VlBRAR? OF THE UNIVERSITY OF South America HY A. GALLEiNGA r AUTHOR OF "THE FEAKL OF THE ANTILLES," " COINTIIY-LIFE IN PIEHMON', ETC. (•) » » ■• o > 3 5 T3 T J J ) J J 1 J ) J ) LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited, 193, PICCADILLY 1880. \All Rif/lils reserved. 2 30 10 NAtAL J;, ■■.■flu, /• a.v.i3/;,,j- ■IliuiABVB, •'^■Aqotitin ffi-eio- ^^ rich. A^Clx' P.'/! El Pali Ml^itt M^^BOHK: ^ V 20 South America BY A. GALLENGA AUTHUli OF " THE PEAHL UF THE ANTILLES," " CUVNTUY-LIFE IN PIEDM(i%-, ETC. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited, 193, PICCADILLY 1880. [All Ri'jhls vcstfvcd.'] &3 CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. c c c c c c C C C C 1 1 f. t t c TO JOHN WALTER, ESQ, M.P, OF BEARWOOD, BERKS, BY WHOSE DESIRE ^he (South-<^menfau HEnuv HEREIN DESCRIBED WAS UNDERTAKEN AND ACCOMPLISHED, THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. The Falls, Llmulogo, Monmouthshire, October^ 18S0. M84689 CONTENTS. I. Introduction. PAQK European Views of South America — Its Wars and Revolutions— War between Chili, Peru, and Bolivia— The Good and Evil of War — Object of the Author's Mission — North and South America — Original Influences — Anglo-Saxon Settlers and Spanish Conquerors — -Constructiveness and Uestructiveness — Ethnological Influences — - The Blending of Races — Preponderance of White Races in Anglo- Saxon America — Preponderance of Coloured Races in Spanish America — Statistics — The Negroes in Central America and the West Indies— The Indians in Soiitli America — The Labour Question —Historical Influences — Struggle of the English Colonies against the Mother Country' — Conditions of Spain during the Struggle against her Revolted Colonies — Political Influences — Autonomic •Instincts among the Colonists of North America — Anarchic Help- lessness of Spanish Colonists in South America, and their Depend- ence on Foreign Ideas for their Organization — Preponderance of the Spanish Character — Its Evil Instincts — Prospects of a Better Future — Symptoms of Progress ... ... ... ... ... 1 II. The Isthmus. Choice of Routes across the Atlantic — The Voyage out — Fair and Foul Weather — The Colon Bay — Colon — Colon and Columbus — The Isthmus Railway — Tropical Scenery^ — The Struggle of Man with Nature — Men and Men's Homes along the Line — Mongrel Races — Panama — Its Decay and Sjualor — Its Land and Sea Views — The Negroes — The Mulattoes — Traits of their Character — Extortionate Prices — The Inter-Oceanic Canal — M. Lesseps — Plan, Prospects, and Cost of the Work — Its Magnitude — Its Opponents — The United States — The Pacific Railway Company — The Isthmus Railway Coni[)any — M. Lesseps at Panama — His Mission to the United States — Prospects of the Work — The State of Panama and the Confederacy of Colombia — South American Constitutions — Bad Copies of a bad Original — Disorders and Atrocities — Prospects of tlie Isthmus 22 vi CONTENTS. III. The Peruvian Sea-Coast. PAGE Navigation along the Pacific Coast — Panama to Callao — The Ayaciicho — Recent Impulse given to the Coasting Trade by British Maritime Enterprise — The Pacific Steam Navigation Company— The Colom- bian Coast — The Coast of Ecuador — The Coast of Peru — Crossins: the Line — The Weather on the Coast^ — Cold and Darkness in the Tropics — The Estuary of the Guayas — Tropical Scenery — Guayaquil — The Republic of Ecuador — Quito — -Scenery on the Peruvian Coast — Paita, Eten, Pacosmayo — Physical Formation of Peru — The Sea- coast or Western Region — The Table-land on the Andes — The Montana or Eastern Slope of the Mountains — Projected Railway across the Andes to the Navigable Part of the Eastern Rivers- — The Oroya Line — The Cuzco and Titicaca Line — Railways on the Coast —Barrenness of Peruvian Mountains — Fertility of the Valleys — Mineral and Agricultural Produce — The Sea the only Highway of Peru — Coasting Trade — The Pacific Steam Navigation Company — Primitive State of Peruvian Sea-ports — Difficulties of Loading and Landing— Strange and Grotesque Scenes — Peruvian Government — Financial Embarrassment — Depreciated Currency — Railway Enter- prise at a Standstill even before the War — Consequences of the War — Impressment of Men for the Army — The Author's Luggage and its Carrier ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 45 IV. The Peruvian Capital. Pizarro's Choice of a City — Lima, or the City of the Kings — From Callao to Lima — Aspect of Lima — Its Streets — Its Buildings — The Main Square — The Catliodral — Promenades and Gardens — Speci- mens of old Spanish Architecture — A rare old Mansion — Museums — The Situation of Lima— Its Surroundings — Mountain Scenery — The Climate — Absence of Roads — Impossibility of making them — The Population — The Indo-Spanish — The Cholos — The Negroes — The Chinese — The Labour Question — The European and other Settlers — Chinese Households — A Chinese Theatre — Peruvian Exemption from Work — Peruvian Politics — Political Murders — Apathy of European and other Settlers in the midst of Peruvian Disorders — Chances of a Better Future^ — The Lima Population on a Gala-day — A Motley Crowd — A Babel of Tongues — Yankee Peculiarities among the British in Lima ... ... 61 V. Peruvian Wealth. Semi-fabulous Traditions about the Riches of Peru in Olden Times — Present Amount of Precious Metals- — Guai-.o — The Results of its CONTENTS. vii PACE Value on the Peruvian Revenue — Its Effects on the Indolent Dis- position of the Peruvian People — Rapid Falling Off in its Quantity and Quality — Past and Present Guano Trade — Nitrate of Soda — Wealth accruing to the State by its Exportation — Its Benefit neutralized by the Improvidence of Government Jobbing — Baneful Influence of Mineral Wealth on the Interests of Agriculture — Nitrate of Soda the Original Cause of the Chilo-Bolivian-Peruvian War — Its probable Results — Sugar Cultivation in Peru — State of Peruvian Trade — Peruvian Railways ^ — Transandine Lines — Sea- coast Lines — State Lines and Private Lines — Oddities of South American Government ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 84 VI. The Peruvian Andes. The Oroya Railwa}' Line across the Andes — The Andes — Position of the Andes — Old World Mountains and New World Mountains — Influence of Mountain Chains on Climate — South American Climate — The Climate West and East of the Andes — Physical Geography of the Andean Region — A Journey to the Oroya Pass — The Valley 'of the Rimac — -Aspect of the Country — Traces of Primeval Habita- tion — The Works of the Railway Line — Measurements. Distances, and Altitudes — Bridges and Tunnels — Travelling by Hand-car — The Scenery along the Line — The Chasm of Verrugas — The Gap of Infernillo — The Chicla Station — A Ride to the Sunnnit — The Tunnel on the Summit — The Mountain Sides — The Mountain Tops — Character of the Andes — The Alps and the Andes — Magnitude of the Railway Undertaking— Its Eventual Failure — Messrs. Meiggs and the Peruvian Government — Gigantic Schemes of President Pardo — His Tragic Fate 106 VII. The Bolivian Andes. The Puno or Titicaca Railway Line — Dreariness of the Landscape — Arequipa — Its Volcano^ — The Earthqunke — The Soroche or Moun- tain Sea-sickness^ — From Arequipa to Puno — Friends on the Road — Tlie Titicaca Lake — The Table-land at the Summit — Steam Navigation on the Lake — Character of the Lake — The Bolivian Cordillera — Sublimity of the Scenery — Its Solitude and Teeming Life- -From Puno to Chililaya — From Chililaya to La Paz — La Paz —The Bolivian Republic— Its Probable Fate— The Valley of La Paz — The ^[ontana or Eastern Slope of the Andes — Clinrncter of the Table-land on the Summit — Its Indigenous Inhabitants — Tlie Cholos or Tame Indians— Their Condition — Their Flocks — Llamas, Viruiins, and Alpacas — Ancient and Modern Cultivntion in Terraces — Wi'd and Tame Indians ... ... ... ... ... ... 125 viii CONTUXTS. VIII. The Sea-port of Chili. PACK Valparaiso Bay — Aspect of the Place — The Town and Environs— The Climate — Purity of the Air — The Aconcagua — The Population — Comparative Absence of Coloured Races — Difference in this Respect with Peru — Arising from Peculiar Circumstances of Colonization — Foreign Settlers — Italians — French— English, etc. — Friend)}' Dis- positions of the Chilians towards Aliens — Greater Security for Strangers than at Lima — The Valparaiso Season — Sea-Bathing — Vina del Mar — Geographical Condition of Chili — Its Railways — Its Agricultural Advantages — Grain and Copper the Wealth of Chili — Backward State of Agriculture — ^Landlords and Labourers — Emi- gration of the Peasantry — General Distress Aggravated by the War — Progress of the War — Chilian Victories — Their Probable Effects on Chilian Well-being — On the Chilian Character — Grasping In- stincts of the Chilians — Their Differences with the Argentine Republic — Punta Arenas ... ... ... ... ... ... 143 IX. The Chilian Capital. Views of the Chilians as to the Eventual Results of the Present War — Well-being of Chili before the War — Valparaiso and Santiago — Fondness of the Chilians for their Capital — Beauties of Santiago — Buildings and Monuments — Situation — The Wealthy Classes — Their Extravagance — High Prices in Chili and throughout South America — Humdrum Life at Santiago — Failure of the Theatres — Want of Social Intercourse- — Aristocratic and Conservative Government — Chilian Trade — Vicissitudes of the Corn Trade — Chilian Trade with England — Low Wages of Labour- — Emigration of Labourers — Likely to be increased by the War — Rivalry of Agricultinal and Mining Interests — Results of the Large Size of Chilian Landed Estates — Bad Farming System — Statistics of Chilian Revenue and Trade — Aspect of the Country — Destruction of Forests — Aridity of the Climate 165 X. South Chili. From Valparaiso to Valdivia and Puerto Montt — Want of Moisture in Peru and Part of Chili — Dampness of Climate of South Chili — Pecuharities of the Situation of South Chili — Its Separation from North and Central Chili — Beauty of the Country — Its Forests— Its Coasts— On Horseback across Country from Puerto Montt to Val- divia — Horses — Hotels —German Settlements— Lake Lanquihue — Andean Lakes — German Colonies — Their Thriving Condition — Jealousy of the Chilian Government — English Settlements— Want CONTENTS. I'AGB of Commiuiicatioii — Absence of Roads — Imperfect Navigation of The Rivers — Slow Postal and Telegraphic Service — Dulness of the Country — Silence and Solitude of the Towns — A Stout Race of People — Indifference of the German Settlers to the War ... 184 XI. Centbal Chili. Natural Division of the Chilian Territory — Mining, Agricultural, and Pastoral Districts — The Vale of Chili — How Like, and how Unlike Italy — Bareness of the Soil and Dryness of the Climate — Imperfect Irrigation— Immense Tracts of Uncultivated Land — Vast Extent of the Landed Estates — Laws of Primogeniture only Lately Abolished — Bad Farming Arrangements — Unwise Taxes— Fond- ness of the Chilians for Town Life — Obstacles to Country Re- sidence — Provincial Towns — Their Dulness and Sameness — A Journey along the Chilian Vale — An Excursion to the Land of the Araucanian Indians — Alarms on the way to Angol, the Capital of the District — Angol and its Environs — Habits of the Indians — -'o'- Government of their Tribes — White Settlers among them — King Orelie— Indian Trade and Intercourse with the Whites — A Visit to the Baths of Chilian — The Road to the Place — Forest Scenery — The Site of the Baths — Bad Accommodation — Baths of Cauquenes — The Guests at the Baths — Chilian Middle Classes^Tlieir Indiffer- ence to the War — Want of Popular Sympathy with the War — Priestly Influence — Chilian Priests— Peruvian Priests ... ... 202 XII. The Strait. Steamers across the Atlantic — Steamers in the Pacific — William Wheelwright — The Pacific Steam Navigation Company — Magni- tude and Success of their Undertaking — Their Establishment at Callao — Their Victory over all Rival Lines — ^Jealousy of the United States of the Success of British Steam Navigation in South America — The Voyage from Valparaiso to Montevideo — A Farewell to Chili — Land Routes from Chili to the Argentine Republic — Hard- ships and Risks attendant on the Journey — Advantages of the Sea Route — Peculiar Shape of the South American Continent — Frag- mentary Formation of the Land towards Cape Horn — Its Influence on the Climate — Access to the Magellanic Strait through Smyth's Channel — Why the Route is abandoned and what Chances there are of its being used again — Entrance to the Strait on the Pacific Side — Cape Froward — Sandy Point — Character of the Scenery — The Outlet on the Atlantic 230 X CUNTENTIS. XIII. Thk Cities of the Plate. PAGE Tlie Estuary of the River Plate — Montevideo and the Uruguay Repub- lic — Buenos Ayres and the Argentine Republic — The Situation of Montevideo — Its Recent Development and Present Decline — Beauty of the City and its Neighbourhood — Capabilities of the Place in Certain Contingencies — Buenos Ayres — Its Unfortunate Site — Its Disadvantages as a Sea-port — Its Wealth and Importance as an Inland Place — Its Narrow Streets and Bad Pavements — Foreign Immigrants and their Influence — Great Numbers of Italians— Dis- like of the Natives for Gringos or Aliens — Rapid Absorption, especially of the Italians, into the Native Population- — " Something Rotten " in the State of Spanish Republics — Political and Social Disorders — Intrigues and Violence of a few Party Leaders — Apathy and Helplessness of the Masses — Panic among the People on any Prospect of Political Disturbance — A Crisis at Montevideo^ — One at Lima — Another at La Paz in Bolivia 225 XIV. The Region of the Plate. Early Settlement of the Region— Pastoral Life — Foreign Immigration — Agricultural Life — Unfavourable Conditions of the Country — Its Vastness and Want of Communications — Wild Indians and Maraud- ing Gauchos — Droughts — Locusts — Symptoms of Progress — Rail- ways — Telegraphs — Their Results on the Improvement of the Country — Advance of the Line of Civilization, and Increased Security for Life and Property — The Grand Chaco^ — The Pampa — Patagonia — All Progress Delayed by the Frequency of Political Disturbance — Statistics of Wealth in the Argentine and Uruguay Republics — An Estancia or Cattle Farm in the Province of Buenos Ayres — A Saladero in Uruguay — Foreign Colonies — Their Nation- ality — Large Immigration of Italians — Russo-German, Swiss, and other Colonies — How dealt with by the Government — Rudiments of Self-Government among some of them ... ... ... ... 279 XV. Life in the Plate Republics. The Plate as an Opening for European Emigrants — Vastness of the Country — Its Flatness — Not Unredeemed in some Districts — Hilly Ranges — The Water-courses — A Journey to the Interior — Rail to Cordova — To Tucuman — Central Argentine Land Company Colonies — Scattered along Vast Tracts of Unbroken Solitude — Scrubby Forests — A Salt Desert — Variety of Climate — Tucuman on the Out- skirts of the Tropics — Sugar Plantations and Sugar Mills — Homes CONTENTS. xi PACiK for laaiiy Nations — Life in an Estancia — Suitable to English Tastes and Habits — Companions to an Englishman's Solitude — Town Life — Character of Argentine Provincial Towns — Rosario — Cordova — Blending of Races — Prevalence of Spanish Character and Language — Spaniards the Ruling Race — Rising Independent Spirit in some of the Colonies — Argentine Politics .,. ... ... ... ... 307 XVL Paraguay. American Views of the Rottenness of their Government and of the Vitality of their Country — How such Views apply to Paraguay — Conditions of this Republic — Historical Retrospect — Jesuit Rule — Dr. Francia — Lopez I. — Lopez IL — Utter Ruin of the Country — Chances of its Recovery — A Visit to Paraguay — Its Geographical Position — Steaming up the Parana and Paraguay Rivers — River Scenery — Asuncion — Desolation of the City — Its Ruins — Deplor- able State of the Finances and Trade of the Republic — The Debt — An Excursion to the Interior — Rail to Paraguari — A Ride in the Neighbourhood — The Aspect of the Country — Peculiarities of the Population — Paraguayan Villages — Paraguayan Priests — Paraguay misgoverned since Lopez' Fall — Better Hopes of the Present Government — Resources of the Country — Its Trade — Its Means of Connnunication — Indolence of the Natives — Obstacles to Coloniza- tion — How the Debts of the Country might become its Resources 329 XVII. Brazil. Spanish and Portuguese America — Republican and Imperial America — Spanish and Portuguese Character in the Mother Country — Its Development in the Colonies — Results of Emancipation — Geo- graphical Position of Brazil — Mountains and Rivers — Survey of the Land — River Steam Navigation — Railways — Obstacles to the Furtherance of Public Works — Impracticable Undertakings — Jeal- ousy of Foreign Engineers — Brazilian Finances — ^ Public Debt — Army and Navy — Trade — Mines — Coffee in the Ascendant — Decline of Sugar and Cotton — The Labour Question — Statistics of the Population — White and Coloured Races — State and Prospects of Negro Slavery— Labour by Free Negro and other Coloured Races — European Immigrants — Portuguese — German and other Colonies — Obstacles to Colonization — The Climate — Mutual Dissatisfaction of Natives and Aliens — Statistics of Aliens — Brazilians must do their own Work — Beauties of the Country — Rio Janeiro — Its Bay — Its Environs — Danger to the Empire from its Vastness — From its Ultra-democratic Institutions — Popularity of the Emperor — His Detractors 359 boUTH AmEEICA. 3 3 1 > J CHAPTER I. '-.^.-'-^^^.S ; INTRODUCTION. European Views of South America — Its Wars and Eevolutions — War between Chili, Peru, and Bolivia — The Good and Evil of War — • Object of the Author's Mission — North and South America — Original Influences — Anglo-Saxon Settlers and Spanish Conquerors — Constructiveness and Destructiveness — Ethnological Influences — The blending of Races — Preponderance of White Races in Anglo- Saxon America — Preponderance of Coloured Races in Spanish America — Statistics— The Negroes in Central America and the West Indies — The Indians in vSouth America — The Labour Ques- tion — Historical Influences — Struggle of the English Colonies against the Mother Country — Conditions of Spain during the Struggle against her Revolted Colonies — Political Influences — Autonomic Instincts among the Colonists of North America — Anarchic Helplessness of Spanish Colonists in South America, and their Dependence on Foreign Ideas for their Organization — Prepon- derance of the Spanish Character — Its Evil Instincts — Prospects of a Better Future — Symptoms of Progress. Kingston, Jamaica, October 21, 1879. The war between the Republics of Chili, Bolivia, and Peru, seems to have had the effect of re-awakening some curiosity among the European readiog public about a subject which had been for some time dismissed from men's thou2;hts as altoc^ether destitute of interest. B / 2 SOUTH AMERICA. People Daturally inquire what may be the material, social, and moral conditions of countries that thus venture upon hostilities with something like M. Ollivier's gaiete de cceiir. It is not because either domestic or inter- national feuds in the emancipated colonies of Spanish AmericG, can have struck any one as a startling novelty, or created any very eager desire to inquire into the origin of the conflict, or to speculate on its probable issue ; for wars and revolutions, coups d'etat and pronun- ciamientos, are by no means uncommon occurrences in the Iberian Transatlantic world, and most of those free communities only refrain from cutting each other's throats when each of them is busy cutting its own. Hardly any more cheerful intelligence reaches us from that quarter than the violent deposition or murder of some ill-chosen President or sclf-aj^pointed Dictator, generally followed by the garotting, hanging, or quar- tering of those who had a hand in his downfall or profited by it. The alternative lies usually between the "destroyers" and the "saviours" of society; the work of reconstruc^tion often inflicting greater suffering than the process of demolition. With rare exceptions, in these communities, it may be said that from senseless anarchy to ruthless tyranny, and vice versa, there is incessant, invariable transition ; and the leaders of every democratic or autocratic movement seem only agreed in this, that whichever faction upon attaining power INTRODUCTION. 3 despairs of the establishment of anything like order, should endeavour to ward off home difficulties by involving the country in foreign complications. War is resorted to as the only safety-valve against revolution. The present Chileno-Peruvian contest is not the first instance in which manure (guano or nitrate of soda) has been the cause of nations flying to arms in South America. There may be exceptions to the rule, but for the most part these people require no particular motive or object for drawing the sword. They seem to love strife for its own sake ; and although sheer exhaustion often compels them in the heat of their squabbles to hold uj) their hands, it is seldom to a settled peace, but only to an " indefinite truce " that they can be brought to consent. The struggle is adjourned sine die, the ill- blood remains and discord becomes the normal state, the contending parties being only too readily prompted to be " on with a new quarrel " before they are " off with the old one." Thus Chili and Peru, who are now flying at each other's throat, have not yet come to a final settlement of their late quarrel with Spain, and are still nominally at war with that country. Such is the estimate the European world is dis- posed to come to with respect to the merits of this new Chileno-Peruvian dispute, and not unlikely the matter may thus in European estimation be settled d priori and without further inquiry to every man's 13 2 4 SOUTH AMERICA. satisfaction. South. Americans, it may be said, go to war just as clogs bark and bite, because " 'tis tlieir nature to." But not many years liave elapsed since mutual slaughter was also the nature of other people. Feudal Prance and England, Republican Italy and divided Germany, had for centuries the same trick of running amuck against each other upon the most frivolous provo- cation, or no provocation, as do the Chilians and Bolivians of the present day. The curse of the first fratricide has equally weighed on Adam's family under all climates, and South Americans have at least not yet carried their wickedness so far as to proclaim a " Holy War," as the Christians and Mahomedans of the Old World have done, both in ancient and modern times. The truth is that war, like all other evil, must be, that good may come of it. Modern European civilization, such as we see it, is in a great measure the outcome of the great stir created by the rivalries of the Italian cities, by the jealousy of the French and Austrian dynasties, by the wars of the Protestant Reformation, by the tumults of the Parisian Revolution. Alfieri in his ' Misogallo ' painted the French of 1789 as a poultry-yard where ''the cocks were organizing themselves by pecking at each other." Bat the satire was aimed at the whole human race as well as at the French community. Every war, civil or interna- tional, conveys a bitter yet salutary lesson. Who will deny that the North American Union issued from the INTRODUCTION. 5 great Secession contest a wiser and better community ? The impression left by that calamitous trial of strength may wear out with time ; the teaching of cruel experi- ence may be forgotten or disregarded ; but its influence is at work now. The great Republic never was soberer, never was mightier, never more prosperous or progressive than it is at this moment. AViih North America before our eyes, why should we despair of South America ? The conditions of the Spanish American communities differ indeed in many essential particulars from those of the great Anglo-Saxon Northern Union, but that is no reason why they should not have a happy and glorious, though necessarily a peculiar, future of their own. There is no reason why men, even while accepting a state of things so very unsatisfactory, and apparently admitting of no remedy, should not wish to inquire into it, to study the causes which brought it about, and to ascertain whether indeed any attempt that might be made to relieve the evil must as certainly tend to its aggravation, as has been too generally, and perhaps too hastily, taken for granted. It is with a view to come to some mature under- standing of the situation of affairs in these regions that I have left England on a prolonged visit to some of the most important States of South America ; and my first steps will be directed to the seaports and cities of those which are engaged as belligerents, especially Peru and 6 SOUTH AMERICA. Chili — not Ijecause the wretched war itself can have any interest, but because nothing can be more favourable to the study of the character and aspirations of these people, or of the institutions of their government, than the excitement of a warlike crisis calculated to call forth all the energies of the contending nations and to test the extent of their social and moral resources. The Spanish communities of Central and Southern America — Mexico, Peru, Chili, the Plate, Colombia, Venezuela, &c. — are fully as old as any of the Anglo- Saxon colonies of the Northern Continent of the New World, but they arose under circumstances which were only apparently analogous. New England and Virginia were from the beginning occupied by freemen from a country long trained to the exercise of self-government ; men leaving their native land in obedience to religious or political principles, and determined to find a new home and a permanent abode wherever fortune might drive them. Cavaliers and Puritans seized on their respective provinces as exclusively and indisputably their own. They drove the native Red Indian tribes from their terri- tory inch by inch by a series of encroachments that led to their dispersion, extermination, or utter degradation; and they were strong enough to force any strange European or other white elements that settled among them into subjection to their laws and amalgamation or assimilation with their own race. In the south, it is true, they INTRODUCTION. 7 burdened tliemselves with negro labour — an interminable source of future trouble ; but the Irish and the German who came to the north for bread and hard work merged their nationality and language in those of the ruling people, and learnt to value their birthright of freedom and to associate themselves with their hig;h destinies. In the north there was from the first a nation compact and united in all but its name. The Spaniards, who on the first onset claimed all the most eliixible resrions of the New World as their possession, were merely a handful of conquerors and adventurers. They came from a country which an internecine war between Christian and Moslem had brought under their subjection ; they came to plunder and ravage ; they fought their way to new, vast empires, passing from land to land, and establishing garrisons rather than colonies, terrorizing, hunting down, and exhaustinoj the Red Indian races with such wholesale exe- cutions that of the millions of defenceless Indians whom they found in the Great Antilles hardly one survivor, we are told, remained at the end of the 16th century ; but in Peru and Mexico they were brought into contact with large and flourishing native communities, incapable, in- deed, of prolonged armed resistance, but yet able to hold their own by mere vis inertics, and who, though giving way on the seacoasts and in the outskirts of their bound- less territories, stood their ground in their mountain fastnesses and in their pathless deserts, still constituting 8 SOUTH AMERICA. the great mass of the population, and living in a state of virtual independence of their white conquerors, and often in open and successful hostility against them. The con- sequence was that when the cry first arose of " America for the Americans," the provinces of Virginia and New Englund, firmly established on their own ground and free from any Red or Black admixture, passed from the con- dition of loyal British colonies to that of independent American Republics with little political and absolutely no social revolution. The Anglo-Saxon, accustomed to home rule, maintained his undisputed sway over the coloured races, and the work of assimilation of white immigrants went on without even the slightest attempt at disturbance ; while in the Spanish settlements the Indian races remained and are still in possession of the great bulk of their territory, and the Spanish colonist blended by intermarriage with coloured races, on the one hand, found it difiicult to maintain his position against the native population — a mere Indian like Juarez or a Gaucho like Rosas rising to supreme power in Mexico and at Buenos Ayres — and, on the other hand, allowing alien whites — Germans, Britons, and even Italians — to monopolize all trade and industry in the main centres of civilization, and to gain that ascendency which wealth must needs assume in all human communities irrespective of political institutions. Such as they are, the Americans of the Northern INTRODUCTION. 9 Union have made themselves. They are the salt of their nation, the leaders of thought and action, and they only accept from adventitious elements — from Irish, Germans, Chinese, or negroes — that amount of solid help which they need in their material development. Of the hard- workers in their community, only one portion, the white, can really aspire to equal rights with the sovereign people. But even these can hardly ever prevail by numbers, however broadly the franchise may be established on the principle of manhood suffrage. In the Spanish Republics, on the contrary, not only are all the whites an inconsider- able minority, but even among the whites the Spaniards and their descendants are seldom the largest, and hardly ever the most influential, portion of the community. The consequence is that while the population of both continents of America is reckoned at between 84,000,000 and 85,000,000—55,000,000 of which belong to the Northern and Central division, and only 25,000,000 to South America — in the United States of North America the pure whites are about 87 per cent, of the population, and the same or more favourable proportions are observ- able in Canada and the whole British Dominion, while in Mexico, which geographically is a part of the same northern continent, but which is a Spanish community, nine-tenths of the population, even of the cities, consist of Indians or half-castes ; and the same or even more unfavourable proportions prevail in what is properly 10 SOUTH AMERICA. called Central America — Guatemala, Honduras, &c. — and in some of the States of South America. In Peru the pure Indians, mansos or " civilized " and hravos or " independent," are 57 per cent, of the population ; the various mixed races about 23 per cent., the negroes 8^ per cent., the Chinese l^ per cent., the whites being thus reduced to a bare 15 per cent. ; and the foreign white admixture is so considerable that in the city of Lima alone the Italians, mostly artisans and petty traders, number, it is said, 17,000, It would hardly be worth while to weary the reader with statistical details which are only given in round numbers, and which, after all, can hardly be relied w^on for strict accuracy. Enough, I think, has been said to prove that in former Spanish colonies the white element, and especially the ])\xyq. SjDanish element, has since the emancipation been pretty generally losing ground. In the West India Islands — Cuba, Porto Eico, Hayti, Jamaica, &c. — the best part of which originally belonged to Spain, and where, as we have seen, the native Indian race was entirely rooted out, negro slavery was brought in with such recklessness that, while the population amounts now to 3,600,000 souls, 56 per cent, are pure Africans, 27 per cent, half-castes, and only 17 per cent, are white. Were it not that some of the islands are under the sway of England, France, Spain, Denmark, and other European States, all interested in backing their white against their coloured subjects, there INTRODVCTION. 11 is little doubt that the black would gain the upper hand, and most of the islands would share the fate of Hayti and San Domingo, the two sections of one and the same island now in the possession of two black Republics, a Negro-French and a Mulatto -Spanish, where liberated slaves are making the experiment of free institutions with doubtful success. No doubt the Black man, the Red man, and the Yellow are entitled to be treated as " men and brethren ; " there was no reason why they should be held in fetters, or even deprived of civil and political rights. But the question is, on what terms the coloured may live with the White people, especially where the dark outnumbers the fair, and in climates where the former alone can live and thrive, and the latter, especially in the second and third generation, inevitably falls off and degenerates, and gives symptoms of rapid decline of physical and moral energies. Of this question England has given rather a practical than a logical solution in Jamaica by depriving both Whites and Blacks of those constitutional liberties with which the island had been improvidently endowed. The regress there was matter of necessity, and it established the fact that to make a "happy family" of such a mongrel community as we have in the West Indies is an attemj^t only to be tried by a wise, just, and paternal, but absolute government ; and the United States, who for so many years coveted Cuba, bargained for Samana Bay at San Domingo, and 12 SOUTH AMERICA. expressed a wish to bay St. Thomas from the Danes, have, for the present, given up all thoughts of an exten- sion of their empire in West Indian territory, well know- ing that they would here be confronted by that Negro difficulty the solution of which gives them sufficient anxiety in their own southern districts. In the Spanish Republics, as we have seen, the contest is not, as in the West Indies, between the Whites and Blacks ; for the Negroes in South America, if we except Brazil, are only a small flock and give little trouble. But the difficulty rests with the native Indians, half of wdiom are unsubdued and un- friendly, and the other half, though not spurned or oppressed by the Whites, and even freely and largely mixed up with them in motley half-castes, can with difficulty be turned to the purposes of civilization and resist its redeeming influences. In every imaginable human society there are and must always be classes doomed to do the hard, heavy, and dirty work of the community. In most European States, where rights are equal, the population homogeneous, and la carriere ouverte aux talents, it is custom, training, and circum- stance that assigns to each man the place he is fit for. Valour, genius, or industry may raise a mere boor to an English peerage ; every French conscript carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack ; and it is free to every shaveling to aim at the Papal tiara ; the struggle is INTRODUCTION. 13 hard, but the fight is generally to the strongest and the race to the swiftest ; but such is not the case in South America, where Nature has drawn her barriers not between individuals, but between races, where the Red man is at heart the White's enemy, and where he would have only to shake off his indolence and feel the con- sciousness of his numerical superiority to claim the equal rights which the law extends to all colours and attain such knowledge as the popular school aff"ords, to get rid of the weak, divided, and discordant alien race which despotism alone enabled to monopolize the supreme power. It seems impossible to foresee who in the Spanish communities of South America, especially in the Tropical regions, is to do the hard work of the country. It will certainly not be the native Red Indian, nor the original Spanish settler, nor the mongrel race which springs from the union of both. Such brain-work as is now going on is supplied by a few German, British, or Italian immigrants or mere passing visitors ; the hard work is contributed by a few negroes, and more lately by coolies from East India or China. There is nothing like a settled, deep-rooted, growing, and multiplying labouring population. Man, one would say, has hardly as yet taken firm possession of the soil. There are a few scattered settlements on the sea-coasts and the cities ; but the main area of the continent is little more than a vast hunting-ground with here and there a sheep-walk. 14 SOUTH AMERICA. The organic vice which was observable in the primi- tive settlement of the Spanish colonies of South America became more flagrantly evident when those communities aspired to new existence as independent republics. In the British provinces the transition from " subjects " to '' citizens " was perfectly natural and easy. Tlie prin- ciples and practice of self-government were thoroughly understood among those Anglo-Saxon colonists ; and when real or pretended grievances or local instincts prompted a severance from the mother country, a nation was in existence fully confident of its ability to dispense with leading-strings. The movement in those colonies was spontaneous and deliberate. They graj^pled with and wore out Grreat Britain, then in the height of her power, and purchased their freedom at a price which could never allow them to undervalue its blessino;s. They had made their country their own by heavy sacrifices ; they took the rights of sovereignty upon themselves, and allowed to aliens in blood or colour just such a share of power as seemed right and expedient to themselves. But in the Spanish colonies emancipation was owing to extraneous and fortuitous causes. The first cry for freedom beyond the Atlantic in the South was raised by the French negro slaves of Hayti in 1801, and it was merely the echo of the "Rights of Men" promulgated by emissaries from the revolutionized Parisian populace. It was only later that Mexicans, INTRODUCTION. 15 Peruvians, and Chilians, wlio, without being bondsmen, had never known freedom and never felt the want of it, in their turn took up the cry, and what they clamoured for was not emancipation from bondage, but the boon of political liberties which they would have been at a loss to define or to turn to good practical purposes. What- ever may be said of the exploits of the hero Bolivar, it is a fact that there was hardly anywhere a serious fight, hardly a genuine popular outbreak for independence. The distress of the Peninsula, trodden by the French of Napoleon in 1810 and torn by internal disorders through- out the reim of Ferdinand VII. and after that Kino-'s death, was the golden opportunity by which Spanish America won, almost without striking a blow and almost without consciously aspiring to it, the mastery over her own destinies. The vastness of those Transatlantic possessions, the imperfect means of communication, and the ubiquity of the movement, bewildered the scanty and scattered Spanish forces, and the contest would at once have been given up by them had it not been in many instances taken up and maintained by parties among the colonists themselves, who fought some for, some against, Spain throughout the crisis, and carried on the strife long after that crisis was over, thus perpetuating a chronic state of violence and misrule. As the achievement of independence was in South America the result of extraneous impulses, so the 16 SOUTH AMERICA. organization of its territory was effected in obedience to foreign ideas. The Spanish- American freedmen hesitated between the forms of French and North American Hepublicanism ; between Unitarian and Federal Consti- tutions. " United States " of Mexico, of Colombia, of Venezuela rose here and there, often under new names, sometimes within broader or narrower, but ever-shiftina: boundaries, the units breaking into fragments, and the fragments again running into units, the work of dissolu- tion and recomposition going on with incessant vicissitude so as to bewilder lookers-on at a distance, and suggesting the idea of a world undergoing the perpetual changes of a kaleidoscope. The one important fact meanwhile observable in the series of events by which the formation and transformation of those Spanish-American communi- ties have been for the best part of this century and are still daily effected, is the almost exclusive assumption and monopoly of political power by that Spanish element which, as we have seen, constituted from the first a feeble minority of the population, and which has been rapidly decreasing since resentment at the disloyalty of the colonists indisposed Spanish emigrants to cast in their lot among them. In so far as Spaniards must be said to have been the authors of that revolt which deprived the Castilian Crown of so large a part of its Transatlantic possessions, the change might be expected to have been accomplished for their especial use and INTROD UCTION. 1 7 benefit. The Indians remained passive tliroiigliout the struggle, well knowing that whoever might Ijc their master they could never be made to bear two burdens, instead of one ; while the Germans, Britons, Italians and other Europeans, who always had and have still the work and wealth of the country under control, had too utter a contem})t for those South American politics ever to feel tempted to meddle with them. They minded their own business, and so long as they were not inter- fered with they allowed the government to be in whoso- ever's hands chance placed it, relying in extreme cases on the protection of their respective diplomatic or consular agents, and seldom applying for naturalization either in their own behoof or in that of their children. Neither in the bulk of the Indians nor in the ranks of these European strangers should the real people of tliese Republics be sought. When we speak of " the nation " in South America, especially in Mexico and Peru, we always allude to the few Creoles, lineal and unmixed descendants of the original Spanish settlers, or to the mongrel multitude of the Mestizos, the offspring of the union of the whites, chiefly Spanish, with the indigenous races of the country. It is in the language and in obedience to the ideas of these that laws are imposed and the government carried on. But the Spaniards have at all times been the last and least among European people in the development of any aptitude to rule cither 18 SOUTH AMERICA. themselves or others. The Spanish Monarchy spread like a deadly Upas tree over all those vast dominions of Philip 11. on which " the sun never set," and nothing, either in the sovereign State or in its dependencies, ever throve under its baneful influence. But if pure Spaniards can do no grood for themselves or their fellow-being^s at home or abroad, what can be expected of Hispano- Indians, a mixture in which all the faults and vices of the European and native American character are so blended and exaggerated as to bring forth whatever is worst in both I The government of those South American Eepublics is a strange tissue of North American institu- tions interwoven with the lawless practices of which the mother country is endlessly settir)g the example. It is theoretical constitutionalism illustrated by practical pro- nunciamienfos ; a scramble for power and office; a contest of persons instead of principles ; a chaos and pande- monium, out of wdiicli domestic and foreign war, pecu- lation, bankruptcy, general miscarriage of justice, and want of public security, emerge as dominant evils — now singly, now all at once, in a complex and formidable array. Such, as far as can be made out from all accounts that reach Europe, are the conditions of civil society in most of those vast South American regions in whose hands lie the sources of boundless wealth intended by Nature for the common enjoyment of the whole human race ; those regions on which the world is in a great INTRODUCTION. 19 measure dependent for a supply of its precious metals, for its coffee, chocolate, sugar, and other luxuries which have become necessities, for its tropical fruits, its fine- grained woods, its most marvellous medicines, and the manure of its fields. Is there no future for those countries, no hope for their social improvement ? It would surely be rash to meet such Questions with an absolute neo^ative. Pro- vidence, we must believe, goes to work in His own way, and there are no rough-hewn ends that He will not smooth and shape in His own good time. Material progress, commercial and industrial development, are already everywhere perceptible. Mexico, Peru, the Argentine Confederation, and other smaller States are being crossed in every direction by lines of railways in active operation or in rapid progress ; and the navigation of their great rivers is daily receiving further extension. One of the most formidable obstacles in the way of the civilization of those vast regions, the interminable dis- tances and the immense tracts of unreclaimed desert, is being rapidly overcome ; and with easier inter-communi- cation a better understanding and mutual goodwill may be expected to spring up. With the steamboat and the locomotive, ideas will travel even in Spanish America. With the spread of well being there will be an increase of the population, the tilling of millions of acres of virgin soil, an incentive to labour, an extension of agricultural C 2 20 SOUTH AMERICA. and mining enterprise. It is true that railways and steamers, digging for ores, and nearly all other remuner- ative work, is in the hands of strangers — French, German, English, and other speculators — who enrich themselves at the expense of the improvident and slothful natives. It is true that while Peruvian and Chilian politicians go to war for manure, these same European strangers are devising and pushing on that scheme of an inter-oceanic canal across this Isthmus, which, while it will equally benefit all the regions of the earth, must especially benefit the nations seated on the eastern shores of the Pacific — Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chili, by shorten- ing by several thousand miles their water communication with the Old World, and raising the value of their produce by lowering the cost of the freight. But the land in those, as well as in all other countries, cannot fail ultimately to belong to the men who show the greatest aptitude to render it fruitful. If the indigenous and what we may by courtesy call the ruling races — viz. the Independent Indians, and the Creoles, and Mestizos, boasting the few last drops of Spanish blood — persist in working little for themselves and nothing directly or indirectly for the public good, their fiite will in the end be like that of the "tree that will bear no fruit;" and the strangers who are the bees of the hive, tired of sub- jection to its mere drones, will, in self-defence, take as much of the management of public aff'airs as, while INTRODUCTION. 21 guaranteeing tlieir private interests, may put an end to those violent convulsions by whicli those senseless republics are periodically working their own ruin. The accomplishment of the destinies of those countries is certain, however remote. For the present they must be looked upon not as States, but as mere embryos of States. Notwithstanding the silver dots with which most of their flasks, in imitation of the banner of the Great Northern Union, are spangled, those South American communities are not stars, nor constellations of stars. They are mere vaporous, nebulous meteors, destined, perhaps, at some incalculable future periods to assume the consistency and living light of genuine heavenly luminaries, but for the present only puzzling men of science as they endeavour to ascertain what is their real substance and what place they may be called to fill in the economy of the firmament. 22 l^iOUTH AMERICA. CHAPTER II. THE ISTHMUS. Clioice of Routes across the Atlantic — The Voyage out — Fair and Foul Weather — Tlie Colon Bay — Colon — Colon and Columbus — The Isthmus Railway — Tropical Scenery — The Struggle of Man with Nature — Men and Men's Homes along the Line — Mongrel Races — Panama — Its Decay and Squalor — Its Land and Sea Views — The I^egroes— The Mulattoes — Traits of their Character — Extortionate Prices — The Inter-Oceanic Canal — M, Lesseps — Plan, Prospects, and Cost of the Work — Its Magnitude — Its Opponents — The United States— The Pacific Railway Company — The Isthmus Railway Company — M. Lesseps at Panama — His Mission to the United States — Prospects of the Work — The State of Panama and the Confederacy of Colombia — South American Constitutions — Bad Copies of a bad Original — Disorders and Atrocities — Prospeets of the Isthmus. Panama, October 27. To accomplish the tour of South America a traveller has the choice of two routes. He can leave Southampton by one of the Royal Mail Steam-packet Company's boats to the east coast of the vast continent, and after touching at Lisbon and threading the groups of the Canary and Cape de Vcrd Islands, the steamer will take him across the Atlantic Ocean to the ports of Brazil, Pernambuco, Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro, and then proceeding along THE ISTHMUS. 23 the sliores of that Empire and of the States of the Eiver Phxte, MouteviJeo, and Buenos Ayres, the traveller will reach the Strait of Magellan at Punta Arenas or Sandy Point, steam through the intricacies of that strait, pass- ing from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and then, followinsr the western coast of the continent from South to North, he will touch at Valparaiso, Callao, and Guayatpul, the harboui's of Chili, Peru, and Ecuador, thus reaching Panama, west of the Isthmus that takes its name from this city. Or he may reverse his route ; start from Southampton by one of that same Royal Mail Company's steamers to the West India Islands, steam straight to the group of the Azores or Western Isles, and, crossing the Atlantic to the West Indies, make his way to Colon, or Aspinwall, on the eastern side of the Isthmus, cross the Isthmus by the railway between Colon and Panama, take one of the Pacific Mail steamers from this latter place and steam along the Peruvian and Chilian coasts as far south as the Magellan Strait, thread that strait to Sandy Point, and coming northwards along the coasts of the Plate and Brazil, either recross the Atlantic to Southampton or follow the northern coast of the great continent to the Guianas, Venezuela, and Colombia, or to any part of the West Indies. I chose the latter, or West India route. I left Southampton by the steamer Nile, Captain Bruce, on the 2nd of October, reached St. Thomas, a Danish island ■2i SOUTH AMERICA. in the West Indies, on tlie 15 th, touched at Port-au- Prince in Hayti on the 18th, and at Kingston, Jamaica, on the 20th, hmded at Colon on the 23rd, crossed the Isthmus to Panama on the following day, and had then to wait a good many days for the steamer of the Royal Pacific Mail, to take me to the ports of the Peruvian and Chilian Republics. The direct distance from the Needles to Colon on the Isthmus is 4635 miles ; and by a steamer averaging 300 miles a day it ought to be achieved in about 12 days; but as the Nile is not one of the fast boats, and much time was lost by stopping at St. Thomas, ITayti, and Jamaica, out of our way, our run was of 54.20 miles, and it took us 21 days. To consult the almanack with a view to choose the most propitious time of the year for crossing the Atlantic is to " reckon without one's landlord." I went out to the West Indies six years and a-half ago by the steamer Elbe in the month of January, and we met such terrible storms in the Channel and all across to the Azores that we were ten days instead of four before we were in sight of these Western Isles ; but upon leaving these isles we soon fell in with the trade winds, which wafted us along through a calm sea, and glided on to St. Thomas in a few days of purest enjoyment. This time the month was October, and we had every reason to look for smooth weather. We had, in fact, little to complain of Ijcfore we sighted Terceira, the first of the Azores, the only THE ISTHMUS. 20 inconvenience arising from a heavy swell of the sea, slowly subsiding from recent tempests, which tosse 1 us about unmercifully — the Nile being one of the most notoriously rolling boats afloat — and shook everything on board except the serene countenance of the captain, a countenance not to be affected by any frown of the skies or utmost rage of the elements. South of the Azores, however, we looked in vain for the trade winds which were to favour us. We fell in with warm, dark, muggy weather, fitful winds, mostly head winds ; and our voyage, though in no wise formidable, w^as as un- comfortable as incessant rolling, stifling heat, heaving waves, lowering skies, and fretjuent squalls, showers, and thunderstorms could make it. And thins^s were so far from mendino- when we sighted the Sombrero light — the first object that spoke of man and his works in the Transatlantic world — that we had nothing but rain and darkness at St. Thomas, Port-au-Prince, and Kingston, seeing little or nothing of those harbours as we went in or out, and finding nothing but dismal accounts of incessant rain, flooded fields, damaged crops, broken roads, fallen houses, lives lost, and storm-ravaged towns and villages wherever we landed. The sea fell to a calm on the morning of Wednesday, the 23rd, and the envious curtain of clouds slowly rose as we neared our destination and came in sight of Porto Bello, on the entrance of the Bay of Colon. The coast 2f) SOUTH AMERICA. on our starboard side looked grand and lofty : a mass of noble, well-rounded mountains, all mantled over with the richest vegetation down to the water's edge, with a few islets or " keys," as they are called in these regions, thrown forward as sharp-shooters in advance of the comjjact phalanx of the liilly coast, each islet a bunch of trees and shrubs, like the Isola Madrc on Lake Maooiore, and far away ahead of us the long, low line of the Isthmus, where presently the many-coloured buildings of the one street and the few wharves of Colon became perceptible. It was just one o'clock in the afternoon as we landed, and the train for Panama was on the point of starting. It, however, would not wait for us ; so we had to dispose of ourselves as we best could during the whole of that afternoon and night, as we could only start by the seven o'clock train on the following morning. There is nothing in the world more wretched and squalid than Colon. The town had no existence befoi'«i the railway was thought of, for the port on this side of the Isthmus was Chagres, 10 or 12 miles off, at the mouth of the river of the same name ; and it received from the railway builders the name of Aspinwall, wljich the natives have changed to Colon, in honour of the great Genoese navigator and discoverer, who, they assert, visited this coast on his second voyage, and whose name they have given not only to this town, but to a Gulf of THE ISTHMUS. 27 Columbus ou the neighbouring coast, and to the whole region of Colombia, the Republican confederacy to which the Isthmus belongs. Colon is a mere nest of huts of hideous negroes — most of them imported as labourers on the railway from Jamaica and other English Isles, there- fore Anglicized negroes — with about half a score of shops of ship-chandlers and general dealers, and as many dwelling-houses for ship and consular agents from most civilized countries, whose appointment to these offices is, to theif employers as well as to themselves, often the result of necessity rather than of choice. With all their reverence and love for the memory of Columbus, these worthies, to whom years ago was sent by the Empress Eugenie the present of a colossal statue of the hero, done in bronze by a French artist of name, hesitated about accepting the gift because they objected to pay the freight, till the captain of the steamer who had brought it, vexed and perplexed, flung the statue or group — for the Admiral is represented as sheltering the young State of Columbia, in the shape of a feather- crested Indian maiden, under his arm — into the mire of a swamp on the shore. There it lay ignominiously year after year, till it was at last fished out by the manager of the railway company, who wished it to be part of the pageantry of the inauguration of the line. They set the statue on the ground, head uppermost, but set it up hastily and clumsily, without basement or pedestal, on 28 SOUTH AMERICA. the bare ground, where it renicaiiis to this day, hardly protected by a rough wooden paling which lets in dogs, pigs, and geese, and harbours them like a happy family at the great man's feet ; a very '' pearl " of European art thrown away, in defiance of the old wise saw, on these unappreciative Transatlantic " swine." The railway between Colon and Panama, 47 miles in length, conveys its passengers from end to end in four hours. The ticket costs £5 sterling, and there is only one class for al] travellers, bare-footed negroes alone excepted, who have an open car all to themselves. The railwa) is altogether a North American contrivance ; it was con- structed by an American company 1 i years ago at an out- lay of £2,500,000, and is made on the most approved Yankee fashion which the engineers from " the States " have introduced into most Transatlantic countries — lonsf cars where hundreds of passengers are crowded together " promiscuously," engines that roar instead of screaming, and stations, or " depots," as they are called, unsheltered, without roofs or platforms, and where the traveller must scramble up as he can when and where he will, without aid or guidance from the apparently surly, but in reality only unconcerned, taciturn, supercilious, and irresponsible guard or conductor, who knows what it is to be a citizen of a free country, and how vain it would be to look for a " tip." But if the railway itself is commonplace, any- thing but comfortable, and " tanf soit peu blackguards J' THE ISTHMUS. 29 US a young Dauisli fellow-traveller observed, tliere is enough in the country it traverses to repay, not only the extortionate price charged at the ticket office, but also the whole expense and trouble of the voyage from Southampton ; for whoever has travelled through the Isthmus may be said to have seen all the marvel and the glory of the tropics. The traveller has hardly left Colon five minutes before he finds himself wafted through the tangle of a primeval forest, by turns a swamp, a jungle, a savannah, yet a garden and a paradise ; a strange jumble of what- ever nature can muster most varied, most gorgeous in colours, and sweetest in odours to delight a man's senses. Colon is built on a marshy island, separated from the mainland by a creek, which the train crosses soon after quitting the station. For a little while the land lies low, soaked at this season with green or yellow fever- breeding, stagnant water, the surface of which is carpeted all over with those floating plants which the gardener's skill rears with infinite pains in English hot-houses. But soon the ground rises and breaks up into gentle knolls, so densely wooded as to make the country round one impervious mass of green. The rank, hopelessly intricate vegetation invades every inch of space, pressing close to the very rails of the line, and in deep cuttings, or in the hollows of the valleys, hanging so intrusively over it that in some places the company must be at no little 30 SOUTH AMERICA. trouLle to make good its right of way, well aware tliat were it to slacken its exertions the whole track would be speedily obliterated. There is nothing imagination can conjure up to match the variety of the green hues, the vividness of the wild flowers of that virHn forest ; nothins to equal the chaos of that foliage, as roots, stems, and branches crowd upon and struggle with one another, the canopy overhead being further tangled by hosts of lianes and other trailing parasites, blending leaf with leaf and thread with thread like the warp and woof of a carpet. Here and there, as the train comes to a station, or as it passes a solitary hut, or a cluster of huts, the space widens to make room for a negro plantation ; but soon the wall-like forest closes in and nature regains her swa}^, man's \vork leaving' no more trace in that sea of leaves than the keel of a ship in the water. One may envy the knowledge and keen eye-sight of any botanist w^ho could recognize and enumerate his most familiar friends and acquaintances out of that mass of tropical growth, and single out royal palm, vine palm, ivory palm, glove palm, cabbage palm, and the other trees of that genus, of which as many as 21 species flourish here ; and the banana, the mangrove, the cacao tree, the sugar cane, the fruit trees of every kind, forming the under-growth of the bread tree, bread- nut tree, cotton tree — the Cedro, the Ceiba, and other giants shooting up with their clear stems to the sky, spreading their wide crests over space, assuming THE ISTHMUS. 31 every variety of quaint Protean shape, and throwing out at their roots mighty buttresses, as if mistrusting their power to hokl their own against the pressure of their rivals or against the blast of the hurricane. It seems impossible to read the history of the Isthmus and to conceive how almost intact the sway of nature has been and continues after three centuries to be maintained against all attempts at man's intrusion. You stop at a station every three or four miles. You reach the river Chagres at Gatoon, seven miles from Colon, and follow its course past the Lion-hill, Tiger-hill, and other stations, endless vistas of land and water opening before you at every turning. You cross the stream over the Barbacoas bridge, near San Pablo, and reach the summit, or highest ground of the whole line, 256 feet above the sea level, at the so-called Empire station, near Culebra, and gro down towards Panama followinsf the course of the Rio Grande, but hardly meet anywhere a sign of perma- nent cultivation. Near Gatoon you hear of a German, Mr. Franck, who is said to have made a fortune out of his vast banana plantations ; and before you come to the bridge spanning the ilio Chagres you pass extensive clearings belonging to Mr. Thompson, a Scotchman. But that is all. I congratulated Mr. Thompson on the thriving look of his pasture grounds, and expressed a hope that his example would be encouragement to other settlers along the line. But he shook his head, evidently 32 SOUTH AMERICA. not sharing my expectation. On my further inquiring whether he had a wife and family, he again shook his head, and wondered, " Who could be so dead to all human feelings as to bring any being deserving the name of woman to such a desert and such a climate ? " So far as the interests of civilization are concerned, the Isthmus might as well never have been trodden by human foot. Negroes and Mulattos, tame Indians and Mestizos, very low in the scale of human beings, with a sprinkling of Chinese, have alone their habitation in the dingy hovels that flank the railway here and there — low cabins of wood, thatched with palm leaves, shared by the inmates with pigs and dogs and kids and other pets. Model peasant proprietors these people are ; either active or retired workers at the railway some of them, but mostly squatters, the grand-children of slaves of old Spanish settlers ; slaves whose condition freedom has only so f;xr improved that they work little and want nothing, bask in the sun before their doors, pictures of vacant contentment, while their women and children climb up to the cars as the trains stop, otiering boiled eggs, banaaas, beer, and other refreshments to the passengers, or tempt- ing them with little cages full of blue and golden birds, which they tender for sale. Negroes, Indians, and Chinese, black, red, and yellow, live here at peace together, apparently heedless of every diff"erence of blood or language, blending not unfrequently by intermarriage THE ISTHMUS. 33 into a hybrid race, of which it is not easy to trace the primitive elements, and almost impossible to foresee the development or to estimate the capabilities. There is no point on the railway from which one can see the two oceans, nor can a glimpse of the Pacific be caught any- where before the train reaches the terminus at Panama. Panama is a poverty-stricken, half-burnt-down, old- ■^j.shioned Spanish town, in a magnificent position, desti- tute even of the few comforts and inaccessible even to the slow improvements that one finds in most cities of the mother Peninsula. It has not even an alameda ; hardly anywhere a tree in a private or public garden. A destructive fire, February before last, consumed many of the stateliest buildings round the main square, but the blackened walls of the houses either stand untouched, like vast colosseums of ruins, the valuable central site apparently tempting no purchasers ; or, if any attempt is made at reconstruction, the miserable low tenements that rise on the basements of the old mansions are an eyesore to the locality and speak volumes as to the decay of the place. There are a dingy cathedral and other weather-beaten churches, half in ruins, their facades and towers remarkable for their starino- Seicenfo uoliness. Nothing to see but the vast view from the lofty sea wall, a sea view of the grand bay, with its score of wooded islets, the " garden of Panama " as they are called, with Taboga, the loveliest of them, a sea-bathing 34 SOUTH AMERICA. establishment ; a land view of the town, of the Cerro, or round hill in its immediate rear, and of a lono- line of coast, with range upon range of the beautiful forest region of the Isthmus. Were it not for the raihv^ay station, the steamers in harbour, and the huge American hotel, its bar and billiard tables, one would say the Spanish colony has not only stood still, but has woefully gone back since it shook off the Spanish yoke. It boasts, we are told, 18,000 people, of whom hardly, I should think, one-tenth are whites. The neo-ro and his brood in its various hues are kins^s here. Nothino; more saddening, nothing more offensive than a few yards' stroll into the back slums of this pestilentially-smelling place. The coloured man is aw^are that he is the only worker here. Easy on the score of competition and stimulated by few wants and no aspiration, he will only work as much as he likes and on the terms that suit him. In a country wdiere food and drink are to be had for next to nothing, the negro laundress charges one dollar for washing a shirt ; at the hotel she charges six dollars for a dozen pieces. At the hotel, since the fire destroyed the only rival establishment, everything has to be paid on negro terms. A cold bath is charged a dollar ; the cheapest cigar at the bar, a shilling. How the few well-dressed whites of the Jeunesse Doree who frequent that bar of an evening contrive to make the two ends meet I can hardly tell, nor do I know what THE ISTHMUS. 35 business they can have in this place, except as consuls, vice-consuls, railway clerks, and engineers, ship agents, petty merchants, journalists, and the like. One looks in vain for the owners of the land ; the people of the white race are few, and those few are daily, hourly disappear- ing. Colour carries everything before it in these lati- tudes. At Colon, as at Jamaica, you have the English negro; at Panama, as at Havannah, the Spanish negro. The pure negro is, after all, the flower of the race ; in strength, in honesty, in dog-like faithfulness and grati- tude, if not in beauty and intelligence, a superior being to the mixed breeds, which sink morally lower in the scale of beings at every new combination and with every lighter shade of sickly complexion. Black, I repeat, is morally as well as materially the winning colour. The hotel is virtually a negro establishment, though tlie proprietor is a Jew — not only because it depends on negro labour for its service, but because, in obedience to negro instincts, having nothing to fear from com- petition, it exacts the highest price for the scantiest accommodation. And a negro institution is the railway itself, for it is based on the security of its monopoly, and, instead of relying for profits on an extension of its traffic, it disheartens trade and intercourse by the enormity of its charges both for the conveyance of persons and the freight of merchandise. Whether this Isthmus railway will be able for ever D 2 36 SOUTH AMERICA. to rely on its exemption from wholesale competition is a problem the solution of which depends on the success or failure of the great scheme of an inter-oceanic ship canal, of which the great projector and executor of the Suez Canal, M. Lesseps, has undertaken the furtherance. Many points connected with this colossal enterprise seem to have been satisfactorily settled : that a canal answer- ing all the purposes of inter-oceanic navigation, without locks and without tunnel, is a practicable, though certainly an arduous and enormously expensive under- taking ; — that it can only be fulfilled by a ten years' incessant hard work, and will not cost less than £40,000,000 sterling, though the number of years employed and amount of money required, may eventu- ally have to be doubled ; — that any other line suggested — (that of Tehuantepec, that of Nicaragua, that of St. Bias, or that of the Atrato-Napipi) — does not present the same advantages and is frauMit with srreater incon- veniences than this of the Panama Isthmus, which must, therefore, have the preference if a canal is ever to be achieved ; — that the line of the said canal must ascend the valley of the Rio Chagres up to a point on the crest of the Isthmus about 180ft. above the level of the sea (lower by 88ft. than the culminating point reached by the railway), where a cutting of one mile in length through what seemed to me very hard solid rock will have to be effected, and hence go down along the valley THE ISTHMUS. 37 of the Rio Grande to Panama ; — that considerable expense will also have to be incurred in the construction of breakwaters at both ends, both in the bay of Colon and in that of Panama, the access to the canal on either side being rendered difficult by rocks and sands, and by the difference of the tide, which rises to a height of 27ft. on the side of Panama on the Pacific, and of only nine inches on that of Colon on the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic. Besides these, w^hicli are merely grave thouo-h not insurmountable technical o1)stacles, some political opposition is apprehended on the part of the United States of North America, where the influence of the Great Pacific (New York to San Francisco) Eailway Company is brought forward in behalf of the scheme of a canal at Nicaragua ; — not because this latter under- taking j)resents better chances of success, but because the railway company does not wish for the success of any canal, and would equally oppose any work of that nature had any of them the least chance of being brought to completion. That a railway company of that magnitude, which relies for development on the boundless resources of a continent, should long persist in its jealous enmity to an undertaking like the Panama Canal, the benefits of which to the world in general, and to the United States in particular, would exceed all human calculation, and would even surpass those con- ferred on mankind by the Suez Canal, can hardly be 38 SOUTH AMERICA. expected ; nor can it be supposed, even if tlie hostile attitude of the Great Pacific Railway Company were unrelenting, that it would be backed or countenanced either by the Government or by the people of the North American union ; nor, finally, can it be imagined that, even in that event, the nations of Europe and of South America, all the East and West, would in such a matter tamely submit to unreasonable North American pre- tensions. With respect to the opposition of the Isthmus Rail- way Company, which also deems its interests compro- mised by the projected canal, there is good reason to believe either that this railway would be sold to the canal company for 12 millions of dollars, a sum nearly equivalent to the original cost, or that its interests will be associated to and identified with those of the canal company, the railway finding it for its own advantage to tender its co-operation in the construction of the canal, for what could not fail to be a most ample consideration. There remains the financial question, and it is that alone which has really delayed the execution of an enterprise on the importance and almost necessity of which all men .of even average intelligence have long been thoroughly agreed. Achievements of that nature depend for their success on the coming tos^ether of " the hour and the man," and the Panama Canal, the need of which was felt ever since Vasco J^uiies de Balboa caught the first THE ISTHMUS. 39 glimpse of tlic Pacific Ocean in 1513, miglit have continued for a few years to be the subject of idle controversy, had not Ferdinand de Lesseps taken the matter into his hands. Unless this man, this sublime impersonation of the obstinacy of genius, is cut off by death or disabled by great age, there is little doubt that the Panama Canal will soon be a reality, and that Lesseps will crown an existence already transcending all the glories of our age by completing the work which Columbus commenced. It is true Lesseps is no longer backed by the power of his Imperial relative and by his influence on the aspiring instincts of the French people ; but an appeal of Lesseps cannot fail to stir up the energies and call forth the resources of all nations and of their Governments, and one would indeed have to despair of the influence of diplomacy and of the Press throuo;hout the world were want of funds to stand in the way of an achievement by which man would make the most decisive and the last step towards the assertion of his power over the earth, his appointed abode.* For what concerns the locality through which the canal is to pass, it seems to me very clear that the * M. Lesseps' visit to Panama occurred a few weeks after the author's stay in the place. By his exertions at the Isthmus and his subsequent mission to the United States, it seems that much of the opposition to his great scheme was overcome, and there is now reason to hope tliat the canal will be achieved whether or not its aged projector lives to see its accomplishment. 40 SOUTH AMERICA. alternative lies between its life and its death. The State of Panama is one of the nine Republics constitut- ing the confederacy of Columbia, a confederacy claiming sway over a territory of 830,000, or, according to official returns, of 1,331,325 square kilometres — i.e. twice or three times the area of France, with a long line of coast on both seas, with a population of 2,913,343 inhabitants, of which about half (1,527,000) are said to be " whites and half-caste whites," 900,000 Africans, 126,000 inde- pendent Indians, and 466,000 half-caste Indians and negroes. Colombia owns, perhaps, the most beautiful, the richest, and the most fertile region in the world, as it lies on the northernmost slopes of the Andes, divided here into three main branches, forming the valleys of great navigable rivers — the Magdalene, the Cauca, and the Atrato— the declining altitude of the mountains combining to give the country every variety of climates and to fit its bountiful soil for every description of produce. Much of this is as yet unexplored land ; a vast part of the wild native Indian population acknow- ledges no man's sway ; another large portion, the coloured races, are of little or no use as labourers ; and the pure whites, a mere fraction, languish in a climate which undermines their thews and sinews at every new generation. This country, which upon its emanci- pation by Spain, either as New Granada or under its present appellation of Colombia, repeatedly joined in a THE ISTHMUS. 41 comLination with Ecuador and Venezuela, and as often broke off and set up for itself, lias undergone as many revolutions and made experiment of as many Constitu- tions as it boasts years, or, I may almost say, months, of existence, and lives now under a charter, framed, as it is supposed, on the model of that of the North- American Union, allowing each of its nine States almost absolute and complete self-government under a Central Govern- ment in the district of Bogota — the nominal capital, a God-forsaken city since it dropped its name of Santa Fe — far away in the mountains, only to be reached by a several days' journey on mule- back ; a mythical seat of Central Government, whose decrees seldom reach the States to which they are addressed, and are even less frequently attended to, or carried into effect. The State of Panama, the foremost member of the Colombian Confederacy, extending all along the Isthmus from the lagoon of Chiriqui to a little beyond the Gulf of Darien, constitutes a community of 220,000 souls, with as much free control over its own affairs as allows it to do miscliief, devolving on the Central Government, at Bogota, the duty of repairing it as it can. Panama has a President, a Congress, an army or militia, a police, a financial administration, and magistrates of its own. It is ruled on the princi]3les of absolute equality and universal suffrage, and endowed with the broadest democratic institutions, including even a law on general 42 SOUTH AMERICA. compulsory education ; but it is iu reality under the sway of the armed force of small factions engaged iu a perpetual scramble for office, carrying all elections by intrigue or violence, and involving the country in period- ical feuds and riots. Witness the affair of the I7tli of last April, in this city, in which Colonel Carvajal, a com- mander of the Federal or National forces, an estimable officer, who forbade his troops meddling with politics, was assassinated with his son by his own officers ; where- upon a bloody fray ensued between these troops and the local army — the former mostly half-caste Indians, the latter negroes and mulattoes — the city being terrorized by an 18 hours' fusillade in the streets, knowing but little of the real causes of the outbreak, and being at the trouble of burying five-and-thirty of its victims who were left dead on the pavement. Witness the reckless viola- tion of international laws going on here by the open conveyance of contraband of war to the Peruvians. Or witness, finally, the barbarous butchery of three higlily respectable and inoffensive German subjects and the wounding of several more at Bucaramanga, in the State of Antioquia, by a miscreant named CoUazos, the Alcalde of the Commune, and of Rodriguez, the chief of the department, both officers nominees of the State, leaders of a band of ruffians, aided by the troops and police of the State — an atrocious deed of murder, arson, and robbery. THE ISTHMUS. 43 Complete lawlessness, prompted by rapacity, is as much the order of the day in the States of Colombia as it ever was in Kansas or California in the worst days of Far West rowdyism, with this difference, that in the Eastern and Central States of the Northern Union there was a law-abiding body of civilized natives determined to enforce order in the same measure as it extended its sway over its remote territory, whereas here the nation is represented by a few unprincipled partisans, swaying the country only to rob it, unrestrained by a craven and supine coloured population, and by a few aliens unable or unwilling to stand their ground against fearful odds. The construction of the canal, were it to be carried throuQ-h, mio;ht determine the immio-ration of a laro^e number of influential persons, might interest all foreign States in the introduction of something like order in the C*onfederacy, might remove the seat of government to the Isthmus, and build up here a community serving as a model to the inland districts, or, better, might sever the connection between the Isthmus and the Confederacy, and create a free town or free state of Panama, where independence and neutrality should be under the guar- antee of all the world's Powers. The lands adjoining the canal for a zone of 50 kilometres on both its banks might lead to the drainao;e, the clearino; and cultivation of these wild districts, correcting the unhealthiness of the climate, which now suflers from six months' incessant tropical 44 ^OUTH AMERICA. rains and as many months of unmitigated drought. But were the scheme of the canal to fall to the ground and the present state of things to continue, the rapid material and moral dissolution of this corrupt community and the abandonment of the country to the unimprovable coloured races must be looked forward to as the inevitable and not remote consequences. THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAIST. 40 CHAPTER III. THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAST. I^avigation along the Pacific Coast — Panama to Callao — The Ayacucho — Eecent Impulse given to the Coasting Trade by British Maritime Enterprise — The Pacific Steam N^avigation Company — Tlie Colombian Coast — The Coast of Ecuador — The Coast of Peru — Crossing the Line — The Weather on the Coast — Cold and Darkness in the Tropics — The Estuary of the Guayas — Tropical Scenery — Guayaquil — The Eepublic of Ecuador — Quito — Scenery on the Peruvian Coast — Paita, Eten, Pacosmayo — Physical Formation of Peru — The Sea-coast or Western Region — The Table-land on the Andes — The Montana or Eastern Slope of the Mountains — -Projected Railway across the Andes to the Navigable Part of the Eastern Elvers — The Oroya Line — The Cuzco and Titicaca Line — Eaihvays on the Coast — Barrenness of Peruvian Mountains — Fertility of the Valleys — Minpral and Agricultural Produce — The Sea the only Highway of Peru — Coasting Trade — The Pacific Steam Navigation Company — Primitive State of Peruvian Sea-ports — Difficulties of Loading and Landing — Strange and Grotesque Scenes — Peruvian Government — Financial Embar- rassment — Depreciated Currency — Eailway Enterprise at a standstill even before the War — Consequences of the War — Impressment of Men fcr the Army — The Author's Luggage and its Carrier. Lima, Novemher 15. From Panama, on the western side of the Isthmus, to Calkio, the seaport of Lima, there is a distance of about 22 deo-rees of the meridian — but a run of 1532 miles. The voyage is accomplished usually in nine days, occasionally 46 SOUTH AMERICA. ill six, by the magnificent steamers of the English South Pacific Mail Company, which a few years ago only ran once, and then twice a month, but now leave Panama twice a week, some coasting the whole continent down to the Straits of Magellan and through the Straits to the Eiver Plate, Montevideo, and Buenos Ayres ; others merely plying between Panama and some of the inter- vening ports. By arriving one day too late at the Isthmus (on Wednesday, October 22), my fellow-passengers from Southampton lost their chance of the steamer that left Panama on that day ; but they were able to continue their journey by an extra steamer on the following Saturday. On Monday, the 27th, a steamer again started from Panama on a short journey to Guayaquil and back, and, finally, on Wednesday, the 29th, T left Panama, and reached Callao and Lima on Saturday, November 8. Four steamers, between ordinary and extraordinary, thus started from Panama for the south in one and- the same week, and these were in communication not only with the British Royal West India mail steamers from South- ampton, but also with the French line from Cherbourg, with the American line from New York, and with the North Pacific British line from the western coast of Centnd America and from San Francisco in California. I have dwelt on the prodigiously increased activity of tlie steam navigation centering on the Isthmus, first, to give some idea of the further progress tliat navigation THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAST. 47 miglit attain were the schcDie of the Panama Ship Canal to be carried out ; secondly, to show at the outset what development of commercial life is observable in these Western States of South America, into the material and social condition of which I have been sent to inquire. The New World, on this side of the great continent, seems to be rising into a novel existence ; and it is important to note that the business arising from it is mainly, if not exclusively, owing to English enterprise ; for of the steam navigation, both of the Atlantic and the Pacific, the boats of the Royal Mail Companies have quite the lion's share (the Americans of the Northern Union showing no disposition or no ability to compete even with the Cunard, the White Star, and other lines plying between Liverpool and the various harbours of the United States) ; while in the ports of South America two- thirds, at least, of the large vessels of every description fly the British colours. On Wednesday, October 29, towards sunset, the tender from the pier near the Panama Railway terminus con- veyed us to the little island of Taboga in the bay where our steamer, the Ayacucho, was anchored ready to start. Like most coasting steamers round this western conti- nent, this vessel, though built in Liverpool, was made after the pattern with which travellers along the Missis- sippi and the other great American rivers become familiar • — a vessel, so to say, turned inside out, with an upper 48 SOUTH AMERICA. deck seemingly suspended in air, the saloons, tlie cabins, and the first-class state-rooms all on this deck, havinor their large port-holes and doors opening on to it, and allowing the passengers as ample a supply of air as heart may desire, both at all hours of the day and night and in all kinds of weather — a blessing which men who have been for 20 days stifled under the close main deck of the steamer from Southampton are not slow to appreciate. Seen from the tender, as we drew near, the Ayacucho, with the lights streaming from all its openings, looked like a fairy palace ; a top-heavy structure, as one may fancy, not sufficiently compact and well-balanced to wrestle with the storms of the Atlantic, but along these coasts, with the steady trade winds and currents of the broader and calmer Pacific Ocean, calculated to combine the utmost comfort with the most perfect security. We were all on board at seven, and sat with some friends at a capital diuner, of which Captain Whittingham, our good commanding officer, did the honours with thorough British hospitality. At midnight all strangers were ordered off, and it was only upon rising early in the morning that we perceived we had left the Panama Bay in our wake. The steamer went southward along the western coast of the Confederacy of the United States of Colombia, to which Panama and its isthmus belong. This Republic is the only State in South America which has the advantage of extending its territory on both seas, its THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAST. 49 coast stretching on tlie north-east along the Caribbean Sea or the Atlantic, and on the other or western side along the Pacific. We, however, touched at none of the Colombian ports, but made a short cut to the coast of the Eepublic of Ecuador, coming in sight of land at Cape San Lorenzo and Cape St. Elena ; then winding round the island of Puna, at the mouth of the river Guayas, w^e ran up the estuary of that river as far as Guayaquil — ^thc main harbour of the Equatorial Republic and the high- way to Quito, its capital. After a halt of one day and night at Guayaquil we again descended the river, having the lands of Ecuador on our right, and, presently, the shore of Peru on our left. We stayed for a few hours near Tumbez, the first Peruvian town on our route. We again stopped at Paita, on the following morning ; then at Eten, and, further, at Pacosmayo, beyond which we followed our uninterrupted course to our destination at Callao. We crossed the line at half-past three in the afternoon of November 1, before we reached Guayaquil, and we had the sun very nearly right over our heads all the way to Callao. From the state of the heavens or the temperature, however, it would have been impossible to imagine that we were in the tropics. We had had rain in torrents, with short glimpses of burning sun, and a close, damp, stifling atmosphere on our way through the West Indies and on the Isthmus, and heavy showers and the same 50 SOUTH AMERICA. darkness and gloom prevailed now on the coast as far as Guayaquil. But the air freshened and the sky somewhat cleared as we reached the first station in Peru, at Paita ; and from that point we were met by a keen cold wind from the South Pole, so cold that we shivered on deck all the rest of the way, and were glad at night not only of our blankets, but of such rugs and wrappers as we had too rashly laid aside as useless encumbrances. The fact is we had reached the tropics at the end of what is here called " winter " — i. e. in the West Indies, the rainy season, which was this year unusually heavy and pro- longed beyond its usual period ; and in Peru, where no rain ever falls, a season of darkness which spreads upon land and sea a pall of heavy clouds, and which, combined with the blustering breeze, might have caused us to fancy we were steamino; alono[ the English coast. We had not one single starry night on the Pacific ; and, with the exception of one glorious sunset off Pacosmayo on the 3rd, we had no more heat or light from tlie pale and sickly sun (when we saw it at all by day) than from the watery moon at night. The difference in temjDerature naturally affected the look of the country. Up to the entrance of the estuary of the Guayas, on the way to Guayaquil, the low shore on either side, refreshed by incessant showers and flooded by the periodical rise of the tide, M-as teeming with the endless luxuriancy of a tropical vegetation. The primeval THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAST. 51 forest covered both the islands and the mainland as far as eye could reach ; fine straight trees rising clear and free to the sky like rows of Lombardy poplars, with an impervious tangle of the undergrowth at their base ; a mass of fresh green, the vividness of which no forest scenery, even in moist England, could match, broken here and there by a blaze of flowers of the brightest hues, enlivened by flocks of birds of gay plumage and haunted by tigers and alligators, which even the noise of the steamer does not always scare out of sight. All this reojion alons^ the river is both uncultivated and un- inhabited ; and only as one approaches Guayaquil a hut on piles is to be seen here and there close to the water's edge and inaccessible except by boat. Guayaquil, the thriving and bustling but dingy and shabby sea-port of the Kepublic of Ecuador — (a backward and half savage State, which murders its Presidents,' and sends or till lately sent half its yearly revenue as Peter's pence to the Pope) — is, or looks like, a newly-built town, of two or three streets parallel to the landing-place, with houses of mud on frames of bamboo cane, all lined with porticoes or verandahs shading the well-supplied but extravagantly dear shops — a town with a motley population of 13,000 souls, and not a building or monument of the least pre- tension ; Avhere the public amusement during our short stay, seemed to be furnished by a tipsy British or North American sailor, playing his antics at a gin-shop door E 2 52 SOUTH AMERICA. before a swarm of Mulatto boys who jeered and pelted liim with the gusto of young Spartans baiting a Helot. At Guayaquil the ground rises and breaks out into a cluster of hills all mantled with verdure — a pleasant prospect, in the rear of which 1 was told may be seen, looming up half-way in the heavens, " but, alas ! only once or twice in the year," the snowy cone of Chimborazo and the other giant volcanic masses encompassing the valley of Quito, the glory of the Cordillera of the Andes. Quito is only to be reached by a journey of several days, steaming about 70 miles further up the river in small boats, then proceeding by rail a short part of the way, and accomplishing the rest on muleback. Far different was the sight that awaited us on the coast of Peru. At Paita, a thriving port, connected by rail with the valley of Piura, there was not a bush or a blade of grass to be seen either about the town or on the mountains round the bay, the only bit of green the people enjoy there being the clumsy perspective of a painted garden on the outer wall of the grand caf^ of the place. As we proceeded southward, always close to the land, the coast exhibited the same unrelieved line of rock and sand spreading upwards into jagged and cragged and bare hills, behind which we could see through the mist long ranges of mountains, blurred and softened by distance, but equally bald and savage, and all seamed with the rents and chasms which made them, to all THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAST. 53 appearance, utterly impracticable as well as inhospitable. Such is Peru all alonsj the coast throao-hout that region that lies between the sea and the crest of the first Cordillera, or chain of the Andes. Between this first, or western, and another inland, or eastern, chain, there lies a table-land, somewhat between 12,000 and 15,000 feet above the sea-level, which constitutes the middle region ; and on the eastern slope of this second chain lies the so-called " Montana," or mountain slope, through the deep valleys of which flow the streams the waters of which mix in the bed of the great river of the Amazons. These three regions — the western sea-coast, the table- land, and the eastern mountain slope — differ materially in soil, in climate, and in produce, Peru being by nature so placed that the parts of the country which are most easily accessible are the most barren and forbidding, while the inland territory, which can only be reached by painful eff'ort, constitutes by far the wealthiest and most charming division of the territory. To correct this grievous fault of nature, the Peruvian Government had conceived a scheme than which nothins: could be bolder or more magnificent, had there only been means, intelli- gence, and perseverance in the execution commensurate with the vastness and daring of conception of the enterprise. They proposed to construct several great railway lines from the sea-coast to the Andes, cross both the chains of those mountains and the inter veniusj 54 SOUTH AMERICA. table-laiid, and carry them on along the valleys of the great eastern slope to those points where the rivers become navigable, whence the traffic would continue by water through Brazil down the Anaazon river as far as its mouth in the Atlantic, thus opening a communication between the two oceans by rail and steam. The railways would have to be from 200 to 300 and more miles in length, and to be carried up to a height averaging 12,000ft. to I5,000ft. above the level of the sea; and it has been ascertained that Peru possesses about 3263 miles of navigable streams of its own, all tributary to the Maranon or Amazon before that river crosses the border into the empire of Brazil. Two of these great trans- Andean railways are already far advanced. One is the line of Oroya, which from Callao and Lima has been carried up 86 miles to Chicla, within a few miles of the uppermost crest ; the other is the line from the port of MoUendo, near Islay, running up to Arequipa, and thence to Puno, on the great Lake Titicaca, a line already more than 300 miles in length, to be continued on one side to the old city of Cuzco, on the other to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. I shall have occasion to return to the subject of these railways, destined to become the main arteries of the South American continent ; but for the present I must limit my observation to the maritime region, and state that at many of the ports on the coast railway lines have been run up, from 20 to 50 or 60 THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAST. 55 miles in length, mostly by the Government, some also by private enterprise, with a view to facilitate the export of the boundless mineral wealth of the country, as well as of such produce as even this western region, with all its dreary aspect and its lack of fertilizing rain and sun, contrives to yield. Though the mountains on this side are hopelessly sterile, and though the clouds give no showers, there is no lack of good soil in the narrow and steep valleys, and no deficiency of water in the perennial streams that flow through them. These valleys, depend- ent for their moisture on the snows of the Andes and on the dews with which this misty atmosphere is charged, are like so many charming oases in the mountain wilder- ness ; and besides their multitudinous fruits and ves^e- tables, they produce in their cool recesses rice, maize, cotton, tobacco, &c., a considerable quantity of which finds its way through these short railways to the sea, and are shipped off in the steamers of the Pacific Company to all parts of the world. Of this coasting trade, which is equally carried on all along the coast of Colombia and Ecuador as well as of Peru, and the increase of which has lately been enormous, we only could form an idea at Paita, Eten, and Pacosmayo, the ports at which the Ayacucho called. These places have as yet no real harbour accom- modation. We anchored in the roadsteads outside, and were tossed about by a sea which is always high here, so that the landing and taking in of cargo was everywhere 56 SOUTH AMERICA. a laborious and difficult operation. I saw cows tied with a rope round their horns and hoisted on board by the crane with their legs all dangling and sprawling ; I saw pigs thrown out of a lighter as it neared the shore, and bidden to sink or swim, with a whack now and then from the boatman's oar to show them the way they should go. I saw passengers lifted out of the lighter in a kind of wooden cage not unlike an Irish slanting car, sitting back to back three on either side, and holding in their arms or laps bundles, babies, parrot-cages, and other impediments, hanging dangerously high in the air, as the sea heaved and yawned mountain high between the steamer and the lighter ; and I saw also the same perilous ascension performed by the port captain and his adjutant at Eten ; those two officers standing in a tub, holding fast by each other's arms and by the chains of the crane as that machine made them fly over the bulwarks and shot them down into the hold with a smart bump, as if they had been bales of cotton, when they scrambled out all ruffled, the captain shaken out of his habitual official gravity and Indo-Castillian sosiego, and his attendant deeply concerned about the damage that aerial journey might have wrought in his tightly-fitting uniform. The maritime arrangements in these Peruvian havens, in short, are as primitive as one may conceive. There is nowhere any attempt at docks or breakwater ; the long railway piers which have been run out into deep THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAST. 57 water with a view to facilitate the transmission of the contents of their vans and trucks into the steamers are mostly unfinished, and will remain in a great measure useless till funds be forthcoming to complete the inter- rupted works both at the railway stations and in the harbours. The fact is that the Government, which in its mighty undertakings displayed more zeal than understanding, which looked to the ends without considering the means, and relied for supplies not on the already overstrained revenue of the country but on a series of loans contracted with little discretion and on most onerous terms, ran too rashly to the conclusion that their credit would never fail them, that the resources it might yield would never be exhausted ; and they seemed to forget that the work they had taken in hand, and which might possibly prove to be remunerative when carried to a thorough termin- ation, would never pay a penny, and would, indeed, involve heavy liabilities, and run the risk of being utterly abandoned, so long as it remained incomplete. The railways, whose charges for goods and passengers were originally fixed in gold and silver, must receive payment in a depreciated paper currency, now as low as 200 per cent. The Government, whose property those railways are, can easily put up with the loss, as they pay no interest on the capital they borrowed for the construc- tion ; but it falls hard on the lines belonging to private 58 SOUTH AMERICA. companies, as, for instance, on tlie English Callao and Lima Railway, a creditable speculation, dating from 1855, and which yielded fair returns for many years, but which has now to withstand the competition of the Government railway of the Oroya line, and must also put up with paper payments, thus reducing its receipts by two-thirds, even without reckoning the recently- imposed war tax on the tickets. Such has been the state of things in this country for the last two or three years, when the activity with which the Government carried on its public works suddenly collapsed ; the Republic finding itself all at once short of funds, and in the impossibility of raising the wind on any terms, so that next to nothing, I am told, has been done in rail- ways since 1876 — that is, long before Peru took up the cause of Bolivia in a matter which in no way concerned her, and became entangled in its war with Chili — "that beautiful war," sure, whatever may be its issue, to work a havoc on the Peruvian finance from which it is not easy to see how it can ever recover. That war, undertaken by Peru in the mere spirit of bravado, and in a possibly mistaken consciousness of the superiority of her forces over those of a despised enemy, has hitherto been productive of nothing but serious disasters — the loss of the ironclad Huascar, the pride and hope of the Peruvian naval power, and the defeat of the Peruvian land forces at Pisao-ua or Pisahua, THE PERUVIAN SEA-COAST. 59 where tliey vainly attempted to oppose the landing of 10,000 Chilians in Peruvian territory — such defeats by land and sea, sustained in spite of a display of great bravery, being accounted by the Peruvians, not as " vic- tories," but as " national glories, to be valued much more highly than victories." It is not my purpose to dwell on the particulars of this untoward conflict, nor on the domestic and foreign policy of a Government which is thus urging the country to the verge of utter destruction — no further, at least, than is necessary to point out the extent to which political causes may affect the material and social inter- ests of these South American communities ; and in this respect I must state that besides the grievous direct losses inflicted on the Peruvian exchequer by military and naval expenses, the State must put up with the far more serious indirect damage of the removal of so many useful hands from their employment, in a country where labour can hardly be procured on the highest terms, and where indeed the great, the vital question is how and whence labour is to be got on any terms. In their blind resolution to carry on the losing war to the bitter end, the Government here are laying a violent hand on all able-bodied men with a fury exceeding anything that ever was done by England in the darkest days of her press-gang ; and a proof of their way of going to work in this respect was given to myself on my landing at GO SOUTH AMERICA. Callao, when the railway porter with whom I had bar- gained for the conveyance of my luggage from the wharf at Callao to my hotel in Lima, and for which the man was to receive 10 dollars, was seized by the recruiting officers at the station, and smuggled away to the barracks, leaving me in sore perplexity as to what had become of him and of the " plunder " committed to his care, when he came up by a later train in great glee, announcing that he had "bought himself off" with the very money he expected at my hands. With the wretched multitude who have no cash wherewith to redeem themselves it must, indeed, go hard. Peru is bent on pursuing the struggle to her last man. As to her last dollar, alas ! it has long since made itself wings and been seen no more. THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. 61 CHAPTER IV. THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. Pizarro's Choice of a City — Lima, or the City of the Kings — From Callao to Lima — Aspect of Lima — Its Streets — Its Buildings — The Main Square — The Cathedral — Promenades and Gardens — Specimens of old Spanish Architecture — A rare old Mansion — Museums — The Situation of Lima — Its Surroundings — Mountain Scenery — The Climate — Absence of Eoads — Impossibility of making them — The Population — The Indo-Spanish — The Cholos — The ISTegroes — The Chinese — The Labour Question — The European and other Settlers — Chinese Households — A Chinese Theatre — Peruvian Exemption from Work — Peruvian Politics — Political Murders — Apatliy of European and other Settlers in the midst of Peruvian Disorders — Chances of a Better Future — The Lima Population on a Gala-day — A Motley Crowd — A Babel of Tongues — Yankee Peculiarities among the British in Lima. Lima, Novcmher 17. Although Francisco Pizarro, the discoverer and con- queror of Peru, was only an illiterate warrior and adventurer, and the deed or instrument by which he bound himself with Diego de Almagro and Fernando de Lugue on the eve of his enterprise in 1526 bears "his mark" instead of his signature, there is every reason to believe that he was a man of natural intellectual abilities, as much a constructive as a destructive genius ; and he G2 SOUTH AMERICA. showed no little discernment in his choice of a site and in the delineation of a plan for a city. Coming, as he did, from Panama to subjugate a country to which he could gain no access by land, he felt that he would have no other base of operation than the sea ; and forsaking Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Empire of the Incas, which was too far inland and too far up in the mountains, he laid, in 1535, January 6, the Three Kings' Day, on the banks of the River Kimac, and about two leagues from its mouth in the Pacific Ocean, the foundation of Lima, to which, as he meant it to be the permanent seat of Government of the conquering nation, he confidently gave the name of " City of the Kings." Here he settled and here he resided to the end of his days, in 1541, when he fell by the hands of assassins, meeting the fate of nearly all the men of blood and iron of whom he was the type ; like two of his own three brothers, like the two Almagros, like the Alvarados, the Carvajals, the Monk Valverde, and a hundred others, atoning for unheard-of deeds of violence by a violent death, the worthy end of a set of men than whom if we sum up the. episodes of that great Iliad of the Conquest we shall find that none ever displayed more reckless, desperate daring, more unwearied energy and heroic endurance, but who also transcended all other mortals in their avarice, ambition, bigotry, and cruelty, in their implacable mutual jealousy and enmity, in their utter disregard of THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. G3 all faith, lionour, and conscience — in whatever there was most admirable and most execrable in the old Spanish character. From the fine harbour of Callao to Lima, or Los Reyes, as people still fondly call the city, the traveller crosses by rail a seven or eight miles flat, sandy, and stony shore, with an almost imperceptible ascent of 480ft., and he has before him, as he leaves the station, a straight, narrow street, the main street of the town, exceeding a mile in length, crossing at short intervals a labyrinth of other streets which all meet at right angles ; the ground a perfect level, the streets all on one plan, of one and the same width, and the blocks of houses all of the same height ; with the great square of the Cathedral about half way between the two ends of the main street, and a little further the Rio Rimac, with the fine old bridge crossing it, and causing the only break in the monotony of this rectilinear and rectangular chequer- board. Such is the pattern of almost every brand-new city in the New World, a city raised with rule and compass, having none of the grace of the quaint and picturesque variety of the old towns. The place seems to answer all the purposes for which it was intended, the thoroughfares just wide enough for the hackney- carriages and tramway- cars, the side walks, well paved once, now somewhat dilapidated, only too plain an evidence that Lima has 64 SOUTH AMERICA. seen better days ; the dust, all-pervading and trouble- some, in spite of the fitful efforts to water the streets ; many of the shops, and especially the jewellers', glittering with almost Parisian mag-nificence ; the houses, all of one story rising above the basement, on the footing of Republican equality ; the upper floors of most of them enlarged by heavy balconies ; from seventy to eighty huge churches, and several convents with vast cloisters cumbering one-seventh of the area of the city, and towering over it everywhere with their domes and belfries, and twin steeples or spires ; the roofs flat ; the masonry everywhere flimsy and shabby and rickety, in spite of its massive appearance; the inside all wood, the outside plaster and reeds, bamboo, and stucco ; all that befits a climate where no rain falls and earthquakes make themselves at home. And yet, though with absolutely no pretension to architectural taste or correct st) le in its public or private edifices, Lima may not be without peculiar charms in the eyes of its inhabitants, and even of the least fastidious among its foreign visitors. The main square is spacious ; the often-restored and modernized cathedral on one of its four sides is imposing ; and although the vast Government premises, Pizarro's original mansion, filling another side, and the Arch i episcopal Palace and the Town-hall are hardly distinguishable from the meanest houses adjoining, there is something in the colonnades THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. G5 or porticoes running in front of tlie shops along the two other sides and in the fountain and shrubs in the middle that gives an air both of provincial comfort and of metropolitan dignity to the place. The same may be said of other squares with monuments to Columbus, to Simon Bolivar, and other worthies ; the same of the public promenades, the Alameda of the Barefooted Friars, the Alameda de Acho, and above all the so- called " Exhibition," combining botanical and zoological gardens, but with grounds sadly neglected — where I admired an old and a young couple of lions, the finest I ever saw in any menagerie — and the same of the good Central Market, the handsome and well-conducted Dos de Mayo Hospital, the modern Penitentiary, and the cemetery. But the chief interest for a lover of the picturesque arises from the frequent sight of the neat, cool patios, or courts, of the better houses, laid out somewhat after the old Morisco fashion prevailing at Seville or Cordova, though one misses here the plashing fountains, the shrubs and flowers and birds of those delightful prototypes. Some traces of the quaint and baroque taste of the latter end of the Spanish Eenaissance are also observable in the cloisters of some of the convents and in the faqadcs of two of the churches, St. Augustin and La Merced ; but more strikingly in the curious, highly ornamented old mansion of Dr. Cevallos, a perfect model of a wealthy Spanish nobleman's dwelling QO SOUTH AMERICA. in the old gold- digging days, where they still show in the court the carved and gilded beam supporting the scales on which was weighed the gold as it came in from the mine, and where the present owner treasures up a fine collection of old Spanish pictures inherited from Castilian ancestors. This artistical collection, the miner- alogic and general museum collected by the distinguished Italian scholar, Antonio Raimondi, which may one day be left to the State, and the museums of Indian antiquity in a few private houses, the most valuable of which is the native pottery — a pottery marvellously akin to old Etruscan, Egyptian, and other primaeval workmanship — now in the possession of Mr. Spenser St. John, Her Majesty's Minister, are among the main objects deserving a visit ; and a traveller may also find entertainment in sfoing throuo;h the Senate House and the Congress of Deputies, the former once the Palace of the Inquisition, the latter the old University, as well as in inspecting the new University, or Universities, the College of Arts, and the Mint, all edifices at the present moment somewhat indifierently answering the purposes for which they were erected. But, after all, what constitutes the chief claim of Lima to a stranger's admiration is its magnificent site. From the windows of the Phoenix Club in the main square, at the end of most of the straight streets, from the miradors, turrets, or terraces on the roofs of many THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. G7 houses, one may catch here a glimpse, there a prospect, farther a panorama of the vast surrounding scenery. On one side looking seawards you behold Callao, a mere suburb of the capital, with its two lines of railway, its magnificent natural harbour, sheltered on the southern or windy side by the long and lofty island rock of San Lorenzo, looming about four miles off across the channel, with the merchant shipping at anchor, and the squadrons of Great Britain, France, and the United States rivallins: one another in the highly finished condition of their formidable ironclads ; and further otf the low wooded shore stretching beyond reach of human ken. And all round on the other sides you have the spurs of the Andes, all brown or dark gray, bare and preci|)itous, clasj^ing and hugging, as it were, the little plot of level ground where the town is built, a very world of moun- tains, reared up in huge pyramidal masses, hill above hill, and ridge behind ridge, through some of the open- ings in which, in very rare propitious atmospheric circumstances, you may have a vision of the snow line of the very giants of the chain. The mountains, you would say, close round lima, as if constituting its walls and ramparts. You see no outlet, no way up anywhere, no gap save that little streak of green which marks tlie course of the valley of the Rimac. Through that valley — the track followed by the Transandean Oroya Railway — there trickle now the scanty rills of the Rio Rimac, a F 2 G8 SOUTH AMERICA. river at this winter season almost lost in the wilderness of its stony bed, but which will come clown with a roar and overflow its banks with the fury of an Alpine torrent as soon as the snows of the Cordillera shall feel the heat of the sun's rays in the summer months. Such is the view one enjoys from Lima in ordinary weather ; but as to the "gigantic range of the Cordillera here rising like a wall sheer out of the water," and " the glittering snow- fields, beyond which lie still more distant peaks towering to amazing heights " — all that must either be seen with the eyes of faith or under such a combination of clear sky and bright sun as has not as yet fallen to my lot. The climate of Lima and in general of the western coast of Peru is one of the most equal and temperate, yet also absolutely one of the most dismal climates in the world. The average temperature throughout the winter ranges between 57 deg. and 61 deg., and in the height of summer it hardly ever exceeds 82 deg. or 84 deg. A real downpour of rain is an event occurring at the utmost once or twice in a century, when it finds neither persons nor things prepared for it ; and it is the boast of the people here that no fickleness of the weather can ever interfere with their arrangement of picnics, rides, drives, garden-parties, or other festivities. But we are now at the outbreak of spring, and the sky frowns upon us as it would upon a London November. Two weeks since our arrival have gone, and we have THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. G9 seen nothing like a sunrise, or sunset, or starlit niglit. Thick clouds hang between heaven and earth morning and evening, clinging to the hills, and towards daybreak they now and then squeeze down a few almost imper- ceptible drops of Scotch mist, leaving off from miuute to minute, and scarcely laying the dust, as if the heavens above were crushed under a weight of sorrow too deep for comfort, yet too heavy for tears. An hour or so before noon the sun breaks out, as a rule ; a vertical sun, hot enough if it were in earnest, but doing its work in a reluctant, slovenly way, as if unable to make up its mind about it, and soon withdrawing behind its dense curtain of mist, as if loth to seem to disappear at night's bidding. I am told by some of the natives that this state of things only lasts here throughout the six winter months, and that even during this period the gloom does not extend more than a few miles out of Lima ; but strano;ers lono^ acclimatized here aver that the weather is not much clearer even in the summer season ; that a real bright view of the upper chain of the Andes is a very rare occurrence at any time of the year, and that at niglit the weather is always cold enough to make a provision of overcoats and wrappers extremely advis- able ; a state of the temperature not to be wondered at if we bear in mind that both winds and currents from the ice of the Southern Pole never cease to sweep along this coast from year's end to year's end. That Lima is 70 SOUTH AMERICA. without contradiction the unheal thiest and deadliest large city of South America is meanwhile freely and universally admitted, the only question being whether it is to nature's enmity or to man's improvidence that its dire mortality should be mainly ascribed. One of the consequences of the continual drought around Lima, and, as I afterwards ascertained, around Valparaiso and other cities on the coast, is the absence of available country roads ; for there is no water by which the stones of a Macadam may be cemented or kept together. People here travel along tracks traversing the land in straight lines, ankle and almost knee-deep in a loose dust which is half sand from the sea, and half volcanic ashes from the mountains. The roads which the Indians under the Incas, and perhaps before the Incas, were said to have made both along the sea, and throughout the table-land on the west of the Andes, were probably dug deep in the earth, laid out and built up of solid blocks of stones like those of the Komans. But at the present day, there are not perhaps in all South America a hundred miles of what either the ancient or the modern nations of Europe would call roads. With respect to mankind, the object, according to Dr. Johnson, of wise men's survey "from China to this country," I may say it presents here a phenomenon of such variety of complexion, shape, feature, and character as one might probably in vain look for in any other THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. 71 place. The work of mixture by intermarriage, legal or otherwise, of different races, especially of " a ha'p'orth of white with an intolerable deal " of dingy red, yellow, and black, has been going on for three centuries, and the result is such a confusion of colours as would puzzle the discerning powers of the most diligent ethnological inquirer. A Peruvian, as a rule, is theoretically a cross between a Spaniard and a native Indian. The conquer- ors found here, upon their invasion of the empire of the Incas, from 10 to 12 millions of people spread over a territory which is now divided between the three Repub- lics of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and tlie population of which, taken altogether, now scarcely reaches five millions. The Spaniards, during their three centuries' sway, massacred, plundered, crushed, and destroyed by hard work more than half the enslaved native popu- lation ; they came actuated by avarice and lust of power. They clutched the country's treasures with bloody hands and ruled with an iron rod, but seldom became perman- ent settlers even when the land was theirs ; and at once and altoo;ether estrano-cd themselves from it when their power had passed away. A mere small flock as they were, it is astonishing to see what deep traces of their ascendency they left behind them. The soul and heart of the country are still as thoroughly Spanish as they ever were under the Castilian Viceroys. Such civiliza- tion and intelligence, such a sphere of ideas, such 72 SOUTH AMERICA. tendency of feelings, as are observable among this mongrel race, bear the mark of the Castilian character, intensified in whatever there is good or evil in it by the admixture of the by no means uncongenial Indian blood. In religion, in politics, in social habits and moral prin- ciples, the Peruvians are the most faithful copy of the Spanish original. Like the Spaniards, they are a brave people — born to bear the fatigues of heavy marches and to give or receive death with equal indifference ; but, with the exception of war, fit for no trade or only for politics, which is with them a kind of warfare, and in which murder and plunder play as active a part as in war. For any other than the soldier's work a Peruvian himself would rather employ any other people than his own. The Indian or mestizo is of no real use in town or country, as long, at least, as the choice lies between him and either the negro or mulatto, or the East Indian or Chinese coolie. Without the introduction of a foreign element, no matter where it may come from, the labour question in Peru will never receive a satisfactory solu- tion. This point alone is settled — that the native elements are of extremely little use for agricultural purposes, and of none whatever for mining, road -making, or for any other navvy employment. As the Peruvian population of the lower classes will not supply the labour, so neither can or will the upper classes yield the intelligence or capital. In all branches of trade and THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. 73 iudustiy, liigli or low, and even in those Government offices in wliich diligence, skill, and thrift, as well as common uprightness and integrity, are required, you wHl find foreigners or sons of foreigners, almost without an exception, filling the best places. The population of Peru, according to the last census of 1876, amounts to 2,699,945. Lima numbers 101,488 souls within its walls, and Callao 33,500. There were, it is said, be- tween 15,000 and 20,000 Chinese in these two cities, and about 60,000 throughout the whole of Peru, but their number is now reduced altogether to about 35,000. Owing to the hardships these Asiatics endured on board the vessels that brought them over and the ill-treatment they received at their masters' hands, England has interfered and forbidden this new kind of slave trade ; so that immigration from that quarter, which began in 1853 and continued for 25 years, is now at a standstill. An English gentleman, owner of a large sugar estate, told me that he employed 1000 Chinese, each of whom cost him 480 dollars on his first arrival, and whose number is now reduced to 621, owing to death from illness, or suicide from ennui, or desertion and breach of contract. Though the Chinaman is able to work in the field, and not unwilling to do so upon compulsion or the induce- ment of high wages, he will choose any other employ- ment for which he is better qualified, and will, as soon as he has a chance, quit the plantation and resort to the 7i SOUTH AMEBIC A. city, where lie can earn a livelihood and accumulate money in the various capacities of skilful artisan or petty shopkeeper, barber, cook and confectioner, waiter at an inn or club, nurse at an hospital, &c. The contract by which these coolies were originally procured will expire in about two years ; the Chinese who are now in this country will be free either to go back to their homes or to follow the bent of their own inclinations as to the kind of pursuit that best suits them. Unless new labourers can be brought on better terms from this quarter, much of the agricultural and all the mining and railway work will come to an end. Were it possible either by a better arrangement as to their immigration, or by a more humane usage, and especially by a free gift of small lots of available land, to entice millions instead of thousands of these thrifty Asiatics to effect a permanent settlement in the country and to con- stitute a new race of petty peasant proprietors, they might perhaps so leaven the whole mass of the population as to create a useful and efficient labouring class ; for the Chinaman is naturally gifted with a higher intelligence than the negro, and a greater strength, energy, and power of acclimatization than the native Indian ; and the objections which arose against his coming here un- mated and eschewins^ intercourse with the women of the country are found to have no real foundation, as nothing is now more common than to see new families springing THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. 75 from the connexion within the present generation between the Asiatic and the Indian or African races, the three colours, black, red, and yellow, blending in a new strange amalgam, the ultimate results of which no one can foresee. Several Chinese families apparently in easy circumstances are already flourishing in Lima, where they may be seen twice or thrice a week, well dressed and well behaved, seated in the boxes of their national theatre, delighting in a play the action of which is con- tinued from evening to evening for weeks, and where all the incidents of births, marriages, and deaths are performed in succession, a courtship and a wedding, for instance, taking place with such a realistic ndivefe of details as might well scandalize the audience of the most unscru- pulous play-house in the Parisian suburbs. T have heard a Peruvian say that there could be no well-being in his country till the Chinaman gained a decided ascendency over its destinies. Though spoken in jest, the saying may prove to be true in sober earnest. Or there would be at least no reason why such a con- summation might not be realized did not the Peruvian, though himself unwilling or unable to turn the resources of his country to good account, yet envy and dislike, not only the Chinese, but all those aliens, whatever may be their race or colour, who, while seeking their own private interest, powerfully contribute to the development of the public prosperity. There are no such trustworthy statistics 76 SOUTH AMERICA. ill this country as might tell us how many Italians, Germans, French, and North Americans are really living in Peru, or even in Lima Callao ; but what we can see without being told is that, failing these strangers or their descendants, nothing would be done in the way of business, in any great national enterprise, and even in the army and navy. The Italians, the most numerous "colony" — 14,000, it is said, between Lima and Callao — have seized on the pidperia, or petty retail shops, at every street corner, driving a small trade that leads to huge gains. The French have most of the hotels and cafes ; the Germans monopolize the banking business ; the English take upon themselves all the engineering work, the Yankees have the fattest railway and other contracts. The Peruvian is an hidalgo, like his Castilian forefather, who looks upon himself simply as born to rule. Politics is his calling ; the State is his oyster, which he with sword — /. e. with intrigue and violence — will open. He has a Constitution, pays wages to Senators and Deputies, publishes a Budget, and goes by fits and starts through the forms of an election, of a President's Message, and of an opening and closing of the Chambers. But of law, justice, or public order and security, there is not the least shadow. " Point tV argent, point de justice " is the motto. The dastardly soldier who shot dead the well- meaning but utopistic President Pardo at the entrance of the Senate House in November last year ; the ruffians THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. 11 who on the previous April broke into the house and into the bed- room of Mr. Young, the head manager of the Lima-Callao-Chorillos Railway, wounding and almost murdering him and his wife, are, with a legion of other malefactors, in prison awaiting their trial. The leader now of one, now of another political faction snatches at power by some stroke of surprise ; he has the Chambers at his feet, and after a Session of vain declamation, his decrees are summarily indorsed, and he is invariably invested with full powders to enrich himself and his friends at the public expense, till the turn comes for another adventurer to trip him up by some sleiglit-of- hand trick, verhi gratia, by throwing him into prison and murdering him there ; not, however, without running the risk of being himself murdered, mobbed in the streets, hung from the towers of the cathedral, and burnt on the square before it. Such are the Cosas de Peru, a counter- part of the Cosas de EspaTia. Name Balta or Pardo instead of Prim, and Prado or Gutierrez instead of Serrano, and you will find the history of the new colony merely a sad parody of that of the old Mother Country. It might seem difficult to understand how the in- dustrious and intelligent class of business men of the various foreign nationalities whose superiority of numbers, wealth, and energy could so easily assert itself, submit to be bullied and harried by this mere handful of Peruvian political adventurers, remaining passive spectators of the 78 SOUTH AMERICA. misrule by which both the country and the interests they have in it are brought to utter ruin. But it must be considered that these stranojers, notwithstandino- the goodwill and amity which a sense of their common danger promotes and fosters, find it very difficult to over- step those barriers which their divided nationality and language, their diverging and often conflicting pursuits, and their allegiance to the various Powers on which they rely for protection, raise against any possibility of joint action and combination among them. Except for charit- able or social purposes, they seem loth to put forth their influence, and they will rather allow the tide of tyranny and anarchy by turns to overthrow the country, heedless of the certainty that the flood must sooner or later reach and overwhelm themselves. One must add that there are among these foreigners men of all characters, some of whom can find no fault with that ill- wind of mis- government which, after all, blows somebody good, or with that wholesale jobbery and robbery in which the unscrupulous have an easy chance of coming in for their share. It would be rash to assert that thing's must continue in this state to the end of time ; for the immigration of these foreigners is an affair of recent date, and society in Peru is in a state of transition of which we only witness the earliest phases. The children of these aliens, whether naturalized or not, become Peruvians de facto ; and, as THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. 79 their tendency is to blend together in one race and to speak one language, a new nation may be formed, among which, though Spanish be the idiom, the evil instincts of the Spanish nature may be gradually counteracted. Could a new amalgam arise in which the Chinese, or some other equally thrifty race, undertook the hard work, and a new generation of naturalized Europeans supjDlied the intelli- gence and activity necessary for the order and progress of a civilized community, there might be for Peru a future somewhat better tliau can be anticipated from a continu- ation of its present condition. Worse circumstances than those in which this Republic is now involved it would hardly be possible to imagine. And indeed the sense both of present and of impending evil visibly presses on every class of the population, and the complaint of " hard times " is universal. I found Lima and Cailao on my arrival convulsed with the tidings of war, converted into a vast camp, with soldiers on duty day and night at the corners of every street, all thinking men anxious about the cost of a conflict, which, whatever may be the result, can hardly fail to be the prelude of a revolution. I found the Cathedral still hunor with the mourning trappings of the funeral apotheosis of the naval hero Grau, the " Peruvian Nelson." I saw battalions of raw recruits hastily drafted by forcible impressment from the riff-raff of the city, drilled and paraded round the square and along the promenades ; troops of all arms 80 SOUTH AMERICA. from the nimble sharpshooter or chasseur to the lithe lancer and the heavy dragoon and cuirassier, all clad in uniforms servilely reproducing both the cut and colours of the French models. The town has an earnest, down- cast aspect ; for all amusements are interdicted, and the only gathering of the population I have as yet witnessed was on Sunday before last, when there was music at the Exhibition Gardens, the money taken at the gates being destined to eke out the funds necessary for the purchase of a new ironclad to bear the name of Admiral Grau, and to fill the place of that Huascar which the lamented Admiral bravely but rashly committed to an unequal and inevitably fatal contest with the Chilians, but which, if we believe Peruvian newspapers, on a foruier occasion sincde-handed attacked and defeated a whole Eng^lish squadron under the command of Admiral De Horsey. The whole world of Lima was that day in the Gardens, and one could study at least the outward characteristics of the various races which come in as ingredients of the Peruvian population. The army is mainly " Cholo," or native Indian. The whole of the rank and file and many of the officers display what is conventionally called the " copper " colour, more properly a dingy brown, slightly blended with yellow, indicative neither of robust health nor cleanliness. The Indian has often regular features, an indolent, dreamy, melancholy expression, with latent THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. 81 fire in the eyes, apt to break out in terrible flashes under excitement. He is not tall, mostly slender-built, yet easily inured to great hardships, though frequently and painfully affected by a sudden change of climate. With little training and good officers these Indians can be made excellent soldiers, desperate bravery and uuwearied endurance being as common among them now as it was in the days of the Incas. Pour battalions of men from the hills I saw drawn up at Chorillos, the Peruvian Brighton, the other day, seemed to me worthy to be called the elite of any army. Beauty is rare among the women of this race, though some pretty faces will now and then peep out of the little black hood which the Cholitas or Indian girls coquettishly draw round their head, Madonna-like, by gathering together the folds of their mantas. They are, as a rule, a slovenly set, especially the old women, and the " Sambo " women — those in whom there is mixture of neo;ro blood. The ugliness of some of these latter passeth all understanding. They wear no stockings, often no shoes, and the dirt they collect as they go with their longs skirts, v/hich they trail behind them like Trojan women, is something prodigious. Chinese women are seldom if ever seen about. Very few as yet have been brought to this country; and even their males, though not absolutely unsocial or unfriendly, do not often commune with men of other races. The yellow 82 ■ SOUTH AMERICA. Asiatic moves briskly througli tlie crowd, intent, demure, observant, but silent, as if, like the monkey in the fable, he were afraid if he spoke he might be made to work more than he liked. Among themselves, I am told, there are no more inveterate chatterboxes than these Celestials. The men of light skin — comparatively speaking, I mean, for a touch of the tar-brush often reaches here very high in the social ranks — the men, and even more the women, of European extraction are extremely particular about their Parisian dress ; tall hats, bonnets, black broad- cloth, and silk, the liveries of '''effete Monarchic Europe," being de rigueur among these worshippers of Republican equality, to the almost absolute exclusion even of the linen jacket and straw hat, which might be deemed better suited to this dry and dusty climate. Peru is a polyglot community from the highest to the lowest order. You hear a different language from every group you go past, and yet in every language, you would say, there is something peculiar, something Peruvian. It is not merely the coloured man that speaks negro English, negro French, and Spanish. Every idiom on crossing the ocean becomes to a certain extent Americanized. There is always some Yankeeism in the utterance of every Englishman who has been long a resident in the West Indies or in any part of the Western Hemisphere. It is not matter of pronunciation or twang as much as of THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. 83 phraseology or slang. Every man about whose health you inquire tells you he is " fust-rate ; " just like Tom Thumb. And the quaint exclamation, " You bet ! " comes forth at every third word a propos to everything, and a propos to nothing. Q 2 84 SOUTH AMERICA. CHAPTER V. PERUVIAN WEALTH. Semi-fabulous Traditions about the Riches of Peru in Olden Times — Present Amount of Precious Metals — Guano — The Results of its Value on the Peruvian Revenue — Its Effects on the Indolent Dis- position of the Peruvian People — Rapid Falling Off in its Quantity and Quality — Past and Present Guano Trade — Nitrate of Soda — Wealth accruing to the State by its Exportation — Its Benefit neutralized by the Improvidence of Government Jobbing — Baneful Influence of Mineral Wealth on the Interests of Agriculture — ISTitrate of Soda the Original Cause of the Chilo-Bolivian-Peruvian War — Its probable Results — Sugar Cultivation in Peru — State of Peruvian Trade — Peruvian Railways — Transandine Lines ^ — Sea- coast Lines — State Lines and Private Lines — Oddities of South American Government. Chorillos, November 25. *' Vale im Peru " is the expression the Italians use when they allude to a person or thing whose worth they deem inestimable. The name of this country has at all times been associated with the idea of boundless wealth. Tales which would be scouted as fabulous if referred to any other region are here matter of authentic historical record. We have all heard of Atahualpa, the last of the reiofning Incas, who, being caught in the toils of the PERUVIAN WEALTH. 85 treacherous Spaniard, engaged to ransom himself by filling with gold the room where he stood — an apartment 35ft. by 18ft., and as high as the king's hand could reach ; and of how he half fulfilled his promise, and might have been as good as his word, had his subjects shown more alacrity in obeying the behests of the fallen monarch, or Pizarro less bent on ridding himself of his captive by the most flagrant breach of faith. And we read of that same Pizarro, how on a toilsome march across the pathless Andes, he had every horse of his staff and troop shod with silver, that metal, in the absence of iron, being of no more account than mere dross. We have been told how in later times (1661), silver was still so plentiful in Peru that one of its viceroys, the Duque de Palata, on his entry into Lima, rode on streets paved with silver bars of the value of £15,000,000, which were shipped off on the following day as the annual tribute of the colony to the Spanish monarchy. We know, besides, how almost exclusively that silver was made to defray the costs of the ruinous warlike enterprises of the Emperor Charles V. and of Philip II., his son, as well as of the courtly extravagance of all the Philips that came after them. We have" heard how Spain, like another Midas, toiled and moiled for centuries in her search for the precious metals, till she exhausted her energies, pined, and almost starved in the midst of her countless riches. That tide of doubloons and dollars which had so 86 SOUTH AMERICA. long flowed into the Madrid Exchequer seemed to run dry by the time these Transatlantic dependencies rid themselves of the Spaniards' sway. The fame of Peruvian ores was eclipsed by the report of the prodigious yield of Californian and Australian diggings ; and Peru was fain to look to her guano and to her nitrate of soda or saltpetre for new sources of opulence which proved to be as profitable and promised to be more inexhaustible than her former mines. There is nevertheless still gold in Peru ; some in the old veins in the mountains and in the sand in the rivers ; more, if one but knew where to look for it, in the treasures buried by the exterminated native Indians in their last unavailing struggles, and by their Spanish destroyers themselves in the bloody feuds by which their division of the booty was often signalized. But of the revenue accruing to the country from the production or exportation of that metal no account is published or perhaps kept. And almost as little is known about silver. The famous mines of the district of Potosi, on the hills beyond the Lake Titicaca, which supplied Europe with her silver stores for huncbeds of years, belong now to Bolivia. In Peru itself, the production of silver is vaguely supposed to amount yearly to 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 dollars or soles (the current coin of the country, valued, in silver, at 3^. Qd. to is.). But very extensive silver mines are said to exist at Cerro de Pasco, PERUVIAN WEALTH. 87 to which the projectors of the Trans-Andean Oroya Railway intended to extend a branch line, in full con- fidence that by a diligent search of those grounds which have hitherto been clumsily and wastefully worked they would find and follow new veins sure to yield silver ore in sufficient abundance to repay the whole expenditure of their gigantic railway enterprise. But, whatever the revenue from silver may be, it is now all reserved by the Government for home consumption, a decree recently published having forbidden the exportation of silver in bars. The exportation of copper, a newly-opened branch of trade, yields, it seems, about 2,000,000 soles yearly. Such sums, however, are simply contemptible when placed by the side of the amount reached by the figures representing the annual export of guano in recent times. Guano, the deposit of sea-fowl accumulating for centuries along shore, and kept dry throughout all time by this rainless climate, w^as well known to the native Indians, who used it as manure both in times of the Incas and at former periods ; but it was suffered to lie unproductive by the Spaniards, the most improvident of husbandmen, and its very existence was forgotten till its fertilizing properties were made known to Europe by Alexander von Humboldt in the early part of this century, when it became one of the most important articles in the trading intercourse between the Old World and the New. The quantity and value of this precious dung at the time its 88 south: AMERICA. exportation began, about the year 1840, enormous as it really was, was wildly exaggerated, and it was said that the annual revenue accruing to the Republic from it amounted to £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 sterling, covering thus more than half the State expenditure. And it was confidently asserted, even as late as 1873, that guano worth £50,000,000 or £60,000,000 sterling still lay untouched in the country, new deposits being discovered in various localities in the same measure as the old beds became exhausted. In spite of all efforts, fair or foul, made to keep up such delusions, it seems, however, a settled point that the richest guano beds of the Chinch a Islands, lying near the coast between Callao and Pisco, have yielded all they had to give, while the guano that may still be found in the Lobos Islands, in the Guanapi and Macabi Islands, at Punta Alta, Puerto Yngles, Pabellon de Pica, and other spots along the southern coast, is said to be of an inferior quality, being mixed up with sand and stone and deficient in ammonia, so that the demand for guano has greatly abated ; and the sale, which, in 1869, amounted to 574,790 tons, diminished gradually till it sunk to 378,663 tons in 1876, and 310,042 in 1877. In 1878, if we may trust private reports, the sale was 338,000 tons. England, which in 1876 still imported 130,598 tons, lowered her purchase to 100,954 tons in 1877, and a similar falling-off occurred in the importation of France and Germany. PERUVIAN WEALTH. 89 With respect to the amount of available guano still being left for exportation in Huanillo, Point Lobos, Pabellon de Pica, and Chipana Bay, it was two years ago reckoned at about 1,800,000 tons, and its total exhaustion within a few years was naturally predicted. As the confidence of the country in the power of " King Guano " was thus abating, new hopes were grounded on the might of nitrate of soda, saltpetre, or salitre as the Spaniards call it, which rose, as it were, to the rank and honours of Crown Prince and heir of the Throne. That same instinct which made the old Spanish treasure-seekers look to the precious metals for a source of wealth, exempting them from the eternal law which bids man earn his bread in the sweat of his brow, is still prompting their Peruvian descendants to put their trust in those resources of their country the development of which makes the least demand on their exertions. They would wish to live on whatever may be had for the mere asking. Guano was found in deep layers in uninhabited islands which belong to no man. It was consequently claimed by the Government as national property ; and, as it cost no more trouble than to pick it up and ship it off, it was made over or " consigned " to foreign, chiefly English, speculators, who, while they enriched them- selves and the Government officials with whom they dealt, allowed a part of the produce to come to the assistance of the Peruvian revenue. 90 SOUTH AMERICA. This public revenue of the Peruvian Eepublie, which in 1860 only amounted in round numbers to 21,000,000 soles, was supposed to have gradually risen to 31,000,000 soles in 1876. According to the last statements pub- lished by the Financial Department a few days ago, it, however, only reached 27,000,000 soles in 1877, when guano came in for a sum of 593,000 soles. The truth is that all the estimates printed by the Peruvian Govern- ment hold out theoretical hopes of a surplus ; but the practical result of every Budget at the end of the year is invariably a deficit ; and the accumulation of such deficits has burdened the Republic with a National Debt which was only 23,000,000 soles in 1860, but which had reached the sum of 213,880,000 soles — i.e. had been multiplied nearly tenfold — in 1876. It was as a guarantee for the payment of the interest of this debt that the income arising from the sale of guano was originally destined ; and as that sale, at the rate of £10 or £12 a ton, for some time was productive of something like £5,000,000, there was nothing over-sanguine in the reliance that was placed upon it. As, however, guano is apparently near its end, nitrate of soda is expected to answer the same purpose, and yield a sum enabling Peruvian financiers to balance accounts. The circumstances, however, are by no means the same. Guano lay on the ground as ready-made manure ; the labour of shovelling it and delivering it to the PERUVIAN WEALTH. 91 consignees devolved upon a few negroes, and in later times on Chinese immigrants. But nitrate of soda, a substance used for a variety of purposes, and especially as a fertilizer, cannot, like guano, be exported in its natural state, but requires such manipulation and prepar- ation as involve considerable labour and expense. The Government of the Republic, whose nitrate lay chiefly in the district called Provincia Litoral de Tarapaca, on th e southern coast, parcelled out the nitrate land among a number of commercial houses, chiefly foreign, upon which it levied an export duty, at first only of 4 cents (about 2d.) per Spanish quintal (the 22nd part of an English ton), but which was subsequently raised year by year, till it reached 1 sol 25 cents (about 4^.) a quintal. But, as even this did not meet the exigencies of the revenue, the Government, with a policy tantamount to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, came to the resolution of re-purchasing the nitrate grounds from the foreign houses, and to elaborate and export it on its own account. It thus gradually assumed almost the whole monopoly of the nitrate, and the result was that the sale, which had gradually risen from 99,440 tons in 1866 to 386,869 tons in 1875, fell to 213,940 tons in 1877. England, which in 1875 imported 27,142 tons, limited her purchase to 12,367 in 1877 ; while the price, which was at first £11 per ton, rose to £16 per ton. The results of the Government monopoly were so disastrous 92 SOUTH AMERICA. that in the official statement of the sales of 1877 and the first half of 1878 it was found that for 143 cargoes, con- taining 116,867 tons of nitrate, and yielding £1,594,264 of gross proceeds, as large a sum as £1,324,226 had to be deducted for expenses, leaving thus £270,038, or only 46^. 2d. per ton, as net profit. As, however, the Govern- ment had no ready cash for the purchase of the nitrcite or for its elaboration and shipment, and had to do its work by contracts with various persons and companies, it had to issue certificates of debt to the amount of 20,000,000 soles bearing 8 per cent, interest ; and as this interest amounted to £293,328, it not only absorbed the £270,038 net profits of the sale at iQs. 2d. j)er ton, but actually left a deficit of £23,190 against the Government. The decrease in the sale of nitrate after 1 8 75, although it may be mainly ascribed to this untoward speculation and mismanagement, partly also arose from a glut in the market due in some measure to the competition made to Peruvian nitrate by the export of the same produce from Antofagasta, a territory lying within the boundaries of the adjoining Republic of Bolivia. This Bolivian nitrate, as we all know, became the cause or pretext of that quarrel between Bolivia and Chili which led to a war between these two Republics, in which Peru was soon involved as an ally of Bolivia. The Bolivian Government had ceded its nitrate grounds of Antofagasta PERUVIAN WEALTH. 93 to the Anglo -Peruvian house of Gibbs, by whom part of it was sold to some Chilian houses ; and it was only after the transfer of these grounds to the Chilian merchants that the Bolivian Government laid a heavy export duty on the nitrate on the suggestion, as it was supposed, of the Peruvian Government, The Chilian Government, who, not improbably, only saw in this a gocxl opportunity for a quarrel, took up the cause of its merchants, and hence the hostilities arose. The war, as it appears now, has been disastrous for the Peruvians, and their defeats by land and sea have been aggravated by what seems very like a treacherous defection of their Bolivian allies. The result is only too likely to be that Chili is now and will remain in posses- sion both of the Peruvian and of the Bolivian nitrate grounds, both of Tarapaca and Antofagasta, and that Bolivia may be rewarded for her treason by the acquisi- tion of some, to her, most convenient Peruvian seaports — say Arica, Pisagua, or Iquique — a rich compensation for what she may have to give up to Chili. The rapid diminution and even the final exhaustion of guano and the loss of the inexhaustible nitrate grounds would not be unmitigated calamities, and might, on the contrary, be reckoned as actual blessings to Peru, if they conveyed to the Peruvians the salutary lesson that their wealth lies not on the surface, but in the depth of their country's soil, and that it is to be had 94 SOUTH AMERICA. not by other people's work, but by their own. Sanguine patriots, confident of the future destinies of their country, are very eloquent in their enumeration of its agricultural and mineral riches, but they are not equally ready to tell us where their husbandmen and miners are to come from. The only branch of agricultural industry that has given very encouraging returns is the cultiva- tion of sugar, the yearly exportation of which has lately reached 85,000 tons, valued at £1,360,000. Twenty per cent, of this produce was till lately sent to a sugar refinery at Valparaiso, in Chili, but nearly the whole bulk of the remainder found its way to England, which bought only 251 tons in 1870, but has raised its purchases gradually, till the amount was 55,576 tons in 1877, Peru thus becoming the fifth cane-sugar growing State on which England depends for her consumption. The sugar is cultivated in 40 or 50 plantations, mostly in the neighbourhood of Lima, or in some of the valleys to the north or south of this city, but all on the western or maritime slope of the mountains. They are, as a rule, in the hands of foreign merchants, who have spent large sums in the purchase of costly machinery, and in some instances have even constructed private railways for the conveyance of their produce to the seaports, in emulation of what is done at Cuba. They are mostly dependent for labour on Chinese coolies, though some employ also Cholos, or half-caste native PERUVIAN WEALTH. 95 Indians, the negroes in this country diminishing apace, and the hardier race of Indians of the interior sickening as soon as they are removed from their mountain air. It must be observed that since the early days of the Spanish conquest the conditions of the country have been completely reversed ; for while under the Incas' domination the rainless maritime region, although well cultivated, irrigated, and provided with roads, seemed to be held of less account, and the population lived and throve by preference on the table-land between the two chains of the Andes and in the so-called moniana, or eastern slope of those mountains, and the valleys sloping down to the Amazon, the settlements of the Spaniards were chiefly limited to the sea- coast, and efforts are only now beginning to turn the interior to useful purposes. The sugar cultivation, as I said, as yet in its infancy, has not to any extent crossed the mountains, and its results consequently are still far, very far, from what they may and must become. It is important besides to bear in mind that what has been hitherto done in that respect has been achieved under great difficulties, the most serious of which was the deficiency of labour, but also at the same time under peculiarly favourable circumstances, one of which is the rainless climate, which, combined with the seldom failing, plentiful irrigation of the mountain streams, enabled the 'planters to keep their sugar manufacture in full activity throughout the year, 9G SOUTH AMERICA. only allowing one or two months for the repair of their machinery and the general cleaning of the establishment, an advantage they have over the sugar growers of the West Indies and other tropical countries where labour suffers interruption during the rainy season. Moreover, the cultivation of sugar, like many other home industries in this country, is considerably aided by the circulation of that depreciated paper money which on many other grounds is justly considered as one of the greatest calamities, inasmuch as the high price at which gold and silver must be procured for the purchase of raw material, of machinery, and other things abroad acts as a stimulant to domestic energy and ingenuity, teaches dependency on native produce and resources, and neces- sarily extends over home manufacture that protection which in many countries is imposed by an unwise and illiberal policy of very high, prohibitive duties. That the fillip so given to national activity may be accepted as a meagre compensation for the grievous disadvantages to which a country is put by a forced paper currency is a phenomenon which I had occasion to observe in the United States, in Italy, and in Turkey itself. I shall not waste many words to prove that (like sugar) tobacco, coflfee, cacao, cotton, Peruvian bark, indiarubber, and other tropical produce, as well as rice, maize, grain of all kinds, wine, strong liquors, and all the fruits of the temperate zones, might be had in PERUVIAN WEALTH. 97 Peru in a larger quantity and of a better quality than in many other parts of southern or central America ; nor need I refer to the authority of Signor Antonio Raimondi, an Italian for the last 30 years naturalized in this country, and more familiar with every inch of it than any of the natives, who, in his great work on the " Minerals of Peru," concludes his catalogue of the principal classes of the mineral produce of the Republic by observing, " As for some minerals, such as the argentiferous lead ores, the gray copper, iron, and coal, to indicate alone the localities where they are known to be would fill volumes." But of all this boundless variety of produce, agricul- tural or mineral, it must be said either that the export- ation is in many cases as yet inconsiderable or the production insufficient even for home consumption ; for Peru is still to a great extent tributary to England for coal ; and, till the war broke out, bought wheat from Chili to the yearly amount of 2,000,000 soles. In some articles, again, the production, instead of rapidly advanc- ing, shows symptoms of falling ofi'. Cotton, for instance, which received some encouragment here in consequence of the Secession war in the United States, has been declin- ing since the recovery of that branch of industry in the Union. The cotton exported from Peru of late years, though trustworthy accounts are not forthcoming, is supposed not to exceed 100,000 quintals. H 08 SOUTH AMERICA. Of all the import and export trade of Peru, of its navigation, and of part of its railway enterprise, England enjoyed for a long time more than her share. As late as 1877, according to official statements drawn from the returns of the custom-houses, Peru imported foreign goods of the value in round numbers of 24,000,000 soles, of which 10,000,000 were supplied by England ; and the exportation that same year, exclusive of guano and nitrate of soda, was 31,000,000 soles, of which 20,000,000 found their way to England. The other customers of Peru, following at a great distance in succession, were France, Chili, Germany, the United States, China, and Italy. With respect to navigation, and exclusive of the steamers of the Pacific Company, we find that out of 322 vessels, with 269,682 tons visiting the ports of Peru in 1876, 142 vessels, with 126,728 tons — not far from one-half — were English, the nation occupying the next rank, with 56 vessels and 63,075 tons, being the United States. About the same relative proportions were maintained in 1877, with, however, a tendency to gain ground on the part of America, whose average tonnag^e exceeded that of England, especially owing to the construction of huge ships from the dockyards in the State of Maine destined to the conveyance of Peruvian guano to Liverpool. It must also be observed that, owing to the greater activity of their commercial travellers, and to the use and abuse PERUVIAN WEALTH. 99 of false labels and trade marks, France, Germany, and the United States run England very close in a variety of goods, of which, till very lately, she almost had the monopoly, such as cotton, woollen, and linen tissues, furniture and provisions, while in many minor branches of trade, such as soap,lucifer matches, and paper, even Italy finds in Peru a better market than Great Britain. With respect to beer, and especially lager-beer and pale ale, Eng- land is thoroughly beaten here by Germany and Norway. That Peru is a wealthy country, and could perhaps be the wealthiest in South America, it would not be difficult to demonstrate. But the developmeat of her wealth would require, first, peace ; secondly, a good provident Governmeut ; thirdly, active, cheap, available labour; and, lastly, a thorough system of inland communication — a net of roads and railroads. With respect to this last item, it might be said that much has been done, and better results might have been obtained if much more than could be achieved had not been attempted. The great object of the Peruvian Government under Balta and Pardo, the only two well-meaning Presidents this country ever had, both of whom died barbarously assassinated, was to construct railways from various points on the sea-shore which should cross the double chain of the Andes and the intervening table-land, and go down the eastern slope till they reached the great II 2 100 SOUTH AMERICA. rivers tributary to the Amazon at those points where the streams become navigable, establishing thus a steam navigation by rail or boat from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Of these bold, gigantic undertakings, known under the name of "Transandean Railways," two are very nearly accomplished. They were made at the expense of the Government and are national property One is the Oroya Railway, starting from Callao and Lima and reaching a height above the sea level of 15,641 feet. The distance to Oroya beyond the summit is 136 miles, of which 86^, as far as Chicla, are open to traffic ; and for the rest the earthworks are finished. This same line is to be prolonged to the silver mines at Cerro de Pasco, to the River Pachilea, to Tarma, to the Chancamayo, and the valley of the Amazon. The other might be called the Titicaca Railway ; it leaves the seashore at the roadstead of Mollendo, goes up 112 miles to Arequipa, the most important town in Peru after Lima, and proceeds 230 miles further, to Puno, on the Titicaca Lake. The height above the sea at the culminant point on this line is 14,600 feet. Por the whole distance from Mollendo to Puno, 342 miles, this railway is finished and open to traffic. It is further continued from the station of Juliaca to Cuzco, the ancient Incas' capital, the branch line extending over a distance of 209 miles, of which 120 are constructed. From Puno, across the Lake of Titicaca, a line of PERUVIAN WEALTH. 101 steamers and a carriaofe road lead "^to" -La vP^iz tJie principal city of Bolivia. ' '' '^'" * ''' ' '. ;'1 1 o The construction of these two Transandean lines was intrusted to Mr. Henry Meiggs, a native of the United States, a great contractor and railway king, who had previously achieved the Valparaiso- Santiago Railway in Chili, and who, by the terms of his contract with the Peruvian Government, was to receive altogether 84,084,000 soles, or, at 45f/. per sole, £15,765,750. Mr- Henry Meiggs dying two years ago, the furtherance of the works devolved on his brother, Mr. John Meiijors, and the other executors of the deceased contractor. These gentlemen hold and work the Oroya line as security for the contracts as yet unfulfilled on the part of the Government. As administrators under a subsidiary contract, they receive 5 per cent, of the gross receipts, which in 1878 were, for passengers, 473,992 soles; for goods, 284,770 soles — altogether 758,762 soles, in paper currency now about 15^^. per sole. The other line, to Puno and Cuzco, is being worked on lease from the Government to Mr, Thorndike, formerly one of Mr. Meiggs's engineers. The proceeds of this line are not published in the official reports of the Government. Besides these grand and highly interesting works, seven other minor railways have been constructed at the expense of the Government, of which, taken altogether. 102 HOUTH AMERICA. .52 >i ,pQil(3?',a?i?Q opfsn • to -traffic, and the cost of which amonriteci \>6 44,12"7O,00O' soles. Most of these start from some of the most important parts and go up the valleys either to the busiest towns or to the most productive aQ-ricultura.l and minino- districts of the interior. The lines are those from Cliimbote to Huaraz and Recoay? 164 miles; from Paita to Piura, 62 miles; from Pacasmayo to Guadaloupe and La Vina, 90 miles ; from Salaverry to Trujillo, 55 miles; from Ilo to Moquegua, 62 miles ; from Pisco to lea, 46 miles ; from Lima to Chancay (Huacho Railway), 41 miles. Some of the lines are still unfinislied, and nearly all admit of indefinite extension. There are, besides, 12 other railway lines, belonging to private persons or companies, carried on and finished hitherto to an aggregate of 418 miles, about which only imperfect information can be obtained. Two of these lines — (1) the Lima-Callao Railway, 8|- miles ; and (2) the Lima-Chorillos Railway, 8f miles — have been in existence since 1855, were constructed by an English company (limited), with a capital of £800,000, and enjoyed privileges which respectively expired in 1876 and 1878. As a metropolitan railway between Lima and its harbour, and between Lima and its popular sea- bathing places at Chorillos, Miraflores, La Punta, &c., the line yielded splendid returns till the competition of the Government line of Oroya, the depreciation of the PERUVIAN WEALTH. 103 paper currency, and political disorders interfered with its traffic. It is the best managed railway in Peru, under the direction of Mr. William J. Youn^. The other lines are — (3) from Iquiqae to La Noria, 70|^ miles ; (4) from Pisaoua to Sal de Obispo, 108f miles, both in the nitrate district ; (5) from Eten to Ferrenafe and Chiclayo, 52f miles, among sugar plantations ; (6) Pimentel to Chiclayo, 44f miles; (7) Arica to Tacna, 39 miles, monopolizing the trade from Bolivia (about £1,000,000 worth of goods) ; (8) a mineral line of Cerro de Pasco, 7 miles; (9) Huacho to Playa Chica, 10 miles, near salt mines ; (10) Lima to Magdalena, 3|- miles ; (11) Chancay to Palpa, 12^ miles, through sugar estates ; (12) Patillos, for nitrate, 57 miles. There are thus in this country altogether 1401 miles of railway constructed, and mostly open. Some few of them are addino^ to their mileage, but the two great Transandean lines are far as yet from reaching those points beyond the mountains where their real usefulness and their remunerative power would begin. Both of these, however, and all the minor lines, contribute to the development of agricultural and mining industry by facilitating the conveyance of produce to the sea, where the coasting steamers of the Pacific Company supply it with a common highway. The result on the whole is creditable to Peru, and would be of inestimable advan- tage to it if, as I said, peace and good government 104 SOUTH AMERICA. admitted of the further developmeDt of the country's wealth and of the free and safe application of foreign capital. But, alas ! to paralyze everything and to dis- hearten every man, we have here war — a foolish war, which has hitherto only led to disaster by land and sea. The Government of Peru, like that of most South American States, though organized on ultra-democratic principles, is always simply the rule of one man. Either the President is virtually a dictator, and has his Cabinet completely under his control, or some member of his Cabinet exercises absolute sway both upon his colleagues and on the President himself To make sure of his supreme ascendency the ruling genius either contrives to have a nonentity elected to the Presidency, or if he be himself the President, appoints a Cabinet of nonentities to act as tools in his hands. The consequence is that, with some honourable exceptions, especially in the Foreign Department, it often happens that one finds very strange phenomena among the ministers -. witness the present Peruvian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senor Velarde, outwardly a very dignified and pompous per- sonage, who, on my mentioning that I had that morning been shown the alleged skull of Francisco Pizarro in the vaults of the Cathedral, but that its strikingly receding forehead made me doubt its genuineness and authenticity, answered that the peculiar formation of the head was PERUVIAN WEALTH. 105 " owino: to the admixture of native Indian blood in the veins of Pizarro as well of all the Viceroys of Peru in old colonial times ! " Indian blood in Pizarro's veins ! Who could believe such ignorance of any native of Peru, and especially of a Peruvian Cabinet Minister ? And I should have been afraid to tell the story lest it should be deemed slander, had I not two living witnesses to bear me out as to the truth of my statement. 106 SOUTH AM E RIO A. CHAPTER VI. THE PERUVIAN ANDES. The Oroya Railway Line across the Andes — The Andes — Position of the Andes — Old World Mountains and N"e\v World Mountains — Influence of Mountain Chains on Climate — -South American Climate — The Climate West and East of the Andes — Physical Geography of the Andean Eegiou — A Journey to the Oroya Pass — The Valley of the Rimac — Aspect of the Country — Traces of Primeval Habitation — The Works of the Railway Line — Measurements, Distances, and Altitudes — Bridges and Tunnels — Travelling by Hand-car — The Scenery along the Line — The Chasm of Verrugas — The Gap of Infernillo — The Chicla Station — A Ride to the Summit — The Tun- nel on the Summit — The Mountain Sides— The Mountain Tops — Character of the Andes — The Alps and the Andes — Magnitude of the Railway Undertaking — Its Eventual Failure — Messrs. Meiggs and the Peruvian Government — Gigantic Schemes of President Pardo — His Trasric Fate. Arequipa, December 5. I HAVE made my acquaintance with the Andes. I have twice reached the summit of the Cordillera, and stood at heights between 16,000 and 17,000 feet (somewhat above the tops of Monte Rosa and Mont Blanc), where the waters which flow into the Pacific Ocean part from those which find their way across a vast continent to the shores of the Atlantic. THE PERUVIAN ANDES. 107 The mere name of " tlie Andes " tasks from earliest youth all the active fticulties of a man's imagination. Passionately fond, as I always was from native instinct, of mountain scenery, even while revelling on the beauties of the Apennines, the Alps, or the Pyrenees, I, with the same eagerness with which Virgil, from what he knew of his Provincial Mantua, evolved his idea of Metropolitan Rome, from what I saw near home, for many years endeavoured to conjure up before my mind's eye the image of what might be this remote mountain chain, which was then held to be the loftiest, and which is still the longest, and in many respects the greatest, in the world. Behold me now at home in the Andes ! A journey which till lately would have taken months of toil and danger is in our days accomplished by a few hours of easy and perfectly safe railway travelling. T set out from Lima on a Wednesday afternoon by a special engine on the Oroya line, and arrived before evening at the Matucana station, 101 kilometres from Callao, and 2374 metres above the level of the sea. I proceeded early on the following morning to Chicla, the furthest spot which the railway has hitherto reached, 140 kilometres from Callao, and 3710 metres above the sea level. At Chicla I took horses, and by a four or five hours' ride came to the summit of the Pass, 169 kilo- metres from Callao, and at a height of 489G metres 108 SOUTH AMERICA. (about 16,300 English feet) above the sea, and 838 feet above the uppermost 3849 feet long tunnel, which the line is intended to reach, and to which the earthworks have already been extended. I travelled under the best auspices. I had with me three wise guides and in structors, M. Ernest Malinowski, a Pole, the chief engineer wlio planned and executed all the works of the line ; Mr. Cilley, its general superintendent ; and Signor Antonio Raimondi, an Italian, whom I have mentioned before, and more learned in the mineralogy, geography, history, and economy of the country than any native Peruvian. These gentlemen, as they were the most useful, so they proved also the most courteous, obliging, and genial companions. The Andes, as the reader knows, constitute an unin- terrupted Cordillera, or mountain chain, or net of chains, stretching all along the South American Continent, from Tierra del Fuego and the Strait of Magellan, in the extreme south, to the sea-board of Colombia and the Caribbean Sea, adjoining the Isthmus of Panama, in the north. Its length is (from latitude 10 deg. N. to 56 deg. S.) (S& degrees, about 4500 miles; and it runs from north to south, close to the Western or Pacific shore, falling on this side in precipitous ridges and through narrow rocky glens, almost close to the water's edge, while it slopes with gentler declivity on the other side, forming broad valleys, and traversing vast plains, THE PERUVIAN ANDES. 109 all its waters joining in three great streams, the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Parana or Plate. Between the mountains of the Old World and those of the American continent there is this main diflPerence, that, while most of the great chains in Europe, Asia, and Africa run from east to west, nearly all those of North or South America run from north to south. By this peculiarity the climate and the very aspect of the two continents are in a great measure affected. The chains that separate Central from Southern Europe, the Pyrenees and the Alps in all their oflfshoots as far as the Balkans, act as so many fencing walls, checking the impetuosity of the winds, and tempering the heat and cold of each region so as best to fit it to the exigencies of the vegetable and animal life which it was destined to develop. In Italy, for instance, the Alps protect Piedmont and Lombardy from the extreme rigour of German frosts ; and a journey from Milan or Turin to Genoa in the winter months, owing to the shelter of the interjacent Apennines, is often suggestive of a sudden transition from the Poles to the Tropics. In Spain, a country crossed from east to west by five parallel sierras, the change of climate is equally perceptible at each successive zone and at a few miles' interval, and the progress of heat and cold does thus pretty fairly keep pace with the scale of latitude. America, it might almost be said, has no climate at 110 80UTH AMERICA. all. Here, in this Southern coutinent, the same wind from the South Pole blows throughout the year, fresh and keen, all along the coast ; so fresh and keen that on the sea or close to it the vertical sun of the Tropics loses all its power even at noon, and the long equatorial night has a chill which renders it unsafe as well as uncomfortable to sleep in the open, and unwise and almost impossible to dispense with heavy blankets. There is a warm and moist, generally unhealthy, rainy season in the West Indies, along that part of tli® coast which bears the name of the Spanish Main, and, as a rule, wherever the influence of unimpeded sea air is felt. But on this western coast of South America the vapours that would be wafted up to it from the Pacific are met by the perennial breezes which, as I said, come up from the Pole, and they are driven upwards till they reach the summit of the mountain wall of the Andes, where, condensed by the cold of that lofty region, they fall in copious rain, drenching and fertilizing the eastern water-shed, passing over the western slope, and leaving it untouched, arid, barren, and desolate. For the six winter months in the year, what in the West Indies is the rainy season is here the season of clouds and fogs. We have the constant threat of rain with hardly ever a drop of it, and the sun, that breaks out in pale glimpses towards noon, is seen but not felt. This is especially the case with Peru, the coast of which, projecting THE PERU V IAN ANDES. Ill westward in all its length from Arica to Paita, is more immediately exposed to the polar wind and more un- mercifully searched and blighted by its blast. That its climate, as a tropical one, may be all the better for it, is very possible ; and, indeed, there is no fault to be found Avith it on the score of human health ; but it is dull and gloomy and doomed to perpetual drought. There is no moisture or dew in the land, and consequently no vegetation, or only that which is fostered by the scanty rills creeping through the sand and stone of their narrow glens, and only rushing down, torrent-fashion, when the thaw of the perpetual snows of the Cordillera sets in in good earnest in the summer months. On the other side of the mountains, across the Cordillera, or rather the several parallel lines of Cordil- leras, and across the table-land which spreads far and wide between them, one comes to the so-called " Mon- taJfa," or Eastern slope of the Andes, " nearly," as it has been described, " an unknown, impenetrable forest, with rosewood, mahogany, calisaya, rubber trees, coffee, cocoa, and coca bushes, a land of unequalled fertility, drained by the principal sources of the Amazon." Without this short preface on the general physical conditions of the country, I could hardly have ventured on a description of the impression I received from a view of the Andes. The railway which comes up from Callao to Lima runs along the banks of the Rimac, a mountain 112 SOUTH AMERICA. stream tlie valley of which, after leaving the last town bridge, gradually widens and expands into a plain, blooming with rich tropical vegetation, and cultivated in slovenly patches by the kitchen gardeners who supply the capital with fruit and vegetables. Before we reached Santa Clara, 29 kilometres from Callao, we passed a cotton plantation and a sugar-mill, the latter of which I visited, and which seemed to me a very creditable establishment, supplied with every new contrivance of American machinery, consuming the produce of three large adjoining estates, employing 200 well-fed and apparently healthy and contented Chinese labourers, and turning out fine, white, well-granulated and crystallized sugar, of a better quality than I ever found in any of the grandest Cuban Ingenios. As far as Chosica, 55 kilo- metres from Callao, the line ascends straight and smooth, gradually attaining a height of 895 metres. The hills close in on all sides, every trace of vegetation, except on or very near the bed of the river, disappears, and the valley assumes that bare, bleak, savage aspect that characterizes it to the very summit. The mountains are huge rugged masses, mostly round, and all very steep and precipitous, yet seldom perpendicular, and their sides are here and there seamed with deep chasms, here called quebrados, bearing a resemblance to dry water-courses, thouu-h few of them can boast a thread of water ; and they must be the result of convulsions, floods, or THE PERUVIAN ANDES. 113 eruptions of which there hardly remaius any distinct and authentic account in men's memory. Near the opening of many of these glens one can descry ruins of buildings, hamlets, or cemeteries, very puzzling to the ingenuity of archaeologists, but which seem to have belonged to native races in existence before the period of the Inca=!, when the western slope of these mountains is supposed to have harboured a larger population than it ever afterwards numbered. A little above Chosica the valley divides iuto two branches, one of which, on our left, bears the name of St. Eulalia, while the one we followed, on the right, is the main valley, and its river is called the Rimac to the summit. Soon after entering the narrow dell, at San Pedro, Sta. Ana, and Cocachacra, begin the difficulties the engineer's art had to contend with. The railway was first projected in 1862, when the primitive notions that the locomotive could only run in straight lines and on perfectly level ground had not altogether become obsolete — at least, in these remote regions of South America. They were the ideas of the geographer, Mac-Culloch, who, in 1838, still contended that in matter of railways it was " impossible to depart from the principles established by the constructors of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway." Since then the achievements of the Giovi between Turin and Genoa, those of the Sommering between Trieste and Vienna, and others still more stupendous, had shaken such old- 114 .SOUTH AMERICA. world prejudices. Still a railway line wliicli should compass and cross the crest of the Andes, 15,000 or 16,000 feet above the level of the sea, seemed to me even at the present day something fabulous ; and as before I saw it I looked upon such a feat as something above the engineer's skill, so, after seeing it, I came to the con- clusion that there is actually nothing that skill may not achieve, and that, could any Titan pile Pelion upon Ossa, and both on Olympus, nothing could prevent the locomotive from reaching the steps of Jupiter's throne. The general opinion now is that wherever a man has made a path he can make a railway. But man's path across a mountain-chain usually follows the course of the waters, and as a path — the shortest across the Andes — from time immemorial led up from Lima to the summit along the Rimac, it was along the Rimac that the locomotive had to run up. But the Rimac, which has only a gradual fall of 3 to 5 per cent, in its lower course, comes down in cataracts of 10 or 12 j)er cent, in the upper region, and the valley is throughout so narrow and abrupt as barely to make room for more than the stream and the path between the huge mountain masses that bulge and crowd and tower upon it on all sides. To satisfy one's self that the works through which such obstacles were overcome are truly Titanic, it will be enough to state that, while from Callao to Oroya the THE PERUVIAN ANDES. 11 j distance in a straight line is only 145 kilometres, the railway follows a course of 219 kilomtitres, 74 of these being thus taken up by the windings and turnings, the zig-zags and tourniquets, the bridges and viaducts, the straight, curved, and horse-shoe-shaped tunnels — 6 1 tunnels — to which the engineer had recourse to advance on his heavenward path. And from St. Bartolome to Oroya, where the direct distance was only 77 kilometres, but where the difficulties tj be overcome were most formidable, the railway has to go over 144 kilometres of ground, nearly double the extent of the footway having to be run over by the rail in obedience to the necessities of the ground itself. Be it observed also that the iron road is an uninterrupted upward slope from end to end, the gradients being seldom less than 3, and never more than 4 per cent. ; so that, although the ordinary trains from Callao to Chicla employ seven or eight hours to get over the 140 kilometres' distance, a special engine, or a " handcar" without engine, can run clown from Chicla to Callao in little more than two hours, notwithstanding frequent stoppages at swing-tables on some of the turnings, going at the rate of 50 to 60 miles an hour " in perfect safety." This descent I achieved myself, on my journey back, all the way from Chicla to Matucana, under the pilotage of Mr. Cilley ; and in spite of all assurance of " perfect safety," a somewhat nervous feat it seemed to me. I 2 116 SOUTH AMERICA. The "handcar," a light, small, and low railway truck, with two low-backed seats and room for two in each, moving with the ease of a chariot in the so-called " Montagues Russes," upon a gentle push from behind acquires, after a few yards' slope, a momentum of which it would be awful to foretell the consequences were it not for the " breaks " with which it is supplied like an ejigine, and by which the driver has power to pull up in a few seconds and within a few yards of any point he may reach in his headlong career. But the driver him- self, being human, delights in that entrancing rapidity of motion, and is soon almost unconsciously swayed by the fiery instincts of a racing horse. Away you go along this curve, away you tear round that corner, away you rush and dash from turning to turning, through this cutting and through that tunnel, with your face barely one foot from the hard jagged rocks of the cutting on your right, and your knees barely one foot from the brink of the dizzy precipice on your left ; down you plunge into the pitch-dark tunnel, yourself without a light, without a " cow-catcher," without a bell or whistle to scare away the stray cattle that often run to it for shelter; away you go, neck or nothing, till all your terrors are shaken from you, and you become a convert to the " perfect safety " doctrine ; or till, with a fatalist's sullen courage, you set your teeth hard, you fold your arms on the breast, and almost urge the driver to more THE PERUVIAN ANDES. 117 speed, as if thinking that if there is to be a smash it may just as well be now as by-and-by. Not a little of the savage grandeur of the scenery through which the way is carved would pall upon us from its sameness were it not for the sense of the power man's genius has put forth in its contest with the most portentous works of nature. Here you have the gallant little special engine rattling up at full speed against a maze of huge rocks, where you absolutely see no issue, when she suddenly backs, and threads her way on a higher zig-zag path on the right, then on another still higher zig-zag path on the left, and so on for four or five zig-zags and as many tunnels one above the other on tlie same mountain-side, the track which you are to follow with all its windings and turnings and its tunnel-mouths being visible before you and above you at an immeasur- able height, and that which you have just left yawning in your rear at an unfathomable depth beneath ; and you feel that your progress is along an immense stair- case, of which the invisible summit may reach heaven and the bottom be lost in the abyss. From one mountain to the other you cro'=3;>, ceuturies, in spite of the storms which made that locality even more formidable than tlie Cape of Good Hope ; and it was only in 1868 that the steamers of the Pacific Mail Company opened a regular line of communication alono- the Strait, carefully surveying its hitherto imperfectly explored coasts, and making its navigation so safe and easy as to enable Mrs. Brassey and her husband to steer their yacht Sunbeam through it in 1876. Long before that date, however, steam navigation along the eastern coast of the Pacific was in full activity. There lived for some time at Valparaiso an engineer and shipbuilder, William Wheelwright by name, a native of the United States, to whom the Republic of Chili was so deeply indebted that it raised a statue to his memory in a little triangular space called a square in Valparaiso. Mr. Wheelwright, who first conceived the notion of a railway across the Andes, was also the originator of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. He had something of the vastness of conception and perseverance of a Columbus, and met also with some of the fortunes of the great Italian navigator. Like Columbus, he first applied to his native land for the furtherance of his scheme, but, failing to make any favourable impression in New York or Washington, he addressed himself to England, where his views were better understood and appreciated. Two steamers, the Peru and Chile, destined to ply along the coast between Callao and Valparaiso, were built in Liverpool 23-t SOUTH AMERICA. in 1840, and made to sail round Cape Horn, while their engines were conveyed across the Atlantic to Colon, and hence by land across the isthmus to Panama. A few years later (1844) the company was organized, and the two steamers with which it began rose to the number of 53, with an aggregate tonnage of 123,654, eight of their vessels exceeding 4000 tons each, and their capital, which was originally £250,000, was raised to £500,000 in 1859, and to £4,000,000 in 1874. Their steamers extended their voyages to Panama in 1847, and, as I said, one of their line began in 1868 to ply between Liverpool and Valparaiso, via the Magellan Strait. I have made several voyages with the vessels of this company : from Panama along the coasts of Colombia and Ecuador to Guayaquil ; along those of Peru from Paita to Callao, and hence to the now disputed terri- tories of Arica, Pisagua, and Iquique ; and along the coasts of Chili from its old frontier of the Atacama desert to Valparaiso, from Valparaiso to the southern districts of Concepcion and Valdivia, and through the Chacao Strait between the Island of Chiloe and the mainland of Llanquihue, to Port Montt. I have also visited the head-quarters of the company at Callao, and saw there a whole hive of working men of all classes and trades, engineers, carpenters, coal-heavers, &c., with a staff of clerks, cashiers, and officials of all ranks — a thorough maritime establishment -— a little THE JSTBAJT. 235 English town and community, standing on ground of its own, independent and self-governing, and exhibiting all that marvel of neatness and order, of quiet, stubborn, incessant activity, which carried me back to whatever I had ever seen most admirable in the wharves and docks of Portsmouth or Liverpool. And I was rowed out to a floating dock in the bay — a mammoth structure of iron, conveyed across the water from Glasgow in 1866, 300ft. in length, 100ft. wide, and 76ft. between walls, with a displacement of 5000 tons — a dock, which, since it began operations, has harboured in its bosom over 1000 vessels, some of them 2700 and 4350 tons — the whole giving an idea of the power and energy of British private enterprise hardly surpassed by the Royal dockyards which minister to the wants of the Channel or Mediterranean fleet. To come to some understanding of what this Pacific Company has done for the welfare of the South American States of the Western coast, it will be sufiicient to quote that "at the beginning of this century it was only at intervals during the year that an anxious crowd at Valparaiso were watching for the solitary sailing vessel from Peru which was to bring them news of the world and such supplies and luxuries as might befit a needy outlying province." Contrast this state of things with the conditions of this same port in 1874, when "about 3,000 vessels, one-third of them steamers, entered or left it, while 11,000 traded in the year in all the harbours 23G SOUTH AMERICA. of the Chilian Republic." Consider also that the vessels of the company, which at first only called at six great ports in the whole length of the coast, now transact business at 64 harbours, at each of wdiich are busy agencies, that of Valparaiso alone employing above 150 clerks and other attendants. Add to this that '' each ship which leaves the w^estern coast twice a month for Europe, via the Magellan Strait, carries an average cargo of 2500 tons, chiefly composed of copper, wool, sugar, cocoa, and bark ; so that the company's vessels ship some 65,000 tons of valuable merchandise in the course of a year." Be it also remembered that until lately Peru and the whole of Northern Chili, destitute of all means of communication by land, cut up into narrow valleys by impracticable mountain ridges, only relied for their home and foreign intercourse on sailing vessels, the traffic of which was exposed to the inclemency of the southern gales perpetually sweeping along the coast ; so that a voyage from Callao to Valparaiso required whole months tacking and veering, while now the steamers ply along the coast from end to end, touching at every port once and even twice a week, monopolising all the trade along the water-way. Tor, although the success of this Pacific line stirred other companies to emulation — the English White Star Line, the French Messageries Maritimes, the Compagnie Gdnerale Trans- atlantique (this latter backed by all the might of tlic THE iiTRAIT. 237 Third Napoleon), a " Belgian Royal Mail," and several others — all these rivals were driven from the field by the perseverance of the Pacific Company, not without heavy sacrifices ; so that now there only remain the " South American " and the Hamburg line " Kosmos," which have been wise enough to accept such friendly terms as the Pacific Company ofi'ered, and to carry on such business as enabled them to come in for a small share of its profits, without in the least clashing with its work or interfering with its great interests. The Government and people of the United States of North America are naturally jealous of the monopoly of trade which the establishment of these European steam navigation companies, and especially of the Pacific line, insures for their respective countries ; and Mr. Pralick, a Commissioner of the Post Office at Washington, who, in 1S78, was sent to make some postal arrangement with all these South American States, dwelt at great length in his report on " the fact everywhere apparent that the recent splendid growth of commercial cities and the enterprise show^n by the leading citizens of the South American States are mainly due to the influence of these lines of communication with the heart of Europe." And he used every argument to stimulate both the private enterprise and the Government patronage of the Northern Union to strenuous exertions to compete with these European lines, so that a share of the benefits accruing 238 SOUTH AMERICA. to the Old World from the activity of its steam naviga- tion might fall to the lot of American speculators. Nothing as yet has come of these eloquent patriotic exhortations; for^ on the one hand, the European, and especially the English lines, have cast such deep roots and taken so strong a hold of the South American trade — in one word, they have become so big — as to defy the competition of any rival company, whatever amount of means and energy it may muster ; and, on the other hand, however shrewd and pushing and all -engrossing Yankee speculation may be, especially in the matter of railways, it has seldom turned its energies to Trans- atlantic steam navigation, and none of its attempts in that direction have met with permanent success ; so that all the intercourse of the United States with the Old World is now as utterly dependent on European steam navigation for its continuance as it was in the days of the Sirius and Great Western for its initiation. To accomplish the circumnavigation of the South American Continent I embarked on the 27th of February at Valparaiso on board the steamer Valparaiso, of 3575 tons, Captain Hamilton, bound for Liverpool, and calling at Punta Arenas, Montevideo, Rio Janeiro, Lisbon, and Bordeaux. It was not without much feeling that I bade farewell to Chili after a two months' sojourn in the country ; for I could from my heart back Mr. Rumbold in his description of the Chilian Republic as " a sober- THE STRAIT. 239 miiicled, practical, laborious, well-ordered, and ably- governed community," especially if contrasted with other States of kindred origin and similar institutions, ascribing also, as Mr. Rumbold does, the blessing Chili enjoys " to the pure traditions implanted in her administration by the founders of the Republic, to the preponderating share taken in public affiiirs by the higher and wealthier classes, to the happy eradication of militarism, to the sedulous cultivation of innate conservative instincts," but also, and one might think chiefly, " to the nearly entire absence of those accidental sources of wealth — gold, guano, and nitrate, so lavishly bestowed by Providence on some of her neighbours." All that, alas ! is changed ; and as I never doubted the wealth of Peru — its gold and silver, its guano and nitrate — has been the ruin of that country, so I do not feel by any means easy in my mind as to the conse- quences which a transfer from Peru to Chili of those same " accidental sources of wealth," such as seems likely to be the ultimate upshot of the present war, may have on the sober-minded and laborious Chilian population ; for if Peru only turned into curses those gifts which Nature had given her for blessings, how will Chili employ to better purposes those same gifts which come to her by right of conquest at the close of a period of violence and bloodshed of which we seem as yet so far from foreseeing the end ? If a prolonged career of success do not turn 240 SOUTH AMERICA. the head? of tlie Chilians and unnerve their bodies ; if, in spite of all the guano and nitrate of Tarapaca and Antofagasta, they do not forsake their fields, and still obey the " necessity of strenuous labour, repaid by a bountiful soil ; " if the leisure and luxury arising from the sudden building up of Lirge fortunes do not under- mine the " patient endurance and capacity for toil of their hardy population " — why it will be well for " dear Chili," and there will be an end of the croaking of her envious enemies, and also of the anxious forebodings of her most cordial well-wishers. Were it not for this untoward war, the condition of (Jhili would at this moment be most enviable. A State little exceeding two million inhabitants, and yet pos- sessing a capital in land of 666 millions of dollars, and investing besides 150 millions in banking and general trading enterprise, however it might be called, and called itself " poor," had, it would seem, no great reason to covet its neighbour's wealth. During these last 34 years (1844-78) Chili exported 672 millions of dollars' worth of agricultural and mineral produce ; and although the mines at first yielded twice and three times as large an income as that which sprang from agricultural labour, tlie tendency in later years has been to very nearly balance the revenue arising from these two different sources of wealth ; a clear evidence of the extension and improvement of the cultivation of the soil, in spite of the THE STRAIT. 241 many tliousaiid labourers who are incessantly witliclrawn from it. That, owing to a variety of causes, there had been a gradual decline of Chilian prosjDerity since 1874-5 is undeniable ; bat it is also very certain that things were " looking up " in the early part of last year, when the Avar broke out — that war which is not only sure while it lasts to deepen the distress fiom which the country was just recovering, but cannot fail also when it is brought to an end to have fatal consequences for the country, whether the issue be defeat or victory. But to return to my subject. To go from Valparaiso on the Pacific to the mouth of the River Plate on the Atlantic a traveller has the choice of a land or sea journey ; and as it was for me an established maxim " never to tempt Providence by choosing a water-way to any place that might anyhow be reached by land," I had from the first made up my mind to travel across the Andes, the great Cordillera being now easily accessible on both sides at many points, and especially along the railway from Valparaiso to Santiago, leaving the main line at the Llay-Llay Junction, and hence proceeding by a branch line to San Felipe and Santa Rosa de los Andes, where it would become necessary to take to the saddle. A five days' ride on muleback to Mendoza and two or three days' coaching further w^ould enable the traveller to reach the terminus of the Argentine Railway at San Luis and to reach Buenos Ayres by train. 242 SOUTH AMERICA. Along this land route a communication by rail between tbe capitals of the Chilian and of the Argentine Republic has long been in contemplation, the project being enter- tained by Messrs. Clark, the constructors of the Trans- andine Telegraph. This Transandine Railway would cross the mountains at the Uspallata Pass, between Santa Rosa and Mendoza, at a height of 3000 to 32000 metres above the level of the sea. The distance across the mountain reoion is about 70 kilometres, and the whole length of the line from Valparaiso or Santiago to Buenos Ayres would, it is supposed, be travelled over in 48 hours. The cost of the enterprise has been reckoned at something like 12,000,000 dollars. While the scheme is being brought to maturity (a matter against which the present hostilities between Peru and Chili and the con- flicting^ territorial claims between Chili and the Aro;entine Republic are likely to raise serious and permanent obstacles) the mountainous part of the land journey is exposed to considerable hardships and even dangers for several months in the year ; and although it was now summer, and I do not mind "roughing it" when any object is to be attained by hard exertion, I had been raised to so high a pitch of expectation by what I had heard I was to see in a voyage across the Strait that for once I was induced to give my preference to a sea over a land route. From Valparaiso the steamer took us in 24 hours to Lota, and hence, after a few hours' stay, we THE STRAIT. 243 proceeded on our southward voyage along the coasts of Arauco and Vaklivia, keeping to the open sea, outside the ishxud of Chiloe, and outside all that vast archipelago that lies along the coast down to the end of the continent. The South American continent, as one may see by a mere glance at the map, is a huge triangular mass, solid and compact, with few very wide ord eep bays, and few projecting headlands, either at its base on the north, or on either of its sides on the east or west ; but it breaks out, as it were, into innumerable fragments at its point on the south, forming a maze of large and small islands, peninsulas, capes, and promontories, intersected and interlaced everywhere by straits and creeks and coves ; a maze of fragments in a net of channels : a little world all cracked and starred and pulverized like a shattered plate of glass or china ; a labyrinth of land and sea, of which it is as difficult to decipher the outlines in the map as to put together the pasteboard pieces of a child's puzzle. Until the invention of steam, large vessels that trusted to their sails for propulsion and needed a wide berth for their manoeuvres, eschewed these narrow passages, dreading less the constant head winds and awful storms of Cape Horn than the treacherous calms, the rocks and shoals, the fogs, and chopped seas of land-locked channels. But with the progress of steam navigation preference began to be given to smooth waters, and man, aware of his new R 2 244 SOUTH AMERICA. power to make his way, not only without the help of wind and tide, but even in strenuous opposition to both, abandoned the open sea whenever and wherever a quiet and safe way could be made through sheltered inlets and outlets, and steered within friendly banks. It is thus, as I have said, that, after struggling for three centuries by the open route round Cape Horn, mariners have now come back to the inner passage which Magellan had opened for them at the outset ; and the same wish to shun the boisterous gales that incessantly blow from the South Pole induced the Pacific Company to run its steamers along what is called " Smyth Chan- nel;" a narrow gut about 360 miles in length, which, south of the Island of Chiloe and the Peninsula and Archipelago of Taitao, enters at the Gulf of Penas, passes through a line of channels of various names between the mainland on one side and Wellington, Madre de Dios, Chatham, Hanover, and Queen Adelaide Islands on the other, and issues forth at Cape Philip, at the head of Parker Bay, near the western entrance of the Magellan Strait. This line which, besides smooth sailing, offered to the passengers the advantage of a succession of the most sublime scenery of mountain and glacier, was lately given up by the Pacific Company, owing to the diflficul- ties the largest steamers encountered at some of the tightest passes, and especially at the so-called " English THE STRAIT. 245 Narrows ; " but hopes are still entertained of resuming the traffic alonsf this route, the scheme beiuo- to follow the Smyth Channel from its southern end at Cape Philip as far up as the Gulf of Trinidad, and hence, leaving the " Wide Channel," the '' English Narrows," and the " Messier Channel " — the old way to the Gulf of Pen as — on the right, to proceed outside Wellington Island, and between this and Campana Island, along a new line of channels, which, under the names of " Picton Channel " and " Fallos Channel," would equally reach the Gulf of Penas. This projected new route, which has only been partially explored, is now being diligently surveyed in the interest of the company, aided at this moment by the officers of Her Majesty's gunboat Alert, which we found anchored at Tilly Bay, Carlos III. Island, on our way through the strait. The vessels of the Hamburg (Kosmos) line, being smaller and narrower, still venture, or did venture till lately, through the intricacies of the Smyth Channel, and I might have had the chance of taking my passage in the Luxor, of that company ; but by so doing I should have acted against another maxim of mine, " never to trust myself to the sailors of any other nation so long as I can get a berth on board an English vessel ; " so I had to renounce the wonders of this inland route, and put up with the Valparaiso which, after much tossing and beating up against those blustering southern gales wliidi had 246 south: AMERICA. persecuted me all tlie way from Panama during four previous voyages, brought me in four days to the entrance of Magellan's Strait. The entrance to this strait on the western or Pacific side lies between Cape Pillar on Desolation Island, on the rio;ht, and " Westminster Hall," one of the foremost rocks fronting Queen Adelaide Island and Archipelago on the left. We proceeded along a broad channel — Cordova Channel — coastins; Desolation and St. Inez Islands, on our right, and on our left passing Parker Bay, at the entrance of Smyth Channel, and further on steamino; alono; Kino^ William Land and Croker Penin- sula. Here the two coasts suddenly closed in, allowing a narrow sea-way through Long-Reach, Crooked Reach, and English Reach, the width at some points scarcely exceeding three-quarters of a mile. The route goes on coasting the mainland, along the Brunswick Peninsula, and doubles Cape Froward, the southernmost point of the South American Continent. Fronting the Cape and the Peninsula, across the strait, are Clarence and Dawson Islands, and in the rear the much larger island of Terra del Fuego, overtopped by the snowy cone of Mount Sar- miento, and, beyond, a whole archipelago, terminating with the rock-islet on which rises the redoubted Cape Horn. From Cape Froward the strait turns up to the north to Port Famine, Freshwater Bay, and Punta Arenas or THE STRAIT. 247 Sandy Point, in wliieli last-named locality tlie Chilians have founded a penal settlement, now a little colony, with 800 inhabitants, lying at 53"53 of south latitude — • i. e. nearer the Antarctic Pole than any other civilized community. From Punta Arenas the strait bends to the north west, a wide channel only contracting itself at "Second Narrows" and ''First Narrows," beyond which its shores gradually decline and end in a dead flat, where the channel blends its waters with the green waves of the Atlantic, its mouth lying between Cape Virgins in the north and Catherine Point in the south. The whole length of the strait, from its entrance at Cape Pillar to its outlet at Cape Virgins, is 320 miles, and the steamers usually employ 36 hours in its navigation. Even independently of the marvels of its accessory, Smyth Channel, the Strait of Magellan possesses beauties enouoh of its own to render it one of the most strikino- localities on the face of the globe. Like the Bosphorus, like the Strait of Gibraltar, like the Sound at Elsinore, and other gates in the world's highways, this strait is so framed by Nature as to appeal for a variety of reasons even to the dullest imagination, and to leave on the memory an impression that the subsequent sensations of the longest life will have no power to efface. We had had dark, windy, and although not formidable at least very uncomfortable weather on the outside, and as we made Cape Pillar before noon little could be seen of the 248 tiUUTH AMERICA. higlilands of Desolation Island, or of the outline of the opposite shore, now in a great measure wrapped in mist to answer the description one had heard or read of this renowned passage. The mountains had the usual bare, rugged look common to the whole Andine region, only remarkable for the variety of vivid colours imparted to the rocks by the metallic and volcanic substances with which they are largely impregnated and commixed. The fogs deepened as we advanced, and became at last so dense that the captain deemed it advisable to stop at Felz Point, about 40 miles inside Cape Pillar, and there to lie at anchor for the night. The gloomy reception we met with was no unusual occurrence ; for the weather is, as a rule, dark, cold, and wet, on this, the western side of the strait, very nearly at all seasons of the year ; while on the other side, beyond Cape Froward and Punta Arenas, the sky is not unfrequently clear and bright, and the atmosphere milder and drier than would seem natural in these high latitudes. But on the morrow, as the moon rose and the mist somewhat cleared, we were able to resume our journey towards two o'clock in the morning. We came to the narrow windings of Long Reach, and here, as the day dawned, in spite of the spitting and at times even pelting and blinding rain, we went through such a succession of amazingly grand and weird scenery as struck dumb with awe, not only the most frivolous and loquacious among our educated fellow-passengers, not THE STRAIT. 1>49 only a French high-born lady, who had been complaining that "she could see nothing ^'o// in this strait of which she had heard so much," but even the common men in the steerage and the crew, on whom frequent trips along these same passages ought to have wrought the callousness of long familiarity. We were now nearing the end of summer, the early days in March corresponding to our September, when the sun's action for the last three months mio;ht be expected to have cleared the mountains of their wintry encumbrance. But the scenery on both sides the narrow passage still wore a Polar look : the glaciers slid down in perpendicular sheets from the brow of the hills to the water-edge ; the water-falls in the glens seemed to hang frozen in the air like crystal columns, and although neither the wind nor the storm reached us, we could see far up on the mountain summits, when a rift in the clouds laid them bare, the surface all covered with fresh- fallen and thick-falling snow, drifting into wreaths and heaving into heaps as it flew eddying before the blast. But snow and ice and angry gales are not the only elements of grandeur and beauty in this unique scenery. Travellers who cross the strait in the depth of winter, or better on the early outbreak of spring, may well descant on "glaciers 15 and 20 miles in length," "on immense masses of ice, sometimes larger than a ship, continually breakiuo- off and fallino; into the waters with the noise of 250 SOUTH AMERICA. thunder, sending huge waves across to the opposite shore, and sometimes completely blocking up the channel." Phenomena like these, though they throw ''even the wonders of Norway and Switzerland into comparative insignificance," may at any time be met with far up in the Polar regions, where the sublime of all that ice and snow is apt to border on the monotonous. But here the peculiar charm lay in the contrast between the hoary winter on the brow of the hills and the genial warmth, the rich moisture, the rank vegetation on their sides along shore. And this juxtaposition of ice and flowers, of snowy summits and glassy slopes, of blue glaciers bordering on green meadows and yellow corn-fields, and of icicles hano-ino- on the branches of buddino; trees, could be seen to the best advantage at this period which precedes the fall of the year, while Nature is still going through every phase of teeming life, and wavers on the brink of that severe season in which the deadening chill of the south wind will bury all the struggling year's growth under its funeral pall. At every step, as we wound through the narrow reaches of the channel, and we found ourselves hemmed in by the mountains closing around us on all sides, as in a succession of Alpine lakelets without visible outlets ; as we passed many an islet, a cove, or inner channel, at a loss how to trace out our perplexing route, — as the fleeting glimpses of sun- shine lit up the landscape with prismatic tints, and the THE STRAIT. 261 rents in the clouds laid bare the hnsre mountains, exhibiting them in a kind of dim phantasmagoria, peak above peak and range behind range, or while along shore, almost within the reach of the limit of perpetual snow, the green sward on the slope of Cape Froward, and the wood-clad hills and ripening crops of Freshwater Bay and Punta Arenas, basked in a blaze of moonlight, — we scarcely knew whether we were more grateful to the fitful weather for what we were allowed to see or for what we were left to imagine. We must also avow that we heard nothing of the " shouts and hoots " that told other travellers of the danoferous neio^hbourhood of wild Indians lurkino; on the shores. Of lon2:-robed Patao-onians and stark-naked o o Fuegians, of whom we had read such interesting descriptions, we saw no trace. What awed and almost appalled us at night, as we rode at anchor, once at Felz Point, and again at Punta Arenas, was the solemn stillness of that blank solitude, its silence as striking as its darkness, and strangely contrasting with the flights of birds, the shoals of fishes, of seals, and other marine monsters with which the Strait, like all other great channels, is all alive in the daytime. We were in no dread of being boarded by scalping Indians in their canoes ; our danger only arose from the boats of Yankee sharpers at Sandy Point, who covered our deck with guanaco hides and rugs of 252 SOUTH AMERICA. ostrich feathers, aad drove as hard bargains in selling such trumperies to us as they doubtless had driven with the helpless natives from whom they had " traded " for them. Away from Punta Arenas and its dependencies there is hardly any trace of habitation for hundreds of miles, for the white man has as yet hardly pitched his tent on the Strait, and the native tribes, now fast dying off, have withdrawn to the interior, shunning all inter- course with their destroyers. Owing to repeated sanguinary mutinies, Punta Arenas has almost ceased to be a penal settlement. The rogues who again and again broke from the penitentiary are mostly at large, and it may be a prejudice, but it seemed difficult to us, as we looked into the faces of the mob that crowded around us, to distinguish which of them might a few years ago have been the prisoners and which the gaolers. At Punta Arenas we shipped 40 large barrels of sealskins, the only important article of export trade in the colony. The progress of steam navigation has done away with a vast amount of the terrors with which the imagination of past ages peopled the Magellan Strait. Not a little danger, however, still lurks in the many rocks and breakers with which its waters are strewn, and the position of which has not yet been quite satisfactorily set down in the charts which the captains of the Pacific Company's steamers are constantly revising and rectify- ing for themselves. The thick growth of kelp on these THE STRAIT. 2.53 rocks springing np from their depths to the very surface of the water, seems intended by Providence as a sufficient warning to such as keep a sharp look-out in the day-time, but at night, and especially in the foul weather which so often prevails, the pilot must steer at haphazard, for there is no beacon to show the way. From Valparaiso down the west coast, and across the Strait, and up the eastern coast to Montevideo, for a distance of 1923 miles, there are only three lighthouses — one on Quiriquina island, at Talcahuano, near Concepcion, where Chili has chosen the site for a naval station ; at Point Galera, near Valdivia ; and at Punta Arenas. Half-a-dozen lights in the Strait, at both entrances and at some of its most important turnings, would not be superfluous. The Chilian Government has hitherto excused, itself on the plea that south of Port Montt it was " No man's land." But now it has a colony in the extreme south, and claims the sovereignty of the Magellanic territory, all Terra del Fuego and Patagonia included. It seems only too natural to expect something to be done by it for the safety of the seamen to whose bravery Chili is indebted for so much of the prosperity accruing to it from its coasting and foreign trade. The Egyptian darkness in which a nation aspiring to take rank among enlightened nations suffers its shores to be plunged has cost the Pacific Company two of its most splendid steamers — the Illimani, lost on the Isle of Mocha, on the coast of 254 SOUTH AMERICA. Arauco, and the Santiago, wrecked at Port Mercy, witliin the Strait, where we still saw its shattered hulk on the strand as we passed. From Cape Virgins, at the outlet of Magellan's Strait, a five days' voyage brought us to Montevideo, at the mouth of the River Plate. From Montevideo there are 11 lines of steamers of different nations conveying passengers up to the ports of Brazil, and across the Atlantic to all the coasts of Western Europe. THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 255 CHAPTER XIII. THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. The Estuary of the Eiver Plate — Montevideo and the Uruguay Eepub- lic — Buenos Ayres and the Argentine Kepublic — The Situation of IMontevideo — Its Eecent Development and Present Decline — Beauty of the City and its Neighbourhood — Capabilities of the Place in Certain Contingencies — Buenos Ayres — Its Unfortunate Site — Its Disadvantages asaSea-port — Its Wealth and Importance as an Inland Place — Its Narrow Street sand Bad Pavements — Foreign Immigrants and their Influence — Great Numbers of Italians — Dislike of the Natives fur Gringos or Aliens — Rapid Absorption, especially of the Italians, into the Native Population — '•Something Rotten" in the State of Spanish Republics — Political and Social Disorders — Intrigues and Violence of a few Party Leaders — Apathy and Help- lessness of the Masses — Panic among the People on any Prdspect of Political Disturbance — A Crisis at Montevideo — One at Lima — Another at La Paz in Bolivia. Buenos Ayres, March 22. When a man crosses the Atlantic on a visit to America, whether he turns to the North or South, he is sure to see big things — big mountains, big rivers, big prairies, a big creation with bigger men, big nations, big cities. Very- big places are Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, the two principal cities of the River Plate. They have not reached the dimensions of New York or Cincinnati ; they 256 SOUTH AMERICA. have not grown at so rapid a rate as smart San Francisco or portentous Chicago. But their frog-like aspirations to swell up to the size of those Yankee oxen have been eager and active, and it may be worth while to inquire how near they have got to their goal, and to know what cir- cumstances have stood in the way of the full attainment of their object. Montevideo and Buenos Ayres both lie on the estuary of the Plate, at a distance of about 120 miles ; the former near the mouth, on the northern ; the latter more inland, on the southern shore. The steamers plying between the two places every night accomplish the voyage in 10 to 12 hours. The River Plate, or Rio de la Plata (so called because it was thought to be the highway to rich silver mines), is an estuary formed by the meeting of two great rivers — the Uruguay and the Parana, which with their many tributaries bring down to the Atlantic the waters of the Plate region — i. e. of little less than half the con- tinent of South America ; a large watercourse, second only to that of the Amazon, which drains the other half of the same continent, and which flows into the same ocean more than 2000 miles to the north of the Plate. The mouth of the Plate, however, is considerably wider than that of the Amazon itself. There are 150 miles between Cape Santa Maria and Cape San Antonio — the two headlands at its opening — and there is about the same distance from this opening to the cluster of isles THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 257 near the confluence of the two rivers, where the estuary begins, the Plate being thus as long as it is wide. The whole of the Plate region, with all to the west and south of it, belonged in former times to Spain, the boundaries of whose colonies, with the Portuguese pos- sessions of Brazil, had never been even approximately traced. There was on this the eastern side of the Andes a Spanish Viceroy alty of the Plate, with the seat of government at Buenos Ayres, as there was on the other, or western side, a Viceroyalty of Peru, embracing all Chili down to Cape Horn, with the capital at Lima. On the expulsion of the Spaniards, in the early part of this century, the Plate country split up into various territories, parts of which are now known as Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay ; but the great bulk of it consti- tutes the Argentine Republic — a confederacy of 14 pro- vinces or states, of which Buenos Ayres is still the head. A portion of the land lying betw^een the Uruguay and the sea, and bordering on Brazil in the north, became an independent, separate State under the name of Eepublica de la Banda Oriental del Uruofuav, and Montevideo was made its capital. The Argentine Republic, in its present limits, has an area exceeding half a million square miles, with a population of more than two millions. The Repub- lic of Uruguay is only 73,000 square miles in extent, with between 400,000 and 500,000 inhabitants. These statis- tics, however, do not exactly agree with official measure- 258 SOUTH AMERICA. ments ; for the claims of these South American States always encroach upon each other's boundaries, and are circumscribed within no definite lines. If we accept official statements, the area of the Argentine Eepublic is 4,195,500 kilometres — i. e. nearly eight times as large as France ; while Uruguay is only about two-thirds the size of Italy. To say that there may be room for half man- kind on the shores of the Plate would hardly seem an exaggeration, and tlie question is, not as to the vastness of space the region possesses, but as to the chances its various States may have to fill it, and as to their ability to turn it to the best purposes. Montevideo has the advantage of a magnificent posi- tion. It is built on a little tongue of land jutting out into the sea, and swept over by its breezes, rising between two bays or coves, one of which, on the eastern, or left side as one approaches the land, constitutes the harbour, the .shore which encircles it measuring about six miles, and terminating with the Cerro or Monte — an isolated hill, 450ft. high, which gave the name to the city. This hill, shaped like a squat pyramid with broad sides, is crowned at the top with an old fort, which, whatever importance it may have had in Spanish times, belongs now to that category of strongholds which the Italians call da pomi coffi — i. e. to be easily battered down with baked apples. Montevideo is a handsome, well-built, and tolerably well- paved town, and ought to THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. Ib'd be also well drained : for its main line of thorouixlifares runs from end to end alonor a hia^li level ridsje, from which transversal streets have an easy slope to the sea on three sides. The sight from the harbour or the Cerro is pleasing, but not picturesque nor imposing. The city boasts two broad squares, the Plaza de la Constitucion and de la Independencia, and a magnificently broad street, Calle del 18 Julio (the custom here, as elsewhere, being to perpetuate the dates of great historical events by applying them as names to favourite localities) ; but, for the rest, Montevideo is like most other South American towns ; very large, with straight streets, and broad squares, all laid out at right angles, with low, flat-roofed houses and tall miradors, or watch-towers or terraces, with nothing original or remarkable as to the beauty of its public buildings ; but with elegance, if not taste, in its private dwellings ; a profusion of Italian marble about its halls, courts, and staircases, and no end of luxury in the storing of its shops and the furnishing of its apartments. The vastness of the town seems out of all proportion to the number of the inhabitants ; and it would make the place uncomfortable, if not uninhal)itable, were it not for its net of tight lines of tramways plying along every street, and reachinor out five or six miles to its stiaoro-linor suburbs in every direction ; and so monopolizing all traffic as to have driven most of the private carriages and 2 GO SOUTH AMERICA. nearly all tlie hackney-coaclies from the thoroughfares. The city has good hotels, clubs, aud sea- baths, and a renowned Solis theatre. It exhibits all the appearance of a highly-flourishing city, though the people here, as at Valparaiso and Santiago, complain of "hard times." Montevideo is out of all proportion with the State that belongs to it ; an overgrown head on a dwarfish body, like some of the figures in PuncJis caricatures ; the capital absorbs more than one-fifth of the population of the whole country (105,000 out of 45,0000), and its great and sud- den development (from 3500 souls in 1818, and 9000 in 1829, to 105,000 in the city, or 127,000, including the environs, in 1872) was in some measure owing to the enormous gains and speculations made by its merchants and contractors during the Paraguayan war (1864 to 1870), when the cities of the Plate, and especially Monte- video, became the head-quarters of the Brazilian army and fleet. Subsequently this artificial prosperity, this tendency to over-trading, over-building, and general extravagance, were fostered by a very active smuggling trade carried on across the Brazilian frontier, where high protective duties made that unlawful business more profitable than any honest occupation. Peace being made, and Brazilian duties being reduced, at least on the frontier provinces of the Empire, contraband diminished, and Montevideo was brought down to its natural resources, which, as we shall see, are yet sufficiently THE CITIEki OF THE PLATE. ::61 large. But many of the slioddy speculators and upstarts were broken, and so rapid was tlieir disappearance that the value of house property in the town and of villa residences in the pleasant suburbs has, 1 am told, sunk to about one-fourth or fifth of what it was a few years since. Signs of actual distress are, however, nowhere apparent. Uruguay is, I believe, the only State in South America in which no depreciated paper money circulates. It is a State in which hardly a shade of negro or Red Indian blood is anywhere visible, and a State in which mendicancy is utterly unknown ; though for that matter such is the case throusjhout South America, nothinoj havino; struck me so agreeably as the almost total absence of beggars even in the most squalid purlieus of the Peruvian cities. Had Uruguay never been separated from the Argen- tine Republic, or were a re-union of the two States still possible, a rise of Montevideo to the utmost importance, perhaps to some extent at the expense of Buenos Ayres, would be an inevitable consequence. Montevideo, as Mr. Edwin Clark tells us, is the real and the only seaport of the Plate ; somewhat exposed to southerly winds, so that landing in boats in rough weather is neither an agreeable nor a very safe undertaking ; but the depth of water even near the town is sufficient for the construction of good piers and wharves, and at the other end of the bay, under the Cerro, Messrs. Cibils and Son have built at an outlay of 2,000,000 dolkirs a good 262 SOUTH AMERICA. granite dock or di(/ue, which, with all the rest of the harbour, only awaits better times to become remunerative. In the opinion of the above-named distinguished engineer, this harbour might at a moderate cost become a mari- time centre worthy of the trade of this enormous river system, " all the trade of the great rivers, with all the inland districts and the southern provinces of Brazil, having no other outlet." Far different are the conditions of Buenos Ayres, and it is difficult to understand what may have induced Don Pedro de Mendoza, in 1535, to choose that spot for the seat of government and for the centre of business of the whole region of the Plate. Whatever may have been the state of the estuary at that epoch, or earlier, when Diaz de Solis first entered it in 1514, or when Sebastian Cabot explored it in 1527, it has been in later years and is now so rapidly filling up with silting sands and with the deposit of the great rivers, that large steamers like those of the Eoyal Mail and Pacific Com- panies are compelled to anchor out in the river at the distance of ten or twelve miles from Buenos Ayres, and even the river steamers, tugs and tenders, and the smallest boats cannot at low water approach the Custom- house pier ; so that passengers and goods have to be transferred to and landed in high-wheeled carts drawn by horses, some of which are not unfrequently drowned in the clumsy operation. It is thus reckoned that the THE CITIEiS OF THE PLATE. . 263 cost of landing a cargo at Buenos Ay res is almost higher than the freight paid for the conveyance of the same merchandise all the wav across the Atlantic from Liverpool. A remedy for this serious and growing evil has been sought in some schemes by which a harbour for Buenos Ayres should be constructed at the Boca del Riachuelo, or Mouth of the Creek, near the city, or at Punta Lara and Eijsenada, two spots connected with it by rail, about 30 miles down the river, where the Government has some thouo;ht of establishinor its naval station. But the expense necessary for the construction and maintenance of such a port would be enormous, and even the most sanguine partisans of such projects are alarmed at the constant progress of the sands throughout the estuary, as many of the channels through which it was, a few years ago, easy to row and steam from isle to isle along the delta of the Parana have been choked up and swamped so as to be now impassable. The fate of Ravenna in the middle ages, and that which awaits Venice in our own days, seems equally to threaten Buenos Ayres. The sea is fast receding from it, and will leave it like the helpless hulk of a wretched ship, high and dry and sand-whelmed on the shore. A city, however, does not live on foreign trade alone or on maritime enterprise, Buenos Ayres has immense resources in the boundless territory in its rear, and must 264 SOUTH AMERICA. always be the capital of half a continent. As a seat of Government and a centre of social life, this city has been for three centuries and a half the favourite residence of those great landowners among whom in Spanish times the country was parcelled out. These estancieros, or holders of estancias (as estates are here called), like the hacendados, or holders of haciendas in Chili, had attained great wealth and exercised a corresponding influence previous to the emancipation of the Republic ; and although the civil laws about inheritance at the present day tend to the rapid division and subdivision of property at every new generation, not a few of these wealthy men are still well off, and these with the bankers, merchants, and minor traders ministering to their wants will always constitute a nucleus of thriving population, which, like that of Santiago in Chili and other inland capitals, may maintain its lustre without relying for its importance on the advantages of a sea- port. I had been told before I came here that I should find in Buenos Ayres " a city four times as large as Montevideo." And so it may be admitted to be, not as to population (though it is now supposed to have reached 250,000, including the suburbs), nor exactly as to area (though the town alone, without the suburbs, covers 2000 square acres ; for its streets are narrower than those of Montevideo, and space is of little account in these new regions), but as to life and movement ; for THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 265 Buenos Ayres has decidedly more stir and bustle, more wealth in the shops, more style and grandeur in some of its edifices — in short, higher pretensions to the rank of a great capital, not only than Montevideo, but than Lima and Santiago, and perhaps than any city in South America, Kio Janeiro alone excepted. But Buenos Ayres, though a new-looking, is an old city, and has many of the inconveniences, without any of the charms of quaintness and originality which age imparts to all it touches in the Old World. There is hardly a wide street in the town ; the larges-t, Calle de Rivadavia, hardly comes up to the width of the Corso at Rome, and like that famous thoroughfare it has such narrow foot- paths or side-walks as in many places hardly allow two persons to pass one another or to walk side by side. In that and in most other streets the pavement is the roughest and hardest, the most dilapidated and broken up, the most slippery and treacherous, and murderous to man and beast, that I ever trod upon even in Turkey or in Spain itself, and the footpath rises and sinks a yard or two with every inequality in the ground, in many ups and downs compelling a pedestrian to incessant jumps over awkward steps and along little precipices ; for the side-walks are often raised four or five and more feet above the roadway, and athwart some of the streets drawbridges are thrown as in the old Foria at Naples, to enable the walking people to cross them 266 SOUTH AMERICA. when flooded by heavy rains. When rains fall you perceive that the drainage is bad, the smells pestilential. Buenos Ayres lies close to the mud of the river Plate ; but all its streets run up from the water-edge for about 20 feet to an upper level which continues unbroken throughout the city and its suburbs. The city cannot, therefore, be seen to advantage on any side, nor can any view of the surrounding country be caught from any point in its streets, or in ii;s largest squares. It cannot be called a picturesque place ; and little can be made of its cathedral, shaped like a massive Grecian tem{»le, with a portico borne by 12 huge brick-and- mortar columns. Little also need be said of the Government house and the Cabildo or town-hall — all Spanish structures, which give some stateliness to the PLiza de Mayo and Plaza Victoria, twin squares making a fine show in the imme- diate vicinity of the river bank. But more striking are the private town and country houses, some of them in the modern Italian style, almost palatial, with fine balconies and terraces and lofty towers, but many more mere cottages, one-storied, with their ground- floor apart- ments inclosing the court or patio, with flowers and shrubs, and in some instances a fountain in the middle, a reminiscence of the Andalusian cities, and a style inherited by the Spaniards from the Arabs, and by these probably imitated from the Greco-Latins of Pompeii. Of these buildings, very little, if anything, has been THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 267 reared by native bands. Masons and builders, here as at ^luntevideo, are Italians, as the constructors of rail and tramways are mostly English or North Americans, cooks and hotel-keepers French, and workmen of any description foreigners. Had the early Spanish colonists been left to themselves, this vast Plate region would still be a sheep- walk, the saddle-horse the only means of communication, a rancho, or hut of wood and mud, the only human abode : for Spaniards came here apparently on the understanding that they should never be called upon to do a stroke of work, and all should be done for them by slaves whom force or want should brinor to their doors. In Montevideo, out of a population of 110,167, official statements number 43,940 foreigners. They, however, only consider foreigners those who exhibit a passport on landing ; and they describe as citizens all the children of foreigners who may happen to be born within the territory of the Republic, even children in their nonage and before their non-naturalized parents have lost all authority over them, which is simply an absurdity. Were the facts more carefully inquired into, it is likely that foreigners with their children of the first generation would make up fully one-half of the population in Montevideo, and this would still more be the case in Buenos Ayres, as the tide of immigrants, which at first showed some disposition to linger in the Uruguay, has lately set in with greater impetus into the Argentine 268 SOUTH AMERICA. Republic. From the year 1857 — when records began to be kept — to 1878, there entered into this latter Republic 544,630 immigrants ; an average of 24,947 for each of the 22 years. In 1873-4, the numbers were respectively 76,332 and 68,227, after which there was a considerable falling off, followed more recently by a steady increase. By far the largest number consists of Italians, and their chief employment, besides house-building, is as boatmen in river navigation, navvies on the railways, &c. Not a few of them, however, settle as agricultural colonists in various parts of the country. Of other European nations, the most numerous are the Germans, Swiss, Spaniards (especially Basques, Galicians, and Catalans), English, French, and Russians or Russo- Germans. Most of the English are employed in large estates as cattle breeders and sheep farmers. The natives of the country bear no very goodwill to these intruders, whom they nick-name " Gringos," and whose success in many branches of trade and industry excites their envy. It is upon these foreigners, however, that they depend for the well-being and progress of their community, as well as for any intelligence, energy, and activity that may develop themselves in their national character. What this vast uncultivated country requires is not only " arms," or " hands," as everybody is calling out, but also brains. You hear the Argentines say that what they have here is not machos estrancjeros, but miicho creollo ; the Creole, or THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 2G9 mixture of the older settlers with the new arrivals con- stituting a national amalgam into which every European nation has brought its own ingredients, with such results as may not prove altogether unsatisfactory in the end. Whatever may be the feelings of the native people in this respect, there is little doubt that the rulers of the country are alive to the expediency of welcoming new- comers from all countries, and show especial favour to the rural colonies, scores of which are everywhere springing up in the provinces. That there are occasions and perhaps good grounds for mutual dissatisfaction and complaint between these immigrants and the Govern- ment and people of the country to which they come for a new home it would be in vain to deny ; and it is a subject to which I shall have to refer at some length by and by. For the present, limiting my observations to the cities, where the strangers are now mixed up with the native population, 1 have only to say that what most forcibly strikes me is the rapid absorption and apparent disappearance of all extraneous elements ; so that where so many and various are the components an almost homogeneous compound is the result. Most of the immigrants, as I said, about 56 per cent., are Italians, and these have their Latin blood, look, and character in common with the Spaniards; they find here a climate akin to that of their own peninsula, and fall naturally into ways and habits which do not materially differ from 270 SOUTH AMERICA. their own. Of all foreigners the Italians are the readiest to faternize with the natives. Of all immigrants they are the most popular. They bear an excellent character as sober, well-behaved, and thriving workmen ; they all put by some money, and some of them accunmlate considerable fortunes. Being natives of all parts of Italy, Lombards, Genoese, Neapolitans, &c., they are at a loss how to understand each other's uncouth dialects, and even among themselves use Spanish as a common language, as it comes easier to them than the soft and pure but stiff and formal Italian, which is merely a written or literary, in fact a dead language, spoken by no man of their class, or indeed of any class, in Italy itself. As to their children, they neither can nor will speak anything but Spanish, and pride themselves on their Argentine, or " American " nationality. Many of these Italians, uneducated and deluded men, were attracted to these regions by crude and vague democratic notions, and all they see of the alternate anarchy and tyranny of these Spanish-American communities fails to care them of their unreasoning partiality to the mere name of a Republic. They look upon the Plate as a former scene of great and almost fabulous Italian exploits; they come to a land hallowed by the footsteps of Gari- baldi, and to towns where the first object that meets them at the landing-place is a colossal bust of Mazzini. Yet with all their readiness to identify themselves with their THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 271 adopted country, these Italians still cling to one another with patriotic instincts ; they hold together by a spirit of association visible in their many Workmen's Unions, provident and charitable institutions, to say nothing of secret Masonic and other fraternities, the chief object of which is mutual assistance and support. Italy makes itself at home in Buenos Ayres : and readily as it merges into and blends itself with the native race, it still labours to keep up its individuality, feels and puts forth its strength, and becomes a State in the State. Every immigrant is ready to profess that he is " an Argentine, if you please, but an Italian first." A great fact is this of the foreign immigration for the Repul)lics of the Plate, atid on it mainly depend their chances of ever becoming^ areat countries. For of what avad is it to Buenos Ayres to have millions of acres of terri- tory, the very deepest and richest soil in some parts, the brightest and most genial climate everywhere, a wealth of 4,000,000 horses, 13,000,000 horned cattle, 57,000,000 sheep, &c., since all these attractions have failed hitherto to entice here more than a fraction of the wanderers who constitute the great European exodus, and if, with the exception of the Italian and the Spaniards, the great bulk of emigrants — British, Irish, German, and Swiss — prefer the United States, the Cape, Australia, as countries where they can find those greatest of social blessings, order and security ? It is not merely the cholera or the 272 SOUTH AMERICA. yellow fever that stayed the tide of immigration into these South American communities, and even in frequent instances forced it back. It was mainly that series of foreign and intestine wars which desolated these Republics ever since their emancipation, those causeless and aimless revolutions, that prevalence of military violence and despotism which trod down all laws, corrupted all free institutions, and laid both the public treasury and private fortunes at the mercy of official spoilers. " The Rosario branch of the River Plate Bank," Mrs. Brassey tells us, "was recently robbed of £15,000 by an armed Government force, an unprecedented proceeding, and one that might have led to the inter- ference of foreio-n Powers." And Mr. Edwin Clark states : — " During my residence in Buenos Ayres, a body of voters quietly going to the poll were driven back by a volley of musketry from the roof of a neighbouring build- ing, and, what is more remarkable, the perpetrators of the outrage maintained a right to retain the arms thus used in a time of profound peace." And it is only lately that the youth of this same city were loading their rifles with the avowed intention of using lead bullets instead of ballot papers at the Presidential election. The parties by which the murderous passions of these good patriots were excited came to some compromise of their differences, and hopes are now entertained that there may be no violence at the polls ; but men familiar with the country THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 273 are still far from being reassured as to tlie upshot. And at Montevideo, when I was there, the strange abdication by Latorre, lately President, formerly Dictator of the Republic of Uruguay, had spread such a terror through- out the country, that the cattle farmers of the interior were hasteninof with their bullocks and cows to the saladeros, anxious to sell at any price, in full conviction that upon the outbreak of any disturbance the leaders of the contending parties would be down on their estancias, laying hands on their most valued beasts and offering in payment Government bonds, which long experience had taught them would never be worth the price of the paper on which they were written. It is to little purpose that the terrified owner pleads for the rescue of some favourite stallion or brood-mare, offering as a ransom ten or even 20 of his best stud at the marauder's choice ; the ruffian wants that particular steed for his own riding, and that particular mare or cow for his own corral. There are wanton malice and perverseness as much as ferocity in his demeanour, and the plundered man is well aware how vain would be for him any attempt of resistance or hope of redress. It is systematic robbery that perpetuates revokition as the most profitable of all speculations in these unsettled communities, as it is the practice of public functionaiies of enriching themselves at the country's expense that determines endless chani^e in the Goverinnent. Politics 274 SOUTH AMERICA. in South America are the privilege and monopoly of a few intriguing lawyers and soldiers of fortune. No one, for instance, could believe how utterly passive and indif- ferent the population of Montevideo remained during the singular crisis which removed General Latorre from the presidency and raised Dr. Vidal into his place. People could make nothinof of the General's dodo^e, and of his proclamation that he resigned because " he found the country ungovernable," and " he could not rule with the Chambers." The most tenebrous designs, a settled deter- mination to re-assume the Dictatorship which he had given up a few years ago, were imputed to him. The uneasiness of thinkino; men was orreat, and the lano^uao^e of the Press dark and ominous ; but the multitude betrayed no consciousness that anything of importance was o'oino: on. Within the Chamber, where the new President was sworn in, there were not a hundred spec- tators. Outside all the noise of a military band and the marching of troops failed to bring together a crowd. A vague feeling that the change boded no good, that dis- aster would follow, haunted the public mind, and has not been dispelled. But evidently what had occurred was merely the business of the faction leaders, and the mass of the citizens had nothing to do with it. Some of the incipient disturbances I chanced to witness in Peru and Bolivia were of the same apparently harmless character, and would have been simply THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 21b ludicrous had not the result been violent and even traoic. At Lima, on Saturday, the 15 th of November, the bells from all the church steeples set up a tremendous alarm, which continued all night. On that very day, Colonel Lacotera, the Minister for War, had told Mr. St. John, Her Majesty's Minister, that there was then — at that war crisis — no Government in Peru, as the Presi- dent, Prado, was away with the army, the first Vice- President was ill, and the second on a mission to Europe. In the evening, as the tocsin tolled its loudest, a few rag- amuffins assembled in the square before the Palace, Pizarro's house, shouting for " Lacotera, Dictator ! " No one objected ; the cry went on hour after hour, and all seemed settled, when towards morning, Senor Pierola, a civilian and a lawyer, happened to cross the square on horseback with a few friends. At sight of him matters suddenly changed, some of the very men who had been all the time proclaiming Lacotera, now shouting " Long live Pierola Dictator ! " Lacotera, who witnessed the scene from his window and did not like the turn things Avere taking, sent forth a posse of policemen, who speedily hushed up all clamours and cleared the square. All was quiet for a few days after that comedy in Lima ; but upon Prado coming back to the capital, and unexpectedly leaving his post and the country, Lacotera and Pierola again entered the lists as competitors, and after the T 2 276 SOUTH AMERICA. slaughter of a few hundred soldiers on both sides victory declared in favour of Pierola, who is now at the head of the Peruvian Government, with, as he declared, " un- limited powers ; " the first use he made of which was to throw all the journalists into prison. At La Paz, in Bolivia, on the 10th of December, being Sunday, in the afternoon, a drum was beaten in the square, where the town- crier read a proclamation. A person .called Nunez de Castro called his countrymen's attention to the fact that the President of the Republic, General Daza, had unaccountably absconded, leaving the army without a leader, and the Government without a head. As the country could not in such supreme moments remain without a Government, he, Senor Nunez de Castro, would " so far sacrifice himself to the public good as to take the affairs of the country into his own hands." People read the proclamation, and some shook their heads ; but the thing seemed natural and no one pre- sumed to find fault with it. But on the following morn- ing the Ministers of the former President assembled, wondered very much how Senor Nunez could assert that the country was " ungoverned " so long as they were in their places, which they had only quitted the previous day, being a holiday ; and they intimated to the would- be saviour of his country that he need not trouble him- self about what in no way concerned him. Matters ended thus smoothly on that occurrence, but not long THE CITIES OF THE PLATE. 277 afterwards Daza was deposed and disgraced, and the Bolivian people and array found new masters, though the public-spirited Senor Nuiiez de Castro was not named among them. In this matter of incessant riot and violence and civil war, the Argentine Republic has not, from its first struggling into existence, been ranked among the most backward South American States. The annals of Rosas, Urquiza, and other partly leaders' ascendancy were written in blood. But since the close of the Paraguayan war the country has gone through a period of compara- tive repose ; in the elections of Mitre and Avellaneda as heads of the Republic at least the bare outward forms of constitutional legality have been observed, and during these last five or six years of Avellaneda's Presidency, now expiring, the country has been, on the whole, quiet and prosperous. Were public order to be insured for another half-dozen years, there might almost be no limit to the development of the weal and wealth of this great and expansive community. The influx of such vast numbers and of so great a variety of immigrants ought to a considerable extent to contribute to so desirable a result. Not that these strangers, at least of the first generation, have much chance, or show any inclination to meddle with the politics of the country or to sway its councils ; but the indirect influence of the vital interests which they have at stake in the land of their adoption is 278 SOUTH AMERICA. no less actively at work ; their power for good is tacitly but irresistibly acknowledged ; and the blending of so many new elements with the native race by intermarriage has the effect of counteracting the evil tendencies of that dark Spanish blood which shows so much unfitness for either freedom or order wherever it flows. THE REGION OE THE PLATE. 279 CHAPTER XIV. THE REGION OF THE PLATE. Early Settlement of the Region — Pastoral Life — Foreign Immigration — Agricultural Life — Unfavourable Conditions of the Country — Its Vastness and Want of Communications — M^ild Indians and Marauding Gauchos — Droughts — Locusts — Symptoms of Progress — Railways — Telegraphs — Their Results on the Improvement of the Country— Advance of the Line of Civilization, and Increased Security for Life and Property — The Grand Chaco — The Pampa — Patagonia — All Progress Delayed by the Frequency of Political Disturbance— Statistics of Wealth in the Argentine and Uruguay Republics — An Estancia or Cattle Farm in the Province of Buenos Ayres — A Saladero in Uruguay — Foreign Colonies — Their Nation- ality — Large Immigration of Italians — Russo-German, Swiss and other Colonies — How dealt with by the Government — Rudiments of Self-Government among some of them. Buenos Ayres, March 31. The early Spanish adventurers who came to this country- attracted by its name of " La Plata," or silver, were soon undeceived as to the existence in any great quantity of those precious metals which were the main object of their eager quest. The silver trinkets worn by the Indians whom Sebastian Cabot met far inland in 1528 were probably the produce of remote mountain districts. But 280 SOUTH AMERICA. the vast plains between the Andes and the Atlantic Ocean offered no other wealth to the invaders' covetous- ness than their soil and the scattered native tribes who were made to do the strangers' work and minister to their wants. When the coloured men were either trodden down or enslaved or driven to the farthest solitudes, the Spaniards, who became the undisputed masters of the boundless territory, hardly knew how to turn it to useful purposes, and did not for a long time attach as great a value or importance to these southern possessions as they did to their settlements among the golden fields of Mexico and Peru. They however stocked these wilder- nesses with herds and Hocks, which they imported from their native peninsula, and which, favoured by rich pastures and tended by Indian thralls, spread and multi- plied with amazing swiftness, and roamed at large over the land in wild freedom, ousting the bizcachas, or prairie dogs, and the other numberless species of rodents which had been for many centuries the undisturbed tenants of the Pampas or prairies. By the time in which these colonies aspired to the dignity of independent States and proceeded to the emancipation of their coloured bondsmen — i. e. at the beginning of this century — large tracts of land had already been parcelled among the early settlers and their descendants, and the scattered cattle were gathered together in estancias, or grazing farms, to which the right of ownership was claimed and acknow- THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 281 Icdsced. These countries had thus attained the second stage of civilisation — pastoral life. But this could not at that epoch have made very considerable progress, as we are told that the population of the Argentine Republic in 1809 did not exceed 409,000 souls, a large proportion of which were crowded in Buenos Ayres and the other cities. The establishment of a free commonwealth, however, could not fail to open the frontier to a good number of aliens, who, by superior thrift and intelligence, and in some instances of available capital, came in for a large share of the property, movable and immovable, of the Creole or Spanish- American races, and by their example sharpened the wits and stimulated the energies of a naturally indolent and backward people. With the emancipation of the country its colonisation began, and a tide of immigrants set in which, according to official accounts, amounted in 22 years to 550,000 souls, and which with their families and descendants may be presumed to constitute now at least one-half of the population of the country and to be in possession of half its wealth and its trade. Thougrh a laro^e number of these intruders live by a variety of employment sin the cities, doubtless a consideral^le proportion are at work in the country as herdsmen or husbandmen. The advancement of the country from a merely pastoral to an agricultural community was in the main owing to 282 SOUTH AMERICA. these aliens, and its results are so satisfactory that, if we rely on the same official reports, this Republic, which was not many years since often dependent on foreign countries for her supplies of corn and flour, has in its turn become an exporter of wheat and maize, 4188 tons of which were shipped off from the port of Rosario alone — the main centre of- foreign colonisation — in 1878. In the following year, 1879, the export from the whole country was 30,000 tons of wheat and 40,000 of maize. Apart from the frequent and prolonged political con- vulsions which plunged these new countries into all the calamities of domestic and foreign wars, the development of their well-being was hindered or retarded by material causes, some of which are now being gradually but successfully removed. In the first place, communication in the region of the Plate was at first only practicable through the magnificent highways which nature had provided in its great rivers, navigable in some instances for thousands of miles ; but, away from their banks and across vast plains of unmatched fertility, the only means of locomotion was till very lately the horse, which indeed converted the population, both indigenous and imported, into a race of centaurs, but which was of little avail for the conveyance of goods on a large scale. The subjugation and colonisation of the plain were, therefore, limited to the watercourses ; for, as it has been justly observed, up to the present day the rich plains of the THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 283 Pampas have been a more effective barrier than the giant chain of the Andes ; and the progress of the Spaniards to tlie inhxnd districts of Paraguay, Corrientes, Entre Rios, &c., was effected rather from Lima and Santiaoo than from Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. Koads, other than the most wretched tracks for bullock-carts, there were and there are now none. Railways were not thought of till 1857, and far more than half the territory was till that date in the undisturbed possession of untamed Indian tribes. These and the half caste Gauchos (properly /i^o;m\ or farm rough-riders and drovers, turned wild and used as tools of political factions in civil feuds) scoured the country, at war with society, and had the cattle and produce as well as the life of the settlers at their discretion ; and the total want of security thus put every thought of cultivation and colonisation any- where away from the centres of population altogether out of the question. A scourge inflicting even more serious evils than the savages were the terrible droughts in which the cattle, as well as the wild animals, perished by thousands and millions — 1,000,000 horned cattle in 1859 — "the dead bodies and skeletons of the poor beasts," as travellers describe, " strewing the roads and fields for miles and miles, lying about in every stage of decomposition, those more recently dead being surrounded by vultures and other carrion birds." They tell us of reedy marshes and 284 SOUTH AMERICA. ditches choked up with the carcasses of beasts which had struggled thus far for a last drink, and which had then not had sufficient strength to extricate themselves from the water. They tell us how in the last great drought 500,000 head of cattle and millions of sheep were lost, but " before they starved the wretched crea- tures consumed not only the grasses and every vestige of vegetation, but the very roots which they tore out with their feet." Were it not for the fences by which the scanty plantations round some of the estancias were sheltered, every shrub and tree would have rapidly disappeared. In connection with the drought, and often as a consequence of it, are the ravages of the locusts. These destructive insects come up like storms in vast and dense purple clouds in the distant sky, darkening the air in their onward flight ; with the sun's rays directly on their wings " looking like that heaven of golden dots which many of us remember hovering about our cradles in infancy," and presently, as they fly past, resembliug " a snow-storm, or a field of snow marguerites which have suddenly taken to themselves wings." When wearied in their flight they lie on the ground ankle-deep, and railway trains travel with great difficulty over them on account of " the greasiness of the rails arising from their destruction by the train." As one rides over them^ though not a quarter of them can rise for want of space THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 285 in which to spread their wings, they form so dense a cloud that one can see nothing else, and the horses strongly object to face them. " They get into one's clothes and hair" (it is a lady that speaks), "and give one the creeps all over." Finally, though the climate is one of the healthiest, brightest, and loveliest in the whole world, and the open plain is free from the earthquakes to which Peru and Chili and all the volcanic regions of the Andes are exposed, the Plate is frequently visited by terrific storms, by pamperos, tornadoes, and other irresistible blasts, which not only sweep off fruit and forest trees, cattle sheds, and human habitations, but, as Mr. Edwin Clark describes, drive before them the liojlit seeds of the Flechilla grass, " a terrible plant which is the scourge of the country," invading all the fields and filling the hollows. The barbed seed, with its horny processes and its long arms studded with short hairs all set one way, possesses a power of penetration which is irresistible. " They work their way through men's clothes and gaiters, but are far more seriously damaging to the poor sheep ; they ruin the wool, and, working their way through it, frequently kill the animals that are not shorn by penetrating the flesh ; and they are often found in the muscle of the joints brought to table." There is nothing wonderful or exceptional in all this. Such has been the experience of all lands (out of Eden) 286 SOUTH AMERICA. in primitive times. It is only Nature in her untamed state, and with all her destructive as well as productive energies at work, awaiting man's brain and hand to give them moderation and method, to curb the conflicting elements, and to bring order out of chaos, asserting that mastery which was allotted to him over creation. No part of the earth could have been better intended for man's habitation than this region of the Plate ; but the people's enjoyment of it was subject to the general condition that men should learn to value the blessings of peace and order, that they should first control their own passions and abide by their own laws, ceasing thus to be their own worst enemies. Very little has been done towards the establishment of public security in this country. Little can be said in praise of its government ; but even such improvement as is observable in many particulars has already borne fruit ; it has enabled the people in some measure to remove those natural obstacles and to lessen those natural evils which I have been enumerating, and which, if properly grappled with, will not eventually prove more insurmountable or irremedi- able here than they have been or are in any other region of the globe. Railways, for instance, have in these countries achieved something towards conquering distance, making up for that absence of carriage roads which was partly owing to man's sloth and indolence, but partly also to THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 287 the absolute lack of stone or other available material throughout the plain. The Argentine Republic already boasts 2252 kilometres, or 1407 miles, of rails finished and in full operation, of which about one-half is State property, the remainder representing foreign capital of which the Government Q-uai'antees the interest. Most of these lines are remunerative, yielding, in some instances, 5 and even 7 per cent. But though in about 23 years this country has in this matter shot ahead of other Spanish-American Republics, it is still far from the goal to which, considering the enormous extent of the terri- tory, it should and could tend. There are six lines radiating in all directions from Buenos Ayres, but not one as yet crosses or even reaches the frontier of the j)rovince of the same name, a province with an area equal to that of England, and a population, excluding the town, of 317,802 souls, constituting the very kernel, the heart and soul of the Republic, and representing its civilization, industry, and culture in their fullest development, Two of these home railways run along the bank of the river or estuary of the Plate. One, the " Northern," 18 miles long, ends at Tigre, near the confluence of the two great rivers, Parana and Uruguay, a favourite resort for summer pleasure parties from town, who have among the low, green, fruitful islets with which the Delta of the Parana is studded, their l)oating clubs, tea-gardens. 288 SOUTH AMERICA. cafes, &c. ; tlie other, the "Ensenada" line, 37 miles in length, runs southward to Boca, Punta Lara, and Ensenada, those spots where, it is still hoped, a practic- able harbour and naval dockyard for the Argentine capital may be constructed. There is a "Western " line, the first opened in the country, finished now to Civilcoy and Bragado, with a branch from Merlo to Lobos, and another from Lujan to Azcuenaga, altogether a line of 204 miles ; a " Southern " line, branching out into two lines, one to Dolores, the other to Azul, about 252 miles, intended at some future time to go down to Patagonia, at Bahia Blanca, and Rio Negro; and a "Campana" line of 48 miles, which strikes across the country to the Parana, at the branch called Parana de las Palmas, enabling travellers to embark at Campana for Rosario, avoiding the labyrinth of the isles of the shallow Delta ; and from Rosario to go by steamer up the whole length of the Parana itself, and of the Paraguay, and the tributaries of both rivers from north and west, a water- course navigable for several thousand miles. Still the railway or net of railways which is to exercise the greatest influence over the destinies of this part of the world starts for the present, not from Buenos Ayres, but from Rosario. From Rosario the " Central Argentine " Railway proceeds to Cordova, 238 miles to the west. From Cordova, the " Central Northern," now finished to Tucuman, 337 miles, will be carried on to the THE REGION OE THE PLATE. 289 frontier of Bolivia. But, again, tlie *' Andine," or '' Trans- andine " line, starting from Villa Maria, a junction station on the " Central Argentine," between Rosario and Cordova, is opened to Villa Mercedes, whence it is to cross the provinces of San Luis and ^lendoza ; and from Mendoza to go over the Uspallato Pass across the Cordillera of the Andes, there to join the Chilian lines at Santa Rosa de los Andes and San Felipe, leading to Santiago and Valparaiso. It is not easy to foresee how soon Chili, engrossed by its expensive war, may be able to fulfil her own share of this orreat scheuae of an " inter- oceanic railway," rivalling in importance the " Pacific line " of the United States ; but so far as the Argentine Republic is concerned, the people here are very earnest and confident, and the Minister for Public Works has just dug the first turf of the trunk from Villa Mercedes to Mendoza. To enable a traveller to cross the Continent by rail from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso, it will, how- ever, be necessary to construct the direct line from Buenos Ayres to Rosario, 185 miles long, the project of which has long been entertained. There has not been the same activity displayed in the furtherance of works of this nature by the neighbouring Rej)ublic of Uruguay. The only line of some importance, the Central, leaving Montevideo north to Durazno, 135 miles, will some day go up to join the Brazilian lines across the frontier. And there are two other lines, one u 290 SOUTH AMERICA. " Western," to Colonia and Higueritas, and the otlier, " Eastern," to Pando and Rocha, of both of which only a few miles have as yet been opened to the public. The two Republics, Argentine and Uruguay, are besides engaged in two simultaneous and parallel works tending to one and the same scope. The Uruguay river, a broad and deep stream, is navigable for large steamers as far as Salto, 215 miles from its mouth, but above Salto, for a distance of 100 miles, to Santa Rosa, it flows over a rocky bed, somewhat like the Iron Gates of the Danube, with rapids, and a fall of 25 feet, which renders its navigation impracticable except when its waters are at the highest. To do away with this inconvenience the Government of Montevideo began, by the aid of a guaranteed English Company, the construction of a rail- way from Salto to Santa Rosa, 110 miles long, which is, however, not yet finished. Meanwhile, the Argentine Republic has been at work on the opposite or right bank of the river, and carried on its railway from Concordia to Monte Caceros, which is now in full working order, and beyond which the Uruguay becomes again navigable to Uruguayana, and along the Argentine territory of Corrientes and Missiones up to the Brazilian frontier. The establishment of electric telegraphs throughout this region more than kept pace with the development of railway enterprise. There are now over 7000 miles of telegraph lines in the Argentine and Uruguay Republics, THE REG ION OF THE PLATE. 201 and the construction, it is stated, proceeds at the rate of 500 miles yearly ; the home lines extending through land or submarine lines to the Chilian and Brazilian lines, and through them to all parts of America and Europe. The whistle of the steam-engine and the spark of the electric wire were not without their wonted beneficial effects. To begin with, they have scared the wild Indians, and their allies, the marauding Gauchos, from the abode of civilized man. The really settled part of the Argentine Republic consisted till lately of the city and province of Buenos Ayres, and proceeded northward along both banks of the Parana to the provinces of Entre Bios and Corrientes on the right bank, and to that of Santa Fe on the left. West of Santa Fe the construction of the Central Argentine Railway led to the colonization of the lands along that line as far as Cordova, and of large tracts of the northern provinces of Tucuman, Catamarca, and others alono- the chain of the Andes. But north of Santa Fe spread the wilderness of the Grand Chaco, of which the native tribes still asserted the mastery. West of Buenos Ayres and south of Cordova lay the vast extent of the Pampa, into which but few even of the boldest pioneers had ventured. Finally, south of Buenos Ayres, across the Rio Negro, there spread the waste territory of Patagonia, down to the Magellan Strait and the Tierra del Fuego, to which Chili and the Argentine Republic lay contending claims, but on which the latter U 2 292 SOUTH AMERICA. State had. some settlements at Baliia Blaiica, and the Chubut. Between the Argentine people and the wild tribes of these three deserts there was for many years open war, the Indians, led and aided by some of the worst characters among the Gauchos and by malefactors of every description, frequently breaking through their boundaries and terrorizing the settlements by the sud- denness and ruthlessness of their onslausfhts. Ao-ainst such an evil the country had no other protection than a cordon of troops posted along the border, which was frequently overleapt, and the support of some of the friendly Indians, whose alliance was not always to be relied upon. General Alsina, a man of energy, whose success as a candidate for the Presidency at the forth- coming election would, had he been living, been un- doubtful, undertook durinor his administration of the War Department in 1877 military operations which were to advance the frontier lines for scores of leagues in every direction, driving the savages farther and farther into their huntins: grounds. Like tlie Araucanians in Chili, the various tribes of Indians on this side of the Andes have lately been greatly cowed by the Snider and Remington rifles, not only of the troops, but also of the rural population, especially of the English, German, Swiss, and other settlers ; so that their incursions, even in remote and unprotected districts, are, in normal times, seldom attended by the deeds of violence and bloodshed THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 293 of the old days — the painted warrior of a romantic era havino- now sunk to the condition of a skulkino^ cattle- lifter. " Normal times," however, are in this country apt to be the exception. The dread of political disturbance, and with it of a recrudescence of Indo-Gaucho outrages, impends, like a sword of Damocles, on the head of the pacific settler. Security is a plant of slow growth and of very tender fibre, and society here, both in town and country, is always haunted by a sense of coming evil. Several grazing estates belonging to English subjects are being converted into agricultural farms, as these, pos- sessing less cattle and requiring more hands, hold out less hope of plunder and supply ampler means of defence. On the same ground some Russo - German colonists, applying for grants of land, bargained for permission to crowd together in a village in the centre of their lots for mutual protection, unwilling to trust themselves to the perils of an isolated existence ; and the permission had, however reluctantly, to be granted by the Government, who urged vainly, though with good reasons, that there can be no good aiid thrifty husbandry where the labourer dwells at a distance from his fields. The wish to })rovide for safety by united strength prevailed with the prudent settler over all economical considerations. In the Republic of Uruguay, again, where the wild native tribes were trodden down and exterminated 294 SOUTH AMERICA. during the contest between Spain tand Portugal for tlie occupation of the territory, the people, easy on the score of the red men, labour under the incessant fear of even worse savages ; for such are the adventurers, whether of the Government party or of the Opposition, who on any outbreak of political warfare never fail to spread them- selves all over the country, and at the head of scratch bands of soldiers or so-called National Guards, levy black mail in the name of an authority, which, on the restoration of order, naturally hastens to disavow its own instruments, and declines every responsibility of their doings, Kevolution in these countries has passed from the acute to the chronic state : but the complaint is by no means radically cured, and at any crisis, like the Presidential changes we are now witnessing, rabid poli- ticians and a blatant fire and brimstone Press seem bent on allowing no man easy slumbers ; and the experi- ence of the past forbids any too sanguine confidence in the present or the future. With all this, however, the country is immensely rich, and its wealth is every clay attaining fresh develop- ment. The Province of Buenos Ayres, as I said, is the centre of all movement, and with a population amount- ing to about one-fourth of that of the whole Argentine Republic, exports about three-fourths of all the produce, and consumes more than three-fourths of the imports. The province, however, is as yet in the main a pastoral THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 295 community. The land is almost a perfect level, entirely- bare of wood, and, except in some of the southern districts, without a stone or even a pebble. It is divided into cattle and sheep farms, owning collectively eight to ten millions of horned cattle and 56 millions of sheep, besides several millions of horses. For the whole Re- public the statistical tables gave, in 187.5, 13 millions of cattle, and 57 millions of sheep, the former valued at 83,789,514 dollars (about £16,000,000), the latter at about £17,000,000. With horses, mules, asses, goats, and swine, the pastoral wealth of the country amounted to 191,432,918 dollars (about £40,000,000). The Republic of Uruguay, with an area and population nearly equal to that of the Province of Buenos Ayres, but with an undulating territory and a soil perhaps less fertile, has only 5,500,000 cattle and 12,000,000 sheep, the whole estimated at £9,000,000. These figures would not, perhaps, convey any very distinct meaning, even if they could be relied upon for strict correctness, and it will be more to the purpose if I give some particulars of some of the pastoral establish- ments which I have visited. The province of Buenos Ayres, as I said, within a radius of about 75 miles round the city, consists mainly of cattle and sheep farms, and some of the large estancias or estates combine the rearing both of herds and flocks. A journey of a little more than four hours by train on the Southern Railway, and a 290 SOUTH AMERICA. two hours' drive from a station, brought me to an estate of this description, belonging to an English absentee, and managed by a Scotchman eminently gifted with the brain and muscle necessary for his arduous task. Estan- cias in former times extended over a surface of 20 to 50 square leagues ; but they have lately undergone consider- able division and subdivision, and those boasting 10 square leagues are becoming rare. The one I am speak- ing of does not exceed 6^ leagues, or about 20 square miles. It was probably bought for an old song origin- ally, but its value by the tax-gatherer's assessment is now £50,000, and it could readily fetch at least double that price if it came to the hammer. It yields to the owner a net revenue of £10,000 to £15,000, and is stocked with 10,000 cattle, 70,000 sheep, and 2000 horses. It has a very comfortable dwelling-house, with a monte or plantation of 20 acres of garden, orchard, and wood, and all the appurtenances of a first-rate gentleman's seat in England. The main business of the manager consists in experiments to improve his stock by the importation of the best English or foreign breeds. He has crossed the Spanish cattle with the finest specimens he could obtain from Durham and Hereford, and can show the most splendid rams from Lincolnshire and Rambouillet, and he also show^ed me some of the hand- somest thoroughbred stallions. These he sells and swaps and trades in at the markets or with neighbouring THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 297 fiirmers, benefiting the surrounding district.s by bettering their stock at the same time tliat he drives the most profitable bargains for his employer. He has two young English gentlemen for his assistants, and the work is done by iO jjeons or riders, drovers, and other labourers, aided by 50 or 60 more when sheep-washing or shearing, field- weeding, and other hard work is required. The whole estate is protected by strong iron fences resting on wooden posts, and divided into great rodeos or paddocks about 400 or more acres in extent, also protected by iron fencing. The fencing of an estate of this size, with houses, wells, sheds, pens, carts, implements, &c., would cost 200,000 dollars, or £40,000. The purchase of the stock would involve twice as large an expense. It is w^ell understood that an establishment of this magnitude is not got up in a day. The land in the olden times was to be had for the mere asking, and the capital required to render it available could gradually be made out of the profits which even the most piimitive farming did not fail to yield. For nothing can equal the fertility of these alluvial plains, even before unwearied industry has cleared them of thistles and other bad weeds, and of the dizcac/ms, or prairie dogs, and other noxious and destruc- tive vermin, as has been and is done with great diligence on the model estate I have briefly described. The only drawback to the glorious climate, as we have seen, is the drought, an evil which might perhaps to 298 SOUTH AMERICA. some extent be mitigated, if all the landowners would submit to tlie trouble and expense of planting trees on a large scale, an operation practicable even on grazing farms, by lining the paddocks with a fringe of double rows of eucalyptus, poplars, acacias, or other fast-growing trees, and screening them with double fences from the attacks of the browsing cattle. The mildness of the climate admits of the flocks living and feeding out of doors all the year round. For any fodder that may be wanted in the depth of winter, when frosts are not unfrequent, though snow hardly ever falls, ample supply is yielded by sowing a few fields round the home planta- tion with alfalfa, a kind of clover which is mown five or six times in the year, and of which huge stacks may be seen overtopping the farm buildings. Not a few of the estancias in Buenos Ayres, and SDme of the best, are the property of British subjects or of their descendants. In the northern districts of the province smaller tene- ments, generally held as sheep farms, are in Irish hands. The British subjects in the province in 1875 were said to be 30,000 Irish and 5000 Scotch and English. Many of them are well off", the revenue of their estates averag- ing 24 or 25 per cent. Besides landed estates, I have seen a few saladeros, or houses where the cattle are slaughtered, and their meat salted or dried for exportation ; and among others the famous Fray Bentos, where Liebig's extract of meat THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 299 is maDufactured. This establishment, so called from a monk who is said to have had here his hermitage, lies on the left, or eastern, bank of the Uruguay river, within the territory of the Republic of Uruguay, about 100 miles above the meeting of that river with the Parana, and may be reached by steamer in 12 hours from Buenos Ayres. The house and the outbuildings stand on high ground sloping to the water's edge, and there are piers and wharves where vessels of almost any size can be moored. At the back of the establishment lies an estate of 6500 acres of good, undulating, and sparsely-wooded land, such as one usually sees over large tracts of Uruguay territory. All this is the pro- perty of an English joint-stock company with a capital of £500,000, and is managed by an Irish gentleman, whose residence and grounds leave nothing to desire on the score of elegance and comfort. Here during the summer months, December to May, when the cattle are fattest, about 1000 or even 1200 bullocks and cows are daily disposed of. Large herds arrive daily from dis- tances of 100 and more miles; they are penned up in large paddocks, so as to have a constant supply at hand ; and when their day comes they are marched into wood- fenced corrals or pens, narrowing, funnel-like, as the slaughter-house is neared, and are at last huddled up in the narrowest, where they are singled out and caught ^^ith the lasso round their horns, and dragged by 300 SOUTH AMERICA. mounted Gauclios down a slippery floor, on a level with which, at the end, is a truck, running on wheels on a tramway. The animal, after a short struggle, is borne to tlie ground under a scafTold, on which stands the butcher ready with his short knife, with which he strikes his victim at the back of the horns, severing the spinal marrow. The poor brute collapses at once as if struck by a thunderbolt, is immediately seized by men who push away the cart with the carcass along the tramway, and lay it with others on a flagged floor, where, by various batches of men, the carcasses are flayed and cat into pieces, and these hurried ofl' with such amazing swiftness that in less than seven minutes nothing is left on the ground ; the last to be removed being the hide, which is neatly spread out doubled up, and carried to the salting-house. This terrible haste with which the whole operation is achieved, and which enables the men to dispose of the animals at the rate of 80 per hour, is determined by the necessity of salting the meat while it is still fresh and warm. The slaughtering ground is about two acres in extent. The men employed in the establishment are 550 ; most of them are Basques, an inoffensive race of men, gentle and pacific, in spite of the blood in which they dabble all day and of the excellent meat which constitutes their almost exclusive diet. The skill they show in the use of the knife is truly appalling ; the large joints of meat, the muscles of the limbs, fall asunder and glide down THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 301 from the bone as if the flesh were mere douorh. As a proof of the force of habit I may mention that at one of these saJadero^, where I was hospitably entertained by a Brazilian, an accomplished gentleman, head rather of a tribe than of a family, I was shown the way to the slaughter- house by a bevy of his handsome daughters, married and unmarried, with a swarm of children, all of whom with their shoes and trailing^ orarments waded throuo;h the warm blood of the horned victims and between the heaps of their quivering limbs, hardly as much affected by the sight as a veteran general would be in a field strewn with the bodies of his prostrate enemies. From the slauo^hter-house we went back to the breakfast-room, the dwellings-house beinof so close to the saladero that the flies would not have allowed us to eat in peace for one moment had they not been driven off by a large fan or punkah which was kept constantly flapping over our heads throughout the meal. I have no space and no skill to describe the various processes by which beef is salted or dried, and by which hides, horns, tails, bones, the fat, and every part of the animal are turned to the best uses, and made into valu- able articles of trade. Nothing is wasted, not even the offal, on which 1000 swine are fed in or near the pre- mises. At Fray Bentos only oxen and cows are killed ; but in other establishments such is also the fate of mares, thousands of which are slain merely for their hides and 302 SOUTH AMERICA. their fat, which is boiled into tallow. The price of a mare at the saladero is only two dollars (8i\), that of an ox or cow 15 to 20 dollars (£3 or £4), and the owner of one of these saltinof-houses told me he made about one dollar (4-5.) out of every animal that went through his hands. I asked how it could be good economy to kill the cows, especially some which were visibly on the eve of calving, as this wholesale execution must surely interfere with the propagation of the species ; but the answer was that the tendency of the herds was to overgrow the capabi- lities of their pastures, that to keep up a proportion between the cattle and their food it was necessary to sweep off the superfluity, and that there was no leisure for choice or discrimination. At Fray Bentos, machinery on a very large scale has been applied to the boiling of the fat and other important operations. The extract of meat is obtained by simply boiling some of the choicest parts of the animal in large cauldrons, as it would be done in a common kitchen, allowing the broth, when separated from the meat and strained to the utmost purity, to go through various stages of evaporation, till all the liquid substance has dissolved into air. The establishment at Fray Bentos yields, it is said, £81,000 a year; it burns 6000 tons of coal, and consumes 1000 quintals of salt. The business of a saladero is, as a rule, kept separate from that of the cattle -grower ; but in many of the THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 303 esfancias and at some of the slieep farms there are (jrasserias, where the sheep are killed and boiled into tallow. To conceive some idea of the extent to which business of this nature is carried on in this region, it will be sufficient to state that the Argentine Republic exported in one year, 1874, 3,000,000 salted or dried ox-hides; and that while in 1852 there were only in the whole country four and a half millions of sheep, valued at £1,350,000, the flocks had in 1876 — /. e. during a period of 24 years — increased to the extent of 40,000,000, or, as I said, of 57,000,000 sheep at the present time, producing about £7,000,000 per annum. The produce of the sheep during the said period, reckoning wool, sheepskins, and tallow, is reckoned at £77,000,000. Of the thousands of Britons, or at least of Englishmen, settled in these countries, few, if any, have taken up their quarters in the agricultural colonies, probably because pastoral life had greater charms for our people, or because, accustomed as they were at home to a large scale and high finish of husbandry, they find the work here rather primitive and slovenly. But all the other nations of Europe, and of both North and South America, have contributed their contingents to the agricultural colonies of the Plate. Of these, there is only one in the province of Buenos Ayres, the Baradero, with about 311 families and 2,000 souls. The main strength of these settlements is in the province of Santa Fe, along the 304 SOUTH AMERICA. banks of the Parana river and the line of the Central Argentine Railway. Most of these are flourishing, while several of those in the province of Entre Rios have come to grief, and some exist only in name, like those cities of Eden, Palmj^ra, or Babylon in the United States, which a traveller drives through without perceiving. The cluster of about 30 of the best in Santa Fe made up altogether, in 1875, 3185 f^imilies, with more than 16,000 persons ; and their farms, cattle, &c., represented a value of £1,864,359, or £585, for each family, a con- siderable sum for people most of whom landed on these shores in a state of absolute destitution. Some of their lands which they bought for 2^. are now sold at £2. Other colonies have sprung up in other provinces, and some even in the deserts of the Gran Chaco, and in Patagonia, beyond the boundary of the Rio Negro, where there is a Welsh settlement of 187 families at the mouth of the River Chubut. In the Republic of Uruguay there are also several colonies — two in the districts of the Rio Rosario, of Swiss and Piedmontese, these latter chiefly Waldensians, with a third called " Cosmopolitan," a fourth from the Canary Islands, &c. The number of these colonists must have considerably increased of late, as immigration has taken a very rapid development, and the Government of both Republics spare no efforts to encourage and aid it. Up to recent times the Swiss out- numbered the settlers of any other nation ; but lately the THE REGION OF THE PLATE. 305 Italians have taken the upper hand, as emigrants from that country come in at the rate of 90,000 to 100,000 a year, and on the first Sunday of my stay in Buenos Ayres 1300 landed here from two steamers from Genoa, all of whom were at once sent to the settlements. The latest importation consists of Russo-Germans, from the banks of the Volga — the descendants of a colony that took refuge in that part of the Empire under the Empress Catherine 11. towards the end of the last century. They are of the Mennonite persuasion, and like the Quakers object to military service on religious principles. As exemption from the service in Russia was only granted to them for a period of 90 years, which is about to expire, they are now betaking themselves to America, where they first settled in Brazil, and whence they have been transmigrating to the Argentine territory. It is expected that the whole tribe, 300,000 persons, will follow them. Many of these colonies have been founded under the patronage of the Central Government of the Argentine Republic, or by the Government of the various provinces or municipalities ; but others owe their origin to private speculation, to banking and joint-stock companies — some of the best to the Central Argentine Land Company, and these are clustered along the line of the Central Argentine Railway. Those which are intrusted to Government mana.ofe- 306 SOUTH AMERICA. ment liave often reason to complain of the arbitrary and rapacious rule of the public functionaries, against whose ill-treatment some of them show a disposition to revolt, in frequent instances taking the law into their own hands, aj)pointing their own magistrates, organizing their own police, and altogether laying the basis of self-government. For their own part, the Argentine Republic, anxious as it is for the progress of colonization, frequently, and perhaps not unjustly, finds fault with the many men of bad character who land here as immigrants ; and there has even been some exchange of diplomatic notes between this Government and the Italian Foreign Office on the subject of some notorious bandits being allowed a free passage to this country, as an easy way of relieving the Old World of the maintenance of its malefactors at the expense of the New. It would be idle to inquire into the ground of these mutual complaints. A free country in want of population must needs be, like ancient Rome, an asylum. It must take the bad with the good, and it should be the boast of liberal institutions that the man who under the rule of his native country was a most objectionable subject may, in the wholesome air of a Republican State, become a most useful and exemplary citizen. LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 307 CHAPTER XV. LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. The Plate as an Opening for European Emigrants — Vastness of the Country — Its Flatness — Not Unredeemed in some Districts — Hilly Eanges — The Water-courses — A Journey to the Interior — Rail to Cordova — To Tucuman — Central Argentine Land Company Colonies — Scattered along Vast Tracts of Unbroken Solitude — Scrubby Forests — A Salt Desert — Variety of Climate — Tucuman on the Outskirts of the Tropics — Sugar Plantations and Sugar Mills — Homes for many Nations — Life in an Estancia — Suitable to English Tastes and Habits — Companions to an Englishman's Solitude — Town Life — Character of Argentine Provincial Towns — Posario — Cordova — Blending of Paces — Prevalence of Spanish Character and Language — Spaniards the Ruling Race — Rising Independent Spirit in some of the Colonies — Argentine Politics. Rosario, April 20. If I were a young man, blessed with good health and spirits and a capital of £10,000 to £20,000, I think I could do worse things than settle in these broad lands of the River Plate. The best chances of success here would be for an Englishman, a youth of good family, brought uj) in a country home, and familiar with field sports and field work from early days. Not but there may be many an opening in the cities also, and even for X 2 308 SOUTH AMERICA. penniless immigrants, in every branch of business, bigli or low ; and plenty and contentment in some of the agricultm^al settlements along the lines of railways, or on the banks of great rivers. But pastoral life, life in a large grazing estate or in a sheep farm, is the freest and happiest, and the most likely to lead to the accumulation of a large fortune. Ten or even twenty thousand pounds invested in land in England will yield little better than a starving income ; but with any sum within those limits you are a prince here, if you fall in with a ready-made estancia, the owner of which may be tempted to part with it by the sight of your gold ; or if with your gold you buy something like half an English county of virgin land, at little more than a nominal price, and begin at the beginning, fencing in, improving, and stock- ing a few hundred of acres at a time, extending your operations year by year, and widening the area of your available possessions in the same measure as labour and thrift add to your means. A grazing farmer in these countries has this immense advantage, that he depends mainly, if not wholly, on his own exertions, and need not be anxious about his chance of procuring negro, Chinese, or other free or slave labour, as would be required by the owner of a cotton or sugar plantation. An estancia 20 square miles in extent is easily managed with about 40 peons on foot or on horseback ; and I know a Brazilian settled in the neighbourhood of Durazno, in LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 309 the Republic of Uruguay, who bought his hind for £12,000, and makes a yearly income of £4000 out of it with no more than 18 men in his employment. The provinces of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo are as yet far from being overcrowded; but an immigrant will not fare worse for going farther for elbow-room, provided he be as careful to insure free and easy com- munication, as a good general would be anxious not to be cut off from his base of operations. There are rivers in this region navigable by steam for thousands of miles, and the railways which seem to have been providentially invented to serve the purposes of American colonization, are already reaching the borders of the Grand Chaco, the Grand Pampa, Patagonia, and other great deserts, where land is to be had for the mere asking, and where the Red Indian has ceased to be the buo;bear he was, and cannot be made to face a breechloading rifle. The land is in the main an immense flat, no doubt ; very large tracts of alluvial soil, without a tree or a pebble ; part of it mere swamps or salt wilderness. But even these thousand miles of unbroken level are not without a peculiar beauty of their own : their boundless horizon and awful solitude ; the freshness and purity of the atmosphere, and the keen enjoyment of unlimited freedom. Nor, apart from intercourse with his fcllowmen, is a man here crushed by the sense of utter forlornness ; for nothing is more striking than the teeming life of the 310 SOUTH AMERICA. animal kingdom in the pampas ; the abundance of game ; the storks and herons, the owls and hawks ; the flights of wild turkeys and flocks of ostriches ; to say nothing of the ubiquitous pteroptero and chattering little cardinal ; a multitude and variety of fowls and brutes — nameless to me, as well as numberless — 'the gaiety of whose plumage and fur, and the strangreness and wildness of whose screeches and howls a settler will always and everywhere have with him, and which will only gradually make room for the flocks and herds, the barking and bellowing, the crowing and cackling of his domestic surroundings. Life in the prairies is life in the saddle ; for the very beggar here is mounted ; and, away from rail or tram- ways, neither for sex nor age is there any other practic- able, or at least endurable, means of locomotion than on horseback ; and the horses are fleet and sure-footed, brave as lions and gentle and docile as cows, their purchase and keeping cost little, and their stabling and shoeing nothing. Should, however, a man's objection to a Dutch-like country, " flat as a pancake," be invincible, and his longing for rising grounds, for fine trees, for the variety of hill and dale be irresistible, the region of the River Plate has enough to suit all tastes and gratify all wishes. For the territory of the Republic of Uruguay is not a dead level, but a beautifully rolling country, swelling up into lofty ridges or ctichillas, as they are called, running LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 311 for the most part from east to west, and enclosing broad, smooth valleys, watered by fine streams, like the Rio Grande, Rio Negro, Rio Rosario and others, some of whose names recur with puzzling frequency at every step in both American continents. And within the boundaries of the Argentine Confederation, and even in the territory of Buenos Ayres, in the southern districts, there are knolls and bluffs, and clusters of hills dignified with the name of sierras ; while, further away, in the provinces of Cordova, San Luis, and Tucuman, still within reach of railways, there are sierras well deserving the name — long ranges of mountains, some of them crested with snow, with forest-clad slopes and vast zones of undulating oTound covered with brushwood. And, further still, all along the Cordillera of the Andes lie the provinces of Mendoza, La Rioja, Catamarca, in the west, and those of Salta and Jujuy in the north, all of them constituting the western watershed of the Andine chain, which in the west separates the broad Argentine lands from the narrow strip of the Chilian Republic; and in the north sends down into the Argentine territory the waters of the great Bolivian streams. Here, in different latitudes and at different altitudes, one has every variety of climate and produce. Together with ample ground for pasture are found all the resources of agricultural and mining enterprise ; and, in the north, where the Argentine territory reaches the tropic, successful 312 SOUTH AMERICA. experiments are made of the cultivation of sugar and tobacco — an immense field for the gradual but limitless development of wealth and well-being in the future. What a marvellous country it is to travel in ! You go up the River Plate, past the island of Martin Garcia, where the Argentine Republic has a fort and a prison, and have before you the confluence of the two great rivers that flow into that common estuary — on your right, the Uruguay, a broad, deep unobstructed stream, which laro-e steamers ascend in an almost straight northerly direction, having the Argentine province of Entre Rios on the western bank, and on the other the territory of the Uruguay Republic, or, as it calls itself, " Republica de la Banda Oriental del Uruguay ; " on your left, the Parana, flowing from the north-west between the same province of Entre Rios and those of Buenos Ayres and Santa F^, and breaking up into many branches, forming at its delta a labyrinth of low, green, half-submero;ed islands, which allow nowhere a free view of its prodigious width from bank to bank. I have been up the Uruguay as far as Fray Bentos, and have ascended the Parana up to Rosario ; the former at 1 2 hours', the latter at nearly 24 hours' distance from Buenos Ayres. On the banks of these rivers, in these low regions, where the boundaries between land and water are faintly traced by the barrancas, or cliff's, 20 to 30 feet high, which separate the various successive layers of alluvial soil, are LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 313 j)erched, at intervals, little towns and villages — Campana, San Pedro, San Nicholas — with neat white houses, embosomed in groves of poplar and weeping willow, acacia, and eucalyptus, looking all new and young, and full of life ; the tidiness and activity of these scattered habitations pleasantly contrasting with the dull monotony of the rank vegetation, the coarse grass, the tangled brushwood of the soaked desert from which they emerge — man everywhere struggling to keep dry, to maintain his footing against the element which seems to claim the whole region as its undisputed possession. From Rosario a journey of 15 hours along the Central Argentine Railway brought me to Cordova, and a further run of 24 hours, in two days, on the Central Northern line, enabled me to reach Tucuman, the present terminus of the railway, which will some day, it is hoped, be prolonged to the Bolivian frontier. Before reaching Rosario we had entered the province of Santa Fe, of which Rosario is the principal city. About four leagues from Rosario we passed Roldan, the first of those colonies of the Central Argentine Land Company, the foundation of which only dates from 1870 and which already occupy a surface of 116,363 acres, and in 1879 yielded 10,000 tons of wheat for exportation. The villas and gardens of the colonists, their churches and school-houses, their village inns and cafes, everywhere clustering on both sides of the railway, their cattle everywhere roaming in 314 SOUTH AMERICA. the fields, bear witness to the thrift and well-beino^ of these strangers, among whom the best implements and machinery, with the best methods of modern husbandry, are being rapidly introduced. But beyond the strip of one league on either side of the railway, as well as in the intervening tracts between one colony and another, as we proceeded from the province of Santa Fd into that of Cordova (where the Central Argentine Land Company is still haggling with the Government of the Republic for the land originally allotted to the contractors of the Central Argentine Railway Company), the whole plain up to the immediate neighbourhood of Cordova is still almost entirely unreclaimed wilderness. The train runs for hours along districts hardly anywhere exhibiting a trace of man or of man's work. Only as we neared Cordova and came in sioht of its lona;, low sierra boundino- the western horizon, the country, still a desert, somewhat changed its character. The dead flat gradually swelled up in rolling waves, and its nakedness was covered with a stunted brushwood struggling for existence against the prolonged drought. From Cordova to Tucuman, again, for two whole days, we had the same scene of dreary monotony — an unceasing alternative of bare pampa or prairie and an equally broad range of thin monte or forest — forest now no more, for the fine primeval timber has been felled long since, and the wretched bush which has taken its place seems to have no chance against the LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 315 unfriendliness of the elements and tlie destructiveness of man. As you look on those scrubby young trees, on that mangy undergrowth, interspersed here and there with cactus and other evergreens, now white with the dust and sand of the parched soil, a sad feeling steals over you, as if you were travelling through a country long wasted by war, where the flower of manhood of a whole generation had been sacrificed to the ambition of a ruth- less tyrant, and a new stunted race had sprung up, the children of the undersized and deformed weaklinofs who had been left at home as unfit for work in the battle-field, x^nd the climax is reached as we pass from the province of Cordova into that of Santiao;o del Estero, travellinsf across the Salina, or Salt Desert, on the edges of which the bushes are sprinkled with fine crystallized salt, as if with thin flakes of fresh fallen snow, but where, as we advance, every trace of veojetation vanishes, and nothing is seen on all sides, as far as eye can reach, but a white, level, glittering surface, as desolate as a Kussian steppe in deep winter. Yet, I am told, there is no reason why a great part of this seeming desert should not be brought under cultivation ; no reason why most of it should not be as fresh and green and fruitful as the strip of land where the colonies of the Central Argentine Land Company are flourishing ; no reason why the estancias, into which here as elsewhere the soil is divided, should not be as well fenced, as clear of bad weeds and noxious vermin, 31(3 SOUTH AMERICA. and stocked with as tliriving flocks and herds as are the broad acres of the cattle estates and sheep farms of the province of Buenos Ayres. As in the so-called " vale " of Chili, so in these wide plains of Cordova and Santiago del Estero, the drought is the whole evil ; the only ditFerence between the bare desert and the improved land lies in the power of irrigation ; and, in the opinion of competent hydraulic engineers, this region, traversed in all directions by streams to which, from lack of inventive faculties, numbers are given instead of names, as in the streets of New York (Rio Primero, Rio Cuarto, Rio Quinto, &c.), would suffer from no lack of moisture were the treasures which flow from the mountains utilized with anything like intelligence and perseverance. Most assuredly the soil, though sandy and arid, is by no means barren ; its high grass, however coarse, its shrubs, however ragged, its very thistles, its very salt, are not without use or value ; and though the country looks like " no man's land," it is all claimed by jealous owners ; it feeds large herds of cattle, which, though neglected, are by no means in bad condition, and are as strictly guarded and protected as the kine within the palings of an English gentleman's park. The aspect of the country undergoes a rapid change as we approach Tucuman. We are now on the threshold of those northern provinces where the climate as well as the vegetation is tropical, and where the land is soaked with incessant rain almost LIFE IX THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 317 all the year round. Tacuman lies on the 26th degree of south latitude ; its plain is an immense plantation of sugar cane, and the skirts of the lofty mountains on its western side — the Sierra of Aconquija, a great spur of the Andes — yield in abundance all the fruits of the torrid zone. The Minister of the Interior, in his inaus^uration of the works of the railway, which is to go through the province of Salta and Jujuy to the frontier of Bolivia, adverted to the fact that the cultivation of sus^ar had in three years, in the province of Tucuman, so rapidly increased that, while in 1877 the production was only about 100,000 kilogrammes, it had risen in 1879 to 4,200,000, valued at 1,500,000 dollars, and would exceed 7,000,000 in the present year. There are as many as 50 sugar mills between large and small, three of the best of which I visited, and where I found at work all the machinery lately introduced into the best wf/enios in Cuba. The cultivation of sugar, I am told, is extended to the province of Santiago del Estero, with even greater success. In the provinces of Salta and Jujuy coffee is extensively planted, and tobacco everywhere. The Minister also stated that 30,000 to 40,000 barrels of rum issue yearly from the Tucuman sugar mills, and that 18,000,000 oranges were shipped off from Eosario, a large part of which, I suspect, comes from Paraguay. With all this wealth in sugar and other tropical produce, however, this Republic is still tributary to foreign 31S ^SOUTH AMERICA. countries for the main supply of those luxuries, the high freight charged by the railways too greatly enhancing the price of all home produce. The railway from Cordova to Tucuman, built and owned by the Government, is in a deplorable condition, and both rails and rolling stock will soon want extensive repairs. The Minister stated with great satisfaction that timber of the value of 380,000 dollars had been shipped from Rosario in 1879. This would be matter for rejoicing if the destruction of the forests were effected with something like measure and method ; but the truth is that the havoc and waste know no limits ; nothing but wood is burnt on the railway, and some of it is of a fine-grained, deep-coloured quality that might well cope with the best exported from Brazil. Just at this moment Tucuman and the districts to the north and south of it are driving a very lively trade with Bolivia, a country rapidly exhausted by its partici- pation in the Chilo-Peruvian war, and across the frontier of which large herds of cattle, hundreds of tons of flour, and other provisions are being sent at a very high cost of conveyance. The silver currency of Bolivia, a debased coin, which no one would take from me either in Peru or Chili, has now flooded these border lands all along the railway line. Enough, I believe, has been said to convince a reader that these lands of the Plate have all the ele- ments that will one day constitute a great State or LIFE IX THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 319 cluster of States. There are in the Republic many mansions, the homes probably in the future of many nations ; and in the meanwhile there is ample field for individuals in every branch of speculation. Of all the regions of South America the Plate is, I am convinced, the most admirably suited for European colonization. It is more easily and more directly accessible than the Republics of the Pacific ; its climate is healthier than that of Brazil or of the Republics and Colonies on the northern coast. Indeed, it is the brightest and most enjoyable climate I ever became acquainted with, and nothinej better than it can be found either in South Africa or Australia. It is a climate for out-of-door life at any hour of the day or night, for any day of summer or winter. Young Englishmen, as I said from the beginning, would fare best here, and cattle estates or sheep farms would be the safest and most profitable investment. Life in the saddle, the healthy and simple exercise of an almost primitive pastoral existence, the parting of the flocks, washing and shearing of sheep, the care of all kinds of pet animals, ought to have inexpres- sible charms for men accustomed to the routine of an English country home. Together with much blessed freedom, life at an estancia would, of course, involve a considerable amount of unbroken loneliness ; but not much more than a broad-acred squire is willing to put up with in one of our northern or western counties. As in 320 SOUTH AMERICA. England, so in this country, a man may have to ride or drive eight or ten miles for a dinner at some pleasant neighbour's, or to provide plenty of spare rooms and "shakedowns" for the company which he must import from town. But an Englishman is by nature a self-depend- ent, self- concentrated being. There is hardly a locality in which he may be at a loss either for physical or intellectual enjoyment, hardly a labour or peril that he will not turn into sport. And the mails from the Old World come weekly to Buenos Ayres, and three or four days distribute them all over the territory accessible to railway trains or steamers. With his newspapers and his books, his long rides and account-keeping, the settler's days run swiftly and smoothly, with a calmness and evenness that need not be dulness or monotony. And this is the land of plenty, for the landowner as well as for his dependent — plenty for all people. There is no sight of pauperism or distress, no mendicancy, no dread of starvation for high or low. The peon or gaitcho in an estancia may not always have bread, but he has meat and vegetables at discretion, and is never without wine, beer, or other strong drink ; never without the solace of his pipe or paper cigar. He may live in a mud hut and wear tattered clothes ; but it is a matter of choice with him, not of necessity ; he is always rich enough to ride like a gentleman, often with silver on his saddle, his bridle and his stirraps. LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 321 Should, however, the sameness of country life fall too heavily on a young colonist, an escape from it would not be difficult, nor would social enjoyment be far out of reach, even if a journey from a remote province to Buenos Ayres were too long and irksome, and one had to put up with a provincial town. Such places as Rosario, Cordova, or Tucuman are not, like English country towns, the mere abode of petty traders and artizans. As in Italy or Spain, they are the residence of the landowners' families who have their estates in the territory, and whom either local patriotism, or want of sufficient means, or the necessity to attend to their business, or, finally, habit and tradition, keep away from the expensive capital, and who, nevertheless, cannot dispense with social intercourse. These, content with rough accommodation in their farmhouses, which they only visit when business requires it at harvest or sowing- tide, enjoy the leisure months in their town mansions, in which they put their pride, building them in the best style, and fitting them up in the best taste. Such a profusion of fine marbles in the halls and courts, such a luxury of rich furniture, glass, and china as one sees in the streets of these second-rate towns it would not be easy to imagine. Rosario, for instance, rises on the barranca or steep bank or cliff of the Parana, on a bend in the great river, a bright and open situation : it has only one church, with a population of 20,000 souls, but 322 SOUTH AMERICA. it boasts two or three theatres, and clubs and hotel-bars, and whatever else may contribute to the enjoyment of Spanish- American life. The same may be said of Cor- dova, of Tucuman, and other more inland cities. Cordova is an old settlement of the Jesuits, the seat of the National University, founded on the site of their old convent ; it musters 17 churches, most of them very large, with extremely massive square towers, and that lack of good design and profusion of paltry ornaments which charac- terize the buildings as well as the artistic and literary productions of that all-corrupting Loyola Company. In all these towns you have your opera season, besides the chance of some conjuror, or strolling players' company, an equestrian circus, or a wild beast menagerie, to say nothing of the everyday use of goocl^ bath-houses and promenades, and military or civilian music bands in the main square every evening. Cordova and Tucuman are not yet lighted with gas, and I am doubtful about Rosario, as we have had all along bright moonlight nights ; but all these places are crossed in every direc- tion by tramways, aud boast several scores of hackney coaches, for a ride in one of which, forsooth, a stranger should be handsomely paid instead of being enormously charged as he is, for, owing to the terrible pavement, he feels on alighting as if every bone in his skin were broken. An objection to life in these countries may arise in a LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 323 true British heart on considering among what a mongrel set of " foreio-ners " his lot must be cast. For this is, perhaps, the most cosmopolite and polyglot community in the world ; and an Englishman has in the Dominion, the Cape, and elsewhere a choice of many a home where he may live with those of his own flesh and blood, a perfectly free man, under shelter of the Union Jack and the control of laws made to be observed. In spite of the influx of so many aliens, these South American countries maintain every feature of their original Spanish character, and grudge the stranger, who does all manner of work for them, any share in the government, and any direct influence over social life. It is rare even for the descendants of French, German, or other immigrants to make their way into any important public office. The prudential instinct which inclines a foreigner to shun all interference with political matters is in a great measure prompted by a conviction that any attempt to meddle with such things on his part would be met with repulsion and resentment. The Spanish Creole looks on his country as something which he alone has a right to govern and misgovern. Both in public acts and in tlie schools Spanish is jealously kept up as the ruling language. Strange to say, in spite of this exclusiveness, involving an almost legal disability for all aliens, these become from the first strongly attached to the country, and show the utmost pride and eagerness to identify themselves Y 2 324 SOUTH AMERICA. with it. Nothing is more striking than the facility with which immigrants on their first arrival, and their children from the cradle, manage to pick up Spanish, whatever may be their household or nursery language ; more marvellous still the promptness with which the rising generation drop the idiom of the country they come from, and at the best soon speak it with difficulty and with a foreiofn accent. It is no wonder if such is the case with the Italians — mostly unlettered men, who here monopolize the trades of housebuilders, boatmen, and kitchen-gardeners — for the two Peninsulas have kindred languages ; and the Lombards, Genoese, and Neapolitans, who bring here nothing but their uncouth dialects, find it much easier to take the Castilian than their more difficult Tuscan for a general means of inter-communi- cation. But northern men — Germans, Britons, &c. — exhibit the same ready proficiency, and, in the towns at least, this ascendancy of language gives the whole of society its tone and colour, and influences men's thought and diet, their habits, manners, and even morals. How far this amalgamation and absorption of so many hetero- geneous elements may go on, how long the original Spanish type may preponderate, I know not, and can only say that the phenomenon is not restricted to these lands of the Plate, but is equally observable in Peru and ChiH, and throughout South America, whatever proportion the num- bers of alien immigrants may bear to the Creole population. LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 325 The fact is that government and language are two very powerful factors in the social combination, and it is greatly to be regretted that so vast a continent as South America should be submitted to the sway of a race which showed everywhere, at all times, the least capacity to rule itself or others ; and that the civilization of these countries should be effected through the medium of a language which, however stately and sonorous, has, in later times, given so little evidence of its activity as an orofan of thouo-ht — a lanojuao-e so deficient in all the recent achievements of literature or science. In the cities, at least, we have here a Spanish mind ruling an European body ; on the one hand, aliens doing all the work, material or mental, owning nearly the whole wealth, agricultural or commercial, bringing in all the appliances of civilization, and giving all the impulse of life ; and, on the other, the Spanish Creoles monopolizing the national sovereignty, claiming the exclusive exercise of legislative and executive power — mere drones, frus- trating the industry and paralyzing the energy of the bees, on which alone depends the subsistence of the hive. This is not so much the case in the country, and especially in those colonies in which immigrants of the same nation have contrived to form a distinct and separate community. The Italian and Swiss colonies of Santa Fe stand up manfully for their own nationality, 326 ] SOUTH AMERICA. maucage their own schools, banks, hospitals, &c., appoint their magistrates, and have laid the basis of a thorough municipal self-government. An equally independent and almost defiant attitude has been assumed by the Eusso-G-ermans of Olevarria, near Azul, in the southern districts of the province of Buenos Ayres, who have claimed the right of clustering in their villages for self- defence ; and still more by the Welsh of Chubut, on the border of Patagonia, who declare that " they are Welsh, and will never be anything but Welsh, will have nothing to do with anything not Welsh." In South Chili, between Valdivia and Puerto Montt, the Germans show also a tendency to constitute a separate and independent community. With respect to the English and Irish, they are mostly grazing farmers ; their pastoral pursuits sufficiently isolate them to enable them to resist inter- mixture and absorption. But whatever results the development of these mere embryos of alien nationalities may have for the future, South American Eepublics are for the present looked upon, and will for a long time look upon themselves, as Spanish ; and as such they labour under that fatal curse of Spanish revolutionary tendencies, which are so much in the way of all political consolidation and social pro- gress. We have here in the Argentine Republic gone through the preliminaries of a Presidential election in which G9vernment troops and volunteers of the Tiro LIFE IN THE PLATE REPUBLICS. 327 Naclonal arrayed one against another have shown a dis- position to throw the weight of their muskets into the scales of popular suffrage. They have hitherto been satisfied with mere threats, but deeds may follow, for the Ides of March have come, but not passed. The question here is not merely of persons or parties, but it involves the integrity, and therefore the existence, of the Republic — an old question, which lias long been debated in former years, and always rather patched up than settled. Buenos Ayres, city and province, which constitutes a large portion of the population of the Republic, and produces, it is said, 82 per cent, of what is exported from the country, cannot submit to take rank in the Senate on equal terms with her sister provinces. The provinces, for their own part, contend that the seat of government gives Buenos Ayres an undue ascendancy, and too large a share in every branch of official preferment. Rather than be swamped in the councils and outvoted at the electoral polls, Buenos Ayres would fain set up for herself; and, in the mean- while, she does not scruple to hold her own by a show of armed force. The provinces, for their own part, seem bent on discrowning the Queen city and transferring the seat of government to Rosario, Cordova, or some other inland town, and in the meanwhile they threaten to march on the capital. The singular thing in all these disputes is that so much disinclination to union and good understanding should exist between territories that could 328 SOUTH AMERICA. hardly subsist separately ; for their only common means of communication lies through the great river system of which Buenos Ayres may in all emergencies hold the key. There is here a political animosity in conflict with material interests, and it is natural to hope that these latter will prevail in the end. The election and the six following years of the new Presidency may still pass without open collision, and the gain of the country during such a halcyon period would be incalculable. But in the mean- while uneasiness reigns in many men's minds, and the mere apprehension of evil, as we all know, is hardly less painful, hardly less fraught with danger, than the evil itself. PARAGUAY. 329 CHAPTER XVI. PARAGUAY. American Views of the Rottenness of their Grovernment and of the Vitality of their Country — How such Views Apply to Paraguay — Conditions of this Republic — Historical Retrospect — Jesuit Rale — Dr. Francia — Lopez I. — Lopez II. — Utter Ruin of the Country — Chances of its Recovery — A Visit to Paraguay — Its Geographical Position — Steaming up the Parana and Paraguay Rivers — River Scenery, — Asuncion — Desolation of the City — Its Ruins — Deplor- able State of tL>e Finances and Trade of the Republic — The Debt — An Excursion to the Interior — Rail to Paraguari — A Ride in the Neighbourhood — Aspect of the Country — Peculiarities of the Population — Paraguayan Villages — Paraguayan Priests — Paraguay misgoverned since Lopez' Fall — Better Hopes of the Present Government — Resources of the Country — Its Trade — Its Means of Communication — Indolence of the Natives — Obstacles to Coloniza- tion — How the Debts of the Country might become its Resources. Asuncion, May 11. If you engage in political conversation with any free and candid citizen of a South American Eepublic, you will invariably receive the same assurance that his country is thoroughly sound at the core, although its Government is hopelessly rotten. There is no act of venality, of rapacity, of glaring iniquity with which the men at the hea'l of the nation, of a province, or a corporation are not loudly 330 SOUTH AMERICA. charged, and not merely in private intercourse, but in the virulent articles of an unbridled Press. Bad as thinors are, they can never be so black as they are painted. A stranger, at all events, cannot and must not believe one- hundredth part of what he hears or reads. Indeed, if he is wise, he will stoutly refuse to accept any statements as truth. One day, for instance, he will learn that a late President of the Republic of Uruguay has sailed for Europe with 2,500,000 dollars in his pocket. On the morrow he will be as positively assured that the ex- Dictator has neither left the country nor absconded, though no one takes the trouble to acquit him on the score of his wholesale peculation. Ask any man in Cordova, in Tucuman, or any other provincial town why the place is not lighted with gas, and the answer will be that the people pay indeed very high rates, but the municipal councillors embezzle all the money for them- selves. The same explanation is given of the fact that Buenos Ayres is most wretchedly paved and drained. All men are honest in the community, but all functionaries are thieves. No one seems to perceive that in an in- dependent country, where all authority springs from popular suffrage, he who abuses the Government only cuts his own nose to disfigure his face ; that this readiness to blacken all public characters, to impute the worst motives, and to receive the most wanton calumnies as gospel must needs undermine public confidence, disarm PARAGUAY. 331 and demoralize all constituted power, and offer it an easy prey to the factions which are compassing its overthrow. Where all men are corrupt, what remedy can there be in iucessant revolutions, since every change must always be from bad to worse ? It is vain, on the one hand, to reason with Americans on these subjects, or, on the other, to attempt to shake their faith in the destinies of their country. The country is all right at bottom, they tell you ; a Republic is always sure to fall on its feet ; there is no limit to its material resources ; no possible exhaustion of its recuperative powers. What matters it how many millions may be squandered in civil feuds or international w^ars ? Who cares how large may be the deficit, how heavy the debt, how low the national credit, how enormous the mass of depreciated paper currency ? Who's afraid ? So long as the Republic can dispose of half a continent of virgin soil ; so long as Peru has guano and nitrate. Chili copper and grain, the Plate cattle and sheep, the heaviest liabilities are merely a flea-bite. No public calamity, no misgovern ment, no alternation of anarchy and tyranny can drain the sources of South American wealth. There is no disorder that time will not cure ; no wounds that freedom will not heal. If this be so, then what about Paraguay ? There, if anywhere, was a State which, even as a colony, was blessed by Providence with all the elements of w^ealth 332 n SOUTH AMERICA. and happiness. Under Spanish rule, from the early part of the 16th century as a remote dependency of Peru, and subsequently of Buenos Ayres, Paraguay had been almost entirely abandoned to the Jesuits as a virgin ground on which to try the experiment of their idea of a theocratic government. The Loyola Brethren, first brought in in 1608, baptized the Indian tribes, built towns, founded missions, gave the tamed savages pacific, industrious, and passively obedient habits, married them by wholesale, bid- ding the youth of the two sexes stand up in opposite rows, and saving them the trouble of a choice by pointing out to every Jack his Jenny ; drilled and marshalled them to their daily tasks in processions and at the sound of the church bells, headed by holy images ; and in their leisure hours amused them with Church ceremonies and any amount of music and dancing and merry-making. They allowed each family a patch of ground and a grove of banana and other fruit trees for their sustenance, while they claimed the whole bulk of the land for themselves as "God's patrimony," bidding those well-disciplined devotees save their souls by slaving with their bodies in behalf of their ghostly masters and instructors. With the whole labouring population under control, these holy men soon waxed so strong as to awe into subjection the few white settlers whose estates dated from the conquest ; and by degrees, extending their sway from the country into the towns, and even into the FAEAGUAY. 333 capital, Asuncion, they set themselves above all civil and ecclesiastical authority, snubbing the intendente of the province and worrying the bishop of the diocese. Driven away by a fresh outburst of popular passions in 1731, and brought back four years! later by the strong hand of the Spanish Government, they made common cause with it, truckled to the lay powers whom they had set at naught, and shared with them the good things which they had at first enjoyed undivided. All this till the time of the general crusade of the European powers against their order, when they had to depart from Paraguay as well as from all other Spanish dominions in 1767. In the early part of the present century, when the domestic calamities of Spain determined a general collapse of her power in the American colonies, Paraguay raised its cry for independence, and constituted itself into a separate Republic in 1811. But, although the party of emancipation was the strongest and seized the reins of government, there were still many among the citizens who clung to their connection with the mother country, and these were known as Peninsular es ; and there were many more who favoured the scheme of a federal union of Paraguay with the Republics of the Plate, and these went by the name of Portenos, owing to the importance they attached to the dependence of their country on Buenos Ayres, (the ptierto or harbour,) the 334 SOUTH AMERICA. only outlet as well as the natural head of the projected confederation. All these dissenters were soon disposed of by the ruthless energy of one man, Juan Gaspar Rodriguez, known under the name of Dr. Francia, This man, the son of a Mamaluco, or Brazilian half- caste, with Indian blood in his veins, a man of stern, gloomy and truculent character, with a mixture of scepticism and stoicism, was one of those grim, yet grotesque, heroes according to Mr. Carlyle's heart whom it is now the fashion to call " Saviours of society." A Doctor of Divinity, issuing from the Jesuit seminary at Cordova, but practising law at Asuncion, he made his w^ay from the Municipal Council to the Consular dignity of the New Republic, and assumed a Dictatorship, which laid the country at his discretion for 36 years (1814- 1840), wielding the most unbounded power till his death, at the advanced age of 83. With a view, or under pretext of stiHing discontent and baffling con- spiracy within and wai'ding off intrigue or aggression from without, he rid himself of his colleagues, rivals, and opponents by wholesale executions, imprisonments, pro- scriptions, and confiscations, and raised a kind of Chinese wall all round the Paraguayan territory, depriving it of all trade or intercourse, and allowing no man to enter or C[uit his dominions without an express permission from himself. Francia's absolutism was a monomania, though there was something like method in his madness. PABAGUAY. 335 There were faction and civil strife and military rule in Paraguay for about a twelvemonth after his death. In the end, a new Constitution, new Consuls — one of whom, Carlos Antonio Lopez, a lawyer, took upon himself to modify the Charter in a strictly despotic sense, had himself elected President, first for ten years, then for three, and again for ten more, managing thus to reign alone and supreme for 21 years (1841-1862). On his demise he bequeathed the Vice-Presidency to his son, Francisco Solano Lopez, whom he had already trusted with the command of all the forces, and who had no difficulty in having himself appointed President for life in an Assembly where there was only one negative vote. The rule of Francia in his later years, and that of the first Lopez throughout his reign, though tyrannical and economically improvident, had not been altogether unfavourable to the development of public prosperity. The population, which was only 97,480 in 1796 and 400,000 in 1825, had risen to 1,337,431 at the census of 1857. Paraguay had then a revenue of 12,441,323f., no debt, no paper money, and the treasury was so full as to enable Lopez IL to muster an army of 62,000 men, with 200 pieces of artilb^ry, in the field and in his fortresses. Armed with this two-edged weapon, the new despot, whose perverse and violent temper boidered on insanity. 336 SOUTH AMERICA. corrupted by several years' dissipation in Paris, and swayed by the influence of a strong and evil-minded woman, flattered also by tlie skill lie fancied lie had shown when he played at soldiers as his father's general in early youth, had come to look upon himself as a second Napoleon, and allowed himself no rest till he had picked a quarrel with all his neighbours and engaged in a war with Brazil and with the Republics of the Plate, which lasted five years (1865-1870). At the end of it nearly the whole of the male population had been led like sheep to the slaughter ; and the tyrant himself died " in the last ditch," not, indeed, fighting like a man, but killed like a dog when his flight was cut off", and not before he had sacrificed 100,000 of his combatants, doomed to starvation, sickness, and unutterable hardship a great many of the scattered and houseless population (400,000, as it is calculated), and so ruined the country that the census of 1873 only gave 221,079 souls, of whom the fern ales far more than doubled the males. To such conditions was Paraguay brought by half a century of Republican government. A race of coloured men (for the Indians, or the " Indigenous," as they are here called, are still 57 per cent, of the population and the half-castes 23 per cent.), who had scarcely been bettered when they were raised from blind, but free, savagedom to the rank of hardly less ignorant, but more grossly superstitious priestly thralls, were at once PARAGUAY. 337 endowed with autonomous constitutions and called upon to exercise sovereign rights. This population, constitut- ing a large majority, not only was too passive and supine to understand what duties freedom imposes, but was an available instrument as an armed force in the hands of any adventurer aspiring to build his power on the preponderance of one party over its opponents. And, be it remembered, there was nothing excep- tional in the conditions of Paraguay — nothing that may not equally apply to the other Spanish American Re- publics. Black, red, or white, the labouring classes in these countries are unfit for self-government ; unfit from want of moral education, and still more from utter, invincible apathy ; yet formidable for the material aid their numbers and military organization supply to any party leader who may harbour tyrannical designs against the public liberties. Francia and the two Lopez usurped the supreme power because there was in every case only one man of sufficiently independent character to dispute it, and that solitary dissenter became an easy victim of the despot's vengeance, not only without opposition, but with the consent of the Chambers and the acclamation of the multitude. "V\Tiat then happened in Paraguay we are now witnessing in Peru and Bolivia. Power is at all times, and especially in troublous times, within reach of any bold man who will snatch it. The factions among the few politicians may have a squabble or tussle for it ; 338 SOUTH AMERICA. but the mass are everywhere ready to a.GGept /aits accomplis and bow to the strongest ; to a Lacotera or Pierola in Peru, to a Daza or a Canseco in Bolivia ; ever ready not only to acknowledge the winning party, but to lend their support and give their blood for any one who will rid them of their irksome burden of freedom. We are told that these are passing evils : mere phases through which all new States must needs pass ; that these infant Republics have vitality enough to withstand such shocks ; to be nursed, as it were, rocked and cradled by them ; that, after a few years' rest, not only is every trace of wars and revolutions effaced, but the country, by going through such ordeals, seems to gather new vigour and spirit, and to take a fresh start on its free and happy onward career. Has such been the case of Paraguay ? This is the question to which I deemed it worth while to seek an answer, and it was with a view to obtain it that I embarked at Buenos Ayres on board the steamer Cisne, on my way to Asuncion. From Buenos Ayres to Asuncion there is a distance of 1071 miles, which the steamer accomplished in six to seven days. The way lies almost due north along the banks of the Parana and Paraguay rivers. We steamed across the estuary of the Plate, threaded that maze of islands which forms the Delta of the Parana, on its con- fluence with the Uruguay, and ascended the Parana for PAIUaUAr. 339 more than 600 miles, up to its meeting with the Paraguay, a score of miles abot>-e Corrientes. Here we left the Parana on our right and followed our course up the Paraguay, about 300 miles, to Asuncion. It will not be difficult to understand how the land lies. We have here two large strips of country, to each of which the name of South American Mesopotamia may be equally applied. The first lies between the Uruguay and the Parana, and consists of the province of Entre Rios (between rivers), that of Corrientes, and the slip of territory called Misiones. All this belongs to the Argentine Republic, which on this side is bounded by the river Uruguay, separating it from the Republic of Uruguay as far as Santa Rosa, and beyond that from Brazil. The Parana waters these same provinces on its left bank, and has on its right bank the province of Santa Fe and the Grand Chaco ; this last a wild region, part of which belongs to Brazil and part to Paraguay, but which is Argentine territory as far as the mouth of the Pilcomayo, nearly opposite to Asuncion. The second Mesoj)otamia constitutes the territory of Paraguay, bounded on the south and east by the Parana, which separates it from the Argentine provinces and from Brazil, on the west by the Paraguay, which runs between it and the Grand Chaco, and on the north by the Rio Apa, which marks the frontier of Brazil. Our voyage was slow and the scenery somewhat Z 2 340 SOUTH AMERICA. monotonous, but it liad a greatness, or at least vastness, of its own, liardly less striking than any beauty. The Parana is a giant among rivers ; it brings down, we are told, a volume of waters larger than all the rivers of Europe put together, and its current flows at the rate of three miles an hour. For upwards of 600 miles its banks are so far asunder that one can nowhere catch a glimpse of both at the same time ; and its bed is throughout that distance studded with low, large, intensely green, beautifully wooded isjands, at this season more than half flooded, the intervening channels broadening at the various bends of the river, and bearing the semblance of a succession of lakes. The orrounds for the most part are flat, but the banks on both sides are made by harrancas, or clifls, raised between 20ft. and 30ft. above the bed of the river, and at some points, where the undulations of the country slope down to the water- edge, attaining the dignity of miniature hills, enclosing tiny valleys, the chosen sites of towns and villages (such as Campana, San Nicolas, Rosario, and Santa Fe on the right bank, and Diamante, Parana, La Paz, Groya, Bellavista, and Corrientes on the left), some perched on the crest, some half hid in the glen, but all by their signs of life and movement, by the white of their dwellings, and the motley of their gardens relieving the sense of desolation inseparable from the sight of that grand and verdant, but unmitigated PARAGUAY. 341 wilderness extending for hundreds of miles at a stretcli. The Paraguay is much narrower than the Parana, but it winds more gracefully, is more brimful, more free from cumbersome islands, and has an aspect of greater calmness and majesty. The vegetation is equally luxuriant, but more tropical, the palm, the cocoa-tree, the banana taking the place of the poplar]and willow, of the ombu, of the peach and pear tree of the more temperate zone. The cranes and storks, herons, owls, hawks, and water-birds of all kinds follow us along our course ; but the Paraguay is enlivened by monkeys and more infested by the caymans or alligators. Herds of these latter may be seen at low water crawling and sprawling in the mud, giving the chance of fair shots to the passengers weary of the tedium of their life on board the steamers. Both rivers have a course of thousands of miles above their confluence at Corrientes ; but, while the Paraguay is navigable up to Cuyaba, the capital of the Brazilian province of Matto Grosso, the navigation of the Parana is interrupted 445 miles above Corrientes by the salto or fall of Guayva, where the river contracts from a width of three or four miles to a gorge only 200ft. broad, and comes down in a cataract of 56ft. in height, which travellers describe as one of the wonders of the world, the roar of waters being distinctly audible 20 miles off". Besides the many great tributaries these main streams receive from the Brazilian sierras in the 342 SOUTH AMERICA. nortli, the Parana is joined at Santa 1^'^ by the Rio Salado, and the Paraguay by the Rio Vermejo at Villa del Pilar, and by the Pilcomayo at Asuncion ; these three great rivers flow from the Andes of the Upper Argentine provinces and of Bolivia ; the whole river system drains, it is said, a region half a million square miles in extent. The Vermejo and Pilcomayo, which bring down the mud of the Grand Chaco, flow for some distance unblended with the Paraguay which receives them ; its purer waters seeming to shrink from the contamination of those turbid tributaries — a phenomenon equally observable at the meet- ing of the Missouri with the Mississippi below St. Louis. At Humaita, where the Paraguay runs in its narrow- est channel and makes its boldest bend, we steamed along the low cliffs wdiich Lopez IL had lined with his 200 cannon, in the vain hope of withstanding the advance of the Brazilian ironclads, a ruined church and shattered barracks still bearing evidence of his decisive defeat. Purther up we came in sight of Lambart^, a beautifully wooded pyramidal hill, named after a valiant Indian cacique, who had there his abode ; and a few more turns in the river brought us to Asuncion. The first sensation we received as we landed prompted the idea that we were entering the city of the dead. It was about noon, and the day was festive ; the shops were closed, neither persons nor things were stirring. We had left behind Buenos Ay res and other Argentine PARAGUAY. 343 cities wretcliedly paved, but here during the 344 years since the town was founded not even an attempt at paving had ever been made. The roadway was deep sand, flooded here and there at the crossings by muddy drains, and the bricks clumsily laid on the side-walks were shattered and scattered, stumbling-blocks to the pedestrian at every step. The main square and other open spaces, with rare exceptions, were wildernesses, from which the dingy turf was never removed, and where no tree was ever planted. The old town seems only roughly sketched ; not one carriage, public or private, is visible ; the only means of conveyance is the tramway, barely one mile in length, and crossing the whole town, from the landing at the Custom-house to the railway station, at intervals from hour to hour. Paraguay only boasts one railway, to Paraguari, 42 miles in length, running four weekly trains ; and along it is laid the only telegraphic wire, the Argentine line stopping at Corrientes. The population of the city, like that of the Republic, is reduced to one- third of what it was at the outbreak of the war, hardly exceeding 15,600 souls, and very little efforts are made to repair the havoc that the calamities of the war inflicted. The rulers of the Republic, Francia and the two Lopez, could dispose of great wealth, as the land Avhich the Jesuits usurped as Church patrimony had become State property, and the tyrants still employed the Indians as their drudges, in spite of the laws by 344 SOUTH AMERICA. which slavery was abolished. But all those rulers used the means at their disposal, not for the public good, but for the furtherance of their own ends. Lopez II., a monster cast in the mould of the most loathsome tyrants of the ancient Greek and mediaeval Italian Republics, dazzled by the ephemeral success of the liberticide policy of Napoleon III., was quite imperial in his ambition, and, while pushing on his ruinous preparations for war, and relying on his ability to wrest provinces from Brazil and the Argentine Republic, he was laying in Asuncion the foundations of an empire of which this city was to be the metropolis. All his buildings were on a scale befitting such high expectations. His palace, with its huge tower, a conspicuous object, in a commanding posi- tion as you approach the city, all but finished, yet never to be finished, stands up, not ruined, but hopelessly dilapidated, covering nearly as much ground as Hampton Court. His theatre, an edifice of unequalled massiveness, and a marvel of architectural design, still unroofed, and never to be roofed, was intended to exceed San Carlo and La Scala, both in size and magnificence. A rotunda on the model of the Parisian Pantheon was reared as a mausoleum of the Lopez dynasty, that dynasty of which he hastened the extinction by a double fratricide ; that church has neither doors nor windows, and will never be anything but a ruin. The same may be said of the arsenal, a vast jumble of yards, sheds, and lofts, of which PARAGUAY. 245 even the tiles have been removed and sold, the timber being left to rot ; the same of the railway station, still used, but seriously damaged, being absurdly out of pro- portion with the importance of the line. It is impossible to calculate what revenue might have been necessary to achieve or even to begin such works ; but Lopez paid little for the material and nothing for labour. The lower classes, whether organized as soldiers or pressed as workmen, received no pay, and their maintenance fell upon their wealthier fellow-subjects, who had to give tithes of all their produce. Lopez heaped up stone, brick, and mortar by the same resources as enabled ancient Egyptian monarchs to rear their pyramids. No man's power was ever more unlimited ; no man's will ever less disputed. No people-eating king more utterly enslaved a nation than did this first magistrate of a free commonwealth. The gentleness and submissiveness which seemed innate in the Indian population, and on which the wily Jesuits and their successors had traded for centuries, were now enhanced by the terror which the wholesale executions of the latest and worst of tyrants inspired. From the last farthing to the last drop of blood all was claimed, and all mutely and passively yielded. The condition of the country after Lopez's downfall was somewhat analoo^ous to that of the buildings that were so improvidently constructed at its dire expense. Paraguay was still an undeveloped State, 346 SOUTH AMERICA. wlien it was struck by a calamity from which it is doubtful whether it will ever recover. Its revenue now hardly reaches half a million dollars ; its exports never exceeds a million dollars. It has a debt of £1,500,000 contracted in England, and owes 400,000,000 dollars for war expenses to Brazil, 75,000,000 dollars to the Argentine Republic, and 25,000,000 dollars to the Republic of Uruguay, besides 8,000,000 dollars to Brazilian subjects and 5,000,000 dollars to Argentine subjects as indemnity for ravages inflicted on the neigh- bouring populatioQ by Lopez in the early part of his campaigns — altogether a debt of 588,000,000 dollars, or £117,600,000. The population of Paraguay, as we learn from Don Jos^ Segundo Decoud, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic, in his pamphlet, C/ies- tiones Foliticas y Economicas, " is still stationary, and only amounts to 32 souls for each square league, while the proportion is 70 in the province of Buenos Ayres, 50 m the remotest Argentine provinces, and 60 in the Republic of Uruguay." It is difficult to imagine to what sources, intrinsic or extrinsic, the country may look forward for a better future. After a few days spent in Asuncion, I took the train to Paraguari, and hence rode in various directions, to Caapucu, to Pirayu, Caacup^, Altos, &c., wherever my progress was not stopped by the streams swollen by unusually heavy rains, in a region where bridges are PARAGUAY. 347 unkuown and ferry or otlier boats not forthcoming. The country along the railway tract and throughout my rambles, though not transcendently beautiful, as the natives think it, is not without peculiar charms of its own. The train took us across an uncultivated, yet not unfruitful, plain, with isolated hills on our right, most of them of rounded shapes- not unlike the one at Lambar^, and on our left a bright, broad lake, beyond which rose a long mountain range, smooth and blue, called here the Cordillera, which crosses the whole country as far as and beyond Villa Kica. The plain is covered with brushwood and clusters of trees here and there : the uplands are mantled with deep verdure, being mainly a forest of fine orange trees, swarming with the loveliest butterflies. The towns and villages above-named, where I stopped, and others which I merely passed, are almost all laid out on a uniform plan. Low houses or huts of wood and mud, and thatched, are built on the four sides of a large square or common, having the church, generally a squat edifice, in the centre, with an isolated wooden belfry in one of the corners, and a huge flagstaff or maypole facing the main door at some score of yards distance. The houses have almost invariably a verandah, and the church a portico in front and rear. Every house has its little plot of ground, with sheds and out-buildings at the back, the garden fences joining together outside, so as to enclose and barricade the place on all sides, only allowing access 348 SOUTH AMERICA. at tlie main avenues. The square is common land, a closely-cropped meadow, used as pasture for the horses and donkeys of the whole people. The cottagers are generally proprietors, with a few head of cattle, aud they have small farms in the neighbourhood, where some dwell in scattered homes. The members of each little community live on good terms, on a footing of equality, no house rising above its neighbour's, unless it be the town-hall ; and the priest, the schoolmaster, the magis- trate, and the shopkeeper, however better off they may be, have nothing in their furniture or their every-day dress to distinguish them from the rest. The majority of the people are dark, Indians of the Guarani tribe or half-castes ; for even the whites of Spanish descent and the few immigrants look for domestic partners among the natives, and the ascendancy of the dusky hue asserts itself more and more at every new generation, as it does in Bolivia, Peru, and generally throughout South America, with the exception of Chili and the two Plate Republics, where, on the contrary, the dark colours are being rapidly absorbed by the fair. Black or white, however, the in- habitants here are all Paraguayans, and a peaceful, inoffensive people they are. The women, though seldom remarkable for fine features or clear complexion, and often positively hideous, have all that beauty of figure and elegance of movement which are contracted from the habit of carrying weights on their heads — a practice PARAGUAY. 349 whichi miwlit be recommended to boardinoj-school mis- tresses as the best substitute for their back-boards. Their dress consists of a loose white cotton frock, trailing at their heels, and slipping from their necks and shoulders so as to expose more of their brown charms than a Tartuffe would approve. Over their frock they throw a scarlet woollen mantle, and wear a linen cloth on their heads, the folds of which they gather round their faces with a coquetry betraying anxiety to exhibit what they half pretend to hide. They all go barefooted, and are never without a big cigar in their mouths ; but their costume is that of Grecian statues, and their gait and bearing are queen or goddess like. There is little apparent animation or quiet cheerfulness about them. They sit silent and demure with their children on their knees under the house-porch, looking vacant and sad, and equal to any amount of dawdling. It is only at the market-places or at the railway stations, where they crowd with provisions, or with carpets or lace of their own making for sale, that they look alive and chatter, breaking now and then into sudden shrieks of laughter upon the least provocation, and, one might think, from sheer idiotcy. There is little work done in the country, but that little is done by them, whether in the household or in the field, the men's time being taken up by horse- racing, cock-fighting, and card-playing, the last a besetting vice of every people with a drop of Spanish blood in their 350 . SOUTH AMERICA. veins. One may easily conceive what any amount of female fieldwork may be worth, and what degree of human progress such inversion of duties between the sexes without reciprocity may betoken. Indeed, it would be idle to talk here of civilization or of what we should call morality. Education is at the lowest ebb, and religion is still what the Jesuits made it among their Indian converts — an amusement rather than a rule of life. Very little has been done towards weaning young couples from their free-love connections. Marriage is dispensed with to such an extent that out of 50 candi- dates for the priesthood in the newly-established National College, only two were able to produce evidence of their legitimate birth. Concubinage is the rule, both among the natives and the foreign immigrants. The priests themselves, many of them Neapolitans, give the first example of glaring misconduct ; and, strange to say, the flagrant breach of their most sacred vows, the presence of a harem and full nursery in every parsonage, far from shockinQ- or scandal izins: their flocks, seem to be looked upon as the suitable subject for many a stupid joke. They will tell you, for instance, with great glee, that the Pope, " taking pity on poor Paraguay, in con- sideration of its depopulation, has vouchsafed to send the clergy a secret bull exempting them from the observance of their canonical obligations." The fact is, the men who undertook to rule this PAEAGUAY. 351 country as it came all ravaged and bleeding from the liands of Lopez in 1870 had a task before them far exceeding the extent of human faculties. The four Presidents or Vice-Presidents — Kivarola, Jovellanos, Gill, and Iriarte — who successively wielded the supreme power within a period of eight years, hampered by the absurdly democratic Constitution they had sworn to observe, either shockingly abused their power or threw it up in despair. Two of them, Gill and Rivarola, died by the hands of assassins, without any attempt being made to bring the murderers to justice ; Paraguay is in that respect no exception from the general practice in South American States. Better fortune, one must hope, may be in store for the present President, Senor Candido Bareiro, installed in 1878, who is credited both with honesty and ability, and well supported by his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senor Decour, the most accomplished a,nd Europeanized man in the country. The description this Minister gives of his country in the pamphlet above alluded to is heartrending ; nor, while he bravely points out the evils, does he seem over-sanguine as to the remedies he sugaests. After dwellinof at full leno^th on the gross ignorance, supineness, and vagrancy of the population, on their unfitness for municipal institutions, and incapacity for self-defence against a corrupt Adminis- tration, he inveighs against the provincial governors, or " Proconsuls " as he calls them, for their iniquity in the 352 SOUTH AMERICA. exercise of their power, in which they act with perfect impunity and free from all responsibility, so grinding and outraging their subjects as to " drive thousands of families to the neighbouring Argentine province of Corrientes, seeking there a refuge against the official tyranny and spoliation prevalent in their own country." It is to be hoped either that the picture was too deeply coloured, or that matters have greatly mended since the author of the pamphlet came into office ; for the country, as far as I could judge, had the appearance of the most thorough calmness and security. There was a general depression of spirits consequent upon the failure of the tobacco crop ; but, on the whole, my conviction was that Paraguay had every element that might consti- tute a happy community, although it would, perhaps, never be as rich as its bountiful soil and blessed climate ought to make it. The wealth of Paraguay might spring from every kind of tropical produce, and especially from coffee, sugar, and tobacco. The land might equally yield cotton, maize, rice, mandioca, &c. But there are none of these articles absolutely and exclusively peculiar to this country, unless it be the mate, or Paraguay tea, which is, however, now also extensively cultivated in the Argentine province of Corrientes and in some parts of Brazil. In almost anything that Paraguay might muster in sufficient quantity for exportation she has to contend PARAGUAY. 353 with countries fertile in the same produce, and so situated as to command a more open, shorter, and cheaper con- 'veyance of their goods to the world's markets. The only outlet for Paraguay is the river ; and the mouth of this lies at the discretion of the Plate Republics, which, however strictly bound by treaties to respect its neutral- ity, have managed hitherto to hamper the Paraguayan trade, and subject it to direct or indirect taxation. Immediate intercourse between this country and Europe there is none ; for Paraguay has no river steamers of her own, and the transfer of goods from the river craft to the ocean vessels is carried on by the intermediary of Buenos Ayres or Montevideo merchants, who levy heavy tolls on them in the shape of commission. The Anglo- Paraguayan Agency and the German Lloyd have, indeed, some scheme in hand for establishing a direct steam communication, both by sea and river, between some European ports and Asuncion. Great importance is also attached to the railway lines which some speculators propose to construct for this country, opening an inter- course with Bolivia in the north-east and with Brazil in the west. Were it possible to continue the line from Asuncion to Paraguay as far as Villarica and the Parana, to carry it across that river and hence to Santos, Porto Alegre, or some other port in South Brazil, Paraguay would undoubtedly have a second shorter and more direct communication with the outer world, besides that A A 354 SOUTH AMERICA. of the Plate, and a better outlet both for her own and for Bolivian merchandise. And there would be this additional advantage, that, while she had equally to contend with Brazilian and with Argentine jealousy and ill-will, she might easily enlist the interests of one of her rivals in antagonism to the other, and profit by their competition. All these undertakings, however, and each of them, as well as the institution of an Anglo-Paraguayan Bank, require capital, and Paraguay, in her reduced circumstances, has less than nothing to contribute to its outlay. For the present the cultivation of coffee, sugar, and cotton in Paraguay is almost in its infancy. Tobacco is more extensively produced, and although the home con- sumption is enormous (as men, women, and children all smoke), its exportation amounts to 300,000 or 400,000 dollars worth yearly, and some Paraguayan cigars sent to London as samples have determined a considerable demand for more. Another sum of 400,000 dollars arises from the exportation of mate ; and this, with several millions of oranges, some timber, and about 40,000 ox- hides makes up the 1,000,000 dollars or £200,000 which Paraguay sells to her neighbours, the hides and timber alone finding their way to Europe, while the trade of the other articles has hitherto been almost exclusively limited to the Argentine Kepublic and Uruguay. One may doubt, however, how far even an extended demand for PARAGUAY. 355 Parao"uayan goods and increased facilities for exportation might to any extent stimulate the productive powers of this country. President Bareiro, in his recent Message, consfratulates the chambers on the fact tliat the number of cattle within these last four or five years had nearly doubled. But it must be remembered that the wars of Lopez had equally laid waste the herds and their pastures, and as cultivation made at first little progress and more land lay fallow, the cattle had every chance of thriving. There were in 1877 only 200,525 heads of horned cattle and 666S sheep (for the land there is not favourable to the growth of flocks). Even twice such numbers, however, would not be more than suflicient for home consumption ; and, in fact, Paraguay has no saladeros, exports neither live stock nor meat, but only those 40,000 hides, which are highly appreciated in England, but only yield about £20,000. As a mere pastoral community, shut up on all sides by neighbours who deprive her of the sight of the sea, Paraguay might, no doubt, be a happy community — a kind of South American Arcadia, wanting nothing from her neighbours and grudging all to them ; such a State precisely as Dr. Prancia endeavoured to make it ; the tending of cattle seems to be the only occupation for which her present population are fit. Senor Dccour, who is not l)lind to the invincible laziness of his people, trusts to education as a sure means A A 2 356 SOUTH AMERICA. of correcting their unthrifty habits. Bat he soon adds that " nothing had been done (up to 1877) towards the foundation of a single school or institute of education except the projected National College, which only numbered 50 pupils." It is doubtful, however, whether any instruction would create among these people such habits and aspira- tions as might stimulate them to manly exertion ; doubt- ful whether any schooling could induce an Indian, a negro, or half-caste race of men to do more than is absolutely necessary to supply their own limited wants ; doubtful whether the three R's would be a sufficient substitute for the fear of the lash in Cuba or for the terror of wholesale executions a la Lopez in Paraguay. Senor Decour himself seems somewhat despondent as to any good that may ever come from the scanty and disheartened popu- lation of Paraguay, and places his reliance on unlimited immigration and colonization. But, alas ! the whole of South America, to say nothing of Australia, Canada, and other colonies, have the same expectations, and I have seen thousands of Italian emigrants landing from one steamer at Buenos Ayres pounced upon by the Govern- ment agents and spirited away to the colonies of Santa F^, Entre Bios, the Chaco, or Patagonia before they had time to recover from the throes of sea-sickness. Except the few who failed to find a home in Argentine or Uruguay territory, and might be induced to better them- PARAGUAY. 357 selves by coming farther north, Paraguay is not likely to make its gain out of Europe's losses, whatever grants of land the Government might hold, out as a temptation. Fortunately, Paraguay has debts ; enormous debts, as we have seen, some of which she would not be unwill- ing to pay if she could make her own terms acceptable. Already she has come to some understanding with Brazil, who is willing to receive land as a compensation for the 8,000,000 dollars damage claimed on behalf of Brazilian subjects ravaged by Lopez's invasions. A similar com- pact Paraguay may hope to come to with the Argentine Repul)lic for the 5,000,000 dollars claimed on the same ground ; and a similar offer can be made to the holders of Paraguayan bonds in England if they will accept land at two dollars (or 8s'.) a cuadra (an area of four acres) in payment of that unhallowed loan for 1,500,000, of which only £400,000 at the utmost ever reached this unfortunate country. Three - fourths of the land of Paraguay (about 5,000,000 cuadras) belong to the State and are at the disposal of the Government of the Republic. Of these, 1,700,000 would cover both the damages due to Brazil and the Argentine, as well as the English debt. As to the war expenses to be paid to Brazil and the Plate Republics, it would be idle to speak of them now or ever afterwards. What the English bondholders would do with Para- guayan land, even if it were offered at a farthing, it is 358 SOUTH AMERICA. difficult to say ; but if Brazil and the Argentine find it available, or would, at least, rather have it than nothing, there is no reason why our countrymen should hesi- tate about the same Hobson's alternative. Paraguayan land is worth nothing without labour ; with labour it might have incalculable value. Could the bondholders, or some intelligent speculator buying up their claims, organize an immigration and colonization which should create here a new people, and supply the colonists with cattle, and seeds, and implements, and temporary habit- ations, Paraguay would probably have as bright a future as any other South American region. It might seem like throwing good money after bad, it is true ; but that money was originally what the Italians call '^farina del Diavolo," doomed to " go all to bran." Not a few of the English creditors may be charitably believed to have bought Paraguayan bonds out of sympathy with a nation prostrated by the most dire calamities, and from a generous impulse to help it to the best of their abilities. These will, perhaps, gladly resign themselves to their losses, or join in any scheme which may benefit this country and all them that trade with it, and at the same time enable them to obtain some return for their money. Were it so Paraguay would perhaps be the first country in the world of whom it might be said that she was irreparably bankrupt, had she not been saved by her debts. BRAZIL. 359 CHAPTER XVII. BRAZIL. Spanish and Portuguese America — Republican and Imperial America — Spanish and Portuguese Character in the Mother Country — Its Development in the Colonies — Eesults of Emancipation — Geo- graphical Position of Brazil — ]\[ountains and Ptivers — Survey of the Land — River Steam ^Navigation — Railways — Obstacles to the Furtherance of Public "Works — Impracticable Undertakings — Jealousy of Foreign Engineers — Brazilian Finances — Public Debt — Army and N'avy — Trade — Mines — Coffee in the Ascendant — Decline of Sugar and Cotton — The Labour Question — Statistics of the Population — White and Coloured Races — State and Prospects of Negro Slavery — Labour by Free Negro and other Coloured Races — European Immigrants — Portuguese — German and other Colonies — Obstacles to Colonization — The Climate — Mutual Dissatisfaction of Natives and Aliens — Statistics of Aliens — Brazilians must do their own Work — Beauties of the Country — Rio Janeiro — Its Bay — Its Environs — Danger to the Empire from its Vastness — From its Ultra-democratic Institutions — Popularity of the Emperor — His Detractors. Rio Janeiro, June 21. "When Pope Alexander VI., in his capacity as Moderator and Arbiter among all earthly Potentates, undertook to carve and divide the realms of the New World between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, he hardly perhaps flattered himself that the two emulous nations would long abide 360 SOUTH AMERICA. by the terms of his partition. Yet the boundary line, in South America at least, is still, in the main, what it was meant to be. The original discoverers and conquerors still share the land between them. The Portuguese Empire very nearly balances all the eight Spanish Republics put together. The area of Brazil extends over more than three-sevenths of the vast continent. With the exception of Chili, it reaches the frontiers of all these democratic States, as well as those of the three European colonies, English, Dutch, and Erench Guiana. Brazil has a sea- coast line of 4000 miles, and from the sea at Pernambuco to the foot of the Andes, on the Peruvian frontier, its greatest width is 2600 miles. It is divided into 20 provinces, one of which, Matto Grosso, not quite the bio;o;est, is ten times the size of Enojland. The Amazon and its tributaries, within Brazilian territory, are navig- able for 24,500 miles, so are also the Upper Parana and Paraguay, which have their sources in the Empire, thousands of miles above their confluence at Corrientes ; and so likewise the San Erancisco, the Cacoheira, the Parahyba, and a hundred others flowing from the Brazilian sierras into the Atlantic. With all these advantages of mere bulk, however, Brazil, like most other Transatlantic States, is little better than a formless, unwieldy mass. Its boundaries are imperfectly defined ; large tracts of its territory are mere swamps and forests, unexplored and impervious, BRAZIL. 361 some of them the hunting-grounds of untamed, hostile Indian tribes. There are no other great cities than the seaports. Eailway communication, much as it has ah-eady achieved, has still measureless distances to contend with. From the capital to some of the towns in inland provinces, as to Cuyaba, in Matto Grosso, or Tabatinga, in Amazonas, the only intercourse is by water, along the sea-coast and up navigable rivers — a roundabout voyage of 4000 miles to either place. Heavily weighted as it may be by these material obstacles, Brazil is nevertheless considerably more ad- vanced in the race of civilization than any of the Spanish Republics. Its population (about 12,000,000 souls) is nearly as numerous as that of all those States collectively ; its revenue (£12,000,000 in 1873) is as large; its trade (£21,000,000 exports in the same year) as extensive; and, although the Paraguayan war of 1865-70 added £39,000,000 to the National Debt, the country shows no grave symptoms of declining prosperity, and its credit stands as high on the European Exchanges as that of some of the most respectable States in Europe itself. We shall not have to go far for an explanation of this contrast between the conditions of Spanish and Portuguese America. In the first j)lace, South American colonies were founded by cognate, but by no means homogeneous nations. The Iberian Peninsula, though geographically one country, only at short and rare intervals constituted 362 SOUTH AMERICA. a political unit. Both in mediaeval and modern times it was split into two separate rival States, speaking distinct though kindred idioms, developing peculiar characters, pursuing divergent and often conflicting interests. Equally heroic and chivalrous in their military and naval exploits, they acted on difi"erent instincts. The Spaniard, with perhaps greater energies, showed a more violent, turbulent disposition. He ventured more rashly into political experiments ; fell more headlong from the excesses of bigoted loyalty into the extremes of rebelliousness ; the alternative was for him between loathsome tyranny and mad anarchy ; the tutelar saints, who obtained for him all earthly blessings, failed to secure the greatest — a good Government. The Portuguese, though perhaps equally vain-glorious, was at all times less venturesome, cooler, more practical. The peculiarities which determined the destinies of the two rnces in the Peninsula equally influenced the course of their settlements on the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific. The Spanish Colonies, abandoned to themselves at the beginning of this century, when the mother country lay prostrate under the heel of the First Napoleon, had no sooner aspired to independence than they achieved it ; and the arms which they seized in the struggle were scarcely as much used in resistance to exhausted Spain as in feuds which soon arose among themselves, and which were perpetuated for many years BRAZIL. 363 after complete emancipation. The Spanish Colonies, upon emerging from despotism, were bewildered by crude notions of French democracy and American federalism. They tried every form of unity and union ; crowded the western hemisphere with *' Lone Stars" and " Clusters of Stars," and entered into endless political combinations in which they found no permanent rest. Portugal, on the other hand, from the beginning of those same troubles, found herself under the influence of England, and learnt abhorrence of lawless republicanism and reverence for settled representative institutions. Driven from Lisbon, the House of Braganza came to Rio Janeiro for a refuge ; and Brazil (like Sicily when Naples was invaded and the Bourbons fled to Palermo) remained faithful to its dynasty and to the monarchical principle, modified by some rudiments of English self-government. After the liberation of Portugal, the parts between that kingdom and its great colony were reversed. Brazil became the sovereign State, and Portugal the dependency ; till a separation between the two countries was found advisable, and was efiected with little disturbance as a mere dynastic compromise, leaving behind no greater rancour or estrangement between the severed people than is usually experienced in any case of a similar operation. The premature yearnings for independence previous to the great crisis, and the subsequent attempts at secession never assumed in Brazil a general character, and were 364 SOUTH AMERICA. suppressed after a prolonged, but not very violent contest ; and in the wars of the Argentine Republic and Uruguay, Brazil merely took the field as the champion of one party against the other, showed little warmth in the quarrel, and withdrew from it as soon as circumstances allowed. Up to the time of the Paraguayan war, in short, Brazil belonged to the category of those happy communities of which "the annals are silent." The short reia:n of the Emperor Pedro I. — 1822-1831 — and the nine years' regency elapsing between his abdication and the coming of age of his son, Pedro 11. , in 1840, passed off in the best order ; and whatever aspirations might exist among a few ultra-democratic politicians, the mass of the people seemed to know that they were well off, and showed little inclination to " better themselves." The Brazilians would, indeed, have little reasoQ to be dissatisfied with their own lot. No empire of the size of Brazil (3,287,964, or by other accounts 5,053,240 square miles, constituting 1-1 5th part of the land surface of the globe) could boast of a more magnificent geographical position. Separated in the west from the arduous chain of the Andes, Brazil does not, like the Argentine Republic;, slope down into an uninterrupted monotonous plain, but rises in its central part into a high plateau or tableland, crossed by a cluster of mountains, where, on the north, are the sources of some of the great tributaries of the BRAZIL. 3G5 Amazon ; on tlie east, those of many streams flowing into the Atlantic ; and on the south, those of the Paraguay, Parana, and Uruguay mixing their waters in the great estuary of the Plate. The three main chains of this central plateau, the Sierra do Mar, or maritime chain, the Sierra da Mantiqueira or do Espina^o, the backbone of Brazil, and the Sierra dos Vertentes, or of the water- sheds, all known under a multitude of names in various localities, are nearly parallel, and run all across the country from north to south, intersected in every direction by transversal chains, forming with them a mountainous labyrinth which has not yet been satisfactorily surveyed or mapped out. The central or backbone chain is the highest, the summits of the Itaiaia rising, it is said, more than 10,000ft. above the sea level. That of the water- sheds is much lower ; and through it, it is thought, it may not be difficult to establish a canal or railway communication between the two great river systems of the Amazon and the Plate ; as it would be equally j)racticable, further north, to open a water or iron way from the tributaries of the Amazon to those of the Orinoco. The empire, politically divided, as we have seen, into 20 provinces, consists thus, geographically, of three distinct regions — the mountain cluster in the centre ; the valley of the Amazon in the north, from where the great river crosses the Peruvian frontier at Tabatino'a to its 366 SOUTH AMERICA. mouth ; and in the south the valleys of the Paraguay, the Parana, and the Uruguay, down to the boundaries of the Plate Republics. The great bulk of the country lies within the torrid zone from 5 deg. north of the equator to 33 deg. of south latitude. The capital, Rio Janeiro, is just within the southern tropic. The climate is, therefore, tropical or semi-tropical : hot, moist and unhealthy in its lower reo;ions. but not unfit for the habitation even of white men in the southern provinces, and in the high mountains throughout the country. It would be idle to enumerate the multitude and variety of the products of Brazil, or even to inquire what the empire does not or could not be made to produce. All the most precious stones, the most valuable metals and useful minerals, all the finest woods are found here. Cofi'ee, sugar, tobacco, and cotton have been by turns and may still become staple commodities. All tropical fruits, medicinal and other plants either grow spontane- ously or may be successfully cultivated. Nothing of what the tropics yield is stinted; and all the fruits, herbs, and roots of the temperate zone thrive in extensive tracts throughout the country. Even in Brazil, however, man can only live by the sweat of his brow, and the question most urgently press- ina: for solution here as throughout all America is what men or race of men are to do the work — the hard work — of the community ; whether men are to till the earth, BRAZIL. 367 and turn it to the purposes of civilization, or abandon it wholly or partly to the hunter and grazier. In answer to this question the ruling race — the white Creole, or native Brazilian race, and the Portuguese and other European settlers among them — begin by laudable endeavours to obtain a full knowledge of their country, exploring by land and water its remotest and most recondite regions, and establishing such means of com- munication as may bring together people whom nature seemed to have put hopelessly asunder. From the time when the heroic Orellana, crossing the Andes of Ecuador, forced his way down the cataracts of the Rio Napo into the waters of the Amazon, and paddled his canoe along that broad stream to its mouth, in 1539, few attempts had been made to explore Brazilian rivers, till very recently the Brazilian Government commissioned some of its Engineer and Staff officers to survey the country with a view to establish the navigation of the great rivers and their tributaries, and eventually to join them at their sources by canals or railways. In this official task the Brazilians were aided by European travellers and scientific men, among whom Hazfeldt, two Kellers, Agassiz, Vignolles, Marcoy, Lloyd, and Smith distin- guished themselves. The result is that of the 28 steam navigation companies, native and foreign, now plying in Brazilian waters, some with a subvention from the Government, a good number carry on the river trade. 368 SOUTH AMERICA. There is an English Amazon Company, which, besides following the course of the main stream up to Tabatinga, on the frontier of Peru, a distance of 1800 miles, ascends some of its greatest tributaries, employing four steamers on the Madeira, four on the Purus, and two on the Negro ; and these travelled last year along a line, collec- tively, of 2746 miles in length, touched at 120 stations, and conveyed 13,976 passengers and 20,000 tons of merchandise. The same service is performed by various companies on other tributaries of the same Amazon, and again on the San Francisco and other streams flowing into the Atlantic ; and, finally, from Montevideo, on the Plate, the Parana, and the Paraguay, up to Cuyabk in Matto Grosso. With respect to railways there were in 1867 only six lines running over 427 kilometres. In 1872, the lines had increased to 15, with 1026 kilometres; in 1876, to 22 lines, with 1660 kilometres, and there are now, in 1880, 31 lines, with 3059 kilometres in traffic and 1910 kilometres in progress of construction, altogether 4969 kilometres. The most conspicuous works have hitherto been made in lines stretching out in every direction round Rio Janeiro, on both sides of the bay, to San Paulo and Santos, to Leopoldina, &c., with many branches to other localities, a very respectable net of 2547 kilometres, and very profitable, yielding dividends of 13 to 20 per cent., though in some cases involving an BRAZIL. 3G9 expense of construction of £20,000 to i30,000 a mile, as it was carried across arduous passes of the Sierra do Mar, Minas Geraes, and other mountainous regions, partly by Government, partly by private companies, with a guaranteed interest of 7 per cent. ; the whole involving an outlay of £22,000,000 to the State before 1877, with other considerable sums added at subsequent dates. The success of these railways round the capital is especially due to the conveyance of coffee, the main produce of these districts. The result in some of the remote provinces has not always been equally satisfactory. It must be observed that Brazil is only nominally a Monarchical State. The 20 provinces into which the empire is divided are organ- ized on the general principles of American federation, with nearly as little cohesion among themselves as the provinces of the Argentine Republic or the States of Colombia. Local affairs are here in the hands of provincial and municipal assemblies, whose only con- necting link with the Central or Executive Power is the " President " or Governor appointed by the Emperor or his Ministers. In their furtherance of public works, as in the case of railways, these autonomous bodies are naturally apt to consult what they consider their own advantage, with little regard to any neighbouring interests with which it may clash ; and they are equally reckless of any disproportion between any object they have in B B 370 SOUTH AMERICA. view and the means they may require for its attainment. Provincial railway lines have thus been started in almost every part of the empire, most of which have gone little beyond the stage of mere projects, and others, even when carried to completion, have turned out very bad speculations. The 125 kilometres from Bahia, for instance, and the 124 kilometres from Pernambuco, both intended to reach some point on the navigable course of the Rio San Francisco, have never paid, and will probably never pay, working expenses. Railways in Brazil have to cross large tracts of absolute desert. They can have little reliance on passenger traffic, and the freights are only remunerative in districts highly productive of the staple goods of the country. Very few of them drive as good a trade as the tramways of Rio Janeiro, the various companies of which carry 40,000,000 passengers yearly out of a population of about 400,000 souls. The Imperial Government which in the distress caused by the Paraguayan war had somewhat slackened its activity in railway enterprise, and allowed the provinces in that respect greater freedom than is assigned to them by the Constitution, has now come to the aid of local undertakings, and offers the various provincial lines whatever subvention it can afford, subject however to the exercise on its part of stronger control, both over construction and management. A better understanding between the central and the local powers may eventually BRAZIL. 371 speed the work ; but rulers and speculators in tliese new countries are too often tempted by the vastness and grandeur of an enterprise, concerning themselves but little about its practicability. They do not sufficiently consider that a work which might prove highly remuner- ative when completed may cause unprofitable outlay while it is only in progress. Brazil has been for some time and is still wasting its resources in schemes that admit of no prompt realization. The attempt to turn to good purpose the navigation of the San Francisco by railways from Bahia and Pernambuco has led, as we have seen, to signal failures; and the same results may be expected to attend the eftbrts to prolong existing lines to the frontiers of Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. These gigantic undertakings, 700 to 1000 kilometres in length each of them, which come under the ominous appellation of " strategical and commercial railways," would, it is said, reduce to five, 10, or 12 days journeys which can now hardly be achieved in as many weeks. But the mere survey of these lines has been or must be a costly business ; and little w^ould be gained were even these railways to be carried on as far as those of the Oroya, of Puno and Cuzco, in Peru, which, after bringing that unfortunate Republic to the brink of ruin, will have to be abandoned, the impossibility of completing them or working them in their unfinished state being equally demonstrated. li 15 2 372 SOUTH AMERICA. Independently of the magnitude of the public works of Brazil, and of the high cost at which capital must be procured for their furtherance, severe losses have also been incurred owiug to the inexperience and presumption of the native engineers, to whom the Government, from wrong view^s of patriotism and jealousy of aliens, in- trusts all execution and management. Witness the great reservoir at Pedregulho, near Kio Janeiro, a colossal w^ork, intended to contain 80,000 cubic metres of water for the much-needed town supply, which, as I was assured by competent persons, after four years' labour, and an outlay of £2,000,000, is now^, in its unfinished state, cracking and giving w^ay in every direction, from the treacherous nature of the soil and the clumsy w-eight of the structure ; so that, after a first partial experiment, which caused an alarming leak, all attempts to fill it with water had to be indefinitely adjourned and a commission appointed ; the whole of Eio Janeiro being convulsed with fear of a collapse of the whole fabric — a fear which even the presence of the Emperor, who paid a two hours' visit to the spot w^ien I w^as there, and all the assurances of his flattering, though blundering, engineers, had no power to allay. In the expectation of the results that roads, railroads, and such w^orks may have on the development of public welfare, Brazil, like other South American States, seems to have proceeded with little consideration of the condition BRAZIL. 373 of its finances. The revenue of the empire, which had again and again been doubled at every period of ten years, and was reckoned in round numbers at £12,000,000 in 1873, has since that year proved insufficient for the expenditure ; and, notwithstanding the efforts of various Ministers to keep up a fictitious balance, public accounts have closed with annual deficits, exceeding £2,000,000. The consequence has been a serious aggravation of the debt, which amounted to £72,000,000 in 1876, but which subsequent loans have raised to something like £80,000,000; and to the emission of Treasury Bonds, for which the Government accepted payment in paper, while it bound itself to pay CJ per cent, interest in gold. The annual charge of the debt, probably exceeding £3,000,000, and at least as large a sum applied to the Army and Navy Departments, absorb thus more than half the revenue, another fourth of which is devoted either to the construction of railways or to the guarantee of their interest at 7 per cent, yearly. It has been urged, and it will be readily granted, that Brazil is a rich country ; that it has a world of wealth in its soil and climate, in its underground trea- sures, in its immense agricultural resources, " only one 15 0th of which have as yet been developed, or even revealed; " that " maize yields from 150 to 400 fold, rice as much as 1000 fold, wheat from 30 to 70 fold ; " that " an acre of cotton is found to give four times as much 374 SOUTH AMERICA. as in the United Sta.tes ; " that " an able-bodied man can easily cultivate 2000 coffee trees, on an area of five acres, which will give him an average crop of 60001b. of coffee, worth about £80," &c. But the question is not what the country might be made to yield, but what it actually does yield ; and it will hardly be denied that Brazilian trade has for these last ten years shown little elasticity, and its exports, if there has been no falling-off, have not exceeded the sum of £21,000,000, which they attained in 1873 — a trade barely as important as that of Cuba, which exported to the amount of £20,000,000 in sugar alone at the time of my visit to that island in that same year, 1873. Those wonders of the gold and diamond fields of Minas Geraes, which yielded so many millions during the last century, and part of the present, which " enabled an extravagant Governor at Ouro Preto to shoe his horses with gold in solemn religious processions," which "enriched the reigning dynasty with £3,000,000 worth of diamonds, and set on the Portuguese and Brazilian diadems those two famous jewels, the Southern Star and the Abacete, rivalling the glories of the Koh-i-Noor," are in a great measure things of the past. Hardly 1000 men are now at work in those diggings which formerly employed 80,000, and the outcome of their labours does not go for much among the items of the Budget. A few foreign companies, chiefiy English, however, have taken BRAZIL. 375 up the abandoned shafts, and are now working the mines of Morro Velho, Pary, and other localities, from which they extract gold^ to the yearly amount of £280,000 to £300,000. The only produce which gives fair returns, on which the country depends for half its income, is coffee, the average yearly exportation of which, between 1865 and 1870, is said to have been 164,114 tons, of the value of £10,190,000. Coffee is king in Brazil, and threatens to absorb all the productive powers of the empire, to the great dismay of those prudent economists who declaim against the folly of " carrying all their eggs in one basket," There are, it is said, 530,000,000 coffee plants in the empire, covering 1,500,000 acres, to which large additions are made year by year; the annual crop is 260,000 tons, of which 50,000 are for home consumption. And yet, though " Brazilian coffee makes up about one- half of the quantity of coffee produced in the whole world," though its excellence has been recognized at the Vienna and Philadelphia Exhibitions, and rewarded with gold medals and mention honorable, it seems to be held of so little account in the markets that, to insure a sale, it has to be labelled as Java, Porto Pico, Ceylon, or Mocha produce. There is room for improvement in this branch of production in Brazil, and it also admits of further extension ; but, although coffee can be planted almost throughout the territory of the empire, I was assured at 376 SOUTH AMERICA. the well-known fazenda, or estate, of Barou Faro, of Rio Bonito, near Barra do Piraliy (a model establisliment, yielding, with two adjoining estates, 2,300,0001b. of coffee, an annual income of £60,000), that the coffee crops above the latitude of Rio Janeiro are liable to be withered by droughts, while below the latitude of San Paulo they are often nipped by frost, the most favourable soil and climate beinsf found in the northern districts of San Paulo, where the income to be made by coffee is higher by one- third than what the Baron himself can raise out of his own model farm. Nearly all other branches of agricultural industry in Brazil are on the decline. Sugar, though still doing tolerably well, has lost the first rank it once held among staple commodities ; its exports are valued at £2,080,000 yearly. Cotton, which owed its rapid growth to the civil war in the United States, suffered an equally swift downfall at its termination, and has sunk to £3,670,000 a year. Indiarubber gives the country a yearly revenue of £1,150,000; Mate, or Paraguay tea, £410,000. Tobacco only figures among the exports for £800,000, thoug;h Bahia cigars are in some demand at Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. Brazil owns, it is said, 20,000,000 horned cattle, and exports hides of the annual value of £1,400,000. The remainder of the exports is made up by "sundries" to the amount of £1,000,000. Among the various customers dealing with the empire, England BRAZIL. ^11 holds the first rank, as it sends in 30 per cent, of the imported goods and takes away 25 per cent, of the exports. The United States, however, make larger purchases, 35 per cent., but only sell 5 per cent. ; French trade — 19 per cent, imports, 13 per cent, exports — is said to be on the increase, owing especially to the great consumption of wine ; for both in this country and throughout South America, in spite of some partial success in Peru and Chili, the cultivation of the vine will probably never be very extensive, and the New AVorld will always in this respect be tributary to the Old. The other customers of Brazil are the Republics of the Plate, and Portugal, Belgium, Germany, &c., coming in, collectively, for 32 per cent, imports and 17 per cent, exports. It must be evident, however, that the present or future well-being of Brazil, like that of other South American communities, reduces itself to a mere question of labour. By such meagre accounts as we have, the population in 1872 was only a little above ten millions, and had not increased by more than two-and-a-half millions since 1856. It may now be presumed to be about 12 millions. Of these, a little less than four millions were, at the last census, numbered as " Cauca- sians," or pure whites ; two millions were " Africans," or negroes ; 400,000 " Americans," or tame Indians ; and four millions of mixed blood, mulattoes or mestizos. 378 SOUTH AMERICA. Besides these, there were the wild Indian tribes, vaguely estimated at 200,000, 400,000, or even one million. All this, however, is mere guesswork, and it is extremely likely that the number of the pure whites was overrated, and that of the dark or blended complexions far exceeded the official statement. The important point is that of the two millions of Africans or of their offspring one million and a half were slaves, and nearly all the hard work of the country fell to their lot. By the law of September, 1871, which emancipated all unborn children, and by other charitable measures, the number of slaves, according to Ministerial reports, is now reduced to 1,119,168, and it is understood that before the end of this century there must be an end of all slavery, the living generation of bondsmen either dying off or being gradually enfranchised. Eager abolitionists, however, loudly charge the Government with prevarication on this subject. They contend that the number of slaves has increased rather than diminished ; they complain of the " illegal reduction to slavery of freed and free blacks, of the sale of freeborn children of slave mothers, and of the unchecked traffic of Indian children on the Amazon," &c. And they conclude, " As the case now stands, gradual emancipation is a failure and a fraud." I must leave the Brazilian Government to clear itself from this imputation of bad faith as it can. I have never been blind to the difficulties besetting this question BRAZIL. 379 wherever it arises. The abolition of slavery has been imposed on all Christian States upon principles which admit of no discussion. But it was a fatal necessity, and wherever it was sudden, general and simultaneous, it has entailed grave calamitous consequences. The Brazilians, taught by the example of other nations, hoped to break, as it were, the fall of their slave system by going to work deliberately and gradually. But they are greatly mis- taken if they hope to " put off the evil day " by the evasion of their own laws, and the tolerance of an underhand traffic. There has been of late an active transfer and barter of slaves, bringjino: a laro-e number of them to localities where slave or negro labour seemed least required. The greatest number are now in the provinces of Rio Janeiro, Bahia, Minas Geraes, and San Paulo, where many are employed in domestic service ; and — be it well known to all it may concern — there are frequent cases in which German and English subjects purchase and hold slaves in defiance of the laws of their respective countries. All this, however, will avail little. Slavery is doomed ; and Brazil, by tampering with what she has established as right, will only eventually have to yield to might. The Negrophiles, both in and out of the country, will not long be put off with mere shams. If we take it for granted that within 20 years at the utmost the work of emancipation must be completed, it becomes interesting to inquire to what extent such a 380 SOUTH AMERICA. measure may influence either the well-being of the slaves themselves or the general productive power of the land. Judging from such precedents as we have in the West Indies or in the United States, one would say that the negro is not a man to work as cheerfully or as efficiently from choice as he is apt to do on compulsion, or even to take as much care of himself, of his home and family in a state of freedom as he does in the keeping of a humane and provident master. The Brazilians have decreed that the rising generation of freedmen should be fitted for the condition to which they are called by a long apprentice- ship, and by an education which they must receive either at the hands of their masters or at the expense of the State. But the question is whether it will be pos- sible, mentally or morally, to " wash the negro white ; " to bring him by any amount of schooling to do as much work, and precisely of that kind of work as he performed under the dread of the overseer's whip ; whether any persuasion will win his consent to that condition of mere drudge of the community for which it was taken for granted that he was naturally intended. The emanci- pated negro, like the Indian, the mulatto, and the mestizo, will stand on the white man's birthright to do just as much work as will supply his own immediate wants, and it will only be in rare individual cases that his requirements will act as a stimulus to very earnest and sustained exertion. Considerations for his employer s BRAZIL. 381 interests or for those of tlie State, aud even the hope of " bettering himself," will hardly counterbalance the instinct which prompts him, as it prompts the Neapolitan or Sevilian, to enjoy his leisure as the greatest charm of existence. The mere fact that the majority of coloured freedmen have flocked to the cities and looked for domestic service may be taken as an earnest of w^hat wdll become of sugar, cotton, and other plantations when the whole slave race has ceased to exist. It is supposed, indeed, that cofl'ee may thrive in the hands of white labourers ; but at the above-mentioned estate of Eio Bonito, where slave labour is carried on with equal regard to economy and humanity, there is a firm conviction that the full enforcement of the law of 1871 must be a deathblow to their industry. And again, other planters, aware that the days of slavery are numbered, work their land to utter exhaustion, anxious to get as much profit out of it as they can with their slaves, and convinced that with final abolition their property will have to be abandoned as valueless. This, as we may remember, is what happened in Virginia before the civil w^ar; and here, as there, the price of slaves has risen with every step the country has made towards abolition. An able-bodied negro will fetch £200, and even £300, at the Brazilian slave markets. The Government here withholds the publication of all particulars respecting colour. We know very little as 382 SOUTH AMERICA. to the real number of negroes, Indians, mulattoes, or mestizos. We have no statement of the increase or diminution of any of these races, of their respective vitality, or reproductive powers. We are vaguely left to surmise that mortality is greater among the eman- cipated slaves than it was among the same people in a state of bondage ; that in the blending of races colour is apt to deepen ; and that the mixed race has little power of multiplication, unless it draws from the primitive sources at every new generation. Finally, that, although the mixed race, mulatto, quadroon, or octoroon may individually attain great beauty, and even develop rare intellectual faculties, it exhibits, in the mass, the bad rather than the good qualities of the parent stems, and on the lowest cunning and knavery of the White it engrafts the supine indolence and the stolid improvidence of the Black. Yet there is no doubt that this hybrid race constitutes at least three-fourths of the Brazilian nation, and that up to very recent times the country depended upon it for all its rough and dirty work. The Brazilians dwell, with good reason, on the fact, honourable to them, that they are entirely free from the ungenerous prejudice with which the people of the United States look upon their " niggers ; " and it is very true that here, in railway carriages or in tramway cars, you may see any day some baroness or viscountess, refulgent in all the snow-white BRAZIL. 383 and pink of the most perfect Caucasian complexion, seated near a hideous Ethiopian, without any apparent squeamishness, or mutual repulsion. We are told, indeed, that in good old white fcimilies the line is rigidly drawn against intermarriage ; but this can hardly be the rule among the lowest classes, where, marriage or no marriage, all seems cast together into a motley, mongrel community. To counteract this darkening tendency of the popula- tion, and also to fill up in the fields the places likely to be vacated by the slaves on their emancipation, the Brazilians have been for many years endeavouring to draw to their shores the tide of European emigration. The greatest influx of strangers is, of course, from Portugal. Up to the year 1820, in that kingdom and its great dependency of Brazil, there was but one people, and it was only after the erection of the colony into an empire that a Portuguese ceased to be as much at home at Rio Janeiro or Bahia as at OjDorto or Lisbon. Portuguese subjects now are here, of course, numbered as aliens, though so great is their number, and so rapid their domestication amongj their Brazilian brethren, that a distinction is not easily drawn. At the last census, when the white population were put down at 4,000,000, the Portuguese were said to number 121,246; but this did not include the multitude of those natives of Portugal who quietly settled in the country and merged into the Creole population. Of native Portuguese and of their 384 SOUTH AMERICA. offspring in the first generation there cannot be less than one million ; and though some of them, upon realizing a fortune, are apt to go back to their own country, and there "live as princes," under the denomination of Brazileros, there still remain enough of them in Brazil to make up by far the greatest mass of immigrants. Out of 58,000 commercial houses numbered in 1876 only 29,0()0 were Brazilians, w4iile 18,000 were put down as Portuguese, and COOO described as ''foreigners of other countries." At the celebration of the Camoens tercen- tenary, which has plunged this city into a fever of inces- sant revelry for three days and nights, Brazilians and Portuguese met and embraced as one and the same people ; the jealousy and estrangement, not to say down- right rancour, with wdiich the rapid fortunes frequently crowning the thrift and skill of the new-comers fill the hearts of the less enterprising old inhabitants, had a short period of respite and intermission. Camoens, like Shakespeare, had power to make readers across the ocean "kiss and be friends;" but the gushing of brotherly feeling was too impetuous to be lasting, the profession of goodwill too loud to be genuine. Independently of this mutual aversion, it must be remembered that Portugal is a small country, that it has not much population to spare, and that its people, except in the northern districts, are not remarkable for laborious energies. The Portuguese come to Brazil, because they BRAZIL. 385 hardly know where else they could do as well. They think they are here " the one-eyed men in the land of the blind," and under the stimulus of want, greed, or ambition they bestir themselves so as to become one of the most useful classes of the community. They, however, like the Italians in the Plate Kepublics, are dwellers in the cities ; bricklayers and carpenters, petty traders or artisans ; on the whole, not much available for agricultural or mining purposes : and the same may be said of the honest Gallegos, or natives of Galicia, who are hewers of wood and drawers of water in Portugal, as well as all over the Peninsula, and many of whom follow the stream of Portuguese immigrants into this New World, where their stout thews and sinews are of considerable value. These also seldom take to field work. It is, then, chiefly to northern men, to German, English, or Irish, that Brazil has most earnestly looked for the formation of agricultural colonies. Some of the settlements, and especially the German, have given in past years satisfactory results. In the southern provinces, and especially in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, &c., not only have the immigrants as husbandmen greatly added to the wealth of the country, but they have also taken to some branches of industry, as saddlers, coopers, tanners, &c. San Leopold©, the oldest of these colonies, dating from 1825, although sadly ravaged and almost rooted up by the long civil war in Rio Grande, survived c c i« 386 SOUTH AMERICA. its most calamitous times, and is still looked up to as a model settlement and tlie parent of many other settle- ments. The produce of its labour is valued at £1,000,000 annually. The same good accounts are given of other colonies, such as Leopoldina, New Petropolis, Blumenau, Itaiaia, Donna Francisca, &c. But, when all is said, it cannot be asserted that the colonizing experiment in Brazil has met with full success, and indeed both the Government and people are somewhat disgusted and disheartened at its results and prospects. Contracts for the importation of 40,000 more Germans and 100,000 English or Irish have been made, but as yet their fulfil- ment seems to have met with insurmountable obstacles. In the first place, available emigrants, especially Britons or Teutons, have a wide world to look to for a new home, and the inducement to give preference to Brazil is not great. There is something formidable in its torrid climate. Although its heat and its effects on the human frame have been greatly exaggerated, it would be vain to deny that at least in 13 of the 20 provinces of the empire no man of white race can work. Even in the seven southern provinces, even south of the capital, and outside the tropic, the heat is very enervating and dis- tressing. I have been inured to a high temperature all my life, and rather like it. Yet here am I now at Rio Janeiro in the heart of winter, and feel the heat more oppressive than I ever experienced it at Lima, or any- BRAZIL. 387 where else on the western coast, iu the heart of summer. People may console themselves with the reflection that the nights in Brazil at this season are cold ; but they should not forget that it is in the daytime men must work ; and it is no wonder if people born and brought up in this country find mere existence and keeping cool a sufficient occupation, looking for " help" to the natives of other lands, whatever may be their nationality or complexion. Besides this great physical objection, strangers coming here as colonists complain that the best lands in the only habitable situations were parcelled out among the early Portuofuese settlers in colonial times, and are now in the hands of their descendants, so that the Government has little better than bare rocks or swamps to ofter to new- comers, or sends them empty and hungry away to great distances and inconvenient latitudes in the interior, taking no thought about providing the colonies with roads or other means of intercourse and trade. Both the (•ouveyance and the management of the immigrants are also found fault with. The men appointed to administer tlie colonies are, if one listens to the colonists themselves, invested with too absolute a power, and apt as well as allowed to abuse it with full impunity. And the Govern- ment itself would seem to have felt that such charges are not wholly groundless, as it has provided that colonies upon a few years' good behaviour should be " emauci- c C 2 388 SOUTH AMERICA. pated " — i. e. allowed tlie benefit of self-government on the principles of the common municipal law of the empire. For their own part the Brazilians, like the Argentines and Uruguayans, have their own grievances to urge against the colonists, some of whom, they contend, are by roguish agents recruited out of the very scum of the European cities, the offscouring of goals and bagnios, physically too weak, morally too corrupt, and altogether too incorrigibly lazy, too mutinous and riotous, for any honourable employment, and especially for that field labour which would make them most valuable. In Brazil, as in all South America, as in Spain and Portugal, between the natives and the strangers settled among them, there is little love lost. No end of lip courtesy and hospitality to the passing traveller ; but he who lands with a view to permanent residence, who comes in quest of a fortune and achieves it, is the object of a general, incessant, dog-in-the-manger feeling, of the ungenerous as well as improvident envy of men too helpless to do any good for themselves and their country, too unjust and ungrateful to those aliens who labour for the common benefit of all. The truth of this assertion will, I know, be impugned in every community respecting which it is made ; but each of them, while striving to clear itself of the imputation, will liberally extend it to all its neighbours. To Brazilians, Argentines, and all South Americans (the Chilians, perhaps, excepted) a BRAZIL. 389 stranger is a " Gringo^,' an expression equivalent to that of " Giaour" amonor the Osmanlis. But, whatever raay be the causes, the effect is cer- tainly to bring to Brazil only a small number of emi- grants, inconsiderable if compared with the crowds that steamers almost weekly land on the shores of the Argentine and Uruguay, or even, before the war, of Peru and Chili. The accounts published by the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce of the immigrant popula- tion of last year (1879) tell us that only 22,189 were landed at Rio Janeiro during the twelvemonth, while again, 8806 left the same harbour for various destina- tions abroad. Of those who entered, 9677 were Italians, of whom 4948 went out again. The Portuguese were 8841, and most of them remained. The immiOTant Germans were 2022 ; the emiojrants of the same nation, 1653. There were, besides, 886 Spaniards, 264 French, 5] Eno;lish or British, 129 Russians — an insignificant muster if we compare Rio Janeiro with Buenos Ayres, where of Italians alone 1000 or 1500 land weekly, and about 90,000 yearly. And it must be borne in mind that of the Brazilians themselves a good number annually find their way into the adjoining Republics, especially into Uruguay and Paraguay, their number in the last- named State fully equalling that of the ubiquitous Italians. In 1869, when, as I said, the white population of Brazil was nearly four millions, the aliens were put 390 SOUTH AMERICA. down at 243,481, of whom 131,240 wer3 Portuguese. The remainder consisted of 45,829 Germans, 6108 French, &c. These numbers have undergone consider- able modification since that date. The Portus^uese, as we have seen, muster 1,000,000. The Italians, whose name ten years ago was hardly mentioned, count for 60,000 ; the Germans are probably more numerous. But the current which brought in people from the Vater- land has lost much of its intensity, and of the Russo- Germans who came hither from the Volga many have moved southward to the Argentine provinces, some have gone back to Europe, and those who remain are little in favour with the Brazilians and harbour no good will to them. Weary of looking for labour to the nations of Europe, Brazil is now laying her hopes on Asia ; and a deputation has for some time been in China to see on what plan a migration of labourers could be organized in that empire to people the waste lands of this. But, alas ! commis- sions from other American States to the same country and on the same errand have long been at work ; and, large as may be the supply, the Chinese hive can never yield its bees in numbers adequate to the demand. John Chinaman, besides, independently of some peculiarities of manners and morals which have made him obnoxious, is apt to have a predilection for city life and sedentary employment. He is wilful and tricksy ; resentful and BRAZIL. 391 treacherous upon provocation ; and when hard driven, he sets little value on other people's life or his own. In California, the West Indies, Peru, people are still debat- ing whether Chinese and Coolie immigration has been productive of greater good or evil ; Chili wisely abstained from the experiment. As to Brazil, it is hardly likely that the atrocities perpetrated on board Portuguese transport ships have been forgotten. Brazil and Portugal were the last citadel of the now doomed slave system ; and the Celestials, if even they consent to leave their homes, will hardly trust themselves to those traders who have achieved a sinister reputation as the most ruthless Negreros. But, after all, if the Brazilians fail in all attempts to bring in labour from abroad, why should they not look at home for it ? If slavery was a sin, it has wrought out its penance, and with abolition may come redemption. Time and necessity will dispel that prejudice which in slave-holding communities degraded labour by associating it with the idea of servitude ; they will do away with the fond notion that the old settlers have a right to own the land, and that it is the new-comers' duty to till it. Why should the Black alone, or the Bed or the Yellow, or the German and Irish dig and delve in America, while the free and independent Creole only looks on ? Are not these Creoles aware that of the immigrants themselves, and especially of the Italians, Portuguese, &c., the 392 SOUTH AMERICA. greatest number have left their homes out of invincible repugnance to field labour ? Will the peasant who has thrown down the spade in his father's field, and crossed the ocean with a vague hope of becoming a free citizen and a gentleman, take up that spade again at a slave- owner's bidding ? It will be long before agriculture is held in the estimation it deserves in the Old World itself ; but, in the New, to bring freemen back to the plough must be the work of a social progress amounting almost to a revolution. And yet we must come to this. The stream of emigration will not for ever flow, nor will available land always be had at discretion. American equality has too long been based on the degradation of alien races — of the Pariahs from Africa, Europe, or Asia, whom violence or want drove across the ocean. It is full time there should be an American people having all the elements of social existence in itself, supplying out of its own ranks as much the classes doomed to work as the classes privileged, in obedience to the immutable instincts of human nature, to enjoy the fruit of other people's work. Were Brazil at any time to look to its existing population for the development of its resources, it w^ould soon find that it has in itself, if not all the elements of greatness, at least all the requisites for happiness. Its coloured people will probably not do as much work as freedmen as they did in bondage. The whites will not BRAZIL. 393 be able to exert themselves to much purpose in the valley of the Amazon or in any of the lowlands of the northern provinces. But in Rio Grande, Santa Catarina, Minas Geraes, and other either southern or mountainous dis- tricts, where life is enjoyable, work — any kind of work — may be practicable. South and west of Kio Janeiro there is a territory as vast as all Europe, minus Russia and Turkey, almost as temperate, fully as productive. To have brought slavery back to these provinces, where it was unnecessary, was a backward step. It was, if not a crime, at least one of those fatal mistakes which will have to be repaired at any cost. But for this irksome question of labour, Brazil — the southern provinces of Brazil, at least — could take rank among the happiest human abodes. When you have seen Naples and the Tagus and the Bosphorus, you have still to cross the Atlantic for a view of Rio Janeiro. This bay is the very gate to a tropical paradise. There is nowhere so bold a coast, such a picturesque cluster of mountains, such a maze of inlets and outlets, headlands and islets, such a burst of glorious, all-pervading vegeta- tion. The city itself is mean enough — like Lima or Buenos Ayres, a mere chess-board of shabby, narrow streets, where it is equally difficult to move or breathe, with hardly a building or a monument claiming particular attention ; a busy, bustling, ill-smelling place, with all the discomfort of an old town unrelieved by any of the 394 SOUTH AMERICA. interest of an ancient capital. But the environs all round — the Botafogo Bay, the Vale of Larangerias, the heights of Tejuca, San Cristoval, Santa Teresa, and others, where the upper ten thousand of a population now fast approaching half a million have their detached or semi-detached villas, with grounds running up to the hill-crests — may well challenge comparison with any of the loveliest localities of either hemisphere. You are bidden to drive out to the Botanic Garden ; but the whole road, inland or along the water, is nothing but a continuous garden ; for every dwelling has its patch of land, its rank flower-bed, its tangled banana shrubbery, its dense bamboo grove. I thought I had become sufficiently familiar with tropical vegetation ; but surely nowhere have I seen palms shooting up so lofty and stately ; nowhere was the deep crimson of the Poinsett ia pulcherrima so dazzlingly vivid. Here, where the power of the sun is aided by the gushing of perpetual moisture, the soil puts forth its richest treasures with the least help from man. From the spontaneous growth of a primitive forest to the high-finished culture of an Imperial garden, the transition is scarcely perceptible. Human skill, which can do little without nature, can do nothing here to out-do her. Nor is the beauty circumscribed within the precincts traversed by the several lines and branches of metropolitan tramways. All along the Pedro H., San Paulo, and BRAZIL. 395 Loepoldina Railroads, the variety of landscape, the rich soil, the luxuriant verdure are still the same. I took the ferry across the 14 miles' width of the bay, from the Arsenal Pier to Maua. The train from Maua conveyed me 16 miles further, to Raiz da Serra, at the foot of the Organ Mountains. Hence I was driven for four hours up a zigzag ascent, rivalling the wonders of the Mount Cenis and Simplon roads, and reached Petropolis at the summit. Petropolis, 25 years ago a poor German colony, is now an Imperial summer residence, 2600 ft. above the bay, where the Court and diplomacy, and all who can, seek a refuge from the " Yellow Jack " ravaging the pent-up city. Here 1 had long rides and. drives, up the hills, down the glens of the charming mountain labyrinth, and a survey of its grand panoramas over land and water. Then, by a 60 miles of unrivalled road, in a coach drawn by teams of the smartest mules, I came down to Entre Rios, at the junction of some of the most important railway lines to the interior. The character of the country continues the same. Wherever a clearing has been made in the virgin forest, the coffee trees run up in verdant rows, the sugar-cane fills the hollow of the valley ; room is found here and there for a variety of other produce ; and only where the heights are too steep, or the forest only half cleared, the ground is abandoned to the browsing cattle. Here, in the district of Rio, in the territory of San Paulo, and 396 SOUTH AMERICA. in some strips of the provinces of Minas, Parana, Santa Catalina, and Espirito Santo, you have the kernel of the Brazilian Empire. The port of Rio Janeiro till lately monopolized half the commerce of the country. More recently the coffee trade has sought new outlets at Santos and Porto Alegre, in the south. Bahia, the former capital, is now doing less business than Pernambuco ; and both may soon be outdone by Para, in the north, near the delta of the Amazon, now the emporium for the export of sugar, cotton, indiarubber, ipecacuanha, and other produce of that vast remote region. Between the condition of the southern and maritime provinces and that of the unreclaimed inland territory the difference is so great as to constitute the main difficulty, if not the danger, of this colossal empire. The thriving districts clustering round Rio Janeiro and other ports complain that an undue proportion of the public burdens which weigh upon them are wasted in gigantic works undertaken on behalf of remote and savage regions, which will never, or not at least for many years, profit by them. On the other hand, the inland provinces murmur ao^ainst the nigQ-ardliness that grudores the funds necessary for the development of their wealth and the promotion of their interests. We have here in Brazil the same antagonism which sets Buenos Ayres against her sister provinces in the Argentine Republic, and which has now brought that confederacy to the verge of BRAZIL. 397 secession and civil war. In Brazil a separation between north and south, or even a disruption of the empire into several fragments, is almost universally looked forward to as an inevitable contingency, though it is expected that the dissolution may be adjourned to an indefinite future, and that it may eventually be accomplished by common agreement, and without an appeal to violence. Brazil is a monarchic State, and as such more amenable to the ideas of order and permanence. There is an Emperor on the throne, and most men are confident that *' the evil day " may be put off so long as he lives. Hardly any Sovereign now living is more universally or deservedly respected than Pedro 11. But even he is not quite a prophet in his own country, and some of his subjects are too familiar with him not to indulge in harmless sneers about his prodigious activity, his early- rising habits, his proficiency in many languages, and the courage with which, in his 55th year, he has undertaken to grapple simultaneously with all the difficulties of Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanscrit. They question whether Don Pedro's omniscience " goes beyond the depth of the Conversations Lexicon ; " they think him " vain, fussy, pedantic," and question " whether it be a Marcus Aurelius or only a James I. that they have on the throne." On the part of politicians of a certain order the charges against the Emperor are of a graver character. These complain that Dom Pedro, even while exaggerating 398 SOUTH AMERICA. the most advanced democratic principles, is too fond of personal rule, in the exercise of which he is countenanced by the terms of the Constitution, placing him not only at the head of the Executive, but also of a fourth power, the Pouvoir Moderateur, which enables him to " put a finger into every pie," and which in a recent instance induced him to dismiss the Prime Minister, Sinimbu, in spite of a large majority of the Chamber, the Emperor, as he dealt the blow, screening himself behind the authority of the Council of State, a mere consultative and irresponsible body, entirely consisting of his nomi- nees, and in Brazil, as in other countries, merely " a fifth wheel intended to clog and trammel the chariot of State." 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Cloth, 9s. *,* The remainder of Dickens's Works were not originally printed in Demy 8vo. B 2 20 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY DICKENS'S (CHARLES) -^O^VJt,— Continued. In Post Svo. LIBRARY EDITION. With the Original Illustrations, 30 vols., cloth, £12. PICKWICK PAPERS 43 lUustms., 2 vols. J. ci. 16 o NICHOLAS NICKLEBY MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT OLD CURIOSITY SHOP and REPRINTED BARNABY RUDGE and HARD TIMES.. BLEAK HOUSE LITTLE DORRIT DOMBEY AND SON DAVID COPPERFIELD OUR MUTUAL FRIEND SKETCHES BY " BOZ " PIECES 39 40 36 36 40 40 38 38 40 39 OLIVER TWIST 24 CHRISTMAS BOOKS \ TALE OF TWO CITIES GREAT EXPECTATIONS PICTURES FROM ITALY and AMERICAN UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND EDWIN DROOD and MISCELLANIES .. CHRISTMAS STORIES from " Household Words 17 16 NOTES 8 &c. S 12 14 2 vols. 2 vols. 2 vols. 2 vols. 2 vols. a vols, a vols. a vols. 2 vols. I vol. I vol. I vol. I vol. I vol. I vol. I vol. I vol. I vol. i5 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 I vol. THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. By John Forster. 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Uniform with this Edition, with Numerous Illustrations. 2 vols. 7s. CHAPMAN o- HALL, LIMITED, 193, PICCADILLY. 21 DICKENS'S (CHARLES) ^^OKYi'a-CoHtinued. THE ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION. Complete in 30 Volumes. Demy Svc, los. each ; or set, £ij. This Edition is printed on a finer paper and in a larger type tlian has been employed in any previous edition. The type has been cast especially for it, and the page is of a size to admit of the introduction of all the original illustrations. No such attractive issue has been made of the writings of Mr. Dickens, ■which, various as have been the forms of publication adapted to the demands of an ever widely-increasing popularity, have never yet been worthily presented in a really handsome library form. The collection comiDrises all the minor writings it was Mr. Dickens's wish to preserve. SKETCHES BY " BOZ." With 40 Illustrations by George Cruikshank. PICKWICK PAPERS. 2 vols. With 42 Illustrations by Phiz. OLIVER TWIST. 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The following Volumes are ready : SKETCHES BY "BOZ." PICKWICK. 2 vols. OLIVER TWIST. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 2 vols. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 2 vols. DOMBEY AND SON. 2 vols. DAVID COPPERFIELD. 2 vols. CHRISTMAS BOOKS. MUTUAL FRIEND. 2 vols. CHRISTMAS STORIES. BLEAK HOUSE. 2 vols. LITTLE DORRIT. 2 vols. OLD CURIOSITY SHOP And REPRINTED PIECES. 2 vols. BARNABY RUDGE. 2 vols. UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVEL- LER. GREAT EXPECTATIONS. TALE OF TWO CITIES, CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENG- LAND. EDWIN DROODAND MISCEL- LANIES. {In tJie press. PICTURES FROM ITALY And AMERICAN NOTES. [/« the press. The Cheapest and Handiest Edition of THE WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS. The Pocket Volume Edition of Charles Dickens's Works. In 30 vols., small f cap. 8vo, /,2 5?. 24 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LIBRARY OF CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE. The volumes in actual course of execution, or contemplated, will embrace such subjects as : HYGIENE. POLITICAL ECONOMY. PHYSICAL AND COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY. ARCHITECTURE. CHEMISTRY. EDUCATION. GENERAL ANATOMY. ZOOLOGY. 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R.)— SCHOOL PERSPECTIVE. 8vo, cloth, 5s. CHAPMAN &- HALL, LIMITED, 193, PICCADILLY. 27 DYCE— DRAWINCx-BOOK OF THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF DESIGN : ELEMENTARY OUTLINES OF ORNAMENT. 50 Plates. Small folio, sewed, 5s. ; mounted, i8s. INTRODUCTION TO DITTO. Fcap. 8vo, 6d. FOSTER [VERE)~ DRAWING-BOOKS : {a) Forty-two Numbers, at id. each. (/') Forty-six Numbers, at 3d. each. The set b includes the subjects in a. DRAWING-CARDS : Freehand Drawing : First Grade, Sets I., II., III., price is. each ; in cloth cases, IS. 6d. each. Second Grade, Set I., price 2s. ; in cloth case, 3s. HENSLO W [PROFESSOR]— ILLUSTRATIONS TO BE EMPLOYED IN THE PRACTICAL LESSONS ON BOTANY. Prepared for South Kensington Museum. Post 8vo, sewed, 6d. JACOBSTHAL (E.)— GRAMMATIK DER ORNAMENTE, in 7 Parts of 20 Plates each. Price, unmounted, £3 13s. 6d. ; mounted on cardboard, £11 4s. The Parts can be had separately. y£ WITT— HANDBOOK OF PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVE. i8mo, cloth, IS. 6d. KENNEDY (JOHN)- FIRST GRADE PRACTICAL GEOMETRY. i2mo, 6d. FREEHAND DRAWING-BOOK. i6mo, cloth, is. 6d. LINDLE Y [JOHN]- SYMMETRY OF VEGETATION : Principles to be observed in the delineation of Plants. i2mo, sewed, is. MARSHALL— HUMAN BODY. Text and Plates reduced from the large Diagrams. 2 vols., cloth, £x is. NEWTON (E. TULLE Y, F.G.S.)— THE TYPICAL PARTS IN THE SKELETONS OF A CA.T, DUCK, AND CODFISH, being a Catalogue with Comparative De- scriptions arranged in a Tabular Form. Demy 8vo, 3s. OLIVER (PROFESSOR)— ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 109 Plates. Oblong 8vo, cloth. Plain, i6s.; coloured, £1 6s. PUCKETT (R. CAMPBELL)— SCIOGRAPHY, OR RADIAL PROJECTION OF SHADOWS. Crown Svo, cloth, 6s. REDGRA VE— MANUAL AND CATECHISM ON COLOUR. Fifth Edition. 24mo, sewed, gd. ROBS ON {GEORGE)— ELEMENTARY BUILDING CONSTRUCTION. Oblong folio, sewed, 8s. WALLIS [GEORGE]- DRAWING-BOOK. Oblong, sewed, 3s. 6d.; mounted, 8s. 28 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY WORNUM {R. N.)— THE CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLES: An Intro- duction to the Study of the History of Ornamental Art. Royal Svo, cloth, 83. DIRECTIONS FOR INTRODUCING ELEMENTARY DRAWING IN SCHOOLS AND AMONG WORKMEN. Published at the Request of the Society of Arts. Small 4to, cloth, 4s. 6d. DRAWING FOR YOUNG CHILDREN. Containing 150 Copies. i6mo, cloth, 3s. 6d. EDUCATIONAL DIVISION OF SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM : CLASSIFIED CATALOGUE OF. Ninth Edition. Svo, 7s. ELEMENTARY DRAWING COPY-BOOKS, for the use of Children from four years old and upwards, in Schools and Families. Compiled by a Student certificated by the Science and Art Department as an Art Teacher. Seven Books in 4to, sewed : Book I. Letters, 8d. „ II. Ditto, 8d. ,, III. Geometrical and Ornamental Forms, 8d. Book IV. Objects, 8d. ,, V. Leaves, 8d. „ VI. Birds, Animals, &c., 8d. VII. Leaves, Flowers, and Sprays, 8d. %* Or in Sets of Seven Books, 4s. 6d. ENGINEER AND MACHINIST DRAWING-BOOK, i6 Parts, 71 Plates. Folio, £\ 12s. ; mounted, £^ 4s. PRINCIPLES OF DECORATIVE ART. Folio, seAved, is. DIAGRAM OF THE COLOURS OF THE SPECTRUM, with E.xplanatory Letterpress, on roller, ids. 6d. COPIES FOR OUTLINE DRAWING: DYCE'S ELEMENTARY OUTLINES OF ORNAMENT, 50 Selected Plates, mounted back and front, i8s. ; unmounted, sewed, 5s. WEITBRICHT'S OUTLINES OF ORNAMENT, reproduced by Herman, 12 Plates, mounted back and front, 8s. 6d.; unmounted, 2s. MORGHEN'S OUTLINES OF THE HUMAN FIGURE reproduced by Herman, 20 Plates, mounted back and front, 15s.; unmounted, 3s. 4d. ONE SET OF FOUR PLATES, Outlines of Tarsia, from Gruner, mounted, 3s. 6d.; unmounted, 7d. ALBERTOLLI'S FOLIAGE, one set of Four Plates, mounted, 3s. 6d.; unmounted, sd. OUTLINE OF TRAJAN FRIEZE, mounted, is. WALLIS'S DRAWING-BOOK, mounted, 8s.; unmounted, 3s. 6d. OUTLINE DRAWINGS OF FLOWERS, Eight Sheets, mounted, 3s. 6d.; un- mounted, 8d. COPIES FOR SHADED DRAWING: COURSE OF DESIGN. By Ch. B.^rgue (French), 20 Selected Sheets, 11 at 2s., and g at 3s. each. £i gs. ■ PART OF A PILASTER FROM THE ALTAR OF ST. BIAGIO AT PISA, mounted, ss. MOULDING OF SCULPTURED FOLI.^GE, decorated, mounted, is. 6d. ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES. By J. B. Triton. 10 Plates, ;^i. CHAPMAN &- HALL, LIMITED, 193, PICCADILLY. 29 COPIES FOR SHADED DRAWING— C<7«//««<-<^— MECHANICAL STUDIES. By J. B. Trii'on. 15s. per dozen. POLLUTED SCROLL FROM THE VATICAN, unmounted, sd.; mounted, i.-i. 3d. TWELVE HEADS after Holbein, selected from his drawings in Her Majesty's Collection at Windsor. Reproduced in Autotype. Half-imperial, 36s. LESSONS IN SEPI.V, gs. per dozen, or is. each. SMALL SEPIA DRAWING COPIES, gs. per dozen, or is. each. COLOURED EXAMPLES: A SMALL DIAGRAM OF COLOUR, mounted, is. 6d.; unmounted, gd. TWO PLATES OF ELEMENTARY DESIGN, unmounted, is.; mounted, 3s. gd. CAMELLIA, mounted, 3s. gd. ; unmounted, 2s. gd. TORRENI.V ASIATICA. Mounted, 3s. gd.; unmounted, 2s. gd. PYNE'S LANDSCAPES IN CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHY (6), each, mounted, 7s. 6d. ; or the set, £1 5s. COTMAN'S PENCIL LANDSCAPES (set of 9), mounted, 15s. SEPIA DRAWINGS (set of 5), mounted, £x. ALLONGE'S LANDSCAPES IN CHARCOAL (6), at 4s. each, or the set, £i 4s. 4017. BOUQUET OF FLOWERS, LARGE ROSES, &c., 4s. 6d. 4018. „ „ ROSES AND HEARTSEASE, 3s. 6d. 4020. „ „ POPPIES, &c., 3S. 6d. o3g. „ „ CHRYSANTHEMUMS, 4s. 6d. 4040. „ „ LARGE CAMELLIAS, 4s. 6d. 4077. „ „ LILAC AND GERANIUM, 3s. 6d. 4080. „ „ CAMELLIA AND ROSE, 3s. 6d. 4082. „ „ LARGE DAHLIAS, 4s. 6d. 4083. „ „ ROSES AND LILIES, 4s. 6d. 4ogo. „ „. ROSES AND .SWEET PEAS, 3s. 6d. 4094. „ „ LARGE ROSES AND HEARTSEASE, 4s. 4180. „ „ LARGE BOUQUET OF LILAC, 6s. 6d. 4igo. „ „ DAHLIAS AND FUCHSIAS, 6s. 6d. SOLID MODELS, &c. : *Box of ]\Iodels, .^i 4s. A Stand with a universal joint, to show the solid models, &c., ^i 18s. 'One wire quadrangle, with a circle and cross within it, and one straight wire. One solid cube. One skeleton wire cube. One sphere. One cone. One cylinder. One hexagonal prism. £,1 2s. Skeleton cube in wood, 3s. 6d. 18-inch skeleton cube in wood, 12s *Three objects oifonn in Pottery Indian Jar, \ Celadon Jar, > i8s. 6d. Bottle, j *Five selected Vases in Majolica Ware, £7. iis. 'Three selected Vases in Earthenware, i8s. Imperial Deal Frames, glazed, without sunk rings, los. each. ^Davidson's Smaller Solid Models, in Box, £2, containing — 2 Square Slabs. 9 Oblong Blocks (steps). 2 Cubes. 4 Square Blocks. Octagon Prism. Cylinder. Cone. Jointed Cross. Triangular Prism. Pyramid, Equilateral. Pyramid, Isosceles. Square Block. Davidson's Advanced Drawing Models, /g. — The following is a brief description of the models : — An Obelisk — composed of 2 Octagonal Slabs, 26 and 20 inches across, and each 3 inches high ; i Cube, 12 inches edge ; i Monolith (forming * Models, &c., entered as sets, cannot be supplied singly. 30 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY SOLID MODELS, Sec— Continued— the body of the obelisk), 3 feet high ; i Pyramid, 6 inches base ; the complete object is thus nearly 5 feet high. A Market Cross — composed of 3 Slabs, 24, 18, and 12 inches across, and each 3 inches high ; i Upright, 3 feet high ; 2 Cross Arms, united by mortise and tenon joints ; complete height, 3 feet 9 inches. A Step- Ladder, 23 inches high. A Kitchen Table, 1434 inches high. A Chair to corre- spond. A Four-legged Stool, with projecting top and cross rails, height 14 inches. A Tub, with handles and projecting hoops, and the divisions between the staves plainly marked. A strong Trestle, 18 inches high. A Hollow Cylinder, 9 inches in diameter, and 12 inches long, divided lengthwise. A Hollow Sphere, 9 inches in diameter, divided into semi-spheres, one of which is again divided into quarters ; the semi-sphere, when placed on the cylinder, gives the form and principles of shading a Dome, whilst one of the quarters placed on half the cylinder forms a Niche. *Davidson's Apparatus for Teaching Practical Geometry (22 models), ;^5._ *Binn's Models for illustrating the elementary principles of orthographic projection as applied to mechanical drawing, in bo.x, ;^i los. Miller's Class Drawing Models. — These Models are particularly adapted for teaching large classes ; the stand is very strong, and the universal joint will hold the Models in any position. Wood Models : Square Prism, 12 inches side, 18 inches high; Hexagonal Prism, 14 inches side, 18 inches high; Cube, 14 inches side; Cylinder, 13 inches diameter, 16 inches high ; Hexagon Pyramid, 14 inches diameter, 22^ inches side ; Square Pyramid, 14 inches side, 22% inches side ; Cone, 13 inches diameter, 22j-^ inches side ; Skeleton Cube, 19 inches solid wood 1% inch square; Intersecting Circles, 19/ inches solid wood 2% by 1% inches. JVire Models : Triangular Prism, 17 inches side, 22 inches high; Square Prism, 14 inches side, 20 inches high ; He.xagonal Prism, 16 inches diameter, 21 inches high ; Cylinder, 14 inches diameter, 21 inches high ; Hexagon Pyramid, 18 inches diameter, 24 inches high ; Square Pyramid, 17 inches side, 24 inches high ; Cone, 17 inches side, 24 inches high ; Skeleton Cube, ip inches side ; Intersecting Circles, 19 inches side ; Plain Circle, 19 inches side ; Plam Square, 19 inches side Table, 27 inches by 21% inches. Stand. The Set complete, £n 13s. Vulcanite set square, 5s. Large compasses with chalk-holder, 55. ■*Slip, two set squares and X square, 5s. *Parkes's case of instruments, containing 6-inch compasses with pen and pencil leg, 5s. *Prize instrument case, with 6-inch compasses, pen and pencil leg, 2 small compasses, pen and scale, iSs. 6-inch compasses with shifting pen and point, 4s. 6d. Small compass in case, is. LARGE DIAGRAMS. ASTRONOMICAL : TWELVE SHEETS. By John Drew, Ph. Dr., F.R.S.A. Prepared for the Com- mittee of Council on Education. Sheets, £2 8s. ; on rollers and varnished, £i 4s. BOTANICAL : NINE SHEETS. Illustrating a Practical Method of Teaching Botany. By Professor Henslow, F.L.S. £2 ; on rollers, and varnished, £i 3s. CLASS. DIVISION. SECTION. DIAGRAM. ( /"Thalamifloral .. .. i Dicotyledon . . . . Anglospermous . . ^y^^ ; ; ; - & 3 / V. Incomplete . . . . 5 (^ Gymnospermous . . . . _ 6 C Petaloid . . • ■ i Superior . . . . 7 Monocotyledons ..< (Inferior 8 (Glumaceous 9 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL NATURAL ORDERS OF THE Vegetable KINGDOM. By Professor Oliver, F.R.S., F.L.S. 70 Imperial sheets, containing examples of dried Plants, representing the different Orders. ;^5 5S. the set. Catalogue artd Index, it. ■" Models &c. entered as sets, cannot be supplied singly. CHAPMAN &■ HALL, LIMITED, 193, PICCADILLY. 31 BUILDING CONSTRUCTION: TEN SHEETS. By William J. Glenny, Professor of Drawing, King's College. In sets, £x IS. LAXTON'S EXAMPLES OF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION IN TWO DIVISIONS, containing 32 Imperial Plates, 20s. BUSBRIDGE'S DRAWINGS OF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION. 11 Sheets. 2S. gd. Mounted, 5s. 6d. GEOLOGICAL : DIAGRAM OF BRITISH STRATA. By H. W. Bristow, F.R.S., F.G.S. A Siieet, 4s. ; on roller and varnished, 7s. 6d. MECHANICAL : DIAGRAMS OF THE MECHANICAL POWERS, AND THEIR APPLI- CATIONS IN MACHINERY AND THE ARTS GENERALLY. By Dr. John Anderson. 8 Diagrams, highly coloured on stout paper, 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet 6 inches. Sheets ^i per set ; mounted on rollers, £2. DIAGRAMS OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. By Professor Goodeve and Professor Shelley. Stout paper, 40 inches by 27 inches, highly coloured. Sets of 41 Eiagrams (523^ Sheets), £6 6s.; varnished and mounted on rollers, ;^II IIS. MACHINE DETAILS. By Professor Unwin. 16 Coloured Diagrams. Sheets, £2 2S. ; mounted on rollers and varnished, £^ 14s. SELECTED EXAMPLES OF MACHINES, OF IRON AND WOOD (French). By Stanislas Pettit. 60 Sheets, £2 5s.; 13s. per dozen BUSBRIDGE'S DRAWINGS OF MACHINE CONSTRUCTION. 50 Sheets, iis. Mounted, 25s. LESSONS IN MECHANICAL DRAWING. By Stanislas Pettit. is. per dozen ; also larger Sheets, more advanced copies, 2s. per dozen. LESSONS IN ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING. By Stanislas Pettit. is. per dozen ; also larger Sheets, more advanced copies, 2S. per dozen. PHYSIOLOGICAL : ELEVEN SHEETS. Illustrating Human Physiology, Life size and Coloured from Nature. Prepared under the direction of John Marshall, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., &c. Each Sheet, 12s. 6d. On canvas and rollers, varnished, £i is. 1. THE SKELETON AND LIGAMENTS. 2. THE MUSCLES, JOINTS, AND ANIMAL MECHANICS. 3. THE VISCERA IN POSITION.— THE STRUCTURE OF THE LUNGS. 4. THE ORGANS OF CIRCULATION. 5. THE LYMPHATICS OR ABSORBENTS. 6 THE ORGANS OF DIGESTION. 7. THE BRAIN AND NERVES.— THE ORGANS OF THE VOICE. 8. THE ORGANS OF THE SENSES. 9. THE ORGANS OF THE SENSES. 10. THE MICROSCOPIC STRUCTURE OF THE TEXTURES AND ORGANS, 11. THE MICROSCOPIC STRUCTURE OF THE TEXTURES AND ORGANS. HUMAN BODY, LIFE SIZE. By John Marshall, F.R.S., F.R.C.S. Each Sheet, i2S. 6d. ; on canvas and rollers, varnished, £t is. Explanatory Key, is. 5. THE SKELETON, Side View. 6. THE MUSCLES, Side View. 7. THE FEMALE SKELETON, Front View. 1. THE SKELETON, Front View. 2. THE MUSCLES, Front View. 3. THE SKELETON, Back View. 4. THE MUSCLES, Back View. ZOOLOGICAL : TEN SHEETS. Illustrating the Classification of Animals. By Robert PATTtRSOif, £■2 ; on canvas and rollers, varnished, £-i los. The same, reduced in size on Royal paper, in 9 Sheets, uncoloured, 12s. 32 CHAPMAN &' HALL, LIMITED, 193, PICCADILL Y. THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. Edited by JOHN MORLEY. n^HE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW is published on the ist of every month (the issue on the 15th being suspended)^ and a Volume is completed every Six Months. The following are among the ConUibutors : — SIR RUTHERFORD ALCOCK. MATHEW ARNOLD. PROFESSOR BAIN. PROFESSOR BEESLY. DR. BRIDGES. HON. GEORGE C. BRODRICK. SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL, M.P. J. CHAMBERLAIN, M.P. PROFESSOR SIDNEY COLVIN. MONTAGUE COOKSON, Q.C. L. H. COURTNEY, M.P. G. H. DARWIN. F. W. FARRAR. PROFESSOR F.\WCETT, M.P. EDWARD A. FREEMAN. MRS. GARRET-ANDERSON. M. E. GRANT DUFF, M.P. THOMAS HARE. F. HARRISON. LORD HOUGHTON. PROFESSOR HUXLEY PROFESSOR JEVONS. EMILE DE LAVELEYE T. E. CLIFFE LESLIE. RIGHT HON. R. LOWE, M.P. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, M.P. LORD LYTTON. SIR H. S. MAINE. DR. MAUDSLEY. PROFESSOR MAX MULLER. PROFESSOR HENRY jNIORLEY. G. OSBORNE MORGAN, Q.C, M.P. WILLIAM MORRIS. F. W. NEWMAN. W. G. PALGRAVE. WALTER H. PATER. RT. HON. LYON PLAYFAIR, M.P. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. HERBERT SPENCER. HON. E. L. STANLEY. SIR J. FITZJAMES STEPHEN, Q.C. LESLIE STEPHEN. J. HUTCHISON STIRLING A. C. SWINBURNE. DR. VON SYBEL. J. A. SYMONDS. W. T. THORNTON. HON. LIONEL A. TOLLEMACHE. ANTHONY TROLLOPE. PROFESSOR TYNDALL. THE EDITOR. &c. &c. &c. The Fortnightly Review is published at 2s, 6il. CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED, 193, PICCADILLY. CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,] [crystal palace press. V GENERAL LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA— BERKELEY RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 25Feb5 33P 2o^ REC'D LE) APR 11 1957 • df H ^Pi IfFC'DlD MAFt29"1 -1PM0 7 LD 21-100m-l,'54(1887sl6)476 U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CmDT32E72 ^%H(o%9 r )''