has her clubs and race- 
 course and public gatherings of the fashion- 
 ables, who are as elegantly dressed and smart- 
 looking as those of Buenos Aires — though she 
 still has her religious processions too on the 
 great feast days, and all the ladies still wear 
 their black, shroudlike mantos to church. 
 
 306 
 
CHILE 
 
 Disfiguring and funereal as it is, this is an 
 observance that is still insisted on by the 
 priests. In short, though differing from our 
 capitals in many respects, this greatest city in 
 Chile is obviously a metropolis and offers op- 
 portunities for sightseeing and amusements 
 of every description that few cities in the 
 world can surpass. And, as in Lima, there 
 is an aristocracy here, descended directly from 
 the old Conquistadore stock, that has retained 
 its wealth and power in the land through all 
 the vicissitudes of both the colonial and re- 
 publican regimes. 
 
 in 
 
 The long series of groups of islands be- 
 ginning with Chiloe, about two-thirds of the 
 way down the coast, is said to be nothing 
 more than a partly submerged section of the 
 Western Cordillera. Above the surface of 
 the water, for a distance of about eighty 
 miles, they still have an average elevation of 
 about two thousand feet. Embraced in the 
 Chonos Archipelago, between Chiloe and the 
 Taytao Peninsula, are more than a thou- 
 sand small islands, rocks, and reefs, and then 
 come the large islands of Wellington, Madre 
 
 307 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 de Dios, Chatham, Hanover, Queen Ade- 
 laide, King William's Land, etc., each fringed 
 by groups of little ones and all following the 
 mainland in a graceful curve and separated 
 from it by the Messier, Sarmiento, and 
 Smyth Channels, which, together, extend for 
 three hundred and sixty miles, from the 
 Penas Gulf to the Strait of Magellan. As 
 the steamer glides through, at times so 
 straight are they and such is the uniformity 
 of the shore line on either side, one fancies 
 one's self in a wide river in the interior of the 
 continent; at others, when openings among 
 the islands appear and the water stretches 
 for miles toward the sea or far into the re- 
 cesses of the Cordillera, it seems more like a 
 great lake. 
 
 The fjordlike formations recall the more 
 celebrated channel off the coast of Norway 
 leading to the North Cape. Indeed, it is 
 generally agreed by those who have seen both 
 that there is little to choose between them, 
 for, in both, the indentations and mountains 
 of the coast and islands are similar in charac- 
 ter; if there is less variety in the Chilean one, 
 if the rainstorms are more frequent, to com- 
 pensate for it there is a much greater and 
 
 308 
 
CHILE 
 
 more attractive wealth of vegetation. From 
 the water's edge to a height of fourteen or 
 fifteen hundred feet, the slopes, and even the 
 smaller islands, are covered with an unbroken 
 mantle of beautiful, dense, green forest that 
 presents an astonishing contrast, in this in- 
 hospitable region, to the bleak, gray rocks 
 and bluish-tinted ice sheets above and the 
 pure white snow caps on the summits be- 
 yond. 
 
 In the country from Valdivia south to 
 Smyth Channel, many of the trees, partic- 
 ularly in the ravines and sheltered places, are 
 tall and shapely and their trunks and lower 
 branches are incrusted with mosses and en- 
 twined with flowering creepers and vines, 
 many with a sort of mistletoe that has clus- 
 ters of dark-red blossoms; one of the creep- 
 ers, called angel's hair, is delicate and filmy 
 and hangs from the branches like threads of 
 lace, and there is an undergrowth of ferns 
 and shrubs and bamboo. These last often 
 shoot up as far as the tops of the trees and 
 seem to mat them together t so that they form 
 arbors over the pathways between. Farther 
 south and in the region of the Strait, these 
 woods lose something of their mysterious 
 
 309 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 beauty; here they are composed principally 
 of antarctic beech, gnarled and bent by the 
 winds, and the thicketlike undergrowth is 
 somber and forbidding. 
 
 Emerging from the channel, for the first 
 time the steamer encounters heavy rollers, 
 which come dashing in through the broad 
 gateway to the Pacific, not far to the west. 
 Here, even in summer, it is seldom that there 
 is neither storm nor fog, but, when it is clear 
 enough, one can see the tempest-torn promon- 
 tory of Cape Pillar, at the end of Desolation 
 Island, the southwestern portal of the Strait. 
 Eastward the conditions improve; the water 
 grows smooth again and the clouds are usu- 
 ally lifted above the lower mountain tops ; the 
 scenery grows still more impressive than in 
 the channel — only it is solemnly impressive 
 now — at least, so it strikes most travelers. 
 The Strait is much wider; the steamer is far 
 enough away from the shore to enable one 
 to see above the shoulders of the mountains 
 to their summits, yet not so far that the dis- 
 tance renders them too indistinct; the water 
 is steel gray, the bases and buttresses of the 
 mountains take on a shade of purple, the 
 summits seem whiter than ever, and over all, 
 
 310 
 
CHILE 
 
 except during the comparatively rare inter- 
 vals when the sun shines, are leaden clouds. 
 In the center of the Strait, where the conti- 
 nent proper comes to a wedge-shaped point 
 known as Cape Froward, and up to the east- 
 ern arm, only a few miles away, lies Punta 
 Arenas, the southernmost city in the world. 
 
 In the jumble of ranges forming the 
 transmagellan continuation of the great Cor- 
 dillera of the Andes, the most important is 
 that named after the scientist, Charles Dar- 
 win, who was the first to explore it, on the 
 long western arm of the Island of Tierra 
 del Fuego. The highest and most conspicu- 
 ous happens to be the nearest to this remark- 
 able port, and, as no better idea of the region 
 in general could be conveyed, it seems to me, 
 I quote from the story of a visit to Mt. Sar- 
 miento, made by Sir Martin Conway the 
 same summer he climbed Aconcagua, rather 
 than attempt a description myself. He says: 
 
 "The sun was shining quite hotly and the ice was 
 almost dazzlingly brilliant. After scrambling with 
 difficulty onto the glacier and wandering about the 
 moraine area, we returned toward the shore, finding 
 an exit through the forest at a much narrower place. 
 The air was cool, the sun bright; there were little 
 
 311 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 puffs of breeze; it was the very perfection of a day 
 for active open-air life. Yet the clouds still hung 
 stationary on the summit of Sarmiento. We lay 
 awhile on the shore beside the rippling waters; then 
 rowed away in hopes of seeing our mountain's misty 
 veil lifted if only for a moment. The long, late mid- 
 summer sunset was at hand. A tender pink light, 
 far fainter than the rich radiance of the Alpine glow, 
 lay upon the surface of the glacier and empurpled its 
 crevasses ; it permeated the mist aloft. The cruel 
 rocks, incrusted with ice, and the roof of the final 
 precipice, with its steep ridges and icy couloirs, were 
 all that could be seen. The graceful, ice-rounded 
 foundation rocks of this and all the other mountains 
 around slope up to the cliff and jagged aretes above 
 and make each peak beautiful with contrasted forms, 
 massive, yet suave of outline beneath, splintered and 
 aspiring above. In one direction we looked along the 
 channel of our approach, in another, for twenty miles 
 or so, along Cockburn Channel, with a fine range of 
 snowy peaks beside it, prolonging Sarmiento's west- 
 ern range. 
 
 "The water was absolutely still; we floated with 
 oars drawn in. Looking once more aloft, I found 
 the mist grown thinner. The pink light crept higher 
 and higher as the cloud dissolved. Suddenly — so 
 suddenly that all who saw it cried out — far above this 
 cloud, surprisingly, incredibly high, appeared a point 
 of light like a glowing coal drawn from a furnace. 
 The fiery glow crept down and down as though driv- 
 ing the mist away, till there stood before us, as it 
 were, a mighty pillar of fire, with a wreath of mist 
 around the base, and, down through all the wonderful 
 pink wall and cataract of ice to the black forest and 
 
 312 
 
CHILE 
 
 reflecting water. We had seen the final peak now — 
 a tower of ice-crusted rock, utterly inaccessible from 
 the western side. A little while later, the fair couloir 
 had faded away, mists had gathered and night was 
 coming on apace. We rowed away for the steamer, 
 but had not gone very far before a faint silver point 
 appeared above the mist where the glowing tower had 
 stood. The cloud curtain rolled slowly down again 
 and all the summit crest was revealed, cold and pure. 
 Then the southwest ridge appeared, and finally the 
 entire mountain, like a pale ghost, illuminated by 
 some unearthly light. A moment later the clouds 
 rolled together once more and solid night came on; 
 we hastened to the steamer for warmth, food, and 
 sleep." 
 
 313 
 
VIII 
 
 PERU 
 
 NORTHWARD bound from Valparaiso 
 to Callao, the traveler leaves behind 
 him the last of those south temperate 
 zone Latins who contend for the title of 
 "Yankees of South America." (And there 
 is flattery in that pretension if they but knew 
 it, for in the old strongholds of our vaunted 
 Yankeeism much of the feverish progressive- 
 ness has subsided; in these days the title 
 "Argentino" or "Chileno" would confer a 
 real distinction on some of us of the North.) 
 In Chile one leaves triumphant modernism 
 and now enters the realm of antiquity and 
 romance, the home of Spanish tradition and 
 old-world stateliness. Not even on the Pe- 
 ninsula have the Spanish tongue, the Span- 
 ish dignity and the old Castilian ideals been 
 preserved in their pristine charm and per- 
 fection as they have in Lima, and the three 
 ancient seats of colonial splendor hidden away 
 
 314 
 
PERU 
 
 in the fastnesses of the northern Andes — 
 Quito, Bogota and Caracas, the capitals of 
 the countries next in order. 
 
 Not that romance and <antiquity are all 
 that Peru and her sister republics to the 
 north stand for to-day. If Argentina, Uru- 
 guay, and Paraguay, which constitute the 
 agricultural empire spurned by Spain in 
 her days of prosperity, are, as John Bar- 
 rett says in the Independent for March 11, 
 1909, destined, with Brazil, "to become 
 deciding factors in the food supply of man- 
 kind," Peru and the other Andean republics 
 have also their part to play in furnishing 
 elements necessary for the growing commerce 
 of the twentieth century. "The complicated 
 social and financial life of the world," Mr. 
 Barrett goes on, "must have something be- 
 sides food and drink. Gold and silver as 
 a medium of exchange, and, in the arts, 
 copper and tin as essentials in so many 
 phases of industrial development, the other 
 metals useful in a thousand ways in applied 
 science, the nitrate salts for prime necessities 
 in both peace and war — all these and much 
 more are to-day supplied in high proportion 
 from this part of South America." Deprive 
 
 315 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the world of the nitrate of Chile, the copper, 
 gold, and guano of Peru, and the silver and tin 
 of Bolivia, and "there would occur a dis- 
 turbance in our business machinery which 
 might have very serious consequences." 
 
 In preference to the more direct German 
 line, the visitor should by all means make the 
 trip northward by a "west coaster," that cross 
 between an Atlantic liner and a river steam- 
 boat which meanders leisurely in and out 
 among the Pacific ports and carries a con- 
 glomerate of all types of the genus Latin 
 American, and of all the products of his 
 infinitely varied soil. As one writer whim- 
 sically describes it, it has all the character- 
 istics of a house-boat, freight carrier, village 
 gossip and market gardener. With no cause 
 to fear rain or rough weather, the ocean here 
 being truly "pacific," the builders of these 
 boats have placed all cabins on deck, and even 
 thus they seem superfluous except as lockers 
 for luggage, for the heat keeps one always in 
 the open. 
 
 Here the newcomer to these shores talks 
 politics or crops or railroad concessions with 
 the substantial hacendado returning to his 
 plantation, or haggles interminably with the 
 
 316 
 
PERU 
 
 cholo woman who offers for sale woven hats 
 of jipi-japa straw (known commercially as 
 Panamas), little golden images unearthed 
 from Inca ruins, or imitations of them fash- 
 ioned from vegetable ivory, great white- 
 pulped, juicy pineapples, leather belts of 
 exquisite workmanship, brilliantly colored 
 ponchos, and the inevitable convent embroid- 
 eries and laces. These women spend much 
 of their lives on board, traveling back and 
 forth between Valparaiso and Panama, and 
 in their allotted corners sell everything from 
 candied sugar cane wrapped in banana leaves 
 to emerald necklaces. It is said that one 
 old woman on a recent trip actually had 
 hoisted aboard a live cow, which she would 
 have sold piecemeal, in steaks, if the long- 
 suffering captain had not protested that his 
 ship was no slaughter-house. 
 
 And, besides the surfeit of "local color" one 
 gets on the ship, the traveler has an excellent 
 opportunity to study that vague institution 
 known as international trade, at a familiarly 
 close range. The terms "exports" and "im- 
 ports" mean little to him until he sees huge 
 cases of sewing machines marked "Hamburg 
 — fragile," or sections of milling machinery 
 
 317 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 from Chicago, or something of the sort, 
 swung over the side into the lighters, and 
 later sees other lighters towed from shore 
 laden with curious little bales of Panama 
 hats, or cotton, or casks of rum, and all the, 
 to him, exotic products of a different world. 
 Always wonderful, the mighty ramparts of 
 the Andes rise tier upon tier from the reddish 
 strij) of desert shore, first in solid black, then 
 in slaten pallor to the misty heights of in- 
 land distance where the peaks are ill-defined 
 against the sky, except when the sun burns 
 through the haze and makes brilliant for a 
 moment some snow-capped summit floating 
 apparently in mid-air four miles above. Ever 
 northward the lazy coaster dozes on her 
 course, dropping in at Iquique, parched and 
 stifling, or Arica where the sun-baked ni- 
 trate lies piled for shipment in such 
 quantities as fairly to blister the imag- 
 ination, or Mollendo, the other open door to 
 Bolivia's wealth; and, finally, after a fort- 
 night of such coasting, one enters Callao, the 
 port of Lima, which is only nine miles away, 
 up the valley. Situated in the center of 
 Peru's coast line, Callao is the busy exchange 
 for the bulk of the country's commerce. Its 
 
 318 
 
PERU 
 
 population is about 35,000. Most of its busi- 
 ness men, however, live in Lima and look 
 upon the port city as the Chileans do on Val- 
 paraiso, merely as the "down town" district 
 of the capital. 
 
 Arriving in port the traveler's thoughts 
 instinctively turn back through the four cen- 
 turies of white dominion over the country; 
 and he pictures in his mind the stirring trag- 
 edies of Spanish conquest and the colonial 
 regime in this dazzling colonial empire won 
 from the Incas. Until 1717 the Viceroy of 
 Peru held sway over the whole of South 
 America except the then Portuguese Col- 
 ony of Brazil. On that date the Viceroyalty 
 of Santa Fe or New Granada (embracing 
 what is now Colombia and Ecuador) and the 
 Captaincy-General of Venezuela were created 
 and severed from his jurisdiction; and in 1776 
 it was reduced to the dimensions occupied 
 by the present Republic, by the creation of 
 the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, which in- 
 cluded territory now occupied by Argentina, 
 Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia (then known 
 as the Province of Alto Peru). The Cap- 
 taincy-General of Chile had always enjoyed 
 a high degree of autonomy and retained it 
 
 319 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 until complete independence was gained by 
 the revolution. 
 
 Although mightily shrunken from its 
 former imperial estate, Peru is still a mag- 
 nificent domain. Its area of 680,000 square 
 miles is equal to the combined areas of Texas, 
 Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico; 
 its coast-line of 1500 miles is as extensive 
 as our Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia. 
 The country is divided longitudinally into 
 three distinct regions: the coast, the Cordil- 
 lera, and the so-called Montana, or wooded 
 slopes, the latter stretching away into the 
 Amazon valley. Along the Pacific coast is 
 a ribbon of dry, tropical lowland, varying in 
 width from twenty to eighty miles, and reach- 
 ing up to the foothills of the coast range. On 
 these foothills, and increasing gradually in 
 number, through the extension of the irri- 
 gating systems toward the sea, lie extensive 
 plantations of cotton and sugar, which form a 
 large part of Peru's exports. But the coastal 
 stretches are, for the most part, still unre- 
 claimed desert, for, as in the nitrate region 
 of Chile, the rain falls so seldom that, with- 
 out irrigation, nothing can grow. The ex- 
 planation given by the scientists is that the 
 
 320 
 
PERU 
 
 moisture from the Atlantic, swept across the 
 continent by the African trade winds, lodges 
 finally in the Andes and flows back over the 
 continental valleys in the great rivers con- 
 fluent with the Amazon, while that from the 
 Pacific is diverted in some other direction. It 
 has been demonstrated by experiment, how- 
 ever, that these arid parts need only irriga- 
 tion to make them luxuriantly fertile. 
 
 Back of the coast the country is cast in a 
 mold of heroic dimensions. Here the Andes 
 spread out into separate Cordilleras which are 
 joined at intervals by transverse ranges, form- 
 ing great nudos (knots), with high plateaux 
 between, surrounded by lofty snow-covered 
 peaks. This mountainous area approximates 
 three hundred miles in width. In these 
 heights lay the wealth that made of Peru a 
 fabulous treasure land, and in the lower val- 
 leys the cereals and fruits of the temperate 
 zone, as well as cattle, provide in great abund- 
 ance for the Peruvian of to-day. In her ex- 
 tensive guano deposits, too, Peru has another 
 great source of wealth. 
 
 Descending the eastern slopes of the Cor- 
 dillera, the Montana region stretches away 
 gradually into the Amazon valley, covering 
 
 321 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 an immense area. This Montana country 
 comprises more than two-thirds of the total 
 area, and lies wholly within the Torrid 
 Zone. Watered by mighty rivers that have 
 their source in the Andean snows, and graded 
 in elevation, its varied productiveness and 
 fertility are phenomenal. It is in the Peru- 
 vian Andes that the Amazon begins its long 
 course to the Atlantic; the river, however, 
 goes by the name of Maraflon throughout its 
 length in Peru. In the beginning it is aug- 
 mented by the Huallaga, Ucayali, and Yavari 
 and a dozen more mighty streams having their 
 sources in the same heights or in the foot- 
 hills on the eastern slopes, and, while still 
 within Peruvian territory, becomes a river 
 of such immense depth that ocean liners steam 
 clear across the continent to Iquitos, thus 
 giving to Peru a port accessible from the 
 Atlantic for her shipments of rubber and 
 other tropical products. 
 
 The disposition of the country's population 
 of 4,500,000 inhabitants is significant of the 
 history of the nation's development and sug- 
 gestive of the prosperity that awaits her when 
 the Andean barriers shall have been grid- 
 ironed with the railroads that will open up the 
 
 322 
 
PERU 
 
 Amazon region to colonization some day. 
 The coast areas now support a fourth of the 
 total population, the cordilleras two-thirds, 
 while the rich forests and fertile plains of the 
 Montana — the country of Peru's present-day 
 opportunity — support but half a million. 
 The bulk of these inhabitants are of Indian 
 and mixed Indian and Spanish descent. But 
 little impression has yet been made by Eu- 
 ropean immigration, as in the established 
 agricultural republics of the Atlantic sea- 
 board. It is confidently expected that the 
 birth of the New Peru — the Peru of railroads, 
 colonization, and great agricultural and min- 
 ing activity — will reverse this disparity in 
 distribution and increase the population to 
 many times its present numbers, for now it is 
 less than that of Holland, although Peru is 
 three times the size of France. 
 
 The New Peru, which is heralded by all 
 recent visitors to the west coast republics, is 
 building an industrial and commercial nation 
 on the long smoldering ruins of Spain's 
 golden empire, and it will be a worthier and 
 more lasting structure than that with which 
 Pizarro remorselessly smothered the unique 
 civilization of the Incas. The war with Chile 
 
 323 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 seemed to awaken her to the necessity of keep- 
 ing pace with the times, not only in military 
 but in commercial affairs. Since then she has 
 made great strides. 
 
 A short distance up the coast near 
 Ecuador's port of Guayaquil lies the little 
 town of Tumbez, where Pizarro landed with 
 his troop of two hundred men and planted the 
 banner of Castile in the Inca's domain. One 
 of his first acts after establishing the power of 
 Spain in the Inca country was to found a 
 new capital nearer the coast than Cuzco, 
 where, in the midst of the Andes, the Incas 
 had for centuries had their seat of govern- 
 ment. He chose the site of a pre-Incaic 
 oracle on the Rimac River (the "river that 
 speaks") where the legendary predecessors 
 of the Incas came to make their vows. For 
 nearly three hundred years this city, which is 
 now called Lima, but which he christened 
 the City of the Kings, enjoyed the distinction 
 of being the "second metropolis" of the great 
 Spanish Empire on two continents and the 
 center of a viceregal court, the splendor of 
 which rivaled that of royalty itself. Stately 
 palaces and churches were soon erected; wide 
 avenues and beautiful plazas were laid out 
 
PERU 
 
 and substantial walls constructed for defense, 
 and here came in the viceroy's train the 
 proudest nobility of Spain. 
 
 Lima is reached by both railroad and trolley 
 line from Callao, and lies on a broad, fertile 
 plain on the left bank of the river. Fifty 
 miles back of the city the great chain of the 
 Andes passes; but spurs from the majestic 
 range stretch down and enclose it as within 
 an amphitheater. Lima is only five hundred 
 feet above sea-level, and in the summer season 
 unquestionably hot, although the cool breezes 
 from the Pacific temper the climate to a cer- 
 tain extent. In general appearance the early 
 writers likened it to Seville; to-day, as the 
 capital of a progressive republic, it has broad- 
 ened out and become more active than its 
 dreamy Andalusian prototype. As in Santi- 
 ago and the old parts of Buenos Aires, the 
 business and poorer residence streets gener- 
 ally are narrow and paved with cobble-stones, 
 and 'most of the buildings are two or three 
 stories high. In the better residence sections 
 the visitor is agreeably surprised to find 
 the charm of other days still remaining in 
 the massive wooden street doors studded with 
 brass, barred windows and Moorish balconies, 
 
 325 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 or miradores, of heavily carved mahogany, 
 and beautiful patios. The famous old Torre- 
 Tagle mansion, where so many of the viceroys 
 lived, is still standing to perpetuate this 
 interesting type, as in the older tropical 
 Spanish cities. Portales, or arcades, extend 
 along the sides of the plazas in front of the 
 shops to afford shelter from the sun. 
 
 The great cathedral and the government 
 palace of the same period flank two sides 
 of the Plaza Mayor. On the third side stands 
 the city hall, above which are the balconies 
 of the principal social clubs. Near by is the 
 old Inquisition building. In the high-domed 
 and mahogany-paneled room in which the 
 Holy Office sat, the Senate now holds its 
 sessions and signs the laws of the republic on 
 the very table whence in the old days were 
 issued warrants for autos da fe, and the legis- 
 lators now hang their hats in the former 
 torture chamber, in fine disregard of the 
 horrors it once witnessed. There is a vener- 
 ableness attached to the old churches and 
 convents abounding in Lima which makes 
 one hope that the exigencies of modernism 
 may not demand the destruction of these 
 splendid relics of colonial architecture. 
 
 326 
 
PERU 
 
 The Plaza Mayor was the very heart of 
 the brilliant colonial regime. The courtly 
 Dons of these days, many of whom are de- 
 scendants of the principal courtiers of that 
 period, still are delighted to tell of the bril- 
 liance of the viceregal court under the 
 Marquis de Cafiete or the Duke de Palata, 
 or the dilettante Prince de Esquilache — a 
 court that was the talk of two continents. In 
 the gorgeous salons of the old palace the 
 gayety reached its height in the days of the 
 Viceroy Amat. It is not surprising to learn 
 that the deposed Ferdinand VII would gladly 
 have followed the example of the Portuguese 
 king and moved with his court to his new- 
 world capital had he been able to escape from 
 the grasp of Napoleon. At one corner is the 
 site of the house in which Pizarro fought in 
 vain with his assassins. His skeleton now lies 
 in a glass case in the cathedral, exposed to the 
 visitor's astonished gaze. In the center of 
 the Plaza a beautiful bronze fountain has 
 stood for three hundred years, untouched by 
 the strife that surged about it as each new 
 period of Peru's stormy career was ushered 
 in. 
 
 In the Plaza de la Exposicion, on the 
 327 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Paseo Colon and in other parks and boule- 
 vards are erected the statues of the nation's 
 heroes, and other men who have made Peru's 
 history — Christopher Columbus, the two Lib- 
 erators, San Martin and Bolivar, Colonel 
 Bolognesi, who fell in the war with Chile, 
 refusing to surrender "until we have burned 
 our last cartridge," and many others. The 
 Paseo Colon runs through the fashionable 
 residence section. It is one hundred and 
 fifty feet wide and connects the Plazas Bo- 
 lognesi and Exposition. Through the center 
 runs a garden bordered with superb trees 
 and artistically laid out flower-beds and 
 flowering bushes, and interspersed at inter- 
 vals with monuments, pillars, and fountains. 
 The present day parade of the gente decente 
 gives the visitor a picture of beautiful women 
 and well-groomed equipages that measures 
 up to the best traditions of Peru's social 
 eminence. In the heart of the city is the 
 great bull ring, where once society gathered 
 for other purposes than merely to take the air. 
 Excellent electric car service is a feature 
 of Lima's modern improvements. Trolley 
 lines extend to the many seaside resorts for 
 which society deserts the capital in the hot- 
 
 328 
 
PERU 
 
 test months — Chorillos, the Newport of Peru, 
 just south of Callao, or Miraflores, Barranco, 
 Ancon and the numerous imitations of Coney 
 Island. 
 
 Too much cannot be said of the charm of 
 Lima's culture and refinement. If the 
 Limeiios have inherited from their ancestors 
 too much of the aristocratic pride and mili- 
 tary arrogance that distinguish the Penin- 
 sulare, they have also fallen heir to the courtly 
 grace and savoir faire that made the Knights 
 of Alcantara famous among the first gentle- 
 men in Europe four centuries ago. From 
 the Lima home of to-day the visitor will take 
 away with him recollections of hospitality, 
 kindness and old-world dignity, lightened by 
 a pronounced keenness of wit. They have 
 the reputation of being generous and hos- 
 pitable, if inclined to extravagance, and of 
 forming warm and lasting friendships. Ar- 
 dent imaginations and brilliant intellects lend 
 a charm to conversation with the men, only 
 less than that which the world-famed beauty, 
 intelligence and kindly courtesy of the women 
 lend to theirs. Very reserved when on their 
 way to church in their black mantos or prom- 
 enading the Alameda in their handsome toi- 
 
 329 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 lettes, these ladies exert themselves to make 
 their homes agreeable to their guests. The 
 behavior of the young girls on the Alameda 
 is more like that of their Chilean sisters. 
 
 At the head of Peru's educational system 
 stands the fine old University of San Marcos, 
 in Lima, founded in 1551 — nearly a hundred 
 years before Harvard received its charter. 
 It has now many additions and covers all 
 branches of learning, and its courses are 
 thrown open to every class. 
 
 Peru's railroads cover but fifteen hundred 
 miles, but they are pushing forward rapidly to 
 fill in its section of the long-promised Pan- 
 American railway from Panama to Patagonia. 
 One of these, the Oroya road, which ascends 
 from Lima up into the plateau country, is alto- 
 gether the most impressive piece of railroad 
 engineering in the world; it is not only the 
 highest, but there is no other that lifts its 
 wondering passengers to any such altitude in 
 such an appallingly short space of time. For 
 an hour or more the train winds through a 
 wide, irrigated valley, green and prosperous- 
 looking with plantations of sugar cane. 
 Farther up, the valley narrows and is closed 
 in by naked rocks. Twenty-five miles from 
 
 330 
 
PERU 
 
 Lima a station is reached twenty-eight hun- 
 dred feet above the sea; twelve miles farther 
 the altitude is five thousand feet. At Casa- 
 palca, the town of smelters, thirteen thousand 
 six hundred feet is achieved by the puffing, 
 vibrating engine; at fourteen thousand feet 
 the chimneys of Casapalca's smelters look 
 like pins stuck in the green carpet below, 
 and finally, the passenger descends from the 
 train, very uncertain on his feet, at the un- 
 precedented height of 15,665 feet, and stands 
 on the cold, wind-swept Andean roof. On 
 every hand are peaks and hoods of snow. 
 Beyond the station the rechristened Mount 
 Meiggs rises another two thousand feet, as a 
 monument to the indefatigable Yankee pro- 
 moter and soldier of fortune who conceived 
 and built the road — Henry Meiggs. 
 
 Turning to the west, one looks back over 
 the long, infinitely varied descent; to the east 
 lie the plateaus and the Andean treasure land. 
 The northern branch of the road continues 
 along almost equally high levels, past the 
 historic plains of Junin on which Bolivar 
 dealt his crushing blow to the viceroy's army in 
 1824, to Cerro de Pasco, where the American 
 mining syndicate is preparing to get rich. 
 
 331 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 II 
 
 A still more extensive railroad and one 
 which gives the traveler a more varied view of 
 the Andes, is that ascending from the port city' 
 of Mollendo, near the Chilean frontier. This 
 line is the outlet for much of the commerce 
 of Bolivia, and was built by the same gifted 
 Yankee who fathered the Oroya road. Leav- 
 ing Mollendo, the train speeds over the desert 
 for a few miles and then begins its steady 
 climb upward. All day it labors along the 
 tortuous ascent through echoing walls of rock, 
 bare, repellent, and awe-inspiring in their cold 
 majesty. Suddenly, around a jagged preci- 
 pice, the passengers look down upon a lovely 
 valley — an oasis of green. In its midst lies 
 the quaint, picturesque old city of Arequipa, 
 which Pizarro, who founded it, was wont to 
 call la villa hermosa — the city beautiful. Seen 
 from the heights, it somewhat resembles La 
 Paz, a group of low, white and blue walled, 
 red roofed buildings, arranged in squares, 
 with a large plaza in the center, the general 
 flatness relieved by many church spires, and 
 its spacious patios a mass of foliage and trees. 
 
 Thus far the penetration of the railroad 
 332 
 
PERU 
 
 into this quiet retreat has produced but little 
 change in its old-world aspect. It has long 
 been famous for its delightful climate and 
 location, and as Mozans truly says of it, "If 
 it is not the most beautiful place in South 
 America, as its admirers claim, it is certainly 
 the most restful. It is such a place as one 
 would like to retire to after the stress and 
 storms of a busy career, to pass one's days in 
 quiet and a congenial environment. The 
 people who retain all the light-heartedness 
 and cordiality and culture of old Spain, are 
 worthy denizens of their charming city, and 
 the better one knows them, the more he ad- 
 mires and loves them." 
 
 Overlooking the city are the buildings of a 
 branch of the Harvard Observatory. It is 
 said that, because of the remarkable clearness 
 of the atmosphere and the great number of 
 cloudless nights, this observatory is probably 
 more favorably located than any other in the 
 world, and that, as a consequence, the astron- 
 omers stationed there have achieved results of 
 the greatest value to science, especially in 
 photographing the southern skies. Also they 
 are doing valuable work in measuring the 
 heights of the Andean peaks and charting 
 
 333 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the general topography, as well as in keeping 
 open house to their fellow-countrymen who 
 hunger for the sound of their native tongue 
 after many weeks of effort to comprehend 
 the idioms of the Castilian speech and the 
 patois of the ever-present cholo. The veran- 
 das and trim green lawns and tennis courts 
 are a reminder of Cambridge, indeed. 
 
 Above the observatory, snow-capped Misti 
 rises sheer from the valley some 21,000 feet, 
 like a perfect cone. Its appearance is so 
 distinct, so impressive in its constancy and 
 brooding grandeur, that it possesses a per- 
 sonality almost human. One feels impelled 
 to address it with the prefix "Senor" after 
 the manner of the Japanese with their Fuji- 
 san, which, by the way, greatly resembles 
 Misti in shape and location. 
 
 Continuing upward through the mountain 
 desert, the Mollendo road ascends to a height 
 of 14,666 feet in the short latitudinal distance 
 of less than two hundred miles, and across the 
 divide to Juliaca, a town near the northern 
 shore of Lake Titicaca, where it separates, 
 one branch extending south to Puno, the cen- 
 ter of the gold mining district, thence around 
 the great lake to La Paz, the other extending 
 
 334 
 
PERU 
 
 northwest for about two hundred miles, down 
 the sloping plateau to the valley of Cuzco, at 
 the head of which is the ancient imperial capi- 
 tal of the Incas. Plantations and pastures 
 begin to appear as the train descends from the 
 high ridges into the plain, and, great as is the 
 altitude even here, on an island in this very 
 lake, according to tradition, the remarkable 
 native dynasty had its birth. The legend, as 
 Mozans quotes it from the works of Garcilaso 
 de la Vega, the historian of the conquest, and 
 who was himself, through his mother, a de- 
 scendant of the royal Inca line, is that — 
 
 "Our Father, the Sun, seeing the human race in the 
 condition I have described: living like wild beasts, 
 without religion or government, or town or houses, 
 without cultivating the land or clothing their bodies, 
 for they knew not how to weave cotton or wool to make 
 clothes ; living in caves or clefts in the rocks, or in 
 caverns under the ground; eating the herbs of the 
 field and roots and fruit, like wild animals, and also 
 human flesh — had compassion on them and sent down 
 from heaven to the earth a son and a daughter to in- 
 struct them in the knowledge of our Father, the Sun, 
 that they might adore him and adopt him as their 
 God, also to give them precepts and laws by which 
 to live as reasonable and civilized men and to teach 
 them to live in houses and towns, to cultivate maize 
 and other crops, to breed flocks, to use the fruits of 
 the earth like rational beings instead of living like 
 
 335 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 wild beasts. With these commands and intentions, 
 our Father, the Sun, placed his two children in the 
 Lake of Titicaca, which is eighty leagues from here" 
 (Cuzco); "and he said to them that they might go 
 where they pleased, and that, at every place where 
 they stopped to eat or sleep, they were to thrust a 
 scepter of gold into the ground, which was half a 
 yard long and two fingers in thickness. He gave them 
 this staff as a sign and token that in the place where, 
 by one blow on the earth, it should sink down and dis- 
 appear, there it was the desire of our Father, the Sun, 
 that they should remain and establish their court." 
 
 In this region the table-land is of vast ex- 
 panse, and in many respects the panorama is 
 more impressive even than that in the vicinity 
 of Aconcagua. In the center is the enormous 
 sheet of water, turquoise blue in the sunlight, 
 stretching for a hundred and ten miles off to 
 the south, with an average width of thirty 
 miles and an average depth of a hundred 
 fathoms, and, 12,500 feet high as it is, bor- 
 dered on either side by superb ranges tower- 
 ing many thousands of feet higher, their 
 clean-cut peaks glittering with mantles of 
 snow and ice. Around the shore and on the 
 islands of Titicaca and Koati are picturesque 
 towns and small clusters of adobe houses 
 surrounded by hills, their sides terraced and 
 covered with farms, the water fringed with 
 
 336 
 
PERU 
 
 fields of reeds, and feeding in them countless 
 birds and herds of cattle. It is no wonder 
 that these " Children of the Sun " should 
 have worshiped as their God and Goddess 
 the great luminous orbs in a region where, 
 thanks to the unwonted splendor of the moon 
 and stars, which enable one to distinguish 
 all the salient features of lake and Cordillera 
 with the greatest ease, the nights, as Mozans 
 says, are glorious beyond words; but where, 
 "however fair the views presented to the en- 
 raptured gaze in the subdued light of the 
 moon and her attendant handmaidens, no one 
 can be insensible to the gorgeous vistas that 
 burst upon the vision during the daytime." It 
 is then, he continues — 
 
 "Especially at the hours of dawn and twilight that 
 the snow-crested range of the lofty Cordillera Real is 
 visible in all its transcendent beauty and majesty. 
 For then, as if by magic, various colored fires seem to 
 blaze from the immense glaciers and snow fields and 
 to convert the sparkling expanse into glowing rubies, 
 sapphires, and emeralds, while the lofty peaks of the 
 Sorata range are transformed into gleaming pinnacles 
 of burnished gold. Then in fullest perfection and 
 palpable form is realized that vision of mountain love- 
 liness, that crowning splendor of earth and sky, set 
 forth in Ruskin's noble lines : 'Wait yet for one hour, 
 until the east again becomes purple and the heaving 
 
 337 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 mountains, rolling against it in the darkness like 
 waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the 
 glory of its burning. Watch the white glaciers blaze 
 in their winding paths about the mountains, like 
 mighty serpents with scales of fire ; watch the columnar 
 peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards, chasm 
 by chasm, each in itself a new morning — their long 
 avalanches cast down in keen streams brighter than 
 the lightning, sending each its tribute of driven snow, 
 like altar-smoke, up to the heaven, the rose-light of 
 their silent domes flushing that heaven about them 
 and above them, piercing with purer light through its 
 purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new glory on 
 every wreath as it passes by, until the whole heaven, 
 one scarlet canopy, is interwoven with a roof of wav- 
 ing flame, and tossing, vault beyond vault, as with the 
 drifted wings of many companies of angels.' " 
 
 The railroad has been built along the very 
 route that the first Inca and his sister-wife 
 are said to have chosen when they started 
 out to found their capital. Passing between 
 two giant peaks, it descends the gradually 
 sloping two-hundred-mile-long plateau which 
 became the most populous section of the 
 great empire, as it is still of modern Peru. 
 On either side are torrential rivers that rush 
 down through the deep defiles of the moun- 
 tains to the Amazon. Every foot of the 
 region is associated with legendary and his- 
 toric events; scattered about everywhere, 
 
 338 
 
PERU 
 
 from the islands of Titicaca on, are wonder- 
 ful ruins — ruins of towns, bridges, fortresses, 
 temples, burial towers, some Incaic, some 
 thought to be as old as the pyramids of 
 Egypt. There is a lake in which, at the 
 coming of the Spaniards, the Indians are 
 said to have thrown the colossal gold chain 
 that was forged at the birth of Huascar, a 
 chain so heavy, according to the chroniclers, 
 that it was all that two hundred men could do 
 to carry it. 
 
 The climate is delightful. All along the 
 road is a succession of wild, gorgeous scenery, 
 quaint towns and villages and big haciendas, 
 with fields green with growing crops and 
 herds of cattle and alpaca ranging about, 
 often tended by pretty copper-colored chola 
 (mixed breed) or Indian girls, as pictur- 
 esquely dressed as those of La Paz, only 
 here in Peru, instead of the great number of 
 voluminous many-colored skirts the Bolivian 
 women wear — sometimes as many as twelve 
 or fifteen, which makes them appear as 
 though they had on the hoops once worn by 
 our grandmothers — they wear a single, short 
 woolen skirt over the usual cotton ones, and, 
 instead of the peculiar headdress of the 
 
 339 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Aymaras, broad-brimmed, gaily beribboned 
 hats, though, like the Aymaras, they wear 
 brilliantly colored mantles, fastened around 
 the shoulders by a pin with a spoon-shaped 
 head (which they also use as a spoon), and 
 the men, like the Bolivian mountaineers, 
 wear ponchos that vie with the mantles of 
 the women in color. Ponchos and mantles 
 like those worn to-day, but many centuries 
 old, have been found in the tombs, so ancient 
 is the fashion. 
 
 It is in this country between La Paz and 
 Cuzco that the llama is seen in greatest num- 
 bers — that remarkable animal which Mozans 
 aptly describes as a creature with the legs 
 of a deer, the body of a sheep, and the head 
 and neck of a camel. They are larger than 
 sheep, however, and far more docile and 
 ornamental than the ugly, ungainly camel. 
 Their coats are of several shades: white, 
 brown, black or parti-colored; their wool is 
 long and thick, and they are noted for their 
 beautiful big, wistfully inquiring eyes. From 
 time immemorial the natives had used them 
 as burden-bearers, and the Spaniards, when 
 they came, found them surer-footed and more 
 enduring than mules or burros, proof against 
 
 340 
 
PERU 
 
 cold and acclimated in the rarefied atmos- 
 phere of the high table-lands, and able to go 
 as long as a camel without food and water, 
 and to maintain themselves by grazing along 
 the waysides in parts of the country in which 
 no other animal could live. It was on their 
 backs that all the material that entered into 
 the construction of the steamers on Lake 
 Titicaca was hauled, and most of the mining 
 machinery, and the caravans still compete 
 with the railroads in carrying ores and coca 
 to the coast and bringing back supplies for 
 the mountain towns. 
 
 In these days only the males are used for 
 such purposes. It is said of them that when 
 they are loaded with more than they feel 
 that they can comfortably carry (about a 
 hundred pounds), they lie right down in their 
 tracks and refuse to budge for all the ca- 
 joling or in spite of the kicks and curses 
 their tenders can bestow. The females are 
 kept in pasture for breeding purposes and 
 for their wool and milk, and in that region 
 rank with cattle as a source of food supply, 
 for their flesh resembles mutton and is quite 
 as palatable and good to eat. It is much 
 used in the native dish called chwpe, a sort 
 
 341 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of thick soup which is made of the peculiar 
 mountain potatoes grown in those parts, first 
 frozen and dried, and then put into a pot 
 and boiled with any other vegetables at hand 
 and fragments of meat and fish, and seasoned 
 with salt and red pepper. This, to the people 
 of the mountains, is what rice is to the 
 Chinese and macaroni to the Italians. Some- 
 times it is the only fare the traveler can 
 get at the little tambos or inns remote from 
 the railroad; but even so, when properly pre- 
 pared, as it usually is, with plenty of nourish- 
 ing ingredients, it leaves little to be desired 
 after a hard day's climb. 
 
 The valley of Cuzco — a pocketlike depres- 
 sion about ten miles long and varying in 
 width from two to three miles, covered with 
 fields of barley and maize, dotted with many 
 attractive-looking gardens and country man- 
 sions of the old Spanish colonial type, and 
 hedged in on either side by ranges of moun- 
 tains towering high above — is at the north- 
 western extremity of the plateau. The city, 
 which is at the head of the valley, is a little 
 more than a mile and a half in breadth, from 
 the foot of the mountain range on the east 
 to that of the range on the west, and about 
 
 342 
 
PERU ' 
 
 a mile in length. To the north, the famous 
 hill of Sacsahuaman rises abruptly over it 
 and is separated from the mountains on either 
 side by deep ravines, through one of which 
 flows the little river Huatanay and through 
 the other the Rodadero. The Huatanay 
 tumbles noisily past the moss-grown walls 
 of an old convent, under the houses forming 
 the west side of the great square, thence 
 through the center of a broad street, where 
 it is confined between banks faced with ma- 
 sonry and crossed by numerous bridges, and 
 on beyond until it unites with the Rodadero, 
 which separates the city from the suburb of 
 San Bias. 
 
 The most important section of the ancient 
 city was built between the two little rivers, 
 with the great square in the center, and this 
 site, said to have been chosen for it by the 
 first Inca and his sister-wife, is declared by 
 many to be the most wildly, majestically 
 beautiful of all the beautiful mountain city 
 sites in South America — even Santiago, La 
 Paz, Arequipa, Cajamarca, Quito, Bogota, 
 and Caracas. Respecting the ancient city 
 itself, Prescott tells us that the Spaniards 
 were astonished "by the beauty of its edi- 
 
 343 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 fices, the length and regularity of its streets, 
 and the good order and appearance of com- 
 fort, even luxury, visible in its numerous 
 population. It far surpassed all they had 
 seen in the New World. . . . It" (the 
 great square), he continues, "was surrounded 
 by low piles of buildings, among which were 
 several palaces of the Incas. One of these, 
 erected by Huayana Capac, was surmounted 
 by a tower, while the ground floor was occu- 
 pied by one or more immense halls, like those 
 described in Cajamarca, where the Peruvian 
 nobles held their fetes in stormy weather. 
 The population of the city," he goes on — 
 
 "Is computed by one of the conquerors at two hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants and that of the suburbs at 
 as many more. This account is not confirmed, as far 
 as I have seen, by any other writer. But, however it 
 may be exaggerated, it is certain that Cuzco was the 
 metropolis of a great empire, the residence of the 
 court and the chief nobility, frequented by the most 
 skillful mechanics and artisans of every description, 
 who found a demand for their ingenuity in the royal 
 precincts, while the place was garrisoned by a numer- 
 ous soldiery, and was the resort, finally, of emigrants 
 from the most distant provinces. The quarters whence 
 this motley population came were indicated by their 
 peculiar dress, and especially their head-gear, so rare- 
 ly found at all on the American Indian, which, with 
 
 344 
 
PERU 
 
 its variegated colors, gave a picturesque effect to the 
 groups and masses in the streets. . . . 
 
 "The edifices of the better sort — and they were 
 very numerous — were of stone, or faced with stone. 
 Among the principal were the royal residences, as 
 each sovereign built a new palace for himself, cover- 
 ing, though low, a large extent of ground. The walls 
 were stained or painted with gaudy tints, and the 
 gates, we are assured, were sometimes of colored mar- 
 ble. 'In the delicacy of the stonework,' says another 
 of the conquerors, 'the natives far excelled the Span- 
 iards, though the roofs of their dwellings, instead of 
 tiles, were only of thatch, but put together with the 
 nicest art.' The sunny climate of Cuzco did not re- 
 quire a very substantial material for defense against 
 the weather. . . . The streets were long and nar- 
 row. They were arranged with perfect regularity, 
 crossing one another at right angles ; from the great 
 square diverged four principal streets connecting with 
 the highroads of the empire. The square itself, and 
 many parts of the city, were paved with fine pebble. 
 Through the heart of the capital ran a river of pure 
 water, if it might not be rather termed a canal, the 
 banks or sides of which, for a distance of twenty 
 leagues, were faced with stone. Across this stream, 
 bridges, constructed of similar broad flags, were 
 thrown at intervals, so as to afford an easy communi- 
 cation between the different quarters. 
 
 "The most sumptuous edifice in Cuzco in the times 
 of the Incas was undoubtedly the great temple dedi- 
 cated to the sun, which, studded with gold plates, as 
 already noticed, was surrounded by convents and dor- 
 mitories for the priests, with their gardens and broad 
 parterres sparkling with gold. The exterior orna- 
 
 345 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 merits had been already removed by the conquerors — 
 all but the frieze of gold, which, imbedded in the 
 stones, still encircled the principal building. . . . 
 The fortress was raised to a height rare in Peruvian 
 architecture, and from the summit of the tower the 
 eye of the spectator ranged over a magnificent pros- 
 pect, in which the wild features of the mountain 
 scenery — rocks, woods, and waterfalls — were mingled 
 with the rich verdure of the valley and the shining 
 city filling up the foreground, all blended in sweet 
 harmony under the deep azure of a tropical sky." 
 
 The ruins of the palace of the first Inca, 
 on the hill above the city, and those of the 
 immense fortress on the summit — which is 
 admitted by all to have been constructed with 
 a degree of skill equaled nowhere else in the 
 world prior to the use of artillery — are thus 
 described by Sir Clements R. Markham: 
 
 "On a terrace, built of stones of every conceivable 
 size and shape, fitting exactly one into the other, 
 eighty-four paces long and eight feet high, is a wall 
 with eight recesses, resembling those of the Inca pal- 
 ace at Lima-tambo, and, in the center of the lower 
 wall, a mermaid or siren, much defaced by time, is 
 carved in relief on a square slab. In one of the re- 
 cesses a steep stone staircase leads up to a field of 
 lucerne, on a level with the upper part of the wall, 
 which is twelve feet high, and this forms a second ter- 
 race. On either side of the field are ruins of the same 
 character, traces of a very extensive building or range 
 
 346 
 
PERU 
 
 of buildings. They consist of a thick stone wall, six- 
 teen paces long and ten feet six inches wide, contain- 
 ing a door and windows. The masonry is most per- 
 fect. The stones are cut in parallelograms, all of 
 equal height but varying in length, with corners so 
 sharp and fine that they appear as if they had just 
 been cut — and without any kind of cement, fitting so 
 exactly that the finest needle could not be introduced 
 between them. The doorposts, of ample height, sup- 
 port a stone lintel seven feet ten inches in length, 
 while another stone, six feet long, forms the foot. 
 . . . Behind these remains are three terraces, built 
 in the rougher style of the masonry used in the 
 first walls and planted in alders and fruit trees, 
 . . . where he" (the first Inca, Manco Capac) "is 
 said to have chosen the site of his residence, the 
 more readily to overlook the building of his city and 
 the labors of his disciples. . . . 
 
 "On the east end of Sacsahuaman, crowning a 
 steep cliff immediately above the palace of Manco 
 Capac, there are three terraces, one above the other, 
 built of a light-colored stone. The first wall, fourteen 
 feet high, extends in a semicircular form around the 
 hill for one hundred and eighty paces, and between the 
 first and second terraces there is a space eight feet 
 wide. The second wall is twelve feet high and the 
 third is ninety paces around its whole extent. . . . 
 This was the citadel of the fortress, and in its palmy 
 days was crowned by three towers connected by 
 subterranean passages, now quite demolished. . . . 
 From the citadel to its eastern extremity the length of 
 the table-land of Sacsahuaman is three hundred and 
 fifty-three paces and its breadth in the broadest part 
 one hundred and thirty paces. On the south side the 
 
 347 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 position is so strong and impregnable that it required 
 no artificial defense. The position is defended on 
 part of its north side by a steep ravine through which 
 flows the river Rodadero and which extends for one 
 hundred and seventy-four paces from the citadel in 
 a westerly direction. Here, therefore, the position re- 
 quired only a single breastwork, which is still in a 
 good state of preservation ; but from this point to the 
 western extremity of the table-land, a distance of four 
 hundred paces,- nature has left it entirely undefended, 
 a small plain extending in front of it to the rocky 
 heights of the Rodadero. 
 
 "From this point, therefore, the Incas constructed 
 a cyclopean line of fortifications, a work which fills the 
 mind with astonishment at the grandeur of the con- 
 ception and the perfect manner of its execution. It 
 consists of three walls, the first averaging a height of 
 eighteen feet, the second of sixteen and the third of 
 fourteen, the first terrace being ten feet broad and the 
 second eight. The walls are built with salient and re- 
 tiring angles, twenty-one in number and correspond- 
 ing with each other in each wall, so that no one point 
 could be attacked without being commanded by others. 
 . . . But the most marvelous part of this forti- 
 fication is the huge masses of rock of which it is con- 
 structed (one of them being sixteen feet in height and 
 several more varying from ten to twelve feet), yet 
 made to fit exactly one into the other and forming a 
 piece of masonry almost unparalleled in solidity, 
 beauty, and peculiarity of its construction in any 
 other part of the world. The immense masses at 
 Stonehenge, the great block in the tomb of Agamem- 
 non at Argos, and those in the cyclopean walls of Vol- 
 terra and Agrigentum are wonderful monuments of 
 
 348 
 
PERU 
 
 the perseverance and knowledge of the people who 
 raised them, but they fall immeasurably short in 
 beauty of execution of the fortress of Cuzco." 
 
 The railroad and electric lights and the 
 telegraph and telephone have come to Cuzco 
 now, but in other respects the city is not 
 much modernized. It is still distinctly remi- 
 niscent of the royal Inca regime, and even 
 more of the regime of the Spanish viceroys. 
 For many years after the conquest it was 
 superior in importance to Lima. Notaries 
 were required under severe penalties, Mozans 
 says, "to write at the head of all public 
 documents, c En la gran ciudad del Cuzco, 
 cabeza de estos reinos y provincias del Peru 
 en las Indias 3 — In the great city of Cuzco, 
 head of these kingdoms and provinces of 
 Peru in the Indies. Even so late as the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries," he 
 continues, "it was, next to Lima, the city 
 of the greatest social importance in the vice- 
 royalty." And so now, although there are 
 the same long vistas of low, massive buildings 
 through the narrow streets, the view from 
 the hill presents a panorama of red-tiled roofs 
 instead of thatches, of many tall church 
 
 349 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 towers, and of a great square divided into 
 three. 
 
 On the first stories of the old Indian homes 
 Spanish superstructures have been built; on 
 the foundation walls of the ancient temple 
 of Voricancha, the largest and richest of the 
 sanctuaries devoted to the worship of the 
 Sun, has been erected the convent of Santo 
 Domingo; the devotees in the convent of 
 Santa Catalina occupy cells that were once 
 used by the Virgins of the Sun; walls that 
 were retained in the building of the Church 
 of San Lazaro are ornamented with bodies 
 of birds having women's heads that were 
 carved by the bronze chisels of the artisans 
 of the Incas. The grand old renaissance 
 cathedral, which, with its massive stone walls 
 and pillars and vaulted roof, cost so much 
 to build that one of the viceroys said it 
 would have been cheaper to build it of silver, 
 is one of the most imposing specimens of 
 church architecture in America; the pulpit in 
 San Bias is famed as one of the most beau- 
 tiful in the world, and many of the interiors 
 and cloisters, particularly of La Merced, 
 where the remains of Almagro and two of 
 
 350 
 
CHURCH OF LA MERCED, LIMA — TYPE OF RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE OF 
 SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD. 
 
PERU 
 
 Pizarro's brothers lie, and the patio of the 
 university, are perfectly superb. 
 
 Of course, like La Paz, Quito, Bogota 
 and many of the other old mountain cities, 
 which until very recently were isolated so 
 far as the outside world was concerned be- 
 cause of their inaccessible locations, Cuzco is 
 still behind the times in sanitary arrange- 
 ments. Since there is surface drainage, there 
 are odors, but one need have little fear of 
 any ill effects in such a climate as theirs. 
 Thanks to it, the cities are as healthful as 
 most; and to the archaeologist and the lover 
 of art and the beauties of nature in her sub- 
 limest aspect, there is no more fascinating 
 city in South America than Cuzco. 
 
 351 
 
IX 
 
 ECUADOR 
 
 ECUADOR, "the Switzerland of Ameri- 
 ca," is one of the smallest of our sister 
 republics in the South, yet her area, 
 of 116,000 square miles, is equal to that of 
 our States of Missouri and Arkansas com- 
 bined, and, if certain pending boundary dis- 
 putes should be determined in her favor, her 
 territory would be more than doubled. Her 
 population is now about 1,500,000, an average 
 of a little over twelve to the square mile. 
 
 Politically, the republic is divided into 
 sixteen provinces, not including the Gal- 
 apagos Islands. Five are maritime, occupy- 
 ing the strip of coast between the West- 
 ern Cordillera and the sea, ten are inter- 
 andine, and then there is the Oriente, so 
 called, which consists of all the country em- 
 braced in the slope between the Eastern 
 Cordillera and the Brazilian frontier, in the 
 valley of the Amazon. There are two fluvial 
 
 352 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 systems, both rising in the mountains; one 
 flowing west to the sea and the other down 
 the eastern slope. In all they are composed 
 of ninety-one rivers. Those tributary to the 
 Guayas, flowing westward to the sea, and 
 many of which are of considerable size, are 
 now of the greater commercial importance 
 because the country of the Oriente, through 
 which those tributary to the Amazon flow, 
 is still a wilderness, only sparsely inhabited 
 even by what are left of the aborigines — and 
 this although it is the richest of all in vege- 
 tation and fertility of soil, like the adjoining 
 Montana district of Peru. 
 
 Thus, ranging as it does from the sea-level 
 of the coast on one side and the valley of the 
 Amazon on the other to the high interandine 
 plateau, and from thence to the great cloud- 
 piercing peaks of the cordilleras, crowned 
 with perpetual snow, this country directly 
 beneath the Equator, from which it derives 
 its very name, is possessed, as are Peru, Bo- 
 livia, and Colombia, of every variety of climate 
 within the sphere of a few hours' journey — in 
 the lowlands, the eternal summer of the trop- 
 ics; on the high table-lands, eternal spring, 
 and, in the glacial regions of the mountain 
 
 353 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 summits, winter without end. As the late Pro- 
 fessor Orton so aptly put it: "As the Ecua- 
 dorian sees all the constellations of the firma- 
 ment, so nature surrounds him with represen- 
 tatives of every family of plants. Tropical, 
 temperate and arctic fruits and flowers are 
 here found in profusion, or could be 
 successfully cultivated. There are places 
 where the eye can embrace an entire zone, for 
 it may look up to a wheat or barley field or 
 potato patch and down to the sugar cane 
 and pineapple." 
 
 And, in addition to the familiar products, 
 in many places the slopes of the mountains 
 between twelve and fifteen thousand feet are 
 clothed with a shrub peculiar to the high 
 altitudes of the Andes, called chuquiragua, 
 the twigs of which are used for fuel and the 
 yellow buds as a febrifuge. In the valleys 
 between the cordilleras a very useful and val- 
 uable, as well as the most ordinary, plant is 
 the American aloe, or century plant, which 
 under cultivation, however, blooms oftener 
 than once in a hundred years. It is the lar- 
 gest of all the herbs, and, with its tall stem 
 rising from a cluster of .long, thick, grace- 
 fully curved leaves, looks like a great 
 
 354- 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 chandelier. Most of the roads are fenced 
 with hedges of them. Nearly every part is 
 said to serve some practical purpose. The 
 broad leaves are used for thatching huts and 
 by the poorer classes as a substitute for paper 
 in writing; a sirup flows from them when 
 tapped; as they contain much alkali, a soap 
 that lathers in salt water as well as fresh is 
 manufactured from them; the fiber of the 
 leaves and roots is woven into sandals and 
 sacks; the flowers make excellent pickles, the 
 stock is used in building, the pith of the stem 
 is used by barbers for sharpening razors and 
 the spines as needles. A species of yucca, 
 resembling the aloe, yields the hemp of Ecua- 
 dor. 
 
 In the lowlands, cacao and sugar cane, cof- 
 fee, tobacco, rice, cotton, and bananas and 
 other tropical fruits are grown. The forests 
 contain rubber and numerous species of use- 
 ful trees, among them the tree that yields 
 what is known as the taque nut, or vegetable 
 ivory, from which buttons are made, the 
 grasses and toquilla palm used in the manu- 
 facture of the coarser grades of Panama 
 hats, the chincona from the bark of which 
 quinine is obtained, the mangrove cultivated 
 
 355 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 for tanning purposes as well as its fruit, 
 and the silk-cotton tree that yields the val- 
 uable commercial product known as kapok. 
 A considerable portion of the Oriente is 
 verdured with a part of that immense forest 
 which extends in an unbroken mass from the 
 grassy llanos of Venezuela to the pampas of 
 Argentina. In other sections of the country 
 are gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, petroleum, 
 asphalt and other minerals, though since the 
 colonial regime there has been little activity 
 in mining. Only a few years ago work was 
 resumed in the famous mines of Zaruma, 
 formerly the source of much revenue to the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 Ecuador has a treasury of wealth in her 
 vast cacao groves. The cacao tree, which 
 grows wild in the forests, is from sixteen to 
 forty feet high and bears a fruit in which the 
 beans lie buried in a cucumber-shaped pod 
 five to ten inches long and three or four inches 
 thick. The bean itself in its raw state re- 
 sembles a thick almond. When ripe, the pods 
 are cut from the tree by means of a knife with 
 a curved blade, set on the end of a long pole, 
 an implement specially designed to remove 
 them without injury. The pods are then 
 
 356 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 gathered in heaps and left on the ground to 
 dry for a day or two before the beans are 
 removed and cured. From cacao comes cocoa. 
 The name "cacao" signifies the raw, and 
 "cocoa" the finished product. There is still 
 another name — coca — which is often con- 
 fused with these, but coca is nothing like 
 cacao. Coca is the Peruvian plant from the 
 leaves of which cocaine is extracted. The 
 cacao bean contains the cocoa we drink at our 
 breakfast tables, and our chocolate. 
 
 On the skill employed in the curing, 
 which is an extremely delicate process, to 
 a great extent depends the quality of the 
 output and its flavor and color. When ready 
 for the market, the bean is dark red outside 
 and chocolate tinted within. Analyses show 
 that it is rich in fats, albuminoids, caffeine 
 and theobromine, which last is what imparts 
 to it its principal characteristics. What we 
 know as chocolate differs from cocoa in that, 
 in the former compound, the cocoa butter 
 is not extracted; from the latter it is. 
 Cocoa is really a factory product. The cured 
 bean is treated differently in the various 
 countries to suit the taste of the public, and 
 chocolate also is prepared in different ways 
 
 357 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 for the various uses. American and French 
 chocolates are sold all over the world. 
 
 The tobacco grown in the Province of Es- 
 meraldas on the coast is claimed to be com- 
 parable with that produced in Cuba. And 
 this reminds me that, unless tradition is at 
 fault, the town of Atacames, from around 
 which some of the best of it comes, has quite 
 a unique history of its own. In 1623, so the 
 story goes, a vessel laden with seven hundred 
 African slaves was on its way from Panama 
 to Peru, where they were to be worked in 
 the mines. When near the mouth of the 
 Esmeralda River, they mutinied, massacred 
 the officers and sailors of the ship, and, land- 
 ing at Atacames, took possession of the town 
 and killed or drove away every man in the 
 neighborhood, Indian or Spanish, but spared 
 the women, whom they kept as wives. After- 
 ward, however, instead of indulging in further 
 depredations, they kept within the territory 
 they had conquered, and, mixing with the 
 Cayapas, who had attained an unusual state 
 of civilization for lowland Indians before the 
 invasion, became miners and agriculturists on 
 their own account. These African mutineers, 
 therefore, protected by the reputation for 
 
 358 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 ferocity they had acquired in their stroke for 
 freedom, were thus the founders of what 
 afterward became an intelligent and indus- 
 trious community. The women, particularly, 
 are famous for their skill in making Panama 
 hats. 
 
 Indeed, aside from agriculture, the most 
 important industry in all the coast provinces 
 is the making of these hats. Guayaquil long 
 since supplanted Panama as the principal 
 market for them. Those of the finest texture, 
 the ones that are so soft and delicately woven 
 that they can be folded and put in a coat 
 pocket like a handkerchief and will last a 
 lifetime, are made of a peculiar grass called 
 jipi-japa, for which the town in the Province 
 of Manavi is named, and, in the weaving of 
 them, considerable time and great skill is 
 required. These we seldom, if ever, see in 
 this country. Many go to Paris, Italy, and 
 Spain; more are taken by the planters along 
 the coast, and in Cuba, who are willing to 
 pay as much as $80 to $100 for them. They 
 are woven by the women by hand, and only 
 in the moonlight, these best grades, because 
 the sun would harden the material, artificial 
 light would attract insects, and the dampness 
 
 359 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 that comes with sunset is necessary to give 
 the flexibility so essential to their beauty. 
 The coarser grades, such as we see here, 
 are woven in the daytime, but under water, 
 in tubs. 
 
 Guayaquil, a city of about 50,000 inhabi- 
 tants, is Ecuador's principal seaport, and, 
 next to Valparaiso and Callao, the busiest 
 and most important on the Pacific side of 
 the continent. All the way up from Callao 
 the steamer hugs the shore as closely as safety 
 will permit. There is little change in the 
 view. The same arid strip of low-lying coast 
 land, dotted with rocky promontories, fringed 
 here and there with cliffs and crossed with 
 occasional stretches of green where the rivers 
 flow through to the sea, continues day after 
 day — the same background of mountains ris- 
 ing tier on tier for thousands and thousands 
 of feet, in the morning partly obscured by 
 heavy banks of clouds that later melt away 
 and leave the rugged contour sharply silhou- 
 etted against the bright blue, are bathed in 
 the evening, as the sun sinks toward the 
 horizon, in the purple haze that becomes them 
 best. Yet there are also the same calm sea 
 and rainless sky and the same cool, aromatic 
 
 360 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 breezes that make the lazy hours on deck a 
 continual delight. 
 
 And so it is with mixed feelings of regret 
 and relief that one enters the Gulf of Guaya- 
 quil — relief, for here, as we steam past the 
 island of Puna, where Pizarro camped for 
 months awaiting reinforcements before begin- 
 ning the conquest of Peru, the aspect of the 
 shore line changes and we see foliage as fresh 
 and green and as wildly luxuriant as any in 
 the basins of the interior. Passing the island, 
 we come to the mouth of the Guayas, the 
 greatest of South American rivers emptying 
 into the Pacific. The city is sixty miles 
 beyond at the head of the estuary. The first 
 glimpse we catch is of a street, called El 
 Malecon, that extends along the water front 
 for two miles or more from a shipyard to a 
 hill crowned by a fortress. This is at once 
 the principal shopping, cafe, and amusement 
 place, the favorite promenade, the warehouse 
 district, and the quay where the lighters that 
 ply between it and the vessels anchored out 
 in the river take on and unload their cargoes. 
 It is faced with what from the deck appear 
 to be long rows of white stone and marble 
 buildings of beautiful and graceful archi- 
 
 361 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 tectural design, for the most part of the usual 
 Moorish type. Long series of arcades in 
 front of the shops remind one of those of 
 the Rue de Rivoli in Paris; above are pretty 
 balconies sheltered by blinds and awnings 
 of gaily colored canvas, screening groups of 
 ladies who like to sit in them and watch the 
 lively scene below as they sip their coffee and 
 chat. 
 
 But picturesque as it all is, one finds on 
 going ashore, that the walls of these imposing- 
 looking edifices are merely shells of split 
 bamboo, plastered with cement, ornamented 
 with stucco and painted to resemble marble 
 and stone, which sad experience has taught 
 the people of the city will not resist earth- 
 quakes as well as this more elastic imita- 
 tion they have been compelled to substitute. 
 The residences of the well-to-do are con- 
 structed of the same materials and with wide 
 verandas from ground to roof, enclosed with 
 Venetian blinds. Few are elaborately fur- 
 nished. In that climate it is thought better, 
 for the sake of spaciousness and comfort, to 
 forego evidences of wealth in the form of 
 carpets, hangings, and upholstery, which keep 
 out air and retain the heat. The poor of the 
 
 362 
 
" : 
 
 STREET SCENE IN GUAYAQUIL. 
 
 CONDOR OF THE ANDES. 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 suburbs have thatched bamboo or adobe huts 
 with floors of hardened earth. As in Canton, 
 China, many of them live on the water on 
 rafts made from balsa, a species of timber 
 nearly as buoyant as cork, or else of hollow 
 trunks of bamboo. A number of logs, forty 
 or fifty feet long, are lashed together in 
 such a way that they can be propelled by 
 either oars or sails, and a bamboo hut is 
 built in the center. These often serve as the 
 homes of whole families for generations, and 
 are so substantial that they are used in the 
 coasting as well as the river trade for bring- 
 ing produce to market. 
 
 In June, 1908, a long-desired and much 
 needed railroad was completed between Guay- 
 aquil and the capital, Quito, way up in the 
 interandine table-land, 9350 feet above the 
 level of the sea, and now the trip of nearly 
 three hundred miles, that formerly took from 
 twelve to fifteen days on mule-back, and often 
 more by foot, may be made in two days, in 
 a comfortably equipped passenger train. The 
 scenery en route is gorgeous. The train 
 speeds through forests of stately trees like 
 those of the Amazon — walnut, mahogany, 
 rubber, cacao, cottonwood, with vines en- 
 
 363 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 twined around their trunks and hanging from 
 their branches, and beds of mosses and ferns 
 at their feet, slender bamboos shooting up 
 straight as an arrow, and tall, graceful palms, 
 tipped with feathery tufts — the whole mass 
 aglow with scarlet passion flowers and or- 
 chids, and blossoms of every hue. Then come 
 broad fields covered with prickly pineapple 
 plants, sugar cane, coffee and snowy cotton 
 plantations and groves of cocoanut palms, 
 oranges, lemons, and limes saturating the air 
 with their delicious fragrance, splendid mango 
 trees with their golden fruit and dense foliage 
 that makes them the best of all shade trees in 
 the tropics, and groves of banana trees, toss- 
 ing out glossy green leaves eight feet long 
 from their sheathlike stalks, and many bear- 
 ing bunches of this bread of the poor and 
 delicacy of the rich that weigh from sixty 
 to seventy pounds. Von Humboldt calcu- 
 lated that "thirty- three pounds of wheat and 
 ninety-nine pounds of potatoes require as 
 much space of ground as will produce four 
 thousand pounds of bananas." They bear fruit 
 but once and die, but the roots are perennial 
 and every year bring forth new plants. 
 Then, when the traveler has crossed the 
 364 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 coast strip, he comes to the foothills and be- 
 gins the steep, tortuous ascent. On either 
 side of this highland but ever green series of 
 plateaux, crossed by nudos and ascending like 
 steps to the one in which the capital lies, 
 tower mountains, the crests of forty-two of 
 which are more than ten thousand feet high. 
 Twenty of them are higher than Pike's Peak 
 in Colorado; fourteen are higher than the 
 Alpine giant, Mont Blanc. It was in this 
 vast, magnificent "Avenue of Volcanoes" that 
 the celebrated artist, Frederick E. Church, 
 painted his wonderful picture, "The Heart of 
 the Andes." Here, he declared, is the grand- 
 est mountain scenery in the world. 
 
 The most majestic of them all is snow- 
 covered Chimborazo, near the center of the 
 Western Cordillera, and fortunately almost 
 constantly in view, for it is along its spurs 
 that the road between Guayaquil and Quito 
 ascends. One would not imagine its summit 
 so very hard to reach, as it appears from the 
 mountain pass at an elevation of fourteen 
 thousand feet; yet many explorers, from Von 
 Humboldt down, strove for the honor, only 
 to fail until Edward Whymper, an English- 
 man, finally achieved it in 1879. For years, 
 
 365 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 with its known altitude of 21,420 feet, it was 
 famed as the highest point in America; now 
 the mighty Aconcagua in Argentina, which 
 is recorded at the Harvard Observatory at 
 Arequipa as measuring 24,760 feet, has been 
 awarded the palm. It is from shipboard on 
 the Pacific, though, on a clear day, rather 
 than from the plateau, that Chimborazo is 
 to be seen in all the majesty of its complete 
 proportions, particularly when the evening 
 shadow's mellowing tint creeps upward to 
 the summit — a vision of gold, vermilion, pur- 
 ple, followed by the glory of the brief tropical 
 sunset — in the few minutes before darkness 
 covers the earth and "the haste of stars, 
 trembling with excess of light, bursts sud- 
 denly into view over the peaks," when the 
 waters of the sea become so impregnated with 
 phosphorescent flashes that each wave seems 
 tipped with silver and the foam that follows 
 in the vessel's wake is like a stream of fire. 
 
 Conspicuous among the crests of the east- 
 ern range are Tunguragua, with its perfect 
 cone and great cataract tumbling down fif- 
 teen hundred feet from the snow line to the 
 valley beneath; fierce, Plutonic Sangai, the 
 most active volcano in the world; and the 
 
 366 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 beautiful Altar, as it was called by the Span- 
 iards, which is said to have been higher than 
 Chimborazo a few years before the Conquest, 
 but has since collapsed. Now its summit pre- 
 sents the appearance of a superb crown, 
 pointed with eight jagged peaks; its snowy 
 mantle is relieved by rents or fissures in the 
 rock that seem to be colored dark blue in con- 
 trast with the white. 
 
 And then there is the still more superb 
 Cotopaxi, 19,613 feet, without a rival in 
 height or symmetry among the active vol- 
 canoes of the old world. Some faint 
 idea of its grandeur may be conceived by those 
 who have seen Vesuvius, for instance, when 
 it is realized that it is more than fifteen 
 thousand feet — nearly three miles — higher, 
 and that, when in eruption, it vomits forth its 
 fires, with ominous rumblings that can be 
 heard for a hundred miles, from a cone which 
 itself is higher than Vesuvius. Mr. Whym- 
 per, who also succeeded here in making the 
 perilous ascent where Von Humboldt and 
 others had failed, described the crater as an 
 enormous amphitheater with a rugged crest 
 surrounded by overhanging cliffs, some snow- 
 clad, others encrusted with sulphur. 
 
 367 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 "Cavernous recesses," he says, "belched 
 forth smoke; the sides of the cracks and 
 chasms shone with ruddy light. At the 
 bottom, probably twelve thousand feet below 
 us, there was a ruddy circular spot about 
 one- tenth the diameter of the crater; it was 
 the pipe of the volcano, its channel of com- 
 munication with the lower regions, and was 
 filled with incandescent if not molten lava, 
 glowing and burning, lighted by tongues of 
 flame that issued from cracks in the sur- 
 rounding slopes." On the side of the moun- 
 tain is a huge rock called the "Inca's Head." 
 Tradition has it that this was the original 
 summit, hurled down by an eruption on the 
 very day that Pizarro caused Atahualpa to be 
 strangled. The great eruption of 1859 was 
 succeeded by an earthquake that wrought ter- 
 rible destruction and loss of life, and by a 
 tidal wave, which in its devastating course 
 carried a United States warship a mile inland, 
 over the roofs of the houses of a town on 
 the coast of Peru and left it high and dry 
 on a sandy plain. Just now the volcano is 
 in a state of "solemn and thoughtful sus- 
 pense"; only thin clouds of smoke escape 
 from its crater. 
 
 368 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 At the base of Pichincha, the crater of 
 which the astronomer, La Condamine, likened 
 to the "chaos of the poets," and Orton de- 
 scribes as "a frightful abyss nearly a mile 
 in width and a half mile deep from which a 
 cloud of sulphurous vapors comes rolling up," 
 lies the city of Quito. Its origin is shrouded 
 in mystery, but we know that at the time of 
 the Conquest it was the northern stronghold 
 of the great Inca empire, and the place where 
 Atahualpa resided. On this lofty site, which 
 in the Alps would be buried in an avalanche 
 of snow, but in the tropics enjoys an eternal 
 spring, palaces more beautiful than the 
 Alhambra are said to have been built, glit- 
 tering with the gold and emeralds of the 
 region. But all this passed away with the 
 scepter of Atahualpa. Where the pavilion 
 of the Inca stood is now a gloomy convent; 
 a wheat field takes the place of the Temple 
 of the Sun. Even the Spanish structures 
 that supplanted the original ones seem dilap- 
 idated enough. The population is said to 
 number about sixty-five thousand, but there 
 is little of the modern and still less in the way 
 of opportunity for amusement, though it is 
 all most interesting simply because it is so old 
 
 369 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and because there is much of romance in its 
 history. 
 
 The train emerges from the pass on to the 
 plain of Riobamba, the scene of many notable 
 events in the history of the country. Here 
 it was that the great Inca conqueror Tupac 
 Yupanqui routed the Shiri of the Caras and 
 began the conquest of his possessions; it was 
 here that Atahualpa's great general, Quiz- 
 quiz, defeated the army of the Inca Huascar 
 and proceeded to the invasion of Peru ; it was 
 here that the daring Conquistador Sebastian 
 de Benalcazar defeated the victors and 
 brought the Kingdom of Quito under the sway 
 of Pizarro. The city of Riobamba, which is 
 the first of importance on the line, is also said 
 to have been the birthplace of the eminent his- 
 torian Juan de Velasco and several others of 
 South America's most distinguished sons. It 
 has a population of only twelve or fifteen 
 thousand, but, thanks to the demand created 
 by commercial travelers and the employees 
 of the railroad, it serves as an excellent rest- 
 ing place, for there are two or three very 
 tolerable hotels. From this point on to Quito, 
 there are parts of the plain that are arid 
 and desolate. This is attributed partly to 
 
 370 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 the fact that so much of the country was 
 long ago denuded of its trees and partly to 
 volcanic eruptions of a peculiar kind. 
 Describing one of them, Mozans says: 
 
 "But, destructive as are the eruptions of the vol- 
 cano when it belches forth ashes, cinders, and lava, 
 it is even more so when its terrific operations are 
 followed by deluges of water and avalanches of mud, 
 carrying along with them immense blocks of ice and 
 rock to great distances, causing death and devasta- 
 tion all along their course. Such an eruption took 
 place in 1877, and, so great was the velocity of the 
 angry flood, that it swept the plain with the momen- 
 tum of an express train, carrying before it bridges, 
 buildings, and everything that stood in its path. The 
 very day of the eruption the irresistible torrent 
 reached the mouth of the Esmeralda River, nearly 
 three hundred miles distant. The catastrophe had 
 been announced the preceding evening by an enor- 
 mous column of black ashes, which the roaring moun- 
 tain projected more than three miles above the crater, 
 and which an east wind carried far out over the 
 Pacific. Vessels going from Guayaquil to Panama 
 were suddenly enveloped in a cloud of dust and 
 transmitted to Europe and the United States the first 
 news of the disaster. After this eruption of ash, there 
 was a welling of molten lava over the rim of the 
 crater which melted the ice and snow and transformed 
 them at once into tremendous avalanches of mud. At 
 the same time immense blocks of ice were transported 
 across the plain of Latacunga to a distance of thirty 
 miles, where they remained several months before they 
 
 371 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 were entirely melted. The foregoing is only one of 
 many similar eruptions that occurred during the last 
 century." 
 
 "But why, it will be asked, do people live 
 in a land in which they are constantly ex- 
 posed to such sudden and awful disasters?" 
 he continues — "where thousands of victims 
 are sacrificed in a single moment? Why do 
 people cling around the rich flanks of Kilauea 
 and Mauna Loa and huddle around the 
 treacherous slopes of vine-clad Etna and 
 Vesuvius, or pitch their tents on quaking, 
 incandescent Stromboli? Let philosophers 
 reply." But, in the neighborhood of Quito 
 itself no more of these arid stretches are to be 
 seen. "Notwithstanding the ever-menacing 
 volcano towering above it, Quito," he tells us, 
 "was always to the Ecuadorian of the interior 
 one of the world's most favored cities. It was 
 what Damascus and Bagdad in their halcyon 
 days were to the Arabs, what Cordova and 
 Granada were to the Moors. It was 'Quito 
 bonito' — charming Quito — the city above the 
 clouds, 'the navel of the world, the home of the 
 continua primavera — perpetual spring — ever- 
 green, magnificent Quito.' It was like 
 Heaven — Como de Cielo — where there is 
 
 372 
 
ECUADOR 
 
 neither heat nor cold. It was the Paradise of 
 delights. Had Columbus discovered the 
 beautiful valley which it overlooks, he would, 
 we are assured, have pronounced it the site 
 of the Garden of Eden." 
 
 After Lima and Santiago, the suburbs 
 strike one as rather squalid and dilapidated. 
 In the city proper, however, the houses im- 
 prove in size and finish and continue to 
 improve until the Grand Plaza is reached in 
 the center. The more pretentious are of 
 two stories, a few three, and of massive con- 
 struction, with adobe walls two or three feet 
 thick and tiled roofs, and are built around a 
 square courtyard, or patio, in the old Spanish 
 style, often with a fountain or flower plot in 
 the center. Here, too, around the patios are 
 pillared arches supporting galleries used as the 
 passage way to rooms in the upper tier; the 
 floors are paved with large, square, red bricks. 
 The public buildings, some of them dating 
 back to Philip II, are clustered about the 
 three plazas. The most imposing, the capitol, 
 a low building adorned with a splendid col- 
 onnade, faces the Grand Plaza. With its 
 long rpws of columns it looks a little like the 
 Fifteenth Street side of the Treasury Build- 
 
 373 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ing in Washington. To the right of it is an 
 ancient but beautiful cathedral; on the other 
 side is the palace of the Papal Nuncio. All 
 are fine specimens of the architecture of the 
 periods in which they were built. 
 
 The scene in the shopping district and 
 around the market has quite an Egyptian 
 flavor. The shops are very small and ex- 
 posed; groups in gay ponchos stand chatting 
 and smoking in front of them or lean idly 
 against the walls, enjoying the sunlight; 
 soldiers saunter to and fro; Indians, in every 
 variety of costume, are scattered about guard- 
 ing heaps of vegetables they have brought 
 in from the surrounding country for sale; 
 bronze-complexioned women in many-colored 
 gowns peddle oranges and alligator pears 
 from baskets carried on their heads; pur- 
 chasers, mostly men and in more conventional 
 attire, wander from store to store, for it is 
 not here so much as in the vicinity of the 
 churches that one is favored with a glimpse 
 of the ladies of the upper class. They do 
 little shopping themselves, these senoras and 
 senoritas, yet they are very devout, and it is 
 their custom to wrap themselves in their black 
 mantillas and attend mass every day. 
 
 374 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 JOURNEYING overland into Colombia 
 from Ecuador, there opens before the 
 traveler the vast mountainous country 
 that was once the ancient kingdom of the 
 Chibchas — the contemporary of the Inca em- 
 pire, and, later the pivotal state of Bolivar's 
 great confederation. Colombia occupies the 
 extreme northwestern corner of the continent. 
 With its 465,714 square miles of territory, it 
 is as large as Texas, Kansas, Arkansas and 
 Louisiana, and has a population of 4,320,000. 
 In this corner of the continent the Andes 
 come to an end in a great splurge of deep- 
 cut ridges presenting an aspect very different 
 from the formations to the south. Here three 
 clearly defined ranges diverge from the Ecua- 
 dorian frontier and spread northward like the 
 ribs of a fan; the Western and Central Cor- 
 dilleras merge before reaching the Caribbean 
 Sea, and slope off into foothills and plains near 
 
 375 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the coast, and the Eastern Cordillera con- 
 tinues in an almost unbroken line until, as 
 the Sierra de Pari j a, it plunges into the sea 
 at the end of the bleak, forbidding peninsula 
 (Goajira) west of the Gulf of Maracaibo. 
 Rising from the Pacific, on the west, is an 
 almost entirely distinct range, separated from 
 the Andean terminals by the great basin of 
 the Atrato River, and running along the 
 Isthmus of Panama into Central America. 
 Just north of the Ecuadorian frontier lies 
 the so-called "Massif" from which branch off 
 the three Cordilleras just mentioned and in 
 which the four important Colombian river 
 systems have their source; the Patia flowing 
 westward to the Pacific; the Caqueta, east- 
 ward, through the Amazon, into the Atlantic, 
 and the Cauca and Magdalena, the great high- 
 ways of the country, flowing northward to the 
 Caribbean on either side of the Central Cor- 
 dillera, and joining their floods about one hun- 
 dred and fifty miles from the sea in the hot, 
 marshy plains of the Magdalena basin. 
 
 The Eastern Cordillera slopes off into the 
 Orinoco and Amazon plains — over a terri- 
 tory constituting two-thirds of the republic's 
 area — and thus gives to Colombia the same 
 
 376 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 astonishing range of productiveness that dis- 
 tinguishes her southern neighbors along the 
 Andean chain. Gold is scattered literally all 
 over the Andean ridges and is picked up 
 along the streams that flow into the lower 
 levels. Silver, iron and lead are almost as 
 universally present; the platinum deposits 
 are surpassed only in Russia; the emerald 
 mines of Muzo, seventy-five miles from Bo- 
 gota, have been famous ever since the bril- 
 liant stones were torn from the turban crowns 
 of the Indian kings by the Conquistadores, 
 and are the principal source of the world's 
 supply; the salt mines and pearl fisheries add 
 largely to the republic's revenue. 
 
 The Review Number of the Pan American 
 Bulletin (August, 1911) says of the emerald 
 industry : 
 
 "All, or very nearly all, the emeralds mined to-day 
 come from Colombia. And, in spite of the supposed 
 higher value of diamonds, the emerald is the most 
 precious of gems. Carat for carat, a flawless emerald 
 would bring perhaps three times the price of a flaw- 
 less diamond in the jewelry market. India, the store- 
 house of precious stones, is credited with producing 
 the first emeralds, but the oriental emerald is not 
 identical with the modern gem, as it is a variety of 
 the ruby, of a green color, and extremely rare. The 
 
 377 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 stone that adorned Aaron's armor, described in the 
 writings of Moses, if it was a real emerald and not a 
 carbuncle, may have come from the mines of Coptos 
 in Egypt, which furnished the ancients with the 
 precious green gems. Certain of these old mines are 
 known as 'Cleopatra's Mines,' because that remark- 
 able Egyptian queen is supposed to have obtained her 
 jewels from that source. Nero wore an emerald mon- 
 ocle at the gladiatorial combats that came perhaps 
 from the mines of Ethiopia. The Museum of Naples 
 contains fine emeralds taken from the ruins of Pom- 
 peii and Herculaneum, some of which are carved, and 
 the history of this gem shows that it was highly 
 treasured from the earliest recorded times. . . . 
 
 "Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador were ravished of their 
 mineral wealth ; so wonderful emeralds, as part of the 
 spoil, found their way into the treasury of the Spanish 
 kings. Pizarro and Cortes sent the first emeralds 
 from the New World to Spain, where they acquired 
 the name 'Spanish emeralds.' Tradition has it that 
 an Aztec gem appropriated by Cortes was valued 
 at forty thousand ducats. Another wonderful stone, 
 the size of an ostrich egg, was found in the Manka 
 Valley, Peru, where the Indians worshiped it as the 
 Goddess of Emeralds. The Spanish conquerors 
 opened up the mines in Colombia in 1540, enslaving 
 the Indians to work them. The richest mineral areas 
 were those of Muzo and Cosquez, about 75 miles north 
 of Bogota, at an elevation of about 6500 feet above 
 sea-level. A curious fact in the history of these latter 
 mines is that they were closed and lost to the world 
 in an enveloping forest of jungle for over a hundred 
 years, and only rediscovered some fourteen years ago. 
 The Government of Colombia controls the exploita- 
 
 378 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 tion, leasing the mining districts to the working com- 
 panies. 
 
 "The Muzo group, from which the finest emeralds 
 come, has an estimated yearly output of 262,548 
 carats of the first class, 467,690 of the second, 22,700 
 of the third, and 16,000 of the fourth class. The 
 Coscuez group, named for an Indian princess, which 
 produced a variety of emerald called canutillo, one of 
 the most valuable stones, is now in the category of 
 lost mines. The Samandoco or Chivor group, not 
 now being worked, is supposed to possess a matrix 
 that would yield half a million dollars worth of em- 
 eralds a year. ... It was" (in the Muzo group) 
 "that the most valuable single emerald in the world 
 was found. It belongs to the Duke of Devonshire 
 and is a perfect, six-sided crystal that weighs 8 
 ounces 18 pennyweights, is two inches in length and 
 measures across its three thicknesses 2^2 » 2^, and 
 1% inches. Another fine stone is the Hope emerald, 
 weighing 6 ounces, which was also found in Colombia. 
 There can be no doubt that this source of wealth will 
 be greatly augmented in the future, when improved 
 transportation facilities shall make it possible." 
 
 A wealth of agricultural products, typical 
 of nearly every clime, lies in the great river 
 basins and on the eastern slopes and plains in 
 the Orinoco and Amazon regions. In the 
 river basins and part of the way up the moun- 
 tain sides are great forests, so dense as to 
 be almost impenetrable, but abounding in 
 nearly every species of cabinet and dye woods 
 
 379 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and nearly every medicinal plant known to 
 science. In altitudes of from two to four 
 thousand feet the coffee plant thrives ; the ber- 
 ries from the celebrated Chimbi estates are 
 said to produce the most delicately flavored 
 coffee in the world. But little of it ever 
 reaches the United States. In the tierras 
 calientes, or "hot lands," the fragrant tonka 
 beans, that have the sweet odor of new-mown 
 hay and are used in some blends of tobacco 
 to give it a bouquet and in the manufacture of 
 soaps and perfumes, and cacao, bananas, yuc- 
 cas, arracha, sugar, indigo, tobacco, vanilla 
 and rice are among the staple products. The 
 soil of this region is of a rich, black, deep-lying 
 loam, well watered and capable of a greater 
 productiveness than the plains of Louisiana or 
 Texas. In the intermediate areas the culture 
 includes wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and 
 other cereals and vegetables common to the 
 temperate zone. Along the Sinu River is a 
 great cattle belt. This is also the source of 
 the cedar and mahogany, of which Colombia 
 is one of the chief exporters. 
 
 It follows naturally that, as in Ecuador, 
 the diversity in altitude that accounts for 
 this varied productiveness gives to Colombia 
 
 380 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 — a wholly tropical country — a range in cli- 
 mate that makes it one of the world's most 
 attractive abiding places. Von Humboldt is 
 quoted as saying that the traveler here needs 
 but "a thermometer and a mule to find any 
 climate desired within the compass of a few 
 leagues." When one tires of the torrid heat 
 of the valleys, the frozen sierras are just in 
 sight. When the perpetual spring of the 
 table-land palls upon him, he can by a few 
 hours' ride find autumn on the steppes above 
 or summer in the plains below. If he is a 
 sportsman, he can find his game among many 
 species of the fauna of three zones: the jaguar, 
 sloth, armadillo, tapir, the red deer, black 
 bear, and panther, and in the jungles of the 
 Amazon region, the tiger. 
 
 The overland route to Bogota from Quito 
 lies over a well-built highway which, in the 
 not distant future, will be paralleled by 
 Colombia's and Ecuador's contributions to 
 the long-heralded Pan-American railway 
 from New York to Buenos Aires. Up to the 
 present time Colombia has had but six hun- 
 dred miles of railways: the little system 
 radiating from the capital and connecting it 
 with the Magdalena River, and, through that 
 
 381 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 natural highway, with the Caribbean ports, 
 and the short lines that run inland from the 
 ports of both oceans; for Colombia is the 
 only country in South America that borders 
 on both the Pacific and the Atlantic. 
 
 The traveler who enters the country in the 
 saddle over the route mentioned will profit 
 more than by sailing up the Pacific coast 
 from Guayaquil and entering through the 
 port of Buenaventura. The journey along 
 the lofty heights and down through the lovely 
 green valleys will not only give him much 
 more of the inspiring Andean scenery, but will 
 make him acquainted with the country and 
 village life which he could not see at close 
 range otherwise. But he will have to sacri- 
 fice many familiar comforts on the altar of 
 education. The posadas, or village inns, at 
 which he must stop are mere adobe huts with 
 dirt floors, and none but rawhide cots are 
 offered for his rest. The few dishes served at 
 these primitive hostelries are plentifully sea- 
 soned with garlic, saffron, and morones, or 
 red peppers. The early hours of the journey 
 will bring the traveler in conflict also with the 
 all-pervading philosophy of manana (to-mor- 
 row), and his progress will be slow. How- 
 
 382 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 ever, the unfailing good humor of his mule- 
 teer will do much to dispel his exasperation at 
 delays, and he will find himself more and 
 more repaid for his discomforts by the splen- 
 dor and beauty and strangeness through 
 which he is making his way. 
 
 Passing over the bleak, frozen paramos, or 
 mountain deserts, wrapped in awful stillness 
 by the great peaks rising above them, the 
 scene suddenly changes as the road descends 
 along the heavily wooded slopes and the 
 country becomes alive with verdure and the 
 sounds of birds. Below, in a still more sum- 
 mery clime, lies, perhaps, a beautiful little 
 lozenge-shaped valley fringed about up the 
 sides of the mountains with coffee plantations 
 and groves of bamboo, or some other scene 
 even more picturesque — and then, over equally 
 sudden changes and different pictures of na- 
 tive life, the traveler goes on until there begin 
 to appear extensive plantations with well 
 built houses and farm machinery, and, finally 
 reaches the railway, which takes him, not un- 
 regretfully, from his guide and carries him up 
 into the lofty sabana — the great altaplain on 
 which Bogota, the capital, is located. This 
 plateau is a level plain, about seventy miles 
 
 383 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 long by about thirty in width, containing 
 some two thousand square miles of cleared, 
 arable land. It lies 8700 feet above the sea in 
 the very heart of the Eastern Cordillera, just 
 below the fifth degree of north latitude, and 
 ranges in temperature from fifty-nine to 
 sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit the year around. 
 From this plateau the descendants of the 
 Spanish conquerors have administered the 
 country since 1538. The sabana is now cov- 
 ered with prosperous plantations belonging to 
 rich Bogotanos. 
 
 Bogota lies on the eastern border. When 
 Quesada, its founder, set foot on the sabana, 
 he was struck by its resemblance to the broad 
 plain of Santa Fe, in his native Granada, 
 on which the armies of Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella encamped during the siege that was to 
 put an end to the power of the Moors in 
 Spain. He therefore called the new capital 
 Santa Fe de Bogota, and New Granada be- 
 came the name of the northern viceroyalty 
 which was carved out of the Viceroyalty of 
 Peru in 1717. Both names have disappeared. 
 The capital has reverted to its ancient Indian 
 name of Bogota, and the name of Granada, 
 perpetuated until 1861 in the name of the 
 
 384 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 Republic of New Granada, was succeeded in 
 that year by that of the present Republic of 
 Colombia. 
 
 The site of the present city, some twelve 
 miles southeast of the ancient Chibcha capital, 
 was the location of the little Indian village of 
 Tensaquilla, the pleasure resort of the Zipas, 
 nestling, like the Spanish city of Granada, 
 at the foot of two mountains — Monserrate 
 and Guadelupe. Down these mountains 
 tumble the little streams that make up the 
 near-by Funza River, which spreads out over 
 the plain and then plunges down into the 
 upper waters of the Magdalena. On the 
 far side of this great river runs the Central 
 Cordillera, some ninety miles west of the 
 capital, and on clear days the giant white- 
 topped volcano, Tolima, 18,400 feet high, and 
 the Mesa de Herveo, but sixty feet lower — 
 constituting the culminating points in Co- 
 lombia — are plainly visible. 
 
 The traveler's first impressions of Bogota 
 are those of surprise and admiration — sur- 
 prise at rinding so large a city (150,000 in 
 population) perched high up in the Andes, 
 fully "six hundred miles from anywhere;" 
 and admiration of the surpassing natural 
 
 385 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 beauty of its locality. His next impression 
 is that it is one of the most conservative, quiet 
 and restful places on earth — conditions 
 greatly to be appreciated after his long, 
 eventful journey. The discovery is soon 
 made that Bogota possesses a climate that 
 is simply perfect, and a highly educated and 
 accomplished society, that boasts for the 
 capital the appellation of "the Boston of 
 South America." Like Quito, Bogota is old, 
 and being so far inland and inaccessible, its 
 Tibet-like seclusion for centuries has bred 
 within its higher circles an aristocratic caste, 
 somewhat arrogant but always suave, kindly, 
 and hospitable. In this eddied fragment of 
 the old-world Spain, the old ceremonious 
 forms of address — "Your servant who kisses 
 your hand," and that hospitable assurance, 
 "Aqui tiene su casa" with which even the 
 chance acquaintance is made to feel at home, 
 as in his "own house"— do not seem incon- 
 gruous, as they would in Spanish cities in 
 closer contact with the outer world. 
 
 The streets of the city run eastward up the 
 slopes of a wide avenue cut along the sides 
 of the mountain, and are crossed at right an- 
 gles by others running north and south. The 
 
 386 
 
OVERLOOKING BOGOTA. 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 blocks thus formed rise one above another 
 like the benches of a great amphitheater, over- 
 shadowed by the peaks of Monserrate and 
 Guadelupe. On the crests of these peaks 
 stand two massive cathedrals. One wonders 
 why great temples were built in such inac- 
 cessible locations, and why, with over thirty 
 more cathedrals and churches in the city, they 
 were needed at all. They can be reached only 
 by pedestrians, and then only after some 
 three hours of hard climbing; no one ever 
 lived near them, and the bleak, icy paramo 
 beyond is uninhabitable. Like the cross, how- 
 ever, their presence is objectively effective 
 in this very religious community. 
 
 The city is now well lighted by gas and 
 electricity and is beautified by three large 
 plazas and many smaller parks, in nearly all 
 of which the Bogotanos have erected hand- 
 some bronze statues to the soldiers and states- 
 men of the republic. The great central plaza 
 bears the name of Bolivar, and on a high 
 pedestal in its center stands a bronze figure 
 of the Great Liberator, his sad, thoughtful 
 face turned as if in mute reproach toward the 
 old executive mansion, where, for a brief 
 reign, he ruled the destinies of Colombia, 
 
 387 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Venezuela, and Ecuador, then united in his 
 ill-starred Colombian confederation. From 
 a window in that mansion he once leaped, at 
 midnight, to escape the hand of an assassin, 
 raised against him because the people dis- 
 trusted his rule and permitted themselves to 
 forget his inestimable services to the country. 
 On the north side of the plaza stands the 
 new capitol building, a plain but well-pro- 
 portioned structure of white granite; on the 
 east is the fine old metropolitan cathedral, 
 and adjoining it, on the same side, is the an- 
 cient palace of the Spanish viceroys, now, 
 however, used for shops and offices. Near 
 the western outskirts of the city is the exten- 
 sive Plaza de los Martiros, so named in com- 
 memoration of the patriots executed on its 
 site by the royalist general, Morillo. Al- 
 though beautifully laid out and made into an 
 attractive pleasure ground, it has always been 
 shunned by the people, for it was a veritable 
 Golgotha during the revolution, and was used 
 as the execution ground until the early six- 
 ties, when capital punishment was abolished 
 in Colombia. Not a great way from the tragic 
 spot is another noted place now called Nin- 
 guna Parte (literally "Nowhere"). It is 
 
 388 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 rather a disreputable part of the city in these 
 days, but, when General William Henry 
 Harrison resided there as United States Min- 
 ister, in 1827, it was a fashionable district. 
 The old house in which he lived is still pointed 
 out, as is the still older, and, if possible, still 
 more dilapidated, house occupied by Baron 
 von Humboldt during his year's sojourn in 
 Bogota. On the northern side of the little 
 Plaza de las Nieves stands the city's oldest 
 landmark — the house built by Quesada. 
 
 It would be idle to attempt to enumerate 
 the grand old monasteries and convents of the 
 city. Many of them occupy entire squares. 
 Since the political upheaval of 1860, generally 
 known as the "Mosquera Rebellion," these 
 edifices have ceased to be church property. 
 Some are now used as schools or hospitals, 
 others as hotels, armories, and barracks; 
 many are now occupied as government offices 
 — the National Mint, the National Military 
 Academy, the Post Office, the War and Navy 
 Departments, and the noted Rosario College. 
 
 The traveler's descent from the Bogota 
 sabana to the Magdalena on his departure 
 from the country, will store his memory with 
 vistas of grandeur and beauty that will never 
 
 389 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 be effaced, for the Upper Magdalena valley 
 is one of the most beautiful in the world. By 
 the old mule path to Honda, the head of nav- 
 igation for big steamers on the Magdalena, 
 by way of La Mesa, Tocaime, and Jirado, 
 one will be traveling over a route that for 
 centuries was the great thoroughfare for 
 peon or viceroy, and is to-day practically un- 
 changed in the scenes that make it interesting. 
 But one can now go by rail from Bogota to 
 Girardot on the Magdalena, some eighty 
 miles above and south of Honda, thence by 
 small steamer to Arrancapluma, where a 
 short railway trip is made around the Honda 
 Rapids to La Dorada, about twenty miles 
 north of and down the river from the town 
 of Honda. At La Dorada the five hundred 
 mile journey northward down the Magda- 
 lena to the Caribbean is made in one of the 
 regular steamers that cover this service. The 
 river trip is full of interest, for the wild 
 stream, nearly as large as the Mississippi, 
 flows with great rapidity throughout its 
 course, and has a most varied aspect. For 
 miles it spreads out in a calm, placid sheet of 
 water several miles in width, then whirls over 
 a series of rapids, or forms into whirlpools, 
 
 390 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 or later races through a narrow mountain 
 gorge; and, in consequence of its eccentrici- 
 ties, the channel is constantly changing, to the 
 great inconvenience of pilots. 
 
 At Calamar, about seventy-five miles from 
 the mouth, the traveler may exchange the 
 steamer for the railroad to the port of Carta- 
 gena, or continue down the Magdalena, now 
 greatly increased in volume by the confluence 
 of the almost equally large river Cauca, to 
 the two important Caribbean ports at the 
 mouth, Barranquilla and Sabanilla. The 
 first part of the trip from Bogota to Giradot 
 reminds one of the mountain scenery over 
 the Oroya road up into the Andean plateau 
 from Lima. Constantly before him, in the 
 distance, are the lofty frozen peaks of To- 
 lima, San Ruiz, and Herveo, towering above 
 their fellows in the Central Cordillera. On 
 either side of the Magdalena, the slopes of 
 the two ranges in their lower reaches are 
 dotted with coffee plantations; above them, 
 reaching to the altitude of the paramos, the 
 mountain sides are thickly overgrown with 
 forests, and down in the river basin, in the 
 hollow of the broad valley, the brilliant green 
 of varied tropical vegetation continues, on 
 
 391 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 past the point where the Central and Western 
 Cordilleras merge in the llanos, down to the 
 Caribbean coast plains; here the Magdalena 
 basin spreads out over a vast area of barren 
 waste. 
 
 Barranquilla, Sabanilla, and Cartagena are 
 the important commercial centers of the re- 
 public on the Caribbean, the last-named being 
 one of the oldest and most interesting of the 
 historic old ports. Founded in 1533 by Don 
 Pedro de Heredia, this port was the most 
 glorious monument to Spain's military genius 
 in the new world, and was properly looked 
 upon as the key to her great treasure house. 
 Spain spent over $60,000,000 on its fortifica- 
 tions, a fabulous sum in those days, but an 
 expenditure which for over two hundred years 
 secured to her the mastery of the Indies. To- 
 day these fortifications — the citadel within the 
 landlocked harbor, the two castles dominating 
 the narrow entrance, the tremendous walls 
 and ramparts — stand without question as the 
 most picturesque and characteristic survival 
 of Spain's colonial splendor. Not even the 
 perfectly preserved walls of Manila are more 
 impressive. The visitor who walks to-day 
 through the narrow, Moorish streets comes 
 
A POSADA, OR COUNTRY INN, ON THE ROAD TO BOGOTA. 
 
 BATTLEMENTED WALL, CARTAGENA. 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 with memories of the fabulous wealth and 
 the violent scenes of siege and bloodshed 
 culled from romances of the days of the 
 buccaneers that "sailed the Spanish Main." 
 He will, however, search in vain for the 
 evidences of the rich traffic once centered 
 here that gave to Francisco Pizarro the in- 
 spiration for his conquest of Peru. 
 
 Cartagena, "The Heroic City," from its 
 very beginning was the objective of every 
 expedition undertaken to wrest from Spain 
 her rich domain in the Indies; its fortifica- 
 tions stood as a perpetual challenge to the 
 freebooters who pillaged the Spanish Main 
 in the days of the galleons. This challenge 
 was accepted more than once to Cartagena's 
 heavy cost. Sir Henry Morgan, Robert Vaal, 
 Martin Cote, Du Casse, Sieur des Pointes, 
 and Sir Francis Drake sacked the town, and 
 later it was the object of the most important 
 attack made against Spain in the new world 
 prior to the nineteenth century, when, in 
 1741, the English Admiral Vernon under- 
 took his memorable campaign on the Carib- 
 bean. He assembled at Jamaica 29 ships of 
 the line and nearly 100 transports, carrying 
 a total force of 27,000 soldiers and sailors. 
 
 393 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 His siege of Cartagena began on the 4th of 
 March and lasted two months, and was at- 
 tended by enormous losses. The event is 
 peculiarly interesting to North Americans 
 because of the fact that the land forces, un- 
 der General Wentworth, contained a contin- 
 gent drawn from the thirteen English col- 
 onies in North America, and that the com- 
 mander of this contingent was Colonel Law- 
 rence Washington, elder brother of the im- 
 mortal George. It was through admiration 
 for Admiral Vernon's brilliant but unsuc- 
 cessful action that Washington gave to his 
 Virginia estate the name of Mount Vernon. 
 "Cartagena de Indias," as the old kings 
 of Spain loved to call their "very royal and 
 loyal city," ranks third in point of age in 
 the new world, and still retains more of its 
 early characteristics than any of the others. 
 Its antiquity is everywhere in evidence. Like 
 the battlements and castles at its entrance, 
 the city seems to have been built of the 
 yellow-white corral laid in concrete, which 
 seems to be indestructible. If one could fly 
 over it in an airship, and look down 
 upon its closely massed, red-tiled houses, 
 and, beyond, upon the deep green of the 
 
 394 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 country-side, with the exquisite blue effects 
 of the Caribbean and the tropic sky, the city 
 would seem gemlike in its romantic beauty. 
 The narrow streets of rough stone are over- 
 hung at frequent intervals with the pro- 
 truding windows and balconies familiar to 
 visitors in Lima and others of the older 
 Spanish cities, yet there is an individuality 
 about the houses here that is far more fasci- 
 nating, and facing the parks are many fine 
 examples of the old churches and convents 
 which constitute the distinctive architecture 
 of the colonial regime. Surrounding these 
 buildings are luxuriant gardens, presenting 
 a riot of color, in which the peculiarly re- 
 freshing green of the hot countries predomi- 
 nates. 
 
 Among the many substantial dwellings oc- 
 cupied by the wealthy is one that was the 
 seat of the terrible Inquisition which sat here 
 from 1610 until 1821. San Felipe de Barajas, 
 an old castle and fort lying on a low hill over- 
 looking the city, is full of interesting under- 
 ground passages, as are many of the fortifica- 
 tions, and although utterly abandoned and 
 falling into decay, is still a forceful and 
 grim reminder of the mediaeval period of 
 
 395 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 storm and stress. On the top of another hill, 
 called "La Popa," lying back of the town, 
 still stands the ancient convent of Santa 
 Candelaria, serving as a landmark to mari- 
 ners passing that way, its white or light 
 yellow buildings being visible for many miles 
 out at sea. Here the visitor is shown where 
 a buccaneer amused himself on the occasion 
 of one of the raids by hurling the nuns over 
 the edge of the perpendicular cliff on which 
 the convent stands. 
 
 Cartagena in the old days surpassed Mex- 
 ico, Lima, Panama, and Havana in impor- 
 tance, and stood forth as the commercial giant 
 of Spain in America; it represented, as did 
 no other American city, the pomp and mag- 
 nificence of her sixteenth and seventeenth 
 century imperialism. Now all this is past; 
 even as the natural gateway for Colombia's 
 productiveness, she has lost her position, the 
 North American-built railroad connecting 
 the port with the Magdalena River, at 
 Calamar, having proved powerless to re- 
 store even a small measure of her prestige 
 against the rising commercial importance of 
 Puerto Colombia and Barranquilla. The 
 latter port has now become the entrepot of 
 
 396 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 commerce with the interior by the great 
 waterway of the Magdalena. 
 
 On the desolate stretch of Colombia's Pa- 
 cific coast there is but one city of importance, 
 Buenaventura. This is the busy exchange 
 that taps the fertile region of the upper 
 Atrato basin, and when the Panama Canal 
 shall have been opened should spring into 
 greater importance along with the other ports 
 of the West Coast. In the interior Colombia 
 possesses many cities of considerable size, 
 ranging from thirty to sixty thousand inhabi- 
 tants, which are centers for the mining and 
 agricultural districts — Pamplona in the 
 mountains near the Venezuela frontier, Bu- 
 carmanga, a little to the west, Mompoz, near 
 the confluence of the Cauca and Magdalena, 
 once a port on the latter river but now, owing 
 to the erratic wanderings of that stream, 
 twenty miles east of it, Medellin, in the 
 Cauca valley; Popayan and Pasto near the 
 head waters of that river, and La Plata on 
 the other side of the Central Cordillera. 
 
 The Hon. John Barrett and Hon. Will- 
 iam L. Scruggs, both former Ministers of 
 the United States at Bogota, have written 
 extensively of Colombia's commercial pos- 
 
 397 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 sibilities and predict great strides for the 
 hermit republic. "Colombia," writes Mr. 
 Barrett, "is a wonderland of opportunity. 
 Measured by the standards of other countries 
 it can be said without exaggeration that the 
 Republic of Colombia, in proportion to area 
 and population, is the richest of all in the va- 
 riety and extent of undeveloped resources, 
 fullest in promise for future growth and re- 
 ward to mankind." "Colombia," he continues, 
 is at our very doors; it is nearer to the prin- 
 cipal ports of the United States than any 
 other South American country, and yet we 
 have done little to study her internal wealth 
 or to take part in her foreign commerce." 
 The country is only nine hundred and fifty 
 miles away from us; from Cartagena to 
 Tampa, Florida, the distance is less than 
 from New York to St. Louis. The foreign 
 trade of Colombia last year amounted to 
 $26,000,000, in which the United States par- 
 ticipated to the extent of only $11,000,000. 
 
 Mr. Scruggs says in closing his interesting 
 work on Colombia: "Such is the country as 
 nature has made it — picturesque, beautiful, 
 and exceedingly rich and varied in undevel- 
 oped resources. As yet man has done very 
 
 398 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
 little for it, the greater part being still un- 
 broken wilderness. . . . The commercial pos- 
 sibilities of the country are almost incalcu- 
 lable; and the time is probably not very re- 
 mote when the fact will be more fully realized 
 by the great commercial powers of the world." 
 
 399 
 
XI 
 
 VENEZUELA 
 
 AT the end of his "swing around the 
 circle" of South American countries 
 (having begun with Brazil), the trav- 
 eler comes to Venezuela — the huge republic 
 that bulges out into the northernmost nub of 
 the continent, where the terminal ranges of 
 the Andes turn eastward to meet the great 
 Guiana Highlands and form those high-flung 
 ramparts that protect the fertile, low-lying 
 Amazon plains from the Atlantic. This 
 black, mountainous front runs along the 
 Caribbean coast line for some fifteen hundred 
 miles, broken at intervals, however, where 
 the lovely blue of the tropical sea sweeps 
 inland to meet the bright green of some great 
 river basin. 
 
 Southward, Venezuela spreads down over 
 an irregularly shaped territory extending 
 from twelve degrees north latitude to the 
 equator. Her varied topography, too, pro- 
 
 400 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 duces almost every change of climate, from 
 the cold of the mountains — some of whose 
 peaks reach high enough to earn the title of 
 nevada — down through the temperate zone 
 of the llanos, or rolling plains that slope off 
 into the great Orinoco basins, where wheat, 
 corn, and cattle abound, and the country's 
 great staples, coffee, cotton, and tobacco are 
 grown, to the hot Orinoco jungles that trail 
 off to the south, where rubber and cacao trees 
 luxuriate without cultivation, and sugar cane, 
 oranges, fruits, and pineapples thrive in the 
 clearings. More than half of Venezuela's 
 territory may be ignored from the commercial 
 standpoint of to-day, for it is either Alaskan 
 or Amazonian in character and can be re- 
 served for later needs of the human family 
 if, as Humboldt prophesied, the Amazon 
 valley should become the feeding ground of 
 mankind. 
 
 No description has ever done justice to the 
 beauties of Venezuela's landscape of moun- 
 tain and valley and mighty rivers, of warm 
 green pastures and blue skies, and the mystic 
 shimmering white of an occasional snow- 
 capped peak. The country that so appeals 
 to the traveler's interest is nearly six hun- 
 
 401 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 dred thousand square miles in area, and could 
 include within its confines the States of Iowa, 
 Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and 
 Ohio. Its mountainous coast saw the begin- 
 ning of the European invasion of the new 
 world. Columbus, Vespucci, and Ojeda 
 touched here. Ojeda gave the country its 
 name. When, on his way west from the 
 Orinoco, he rounded Cape San Roman and 
 turned into the Gulf of Maracaibo, he saw 
 Indian villages composed of houses built on 
 piles in the water along the shores, which sug- 
 gested something of a resemblance to Venice, 
 and he called the place Venezuela (Little 
 Venice) ; and soon the whole coast, and even- 
 tually the country beyond, became so known 
 — a region larger than all Italy and Spain 
 combined. This coast and the white-walled 
 cities nestling in the heights among the mag- 
 nificent trees formed the storied Spanish 
 Main. 
 
 Cumana, in the middle east, is the oldest 
 European settlement in South America; it 
 was in its old church that Las Casas preached 
 — the saintly priest who was the Indian's 
 ablest champion in the early days of Spanish 
 devastation, but who, with regret be it said, 
 
 402 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 is reputed also to have been the father of 
 African slavery in the new world, for it was 
 he, so the chroniclers say, who suggested that 
 negroes be imported to labor in the fields 
 and mines and relieve the Indians of a burden 
 they were both temperamentally and physi- 
 cally unfitted to bear. Venezuela was the 
 birthplace of the resistance to Spain's oppres- 
 sion of her colonies, and of Miranda, Bolivar, 
 Sucre, and the fiery young patriot, Yanez — 
 the men who led the van of that resistance. 
 Through her land flows one of the world's 
 greatest rivers, the Orinoco, with its four 
 thousand miles of navigable waters. The 
 vast productiveness of the country and its 
 stores of mineral wealth are sufficient to sus- 
 tain twenty times its present population of 
 two millions and a half. And, finally, Vene- 
 zuela is nearer to us than any other country in 
 South America. 
 
 A most agreeable route for the traveler 
 leaving Colombian ports for Venezuela is by 
 the steamers which zigzag around the Carib- 
 bean Sea for ten days or more on the way to 
 Europe, and touch at many of the once fa- 
 mous old ports before reaching La Guayra, 
 the sea gateway to Caracas. Immediately 
 
 403 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 after leaving Colombian waters and round- 
 ing the Guajira peninsula, the ship enters 
 the great Gulf of Maracaibo, one hundred 
 and fifty miles in extent from east to west, 
 and sixty miles from north to south. Passing 
 along in through a narrow strait, the almost 
 equally large Lake of Maracaibo swells out 
 before the traveler. This great body of water 
 drains an extensive basin lying between two 
 terminal spurs of the Andes — the Sierra de 
 Pari j a and the Sierra Merida — and into it 
 flow many rivers having their source in 
 the surrounding mountains. Inside, on the 
 east bank of the strait, lies the city of 
 Maracaibo, now one of the most important 
 centers on the north coast, for here is shipped 
 the produce of the vast fertile region of 
 western Venezuela — coifee, cacao, tobacco, 
 castor beans, hardwood timber, and dyewoods. 
 Much of the produce of the eastern slope of 
 Colombia also finds its way to Europe and 
 the States through this port; fully half of 
 what is known in our markets as "Maracaibo 
 coffee" is really a Colombian product. 
 
 The tropical scenery of the plains sloping 
 down to the lake, and the mountains, with 
 their suggestion of snowy freshness, make 
 
 404* 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 the setting of this port one of the most 
 interesting on the continent. A dozen or 
 more of the peaks in the Merida range are 
 snow-capped, and two of them — Concha and 
 Coluna — rise to a height of over fifteen thou- 
 sand feet. Years ago a passing visitor to 
 Maracaibo, mistaking the discomforts of the 
 humidity and heat for general dissolution, 
 pronounced the place "the graveyard of Eu- 
 ropeans." Such hasty judgment is a great 
 injustice, for the rate of mortality here is 
 less than in many of the other tropical ports. 
 Rounding the eastern enclosure of the 
 Gulf, the Paraguana peninsula, the traveler 
 comes upon the quaint old town of Coro, 
 founded in 1527, and one of the very first of 
 the European settlements. It was this town 
 that the governor, sent out by the Germans to 
 whom the King of Spain at first leased the 
 country, made his capital, and from which he 
 undertook his disastrous expeditions in search 
 of El Dorado. Afterward, until 1576, it was 
 the seat of Spain's government of the colony, 
 and is now the capital of the State of Falcon. 
 Here, also, Miranda made his first resistance 
 to Spanish misrule at the beginning of the 
 revolutionary war. Coro is but a few miles 
 
 405 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 south of the Dutch Island of Curacao, that 
 most picturesque fragment of Amsterdam 
 perched on a coral rock. 
 
 Sweeping out eastward over the sea, as if 
 in continuation of the Merida range, is the 
 Cordillera de la Silla (the "Saddle Range"), 
 which terminates abruptly at Cape Codera. 
 Midway between this cape and Coro, lies 
 the important seaboard city of Puerto Ca- 
 bello. Its environment is not only remark- 
 ably attractive — like an oasis to the traveler 
 who has sailed along the bleak coast range 
 for many hours — but it is to-day one of the 
 finest harbors in the world, as it was in the 
 days of the early navigators, who said of it 
 that "a vessel is safe here, anchored by a sin- 
 gle hair (cabello)." The city is connected by 
 rail, over the Silla Cordillera, with the pros- 
 perous little city of Valencia, some fifty 
 miles distant, and thence, by waters of Lake 
 Valencia, with Cura and other important in- 
 land towns which are commercial centers of a 
 large part of the region that slopes inland 
 from the coast range. Puerto Cabello is, 
 therefore, the export depot of the States of 
 Carabobo, Lara, and Zamora, three of the 
 most productive commonwealths of the Ven- 
 
 406 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 ezuelan federal union. It was once a ren- 
 dezvous of the buccaneers and, later, the scene 
 of General Paez's astonishing night attack 
 on the Royalist forces during the revolution, 
 when, with his small command, he forced the 
 surrender of General Calzada's entire army. 
 To-day the city has a population of about ten 
 thousand, and many modern improvements — 
 electricity, water supply, well-paved streets, 
 and a number of attractive new buildings, 
 that harmonize, however, with the fine old 
 plazas and colonial residences. 
 
 Eastward, some sixty-five miles toward 
 Cape Codera, and halfway the length of the 
 Silla range, the traveler sights the great peak 
 of Picacho rising from the water's edge to a 
 height of over seven thousand feet. Along 
 this promontory, on a narrow strip of beach, 
 are scattered groups of sixteenth century 
 houses, white and red-topped for the most 
 part; some of them nestle inland in coves of 
 the mountains or look over the blue Carib- 
 bean from shelves of the cliffs above. This is 
 La Guayra, the seaport of the republic's cap- 
 ital. High above, overhanging the business 
 center of the town, stands the ancient and 
 picturesque Spanish fortress of early colonial 
 
 407 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 days, and just below, on another bench of 
 rock, is the old bull ring. Overlooking all, 
 on a high bluff, are the ruins of the old 
 castle which was the residence of the Captain- 
 General during the Spanish regime. To 
 those who have enjoyed Kingsley's great his- 
 torical novel, "Westward Ho! " the old ruins 
 will have a romantic interest, for it was from 
 the walls of this fortress-castle that Amyas 
 Leigh escaped after his vain attempt to rescue 
 the Rose of Devon. 
 
 Baron von Humboldt said that there is but 
 one place in the world that can rival La 
 Guayra in the splendor of its setting — Santa 
 Cruz de Teneriffe, which points one of the 
 Canary Islands off the Moroccan coast. La 
 Guayra is now all business, but not business 
 of the feverish, bustling kind, as the vis- 
 itor will find, after an entire morning spent 
 in passing from one leisurely official to an- 
 other in the effort to enter the country. The 
 port usually serves the traveler merely as a 
 landing place on his way to Caracas. If for 
 any reason, however, he should prefer to de- 
 lay his visit to the caprtal, he would do well 
 to run up the coast some three miles east of 
 the port city, to the pleasant little watering 
 
 408 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 place, Macuto, the resort of the leisure class 
 of the near-by capital. 
 
 Caracas is but seven miles inland from the 
 port as the crow flies, but the actual distance 
 by rail is twenty-two miles. The steep, wind- 
 ing road was started by American enterprise, 
 and at a cost of over $100,000 per mile. It 
 is now controlled by Englishmen, and so 
 great is the traffic, that the little line never 
 fails to be busy. For two hours the train 
 zigzags up the perilous ascent to a height of 
 three thousand feet before it turns sharply 
 around a dizzy precipice and enters the beau- 
 tiful valley of Caracas. Until this turn is 
 made the traveler is rarely ever shut off from 
 the gorgeous blue of the Caribbean. So 
 superb is the constantly changing view, that 
 he will feel more than repaid for the sensa- 
 tions of giddiness that may assail him as the 
 train swings around the many curves on the 
 route, and the yawning chasms overlooked 
 from the car windows are but added beauties 
 to the scene, instead of death traps, for so 
 excellent is the construction and so efficient 
 the management that there has never been 
 an accident along the entire length. 
 
 Caracas is usually much on the visitor's 
 409 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 mind during the days of his approach. His 
 mental picture doubtless will have been col- 
 ored from some newspaper cut of a dirty, 
 tatterdemalion crew, entitled "The Presi- 
 dent's Body Guard," or by some equally de- 
 ceptive idea of chaotic civic affairs. But he 
 will by this time have learned, from his visits 
 to other Venezuelan centers, that this charm- 
 ing and progressive country has been greatly 
 maligned by our North American press. He 
 will be entirely reassured the instant the train 
 comes to a stop and he descends at the clean, 
 pleasant little station and, in cab or trolley 
 car, enters the fine old Spanish metropolis, 
 rich in creature comforts, dignity, history, 
 and civic pride. The population of the city 
 now exceeds 70,000, in which there is but a 
 very small percentage of citizens of foreign 
 birth. 
 
 Unquestionably Caracas is one of the most 
 delightful places of residence in the world. 
 It lies in a valley three thousand feet up from 
 the sea, on either side of which towers a range 
 of mountains, one about seven, the other nine 
 thousand feet. The tropical heat is tempered 
 to a springlike mildness by the high altitude, 
 and the luxuriant fertility resulting from the 
 
 410 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 misty rains wafted down from the mountains, 
 make of the city and its environs a garden of 
 astonishing beauty. One old gentleman, re- 
 tired from the British diplomatic service after 
 many years in Caracas, preferred to end his 
 days here, where, he said, it was "but a step 
 to Paradise." 
 
 The city is laid out in the usual Spanish 
 colonial scheme — in streets running at right 
 angles to each other, forming blocks of 
 nearly uniform size. Prior to the liberation 
 from Spain, the streets bore names expres- 
 sive of the dominant influence of religion 
 — names that seem strange to us now: 
 Enc amadou del Hi jo de Dios (Incarnation 
 of the Son of God), Dulce N ombre de Jesus 
 (Sweet Name of Jesus), Presentation del 
 Nino Jesus en el Templo (Presentation of 
 the Child Jesus in the Temple), Huido a 
 Egypto (Flight to Egypt), and many others 
 of like import — a custom prevalent in most 
 of the ancient cities of Spain and her col- 
 onies, and one which still prevails in Cuba. 
 Fronting on the narrow, paveless streets are 
 the plastered, red-tiled houses found in all 
 North Andean cities; behind the bars the 
 pretty Venezuelan girls look out from their 
 
 411 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 cloistered seclusion with the same wistfulness 
 that is noted in Bogota and Lima. 
 
 The House of Congress is on the road to 
 everywhere; inside it the decorations and 
 frescoes are exceptionally fine, and perpetuate 
 many of the principal events in the life of the 
 nation. Miraflores, the appropriately named 
 home of Venezuela's president, is open to vis- 
 itors at certain hours. In the Panteon, to 
 the north of the city, repose the remains of 
 Bolivar in a superb tomb of Parian marble. 
 Upon it stands a statue of the Liberator, 
 wrapped in his military cloak — a noble and 
 dignified figure. In front of the cathedral is 
 the broad Plaza Bolivar, in the center of 
 which, amidst a profusion of tropical plants, 
 rises the equestrian statue of the nation's 
 hero. Another may be seen in Bolivar Park, 
 on which front several federal buildings; the 
 coins bear Bolivar's name, and the largest 
 state of the Union, as well as its capital, 
 Ciudad Bolivar, is similarly honored — every- 
 where throughout the republic his name is 
 revered as is Washington's with us. In the 
 museum of the University, in a room kept 
 sacred as the "Holiest of Holies," are dis- 
 played the Liberator's clothing, saddle, boots, 
 
 412 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 and spurs, and many relics intimately con- 
 nected with his brilliant career. Among them 
 is a portrait of Washington, sent him by 
 Custis, bearing the inscription, "This picture 
 of the Liberator of North America is sent by 
 his adopted son to him who acquired equal 
 glory in South America." 
 
 The white group of buildings of the Var- 
 gas Hospital, on the heights near the city, 
 presents a beautiful picture against the moun- 
 tains in the background. This is one of the 
 most extensive and best equipped in America 
 — either North or South. In the Academia 
 de Bellas Artes are displayed the works of 
 Michelena, a son of Caracas, whose paintings 
 have obtained an international reputation, 
 and many other pictures by native artists 
 from which one may get a good idea of the 
 great scenic beauty of Venezuela. 
 
 Although there are no active volcanoes in 
 Venezuela, the country has been subject to 
 many destructive earthquakes, notably in 
 1812, when Caracas was nearly destroyed at 
 a cost of some twelve thousand lives. As a 
 consequence of the constant presence of this 
 menace, the buildings of the capital are al- 
 most uniformly of one story. From the 
 
 413 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Monte Calvario, on the outskirts of the city, 
 the general aspect is flat and monotonous, but 
 a walk through the broader avenues and the 
 fifteen or more parks and plazas, gives to the 
 visitor vistas of foliage and flowers that leave 
 on his mind the impression of a lovely gar- 
 den. 
 
 The capital is connected by railway with 
 Puerto Cabello, via Lake Valencia. This is 
 the attractive scenic route that is made a 
 part of the Caribbean excursions offered by 
 the steamship lines each winter. The road 
 passes through indescribably beautiful moun- 
 tains and llanos — alternating wooded slopes 
 and meadows, and richly productive fields of 
 maize and wheat. Frequent stops are made 
 at the stations of important plantations or 
 the busy centers of this great agricultural 
 region: La Victoria, San Mateo, and Valen- 
 cia, the last-named a modernized city of forty 
 thousand inhabitants and the capital of the 
 State of Carabobo, one hundred and thirty- 
 seven miles from Caracas. 
 
 Turning back along the coast, eastward, 
 and passing the last of the coast ranges, the 
 Carib mountains, which taper off to the sharp 
 point of the Paria peninsula, the traveler 
 
 414 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 comes to the Island of Trinidad, which helps 
 to enclose the Gulf of Paria. This island is 
 now a British possession and is famous for 
 its asphalt lakes; it is also the point at which 
 Columbus stopped on his third voyage and 
 met the fresh waters from the Orinoco delta, 
 thus becoming convinced that he was con- 
 fronted by a great continent. He gave the 
 island its name when he observed from his 
 masthead the three high peaks on its north- 
 ern coast. 
 
 The deltaic region of the Orinoco River 
 basin extends for about four hundred and 
 fifty miles in a southeasterly direction from 
 the mountain ridge on the Paria peninsula to 
 the British Guiana highlands, and covers an 
 area of seven thousand square miles. Here 
 the traveler enters a country of wild, tropical 
 forests, mangrove swamps and mazelike 
 waterways, teeming with strange bird and 
 animal life — practically the same now as when 
 it was a primeval land of mystery that ter- 
 rified the first navigators. 
 
 The delta is made up of fifty or more 
 channels emptying into the Atlantic north 
 of the main stream of the Orinoco. The 
 region is entered by the Royal Mail through 
 
 415 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the central channel, or Macareo River. The 
 service of ocean steamers, however, extends 
 as yet only as far as Ciudad Bolivar, about 
 six hundred miles from the mouth, although 
 the river is navigable for smaller vessels as 
 far as Apures rapids — over a thousand miles 
 up its course on the Colombian frontier. For 
 fifteen hundred miles the wonderful stream 
 extends into the continent, draining a terri- 
 tory of three hundred and sixty-four thou- 
 sand square miles. With its numerous afflu- 
 ents, the Orinoco affords four thousand three 
 hundred miles of navigable waters for the 
 service of this vast region. The main river 
 rises in the Parima Mountains, which, with 
 the Pacarima range, form the frontier with 
 Brazil. Near its source it is tapped by the 
 Casiquiare, the remarkable river, which flows 
 in two directions and connects the Orinoco 
 with the Rio Negro, an affluent to the 
 Amazon. 
 
 The traveler entering the Orinoco from the 
 sea never forgets his first impressions. There 
 is a weird grandeur about the forests that 
 cannot be described — the magnificent trees, 
 closely grouped and undergrown with tropical 
 jungle plants that create a dense shadow land 
 
 416 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 of mystery that is made ever more awe-inspir- 
 ing to the uninitiated by the startling cries of 
 the jaguar and puma and the queer howling 
 of the monkeys. The leaves are thick and 
 moist, and tinted a deep rich green, but glisten 
 brightly in the high lights; the foliage never 
 loses that freshness and brilliance which is 
 assumed in our northern woodlands only in 
 the lovely season of early spring. Hence 
 the darker tones blending with the flitting 
 shafts of sunlight develop a play of color 
 effects of never-ending delight to the lover 
 of nature. Countless creepers, decked with 
 gorgeously colored blossoms along the water 
 sides and where the sun's rays penetrate, 
 twine themselves around the great tree trunks. 
 In many places natural bowers are thrown 
 up, that display a beauty and symmetry which 
 could not be surpassed by the most consum- 
 mate art. Flame-colored flamingoes, chatter- 
 ing parrots and myriads of strange birds of 
 brilliant plumage, enhance the beauty of the 
 scene and add a welcome touch of life, yet 
 serve to confirm the stranger's impression that 
 he has wandered into some enchanted realm. 
 South of the Orinoco there is a gradual 
 rise to the Guiana Highlands, which are as 
 
 417 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 yet sparsely populated and but little given 
 over to cultivation; this hilly country, con- 
 stituting about half of the republic's area, 
 ascends in uneven ridges to the higher alti- 
 tudes of the Brazilian frontier ranges. North 
 of the river the rolling plains, or llanos, sweep 
 inland from the Atlantic between the Guiana 
 highlands and the coast ranges like a great 
 green arm of the sea — past the Merida sierra 
 and the western escarpment of the highlands, 
 to merge in the hot plains of the Amazon 
 region. These llanos do not correspond ex- 
 actly with the Argentine pampas; they un- 
 dulate and ascend gradually from the river 
 bottoms to an elevation of over three hundred 
 feet, whence they continue up into the foot- 
 hills. They are thus known as llanos 
 altos, or upper plains, and llanos bajos, or 
 lower plains. The llanos present a diversified 
 aspect, with much broken ground and heavily 
 wooded tracts near the upper courses of the 
 Orinoco affluents, and clothed, in some of the 
 lower stretches, with rich tropical vegetation. 
 In this fertile agricultural and grazing 
 country lies a great source of future wealth 
 of the nation, for although coal and iron have 
 been discovered within its boundaries in prac- 
 
 418 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 ticable quantities, Venezuela's production, 
 aside from asphalt, is chiefly confined to cof- 
 fee, cacao, tonka beans, sugar, cotton, indigo, 
 rubber, cereals, cattle, hides, aigrette plumes, 
 sarsaparilla and other medicinal plants, cab- 
 inet woods, and fruits. Gold has been mined 
 since the earliest colonial times. Venezuela 
 also possesses several of the world's most im- 
 portant asphalt deposits. "While the 'pitch 
 lake' of Trinidad, a surface a mile and a half 
 across of pure asphaltum," says the Pan 
 American Bulletin (of July, 1911), "is per- 
 haps the most remarkable occurrence of this 
 mineral in nature, the lake of Bermudez, 
 which covers a thousand acres in the old state 
 of Bermudez, Venezuela, is fast equaling the 
 first in commercial importance. Asphalt is 
 also found in the Perdanales district as well 
 as on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, and as 
 an indication of the value of Venezuelan 
 bitumen, we have the fact that this special 
 variety is used to protect the tunnels of the 
 New York Subway." The foreign trade of 
 Venezuela in 1910 was valued at $30,336,122, 
 the great bulk of which was with Europe. 
 Her purchases from us amounted to but 
 $3,788,539. 
 
 419 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The population of Venezuela is made up 
 of Indians, mestizos, and unmixed descend- 
 ants of the Spanish; but few North Ameri- 
 cans are settled in the country thus far, in 
 spite of its nearness to the United States. A 
 better acquaintance between our people and 
 the Venezuelan land of promise should re- 
 sult from the opening of the Panama Canal. 
 This most desirable consummation will oper- 
 ate to the benefit of both peoples, for, being 
 but six days from New York and four from 
 Charleston, the flow of the country's trade 
 should turn our way with increasing volume 
 as our merchants become familiar with the 
 ports of the Spanish Main en route to the 
 canal. So far Venezuela is almost wholly 
 unknown to us. Less than ten years ago, a 
 bill was introduced in our Congress to con- 
 solidate the diplomatic missions to the repub- 
 lics of Venezuela and Guatemala, under the 
 impression that the countries were adjacent! 
 and during the debate one member arose and 
 asked in all seriousness, "Where is Ven- 
 ezuela, anyhow?" 
 
 Like Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, Ven- 
 ezuela is a federation of states. In this re- 
 spect it differs from the other Latin American 
 
 420 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 republics, except Brazil. Its government is 
 modeled closely on our own, although more 
 centralized, the governors of the states being 
 appointed by the federal executive. The 
 country is on a gold basis; its national debt 
 is not excessive; its administration of the 
 postal, telegraph, and customs services is 
 efficient and progressive, and, underlying the 
 whole structure, is the sure guarantee of in- 
 exhaustible wealth. With each new crisis in 
 her history, Venezuela has advanced to a 
 higher plane, and has maintained her footing. 
 The men who have lifted her up the steps of 
 her career — Bolivar, Paez, Vargas, Guzman 
 Blanco, Crespo, and the little Andean general 
 who has recently come again into interna- 
 tional notice after a brief eclipse, Cipriano 
 Castro — have been honest in their purpose 
 and patriots first, whatever they may have 
 been in their private lives. Many other names 
 may be written on her roll of fame: the ro- 
 mantic, but visionary, Miranda, the fiery 
 young patriot Yanez, and the Venezuelan of 
 all others who survived the revolution with- 
 out question or reproach — Bolivar's great 
 lieutenant, Sucre, who became the first presi- 
 dent of Bolivia. 
 
 421 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Of all her latter day sons, Guzman Blanco 
 accomplished most for his country. After 
 serving in the diplomatic corps in Europe, 
 he returned in 1870 able to assume the su- 
 preme authority with an understanding of 
 the needs of his disordered country and the 
 knowledge and forcefulness with which to 
 supply them. During his practical dictator- 
 ship of eighteen years, he ruled with a rod of 
 iron; he enriched himself and his favorites, 
 and stamped his personality ineradicably on 
 the country, it may be — but he made Vene- 
 zuela a thriving country. He beautified and 
 practically rebuilt the capital, subsidized and 
 fostered the railroads, opened the door to 
 foreign capital and traders who learned to 
 believe in his stable government, and im- 
 proved the ports. Under his energetic ad- 
 ministration the production of coffee reached 
 phenomenal proportions ; shipping made rapid 
 progress; the population increased in normal 
 ratio, and the homes of the people improved 
 in every way. The work he did lasted. 
 
 Castro, also, worked hard to build up a 
 spirit of nationalism with which to withstand 
 the impositions of foreign governments, whose 
 citizens in many instances had sought by 
 
 422 
 
VENEZUELA 
 
 fraudulent claims to enrich themselves. He, 
 too, won a good fight and in some respects 
 advanced Venezuela to a higher place in the 
 family of nations. His patriotism has been 
 made grotesque in our public press, but those 
 who know him well have no doubt that it was 
 sincere. He is well born and able and has 
 shown many of the elements of statesmanship. 
 Venezuela unquestionably has suffered in- 
 justice at the hands of European govern- 
 ments, and of our own, in the demands they 
 have sought to enforce oh behalf of adven- 
 turers who have attempted to exploit the 
 country to their own advantage and without 
 regard to her interests — notably in the cases 
 of her dispute with Great Britain over the 
 boundary with British Guiana, and the 
 French cable company. 
 
 423 
 
XII 
 
 THE GUIANAS 
 
 ON the northeastern shoulder of the 
 continent lies a huge block of terri- 
 tory as large as France and Spain 
 combined. It is in reality an island, since it 
 is bounded on the north and east by the 
 Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, on the 
 south by the Amazon River, and on the north- 
 west and west by the continuous waterway 
 formed bj*- the Orinoco, the Casiquiare and 
 the Negro rivers, the last named an affluent 
 of the Amazon. Like the north Andean 
 republics, the Guiana country is made up 
 of mountains, highlands, and low-lying plains, 
 and lies wholly in the tropics; its produc- 
 tiveness thus embraces nearly every cereal 
 and vegetable found in the three great zones 
 of the earth. 
 
 Guiana was discovered, named, and first 
 occupied by the Spanish in the very begin- 
 
 424 
 
THE GUIANAS 
 
 ning of things in South America. It ac- 
 quired fame in the latter part of the six- 
 teenth century as one of the regions in which 
 the home of El Dorado was supposed to be 
 located — the fateful will-o'-the-wisp that was 
 chased by the early fortune hunters all over 
 the region from the mountain fastnesses about 
 Bogota, in Colombia, to the Parana, in south- 
 ern Brazil, the lure which brought disaster 
 even to such men of intelligence and practical 
 common sense as Sir Walter Raleigh and 
 Sir Francis Drake. The long-sought Lake 
 Guatavita (now known to be located near 
 Bogota), in whose sacred waters El 
 Dorado bathed his gilded body, was once 
 supposed to lie near the source of the Ori- 
 noco in the Parima Mountains, and, indeed, 
 geologists now contend that such a lake did 
 exist ages ago in these mountainous heights, 
 and it is unquestionably true that on the line 
 northward from this point runs a vein of gold 
 richer than any in the known world, and that 
 this vein had been worked by the Indians 
 from time immemorial. 
 
 The lure of the gold, purged, however, of 
 its myth, has survived to our own day, for 
 we all remember Great Britain's effort, in her 
 
 425 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 boundary dispute with Venezuela, to extend 
 her Guiana boundary over the rich gold 
 fields south of the Orinoco delta. 
 
 Until 1624, the Spanish succeeded in hold- 
 ing Guiana against all comers; but in that 
 year the Dutch West India Company gained 
 a foothold at the head of the Essequibo delta, 
 and was confirmed in its possession by the 
 treaty of Minister in 1648, at the close of 
 the war between Spain and the Netherlands. 
 After this opening, other nations made haste 
 to share in a partition of the rich territory. 
 The French established a colony at Cayenne; 
 the English made a settlement and called it 
 Surreyham, after the Earl of Surrey — 
 whence the present name of Surinam — and 
 eventually the country was partitioned among 
 the five nations: Brazil became the owner of 
 that portion trailing off southward to the 
 Amazon which Portugal had wrested from 
 Spain, and which is now sometimes called 
 Brazilian Guiana, although it is an integral 
 part of the United States of Brazil; France 
 still retains Cayenne, now known as French 
 Guiana; the Dutch are now installed in the 
 Surinam colony, which came into their pos- 
 session at the time of the British occupation 
 
 426 
 
THE GUIANAS 
 
 of New York, and is now called Dutch Gui- 
 ana; Great Britain owns the three settle- 
 ments at Demerara, Berbice, and Essequibo, 
 captured in 1803 from the Dutch and after- 
 ward ceded to her by the treaty of 1814, and 
 which now constitute British Guiana, and, 
 lastly, Venezuela, as successor to the title of 
 Spain, owns the rest of the highlands, south 
 of Parima and Pacarima, the territory for- 
 merly known as Spanish Guiana until the 
 revolution of the Venezuelan colonists. 
 
 British Guiana is 109,000 square miles in 
 area — larger than the United Kingdom — 
 and has a population of about 300,000, made 
 up of 150,000 negroes, 100,000 East Indians, 
 15,000 Portuguese, 10,000 British and Euro- 
 peans, and the balance of mestizos. It is di- 
 vided into three counties, which correspond 
 to the old settlements — Demerara, Berbice, 
 and Essequibo. Georgetown, the capital, is 
 on the right bank of the Demerara River at 
 its mouth. It is an attractive port city of 
 about 60,000 inhabitants, heavily shaded with 
 tropical trees, and presents the substantial 
 appearance of most British colonial centers. 
 Just now its interests are being rather neglect- 
 ed, but, as the shipping point of a sugar 
 
 427 
 
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 area productive enough to supply the mother 
 country, it could be developed into one of 
 the great ports of the Caribbean. 
 
 The area of Dutch Guiana is 46,060 square 
 miles, and its population numbers about 70,- 
 000. The capital, Paramaribo, is a city of 
 some 30,000 inhabitants, located at the junc- 
 tion of the Surinam and Commewine rivers, 
 about ten miles from the sea. The colony's 
 trade in coffee, cacao, rubber, timber, and 
 gold has not yet been developed to such 
 proportions as to make it self-supporting; it 
 is still subsidized by the mother country. 
 
 French Guiana is known to us principally 
 as a penal settlement. Since the days of the 
 French Revolution, Devil's Island, off the 
 coast, has been used by the French govern- 
 ment as a penal establishment, and in recent 
 years the world has become familiar with its 
 supposed terrors by reading the account of 
 Captain Dreyfus's sufferings. Nevertheless, 
 French Guiana has all the capabilities of the 
 other Guianas, and could be made richly pro- 
 ductive. Its area is 31,000 square miles and 
 its population about 25,000; that of its cap- 
 ital, the city of St. Louis, on the Island of 
 Cayenne, now numbers slightly over 15,000. 
 
 428 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 General 
 
 Along the Andes. A. Petrocokino 
 
 Along the Andes and Down the Amazon. H. J. Mozans 
 Ancient America. John D. Baldwin 
 
 Andes and the Amazon, The. James Orton 
 
 Andes and the Amazon, The. Reginald C. Enoch 
 
 Abound the Caribbean and Acboss Panama. 
 
 Franci* C. Nicholas 
 Between the Andes and the Ocean. William Eleroy Curtis 
 Capitals of South America, The. William Eleroy Curtis 
 
 Commercial Traveler in South America. Frank Wiborg 
 
 Continent of Opportunity, The. Francis E. Clark 
 
 Discovery of America, The. John Fiske 
 
 Discovery and Conquest of America, A Collection 
 
 of Rare Documents concerning. E. Qeorge Squier 
 
 Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon. 
 
 William, Lewis Herndon 
 Great States of South America, The. 
 
 Charles W. Domville-Fife 
 Land of To-morrow, The. (Pamphlet.) John Barrett 
 
 Latin America of To-day and its Relations to the 
 
 United States. (Pamphlet.) John Barrett 
 
 Latin Amebica, A Practical Guide to. Albert Hale 
 
 Northern Republics of South Amebica, The. 
 
 (Pamphlet.) John Barrett 
 
 Orinoco, Up the, and Down the Magdalena. 
 
 H. J. Mozans 
 Other Americans, The. Arthur Buhl 
 
 Panama to Patagonia. Charles M. Pepper 
 
 South America. (Translated.) Antonio D. Ulloa 
 
 429 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 South America. A. H. Keane 
 
 South America, History op. Adnah D. Jones 
 
 South America, History op. Charles E. Akers 
 
 South Americak Republics, The. Thomas C. Dawson 
 
 South American Republics, The Independence op. 
 
 Francis L. Paxson 
 South Americans, The. Albert Hale 
 
 Spanish America. Julian Hawthorne 
 
 Spanish Conquest in America, The. Sir Arthur Help* 
 
 By Countries 
 
 Aconcagua and Tierra del Fuego. Sir Martin Conway 
 
 Argentina. W. A. Hirst 
 
 Argentina and Her People op To-day. Nevin O. Winter 
 
 Argentina, Modern. W. H. Koebel 
 
 Argentina, The Republic of. A. Stuart Pennington 
 
 Bolivia. Marie Robinson Wright 
 
 Bolivia, A Handbook Issued by. The Pan American Union 
 Bolivian Andes, The. Sir Martin Conway 
 
 Brazil and the Brazilians. 
 
 James C. Fletcher and D. P. Kidder 
 Brazil, A Journey in. Louis Agassiz 
 
 Brazil, The New. Marie Robinson Wright 
 
 Brazil of To-day. (Translated.) Arthur Dias 
 
 Chile, Historv of. Anson Uriel Hancock 
 
 Chile, Its History and Development. O. F. Scott Elliot 
 Chile, The Republic of. Marie Robinson Wright 
 
 Chile of To-day. (By the Chilean Consul-General 
 
 in New York.) Adolf o Ortuzar 
 
 Colombia. (Pamphlet.) John Barrett 
 
 Colombia, Journal of Expedition across Venezuela and. 
 
 Hiram Bingham 
 Colombia, The Republic of. F. Loraine Petre 
 
 Colombian and Venezuelan Republics, The. 
 
 William E. Scruggs 
 
 430 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Countries op the King's Award, The. 
 
 Sir Thomas H. Holdich 
 Cuzco and Lima. Sir Clements R. Markham 
 
 Ecuador, A Handbook Issued by. The Pan American Union 
 Incas of Peru, The. Sir Clements R. Markham 
 
 Incas, Royal Commentaries on. (Translated.) 
 
 Garcilaso de la Vega 
 Islands of Titicaca and Koati. Adolf F. Bandelier 
 
 Paraguay. (Translated.) E. de Bourgade la Bar dye 
 
 Paraguay, A Handbook Issued by. The Pan American Union 
 Paraguay, History of. Charles A. Washburn 
 
 Peru, Chronicles of. (Translated.) 
 
 Pedro de Cieza de Leon 
 Peru, History of. Sir Clements R. Markham 
 
 Peru, Historia General. (Translated.) Garcilaso de la Vega 
 Peru, History of the Conquest of. William H. Prescott 
 
 Peru: Incidents of Travel in the Land of the Incas. 
 
 E. George Squier 
 Peru, The Old and the New. Marie Robinson Wright 
 
 Purple Land that England Lost, The. W. H. Hudson 
 
 Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator. 
 
 Sir Edward Whymper 
 Travels in the Wilds of Ecuador. Alfred Simpson 
 
 Uruguay. W. H. Koebel 
 
 Uruguay, A Handbook Issued by. The Pan American Union 
 Venezuela. William Eleroy Curtis 
 
 Venezuelan Republics, The Colombian and. 
 
 William L. Scruggs 
 Venezuela and Colombia, Journal of an 
 
 Expedition across. Hiram Bingham 
 
 Wilderness, Our Search fob a. Mary Blair and W. C. Beebe 
 
 431 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aconcagua, Mt., 380-282, 283- 
 284, 366. 
 
 Agassiz, Louis, exploration of 
 Amazon by, 139-140. 
 
 Agriculture, in Brazil, 136; 
 in Argentina, 191-192; in 
 Uruguay, 235; in Bolivia, 
 262-264; in Ecuador, 355- 
 359; in Colombia, 379-380; 
 in Venezuela, 418-419. 
 
 Alcantara, Francisco, 42, 84. 
 
 Almagro, Diego de, 38, 41, 
 42, 43, 68, 75-76; leads ex- 
 pedition into Chile, 76; dis- 
 appointed and repulsed in 
 Chile, returns to Peru and 
 wars against the Pizarro 
 brothers, 79-81; death of, 
 81; followers of, assassinate 
 Pizarro, 83-85. 
 
 Alpaca, the, in Peru, 47; in 
 Argentina, 216. 
 
 Altar, El, volcano, Ecuador, 
 367. 
 
 Alvarado, Alonso de, 82. 
 
 Alvarado, Pedro de, 75-76. 
 
 Amambay Mountains, 241. 
 
 Amazon River, discovery of, 
 81 ; description of, 137 ff. ; 
 sources of, in Peruvian An- 
 des, 322. 
 
 Andes Mountains, nature of, 
 in Chile, 277-288; railway 
 through the, 280; in Peru, 
 321; in Colombia, 375-376. 
 
 Animals of Amazon country, 
 141. 
 
 Antofagasta, city of, 292, 293- 
 295. 
 
 Antofagasta, Province of, 287, 
 290. 
 
 Antofagasta-La Paz railway, 
 261. 
 
 Aramcana of Ercilla, 102-103. 
 
 Araucanian Indians, 101 ff. ; 
 wars of the Spanish with, 
 102-103; customs, religion, 
 and dress, 104-105; Val- 
 divia's war with, 106-109; 
 treaties between Spanish 
 and, 110-111. 
 
 Architecture, styles of, in 
 South American cities, 232- 
 233. 
 
 Arequipa, city of, 82, 332- 
 333; Harvard Observatory 
 at, 333-334. 
 
 Argentina, Spanish conquest 
 of northern areas of, 112- 
 113; area and coast-line, 
 190; natural resources, 191- 
 192; government, 192-193; 
 population, 193; volume of 
 trade with Europe as com- 
 pared with that with United 
 States, 194; division into 
 Buenos Aires and "the 
 Camp," 194-195; political 
 history, 195-197; rapid ad- 
 vance of, since 1862, 197- 
 198; railways, immigration, 
 and education in, 198; con- 
 ditions of life in Buenos 
 Aires, 198-213; "the Camp," 
 214 ff.; cattle, horses, sheep, 
 goats, etc., of, 216-217; 
 gradual introduction of 
 small landholders into, 219; 
 territory known as Pata- 
 gonia, 223-225; Tierra del 
 Fuego, 225; tropical wilds 
 of the north, 226-227. 
 
 433 
 
INDEX 
 
 Asphalt deposits, 415, 419. 
 
 Asses, in Argentina, 216. 
 
 Asuncion, Paraguay, 241 ; 
 population and character, 
 245-246, 251-252. 
 
 Atacama, Province of, 277, 
 287. 
 
 Atacames, Ecuador, 358. 
 
 Atahualpa, defeat of Huascar 
 by and accession to Inca 
 throne, 59-61; made a pris- 
 oner by Pizarro, 61-65; ran- 
 som paid by, 66; Pizarro's 
 treachery toward and mur- 
 der of, 66-68. 
 
 Atrato River, 376. 
 
 Aucasquilucha, Mt., 278. 
 
 Ayacucho, battle of, 132. 
 
 Aymara Indians, 48. 
 
 Bahia, State of, black dia- 
 monds in, 189. 
 
 Bahia Blanca, city of, 195. 
 
 Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, 22- 
 25, 35, 36. 
 
 Balsa rafts, Guayaquil, 363. 
 
 Balsas, reed boats on Lake 
 Titicaca, 57. 
 
 Banana trees, Ecuador, 364. 
 
 Barranquilla, 391, 392, 396- 
 397. 
 
 Barrett, John, Independent 
 article by, quoted, 315; on 
 Colombia's commercial pos- 
 sibilities, 397. 
 
 Belem, city of, 137, 139, 146- 
 153. 
 
 Belgrano, Manuel, 123. 
 
 Belgrano, suburb of Buenos 
 Aires, 202. 
 
 Bello Horizonte, city of, 186- 
 187. 
 
 Benalcazar, Sebastian de, 76, 
 92, 95, 96, 370. 
 
 Bermudez, asphalt lake of, 
 419. 
 
 Bio-bio River, 101, 102, 105, 
 106, 108, 111. 
 
 Bitumen from Venezuela, 419. 
 
 Black diamonds, 189. 
 
 Blanco, Guzman, 422. 
 
 Blancos, Uruguayan political 
 faction, 238. 
 
 Boers in Patagonia, 225. 
 
 Bogota, 95, 383, 384, 385-389. 
 
 Bolfvar, Simon, 123, 129; San 
 Martin's retirement in fa- 
 vor of, 129-130; career of, 
 130-133; Bolivia named for, 
 259; period of residence in 
 Bogota, 387-388; tomb of, 
 Caracas, 412; relics of, at 
 Caracas, 412-413. 
 
 Bolivia, Pizarro's expedition 
 into, 82; position, 257-258; 
 people, 259; area and cli- 
 mate, 259-260; scenery, 261- 
 262 ; agricultural produc- 
 tions, 262-264 ; mineral 
 wealth, 264-266; cities and 
 ruins in, 266-274. 
 
 Bolognesi, Colonel, 328. 
 
 Bomfim, Senhor, quoted, 175. 
 
 Botafogo Bay, 163, 167. 
 
 Botanical garden, at Bel£m, 
 150; at Rio de Janeiro, 
 168-169. 
 
 Boyacd, battle of, 131. 
 
 Brandao, Frei Caetano, statue 
 of, Belem, 150-151. 
 
 Brazil, discovery of, 18; ex- 
 ploration of, by Vespucci, 
 18-19 ; secures independ- 
 ence, 133; area and popula- 
 tion of present republic, 
 134-135; international com- 
 merce, 135-136; the Ama- 
 zon country, 137-153; rail- 
 ways, 153-154; cities of 
 coast, 154-160. 
 
 Brazil wood, 19, 33. 
 
 British, capital of, invested 
 in Argentine railways, 197- 
 
 434 
 
INDEX 
 
 198; residing in Buenos 
 Aires, 203; club life of, 
 Buenos Aires, 207-208; in- 
 vestments of, in Argentine 
 land, 219; in Patagonia, 
 224; as investors in Monte- 
 video, 231. 
 
 British Guiana, 426, 427-428. 
 
 Bucarmanga, Colombia, 397. 
 
 Buenaventura, Colombia, 397. 
 
 Buenos Aires, first settlement 
 on site of, 113; pride of 
 citizens of, in their city, 
 194-195; in character simi- 
 lar to Chicago, 198-199 ; im- 
 pressive dock system of, 
 199-200; commerce of, 200- 
 201; the aesthetic side of, 
 201-202; influence of Paris 
 on the culture, dress, and 
 customs of, 202-203; for- 
 eign colonies in, 203; pa- 
 triotism of citizens of, 203- 
 204; newspapers of, 204- 
 205; places of amusement, 
 opera, cafes, etc., of, 205- 
 206; club life in, 207-210; 
 the Jockey Club, 208-210; 
 contrasts of prodigality and 
 destitution in, 211; nar- 
 rowness of streets, 212-213; 
 expense of living in, 213; a 
 well-appointed city in all 
 respects, 213-214. 
 
 Buenos Aires, Province of, 
 197. 
 
 Buenos Aires, University of, 
 198. 
 
 Buenos Aires, Viceroyalty of, 
 116. 
 
 Bull, papal, dividing New 
 World between Spain and 
 Portugal, 14, 17. 
 
 Caaguazu Mountain's, 241. 
 Cabot, Sebastian, 31-32. 
 Cabral, Pedro Alvarez, 18. 
 
 Cacao trees, Ecuador, 356- 
 357. 
 
 Cafes, at Bel6m, 152-153; at 
 Rio de Janeiro, 171; Bue- 
 nos Aires, 211-212. 
 
 Callao, description of, 318- 
 319. 
 
 Cape Horn, 225-226. 
 
 Caquet£ River, 376. 
 
 Carabobo, State of, 406. 
 
 Caracas, Venezuela, 409-414. 
 
 Carriage parade, Buenos 
 Aires, 210. 
 
 Cartagena, Colombia, 90, 392- 
 396. 
 
 Cartier, Jacques, 22. 
 
 Casapalca, town of, 331. 
 
 Casas, Bartolom6 de las, 86, 
 402-403. 
 
 Castro, Cipriano, 421, 422-423. 
 
 Castro, Vaca de, 83, 86. 
 
 Cattle-raising, in Rio Grande 
 do Sul, 186; in Argentina, 
 191, 216; in Uruguay, 235. 
 
 Cauca River, 376, 391. 
 
 Cauchi tribe of Indians, 47. 
 
 Caupolican, Araucanian chief, 
 102-103, 106, 107, 108. 
 
 Cayenne, Island of, 428. 
 
 Cedar from Colombia, 380. 
 
 Century plant in Ecuador, 
 354. 
 
 Chacabuco, battle of, 125, 
 279. 
 
 Chachacomani, Mt., 258. 
 
 Chaco region, 218, 226, 240. 
 
 Charrua Indians, 237. 
 
 Chaves, Francisco, 84. 
 
 Chibcha Indians, 94-95. 
 
 Chicago, comparison of Bue- 
 nos Aires and, 199, 201-202. 
 
 Chile, Almagro leads a force 
 into, 76; Valdivia under- 
 takes conquest of, 82; 
 Spanish wars in attempts to 
 conquer native tribes of, 
 97-112; War of Independ- 
 
INDEX 
 
 ence in, 124-126; proclama- 
 tion of independence of, 
 126; the matter of a name 
 for, 275-276; shape, loca- 
 tion, and area, 276-277; 
 commerce, 277; mountains, 
 passes, and other surface 
 features, 278-288; nitrate of 
 soda deposits, 288-292 ; 
 cities, 293-307; war be- 
 tween Peru and, 297; 
 islands of southern, 307 ff. ; 
 mountain ranges along 
 Strait of Magellan, 310-313. 
 
 Chiloe, Island of, 286, 307. 
 
 Chiloe, Province of, 286. 
 
 Chimborazo, Mt., 365-366. 
 
 Chincona tr'ies, 263. 
 
 Chonos Archipelago, 307. 
 
 Christ of the Andes, the, 222- 
 223. 
 
 Chubut, Territory of, 224. 
 
 Church, F. E., "Heart of the 
 Andes," by, 365. 
 
 Cigars, Brazilian, 159. 
 
 Cipango, island of (Japan), 
 9, 14. 
 
 Ciudad Bolivar, 412, 416. 
 
 Club life in Buenos Aires, 
 207-210. 
 
 Coast Range, Brazilian, 163- 
 164. 
 
 Coati, island of, 57, 336. 
 
 Coca, 357. 
 
 Coca leaf, chewing of the, 
 262-263. 
 
 Cochabamba, 261. 
 
 Cochrane, Lord, 127. 
 
 Cocoa, 357-358. 
 
 Coelho, Duarte, 34. 
 
 Coffee, production of, in Bra- 
 zil, 136; in State of Sao 
 Paulo, 176; exportation of, 
 from Santos, 182-183; be- 
 ginnings and increase in 
 growth of, in Brazil, 183- 
 184; description of planta- 
 
 tions, 184-185; production 
 of, in Colombia, 380; in 
 Venezuela, 401; Maracaibo 
 coffee, 404. 
 
 Colleges, at Sao Paulo, 179. 
 
 Colocolo, Araucanian chief, 
 106. 
 
 Colombia, early exploration 
 of, 90-97; formation of Re- 
 public of, 131 ; location and 
 area, 375; mountains and 
 river systems, 375-376; min- 
 eral wealth, 376-379; agri- 
 cultural products, 379-380; 
 range in climate, 380-381 ; 
 railways, 381-382 ; moun- 
 tain scenery, 382-384; trip 
 down the Magdalena River, 
 389-392; cities and sea- 
 ports, 392-396; commercial 
 possibilities of, 397-399. 
 
 Colonial system, Spanish, in 
 South America, 113-120. 
 
 Col6n Opera House, Buenos 
 Aires, 206-207. 
 
 Colorados, Uruguayan politi- 
 cal faction, 238. 
 
 Columbus, Bartholomew, 7, 
 10, 15. 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, 7-11 ; 
 personal appearance, 11; 
 historic voyage of, 11-13; 
 second voyage of, 15-16; 
 later voyages and death, 16- 
 17. 
 
 Columbus, Diego, 15. 
 
 Coluna, Mt., 405. 
 
 Commerce, of Argentina, 191- 
 192; at Buenos Aires, 200- 
 201; of Uruguay, 235; of 
 Chile, 277; possibilities for, 
 in Colombia, 397-399; of 
 Venezuela, 419; of the 
 Guianas, 427-428. 
 
 Compilation of Laws of the 
 Kingdoms of the Indies, 
 code known as, 113, 114. 
 
 436 
 
INDEX 
 
 Concepci6n, Chile, 105, 287. 
 
 Concha, Mt., 405. 
 
 Conway, Sir Martin, quoted, 
 280-282, 311-313. 
 
 Copper, in Bolivia, 266. See 
 Mineral resources. 
 
 Coquimbo, Chile, 100, 101. 
 
 Coquimbo, Province of, 287. 
 
 C6rdoba, city of, 195. 
 
 Cordoba, University of, 198. 
 
 Coro, Venezuela, 405-406. 
 
 Corrientes, 245. 
 
 Cort6s, Hernando, 30-31, 81. 
 
 Cosmas, Egyptian monk, 2-3. 
 
 Cotopaxi, Mt., 367. 
 
 Council of the Indies, 35, 117. 
 
 Cucuta, battle of, 131. 
 
 Cumand, Venezuela, 402. 
 
 Curagao, Island of, 406. 
 
 Curtis, W. E., quoted, 164- 
 165, 301. 
 
 Cuzco, founding of, in 12th 
 century, 48; appearance of, 
 at time of the Incas, 52; 
 Pizarro's march on and oc- 
 cupation of, 68-70; descrip- 
 tion of, 342-344, 349-351; 
 ruins at, 343-349. 
 
 Darwin, Mt., 311. 
 
 D'Aubigny, quoted, 262. 
 
 Davila, Pedrarias, 36. 
 
 Dawson, T. C, quoted, 6, 23, 
 37, 41, 83-85, 88-89, 100- 
 101, 111, 158-159, 246-249, 
 250-251. 
 
 Desiderato, Cape, 28. 
 
 Desolation Island, 310. 
 
 De Soto, Hernando, 43-44, 68. 
 
 Devil's Island, French Gui- 
 ana, 428. 
 
 Diamantina, town of, 189. 
 
 Diamonds, Brazilian, 189 ; 
 black, mined in State of 
 Bahia, 189. 
 
 Dias, Arthur, quoted, 140. 
 
 Dias, Bartholomew, 7. 
 Docks, of Buenos Aires, 199- 
 
 200; of Montevideo, 229. 
 Dutch Guiana, 426-427, 428. 
 
 Earthquake, of 1859 in 
 Ecuador, 368; of 1877, 371- 
 372. 
 
 Earthquakes, in Venezuela, 
 413. 
 
 Ecuador, invasion of, by a 
 lieutenant of Pizarro's, 76; 
 area, population, and polit- 
 ical divisions, 352; river 
 systems, 352-353; climate, 
 353-354; plants, shrubs, and 
 trees, 354-358; voyage along 
 coast of, 360-361; moun- 
 tains, 365-372. 
 
 Eden, Richard, 27. 
 
 Education, in Brazil, 178-180; 
 in Argentina, 198. 
 
 El Dorado, legend of, 91-96, 
 425. 
 
 Emeralds of Colombia, 35, 
 377-379. 
 
 Encomiendas, system of, 86, 
 87. 
 
 England, commerce between 
 Brazil and, 136; capital 
 from, invested in Argentine 
 railways, 197-198. 
 
 English, in Valparaiso, 297. 
 See British. 
 
 Episcopal seminary, Sao 
 Paulo, 179. 
 
 Ercilla, Alonso de, 102-103. 
 
 Esmeraldas, Province of, 358. 
 
 Essequibo, 426, 427. 
 
 Estates or ranches of Argen- 
 tina, 214-219. 
 
 Eucalyptus trees, Montevideo, 
 232. 
 
 Exposition of 1910 at Buenos 
 Aires, 198. 
 
 437 
 
INDEX 
 
 Federmann, Nicolacts, 95, 96. 
 
 Fiske, John, quoted, 15, 17, 
 80-81. 
 
 Forests, of Brazil, 136; of 
 Paraguay, 241; of southern 
 Chile, 286-287, 308-310; of 
 Ecuador, 356, 363-364. 
 
 Formosa, territory of, in Ar- 
 gentina, 226. 
 
 Fortaleza, city of, 154. 
 
 Fletcher, James C, quoted, 
 161-162. 
 
 Francia, Jose Rodriguez Gas- 
 par, 246-249. 
 
 Fray Bentos, Liebig Com- 
 pany plant at, 235-236. 
 
 French, in Buenos Aires, 203; 
 in Valparaiso, 297, 298. 
 
 French Guiana, 426, 428. 
 
 Froward, Cape, 311. 
 
 Fruit-raising at Mendoza, 
 221. 
 
 Fuegian Archipelago, 225-226. 
 
 Funza River, 385. 
 
 Gallo, Island of, 39. 
 
 Gama, Vasco da, 7, 16-17. 
 
 Garcilaso, de la Vega. See 
 Vega. 
 
 Gasca, Pedro de la, 89-90. 
 
 Gaucho, Argentine cowboy, 
 217-218. 
 
 Georgetown, British Guiana, 
 427. 
 
 Germans, steamships of, at 
 Buenos Aires, 200; resi- 
 dent at Buenos Aires, 203; 
 investments of, in Argen- 
 tine land, 219; in Pata- 
 gonia, 224; in Valparaiso, 
 297. 
 
 Gilded Man, legend of the, 
 91, 425. 
 
 Goats, in Argentina, 216; in 
 Uruguay, 235. 
 
 Gold, of the Incas, 54, 58, 73- 
 74; mining of, in State of 
 
 Minas Geraes, 187-189; in 
 Venezuela, 419; in the Gui- 
 anas, 425. See also Min- 
 eral resources. 
 
 Gomara, Francisco Lopez de, 
 quoted, 54. 
 
 Grains, production of, in Ar- 
 gentina, 192. 
 
 Gran Chaco, 218, 226, 240. 
 
 Great Western Railroad, Ar- 
 gentina, 220. 
 
 Guadelupe, Mt., 385, 387. 
 
 Guallatiri, Mt., 257. 
 
 Guano deposits, Peru, 321. 
 
 Guarany Indians, 242. 
 
 Guatavita, Lake, 425. 
 
 Guayaquil, founding of, 76; 
 manufacture of Panama 
 hats at, 359-360; descrip- 
 tion of city, 360-363. 
 
 Guayas River, 76, 353, 361. 
 
 Guayra, cataract of, 244-245. 
 
 Guiana Highlands, 417-418. 
 
 Guianas, location and topog- 
 raphy, 424; discovery, nam- 
 ing, and occupation by the 
 Spanish, 424-425; Dutch, 
 English, and other nations 
 in, 426-427; area, popula- 
 tion, and productions, 427- 
 428. 
 
 Hancock, A. U., "History of 
 Chile" by, cited, 103. 
 
 Harvard Observatory, Are- 
 quipa, 333-334. 
 
 Hawthorne, Julian, quoted, 5, 
 13-14, 22, 27-28, 46-49, 68, 
 80-81, 89-90, 93, 104-105, 
 106-109, 110-111, 112. 
 
 Helps, Sir Arthur, quoted, 
 81. 
 
 Heredia, Pedro de, 90, 91, 
 392. 
 
 Herndon, W. H., exploration 
 of Amazon by, 139, 140, 
 141, 144-145. 
 
 438 
 
INDEX 
 
 Herveo, Mesa de, 385, 391. 
 
 Holmes, Burton, quoted, 161, 
 172-173, 283-284. 
 
 Honda, Colombia, 390. 
 
 Hope emerald, the, 379. 
 
 Horse-raising, in Argentina, 
 191, 216; in Uruguay, 235. 
 
 Hospitals, Buenos Aires, 213. 
 
 Houses, in Santiago, 305-306; 
 of Guayaquil, 361-362; of 
 Quito, 373. 
 
 Huallaga River, 322. 
 
 Huarina, battle of, 89. 
 
 Huascar, Inca sovereign, 59- 
 61, 65. 
 
 Huatanay River, 343. 
 
 Huayna Capac, 45, 59. 
 
 Humboldt, Baron von, explo- 
 ration of Amazon by, 138; 
 quoted, 364, 381 ; house oc- 
 cupied by, in Bogota, 389. 
 
 iGUAzti Falls, 227. 
 
 Illampu, Mt., 258. 
 
 Illimani, Mt., 258. 
 
 Immigration, to Argentina, 
 198. 
 
 Imperial, Chile, 105. 
 
 Inca's Head, the, 368. 
 
 Incas, extent of empire, 44; 
 question of origin, 44-49; 
 lack of written records 
 among, 46; peoples who an- 
 tedated, 46-47; history of, 
 previous to conquest by 
 Spanish, 47-49; highways of 
 the, 49; worship of sun and 
 moon by, 50, 57-58, 335; 
 marriage of sovereigns, 50; 
 trade carried on by water 
 only, 51 ; irrigation of land 
 practiced under the, 51; 
 common ownership of land, 
 51-52; temple and palaces 
 of, at Cuzco, 52-54; differ- 
 ent type of people from Pe- 
 ruvian Indians of to-day, 
 
 55-56; dress, 56-57; birth- 
 place and legend of birth, 
 335-336. 
 
 Indians, of northern Argen- 
 tina, 226; in El Chaco, 240; 
 work of Jesuits among 
 Paraguayan, 242-245 ; na- 
 tives of Tierra del Fuego, 
 285-286. 
 
 Iquima, Mt., 278. 
 
 Iquique, city of, 294. 
 
 Irala, Domingo, 113, 242. 
 
 Irrigation, practiced by In- 
 cas, 51; possibilities of, in 
 Peru, 321. 
 
 Islands of southern Chile, 
 307-308. 
 
 Italians, as laborers in State 
 of Sao Paulo, 184; resident 
 in Buenos Aires, 203; in 
 Montevideo, 231; in Valpa- 
 raiso, 297. 
 
 Jamacchppeke plant, 263. 
 Jamaica, discovery of, 16. 
 Jaques, Christovao, 32. 
 Jesuit missions in the Parana 
 
 basin, 242-245. 
 Jews, in Patagonia, 225. 
 Jockey Club, Buenos Aires, 
 
 208-210. 
 Juliaca, town of, 334. 
 Junln, battle of, 132. 
 Jurujuba Bay, 163. 
 
 Karkaake, Mt., 258. 
 Koati, Island of, 57, 336. 
 Koebel, W. H., "Modern Ar- 
 gentina" by, 218. 
 
 La Condamine, explorer of 
 
 Amazon, 138. 
 Ladrorie Islands, discovery of, 
 
 by Magellan, 28. 
 Lage, Fort, 163. 
 La Guayra, Venezuela, 407- 
 
 408. 
 
 439 
 
INDEX 
 
 Landed estates of Spanish 
 
 conquerors, 77, 82. 
 La Paz, naming of, 267-268; 
 
 altitude and location, 268; 
 
 description of, 268-270, 273- 
 
 274. 
 La Plata, city of, 195, 197. 
 Lara, State of, 406. 
 Largo da Polvora, Belem, 
 
 151-152. 
 Las Cuevas, station of, 222. 
 La Serena, Chile, 287. 
 Lautero, Araucanian hero, 
 
 103, 107, 108; death of, 108- 
 
 109. 
 Lenglet, Dr., quoted, 255-256. 
 Leon, Cieza de, quoted, 55. 
 Liebig Company's plant, Fray 
 
 Bentos, 235-236. 
 Lima, founding of, by Pizarro, 
 
 74-75, 324; attracts other 
 
 Spanish adventurers, 75-76; 
 
 description of modern, 325- 
 
 330. 
 Linseed, production of, in 
 
 Argentina, 191. 
 Llamas, in Peru, 47, 340-342; 
 
 in Argentina, 216. 
 Llanos of Venezuela, 418. 
 Llanquihue, Province of, 278. 
 Llulaillaco, Mt., 278. 
 Los Patos Pass, 279. 
 Lopez, Carlos Antonio, 249. 
 Lopez, Francisco, 249-251. 
 Luque, Hernando de, 38. 
 
 Macareo River, 416. 
 
 Mackenzie College, Sao Paulo, 
 179. 
 
 Magdalena River, 376; scen- 
 ery in valley of, 389-392. 
 
 Magellan, Ferdinand, voyage 
 and discoveries of, 25-29. 
 
 Magellan, Strait of, 27-28, 
 225, 310-311. 
 
 Mahogany, from Colombia, 
 380. 
 
 Maize, production of, in Ar- 
 gentina, 191. 
 
 Manaos, city of, 144-146. 
 
 Manco Capac, 45, 69. 
 
 Manco Capac II, 69-70. 
 
 Mapocho River, 99. 
 
 Maracaibo, city of, 404-405. 
 
 Maracaibo, Gulf of, 404. 
 
 Maracaibo, Lake, 404; asphalt 
 on shores of, 419. 
 
 Maracaibo coffee, 404. 
 
 Markham, Sir Clements, quot- 
 ed, 53-54, 55, 346-349. 
 
 Maule River, 97, 101. 
 
 Maypfi, battle of, 126. 
 
 Mbaracayu Mountains, 241. 
 
 Medellen, Colombia, 397. 
 
 Meiggs, Henry, 331. 
 
 Meiggs, Mt., 331. 
 
 Mendoza, Pedro de, 113. 
 
 Mendoza, city of, 220-221. 
 
 Mendoza, Province of, 105. 
 
 Mendoza River, 221-222. 
 
 Mercedario, Mt., 281. 
 
 Merida range, Venezuela, 
 404, 405. 
 
 Mexico, Cortes in, 30-31. 
 
 Michelena, Venezuelan artist, 
 413. 
 
 Minas Geraes, State of, 186- 
 189. 
 
 Mineral resources, of Chile, 
 288; of Peru, 315; of Ecua- 
 dor, 356; of Colombia, 377- 
 379. 
 
 Mining, in Brazil, 136; in 
 State of Minas Geraes, 187- 
 189. 
 
 Miniquis, Mt., 257. 
 
 Miranda, Francisco, 130, 421. 
 
 Misiones territory of Argen- 
 tina, 226, 227. 
 
 Misti, volcano, Peru, 334. 
 
 Mitre\ Bartolom6, 197. 
 
 Mollendo, city of, 332. 
 
 Mompoz, Colombia, 397. 
 
 Monserrate, Mt., 385, 387. 
 
 440 
 
INDEX 
 
 Montana region of Peru, 320, 
 321-322. 
 
 Monteagudo, Bernardo, 129. 
 
 Montesino, Anales del Perm, 
 by, quoted, 40. 
 
 Montevideo, 229 ff. ; compari- 
 son with Buenos Aires, 230; 
 material prosperity of, 230- 
 231 ; foreigners, theaters, 
 and club life of, 231; the 
 Prado Park, 231-232; 
 houses, gardens, and social 
 life of, 232-234. 
 
 Montezuma, SeSor, 31. 
 
 Moon, worship of, by Pe- 
 ruvian Indians, 50, 57-58, 
 335-336, 337. 
 
 Mosquera Rebellion, 389. 
 
 Mountain sickness, 266. 
 
 Mozans, H. J., quoted, 23-25, 
 45, 57, 70, 74-75, 140-141, 
 271-273, 333, 335-338, 349, 
 371-372. 
 
 Mules, in Argentina, 216; in 
 Uruguay, 235. 
 
 Muzo, emerald mines of, 377, 
 378, 379. 
 
 Nabitco, Joahim, 175. 
 
 Negro River, 144, 223. 
 
 New Granada, Viceroyalty of, 
 116, 384-385. 
 
 New Spain, Viceroyalty of, 
 114. 
 
 Newspapers of Buenos Aires, 
 204-205. 
 
 Nictheroy, city of, 163. 
 
 Nitrate of soda beds, Chile, 
 288-292. 
 
 Nombre de Dios, 118. 
 
 North Americans, small num- 
 ber of, in Buenos Aires, 
 203. 
 
 Obydos, city of, 146. 
 O'Higgins, Bernardo, 124, 
 125, 126, 279. 
 
 Oil, production of, in Argen- 
 tina, 192. 
 
 Ojeda, Alonso de, 20, 37; 
 Venezuela named by, 402. 
 
 Olinda, suburb of Recife, 158. 
 
 Opera in Buenos Aires, 206. 
 
 Orellana, Francisco de, dis- 
 covers and explores the 
 Amazon, 82, 138. 
 
 Organ Mountains, 162. 
 
 Orgonez, Rodrigo de, 81. 
 
 Oriente River system, 353. 
 
 Orinoco River, 401, 403; delta 
 of the, 415-416; entrance 
 upon, from the sea, 416- 
 417. 
 
 Oroya Railroad, 330-331. 
 
 Orton, James, quoted, 354, 
 369. 
 
 Ossorio, General, 124-125. 
 
 Pacific Ocean, Balboa's dis- 
 covery of, 22-25; named by 
 Magellan, 28. 
 
 Paillamachu, Araucanian 
 chief, 109-110. 
 
 Pampas of Argentina, 214 ff. 
 
 Pamplona, Colombia, 397. 
 
 Panamd Canal, importance 
 of, to relations between the 
 two Americas, xv-xvii; in- 
 fluence on trade between 
 Venezuela and United 
 States, 420. 
 
 Panama hats, manufacture of, 
 359-360. 
 
 Pan American Bulletin, quot- 
 ed, 288-290, 377-379, 419. 
 
 Pan American Union, vii-xi; 
 publications of, ix-x; li- 
 brary of, x. 
 
 Para (Belem), city of, 146- 
 153. 
 
 Pard River, 137, 147-148. 
 
 Paraguay, situation and area, 
 239-240; climate and sur- 
 
 441 
 
INDEX 
 
 face features, 240-241; for- 
 ests, 241 ; Indians and mes- 
 tizos in, 242; Jesuit mis- 
 sions in, 242-244; character 
 of interior, 244-245; stormy 
 political history of, 246- 
 251; great commercial pos- 
 sibilities of, 253. 
 
 Paraguay River, 245. 
 
 Paraguay tea, 185-186, 192, 
 253-256. 
 
 Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, 
 428. 
 
 Parand, city of, 195. 
 
 Parana River, Cabot's explo- 
 ration of, 32; trip on the, 
 226-227; picturesqueness of, 
 227 ; Great Cataract of, 244- 
 245. 
 
 Patagonia, 215, 218-219, 223- 
 225. 
 
 Patia River, 376. 
 
 Pearl fisheries of Colombia, 
 35, 377. 
 
 Pedro II of Brazil, 174. 
 
 Pernambuco, city of, 154, 
 156-157. 
 
 Pernambuco, colony of, 34. 
 
 Peru, the ancient civilization 
 of, 46-47 (see under In- 
 cas) ; War of Independence 
 in, 126-128; war with Chile 
 over nitrate provinces, 292; 
 products of, in the world's 
 commerce, 315-316; voyage 
 along coast of, 316-318; 
 area, surface features, and 
 rainfall, 320-322 ; popula- 
 tion and its disposition, 322- 
 323 ; railways, 330-332 ; 
 ruins of the Incas and their 
 predecessors in, 339, 343- 
 349. 
 
 Peru, Viceroyalty of, 114- 
 116. 
 
 Peruvian bark, 263. 
 
 Petropolis, city of, 169-170. 
 
 Pezuela, Joaquin de la, 126- 
 127. 
 
 Picacho, Mt., 407. 
 
 Pichincha, battle of, 181. 
 
 Pichincha, Mt., 369. 
 
 Pigs, in Argentina, 216; in 
 Uruguay, 235. 
 
 Pilcomayo River, 245. 
 
 Pillar, Cape, 310. 
 
 Pizarro, Francisco, early his- 
 tory of, 37; first expedition 
 of, to Peru, 38-42; en- 
 nobled by the King of 
 Spain, 42 ; treacherous deal- 
 ings of, with Atahualpa, 
 61-68; murder of Atahualpa 
 by, 68; advances to and oc- 
 cupies Cuzco, 68-70; takes 
 possession of government, 
 72-73; founds city of Lima 
 as his capital, 74-75; holds 
 his new empire against Al- 
 magro, 80-81 ; assassination 
 of, by adherents of Alma- 
 gro, 83-85; tribute to great 
 qualities of, 85; relics of, in 
 modern Lima, 327. 
 
 Pizarro, Gonzalo, 42, 78, 80, 
 81, 87-88, 90. 
 
 Pizarro, Hernando, 42, 75, 78, 
 80, 81. 
 
 Pizarro, Juan, 42, 78. 
 
 Plata River, 26, 191, 228-229. 
 
 Platinum deposits, Colombia, 
 377. 
 
 Pororoca, the, 147-148. 
 
 Portezuelo de Come Caballo, 
 279. 
 
 Porto Alegre, 153, 186. 
 
 Portuguese, as discoverers, 5- 
 7; lands granted to, in di- 
 vision of New World by 
 papal bull, 14-15; attempt 
 to colonize Brazil, 32-34. 
 
 Potato, discovery of the, in 
 Peru, 47. 
 
 442 
 
INDEX 
 
 Potatoes as a food among 
 
 Peruvians, 342. 
 Potosf, silver mines of, 82, 
 
 88, 265, 266. 
 Prado Park, Montevideo, 231- 
 
 232. 
 Precious stones, mining of, in 
 
 Brazil, 189; in Bolivia, 266; 
 
 in Colombia, 377-379. 
 Prensa newspaper, building 
 
 of, Buenos Aires, 204-205. 
 Prescott, W. H., quoted, 40- 
 
 41, 69, 73-74, 343-346. 
 Promaucian Indians, 101. 
 Puente del Inca, 222. 
 Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, 
 
 406, 414. 
 Puerto Colombia, 396. 
 Pular, Mt., 278. 
 Puna, island of, 43. 
 Punta Arenas, city of, 224, 
 
 285, 311. 
 
 Quebracho tree, the, 226- 
 227. 
 
 Quesada, Gonzalo Jiminez de, 
 92-96. 
 
 Quichua Indians, 47. 
 
 Quinine, production of, 263. 
 
 Quinsay, city of (Pekin), 9, 
 12, 15. 
 
 Quintas, in Montevideo, 232, 
 233. 
 
 Quinze Puntas range, 241. 
 
 Quito, 48, 363, 369, 372-374. 
 
 Quizquiz, Atahualpa's gen- 
 eral, 67, 70. 
 
 Rada, Juan de la, 83. 
 
 Railways, Brazilian, 153-154; 
 Argentine, 191, 220; Eng- 
 lish capital invested in Ar- 
 gentina, 197-198; trans-An- 
 dine, 222-223, 280; of Uru- 
 guay, 234; Bolivian, 261; 
 Peruvian, 330-332 ; of Ecua- 
 dor, 363; of Colombia, 381- 
 382; of Venezuela, 409. 
 
 Ramalho, Jofio, 33. 
 
 Ranches, Argentine, 214-219. 
 
 Recife, city of, 153, 157-158. 
 
 Repartimientos of the Span- 
 ish conquerors, 82, 86. 
 
 Revolutions, outgrowing of, 
 xiii. 
 
 Ringmann, Mathias, 21. 
 
 Riobamba, city of, 370. 
 
 Rio Branco, Baron, 174-175. 
 
 Rio de Janeiro, 153; the ap- 
 proach to, 160-164; scenic 
 wonders of bay of, 160-164; 
 description of city, 164 ff. 
 
 Rio Grande do Sul, produc- 
 tion of yerba mati in, 185- 
 186. 
 
 Rio Negro, Territory of, 224. 
 
 Rodadero River, 343. 
 
 Rojas, Diego de, 112. 
 
 Root, Elihu, quoted, 177. 
 
 Rosario, city of, 195, 226. 
 
 Rosario College, Bogotd, 389. 
 
 Rubber, production of, in 
 Brazil, 136-137. 
 
 Rubber estate, description of 
 a, 149-150. 
 
 Rubber trees, 143. 
 
 Ruhl, Arthur, quoted, 169, 
 173-176, 303-305. 
 
 Ruins, prehistoric, 46; of Tia- 
 huanaco, 48, 271-273; about 
 Lake Titicaca, 338-339; of 
 Sacsahuaman, 343, 346-349. 
 
 Sabaniixa, 391, 392. 
 
 Sacsahuaman, ruins of, 52, 78, 
 343, 346-349. 
 
 St. Julian, harbor of, 26. 
 
 St. Louis, French Guiana, 
 428. 
 
 Salt mines of Colombia, 377. 
 
 Salta, battle of, 123. 
 
 San Francisco Xavier Uni- 
 versity of, 267. 
 
 Sangai, Mt., 366. 
 
 San Jos6, Mt., 278. 
 
 443 
 
INDEX 
 
 San Lazaro, Church of, in 
 Cuzco, 350. 
 
 San Marcos, University of, 
 330. 
 
 San Martin, General Jos6 de, 
 123-124; crossing of the 
 Andes by, 125-126, 279; de- 
 feats Royalist army in 
 Chile, 126; liberates Peru 
 from Spanish rule, 127-128; 
 voluntary retirement of, 
 129-130; tomb of, m Bue- 
 nos Aires, 130. 
 
 San Miguel, Gulf of, 23. 
 
 San Rafael Lake, 285. 
 
 San Ruiz, Mt., 391. 
 
 San Salvador, Island of, 12. 
 
 Santa Candelaria, convent of, 
 Cartagena, 396. 
 
 Santa Catalina, convent of, in 
 Cuzco, 350. 
 
 Santa Cruz, Bolivia, 261. 
 
 Santa Cruz, Fort, 163. 
 
 Santa Cruz, Territory of, 224. 
 
 Santa Lucia, hill and fortress 
 of, 99-100, 301. 
 
 Santa Marta, Colombia, 90. 
 
 Santarem, city of, 146. 
 
 Santiago, Chile, founding of, 
 by Valdivia, 99-100; men- 
 tioned, 287; description of, 
 299-307. 
 
 Santo Domingo, convent of, 
 in Cuzco, 350. 
 
 Santos, city of, 153, 176, 181- 
 182. 
 
 San Valentin, Mt., 284. 
 
 Sao Joao, Fort, 163. 
 
 Sao Leopoldo, city of, 186. 
 
 Sao Luiz de Maranhao, 154, 
 155. 
 
 Sao Paulo, city of, 176-181. 
 
 Sao Salvador da Bahia, 34, 
 153, 154, 159-160. 
 
 Sao Vicente, colony of, 33. 
 
 Sarmiento, Domingo Faus- 
 tino, 197. 
 
 Sarmiento, Mt., 311-313. 
 
 Scots, in Patagonia, 224. 
 
 Scruggs, William L., on Co- 
 lombia's commercial possi- 
 bilities, 398-399. 
 
 Sheep-raising, Rio Grande do 
 Sul, 186; in Argentina, 191, 
 216; in Patagonia, 224-225; 
 in Uruguay, 235. 
 
 Silla, Cordillera de la, 406. 
 
 Silver, from Mt. Potosf, 265. 
 See Mineral resources. 
 
 Sinu River, 380. 
 
 Slavery, reduction of Pe- 
 ruvian Indians to, by the 
 Spanish, 77 ; introduction 
 of negro, 403. 
 
 Socompa, Mt., 278. 
 
 Solis, Juan Diaz de, 22, 113, 
 236. 
 
 Solis Theater, Montevideo, 
 231. 
 
 Sorata, Mt., 258. 
 
 Souza, Martim Affonso da, 33. 
 
 Spain, mistaken colonial pol- 
 icy of, in South America, 
 113-120; revolt of South 
 American countries against, 
 120-121. 
 
 Spaniards, numbers of, in 
 Buenos Aires, 203. 
 
 Spanish Main, the, 402. 
 
 Squier, E. G., quoted, 271. 
 
 Steamships, German, at Bue- 
 nos Aires, 200; on Parana 
 River, 226. 
 
 Sucr6, Antonio Jos6 de, 131, 
 132, 259, 266. 
 
 Sucr£, city of, 266-267. 
 
 Sugar, beginnings of produc- 
 tion of, in Brazil, 34. 
 
 Sugar Loaf, peak of, bay of 
 Rio de Janeiro, 162. 
 
 Sun, worship of, by Peruvian 
 Indians, 50, 57-58, 335-336, 
 337. 
 
 Surinam, 426. 
 
 444 
 
INDEX 
 
 Tabatinga, Brazilian port, 
 138. 
 
 Tacna, Province of, 287, 290. 
 
 Talca, truce of, 124. 
 
 Tapajos River, 146. 
 
 Tarapaca, Province of, 287, 
 290. 
 
 Tehuelche Indians, 224. 
 
 Temple of the Incas at Cuzco, 
 52-53. 
 
 Tensaquilla, village of, 385. 
 
 Theater, the Amazonas, at 
 Manaos, 145-146; the Muni- 
 cipal, Rio de Janeiro, 166; 
 at Sao Paulo, 180; the So- 
 lis, in Montevideo, 231. 
 
 Theaters, at Belem, 152; in 
 Buenos Aires, 206, 207. 
 
 Tiahuanaco, ruins of, 48, 272- 
 273. 
 
 Tierra del Fuego, 225, 285, 
 311. 
 
 Tin, wealth of Bolivia in, 265. 
 
 Titicaca, Island of, 57, 336. 
 
 Titicaca, Lake, 45, 57, 258, 
 335-338. 
 
 Tobacco from Province of 
 Esmeraldas, Ecuador, 358. 
 
 Tolima, volcano, Colombia, 
 385, 391. 
 
 Tonka beans, Colombia, 380. 
 
 Toparca Capac, 69. 
 
 Tordesillas, treaty of, 15. 
 
 Toroni, Mt., 278. 
 
 Torre Tagle, Marquis of, 129. 
 
 Toscanelli, letters of, quoted, 
 8-9. 
 
 Trade, restrictions placed on 
 South American, by Spain, 
 118-120; of United States of 
 Brazil, 135-136; of Argen- 
 tina, 191-192. See also 
 Commerce. 
 
 Trans-Andean railway, 222, 
 280. 
 
 Trees, of Brazil, 142, 143; in 
 Montevideo parks, 231-232; 
 
 of southern Chile, 286-287, 
 
 309-310; of Ecuador, 355- 
 
 356, 363-364. 
 Trinidad, Island of, 16, 415, 
 
 419. 
 Trombetas River, 146. 
 Tronador, Mt., 284. 
 Tucapel, Araucanian chief, 
 
 103, 106. 
 Tucuman, battle of, 1§3. 
 Tucuman, city of, 195. 
 Tumbez, Peru, 39, 41, 324. 
 Tunguragua, Mt., 366. 
 Tupungato, Mt., 281. 
 
 Ucatali River, 322. 
 
 United States, trade between 
 Brazil and, 136; smallness 
 of commerce of, with Ar- 
 gentina, 201 ; fewness of 
 people from, in Buenos 
 Aires, 203; commerce be- 
 tween Chile and, 277; trade 
 of, with Colombia, 398; 
 trade with Venezuela, 419. 
 
 Universities in Argentina, 
 198. 
 
 University, San Francisco 
 Xavier, Sucr6, 267; San 
 Marcos, 330. 
 
 Uruguay, 228 ff. ; life in Mon- 
 tevideo, 229-234; nature of 
 the country, 234-235; com- 
 merce of, 235; favorable 
 conditions of, for national 
 prosperity, 236 ; turbulent 
 political history of, 236- 
 237 ; bellicose personality 
 and present-day outlets for, 
 237-238; political factions 
 in, 238. 
 
 Uruguay River, 32, 228, 234, 
 235. 
 
 Uspallata Pass, 222, 279-280. 
 
 Valdivia, Pedro de, conquest 
 of Chile undertaken by, 82, 
 
 445 
 
INDEX 
 
 97-107; put to death by 
 Araucanians, 107. 
 Valdivia, town of, 109. 
 Valencia, city and lake of, 
 
 406, 414. 
 Valera, Father Bias, cited, 58. 
 Valle, Marquis del, 31. 
 Valparaiso, 101, 287, 296-299. 
 Valverde, Friar Vincente de, 
 
 64. 
 Vargas Hospital, Caracas, 
 
 413. 
 Vega, Garcilaso de la, quoted, 
 
 52-53, 58, 61, 335. 
 Vela, Blasco Nunez, 87. 
 Velasco, Juan de, 370. 
 Venezuela, location and to- 
 pography, 400-401 ; area, 
 401-402; naming of, 402; 
 coastwise approach to, 403- 
 404; towns and cities, 405- 
 413; earthquakes in, 413; 
 the Orinoco delta and river, 
 415-417; the llanos, 418; 
 agricultural products, 418- 
 419; commerce of, 419; 
 government, 420-421 ; 
 statesmen and rulers of, 
 421-423. 
 Vernon, Admiral, siege of 
 
 Cartagena by, 393-394. 
 Vespucci, Amerigo, voyages 
 of, 18-19; the Mundus No- 
 vus of, 20; the naming of 
 the New World for, 20-21; 
 later explorations by, 22. 
 Vicerovalties of New Spain 
 
 and Peru, 114-116. 
 Victoria, city of, 154. 
 Vilcapujio, battle of, 123. 
 Villagran, Francisco de, 107- 
 
 108. 
 Villa Hayes, 240. 
 Villegagnon, settlement at, 
 
 168. 
 Vina del Mar, 296, 299. 
 Virgins, Cape, 27. 
 
 Virgins of the Sun, 52, 57; 
 
 palace of, at Cajamarca, 65. 
 Volcanoes, of Chile, 278; of 
 
 Colombia, 385; of Ecuador, 
 
 365-372. 
 
 Waldseemuixer map, 21. 
 
 Washington, Col. Lawrence, 
 394. 
 
 Watling's Island, 12. 
 
 "Westward Ho !" reminders 
 of, 408. 
 
 Wheat, production of, in Ar- 
 gentina, 192; harvesting of, 
 in Argentina, 216; produc- 
 tion in Uruguay, 235. 
 
 Wheelwright, William, 201. 
 
 Whymper, Edward, ascent of 
 Ecuadorian peaks by, 365, 
 367; quoted on the crater 
 of Cotopaxi, 368. 
 
 Wine industry, Mendoza, 221. 
 
 Women, Brazilian, 171-173; 
 of Buenos Aires, 210; of 
 Mendoza, 221 ; of Monte- 
 video, 234; of Santiago, 303, 
 304; of Lima, 328, 329. 
 
 Wright, Marie Robinson, 
 quoted, 187, 188, 299-300. 
 
 Yavari River, 322. 
 
 Yegros, General, 246, 247. 
 
 Yerba mat4, production of, in 
 Rio Grande do Sul, 185- 
 186; in Argentina, 192; in 
 Paraguay, 253-256; cultiva- 
 tion of, 254-255; beneficial 
 results from, 255-256. 
 
 Ypiranga, building in Sao 
 Paulo, 178. 
 
 Yupanqui, Inca ruler, 45, 48. 
 
 Zamora, State of, Venezuela, 
 
 406. 
 Zaruma, mines of, 356. 
 Zenufana, region called, 91. 
 
 446 
 

 
 
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