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 CARPENTER'S NEW GEOGRAPHICAL READER 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 BY 
 FRANK G. CARPENTER, Litt.D., F.R.G.S. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 «< AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE CHILDREN" AND 
 
 "READERS ON COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY" 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 
 
 BOSTON ATLANTA 
 
 694G9
 
 BOOKS BY 
 FRANK G. CARPENTER 
 
 "Reading Carpenter Is Seeing the World" 
 
 UntroDuction to ©cograpbs 
 
 AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE CHILDREN 
 
 ©cograpblcal IReaDers 
 
 NORTH AMERICA 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 EUROPE 
 
 ASIA 
 
 AFRICA 
 
 AUSTRALIA AND ISLANDS OF THE SEA 
 
 IRca&ers on Commerce anJ) Hn&ustri? 
 
 HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 HOW THE WORLD IS CLOTHED 
 HOW THE WORLD IS HOUSED 
 
 Copyright, 1899, 1912, 1915, 1921, by 
 
 FRANK G. CARPENTER 
 
 E. p, 3
 
 1- 
 
 o o ' 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book is a revised edition of Carpenter's Geographical 
 Reader, "South America," which for many years has been 
 widely used in our schools. It is more than a revision, 
 however, for it is a new work based upon up-to-date in- 
 formation gathered by the author during a recent tour of 
 more than twenty-five thousand miles made by him in the 
 countries described. 
 
 During this tour Mr. Carpenter has kept the children 
 always in mind, and his story of their travels will, it is 
 beheved, bring them into a close personal relation with 
 their brothers and sisters of South America. It will give 
 them also a live working knowledge of the geography, re- 
 sources, and people of each of the republics, and of the 
 social, industrial, and commercial relations which each 
 holds to the United States. 
 
 The plan is the same as that adopted in all the books of 
 this series. It consists of imaginary travels made by the 
 children with the author in the countries described. In 
 this volume the children start out on a voyage from New 
 York to the Isthmus of Panama, and from there move about 
 leisurely from one South American country to another, 
 making their observations and studies along the lines above 
 mentioned. It is the children who do the traveling, and 
 the book is the story of what they see and learn. 
 
 Here and there throughout the story the author has in- 
 serted questions which suggest interesting research work 
 for the children. These will, it is beheved, add greatly to 
 
 7
 
 8 PREFACE 
 
 the value of the book. In connection with this feature, 
 tables and diagrams of statistical information will be 
 found at the back, and maps have been freely introduced 
 throughout the text. The pictures also will furnish ma- 
 terial for study. Most of them are new, and many 
 are from photographs taken by the author to illustrate 
 this book. 
 
 In order to bring out the world relations of South Amer- 
 ica, frequent comparisons with the United States and 
 other countries and people of the world should be made 
 by the children. For this purpose, reference to the other 
 volumes of the Carpenter Readers will prove valuable. For 
 example, in connection with the diamond mines of Brazil, 
 the interest and information of the child will be increased 
 by comparing them with the diamond mines of Kimberley 
 in Carpenter's "Africa," by reading of the diamond indus- 
 try in Carpenter's "How the World is Clothed," and by a 
 visit to the diamond cutting estabhshments of Amsterdam, 
 in Carpenter's "Europe." In the same way, the world 
 study of cotton, coffee, rubber, wool, meat, and almost 
 every other product of South America may be developed. 
 
 The two series of books referred to in this connection 
 comprise Carpenter's Geographical Readers on North Amer- 
 ica, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, 
 and his Industrial Readers entitled: "How the World is 
 Clothed," "How the World is Fed," and "How the World 
 is Housed."
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. Introduction 
 
 II. From New York to Panama 
 
 III. Panama and the Pacific Ocean . 
 
 IV. We Steam through the Canal . 
 V. The Republic of Colombia . 
 
 VI. Up the Magdalena to Bogota . 
 
 VII. Emeralds and Platinum 
 
 VIII. A Land of the Equator 
 
 IX. Climbing the Andes to Quito 
 
 X. In the Great South American Desert 
 
 XI. In Lima, the Capital of Peru . 
 
 XII. Up the Andes 
 
 XIII. On the Roof of South America 
 
 XIV. Steamboating above the Clouds 
 XV. Travels in Bolivia .... 
 
 XVI. The Mineral Wealth of the Andes . 
 
 XVII. Chile — The Nitrate Desert and the G 
 
 Islands 
 
 XVIII. Along the Coast to Valparaiso 
 
 XIX. Across South America by Rail . 
 
 • XX. Santiago, the Capital of Chile 
 
 XXI. A Visit to a Chilean Farm 
 
 XXII. Southern Chile and the Araucantans 
 
 XXIII. In the Coal Mines of Chile 
 
 XXIV. In and about the Strait of Magellan 
 
 9 
 
 uano
 
 lO 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XXV. At the End of the Continent 
 
 XXVI. Argentina — Patagonia .... 
 
 XXVII. In Argentina — Life on the Pampas 
 
 XXVIII. The Bread Lands of South America 
 
 XXIX. Buenos Aires 
 
 XXX. Uruguay — Montevideo .... 
 
 XXXI. Up the Rio de la Plata System 
 
 XXXII. The Gran Chaco 
 
 XXXIII. Paraguay ....... 
 
 XXXIV. A Trip into the Interior op Paraguay 
 XXXV. Mate, or Paraguay Tea .... 
 
 XXXVI. Brazil 
 
 XXXVII. The Wilds of Matto Grosso . 
 
 XXXVIII. The Niagara of South America — Southern 
 
 Brazil 
 
 XXXIX. Santos and Sao Paulo . . . 
 
 XL. In the Land of Coffee .... 
 
 XLI. A City of Snakes — Some Wild Animals of 
 
 Brazil 
 
 XLII. Rio de Janeiro 
 
 XLIII. More about Rio 
 
 XLIV. Bahl^ 
 
 XLV. The Mines of Brazil — Diamonds, Iron, and 
 
 Gold 
 
 XLVI. Along the Coast of Brazil 
 
 XLVII. The King of Rivers 
 
 XL VIII. Para, the Metropolis of the Amazon . 
 
 XLIX. In the Land of Rubber .... 
 
 L. A Trip on the Amazon River . 
 
 LI. Some Wild Indians of Brazil .
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 II 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LII. The Orinoco and the Llanos 365 
 
 LIII. Venezuela and Its Capital 370 
 
 LIV. La Guaira and Caracas 373 
 
 LV. The Guianas 379 
 
 Tables 390 
 
 Index 397 
 
 LIST OF MAPS 
 
 South America (colored map) 
 
 South America (black relief map) 
 
 New York to Panama (route map) 
 
 Canal Zone (black relief map) 
 
 Colombia (route map) 
 
 Ecuador (route map) 
 
 Peru (route rl^p) . 
 
 Bolivia (route map) 
 
 Chile (route map) . 
 
 Argentina (route map) 
 
 Uruguay (route map) 
 
 Paraguay (route map) 
 
 Brazil (route map) 
 
 Venezuela (route map) 
 
 The Guianas (route map) 
 
 2,7 
 18 
 21 
 29 
 40 
 57 
 77 
 
 117 
 
 137 
 195 
 232 
 
 255 
 279 
 
 371 
 
 3S1
 
 
 c)o ClU It'' VvilOIII KitW p<t\U'Ml:'» ;?liul( rO)lU',0"'U'iinU| ; 
 
 ft //// // // ////•■■ //j///fr/ /////). t J/r///// ///ff//////// // /fil /.I /t/tf/r// f/f.lt 
 f/ //)/// /r y/) > ////^ //fi'///// '^ //f/ff//// ''/'/y/i///r// 
 
 •' "' '' i ' ' '/ .■" ■ ' ' ~i ' -/ ' • 
 
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 '/tnrffyu.j./^i. 
 
 7;.... / 
 
 , ^y, 
 
 h. 85991 
 
 Facsimile of passport issued by the Department of State to Mr. 
 Carpenter. This passport admitted the author to South American 
 countries to gather the material for this book.
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION 
 
 WE shall start on our journey to South America from 
 the city of Washington. We have come by train 
 from our homes to the national capital, have called upon 
 the President at the White House, and after taking the oath 
 of allegiance to the United States have arranged with the 
 Secretary of State for our passports. Each passport bears 
 a photograph of its owner, his signature, and a description 
 showing just how he looks. It tells how tall he is, the color 
 of his eyes, hair, and face, describes his nose, chin, and 
 mouth, and tells just how old he was when the passport 
 was issued. It is signed by the Secretary of State, and it 
 requests all people to permit the bearer to pass safely and 
 freely and to give him all lawful aid and protection. We 
 shall need these passports to prove we are Americans, so 
 that we can claim the rights our citizens have all over the 
 world. 
 
 Leaving the State Department, we walk through the 
 beautiful park at the south to the marble palace of the Pan 
 American Union, which has to do with the sister republics 
 of North and South America. Its aim is to increase the 
 friendly relations between the peoples of the two continents 
 and to further everything connected with their commerce 
 and trade. Each of the repubhcs has its own representative 
 
 13
 
 14 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 at Washington, and here wc can learn many things we ought 
 to know before starting out. 
 
 Now we have entered the building, have passed through 
 the great marble court roofed with glass, where palm trees 
 and other tropical plants are growing, and are standing 
 in the rear of the hall, on the floor of which is one of the 
 
 Building of the Pan American Union, a society organized to pro- 
 mote acquaintance and friendly relations between the United States 
 and the Latin Republics of America. 
 
 largest relief maps in the world. This map represents 
 South America as it might look to one if he stood upon 
 the moon and had a telescope so powerful that he could see 
 the whole continent at one glance. The map would more 
 than cover the floor of the largest schoolroom, and it shows 
 the mountains and plains and the rivers and lakes of our 
 great sister continent.
 
 INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 But first let us see just where South America lies on the 
 earth. We go to the globe and run our fingers around it 
 along the equator. We see that the most of South America 
 lies south of that line and that much of it is in the southern 
 hemisphere. In that respect it is like Africa, although it 
 extends much farther south than either Australia or Africa. 
 It comes nearest the South Pole of all the inhabited conti- 
 nents. 
 
 Dividing the globe again into halves, and this time at 
 right angles with the equator, we observe that South 
 America lies in the western hemisphere. It is a part of the 
 new world that Columbus discovered when he started 
 westward from Europe looking for a shorter way to India. 
 He landed on the West India Islands in 1492, and it was 
 not until six years later that he coasted the mainland of 
 South America near the mouth of the Orinoco River. He 
 traveled along the northern shores of South America again 
 in 1502, and before that time Pinzon had entered the mouth 
 of the Amazon, and Americus Vespucius had gone along 
 the east coast of South America as far as the mouth of the 
 Rio de la Plata. In the meantime, John Cabot and others 
 had discovered parts of North America. 
 
 As we look at North and South America on the globe 
 we see that South America lies far to the east of North 
 America. Indeed, their positions are such that if we should 
 take an airplane here at Washington and fly straight 
 'southward we would strike South America a little east 
 of the Panama Canal, and if we flew on south, passing 
 through Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, we would soon 
 find ourselves out over the Pacific Ocean with a large 
 part of the continent stretching away to the eastward. 
 Much of the Pacific coast of South America is farther east 
 than Philadelphia or New York.
 
 i6 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 By looking at the globe we can compare the continents 
 and get some idea of the enormous country we are about 
 to explore. South America contains about one eighth of 
 all the land on earth. If we should divide all the land 
 on the globe into eighty-acre farms, ten acres in each 
 farm would belong to South America. The continent is 
 smaller than Asia, Africa, or North America, but it is 
 larger than all Europe with the main body of the United 
 States added thereto. 
 
 Moreover, it has no great deserts Hke Africa or Asia, 
 and no vast wastes such as the northern part of North 
 America, which is locked in cold and darkness for most of 
 the year. Except on the highest peaks of the Andes, 
 South America has no region of perpetual ice, and even 
 at the far south about the Strait of Magellan the land is 
 so tempered by the winds from the ocean that the sheep 
 feed out of doors all the year round. It is true that three 
 fourths of the continent is in the torrid zone, but much of 
 the land near the equator is so high above the level of the 
 sea that the climate is as temperate as in many parts of 
 our country. 
 
 The fact that most of the continent lies south of the 
 equator makes the seasons there directly the opposite of 
 ours. It is now winter here in Washington, but as soon 
 as we go south of the equator we shall be in the summer, 
 and if we continue our journey until fall it will be while 
 our friends at home are having their spring. We shall 
 see also that at high noon our shadows fall to the south. 
 Can you tell why? 
 
 Leaving the globe, we stroll about the rehef map as it 
 lies on the floor, observing how like South America is to 
 our own continent of North America in shape and surface. 
 Each continent is roughly triangular. Each has a long
 
 INTRODUCTION 1 7 
 
 system of highlands running along the Pacific coast and 
 another range of lower highlands near the east coast, with a 
 wide plain or central lowland between them. The Andes 
 corresponds to our great western highlands, and the high- 
 lands of Guiana (ge-a'na) and eastern Brazil are somewhat 
 like our Appalachian Mountains. The eastern highlands of 
 North America are broken by a great river, the St. Lawrence, 
 and those of South America by another great river, the 
 Amazon. The Amazon basin compares somewhat with 
 that of the Great Lakes in situation. Both slope to the 
 east and break through highlands. The Rio de la Plata 
 (re'o da la pla'ta) basin is not unlike the Mississippi valley. 
 
 The natural features of South America are grander than 
 those of North America. The Andes are higher than the 
 Rockies and they have a score of volcanoes, each of which 
 is more than a mile higher than the top of Pikes Peak. 
 Mount Aconcagua (a-kon-ka'gwa) is more than a half mile 
 higher than Mount McKinley, the highest point on the 
 North American continent. 
 
 The earth has no river system that compares in size 
 with the Amazon, whose naxigable tributaries, if joined 
 together, would reach around the globe. On the Rio 
 de la Plata we can go north by steamers for a greater 
 distance than from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay, 
 and the Amazon, Orinoco, and La Plata systems, taken 
 together, drain more country than the whole of the United 
 States, including Alaska. Indeed, most of South America 
 is a well-watered country, and much of it has the cUmate 
 and soil which will some day make it the home of a large 
 part of the world's population. 
 
 During our stay at the Pan American Union we learn 
 much about the resources of South America and how 
 closely its people are connected wdth us in industry and
 
 ^plBB^AN SEA 
 
 ooo miles 
 
 i8 
 
 South America. Reliet and drainage.
 
 INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 trade. Many of our farmers use the nitrates from the 
 South American desert to fertilize their crops. Our finest 
 rubber comes from the wild trees of the Amazon basin, 
 and almost all the coffee we drink is grown in Brazil. 
 The most of our chocolate comes from the cacao trees of 
 Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. Some of us may 
 have a product of Argentina under our feet, for it is from 
 that region that come many of the hides from which our 
 leather is made. We import wool and meat from the 
 Rio de la Plata basin. We get some of our tin from Bolivia, 
 and considerable copper from Peru and Chile. We have 
 diamonds from Brazil and emeralds from Colombia. In- 
 deed, there is hardly a state of South America that does 
 not supply us with materials of one kind or another, and 
 we shall learn that the South Americans are using more 
 and more of the things we raise and the manufactures we 
 make for export to other nations. 
 
 But what kind of people are these among whom we are 
 going to travel? We can see something of them in the 
 photographs of the various countries and cities in the 
 library of the Pan American Union. Most of the South 
 Americans are of the white race and they dress much 
 as we do. There are also some negroes in Brazil, and 
 many Indians in their different stages of savagery' and 
 civilization scattered over the continent. The Indians 
 are the descendants of those who inhabited South America 
 at the time Columbus first set foot on the northern shores 
 of the continent. The negroes were brought from Africa 
 as slaves, but they were afterwards freed and now have 
 the same rights as the whites. The white population is 
 composed of the descendants of the Spaniards and Portu- 
 guese who conquered the Indians and of those who inter- 
 married with the Indians, forming a new race, as it were.
 
 20 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 During our travels we shall find that the South Ameri- 
 cans have a civaUzation and customs similar to ours. 
 They have farms and factories and all sorts of industries. 
 They have many magnificent cities with the latest of modern 
 improvements, including schools much like our own. They 
 are building railways and beginning to develop their 
 enormous resources. Most of the republics have govern- 
 ments like ours, and nearly all of them are growing in 
 population, industry, and wealth. But we shall see all 
 this better as we go on with our travels. 
 
 1. Why do we need passports? Why must we take the oath of 
 allegiance? Why are our photographs and signatures needed? 
 Make out a passport for yourself. (See illustration.) 
 
 2. What is the Pan American Union? 
 
 3. Locate South America on the globe — as to oceans — as to 
 continents. Describe its surface from the relief map. Compare with 
 North America. What highlands in South America remind us of 
 the Rockies? Of the Appalachians? What great river have we 
 that compares with the Amazon? 
 
 4. How large is South America ? Compare it in size with North 
 America ; Europe ; Asia ; the United States. How many coun- 
 tries has it ? Which is the largest ? The smallest ? Which ones 
 are north of the equator? South? Compare each country with 
 an American state. Compare the population of South America 
 with that of the United States. (See Tables III and V.) 
 
 5. What climates has South America? In what zone does most 
 of it lie? When we are having winter at home what is the season 
 in South America south of the equator? Why? Why is it not cold 
 in the southernmost part of the continent? 
 
 6. In what latitude do you live? Take an airplane trip directly 
 south and find if you could reach South America. If so, what part 
 of the continent ? 
 
 7. What do we buy of South America? Mention some South 
 American products we use almost every day. 
 
 8. What three races of people live in South America ? What race 
 was there when Columbus first landed ? From where did the whites 
 and negroes come ?
 
 FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 
 
 21 
 
 II. FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 
 
 WE have left Washington, have come to New York, 
 and are now on a great white steamer bound for 
 the Isthmus of Panama. The ship has already finished 
 loading its cargo, and we make our way in and out among 
 
 GALAPAGOS IS, 
 
 the men who are wheeling on board the bags containing 
 the South American mails. 
 
 A moment later the bugle blows to notify all who are 
 not going with us to leave. There are farewell kisses and
 
 FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 23 
 
 hurried good-bys. The engines throb, and as we wave 
 our handkerchiefs to our friends on the wharf, our boat 
 moves slowly out into the East River and past the 
 statue of Liberty, through the harbor of New York. 
 Within a short time the city has passed out of view, and 
 as evening falls we stand at the stern of the steamer and 
 watch the lights of Sandy Hook fade away into the dark- 
 ness, realizing that we shall not see our native land for 
 many months to come. 
 
 It is about two thousand miles from New York to 
 Cristobal (kris-to-bal') at the mouth of the Panama Canal, 
 but our ship does not go so fast as the big steamers which 
 cross the Atlantic to Europe, and it will take almost sLx days 
 for our voyage. It is now winter. There was snow on the 
 streets of New York when we left, and we have on our 
 heaviest clothing. The first day out is cold and bracing, 
 and we spend the time in learning our steamer. It is a 
 steel vessel, five hundred feet long and sixty feet wide, and 
 it has a speed of about fifteen knots an hour. 
 
 Our cabins are on the top deck, and we can look out of 
 our windows when we wake in the morning and see the 
 blue ocean rising and falling under our eyes. There are 
 many whitecaps on the waves and the billows seem to be 
 chasing one another over the sea. Each cabin is about 
 the size of the smallest hall bedroom. It has two berths, 
 one over the other, on the wall at the back, and opposite 
 them are two windows which look out on the sea. We 
 have room under the berths for our low steamer trunks, 
 and at the end opposite the door is a washstand set into 
 the wall with pockets for our combs, brushes, and other 
 toilet articles. We have hot and cold water at all hours 
 of the day. The cabin has an electric light, and also an 
 electric fan which we can set whizzing by pressing a button.
 
 24 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 We shall need that fan for it will be warm when we ap- 
 proach the equator. 
 
 Our ship is a United States vessel and flies the American 
 flag. The sailors are from different parts of New England 
 and our captain is a Yankee from Maine. At high noon 
 every day he makes an observation, telling by the sun 
 just where we are, and a little later we all rush to the 
 cabin to learn how many miles we have gone in the past 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 Our first course is almost straight south. We are soon 
 opposite Atlantic City, and from there we go on, passing 
 Cape May, Cape Charles, and Cape Henry, but out of 
 sight of them. It is on the second day that we reach 
 Cape Hatteras and start across the Gulf Stream, that 
 mighty river in the Atlantic which is three thousand times 
 as great as the Mississippi in volume. There are patches 
 of gulf weed floating about in it. Some of them look like 
 green sponges upon the blue water and some like shawls 
 of green lacework spread over the sea. 
 
 The air has now grown warm and moist. We have a 
 sailor dip up some of the water and find it warmer than 
 that in which we have been sailing, and when we take our 
 baths in the morning they are as warm as our swimming 
 pools in midsummer at home. We travel more than a 
 hundred miles in crossing the Gulf Stream, observing that 
 the air is cooler as we pass out of it on the edge of the 
 Caribbean Sea. 
 
 But why do we not keep in the stream and be warm all 
 the way? You will easily see when you remember how 
 hard it is to row a boat against a strong current. The 
 Gulf Stream flows north at the rate of three miles an hour, 
 and we are going as fast as we can to the south. If we 
 should keep in the Stream, we should have to steam against
 
 FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 25 
 
 this three-mile current and would lose at least three miles 
 an hour. 
 
 But what is that away off to our right? It seems little 
 more than a blue speck in the distance. That is San 
 Salvador (san sal-va-dor'), one of the most famous islands of 
 the world. It is the first land that Columbus saw when he 
 discovered America. When he first stood upon San 
 Salvador he thought it an island off the east coast of Asia 
 and did not realize that he had found a new world. We 
 can see the lighthouse on the island plainly as we go by. 
 There are palm trees near it, and if we could stop we should 
 find the vegetation much like that of Florida. San 
 Salvador is one of the Bahama Islands. It produces 
 fruits, grains, and roots in abundance, and it is as rich 
 now as when Columbus came there and saw the first 
 Indians ever met by white men. 
 
 A little farther south we pass Bird Rock, another of the 
 Bahamas, and still farther south the coast of eastern 
 Cuba comes into view, with the purple mountains of Haiti 
 in plain sight on the opposite side of the ship. We sail 
 between these two islands for hours. We pass our naval 
 station of Guantanamo (gwan-tan'a-mo), near Santiago 
 (san-te-a'go) in Cuba, where our war vessels guard this 
 passage on the way to the canal, and then go out over 
 the blue waters of the Caribbean. 
 
 The sea is now like glass. The sun is quite hot at noon, 
 but during the rest of the day the air is soft, warm, and 
 pleasant. It is much like a June day in Ohio or Virginia. 
 We put on our thin linen clothes and enjoy the tropical 
 seas. After leaving Cuba we sail for two days with no 
 land in sight. There are but few ships, and the only 
 moving things upon the water are the wliite gulls which 
 hover about us, and the schools of silvery fl3dng-fish which
 
 26 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 dart from wave to wave, one now and then jumping too 
 high and lighting on our deck in its flight. 
 
 But listen, the captain is calling ! He tells us that we 
 are approaching the Isthmus of Panama, that wonderful 
 strip of earth which ties North America and South America 
 together. We rush to the prow of the ship and look toward 
 the west. A thin line of hazy blue seems. to be floating 
 up out of the water at the horizon. Now the blue deepens. 
 It rises in a range of low mountains, while little green 
 islands seem to bob out of the sea in front of our steamer. 
 
 Now we are closer. That tall shaft at the right is the 
 Toro hghthouse, and the buildings and docks at the left 
 are those of Cristobal at the eastern entrance to the Panama 
 Canal. Beside Cristobal is Colon (ko-lon'), the old town on 
 this side of the isthmus. We can see the coconut palm trees 
 shading the houses. They extend down to the shore and 
 their fan-like leaves, moving to and fro in the breeze, seem 
 to be waving to us a welcome to Panama. 
 
 1. How do we go to South America? Describe our journey. 
 
 2. How far is it from New York to Panama? How long does it 
 take us? Make a list of the places we pass on the way. Suppose 
 we went from New York along the east coast of South America, how 
 far would we travel to Rio de Janeiro? To Buenos Aires? To 
 Panama via the Strait of Magellan? 
 
 3. Why does the captain take observations of the sun? 
 
 4. What is the Gulf Stream? How long does it take us to cross 
 it at the rate of fifteen miles per hour? 
 
 5. Trace Columbus' journey on the map from Palos near Gibraltar 
 to San Salvador. 
 
 6. Locate Cuba and Haiti on the map. 
 
 7. Where is Guantanamo? Why is it an important place on the 
 route to Panama? Why do we need to guard the way into the 
 Caribbean Sea? What great naval battle took place near Santiago? 
 What brave deed was done by a naval officer in a narrow strait 
 there ?
 
 PANAMA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN 27 
 
 III. PANAMA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN 
 
 WE shall steam through the Isthmus of Panama within 
 a very few hours. The first white man who crossed 
 it took twenty-nine days, and his journey has made him 
 famous as one of the world's great explorers. It was but 
 a few years after South America was discovered. In his 
 first voyage Columbus had touched only at the West 
 Indies, and it was not until 1498 that he set foot on the 
 mainland of the continent not far from the mouth of the 
 Orinoco River. Within the next six years he had coasted 
 the country from Mexico to Venezuela, and other explorers, 
 including Americus Vespucius, for whom America was 
 named, had gone along the east coast as far south as the 
 mouth of the Rio de la Plata. In the meantime, John 
 and Sebastian Cabot had visited the shores of New England, 
 and a great land was known to lie at the north. 
 
 Everywhere along this vast stretch of coast the ex- 
 plorers were looking for a waterway through to India and 
 Japan. They still supposed that America was a part of 
 Asia and did not know that a new world was discovered. 
 Expedition after expedition was sent out from Europe to 
 find out more about the country, and among the most 
 daring of the adventurers was a young Spaniard named 
 Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who came with a party to the 
 Gulf of Darien, not far east of where we are now. Here 
 he founded a settlement, married the daughter of an 
 Indian chief, and went about trading for gold. 
 
 One day when he was weighing some gold that he was 
 about to buy, one of the chiefs struck the scales with his 
 fist, scattering the precious metal upon the ground, and 
 said: "If this is what you prize so much that you are 
 ready to leave your homes and risk your lives for it, I can
 
 28 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 tell you of a land where gold is so common that the people 
 use it instead of pottery for their bowls and cups." 
 
 The chief spoke of Peru, a country which was then rich 
 in gold, and in which we shall travel by and by. His 
 words excited Balboa. He questioned the Indians, and 
 was told that over the mountains was a sea so great that 
 no one had ever come to its end, and that the land of gold 
 lay to the southward on the shores of that sea. 
 I Balboa decided to find out if this story was true, and 
 early in September, 15 13, he started with about two hun- 
 dred men and a small pack of bloodhounds to make his 
 way over the mountains. He soon had a fight with the 
 Indians, but they were frightened at the guns and dogs. 
 He conquered them and persuaded them to act as his 
 guides. He then cut his way through the thick forests 
 to the top of the range, and there, on the twenty-fifth day 
 of September, 15 13, was able to look out over the great 
 expanse of water which we call the Pacific Ocean. Four 
 days later he had cut a path through the jungle down the 
 south slope and with sword in hand had rushed into the 
 water up to his waist, claiming the sea and all it contained 
 for the king of Spain. This was seven years before Ferdi- 
 nand Magellan had sailed from the Atlantic into the Pacific 
 Ocean, through the strait named after him at the southern 
 end of the continent. 
 
 The Isthmus of Panama is not large. The neck of an 
 'hour glass is not so narrow in comparison with the globes 
 above and below it, as is this little strip of land with the 
 continents of North America and South America which it 
 joins. If the country were level, we could walk across its 
 narrowest part in a day, and with an airplane we could fly 
 over the mountains from ocean to ocean in less than an hour. 
 Yes, the isthmus is narrow, but until we built the canal from
 
 Relief INIap of the Panama Canal. 
 
 2Q
 
 30 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 one side to the other it formed a wall against the commerce 
 of the world. All ships going from the Atlantic westward 
 into the Pacific had to sail many thousands of miles out of 
 their courses in traveHng around South America, and there 
 was no short cut from ocean to ocean. The necessity of 
 a canal was seen shortly after Balboa discovered the Pacific, 
 and he suggested that one might be made through the 
 mountains at Darien some distance east of where the 
 Panama Canal now is. Thirty-eight years later King 
 Philip II of Spain was urged to dig such a canal, and it is 
 now several hundred years since Antonio Galvo, a Portu- 
 guese, wrote a book showing that canals might be made 
 through Nicaragua, or Panama, or through the Isthmus of 
 Darien.. Other plans were made from time to time, but 
 it was not until 1879, ten years after the Suez Canal was 
 completed, that any real work was begun. 
 
 At that time Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer 
 who built the Suez Canal, made surveys of the Isthmus of 
 Panama, and a great company was formed to cut through 
 the land from one side to the other. Their plan was to 
 make a sea level canal, and for a time it seemed as if one might 
 be constructed within a few years. Many thousands of men 
 were employed, shiploads of machinery were brought across 
 the ocean from France, and vast sums of money were spent. 
 
 But the work soon proved to be greater than De Lesseps 
 had thought, and the money was all gone before one third 
 of the canal was dug. Later on another French company 
 took hold and continued the digging for a few years. It 
 also became discouraged and sold to the United States the 
 rights wliich it had bought from Colombia to build the 
 canal. That was in 1904, and within ten years from that 
 time we had completed the canal that now connects the 
 two oceans.
 
 WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 31 
 
 IV. WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 
 
 OUR canal is not a great ditch cut through the isthmus 
 at sea level from ocean to ocean. The waters of the 
 Atlantic and Pacific oceans do not come together, and there 
 is no salt water in the canal where it crosses the mountains. 
 The canal is really a bridge from ocean to ocean formed by 
 the fresh waters of the Chagres (cha'gres) River. It is a 
 lock canal. The huge vessels steam in on salt water to the 
 locks situated where the land rises on the Atlantic and 
 Pacific sides of the isthmus. The fresh water is then let into 
 the locks and Ufts the vessels up step by step, until they are 
 raised as high above the sea as the roof of an eight-story 
 house. They are then able to steam into the wide and deep 
 canal which has been cut across the isthmus. Then, by 
 means of the locks at the opposite end, they are lowered 
 gently to sea level again. 
 
 The canal goes through the great mountain chain which 
 runs along the western side of our hemisphere from Alaska 
 to the Strait of Magellan. These mountains begin at the 
 Arctic Ocean and run almost to the Antarctic Ocean. 
 We know of them in the Rockies and in the plateaus of 
 Mexico and Central America. In South America they are 
 the Andes. The range is lowest at the Isthmus of Panama, 
 where the tallest of the peaks is not half a mile high. Where 
 the canal crosses the mountains the land is only five hundred 
 feet high, or about as high as the Washington Monument. 
 It is only forty miles from coast to coast, but from deep 
 water in the Atlantic Ocean to deep water in the Pacific 
 it is about fifty miles. 
 
 The canal has, therefore, a length of fifty miles. Its 
 bottom has a width of from three hundred to five hundred 
 feet, and the depth is about forty-five feet. For twenty-
 
 32 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 four miles the channel winds its way through Lake Gatun 
 (ga-toon'), whose surface is eighty-five feet above the level 
 of the ocean. The lake has an area of about one hundred 
 and twenty square miles. It is formed by the Gatun dam, 
 which we have built between two hills on the banks 
 of the Chagres River. The dam holds back the waters 
 of the Chagres, and by means of the locks on one side of it 
 the ships are lifted up and down so that they can pass into 
 or out of the lake. On the other side of the lake the 
 mountains are five hundred feet above the level of the sea, 
 but we have dug a wide ditch through them down to about 
 forty feet above sea level so that the surface of the waters 
 flowing through is at the same level as that of the lake. 
 This ditch is known as the Culebra (koo-la'brii) cut. At 
 the western end of it there are locks which raise and lower 
 the vessels from and to the Pacific. 
 
 The work of making the canal was enormous. We shall 
 not reahze how great as we sail through. Nature has clad 
 the sides of the ditch and the dam with tropical vegetation, 
 and the canal now looks to be thousands of years old. It 
 seems like a natural valley through hills unchanged since 
 the creation of the world. 
 
 I visited the canal many times while it was building and 
 the comparisons which follow were figured out by the 
 engineers during the construction. The Culebra cut 
 through the mountains required the blasting down and 
 carrying away of so much earth and rock that it would 
 equal a ditch three feet wide, three feet deep, and almost 
 sixty thousand miles long. It would more than fill a ditch 
 of that size reaching twice around the world at the equator 
 and leave so much over that it would fill a hole through the 
 center of the earth big enough for a Newfoundland dog to 
 crawl through ! The Gatun dam contains so much earth
 
 WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 33 
 
 and rock that it would take twice as many horses as there 
 are in all the United States to haul the stuff if it were loaded 
 on wagons. The locks on the canal have twelve great 
 gates made of steel, which weigh lifty-eight thousand tons, 
 and each gate has two doors made of steel plates fastened 
 together by more than six million rivets. 
 
 At times as many as fifty thousand workmen were 
 employed on the canal, and in one year the food required 
 for them included five million loaves of bread, nine million 
 pounds of meat, one million pounds of onions, and one 
 thousand carloads of rice. The cost of making the canal, 
 including that of the fortifications, was over four hundred 
 milHon dollars. 
 
 The first vessel to pass through the canal was a steamer 
 of ten thousand tons. It was the Ancon, belonging to the 
 United States government, and it made the trip in nine 
 hours. Its course was from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 and the journey it accomplished, had there been no canal, 
 would have required a trip around South America of about 
 thirty-five days. That was on August 15, 1914. Within 
 the next three months more than two hundred vessels 
 carrying over a million tons of freight were thus lifted over 
 from ocean to ocean, and ever since then a procession of 
 steamers loaded with passengers and goods has been 
 moving back and forth over this great artificial waterway. 
 The number steadily increases, and the freight now passing 
 through amounts to many millions of tons every year. 
 The traffic is growing so fast that we may some day have 
 to build a second canal through the isthmus or perhaps 
 through Central America. 
 
 Indeed, it is hard to realize the saving in time and dis- 
 tance created by this short cut from ocean to ocean. Dur- 
 ing our Spanish War we needed one of our battleships
 
 34
 
 WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 35 
 
 then in the Pacific to aid us in the Atlantic, and this vessel, 
 the Oregon, had to steam from San Francisco to the southern 
 end of South America and pass through the Strait of Ma- 
 gellan to come to New York. The distance that way is 
 more than thirteen thousand miles. By the Panama 
 Canal it is a little more than five thousand miles, and the 
 saving in time is three or four weeks. The canal will be 
 of great value in sending our ships from one coast to the 
 other in time of war. In 1919, after the World War in 
 Europe, the entire Pacific fleet of the United States navy 
 passed through the canal from the Atlantic Ocean to the 
 Pacific within a few days. 
 
 By the canal, Honolulu is seven thousand miles nearer 
 New York than by the Strait of Magellan, and the saving 
 in going to Manila is almost one thousand miles more. 
 The west coast of South America has been brought almost 
 into the front dooryard of our Atlantic seaports. Guaya- 
 quil (gwi-a-kel'), Ecuador, is now seven thousand miles 
 nearer New York. New Orleans is nearer to Peru than 
 to any port of Great Britain. 
 
 But we shall appreciate the canal better as our vessel 
 goes through it. We steam past the Toro Ughthouse 
 inside the great breakwaters, built to defend the canal from 
 the storms of the Caribbean Sea, and enter Limon (Ic-mon') 
 Bay. We pass Cristobal, with its statue of De Lesseps 
 on the point and the coconut trees half hiding the houses, 
 and enter the ditch, steaming on until at seven miles from 
 the breakwaters we come to what, at first, look like huge 
 fortifications of white stone with a long wall of green sod 
 on each side of them. The wall of green is the Gatun 
 dam, and what seem to be forts are really the mighty 
 locks of concrete which will raise us by three steps to the 
 level of Gatun Lake.
 
 36
 
 WE STEAM THROUGH THE C\NAL 37 
 
 As we approach, the iron gate of the first lock opens and 
 we steam into a chamber, the walls of which extend high 
 above the deck of our vessel. Now the gate closes. The 
 water bursts through the floor of the lock. It is boiling 
 and bubbling, and our steamer is rising. The deck is soon 
 high above the walls, and we are floating on the level of 
 the water of the second lock chamber. The huge steel 
 gate in front of us slowly opens, and our steamer is towed 
 by the electric locomotives, which run along the top of the 
 locks, into this second chamber. There are four loco- 
 motives. Two are fastened to the front of the vessel, 
 moving it onward ; and the other two are on the tracks 
 at the rear holding it so that it can go only so fast and no 
 faster. 
 
 Now the gate behind us has closed. The water flows 
 in from the bottom and again our ship rises until 
 we are on the level of the third lock. We are towed into 
 this, and in a similar way are raised to the level of Lake 
 Gatun. We are now eighty-five feet above the waters of 
 the Atlantic, and we shall move on at this level across 
 the isthmus until we reach the locks through which we shall 
 descend into the Pacific. 
 
 The voyage across the lake is dehghtful. Our course 
 winds in and out among beautiful islands, and we now and 
 then pass floating islands, patches of the tropical swamp 
 which have been Hfted from their beds by the floods of the 
 Chagres River and are carried by the winds here and there 
 over the lake. Some of these islands are several acres in 
 area. They rise and fall on the waves made by our steamer 
 as we go by. Here and there we see dead trees rising out 
 of the lake. Some are as white as the bones of a skeleton, 
 and others green with the orchids and other air plants ^^^th 
 which they are loaded. 
 
 694G9
 
 38 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The islands and the shores of the lake are a tropical 
 jungle with pahns of many varieties rising above it. Here 
 and there we see strange birds in the trees. Some of them 
 have gorgeous plumage, and among them are blue and white 
 herons with aigrettes of beautiful feathers high on their heads. 
 There are also ducks and pelicans swimming on the water. 
 The pelicans are huge birds with great bags in their throats 
 in which they store the fish they catch until they need them 
 for food. On one island we see two alligators sunning them- 
 selves on the edge of the water. 
 
 Now we have crossed the lake and have steamed by the 
 place where the Chagres River flows in. Just opposite 
 the mouth of the Chagres is the highest point on the Canal 
 Zone. It is seven hundred and fifty feet high. The canal 
 has now narrowed to three hundred feet. We are entering 
 the Culebra cut where the greatest of the excavations were 
 made. The hills are now high above us and we are in a 
 narrow channel steaming along between sloping walls of 
 the greenest of green. The rock and earth which once 
 formed the banks of the canal are now covered with grass 
 and flowers. Palm trees and fern trees have grown up 
 here and there, and we are saiUng through a garden of 
 tropical wonders. There are but few marks of the steam 
 shovels and other great engineering machines which aided 
 in digging this part of the canal. 
 
 We steam for nine miles through the cut, and then come 
 :to the lock of Pedro Miguel (pa'dro me-gel') which drops us 
 thirty feet into beautiful Lake Miraflores (me'ra-flo'ras). 
 It is much smaller than Lake Gatun, and we soon cross 
 it to the locks on the opposite side, which, by two steps, 
 lower us to the level of the channel through which we sail 
 out to Balboa (bal-bo'a), the port on the Pacific Ocean. 
 There is a huge breakwater at Balboa, and the sea beyond
 
 WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 39 
 
 it is spotted with islands which stand like sentinels guarding 
 the works. Fortifications have been built upon one of them 
 just beyond the breakwater, and we have mighty guns there 
 to guard the canal. There are also fortifications on islands 
 near the Atlantic entrance, and hidden forts in the jungle 
 which lines the waterway in places, so that it will be easv 
 to defend the canal in time of war. 
 
 1. Tell in your own words the story of the discovery of the Pacific 
 Ocean by Balboa and by Magellan. 
 
 2. Describe the Isthmus of Panama. Why is it the best place for 
 the Panama Canal? Show the saving in miles made by the canal 
 in the distance between ten great ports of the world. Contrast the 
 routes from Callao and Valparaiso to Liverpool, Havre, and 
 Gibraltar, via the Strait of Magellan and the Panama Canal. From 
 the same ports to New York, Boston, and New Orleans. Take a 
 trip from Rio de Janeiro to Shanghai via the Suez Canal. Via the 
 Panama Canal. (See Tables I and II.) 
 
 3. Who first tried to build the canal ? Why did they not succeed ? 
 Write a description of your trip through the canal. Explain how 
 ships can be raised and lowered by means of the water in the locks. 
 Is the water which raises the ships fresh or salt? WTiy? 
 
 4. Give some of the advantages of the canal to the commerce of 
 the world — of our eastern and western states. Why is it of great 
 value to us in time of war? 
 
 5. How does the canal affect our islands in the Pacific Ocean? 
 Make a voyage from New York to Hawaii, the Philippines, and 
 Samoa, by the canal. By the Strait of Magellan. By Suez. How 
 long is each voyage and how much time would you spend on the 
 way? 
 
 6. How long is the Canal? How wide? How deep? 
 
 7. Compare the Panama with the Suez Canal. (See Carpenter's 
 "Africa.") With the St. Mary's Canal. (See Carpenter's " North 
 America.") With the Manchester ship canal. The Kiel canal. 
 (See Carpenter's " Europe.") Why do wc need forts at Panama?
 
 40 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 V. THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA 
 
 WE are sailing southward this morning upon the 
 mighty Pacific. We left Balboa two days ago, going 
 out just as the sun was setting over the islands of Flamenco, 
 Perico, and Naos. We sailed past those islands, turned 
 southward, and are now a little north of the equator, mov- 
 ing along the coast 
 of Colombia. We 
 are in the doldrums 
 or zone of equatorial 
 calms where there is 
 so little wind that it 
 is sometimes difficult 
 for sailing vessels to 
 cross it on their way 
 to or from our canal. 
 The air is almost still 
 and the sea seems to 
 steam. How bright 
 the sun is and how 
 dazzling! It darts 
 its rays down and 
 millions of diamonds are dancing upon the waves under 
 our eyes. We wink and blink as we look. The reflected 
 rays of the sun here are brighter than its rays in July at 
 our homes. 
 
 Stand with me at the side of the ship and look out 
 toward the west. Notice how the blue waves stretch on 
 and on until they lose themselves in the sky. That water 
 extends westward for ten thousand miles until it wraps 
 itself around the Phihppine Islands off the coast of Asia. 
 We are near where the Pacific is widest. It is the greatest
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA 41 
 
 of the oceans, and it holds two fifths of all the salt water 
 on earth. It is now crossed by many trade routes whose 
 focus is the Isthmus of Panama, and all the countries on 
 the west coast of South America are sending their goods 
 northward to take advantage of this short cut into the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 But what is that cackling and crowing and quacking 
 we hear? Can that be the baa of a lamb? Was not that 
 the moo of a cow? We rub our eyes to see if we are not 
 dreaming. This voyage of ours must be a mistake, and 
 we are surely back near one of the farmyards in the country 
 at home. 
 
 No, it is not a mistake. The noise of the fowls comes 
 from those two-storied coops on the deck. You can see 
 the chickens and geese poking their heads through the slats. 
 The bleating and mooing is from sheep and cattle kept 
 in stalls two floors below. They are carried to furnish 
 the meat for our tables. 
 
 What a noise the creatures make ! We are awakened 
 by them every morning and hardly know where we are 
 until the cabin boy brings in our breakfast. It consists 
 of a small cup of coffee and one or two slices of bread, and, 
 protest as we may, we cannot have more until eleven o'clock. 
 This is the custom throughout South America. Between 
 eleven and one they have a second breakfast, which is 
 much like our luncheon, and their dinner is at about sL\ 
 in the evening. We grumble at first, but soon find it as 
 pleasant as our way of eating at home. 
 
 Now the steamer has slowed up and turned to the east. 
 We are sailing into one of the ports of Colombia. There 
 are palm trees and bamboos on the coast, and the dense 
 vegetation behind is much like that of the isthmus. There 
 is a town situated on a little island at the head of a bay
 
 42 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 which forms an excellent harbor. It is composed of 
 thatched huts and of one- and two-story white buildings 
 covered with plaster and roofed with red tiles. There 
 
 are some sailing 
 vessels at anchor in 
 the harbor, and 
 many small boats in 
 which dark-skinned 
 men are rowing out 
 to our steamer. 
 We are now in the 
 Bay of Buenaven- 
 tura (bwa-na-ven- 
 too'ra), and from 
 here we shall make 
 a long tour through 
 Colombia. 
 
 The country is 
 so vast that we can- 
 not expect to visit 
 it all. Colombia is 
 as long from north 
 to south as from St. 
 Paul to New Or- 
 leans, and its area 
 is about ten times 
 as large as the state 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 The land is one of mountains and plains. The Andes run 
 through it in three high ranges, and between them are some 
 of the most fertile river valleys of all South America. To 
 the east of the mountains, sloping down to the basins of 
 the Orinoco and the Amazon, are vast plains which fur- 
 
 The bright yellow pods of the cacao tree 
 grow along the branches. They contain 
 the seeds from which chocolate and cocoa 
 are made.
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA 43 
 
 nish pasture for millions of cattle and sheep ; and agricul- 
 ture thrives on the plateaus and in the high valleys. Down 
 here on the seacoast the climate is tropical and the ther- 
 mometer often rises to more than one hundred degrees 
 above zero. On the high peaks of the Andes the snow 
 and ice never melt, while in the lofty valleys and plateaus 
 it is temperate all the year round. 
 
 We shall observe the differences in climate as we make 
 our way over the country. We take the little narrow- 
 gauge railroad which extends from Buenaventura into the 
 interior, and then go on mules over the hills into the valley 
 of the Cauca (kou'ka) River. This is one of the most fertile 
 regions of Colombia, and it is typical of the rich Andean 
 valleys. It is an almost level plain about two hundred miles 
 long and twenty miles wide, through which runs a beautiful 
 stream navigated by small steamers. The soil of the plain 
 is fertile, and the country is covered with plantations of 
 sugar cane, cotton, coffee, and the cacao from w^hich our 
 chocolate is made. There are great fields of bananas and 
 large orange groves. There are many lemon trees, and 
 we make lemonade of the fruit which we pick from the 
 branches. 
 
 We stay one day with a farmer who takes us through his 
 cacao plantation. He has thousands of trees, and we ride 
 with him through one orchard after another. How beauti- 
 ful everything is ! The cacao trees look like lilac bushes, 
 except that they are from fifteen to thirty feet high. They 
 are ragged and gnarly with leaves of bright green. The 
 cacao fruit is so large that if it lay on the ground you might 
 think it a little squash or a big ripe cucumber. It is of 
 a bright lemon color streaked with red. Its stem is at- 
 tached to the trunk and large limbs, and not to the ends 
 of twigs like apples or pears.
 
 44 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 To show us, the planter chops one of the pods in two 
 with a knife. It has a thick skin, and inside this is a 
 white pulp in which are imbedded about thirty dark-brown 
 seeds much Hke large Hma beans. From these seeds are 
 made the chocolate and cocoa of commerce. 
 
 The fruit is gathered when ripe and the seeds are washed 
 out of the pulp. They are dried in the sun and shipped 
 to factories in different parts of the world. In the factories 
 they are ground, and from their meal, after several processes 
 which take out some of the oil, the pure chocolate is made. 
 From the seed hulls, in much the same way, comes the 
 cocoa. 
 
 In another part of the plantation we learn how the trees 
 are grown. The seeds are first planted in hills about 
 fifteen feet apart, three seeds being put in each hill. They 
 soon sprout, and at first look not unlike small orange trees. 
 They are cultivated and the weeds are kept down. After 
 three or four years they begin to produce fruit, and con- 
 tinue to yield for thirty years and more. 
 
 We shall see many cacao trees in other parts of Colombia. 
 Most of the cacao of the world is grown in Africa and 
 South America, and this product is one of the principal 
 exports of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Brazil. 
 Much of the chocolate we drink or eat in cakes and candies 
 comes from the valley of the Cauca. Some of it is carried 
 over the mountains to Buenaventura, from which port it 
 goes by way of the Panama Canal to New York. Some 
 is shipped down the Cauca River and through the Magda- 
 lena (mag-da-la'na) River to the Caribbean Sea, and thence 
 to our country. 
 
 The people of the Cauca valley are noted for their 
 hospitality, and their country has been called "The 
 Land of the Gentle Yes," because the people hate to
 
 UP THE MAGDALENA TO BOGOTA 45 
 
 say "no" to any request. They are a mixed race of 
 Spaniards and Indians. They are simple in their 
 tastes, their chief business being farming and fruit raising. 
 
 We visit Cali (ka'le) , which is near the head of the valley 
 and its chief commercial center. It is a thriving little city 
 with houses of stucco and roofs of red tiles. It is several 
 hundred years old, but is rapidly growing. It now has 
 electric lights run by the falls of a mountain stream which 
 empties into the Cauca. 
 
 Our next trip is down the Cauca River on small 
 steamers which carry us into the Magdalena River and 
 thence out to the coast. Here we visit the seaports of 
 Barranquilla (bar-ran-kel'ya) and Cartagena (kar-ta-ha'na), 
 each of which is several centuries old. Barranquilla is on 
 the edge of the delta and is connected with the seaport 
 of SabaniUa (sa-ba-nel'ya) by a railway twenty miles long. 
 Cartagena is on the Caribbean Sea, and it has a railway 
 to the Magdalena River. Another important seaport, 
 as far as the United States is concerned, is Santa Marta, 
 which has also a small line of railroad going into the in- 
 terior. It is there that we find the enormous banana 
 plantations belonging to one of our fruit companies, from 
 which vast quantities of bananas are shipped to New York 
 and Boston. 
 
 VI. UP THE MAGDALENA TO BOGOTA 
 
 WE have left the seacoast and are again on the wide 
 Magdalena River steaming slowly southward into 
 the interior of Colombia. Our boat is a stern-wheeler 
 much hke those on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, but it 
 draws only four or five feet of water. Many parts of the
 
 46 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 river are shallow, and we have to steer this way and that 
 to avoid the sandbars and islands which are continually 
 forming from the material washed down from the Andes. 
 The river is wide where we come in from the sea, and big 
 ocean vessels go as far inland as. Barranquilla. Farther 
 south it narrows, but it is often a mile wide, and in the 
 
 Some of the boats on the jNlagdalena River are propelled by a wheel 
 at the stern, like those on the Ohio and Mississippi. 
 
 lowlands it flows through a tropical jungle where the trees 
 are matted together with vines and the palms wave their 
 fanhke branches over the water. 
 
 Now we pass a village of thatched huts, about which are 
 little groves of bananas, and now go by sandy islands where 
 the alHgators may be seen sunning themselves. On one 
 islet we count eighteen of these monsters asleep on the shore. 
 The river is full of fish which often become frightened by 
 the steamer and jump high out of the water. Thousands 
 of queer-looking birds are to be seen, and we now and then 
 frighten a flock of parrots, cranes, pehcans, or flamingoes,
 
 UP THE MAGDALENA TO BOOOTA 
 
 47 
 
 which flap their great wings as they rise from the river. 
 The flamingoes are of a bright pink, and they fly in a rosy 
 stream high over our vessel. 
 
 Our fuel is wood, and we have to stop often for a supply 
 for the engines at the little stations here and there on the 
 
 Spinning room in a doth factory, Colombia. 
 
 banks of the river. At such times we get off and walk 
 about on the edge of the jungle, cutting canes from the 
 clumps of bamboo, gathering orchids, or trying to spear 
 some of the big fish for which the Magdalena is noted. 
 
 About a week after leaving Barranquilla, vve arrive at 
 a port from which a railroad is building to the thriving city
 
 48 SOUTH .\^IERICA 
 
 of Medellin (ma-thel-yen') , which lies high up on the moun- 
 tains in a rich gold and silver mining region, and a little 
 later stop at La Dorado, where we take a railway around 
 the rapids to Honda (on'da) . Here we hire mules and climb 
 for two days up the hills to the high plateau upon which 
 Bogota (bo-go-taO is situated. 
 
 Honda is half as far from the mouth of the Magdalena 
 as St. Louis is from the Gulf of Mexico, but the river 
 extends hundreds of miles beyond so that small steamers 
 can go a long distance into southern Colombia. There 
 is a considerable fall at the rapids, and they will probably 
 be used some day to generate power for manufacturing. 
 
 Bogota is nearly as far from the Caribbean Sea as 
 Detroit is from the Atlantic Ocean. The city is more 
 than eighty-six hundred feet above the sea level. It is 
 higher than Mexico City but lower than La Paz or Quito 
 (ke'to), or Lassa, the capital of Tibet. Although it is near 
 the' equator it has a climate much Hke our spring all 
 the year round. Roses and hlies are always in bloom, and 
 beds of blue and white violets load the air with perfume. 
 Strawberries are to be had from January to December, 
 and in the markets we can buy peaches, apples, and pears, 
 as well as the most delicious pineapples, oranges, and 
 bananas, which come from the tropical valleys much lower 
 down. 
 
 Bogota lies on the eastern edge of a beautiful plateau, 
 with its streets cHmbing the hills at the back. The plateau 
 is about sixty miles long and thirty miles wide. It is 
 covered with farms and spotted with little white farmhouses 
 whose dark-red roofs shine under the sun. It has green 
 pastures upon which fat cattle are feeding, many fields of 
 potatoes, and great patches of wheat and barley, which 
 are rising and falling under the winds.
 
 UP THE MAGDALENA TO BOGOTA 49 
 
 We spend some time in Bogota. It has nearly one hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand inhabitants, most of whom are of 
 the mixed Spanish and Indian race. There are also many 
 Indians who have come in from the country about. The 
 men have on white trousers and shirts, and sometimes 
 also a poncho, or blanket, which they wear over their 
 shoulders, sticking their heads out through a hole in the 
 center. The Indian women wear dark clothes, and nearly 
 all have on straw hats like those our boys wear in the 
 summer. Many of them carry heavy burdens on their 
 backs, held there by straps about their heads or shoulders. 
 
 Most of the citizens of Bogota are white. They are largely 
 of Spanish descent, and many of the children have rosy 
 cheeks caused by the fresh, bracing air. These people dress 
 much as we do, but the women, when they go on the street, 
 wear black gowns and have black shawls on their heads. 
 Many of the men wear tall hats and nearly all carry canes. 
 
 As we walk about the city we see many fine horses with 
 men and boys riding them. There are also ox-carts and 
 wagons and countless donkeys with loads on their backs. 
 Donkeys and mules are the chief beasts of burden. Bread, 
 vegetables, and fruit are carried about from house to house 
 upon them, and scores of the httle animals are to be seen 
 in the market, where they have to wait until their masters 
 sell the produce they have brought in from the country. 
 
 Bogota is a Spanish-built town, and its low houses run 
 around patios (pat'yos) or Httle square gardens, so that our 
 bedrooms look out upon beautiful flowers. The houses are 
 close to the street with strong iron bars over the windows, 
 and their outside walls are painted in all the colors of the 
 rainbow. Most of the roofs are of red tiles. There are 
 many churches. The people are Roman Catholics, and we 
 meet priests and nuns as we go through the streets.
 
 50 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The best part of the city is about the Plaza Bolivar 
 (bo-le'var), a beautiful park with gardens of flowers and 
 tropical trees. On one side of it is the national capitol, 
 or government building, and on another the cathedral. 
 On the remaining two sides, with arcades before them, are 
 stores containing goods from all parts of the world. There 
 are many people shopping, and in the evening the city and 
 parks are thronged with men, women, and children. 
 
 Bogota has electric street cars, telephones, and electric 
 Lights. It has many automobiles and all modern civic 
 improvements. Its streets are paved with asphalt, and it 
 has several beautiful squares and parks in which are 
 statues of the nation's heroes. In the Plaza de Espana 
 is the bust of Cervantes, the author of " Don Quixote." The 
 city has public libraries, and there are daily newspapers 
 printed in Spanish. It is the capital of Colombia, and in 
 it are the houses of Congress and the homes and offices of the 
 president and other officials. We are told that the republic 
 is modeled after the United States and that its government 
 is very much hke ours. There are many soldiers on the 
 streets of Bogota, and we are awakened each morning by 
 the trumpeters calHng the troops out to drill. There are 
 good public schools, and the government has established 
 post schools, aviation schools, and schools to teach farming. 
 Bogota is sometimes called the Athens of South America. 
 
 There are now automobile roads in many parts of the 
 country, and we motor out through a valley underlaid 
 with beds of coal to see Tequendama (ta-kan-da'ma) Falls, 
 which are within an hour's ride of the capital. These falls 
 are three times as high as Niagara, dropping in one perpen- 
 dicular plunge four hundred and fifty feet. Their volume 
 of water is small compared with that of Niagara, but they 
 create the electric power for the city.
 
 EMERALDS AND PLATINUM $1 
 
 VII. EMERALDS AND PLATINUM 
 
 HOW would you like to have a mine of precious stones 
 more valuable than diamonds, or a bed of gravel 
 sprinkled with grains of a white metal worth several times 
 its weight in gold? We can find both in Colombia. The 
 precious stones are emeralds, gems of translucent green 
 which are among the most beautiful jewels known, and the 
 metal is platinum, of enormous value in the industrial arts. 
 
 We shall see the emerald mines first. Colombia pro- 
 duces the purest and most beautiful emeralds from mines 
 near Bogota. In ancient times the best emeralds were 
 mined in Upper Egypt near the Red Sea. Cleopatra wore 
 beautiful stones from that region, and the Emperor Nero 
 is said to have had a large Egyptian emerald, which he used 
 as an eye glass to view the lions and gladiators fighting 
 in the Colosseum. PHny, the Roman historian, describes 
 the statue of a lion on the shores of Cyprus, wliich had 
 emerald eyes so brilliant that when the sun shone on them 
 they frightened the fish. 
 
 Shortly after South America was discovered, five great 
 emeralds were taken from the Indians of Peru and brought 
 back to Spain. One of these had been cut into a rose, 
 and the second into a horn ; a third was a fish with golden 
 eyes, and the fourth a bell with a pearl for a clapper, while 
 the fifth was a tiny cup. So far no mines of emeralds have 
 been found in Peru, and those stones may have come from 
 Colombia. From here also came the " Duke of Devon- 
 shire," one of the most valuable emeralds ever found. 
 
 The purest and most beautiful emeralds are worth far 
 more than diamonds of the same size. They are so valuable 
 that one of us could carry in his pockets enough to be a 
 great fortune. The mines at Muzo (moo'so), Colombia,
 
 52 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 which we shall visit, now belong to the government, and 
 the output of one year amounts to hundreds of thousands 
 of carats. There are large tracts in which the emeralds 
 are found, and it will be many years before the mines are 
 exhausted. 
 
 We take the railroad at Bogota and ride several hours to 
 the Httle town of Zipaquira (se'-pa-ke-ra') , where we get 
 mules and climb over the hills to the mines. The country 
 is rough and the trip takes us three days. We go first 
 over a mountain spotted with salt mines, then across a 
 cold, dreary plateau, and chmb down into a valley which 
 is about a mile above the sea level. Here we again see 
 how latitude and altitude affect climate. The weather 
 is hot and there are orange groves and coffee plantations. 
 The next day it is bitterly cold, for we are cHmbing an- 
 other high range of mountains. We then descend into a 
 valley and later climb over mountains so steep that we 
 are tired out when we at last reach the old village of 
 Muzo, which has been the center of the emerald industry 
 for hundreds of years. 
 
 The emeralds are found not far from the town. They 
 lie on the steep slopes of a mountain covered with woods. 
 The earth is first cut away, and under it are beds of black 
 limestone and shale containing a network of white veins 
 in which crystals of emerald are embedded. When taken 
 out each is a six-sided prism of the richest green color. 
 
 The mining is done by Indian laborers, who clear away 
 the earth and rock from above, and then break up the 
 hmestone with crowbars, picking out the emerald veins 
 with their hands. The precious stones are then carefully 
 separated from the rock and are sent to London or New 
 York to be cut into jewels. The Indians are guarded 
 day and night by watchmen. They live in little huts near
 
 Mining emeralds in ihe Andes. Below is a piece of the rock 
 with the emeralds showing. Each is a prism of purest green. 
 
 S3
 
 54 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the mines and are not allowed to keep chickens for fear 
 that the fowls, in scratching for gravel, may swallow some 
 of the emeralds and hide them away in their craws. 
 
 Leaving Muzo, we make our way back to Bogota, from 
 which we go to Honda and thence ride on muleback for 
 days over the mountains and valleys to the seaport of 
 Buenaventura, where we entered Colombia. All the way 
 we hear much and see something of the minerals of Colom- 
 bia. The northern Andes are one of the world's treasure 
 vaults, and they contain valuable beds of iron, copper, 
 lead, silver, and gold. They have been mining gold in 
 Colombia since the Spaniards conquered the Indians, and 
 within that time more than seven hundred milhon dollars' 
 worth has been taken out of the rocks and from the beds 
 of the streams. Gold is to be found in every state of the 
 republic, and color or traces of the precious metal in the 
 gravel of almost every stream. One of the richest gold 
 mining sections is Antioquia (an-te-o'ke-a) , where MedelHn 
 is the chief city, and there are silver mines farther south 
 in Tolima (to-le'ma) and Cauca. Copper has been dis- 
 covered in five different states, and beds of coal are 
 known to exist. The country has also valuable fields of 
 petroleum. 
 
 The most interesting of the minerals of Colombia is 
 platinum. This metal is rare, most of the world's prod- 
 uct coming from the Ural Mountains in Russia. Un- 
 til the World War, Russia was producing nine tenths of 
 all that was mined, but since then a great deal has been 
 exported from Colombia. The platinum is found mixed 
 with other metals in the gravel of the streams. It is 
 washed out and separated and then sent to the market. 
 
 Platinum has a value several times greater than gold. 
 It is not dissolved by acids or melted by a very high tem-
 
 EMERALDS AND PLATINUM 55 
 
 perature, therefore, it is indispensable in many chemical 
 operations. It is used in making munitions and nitrates, 
 and for this purpose was very important in the World 
 War. At that time our supply from Russia was cut off 
 and all we used came from Colombia. Platinum is used 
 also in dentistry, and I doubt not that some of us have 
 bits of platinum in our teeth which have been filled. It 
 is employed as a setting for diamonds and other precious 
 stones, and it makes the most costly of jewelry. 
 
 Platinum can be pulled out into wires as fine as the 
 hair of a baby, so fine that twelve hundred of them, laid 
 side by side, would cover a width of only one inch, 
 
 1. Trace our journey from Panama lo Colombia. Compare the 
 Pacific with the other great oceans. What islands of the Pacific 
 belong to us? How did we acquire them? Which group is the 
 largest ? The most valuable ? 
 
 2. Compare Colombia with your own state as to size and climate. 
 How do mountains affect climate? Why has Bogota, so near the 
 equator, cool weather and the fruits and grains of the temperate 
 zone? What is the government of Colombia? 
 
 3. What is cacao? From what countries of the world does it 
 come? (See Table XVI.) Make a visit to a cacao plantation 
 and trace a box of cacao beans from there to New York. How 
 is chocolate made? What candy do we get from cacao? (See 
 Carpenter's "How the World is Fed," pages 317-322.) 
 
 4. What other important tropical fruit do we import from Colom- 
 bia? How is it raised? From what seaport docs it come? What 
 does it cost at your home ? Tell the story of its travels if it came 
 from Colombia. (See Carpenter's "How the World is Fed," page 
 271.) 
 
 5. Contrast the principal river of Colombia with the principal 
 river of the United States. Describe a trip up this river. Make a 
 list of the animals you sec along its banks. 
 
 6. Would you like to live in Bogota? Why? Describe the city 
 and its inhabitants. What great falls arc near by? How do they 
 compare with Niagara Falls ?
 
 56 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 7. Describe your visit to the emerald mines. Compare these 
 precious stones with diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. (See Car- 
 penter's "How the World is Clothed," chapters 35 and 39.) 
 
 8. What is platinum? Give some of its uses. From what two 
 countries does the most of the world's supply come? Why was it of 
 value in the World War? Mention other important minerals that 
 come from Colombia. 
 
 -^»<<> 
 
 VIII. A LAND OF THE EQUATOR 
 
 WE have left Colombia, have steamed along the north- 
 west coast of Ecuador, have sailed by the Galapagos 
 (ga-lap'a-gos) Islands, noted for their enormous turtles, 
 have called at the ports of Esmeraldas (es-ma-ral'das) and 
 Bahia (ba-e'a), and are going up the Guayas (gwi'as) 
 River to Guayaquil, the chief seaport of the country. It 
 was only yesterday that we crossed the equator, and we 
 are now a little south of that Hne in one of the hottest 
 regions of the world. 
 
 Ecuador is the Spanish name for equator, and the country 
 lies on both sides of that Hne. It is more than twice as 
 large as Illinois and almost as large as the United Kingdom 
 of Great Britain and Ireland. It has rivers that flow into 
 the Pacific Ocean and also some that go down into the 
 Amazon and the Atlantic. 
 
 Ecuador consists of a strip of low land along the Pacific 
 Ocean about eighty miles wide, running back to the foot- 
 hills of the Andes ; of the wide Andean highlands ; and of 
 their eastern slope, which falls rapidly to the vast forests of 
 the Amazon basin. Only the lowlands of the east and west 
 are tropical. The cHmate grows steadily cooler as one 
 cUmbs the slopes of the Andes, and in the high valleys
 
 A LAND OF THE EQUATOR 
 
 57 
 
 ' ^ ^-ifQuavaiiuilV 
 
 *^ '■--<. ' nCitVlira \ 
 
 r*X' n-^x; i\k*. >-J ,!/ 
 
 and plains upheld by these mountains, having an average 
 height of more than a mile and one half above the sea, 
 the chmate is like spring all the time. Indeed, as we go 
 from the seacoast to the tops of the Andes we shall hnd 
 every kind of cli- 
 mate from the torrid 
 to the frigid zone, 
 the higher peaks 
 being clad with per- 
 petual snow. 
 
 Along the coast it 
 is easy to realize that 
 we are still in the 
 tropics. Look at 
 the city of Guaya- 
 quil as it lies on the 
 banks of the river. 
 There is not a chim- 
 ney rising above any 
 
 of the houses, and the buildings are made without glass 
 windows, mere holes in the walls serving for light and 
 air. The town does not need furnaces, and heating stoves 
 are unknown. 
 
 The dark-skinned boatmen who have rowed out to the 
 ship to take us on shore wear but little clothing, and as 
 we land at the wharf we see half-naked babies playing about 
 near their mothers, who sit in the shade of the buildings 
 peddling oranges, pineapples, bananas, and other tropical 
 fruits. 
 
 How the sun beats down upon us as we stand in the street ! 
 We have on thick hats and we carry umbrellas. We are 
 warned to walk in the shade and to stay in at midday. 
 Guayaquil has often been very unhealthy, but it is said
 
 A LAND OF THE EQUATOR 59 
 
 to be safe for tourists and others to-day. Nevertheless, 
 it has had yellow fever and bubonic plague, and we shall 
 always sleep under mosquito nettings at night. 
 
 Let us leave the wharves and go farther over into the 
 business section. Now we arc walking under arcades by 
 one store after another. It is Hke passing through a 
 museum or a bazaar in the East Indies. The shops are all 
 open. The front walls have been folded back or taken 
 away for the day and the goods are piled upon the counters 
 and stacked on the floors. 
 
 What a queer throng is this that moves along in the 
 shade ! There are white women in black gowns with 
 black shawls over their heads. There are Indian girls 
 in bright-colored dresses and straw hats, and copper- 
 skinned Indian peons, or workmen, who trot along carry- 
 ing bags of cacao and other wares on their backs. 
 
 How many donkeys there are in the street ! Here comes 
 one loaded with lumber. He has three long boards strapped 
 on each side his back and he clears the whole roadway 
 when his master turns him about. There is another carry- 
 ing two large wooden boxes, between which his head peeps 
 out. That is the bread wagon of Guayaquil, and the boy 
 who is dragging the animal onward is probably the son of 
 the baker. There are other donkeys carrying vegetables and 
 fruit in panniers, and we see that these Httle animals here 
 take the places of our huckster carts, carriages, and drays. 
 
 But what is the matter with that donkey's legs ? He 
 seems to have on trousers, and there is a band of cotton 
 cloth on the under side of his body. We see other donkeys 
 dressed the same way, and when we ask why are told that 
 the gnats and flies are so bad in Guayaquil that the donkeys 
 and mules often wear waistbands and trousers. 
 
 Let us take a walk throue:h the citv. It is laid out in
 
 6o SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 squares and runs for about two miles along the shores of 
 the river. The streets are paved with asphalt or blocks 
 of gray stone. Many of them are lined with trees, and 
 there are beautiful parks in which we can rest under the 
 shade of the palms. The town has some large buildings, 
 but most of the houses are of one or two stories, made in 
 such a way as to withstand the earthquakes which are 
 common in Ecuador. 
 
 We stop for a moment before a house in the process of 
 building. The dark-skinned carpenters are naiUng bamboo 
 laths on the framework of the structure and covering them 
 with a thin coat of plaster. That is to be the outside of 
 the house. When finished it will look as though it were 
 made of brick or stone covered with stucco, but in fact it 
 will be so thin that one could easily ram a hole through 
 it with a fence rail. See how the beams and rafters are 
 made in sections and fitted together so that they will give 
 and not break if an earthquake occurs. Heavy buildings 
 might fall at such times, but these hght structures rock to 
 and fro and do not come down. 
 
 Guayaquil is one of the best ports on the west coast of 
 South America. It is eight hundred and thirty-five miles 
 from Panama. It lies on the Guayas, the only navigable 
 river which flows into the Pacific Ocean between San 
 Francisco and the Strait of Magellan. The river is a mile 
 wide where it faces the city, and so deep that it furnishes 
 a safe harbor for large ocean steamers. The port is sixty 
 miles inland, and the Guayas forms a waterway to much 
 of the lowland which borders the coast. We find the 
 stream filled with shipping and see many dugouts and 
 cargo boats which have brought in cacao, cane sugar, and 
 ivory nuts for export. 
 
 There is a railroad which goes from Guayaquil up the
 
 A LAND OF THE EQUATOR 6l 
 
 Andes to Quito. The distance is two hundred and 
 ninety-seven miles, and the trip can be made in less than 
 two days. There are also many mountain trails down which 
 goods are brought to the port. There are little steamers 
 which will take us up the Guayas River almost to the 
 foot of the mountains, and we can go from there to Quito 
 across country by mules. We shall travel that way in 
 order to study the lowlands and learn about the highlands 
 as we climb up through the passes to the Andean plateau. 
 
 We leave Guayaquil at night on a small steamer and 
 awake to find ourselves moving in and out among little 
 frame houses built high upon piles surrounded by water. 
 It is the rainy season in Ecuador and the low coast lands 
 are flooded. The people are now living as high above the 
 ground as the second stories of our houses at home, but 
 their buildings seem to be floating. We see them going 
 from hut to hut in canoes. There are marketmen rowing 
 about ; the schoolhouse is on piles, and we see children in 
 boats being paddled to school. 
 
 This town is Bodegas (bo-dag'as) , the head of navigation 
 of the Guayas. Only a small part of it is on the mainland, 
 and this is half flooded. The street crossings of that 
 section are bridged with logs, and the people have to hug 
 the walls and step upon blocks in getting from one store 
 to another along the side streets. 
 
 Many of the houses are far out in the river. The smaller 
 ones have only one room. They are made of poles covered 
 with palm leaves, and are reached by ladders from the water. 
 Let us take a canoe and visit one of them. The owner 
 makes us welcome, and we sit down on a block on the fioor, 
 holding ourselves rather gingerly for fear the floor may 
 break through and drop us into the water. See, the floor 
 is made of bamboo canes with wide cracks between them.
 
 62 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The women do not need to sweep, for the dirt fafls through 
 into the river, or to the ground when the stream has gone 
 down. 
 
 Notice that clay pot resting on the fire in the box over 
 there. That is the cook stove of the family. These people 
 use charcoal for fuel. They live largely upon sweet potatoes 
 or yams, plantains or large bananas, and a potato-like 
 tuber called the yucca. They are fond of rice, and eat 
 a great deal of beef dried in the sun. 
 
 Leaving Bodegas, we start out for a trip through the 
 lowlands before climbing the Andes. We ride for miles 
 in canoes among the trees of the tropical forest, stopping 
 to gather the orchids and other beautiful flowers with which 
 they are loaded. Now monkeys make faces at us out of 
 the branches, and now a bright-colored parrot scolds as 
 we go on our way. We frequently see alligators which swim 
 lazily off into the bushes, and now and then take a shot 
 at one, but the beast dives at the sound and we cannot tell 
 whether we have hit him or not. 
 
 In the more elevated country we see cacao plantations 
 and tagua palm trees which look like gigantic ferns with 
 green balls of fruit as large as our heads. The fruit of the 
 tagua is in bunches at the base of the leaves. It looks like 
 an enormous chestnut bur, but it is really a palm bur eight 
 or ten inches thick containing a dozen or more nuts as big 
 as the fist of a small baby, which, when green, are filled 
 with a soft jelly-like substance tasting not unlike coconut 
 milk. When the nuts grow ripe they become as hard as 
 bone. They are then gathered and shipped to different 
 parts of the world to be used as vegetable ivory. The 
 kernel of the nut has a texture very much like elephant 
 ivory. It is so hard that it can be sawed, carved, and 
 turned into all sizes and shapes. It is white, but it can
 
 Ivory nuts. The fruit of the tagua palm furnishes material from 
 which millions of buttons are made. 
 
 63
 
 64 SOUTH .\JVIERICA 
 
 be dyed and ii takes a most beautiful polish. The tagua 
 tree is found also in Colombia and Panama. 
 
 It is from such nuts that many of our buttons are made. 
 Ecuador exports more of the nuts than any other part 
 of the earth, and the United States buys over twenty million 
 pounds of them every year. We have over a score of 
 vegetable ivory factories and they turn out bushels of 
 buttons a week. 
 
 There is another palm in this region which supplies large 
 quantities of goods for export to the United States. This 
 is the planta de toquila (to-ke'la), from the leaves of which 
 comes the fine straw for making Panama hats. The tree 
 grows wild in this hot, humid region, and the hatmakers 
 go about and gather the leaves, which they tear apart into 
 the fibers used for weaving. Thousands of women and 
 children are engaged in this work. The finest hats are 
 woven under water, as the straw becomes brittle when 
 exposed to the sun. 
 
 The most beautiful hats take a long time to make, and 
 they sometimes sell for as much as one hundred dollars 
 apiece. The children can weave two of the cheapest 
 grade of hats in one day. The hats are called Panamas 
 because they were formerly sent to Panama and thence 
 shipped to New York. They are made in Colombia, 
 Ecuador, and Peru ; but the most and the best come from- 
 Ecuador. 
 
 Ecuador exports rubber from the wild trees of its lowlands 
 and also some coft'ee, famous for its fine flavor. The 
 country is supposed to have deposits of gold, silver, copper, 
 and petroleum, but they are but little developed. The 
 trade of Ecuador with the United States has increased 
 enormously since the Panama Canal was built. Cacao 
 is the chief export, amounting often to one hundred million
 
 Finished hat 
 
 Genuine Panama hats are made from the leaves of the loquila pahii. 
 
 6S
 
 66 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 pounds in one year. We buy most of its rubber, ivory 
 nuts, and cacao, and sell to it machinery, railway supplies, 
 cotton and woolen goods, and foodstuffs. 
 
 oXKc 
 
 IX. CLIMBING THE ANDES TO QUITO 
 
 WE have left the lowlands of Ecuador and are on our 
 mules climbing the great mountain wall of the 
 Andes. The road is so narrow in places that we go single 
 file, and often so steep that we fear we may slip off behind. 
 We ford many streams, making our way in and out through 
 the bowlders and throwing our legs high on the necks of 
 the mules to keep our feet out of the water. Now we ride 
 along narrow ledges, shuddering to think what would 
 happen if the animals should shp in the mud and slide off 
 into the deep canon below. The going is worse farther 
 up and we heartily agree with the natives, who say their 
 roads are for birds rather than men. 
 
 As we ascend the air becomes fresher and cooler. The 
 coffee and cacao trees have now disappeared. We have 
 left the tropical forests, and we are in a region of less 
 luxuriant vegetation. The trees and plants continue to 
 change as we rise. They grow smaller, and at last we are 
 so far above the sea that there are no trees at all. 
 
 How cold the wind is ! We shiver under the blankets 
 in the rude huts where we stay overnight, and are very 
 uncomfortable. Our beds are wooden platforms which 
 seem to seek out every bone in our bodies. We are tor- 
 mented with insects, and the chickens and dogs run in and 
 out of the rooms where we are trying to sleep. 
 
 Still farther on we reach a plain which is higher in the
 
 CLIMBING THE ANDES TO QUITO 
 
 67 
 
 air than the top of Pikes Peak. It is covered with sand, 
 and the wind almost blows us off our mules as we ride over 
 it. This is the Arenal, the pass of the Andes through which 
 we enter the high central valley where most of the people 
 
 MuuiiiiUii iiail ill LlluuIui-. Alu.-^t of the pcujiU ul Ecuador live 
 on high plateaus, many of which can be reached only by trails 
 
 like this. 
 
 of Ecuador live. Ecuador is situated in the torrid zone, 
 but it has all kinds of climates. 
 
 Now we have gone over the pass and, descending a little, 
 are soon on our way up the valley toward Quito. We are 
 almost two miles above the sea, with some of the highest
 
 68 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of the Andes in sight. Over there is Chimborazo (chim-bo- 
 ra'zo) , its snowy peak kissing the sky more than four miles 
 above Guayaquil ; and on each side of us, walling the 
 valley, as far as our eyes can reach, are mountains, many of 
 which are almost as high. 
 
 This wide valley extends from north to south throughout 
 Ecuador. It has been called an avenue walled with 
 volcanoes. Some of the many craters are active, and we 
 can see the steam rising in clouds from them as we ride by. 
 Earthquakes are frequent, and the houses are built to with- 
 stand them. 
 
 The high valley of Ecuador is where most of the people 
 live. It is a rich farming region with crops similar to those 
 of our northern states. We ride by fields of potatoes, 
 barley, and wheat, passing orchards, gardens, and green 
 pastures on which cattle are feeding. We go from one 
 town to another until we come to Ambato (am-ba'to), a 
 thriving httle city in the heart of the Andes and a center of 
 trade for east Ecuador. The town was destroyed more 
 than two hundred years ago by the eruption of the vol- 
 cano of Cotopaxi (ko-to-pak'se). The mountain is now 
 smoking, and we tremble a little as we pass it on our way 
 up the valley. 
 
 Ambato is a station on the railway from Guayaquil to 
 Quito. We take the train here and ride all day through 
 the high valley, stopping a while at Latacunga (la-ta- 
 koon'ga), between the volcanoes of Cotopaxi and' Chim- 
 borazo, and arriving at Quito late in the evening. 
 
 We are now in the highest capital of the world, with the 
 exception of Lassa, the capital of Thibet in the Himalaya 
 Mountains. Quito is two thousand feet higher than the 
 capital of Mexico and about seven hundred feet above 
 Bogota. It is more than a thousand feet above the Saint
 
 Indian water carriers in Quito. The jars arc of burnt clay. The 
 Roman Cathohc church behind the fountain is one of many in the 
 city. Quito has eleven monasteries and the largest convent of 
 
 the world. 
 69
 
 70 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Bernard pass in the Alps Mountains, the highest point in 
 Europe where men live through the year, and the place 
 where the famous Saint Bernard dogs are kept to hunt for 
 men lost in the snow. On Saint Bernard there is often ice 
 all the year round. We find no ice at Quito. The air is 
 as warm as May in our northern states, and the climate 
 is perpetual spring. The city is almost on the equator, 
 but the thin, clear air at that great height so tempers the 
 heat of the sun that the people wear clothing as heavy as 
 we wear in the fall. We find it cold morning and evening, 
 and shiver in the unheated houses. 
 
 Indeed, Quito is more like a city of the temperate zones 
 than any other on the equator. It has vegetables the same 
 as ours, and we see pears, grapes, strawberries, and apples 
 for sale in the markets. The roses bloom all the year 
 round ; lilies, pinks, and tuhps may be had every month ; 
 while geraniums continually make bright the walls and 
 roofs, and wild flowers cover the courtyards and ruins. 
 How clear the sky is and how bright the sunshine ! This 
 is so throughout the day except for about two hours in 
 the afternoon, when it rains. 
 
 Quito is not large, but it is about the most interesting 
 city of all South America. The capital of the republic 
 of Ecuador, it lies about one hundred and fourteen miles 
 east of the Pacific Ocean in a bowl-shaped valley at the 
 foot of the extinct volcano Pichincha (pe-chen'cha), whose 
 snowy peak we see far above us. Pichincha is higher 
 than Mont Blanc, but we ride up to its crater on mules. 
 From its summit we can see twenty snow-clad peaks 
 ranging from three to four miles in height. 
 
 Quito is crossed from east to west by two deep ravines, 
 through which Pichincha sends down its currents of melted 
 snow. The streets run up hill and down, crossing one
 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 
 ^m "< 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 : 
 
 ■•*% "3v if A ^^V 
 
 
 ^^^^^B ^^B^ 
 
 P - 
 
 „ "' - «■ 
 
 The Indian boys of iIk- iVTUNi.ni Amk- wrar 1k\i\_\ li.iis and 
 ponchos. The knitted helmets and ear tabs are necessary on ac- 
 count of the cold of the high mountains. The wool of the poncho 
 comes from the llama. 
 71
 
 72
 
 CLIMBING THE ANDES TO QUITO 73 
 
 another at right angles or meeting at the plazas which are 
 found here and there. The houses are of the Spanish 
 style, built around courtyards, with roofs coming out 
 over the sidewalks, and balconies in front of the windows. 
 None of them is of more than two stories. They are 
 made of stone or brick covered with stucco and roofed 
 with red tiles. There are many churches and convents, 
 and we see priests going about everywhere. They wear 
 broad-brimmed black hats and are clad in black or white 
 gowns. 
 
 The streets are filled with traffic. Long trains of don- 
 keys and mules loaded with goods move back and forth 
 through them, and we now and then see llamas with loads 
 on their backs. There are many Indian men, women, 
 and children carrying great burdens, some of them farmers 
 who are bringing vegetables and fruit into the city for 
 sale. There are well-to-do people dressed as we are, and 
 hundreds of Indians wearing red or yellow ponchos, white 
 cotton trousers, and broad-brimmed hats of white felt. 
 The Indians come from different villages, and the cut of 
 their hair, their hats, and their ponchos mark the locality 
 where they live. Each tribe is said to have a style of its 
 own. We are interested in the Indian boys who stare at 
 us as we go by. 
 
 Ecuador has many Indians, and most . of the whites 
 have, we are told, more or less Indian blood in their veins. 
 Over two thirds of the population belongs to the red race, 
 and the majority of them are only half civilized. They 
 have small farms, or work for the whites and the mixed 
 race of Spaniards and Indians. These people were ruled 
 by the Incas, of whom we shall learn more in Peru, and they 
 had civilized ways when the Spaniards first came. They 
 had covered this high valley with their villages and they
 
 74 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 had many cities, one of the largest of which was old Quito, 
 situated where we are now. Old Quito was a much larger 
 city than the present capital of Ecuador. Its exact size 
 is not known, but Atahualpa (a-ta-hwal'pa), the Inca 
 monarch who lived here, had a palace roofed with gold, 
 and there were many fine houses. When Pizarro, the 
 Spanish conqueror, came he killed Atahualpa and en- 
 slaved his Indian subjects. He was followed by other 
 Spaniards, some of whom intermarried with the Indians, 
 and the descendants of those people are the ruling classes 
 of Ecuador to-day. 
 
 These Indians form the working people of the country. 
 They till the soil. They are the water carriers of the 
 cities. They carry boxes of goods on their backs up 
 and down the mountains and do all kinds of hard 
 labor for very small pay. Many of them are practically 
 slaves. They are not thrifty and get in debt to their 
 masters, who can then force them to work until the debt 
 is paid. Such debts often last from generation to genera- 
 tion. The Indians seem to have no ambition to better 
 themselves. All one wants is a mud or stone hut, a suit 
 or two of cotton clothes, a little rice and meat for food, 
 and enough money to have a feast now and then. 
 
 In addition to these semi-ci\'ilized Indians of the Andes 
 there are some from the eastern lowlands who are barbarous 
 and others who are savages. In Quito we see many who 
 have chmbed up from the wilds bringing tropical fruits, 
 rubber, and other things to the markets. There are 
 Indians from the Napo River who sometimes use blowguns 
 and poisoned arrows, and there are others who make 
 blankets and skirts from the bark of trees. They show 
 us this bark cloth and we buy pieces to take home. It 
 is more like felt than cloth.
 
 CLIMBING THE ANDES TO QUITO 75 
 
 Among the Indians of Ecuador is a tribe of head hunters 
 who have a practice of curing the heads of the enemies 
 they kill. They cut off the head, remove the bones, and 
 fill the skin with hot pebbles to dry it. As it shrinks they 
 keep pressing it inward on all sides so carefully that it 
 keeps its shape and has the same features as when in hfe, 
 although it may be no bigger than a man's fist. The 
 heads are then baked in the sand, after which they will 
 last for years. 
 
 Formerly such heads were sometimes offered for sale 
 to travelers, but the government has now forbidden the 
 practice and any Indian caught with a dried human head 
 is punished. 
 
 There is a university in Quito, and public schools of 
 various kinds here and there throughout the country. 
 We can usually tell where the schools are, for the pupils 
 study out loud, making such a din they can be heard a 
 long distance. We learn, however, that many of the chil- 
 dren do not attend school, and that but few of the people 
 can read. This condition will probably pass away. The 
 government is introducing modern education, and the 
 country is slowly improving in civilization, in commerce, 
 and in wealth. It has now several railroads, including 
 the one from Guayaquil up the Andes, and others are 
 planned. We return from Quito to the seacoast by train, 
 riding for two days through the high valley and down the 
 slope of the Andes. 
 
 1. Trace our route from Colombia through Ecuador. 
 
 2. Where does Ecuador get its name? What countries adjoin it? 
 What state of ours is nearest it in size? Compare it in size and 
 population with Colombia, Peru, Chile. Describe its three regions 
 according to climate. Why do most of the people live in the 
 highlands ?
 
 76 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 3. Why is Guayaquil the best port ? How far is it from Panama? 
 From New York? Describe a walk through its streets. 
 
 4. Of what city of Italy does Bodegas remind us? How do the 
 children go to school during the rainy season? 
 
 5. Describe our journey through the lowlands. 
 
 6. Why might Ecuador be called the " Button Country " ? Follow 
 an ivory nut from the tagua tree to its place on your clothing. Let 
 the button tell the story. (See Carpenter's "How the World is 
 Clothed," chapter 41.) 
 
 7. How are Panama hats made? (See Carpenter's "How the 
 World is Clothed," chapter 30.) Mention other things we get from 
 Ecuador. What does Ecuador buy of us? 
 
 8. Tell the story of your trip over the Andes. Compare the 
 high plain of the Andes with our western highlands. 
 
 9. Locate Quito on the map. How far is it from Guayaquil? 
 Visit the city and tell what you see. How high above the sea is 
 your home ? How many feet would it have to be lifted to be as 
 high as Quito. Find out about the other high capitals of the 
 world, Mexico City, Lassa, and Bogota. (See Carpenter's "North 
 America" and "Asia.") 
 
 10. Tell what you know about a volcano — an earthquake. 
 What famous volcano is in Europe? In North America? Compare 
 Quito with Naples. (See Carpenter's "Europe" and "North 
 America.") 
 
 11. Describe the semi-civilized Indians of the highlands and the 
 savages of eastern Ecuador. Contrast both with our North 
 American Indians. 
 
 X. IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN 
 DESERT 
 
 WE have left Ecuador and steamed several hundred 
 miles southward along the coast of Peru. The 
 country is one fourth as large as the United States ; but 
 much of it is mountains and desert, and the eastern part, 
 which slopes from the Andes to the Amazon valley, is wild 
 and almost unexplored. There the population is scanty,
 
 IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 77 
 
 being composed chiefly of the savage Indians who Hve in 
 the forest. The most thickly peopled sections are the high- 
 lands and the snow-water oases along the streams that 
 flow from the Andes over the desert out to the ocean. 
 
 Principal Railroads 
 
 We are now in the midst of the South American desert 
 which borders the Pacific Ocean, extending from Ecuador 
 through Peru almost to Valparaiso (val-pa-ra-e'so) in Chile. 
 It is one of the great deserts of the world, and compares in
 
 78
 
 IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 79 
 
 some of its features with Sahara in Africa, Arabia and Gobi 
 in Asia, and the wild wastes of central and western Australia. 
 The desert begins at the sea and runs back into the foot- 
 hills of the Andes, gradually rising. It is over two thou- 
 sand miles long, reaching as far as from New York to Salt 
 Lake City, and its average width is only about forty miles. 
 Sailing by it, as far as one can see there is nothing but 
 sand, sand, sand. On the east the thirsty foothills of the 
 Andes rise and lose themselves in gray rocky mountains, 
 which, piled one above another, end in perpetual snow. 
 On the west are the sparkling waters of the Pacific, casting 
 their silvery spray on the beach. The air is cool and dry, 
 but the sand is so dazzling under the rays of the sun that we 
 shield our eyes with smoked spectacles to keep out the glare. 
 
 In the lowlands of Ecuador the soil was black and moist, 
 and the tropical vegetation so thick that we had to chop 
 our way, a foot at a time, to get through. Here we can 
 gallop on our horses for miles without seeing a tree, a flower, 
 or a blade of grass. 
 
 Now we pass queerly shaped hills which seem to be 
 moving on toward the north. They are the traveling 
 sand dunes of Peru. They are all shaped like new moons, 
 but they vary in size. Some are so small that they could 
 be put into a schoolroom and others so large that they 
 contain hundreds of tons of this moving sand. 
 
 But can a hill travel ? Come to one of the sand mounds 
 and see. The winds, which here blow almost always in 
 the same direction, roll the Httle grains of the pile over 
 one another, so that they move up the outside of the crescent 
 and roll down on the inside, keeping the hill of the same 
 shape, but slowly shoving it onward. 
 
 The traveling sand swallows everything in its way. It 
 covers the bridle paths, which are the only roads of the
 
 8o SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 desert, and for this reason we dare not go without a guide, 
 who directs our course by the stars at night and by the 
 winds during the day. 
 
 Now we see a flock of vultures picking at the bones of 
 animals which have perished of thirst in the desert, and 
 perhaps the skull of a traveler who has been lost and has 
 died here. Now and then we behold a condor, the biggest 
 bird that flies, circHng high in the air above us, making 
 a moving shadow on the plain ; but for most of the time 
 there is nothing but sand and rock and sea. 
 
 Is it not a wonderful region ? Yes ; but it is easy to 
 see that it cannot be otherwise when we think just where 
 it is, and how it is affected by winds and the mountains, 
 which we know have much to do with causing the rains. 
 
 The prevailing winds that sweep over this part of South 
 America come from the east. Starting from the shores 
 of Africa, as they cross the Atlantic Ocean, they fill 
 with water so that when they reach the coast of Brazil 
 they are loaded. As they go on over the land, they are 
 cooled and drop a large part of the burden in the rains that 
 feed the great rivers of eastern South America, and cover 
 the land with tropical verdure. 
 
 They drop more and more water as they climb the eastern 
 slopes of the Andes, so that when they have reached the 
 top almost all of their moisture has disappeared, and what 
 is left falls there as snow. The winds then sweep on down 
 to the Pacific. They are now so dry that they have not 
 a drop left for the coast. The result is this arid region 
 upon which rain seldom falls. 
 
 And are there no oases in this mighty desert ? Yes ; 
 here and there, at wide distances apart, are little rivers 
 fed by the melting snows of the Andes. In the whole two 
 thousand miles of sand there are about forty such streams,
 
 IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 8i 
 
 and along them arc the river oases, the only places in the 
 desert where people live. It is in these oases that Lima 
 (le'ma), the capital of Peru, Callao (kal-ya'o), its chief port, 
 and other principal cities arc located, and here are some 
 of the best farm lands of Peru. The soil of the desert is 
 fertile, and if it can have water it will produce almost 
 any kind of crops. We ride out of the sands into irri- 
 gated fields, and are surprised at the rich plantations of 
 sugar cane, rice, tobacco, and cotton growing in these 
 valley oases, with nothing but dry sand all about them. 
 
 We come upon vineyards in which deUcious grapes hang 
 from the vines, and we slake our thirst with the oranges 
 we pick from the trees. There are no better fruit lands 
 anywhere than the irrigated valleys of this sandy region. 
 Bananas, oranges, limes, and lemons grow side by side 
 with peaches and pears, and there are luscious cherries, 
 plums, dates, and figs. There are watermelons and 
 muskmelons, guavas and mangoes, and also papayas and 
 alligator pears. The papaya is as large as a muskmelon 
 and grows on a tree ; the alligator pear, which is much 
 smaller, comes from a tree of the laurel family. The 
 papaya is sweet, and it aids in digestion ; the aUigator 
 pear tastes like fresh butter and is eaten with salt. We 
 find fruit for sale in every market. We can buy all we can 
 eat for a very few cents. 
 
 The farms are divided into small fields fenced with 
 thick walls of mud as high as one's waist, and are covered 
 with a network of ditches to water the crops. In the 
 north we go from the port of Paita (pi'ta) through the 
 oases of the Piura (pyoo'ra) valley where there are 
 irrigated fields of red or brown cotton. Here the plants 
 bloom throughout the year, and we see many that have 
 buds, blossoms, and bolls at the same time. The best of
 
 82 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the cotton is from plants only one or two years old, but 
 if allowed to grow longer they become small trees and 
 will produce some cotton for eight or ten years. Peruvian 
 cotton brings the highest price in the market. It has long 
 libers somewhat like wool, and it is used by the manufac- 
 turers of hats, stockings, and underclothes to mix with 
 wool to render the articles less liable to shrink. We im- 
 port a great deal for that reason. 
 
 In the irrigated valleys farther south we see many sugar 
 estates. They look much like our fields of Indian corn. 
 The cane is planted in rows, and it comes up so luxuriantly 
 that in the distance the fields seem a mass of beautiful 
 green. Most of the plantations are large and well worked. 
 Some of the richer farmers use gasoline tractors, gang 
 plows, and harrows, and the cane is hauled to the mills 
 upon little railroads. 
 
 The ordinary farming, however, is done in the rudest 
 way. The fields are cultivated with oxen yoked by their 
 horns to plows which do little more than scratch the 
 ground as they are dragged over it. The large estates 
 belong to the rich whites or people of the mixed race of 
 Spaniards and Indians. The laborers are the Indians, or 
 peons, as they are often called. They receive low wages 
 but seem to be satisfied. They are ignorant and but few 
 know how to read. 
 
 See that group in the field over there ! They are as 
 brown as our Indians and they have the same high cheek 
 bones. They wear high broad-brimmed hats of dirty 
 white straw, and the women and children are barefooted. 
 The men wear leather sandals. The wofnen have on short 
 dresses with rebosas (ra-bo'sas) around their shoulders. 
 The men wear bright-colored ponchos and wide white 
 pantaloons which flap around their legs.
 
 IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 83 
 
 We shall see ponchos and rebosas nearly everywhere on 
 the west coast of the continent. The poncho is a woolen 
 blanket as large as a bedspread. It has a hole in the 
 middle, and one sticks his head through the hole and allows 
 the folds to come down over his shoulders. It looks 
 picturesque and is both warm and comfortable. The 
 rebosa is a long black shawl large enough to cover the 
 shoulders and at the same time be wrapped around the 
 head. 
 
 Let us enter the hut of a peon and see how he lives. The 
 hut is of cane, and we can see out on all sides through the 
 cracks in the walls. The floor is the ground, and the roof 
 is of reeds, for it is needed only to keep out the sun, there 
 being no danger of rain in the desert. The house has but 
 one room and is not so large as many a room in our houses 
 at home. 
 
 Where is the furniture? It seems as if the people had 
 moved, for there is not much to be seen. There in the 
 corner is a wooden platform as high as one's knee. That 
 is the sleeping place for the father and mother. The 
 children lie on the floor. There are no mattresses, blankets, 
 or quilts. The peon wears at night the same clothing as 
 during the day, the little ones huddUng together to keep 
 warm when the weather is cold. 
 
 Look at the opposite corner. See those two stones with 
 the earthen pot on them. That is the cooking stove of 
 the family. In preparing the meals a fire is placed under 
 it, and thus the stew of goat's meat and rice, the most 
 common dish, is cooked. The house has no other fur- 
 niture and neither chimneys nor windows. This Indian 
 has a few chickens and goats. You can see them feeding 
 outside the hut. At night he will bring them indoors, and 
 animals and family will sleep together.
 
 84 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 We shall find such Indians all over Peru, although their 
 houses and clothes are warmer in the cold mountains. 
 They are of the same race as those we saw in the highlands 
 of Ecuador. They were ruled by the Incas, and we can 
 hardly realize that they once owned this whole country, 
 and were more civilized in some ways than their descendants 
 are now. The ruins of the ancient cities and villages are 
 still to be seen, and there are many e\adences that the 
 Indians once farmed a vast territory which is now only 
 desert and waste. They knew how to irrigate the soil. 
 They even cultivated the hillsides of the Andes, and we 
 shall see terraces high in the mountains that they built 
 up with earth to raise crops. 
 
 These Indians were once a rich people, and their rulers 
 really did have dishes of gold. It is said that the Spaniards 
 took out of one of their temples as much gold as forty-two 
 horses could haul at one time, and about twice that weight 
 in silver. The silver nails of another temple weighed 
 twenty- two thousand ounces, and silver was so plentiful 
 that when the horses of the invaders needed new shoes 
 they were shod with that precious white metal. 
 
 The leader of the Spaniards who invaded and con- 
 quered Peru was Pizarro. We can see his dried body in 
 its glass coffin in the cathedral at Lirna. About eight 
 years after Balboa discovered the Pacific, Pizarro began 
 to explore the west coast of South America, and after 
 several years reached the Gulf of Guayaquil, and some 
 years later entered Peru with his soldiers. He had only 
 one hundred and two foot soldiers, sixty-two horsemen, 
 and two small cannon, but with this force he met the Inca 
 king, Atahualpa, and by treachery was able to conquer 
 him. He asked the king to take supper with him in his 
 fortress and then closed the gates and killed the Indian
 
 IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 85 
 
 attendants. The Indians were then without a leader, 
 and they were so frightened by the norses and cannon, 
 and so filled with fear that Pizarro would kill the king^ 
 that the Spaniards were able to defeat them. After that 
 Pizarro kept Atahualpa in prison, but promised to release 
 him if his subjects would fill with gold the room in which 
 he was chained, from the floor to a mark on the wall as high 
 as a man could reach. Atahualpa sent messengers out 
 over the land to carry the promise to his people, and this 
 vast amount of gold was brought in. Pizarro accepted 
 the gold and then refused to carry out his agreement. 
 He condemned the Inca king to death and had him strangled 
 with a silk cord in sight of his people. 
 
 It was by such methods that the Spaniards became 
 masters of all western South America. They treated the 
 Indians with the greatest cruelty. They made slaves of 
 them, forcing them to work in the mines. They used them 
 so badly that many died, and to-day Peru, with both white 
 people and the Indians, has not so many inhabitants as 
 when the white men first came. y* 
 
 oi*;o 
 
 XL IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 
 
 LIMA, the capital of Peru, is one of the oldest cities ot^ 
 our hemisphere. It was founded by Pizarro just one 
 hundred years before Boston was started, and it is now 
 a thriving city with electric street cars, electric lights, and 
 all modern improvements. Let us climb to the roof of 
 our hotel and take a bird's-eye view of the city before we 
 begin to explore it. We are in a vast field of flat roofs, 
 above which the massive towers of great churches rise here
 
 86
 
 IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 87 
 
 and there. At the back are the bleak foothills of the Andes, 
 gray and forbidding. There are white masses of clouds 
 rushing over their sides, and the hills rise one above the 
 other until they lose themselves in the dark clouds higher 
 up. This morning the tops of the Andes are hidden. 
 On bright days their snowy summits, glistening in the 
 sunlight, shine like masses of silver high above Lima. We 
 are here on the edge of the foothills, and that wireless 
 telegraph tower is about one thousand feet above sea 
 level. It can send messages to Panama and even across 
 the continent to the coast of Brazil. 
 
 Turn your eyes again to the city. See that rushing 
 stream flowing through it. That is the Rimac (re-mak') 
 River, fed by the melting snows of the Andes. It waters 
 this beautiful valley that makes the oasis of Lima. With- 
 out it, all about would be desert. It irrigates the large plan- 
 tations of sugar, cotton, and other crops that extend from 
 here six miles to the coast where the river flows into the sea. 
 
 With a glass we can see the Pacific. That town on the 
 coast is Callao where we landed. It is six miles from 
 the capital and the chief seaport of Peru. That train going 
 down through the green fields is carrying passengers and 
 freight from Lima to the steamers. 
 
 What queer roofs are all about us ! They are more like 
 little gardens than the coverings of houses. Please step 
 more hghtly and do not stamp your feet as you walk. 
 The roof is trembling under us, and with a little eflfort we 
 could push our way through. The roof is made of bamboo 
 poles with earth spread upon them. Were it not for the 
 plaster beneath, the dust would sift through into the rooms. 
 This is so with most of the houses about us, the smaller 
 buildings being covered with canes upon which matting is 
 spread, and upon that a layer of earth, sand, or ashes.
 
 88 SOUTH AJMERICA 
 
 Is this not a strange way to build houses? You might 
 think all would melt through if it were to rain. Yes, so it 
 would, but we must not forget where we are. We are in 
 the great desert of western South America, where from 
 one year's end to the other rain seldom falls. There are 
 probably not a dozen umbrellas in the city below us, and 
 none of the people need waterproofs or rubber shoes. 
 
 Many of the houses of Lima are constructed of mud, 
 because this is the cheapest of building materials. Not- 
 withstanding, the city has a substantial appearance. The 
 mud walls of some of the buildings look Uke marble and 
 some are painted to imitate granite, while others, of bright 
 colors, seem to be made of brick covered with plaster. 
 They are in reahty nothing but mud, being made of sun- 
 dried brick. There are also large buildings of stone and 
 burnt brick, roofed with red tiles, for the city is one of the 
 finest along the west coast. 
 
 We are surprised at the extent of some of the houses. 
 They cover a great deal of ground, but are usually of only 
 one or two stories. In the two-story buildings the first 
 story is made of sun-dried brick, the second being a com- 
 bination of mud and bamboo canes. 
 
 From the roof we can see that each of the large buildings 
 is in the form of a hollow square, with a Httle patio or 
 court in the center. About the court the people sit at 
 night, this being their favorite lounging place. Many of 
 the windows open on the courts, but much of the Hght comes 
 from the roofs. Little dormer windows are built up for 
 this purpose from nearly every one of the houses. The 
 dormers look like chicken coops, and, indeed, it is hard 
 to tell which are the roof windows and which are the coops. 
 
 Yes, I mean coops which contain chickens. Don't you 
 see them on the roofs all about us ? Just over the way the
 
 IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 89 
 
 hens are putting their heads out through the slats, and just 
 beyond a rooster is crowing. Thousands of chickens are 
 raised on the houses of Lima. Chickens are hatched, grow 
 up, lay eggs, and are finally killed for the kitchens below. 
 
 But let us go down and take a walk through the city. 
 It is laid out in the form of a triangle. The streets cross 
 one another at right angles, with beautiful parks or plazas 
 cut out here and there. The business buildings have 
 awnings over the sidewalks, and there are many balconies 
 to protect us from the rays of the sun. It is but a few 
 steps from our hotel to the chief plaza, on one side of which 
 is the gre?-t Lima cathedral. 
 
 This building is one of the finest on the South American 
 continent. It is older than any church in our country, 
 and it has cost millions of dollars. We enter and take a 
 look at the skeleton of the treacherous Pizarro in its coffin 
 of glass, and then cross to the opposite side of the square 
 where the government palace is situated. We enter the 
 palace, call upon the president, and meet many of the 
 officials, who tell us about the republic. The government 
 is much like our own, consisting of a president and a congress 
 elected by the people. 
 
 But it is now later in the afternoon and the offices will 
 soon close for the day. It is also the best hour for shopping, 
 and the time when the streets are filled with well-dressed 
 people, some chatting together, and others going from 
 store to store buying goods, so we leave the palace and stroll 
 along with the crowd. 
 
 The business hours of South American cities are from 
 seven in the morning until eleven, and from one until six 
 in the afternoon. Between eleven and one most of the 
 stores are closed. The merchants go to their breakfasts, 
 for the people like to rest during the heat of the day.
 
 90 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Lima has many fine stores. Most of them are without 
 windows facing the street. They are so made that the 
 whole front can be opened, and as we walk along the 
 streets we seem to be passing through a museum with goods 
 of all kinds piled on the floors. 
 
 What queerly dressed women we meet everywhere ! 
 They look more like nuns than our mothers and sisters 
 when out shopping at home. They are clad in black and 
 have fine black cloths draped about their heads and pinned 
 fast at the back of the neck, so that only the face shows. 
 This is the costume ladies wear on the streets. The women 
 of the upper classes dress much as we do when indoors, 
 and are quite as fond of gay clothes. 
 
 The men wear clothes similar to ours. They have on 
 tall hats and kid gloves, and nearly every one carries a 
 cane. See how they Kft their hats, smile, and shake 
 hands when they meet, and how they smile and tip their 
 hats when they part. The Peruvians are polite, and 
 especially cordial to strangers. One of them will walk 
 a block to show us our way, and if we admire anything he 
 has he will ask us to accept it as a gift. Such offers, how- 
 ever, are merely a matter of form, and we must not accept 
 them. 
 
 During a recent trip in South America, I was offered all 
 sorts of things, from diamond rings to poodle dogs and fast 
 horses. One day a rich Peruvian told me his palace was 
 mine. I felt quite rich for a moment, but I knew he coulJ 
 not be in earnest and politely refused. 
 
 But let us leave the stores and walk through the city. 
 The streets are so narrow that the carriages and auto- 
 mobiles have trouble in passing, and we are often crowded 
 against the walls by the hucksters and milkwomen, who 
 ride quite close to the sidewalk to keep out of the throng.
 
 IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 91 
 
 The hucksters carry their vegetables about in panniers 
 slung upon donkeys, and the bread men ride horses or 
 mules with bags of loaves on each side. 
 
 That woman coming toward us is a milk woman. See 
 how she bobs up and down as her pony trots onward. 
 She has her cans in those leather buckets fastened to the 
 sides of the pony, and she is sitting almost on top of the 
 buckets, with her feet about the pony's neck. She is 
 dressed in bright calico and wears a broad-brimmed Panama 
 hat above her brown face. Now she stops and slides over 
 the horse's neck to the street. She ties a rope around his. 
 front legs at the ankles to keep him from running away^ 
 and takes one of the buckets into a house. All the milk 
 of Lima is thus served. The narrow streets are not suited to 
 carts or large wagons, and the huckstering is done on 
 donkeys or mules. 
 
 Next morning we go to the market, where we find dozens 
 of animals loaded with all sorts of things. The big market 
 house is thronged with cooks and other women buying 
 suppHes for their tables. 
 
 As we go by the stalls we see that the oases of the desert 
 produce many good things to eat. There are string beans 
 as long as your arm. They are tied in bunches and hung 
 upon poles. We see potatoes of all kinds, some of which 
 are as yellow as gold. They are the famous papas ama- 
 rillas, the yellow potatoes of Peru. We see sweet potatoes 
 of many varieties, and quantities of yucca, a rootlike tuber 
 somewhat like the potato. It grows as big around as a 
 baseball bat and is often two feet in length. The flesh is 
 white and like wax or jelly. 
 
 There are roasting ears, squashes, and pumpkins, and 
 many kinds of melons. The fruit dealers have oranges, 
 lemons, alligator pears, guavas, papayas, pomegranates,
 
 92 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 pineapples, bananas, peaches, pears, and grapes of many- 
 varieties. There are excellent fish, one species of 
 which is served with lemon juice and eaten raw. There 
 are all sorts of meats, and one can buy a kid or a half dozen 
 guinea pigs for a trifle. The Peruvians are fond of guinea 
 pigs, and raise them for food. We eat some of the meat 
 in a stew and find it dehcious. 
 
 o>*to 
 
 XII. UP THE ANDES 
 
 GET out your overcoats, put on your high boots, and take 
 your mittens along. We are bound for the top of 
 the Andes, and may have to tramp through the snow. 
 
 We shall ride there upon one of the steepest railways 
 of the world. The central railway of Peru begins at Callao, 
 on the Pacific Ocean, and goes over the Andes and for 
 some distance down the east slope, with a branch to the 
 famous silver and copper mines of Cerro de Pasco 
 (ser'ro da pas'ko), which are now owned by a United States 
 company. The railway was planned and partly constructed 
 by a Californian named Meiggs, but the cost was so great 
 that the branch to Cerro de Pasco was not completed until 
 a few years ago. 
 
 As it is, the road is several hundred miles long in its 
 windings, although in a straight fine it is only about one 
 hundred miles to the top of the pass. It is so steep, how- 
 ever, that during that one hundred miles we shall rise more 
 than three miles above the level of the sea, and land on the 
 great plateau between the two ranges of the Andes. 
 
 Leaving Lima at seven o'clock in the morning, we pass 
 through the sugar and cotton plantations of the Rimac
 
 A railway in the Andes built by American engineers, llie track 
 zigzags back and forth to reach higher grades. 
 
 93
 
 94 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 valley. The fields are as green as Georgia in June. The 
 cotton is in blossom, and the plantations look Hke vast 
 gardens of pink and hght yellow roses. There are gangs 
 of Indian peons, clad in white, working among them. The 
 fields are as well kept as our gardens at home. 
 
 We ride by several villages of one-story houses, pass a 
 cotton mill and a large sugar factory, and then shoot out into 
 the dry foothills of the Andes. What a change ! The vegeta- 
 tion has disappeared, and the low hills are bleak and bare in 
 the Hght of the early morning. We ride for miles, cKmbing 
 higher and higher, and seeing nothing but dazzling gray rocks. 
 
 Farther on there is more moisture, and a thin fuzz of 
 green crops out of the gray. Now a Httle cactus and small 
 bunches of weeds appear. As we rise higher still the 
 mountains grow greener. At a mile above the sea there is 
 a thin coat of grass, and at two miles we count forty dif- 
 ferent kinds of flowers at a stopping of the train. There 
 are buttercups without number, and flowers of all colors, 
 the names of which we do not know. It is now winter in 
 the Andes, when halfway up the western slope there are 
 frequent mists or hght rains. In summer all is as gray 
 and sterile as the desert below. 
 
 Now we have come to a region where patches of soil are to 
 be seen here and there, and where every foot of good 
 ground is tilled. The fields through which we are riding 
 are not bigger than bedspreads, and those on the other side 
 of the valley seem in the distance the size of a handkerchief. 
 See those green ledges one above the other on the side of 
 that mountain ! They rise almost to the top and are so 
 made that a man could stand on any of the lower ones and 
 weed the crop on the ledge just above. Those terraces 
 were built by the Indians in the time of the Incas. They 
 are now used only for grazing.
 
 UP THE ANDES 95 
 
 We have stopped at a station. About it is a village of 
 huts with walls of sun-dried brick and roofs of gray thatch. 
 The stones have been laid upon the roof to keep the strong 
 winds from hfting the thatch. How small the huts are and 
 how mean ! Some are no better than dog kennels. They 
 are the homes of the dark-faced Indian men, women, and 
 children dressed in white cotton, who are gathering about 
 us as we stand on the platform. You may see more of 
 them at work in the fields or tending the llamas, alpacas, 
 and sheep in the mountains. 
 
 How pure the air is, and how grand the scenes all about 
 us ! The mountains rise almost straight over our heads. 
 The railroad hangs to their sides, and we ride for miles 
 between walls of rock which look like gigantic cathedrals, 
 their spires lost in the clouds. We shoot through tunnels 
 which wind about Hke the letter S, and cross steel bridges 
 over deep canons above mountain streams. Every turn 
 brings new pictures, some of which are of terrible grandeur. 
 
 What a triumph of modern engineering was the building 
 of this track up the Andes ! It cost many millions of dollars 
 and thousands of lives. The road goes up some of the 
 steepest mountains of the globe. Much of its bed was cut 
 out of the rocks, and at times the men had to be lowered 
 in baskets over the precipices to drill holes for the blasting. 
 The tracks wind this way and that, one above the other, 
 so that in places we can count five different tracks which 
 run almost parallel along the steep mountain wall, showing 
 us how the road had to zigzag to climb its way up. 
 
 Farther on the air grows colder. At two miles we pass 
 through a rainstorm, and later are surrounded by snow. 
 Now the mist and clouds have come down about us, and we 
 are enveloped in fog. A httle higher, and we are above 
 the clouds. Now the wind is carrying the clouds down
 
 96
 
 UP THE ANDES 97 
 
 the Andes, the air becomes clear, and we shudder at the 
 precipices, along the walls of which we are crawling. 
 
 Now we are surrounded by glaciers on the tops of the 
 Andes. That white peak above us is Mount Meiggs. Its 
 summit is more than seventeen thousand feet above the 
 sea, and where we stop at the entrance to the Galera tunnel 
 we are three miles farther up in the air than when we 
 started this morning. 
 
 We are at the highest point on any railroad in the world, 
 far above the height of Fujiyama, the sacred snow-capped 
 mountain of Japan. We are about as high up as Mont 
 Blanc, and a thousand feet higher than Pikes Peak or any 
 other mountain in the United States outside Alaska. 
 There is a blue glacier hanging over us at the top of Mount 
 Meiggs, and right under it, in the middle of the tunnel, 
 is a place where the waters flowing to the Atlantic and to 
 the Pacific divide. We go in and take a drink from the 
 stream at the side of the railroad, which is trickling its 
 way to the Rimac River and the Pacific, and then by a jump 
 reach a place where we bend over and scoop up some water 
 about starting down the east slope into one of the tribu- 
 taries of the Amazon on its way to the Atlantic. 
 
 We walk farther on through the tunnel to the eastern 
 side of the Andes. There are snow banks outside the 
 tunnel and we start a snow fight away up here in the 
 clouds. We are soon glad to stop. The air is so rare that 
 every ball we throw sends our hearts into our throats, and 
 we pant for breath. We try to yell, but our voices are 
 weak from the thinness of the air, and the yell ends in a 
 squeak. Our boots suddenly grow heavy. We move 
 slowly, and in climbing the hills we crawl. Some of us 
 are attacked with the sorocJte (so-ro'cha) or mountain 
 sickness that comes to many when they first go so high
 
 98 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 in the air. We have terrible headaches, and at the same 
 time feel severe nausea. During our first night in the 
 mountains we cannot sleep. Some of us faint, and blood 
 comes from our mouths, eyes, and noses. The sickness 
 passes away after a while, however, and we then enjoy the 
 strange sights and pure air of the Andes. 
 
 o>»;c 
 
 XIII. ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 WE are starting this morning for a journey upon the 
 high plateaus of the Andes. The cold air bites our 
 noses. There are snowy mountains on each side of us, and 
 we are on what might be called the roof of the South 
 American continent. The Andes are among the liighest 
 mountains of the globe, and they are surpassed only by 
 the Himalayas of Asia. They have several peaks more 
 than four miles above the sea. We saw some of the loftiest 
 in Ecuador, and we shall travel among others on our way 
 south through Peru and Bolivia. 
 
 The highest of the Andes is Mount Aconcagua in 
 Argentina. Its top is about twenty-three thousand feet 
 above the sea level. Beginning with it and running 
 northward to Ecuador, the mountains extend in an irregular 
 double chain, upholding this lofty plateau where we are 
 now. The plateau in some parts of Peru is five hundred 
 miles wide, and in BoKvia it is bigger than the state of 
 Missouri. Much of it is more than twice as high as the top 
 of Mount Washington. 
 
 We are many days riding on horseback upon the plateau, 
 and now and then we make excursions off to the camps 
 where men are mining for silver and gold. The Andes are
 
 ON THE ROOI- OF SOUTH AMERICA 99 
 
 noted for their mineral deposits, and great quantities of 
 the precious metals, as well as copper and tin, are taken out 
 of them and shipped to the United States and Europe 
 every year. Some of the best mines of Peru belong to 
 United States citizens, and among them are the copper 
 and silver mines of Cerro de Pasco, reached by the central 
 railway up which we have come. Cerro de Pasco is on 
 ' a branch line ninety miles north of the road over the Andes. 
 /It is built above what was one of the largest bodies of 
 silver ore ever known. It was about a mile long and more 
 than half a mile wide. The mine was discovered several 
 hundred years ago by an Indian shepherd who had wandered 
 there one day with his flock. As evening drew on he found 
 the air cold and kindled a fire before which he lay down to 
 sleep. When he awoke next morning he discovered that 
 the stone upon which his fire had been built had melted 
 and turned to silver. Since then milhons of tons of silver 
 ore have been taken out of mines below where that shepherd 
 lay, and now great quantities of copper are being mined 
 from where it was found under the silver. The copper 
 mines are owned by men from the United States who have 
 built a huge smelter near Cerro de Pasco. It is over four- 
 teen thousand feet above the sea and is the highest smelter 
 on earth. From it come many thousands of pounds of 
 copper a day. The red metal is sliipped over the railroad 
 to the seacoast, and thence sent north through the Panama 
 Canal to the United States. It may be that the telephone 
 wires in our home towns are made of that copper. 
 
 Another important mineral found in Peru is vanadium, 
 which is mixed with steel to increase its strength and 
 resistance to shock. It is used largely for airplanes, 
 armor-plate, and automobiles. It is also employed in 
 machine tools which will run at high speed and not be
 
 lOO 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 affected by heat. Peru produces most of the vanadium 
 of the world, and its mines are worked by United States 
 citizens. They are not far from Cerro de Pasco. They are 
 more than three miles above sea level, near the famous 
 Rock Forest of the Andes, a region somewhat like our 
 Garden of the Gods in Colorado. 
 
 This copper smeller near Cerro de Pasco, 14,000 feel above Ihe sea, 
 belongs lo citizens of the United States. 
 
 Vanadium looks somewhat like black asphalt. It is dug 
 out of the earth and carried on the backs of llamas to the 
 railroad ; thence shipped to the seacoast, from where it 
 is exported to steel centers all over the world. During 
 the World War much of this metal was used in making ma- 
 chine guns and other things for the armies of the United 
 States and our alUes.
 
 ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA lOi 
 
 Petroleum has been found in the highlands, and large 
 pools of it are being worked along the coast of the Peruvian 
 desert. 
 
 Travehng southward upon the high plateau of the Andes, 
 we ride on and on over desolate plains covered with a 
 scanty growth of fuzzy green grass. How it rains ! It is 
 now winter and we have a storm of hail, snow, or rain 
 alitiost every day. The grass is soaked with water, and 
 we cannot get down from our horses without wetting our 
 feet. 
 
 There are but few trees, and the little mud huts have only 
 small patches of potatoes, green barley, or quinua (kcen'wa) 
 about them. 
 
 This plateau is the natural home of the potato, which was 
 first taken to Europe about seventy years after Columbus 
 discovered America. Later on it was cultivated in Ireland 
 to such an extent that it is often called the Irish potato. 
 The potatoes of Peru are small, many of them being no 
 bigger than walnuts. It takes a milder climate and a rich 
 soil to make them grow to the size of the huge tubers sold 
 in our markets. The potatoes of Montana and Colorado 
 would be giants in this land from which their forefathers 
 came. 
 
 We are now so far above the sea that barley will not 
 ripen, although some is grown for forage. Quinua, which 
 takes the place of many other grains in these highlands, is 
 a plant much like our chickweed. It has yellow or red leaves 
 and Httle white seeds which when shelled out are Uke hominy 
 ground fine. It is eaten as mush and is cooked in stews. 
 
 There are dandelions and other hardy flowers on the 
 plains. There are evergreen bushes that grow only as 
 tall as our ankles, for all things are stunted here so high 
 in the air.
 
 ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 103 
 
 What are those queer animals we see in the pastures or 
 going along with bags on their backs? They are bigger 
 than sheep, but they remind us of them, for they are 
 covered with wool. They have long necks, with heads 
 like a camel's. Their feet and legs are like those of a deer. 
 See how gracefully they walk. Notice how they hold their 
 little heads in the air, pricking up their ears hke so many 
 Skye terriers. Those are llamas, the odd little creatures 
 which act as beasts of burden in the Andean highland. 
 
 Are they not beautiful? Some are snow white, some seal 
 brown, and a few black and spotted. Their wool is long. 
 It is used by the Indians to -make ponchos, blankets, and 
 clothes. 
 
 Let us examine the llamas more closely. Take this 
 drove coming toward us, each carrying a bag of silver ore 
 on his back. Notice how small the bags are. Each weighs 
 just one hundred pounds. The llama is particular as 
 to how much he carries, and that is the biggest weight he 
 will stand. If you put on more, he will not cry or groan but 
 will calmly kneel down and stay there until his load is 
 made right. 
 
 Look out ! Don't stroke that beast with your hand ! 
 Don't you see he is angry by the way he is shaking his 
 head? 
 
 And do llamas bite? 
 
 They do not bite, but when angry they spit, and I would 
 rather have three camels bite me than be spat upon by one 
 of these beasts. Their spittle has an oflfensive smell, and 
 it smarts hke an acid. If once hit, you will find it hard to 
 get the stench out of your clothes, and you cannot go on 
 with our party until you have had a bath and a change. 
 We find some of the llamas gentle, however, and we grow 
 to Hke them as we ride farther on the high plains.
 
 I04
 
 ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 105 
 
 But are these baby llamas on the pastures through which 
 we are passing? Some of them are black and some are 
 snow white. No, those are not llamas, although they look 
 like them. They are alpacas, a domestic animal not used 
 as a beast of burden but valued for its long, silky wool. 
 The wool is finer than that of the llama and it is straighter 
 and stronger than sheep's wool. It makes shawls, fine 
 clothes, and umbrella covers. Much of it goes from Peru 
 to our country. 
 
 The vicuna (ve-coon'ya) , a still smaller animal belonging 
 to the same family, runs wild in these regions. We may 
 have a chance to shoot one later. It is as swift as a deer 
 and exceedingly wary. Vicuna wool is like yellow velvet, 
 and we can buy rugs made of the skins in the stores of the 
 Bolivian cities. Still farther south we shall see the guanaco, 
 which also looks like the llama but is as wild as the vicuna. 
 It has yellow and white fur about as long as that of a 
 Newfoundland dog. 
 
 Going on with our journey, we now and then cross the 
 high valleys that cut through the Andean plateau. In 
 these valleys, owing to the lower altitude, the climate is 
 milder, and there are all kinds of semi-tropical fruits. 
 In one of these valleys we visit Cuzco (koos'ko), where 
 the capital of the Incas, the rulers of the Indians of ancient 
 Peru, was located. The town is situated one thousand 
 feet below the level of the plateau at a place where three 
 rivers meet. Nevertheless, it is more than two miles 
 above the sea. 
 
 We see here the ruins of the great temples that the 
 Spaniards found in the days of Pizarro. Cuzco was then 
 the chief city of the great nation of civilized Indians who 
 inhabited almost the whole of western South America. 
 These Indians might be compared with the Aztecs of
 
 ic6 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Mexico, and Cuzco with their capital, situated where 
 Mexico City now is. Cuzco had about two hundred 
 thousand people, and some of its temples were plated with 
 gold. The Spaniards tore seven hundred gold plates, 
 each as big as the lid of a large chest, from the walls of 
 the Temple of the Sun, and when they left after their first 
 visit their horses were loaded with gold. A part of the 
 walls of this temple and others built then are still standing. 
 They are made of huge blocks of stone fitted together 
 without mortar so tightly that when I tried to push a 
 needle between the stones it would not go in. The ruins 
 of the great fort of tte Incas above the city are still to be 
 seen, and near by we are shown a seat cut out of the rock 
 that served as the out-of-door throne of the Inca king. 
 
 Pizarro found the plateau quite thickly populated. 
 It is still so to-day. Although it is more like a city of old 
 Spain than like the capital of Atahualpa, Cuzco has now 
 about twenty thousand inhabitants, who live in stone 
 buildings of one or two stories. They are covered with 
 plaster and have roofs of red tiles. Churches and con- 
 vents have been built on the ruins of the Inca city, and 
 there is a cathedral that covers several acres. 
 
 We are surprised to see so many Indians in Cuzco. The 
 town has twelve red men to every white one, and on our 
 way down the Andean plateau we meet many queer-looking 
 Indian men, women, and children. They are in their bare 
 feet, and they wear an odd dress. The men have on bright- 
 colored ponchos, black vests, and wide black trousers 
 slit up as far as the knee at the back. Each wears a 
 woolen cap, knit much like a nightcap, with flaps down 
 over the ears. Over the cap he has a low felt hat with 
 a very broad brim, which seems to be more for ornament 
 than warmth. The Indian women wear black or blue
 
 ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 107 
 
 woolen skirts that reach just below the knees. They 
 
 have hats with low crowns and broad brims. We see many 
 
 of them in the fields, watching the llamas, alpacas, and 
 
 sheep. Each has a 
 
 long spool of wool in 
 
 her hand, and she 
 
 spins llama wool as 
 
 she watches her 
 
 flock. 
 
 We meet more In- 
 dians as we go on 
 toward Lake Titi- 
 caca (te-te-ka'ka), 
 and we shall see 
 their mud villages 
 everywhere on the 
 high plateau of Bo- 
 livia. They belong 
 to the two tribes, 
 the Quichua (ke'- 
 chwa) and Aymara 
 (l-ma-ra') , both of 
 which were here 
 when the Spaniards 
 first came. The 
 Quichuas occupied 
 Peru and the lands 
 to the north. The 
 Aymaras lived in 
 the plateau farther 
 
 south. Even now the descendants of these two tribes nuni- 
 ber more than one million. 
 
 These Indians of the high Andes are a queer people, and 
 
 The Incas built walls of enormous stones 
 wilhout mortar, but so nicely fitted that 
 the author cannot thrust a needle between 
 them.
 
 
 .i 
 
 ff- 
 
 io8
 
 ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 109 
 
 they have habits and ways of their own. Most of them 
 are descendants of the tribes who were ruled by the Incas. 
 Like those we saw in the high valleys of Ecuador, most 
 of them are little more than slaves to the white and mixed 
 races who own the lands. Each large farm has a small 
 colony of Indians upon it, and each family has its mud hut. 
 Throughout the year the Indians work one half of each 
 week for the owner of the estate as rent for their huts 
 and the small patches of ground about tJiem. The re- 
 maining three days they have for themselves. If their 
 master does not want their work he can hire them to others, 
 and if they do not obey he can punish them. 
 
 The Indians are docile and will Dear much without 
 growing angry. They are said to love their masters and 
 will band together to fight for them. The Indians of the 
 different farms often have quarrels, and at such times 
 each band marches upon the other as though in actual 
 warfare. They frequently use guns, but more often slings, 
 with which they throw stones with great force and skill, 
 sometimes kilHng one another in their fights. 
 
 Let us enter an Indian hut. The one we select would 
 hardly be a respectable pigsty for one of our farms. It 
 is of mud, and is not more than ten feet square. Its 
 thatched roof is so low that we can touch it when we 
 stand outside the front door, and as we go in we have to 
 stoop and Hft our feet as high as a chair to get over the 
 mud sill and through the hole which serves as an entrance. 
 Inside there is only just enough space to turn around. 
 One side of the room is lllled with farm tools ; on the other 
 is a donkey, and the chickens squawk as they run here 
 and there to get out of our way. There is almost no fur- 
 niture. The people sit on the floor. They often sleep 
 sitting against the wall, huddling close together for warmth.
 
 STEAMBOATINO ABOVE THE CLOUDS iii 
 
 That little clay pot over there with the ashes beneath 
 it is the stove. The hut has no chimney, and the smoke 
 finds its way out as it can. The cooking is simple. A 
 favorite dish is challona stew with chuiio (choon'yo), or 
 frozen potatoes, mixed with it. Challona is dried mutton. 
 The sheep is split open when killed and then left out to freeze. 
 When it is stiff water is sprinkled over it and it is frozen 
 again. It is then hung up out-of-doors and soon becomes 
 so dry that it will keep for months. It must, however, 
 be cut up into small bits and boiled a long time before it 
 is tender. 
 
 We find chuno for sale in the markets of Cuzco, and we 
 can buy them everywhere on the high plateau of the Andes. 
 They look like bits of bleached bones, or perhaps more like 
 the large flat white pebbles one finds on the seashore. 
 They are really potatoes which are frozen and dried, so 
 that they can be kept for a year without spoihng. The 
 raw potatoes are first soaked in water, being wet every 
 day, and left out at night to freeze. The skins are then 
 troddsn off with the bare feet, and the potatoes are 
 thoroughly dried in the air. They are now as hard as rock 
 and as white as snow. They are soaked before cooking, 
 and are usually served as a stew. We eat some, but find 
 them insipid. 
 
 XIV. STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS 
 
 STEAMBOATING above the clouds! Floating over 
 some of the highest waters of the globe ! Sailing in 
 sight of glacial snows amid the tops of the Andes, so near 
 the sky that heaven and earth seem to meet close around 
 us and make us tliink we are on the very roof of the world !
 
 112 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 We are outside the harbor of Puno (poo'no) on the broad 
 waters of Lake Titicaca. 
 
 The air is so clear we can see for miles. That blue 
 mass in front is Titicaca Island. It will take us four hours 
 to steam to it, but it looks quite near as it Hes there like 
 a great balloon on the water. There are altogether eight 
 large islands in the lake, some of which are inhabited. 
 Now we are steaming by one. See, the bits of land be- 
 tween the rocks are green with scanty crops of potatoes, 
 barley, and quinua. The soil is cultivated to the tops of 
 the hills, and red-faced Indians are at work in the fields. 
 Their huts of stone and thatch are near the shore. Some 
 have llamas, sheep, and donkeys tethered about them. 
 
 How grand are the mountains ! There is nothing finer 
 in the Himalayas or the Alps. That silvery mass at the 
 east is Sorata (so-ra'ta), next to Aconcagua the highest 
 of the Andes. The great wall of mountains which stretches 
 from it to the east is the Sorata range, and that tall peak 
 rising over the others is Illimani (el-ye-ma'ne) , which is 
 about four miles in height. 
 
 This lake upon which we are floating is almost as high 
 in the air as Pikes Peak. Those little huts we see on the 
 islands are among the highest houses in the world in which 
 people live, and this is really the loftiest of all lakes upon 
 which steamboats sail. Nevertheless, it is half as large 
 as Lake Ontario, and of about the same depth. 
 
 But where does the lake come from, and where does it go ? 
 We can easily see its source in the snows and glaciers about 
 us. It is made by the snow water of nine rivers from these 
 mighty Andes. It remains at about the same level from 
 one year's end to the other. A part of its waters flows 
 into the river Desaguadero (das-a-gwa-da'ro) and on into 
 Lake Poopo (po-6-po') which has no outlet to the sea.
 
 STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS 113 
 
 But let us take a look at our ship. It is as beautiful 
 as a gentleman's yacht, and it is carrying us over Lake 
 Titicaca at a speed of twelve miles an hour. It is named 
 the Choya, and a plate on its engine records that the ship 
 was built away off in Glasgow, Scotland. 
 
 This seems strange. How could they possibly hft such 
 a big ship over the Andes? The Choya weighs so much 
 that if it could be loaded on wagons a thousand horses 
 could not pull it. They could not lift such a weight over 
 these mountains, which are twice as high as any peak of our 
 Appalachian chain. 
 
 Of course they could not if they tried to hft the ship 
 as a whole. But such a vessel was needed for commerce, 
 and commerce works in all sorts of ways to accompUsh 
 its ends. The ship was taken apart and the pieces put 
 on a steamer and brought from Glasgow over the Atlantic 
 and Pacific oceans to the seaport of Mollendo (mol-yen'do) 
 in southern Peru. At Mollendo is the beginning of a 
 railroad quite as wonderful as that upon which we came 
 over the Andes from Lima. It is three hundred miles 
 long and connects the seacoast with Puno on Lake Titicaca, 
 the port to which we came by railway from Cuzco. The 
 parts of the ship were put on the cars at Mollendo, and the 
 locomotives dragged them up over the Andes to Puno. 
 Here they were taken off, put together, and launched on 
 the lake ; so that to-day we can sail upon these high waters 
 in a steel vessel made in Scotland. This is one of the 
 wonders of commerce. 
 
 We are still more interested when the engineer tells us 
 the coal he is using comes from Australia, so that both 
 sides of the world seem to be working to help us along on 
 our journey. 
 
 When we examine the freight on the Choya we see how
 
 114 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the ship is one of the agents of commerce. It contains 
 goods from the United States and other parts of the world, 
 which it is carrying to Bolivia ; and the captain tells us 
 that it will bring back a load of copper, gold, silver, tin, 
 and Peru\aan bark and rubber to be sent down to the • 
 Pacific. Who knows but that the copper may be used 
 in the same works in Cilasgow where the steamer was 
 made ; and whether the silver and gold may not find their 
 way to Australia to pay the miners who have furnished our 
 coal? 
 
 Now we are aj^proaching Guaqui (gwa'ke), the only 
 port of Bolivia. We see many boats near the shore and 
 some starting out to bring freight to the steamer. What 
 queer things they are ! They appear to be made of straw, 
 but men are working upon them, and one has a donkey 
 and a llama on board. Some have sails made of rolls of 
 straw or reeds tied together. Others are being poled 
 through the water. They are balsas, a curious craft used 
 by the Indians of Lake Titicaca. They are just like the 
 boats which they had when the Spaniards first came. 
 
 Here is a balsa which has come close to our steamer. 
 It is made of the long reeds that grow in quantities on the 
 edge of the lake. The reeds are laid side by side and tied 
 tightly in rolls which are so woven and fastened that they 
 form a water-tight boat which will float on the lake. ' 
 
 But we have at last reached the wharf. There is a 
 crowd of Indians ready to unload the steamer. We hand 
 our baggage to them, and follow them to the town. As 
 we go we pass hundreds of mules and llamas loaded with 
 produce to be shipped across Lake Titicaca. Other goods are 
 coming in by the railroad from La Paz (la pas'). They will 
 be sent over the lake to Puno and will go down the western 
 slope of the Andes to Mollendo, the chief port of southern
 
 A balsa is a large boat, woven out of reeds like a basket. 
 "5
 
 Ii6 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Peru, from which steamers will carry them northward 
 through the Panama Canal to Europe and the United 
 States. This railway is one of the chief outlets for the 
 tin trade of Bolivia. 
 
 1 . Locate Peru. Compare it in size with the United States ; 
 with your state; with Brazil; with Ecuador. (See Table V.) 
 What is the government of Peru? 
 
 2. Describe the South American desert. Why are the coast 
 lands of Ecuador wet and this coastal desert so dry? What kind of 
 oases has Peru? Why do the people live in the oases? Mention 
 some of the important fruits and crops. Why do we import Peru- 
 vian cotton? 
 
 3. Name three others of the great deserts of the world. (See 
 Carpenter's "Asia," "Africa," and "Australia.") Mention some 
 famous oasis cities. Compare Lima with Cairo in Egypt ; with 
 Damascus in Asia. 
 
 4. Write a letter from an Indian boy of Peru telling how he hves 
 and works in the desert. 
 
 5. Tell the story of Pizarro and the Incas. Who were the 
 Quichuas? Describe Indian life on the plateau. Contrast our 
 treatment of the Indians with that of the Spaniards. Describe Cuzco 
 as it is to-day. What North American Indians resembled the Incas? 
 
 6. Trace our trip through Peru. What is the chief port? How 
 far is it from Panama, New Orleans, and New York? Write a story 
 of our walk about Lima. Why are many of the houses made 
 of mud and bamboo? Mention some of the things to be seen in 
 the markets. Compare Lima in size with the other South American 
 capital cities. 
 
 7. Tell about the mines of Cerro de Pasco which are owned by 
 North Americans. What important metals come from them? 
 
 8. What is vanadium? Where is the chief source of supply? 
 Why was vanadium necessary in the World War ? Trace a shipment 
 from near Cuzco to Pittsburgh. 
 
 9. Describe a railroad trip up the Andes. How does the altitude 
 affect us? What is soroche? 
 
 10. What grains and vegetables do we see upon the plateau? 
 Where were potatoes first grown ? What other grains or vegetables 
 came from America ? What is chuno ?
 
 TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 
 
 117 
 
 11, Compare Lake Titicaca with one of our Great Lakes. What 
 is its outlet? What products are shipped across this lake to be 
 taken to the United States? Describe our steamer and the native 
 boats. 
 
 12. What are llamas ? Alpacas? Vicunas? What other animals 
 have wool fit for cloth? (See Carpenter's "How the World is 
 Clothed.") 
 
 XV. TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 
 
 WE are in BoKvia this morning, and we should feel at 
 home. The country was named for Simon Bolivar, 
 and its constitution is modeled after ours. Bolivar is often 
 called the George 
 Washington of South 
 America. He was 
 born in Caracas 
 (ka-ra'kas) , Ven- 
 ezuela, at about the 
 close of our Revolu- 
 tionary War. He 
 visited the United 
 States, and during 
 that time was so im- 
 pressed with our gov- 
 ernment that he 
 went back to South 
 America and started 
 the revolution which spread from country to country and 
 finally made it a land of republics. 
 
 Bolivia is situated many miles from the Pacific Ocean 
 and is cut off from the seacoast by Peru and Chile. With 
 the exception of Paraguay, it is the only country in South
 
 Ii8 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 America that does not have direct access to the ocean. 
 It has three railways, however, which connect it with the 
 Pacific. One goes to the port of Mollendo in Peru ; an- 
 other to Arica (a-re'ka) in Chile ; and a third to Antofagasta 
 (an-to-fa-gas'ta) in Chile. Through each of these ports 
 Bohvia has considerable commerce with our country and 
 Europe by way of the Panama Canal. The eastern parts 
 of the country, consisting of the rich tropical plains sloping 
 down the opposite side of the Andes, have access to the 
 Atlantic Ocean through some of the tributaries of the 
 Amazon and Parana (pa-ra-na') rivers. Rubber and other 
 products, for instance, are sent down the Beni (ba-ne') 
 River to the Madeira, where they are carried by railroad 
 around the great falls and then transferred to steamers 
 which take them to the Amazon and the Atlantic Ocean. 
 Other goods go down the Pilcomayo (pel-ko-ma'yo) River 
 into the Paraguay ; thence to the Parana and via Buenos 
 Aires (bwa'nos I'ras) out to the sea. 
 
 It is hard to realize that this inland republic is about 
 one sixth as large as the United States without Alaska. 
 The country may be divided into two sections. Western 
 Bolivia, whose chief city is La Paz, is a tableland as big as 
 Missouri, much of which is more than two and one half 
 miles above sea level. It is one of the highlands of the 
 Andes, and is looked down upon by some of the highest 
 of these mountains. It is a dry, thirsty country, and in 
 many respects is like the high plains east of the Rocky 
 Mountains. Eastern Bolivia, whose chief city is Santa 
 Cruz (san'ta krooz'), is equal to ten states the size of South 
 Carolina. It is on the eastern slope of the Andes, and much 
 of it is covered with vegetation which includes all the plants 
 and trees of the tropics. 
 
 The climate of the country differs according to the
 
 TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 119 
 
 altitude of the various regions. The low eastern plains 
 are hot and unhealthful. A little higher the climate is 
 temperate, and on the Andean plateaus and high valleys 
 the weather is so pleasant that the region is often called 
 the "Switzerland of America." These highlands comprise 
 only about three tenths of the total area of the country, 
 but they contain more than eight tenths of the people. 
 Here are all the large cities, most of which are located 
 more than two miles above the sea. There are four towns 
 which are about as high up in the air as Pikes Peak, and 
 twenty-five which are liigher than the top of Fujiyama in 
 Japan. The altitude of Aullagas (oul-lii'gas) is almost as 
 high as Mont Blanc. 
 
 Eastern BoHvia is a land of cattle, cacao, and rubber. 
 It has dense forests and rich grassy plains, but it is largely 
 unsettled and much of it still unexplored. The mountains 
 and plateaus of the west are where most of the people live. 
 They contain vast deposits of gold, silver, copper, and tin. 
 Bolivia produces much of the tin used in the United 
 States, and next to Malaysia has the largest tin mines 
 of the world. 
 
 BoHvia has a small population for such a vast area. The 
 whole country has about as many people as Chicago ; and 
 its chief city. La Paz, has only about one hundred thousand. 
 Sucre (soo'kra), the old capital, has about tliirty thousand, 
 and Cochabamba, situated in a beautiful valley, is a Httle 
 larger. The mining towns of Potosi (p5-to-se') and Oruro 
 (o-roo'ro) are of about the same size. Santa Cruz in 
 eastern Bolivia is smaller. 
 
 The people are whites and of the mixed race of" whites 
 and Indians, with many semi-ci\ilized Indians upon the 
 plateaus and savages of various tribes in the wilds of the 
 east. The Indians of the plateau are Aymaras, tribes
 
 TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 1 21 
 
 much like the Quichuas of Peru. They were conquered 
 by the Incas, whose soldiers were Quichuas. The people 
 of the mixed race are called Cholos (cho'los), and their 
 little children are known as Cholitos (cho-le'tos). 
 
 La Paz lies only about fifty miles from Lake Titicaca, 
 where we are now. The train is ready, but we want to 
 see the country, and so take a carriage drawn by eight 
 mules. The Indian driver has a pile of stones in the seat 
 beside him, and he keeps his team on the gallop by now 
 and then throwing a pebble at the ears of such of the animals 
 as are lagging behind. 
 
 The ride is delightful. We are on the high plateau. 
 The air is bracing and so clear we can see for miles. 
 To the east is a great wall of snow-clad mountains, with 
 IlHmani rising above the rest of the peaks, and away off 
 to the west are lower heights which seem to climb over 
 one another and end in snow at the sky. Now we pass 
 a mud hut, and now a flock of llamas, alpacas, or sheep 
 feeding on the tliin grass. But other than these there is 
 nothing about us but the sky, the plains, and the mountains. 
 
 As we near the close of the day we look for the city to 
 which we are going. There is nothing in sight. We are 
 hungry, and wonder whether we shall get there before dark, 
 when at last the driver pulls up the mules on their haunches 
 and the stage stops. We are on the brink of a precipice;, 
 a thousand feet below us in a little gorge in the mountains 
 is La Paz. 
 
 It is so far down that we can hardly distinguish the houses. 
 They look like a jumble of gay-colored boxes \\'ith trees 
 rising here and there above their red roofs. They grow 
 plainer as we gallop on our winding way down the steep 
 slopes of the hill. We are soon riding between walled 
 gardens, and at last the stage stops in the heart of the city.
 
 122 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 How queer it all is ! Most of the people about us are 
 clad in the brightest of reds, blues, and greens. Every 
 other man wears a poncho, or blanket, with his head 
 through a hole in its center, and some of the women have 
 striped shawls, short skirts of bright hues, and queerly 
 shaped hats. Five eighths of the population are Indians, 
 and the remainder are whites or of the mixed race of 
 Indians and whites called Cholos. 
 
 Even the houses are a blaze of color, and the walls facing 
 the streets are of various hues. There is a lavender 
 grocery store ; next to it a shoe shop of rose pink ; and 
 farther on are other estabUshments of cream and sky blue. 
 The buildings are of one or two stories. The shops are 
 open to the street and we can see all that goes on within. 
 
 But where can we get a cab or dray to carry our baggage 
 to the hotel? There is none in sight, and we learn that 
 there are few in La Paz. The streets are so narrow and 
 so up hill and down that such vehicles are not much used 
 in the city, and all freighting is done by donkeys, ponies, 
 llamas, and men. There are a dozen Indian porters around 
 the stage office, and we give each man a trunk. He trots 
 off to the hotel with it on his back, and we walk behind. 
 
 Next morning we start out for a tour of the city, going up 
 the hills slowly, for the air is so thin that we are soon out 
 of breath. La Paz is twice as high above the sea as Mount 
 Washington, and only the natives can walk fast or run at 
 this altitude. 
 
 We visit the markets. It is early morning but the 
 streets are filled with Indians, Cholos, and whites, dressed 
 in all colors of the rainbow. There are scores of country 
 women carr3dng fruit and vegetables to the markets for 
 sale. Their burdens are tied in striped blankets of blue, 
 red, yellow, and green, and they bend half double as they
 
 La Paz, the seat of the Bolivian government, Hes at the bottom of 
 a mountain valley, looo feet deep, with the volcano of Illimani tower- 
 ing over it. The city is more than 12,000 feet above the sea. 
 
 123
 
 124
 
 TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 125 
 
 walk onward. They sit down on the streets and spread 
 their wares out before them, peddling them by the piece 
 or the pile. 
 
 There are Indian men wearing gay ponchos, and so many 
 copper-skinned babies that we have to pick our way care- 
 fully to keep from treading upon them. Some he on the 
 cold stones and play with the merchandise scattered about. 
 Others are too young to crawl ; their big black eyes peep 
 out of the shawls in which they are tied to the backs of their 
 mothers. Most of the babies are laughing. There is one 
 crying, and over there is another who has crawled away 
 from its mamma and is almost under the feet of those llamas 
 coming up the street. Now its mother sees it and grabs 
 it away. 
 
 Stop and look at the queer things for sale all around us. 
 What funny potatoes ! Those in that pile near us are no 
 bigger than chestnuts ; they are as pink as the toes of the 
 baby who is playing among them. Here are some of a 
 violet color, while those in the next pile are as black as my 
 boots. The white ones are chuno, and have been frozen 
 for sale. 
 
 See the great variety of fruits. We find quinces, peaches, 
 and pears on every corner, as well as oranges, lemons, and 
 pineapples. The latter fruits come from the lowlands, 
 for it is only a few days' ride on muleback from La Paz 
 to the tropical valleys found here and there in the Andes. 
 The various depressions give all sorts of cUmates and all 
 kinds of fruits. 
 
 Eastern Bolivia is naturally one of the richest lands of 
 the world. Below the plateau and over the range at the 
 east are great plains upon which vast herds of cattle and 
 sheep are pastured. Lower still are forests of about forty 
 million acres in which rubber trees grow, and as much as
 
 126* SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ten million pounds of rubber has been gathered there in 
 one year. The rubber is shipped down the Beni and 
 Madeira rivers to the mouth of the Amazon, and much 
 of it goes from there to the United States. 
 
 It is in these regions that we find Indians so savage that 
 some of them are said to be cannibals. The children of 
 many of the tribes go about naked or with only a cloth 
 around the waist. The women wear plates of wood and 
 metal in the lobes of their ears. Some of the Indians 
 make war upon white men, using blowguns and poisoned 
 arrows, the slightest scratch of which causes speedy death. 
 The guns are hollow reeds about ten feet in length. 
 
 On the eastern slopes of the Andes, by a short ride on 
 muleback, we could reach the Yungas valley where there 
 are plantations of coffee, coca, and cinchona (sin-ko'na) trees. 
 
 Have you heard of cinchona? Perhaps not, but most 
 of us at one time or another have had to take quinine. 
 Quinine comes from the bark of the cinchona tree. It is 
 a bitter, white powder especially good for malarial fevers. 
 We shall need to take plenty of it with us when we go up 
 the Amazon. 
 
 We see loads of cinchona bark on the streets of La Paz. 
 That little donkey just turning the corner has a bundle of 
 it on each side of his back. Other donkeys are coming 
 behind him, each of which carries a load into La Paz. Here 
 it will be repacked and shipped to all parts of the world. 
 
 Let us go and pull out a piece of the bark and take a bite of 
 it. How bitter it is ! It tastes like quinine. 
 
 Bolivia yields the best of this product, although cinchona 
 trees are found all along the eastern slopes of the Andes 
 between here and Colombia. All of our quinine once 
 came from wild trees, but Java and Ceylon have now great 
 cinchona plantations which produce more quinine than all
 
 A bread peddler of Cochabamba. 
 127
 
 ^■■..k 
 
 128
 
 TRAVELS IN BOLIMA 129 
 
 South America. Cinchona groves are now being planted 
 in BoHvia. 
 
 The bark we tasted on the streets of La Paz was gathered 
 from the forests at the head of the Beni River. It was carried 
 through the woods for miles on the backs of Indians, and was 
 then placed upon the donkeys which brought it to La Paz. 
 
 But what is that we see on those other donkeys which 
 are now going by us ? They are loaded with great bundles 
 of what looks Hke dried green leaves. Those are the coca 
 leaves from which is made cocaine, a drug employed to 
 deaden pain. Dentists often put cocaine into one's gum 
 when a sensitive tooth is to be filled. 
 
 Coca is chewed by the Indians of the Bolivian plateau 
 much as some men chew tobacco. Every Indian we meet 
 has a lump of it inside his cheek, and men, women, and 
 children are chewing it all day long. The Indians in the 
 mines will not work unless their employers give them, in 
 addition to their wages, a certain amount of coca leaves 
 every day. They would rather have coca than coffee, 
 tea, or tobacco. Vast quantities of it are produced every 
 year. It is shipped on llamas and donkeys to all parts of 
 BoKvia and also to Peru and Chile. 
 
 We must not confound coca with cacao, the tree from 
 wliich our chocolate comes. The coca plant is a shrub 
 which grows from four to six feet in height. It has 
 leaves much like our wintergreen. They are stimulating, 
 and the Indians tell us that chewing them will not only 
 keep out the cold, but will satisfy hunger. 
 
 We try a chew ourselves, putting some lime with it as 
 the Indians do ; but the leaves taste bitter, the lime burns 
 our tongues, and as the habit is disgusting, we decide to 
 leave coca alone. 
 
 Leaving the markets, we walk about through the business
 
 I30 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 streets, stopping now and then to ask the merchants to 
 show us their goods from our country. We find that 
 Bolivia is using cotton and woolen goods from New England, 
 canned beef and other meats from our great packing 
 centers, and office desks, motor trucks, and automobiles 
 from Micliigan. There are many typewriters and small 
 sewing machines, and all the cameras and phonographs 
 so well known to us. We drop into a moving picture 
 show where our films are shown, among them views of 
 Bolivian railroads built by our citizens. 
 
 Teachers from the United States are employed in the 
 BoHvian schools, and there is a school for Indians on 
 the shores of Lake Titicaca which is greatly improving the 
 tribes of the high plateau. At La Paz is a college for the 
 higher education of Bolivian youth which is supported by 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States, and 
 there are other such schools in Cochabamba, a city of 
 about thirty thousand people which is three days' journey 
 on muleback from La Paz. The schools of Bolivia are 
 steadily improving. The boys and girls are becoming fond 
 of athletics, and there are Boy Scouts who do much the 
 same work as our 'Boy Scouts at home. 
 
 We find that La Paz has many well-educated people. 
 It has a public library and a museum, and the country 
 is steadily advancing in education and prosperity. 
 
 XVI. THE MINERAL WEALTH OF THE 
 ANDES 
 
 AT La Paz we are not far from some of the richest mining 
 regions of the world. The lofty Andes throughout 
 their whole length from the Isthmus of Panama to the 
 Strait of Magellan contain gold. We found gold, silver,
 
 MINERAL WEALTH 01' THE ANDES 131 
 
 and platinum in Colombia, and copper, silver, and gold 
 in Ecuador and Peru. The Sorata range which now looks 
 down upon us has rich veins of tin, and vast quantities 
 of copper are yearly taken out of the mountains to the 
 north and the south. 
 
 There is so much gold on the east slope of the Peruvian 
 Andes that during the floods the streams wash down grains 
 and nuggets of this precious metal. Many of the streams 
 are dry part of the year, and the Indians have paved them 
 with stones so that the gold is caught in the cracks and 
 may be picked up when the water is low. This was one 
 of the mining methods of the Incas, and from it came 
 much of the gold which the Spaniards took from them. 
 
 During our travels through Bolivia we see the miners 
 washing gravel in many places. They are usually Indians 
 employed by white men. There are some at work near 
 La Paz. They take the gravel and dirt from the banks of 
 the streams and roll it about in wooden bowls as big as 
 those in which we knead bread. From time to time they 
 throw the muddy water out of the bowls, continuing to 
 do so until nothing but gravel is left. The miners then take 
 out the gravel, handful by handful, looking it over and 
 dropping back into the bowl any little yellow bits they 
 may see. Finally all the stones have been thrown out. 
 and there remains a Httle pile of yellow pebbles and grains, 
 some of which are no bigger than the point of a needle. 
 This is the gold. Such methods of mining are wasteful, 
 for the gold dust is often so fine that the grains cannot be 
 seen. It is only lately that modern methods of mining 
 have been employed. 
 
 When we visit the silver mines we find that most of the 
 work there is done with rude tools. In the older mines 
 the Indians use hammers and drills to break up the ore.
 
 132 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 They carry it out of the mines on their backs in sacks of 
 rawhide. 
 
 Silver is found in veins of ore in the rocks, and these 
 veins often extend far down under the earth. Some of 
 the mines are very deep. The Indians cHmb out of them 
 on ladders or notched sticks, with heavy sacks of ore on 
 their backs. They work almost naked, wearing only 
 breechcloths about their waists and singing weird songs 
 as they dig out the silver. 
 
 After it is taken out the ore is broken up into small 
 pieces with hammers by women and children. The best 
 of it is then ground to powder by rolhng great stones over 
 it. The powder is mixed with mercury, which dissolves 
 the silver out of the dust, and by other chemical processes 
 it is then made ready for the use of man. 
 
 Some of the richest silver mines of the world are in the 
 Andes. Here on this high Bolivian plateau is a strip of 
 country, wider than the state of Pennsylvania, and as 
 long as from Philadelphia to Omaha, which is dotted with 
 silver mines. There is one mountain, Potosi, out of which 
 has been taken almost three billion dollars' worth of silver, 
 — enough to make two solid silver teaspoons for every man, 
 woman, and child on the globe. 
 
 We leave La Paz by train and ride all day across the 
 plateau to the town of Oruro, a few miles from Lake Poopo, 
 Oruro is a little city lying at the foot of rocky mountains > 
 which contain rich veins of silver and tin. 
 
 Bolivia was long considered the richest silver mining 
 country on earth. It is now surpassed by one region only 
 in its output of tin, and that is Malaysia, away on the other 
 side of the globe. Some tin is found in Australia, in Corn- 
 wall, England, in Alaska near Bering Strait, and in other 
 places, but not in large quantities.
 
 MINERAL WEALTH OF THE ANDES 133 
 
 The tin mines of Bolivia are near Lake Titicaca and Lake 
 Poopo, and at other places high up in the eastern range 
 of the Andes. Some of the richest of them are here at 
 Oruro. We visit the mines and watch the Indian women 
 and children breaking the ore into bits and picking it over. 
 Tin ore looks much hke dull silver. It is taken out of the 
 rocks with hammers and drills, and then broken to pieces 
 
 We leave La Paz by train and take all day to pass from one side of 
 the Andean plateau to the other. 
 
 and ground into powder. It is shipped to the United 
 States or England, where it is put into a furnace with other 
 materials and smelted. Common tinware is made of steel 
 coated with tin. 
 
 The United States uses more tin than any other country, 
 and one half of our supply comes from these highlands. 
 The concentrates, which are the best of the ore, are taken 
 to smelters and refineries in New York and New Jersey,
 
 134 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and hundreds of tons of metallic tin are made from them 
 every month. We have perhaps washed our faces in basins 
 coated with tin from Oruro, and eaten fruit, fish, or vege- 
 tables from cans of the metal which once lay in these 
 mountains. 
 
 1. How do we go from Peru to Bolivia? What is the shortest 
 route from New York to La Paz? How did the country get its name? 
 What countries adjoin BoHvia? 
 
 2. Compare Bolivia in size with the United States; with your 
 state ; with Peru ; with Colombia. Describe its two sections. With 
 what part of our country docs the plateau compare? To what two 
 great river basins does eastern Bolivia belong? Where do most of 
 the people live ? Why ? 
 
 3. What two countries of South America have no seacoast? How 
 do Bolivian exports reach the Pacific ? The Atlantic? Trace a ship- 
 ment of rubber from eastern Bolivia to San Francisco by water. 
 
 4. Describe La Paz and its people. Why might the chief towns be 
 called " Cities of the Sky" ? 
 
 5. What kind of fruits do we find in the markets? What two 
 medicines or drugs come from Bolivia? What is the difference be- 
 tween coca and cacao or cocoa? Give some of the uses of coca. 
 What do we get from the cinchona tree? In what other parts of 
 the world is it raised? Trace a shipment from there to New York, 
 via the Suez Canal ; via the Panama Canal to San Francisco. 
 
 6. Who are the Aymaras? What do you know about the Incas? 
 Who are the Cholos? Where are the savage Indians found? 
 
 7. Compare the minerals of Bolivia with those of Peru, Ecuador, 
 and Colombia. (See Tables XI, XII, and XIII.) For what is Mount 
 Potosi noted ? What is rubber ? How is it gathered ? Follow the 
 travels of a pencil eraser from the trees of Bolivia to your home. 
 About how far does it travel ? What other lands produce rubber ? 
 (See Carpenter's "How the World is Clothed," pp. 240-261.) 
 
 8. Tell the story of your trip through the tin mines. Give some 
 of the uses of tin. Follow a cargo of tin ore from Oruro to the smelters 
 in New Jersey. What other part of the world produces more tin? 
 Trace a shipment from there to New York. In what part of the 
 United States is tin found? How is tin manufactured? (See 
 Carpenter's "How the World is Housed," chapter 20.)
 
 CHILE 135 
 
 XVII. CHILE — THE NITRATE DESERT AND 
 THE GUANO ISLANDS 
 
 PUT on your dark spectacles this morning. You will 
 need them to protect your eyes from the sun, for we are 
 about to travel again over the glaring sands of the desert. 
 The country about Oruro is sterile, and the part of Chile 
 through which we must pass on our way down to the sea 
 is among the most barren lands of the world. 
 
 We take the httle narrow-gauge railroad, built from La 
 Paz to Antofagasta to bring the minerals of southern 
 Bolivia out to the sea, and shoot out into vast plains upon 
 which everything looks gray, bare, and forbidding. We 
 cross dazzling fields of salt left by the evaporation of water 
 from the lakes, and go on into regions of volcanic rock upon 
 which nothing green grows. 
 
 We are now in northern Chile, that part of the country 
 which belongs to the great South American desert. Chile 
 is so long and so narrow that it has been called the ''Shoe- 
 string Republic." It lies between the ocean and the crest 
 of the Andes, having nowhere a width greater than the 
 distance from New York to Boston and in some places 
 much less. It is so long, however, that if laid north and 
 south upon our country with the Strait of Magellan at 
 the Florida Keys, its most northern port, that of Iquique 
 (e-ke'ka), would be in northern Newfoundland. 
 
 Notwithstanding its long, narrow shape, Chile has more 
 land than any country in Europe, except Russia. It is 
 larger than our state of Texas. It is rich in mines, farms, 
 and forests. It has the great nitrate beds at the north, 
 the fertile soil of the long central valley, and the forests of 
 the temperate zone at the south. 
 
 The country contains nearly four million inhabitants,
 
 136
 
 CHILE 
 
 137 
 
 who, owing to the temperate 
 climate, are vigorous and brave. 
 They pride themselves also on 
 being stronger than the people 
 farther north. They are like 
 them, however, in that they are 
 the descendants of Spaniards 
 and of the mixed Indi^ja- race. 
 The difference is that the Span- 
 iards of Chile were chiefly from 
 the northern provinces of Spain 
 and that the Indians whom they 
 married were the famed Arau- 
 canians, a stronger and braver 
 race than those with whom the 
 whites united in Ecuador and 
 Peru. 
 
 On our way to the coast at 
 over two and one half miles 
 above the sea we pass by Lake 
 Ascotan, on the surface of which 
 are what look like great cakes 
 of ice. Our lips are dry and 
 parched, and we long for a drink. 
 The train stops at a station and 
 we ask the conductor if some of 
 the ice cannot be brought into 
 the car. He rephes that the 
 white stuff is not ice at all. It 
 is borax, and the water of the 
 lake is not fit to drink. 
 
 He brings us a lump of borax 
 from a pile which has just been
 
 138 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 brought to the cars to be sent off to Europe. It reminds 
 us of the finest spun silk wadded into a lump. Borax 
 is used in making beads, glass, and cement, and for glazing 
 pottery ware. It is of value also in preserving meat, fish, 
 and milk, and in some kinds of medicines. It is good for 
 sore eyes and as a wash for the hair. Most of the borax 
 of the world comes from here and from the borax lakes of 
 California. 
 
 Is it not odd that such a thing could come out of the 
 earth? Yes, but as we go farther down toward the sea 
 we shall enter a region in Cliile that is even more strange. 
 There is a part of the desert where for hundreds of miles 
 the sands are underlaid with a vast bed of nitrate of soda. 
 
 We use large quantities of this nitrate in the United 
 States, and more than a million tons are shipped to Europe 
 from this desert every year. Nitrate of soda is employed 
 for making explosives and munitions, and during the 
 World War in Europe the most of the supply from Chile 
 went to the United States and to the alKed countries of 
 England and France. In one year our factories used one 
 million tons for ammunition alone. Germany was so 
 blockaded she could not import nitrates, and she had to 
 make her nitrates from the air by electricity. 
 
 Nitrates are among our most important fertilizers. 
 They are used in raising tobacco, sugar beets, grain, and 
 (many other food crops. Almost every American farmer 
 uses more or less of them, and they are exported largely 
 to Europe. The Chilean government gets the most of 
 its revenues from nitrates, and they are so valuable that 
 cities have grown up on this barren coast, inhabited by the 
 men who dig out the mineral and prepare it for sale. Such 
 a town is Antofagasta, where we end our railroad journey 
 from the plateau to the sea. It is one of the most thriving
 
 CHILE 
 
 139 
 
 
 \'^ N)TRATil'RdcK 
 
 ports on the Pacific coast of South America. Making our 
 way on the longitudinal railway through the nitrate fields 
 one hundred and twelve miles to the north, we come to a 
 still larger city, Iquique, the chief nitrate port of the world. 
 
 What a queer place for a town ! Iquique is on the edge 
 of the sea below rugged hills. It is an oasis city, but 
 there is not a blade of grass in the country about it. It 
 has not a drop of water from year's end to year's end ex- 
 cept that which is 
 brought to it in an 
 iron pipe, seventy- 
 five miles long, 
 which connects it 
 with some springs 
 near the foot of the 
 mountains. 
 
 Still, Iquique is 
 a live modern set- 
 tlement. It has 
 stores, schools, 
 newspapers, tele- 
 phones, electric 
 lights, and street 
 cars. We can buy anything we want in its markets, in- 
 cluding the most deHcious fruits and the best of fresh 
 meats. Such things are brought in by ships from other 
 parts of the coast, and the money to pay for them comes 
 entirely from nitrate. 
 
 The nitrate is found on the east side of a low range of 
 hills from fifteen to ninety miles back from the sea. The 
 nitrate beds are usually covered with layers of salt rock 
 and sand, but in some places they lie on the top of the 
 ground. They were probably formed when the desert was 
 
 SOFT EARTH 
 
 Diagram of nitrate bed.
 
 I40 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the bed of an inland sea, and the decay of vast quantities 
 of seaweed containing nitrogen produced nitrate of soda. 
 Nitrate is readily dissolved in water, and if the region were 
 not rainless, the beds would have been long ago washed away. 
 In mining the rock, a hole about a foot wide is bored 
 down through the sand, salt rock, and nitrate to the soft 
 
 Blasting the nitrate rock. 
 
 earth underneath. A small boy is then let down into the 
 hole. He scoops' out a pocket just under the stratum of 
 nitrate and fills it v.'ith powder, inserting a fuse which 
 extends up over the top. The boy is then pulled out and 
 the fuse lighted. A loud explosion follows, a cloud of 
 yellow smoke and dust goes into the air, and the earth 
 for a wide distance about is broken to pieces. The nitrate 
 rock is then dug out with picks and crowbars.
 
 CHILE 
 
 141 
 
 The rock must be further treated, however, before it 
 is ready for sale. Pure nitrate of soda is not found in 
 nature, and the rock we see thus blown out of the desert 
 is more than half dirt and sand. It is loaded on carts 
 and carried to factories which have been built in the 
 fields. 
 
 The lumps of nitrate rock are thrown into tanks of water 
 
 ( )pening up a trench in the nitrate beds after bla.sting. 
 
 heated by steam and just as common salt dissohes in water, 
 so the nitrate is dissolved while the dirt and sand drop to 
 the bottom. After a time all the nitrate of soda has been 
 taken out of the rock by the boiling water, which now looks 
 like pale maple sirup. This fluid is drawn from the boiler 
 and run into cooHng tanks where the nitrate crystallizes 
 and sinks, so that after a time each tank is tiMed with what
 
 142 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 looks like white sugar, while the water on top has become 
 almost clear. The deposit is nitrate of soda. The sur- 
 face water is now allowed to flow off into vats, where it 
 is saved for the iodine in it. The nitrate is shoveled out 
 into piles to dry in the sun. It is next bagged in sacks 
 of three hundred pounds each and taken on the railroad 
 to the seaports to be shipped to the markets. 
 
 Is it not curious that men should go so far and work so 
 hard merely to get food for crops? Plants, like animals, 
 cannot live and grow without nitrogen in their food. The 
 most of the nitrate is used on lands which are expected to 
 yield large and valuable crops. 
 
 There is another thing that comes from the nitrate rock 
 that is carefully saved. This is iodine, a crystalline sub- 
 stance of a violet color, very valuable as a medicine and also 
 used in making dyes. It is important as a disinfectant and 
 was largely used in the hospitals and on the battlefields 
 during the World War in Euxope for the wounds of the 
 soldiers. Iodine is obtained from the water out of which 
 the nitrate has crystalHzed. 
 
 Good plant foods are so valuable that farmers will pay 
 high prices for them ; and vast fortunes have been made 
 from another fertilizer found in this part of South America. 
 This is guano, a mixture of the manure of birds, and of dead 
 seals and fish found in beds on the seacoast, and on several 
 volcanic islands not far from the shores of Peru and Chile. 
 The guano islands are rocks as bare as the desert. They 
 have not a blade of grass nor any green thing upon them ; 
 they are merely masses of stone covered with what looks 
 much like sand. 
 
 If you stir this sand, it will give forth a smell like ammonia. 
 Put upon the soil, it causes it to produce the most bountiful 
 crops. If we should stay on the islands overnight, we might
 
 CHILE 
 
 143 
 
 see them covered by the birds which for ages have chosen 
 them as their roosting places and homes. They are the 
 homes of pehcans and sea gulls, which feed by the millions 
 in the waters of this part of the Pacihc. They often bring 
 the fish they have caught in their bills to the islands and 
 leave them there. During certain parts of the year manv 
 
 These islands have been for ages the resting and roosting places for 
 millions of pelicans, gulls, and other fish-eating birds. 
 
 seals come here to breed, and they often crawl out of the 
 sea upon these rocks to die. 
 
 All this has been going on for many years, and the result 
 is a deposit so valuable as manure that ships come here 
 to take it to our country and Europe. A large part of the 
 supply is now exhausted, but there is still some being ex- 
 ported. There are houses upon the islands, put up for the 
 men who dig out the guano, and on one or two of them arc
 
 144 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 little railroads made to carry it down to the shores. Like 
 nitrate, guano can accumulate and be preserved only in 
 nearly rainless regions. 
 
 1. Why is Chile sometimes called the "Shoestring Republic"? 
 What countries bound it on the north and east ? What one of the 
 United States is nearest it in size? What republic of South 
 America ? 
 
 2. What two products come from the desert? 
 
 3. Describe Lake Ascotan. What are the chief uses of borax? 
 Where else is it found in large quantities? 
 
 4. What is nitrate of soda? For what was it used in the World 
 War? How did Germany get its nitrates during the war? Describe 
 a trip through the fields and tell how nitrate is mined. Why is 
 every American farmer interested in Chile? Trace a shipment 
 from Iquique to a farm near your home. How far does it travel? 
 
 5. What other product comes from this salt? Why do our 
 soldiers carry it with them in battle ? 
 
 6. Where are the two chief nitrate ports? Why are the guano 
 islands of value to the world ? 
 
 XVIII. ALONG THE COAST TO VALPARAISO 
 
 IT takes us five days to go from Iquique to Valparaiso, 
 the chief seaport of Chile. The sail is delightful. 
 There are but few storms along the west coast, and almost 
 every day we make a new port at which we see many 
 strange things. The desert continues and we are always in 
 sight of the Andes. Luscious grapes and oranges are 
 brought to the steamer from the valley oases, and we now 
 and then take on a few barrels of wine. 
 
 While our steamer stops at Antofagasta we have time 
 to visit one of the largest smelters of South America. It
 
 ALONG THE COAST TO VALPARAISO 145 
 
 has been built here to smelt the silver out of the ore brought 
 from the Andes. The ore is first ground to powder and 
 made into bricks. As we pass through the yard we see 
 a large plot of ground upon which are piled enough bricks 
 to build a big house. It is perhaps the richest brickyard 
 on earth. The bricks look like blocks of gray sand, but 
 they are really silver ore, ground fine and molded into this 
 ^shape so that the ore may be more easily smelted. The 
 smelting is done in huge furnaces, the ore being heated 
 with other materials which extract the pure silver. 
 
 Farther down the coast we anchor at Coquimbo (ko- 
 kem'bo) to take on a big load of copper. Hundreds of heavy 
 bars or pigs of reddish-brown metal are brought out to 
 our steamer on a fighter and stored in the hold. 
 
 This copper comes from mines owned and operated by 
 a great United States company, and the metal is sent 
 north through the Panama Canal to New York. There 
 are other large copper mines owned by the same company 
 near Antofagasta and also at Braden in the mountains near 
 Santiago much farther south. We learn that Chile has 
 vast deposits of rich copper ore. It was until 1875 the 
 chief copper producer of the world, but now it is surpassed 
 by the United States and Japan. The copper is in nuggets 
 or veins. The ore is mined, smelted, and shipped all 
 over the world. 
 
 Near Coquimbo is also a mountain of iron ore which 
 belongs to one of our large steel corporations. The moun- 
 tain contains more than two hundred million tons of ore 
 rich in iron. The ore is taken out and sent via the Panama 
 Canal to the steel works at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 
 and other places not far from our Atlantic ports. 
 
 Soon after leaving Coquimbo we notice that the shores 
 have lost their gray, dusty look, and we occasionally see
 
 146
 
 ALONG THE COAST TO VALPARAISO 147 
 
 a tree and a patch of green grass. We are out of the desert 
 at last. 
 
 We sail about two hundred miles farther south and 
 finally come to anchor in the Bay of Valparaiso. It is 
 shaped Uke a half-moon, being walled with steep hills 
 covered with luxuriant trees and beautiful flowers. A 
 few miles inland are orange and lemon groves, vineyards, 
 and trees bearing almost all kinds of fruits ; and just 
 over the mountains is the long valley of Chile, one of the 
 richest farming and fruit-raising regions of all South 
 America. The climate is hke that of Italy and California. 
 
 At Valparaiso we are not halfway to the southern end 
 of the Chilean coast. In a land extending so far north and 
 south we must expect all sorts of climates. It was hot at 
 Antofagasta, but the winter air at Valparaiso is pleasantly 
 cool, and near the Strait of Magellan the ground is often 
 covered with snow. There is a great difference in the 
 amount of rainfall. In the northern desert one never needs 
 an umbrella, but Valparaiso has occasional rains throughout 
 the year. It rains more and more farther south, and in 
 some places so much water falls that the people jokingly 
 say it rains thirteen months every year. 
 
 But what is the cause of the change? Why is northern 
 Chile dry and the greater part of southern Chile so wet? 
 It comes from the winds. We have learned that the 
 desert exists because all the water-laden winds come from 
 the Atlantic and have had the water taken out of them 
 before they reach the west slope. The winds of southern 
 Chile blow from the Pacific Ocean toward the east. As 
 they cross the Pacific they are filled full of moisture, and 
 when they rise over the land the cooling of the air causes 
 rain to fall. Hence we find copious rains feeding the many 
 streams that flow down the western slope of the Andes.
 
 148 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 On the other side of the mountains the country is almost a 
 desert, for the Pacific winds are dry when they reach there. 
 
 Valparaiso is almost as large as Indianapolis. It is the 
 chief port on the west coast of South America, owing its 
 growth to its excellent harbor and the rich country behind 
 it. It was almost destroyed by a great earthquake in 
 1906, but it has since been rebuilt. We come to anchor 
 among steamers from different parts of the United States 
 and Europe. They are loading and discharging goods. 
 Some are taking on cattle, wheat, vegetables, and fruits 
 for the cities of the desert farther north, and others are 
 adding to their cargoes of nitrates, copper, and hides, 
 which they are transporting from Chile to Europe. 
 
 The business of the port has been greatly increased by 
 the Panama Canal, and there are lines of steamers which 
 sail regularly between Valparaiso and New York. They 
 carry ores and nitrates as well as hides and wool, and 
 eventually they will transport quantities of fruit, for Chile 
 has all the fruits of Cahfornia, and as it is south of the 
 equator these fruits are ripe in the midst ol our winter. 
 Grapes, melons, and peaches may thus be sent in cold 
 storage to New York and Boston. Returning, the ships 
 bring back to Chile cotton and woolen goods, manufactures 
 of iron and steel, electrical machinery, locomotives, motor- 
 cars and tractors, and many kinds of farm tools. Shoes 
 made in New England are sold here, and leather made in 
 Chile is imported by the United States. 
 
 We take a boat to the shore, wondering how we can get 
 up the hills to the houses above us. Valparaiso rises from 
 the water like the grandstand of a ball ground. The 
 streets are in terraces, one above another, so that the 
 buildings at the top seem to hang out and threaten to fall 
 upon those below.
 
 ALONG THE COAST TO VALPARAISO 149 
 
 But see, there are cable cars climbing the hills ! It is by 
 them we shall mount from one street to another, for the only 
 level land in the city is a narrow stretch along the shore. 
 This is the business part of Valparaiso, and it was built 
 for that purpose. The hills were leveled and walls were built 
 to protect the land from the waves. 
 
 We step from our boat upon stone wharves and walk 
 over streets as well paved as any in our cities at home. 
 The buildings are large, and the stores have plate glass 
 windows. There are English names over some of them, 
 and we learn that Valparaiso has many Europeans who 
 have come here to engage in trade. 
 
 The people do not look very different from those of 
 New York and Chicago. There are electric Hghts, motor- 
 trucks, and automobiles. We hear boys crying the news- 
 papers and remember, as we notice the signs of enterprise 
 about us, that the Chileans are among the most progressive 
 of the South American peoples. We hear many of the 
 Chileans speak English, and as we look at our surroundings 
 we wonder whether Chile is, after all, much different from 
 the United States. 
 
 But stop ! Here comes a lady with a black shawl draped 
 about her head, and behind her is a vegetable peddler with 
 his stock in panniers on the sides of a donkey. There 
 is a bread mule, ridden by the baker, and a milk mule 
 is going down that side street. Get out of the way of that 
 carriage with its high-stepping horses and look out for the 
 horse coming around the corner ! Its rider wears a poncho 
 and a broad-brimmed hat. He is probably a rich farmer 
 from the country. We shall see many of his kind later on. 
 
 What a queer street car is that one going by us ! It has 
 seats on top as well as inside. See the pretty woman in 
 uniform on the rear platform? She is taking the fares
 
 ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA BY RAIL 151 
 
 and making the change from her white apron pocket. 
 There are women conductors in all the chief cities of Chile. 
 The custom was introduced long ago when Chile was at 
 war with Peru and the men were needed as soldiers. 
 
 But Valparaiso has so many foreigners that we must go 
 inland to see how most of the Chileans live. The country 
 has many railways, and we decide to make our first journey 
 on the Transandine line. 
 
 oJOio 
 
 XIX. ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA BY RAIL 
 
 WE have already seen something of the railroads 
 farther north which go from the west coast to the 
 top of the Andes. Let us look at a map representing the 
 railways in use and the new lines projected. Chile has 
 iron tracks from one end almost to the other, and its public 
 roads if joined together would reach around the world. 
 The first railways of the country were built by a Calif ornian, 
 and many of the rails, locomotives, and cars now in use 
 came from the United States. Some of the railways are 
 operated by electricity rather than steam. Fuel is costly, 
 and the short, fast-flowing streams give an abundance of 
 power with which to generate electric current. 
 
 The road upon which we are riding to-day has brought 
 the Atlantic and Pacific oceans together. It is the Trans- 
 andine railroad from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires. Our 
 car is a Pullman and we can see the country well as we go. 
 Leaving Valparaiso, the train skirts the harbor, passing 
 through the rich suburb of Vina del Mar (ve'na del mar'). 
 
 How soft the air is and how sweet the smell of the trees 
 and grass after our long stay in the desert ! Morning
 
 152 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 glories are blooming on the fences, and that great bush over 
 there is loaded with roses. Now we whiz by an orange 
 grove, almost close enough to pick the yellow balls peeping 
 out of the leaves, now by vineyards, and now stop at a 
 station at which pears, figs, and lemons are brought to the 
 car windows for sale. How cheap everything is ! We 
 can get a basket of grapes or all the oranges we can eat for 
 a dime. 
 
 By and by the road leaves the coast, and we climb over 
 the hills to the central valley which forms the best farming 
 region of Chile. There is but Httle green except where 
 the land is irrigated. See the men at work in the fields. 
 There is one plowing. He has two white oxen joined to 
 the plow by a pole. The pole is tied to the yoke, which 
 rests on the necks of the oxen just back of the horns, to 
 which it is fastened with strips of rawhide. 
 
 The houses of the Chilean towns are similar to those we 
 saw on the coast of Peru. There are many huts in the 
 fields. They are made of mud with roofs of straw thatch, 
 or sheet iron. 
 
 As we cross the coast range the farms grow larger and the 
 country is more thickly peopled. We ride for some time 
 through the irrigated valley of the Aconcagua River with 
 the mighty mountains rising above us. We now pass 
 orchards of apples and peaches, with rich, well-watered 
 gardens high up in the hills. The country grows wilder, 
 and at last we are at Los Andes (los an'das), the last 
 station of Chile. We are near the frontier of Argentina, 
 where the road joins the Argentina railway that crosses 
 the Andes and goes on over the pampas through the farms 
 and pasture lands to Buenos Aires. We have not time 
 now to make the whole journey, for we expect to go around 
 the southern end of the continent by the Strait of Magellan.
 
 THE CUMfeRC 
 
 »^--^w\ 
 
 BowAiiy line V— V 
 
 Republic a 
 
 10^ 
 
 V^^'' 
 
 4 
 
 i.-^ ^ 
 
 -^^iC^ 
 
 On the Transandine railway. The cross marks the site of the 
 Christ of the Andes, 2000 feet above the tunnel. 
 
 153
 
 154 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 So we shall ride on the railroad only to the top of the 
 mountains ; from there taking mules to see something of 
 this part of the Andes before returning to go farther south. 
 
 Our mules take us over the old wagon road that crosses 
 the mountains at the Uspallata (oos-pai-ya'ta) Pass. This 
 is about two and one half miles above the sea, and the place 
 where it crosses the boundary between Argentina and 
 Chile is marked by an heroic bronze figure upholding a 
 cross, with these words on the pedestal : 
 
 "Sooner shall these mountains crumble to dust than 
 Argentines and Chileans break the peace to which they 
 have pledged themselves at the feet of Christ the Re- 
 deemer." 
 
 This statue is known as the "Christ of the Andes." It 
 was erected fifteen years before the close of the World War, 
 and we are impressed with the fact that these South 
 American republics so long ago strove for international 
 peace and brotherly love. 
 
 The old road over the Andes can be traveled easily in 
 summer. In winter the snows are so heavy that men are 
 often lost in the storms and sometimes spend many days 
 on the way. That is why the Uttle stone huts we pass 
 now and then have been built. They are to shelter the 
 passengers and mail carriers when caught in the storms. 
 Men sometimes have to wait herej for days for the storm 
 to cease. The huts have no windows, and are more Like 
 bake-ovens than houses. There are also several rude 
 inns where we stop. The hot soup tastes good, we are so 
 cold. 
 
 This range of the Chilean Andes is wild in the extreme. 
 One of the worst parts of it is the pass called the Valley 
 of Desolation. It is covered with volcanic rock upon 
 which nothing grows. The only Hfe to be seen are the
 
 The Christ of the Amies, a hroii/.c sialuc ncricd lo i ommemorate 
 the making of peace between Chile and Argentina. 
 
 155
 
 156 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 condors soaring high overhead or the guanacos racing over 
 the snow. There is a condor flying between us and the 
 sun. It casts a black shadow upon the white snow. Con- 
 dors are Hke vultures. They will eat any dead animal, 
 and we are wondering whether the mighty bird is not 
 waiting to see us drop in our tracks. 
 
 The highest part of the Transandine railway was diflicult 
 to build. It has many tunnels. The cars are taken up 
 the steepest part of the mountains by a track like that up 
 Pikes Peak and Mount Washington. This track has three 
 rails. In addition to the two of the ordinary railroad 
 there is a third rail with rungs in it like a ladder. Upon 
 this moves a cogwheel attached to the car, and the little 
 engine runs behind the train and pushes it up the mountains. 
 About two miles above the sea is a tunnel, and there are 
 also many snowsheds cut out of the solid rock to protect 
 the trains from drifts in the winter. 
 
 The Transandine railway is of great good to South 
 American travelers. We shall see why as we go to Buenos 
 Aires by the old route around the southern end of the 
 continent. The voyage from Valparaiso by the Strait of 
 Magellan takes from fourteen to sixteen days and is often 
 stormy and rough. By the railway, the distance is eight 
 hundred and eighty-eight miles, or less than that between 
 New York and Chicago, and passengers are carried across 
 the continent in twenty-nine hours. This makes the trip 
 from Europe to the west coast of South America much 
 shorter, and travelers from Great Britain to Australia 
 can reach Buenos Aires in about twenty days, cross South 
 America by rail, and take ship at Valparaiso, instead of 
 making the long voyage through the Strait of Magellan, 
 or the shorter one by the Panama Canal. 
 
 This railway is now the chief route across South America
 
 Ilic \'alley of Desolation, showing Mt. Acoiuagu.i 
 157
 
 158 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 from ocean to ocean. There is another transcontinental 
 route that connects with the Argentine railway system by 
 the road on which we came from La Paz to Antofagasta, 
 
 but it is longer and 
 higher and will never 
 have much through 
 passenger traffic. 
 The Chileans plan 
 to build several rail- 
 ways south of where 
 we are now, and 
 some of these will 
 go to the port of 
 Bahia Blanca on the 
 Atlantic. A road 
 is planned from 
 Paita, a port of 
 Peru, to the navi- 
 gable waters of the 
 Amazon, and the 
 Oroya (6-ro'ya) rail- 
 way will sometime 
 be extended to other 
 tributaries of that river. Indeed, South America is a con- 
 tinent of the future, and vast territories now practically 
 unknown will some day be opened by railroads. 
 
 During our travels we have fine views of Aconcagua, 
 the highest of the Andes. When the sky is clear it can 
 be seen from Valparaiso, rising in a cone high above 
 its sister mountain and dwarfing all the peaks near it 
 except Mount Tupungato (too-poon-ga't5), which is over 
 four miles in height. Aconcagua is more than twenty- 
 three thousand feet high. It is the highest point on the 
 
 The condor has a wing-spread of nine feet 
 and soars easily above the highest peaks 
 of the Andes. Like the vulture, it lives 
 largely on carrion.
 
 SANTIAGO, THE CAPITAL OF CHILE 159 
 
 South American continent and is almost three thousand 
 feet higher than Mount McKinley, the highest point in 
 North America. Aconcagua is one of the mountain sights 
 of the world. As we look at its snowy top we long to 
 climb it, but if we should make the attempt we would 
 probably meet with snowstorms and be frozen by the 
 intense cold on the peak. There are cliffs near the summit, 
 and at the top is a square plateau of ice about two hun- 
 dred feet wide. Standing there, we might see great masses 
 of fleecy clouds far below us, with the mountains stretching 
 away to the east and the south. On one side would be 
 the pampas of Argentina, and on the other, over the rich cen- 
 tral valley of Chile, ninety miles away, would be the shining, 
 silvery Pacific. This climb can be made only in summer, 
 and our guides will not allow us to make the attempt. 
 We must be satisfied with the magnificent views we had 
 as we rode through the pass. So we remount our mules 
 and slowly go back down the hills to the railroad. Here 
 we take the train for Los Andes, where we change cars to 
 the line which brings us at last to Santiago, the Chilean 
 capital. 
 
 XX. SANTIAGO, THE CAPITAL OF CHILE 
 
 SANTIAGO, the capital of Chile, is alniost as large as 
 our national capital and like it in many ways. Wash- 
 ington is six hours distant from our chief seaport. New 
 York. Santiago is about six hours by rail from Valpa- 
 raiso, the chief seaport of Chile. Washington lies in a 
 basin only a little above sea level on the bank of the 
 Potomac. Santiago is at an elevation of two thousand 
 feet in the central valley of Chile. It is cut in two by
 
 i6o
 
 SANTIAGO, THE CAPITAL OF CHILE i6i 
 
 the river Mapocho (ma-po'cho) , and the basin in which 
 it is built is walled by the snowy Andes and by low 
 mountains which rise one above another from grassy plains. 
 
 We have our Capitol Hill, one hundred and ninety feet 
 above the Potomac. Santiago has its Santa Lucia 
 (loo-se'a), a mass of volcanic rocks more than twice as 
 high. Rising precipitously from a base of six acres in the 
 midst of the city, Santa Lucia is perhaps the most picturesque 
 park of the world. It is composed of rocks piled together 
 in curious shapes. There is earth mixed with the rocks 
 so that trees grow among them. Flowers and vines have 
 been planted, and the sides of the hill are covered with 
 EngUsh ivy. From its base to its summit tall eucalyptus 
 trees rise out of the crevices of the rocks. It has wonderful 
 ferns, dark caves, and beautiful grottoes in which are 
 waterfalls, making altogether what might be called a hang- 
 ing garden above the city, under the shadow of the Andes. 
 
 There are winding driveways and footpaths which go 
 round and round the hill to the summit where the band 
 plays and where they have moving-picture shows under 
 the sky. We walk up one of the paths to take a look over 
 Santiago. It is early morning and the sun is just rising in 
 the great blue dome of the heavens. It has caught the 
 ragged, rocky peaks of the Andes at the back of the cit3\ 
 and the snows upon them look like frosted silver incrusted 
 with diamonds. The foothills in the shadow seem to be 
 of blue velvet, and away off in the distance are the plains 
 with their rich growth of green. 
 
 Our eyes now drop to the city below us. Red-tiled roofs 
 extend far away on all sides. Each roof surrounds a patio 
 in which is a garden with shrubs and trees. The scene is 
 not unlike that we saw from the top of our hotel in Lima. 
 The houses are built in the same style. They are close to
 
 1 62 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the street and consist of rooms built around open court- 
 yards. Some of them are of vast size although few are of 
 more than two stories. 
 
 See that wide avenue which cuts the city almost in 
 halves ! That is the Alameda, the chief street of this 
 South American capital. It is more than twice as wide as 
 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, and four miles in 
 length. There are rows of poplars, oaks, elms, and acacias 
 running through it from one end to the other, and stone 
 aqueducts in which mountain water is flowing. A stream 
 of traffic is moving back and forth on both sides of the 
 avenue. We can see automobiles and motor-trucks winding 
 their way in and out among the ox wagons and carriages. 
 
 Taking our field glasses, we pick out the statues of many 
 Chilean heroes under the trees, and see the stone seats 
 upon which men and women are sitting enjoying the air. 
 Boys on bicycles are riding along the paths in the center 
 of the street, and at every few hundred feet there are two 
 or three cows with their calves beside them. Each of the 
 calves wears a muzzle. The cows are tended by women, 
 who sell the milk warm from the cow. They are hobbled 
 by ropes about their hind legs. 
 
 But let us go down from the hill and take a street-car 
 ride through the city. The seats on the roof are the best 
 for sight-seeing, so we climb up, give our fare to the woman 
 conductor, and are soon rolling along, as high as the tops 
 of the one-story houses, through the suburbs and poorer 
 parts of the town. A little later we are passing through 
 the best business section. How fine the stores are ! They 
 are equal to those of our cities at home. The show windows 
 have all kinds of beautiful goods. There are several great 
 arcades roofed with glass, which have been cut through the 
 business blocks from one side to the other.
 
 SANTIAGO, THE CAPITAL OF CHILE 
 
 163 
 
 We go by the Palacio dc la Moneda. It is a great build- 
 ing, containing the offices of the president and those of 
 some of his cabinet ministers. At the door are soldiers 
 with drawn swords 
 in their hands. 
 Later on the presi- 
 dent of Chile comes 
 forth with the mili- 
 tary guard of two 
 hundred cavalry 
 which accompanies 
 his carriage on all 
 state occasions. 
 The Chileans are 
 fond of pomp and 
 display. We meet 
 policemen with 
 swords at their sides 
 on every street 
 corner, and we shall 
 see soldiers drilling 
 in every city and 
 town. Chile is a 
 republic with a gov- 
 ernment not unhke 
 ours. It has a presi- 
 dent and congress 
 and a system of courts. In that building over there con- 
 gress is meeting. The men going in are senators and dep- 
 uties who make the laws just as we do in our congress at 
 home. 
 
 At the post-office department we learn that millions of 
 letters and newspapers go through the mails every year 
 
 In Santiago arcades roofed with glass 
 run through the blocks and furnish space 
 for shops and shelter for shoppers.
 
 1 64 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and that telegraph Unes cover the republic. The prices 
 for telegrams are lower than ours. There are wireless 
 towers in different parts of the country, and long-distance 
 telephones over which one can talk from Santiago to all 
 the chief cities. Many of the towns have electric street 
 cars, and nearly every one is lighted by electricity. Later 
 on we visit the museum, the national picture gallery, and 
 the pubHc library, which has more than one half million 
 volumes. We go to the colleges and spend some time in 
 the pubKc schools. The schools are much hke ours, save 
 that the girls and the boys are kept in different buildings 
 and the children of the lower grades study out loud. Chile 
 has a good public school system. There are schools in 
 every city and village, although only one out of every five 
 children attends school. Santiago has two large univer- 
 sities, and there are also schools of mines, of engineering, 
 of agriculture, and for the army and navy. 
 
 The Chileans are so strong, progressive, and inteUigent 
 that they have been called the Yankees of South America. 
 This is largely because they have a temperate climate 
 like ours. Although their language is Spanish, many of 
 the people speak also French and English, and some have 
 been educated in Europe. In all the cities there are daily 
 newspapers. We meet newsboys on almost every street 
 corner, and find large bookstores in the business sections. 
 
 During our stay at the capital we are inxdted to visit 
 the homes of some well-to-do Chileans. We are surprised 
 at the size of their houses. They are of only one or two 
 stories, but many have forty or more large rooms which 
 are furnished as expensively as the palaces of our mil- 
 Uonaires. They have fine paintings and statues, and those in 
 the suburbs have large gardens about them, in which are 
 lemon and orange trees and all kinds of beautiful flowers.
 
 A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 165 
 
 But how about the poor?^ All the Chileans cannot be 
 rich. No, indeed. There are poor people everywhere. 
 We see them driving carts, carrying goods on their backs 
 through the streets, and engaged in all sorts of hard labor. 
 We shall find them living in mud huts on the farms, and 
 we remember how we rode on the top of the street car 
 through sections of Santiago filled with low one-story 
 houses where whole families live in one room. In many 
 cases the poor people sleep on the floor, and their food 
 costs but a few cents a day. They are of the mixed race 
 of Spaniards and Indians. We shall see much of them in 
 our trips through the country. 
 
 XXI. A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 
 
 WE are starting to-day from Santiago through the 
 central valley of Chile, which hes between the main 
 range of the Andes and the low mountains which border 
 the coast. It is over a hundred miles wide in places and 
 as long as from New York to Pittsburgh. This valley is 
 rich, for it is covered with earth washings from the moun- 
 tains, and the soil is several hundred feet deep. It is 
 divided into large estates upon which all the fruits and 
 grains of the temperate zone are grown, and where sheep, 
 cattle, and horses are grazed in great droves. The cliicf 
 crops are wheat, barley, and oats. There are great or- 
 chards and vineyards, and almost one half billion pounds 
 of grapes are gathered in a single year. The valley is 
 like the central valley of California in position, cHmate, 
 and products. Chile is one of the chief wheat countries 
 of South America. It ranks next to Argentina, and 
 millions of bushels are exported every year.
 
 A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 167 
 
 There are few countries where farms are so large or 
 their owners so rich as in Chile. More than half the 
 people are engaged in farming, but the land is owned by 
 a very few families. We meet men who each have thou- 
 sands of acres, and the wealthier farmers hve like lords 
 upon their estates or haciendas (a-syen'das). Agriculture 
 is profitable in Chile. The country annually produces 
 millions of bushels of wheat and barley, milHons of gallons 
 of wine, and the best horses and sheep on the west coast 
 of South America. 
 
 Most of the farms are in this great central valley. They 
 are irrigated by the streams from the mountains, and often 
 are cultivated Hke gardens. The fields are divided by 
 canals bordered with poplars, eucalyptus, or other tall 
 trees. Some of the estates have stone walls about them, 
 and others have fences of wire or boards. We look in 
 vain for barns, haystacks, and farmhouses hke ours. The 
 only buildings are the vast one-story homes of the owners 
 and the mud huts of the workmen. Huge carts drawn by 
 oxen with yokes tied to their horns are used for farm 
 wagons, and the plows are dragged through the furrows 
 by the same clumsy beasts. The more enterprising 
 Chileans, however, have been lately introducing modern 
 machinery, and some of the rich farmers have tractors, 
 plows, threshers, and reapers made in our country. Some 
 have their own electric power plants, operated by the 
 streams which flow through their farms. 
 
 We visit one of the farms and are entertained by the 
 owner. Our host is a rich haciendado who lives in San- 
 tiago, and comes here only in summer, but nevertheless 
 has an enormous establishment. His house has several 
 acres of rooms, all on the ground floor. The residence 
 is composed of one-story buildings with red tiled roofs.
 
 io8
 
 A VISIT TO A CHILKAN F'ARM i 6q 
 
 mud walls, and brick floors, surrounding green courts and 
 gardens. Groves of trees, some of which are one hundred 
 feet high, shade the houses. 
 
 There are many other guests at the time of our visit, 
 among them about thirty children. Nevertheless, when 
 we go out to ride there are horses for all. The smallest 
 children are tied to the saddles to keep them from falling, 
 for the children learn to ride when quite young. Every 
 child of this farmer has his own pony, and we see boys and 
 girls between the ages of four and fourteen galloping over 
 the fields holding their seats like men and women. 
 
 The farm is so large we might ride all day through the 
 fields and not visit it all. The chief roads are hned with 
 Lombardy poplars. 
 
 We are delighted with the horses. Their gait is so easy 
 that we can remain in our saddles for hours without tiring. 
 They are directed by pressing the reins against the neck, 
 and not by pulling at the bit as we do. The reins are 
 usually left loose, and as a result the horses are seldom 
 hard in the mouth. Later on we look at stock. There 
 are great herds of fine cattle and flocks of fat sheep. The 
 crops are growing luxuriantly, and the vineyards and 
 orchards are loaded with fruit. 
 
 We ask how such a place is managed. It has a major- 
 domo, or chief, who organizes his laborers much like an 
 army. Each overseer has so many men, and he tells each 
 man what to do every day. Books are kept to show just 
 what money is paid out and what for, so that the owner 
 knows how well each field is paying. 
 
 Indeed, the only poor things on the farm are the incjuilinos 
 (en-ke-le'nos) , or farm hands. They are the laboring class 
 of the country, somewhat like the Indians we saw in Peru 
 and Bolivia. They come of the mixed race of Spaniards
 
 lyo 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and Indians, inheriting the bravery of both. The Peruvian 
 and Bohvian Indians are afraid of their masters ; the 
 inquihnos are not. They carry knives, and the employer 
 who would strike one of his laborers would probably be 
 stabbed in return. Nevertheless, it is said that the in- 
 quilinos love their masters, and they seldom leave the 
 estates upon which they were born. 
 
 Let us enter one of their huts. What a contrast to the 
 luxurious city home of the owner ! The walls are of mud 
 and the roof is of thatch. The ground forms the floor and, 
 in this case, the bed of the family. Two boxes and a table 
 are the only furniture. The hut has but one room about 
 fifteen feet square, and we are told that eight persons Hve 
 in it. It seems impossible that they can exist in such 
 close quarters, and when we learn what they eat we wonder 
 the more. Their breakfast usually consists of a double 
 handful of toasted wheat flour mixed with water into a 
 mush or baked as a cake. At noo^ they have a bowl of hot 
 beans, and for supper, or dinner, as they call it, a second 
 bowl of beans, to which is added some toasted meal. The 
 inquihnos seldom eat meat, preferring to spend their money 
 for drink. 
 
 As a result of this mode of hving many of the children 
 die, but those who survive are able to withstand almost 
 any hardship. The men are so strong that four of them 
 can easily Uft a piano on their heads and trot away 
 with it. I have seen them carrying nitrate bags weighing 
 three hundred pounds each and tossing them about as 
 though they were feathers. 
 
 The inquihnos are pohte. They are kind to their 
 famiUes, and are always ready to help one another in 
 trouble. It is difficult to teach them habits of thrift ; but 
 common schools have now been established almost every-
 
 A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 171 
 
 where, and it is believed that they will in time reach a higher 
 state of civilization. 
 
 1. Mention two important metals we get from Chile. Locate 
 Coquimbo. Why is it important to us? What two South American 
 countries produce the most copper? Compare their product with 
 that of the United States. From what other countries do large 
 supplies of this metal come? (See Table XI.) 
 
 2. Give an airplane view of ChUe. Describe the three different 
 sections as to climate and products. Why is northern Chile so dry 
 and southern Chile so wet ? 
 
 3. Describe the port of Valparaiso. How far is it from New 
 York? From San Francisco? Mention some of the goods awaiting 
 shipment to the United States. What do we sell to the Chileans? 
 Trace the route of a shipload of our cotton from New Orleans to 
 Valparaiso, via the Panama Canal. Trace a cargo of iron ore from 
 Coquimbo to Bethlehem, Pa. A cargo of copper from Antofagasta 
 to New York via Panama ; via the Strait of Magellan. 
 
 4. What great American port was destroyed by an earthquake? 
 Compare it with Valparaiso. 
 
 5. Why do the cities of Chile have women street-car conductors? 
 
 6. Compare your trip across South America by rail with one from 
 San Francisco to New York ; from New York to Chicago. How 
 far is it from Buenos Aires to \'alparaiso? How long does the 
 journey take? Mention other possible routes from ocean to ocean. 
 Why are some of the railways of Chile operated by electricity? 
 
 7. What is the highest mountain of the Andes? Compare it with 
 Mount McKinley, Mount Elbruz, Mount Everest. Describe the 
 "Christ of the Andes." 
 
 8. In what ways is the capital of Chile like the capital of the 
 United States? How does the government resemble ours? What 
 is the chief religion of Chile? E.xplain why the Chileans have been 
 called the Yankees of South America. 
 
 9. Why is the central valley of Chile like California? Compare 
 it with southern Chile. Compare one of the farms with a farm 
 near your home. What do they grow on these farms? What arc the 
 principal wheat countries of South America? (See Table X.) 
 
 10. Who are the inquilinos? How do they live?
 
 172 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 XXII. SOUTHERN CHILE AND THE 
 ARAUCANIANS 
 
 WE have left our friends in the country and are again 
 on the train. We travel several hundred miles 
 southward through the great central valley. On our left 
 are the snowy Andes with steam rising here and there from 
 a volcanic peak. We cross little rivers and go through vast 
 wheat fields cut up by ditches in which clear water flows. 
 
 How many vineyards there are ! The hills are covered 
 with low grapevines now brown and leafless, for it is winter. 
 See that drove of cattle at the side of the road, with the 
 men on horseback driving the animals this way and that. 
 They are rounding up the young and branding them with 
 hot irons. In the next field are more than a thousand 
 horses, and we shall pass many cattle on our way farther 
 south. 
 
 See the trees which border the fields ! The irrigating 
 ditches are lined with lofty poplars all leaning north, blown 
 so by the winds, which usually come from the south. They 
 look like hedges a hundred feet high running between the 
 green fields. 
 
 What is this broad stream we are crossing? It is the 
 Biobio (be-o-be'o), the largest river of Chile. It rises in 
 the Andes not far from the Argentine boundary and flows 
 across the country, emptying into the Bay of Concepcion. 
 How wide it is ! The steel bridge which we cross is one of 
 the finest in South America ; it seems more than a mile 
 long. 
 
 There are woods on the banks of the Biobio, and from 
 now on we shall frequently be in the forests. There are 
 no more irrigating ditches, for the rains furnish plenty of 
 water for the woods and the crops. We have at last come
 
 SOUTHERN CHILE AND THE ARAUCANIANS 
 
 173 
 
 into the forest region of Chile. It extends from hero to 
 the Strait of Magellan, and we see cypress, oak, beech, and 
 other hardwood 
 trees of the temper- 
 ate zone. The bark 
 of many of the trees 
 is good for tanning, 
 and we shall find 
 large tanneries and 
 other leather- 
 making industries 
 here and farther 
 south. 
 
 The wheat fields 
 we are now passing 
 have been cut out 
 of the woods. They 
 look like our fields 
 in the new lands of 
 the Northwest. 
 There are stumps in 
 them. The houses 
 of the poor are made 
 of logs. We see 
 men at work felling 
 the trees. Those 
 long teams of oxen 
 are dragging out 
 lumber, their big, 
 soft eyes looking 
 sadly at us as they painfully pull the heavy loads by their 
 heads. 
 
 Notice the people at the station. How different from 
 
 Araucanian Indian — bronze slaiuc in 
 Santiago. The Araucanians of Chile were 
 much better fighters than the Incas of 
 Peru or the Aymaras of Bolivia.
 
 174 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the laborers we saw in the north ! They are dark faced 
 and fierce looking. They are more warmly clad. The 
 men wear ponchos ; and many of them have on high boots 
 covered with mud. 
 
 Listen to that group at the corner. They are talking in 
 German and they do not look like Chileans. They are 
 
 Araucanian Indians weaving ponchos. 
 
 German settlers who have come from Europe to farm the 
 land, which the Chilean government sells to immigrants 
 at a low price. We shall see many Germans in this part 
 of Chile. They have taken up farms and often own 
 stores and factories. The city of Valdivia (val-de'vya) has 
 large tanneries in which German workmen make fine leather 
 for shipment to Europe. The trees have good bark for 
 tanning, and the many cattle make the hides cheap.
 
 IN THE COAL MINES OF CHILE 175 
 
 But who are the copper-colored people we meet every- 
 where? They wear gorgeous ponchos woven in stripes of 
 bright colors. The women have bare arms. They wear long, 
 blankctlike dresses wrapped tightly over their chests and 
 falling to the feet. Some have square silver earrings half 
 as big as a schoolbook and as thick as its cover. Others 
 have silver plates on their bosoms and bands of silver 
 beads about their ankles and necks. 
 
 They are Indians, the descendants of the famed Arau- 
 canians who inhabited Chile when the Spaniards first came. 
 They were noted for their bravery, and were quite as brave 
 as our Indians. It is said that more Spanish lives were 
 lost in attempts to conquer these Indians than in all the 
 Indian wars in Mexico and Peru. The struggle lasted 
 more than a century and ended by leaving to the Arau- 
 canians a great part of southern Chile. Since then most 
 of this has been taken away and they live on reservations 
 or have farms of their own. Alcohol has made the Arau- 
 canians a nation of drunkards, and their bad habits are 
 fast killing them off. They are now less in number than 
 when they first fought the Spaniards, and they grow fewer 
 each year. 
 
 XXIII. IN THE COAL MINES OF CHILE 
 
 WE have left the land of the Araucanians and are now 
 in the city of Concepcion (kon-sep-syon'), two hun- 
 dred miles south of Valparaiso. It is the chief port south 
 of Valparaiso, and its people say it will soon be the chief 
 seaport of the southern Pacific coast. It has two excellent 
 harbors near by, Arauco (a-rou'ko) Bay and Talcahuano 
 (tal-ka-wah'no), and is so connected by railroads with all
 
 176
 
 IN THE COAL MINES OF CHILE 177 
 
 parts of the country that it has a great trade. Valdivia 
 and Puerto Montt (pwar'to mont) , two other ports farther 
 south, are rapidly growing. 
 
 Concepcion is the largest city of southern Chile. It is 
 a fiat Spanish town with a plaza in the center, and streets 
 which cross one another at right angles. 
 
 This part of Chile contains some of the chief coal fields 
 of western South America. There is but little coal to the 
 north of them, and coal is brought in by the shipload 
 from Australia and England. The coal of Chile is not so 
 good as that which is imported, and it must be sold at 
 a lower price. The coal fields lie along the ocean for a 
 distance of almost one hundred miles, and are so close to 
 the sea that they can be worked at a profit. 
 
 The steamer in which we are to take passage for the 
 Strait of Magellan has stopped in Arauco Bay to take on 
 coal. She now lies at anchor near Lota, with great barges 
 of coal at her side. We see sooty-faced men standing on 
 the coal and shoveHng it on board. The ship is bound for 
 Hamburg, via the Strait of Magellan. She must steam 
 about five thousand miles before she can get fuel again. 
 It takes a vast deal of coal to make steam for such a big 
 ship. It uses more in one day than many families can 
 consume in a year, and it will keep the men shovehng 
 until night to load up. 
 
 I We are told that we shall have time to \dsit one of the 
 mines before the ship sails. We are tired, and at first tliink 
 it hardly worth while, until the captain says that some of 
 the coal beds slope from the land down under the ocean, 
 and that the coal they are now shoveling on board comes 
 from under the sea. 
 
 We want to see a mine, and call a small boat which is 
 near the ship waiting for passengers to take us on shore.
 
 178 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 We are landed at the entrance to one of the greatest coal 
 mines. The works above ground are large buildings situ- 
 ated upon little islands connected with the coast by a 
 railroad built upon piles. We ask the manager if we may 
 visit the mines, and he kindly sends a guide with us. 
 
 We are taken to a great shaft or well in which, by a 
 steam engine and pulleys, two elevators are raising cars 
 filled with coal and lowering empty cars to the bottom. 
 We step upon the elevator that is going down, and drop 
 into darkness. Down, down, down we go, until at last 
 rays of light shoot up from below. Our speed grows 
 slower, and we stop at a long tunnel with a Kne of electric 
 Hghts extending on and on in front of us, growing less and 
 less in size until they fade into stars in the distance. 
 
 As we step out of the shaft a train of loaded cars comes 
 thundering toward us. We see that it is moved by an over- 
 head trolley like the electric street cars of some of our cities. 
 
 But there is another train going back into the mine. 
 Can we get on? Yes; a special car with seats upon it 
 has been attached to the train for us. We climb upon the 
 platform and speed away over the track at the rate of twenty 
 miles an hour. Within a few moments we leave the shore 
 and are soon far out under the bed of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 We are moving through a tunnel which has been cut out 
 of the great blanket of coal which Hes between the layers 
 of rock. As we go on we pass openings to the right and the 
 left. They are the entrances to tunnels, made to get out 
 the coal. 
 
 Think where we are ! We are hundreds of feet under 
 the ocean, and big steamers are floating above us. And 
 still it is dry. Not a drop falls on our clothes or hats, for 
 the great beds of stone overhead are such that the water 
 cannot get through.
 
 IN THE COAL MINES OF CHILE 179 
 
 As we ride on, a train passes now and then. In the 
 tunnels at the sides we see half-naked miners covered with 
 dirt, digging the coal and loading it upon cars. 
 
 What is that boom, boom, boom which sounds as though 
 the sea were breaking through the rocks away at the right ? 
 That is the blasting. There is no danger where we are 
 now, but we must beware, for if such an explosion should 
 occur near us it might blow us to pieces. 
 
 What a great mine this is ! There are hundreds of men 
 at work in it, and vast quantities of coal are taken out 
 every day. 
 
 We ride back to the shaft on a train of twenty-seven 
 loaded coal cars, and another train arrives while we are 
 waiting to ride to the top. 
 
 Now we are back at the steamer again. It is almost 
 ready to sail. It has loaded a thousand tons of coal in 
 the last twenty-four hours, and in a few minutes will start 
 on its long voyage to Europe around the southern end of 
 the continent. 
 
 The vessel carries a vast deal of freight. Below deck 
 are three thousand tons of nitrate of soda, two thousand 
 barrels of liquid honey, and great rolls of sole leather, all 
 going to Europe via the Strait of Magellan. We have 
 wheat, wine, and flour for Punta Arenas (poon'ta a-ra'nas), 
 situated on the strait, and similar freight for Buenos 
 Aires and Montevideo (mon-ta-ve-da'o). 
 
 Everything is carefully packed, for we are about to enter 
 some of the stormiest seas of the world, and what might 
 be called the very home of the winds. About Cape Horn 
 fierce winds blow all the year. There are many stomis 
 farther north, and seamen are glad when they reach the 
 strait, where the waters are usually quiet. Moreover, we 
 shall avoid some of the storms by traveUng through the
 
 i8o SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 narrow channels, which run in and out among the moun- 
 tainous islands along the west coast. This is the Smyth 
 Channel route, the scenery of which is wonderfully grand. 
 
 We are anxious to be off and are glad when, as evening 
 falls, there is a rattling of chains and the anchor is raised. 
 We hear the thump, thump, thump of the engines, and as 
 we go to bed we are moving out of the smooth waters of 
 Arauco Bay into the ocean. 
 
 We awake to find the ship rolling. We have to hold to 
 our berths while we dress, and a lurch of the vessel often 
 sends us against the walls of our rooms. We climb up- 
 stairs to the deck, brace ourselves against the rail, and look 
 out over the sea. There are whitecaps everywhere. The 
 waves rise and fall in huge masses. They whip the ship, 
 striking its sides with a noise Hke a cannon. Now a great 
 billow dashes against the ship, and now a still bigger one 
 splashes over the top deck, flooding everything and making 
 us run to our cabins. 
 
 When we sit down at dinner we find the "fiddles'^ 
 placed on the tables. These are networks of slats which 
 hold the plates, cups, and other dishes so that a lurch of 
 the ship will not send them into our laps. We lift our soup 
 plates halfway to our mouths and balance them with the 
 roll of the vessel, trying at the same time to get our spoons 
 between our Hps without spilling the soup. How few of 
 our party have come out to dinner ! Many of us are 
 seasick and prefer to stay in bed in our cabins. Even 
 the bravest of us does not care quite so much for his food 
 as he did upon land. 
 
 A day or so later we have grown used to the motion and 
 are all upon deck. We enjoy the changes which the rough 
 sea and the storms bring every hour. Now we are shrouded 
 in mist, and every few minutes the fog horn blows to warn
 
 IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN i8i 
 
 other ships to keep out of our way. Now the fog Hfts, and 
 we see high waves rolHng about on all sifles. There is a 
 break in the clouds, and away ofT to the east is a faint line 
 of blue. That is the long, narrow island of Chiloe (che- 
 lo-a') ; the mainland is much farther off. We are fortunate 
 in securing a view, for in Chiloe the natives say it rains 
 six days every week in winter and on the seventh the sky' 
 is much overcast. It is better in the summer, but everu 
 then the island is half shrouded in mist. As we sail on 
 southward, there is more fog and snow. The sea is still 
 rough, and we cannot safely walk about the deck until 
 we enter the Gulf of Penas (pa'nyas), from which we go on 
 into Smyth Channel. 
 
 It is only four o'clock when we enter the gulf, but it is 
 already quite dark. We are now so far south that the 
 winter nights begin early, and the electric lights are already 
 turned on. The ship moves gently, and when we go to sleep 
 there is no more motion than when in our own beds at 
 home. 
 
 XXIV. IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF 
 MAGELLAN 
 
 WE have been moving slowly all night and awake to 
 find the waves gone. We have left the open Pacific 
 and are passing through the series of channels about four 
 hundred miles long which wind in and out among the 
 islands of western Patagonia and will bring us at last to 
 the Strait of Magellan. 
 
 The scenes about us are among the grandest of the world. 
 We are sailing in a land of clouds among the peaks of the 
 half-submerged mountains which form the southernmost
 
 i82 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 part of the great Andean chain. The channel is more like 
 a narrow river than a branch of the ocean. It carries us 
 in and out among rocky, grass-clad islands. On our left, 
 ragged mountains rise almost straight from the water. 
 The shores are green and matted with moss and evergreen 
 trees. Higher up, the green is dusted with snow, and at 
 
 Al ihe Strait of IMagellan. The glaciers extend down almost to 
 the shore. A combination of sea, forest, mountain, and glacier 
 makes the scenery rival that of Alaska. 
 
 the top there is ice. Some of the peaks are half hidden in 
 cloud. Others nearer our vessel stand out bold and clear 
 — great masses of emerald velvet under a lavender sky. 
 
 The scene changes as we sail onward. The mountains 
 assume curious shapes, and we imagine pictures in them 
 such as one sometimes sees in the clouds. There is one 
 that looks hke the Great Pyramid of Egypt, and here is 
 another that has a striking resemblance to the Sphinx.
 
 IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN 183 
 
 Now the hills in front of us appear to be climbing over one 
 another like so many giants playing leapfrog, and farther 
 on they rise in cathedrals and forts of green a thousand feet 
 high. 
 
 Now the sun comes out. It has penetrated that deep 
 gorge and turned the black water to silver. It catches 
 the snow which is dusted over the hills, and they are 
 spangled with diamonds. It has touched the 'ice of that 
 glacier and made it an immense lump of sapphire in a 
 setting of silvery snow. Now the clouds are settling upon 
 the channel and hiding the sun. See, there is a wall of 
 them in front of our vessel. We are sailing into a snow- 
 storm. A half hour later we shall move out into the sun 
 again. 
 
 How the sky changes ! Now it is blue overhead with 
 fleecy white clouds scattered here and there through it. 
 See those masses of vapor nesthng in the velvety laps of 
 the hills and wrapping themselves about the snowy peaks 
 as though to warm them. Here, the clouds seem to rise 
 from the water, making a wall across the channel as high 
 as our ship. There, they come down from the top, and we 
 sail out of the dry air into a mist so thick that we can 
 almost wash our hands in it as we go through. 
 
 Again we are out of the clouds. The air is clear. The 
 sun is bathing the hills with its rays. The ferns, moss, 
 and trees shine in their green luxuriance, and the many 
 cascades, some as big as your wrist and others no larger 
 than your finger, are threads and cords and ropes of silver. 
 These waterfalls come from the glaciers and snows on the 
 mountains. 
 
 Is it not strange that moss and green trees can grow 
 amid such surroundings ? Yes ; but it is only the highest 
 peaks that are all snow and ice. The trees are evergreens.
 
 1 84 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 so close together that with snowshoes we might walk on 
 their tops. A bed of moss, waist deep, grows among them, 
 and great ferns, with leaves as long as our arms, extend 
 out and cover every bare, rocky spot. The glaciers of the 
 higher mountains often extend down into the forests 
 almost to the shore, and now and then icebergs break off 
 and fill up the channels. This route is sometimes impossible 
 for ships, a;nd as it is, at times we make our way through 
 fields of glacial ice as clear as crystal, and green rather 
 than white. There is a little iceberg now in front of our 
 ship. It is no bigger than a city lot and not as high as 
 the deck. As the sun catches it, it looks Hke a great 
 emerald whose top is frosted with silver. 
 
 But the machinery is stopping. What is the matter? 
 The captain tells us he is going to rob the berg of some ice 
 for the ship. The sailors are already bending over the 
 rails. One of them has a long rope in his hands with a 
 running noose at its end. Now he gives it a throw. The 
 coil flies out and the noose catches on a horn at one corner 
 of the iceberg. We have heard of lassoing cattle but 
 never before of lassoing an iceberg. Yes, but it is not such 
 a bad way after all. The rope is fastened to a wheel on 
 the deck moved by . the steam engine, and as the wheel 
 turns, the rope is rolled up and the ship is drawn to the 
 iceberg. 
 
 Now some of the sailors have taken one of the ship's 
 boats and landed upon the ice. They are breaking off the 
 top with crowbars and wrapping chains about the blocks 
 of ice, which the engines of the steamer are raising to the 
 deck by means of a derrick. Some of the blocks weigh 
 several tons, and altogether we take on enough ice to last 
 us the rest of the voyage. 
 
 But what are those queer-looking boats making out
 
 IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN 185 
 
 from the shore? They look like canoes, and each has a 
 fire in the center, about which are huddling brown-skinned, 
 frowzy-headed men, women, and children. They are 
 almost naked, and the man paddling the front boat wears 
 little more than a vest. The boat behind contains several 
 children who wear no clothes at all. 
 
 These people have no home except a canoe in which a fire is always 
 kept smoldering on sods. Although the climate is cold, they go 
 almost naked. 
 
 These people are savages who live along the far southern 
 coast of western South America. They belong to a tribe 
 called Alacalufes (a-la-ka-loo'fes), and they are not Hke 
 any Indians of the other parts of our hemisphere. They 
 usually live in their canoes although they sometimes sleep 
 upon land in httle wigwams about as high as your waist. 
 They make the wigwams by bending over the branches 
 of small trees and tying them together. They then build 
 a fire in front and crawl into their little houses for the
 
 1 86 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 night. They seldom sleep m the same place for more than 
 a week, for it is much easier to build a new house than to go 
 back home if they have wandered far. The men have 
 bows and arrows to defend themselves. The women, as 
 a rule, do the fishing, using lines without hooks. A Httle 
 chunk of meat is tied to the end of the line. The fish 
 swallows it and the woman jerks it into her canoe. 
 
 The food of these savages is fish, mussels, and now and 
 then a fox, seal, or otter. They are fond of whale meat, 
 and if they can find a dead whale they will feast upon it 
 for weeks. They do not seem to care for fresh meat, for 
 they cut it into pieces and bury it, digging it up for food 
 as long as it lasts. They are fond of tobacco and biscuits, 
 and row about our ship holding out their hands and calKng 
 out in shrill voices, " Galleta ! Galleta!" and "Tabaco! 
 Tabaco!" the Spanish words for cake and tobacco. 
 
 We wonder that they do not take cold. The hills on 
 the shore are covered with snow, and we have on our 
 heaviest garments. There is not enough cloth in the whole 
 crowd below us to make a full suit for a four-year-old child. 
 We pity the poor naked savages and one of us goes to his 
 cabin and gets out a pair of old trousers. He throws 
 them into one of the boats. See, that woman has grabbed 
 them. She evidently does not know what they are for ; 
 she is tying them around her neck and fastening the legs 
 over her chest. Until white people came these Indians 
 used no clothes at all. A thick coat of whale oil or seal 
 oil was enough to keep out the cold. Now they sometimes 
 wear such cast-off things as they can get from the steamers, 
 but as a rule go naked. 
 
 The Alacalufes do not know the use of money. We try 
 to buy some skins of them but they sneer at the sight of 
 our silver and bank notes. They act differently as we
 
 IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN 187 
 
 show them some bright cloths and beads, and when the 
 steward holds up a butcher knife one of the savages is glad 
 to give him two skins in exchange. We ask them to come 
 on board but they are afraid and draw back. They are 
 not friendly to strangers and would kill a white man if 
 they could catch one alone. 
 
 On our way farther south we cast anchor night after night, 
 for it is too dangerous to travel by dark. The scenery grows 
 grander until at last we steam through a narrow channel, 
 the mouth of which seems to be blocked by a great island. 
 As we come nearer we see a wide waterway opening beyond, 
 and the captain tells us the island is called Desolation Island 
 and that we are at last in the Strait of Magellan. 
 
 Standing at the stern, we look to the west, and off in 
 the distance see massive rocks. They belong to Cape 
 Pilar at the entrance to the strait from the Pacific Ocean. 
 The channel in front of our vessel is the Strait of Magellan. 
 It extends eastward from here for a distance of more than 
 three hundred miles, winding its way in and out between 
 the mainland of Patagonia and the islands of the archi- 
 pelago of Tierra del Fuego (tyer'ra del fwa'go) until it 
 opens into the Atlantic. In passing through the strait 
 we are at times within a stone's throw of the shore. We sail 
 under great mountains, and in the distance often see the 
 high peaks of Tierra del Fuego and other islands of the 
 archipelago. At the eastern end the passage widens, 
 the land is low, and the waters almost bound the horizon. 
 
 The Strait of Magellan is one of the commercial liighways 
 of the world, and until the Panama Canal was built it was 
 the shortest way from Europe to the west coast of South 
 America. It was discovered in 1520 by a Portuguese 
 navigator, Ferdinand Magellan, and has been explored 
 by others from time to time.
 
 1 88 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Magellan passed through the strait from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific. He crossed that ocean to the Philippine 
 Islands, where he was killed by the natives, and one of 
 his vessels was burned. The other two ships sailed for 
 the Molucca Islands, where they loaded with spices. One 
 of the ships then sailed for Panama and was lost. The 
 other, the Victoria, with eighteen men sailed for the Cape 
 of Good Hope and then north to Europe, making the first 
 voyage around the world. 
 
 The strait is about three hundred and fifty miles long, 
 varying in width from two to twenty-four miles. It has 
 deep waters all the way, but winds about so that large 
 saiUng vessels, on account of the changing winds and the 
 calms, prefer to go around stormy Cape Horn, although 
 this takes them many hundred miles out of their way. 
 
 It is different with the steamers. They can move 
 whether the wind blows or not. Some of the vessels 
 crossing the Atlantic between Australia and Europe and 
 those going to and from the east and west coasts of South 
 America still pass through the strait, 'although many now 
 go by the Panama Canal. There are so many ships which 
 use the strait that a city has grown up here at the tail of 
 the continent to furnish them coal and other supplies. 
 This city is about midway through the strait. It is Punta 
 Arenas, or Sandy Point, and here we shall stay for a time. 
 
 XXV. AT THE END OF THE CONTINENT 
 
 PUNTA ARENAS is the southernmost city of the world. 
 It is more than twelve hundred miles nearer the South 
 Pole than Cape Town in Africa, and it is several thousand 
 miles farther south than any city of Europe or Asia. Its
 
 AT THE END OF THE CONTINENT 189 
 
 latitude is 53° south; it is farther from the equator than 
 Winnipeg or Liverpool, and about as far south as Berlin 
 is north of that line. The town is a lonesome one. There 
 is no settlement of any size within a thousand miles of it, 
 and its supplies are brought in by steamers. The reason 
 for its location is its situation where ships can stop to coal 
 and get fresh supplies for the long voyages they have yet 
 to make. Not far from the pier we find great stores of 
 coal and warehouses filled with foodstuffs and there are 
 Enghsh and German steamers in the harbor. We come 
 to anchor near a vessel from New Zealand. She has hghters 
 beside her and the men are loading and unloading freight. 
 
 We take a small boat to the pier and by a short walk are 
 in the heart of the city. What a queer place it is ! The 
 town has been cut out of the forest, and the hills about it 
 are covered with woods. Nevertheless, it has wide, well- 
 paved streets and a beautiful plaza faced by good houses 
 and stores. The town is hghted by electricity and has a 
 cathedral, fine public buildings, and many comfortable 
 houses. We visit the museum to look at the beasts, birds, 
 and reptiles of this far southern country, and in the stores 
 buy some ostrich feathers, guanaco skins, and Indian 
 baskets to take home. 
 
 We are interested in the people we meet on the streets. 
 There are many Chileans and also Danes, Norwegians, 
 and Swedes who have a large share in the navigation of 
 the strait. There are English and others who have come 
 here to raise sheep, and we are told that the land is so good 
 for this purpose that many million pounds of wool are 
 exported each year. 
 
 During our stay we make a tour through the archipelago 
 of Tierra del Fuego, which borders the southern end of 
 South America. It is composed of hundreds of wooded
 
 IQO
 
 AT THE END OF THE CONTINENT 191 
 
 islands which look very small on the map. Most of them 
 are small, but all together they contain nearly as much 
 land as Maine ; and Tierra del Fuego, the largest, is almost 
 equal to West Virginia in size. 
 
 Tierra del Fuego belongs to both Chile and Argentina, 
 the boundary running north and south through it. The 
 island Ues just across the strait from Punta Arenas, and 
 steamers go there almost every day. We take passage 
 upon one for Port Venir and from there make excursions 
 by boat and on horseback. 
 
 The island has a rim of mountains around the greater 
 part of it. The mountains rise almost straight from the 
 water, and huge glaciers hang down from them, now and 
 then breaking off and falling into the sea with a terrible 
 noise. The scenery is grand but the waters are rough 
 and we have to move slowly. 
 
 As we near the shore we see men here and there washing 
 the sands for gold, and are told that in time of storms gold 
 grains and small nuggets are frequently thrown up on the 
 be^ch. Some of the nuggets are as big as marrowfat peas. 
 This gold comes from ledges found near the shores of some 
 parts of the island. The miners go out upon the beach at 
 low tide and gather the sand which they wash for the gold. 
 Gold, coal, and copper are found on the mainland not far 
 from Punta Arenas. Balboa found gold in the Andes near 
 Panama, and it is mined here and there in the whole length 
 of that range, even to the Strait of Magellan. 
 
 The vegetation of Tierra del Fuego surprises us. We 
 are so far south that it seems that the country in winter 
 should be covered with snow. It is not. The climate is 
 much like that of Scotland. It is only on the tops of the 
 mountains that the snow remains all the year, and the 
 glaciers moving down their slopes are bedded in green.
 
 192 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 For a thousand feet up from the water the land is so cov- 
 ered with trees, ferns, and moss that we can hardly make 
 our way through, and some of the trees are as big as those 
 of the tropics. The island has beeches eighty or ninety 
 feet high and two yards in thickness. It has hardwood 
 trees somewhat like those of our central states. Much of 
 the forest is of evergreen trees, and the grass is green the 
 year around. 
 
 In the interior of the island we shall find great plains 
 spotted with wild flowers. There are wild gooseberries, 
 raspberries, and strawberries, and also wild grapes and wild 
 celery. The farmers raise cabbages, potatoes, turnips, 
 and peas. The pasture is so rich that the sheep are easily 
 fattened. The mild climate is caused by the warm winds 
 from the ocean. 
 
 We have to ride carefully as we make our way inland. 
 The land is often swampy, and we guide our horses this 
 way and that to avoid the homes of the rats. Ground 
 rats are the chief pests of Tierra del Fuego. They 
 burrow through the earth and fill it with holes like those 
 of a prairie dog town. They destroy the pastures and 
 eat so much grass that the shepherds wage war upon them 
 by driving herds of cattle over their burrows, thus trampUng 
 them to death in their homes. 
 
 We stop some days with the sheep farmers. The sheep 
 are kept in flocks of one or two thousand and are watched 
 by shepherds on horseback. Each shepherd has dogs to 
 help him. Most of the dogs are Scotch collies which seem 
 to understand the motions of their masters almost as well 
 as we understand language. A certain motion will send 
 a dog to the front, another will bring him to the rear, 
 and when the man raises his hand into the air the dog 
 stops short. The shepherd can direct his dogs to the right
 
 The Ona Indians of Tierra del Fuego arc tall and tine looking. 
 
 They use bows and arrows and wear guanaco skins. 
 
 193
 
 194 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 or to the left, and, in fact, make them drive the sheep in 
 any direction he pleases. 
 
 The sheep of this part of the world are not fed in winter 
 from barns or haystacks. The grass keeps green all the 
 year, and the only dangers are that the sheep may get lost, 
 be stolen by the Indians, or eaten by wild beasts or vultures. 
 The sheep are often so fat and heavy that when one falls 
 into a hollow and rolls over on its back it cannot get up. 
 It lies there kicking, and the vultures sweep down upon 
 it and pick out its eyes. The vultures seem to understand 
 that a bhnd sheep is helpless, and they keep on picking 
 until it dies. After that they tear off the skin and eat every 
 bit of meat from the bones. It is the duty of the men to 
 be on hand when a sheep falls and help it to its feet again. 
 
 We are interested in the Indians of Tierra del Fuego. 
 The island has fierce savages called Onas who for a long 
 time waged war with the shepherds. The Onas are among 
 the finest-looking of the Indian race. The men are about 
 six feet tall, and the women almost that height. They 
 have high cheekbones, flat noses, and dark eyes. Their 
 hair is black and straight. The men singe their heads 
 close to the crown, and the women let their hair grow so 
 that it hangs over their shoulders. The Onas wear but little 
 clothing except guanaco skins wrapped about their bodies. 
 They five on the land but have no fixed homes. They do 
 not hke to stay more than a night or two in the same place, 
 for they have an idea that evil spirits are aftQr them and 
 that they must move on. When they stop they merely 
 make a hole in the ground about three feet deep and weave 
 branches over it. They then crawl in for the night and 
 cuddle together with their dogs about them for warmth. 
 The chief weapons of the Onas are bows and arrows, and 
 they get their food by hunting and trapping.
 
 AT THE END OF THE CONTINENT 
 
 195 
 
 Another Indian 
 tribe is the Yaghans 
 (ya'gans). It is 
 largely confined to 
 the southern part of 
 the island. These 
 Indians are much 
 like the Onas except 
 that they get their 
 living from the sea 
 rather than from the 
 land. They eat fish, 
 birds, fungi, oysters, 
 and clams. They 
 cook birds by put- 
 ting red hot stones 
 inside them and 
 placing them on the 
 coals. They roast 
 eggs by standing 
 them upright in the 
 ashes before the fire, 
 first breaking a hole 
 in each egg to let 
 the steam out. The 
 men are good hunt- 
 ers and the women 
 excellent fishers, 
 being more fearless 
 than the men in 
 swimming and in the 
 management of their 
 boats. 
 
 SCALE or MILES 
 
 00 MO 100 
 
 •^'^^: 
 
 Cape Horn 
 
 Principal Railroads
 
 196 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 1. Where are the forests of Chile? Why? Where are the great 
 forests of the United States? 
 
 2. Why has southern ChUe a great leather industry? 
 
 3. Describe our visit to the coal mines. Compare it with a trip 
 through a Pennsylvania coal mine. (See Carpenter's "North 
 America.") Near what port are the Chilean mines? Mention 
 three other important ports of south ChUe. 
 
 4. Find Cape Horn on the map. What is the Strait of Magellan ? 
 How was it discovered? Find out all you can about Magellan and 
 the first voyage around the world. 
 
 5. What is the southernmost town of the world? The northern- 
 most? Compare their distances from the poles. 
 
 6. Describe our trip through the Strait of Magellan. Compare 
 its climate with that of Scotland. (See Carpenter's "Europe.") 
 
 7. What great island is at the southern end of South America? 
 To what countries does it belong? Describe it. What is its chief 
 industry? 
 
 8. Who are the Araucanians? Compare them with the Indians 
 of Peru, of Bolivia, and of North America. Describe the Alacalufes, 
 the Onas, and the Yaghans. 
 
 XXVI. ARGENTINA — PATAGONIA 
 
 THIS morning we are again in Punta Arenas, ready to 
 start north on the eastern side of the continent. We 
 shall make our way through Patagonia, which is the name 
 given to southern Argentina. Argentina is one of the 
 richest and most healthful countries of South America. 
 It has a vast territory. It is greater than all our states 
 east of the Mississippi River. It extends from north to 
 south through thirty-four degrees of latitude, farther than 
 the distance between the north side of Hudson Bay and the 
 Gulf of Mexico, and therefore has many different climates 
 and products. In the warm north sugar cane, coconuts, 
 and oranges grow. The central provinces are temperate
 
 ARGENTINA — PATAGONIA 1 97 
 
 and are covered with wheat fields and pastures, while those 
 of the far south are almost a desert with a climate com[)ara- 
 tively cold. There sheep are fed on the sparse vegetation 
 and the rivers furnish the water for some irrigated tracts. 
 
 Most of Argentina is flat, and railways can be built at 
 comparatively low cost. The country already has nearly 
 one tenth as much railway mileage as the United States. 
 It has more trunk lines than any other South American 
 repubHc, and it is rapidly increasing this means of trans- 
 portation. There are many great plains called pampas 
 upon which one may travel hundreds of miles without 
 seeing a hill. There are only a few low mountain ranges, 
 with the high wall of the Andes in the west. 
 
 Only a small part of Argentina is settled. In this respect 
 the country is as the United States was many years ago. 
 The population is now about as great as that of New York 
 State, and is rapidly increasing. Immigrants from Europe 
 are coming to work in the cities or to raise wheat, cattle, 
 and sheep in the country. So many people have recently 
 come that already every third man is a foreigner. Most 
 of the immigrants are from Italy and Spain, although there 
 are some Russians, Syrians, English, Germans, and French. 
 Many Italians come over to work for the summer, when 
 Italy has its winter, going back home as the ItaHan spring 
 comes. Argentina is glad to have immigrants. It gives 
 them lands at low prices, and it has established free hotels 
 at the seaports and in the interior, where they may stay on 
 their way to their new homes. Many of the immigrants 
 live in Patagonia, and we shall see some of them on our 
 way north. 
 
 Patagonia is the name formerly used for the whole south- 
 ern end of the South American continent, extending from 
 the Strait of Magellan to about forty degrees of south lati-
 
 198 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 tude. It once included southern Chile and southern Ar- 
 gentina, but the name now applies only to the part east of 
 the Andes. This will form the next scene of our travels. 
 A coasting ship takes us from Punta Arenas around Cape 
 Virgin on the eastern side of the strait, and we make our 
 way along the coast, calling at Santa Cruz, Rawson, and 
 other ports where we take on wool, and now and then stop 
 for a short run into the interior. 
 
 How bleak and bare everything is ! The water-laden 
 winds come from the Pacific, and have dropped their rains 
 in Chile west of the Andes. When they reach Patagonia 
 they are dry and the whole country seems nothing but sand. 
 There are no trees to speak of. The only green fields are 
 in the river valleys where the land has been irrigated and 
 in the west along the foothills of the Andes. The valleys 
 have many orchards and vineyards, the latter producing 
 thousands of gallons of wine every year. In the Chubut 
 (choo-bootO province are millions of sheep, cattle, and 
 horses, and in Santa Cruz, still farther south, about fifty 
 million pounds of wool are sold in one year. At some of 
 the ports mutton is being frozen for shipment to Europe. 
 In this part of Argentina many of the farmers are Welsh- 
 men. They are very thrifty and the towns are well-kept. 
 A little later we are again on the sea, going north, and now 
 we are sailing up the deep but narrow harbor of Bahia 
 Blanca, on the edge of a more fertile part of the country. 
 
 Bahia Blanca is the chief port of Argentina on the Atlantic. 
 Buenos Aires is much larger, but it is on the Rio de la Plata 
 River, more than one hundred miles from the ocean. Bahia 
 Blanca is right on the sea, and has great elevators for the 
 storing of grain, and the best of shipping arrangements. 
 It has a good harbor with deep water at all times, and it is 
 accessible to all parts of the country by railway.
 
 ARGENTINA — PATAGONIA 
 
 199 
 
 A railroad has been built from here over the desert pampas 
 to the foot of the Andes. It will cross the Andes to Chile 
 by a low pass and end at the port of Valdivia on the Pacific. 
 This will be a shorter route from ocean to ocean than the 
 Transandine rail- 
 road farther north. 
 
 Let us take this 
 railroad and ride 
 over the dry pampas 
 to the beautiful lake 
 of Nahuel Huapi 
 (na-wel' wa-pe') at 
 the foot of the 
 Andes, stopping 
 now and then on 
 the way. What a 
 curious region it is ! 
 We go for miles 
 seeing nothing but 
 sand with thorny, 
 scrubby bushes 
 growing here and 
 there. There is but 
 little grass, — so 
 little, indeed, that it 
 
 takes from three to five acres to furnish food for one sheep. 
 'It reminds us of the sage-brush country of our western 
 highlands. 
 
 How wild everything is ! There is not a fence to be seen. 
 There are no barns, no roads, no farms, nor anything hving. 
 There is nothing but thorn bushes and sand. But stop ! 
 What are those yellow animals galloping away to the right ? 
 There must be fifty of them. They look like miniature 
 
 A guanaco. Among native South Ameri- 
 can animals, the Uama, vicuna, alpaca, and 
 guanaco take the place of cattle, sheep, 
 and deer.
 
 200 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 camels. They are bigger than sheep and more beautiful 
 than llamas. See how queerly they run. Their gait is 
 more like short jumps than a gallop. What are they? 
 They are guanacos, animals of the same family as the llama, 
 only wild and not quite so large. They are hard to shoot, 
 for they have a keen sense of smell and can scent a hunter 
 a full mile away. Guanaco flesh tastes much Hke venison 
 and is delicious when roasted over the coals. The fur is of 
 a tawny yellow spotted with white ; three or four skins 
 sewed together make a beautiful rug. 
 
 Now we have left the guanacos far in the rear. We are 
 again surrounded by nothing but thorn bushes and sand, 
 with hundreds of spots of white far off to the right. The 
 white spots are moving. They are sheep, and that little 
 brown figure running here and there among them is their 
 shepherd on horseback. He is so far off that he looks like 
 a pygmy, and his horse looks the size of a dog. 
 
 But what are those gray birds swimming through the 
 air over the plains? They are coming toward us. That 
 is a flock of rheas or South American ostriches. Their 
 wings are outstretched, and they hold their heads far in 
 front of them. They fairly skim over the ground, their 
 long legs kicking up a dust as they go. Some of them run 
 very fast. There is one which has started up out of the 
 bushes and is racing our train. We are going at a speed 
 of forty miles an hour. The ostrich keeps up with us a few 
 minutes and then drops behind. ♦ 
 
 There are many wild ostriches through this whole region, 
 and had we time we might capture one. The proper way 
 to catch them is by means of a bola, a long string of tough 
 leather with an iron ball as big as your fist at each end. The 
 hunter rides after the ostrich on horseback and when he 
 gets near enough, throws the bola so that the string
 
 ARGENTINA -- PAFACOXIA 
 
 20 1 
 
 wraps itself around the legs of the bird, which falls to the 
 ground. 
 
 Ostriches are not easy to catch. When hunted they 
 often squat down and hide their heads in the sand. Many 
 people who have not 
 seen these birds in 
 their homes think 
 this fooHsh, but on 
 the desert there 
 could be nothing 
 more cunning. The 
 feathers of the os- 
 trich are of much 
 the same color as 
 the bushes of the 
 pampas, and when 
 one of them hides 
 his head he looks 
 like a gray bush, and 
 the hunter may ride 
 by without noticing 
 him. 
 
 These ostriches 
 are not Hke those of 
 Africa which furnish 
 the fine feathers our 
 mothers use in their 
 hats. Many of the 
 African ostriches are 
 found wild in the Sahara desert, and they are reared on 
 the farms of South Africa. The rhea is much smaller and 
 its feathers are coarser. The feathers are used to make 
 dusters, and rugs are made of the breasts of the young 
 
 The South American ostrich is a distant 
 cousin of the African bird. His plumage 
 is of little value.
 
 202 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 birds. Would it not be fine if we could each take home 
 a rug of ostrich breasts? 
 
 But here we are at a station. What a lonesome place for 
 a town ! And such a town ! The half dozen houses are 
 gray, one-story structures built of sheet iron imported from 
 the United States. The station itself is of iron, and that 
 water tank there stands upon a framework of the same 
 metal. The windmill above the tank came from Chicago. 
 
 The men on the platform are fierce-looking fellows with 
 bright-colored ponchos over their shoulders. They are 
 gauchos, or Argentine cowboys, who herd the cattle and 
 now and then work for the sheep farmers at shearing time. 
 We shall see more of them farther north. 
 
 Now we are again on the desert. We have left the cars 
 for a time and are alone on plains as dry as the coast of Peru. 
 Our cheeks burn and our hps crack under the hot sun in 
 the clear, thirsty air. 
 
 What is that cloud coming up ? That surely is the sign 
 of a storm ! Hear the wind ! It is blowing with the force 
 of a blizzard and driving the cloud toward us. Yes, this 
 is a storm, but not a rainstorm. The cloud is now between 
 us and the sun, which has become a great round red ball 
 instead of the fiery white furnace it was a moment ago. 
 The cloud is not water. It is dust and sand. We are in 
 the midst of one of the sandstorms of the pampas. Our 
 guide drags us down into a hole he finds in the desert and 
 draws our blankets over the top. 
 
 Soon the storm is upon us. The sand comes down like 
 fine hail. It sifts through the blankets and we close our 
 eyes. Now it is over, and we find we have a heavy load to 
 raise when we push back the blankets. How queer we 
 look ! We thought we were white, but the sand which has 
 drifted through the blankets has turned us brown. Our
 
 ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 203 
 
 nostrils, ears, and mouths are filled with dust, and our 
 clothes are covered with sand. 
 
 Such storms are common on the pampas of southern Ar- 
 gentina. The dust is as fine as flour. It comes in great 
 clouds, and in the cities it covers the houses. It creeps 
 through every crack and crevice, closed doors and windows 
 being no protection. The dust goes with the wind and is 
 often followed by a drenching rain. This wets the dust in 
 the air and for a time it really rains mud. If the rain does 
 not last long the houses are covered with mud, and it is only 
 when the rain is heavy that they are washed clean. These 
 storms sometimes stop the railroad trains, steam plows like 
 our snow plows being used to keep the tracks clear. 
 
 3>»iO 
 
 XXVII. IN ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE 
 PAMPAS 
 
 ALONG ride by train has brought us back to Bahia 
 Blanca. Here we again take the railroad and are 
 soon traveling through some of the great pasture lands of 
 the world. Some parts of the country are fenced with 
 barbed wire, but most of it is just as nature made it — vast 
 pampas which extend on and on until they lose themselves 
 in the sky. 
 
 Now we see a flock of two thousand sheep browsing on 
 the rich grass. Their white wool shines among the dark- 
 green bushes. We hear the baa, baa of the lambs and the 
 coarser voices of the old sheep as we go by. 
 
 Over there on the horizon is a drove of horses, mere brown 
 specks against the blue sky, and between us and them a 
 long train of huge carts, each hauled by eight oxen, is drag-
 
 204
 
 ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 205 
 
 ging its weary way over the plains. Those carts are filled 
 with wool or hides, and the men walking beside them are 
 driving the teams to the station. 
 
 In these pastures is found the chief wealth of Argentina. 
 The country has many million head of live stock. It has 
 so many that if they were divided equally among the people, 
 each family would have fifty sheep, twenty cows, five horses, 
 and seven or eight hogs. We might travel back and forth 
 across the republic and, with the exception of the rude huts 
 of the herdsmen and now and then the larger buildings of 
 some rich farmer, see little else than great flocks of sheep 
 and droves of cattle and horses. 
 
 Argentina ranks third among the sheep-growing coun- 
 tries of the world. The sheep are watched by shepherds on 
 horseback. They can feed out of doors all the year round, 
 for the climate is mild and there is good grass in all seasons. 
 
 We see very few barns and haystacks as we ride over the 
 pampas. The farmers seldom raise hay or corn for their 
 stock. It is necessary only to let the animals graze and 
 give them some salt now and then. The sheep must be 
 watched on account of the vultures. 
 
 The shearing is done once a year, sometimes by hand 
 and sometimes by machinery. The wool is cut off and put 
 in bales much as we bale cotton. It is then shipped to 
 Bahia Blanca or Buenos Aires and there transferred to 
 steamers for Europe or the United States. Much of the 
 wool goes to Boston, and is woven to cloth in the woolen 
 mills of New England. 
 
 For a long time the sheep of Argentina were reared for 
 their wool only. The home demand for mutton was small, 
 and in the city chops cost only a few cents a pound. Xow 
 mutton is exported by the shipload to Europe, and there 
 are great factories at Buenos Aires and even as far south
 
 2o6 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 as the Strait of Magellan which freeze it for export. In 
 these factories the sheep are killed and dressed, and then 
 hung in rooms which are made so cold by certain chemical 
 
 processes that the 
 meat soon freezes 
 stiff. In this state it 
 will keep. It is then/ 
 wrapped in white 
 cloth and carried to 
 the refrigerators of 
 the steamers which 
 take it to Europe. 
 As soon as it lands 
 there it is thawed 
 and placed on the 
 butchers' counters 
 for sale. It then 
 looks like freshly- 
 killed meat and 
 when cooked tastes 
 like fresh mutton. 
 Beef, as we shall see 
 later, is exported in 
 the same way. 
 
 But let us leave 
 the train and ride 
 on horseback over 
 the pampas. Here 
 we are at the home 
 of a shepherd. How rude it is ! It is a hut made of poles 
 covered with mud, and its roof is of straw thatch. We 
 have to stoop to enter the door, and we look about in vain 
 for chairs for our party. The hut is scantily furnished. 
 
 CATTLE 
 NUMBER 
 
 EACH DOT REPRESENTS 6.000
 
 ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 207 
 
 Much of the cooking is done on the ground outside. The 
 oven is that round mound of mud which looks like a 
 beehive. 
 
 The shepherd lives with his Little family all alone here, 
 away out on the plain. He spends the day riding about 
 among the sheep, and at night drives them into that corral 
 near the hut. He works for a rich farmer who owns thou- 
 ' sands of acres of land and more than one hundred thousand 
 ^ sheep. He tells us that the estate, or estancia (es-tan'sya), 
 is so large that we might ride all day in one direction and 
 not come to its end. We learn later that much of the land 
 of Argentina is in large tracts. Land is not sold by the 
 acre, but by the square league, one of which contains nearly 
 six thousand acres. 
 
 But suppose we go farther over the pampas. We gallop 
 for miles, now riding where the turf is soft, fresh, and green, 
 and now where the grass is gray, dead, and coarse. This 
 is the natural grass of the pampas. The green turf has been 
 pastured year after year. When so treated the coarse grass 
 disappears and a more tender and richer grass springs up. 
 But see that smoke away off to the right. The flames 
 are rolUng up from the earth and dense wliite clouds are 
 blowing toward us. Is that a prairie fire away down here 
 on the pampas? Don't be alarmed. The men who have 
 lighted the fire have burned a strip around their fields so 
 jthat the fire will not go beyond them. They are burning 
 'off the coarse grass and thorn bushes, after which a better 
 vegetation will come. The owners say it improves the 
 land to burn it over once every few years. 
 
 We have now left the sheep farm and arc passing through 
 one devoted to cattle and horses. It is far away from the 
 cities and in one of the least developed parts of the country. 
 The estancia is a large one, and we might ride eighty miles
 
 208
 
 ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 209 
 
 in a straight line and not get across it. It has great droves 
 of cattle and thousands of horses. See, they are branding 
 the animals. They have driven the horses into an inclosure 
 fenced by stakes. Now they have caught one with a lasso. 
 They are driving him about in a circle. Now he is tired 
 and they pull him down to the ground. One man sits on 
 his head and another holds him tight by a rope fastened 
 about his front legs, while a third seizes a hot iron from a fire 
 near by and burns a mark on his side. That brand is the 
 mark of the owner, and by it he can claim the horse if it 
 gets lost. 
 
 In the past, droves of wild horses grazed on the pampas. 
 There were so many that they were killed for their hides 
 and tallow, and one could often see horse hides tied to stakes 
 and left in the sun to dry. The animals then sold for a few 
 dollars, and each and every native owned one or more. 
 Now Argentina has taken to breeding fine horses, and it 
 has some of the best of all South America. Every spring 
 there are horse sales near Buenos Aires which bring several 
 million dollars, and where a single animal will sell for several 
 thousand dollars. Draft and race horses are exported to 
 England, and racing is one of the chief sports of the Ar- 
 gentines. 
 
 The cattle have been greatly improved, and to-day Ar- 
 gentina stands forth among the cattle-growing countries 
 of the world. In no part of our country have we finer ani- 
 mals than are reared on these large farms. Not long ago 
 a Shorthorn bull was sold in Buenos Aires for forty- five 
 thousand dollars, and Hereford calves have sold for as much 
 as two thousand dollars. A great dairy business is fast 
 growing up, and outside Buenos Aires are dairies with 
 steam churns, each of which will make five hundred pounds 
 of butter an hour.
 
 ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 211 
 
 Rearing cattle for their meat has become a great industry, 
 and there are large packing houses at Bahia Blanca, Buenos 
 Aires, and other places where thousands of beeves are killed 
 daily and exported in cold storage ships to Great Britain 
 and the United States. These estabhshments are called 
 frigerificos, or freezing establishments. Some of the largest 
 
 Churns run by electricity, which make live hundred pounds of 
 butter an hour. 
 
 of them belong to American capitaHsts and are associated 
 with our chief packing companies at Chicago. 
 
 During our visits to the stock farms we go about with 
 the gauchos who attend to the cattle, riding on horseback 
 with them for miles over the great fields. They are dif- 
 ferent from the laborers on the west coast of South America, 
 although they are dark-faced and many of them have
 
 212 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Indian blood in their veins. What a queer dress they wear ! 
 Instead of trousers they have white drawers which are 
 sometimes tucked into their high boots and sometimes 
 drawn down over them, being edged with lace. They have 
 blankets around their waists, the ends of which are drawn 
 through between the legs and fastened to their belts. Most 
 of them wear slouch hats. Each man carries a whip, and 
 all have knives in their belts. These gauchos are the de- 
 scendants of the mixed breed of Spaniards and Indians. 
 They are the cowboys of the pampas and hke only such 
 work as can be done upon horseback and in riding over the 
 plains watching the cattle and horses. 
 
 As we ride over the pampas we visit one of their houses. 
 It is a mud hut only fifteen feet square, and the door is so 
 low that we have to stoop to enter. The earth is the floor, 
 and those dry bullock skulls scattered about are the seats. 
 A rude table, a box, and a chair comprise the rest of the 
 furniture. 
 
 The cooking is done on a fire outside the door. The chief 
 food is beef roasted upon a spit over the coals. As the meat 
 cooks, the gaucho's wife bastes it with the juice, which she 
 catches in a pan as it falls. When done, the meat is cut 
 off in large slices and eaten without plates or forks. Each 
 one takes a slice in his hand, puts one end of it between his 
 teeth, and, pulling out the sKce as far as he can, draws his 
 knife across it within a sixteenth of an inch of his nose. 
 When his first bite is chewed, he takes another in the same 
 way, so that he really has no need of a fork. 
 
 A favorite dish is carne concuero (carina con-kwa'ro), 
 which means meat cooked in the skin. The meat is cut 
 from the animal with the skin upon it. It is wrapped up 
 tightly so that the skin keeps in the juices when roasted 
 over the coals.
 
 THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 213 
 
 1. Between what latitudes lies the republic of Argentina? If the 
 country were laid upon North America with Tierra del Fuego at 
 Florida, where would the northern boundary be? What South 
 American republic has the most railways? 
 
 2. Compare Argentina with the United States in size and cHmale ; 
 with Brazil. Why is it warm in the southern part of our country 
 and cold in the southern part of Argentina? What season have we 
 now in the United States? What season has Argentina ? 
 
 3. Locate Patagonia. Why is Patagonia so dry and southern 
 Chile so wet? What are the products of the two regions? 
 
 4. What is the chief Atlantic port of Argentina? Why has 
 Buenos Aires become larger? 
 
 5. What is the difference between the guanaco and the Uama? 
 The rhea and the African ostrich ? (See Carpenter's " How the World 
 is Clothed," chapter 32 and Carpenter's " Africa," chapter 44.) 
 Why is the ostrich wise to hide its head in the sand? 
 
 6. Compare the pampas with our prairies. 
 
 7. Compare Argentina with the other wool-growing countries of 
 the world. (See Table IX.) (See Carpenter's "How the World 
 is Clothed," chapter 10.) Describe a sheep farm. Trace a shipload 
 of wool from Bahia Blanca to Boston ; from Sidney, Australia, to 
 New York. 
 
 8. Name the great cattle countries of the world. (See Table 
 VIII.) Show the place of Argentina among them. 
 
 9. Who are the gauchos? How do they live? 
 
 XXVIII. THE BREAD LANDS OF 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 WE shall travel to-day through some of the chief food 
 lands of the v^orld. Argentina grows almost all kinds 
 of crops, and we can describe only a few of them. A 
 large part of the country has corn fields almost as good as 
 our own, and it has single fields of alfalfa that contain more 
 than one thousand acres. Alfalfa is used to fatten beef for 
 export, and in that respect largely takes the place that corn
 
 214 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 holds in our country. Argentina is one of the chief wheat 
 lands of the world, and as we shall see later, it sends wool by 
 the shipload to the United States and Europe. It has also 
 in the northern province of Tucuman a region much Kke 
 Florida and Georgia in climate. The cotton and sugar 
 lands are in the northern part of the republic, and we shall 
 visit them next. 
 
 We take cars at Buenos Aires and ride for two days 
 through the rich farms aloAg the Parana River. We travel 
 through wheat and corn fields and pastures. The weather 
 grows warmer as we proceed, and at last we enter a country 
 where there are oranges, lemons, and other tropical fruits. 
 We are now in Tucuman (too-koo-man') . 
 
 How different from the desert north of Punta Arenas ! 
 All nature is green, for the soil is fertile and there is plenty 
 of rain. We pass groves of tall palm trees, their green fan- 
 like leaves rustling in the wind. We visit sugar plantations 
 where gangs of men and women are cutting the cane. They 
 chop it off close to the ground and load it on ox carts to be 
 hauled to the factory. We follow a cart and watch the cane 
 stalks as they are thrown between steel rollers which squeeze 
 out the juice, and farther on we see the juice boiled down 
 into sugar. 
 
 We are surrounded by mountains. There are streams 
 everywhere. Some are almost dry now, for it is winter. 
 ,In summer the rain comes down in great sheets and turns 
 the streams to torrents. We can see how they have cut 
 deep gorges here and there through the hills. They often 
 flood large tracts of land. 
 
 More hills come into view as we leave Tucuman and go 
 westward and southward. We are in the foothills of the 
 Andes. There are forests of fine woods, and farther south 
 we enter a land of great vineyards.
 
 THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 215 
 
 See how the vines cover the hills. They extend on and 
 on for miles. The western part of Argentina is a rich 
 grape-raising country. Trainloads of grapes are shipped 
 from here to Buenos Aires and other parts of the rej)ublic. 
 Some go even as far as the United States. When the grapes 
 are ripe, men, women, and children walk through the vine- 
 yards gathering them in baskets and carrying them t(; the 
 wine presses. 
 
 Look up at the mountains to the west. Those arc the 
 snow-capped Andes. This town into wMch we are coming 
 is Mendoza (men-do'sa) , the metropohs of the grape-growing 
 section, and that snowy peak just beyond is Mount 
 Aconcagua. We saw it before in Chile. Mendoza is a 
 station on the Transandine railroad. That iron track which 
 climbs the mountains is the eastern part of the railway, 
 over the western part of which we had such a pleasant 
 journey in Chile some weeks ago. 
 
 There is a good railroad from here to Buenos Aires, and 
 one can travel in comfortable cars to almost any part of 
 the repubhc. We decide to go back to the wheat lands by 
 the way of Cordoba (kor'do-va) and stop there for a few 
 hours on the way. 
 
 Have you ever heard of Cordoba? It is a town well 
 known in the history of South America. It was for two 
 hundred years one of the chief centers of education and cul- 
 ture, and it had a university seven years before our Pilgrim 
 fathers landed on Plymouth Rock. Cordoba has a large 
 university now. It is also a business center and has all 
 modern city improvements, including electric street cars and 
 lights run by the power from the Rio Primero (pre-ma'ro) 
 near by. A stay here will give us some idea of a small city 
 of Argentina. 
 
 We take a motor-car at the station and drive to the plaza.
 
 2i6 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 which is in the center of the town. Cordoba is much like 
 the cities of Chile in that it is laid out in blocks with its 
 streets crossing one another at right angles. The blocks 
 surround the plaza, or public square. Almost all the houses 
 are of one story. They are painted in the brightest of 
 colors, and many have iron bars over their windows, mak- 
 ing us think of a jail. 
 
 Back of these bars we see women and girls standing or 
 sitting. It seems as though the girls were caged in. This 
 is so in almost all towns of Argentina. Young women and 
 girls seldom go alone on the streets. They are not allowed 
 to associate with young men or boys until they are married, 
 and the young man who would stop at a window and chat 
 would be told to move on. 
 
 We drive through the wide Avenida General Paz, admir- 
 ing the statues at its ends, and then out among the shabby 
 huts of the suburbs where the poor people live. 
 
 Here all is dirty and squalid, but the sky is bright blue, 
 and the gorgeous sunlight gives an atmosphere like that of 
 the Orient. The outskirts of Cordoba remind travelers 
 of Cairo ; and the Moorish architecture of the churches 
 and of the better class houses is like that of southern 
 Spain. 
 
 Now we are again in the city. What queer names for 
 streets. Some are taken from the noted days of the history 
 of Argentina. Here is one called Twenty-fifth of May 
 Street. We turn the corner and go into the street of the 
 Eighteenth of July, and wonder if we shall not find farther 
 on a street named ''Week after Next." 
 
 We stop at the market. It is in a hollow square sur- 
 rounded by rose-colored, one-story buildings containing 
 meat stalls. The red beef and mutton hang from hooks 
 under white awnings. There are no scales. Those women
 
 THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 217 
 
 with the black shawls around their heads who are buying 
 pay for the meat by the chunk. The court is filled with 
 carts which have come in from the farms. On the ground 
 sit dark-faced women with vegetables about them, which 
 they sell by the pile. 
 
 What is that squealing outside the market? It sounds 
 like a pig in the hands of a butcher. They surely cannot, 
 kill hogs here in the midst of the city. It is only the creak- 
 ing of a farm cart which is bringing in wheat. There it 
 comes through the door. It has wheels eight feet in height, 
 hubs as big around as your waist, and an axle as thick as a 
 telegraph pole. 
 
 But let us leave Cordoba and ride on the railroad into the 
 wheat lands. We reach them within a few hours. The 
 best wheat region of Argentina lies in the Parana basin 
 within a hundred miles of both banks of the river, for the 
 soil which it has brought down from the uplands is exceed- 
 ingly rich. The wheat lands are so large that if they could 
 be put into one block they would cover an area five times 
 that of New York, or six times that of Ohio. This tract 
 in good seasons produces far more wheat than the people 
 can use, the wheat exports often competing with our wheat 
 in the markets of Europe. Indeed, our farmers might have 
 to stop exporting wheat, did not Argentina have many 
 droughts when the wheat will not grow, and in wet seasons 
 occasional invasions of locusts, or short-horned grasshoppers, 
 which eat the crops. 
 
 The locusts are not like any we have in our country. 
 They come down in swarms of millions from the warm lands 
 of southern Brazil. There are so many of them at times 
 that they shut out the sun like a storm cloud. They alight 
 on everything green and consume all as they go. They 
 eat the leaves of the trees and also the fruit. They are
 
 2l8 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 especially fond of green wheat. A swarm of locusts will 
 chew up a wheat field in a night, and when they come in 
 
 vast numbers, as 
 they sometimes do 
 year after year, the 
 farmers are ruined. 
 The locusts lay their 
 eggs in holes in the 
 ground, and when 
 these eggs hatch 
 there are thousands 
 more. The people 
 never know when 
 they are coming, and 
 plant on and on, 
 hoping to be able 
 to harvest their 
 crops. We pity the 
 people as we watch 
 them at work. 
 
 It is now spring, 
 and they are plow- 
 ing the fields. We 
 ride for hours 
 through vast tracts 
 of brown soil, upon 
 which dark-faced 
 men are guiding 
 their oxen this way 
 and that through 
 the furrows. Here 
 one is sowing the seed, scattering it by hand, and in the 
 next field oxen are dragging harrows and brush over the clods 
 
 Argentine locusts. " Each lays from tifty 
 to one hundred eggs."
 
 THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 219 
 
 to cover the grain. A little later we pass through a great 
 estate where farm tractors are used. 
 
 Now we are passing farms where the wheat has been sown 
 for some time. As far as we can see there is nothing but 
 the emerald green of the fresh sprouting grain. A little 
 later, as harvest time comes, this vast sea of emerald will 
 change to billows of gold. There will be wheat on all sides. 
 
 Hauline wool to the station. 
 
 and the yellow waves will roll on and on. until at last they 
 lose themselves in the blue sky. 
 
 Then there will l^e reapers and mowers moving over the 
 fields, some drawn by horses or oxen and others by tractors, 
 cutting the grain. There will be steam threshers puffing 
 away as they shell out the wheat, and there will be huge ox 
 carts like those we saw in Cordoba, with teams of eight or 
 twelve oxen, and now and then a motor-truck, hauling 
 the great loads of bags to the train. 
 
 Were we here at that time we might lind it very slow
 
 220 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 traveling. There is so much wheat that all the freight cars 
 of the country are needed to carry it to Rosario (ro-sa're-o), 
 the chief wheat port of the Parana River, and to Buenos 
 Aires or Bahia Blanca for shipment to Europe. The tracks 
 are so crowded with wheat that the passenger trains are 
 sometimes kept back to let the freight cars go by. At that 
 time there are stacks of bags at the stations awaiting ship- 
 ment, many of them being covered with canvas to protect 
 the wheat from the rain. 
 
 Why do not the farmers store the wheat as we do ? We 
 can easily tell as we ride on through the fields. There are 
 no barns anywhere ! Lumber is costly, for most of the 
 building materials come from our country or Europe. No 
 feed is stored, and even the working horses and oxen are 
 often turned out to graze. The chief farm buildings are 
 the Httle mud huts thatched with straw in which the men 
 live. The result is tha-t the grain is sold as soon as it is 
 threshed, and the farmer must take what he can get. Re- 
 cently, elevators have been constructed at the chief ports, 
 and in time they will be found everywhere. 
 
 Most of the grain is shipped to Europe soon after harvest. 
 This is in January and February, which is summer here 
 south of the equator, although it is midwinter at home. 
 There is so much wheat, however, that some is exported 
 all the year round. The chief grain exporting ports are 
 Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires, and Rosario. We can see 
 one way in which it is handled by watching the loading of 
 steamers at Rosario. 
 
 Rosario is situated on the south bank of the Parana River 
 about three hundred miles by water from Buenos Aires. 
 It is about the same size as Kansas City. The river is so 
 deep here that ocean steamers can pass through the Rio de 
 la Plata and the Parana up to it. The city is built upon a
 
 THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 221 
 
 bluff so high that it is above the masts of the steamers on 
 the river below. All along the river, a Httle back from the 
 edge of the bluff, warehouses of gray galvanized iron have 
 been constructed. In these the wheat is stored as it is 
 brought from the fields. In front of each warehouse there is 
 
 Beef carcasses being fro;;cn for shipment to Europe and the United 
 
 Slates. 
 
 a long chute or trough, made of wood or iron, extending down 
 to the water. These troughs are in sections so that they 
 can be shortened or lengthened at will. When connected 
 they make a continuous chute, running from the bluff into 
 the hold of the steamer. The bags of wheat are carried 
 from the warehouses and thrown into the chute. They
 
 222 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 bounce up and down as they slide into the steamer, making 
 us think of an army of gigantic yellow mice galloping into 
 the hold. At some places the railroad tracks run so close 
 to the bluff that the wheat bags can be taken from the cars 
 directly to the chutes. 
 
 In good years there is grown in all the countries of the 
 globe almost four billion bushels of wheat, of which thef' 
 Argentine repubUc produces about one twenty-fifth. The 
 other great wheat countries are the United States, Russia, 
 France, India, Canada, Italy, and AustraUa. Of the con- 
 tinents, Europe produces by far the most, North America 
 coming next with about one half as much. Most of the 
 wheat of South America is grown in Argentina, the remain- 
 der coming from Chile and Uruguay. 
 
 A great deal of corn is now being planted, especially in 
 the region between the Uruguay and Parana rivers. The 
 land is rich and the climate well suited to the crop. In- 
 deed, the day may come when Argentina will have its 
 corn belt, and its people will raise pigs and export pork as 
 they now export beef. 
 
 Another important crop of Argentina is flax, the plant 
 from whose libers linen is made. From flaxseed comes the 
 linseed oil used to mix with paint, and the oil cake used for 
 stock feed. The four great flax regions are Russia, India, 
 Argentina, and central North America. Russia produces 
 most of the flax used for its fibers, while that of x\rgentina 
 and our country is raised chiefly for the seeds. One reason 
 for this is that in Argentina and the United States labor 
 costs a great deal, and much work is needed to separate the 
 fibers for linen. Argentina raises more flax seed than any 
 other country of the world. Its best flax fields are in Entre 
 Rios (en'tra re'os), the province lying between the Uruguay 
 and Paraguay rivers.
 
 BUENOS AIRES 223 
 
 XXIX. BUENOS AIRES 
 
 IT is a night's ride by train from Rosario to Buenos Aires. 
 We go to bed in the sleeper as the cars move out of the 
 station, and when we awake we are in the capital of 
 Argentina. We step into a railroad station almost as large 
 as our best stations at home, and walk under a long, glass- 
 covered roof to the front door. How many taxicabs there 
 are, and how their drivers yell at us as we come down the 
 steps ! We choose one and are soon dashing through one 
 long street after another, almost skidding as we round 
 corner after corner, until we reach our hotel. 
 
 We soon see that Buenos Aires is a large city, and its 
 size grows upon us as we ride through it day after day. It 
 is the largest city on the South American continent, and 
 there are but few in North America surpassing it in size. 
 It is now nearly as large as Philadelphia, and is growing 
 rapidly. It is the chief city of the Parana basin, and is 
 like Chicago in that it is the commercial and exporting 
 center of its vast bread lands and pastures. 
 
 Buenos Aires is situated on the Rio de la Plata about 
 one hundred miles from the sea, at just the point where 
 the great steamers from the United States and Europe 
 can most easily land their goods, and from where the wool, 
 hides, meats, and other products can be loaded to go across 
 the ocean. It is about six thousand miles from New York 
 by sea and the ships make the voyage in three or four weeks. 
 The trip may be made in less time by going to \'alparaiso 
 by rail, a distance of 888 miles, and then going north \-ia 
 the Panama Canal. 
 
 The port of Buenos Aires is the largest in all South 
 America, and its harbor is lined with magnificent docks 
 equipped with loading machinery run by electricity. Near
 
 224
 
 BUENOS AIRES 225 
 
 by are huge grain elevators and flour mills, one of which 
 cost fifteen million dollars. 
 
 It is in Buenos Aires that the most of the business of 
 Argentina is done. It is the capital, and it has also the 
 chief 'factories that supply the country with goods. It 
 ships most of the wool and other exports, and has one of 
 the largest produce markets in the world. 
 
 The richest people of Argentina Hve in Buenos Aires. 
 They have magnificent homes, going only now and then to 
 their vast estates in tlie country. Here also are the busi- 
 ness houses of the great merchants, the chief colleges, the 
 great daily newspapers, the finest churches, and nearly 
 everything which is of importance to the repubHc, except 
 the resources from which its wealth is derived. 
 
 But to what races do the people of this great city belong ? 
 As we hear them talk we think them all Spanish. There 
 are Spanish signs over the stores, and many speak nothing 
 else. Buenos Aires is by far the largest Spanish-speaking 
 city of the world ; it is more than three times the si^e of 
 Madrid, the largest city of Spain. Still, the most of its 
 people are foreigners. Not more than one fifth of them 
 were born in the country. There are more ItaHans than 
 native Argentines in Buenos Aires, and at least one hundred 
 thousand of its citizens have come here from Spain. 
 
 Those masons who are building that house over the way 
 are Italians. The Italians are the mechanics of the city, 
 and we shall find them also peddling onions, fish, and all 
 kinds of goods from house to house. They are the news- 
 boys and also the bootblacks. They own the grocery stores, 
 and there are rich Italian bankers and traders. There 
 are many large banks managed by the EngUsh, and some 
 of the biggest stores are owned by the Germans. There 
 are comparatively few people who have come from the
 
 2 26 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 United States, although we have some large importing 
 houses and several banks. 
 
 But let us go farther into the business section. Here we 
 are in the Plaza de Mayo (pla'za da ma'yo). What a 
 beautiful park, and how large are the houses about it ! 
 That great structure on one side of the square is the ca- 
 thedral. There is a crowd of women in black gowns, with 
 shawls over their heads, going to mass. The cathedral 
 covers more than an acre of ground and will hold, it is said, 
 nine thousand people. It is the chief church of the city, 
 for Argentina is a Roman Catholic country, and Buenos 
 Aires is said to be the largest Catholic city of the world. 
 Catholicism is the religion of the state, and it is here that 
 the president attends mass. 
 
 That building just above the cathedral contains the courts 
 of the city, and on the opposite side is the rose-colored 
 government house, where the president of Argentina has 
 his ofhces and where most of the government business is 
 done. Our president lives in the White House. The name 
 of this president's palace is the Casa Rosada, which means 
 the Red House. Argentina has a congress just as we have, 
 and its people are supposed to choose their own officers 
 much as we do. We visit the national capitol where con- 
 gress meets. It is one of the fine buildings of the world and 
 faces a beautiful park. 
 
 But let us go out to Barraccas. "Barraccas" means 
 warehouses, and this is the name of that part of the city 
 where most of the wool, wheat, and meat are prepared for 
 shipment abroad. We stand on the corner and wait for 
 the car. We hear a horn blown in the distance. The 
 sound of it grows louder and louder, and we soon see that 
 one end of the horn is in the mouth of the motorman, and 
 that he gives a warning blast at every street corner.
 
 BUENOS AIRES 
 
 227 
 
 As the car stops we climb in. We are carried through 
 narrow streets for more than two miles, when we reach an 
 enormous brick structure on the banks of the Riachuelo 
 (re-a-chwa'lo) River, which flows into the Rio de la Plata 
 here. The buiklino; is that of the Mercado Central dos 
 
 The Casa Rosada, or "Red House," where the presidcnl of Argen- 
 tina lives. 
 
 Frutos, the largest wholesale produce market under one roof 
 in the world. It covers thirty acres, and in it millions of 
 pounds of wool are handled each year. It is so built that the 
 cars can come into the market and the wool and wheat can be 
 unloaded right upon the floors. Shiploads of wool sail up 
 to its door, cars come in on the railways, and trucks, carts, 
 and wagons loaded with wool and grain are dri\'en in from 
 all parts of the country. We go through one immense room 
 after another. Some are filled with wool, and in others 
 there are so many bags of wheat and corn that we have not 
 time to count them.
 
 228 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 From the Mercado Central .dos Frutos we visit the great 
 frigerificos where thousands of cattle are killed daily and 
 their carcasses chilled or frozen for shipment to Europe and 
 the United States. We have to wear overcoats when we 
 enter the freezing rooms. They are intensely cold, and 
 the walls and ceiling are covered with frost, produced by 
 liquid ammonia expanding in pipes throughout the room. 
 The dressed beef is beautiful in its red and white colors, 
 and when we tap it we find it as hard as stone. It will re- 
 main in this condition until it is ready for sale in the market 
 houses of our country and Europe. This keeps the meat 
 fresh, and when sold it looks and tastes Hke fresh beef. 
 
 On our way back to the hotel we call at one of the big 
 city markets and see that the food which the Argentines eat 
 is quite as good as our own. They have all sorts of meats, 
 fish, and vegetables. There are huge pears from near 
 Buenos Aires, and oranges and pineapples which have 
 come on the steamer from Paraguay. There are grapes 
 from the foothills of the Andes, and peaches by the bushel 
 from the islands of the Parana River. Peach trees grow 
 so rapidly in this part of the world that they are often 
 planted for fuel. In some places peaches are so plentiful 
 that they are thrown to the pigs. 
 
 We meet many chicken peddlers on leaving the market. 
 They are starting out with Uve chickens which they will 
 sell from house to house throughout the city. The chickens 
 are in wicker crates hung over the back of a horse. We see 
 other peddlers on horseback or on foot. Now and then we 
 pass a man driving a flock of turkeys before him. You can 
 point out the one you want and he will catch it and sell 
 it to you. 
 
 Have you ever eaten young armadillo? It tastes like 
 spring chicken, and these people are so fond of it that they
 
 BUENOS AIRES 
 
 229 
 
 eat thousands of armadillos each month. The armadillo 
 is a little four-legged animal with a shell like a turtle and a 
 head like a pig. It burrows into the earth and seldom goes 
 out of its hole except at night. When attacked it rolls itself 
 into a ball and is protected by the horny plates of its shell. 
 It eats fruit and roots and small insects. Its flesh is white 
 and quite tender ; we taste it at one of the restaurants and 
 find it delicious. 
 
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 Armidillo. 
 
 But it is now five o'clock and we must go for a walk on ' 
 the Calle Florida. This is the most fashionable shopping 
 section, and its scenes at this time of the day are as gay as 
 those of any part of the world. The street is only about 
 thirty-five feet wide and about a mile long, but its fine shops 
 make one think of a museum of rich goods and a treasure 
 yault of costly jewels. The roadway is paved with cement, 
 and the sidewalks are tiled Hke the floor of a bathroom. The 
 street is so narrow that the police shut out all wheeled
 
 230 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 trajQ&c from five until eight in the afternoon, at which time 
 most of the shopping is done. During these hours there 
 are no carriages or automobiles to be seen, and a boy on a 
 motorcycle would surely be arrested. The people we 
 meet are well dressed, and we hear French, German, Eng- 
 lish, Italian, and Spanish spoken by different parties as we 
 pass along. 
 
 We see many fine turnouts on Thursday afternoon, when 
 we take a drive by the magnificent residences along the 
 Avenue Alvear to Palermo Park. This park is perhaps the 
 finest in all South America. It covers many acres, and in 
 it are long avenues of magnificent palms, forest trees of all 
 kinds, running streams and winding lakes. During the 
 afternoons of Sunday and Thursday it is filled with people. 
 There are hundreds of automobiles moving along and thou- 
 sands of foot passengers walking under the palms. There 
 are gayly dressed children playing upon the grass, and boys 
 rowing about in boats on the lakes. 
 
 We see the children enjoying themselves in other ways 
 during a short trip we make from Buenos Aires to Mar del 
 Plata, the favorite seaside resort. Here they dig in the sand 
 and go swimming in the ocean just as we do at home. 
 
 1. What important grains are raised in Argentina? Compare 
 its wheat farms with those of the United States. 
 
 2. What three countries produce more wheat than Argentina? 
 (See Table X.) What countries produce most per acre? What 
 great pest occasionally afflicts the Argentine farmers? Of what 
 plague in Egypt described in the Bible does it remind you? 
 
 3. Name the chief grain ports. 
 
 4. Locate Tucuman. Describe some of its products. 
 
 5. Describe Cordoba and Rosario. For what is Mendoza noted? 
 
 6. Where are the best flax fields? For what is the product used? 
 What other very important things do we get from the flax plant? 
 (See Carpenter's "How the World is Clothed," pages 50-55.)
 
 BUENOS AIRES 
 
 231 
 
 7. Make a tour of Buenos Aires and describe it. Compare it 
 with Chicago. How far is it from New York via Valparaiso? 
 Direct? 
 
 8. Visit a large meat-packing establishment and tell what you see. 
 Where are our chief meat-packing centers? Trace a cargo of beef 
 from Buenos Aires to Liverpool ; to New York. How far does each 
 shipment travel? 
 
 9. What do we find in the wool market? How does Argentina 
 rank among the sheep-raising countries? Name its chief com- 
 petitors. Name a strange meat of Argentina. 
 
 Children playing in the sand at Mar del Plata, the fa\oriti. 
 seaside resort.
 
 232 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 XXX. URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 
 
 WE shall begin our journeys in a new country this 
 morning. We leave Buenos Aires on a river 
 steamer for Montevideo and seven hours later are casting 
 anchor in a fine harbor on the Rio de la Plata only 
 
 ninety miles away. 
 The day is just 
 dawning, and the 
 lights on the shore 
 shine out through 
 the mist, marking 
 the shape of the city 
 and harbor. 
 
 The Bay of Monte- 
 video is Hke a horse- 
 shoe; it is six miles 
 in length and so 
 large that hundreds 
 of vessels could be 
 anchored in it at 
 one time. Of late years, however, the earth washings 
 brought down from the highlands, through the Rio de 
 la Plata, have so filled the bay that extensive harbor 
 improvements have been made to allow large vessels to 
 come near the shore. 
 
 But let us take a bird's-eye view of Uruguay before we 
 begin to explore it. It is the smallest of the South American 
 repubHcs, and there are single states in Argentina which 
 surpass it in size. Uruguay could easily be lost in Brazil, 
 for it is only about as large as Missouri. 
 
 We can see something of its shape on the map, but if we 
 could fly over it in an airplane, or perhaps on the winged 
 
 
 Aires 
 
 <: 
 
 'ct, °«tevideo
 
 URUGUAY— MONTEVIDEO 
 
 2,^^ 
 
 We leave Buenos Aires on a river steamer for Montevideo. These 
 
 boats are much like those which ply between New York and 
 
 Boston. One leaves each city every night. 
 
 horse Pegasus, we should see that with the exception of a 
 few low mountain ranges it is a waving sheet of billowy 
 green, with so many streams of silvery water flowing through 
 it that they form a network like the veins of a leaf. We 
 should see that it has rich soil and that cattle and sheep are 
 scattered over it in quite as large flocks as those of Argen- 
 tina. The country is level or rolling and has hardly any 
 waste land. The climate is delightful. 
 
 If we flew slowly we might observe that the houses of the 
 farmers are like the mud huts of the Argentine pampas and 
 that the aspects of nature are about the same.
 
 234
 
 URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 235 
 
 In such a flight we should notice the long coast line of 
 the country, the great steamboats sailing up the Uruguay 
 River, and the smaller boats on other streams in the interior. 
 We should see but few large towns, and should notice that 
 all the railroad trains, steamboats, and carts are moxing to 
 and from the capital city of Monte\'ideo, which we are about 
 to explore. 
 
 We take a boat and ride to the wharves, observing the^ 
 Cerro or hill at the left from which the city was named. 
 Montevideo means "I see the mountain." The mountain 
 in this case is not higher than the Washington monument, 
 but the land is so flat all about that the hill can be seen far 
 out at sea. There is a white tower upon it, and at night the 
 revolving light in it is visible twenty-five miles from land. 
 
 But here we are at the wharves. We step out and take 
 a look at the harbor, which has been improved at a cost of 
 tens of millions of dollars. There are many ships from 
 Europe and the United States at anchor within it, and we 
 learn that it is a port of call for all the steamship lines that 
 come to this part of South America. There are also steamers 
 that transport goods on the Rio de la Plata system and boats 
 that leave every night for Buenos Aires. 
 
 We ask as to the trade and are told that the chief exports 
 are wool, hides, meat, beef extracts, and live stock, and that 
 the imports are cotton and woolen goods, iron and steel, 
 coal and machinery. 
 
 Leaving the port we wend our way through the citv. 
 The buildings are large, the streets wide, and there are many 
 parks filled with tropical plants and beautiful flowers. 
 There are automobiles, motorcycles, and many electric 
 car lines. 
 
 How clean the streets are ! They are kept so by the long 
 tongue of rock upon which Monte\ddeo is built. The
 
 236 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 rock extends from the Cerro or hill out into the bay. It 
 slopes on all sides so that the streets run up hill and down 
 and every rain washes them clean. Montevideo is a very 
 healthful city; fewer people die in it, in proportion to its 
 size, than in any other city of the world. 
 
 We step aside to get out of the way of the motor-trucks 
 and carts. The carts are each drawn by two or three mules 
 harnessed abreast. Each has a bed made of poles with 
 sides of poles curved upward and tied together with thongs. 
 The wheels are enormous and make a great din as they rattle 
 over the cobblestone streets. There are other carts coming 
 up this side street. Is it not strange that they do not use 
 wagons? No, not when you learn that all vehicles in 
 Montevideo are taxed by the number of wheels, and that 
 a four-wheeled wagon would have to pay twice as much as 
 a cart. 
 
 Montevideo has a good street-car system and we can go 
 anywhere upon it. We ride in the cars by two-story and 
 three-story houses, now passing great plazas or squares filled 
 with trees. We go out into the country through the wide 
 boulevard of General Artigas, which is lined with beautiful 
 gardens from one end to the other, and visit Urbano Park 
 and the Rambla de los Pocetas (po-sa'tas). The latter is 
 the chief seaside resort of Uruguay, and people come here 
 from Argentina and Paraguay to enjoy the fine bathing. 
 There are large hotels right on the sea, and near them are 
 many boxes on wheels in which the people put on their bath- 
 ing clothes. The bathhouses are then drawn by mules 
 to the edge of the water. We each select one of these bath- 
 houses and are soon far out in the surf enjoying the salty 
 billows as they roll up on the shore. 
 
 Coming back to our hotel, we take automobiles and ex- 
 plore the city. It is about as large as New Orleans and it
 
 URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 
 
 237 
 
 has all modern city improvements. The streets are wide, 
 straight, and well paved, the princijial street running along 
 the top of a ridge and ending in the Plaza (le la Indepen- 
 dencia. We visit the Solis Theater, one of the largest in 
 South America, and the fine new national capitol where 
 congress meets. We are shown through tlie cathedral and 
 
 The bathhouses are drawn to and from the beach by imiles. Vhc 
 ' author stands at the right. 
 
 then go to the public Hbrary and some of "the educational 
 institutions. 
 
 Montevideo has a great university. It has asylums and 
 hospitals, medical schools and laboratories, and it is one of 
 the most advanced of all cities as to health matters. 
 There are common schools almost everywhere and education 
 is compulsory. The city has free lunches for school children, 
 and the school girls are taught how to cook and sew while
 
 ^38
 
 URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 239 
 
 the boys learn manual training. In some of the coun- 
 try schools the children study out loud, and in our motor 
 rides we may hear the din of a school before we come 
 to it. 
 
 Montevideo has many rich people who have large estates 
 in the country. They live upon their farms in summer 
 and spend their winters at the capital city. During our 
 stay we visit some of these well-to-do families. Their 
 houses are grand, the floors are of marble, and the ceilings 
 are often upheld by marble columns imported from Italy. 
 We find the rooms cold. The people believe artificial 
 heat is unhealthful and so they have no stoves, furnaces, or 
 steam-heating plants. The result is that in the winter the 
 women often receive callers in their furs with their feet on 
 hot-water bottles, and the men sometimes wear their over- 
 coats at dinner. 
 
 From Montevideo we take some trips out through the 
 country. We cross to the boundary of Brazil by railway, 
 and on the way back visit other places by motor-car. We 
 travel some time on the Uruguay River, visiting the ports 
 of Salto (sal'td) and Paysandu (pi-san-doo') , and stopping 
 at Fray Ben tos (fri ben'tos), where hundreds of thousands 
 of cattle are yearly killed for meat extract. The lean 
 meat is stewed in warm water, being skimmed again and 
 again of the fat. After a long time the stew thickens into 
 a liquid much Kke thin molasses. It is then put into tin 
 boxes and sent to Europe, where it is repacked in porcelain 
 jars and shipped all over the world. Many of us have 
 tasted beef tea made from this Uruguay extract. It is 
 found in our drug stores and is often prescribed for sick 
 people. 
 
 Not far from Fray Bentos are the factories in which 
 jerked beef is made. Such meat is much liked by the South
 
 240 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 American people. It is taken by the shipload from Uruguay 
 to Brazil and the West Indies. The animals are killed and 
 the meat stripped from their bodies and dried in the sun 
 in such a way that it will not spoil, however long it is kept. 
 Coming back to Montevideo, we visit the huge packing 
 establishments where cattle and sheep are killed and dressed 
 for shipment to Europe. The scenes are much' Hke those 
 we saw in similar places in Argentina. The cattle 
 are brought in on the cars or are driven on foot to Toblado, 
 an open-air market held in the fields several miles from 
 Montevideo. Here they are driven about by the gauchos 
 or cowboys, while the buyers select such herds as they want 
 and shout how much they will pay. Thousands of animals 
 are sold in one day, and at the time of our visit ten thousand 
 long-horned cattle are bought by the packers. When the 
 sale is over the animals are weighed and driven to the fri- 
 gerificos, where they are speedily killed. Some of the beef 
 is chilled and shipped to New York, but most of the product 
 goes to Europe, and a great deal to England. 
 
 1. Bound Uruguay. What did you see in traveling by airplane 
 over the country? 
 
 2. What does "Montevideo" mean? 
 
 3. Describe the city. Tell why it has become great. How far is 
 it from New York ? At 1 5 miles per hour how long is the voyage ? 
 
 4. Mention the chief products of Uruguay. What is beef extract ? 
 
 5. What are the chief exports of Uruguay? The chief imports? 
 
 6. If a ship went from Galveston to Montevideo and came back 
 to Boston, what would be the probable cargoes of each voyage? 
 
 7. Compare Uruguay in size with other South American coun- 
 tries ; with your own state. 
 
 8. Trace a cargo of chilled beef from Montevideo to London ; 
 to New York ; to Liverpool ; by two routes to San Francisco, giv- 
 ing the length of each route.
 
 UP THE RIO DE LA PLATA SYSTEM 241 
 
 XXXI. UP THE RIO DE LA PLATA SYSTEM 
 
 WE are again upon shipboard this morning. We have 
 left Montevideo and are steaming through the 
 Rio de la Plata, upon whose two great tributaries, the 
 Parana and the Paraguay, we shall go into the heart of 
 the South American continent. 
 
 What a big stream it is ! At Montevideo we could hardly 
 see the opposite shore. It is wide all the way to Buenos 
 Aires and even to the junction of the Uruguay and Parana 
 rivers, by which it is formed. The Rio de la Plata, in fact, 
 is more like a muddy fresh-water bay or arm of the sea than 
 a river. It is about two hundred miles long, and where it 
 unites with the ocean it is more than one hundred miles 
 wide. 
 
 The water of the river looks like pea soup. We hesitate 
 to get into our bath, and when we let off the water a thick 
 coat of mud remains in the tub, so much that our feet leave 
 marks as deep as those which frightened Robinson Crusoe 
 on the shore of his desert island. The Rio de la Plata sys- 
 tem brings down a vast amount of earth washings from the 
 mountains. It contains so much silt that if it could be put 
 upon wagons, twenty thousand horses all pulling at once could 
 not haul away the load of one hour. So much mud drops 
 to the bottom that the river is fast filling up. It is already 
 difficult for the big ocean steamers to reach Buenos Aires, and 
 the people are now talking of a system of jetties like that 
 of the Mississippi to deepen the channel. 
 
 The Rio de la Plata system drains a basin about half as 
 large as the whole United States. If we could \iew the 
 basin from above we should see that it is of the shape of a 
 horseshoe, with the opening toward the Atlantic. The 
 highlands of Brazil and the Andes form the rim on the west,
 
 242 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 north, and east, while a low divide completes it on the south. 
 Within this shoe Ue the best lands of Argentina, the whole 
 of Uruguay and Paraguay, and large portions of Brazil 
 and BoUvia. 
 
 In climate this basin is similar to that of the Mississippi 
 basin reversed. The northern and upper part of the Mis- 
 sissippi basin is cold ; the northern and upper part of the 
 Rio de la Plata basin is warm. Can you tell why ? 
 
 The greatest tributaries of the Rio de la Plata come from 
 the hot lands of Brazil and BoHvia where palms and rubber 
 trees grow, and its mouth Hes in the cooler countries of 
 wheat fields and pastures where we have been travehng 
 lately. Almost everywhere the climate is healthful. The 
 northern parts have weather much Uke that of Louisiana 
 or Florida, and the south has about the same climate as that 
 of our Middle States. Our ship stops at Buenos Aires for 
 passengers and freight, and we then start on our way to the 
 great Parana, the main downspout of the system. 
 
 We soon pass the mouth of the Uruguay River, and just 
 before entering the Parana sail about the islands of Martin 
 Gracia (gra-se'a). We can see with our glasses the fort 
 upon its shore. There are boys in soldier uniforms march- 
 ing about. They belong to the Argentine Naval School 
 which has been established there ; the men drilling are sol- 
 diers used to defend the fortifications. 
 
 Martin Gracia is called the "Gibraltar of Argentina," 
 for it guards the chief entrance to the Parana River. It 
 is famous in history. It was here that the Spanish explorers 
 who first visited Uruguay stopped for a time. During their 
 stay their pilot, Martin Gracia, died and they gave the island 
 his name as a monument. As we sail by it we remember 
 that we, too, are on an exploring expedition. We are enter- 
 ing waters which were discovered by the white man who,
 
 UP THE RIO DE LA PLATA SYSTEM 243 
 
 with his father John, was the first to set foot upon the soil 
 of the North American continent. This was Sebastian 
 Cabot, who, only thirty-four years after Columbus landed 
 in America, came here and entered the Parana River. He 
 traveled up that part of the Parana through which we 
 shall go, and from it went into the Paraguay River over the 
 very same way we shall sail. 
 
 I venture, however, that Sebastian Cabot, if he could 
 be with us to-day, would think our boat, although only a 
 river steamer, more wonderful than anything he saw on his 
 tour. His ship was not one tenth as large. It was a small 
 saihng vessel and took months to go up the river. He 
 would not understand how we could move without sails. 
 Steam as a motive power was not then discovered, and he 
 would not know how we could make the great paddle wheels 
 move us onward so fast that the voyage can be made in six 
 days. 
 
 Cabot's ship was probably Hghted with tallow. How he 
 would wonder at our electric globes and the other curious 
 things which have been invented since then. 
 
 He would be surprised when he sat down to meals and 
 might think the food rather good for explorers. Here, for 
 instance, is our bill of fare for one dinner : ox-tail soup, 
 Bologna sausage with potato salad, boiled beef, fish caught 
 in the Parana River, curried chicken and rice, beefsteak 
 and potatoes, cheese, guava jelly, EngUsh walnuts, almonds 
 and raisins, oranges, and coffee. 
 
 Passing Martin Gracia, we sail for several hundred miles 
 through the delta of the Parana. For a day's ride north 
 of its mouth the river is about twenty miles wide. It has 
 many channels and is dotted with islands. Some are cov- 
 ered with forests of peach trees, and others are cultivated 
 by the ItaHans, who raise vegetables for Buenos Aires.
 
 244 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 All the islands are low and many have curious houses 
 upon them. We are passing them now. They look like 
 sheds. They are raised upon piles, the first floor being 
 reached by long ladders. This is in order that the people 
 may keep out of the way of the floods, for the winds and 
 the tides sometimes roll great waves in from the ocean. 
 
 After travehng up the stream for a day we reach Rosario, 
 and steam on by ocean ships such as we saw from the bluff 
 after our tour of the wheat fields. They are still loading 
 wheat, and thousands of yellow bags are bobbing up and 
 down as they glide over the chutes. There are flour mills 
 and grain elevators at Santa Fe and other towns farther up, 
 and much of the shipping of the Parana River is devoted 
 to carrying grain. 
 
 As we go on we are more and more deUghted. The 
 Parana is picturesque although the lowest parts of it have 
 no grand scenery. It is wider than the Mississippi and seems 
 at times like a great inland sea, the shores being so far apart 
 that we cannot always see both banks at once. 
 
 This is largely due to the islands, of which the Parana 
 has so many that they have never been counted. In our 
 journey we are always sailing in and out among them, now 
 coming close to the high bluffs of the mainland and now 
 passing through narrow channels, so near the shore that we |^ 
 can almost catch hold of the willows and feathery grasses, '. 
 which hang over and mirror themselves in the water. 
 
 But look, some of the grassy islands are moving ! That 
 great mass of green over there is going past our steamer on 
 its way down the river. It is moving almost as fast as our 
 engine is pushing us up the stream. See, the waves from 
 the ship are making the island move up and down. It is 
 a sheet of billowy green rising and falling with every wave. 
 That is a floating island ! There are many such in the
 
 UP THE RIO DE LA PLATA SYSTEM 245 
 
 Parana River. They are masses of weeds, flowers, and 
 turf which the floods have torn from their foundations in 
 the highlands and are carrying down to the sea. Some are 
 so firm that they wifl support a man ; and during the floods 
 peccaries, jaguars, and snakes are often carried upon the 
 islands out to the ocean. 
 
 Now we have left the middle of the stream and are pass- 
 ing close to the great bluffs of the mainland. We are trying 
 to avoid that sand bar which is being built up by the river. 
 In places the banks are torn down, and all about us are 
 examples of the great part the waters have in shaping the 
 earth. 
 
 The rivers are the masons of the gods, and as we look 
 about us we realize what a master workman this mighty 
 Parana is, and how it has aided in building up the Rio de 
 la Plata basin. The river sweeping past us faster than a 
 man can walk is loaded with mud. It has been bringing 
 down mud for ages, and most of these islands have been 
 built up by the sediment it has dropped. 
 
 The streams of the Andes are now gathering dirt for this 
 river, and its waters are carrying it down to the lowlands. 
 That island of a hundred acres of green which is now float- 
 ing by is made of earth washings brought down from the 
 highlands. Some of its particles were torn from the roots 
 of the rubber trees in Brazil, some have come from coffee 
 plantations a thousand miles farther north, and some were 
 loosened, perhaps, by the Indians we saw mining gold in 
 the wilds of the Bolivian Andes. That bluff at our right 
 is one hundred feet high. See how its strata or layers of 
 earth are piled up one on top of another like those of a jelly 
 cake. Those layers have been deposited there during the 
 ages by running water and as we steam on we can sec the 
 farms of the future rising slowly under our eyes.
 
 246 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Palm Grove near Corrientes. 
 
 Notice that sand bar. Next month it will be an island. 
 Next year it will be covered with grass, and trees will 
 sprout up. 
 
 The land and sky seem to change every hour. The 
 sunsets are gorgeous, painting the clouds with all the hues 
 of the rainbow and making a golden canopy over the 
 dark-blue Parana. We get up before day to see the sun 
 rise. As it comes up its rays strike the dewdrops upon the 
 feathery grasses of the islands and myriads of diamonds 
 flash from the emerald fields. At night both heavens and 
 earth are clad in the glorious moonlight of the semi-tropics. 
 
 As we travel on toward the equator we see many more 
 trees. The islands are covered with them, the grasses are 
 more luxuriant, and here and there are bunches of bamboo.
 
 THE GRAN CHACO 247 
 
 Now and then there is a palm tree shading a house on the 
 mainland, and oranges and lemons are brought to thesteamer 
 at some of the ports. We stop at many small towns of 
 one-story buildings with thatched huts about them. The 
 houses are roofed with red tiles and there is always a church 
 spire rising high over the town. 
 
 After three days we reach the city of Corrientes (kor-re- 
 gn'tes). It is quite a large place for this part of the world 
 and is a port from where are exported sugar, tobacco, and 
 cotton as well as sheep, cattle, and horses. Corrientes 
 looks very imposing in its position on the high east ])ank of 
 the Parana. It is close to the junction of the Alto-Parana 
 and the Paraguay rivers, and at its landing we see steamers 
 starting up the Alto-Parana, upon which they can sail 
 farther on to the northeast for hundreds of miles. Our 
 own ship, however, is on its way to Asuncion (a-soon-syon') 
 in Paraguay, and as that is the country we are next to ex- 
 plore we shall leave the Parana and steam up the Para- 
 guay. 
 
 XXXII. THE GRAN CHACO 
 
 DURING our ride on the steamer we have heard much 
 of the Gran Chaco (gran cha'ko). This is the name 
 given to a large territory west of the Parana and Paraguay 
 rivers, some of which belongs to Argentina, some to 
 Paraguay, and some to Bolivia. It extends for more tlian 
 five hundred miles along the western banks of the rivers, 
 running back almost to the foothills of the Andes. It is 
 four or five times as large as New England, but its bound- 
 aries are not well defined and the greater part is still un- 
 explored.
 
 248 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Most of the Gran Chaco is a vast plain less than a 
 thousand feet above the sea. It has many great swamps 
 and is crossed by the Pilcomayo and Bermejo (ber-ma'ho) 
 rivers, which rise in Bolivia and flow into the Paraguay. 
 Both streams are crooked, shallow, and obstructed by sand 
 bars, but there are small boats on the Pilcomayo, and little 
 steamers which will take us several hundred miles up the 
 Bermejo. The country is well watered ; it has great forests 
 and millions of acres of highlands covered with grass. In 
 the Argentine Chaco at the south they are making farms 
 to raise cotton, sugar cane, and corn. Already many large 
 estates have been formed. Farther north are extensive 
 pasture lands, and the country will some day support a 
 great many people. 
 
 The Parana basin contains some of the best wood lands 
 of South America, and Argentina alone has forests which 
 cover an area almost as large as Texas. Most of these are 
 in the Chaco, and there are other large forests in that part 
 of the territory belonging to Paraguay and Bolivia. 
 
 In these regions the trees are of many varieties. There 
 are soft woods that will float, and hard woods so heavy they 
 will sink like a stone. Among the soft woods is a red cedar 
 used for cigar boxes, and woods excellent for pulp and paper. 
 One of the most important of the hard woods is the algaroba 
 (al-ga-ro'ba), wliich looks like black walnut. It is used 
 for paving blocks, and many streets in Buenos Aires are paved 
 with it. Another hard wood is the lapacho, which has a 
 beautiful grain and takes a fine polish. It is as strong as 
 hickory and can be used as spokes for the wheels of wagons 
 and automobiles. 
 
 The most important wood, however, is the quebracho 
 (ka-brach'o) , which not only is good for railroad ties and 
 telegraph poles, but also contains so much tannin that
 
 THE GRAN CHACO 249 
 
 it is extracted for shipment to all parts of the world to be 
 used in the manufacture of leather. A great part of the 
 leather used in the United States is tanned with quebracho. 
 In making the extract the wood is ground to sawdust and 
 boiled. The extract is exported in cakes, which are after- 
 wards reduced to a liquid. The word "quebracho" means 
 ax-breakcr. The tree is so hard that it will turn the edge of 
 an ax, and when used for railroad ties, holes have to be bored 
 for the spikes, for they cannot be driven into the wood. 
 
 As we think of the forests it seems strange that they do 
 not supply lumber to all parts of the Parana basin. It 
 would surely be cheaper to get out this wood for Argentina 
 and Uruguay than from our forests in Oregon and New 
 England. Yes, it seems so at first, but not after we have 
 studied the matter. Much of the Chaco wood is so heavy 
 that it will not float. The logs must be loaded upon carts 
 and dragged through the forests or else taken by railroad 
 to the Paraguay River before they can be sliippcd down to 
 Buenos Aires. In our country we have the snow to help 
 us get the logs to the rivers, and our lumber floats. Here 
 there is no snow. It costs a great deal to get the logs out 
 of the forests, and the freight rates on the steamers are so 
 high, that it is much cheaper for the people near the coast 
 of South America to bring their lumber from North America, 
 five thousand miles farther away, than to buy it here nearer 
 home. 
 
 The Gran Chaco is for the most part as wild as it was 
 when Sebastian Cabot sailed up the Parana. Its chief 
 inhabitants are Indians, some of whom go naked all the 
 year round. The Tobas, for instance, wear almost nothing 
 except when they cross the Paraguay River to trade. They 
 are among the tallest of the red men, some being over six 
 feet in height. Their skin is so thick they can walk on
 
 250 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 thorny ground without sandals. They tattoo themselves 
 with blue and red lines and dye their hair yellow. The Toba 
 braves are good hunters and fishers, but the squaws do 
 most of the work, planting the crops, cooking the meals, 
 and weaving the blankets. 
 
 ^Many ul ihe Indians are nomads, wandering from place to place. 
 They need few clothes and no permanent houses. 
 
 Another tribe of the Chaco are the Lenguas,who are ex- 
 perts in taming wild animals and birds. Farther north are 
 Indians who were noted as oarsmen when the Spanish first 
 came. They were terrible warriors and had their oars tipped 
 with spearheads so that they could use them as weapons. 
 
 Many of the South American Indians are nomads, wander- 
 ing about from place to place. Others have villages of huts
 
 THE GRAN CHACO 
 
 251 
 
 so built together that one roof of straw thatch covers several 
 houses. The people sleep on skins on the bare ground. 
 The women are quite cleanly, washing their pots and pans 
 at the close of each meal. They are good cooks, although 
 they have but few cooking utensils. Forks are unknown, 
 every one carries his own knife, and shells are used for spoons 
 The chief weapons of the Indians are bows and arrows, and 
 with them they can bring down the most savage beasts of 
 the forest. 
 
 
 i/ 
 
 ^ ■ 
 
 ,- ' ■: 
 
 'i^^^m^ 
 
 1' ^.^ ^j 
 
 aitf^^ 
 
 ^erf- 
 
 
 . 'JflHW^^^II^r^' 
 
 ■ifariKl 
 
 BR 
 
 
 "^■■■ri 
 
 ^J^l^y^^^ ' 
 
 ^jyjffj^Htw 
 
 wM 
 
 
 w 
 
 ^H^^^^^^w 
 
 ^^ 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 
 } 
 
 T 
 
 I^TIMiSi 
 
 
 -; • ts- 1- 
 
 Alligator. 
 
 The Chaco is a great hunting country. There are alli- 
 gators in all the streams, and in traveling near the water at 
 night we have to move carefully lest we step on them. 
 
 As we camp overnight in the forest we are now and then 
 aroused by the crack of a branch, and see the fierce eyes of 
 a brute flashing out of the darkness. It is a jaguar after 
 our dogs. These animals hate dogs and it is dangerous to 
 travel with them through the forest. It seldom attacks 
 men, and if we meet one in the underbrush a yell will usually 
 drive it away.
 
 2s2 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Another curious animal of the Chaco is the aguara guazu, 
 a species of wolf dog about a yard long. It has sharp ears, 
 a pointed muzzle, and yellow fur with a bushy tail like that 
 of a fox. It has a hoarse bark which can be heard a long 
 way. This dog lives in the swamps and goes out hunting 
 at night. It attacks sheep and deer, and will fight for its 
 life with a jaguar. 
 
 The jaguar is the largest of the cat family in America, and almost 
 equals the tiger in strength and ferocity. 
 
 But what is that shrill, whistling cry which we hear night 
 after night in the forest? That is a tapir, an animal about 
 the size of a yearling calf with a head like a pig, and a snout 
 like an elephant's trunk but much shorter. It is inoffensive 
 if let alone, but it will bite and kick our dogs if they go 
 near it. The skin of the tapir is so thick that it is almost 
 impossible to kill it unless it is shot in the forehead or be- 
 hind the shoulder.
 
 THE GRAN CHACO 
 
 253 
 
 Even more dangerous are the peccaries, which are found 
 in great numbers in parts of the Chaco. They are Httle 
 wild pigs with sharp teeth, and go about in herds of eight 
 or ten and sometimes fifty or more. They are ferocious 
 and often attack travelers who come near them on foot. 
 If we should meet them it will be best for us to cUmb trees 
 and shoot at them' from there. Peccaries live on roots and 
 
 Tapir. 
 
 fallen fruits. They eat the wild oranges and nuts of the 
 woods. At night they sometimes sneak into the Para- 
 guayan villages for the oranges that grow in the gardens. 
 The Chaco has parrots, toucans, and other gorgeous birds 
 of the tropics. It has one bird whose feathers are said to 
 shine like flames of fire and another which has dancing per- 
 formances, when a dozen or more will rush into an open place
 
 254 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and dance about, screaming and raising their long beaks as 
 they do so. 
 
 The streams of the Chaco are full of odd fish, some of 
 which live in the mud, and one of which will attack and 
 bite men. The latter grows to a length of a foot and a half. 
 It has teeth as sharp as a razor, and its jaws are so strong 
 that it can drive them through one's flesh to the bone. 
 
 1. Describe the Rio cie la Plata basin. Compare it with the 
 Mississippi valley. 
 
 2. Name the discoverer of the river. Compare his boat with one 
 of the great steamers of to-day. What do you know about him? 
 Where is Gibraltar ? What strait does it guard ? Tell the story 
 of the first steamboat ; the first electric lights. 
 
 3. What is the length of the Parana River? How does it com- 
 pare with the Amazon? The Orinoco? The Mississippi-Missouri? 
 
 4. Show how rivers build up the lowlands. How are the floating 
 islands formed ? 
 
 5. Describe the Gran Chaco. To what three countries does it 
 belong ? 
 
 6. What important products come from its forests? Trace a 
 shipment of quebracho from Corrientes to the tanneries of Newark, 
 New Jersey. 
 
 7. Why does Argentina, which has vast forests, import lumber 
 from Oregon and New England ? 
 
 8. IMake a hunting trip through the Chaco and describe the 
 Indians you might see. Compare these Indians with those of Peru, 
 Bolivia, and ChUe. 
 
 9. What is a tapir? A peccary? A jaguar?
 
 PARAGUAY 
 
 255 
 
 B O 
 
 XXXIII. PARAGUAY 
 
 WE are on the Paraguay River this morning. We 
 have left Corrientes and are steaming northward 
 through a country of forests. The water is not so muddy 
 as that of the Parana, on which we have been traveling, 
 and the stream is not nearly so wide. It is, however, a 
 mighty river as deep as the Mississippi and about eighteen 
 hundred miles long. It is navigable for steamers for more 
 than a thousand 
 miles above Corrien- 
 tes, and small ves- 
 sels can go upon it 
 far into Brazil. 
 
 We get our first 
 sight of the republic 
 of Paraguay soon 
 after leaving Corri- 
 entes. That land 
 along the east bank 
 is a part of it, and 
 those villages with 
 the orange trees 
 about them are the 
 
 homes of Paraguay people. 
 
 As we sail onward the country grows considerably wilder. 
 Our vessel moves this way and that in following the 
 channel, and we are often close to the great trees on' the 
 shore. The forests of this region abound in timber 
 which is excellent and of great durability. We hear 
 parrots screaming at us from the branches, and now 
 and then with the glass catch sight of a monkey grinning 
 out through the leaves. There are many birds of beauti-
 
 256 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ful plumage, and flocks of wild ducks rise from the lagoons 
 which we pass every few miles. We get our guns and take 
 a shot at the birds. We shoot also at the alhgators on the 
 shore and at those which scud through the water or dive 
 down as we pass. 
 
 The west bank of the Paraguay River is especially wild. 
 It belongs to the Gran Chaco, and we could not travel a 
 mile inland without meeting jaguars and monkeys, and 
 we might even see boa constrictors as large as those of the 
 Amazon basin. We stop occasionally at one of the towns 
 on the east bank and finally come to anchor at the wharves 
 of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. 
 
 Paraguay, like Bolivia, is a country without a seacoast. 
 It lies about as far inland from the Atlantic Ocean as our 
 state of Michigan, but by the winding way up the rivers we 
 have journeyed as far as from New York to Omaha. We 
 are now about midway on the west border of Paraguay 
 proper. The country is composed of two divisions, Para- 
 guay proper and the Chaco. We have already learned 
 something of the Chaco. It is the ''Wild West" of Para- 
 guay. It is but little developed and inhabited chiefly by 
 savage Indians and- wild beasts. It is the vast territory 
 lying west of the Paraguay River and north of the Pilcomayo 
 River, being bounded on the north by Bolivia. The Chaco 
 has large forests, many swamps, and some cultivable 
 lands. Almost all of it is still in a state of nature, having 
 been but little explored. 
 
 Paraguay proper is the settled part of the republic. It 
 has all the cities and towns and is the only part in which 
 many civilized people live. It Hes east of the Paraguay 
 River and north of the Parana, being located somewhat 
 as Illinois is in our own country, the Parana corresponding 
 to the Ohio River, and the Paraguay to the Mississippi.
 
 PARAGUAY 257 
 
 The country is larger than Illinois and much like it in 
 character. The land is beautifully rolling with numerous 
 streams upon which the crops can be moved to the ports 
 of the Parana and Paraguay rivers. It has great pastures 
 and large tracts of rich soil. Running through it are one 
 or two low mountain ranges which are covered with forests 
 and add greatly to the beauty of the scenery. The climate 
 is much like that of Florida, and therefore the products 
 are semi-tropical. There are small plantations of tobacco, 
 manioc, and sugar cane. Orange trees grow everywhere, 
 and clumps of palm trees upon the great plains. 
 
 The people of Paraguay are few. They are composed of 
 the whites, of the mixed race, and of pure Indians. Those 
 of the white and mixed races number only about six hundred 
 thousand, while there are, perhaps, one fourth as many 
 Indians. When the Spaniards first came these Indians 
 were more civilized than most of the other tribes of the 
 continent, and many of the Spaniards took Indian wives. 
 Their sons and daughters also married Indians, and we find 
 nearly all the people now have more or less Indian blood in 
 their veins. 
 
 The Indians were of the Guarani (gwa-ra'ne) tribes and 
 to-day the Guarani language is more used than the Spanish. 
 We shall take with us a guide who understands Guarani 
 to act as interpreter during our tour, for we may be in places 
 where the people cannot speak Spanish. 
 
 Paraguay has no large cities. The largest by far is the 
 capital, Asuncion, which is as big as Grand Rapids, Miclii- 
 gan. The next is Villa Rica (vel'ya re'ca), the population 
 of which numbers thirty thousand or more, and after that 
 Villa Concepcion and Villa Encarnacion (en-kar-na-syon'), 
 fast-growing ports on the Parana and Paraguay rivers. 
 Small towns and villages are scattered about the country.
 
 2_^8
 
 PARAGUAY 259 
 
 The city of Asuncion is the business, social, and financial 
 center and has always been the principal town of Paraguay. 
 As we go through it we shall find many modern improve- 
 ments. It has banks, telegraphs, colleges, and newspapers, 
 the latter sold by newsboys as bright as those of our cities. 
 There are good houses, several large churches, and many 
 buildings mossy with age. 
 
 Asuncion is one of the oldest cities of our hemisphere. 
 It was founded in 1536. The first babies born in it had 
 grown into gray-haired men and women before Captain 
 John Smith landed at Jamestown. It was long one of the 
 chief centers of civilization of South America, and for some 
 years was more important than either Buenos Aires or 
 Montevideo. It lost this place after the great war origi- 
 nated by President Lopez between Paraguay and the 
 combined forces of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, in 
 which Paraguay was forced to give up much of her terri- 
 tory. At that time Asuncion was almost destroyed and 
 the country laid desolate. 
 
 Indeed, so many of the men were killed that the women 
 had to do all kinds of work. This is so to-day. We notice 
 this as we walk from the wharves into the city. It is 
 early morning and the streets are filled with women going 
 to and from market. How like ghosts they look ! Each 
 is clad in white with a long cotton sheet wrapped about her 
 head so that only her dark face shows. The most of them 
 are barefooted, and they make no noise as they walk spirit- 
 like through the streets. There is one coming toward us 
 who has a great jar upon her head and a load of firewood in 
 her arms. She is walking rapidly, and her dark legs below 
 her white skirts show halfway to the knees. Behind her 
 comes another white-sheeted figure upon whose head is a 
 basket of oranges with a chunk of raw meat on top. The
 
 26o
 
 PARA(iUAY 
 
 261 
 
 basket is perfectly balanced and she walks along without 
 touching her burden. There are other women carrying all 
 sorts of things on their heads — bags of vegetables, pans 
 of meat, bundles of firewood ; in fact, they carry everything 
 on their heads. It seems no trouble to keep the loads steady, 
 for as we pass they do not hft their hands and take no pains 
 to avoid being jostled. 
 
 Paraguayan water carriers. The square objects are Standard Oil tins, 
 in which petroleum has been brought from the United States. 
 
 Asuncion is laid out in the Spanish style, the streets cross- 
 ing one another at right angles with a park or a plaza here 
 and there. Many of the streets are paved. There are 
 electric car lines in all parts of the city and suburban lines 
 reach out into the country. The city is now connected 
 with Buenos Aires by railway and has a fine railway station. 
 
 The streets are wide, but the town is so up hill and down
 
 262 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 that there are but few carriages and automobiles. There 
 are many donkeys ridden or led by boys. Many of the 
 carts are hauled by three mules abreast ; the animals go so 
 fast that we jump up on the sidewalk to get out of the way. 
 
 What curious houses 1 They are almost all of one story, 
 built in blocks close to the pavement so that they form soUd 
 walls from street to street. All have iron-barred windows 
 and each is a different color. Here is one of sky blue, the 
 house next to it is rose pink, and over the way is one of pale 
 yellow. 
 
 Here comes a poKceman. He is dressed in a blue uni- 
 form with a long sword at his side. If he should arrest us 
 he would take us into a red jail and on the way we should 
 pass the Ulac-colored building in which congress meets. We 
 might see the cream-tinted palace from where the president 
 rules, and should go by houses of every color. The school- 
 house may be of any color of the rainbow. The children 
 usually go barefoot to school, it is so warm. 
 
 Let us take a look at the business part of the town. The 
 stores are not large but they are stocked with goods from 
 all parts of the world. That building on the corner is the 
 chief hotel of the country. It was once a palace of the 
 tyrant Lopez. 
 
 The market house is a block farther on. It looks more 
 like a monastery than a market. It is a great one-story 
 building running about a hollow square, with a low roof of 
 galvanized iron which extends out upon all sides, over the 
 cloisters or wide porches which surround it. The market 
 house is painted red, the color forming a bright background 
 for the strange figures about it. People are buying and 
 selling at the meat stalls in the building. The court inside 
 is filled with tables and benches where aU kinds of Para- 
 guayan things are sold.
 
 PARAGUAY 263 
 
 Let us stop in the porches and look about us. Every 
 part of the market is swarming with women. There are 
 scores of them sitting on the bricks with their wares spread 
 out before them. Others stand behind the butcher counters 
 and with knives and saws cut up meat for their customers. 
 
 Others have vegetables, laces, and jewelry, which they 
 beseech us to buy. What a chatter they make as they 
 bargain ! There are no scales or measures. See this 
 vegetable woman who is sitting almost under our feet. 
 She has a stock of green peas which she has arranged in 
 piles on the bricks. There is about a pint in each pile, 
 and the customers buy by eye measure. Each purchaser 
 brings a cloth to wrap what she buys, for the women furnish 
 neither paper nor string. 
 
 In going through the market we can learn much concern- 
 ing the chief products of Paraguay. We see tobacco sold 
 everywhere and learn that Paraguay raises considerable 
 tobacco for export to Europe, although most of the crop 
 is consumed at home. Three fourths of the women we 
 meet have cigars in their mouths. Both buyers and sellers 
 are smoking like chimneys. Some of the women are chew- 
 ing cigars, and others are rolling up leaf tobacco to smoke. 
 We see small girls smoking and chewing, and boys of six or 
 eight years smoke without stint. 
 
 Among the other things sold in large quantities are manioc 
 and oranges. Manioc is a root which takes the place of 
 both potatoes and wheat as food. It grows in great bunches, 
 each root being about the size of a carrot. There are two 
 varieties, one of which is boiled or roasted like a potato, 
 the other must first be ground and squeezed to take out 
 a poisonous juice which it contains. When dry it becomes 
 a flour that is eaten in soup and stews and in other 
 ways.
 
 264 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 XXXIV. A TRIP INTO THE INTERIOR 
 OF PARAGUAY 
 
 TO-DAY we are traveling through the interior of Para- 
 guay. We have taken our seats in one of the first- 
 class cars of the railroad which runs from Asuncion to 
 Villa Rica and thence southward to the Parana River 
 at Encarnacion, where it connects with the railway system 
 of Argentina and goes on to Buenos Aires. 
 
 Leaving Asuncion, we pass the villas of rich Paraguayans, 
 go by the agricultural college where the boys are playing 
 under the palm trees, and then on into great pastures bor- 
 dered with bushy woods and spotted here and there with 
 small clumps of trees. The country is naturally fitted for 
 live stock, and some day it will be one of the chief meat- 
 producing lands of the world. It already has millions of 
 cattle and sheep and tens of thousands of horses and goats. 
 
 The lands are as rich as our prairies and resemble them, 
 save that thickets and groves everywhere give shade for 
 the cattle. We are in a vast sea of grass which seems to be 
 flowing in and out among islands of trees. In summer the 
 woods are fragrant and the plains are covered with beautiful 
 flowers. Paraguay has miles of such pastures and the red 
 soil grows the richest of fodder. 
 
 There is a big herd of cattle now at our left. We can see 
 the gauchos on horseback moving to and fro among the 
 beasts and driving them this way and that. They are 
 probably picking out the best for shipment, or they may be 
 about to brand the stock. 
 
 A Kttle farther to the right we see a village and we pass 
 small towns every few miles. Most of the Paraguayans 
 live in villages. Their houses are merely thatched huts 
 with walls of woven poles covered with mud.
 
 A TRIP INTO THE INTERIOR OF PARAGUAY 265 
 
 We can visit one while the train waits to change engines 
 at one of the stations. What a rude hut it is ! It has two 
 parts, a room about fifteen feet square and a shed. The 
 
 Lace-making is the chief industry of the Paraguayan women. 
 
 This handkerchief was made by hand, taking many days 
 
 of work. 
 
 shed has no walls ; it is merely an extension of the thatched 
 roof which covers the closed room, and is upheld by 
 poles.
 
 266 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The people live in the shed during the day. There are 
 hammocks hung to the poles and men and women are sitting 
 in them. Naked babies and half naked children play about 
 on the dirt floor. The chmate is warm in summer, and it 
 is only the breeze sweeping through the shed that makes 
 life endurable. 
 
 There is but Uttle furniture. We see only a table and 
 one or two chairs. The chief object of interest is a log 
 stancUng on end. It is about as high as your waist; and 
 there is a hollow in the top. Before the log a woman is 
 standing. She has a heavy club in her hand, which she 
 is lifting up and dropping on some corn inside the hollow. 
 Such logs are the grist mills of Paraguay. In them the 
 women pound their corn and manioc to flour. We find 
 the people hospitable. They live simply and do not 
 seem to care for anything except something to eat, a little 
 liquor to drink, and enough cigars to smoke all the day 
 through. 
 
 Now we are again on the train moving through the fields. 
 What are those odd little hills which stand out like haycocks 
 among the green grass ? There are hundreds of them, dark- 
 red mounds, spotting the fields and looking as though they 
 had been thrown up by man. We are now passing some 
 as high as our waists. A Httle farther on is a field in which 
 there are thousands which would reach hardly to our knees. 
 What can they be? They seem to be nothing but dirt. 
 They are ant cities, each mound being an ant apartment 
 house, as it were. 
 
 Paraguay has countless millions of ants which throw up 
 such mounds all over the country. In some places there 
 are so many that they destroy the pastures, and the people 
 must fight the ants before they can cultivate the ground. 
 Every hill must be dug out, for there are as many ants be-
 
 Young Paraguayans. Behind the boys is a carl loaded wiih slicks 
 for firewood. The climate is hot and most of the children go 
 
 barefoot. 
 267
 
 268
 
 A TRIP INTO THE INTERIOR OF PARAGUAY 269 
 
 low as above ground. After that tlie hills are set on fire. 
 They burn easily, and in this way the ants are destroyed. 
 
 The ants sometimes burrow into the houses. A woman 
 may awake in the morning to find a great mound of dirt 
 on her parlor floor, the ants having decided to build a vil- 
 lage there. She sweeps out the dirt and deluges the brick 
 floor with hot water. A morning or so later she may find 
 the ants again besieging her dwelling. 
 
 But we are nearing a station. Get out your money for 
 that crowd of women peddlers who are coming to canvass 
 the cars. Here they are now. One has a pile of straw hats 
 fitted one into the other on the top of her head. She will 
 sell you a hat for fifteen cents of our money. There is a 
 bareheaded girl with some cakes, each as large around as a 
 dinner plate, and there are others with fruits and baby 
 clothes and fine laces. Notice the lace handkerchief which 
 that dark-faced little girl spreads out before you. It is as 
 delicate as a cobweb and is made of fibers grown in the 
 country. Lace-making is the chief industry of the Para- 
 guayan women, and many beautiful things may be bought 
 very cheaply. 
 
 Let us get out on the platform and follow the crowd 
 rushing toward the women squatted down on the bricks. 
 They are peddlers, but their wares are too hea\'y^ to be 
 brought into the train. Some are seUing meat. Yes. 
 selling beefsteaks at a station ! They have baskets of raw 
 beef before them and are peddUng it out to the passengers. 
 
 The girls have cream-colored faces, dark eyes,, soft black 
 hair, and fairly good teeth. Nearly all are in their bare feet, 
 and we have to be careful not to step on their toes with our 
 heavy shoes as we stroll about through the crowd. 
 
 Here is a maiden with a lot of oranges piled up l)eforeher. 
 Let us see how many we can get for a medio, or three quar-
 
 27c 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ters of a cent of our money. I point to the pile and say- 
 in my poor Spanish: "Quantos naranjas por un medio, 
 senorita?" 
 
 "Ocho," replies the girl as she puffs a volume of smoke 
 out of her nostrils and hands me eight golden balls. 
 
 There are man\ donkeys ridden or led by boys. 
 
 We buy. more and more oranges as we go from station 
 to station, and find them as sweet as the best of our Florida 
 fruit. They have a fine flavor. The skins are so full of oil 
 that we can hght with a match the drops we squeeze out on 
 the surface. 
 
 Paraguay is above all the country of oranges. We see
 
 MATE, OR PARAGUAY TEA 271 
 
 the trees in every thicket, and they peep at us out of the 
 forests with their golden eyes. The mud huts of the farmers 
 stand amid orange groves and in some places there are so 
 many oranges that they rot on the ground. 
 
 Oranges are sent by millions down the Paraguay River to 
 Uruguay and Argentina. They are brought to the banks 
 of the river from the orchards in ox carts so large that each 
 will hold about five thousand oranges. The fruit is dumped 
 out like so many potatoes, the drivers taking no more care 
 in emptying their carts than when dumping dirt in repairing 
 the roads. 
 
 During the season there are great piles of oranges on the 
 banks at all the river towns, with scores of women kneeling 
 before them picking up the fruit and putting it into baskets. 
 As soon as a basket is full it is handed to a carrier, a woman 
 who raises it to her head and balances it there, as she trots 
 along over a board walk from the bank to the steamer. We 
 often see a hundred women thus trotting along in single 
 file. Each has a round basket filled with oranges on the 
 top of her head. She walks rapidly over the springing 
 boards without touching her hand to the basket. 
 
 The hold of the steamer is filled first and then a wire netting 
 is stretched about the deck, making a fence as high as a 
 man's head, within which the golden fruit is piled. 
 
 — »o>»:oo — 
 XXXV. MATE, OR PARAGUAY TEA 
 
 WE have returned from our trip into the interior and 
 are again on our way to the north. There are 
 boats twice a week from Asuncion to Villa Concep- 
 cion, and once every fortnight a Brazilian steamer calls 
 at the Paraguay ports on its way into the wilds of southern
 
 2 72 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Brazil. We resolve to go first to Villa Concepcion, the 
 chief port of northern Paraguay, and from there to make 
 some tours through the forests on both sides of the river. 
 
 A short distance above Asuncion the Paraguay narrows. 
 The scenes along it are of great beauty. The banks are 
 well wooded, and now and then we see a clearing in which 
 is a village with orange trees hanging above the thatched 
 huts. There are more wild birds than there were farther 
 south. Alligators are numerous, and if we rise before day 
 we may catch a glimpse of a panther swimming across the 
 river as they sometimes do about dawn. We pass the mouth 
 of the river Confuso and come to land again at Villa 
 Concepcion. 
 
 Here we see scores of men bringing bales of yerba mate 
 (yer'ba mata'), or Paraguay tea, down to the wharves and 
 putting them on the steamer. Yerba mate is one of the 
 chief exports of Paraguay and Brazil. It commands a 
 high price in all South American countries south of the 
 equator, and Paraguay produces enough every year to 
 make a cup of tea for every man, woman, and child in the 
 world. Mate was used as tea before Columbus discovered 
 America. The Indians induced the Spaniards to try it, 
 and it has now become the favorite beverage of many South 
 American people. Argentina uses seven times as much 
 mate as coffee and twenty-six times as much as Chinese 
 or Japanese tea. Brazil, which grows more coffee than any 
 other country in the world, raises and consumes a great 
 deal of mate. The people of Uruguay and Chile prefer 
 it to all other drinks. 
 
 But what is this tea that so tickles the South American 
 palate? It is easy to learn. There is a woman on the 
 steamer drinking some now. Our cabin boy will bring us 
 a bowl if we ask him. It is served in a round gourd as big
 
 Above — Mate packed for export. 
 
 Below — Mate leaf, bowl made of a gourd, and metal bombilla. 
 
 273
 
 274 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 as a baseball with a handle fitted into the side, and one 
 drinks it boiling hot. A spoonful of the powdered leaves 
 is put into the bowl, the hot water is poured in, and the tea 
 is ready for use. You do not put the bowl to your mouth, 
 but suck the mate up through a tube. The tube is called 
 a bombilla (bom-bel'ya) . Sometimes it is of silver, some- 
 times of brass, and among the poorer people often a hollow 
 reed. The metal tube ends in a bulb. This bulb is 
 pierced with holes so that the tea is strained as you suck 
 it into your mouth. 
 
 Here comes the boy with our mate. Be careful how you 
 put the bombilla between your hps. The boiling tea has 
 made it so hot that it may take the skin off. Wet your lips 
 first and then try it. How bitter the tea is 1 At first drink- 
 ing it does not taste at all good, but it is quite stimulating, 
 and it will refresh one when tired. Many South Americans 
 take nothing else for their early breakfast. If the Argen- 
 tine gaucho has his mate in the morning he will gallop on 
 horseback all day over the pampas and be satisfied to get 
 his first meal when we are eating our suppers. 
 
 The plants which furnish the mate arc low bushes which 
 grow among the other trees. They are much Hke the holly 
 bush and sometimes grow as high as a small orange tree. 
 The leaves are green all the year, the younger leaves making 
 the best tea. The people who gather the mate leaves chop 
 off the small branches and bring them in bundles to camps 
 in the forest. Here there are drying houses, each consisting 
 of a framework with an arched roof of poles woven together 
 and upheld by posts. Under the roof there is a floor of 
 clay, so well hammered down that it is hard as stone. 
 After the leaves are dried they are reduced to a powder. 
 This is baled in skins and is the mate of commerce. 
 About a million dollars' worth of such bales of tea are made
 
 BRAZIL 275 
 
 in Paraguay each year, and we shall see mule trains loaded 
 with them making their way toward the ports. 
 
 There are many other interesting things in Paraguay, 
 but the mail steamer is almost due at Villa Concepcion and 
 we must hurry back if we would go on it north to Brazil. 
 
 1. Name ihe two sections into which Paraguay is divided. In 
 what is it like Bolivia with regard to the sea? 
 
 2. How does Paraguay resemble Illinois? Florida? 
 
 3. What races are found in Paraguay? Compare the Indians 
 with those of the Gran Chaco ; with the Indians of the western 
 United States. 
 
 4. What is the principal city of Paraguay ? When was it founded ? 
 Describe your walk through it. 
 
 5. What are the chief things sold in the markets? 
 
 6. Compare the country scenes with those of the United States. 
 
 7. What fruit is most plentiful? Where does it grow in the 
 United States? 
 
 8. What is yerba mate? How is it gathered and prepared for 
 export? What other drink comes chiefly from South America? 
 Where does our tea come from ? 
 
 o^4»ic 
 
 XXXVI. BRAZIL 
 
 LET us look at the map of South America and try to 
 realize the enormous extent of Brazil before we begin 
 to explore it. It is one of the largest countries of 
 the world and it contains almost half of all the land of the 
 continent. It is three times as large as the Argentine 
 repubHc ; it is larger than the United States, not in- 
 cluding Alaska. If it could be lifted up and laid down 
 upon our country it would extend from east to west as far 
 as from New York to San Francisco and it would take in 
 a large part of both Mexico and Canada. Its Atlantic
 
 276 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 coast line is equal to that between Puget sound and Panama, 
 and it touches every country in South America except 
 Chile and Ecuador. 
 
 This great republic consists of twenty states and one 
 territory. Some of the states are enormous and others 
 compare in size with the smaller states of our countr}^ al- 
 though none is as small as Maryland. Amazonas, the land 
 of forests and rubber, would make nine states as large as 
 Kansas; Para (pa-ra'), another great rubber land Ijdng 
 east of it, is ten times as large as Pennsylvania; Matto 
 Grosso (mat'oo gros'06), a highland much of which is 
 covered wdth pasture, is nine times as large as lUinois ; and 
 Goyaz (go-yash') is larger than Texas. Goyaz has rich 
 farms and pastures, and it is said to have iron by the 
 milHons of tons. Minas-Geraes (me'nash zha-rish') is rich 
 in minerals, and like Sao Paulo (soun pou-loo) it has vast 
 plantations of coffee. 
 
 Brazil produces three fourths of the coffee of the world 
 and a large part of the rubber, and it leads all countries 
 in the production of cacao. It has more than two thousand 
 tobacco factories and hundreds of sugar and cotton mills. 
 It has tens of millions of cattle and many sheep, goats, and 
 horses. 
 
 This vast territory is almost as varied in character as the 
 United States. Much of it is made up of highlands and 
 two fifths is an elevated plateau, the mean altitude of which 
 is about that of our Appalachian Mountains. Upon the 
 plateau there are peaks here and there that rise to a height 
 of one and one half miles above the sea, and there is one 
 that reaches nine thousand feet, being higher than any 
 mountain on the eastern side of our country. The Amazon 
 basin is larger than that of the ^Mississippi, a great part of 
 it being lowland plains covered with forest.
 
 BRAZIL 277 
 
 Brazil is well watered, it has small regions of drought, 
 but there are no great deserts like those of our western 
 highlands, the Sahara in Africa, or the Oobi desert in Asia. 
 The plateau of Brazil is cut by great rivers, the Amazon 
 gathering more water than any other river of the globe. 
 The waterways of the Amazon system, if they could be 
 joined end to end, are long enough to reach around the 
 globe, and their navigable length, if laid upon the United 
 States, would form two canals clear across it from Cape 
 Cod to the Golden Gate. 
 
 Brazil has a score of rivers outside of the Amazon basin, 
 some of which are one thousand miles long, nevertheless 
 almost unknown to us. The Parahyba (pa-ra-e'ba) River 
 is as long as from New York to Chicago, the Sao Francisco 
 (soun fran-ses'ko) is twice as long, and steamboats can sail 
 on it farther than from St. Paul to New Orleans. The 
 Parana, the headwaters of which are in Brazil, has water- 
 falls that have been compared with those of Niagara, and 
 at one place on the Sao Francisco the river drops two 
 hundred and sixty-eight feet, or one hundred feet more than 
 Niagara. Brazil is said to have waterfalls that could create 
 over fifty million horse power, and in the state of Sao Paulo 
 it is estimated that there is more than two million horse 
 power in the undeveloped cascades. 
 
 Such a vast country must have many climates. The 
 equator crosses the northern part near the Amazon, and the 
 whole of the Amazon basin is in the torrid zone. At the 
 far south the climate is temperate. Even in the summer 
 month of January the thermometer seldom reaches one 
 hundred, and in midwinter, which occurs in July, there is 
 often snow on the ground. Moreover, the highlands give 
 much of the country farther north a temperate climate, 
 and in those regions grow wheat and corn.
 
 278 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Most of the lowlands are tropical and raise rice, tobacco, 
 and sugar. There are large areas fitted for cotton, while 
 several thousand feet above the sea are the greatest coffee 
 plantations on earth. Brazil has vast grazing lands for 
 the rearing of cattle. It has already many milUons of cattle 
 and will one day be a meat-exporting country. 
 
 The Amazon valley has forests which cover an area two 
 thirds as large as the United States proper, and there are 
 extensive pine lands in southern Brazil. The country is also 
 one of minerals, including almost everything except coal, 
 from gold and diamonds to iron and graphite, although the 
 greater part of its mineral resources is as yet unexplored. 
 
 South America is sometimes referred to as a part of Span- 
 ish America. It would be quite as proper to call it a part 
 of Portuguese America, for Brazil, which we have learned 
 contains nearly half the land of the continent and almost 
 one half of the people, was discovered and settled by people 
 from Portugal. The Brazilians speak Portuguese instead 
 of Spanish, which is the language of the other half of the 
 continent. Rio de Janeiro (re'o da zha-na'ro) is the largest 
 Portuguese speaking city of the world, and Brazil has five 
 times as many inhabitants as Portugal. The population is 
 about one fourth as large as that of the United States, and 
 it is rapidly increasing by immigration from Europe. The 
 country has land enough for a very great nation, and it 
 will some day have many millions more people than it has 
 now. 
 
 The foreign commerce of Brazil is important, and its 
 trade with the United States is rapidly increasing. We 
 buy of Brazil more of its principal products, coffee and rub- 
 ber, than any other country ; and the ships bringing them 
 to the United States should take back cargoes of goods 
 made in our country. During the World War in Europe our
 
 BRAZIL 
 
 279 
 
 exports of machinery, railway materials, and manufactured 
 articles were doubled, and we shall sell more and more to 
 the Brazilians as that country develops its resources. They 
 are buying our railway materials, electrical machinery, 
 
 SOLE or MiLes 
 6 160 ax) 300 400 
 
 Grande Jo Sul ^ 
 
 I Principal Railroads , 
 
 and other manufactures ; and we are investing much of 
 our capital in Brazilian mines, cattle ranches, and factories 
 of one kind or another. 
 
 Steamers sail regularly from the United States to Rio de 
 Janeiro and Santos (san'toosh), caUing at Pernambuco 
 (per-nam-boo'ko) and Bahia ; also to Para and Manaos
 
 28o SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 (^man-a'os) , from which latter port there are smaller vessels 
 going on up the Amazon to Iquitos (e-ke'tos) in Peru. 
 
 XXXVII. THE WILDS OF MATTO GROSSO 
 
 TO-DAY we are again moving northward on the Para- 
 guay River. We have been travehng some time and 
 are now in the wilds of southern Brazil. Our boat is 
 winding in and out among the mountains, at the base of 
 which are tall palms and fern trees. Now we pass forests 
 so filled with xdnes and creepers that we can see only a few 
 feet back from the banks ; we could not possibly make our 
 way into the interior without an ax or knife. 
 
 What is that furry face with the twinkhng black eyes, 
 grinning at us out of the branches, chattering and gnashing 
 its teeth? That is a monkey. There are thousands of 
 them in these forests. That great red and blue bird with 
 a hooked bill as long as your hand is a toucan. There are 
 other strange birds in the trees. 
 
 We see many wild animals. There is a white deer in the 
 bushes. Those black things near the shore which look like 
 logs are alHgators. They have been disturbed by the waves 
 of our steamer and are climbing out on the banks. Some 
 are diving down into the water or swirmning to get out of 
 i the way of our boat. 
 
 • Look at the Indians on the other side of the river ! They 
 are half naked ; they shake their spears at us as we steam on 
 our way. This part of Brazil is full of wild men and there 
 are more Indians than whites. Farther on to the west are 
 vast regions which have no people but savages. 
 
 As we proceed the country grows wilder, save here and 
 there where we pass httle farms cut out of the forests.
 
 THE WILDS OF MATTO GROSSO 
 
 281 
 
 Now our boats stop at one for fresh meat. The cattle are 
 lifted on board by their horns. We get fish from the river 
 and the small streams flowing into it. There are so many 
 fish that one has only to explode a dynamite cartridge under 
 
 iMonkcy. 
 
 the water and dozens of fish, killed by the shock, will float 
 on their backs all around the boat. 
 
 At the boundary of Brazil we pass Fort Corimbra, and 
 soon after reach Corumba, where we find the only customs 
 house of this part of Brazil. While the steamer waits we 
 visit the city, which is on a high bluff overlooking the river. 
 It looks so much like Asuncion that we might think we
 
 282 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 were back among the Paraguayans were it not that the 
 language is new. These people speak Portuguese and for 
 weeks we shall hear Httle else. It sounds much like Spanish 
 but is harsher and not so melodious. 
 
 We are now traveling in Matto Grosso. The words 
 mean ''Great Forest" and the state is one of the wildest 
 parts of Brazil. It has vast woods which have never been 
 trodden by white men, and plains upon which thousands 
 of wild cattle are feeding. The part through which we 
 are traveling contains about the only white settlements, 
 and Cuyaba (koo-ya-baO , where we stop next, is its capital, 
 the metropolis of interior Brazil. 
 
 Until recently the Paraguay River was the only easy 
 route to Matto Grosso but one can now go there by railway 
 from eastern Brazil. We are now on the height of land be- 
 tween the Amazon and the Parana basins, and by a short 
 journey we could reach some of the tributaries of the Ama- 
 zon and sail down them to the ocean. 
 
 At present most traveling in Matto Grosso is done by 
 water. Horses and mules are but little used, and away from 
 the river we are offered bullocks for riding animals. We see 
 men riding bullocks, and women sitting astride them Hke 
 the men. Bullocks are used for plowing. They drag huge 
 carts over the road and serve as pack animals. It seems 
 strange when we first climb on their backs, but we find 
 them good saddle beasts, their gait being a sort of pace. 
 
 We are surprised at Cuyaba. For such an out-of-the- 
 way place it has many modern improvements. It has 
 colleges and schools, electric cars, waterworks, and a cathe- 
 dral. Sunday afternoons there is music in the plaza 
 and we enjoy ourselves under the great palm trees, whose 
 fanlike leaves move to and fro in the breeze. 
 
 The region about Cuyaba has fine farms, and many new
 
 Indian boy of Matto Grosso. He wears beads and feathers solely 
 for ornament. He stands on the skin and head of a jaguar. 
 
 283
 
 284
 
 THE NIAGARA OF SOUTH AMERICA 285 
 
 cattle ranges are being formed in different parts of Matto 
 Grosso. The country has excellent grass and it will some 
 day furnish much of the meat of Brazil. Some fine cattle 
 have been introduced, among them the sacred bulls wor- 
 shiped in India. 
 
 There is gold in the hills near Cuyaba and we are told 
 that the boys of the city go out after a big rain and search 
 for grains of gold in the streets which have been flooded by 
 the streams from the hills, and are often well paid for their 
 trouble. We look to see if we cannot perhaps find a stray 
 golden nugget, but alas ! there is nothing but sand. 
 
 «J»io« 
 
 XXXVIII. THE NIAGARA OF SOUTH 
 AMERICA — SOUTHERN BRAZIL 
 
 WE have been travehng for more than a month since 
 we left Matto Grosso. We sailed from Cuyaba 
 south on the Paraguay River to Asuncion, from 
 where we went by rail to Encarnacion and were ferried 
 across the Alto-Parana River to the town of Posades (po- 
 sa-das') in Argentina. The Alto-Parana is the name given 
 to the Parana north of where it unites with the Paraguay. 
 Posades is one of the ports and is the starting point for the 
 falls of the Iguassu River (e-gwa-soo'), which might be 
 called the "Niagara of South America."- At Posades we 
 took a steamer and made our way up the Alto-Parana to the 
 little town of Puerto Aguirre near the boundary between 
 Argentina and Brazil, where the Iguassu River flows into 
 the Parana after its mighty drop at the falls. 
 
 The Iguassu River rises in the highlands of eastern Brazil 
 and flows for about four hundred miles westward before 
 it enters the Alto-Parana. We take carriages and ride
 
 286 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 through the woods for a distance of ten or twelve miles 
 before we arrive at the cataracts. We can hear the noise 
 of the waters long before we reach them, and when we come 
 out we behold a sight which reminds us of our own great falls 
 at Niagara. 
 
 The Iguassu is now at the height of the flood season and a 
 mighty volume of water is pouring down over the rocks. 
 The falls are several times as wide as Niagara and they drop' 
 in a series of terraces or steps, one of which is much higher 
 than our falls at Goat Island. The water goes over the 
 rocks with a terrible noise and a mist rises high into the 
 air and drops almost like rain. 
 
 The cataracts are surrounded by a dense vegetation, and 
 a short ride from them will take one into tropical jungles. 
 In the dry season the falls have a much smaller volume, 
 but they are a valuable water power which eventually will 
 be harnessed for electricity as are those of Niagara. 
 
 Leaving the falls, we go back to Posades and thence by 
 rail through the rich Argentine province of Entre Rios 
 to Buenos Aires, where we take a steamer and make our 
 way from port to port along the Atlantic shores of 
 southern Brazil. 
 
 Our first stop is at Porto Alegre (por-t5 a-la'gra), the capi- 
 tal of Rio Grande do Sul (re'o gran'da doo sool) . This state, 
 like its sister states of Parana and Santa Catharina 
 (kat-a-re'na), is devoted to raising corn, wheat, and meat. 
 Its pastures are much like those of Argentina. It has 
 cattle and sheep, and, great meat-packing plants, and also 
 establishments such as we saw on the Uruguay River, 
 where hundreds of oxen are killed every day for jerked or 
 dried beef. 
 
 Porto Alegre has public schools, colleges, newspapers, 
 and stores. We are surprised to see that more than half
 
 A pine tree of soulhcni Bra/il. There are many such trees. 
 
 287
 
 288 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the people are Germans. There are German clerks in the 
 stores, and we meet German children everywhere on the 
 streets. Southern Brazil is largely settled by Germans. 
 They find the climate quite as temperate as that of the 
 fatherland and make their homes here, just as many Ger- 
 mans have done in the United States. 
 
 The town is connected by railway with Uruguay and 
 with other parts of southeastern Brazil. 
 
 1. Bound Brazil. Compare it with South America in size; with 
 Europe ; with the United States. How many states has Brazil ? 
 How many has our country ? What is the size of your state ? 
 How many such states would equal Brazil? 
 
 2. Describe Brazil as to surface and drainage. What parts of 
 Brazil have a temperate climate? Why? When is it summer in 
 southern Brazil? When is it winter? 
 
 3. What language is spoken in Brazil? Why? 
 
 4. What are the chief products of Brazil? What do we sell to 
 Brazil? What do we buy from her? 
 
 5. What are the chief routes from Brazil to Europe? To the 
 United States? (See maps and Tables 1 and II.) Suppose you 
 were ordered to leave home to-morrow for Rio de Janiero, how would 
 you go? How far would you have to travel and how long would 
 you be on the way ? 
 
 6. Tell the story of our travels through Matto Grosso. Can we 
 reach Matto Grosso by railway? Locate Cuyaba. 
 
 7. Where are the great falls of South America? Compare them 
 with Niagara and with the Victoria Falls. (See Carpenter's " North i 
 America" and Carpenter's "Africa.") 
 
 8. What are the chief products of southern Brazil? Name the 
 three southern states. How do they compare with Uruguay in 
 products and climate? What European people are found there 
 in great numbers? 
 
 g. Look up in your history the story of the discovery of Brazil ; 
 of Rio de Janeiro. 
 
 10. Name the chief rivers of Brazil. Compare them with rivers 
 of the United States.
 
 SANTOS AND SAO PAULO 289 
 
 XXXIX. SANTOS AND SAO PAULO 
 
 FROM Porto Alegre we steam northward along the coast 
 of southern Brazil to Santos, enter a wide bay, and 
 come to anchor at docks among vessels from the United 
 States and Europe taking on coffee. Brazil produces most 
 of the coffee of the world and Santos is the chief port from 
 which it is shipped. The vessels which have just come in 
 are unloading rice from India, codfish from Massachusetts 
 and Newfoundland, cotton goods from Liverpool and Bos- 
 ton, and lumber from the pine lands of Maine. They will 
 replace these cargoes with coffee, which will soon be on its 
 way across the Atlantic to supply the breakfast tables of 
 other lands. 
 
 Going on shore, we stroll about from one ship to another. 
 What a strong smell of coffee surrounds us ! The air is 
 full of it and everywhere we look we shall see it in one shape 
 or another. Motor trucks piled high with bags are coming 
 in from the trains to the warehouses, and scores of negroes 
 are unloading the carts and carrying the bags to the steamers. 
 Each bag weighs one hundred and thirty-two pounds, but 
 a man Hfts it on his head and shoulders, and trots off as 
 though he were carrying feathers. The warehouses are 
 full of coffee. The bags are piled like so much cord wood, 
 some of the rooms being packed from the floor to the roof. 
 Not a few of the establishments have endless belts which 
 carry the bags to a chute, down which they fly into the hold 
 of the steamers, much as we saw the wheat loaded at Rosario. 
 The work goes on rapidly, and during the harvesting season 
 more than fifty milHon pounds of coffee are often shipped 
 in one day. The larger part of this goes to the United 
 States, our people taking more than one half of the crop 
 raised in Brazil.
 
 290
 
 SANTOS AND SAO PAULO 291 
 
 Leaving the wharves, we stroll about the city. It is 
 wonderfully clean and well kept. Its buildings are of sev- 
 eral stories and painted in all the colors of the rainbow. 
 There are great palm trees in the parks and plazas, and the 
 homes in the suburbs have many tropical plants in their 
 gardens. We take the electric street cars and ride out to 
 the seaside resort of Guaruja (gwa-roo'zha) . It is one 
 of the finest of Brazil and is a famous summering j)lace 
 for the southern parts of the republic. 
 
 Returning to Santos, we take tickets for Sao Paulo, which 
 lies on the plateau over the mountains about forty-seven 
 miles away. The ride is deUghtful. The plateau is several 
 thousand feet above Santos and its cUmate is that of the 
 temperate zone. As we leave the station the train carries 
 us through fields of bananas, the tall plants bending with 
 their huge bunches of green fruit. We go by coco- 
 nut trees and then on through a jungle of tropical vegeta- 
 tion, which becomes more and more dense in the foothills 
 and on our way up the mountain. The trees are now 
 loaded with orchids and other air-plants bearing exquisite 
 flowers. They are bound together and wrapped around 
 with creepers and vines, the whole forming a wall of green 
 on each side of the track. The vegetation is so dense that 
 we can see only a few feet through the trees. 
 
 The railway from Santos to Sao Paulo is a wonder of ci\dl 
 engineering. It crosses deep canyons and cuts its way 
 through many tunnels. The rainfall is heavy and the road- 
 bed is protected by gutters hned with cement. At the foot 
 of the mountains the ordinary locomotives are uncoupled 
 and the train is divided into sections of two cars each. 
 Each section is now fastened by a steel rope or cable to a 
 stationary engine at the station above, which \vinds up the 
 cable, pulhng our cars up the hills. When the cars reach
 
 292 ^ SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 an altitude about a half mile higher than where we started 
 they are on the plateau. The sections are again coupled 
 and an ordinary steam railroad locomotive carries the train 
 across the country to Sao Paulo. 
 
 We take taxicabs at the station and are soon riding 
 through the second largest city of Brazil and the third in 
 size on the South American coJitinent. Sao Paulo is one 
 of the wealthiest, most progressive, and most beautiful of 
 all the cities south of the equator. It is the financial center 
 of the coffee industry and the railway center of southern 
 Brazil. It is also the capital of the state of Sao Paulo, one 
 of the richest parts of the republic. 
 
 Sao Paulo is an old city. It was founded more than fifty 
 years before Captain John Smith landed at Jamestown, 
 but most of its houses are 'new and its buildings modern. 
 It has wide, well-paved streets, electric cars moved by the 
 waterfalls of the river Tiete (te-a-ta'), thirty-five miles 
 away, and magnificent public buildings, theaters, and edu- 
 cational institutions. The city has one hundred and sixty 
 public schools, which are about as good as our own. It 
 has also a college, with teachers from the United States, 
 which has pupils from every part of the- continent. 
 
 We stay overnight at the hotel and upon rising go out 
 for a walk. It is early morning and we meet many children 
 on their way to school. Most of the girls are bareheaded 
 and many wear dark-colored clothing. The boys have 
 caps, coats, and knee-breeches, with their legs bare from 
 their knees to their shoes, where their short stockings end. ■ 
 Each child has a bag of books in his hand. They are laugh- 
 ing and playing on their way to school. 
 
 Step out of the way of the street cars ! They come in 
 trains, one car following another until a dozen have passed. 
 Some of the cars are loaded with freight. They are on the
 
 IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 293 
 
 way to the markets. They are second-class cars, used 
 chiefly by the servants, for a man with a large basket or 
 bundle is not allowed in the regular passenger cars. We 
 see also many automobiles and can get taxicabs at low rates 
 of fare. 
 
 During our stay in Sao Paulo we visit the department of 
 agriculture, which has to do with the state of Sao Paulo, 
 and there learn something about the enormous resources 
 of this part of Brazil. The country has large cattle ranches, 
 and upon the lowlands are raised tobacco, cotton, and rice. 
 The highlands have great areas devoted to Indian corn, 
 wheat, and beans, and, most important of all, to coffee. 
 
 o>«ic 
 
 XL. IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 
 
 BRAZIL produces more than two thirds of all the 
 coffee used by man. This very morning there are 
 millions of people in the United States who have had 
 a cup of Brazilian coffee with their breakfast. We are 
 great coffee drinkers and we ought to know about this part 
 of South America, for most of our coffee comes from 
 here and we are the chief customers Brazil has for this crop. 
 Coffee grows best in a semitropical climate. The j)lants 
 cannot endure frost, but at the same time they must not be 
 spoiled by the heat. The climate of many parts of Brazil 
 is just suited to them, and the best coft'ee regions are on the 
 highlands west and south of Rio de Janeiro, which are from 
 one to three thousand feet above the level of the sea. The 
 best of all the coffee lands are in the state of Sao Paulo, 
 where we now are. They lie several hundred miles back 
 from the coast in a country which is gently rolHng, and much
 
 294 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 i> 
 
 'of which looks not unlike parts of the United States. The 
 plantations cover but a small part of Sao Paulo. Alto- 
 gether, they are not equal to half the size of the state of 
 JVIassachusetts ; nevertheless, they support more than seven 
 liundred milUon coffee trees, and annually produce enough 
 to give every man, woman, and child on the earth one pound 
 of coffee and leave some to spare. 
 
 . But let us take the train and visit some of the big coffee 
 estates. Some of the largest of them are about Ribeirao 
 Preto (re-be' e-rob pra'tob), so far away from the city of 
 Sao Paulo that it takes us almost a day to reach them by 
 rail. We ride through rolling plains covered with grass, 
 pass clumps of palms, and then go on through forests of 
 hardwoods, the trunks of which are twisted about like 
 corkscrews. The trees are bound together in a mat by the 
 long vines and creepers which hang down from their 
 branches. Now we pass a banana plantation, and now 
 lemon and orange trees in the gardens by the side of the 
 road. 
 
 This part of Brazil has not had rain for some weeks. A 
 cool wind is blowing and the air from the plowed fields is 
 loaded with dust. The boys who peddle fruit at the stations 
 are covered with dust, and we find ourselves sneezing as it 
 gets into our noses. 
 
 What queer dust it is ! It is as red as a brick and it turns 
 everything red. We are soon hke so many Sioux Indians, 
 our collars are red streaks around our dusty red necks, and 
 our coats look as though they were sprinkled with cayenne 
 pepper. There is red on the fences and on the trees and 
 bushes. We see wide streaks of deep red cutting their way 
 through the reddish green grass. Those streaks are the 
 roads, for the ground under the sod is the color of brick. 
 
 This red land is the famous coffee soil of Brazil. Its
 
 IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 295 
 
 color comes from the iron mixed with the other matter com- 
 posing it, and the redder it is the better the soil is thought 
 to be for the raising of coffee. 
 
 The plantations begin about fifty miles from Sao Paulo, 
 and from there we ride all day among hills covered with coffee 
 trees. Most of the crop is grown upon large estates. The 
 one we visit has about five milUon trees and is the largest 
 coffee plantation of the world. It is so large that we could 
 not go around the outside of it in a day, if we began walk- 
 ing when the sun rose and kept on steadily until dark. 
 Railroad tracks have been built upon it from the factories 
 to all parts of the estate, and we are carried from field to 
 field on one of the little steam engines kept for hauling the 
 crops. 
 
 The ride is a beautiful one. About us as far as our eyes 
 can see is nothing but coffee bushes. The whole land is 
 covered with a mantle of green, striped here and there with 
 bands of bright red. The green mantle is the coffee and 
 the red stripes are the roads. The bushes are set out in 
 regular rows and extend on and on, until they lose tliem- 
 selves in the sky at the tops of the hills in the distance. 
 
 As we proceed we can see the plants in their different 
 stages of growth. In some fields they are not as high as 
 our knees and in others they are three times as high as 
 our heads. Here, men are plowing the fields, driving care- 
 fully through the green plants and turning up the red soil. 
 There, boys are clown on their knees pulling the weeds ; 
 farther on, a gang of laborers is laying out new rows 
 among the stumps of the freshly cleared lands, while others 
 are setting out coffee plants from the nurseries. 
 
 Five thousand people are kept busy on this plantation 
 raising the crop and preparing it for the market, and we 
 shall learn that a great deal of work is required to produce
 
 IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 297 
 
 the cup of coffee we have at breakfast. Most of it comes 
 from Brazil. In the first place let me tell you what ccjffee 
 beans are. You have seen in grocery stores the ground 
 powder and the green and brown coffee beans from which 
 it is made. These coffee beans are far different from the 
 coffee berries when picked from the trees. The beans 
 are the seeds of the berries. You can see some of the 
 berries on that bush over there. They are just like dark 
 red cherries, and each is about the size of a marble. 
 They hang in clusters close to the limbs among the green 
 leaves. In each berry are two seeds, which form the 
 coffee of commerce. There are smaller cherries at the 
 ends of the branches. Some of these have only one 
 round seed inside them. Those seeds are sold as mocha 
 coffee, although the real mocha is supposed to come from 
 Arabia. 
 
 How the seeds arc gotten out we shall see later. Out 
 here in the fields we must learn how the bushes are grown. 
 In the first place, the land must be cleared and made tit 
 for the crop. There is a great difference in the soils of 
 Brazil, and one must have just the right kind of soil to 
 raise coffee. The soil of this plantation is made of de- 
 composed lava mixed with decayed vegetable growth. It 
 contains potash, soda, and lime, and also oxide of iron 
 and phosphoric acid. 
 
 The beans to be sown are selected as carefully as 
 the boys of our corn clubs select their seed corn. They 
 are first planted in seed beds and soon sprout and little 
 green plants shoot up through the soil. After a few 
 months they have grown a foot high. They are now 
 ready for transplanting to the fields. The plants are set 
 quite deep in the ground. A little basin is dug for each 
 one, and at first sticks or leaves are spread over it to
 
 298 SOUTH AI^IERICA 
 
 protect it from the hot rays of the sun. It is carefully hoed 
 to keep down the weeds, and at the age of four years it be- 
 gins to bear fruit. A good tree should produce three or 
 four pounds of coffee a year, and in the rich cofifee lands 
 of southern Brazil, a tree will often bear crops for thirty 
 years or more. The coffee begins to blossom in December, 
 and in April or May the berries are ripe and the picking be- 
 gins. Hundreds of men, women, and children may then 
 be seen moving among the bushes, picking the ripe red 
 berries into baskets, and carrying them to the cars which 
 are to take them to the factories on the plantation. 
 
 On our way over the estate we see long rows of one-story 
 houses and near them large buildings which look like ma- 
 chine shops. The small houses are the homes of the laborers 
 on the estate. The big buildings are the places in which 
 the coffee seeds are taken out of the berries and prepared 
 for the markets. They contain the machinery which ex- 
 tracts the seeds, and near them are the drying floors, great 
 fields paved with cement, upon wliich the coffee beans are 
 dried in the sun after they are taken out of the berries. 
 
 But first let us see how the seeds are extracted. There 
 are some berries which have just come in from the fields. 
 Take up one and look at it. It is just like a cherry and 
 almost as soft. Just inside the skin is a pulp and within 
 this are two half-round coffee beans with their flat sides 
 touching each other. Take out the seeds. They are white, 
 not green like the coffee of commerce. Bite one of them 
 and you will find that it has two skins. The outer one is 
 white and like parchment, and the inner is as thin as the 
 thinnest of fine tissue paper. The outer skin is called the 
 parchment skin and the inner the silver skin, for it is much 
 like silver spun out like a cobweb. Both these skins must 
 be taken off before the coffee can be sent to our markets.
 
 IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 
 
 299 
 
 The first thing to be done is to get rid of the pulp. For 
 this purpose the berries are thrown into a hopper, and run 
 through machines that squash the pulp without hurting 
 the seeds. By these machines the berries are reduced to 
 a mush of pulp and seeds. The mush is now carried over 
 
 A street in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This is the metropolis of the coffee 
 
 country. 
 
 a long copper cylinder in which there are hundreds of holes, 
 each big enough for a coffee bean to pass through. As the 
 mush falls upon the cylinder the beans drop through the 
 holes and are carried into a little canal, from which they 
 float off in great vats. They are next scoured clean in a 
 tank in which a screw moves round and round among the 
 beans, leaving them at the end as white as snow. The next
 
 ?oo 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 process is drying. The beans are spread out upon plat- 
 forms and left in the sun for several weeks until they have 
 become as dry as a bone. They are carefully watched at 
 this time and covered at night and when it rains so that 
 they may not get wet. Men stir them with wooden rakes 
 so that they mav be evenly dried. 
 
 Public school near Sao Paulo. 
 
 This requires great care, but it is by no means all that 
 must be done before the coffee is ready for sale. Each Httle 
 bean must be undressed, as it were. Its parchment coat 
 must be taken off and its silver-skin underclothes removed 
 so that it may be sent out in its olive-green nakedness to 
 our markets. To do this the beans are thrown into ma- 
 chines that break the skins. They are next run through 
 fanning mills by which the skins are blown out in the form 
 of chaff, and the coffee seeds run out by themselves.
 
 A CITY OF SNAKES 301 
 
 The seeds are of different sizes, some large and some small, 
 some round and some almost flat. They must be graded 
 before they are ready for shipment. This is done by pass- 
 ing them over a series of sieves in which are holes of differ- 
 ent sizes, so that the grains of each size flow out through 
 different pipes into bags ready to be shipped to the 
 markets. 
 
 We spend some time in going about among the laborers 
 on the estate. Many of them are Itahans who have taken 
 the place of the negro slaves, who were the coffee workers 
 of Brazil a few years ago, and not a few come over the ocean 
 only for a season, going back when the coffee is picked. 
 
 The plantation is carefully managed. It has its over- 
 seers, bookkeepers, and accountants, who try to see that 
 nothing goes to waste. There is a large store where the 
 laborers can buy food, and it has its own bakery, foundry, 
 and sawmill. It is, indeed, a little world of its own, which 
 has grown up here in the heart of South America to pro- 
 duce the coffee we drink at our meals. 
 
 o»Cc 
 
 XLI. A CITY OF SNAKES — SOME WILD 
 ANIMALS OF BRAZIL 
 
 DURING our stay in Sao Paulo we motor out to Butan- 
 tan to see the city of snakes. Yes, a city of 
 snakes, a live flesh-and-blood city whose inhabitants are 
 venomous reptiles ! The city was built for the snakes. 
 Its houses are of concrete. They are of the shape of old- 
 fashioned beehives and of about the same size. The city 
 is surrounded by a Uttle wall of concrete and a deep moat 
 of water where the reptiles can swim about. The snakes
 
 ^02 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 are caught in the forests and brought here in order that they 
 may be studied ; also that their poison may be used to 
 inoculate horses and thereby produce a serum or medicine, 
 which forms an antidote to cure the bite of a snake upon 
 human beings. 
 
 The institution makes medicine not only for snake bites 
 but for diphtheria, lockjaw, plagues of many kinds, and 
 various other diseases. It has already sent out many 
 thousands of tubes of anti-snake medicine and has had tens 
 of thousands of snakes of many varieties. 
 
 Such medicines are much needed in Brazil. The country 
 has many poisonous snakes and there are hundreds of deaths 
 from them every year. The snakes upon which the experi- 
 ments are made are sent in by the farmers, each man receiv- 
 ing a tube of the serum for every snake he sends in. The 
 horses inoculated with the poison are at first given very 
 small doses, which are gradually increased. At the end of 
 the year a horse may carry enough venom in his blood to 
 kill two thousand horses that have not been treated at all. 
 The blood of such a horse can be used to make the anti- 
 poisonous medicine. 
 
 The director of the institution, who might be called the 
 mayor of the snake city, takes us about and shows us its 
 curious inhabitants. He tells us there are two famiHes 
 of snakes here which are very dangerous ; one is the rattle- 
 snake and the other the jararaca, the latter having a bite 
 so poisonous that it will kill a man or animal within a few 
 moments. He afterwards brings forth a mussurama, an- 
 other snake which is not at all poisonous, but which is the 
 chief enemy of the jararaca. The two snakes are of nearly 
 the same size, each being about five feet in length. He tells 
 us that the mussurama is a good snake, and allows us to 
 handle it.
 
 A CITY OF SNAKES 303 
 
 Later, the director puts the two snakes upon a large table 
 to show us how the good snake is able to fight and kill the 
 bad one. For a moment the two snakes appear to take no 
 notice of each other. Then the mussurama makes a leap 
 for the jararaca and grabs it by the neck just back of its 
 head. The jararaca is not able to reach its enemy, for 
 the mussurama keeps the grip on its neck. It holds the 
 jararaca as in a vice, twisting it slowly from one side to 
 the other until its neck is broken and it is practically 
 dead. 
 
 It does not seem dead, however, for its coils keep twisting 
 this way and that. The mussurama now loosens its grip 
 on the neck, takes the head of the dying snake in its mouth, 
 and begins to swallow it slowly. First the head disappears, 
 and then, inch by inch, the body, until at last the whole 
 of the jararaca has gone inside the mussurama, which darts 
 out its tongue as though asking for more. The author has 
 witnessed several such fights and in each case the bad snake 
 was swallowed by the good one without any injury to the 
 latter from its enemy's poisonous fangs. 
 
 As we continue our travels through Brazil we shall learn 
 more about the snakes and other reptiles of the different 
 parts of the country. The Amazon valley has the anaconda 
 or water boa and the boa constrictor. The anaconda 
 spends much of its time in the water and often lies coiled 
 in the branches of trees above the streams, waiting to prey 
 upon the wild animals which come down to drink. Stories 
 are told of its killing and eating cattle, horses, and jaguars ; 
 but it probably eats only small specimens of these animals, 
 its more common food consisting of rats, peccaries, birds, 
 fishes, and reptiles. The author has the skin of an anaconda 
 killed in the Amazon valley during his stay in South 
 America. It is about twenty feet long, and the snake from
 
 304 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 which it came was large enough to have swallowed a two- 
 or three-year-old baby. The skin of one of the same species 
 of snakes, which is twenty-nine feet long, is shown in the 
 British museum at London. The boa constrictor is smaller 
 than the anaconda, being seldom more than twelve feet 
 in length. It is a beautiful serpent, having a brown skin 
 changing to a brick red at the tail, with tan-colored spots 
 on the back. It seizes its prey with its teeth and then winds 
 its body around it, gradually squeezing it to death. 
 
 Brazil has many alligators, also turtles of enormous size. 
 The coast and river waters swarm with live things, and it 
 is said that the Amazon and its tributaries have almost two 
 thousand species of fish. The country is full of insects 
 and butterflies. There are seventeen hundred different 
 kinds of birds, ranging from the great king vulture to 
 the tiny humming bird, and including many kinds of 
 parrots and the long-billed toucan. Some of the birds 
 have beautiful feathers and they are caught and killed 
 for their plumage, which is used to decorate hats and 
 bonnets. 
 
 The wild beasts of Brazil are similar to those we have al- 
 ready seen in our travels. Many tapirs are found in the 
 wilds, while jaguars and pumas infest the forested valleys. 
 There are also foxes and raccoons, twelve species of opossums 
 and six of porcupines, as well as sloths, armadillos, and ant- 
 eaters. There are deer and wild hogs and more than fifty 
 species of monkeys, some of which fill the forest with the 
 noise of their howKng. We shall see many of these animals 
 as we travel up the great rivers and especially during our 
 stay in the Amazon valley.
 
 RIO DE JANEIRO 305 
 
 XLII. RIO DE JANEIRO 
 
 WE are again on board ship this morning. We have 
 gone back to Santos and taken the steamer for 
 Rio, and are now sailing into its wonderful harbor. 
 We might have traveled from Sao Paulo to Rio by rail, 
 but we wish to pass through this harbor, one of the most 
 beautiful of the whole world. It has been compared to 
 the Golden Horn at Constantinople ; the author has seen 
 both places and he thinks the Bay of Rio de Janeiro far the 
 finer. The harbor is so large that all the ships of the world 
 could be anchored in it at one time. 
 
 About the bay, just a little back from its shores, rise the 
 Organ Mountains, covered with the rich green of the tropics. 
 One of the hills looks like a hunchback, and the people have 
 called it the ''Corcovado" (kor-ko-va'doo) , a Portuguese 
 word meaning hunchback. Its top is more than a half- 
 mile above the city and a little railroad goes up it. Another 
 hill has a summit much like the round head of a man. the 
 trees upon it resembhng the hair on the head. Other forms 
 remind us of battlements and forts ; all together making a 
 great wall of green about the harbor. 
 
 We enter at the smaller end of the bay, going in through 
 a narrow channel between two forts. On one side of us is 
 the "Sugar Loaf," a mountain shaped like a cone. It rises 
 almost straight from the sea to a height greater than that 
 of the Eiffel Tower at Paris. On the opposite side are 
 islands so close that at a distance we fear we may graze 
 the shore as we steam in. 
 
 Now we have passed through the entrance. We are in 
 a land-locked sea, upon which scores of little islands are 
 seemingly floating, and in front of us under the hills, rest- 
 ing apparently upon the water, is the red-and-white city of
 
 3o6
 
 RIO DE JANEIRO 307 
 
 Rio de Janeiro. It seems to be looking at us through the 
 masts of the steamers anchored in front of the town. 
 
 Rio de Janeiro is one of the old cities of our hemisphere. 
 It has grown up here because of its excellent harbor where 
 goods can be landed easily and carried by railroad to in- 
 terior Brazil. 
 
 Let us stop a moment before going on shore while I tell 
 you its history. It is always important to know just what 
 names mean, for from the name of a place we can often 
 learn something of its origin. It is so with Rio de Janeiro. 
 The harbor was discovered just ten years after Columbus 
 landed in America. At that time navigators from the dif- 
 ferent parts of Europe were sailing across the Atlantic to 
 find out all about the New World. 
 
 Among them were two men named Joao Manoel 
 (zho-oun' ma-nwal') and Americus Vespucius. They sailed 
 along the coast of Brazil in 1 501 and when they came by the 
 "Sugar Loaf" into the bay where we now are they thought 
 they were entering a river and so called it "Rio," which 
 in Portuguese means river. The day was the first of Jan- 
 uary, which suppHed the latter part of the name — "River 
 of January," Rio de Janeiro. It was afterwards discovered 
 that it was not a river at all ; for although about twenty 
 small rivers flow down the mountains into the harbor, its 
 waters are an arm of the sea. 
 
 About fifty years later the first settlement was made. 
 The city was slow in growing. Bahia, farther north, was 
 nearer Europe and for a long time much more important, 
 and it was not until 1808 that the harbor of Rio was opened 
 to the commerce of the world. It was then found to be a 
 much better gate to southern and central Brazil and it be- 
 came the chief port of the country. Since that time Rio 
 has steadily grown and is now the capital of the republic.
 
 RIO DE JANEIRO 309 
 
 It is next to Buenos Aires in size and importance among 
 the cities of South America. 
 
 As we land at the wharves we are surrounded by steamers 
 from Europe and the United States. Gangs of laborers, 
 both negroes and whites, are busy loading and unloading 
 boats. Some of the ships taking on coffee are from Ham- 
 burg, Liverpool, and Lisbon, and others are loading for 
 New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans. There are many 
 steamers discharging all sorts of goods for the city and the 
 interior of Brazil. The vessel next ours is taking off a cargo 
 of jerked meat from the beef factories of Uruguay. The 
 meat is in bags and the men carry them out on their heads. 
 Near by is a vessel from Maine filled with pine lumber, and 
 next a tank steamer containing coal oil that a short time 
 ago was under the ground in our Oklahoma oil regions. 
 
 Now we have entered the chief coffee-exporting section. 
 There is coffee everywhere. The streets are walled with 
 warehouses in which we see coffee piled up by the thousands 
 of bags. We can hardly get along on the sidewalk on ac- 
 count of the men unloading the wagons and motor-trucks. 
 Scores of half-naked men are carrying the bags into the 
 warehouses, and dozens of negro women are down on their 
 knees, sweeping the stray coffee beans out of the cobble- 
 stones of the street that they may wash and sell them again. 
 The building at our right is a coffee factory, and that hum 
 comes from the machines which are cleaning the beans for 
 the market. Next door is the ofhce of an exporting house 
 which ships coffee to New York, and farther on are the 
 commission houses which buy coffee to sell to shippers. 
 The scenes remind us of Santos. The air smells of coffee, 
 and we realize that we are in the second of the two great 
 coffee ports of the world. 
 
 We have already learned how important the coffee crop
 
 3IO
 
 MORE ABOUT RIO 311 
 
 IS to Brazil. It is the chief money crop of the country and 
 almost half of it comes to Rio de Janeiro to be shipped. 
 Here also are the stores which supply the coffee planters 
 with goods, so that through coffee Rio de Janeiro has to a 
 large extent become the great city it is. 
 
 We spend some time in the coffee section and then take 
 taxicabs for a short ride through the city. Rio de Janeiro is 
 too big to be seen in a day. It covers about nine square 
 miles, extending from the harbor back to the hills. The streets 
 go up hill and down. They cross one another at all sorts 
 of angles, and we are unable to keep the points of the com- 
 pass as we are whirled this way and that until we come to 
 our hotel in the wide Avenida Rio Branco. 
 
 o-HHc 
 
 XLIII. MORE ABOUT RIO 
 
 WE shall take an interpreter with us this morning. 
 The Spanish we have learned in the South American 
 capitals will be of little use in Rio de Janeiro, for 
 the people here speak Portuguese. Rio is the largest Por- 
 tuguese-speaking city of the world. 
 
 We first motor through the city to get a general idea of 
 its various features. The main street is the Avenida Rio 
 Branco. It is more than a mile long and one hundred feet 
 wide. It is paved with asphalt, and beds of flowers and 
 rows of trees run through its center. Its wide sidewalks 
 are made of black and white flint laid in patterns, and back 
 of them are magnificent stores and office buildings lining 
 the street from one end to the other. 
 
 From this avenue we pass into other magnificent boule- 
 vards, upon which are beautiful buildings, and we are told
 
 312 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 that the greater part of Rio de Janeiro has been torn down 
 and rebuilt within the past few years. The city is now one 
 of the finest of the world, and has many miles of drives Hned 
 with narrow parks filled with tropical trees and flowers. 
 It was once a pest hole of yellow fever and other tropical 
 diseases, but it is now kept very clean. It is one of the 
 most healthful cities near the equator. 
 
 We spend some time in the business parts of the city. 
 There are well-dressed men everywhere. Rio has many 
 rich citizens and the streets are thronged with buyers and 
 sellers. The crowd is a strange one and contains people 
 of all the nations, including our own. We see the faces of 
 ItaHans, Portuguese, Spaniards, French, BraziUans, and 
 English. There are professional men dressed in black with 
 tall hats, and merchants in business suits of white linen. 
 There are Italian vegetable peddlers with baskets fastened 
 to poles on their shoulders, and half -naked porters with loads 
 on their heads. There are bareheaded women and smartly 
 dressed boys moving to and fro, forming all together such 
 a human mixture as you will see nowhere else upon earth. 
 
 Now we have left the business section and are passing 
 through the side streets. How many peddlers there are ! 
 Nearly all the hucksters of Rio carry their vegetables, 
 fruits, and fish from house to house on their shoulders or 
 heads instead of in carts or on donkeys. Here comes a 
 man selUng fish. He has two baskets fastened to the ends 
 of a pole resting on his shoulders. Behind him trots a man 
 loaded down with long strings of onions. He has stopped 
 at that house over there and is selling a string to the cook. 
 
 There is another queer character. I mean the man on 
 the opposite side of the street who is clapping two sticks 
 together. The door opens and a woman asks him to enter. 
 That man sells dry goods and notions from house to house.
 
 MORE ABOUT RIO 313 
 
 His sticks are a part of his yard measure and that clapping 
 is a sign of his trade. Many of the women do not Uke to 
 go to the stores, preferring to buy their goods of peddlers 
 like him. 
 
 And so we go on, now accosted by boys selling papers, 
 and now by peddlers with candies and fruit. The strangest 
 sights of all are the porters who carry huge loads on their 
 heads. There goes one with a box that must weigh two 
 hundred pounds. Behind him is a group of eight negroes 
 who are moving along with a huge crate above them. The 
 crate contains a piano and they are carrying it on their 
 heads from one part of the town to another. 
 
 How many of the people are barefooted ! Most of the 
 working classes wear no shoes or stockings, and we see bare- 
 footed carpenters and masons going about clad only in hat, 
 shirt, and trousers. The common clothing is cotton, for 
 Rio is warm. 
 
 Here are some children going to school. Some of them 
 carry portfolios and some have bags for their school books. 
 The girls are bareheaded and barefooted. Some of the 
 boys wear hats or caps. It is only the children of the well- 
 to-do who wear shoes. 
 
 We visit the market. It lies on the edge of the harbor 
 so that the fish and vegetables can come in by boat. The 
 buildings cover six or eight acres, forming a little market 
 city which is divided by streets into blocks, each of which 
 has its own merchandise. One block may be devoted to 
 vegetables and fruits, another to meat, and another to 
 butter and cheese. One is taken up by the sellers of live 
 animals. Here are cages of dogs, large and small, and pens 
 filled with rabbits and guinea pigs. There are also cages 
 of monkeys and birds. Some of the monkeys are as big 
 as a collie dog and others not so large as a kitten just born.
 
 314
 
 MORE ABOUT RIO 315 
 
 The smallest are called marmosets. They are a sort of 
 squirrel monkey, and have long tails and tufts of gray hair 
 over their ears. We can buy a pair for two dollars. There 
 are also screaming parrots and parrakeets and sweet-singing 
 birds. 
 
 During our stay in Rio we visit the Monroe Peace Palace 
 named after our President Monroe, which stands at one 
 end of the great Central Avenue, and then drive out to the 
 parks. The parks are everywhere in and about the city, 
 and we can tell their locations by the royal palms which 
 rise high above the rest of the vegetation, and with quiver- 
 ing branches wave us an invitation to enter. We are in 
 the tropics and the plants of our hothouses are to be found 
 here growing wild. 
 
 We take a street-car and ride for seven miles along the 
 bay, by the residences of rich Brazihans, to the botanical 
 garden. This has plants and trees from all parts of Brazil. 
 It has some of the most wonderful palms of the world. As 
 we enter the gate we come into an avenue of palms, each 
 as high as an eight-story house, although not more than a 
 yard in diameter at the ground. There are more than a 
 hundred of these magnificent trees walling the avenue. 
 They are symmetrical shafts of silver gray that shoot out 
 at the top into a canopy of fernlike green leaves. The 
 avenue is not wider than an alley, and we seem to be walking 
 between two files of giant soldiers, the plumes on their hats 
 quivering in the breeze high above us and almost shutting 
 out the blue of the sky. 
 
 Later we make tours over the little railroads wliich run 
 from Rio de Janeiro up into the mountains. They are just 
 like the ones we have on Mount Washington and Pikes 
 Peak, and one way up the mountains is through wonders of 
 tropical scenery. We go over ravines hundreds of feet
 
 3i6 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 deep and crawl about mountain walls more than a thousand 
 feet high. Now we seem to cling to the sides of the rock and 
 again high walls of rock hang over us and we tremble as 
 we think they might fall. 
 
 The air here is moist and at times we are riding through 
 
 clouds. As we go higher we have magnificent views of the 
 
 city and harbor, and on the top of the Corcovado, we stand 
 
 upon a rocky peak amid some of the grandest views of the 
 
 I world. 
 
 The great city of Rio and its beautiful harbor are just 
 below us but so far down that the houses look no bigger 
 than dog kennels, as they lie there skirting the water. The 
 sea beyond has become a bed of sapphire under the rays of the 
 sun, and upon it are rocky islands of curious shapes, while 
 all about rise mountain upon mountain and hill upon hill. 
 
 See those four ocean steamers sailing in single file by 
 the "Sugar Loaf" out to the sea. They look like canoes 
 at this distance, but they are really great steamers loaded 
 with coffee for New York, Liverpool, Havre, and Auckland, 
 New Zealand. The last vessel will pass through the Strait 
 of Magellan and go almost half around the world before it 
 reaches its haven. 
 
 1. What is the chief business of Santos? Trace a cargo of coffee 
 from there to New York ; to Hamburg ; to Naples. 
 
 2. Locate Sao Paulo. For what is it noted ? 
 
 3. What are the chief coffee countries of the world? Of South 
 America? (See Table XIV.) From what country do we get 
 most of our coffee? Describe a plantation. Tell how the plants 
 are grown and the seeds prepared for the market. (See Carpenter's 
 "How the World is Fed," chapter 41.) 
 
 4. Mention some wild animals of Brazil. Tell about your visit 
 to the city of snakes. Why was it established? 
 
 5. Locate the capital of Brazil. How did it get its name? 
 Describe its harbor. Mention one of its chief exports. If you
 
 An avenue of palms loo feet higli, which arc as straight iiud uni- 
 form as tclegrap:)h poles, with plumy tops like parasols. 
 
 317
 
 3i8
 
 BAHIA 319 
 
 had your choice of the goods in the market what would you 
 take? 
 
 6. Take a motor trip through the city and tell what you see. 
 
 7. What public building of Rio was named after one of our presi- 
 dents? 
 
 8. Trace each of the four steamers mentioned to the port for 
 which it is bound. How far is it from Rio de Janeiro to New York ? 
 To Liverpool ? 
 
 »0j«<00 
 
 XLIV. BAHIA 
 
 WE are in Bahia to-day. For three days we have 
 sailed north from Rio de Janeiro on our slow 
 coasting steamer and have come to anchor in the great 
 "Bay of All Saints," under the bluffs on which most 
 of the city is built. These bluffs rise for two hundred 
 feet almost straight from the water, having only a narrow 
 strip of land between them and the sea. Upon this strip 
 are the wholesale importing and exporting houses and on 
 the bluff are tall, bright-colored buildings shaded by feathery 
 palms that quiver in the breeze. The bluff is so abrupt 
 that electric elevators have been built to take the people 
 from one part of the town to the other, for it is difficult to 
 cUmb the steep roadway up the hills. 
 
 Bahia is almost as large as Seattle, and is the third city 
 of Brazil. It has a fine harbor with a beautiful driveway 
 along the shore and broad asphalt highways on the bluffs. 
 The town is of great commercial importance, ha\ing fine 
 stores and great factories. It is progressive and is noted 
 for its hospitals and schools. 
 
 The bay is one of the best harbors of all South America. 
 It has an entrance three miles in width, and the harbor has 
 been improved by breakwaters and quays costing many
 
 320 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 millions of dollars. It is equipped with electric cranes and 
 all modern landing facilities. The principal imports are 
 coal and coke, iron and steel, wheat and flour, dried cod- 
 fish, machinery, and cotton goods. The chief exports are 
 cacao, tobacco, coffee, rubber, and manganese. 
 
 There are now more than a score of ocean steamers, many 
 coasting ships, and hundreds of small boats at anchor in 
 the bay. The vessels have swung with the tide and their 
 prows are turned toward the city, so that we can easily 
 imagine them a great naval fleet coming in to capture Bahia. 
 Bahia is one of the oldest South American cities. More 
 than half a century before Boston was founded it had fif- 
 teen thousand people, and for two hundred years thereafter 
 it was the capital of Brazil. It continued to lead until coffee 
 began to be raised farther south, when Rio de Janeiro and 
 Sao Paulo surpassed it. 
 
 For many years Bahia was the chief center for the slave 
 trade of Brazil. It was the port nearest Africa and the 
 negroes were kidnaped and carried across the Atlantic 
 into this bay. So many were brought that by the year 1800 
 more than half the people of Brazil were slaves. That was 
 not a long time ago, and as we land upon the wharves we 
 notice that there are far more colored people than whites 
 in the lower part of the city. Negro women go about 
 peddling bananas, or sit upon the streets with piles of fruit 
 about them ; negro men are loading and unloading the 
 steamer, carrying huge bags and bundles on their heads ; 
 and in the narrow side streets little black babies, almost as 
 naked as when they were born, are crawhng over the cobble- 
 stones. There is a boy of eight playing horse. He has a 
 little stick between his legs and is going on the gallop, al- 
 though he has not a stitch of clothing on him. 
 
 Here come three Africans now. Listen to that laugh.
 
 BAHIA 
 
 321 
 
 It reminds us of the jolly good nature of our dark-skinned 
 Americans. Let us stop here on the corner and hear the 
 fun as they pass. That man on the left has said something 
 funny and his fel- 
 lows are shouting 
 with laughter. 
 Why don't we 
 laugh? He is speak- 
 ing quite loudly, 
 but though we hear 
 what he says we 
 cannot see the joke. 
 He is speaking in 
 Portuguese, the 
 language used by 
 both colored and 
 whites in Brazil. 
 
 As we continue 
 our travels through 
 Brazil, we see that 
 the races have in- 
 termarried to such 
 an extent that it is 
 hard to tell who are 
 whites and who are 
 mulattoes. The 
 negroes have equal 
 rights with the 
 whites. Many of 
 
 them are intelHgent and not a few hold important positions. 
 There is no such prejudice against the colored man as is 
 found in our southern states. We meet negro men and 
 women at almost every hotel table, and in the dining 
 
 Negro women go about peddling bananas.
 
 322 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 room of the steamers there are as many colored people at 
 the table as whites. 
 
 We stop during our journey around the harbor to buy 
 some oranges of an old negro woman. They are navel 
 oranges, like sorhe of the finest and sweetest we have from 
 California. As we eat them we are reminded that our navel 
 oranges came from Bahia in the shape of a little tree that 
 was taken from here to the city of Washington, and planted 
 in the botanical garden there more than a half century ago. 
 From this tree grafts were sent out to California and started 
 the first navel orange orchards, the fruit of which now sells 
 for many millions of dollars. 
 
 We spend some time in Bahia visiting its cotton and 
 tobacco factories. The tobacco is excellent and a great 
 deal is exported. In the lower part of the city we see cart- 
 loads of hides and bales of goatskins brought from the 
 country. They are to be shipped to America to be made 
 into shoes. 
 
 In going through the factories we learn that Brazil is 
 rapidly developing industries of many kinds. The repubhc 
 is agriculturally and minerally rich and it has almost all 
 the raw materials needed for manufacturing. The chief 
 trouble is the lack of fuel to make steam. So far, no large 
 deposits of coal have been found, but the country has a vast 
 amount of water power which will some day be used to gen- 
 erate electricity. The great rivers of the eastern highlands 
 pour down over the rocks on their way to the ocean, and 
 many of them are now fighting cities and towns, running 
 street-cars, and supplying the power plants of various 
 industries. 
 
 Rio de Janeiro is lighted by a little river in the Organ 
 Mountains. Sao Paulo gets its electric power from the 
 falls of the Tiete River, and not very far from Bahia are
 
 We are reminded that our navel oranges come from Bahia. 
 3^3
 
 324 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the falls of the Paulo Affonso (af-fon'soo), which could 
 generate two million horse power. The Paulo Affonso falls 
 are on the Sao Francisco River, about one hundred and 
 fifty miles from its mouth. They are two hundred and 
 fifty miles from Bahia, where we now are. The river has 
 five branches, which unite above the falls and then take 
 a mighty leap over the black rocks of the canon. The 
 country surrounding the falls is such that it may one day 
 be a great cotton plantation with spinning and weaving 
 mills run by this power. 
 
 We have already seen the falls on the Iguassu River in 
 southwestern Brazil. 
 
 The Amazon and its tributaries have fourteen large 
 waterfalls having enormous electrical possibilities, and 
 the same is true of many other rivers of Brazil, the names of 
 which hardly are known outside the republic. Altogether, 
 there are said to be fifty-one great waterfalls, which are 
 capable, of producing fifty milHon horse power, an amount 
 equaling the consumption of hundreds of milUons of tons 
 of coal every year. 
 
 These waterfalls will probably be used to run the rail- 
 ways in the future. Brazil is next to Argentina in the 
 length of its railways ; although as yet it has vast terri- 
 tories which have no such transportation. The country 
 is as large as the United States proper, but we have sixteen 
 miles of railway where Brazil has but one. New roads are 
 rapidly building, and vast tracts of new land are being 
 thrown open to settlement. 
 
 The area of unexplored land is reduced each year by 
 rubber hunters, scientists who are studying the plants of 
 the Amazon valley, and new settlers. Brazil has en- 
 couraged immigration and there are thousands of Spaniards, 
 Italians, Portuguese, and Germans in the country.
 
 THE MINES OF BRAZIL 325 
 
 XLV. THE MINES OF BRAZIL — 
 DIAMONDS, IRON, AND GOLD 
 
 A LARGE country like Brazil is sure to have many 
 minerals. We appreciated how true this is when 
 we visited the government department of Rio de Janeiro 
 and talked with the geologists. They told us that more 
 than six hundred milhon dollars' worth of gold had been 
 taken out of Brazil prior to 1820 and that one half of this 
 came from the one state of Minas Geraes. We saw some 
 gold when we were travehng through Matto Grosso. and 
 we learn that gold is still washed from the tributaries 
 of the Amazon. Brazil has some of the chief iron ore 
 beds of the world. Iron is found in every state and 
 there are billions of tons in deposits which will some 
 day be developed. The best iron mines so far discov- 
 ered are in Minas Geraes, the same state from which 
 most of the gold has come. They he on the high plateau, 
 several hundred miles from the seacoast and at such 
 a place that the ore can be sent down to the steamers 
 by gravity. 
 
 In the state of Minas Geraes are the largest deposits of 
 manganese of the world. Manganese is a metal used to 
 mix with copper, iron, and other metals to make them 
 stronger and more elastic. We imported a great deal of 
 manganese from Brazil during the World War for the mak- 
 ing of steel for our arms and munitions. ' We use it also 
 in glass making and smelting. 
 
 Brazil has many precious stones, among the most impor- 
 tant of which is the diamond. Until the South African 
 diamond mines were discovered, this country was furnishing 
 many of the world's finest diamonds. They came fromi 
 Diamantina (dya-man-te'na) , in Minas Geraes, where dia-
 
 326 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 mond mining is still carried on. One of the stones was the 
 "Star of the South," another the "Green Diamond of 
 Dresden," and a third the "Star of Minas." All were fa- 
 mous stones, and each was worth many thousands of dol- 
 lars. The diamond regions are far back from the seacoast 
 and more than a mile above sea level. The stones are found 
 in the gravel of the streams and sometimes in a blue clay 
 •deposit several feet thick. The South African diamonds 
 also are found in blue clay. 
 
 As far back as 1732 thirty thousand men were searching 
 for diamonds in Brazil and many milHon dollars' worth of 
 fine stones were found and sent to the markets. At first 
 the work was done largely by negro slaves under guard, 
 and any slave who found a gem of eighteen carats got his 
 freedom. Later, diamonds were found in Matto Grosso 
 and at the headwaters of the Paraguassu (pa'ra-gwa-soo') 
 River some distance inland from the city of Bahia. 
 
 The diamonds of the latter region He in the gravel on a 
 bed of clay at the bottom of the river. The stream is deep, 
 and the mining is usually done where there is not more than 
 twenty feet of water and where, owing to a bend in the river, 
 the current is not strong. 
 
 A long pole is first driven down into the bed of the stream. 
 Two miners in a dugout canoe then row out to the pole. 
 One man remains in the boat and the other, who is naked, 
 dives to the bottom. The diver carries a big bag, the mouth 
 of which is held open by an iron hoop. He rests the hoop 
 on the river bed and scrapes the gravel into the bag. When 
 it is filled he climbs with it up the pole to the boat. He 
 goes down again and again for more gravel and when the 
 boat is loaded, it is rowed to the shore and its contents carried 
 to a pile some distance from the water. The work is con- 
 tinued as long as the river is low, the washing of the gravel
 
 ALONG THE COAST OF BRAZIL 327 
 
 being done in the wet season when the floods prevent mining. 
 At that time the gravel is picked over for carbons and dia- 
 monds and often many bushels of gravel have to be washed 
 before a single stone of value is found. 
 
 The work requires great care and patience, but one little 
 stone may give the miners a large reward for a whole season's 
 work. When the mines were at their best only about one 
 diamond a week was discovered, but the few which were 
 found brought in a million dollars a year for many years. 
 
 Almost all the diamonds now being discovered in Brazil 
 are small. They are shipped to Europe to be cut for jewelry 
 or made into tools to cut glass or polish other hard stones. 
 
 Carbons are black diamonds which are used for fine boring 
 machines and for poHshing hard substances. They are 
 about as hard as diamonds but more porous. They are 
 found in all sizes, from little ones as small as a grain of sand 
 to some weighing hundreds of carats. A carat weighs so 
 little that it takes one hundred and fifty of them to make 
 one ounce troy. It is the measure of weight for precious 
 stones and is therefore used for carbons. Not long ago 
 carbons were selling for twenty dollars a carat, or so much 
 that one large carbon brought twenty thousand dollars. 
 
 o>»{c 
 
 XLVI. ALONG THE COAST OF BRAZIL 
 
 OUR travels for the next few weeks are to be along the 
 coast of Brazil. We have taken a Httle Brazilian 
 steamer at Bahia for Para, the great port at the mouth 
 of the Amazon. The distance looks short on the map, but 
 it is more than fifteen hundred miles, and as we shall move 
 slowly along from port to port, stopping a day at each
 
 ALONG THE COAST OF BR.'XZIL 329 
 
 principal city to load and unload, it will take several 
 weeks. 
 
 Our first stop is at Recife (ra-se'fa) or, as it is sometimes 
 called, Pernambuco. It is the chief port and capital of 
 the state of Pernambuco. The word "Recife" means reef, 
 and this is the city of the reef. We see why as we enter the 
 harbor, which is formed by a reef or tongue of rock 
 that extends from the shore two or three miles out into the 
 sea, half inclosing a space about a mile wide and so deep 
 that ocean steamers can come in and He safely at anchor. 
 The rock extends out like a wall and we can hardly imagine 
 that it was not all built by man. It does not rise high above 
 the level of the ocean, but its height is sufficient, with the 
 addition of the low wall erected upon it, to prevent the waves 
 from coming into the bay. As we enter there is a heavy 
 wind from the east, and the waves seem to gnash their teeth 
 as they throw themselves against this stone wall, sending 
 up masses of snow-white foam in their anger. Our ship 
 has been rolling about on the ocean. Inside the harbor we 
 lie perfectly quiet and there is hardly a ripple, notwith- 
 standing the billows outside. 
 
 Recife has spent many million dollars in building jetties 
 and breakwaters, and it is now a fine port. It has electric 
 cranes to unload merchandise, and almost a thousand 
 steamers call here every year. It is the first port at which 
 the European steamers stop after leaving Lisbon. 
 
 The state of Pernambuco is a little larger than New York. 
 It produces more cotton and sugar than any other part of 
 Brazil, and it has many cotton and sugar mills. The cotton 
 plantations are increasing in number and size, and they 
 may some day compete with those of our cotton belt. 
 There are railways connecting the interior with the coast 
 ports.
 
 33© SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 We land and take street cars, being carried over one 
 bridge after another. We pass motor trucks loaded with 
 cotton, carts pulled by oxen in shafts, and on into the city. 
 Recife has many canals, and its bridges remind us of Venice. 
 Some of the buildings are faced with porcelain tiles imported 
 from Europe. Its people pride themselves on their enter- 
 prise and business ability. 
 
 At Parahyba, still farther north, we have a chance 
 during the delay of the steamer to take a railroad ride 
 into the interior. The train takes us through groves 
 of coconut palms and by plantations of cotton and sugar. 
 The vegetation is dense in many places and we see strange 
 birds and animals in the trees. The parrots screech at us, 
 and the marmosets, so small that we could easily carry one 
 in a pocket, scamper about through the branches. 
 
 Farther back from the coast are the highlands of Brazil, 
 and a little farther north in the state of Ceara (sa-a-ra'), at 
 the port of which we next stop, the country is almost all 
 high. It is a rolling land as big as Ohio, with mountain 
 chains running through it. 
 
 This part of the Brazilian highlands is often subject to 
 droughts. When there is plenty of rain the crops are rich 
 and everything is green and fresh, but during a long dry 
 spell everything is as bare as the desert of Sahara. Such 
 times do not often occur, but when they do many of the 
 people starve, and in the drought of 1877 and 1878 more 
 than half the entire population died of famine. 
 
 The port of Ceara has one of the worst landing places on 
 the east coast of South America. There is no pier, and 
 we are carried from our ship to the shore in the arms 
 of half -naked men, who charge us each eight cents a 
 trip. The waves are rolHng in on the beach as we go 
 along suspended only a few inches above the water, and
 
 ALONG THE "COAST OF BRAZIL 331 
 
 we tremble at what might happen if our bearers should slip 
 on a stone. 
 
 Ceara is a beautiful city of seventy thousand or more. 
 It has bright-colored houses, clean streets, and well-dressed 
 people. We visit the market to learn what is raised in the 
 country. We then take donkeys and ride through the city, 
 with time for a jaunt in the suburbs. 
 
 The street scenes are interesting and every turn brings a 
 new picture. We pass men and women carrying all kinds 
 of things on their heads. There is a barefooted negress 
 walking briskly along with a pumpkin so delicately balanced 
 on her head that it does not roll off, and behind comes a 
 boy carrying a two-bushel bag of flour the same way. He 
 has stopped there at that fence and without lowering his 
 head or touching his burden has lifted his leg to the first 
 board. He seems to be searching for something that is 
 biting him. 
 
 Here comes a water peddler driving a donkey, to the sides 
 of which are slung four five-gallon casks. Behind him is 
 a man with two horses, each of which carries a load of wood. 
 The wood is fastened to the sides of the horses by wooden 
 hooks made of forked limbs tied on like a pack saddle. 
 
 Now we have left the city and are out in the country. 
 We ride by banana fields, orange trees, and palm groves ; 
 also fields of cotton and sugar cane. There is one palm 
 growing wild in Ceara that produces more things, perhaps, 
 than any other tree in the world. This is the carnauba 
 (kar-nou'ba) palm. Its trunk is used for rafters and build- 
 ing material, and from its roots a medicine is made. When 
 young, it is eaten as a vegetable, and from it wine and 
 vinegar are made, as well as a starch like sago. The fruit 
 is a good food for cattle, the pulp having an agreeable taste, 
 and the nut is used as a substitute for coffee. The pith of
 
 S$2 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the carnauba is as light as cork, and musical instruments 
 are made of the stem. When tapped, the tree gives forth 
 a white hquid much Hke coconut milk. Hats, brooms, 
 and baskets are made of the strawHke bark on its trunk, 
 and the bark is used also for thatching houses. From the 
 leaves a wax is obtained that is manufactured into candles 
 which are extensively used in the states of northern Brazil. 
 Ceara produces as much as two million pounds of this wax 
 in a year. 
 
 Ceara is noted also for its parrots, which are famous as 
 talkers. They are of a beautiful green and blue color with 
 a bit of red on the wings and neck, and they are smaller 
 than most other parrots. We see some in the markets. 
 The price is only two dollars per bird, but alas ! the parrots 
 speak Portuguese, and before we could enjoy them they 
 would have to be taught a new language. We take several 
 with us on the steamer, however, and amuse ourselves dur- 
 ing the rest of the journey by giving them lessons in our 
 own American tongue. We are now only a Httle south of 
 the equator and the weather is hot, although the sea breeze 
 makes us quite comfortable. We sail on for a day or so, 
 moving northwestward, and come to anchor at last at the 
 city of Para in one of the mouths of the Amazon. 
 
 1. Describe Bahia. Compare it in size with Rio de Janeiro; 
 with Para ; with Pernambuco. Why was Bahia the chief port for the 
 slave trade ? Mention its principal industries. What fruit did it 
 give CaHfornia? 
 
 2. Locate the Sao Francisco River and the Paulo Affonso falls. 
 Why are the water powers of Brazil very important ? 
 
 3. What minerals are found in Brazil? Locate Minas Geraes. 
 What is manganese? What country of Europe has great supplies 
 of this ore? (See Carpenter's " Europe.") 
 
 4. Where are the richest diamond fields of Brazil? Of the world? 
 How are the diamonds mined? Compare diamond mining in Brazil
 
 THE KING OF RIVERS 333 
 
 with that in Africa. Find out all you can about these precious 
 stones. (See Carpenter's "Africa," and Carpenter's "How the 
 World is Clothed," chapters 37 and 38.) 
 
 5. Describe the harbor of Pernambuco. Why is the town called 
 Recife ? 
 
 6. What crop of this region may some day compete with an im- 
 portant product of our southern states? 
 
 7. From what Brazilian tree are candles made? Make a list of 
 other useful things that come from this tree. 
 
 XLVII. THE KING OF RIVERS 
 
 BEFORE we begin our travels up the Amazon let us 
 consider the wonderful region into which we are 
 going. The Amazon is the king of rivers and flows through 
 the greatest valley of the world. The basin it drains is two 
 thirds as large as the United States. The headwaters of 
 the river are gathered from a curve of the Andes two thou- 
 sand miles long. The basin is as wide as the distance from 
 New York to Salt Lake City. The divide on the north 
 is the highland of Guiana. On the south it is separated 
 from the basin of the Parana by a gentle rise in the plain. 
 At its back are the great Andes, and from the foot of these 
 mountains the basin slopes downward to the sea so gradually 
 that, in this long distance of about two thousand miles, the 
 fall is only two hundred feet. This is so Kttle that if the 
 Amazon valley were free from trees and we were riding over 
 it in a wagon it would appear to be a level plain. The fall 
 is only a little more than an inch to the mile, and for several 
 hundred miles from its mouth much less than that. We 
 might take ship on the Amazon and travel up it farther 
 than from the Atlantic to the head of Lake Superior, and
 
 334
 
 THE KING OF RIVERS 335 
 
 we would then be not over forty feet higher than when we 
 started. 
 
 The fall is so gentle that you would hardly think the water 
 would flow, but it does in such a mighty volume that it 
 carries with it vast quantities of the earth washings of the 
 mountains. Millions of huge motor trucks working day 
 and night could not haul down the mud that it is daily 
 carrying into the Atlantic. 
 
 i There is so much of this mud that it makes the ocean 
 yellow for one hundred mile§ out from the shore, and for 
 a day before we arrive at Para we are sailing through water 
 almost as thick as pea soup. Indeed, bits of tree trunks 
 and vegetation from the Andes are often seen floating four 
 hundred miles from the coast ; they have traveled from 
 their homes in the mountains as far as the distance across 
 our continent. Is not this a wonderful river? What can 
 be the cause of such a great volume of water that keeps on 
 flowing day and night, year in and year out, from one hfe- 
 time to another ? 
 
 Now let us see whence this perpetual flow of fresh water 
 comes. It is brought here by the constant trade winds 
 that start from the shores of Africa, and as they cross the 
 Atlantic are filled with moisture. When they reach Brazil 
 they are loaded with water, and as they rise and cool in 
 their journey to the mountains, up the wide trough of the 
 Amazon valley, they drop this as rain. They drop more 
 and more as they go on to the westward, and the water 
 falling over this vast surface is carried by countless streams 
 into the channel of the Amazon River. So much water 
 falls that the Amazon valley is one of the rainiest regions 
 of the world. There is so much rain, indeed, that if the 
 mouth of the river could be held back by a great dam, like 
 that at Gatun, a vast sea would soon be formed. It
 
 336 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 is estimated that so much rain falls in a single year that, 
 if it remained where it fell, the valley would be covered with 
 water to a depth of eighty inches, which is greater than the 
 height of the tallest man. 
 
 As we stand on the deck of the steamer we observe that 
 the air is full of moisture. Para has a heavy rain almost 
 every afternoon and its people make their appointments to , 
 call after the daily shower. We shall find the air moist 
 all the way to the Andes, and we must wipe off our knives, 
 cameras, and guns every day to keep them from rusting. 
 The air is so wet that a gun loaded overnight will not go 
 off in the morning. 
 
 Fortunately for us, the great river is now at its lowest 
 stage. For almost two thousand miles from the sea it is 
 from two to five miles in width. During the rainy seasons 
 of November and February it slowly rises to from thirty 
 to fifty feet above its present level. It then floods much of 
 the valley and thousands of square miles are covered with 
 water. The river flows in and out among the tree tops, and 
 for hundreds of miles back from the ocean, the valley is a 
 great inland sea from fifteen to one hundred miles wide. 
 In the dry times there may be seen vast stretches of meadows, 
 where the water lies so long upon the land that trees will 
 not grow. The pasture fields of the Amazon are the result. 
 Most of the valley, however, is a forest, in which there are 
 no paths and through which we can go only in boats. There 
 are so many streams that most parts of the forest can be 
 reached by them. The Amazon in its long course receives 
 more than one hundred rivers, into which flow myriads of 
 smaller streams. Of its rivers, eight have a navigable 
 length of more than one thousand miles each. On the Rio 
 Negro one can go to the north until he is very near the 
 headwaters of the Orinoco — so near that he could carry
 
 PARA, the metropolis of the AMAZON 337 
 
 his boat to them and float down to the Atlantic Ocean. 
 On the south he could go up the Tapajos (ta-pa-zhosh') 
 so far that by a short trip he could drag his canoe into 
 the tributaries of the Paraguay and Parana, and paddle 
 down to Buenos Aires or Montevideo. 
 
 The Amazon system is the greatest river system of the 
 globe, and the river itself will surprise us more and more 
 as we travel upon it. We are now at the port of 
 Para. We shall go in a big ocean steamer to Manaos, 
 another port a thousand miles up the river, and we may 
 there take smaller steamers for the port of Iquitos, Peru, 
 which is more than twenty-three hundred miles from the 
 ocean. 
 
 XLVIII. PARA, THE METROPOLIS OF 
 THE AMAZON 
 
 BEFORE we start on our tour up the Amazon we must 
 explore the city of Para. It hes in front of us 
 back of the masts of those saiUng vessels and steamers 
 lining the shore. There is a row of tall palms between it 
 and the river. They rise high above that hne of bright- 
 colored houses and their quivering branches are swaying 
 in the wind from the sea. The land is so low that we can 
 see but Httle of Para from the steamer. The city runs far 
 back from the water. It is about as large as Denver, and 
 is the seaport of the Amazon valley. 
 
 Some of the ships among which we are moving have come 
 from far up the river. There is a side-wheel steamer loaded 
 with manioc and cacao from the Madeira (ma-de'e-ra). It 
 has come more than a thousand miles to Para. That ship 
 beside it with the canvas over its deck under which people are
 
 PARA, THE METROPOLIS OF THE AMAZON 339 
 
 lying in hammocks is about to start up the Tocantins (to- 
 kan-tenz') River, and the vessel beyond is filled with rubber 
 loaded almost in the foothills of the Andes and floated down 
 from the wilds of Bolivia. The steamer over there with 
 the English flag at its mast is leaving for Liverpool. It has 
 Brazil wood, rubber, and nuts as a part of its cargo. The 
 vessel beside it with the dense smoke pouring from its funnel 
 is a Portuguese ship carrying cacao. It is starting for Lis- 
 bon. Farther over is a cargo steamer just in from New 
 York; it has brought cotton goods, kerosene, hardware, 
 pine lumber, and codfish to be sold in Para, and will carry 
 back boxes of rubber to be used in our factories. 
 
 What a busy stream is this through which we steam as 
 we go to the docks. We pass hundreds of sailboats filled 
 with vegetables and fruit, and countless dugouts being 
 paddled swiftly along toward the shore. Now we are at 
 the landing and the cargadores begin to load and unload 
 our steamer. Other steamers are being unloaded by elec- 
 tric cranes, the goods being transferred directly from the 
 ships to the railway cars. There are huge warehouses in 
 the rear, and we begin to realize the vast trade of the port. 
 All goods that go in and out of the Amazon valley must go 
 through Para. Several thousand ships call here every 
 year and the trade amounts to tens of milHons of dollars. 
 We take automobiles and ride through Para, going slowly 
 through the residence and business sections and frequently 
 stopping to ask about things of interest. In the oldest 
 streets the buildings are close to the sidewalks. Their walls 
 are of all colors and some of the houses are faced with porce- 
 lain tiles of blue, yellow, or green. The stores open on the 
 street, and in front of some of them the goods are piled on 
 the pavements. 
 
 There are numerous hammocks of all grades and prices,
 
 340 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 some mere strips of canvas and others lace work of fine 
 thread. Hammocks are the beds of the Amazon valley. 
 They are cooler than mattresses. We may each buy one 
 before we go up the river. Every Amazon boat has places 
 in which hammocks can be swung, and when we go into the 
 woods we can tie them to the branches of trees. Moreover, 
 the hammocks are safer than ordinary beds, for bugs, ants, 
 and snakes cannot hide in them. 
 
 Leaving the business section, we stop at the cathedral, 
 which was erected in 1710, and go to the government palace, 
 which was built about the time our Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence was signed. We visit the city museum, situated 
 in a grove of rubber trees, and are shown an experimental 
 garden near by in which is every species of rubber plant 
 known. 
 
 On our way back to the wharf we stop at a park by the 
 river where fruit, vegetables, and merchandise are brought 
 in small boats from the neighboring islands. Here the 
 scene is a bright one. Scores of gayly dressed negro 
 women are peddling all sorts of things and both women 
 and men are trotting about with burdens on their heads. 
 The buyers are of all classes. Many of them are purchasing 
 fish, fruit, and vegetables for their household supplies. A 
 crowd has gathered around a boat filled with baskets, which 
 the people are buying and carrying off on their heads. 
 The baskets are full of a coarse meal that looks Uke ground 
 popcorn. We take a pinch out of one and find that it tastes 
 much Kke sawdust. It is manioc flour, an article which 
 forms the food of a great part of Brazil. Manioc is cheap 
 and nutritious, and quantities of it are shipped to the United 
 States. It is a root from which comes the tapioca we use in 
 puddings and soups. The fruits remind us of Ecuador and 
 show us that we are again in one of the lands of the equator.
 
 PARA, THE METROPOLIS OF THE AMAZON 341 
 
 We buy delicious pineapples for a few cents apiece, and the 
 bananas and oranges almost melt in our mouths. We buy 
 a green coconut and slice off the toj), drinking the cool 
 milk from the shell. 
 There are quantities 
 of black tobacco in 
 long twists, some as 
 big around as a 
 baseball bat, and 
 peddlers bring us 
 parrots and mon- 
 keys and ask us to 
 buy. 
 
 About the market 
 are many vultures. 
 They sit on the 
 roofs of the court 
 ready to swoop down 
 and eat the scraps 
 of meat thrown 
 away by the butchers. Vultures are the scavengers of the 
 Amazon. They are never killed by the people and hence 
 are quite tame. Indeed, if they were not so disgusting we 
 might easily catch them and pet them. 
 
 But what is that on the head of the man going out of the 
 door of the market house ? It is as big around as a washtub 
 and about a foot thick. See, it is alive! It is poking its 
 head in and out of its shell as he carries it ofif. That is one 
 of the big turtles of the Amazon. They are found near 
 Para and in most parts of the Amazon basin. They have 
 their breeding places where they go in countless numbers 
 at certain times of the year. They dig holes in the sand 
 and lay their eggs there. The eggs are about as big as hens' 
 
 \ ulturc.
 
 342
 
 IN THE LAND OF RUBBER 343 
 
 eggs ; they have a leathery skin instead of a shell. Each 
 turtle lays about one hundred and twenty, and millions 
 upon millions of eggs are deposited in these laying places. 
 
 oj*:o 
 
 XLIX. IN THE LAND OF RUBBER 
 
 OUR travels during the next few days will be devoted 
 to the rubber industry of the Amazon valley. Para 
 is one of the chief rubber ports of the world and in its 
 warehouses we can see how rubber is packed for the mar- 
 kets. There are many rubber trees on the islands near 
 the mouth of the Amazon. These islands can be reached 
 by steam launch, and we arrange to visit a rubber plantation. 
 
 But first let us learn something about this wonderful 
 product. Rubber was not known until after the discovery 
 of America. We hear of it first at the time of the second 
 voyage of Columbus, when he found the natives of some 
 of the West Indies playing with rubber balls. It was 
 Priestley, the chemist, who in 1770 first showed that rubber 
 would erase pencil marks. 
 
 Rubber was first brought to the United States in the 
 year 1800, and about fifty years later a Boston sea captain 
 returned from Brazil with five hundred pairs of rubber 
 boots made by the natives. They were sold for three dollars 
 and upwards a pair, but it was not untilmany years later, 
 after Charles Goodyear had discovered how to vulcanize 
 rubber, that waterproof boots and shoes came into use. 
 
 To-day rubber is one of the most important of all the 
 raw materials used by man. It keeps us dry in wet weather. 
 It cushions the wheels on which we ride in bicycles, motor- 
 cycles, and automobiles; and most of our heavy hauling
 
 344 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 in cities is done by trucks whose tires are of solid rubber. 
 It is used in making airplanes, the wheels upon which they 
 start and land being of rubber. We wade through the water 
 in rubber boots, and race horses are shod with rubber shoes. 
 Rubber in one form or another is employed in many kinds 
 of machinery. It is found in some of the buttons with 
 which we fasten our clothes and the suspenders and garters 
 which hold up our trousers and stockings. During one 
 year the public school children of New York City used more 
 than ten thousand pounds of rubber ink erasers, and milKons 
 of elastic bands are annually consumed in our business cities. 
 There are so many uses for rubber that great factories have 
 grown up to make goods of this material, and we have one 
 large city, Akron, Ohio, which makes more rubber goods 
 than anything else. 
 
 For a long time almost all the rubber used by man came 
 from the wild trees of the Amazon valley, although some 
 rubber was gathered from the tropical forests of Africa and 
 other parts of the world. About 1900 they began to plant 
 rubber trees and cultivate them in Ceylon and on the Malay 
 peninsula, and now by far the greater part of the rubber of 
 commerce comes from there. In 1919 the United States 
 imported almost five hundred million pounds of crude 
 rubber, and about four fifths of that amount was produced 
 on the rubber plantations of Ceylon and Malaysia. During 
 that year we bought less than sixty million pounds from 
 Brazil. Nevertheless, it is said that the very best of rubber 
 is that from the forests of the Amazon basin. 
 
 Rubber is made from the latex or milky juice in the bark 
 of the siphonia elastica, a wild tree found scattered through 
 the forests of the Amazon basin. The rubber district is as 
 large as the United States east of the Mississippi River. It 
 includes parts of Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia, extending from
 
 A rubber tree. 1 he Ixuk is scored to drain the sap. The native 
 holds a string of dried latex. 
 
 345
 
 346 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the mouth of the Amazon westward to the foothills of the 
 Andes", and on south to the headwaters of the Parana River. 
 
 The rubber tree flourishes best in land that is flooded 
 part of the year. Ground that is always above water will 
 not do for it. The best conditions are found in the lands 
 south of the Amazon and on the islands and lowlands not 
 far from its mouth. Here a tree requires from fifteen to 
 twenty years' growth before it will produce enough rubber 
 to pay for tapping it. Most of the trees we shall see are 
 older than that and some of them have been producing 
 rubber for years. They bear a fruit consisting of a shell, 
 inside which are three Httle nuts. When the fruit is ripe 
 the 3hell bursts with a noise like a fire-cracker and throws 
 the nuts to some distance. So many nuts come from each 
 tree that it is said a man could easily gather enough in 
 one day to plant a hundred acres of land. When planted 
 these seeds grow rapidly. They must be shaded from the 
 direct rays of the sun and must have plenty of moisture. 
 After a time they can be transplanted, and if the soil and 
 climatic conditions are right they will thrive without culti- 
 vation. 
 
 But we shall see these trees better by visiting one of the 
 islands where they grow wild in the forest. We take a 
 steam launch and ride all night on the Amazon. How 
 bright the stars are and how the moon shines here in the 
 soft air of the tropics ! Our hammocks are slung from the 
 roof of the boat, and as we lie in them the warm wind from 
 the ocean fans us to sleep. We spend hours passing through 
 one narrow channel after another and in the morning find 
 ourselves at anchor before the house of a rubber planter. 
 A httle wharf extends from his front door to the river and 
 we step out of the boat within a few yards of the house. 
 It is a low, one-story building roofed with red tiles with a
 
 IN THE LAND OF RUBBER 347 
 
 wide veranda about it. At one end is a store-room filled 
 
 with groceries and dry goods, which the planter sells to his 
 rubber gatherers, and on the veranda itself are piles of what 
 look like smoked hams but are really lumps of rubber ready 
 for market. The planter gives us a breakfast of coffee and 
 rolls, after which we walk with liim through the dense forest, 
 winding this way and that from one rubber tree to another. 
 
 How interesting it is and how different from what we 
 imagined ! We have heard of rubber groves and rubber 
 forests. There is no such thing in nature. The trees are 
 widely scattered. They are so far apart that each man has 
 to walk several miles in gathering the saplike juice for one 
 day. He has his own trees to attend, and they may range 
 from sixty to one hundred and fifty in number, according 
 to the distance between them. The trees assigned him are 
 called a path or road. The size of a rubber plantation is 
 estimated by the number of roads it contains. The roads 
 are mere footpaths from one rubber tree to another. 
 
 We are winding our way along such a path now. Let 
 us stop at one of the trees and look at it. It is not at all 
 Hke the rubber plants we have in our hothouses. They 
 have lean stems and thick leaves of polished green. This 
 rubber tree has a trunk as big around as your waist. It is 
 a great forest tree with leaves somewhat like those of the 
 EngUsh ash. 
 
 How smooth the bark is ! It is of a whitish gray, and 
 at a distance of twelve feet above the ground it shines almost 
 like silver. Farther down it is scarred, black, and warty, 
 with streaks of yellow matter that looks much like beeswax 
 here and there in the bark. Take out your knife and dig 
 up a bit of the wax so that you can catch hold of it. Now 
 pull at it. It will stretch from six to twelve inches from 
 the tree before it comes off. This is coarse rubber, the
 
 348 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 remains of the juice or latex that has dried on the tree. 
 It will all be pulled out and saved, although it will be sold 
 at a much lower price than the better varieties that we shall 
 see made later on. 
 
 But here comes the rubber gatherer to tap the tree for 
 the day. He has a little tomahawk, or hatchet, the blade 
 
 Collecting rubber. Mr. Carpenter at the left. 
 
 of which is just about an inch wide, and a lot of tin cups the 
 size of egg cups. With the hatchet he makes a gash in the 
 bark just deep enough to go through without cutting the 
 wood. As he pulls back the hatchet a white fluid begins to 
 ooze out. It is just like milk and makes us think of the juice 
 of the milkweed. The fluid comes out in drops and the 
 man takes one of the httle tin cups and fastens it into the 
 bark just under the wound so that the milk drops down into
 
 IN THE LAND OF RUBBER 
 
 349 
 
 the cup. He now makes two or three other gashes in the 
 tree, fitting each gash with its cup, and then goes on to the 
 next. He continues his work until every tree in his path 
 has been tapped. 
 
 The fine rubber is cured by smoking. 
 
 The proprietor shows us how slowly the milk runs and says 
 that only a few tablespoonfuls can be gathered from each 
 wound in a day. It flows best in the morning and about 
 noon the rubber man comes back to gather the milk in a 
 gourd or bucket. The amount collected varies according to 
 the richness of the trees, but if a man can get two quarts of 
 milk in one day from his path he thinks he has done very well.
 
 35° 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The next process is to turn the milk into the rubber of 
 commerce. This is important. Upon exposure to the 
 air the milk coagulates, or becomes hard, and if not properly 
 treated turns to coarse rubber, which brings only low prices. 
 The fine rubber is cured by smoking, the best coming from 
 milk smoked only a few hours after it is gathered. Our 
 
 Sheets of plantation rubber ready for shipment. Such rubber comes 
 only from Ceylon and Malaysia. 
 
 planter makes fine rubber and he sees that his men cure it 
 as soon as they return from the forest. 
 
 There goes a man now with a bucket containing two 
 quarts of the Hquid rubber that he has just brought from 
 the trees. Let us follow him and see the process of curing. 
 We go with him to an open shed and watch him pour the 
 milk into a bowl as large as those we use in mixing bread. 
 See how white the juice is ! It tastes sweet and is so thin 
 that one could easily drink it.
 
 A TRIP ON THE AMAZON RIVER 351 
 
 Now the man stoops and builds a fire of palm nuts in one 
 corner of the hut under a clay chimney raised a little from 
 the floor. The chimney is so short that its top does not 
 reach to our waists. See how the nuts burn and watch 
 that dense smoke which pours out through the chimney. 
 
 But look ! The man has taken a long paddle and thrust 
 the end of it into the milk. It comes out as white as snow. 
 The milk has stuck to the paddle. He now thrusts the end 
 of the paddle into the smoke, twisting it rapidly as he does 
 so, so that no drop of the precious juice may fall into the 
 fire. 
 
 As the smoke touches it the rubber thickens and hardens, 
 and its white is streaked with brown by the smoke. It 
 has soon coated the paddle Uke varnish. The paddle is 
 again thrust into the milk bowl, and when it comes out there 
 is a fresh coat of rubber on it ready for smoking. This is 
 hardened in the same way and the work goes on until a 
 mass of rubber as large as a small ham is built up on the 
 end of the paddle. Now the man takes a knife and makes 
 a cut in one side. He pulls off the rubber and carries it 
 to the house, where it is piled up with other lumps for ship- 
 ment to factories all over the world. 
 
 o>Kc 
 
 L. A TRIP ON THE AMAZON RIVER 
 
 OUR next journey is to be up the Amazon. We shall 
 travel for weeks upon the great river, but we might 
 spend years and not see it all. We could go farther 
 than the distance around the world in exploring its tribu- 
 taries. Indeed, some of them are practically unknown. 
 In 1914 Theodore Roosevelt came up the Paraguav River
 
 352
 
 A TRIP ON THE AMAZON RIVER 353 
 
 to Matto Grosso and started down a small stream which 
 grew larger and larger as he traveled upon it until at last, 
 after a voyage of nine hundred and thirty miles, it took him 
 into the Madeira River, through which he went on to the 
 Amazon. This stream was named Rio Teodoro (ta-o-do'ro6) 
 in President Roosevelt's honor. 
 
 Lying in our hammocks on the deck of the steamer, we 
 enjoy the scenery as we move up the mighty Amazon, 
 floating for miles in and out between walls of forest trees 
 a hundred feet high. Now we are close to one bank and 
 now near the dense vegetation of the opposite side. At times 
 we go for hours in midstream where the Amazon is so wide 
 that the forests make two faint lines of blue on our right and 
 our left. Now we steam between islands so near the land 
 that we can see into the huts of the rubber gatherers and 
 others who have made their rude homes on the banks. 
 
 We are passing one on the right. It is not more than 
 fifteen feet square. It is thatched with palm leaves and 
 has holes in the walls for windows. There is a shed at one 
 side, and inside this are two hammocks, in each of which 
 a woman is lying. We see other huts farther on. Each 
 has its boats tied to the shore. The owners rush to the 
 banks and pull up the boats at the approach of our steamer. 
 Sometimes they jump into them and row out from the land 
 to prevent the waves made by the ship from overturning 
 i their boats or filling them with water. Most of the boats 
 are dugouts, although at the larger houses there are rowboats, 
 some of which are painted in bright colors. It is only by 
 boat that the people can go from one place to another. 
 There are no highways through these dense forests of the 
 Amazon. 
 
 We have often heard of the tropical forest. We find it 
 far different from what we supposed. It is not a great mass
 
 354 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of palms, although there are palms here and there in it. 
 Most of it is made up of giant forest trees, some of which 
 are not unhke the big trees of the temperate zone. As we 
 steam on a mile or so from the shore it looks just Hke our 
 forests at home. When we get closer, however, we see here 
 and there the broad leaves of the palms and other tropical 
 trees. 
 
 There are hundreds of feathery creepers, air-plants, which 
 hang like strands of green silk from the branches. There 
 is a dead limb clothed with orchids. Farther over is a great 
 round mass of blue flowers rising out of the green. That 
 is a tree in blossom, and if you look to the right you may 
 see huge bunches of white, yellow, and purple, the flowers 
 of other forest trees that grow only along the Amazon. 
 There are trees here as tall as the tallest trees of our forests, 
 each of whose tops forms a bouquet of violet blue as big 
 as a haystack. Surrounded by green, they rise a hundred 
 feet above us. There are stacks of flowers as yellow as 
 buttercups high in the air, and we now and then see trees 
 loaded with flowers much Hke tiger lilies, only they have a 
 tinge of red mixed with their yellow and black, making 
 them more beautiful. 
 
 Close to the shore in many places the trees rise hke a wall 
 from the water. Many of them are a hundred feet high, 
 and the creepers and vines that crawl up their trunks and 
 wind this way and that in a tangled mass are so thick that 
 it is almost impossible to cut one's way through. Most of 
 the trees have a whitish-gray bark, and some of the trunks 
 are so twisted and ribbed that they look like cables of white 
 taffy braided together to support the vast mass of foliage 
 above them. 
 
 One of the noblest trees of all rises far above the others. 
 This is the tree which produces the Brazil nut. It grows
 
 A TRIP ON THE AMAZON RIVER 355 
 
 to a height of one hundred and fifty feet, with magnificent 
 foliage of dark green leaves. Its fruit is the shape of our 
 black walnut, save that it is bigger around than the biggest 
 baseball. It has an outer skin like a walnut and a similar 
 hard shell within. Inside the hard shell are the long, three- 
 cornered Brazil nuts that are sold in the stores. There are 
 often twenty nuts in one shell. The nuts are gathered and 
 carried in boats to Para, where the shells are broken and 
 the Brazil nuts of commerce are taken out. The nuts are 
 quite heavy, and we tremble as we walk under the trees 
 for fear some may drop on our heads. We hear monkeys 
 chattering in the branches and fear they may throw the 
 nuts at us from the tops of the trees. 
 
 At the town of Obidos (o-be'dos), five hundred miles 
 from the Atlantic, the channel of the Amazon narrows and 
 the immense volume of water pours through an opening 
 about a mile wide. The current here is so strong that our 
 steamer dares not rely on its anchor alone, but has also a 
 cable by which it is tied to a tree on the bank. We wait 
 for some hours and during our stay are taken in canoes to 
 the shore. The town is a collection of rude houses built 
 along three or four narrow streets. Obidos has a factory 
 for making chocolate, and we learn that there are many 
 cacao plantations near by. We see more cacao trees as we 
 sail on our way up the river. The orchards line the south 
 bank of the Amazon for miles. 
 
 Some distance above Obidos we pass the mouth of the 
 Madeira, and soon after come to a place where the waters 
 of the Rio Negro (na'gro) join those of the Amazon. The 
 Rio Negro is as black as ink and the Amazon as yellow as 
 mud. The Rio Negro keeps its color for a longdistance after 
 it reaches the Amazon before it is swallowed up by that 
 great yellow monster. We ride along in our steamer on the
 
 356 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 line where the two c'olors join, seeing the black on one side 
 of the ship and the yellow on the other, but soon turn to 
 the right and sail for an hour up the wide Rio Negro, to the 
 city of Manaos, the rubber metropoUs of the central 
 Amazon valley. 
 
 Manaos Hes on the river bank high above the water. Its 
 wide streets are Hned with palm trees and its bright houses 
 shine under the tropical sun. It is a large city for this part 
 of the world, having about half as many people as Para. It 
 is at the junction of many navigable waterways ; therefore 
 it is the best place for the trade of this region and must con- 
 tinue to grow. We are surprised to fine good houses and 
 modern improvements here in the heart of the wilds. Ma- 
 naos has electric street-cars, electric lights, and good schools. 
 It has one of the finest theaters of Brazil, a market, a mu- 
 seum, and some large stores. To it come steamers from 
 all parts of the Amazon valley. The largest ocean steamers 
 from the United States and Europe can come from the ocean 
 right up to Manaos. The Rio Negro at this point is two 
 miles in width and more than one hundred feet deep at low 
 water. 
 
 The port has good landing arrangements, notwithstanding 
 that there is a difference of forty or fifty feet in the height 
 of the river between the wet and the dry seasons. From 
 December to May the largest ocean steamers can come to 
 the quay, but when the river is low a mud bank three hun- 
 dred feet wide extends out from it. For this reason a lower 
 quay has been built. This is under water at the flood 
 season. There are also floating docks which are used during 
 that season. 
 
 The rubber gatherers bring quantities of rubber to Ma- 
 naos from the vast regions west and south of it, and they 
 come by the hundreds for their supphes, often trading rubber
 
 SOME WILD INDIANS OF BRAZIL 357 
 
 for goods. It is from here that expeditions start out to ex- 
 plore the wilds of the Amazon and its tributaries, and we 
 can find boats and men here who will go with us to almost 
 any part of this Httle known region. 
 
 o>»Cc 
 
 LI. SOME WILD INDIANS OF BRAZIL 
 
 THERE are many wild Indians scattered here and there 
 throughout the Amazon basin, and also some more 
 or less civihzed, who are engaged by the white men 
 in the gathering of rubber. We often think of our conti- 
 nent as the chief home of the red race, and of the United 
 States as the country where most of the Indians hved be- 
 fore the white men came. The truth is, South America had 
 more Indians than North America, and it is estimated that 
 there are now four or five times as many Indians in Brazil 
 as in the United States. In Matto Grosso are the Tupi- 
 Guaranis (tdb'pe gwa-ra'nes), much Uke the redskins we saw 
 in Paraguay. They are a mild people, good-looking and 
 intelUgent. The Jesuit Fathers have christianized many of 
 them and books have been printed in their language. 
 Indeed, Tupi-Guarani is now understood in most parts 
 of central South America. 
 
 In the wilder parts of Sao Paulo and in other parts 
 of southern and western Brazil Hve the Botocudos 
 (bo-to-koo'doz), who are as degraded as the Indians we saw 
 about the Strait of Magellan. They have huts in the woods, 
 and they feed largely on nuts and roots and what they can 
 kill. Most of them are of less than medium height. Their 
 hair is black, and their skins are yellowish-brown, rather 
 than red.
 
 358 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Many of the Botocudos still wear great plugs of wood, 
 bone, or stone in their lips and ear lobes. Some of these 
 plugs are as big around as a pint cup and others as large as 
 a napkin ring. Think of making a hole in your lip or ear 
 lobe so large that a glass tumbler could be carried in it ! 
 We have photographs of these Indians showing that this 
 is actually done, and we learn that such decorations are 
 
 The Bolocudos wear plugs in their Ups and ear lobes. These plugs 
 are as large around as a napkin ring. 
 
 thought to be beautiful. When a girl is eight years old a 
 small hole is made in her lower hp with the hard point of a 
 stick, and a Httle plug is put in to keep the hole open. As 
 the sore heals a larger plug is inserted, and as time goes on 
 larger and larger plugs are used, the flesh growing and 
 stretching around them until the lip becomes a mere strip 
 of skin. The holes in the ears are made in the same way. 
 This custom is now dying out, but it is still kept up in some 
 of the tribes of the wilds. In northern Brazil are found
 
 SOME WILD INDIANS OF BRAZIL 
 
 359 
 
 the Caribs and the Arawaks, whose forefathers emigrated 
 to the West Indies and were found there by the Spaniards. 
 They were brave, and they fought against the white invaders 
 of their territory. The Caribs were said to have been canni- 
 
 Amazon Indians equipped with bows with which they shoot poisoned 
 arrows. Blow guns also are used for this purpose. 
 
 bals. The Arawaks are not so strong as the Caribs, but 
 they are much more civihzed. They weave cloth of various 
 kinds and make some things of gold. 
 
 Other tribes along the Amazon River have blow guns, 
 through wMch they shoot arrows tipped with poison. The
 
 360 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 blow guns are pipes about an inch in diameter and ten to 
 twelve feet in length. They are made of a hard wood which 
 is spHt and then hollowed out. After the parts are glued 
 together and wrapped with rattan they are perfectly air- 
 tight. The arrows are as thick as a hatpin and about a 
 foot long. They are as sharp as a needle, the blunt end 
 being wrapped with cotton so that it fits the hole in the 
 blow gun. The arrow, having been dipped in poison, is 
 blown out of the pipe with such force that it flies to a dis- 
 tance of from fifty to one hundred feet. The poison is so 
 venomous that a scratch will cause death. 
 
 Along the river Tapajos, the mouth of which we 
 passed on our way up to Manaos, Hve the Mundurucos 
 (moon-dob-rdb'kuz) , who cut off the heads of their enemies 
 and preserve them as trophies. They cure them in such 
 a way that all the features are preserved as in life. They 
 do not squeeze the heads in and make them smaller as do 
 the Indians at some of the headwaters of the Amazon in 
 Ecuador. There are many of these heads thus preserved 
 shown in the museums of Brazil. They have eyes of black 
 gum surrounded by bone to represent the whites, and the 
 mouths are closed with black rubber. 
 
 During our stay at Manaos we are told that the govern- 
 ment of Brazil has many plans to civihze its Indians. It 
 has placed some of the tribes on reservations and has given 
 I lands to the members of other tribes. It is starting schools 
 J and experimental farms in many of the states and doing 
 what it can to pacify the wild tribes and make them civilized 
 people. 
 
 We spend several days at Manaos talking with the ex- 
 plorers and others from. many parts of the Amazon basin 
 and planning our tour for the future. We find that we 
 could take a good steamer and sail on the Amazon more
 
 These men arc head hunters of the upper Amazon. 
 361
 
 362 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 than thirteen hundred miles farther west to Iquitos in Peru 
 and there find trails by which we could walk over the Andes 
 to the west coast. Or we could steam up the Madeira 
 River and by the Madeira-Mamore (ma-mo-ra') railway 
 go around the great falls and thence on up into the Beni River, 
 
 n»'\( 
 
 
 ■^v,' 
 
 Home on the banks of the Rio Negro. The house is thatched with 
 grass. Shredded palm leaves are sometimes used. 
 
 by which we could reach trails to La Paz and Lake Titicaca. 
 The Madeira-Mamore railway is about two hundred miles 
 long. It was built by men from the United States to take 
 passengers and freight around the falls, and it enables the 
 rubber of Matto Grosso and Bolivia to be brought down the 
 Amazon to Manaos and Para.
 
 SOME WILD INDIANS OF BR.\ZIL 363 
 
 We decide, however, to make our way northward into 
 Venezuela, and we continue our journey up the Rio Negro. 
 We ride for days through its black, muddy waters, winding 
 in and out through dense forest until at last we come to the 
 mouth of the Casiquiare (ka-se-kya'ra), a river uniting the 
 Orinoco with the Amazon system. We travel northward 
 some distance on this stream and are soon floating down 
 the Orinoco through the llanos (la'noz) on our way to the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 1. Why is the Amazon called the King of Rivers? Compare its 
 basin with the United States. Compare the rainfall with that of 
 your home. How long is the Amazon? The Orinoco? The Rio 
 de la Plata? The Mississippi-Missouri? The Nile? (See Table VII.) 
 
 2. Locate the three principal Amazon ports on the map. How 
 far inland is Manaos? Iquitos? 
 
 3. Describe your trip through Para. Name some of the exports 
 and imports which you see on the ships and in the stores. 
 
 4. How many things can you mention for which rubber is used? 
 What do you own that is made of it? What is plantation rubber? 
 Where is it grown? Name a United States city which is noted for its 
 rubber factories. Describe a visit to a rubber forest. Tell how 
 the rubber is gathered and prepared for the market. (See Carpenter's 
 "How the World is Clothed," chapter 34.) Follow a shipment of 
 rubber from Para to Akron. 
 
 5. Locate on the map the chief tributaries of the Amazon. Trace 
 President Roosevelt's journey up the Paraguay and on to the Amazon. 
 About where is the stream that is named for him? 
 
 6. Give a picture of the tropical forest. What nut do we get 
 from there? Bring some from the store to class. 
 
 7. Describe Manaos. Why has it become so important ? 
 
 8. Which country has the most Indians, Brazil or the United 
 States? Name some of the tribes of Brazil. Which are the most 
 civilized? The most savage? 
 
 9. By what two routes might we go from Manaos to the Pacific 
 Ocean? Locate the Madeira-Mamore railway. What river con- 
 nects the Amazon system with the Orinoco? Take a trip from New 
 York to Para, direct and by the Panama Canal.
 
 THE- ORINOCO AND THE LLANOS 365 
 
 LII. THE ORINOCO AND THE LLANOS 
 
 IS this not a wonderful system of rivers by which almost 
 all the continent east of the Andes is watered? We 
 have seen how close the headwaters of the Paraguay are 
 to the southern sources of the Amazon. Indeed, with a 
 short canal, we might start from the Caribbean Sea into 
 the mouth of the Orinoco, go on water almost all the way 
 through interior South America, and come out again into 
 the Atlantic Ocean through the Rio de la Plata. If you 
 will look at your map of South America you will see how 
 easily we might trace our way from the Orinoco into the 
 Cassiquiari and then go over the route we have just traveled 
 back to Manaos and down the Amazon to the mouth of 
 the Tapajos River. We might sail up the Tapajos to its 
 source, when we would be so near the beginnings of the 
 Parana system that in a day we could walk to one of them 
 and float with the current into the Paraguay River, up 
 which we came to visit Mat to Grosso, Brazil. 
 
 But we are now on the Orinoco. Its thick yellow waters, 
 loaded with sediment, are rushing in a swift current down 
 to the Atlantic. They have been gathered from mountains 
 far to the westward and poured in through countless 
 brariches from the llanos, or vast meadows, and other parts 
 of the basin, which all together forms a territory one fifth 
 as large as the whole United States. The Orinoco is, indeed, 
 a wonderful river. It is the third largest on the South 
 American continent, being surpassed only by the Amazon 
 and the Rio de la Plata. It is almost fifteen hundred miles 
 long, and its main stream is navigable for twelve hundred 
 miles, although the rapids of Maipures (ml-pdo-ras') and 
 Altures (al-too-ras') are about eight hundred and forty 
 miles from its mouth. The river is navigable hundreds
 
 306
 
 THE ORINOCO AND THE LLAxNOS 367 
 
 of miles above the falls, and below them it flows with 
 a gentle current over almost level country to the sea, 
 the tides being felt two hundred and fifty miles from the 
 ocean. 
 
 The Orinoco has four hundred navigable branches, and 
 it furnishes so many water routes that there are few places 
 in its basin not accessible to one of them by a mule ride of 
 a few days. 
 
 Now we have left our small boats and are again on a 
 steamer. We are traveling through a country far different 
 from that of the Amazon. The dense forest has disappeared 
 and a vast expanse of level land stretches away on both sides 
 of the river. The plains are called llanos. They are covered 
 with coarse grass, the most of which is now luxuriantly 
 green. Here and there it is gray, and we sometimes pass 
 a tract that has been blackened by fire. 
 
 See that smoke away off to the right and the flames rolling 
 up from the ground. That is one of the prairie fires of cen- 
 tral Venezuela. It has been started by the farmers, who 
 are burning off the dead grass that a new crop may quickly 
 come up. 
 
 How many cattle there are on the llanos ! We see herds 
 of thousands, and we learn that stock raising is one of the 
 great industries of this country. More and more cattle are 
 being reared every year and Venezuela now has several 
 million beeves feeding upon its great plains. The beasts 
 are grown for their meat and skins. The skins are salted 
 and dried and shipped by the thousands to the United States 
 and Europe, where they are tanned and made into leather 
 for shoes and other products. 
 
 The meat is stripped from the bones in sheets and salted 
 and made into the jerked or dried beef so much desired bv 
 the people of Spanish and Portuguese America. It is taken
 
 368 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 on the steamers down the Orinoco and has a ready sale also 
 in the various islands of the West Indies. 
 
 But what is that town away off on the right bank of the 
 river? There are blue and white buildings with red roofs 
 rising in terraces upon the low hills. There are steamers 
 at anchor at the wharf. It seems quite a city. That is 
 the first evidence of civihzation we have seen since we left 
 Manaos some weeks ago. We are approaching the metrop- 
 olis of the llanos, the chief city of interior Venezuela. Its 
 name is Ciudad Bolivar (syoo-thath' bo-le'var), and it forms 
 the center of trade for a vast region. From it go the chief 
 exports of cattle, and it is also the point from where ex- 
 peditions start for the gold mines farther south. 
 
 Now we have landed and are walking up the steep, 
 narrow streets paved with rough cobbles. The houses are 
 almost all of one story. They are built about courts like 
 those of the Spanish towns we saw in our tour along the 
 west coast. There is plenty of grass in the streets. There 
 are no wheeled vehicles to speak of and we shall have to 
 use horses in making our trips. Every well-to-do family 
 on the llanos has plenty of horses, and we shall have no 
 trouble in getting good saddle animals. Most of them are 
 single-footers, having a gait Hke a pace, which carries one 
 along so gently that he feels as though he might be riding 
 on the rocking-horse of his baby brother. 
 
 There are but few carts in Venezuela. Things are carried 
 about upon donkeys. Here comes one now with two huge 
 baskets filled with vegetables slung to his sides. Behind 
 him is another carrying boxes of bread, and we see others 
 loaded with all sorts of things, including wood, bricks, and 
 stone, which they are patiently bearing to different parts 
 of the city. We see more donkeys from the country when 
 we visit the market. They have neither bridles nor halters
 
 THE ORINOCO AND THE LLANOS 369 
 
 and they stand blinking their eyes as they wait for their 
 masters to drive them back home. 
 
 There are many kinds of vegetables and tropical fruits 
 sold in the market. We see quantities of plantains and 
 bananas and learn that they form a large part of the food 
 of the people. There is plenty of beef, also manioc flour 
 such as we saw on the Amazon. 
 
 There are red clay bowls for cooking and many of the 
 grass hammocks that form the beds and loafing and sitting 
 places of nine tenths of the people. We frequently sleep 
 in hammocks during our visits to the large farmers near 
 Ciudad Bolivar. 
 
 There are steamers every few days from Ciudad Boli- 
 var down the Orinoco. They sail out through the delta 
 and go on to the island of Trinidad, where one can get 
 ships for La Guaira (la gwl'ra) and other coast cities of 
 Venezuela. 
 
 The steamer on which we go out to the sea is a great side- 
 wheeler with two decks, much Hke the boats on the Hudson. 
 It has a North American captain, but with the exception of 
 ourselves the passengers are all Venezuelans. Some of 
 them are white, others are of the mixed race of Spaniards 
 and Indians, while others seem to have negro blood in their 
 veins. There are also a few native Indians among the deck 
 passengers. There are many women and children on board 
 and each seems to have a pet of one kind or another. In- 
 deed, there are so many cats, dogs, monkeys, parrots, and 
 other birds that the scene on the deck makes us think of a 
 zoological garden. 
 
 We steam on for a day before we come to the delta. The 
 river is wide and there are numerous islands. There are 
 few villages and not many people. The water is so thick 
 that it seems to drop mud as it flows. It is in this way tliat
 
 370 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the river has built up the great delta through which we go 
 to the Caribbean Sea. 
 
 The delta of the Orinoco is about as large as the state of 
 New Jersey. It is for the most part a tropical jungle cut 
 by channels of various widths, which are lined with mangoes, 
 palms, and other wild forest trees bound together with long 
 creepers much like those we saw on the Amazon. 
 
 Here and there Indian huts and clearings have been 
 made in the jungle. The huts are mere sheds of poles and 
 palm leaves, and the people within He in their hammocks 
 or come outside and gaze at us as the steamer goes by. 
 The men and boys have only a rag about the waist and 
 the little children are naked. The women wear short 
 petticoats of the fibrous bark of the palm tree. All seem 
 lazy and we learn that they hunt and fish only enough to 
 keep them alive. 
 
 LIII. VENEZUELA AND ITS CAPITAL 
 
 WE stay only a few hours at Trinidad and then take 
 ship for the ports of Venezuela. We travel from 
 one place to another, making excursions into the country, 
 visiting all the large cities, and spending some weeks in 
 Caracas, the capital. 
 
 Venezuela is one of the most fertile of the South Americah 
 republics. It is so large that it would make about ten states 
 the size of Indiana, and there are few others so well 
 watered. We have seen something of the Orinoco basin. 
 The country has many other navigable rivers, including 
 more than one thousand streams. 
 
 The coast line of Venezuela is longer than the Mississippi 
 River without the Missouri ; it has thirty-two harbors and
 
 VENEZUELA AND ITS CAPITAL 
 
 371 
 
 CARIBBEAN 
 
 numerous bays, the largest of which is Lake Maracaibo 
 (ma-ra-kl'bo) , about the size of our Great Salt Lake. 
 
 It was from Lake Maracaibo that Venezuela was named. 
 When the Spaniards discovered the country, about eight 
 years after Colum- 
 bus first came to 
 America, they en- 
 tered this bay. On 
 its shores and islands 
 they found a tribe 
 of natives living in 
 huts made of palm 
 leaves and rushes. 
 The huts were built 
 upon piles driven 
 into the sand. They 
 were surrounded on 
 all sides by water 
 and the people went 
 
 from one place to another in canoes. This reminded the 
 Spaniards of Venice and they called the country Venezuela, 
 which means "Little Venice," and by this name it is known 
 to this day. Even now Lake Maracaibo has buildings on 
 piles. The Indians inhabiting them live by fishing. They 
 are quite savage, and although they speak Spanish they 
 have not united with the whites as have many other tribes 
 of the country. 
 
 We have seen something of the lowlands of Venezuela 
 and their vast pastures, which it is said could support thirty 
 or more times as many cattle as the country now has. The 
 chief of these are in the basin of the Orinoco. North and 
 west of that basin are hills and mountains, and here 
 and there little ranges of hills. Caracas is situated a
 
 372 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 short distance back from the seacoast in a nest in the 
 mountains. 
 
 This part of Venezuela is one of great possibilities. It 
 has mineral deposits, including gold and copper. Petro- 
 
 A water carrier is one of the sights of a Venezuelan town. 
 
 leum has been found and there are deposits of asphalt in 
 the lake of Bermudez and on the shores of Lake Maracaibo. 
 The island of Trinidad has a pitch lake from which comes
 
 LA GUAIRA AND CARACAS 373 
 
 the asphalt with which many of the cities of the United 
 States are paved. This lake is a mile and one half in diam- 
 eter. Trinidad is a colony of Great Britain. 
 
 The chief wealth of Venezuela lies in its soil. It has large 
 territories fitted for growing coffee, cacao, and cotton, and 
 it produces rubber, vanilla, sugar cane, and corn. The 
 most valuable product is coffee. The climate here is warmer 
 than in the coffee lands of southern Brazil, and the trees 
 are raised differently. They have to be shaded from the 
 sun , and many of the plantations are irrigated . The shading 
 of the coffee trees is done with banana plants. These shoot 
 up quickly and their wide green leaves cover the tender 
 coffee sprouts, at the same time keeping the soil moist. 
 Other rapidly growing trees are planted later. These send 
 out branches somewhat like those of the sycamore and 
 furnish just the right shade. The coffee is much like mocha 
 and is often sold as such in our markets. 
 
 The cacao of Venezuela is also especially fine. Some of 
 our best chocolate candies and cakes are made from the 
 beans exported from this country to New York and Boston, 
 from which they are shipped to the chocolate factories. 
 The trees are carefully cultivated. They are set out in 
 orchards, which are irrigated and shaded much as the coffee 
 is. The trees produce abundantly, sometunes two crops 
 in one year. 
 
 LIV. LA GUAIRA AND CARACAS 
 
 WE have landed at La Guaira, the chief port of Ven- 
 ezuela, among steamers from Dutch, English, 
 Spanish, Italian, and other European ports. There is a 
 vessel at the pier that has just come from New York. 
 
 so. AM. 24
 
 374
 
 LA GUAIRA AND CARACAS 375 
 
 The town is hot, and the tropical sun beats down upon us ; 
 and the temptation is great to take ship and be home within 
 a week or ten days. However, we have still several South 
 American countries to see, so we turn our backs on the 
 steamer and stroll through the town, hugging the shady- 
 side of the streets. 
 
 La Guaira is the principal gateway of Venezuela to the 
 outside world. Most of the exports go out from here, and 
 it is connected by railway with the capital, Caracas, situated 
 a half mile higher above the sea and in a straight line only 
 six miles back from the coast. However, we have no flying 
 machines, and we shall go there by the long, winding way 
 up the mountains by rail. All together, we shall have to 
 travel on the cars about twenty-two miles. 
 
 The ride is one of the most dehghtful of all the railroad 
 rides of this wonderful continent. As we start out from La 
 Guaira we pass through banana plantations and groves of 
 palms and then shoot into a jungle of tropical vegetation. 
 The road soon rises. Now we are climbing the mountains, 
 turning this way and that. Now we go over bridges, look- 
 ing down into caiions many hundred feet deep, and now 
 shoot through tunnels, to come out again, on the side of 
 the mountain, with a vast expanse of the blue Caribbean 
 Sea under our eyes. The air is cooler and we drink in great 
 breaths. The fever-laden, tropical atmosphere of the coast 
 ' has vanished. As we rise we are more and more in\'igorated, 
 and when we leave the train at the Caracas station we are 
 in one of the most healthful climates of the world. 
 
 The city lies in a beautiful valley about two miles wide 
 and fifteen miles long, surrounded by mountains, some of 
 which are two miles high. The valley is covered with 
 sugar plantations, vegetable gardens, groves of coflfee and 
 cacao, and orchards of oranges, lemons, and other fruits.
 
 376
 
 LA GUAIRA AND CARACAS 377 
 
 We have already looked at our histories and know that 
 Caracas is one of the old towns of the New World. It was 
 founded forty years before Captain John Smith began to 
 build the first hut at Jamestown. It was taken from the 
 Spaniards by the English, and later by the French, but it 
 continued to be a Spanish town until there was a revolt in 
 South America against Spain, in which Venezuela and 
 Caracas were the first to declare their independence and 
 throw off the Spanish yoke. Nevertheless, the city seems 
 almost new as we go through it to-day. Its sidewalks are 
 paved with cement and its bright buildings are of all the 
 colors of the rainbow. The houses arc mostly of one story, 
 so built from the danger of earthquakes. They have 
 roofs of red tiles, and their windows facing the streets are 
 heavily barred. We can see the women and girls look- 
 ing out. 
 
 The streets cross one another at right angles, with the 
 Plaza de Bolivar in the center. This plaza is surrounded by 
 the government buildings, also the university, the cathedral, 
 and the Episcopal palace. 
 
 What interests us more than all these, however, is the 
 equestrian statue of Simon Bolivar in the center of the plaza. 
 Simon Bolivar was the George Washington of South Amer- 
 ica. He organized the movement that resulted in the in- 
 dependence of this country, and which gradually spread 
 to the other colonies in South America, He fought also 
 for New Granada, or Colombia, and Peru, and was the 
 founder of the republic of Boli\ia. We heard of him while 
 in La Paz. 
 
 We call upon the president at the federal palace and 
 spend some time in the houses of Congress, learning that 
 the republic of Venezuela has a constitution much like our 
 own. It has thirteen states and five territories, and the
 
 378 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 president has a cabinet and government departments much 
 Uke those of the United States. 
 
 The Venezuelans are hospitable and they make us at 
 home. They have schools in the cities where the boys 
 learn manual training and the girls are taught to sew and 
 embroider. ATany of them speak English and French and 
 
 Federal palace at Caracas. Here the laws of \ enezuela are made. 
 
 we find that the better classes live quite as comfortably as we 
 do. These one-story houses cover a great deal of ground. 
 The rooms encircle patios in which grow rose trees, many 
 different kinds of palms, and all sorts of tropical plants. 
 We have frequent motor-car rides through the valley in 
 which Caracas is situated, and we learn much of tropical 
 agriculture. The people are greatly interested in the United 
 States, for a large part of their trade is with us.
 
 THE GUI AN AS 379 
 
 1. Trace on the map a journey from Trinidad to Buenos Aires by 
 inland waterways. Through what countries do you go ? On what 
 rivers ? 
 
 2. Compare the Orinoco with the Amazon and the Rio de la 
 Plata. What are the llanos? 
 
 3. Bound Venezuela. Compare it with your state in size. How 
 did the country get its name? 
 
 4. What are the chief products? What kind of candy do we 
 make from one of them ? 
 
 5. Locate the chief port of Venezuela. Its capital city. 
 
 6. Describe your trip through Caracas. What great South 
 American statesman was born there? Write a story of his life. 
 
 LV. THE GUIANAS 
 
 WE have one more territory to visit before we can 
 close our tour of the South American continent. 
 This is the land of the Guianas, three Kttle countries situ- 
 ated at the northeastern end of South America and 
 bounded by Venezuela and Brazil. They are a mass of 
 highlands separated from the rest of the continent by the 
 basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco. 
 
 The Guianas are different from the other countries of 
 South America in that they are colonies and not independ- 
 ent republics. Each belongs to a nation of Europe and 
 is governed by the mother country. British Guiana is a 
 dependency of great Britain, Dutch Guiana belongs to 
 Holland, and French Guiana to France. Each of these 
 colonies has a governor appointed by the ruler of the nation 
 to which it belongs. None has a large population and none 
 is of much importance in the commerce and trade of our 
 great sister continent. 
 
 Still, when South America was discovered, this region was
 
 THE GUIANAS 
 
 381 
 
 thought to be the richest of all. It was described by the 
 early explorers as filled with gold, silver, and precious stones. 
 One adventurer who skirted the Guianas and entered the 
 Orinoco told of a city called El Dorado, which rose out of 
 a great white lake, 
 whose smallest house 
 was grander than 
 any palace of the 
 Incas or Aztecs. 
 "In this city," said 
 the explorer, ** the 
 vessels of the kitch- 
 ens are of gold and 
 silver studded with 
 diamonds. The 
 houses have statues 
 of solid gold as big 
 as giants, and there 
 are figures of beasts, 
 birds, fish, and trees, all of gold. The pleasure gardens 
 of the island are filled with figures of gold and silver, and 
 the king of the country and his court wear clothes of such 
 a nature that they seem to be sprinkled with gold and 
 silver from sandal to crown." 
 
 These stories excited all Europe, and expeditions started 
 out to find the city and explore this part of the world. 
 Great numbers of young men joined the expeditions, ex- 
 pecting to make fortunes, and in looking for the fabulous 
 city they explored the greater part of northern South 
 America, penetrating to the sources of the Orinoco and the 
 rivers that flow into the Atlantic through the Guianas. 
 It was from an expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh that 
 Great Britain became possessed of British Guiana, and it
 
 THE GUIANAS 383 
 
 is said that he presented to Queen Elizabeth some nuggets 
 and images of solid gold to show the value of his discovery. 
 Gold really exists along the Orinoco, the Essequibo (es-a-ke'- 
 bo), and in some of the streams of British, French, and 
 Dutch Guiana. The deposits are comparatively small, 
 and El Dorado, with its gold and diamond kitchen utensils, 
 is yet to be found. However, diamonds are mined in 
 British Guiana, and more than ninety thousand of these 
 precious stones have been found in one year. 
 
 The exact extent of the territory is undecided. French 
 Guiana claims a part of Brazil, and British Guiana has for 
 a long time contended that much of Venezuela should 
 rightly belong to it. At the lowest estimate, however, 
 each of the three countries is as large as the state of New 
 York, and each contains some excellent land. The climate 
 of most parts is unhealthful. It is exceedingly hot and 
 the highlands are covered with forests as dense as the \vildest 
 parts of the Amazon. Here and there are high grassy plains, 
 upon which cattle might be fed, and upon the lowlands near 
 the coast sugar, coffee, and cotton can be grown. Much 
 of the country is still unexplored. 
 
 What kind of people are there in these countries? We 
 shall see the civiKzed population of the coast cities. The 
 majority of the inhabitants, however, Hve in the wilds. 
 They are savage Indians and savage negroes, the descend- 
 ants of runaway slaves. The Indians are of many tribes 
 and they have strange customs. The Arawaks, according 
 to report, have a game called the whip dance, in which the 
 dancers stand in two rows opposite each other. Each has 
 a whip with a hard, strong lash made of fiber*. With these 
 they whip the naked calves of each other's legs until the 
 blood runs down their heels. The dance is looked upon as 
 a test of endurance and bravery, and the man who can
 
 384 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 stand the most whipping is considered the best. The game 
 is said to go on with perfect good temper and at its close the 
 dancers drink one another's heahh. 
 
 The people of another tribe wear nothing but a strip 
 of cloth around their waists. They are fond of jewelry 
 and pierce their lower lips in such a way that two pins 
 can be worn in them. They have also pins in their 
 nostrils and deck their necks and arms with such beads 
 and coins as they can pick up. Most of these reports 
 come from hearsay, and like the story of the golden city 
 of El Dorado they may not be true. We have not the 
 time to make such explorations ourselves and so shall 
 leave the exact nature of the Indians in doubt, saying 
 we suppose they may be as reported, but we really do 
 not know. 
 
 There is no doubt about there being many black people 
 in the Guianas, and we shall see civilized negroes every- 
 where. Slaves were imported for generations to work the 
 sugar plantations and get the fine _woods out of the forests 
 for export to Europe. After slavery was abohshed many 
 of the negroes settled on the coast lands where they had 
 been toiling. Their thatched huts are to be seen every- 
 where. They are now farmers. 
 
 Other negroes went off to the woods and formed tribes 
 of bush negroes, intermarrying with the Indians. The bush 
 negroes have a language that is a mixture of Dutch, French, 
 and English combined with Indian and African words. 
 Some of the wild negroes are brave ; many are strong and 
 fine-looking. 
 
 But here we are at the wharf of Georgetown, the capital 
 of British Guiana. We have sailed up a Kttle river, the 
 banks of which are Kned with tropical vegetation, with 
 estates devoted to sugar and rice cut out of the jungle.
 
 THE GUIANAS 385 
 
 There are many coconut palms, clumps of bamboos, and 
 great trees covered with flowers. 
 
 What a queer crowd is that on the wharf ! We rub our 
 eyes and wonder if we are not in Asia rather than in South 
 America. There are scores of almond-eyed Chinese, many 
 black Hindoos in turbans and strange garments, and Parsees 
 wearing long black coats and hats Hke inverted coal scuttles. 
 There are numerous Portuguese and English merchants 
 who have come to the steamer. Most of the Hindoos and 
 Chinese have been imported to work on the plantations of 
 sugar and rice, and we shall find them scattered everywhere 
 through the coast countries. 
 
 How queer Georgetown seems after our long stay in other 
 parts of the continent. It is more like a city of Holland 
 than of Spain or Great Britain, to which this country be- 
 longs. The roofs are slanting and the houses are of wood 
 or galvanized iron. Many of them are tall, with gable ends 
 facing the street. 
 
 Georgetown is a small city, but it has some large buildings. 
 It lies on low land, and these buildings stand upon wooden 
 piles driven into the mud to form the foundations. In 
 some of the streets are canals, which serve to drain the w^ater 
 into the river in times of flood. 
 
 The city has many modern improvements, including 
 electric lights, electric street-cars, and telephones, and its 
 water comes from artesian wells. We stroll along the Ring, 
 a beautiful walk on the banks of the river, shaded with fine 
 cabbage palms. We enjoy visiting the stores, for the mer- 
 chants speak EngKsh ; they ask us to \isit them in the sub- 
 urbs, where they have houses in beautiful gardens filled 
 with tropical plants. 
 
 The sugar plantations are interesting. IMany of them 
 are large, employing hundreds of laborers and making mil-
 
 386 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 lions of pounds of sugar a year. Each plantation has its 
 manager and overseers, and its books are kept as carefully 
 as those of our great business establishments. 
 
 Along the coast of the Guianas the chmate is so hot and 
 wet and the land is so rich that the sugar cane can be cut 
 several times a year, and it will grow up for many years in 
 succession without being replanted. The soil is composed 
 I of earth washings brought down from the mountains and 
 it will raise anything produced in the tropics. The rainfall 
 here is over ninety inches a year, and if the water stayed 
 where it fell, it would reach higher than our heads. The 
 floods are so great that dikes have been erected to keep the 
 land from being overflowed. These dikes are expensive, 
 and therefore nearly all the plantations are owned by men 
 and companies having large capital. 
 
 The Guianas are a land of many rivers. In British Guiana 
 is one of the high waterfalls of the world. It is the Kaietur 
 (ka-e-tobr') Falls on the Potaro, a branch of the Essequibo 
 River. This fall is about four hundred feet wide and has 
 a drop of eight hundred feet or five times as great as the 
 American fall at Niagara. 
 
 We find more plantations near Paramaribo (pa-ra-mar'i- 
 bo), the capital of Dutch Guiana, which we reach in a little 
 Dutch ship from Georgetown. Paramaribo Hes about 
 twenty miles up the Surinam River, its harbor being de- 
 fended by the two forts of Zeelandia and New Amsterdam. 
 It has about fifty thousand inhabitants, and in architecture, 
 waterways, and houses it is not unHke the smaller cities of 
 Holland. 
 
 Many of the people speak Dutch, a language that sounds 
 queer when it comes from the negroes we see everywhere. 
 There are many whites and mulattoes. There are also 
 brown-skinned men from the Dutch island of faraway Java,
 
 Cayenne has a grove of Royal palm trees behind it. There are 
 more than one hundred and fifty varieties of palms in South America. 
 
 ' 387
 
 388 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 who have come to work in the sugar plantations. The 
 better classes are dressed in Hght clothes, the women wearing 
 stiff skirts, loose jackets, and head-dresses not unlike turbans. 
 The poor people go barefooted, and some of the children 
 wear no clothing whatever. 
 
 Village near Cayenne. 
 
 Dutch Guiana is rich, producing rice, sugar, cacao, and 
 coffee. One of the chief exports is balata, the gum of the 
 bully-tree, which is used for insulating electric wires. We 
 get thousands of pounds of this gum from the Guianas, and 
 many people are kept busy there gathering it for us. 
 
 From Paramaribo we steam on to Cayenne (ka-en'), the 
 capital of French Guiana, situated in the mouth of the 
 Cayenne River on an island about ten miles in diameter.
 
 THE GUIANAS 389 
 
 The city is much smaller than either Georgetown or Para- 
 maribo, but it looks quite large from the ship. It has a 
 grove of palm trees behind it and a high church steeple 
 rising over the rest of the buildings. Most of the houses 
 are of two stories, some of them being covered with plaster 
 painted in all the colors of the rainbow. 
 
 This land is not much different from that of the other" 
 Guianas, and the people are about the same. They have, 
 however, many hard faces among them. The country for 
 years has been a penal colony, to which thieves and other 
 criminals have been exported from France. 
 
 The cHmate is not healthful and, indeed, no traveler 
 would care to stay long. We are glad when the steamer 
 arrives on which we can go back to the island of Trinidad, 
 where, having finished our long tour of the South American 
 continent, we take ship for New York. 
 
 1. Where are the Guianas? To what three nations do they 
 belong? How do they differ in government from other South Ameri- 
 can countries? Describe the three countries. What kind of people 
 do they have? 
 
 2. Name the capital of each country. Where is it situated? 
 Describe it. 
 
 3. What are the chief products of the Guianas? What gum do 
 we get from Dutch Guiana ? For what is it used ? How does Guiana 
 keep the water from spreading over the lowlands? What European 
 country does this ? 
 
 4. Where are the Kaietur Falls? Compare them with Niagara; 
 with Iguassu. 
 
 5. Tell the story of El Dorado. 
 
 6. From where do we sail for New York? How far is it? 
 What large islands do we pass on the way?
 
 390 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Table I. Saving of Distance Made by Panama Canal. Distances from 
 Atlantic to Pacific Ports by Old Route via Strait of Magellan and 
 BY Panama Canal 
 
 (In Nautical Miles) 
 
 
 z o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 g 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 w u 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 < < 
 
 
 
 
 1^ <'^ 
 
 U 
 
 S 
 f^ 
 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 
 > 
 < « 
 
 n 
 
 2§s 
 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 CO 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 « z 
 
 < 
 
 L^5 
 
 :$ 
 
 •^ z « 
 
 < 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 o S 
 
 
 
 
 
 p 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 H ? 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 H> 
 
 H(/3>| 
 
 h:^> 
 
 H> 
 
 H 
 
 New York 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 old route . . 
 
 14,019 
 
 13,244 
 
 10,423 
 
 9,702 
 
 17,780 
 
 18,910 
 
 19,530 
 
 14,560 
 
 8,461 
 
 via the Canal 
 
 6,074 
 
 5,299 
 
 2,864 
 
 3,359 
 
 9,835 
 
 10,885 
 
 11.58s 
 
 9,852 
 
 4,630 
 
 New Orleans 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 old route . . 
 
 14,419 
 
 13,644 
 
 10,823 
 
 10,102 
 
 18,180 
 
 19,310 
 
 19,930 
 
 14,960 
 
 8,861 
 
 via the Canal 
 
 5,447 
 
 4,698 
 
 2,263 
 
 2,759 
 
 9,234 
 
 10,284 
 
 10,984 
 
 9,251 
 
 4,029 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 old route . . 
 
 14,619 
 
 13,844 
 
 11,023 
 
 10,302 
 
 18,380 
 
 19,510 
 
 20,130 
 
 15,160 
 
 9,061 
 
 via the Canal 
 
 8,813 
 
 8,038 
 
 5,603 
 
 6,098 
 
 12,574 
 
 13,624 
 
 14,324 
 
 12,591 
 
 7,369 
 
 Hamburg 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 old route . . 
 
 15.019 
 
 14,244 
 
 11,423 
 
 10,702 
 
 18,780 
 
 19,910 
 
 20,530 
 
 15,560 
 
 9,461 
 
 via the Canal 
 
 9,242 
 
 8,467 
 
 6,032 
 
 6,527 
 
 13,003 
 
 14,053 
 
 14,753 
 
 13,020 
 
 7,798 
 
 Antwerp 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 old route . 
 
 14,754 
 
 13,979 
 
 11,158 
 
 10,437 
 
 18,515 
 
 19,645 
 
 20,265 
 
 15,295 
 
 9,196 
 
 via the Canal 
 
 8,963 
 
 8,188 
 
 5,753 
 
 6,248 
 
 12,724 
 
 13,774 
 
 14,474 
 
 12,741 
 
 7,519 
 
 Bordeaux 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 old route . . 
 
 14,474 
 
 13,691 
 
 10,868 
 
 io,iS7 
 
 18,235 
 
 19,365 
 
 19,985 
 
 15,015 
 
 8,916 
 
 via the Canal 
 
 8,713 
 
 .7,938 
 
 5,503 
 
 5,998 
 
 12,474 
 
 13,524 
 
 14,224 
 
 12,491 
 
 7,269 
 
 Table II. 
 
 Distances from United States and Europe to Principal South 
 American Ports 
 
 From 
 
 To 
 New York 
 
 To New 
 Orleans 
 
 To San 
 Francisco 
 
 To Port 
 
 townsend 
 (Seattle) 
 
 To 
 Liverpool 
 
 Buenos Aires .... 
 via Strait of Magellan 
 via New York . . . 
 
 Callao 
 
 via Panama . . . 
 via Strait of Magellan 
 direct 
 
 5,868 
 
 3,392 
 9.603 
 
 6,318 
 
 2,764 
 10,142 
 
 7,511 
 9,059 
 
 4,012 
 
 8,286 
 9,067 
 
 4,769 
 
 ^.243 
 
 5.937 
 9,980
 
 TABLES 
 
 Table II (Continued) 
 
 391 
 
 From 
 
 To 
 New York 
 
 To New 
 Orleans 
 
 To San 
 Francisco 
 
 To Port 
 townsend 
 (Seattle) 
 
 To 
 Liverpool 
 
 Panama ' 
 
 
 
 3,277 
 
 4,052 
 
 
 via Canal and Colon . 
 
 2,028 
 
 1,427 
 
 
 
 4,591 
 
 Pernambuco, Brazil 
 
 3.696 
 
 3,969 
 
 
 
 4.078 
 
 via New York . . . 
 
 
 
 » 6,887 
 
 ' 6,895 
 
 
 via New Orleans . . 
 
 
 
 ^6,451 
 
 ' 6,948 
 
 
 via Panama . . . 
 
 
 
 6,530 
 
 7,30s 
 
 
 via Strait of Magellan 
 
 
 
 9,439 
 
 10,214 
 
 
 Punta Arenas (Strait of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Magellan) 
 
 6,890 
 
 7,340 
 
 6,199 
 
 6,958 
 
 7,314 
 
 Rio de Janeiro . . . 
 
 4,778 
 
 S,2i8 
 
 
 
 5,158 
 
 via New York . . . 
 
 
 
 ' 7,969 
 
 '7,977 
 
 
 via New Orleans . . 
 
 
 
 7,700 
 
 8,197 
 
 
 via Panama . . . 
 
 
 
 7,678 
 
 8,453 
 
 
 via Strait of Magellan 
 
 
 
 8,339 
 
 9,114 
 
 
 Valparaiso 
 
 
 
 5,140 
 
 5,902 
 
 
 via San Francisco 
 
 8,331 
 
 7,662 
 
 
 
 
 via Panama . . . 
 
 4,637 
 
 4,03s 
 
 
 
 7,207 
 
 via Strait of Magellan 
 
 8,460 
 
 8,733 
 
 
 
 8,747 
 
 ' Distance by canal from Colon to Panama, 17 miles. 
 
 2 By land and water. 
 
 3 Distances given are by water except as otherwise stated. 
 
 To estimate time of travel, allow 30 miles an hour by railway and 15 miles an 
 hour by steamship. 
 
 Table III. Areas of Continents and Oceans 
 
 c 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 M.1LLI 
 3 
 
 ONS OF 
 4 
 
 QUARE 
 5 
 
 muES 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 Asia 
 
 
 MBH 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3, 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . - -3, 
 
 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L 
 
 76, 
 
 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 34, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L--_2S, 
 
 
 ^- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 4, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 --2, 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 000,000 
 517,000 
 ,392,000 
 ,S56,0OO 
 ,000,000 
 ,S&4,000 
 ,457,000 
 ,000,000 
 000,000 
 ,000,000 
 ,000,000 
 ,700,000
 
 392 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 Table IV. Heights of Mountains 
 
 FEET 
 
 80,000- 
 
 ''S'OOO 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 20 000 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 000 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 t, 
 
 
 
 « _ u 
 
 
 ti 
 
 rt 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 % 
 
 3 
 
 'S 
 
 c 
 u 
 
 > 
 
 10,000— f- 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 '> 
 
 Id 
 o" 
 
 —< 
 
 — O. 
 o" 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 Q 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 — ^- 
 
 4) 
 
 w 
 
 iXevel 
 
 o 
 < 
 
 1 
 
 
 ^1 
 
 6 
 
 c 
 
 
 ~5 
 
 o 
 U 
 
 ~2 
 
 E 
 
 £ 
 
 5 
 
 'S 
 
 
 Table V. South American Countries 
 
 AREA 
 
 POPULATION 
 
 Argentina 
 
 Bolivia 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Chile 
 
 Colombia 
 
 Ecuador 
 
 Guianas, The- - 
 
 Paraguay 
 
 Peru 
 
 Uruguay 
 
 Venezuela 
 
 United States.. 
 (Continental.) 
 
 ED THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES 
 
 12 16 20 24 28 32 
 _1 ,081,000 
 _. 450,000 
 
 
 
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 Table VI. Population of South American Cities 
 
 Argentina 
 
 Buenos Aires 1,637,000 
 
 Cordoba 156,000 
 
 Rosario 222,000 
 
 Bolivia 
 
 La Paz 100,000 
 
 Sucre 30,000 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Bahia 2go,ooo 
 
 Manaos 50,000 
 
 Para 200,000 
 
 Pemambuco 150,000 
 
 Rio de Janeiro 1,128,000 
 
 Santos 35,000 
 
 Sao Paulo 450,000
 
 TABLES 
 
 393 
 
 Table VI (continued) 
 
 Chile 
 
 Antofagasta 66,000 
 
 Concepcion 7.5.ooo 
 
 Iquique 47. 000 
 
 Santiago 415,000 
 
 Valparaiso 212,000 
 
 Colombia 
 
 Barranquilla 64,000 
 
 Bogota 137.000 
 
 Cartagena 37. 000 
 
 Medellin . 65,000 
 
 Ecuador 
 
 Guayaquil 94,000 
 
 Quito 70,000 
 
 Guianas, The 
 
 Georgetown 54,000 
 
 Paramaribo 37,ooo 
 
 Cayenne 13,000 
 
 Paraguay 
 
 Asuncion 101,000 
 
 Peru 
 
 Arequipa 40,000 
 
 Callao 34,000 
 
 Cuzco 15,000 
 
 Lima 143,000 
 
 Uruguay 
 
 Montevideo 361,000 
 
 .Venezuela 
 
 Caracas 87,000 
 
 Table VII. Some South American Rivers 
 
 Amazon . 
 Bio Bio . 
 
 Colorado . 
 Essequibo 
 Grande . 
 Guayas . 
 Iguassu . 
 Madeira . 
 Magdalena 
 Negro . . 
 Orinoco . 
 
 Miles 
 
 3,500 
 250 
 700 
 600 
 850 
 200 
 82s 
 
 2,025 
 
 1,000 
 970 
 
 1,500 
 
 Paraguay . . 
 Parana . . . 
 Parnahyba 
 Pilcomayo 
 Plata-Parand 
 Sab Francisco 
 Tapajos . . 
 Teodoro . 
 Tocantins 
 Uruguay . . 
 
 Miles 
 
 1,300 
 2,300 
 1.070 
 1,200 
 2,500 
 1,810 
 1,24s 
 800 
 1,650 
 1,030 
 
 Some Other Great Rivers 
 
 Kongo 2,800 
 
 Mississippi-Missouri 4,200 
 
 Nile 3,900
 
 394 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Table VIII. Number of Cattle 
 
 India 
 
 United States 
 
 Russia 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Argentina 
 
 Germany 
 
 Asiatic Russia 
 
 France 
 
 United Kingdom __ 
 
 Table IX. Number of Sheep 
 
 e 
 
 MILLIONS 
 50 
 
 Australia 
 
 United States - 
 
 Argentina 
 
 Asiatic Russia 
 European Russia • - 
 United Kingdom - 
 
 New Zealand 
 
 India 
 
 75 
 
 100 
 
 3EE5 
 
 76.669,000 
 
 49,863,000 
 
 43,225,000 
 
 38,696,000 
 
 37,240,000 
 
 27,063,000 
 
 26,538,000 
 
 23,016,000 
 
 Table X. Principal Wheat-Producing Countries 
 
 MILLIONS OF BUSHELS 
 
 200 300 400 
 
 United States 
 
 Russia 
 
 India 
 
 France 
 
 Canada 
 
 lUly 
 
 Argentina 
 
 Hungary 
 
 Germany 
 
 Spain 
 
 Roumania — 
 
 Table XI. Principal Copper-Producing Countries 
 
 100 200 
 
 THOCrSANDS OF TONS 
 
 300 400 300 600 
 
 700 800 900 1000 
 
 United States. 
 Chile- 
 Japan 
 
 Mexico 
 
 Canada 
 
 Spain 
 
 Peru 
 
 Germany 
 
 Australasia 
 
 Belgian Kongo. 
 
 -954,000 
 -126,000 
 --96,000 
 -.77,000 
 -.59,000 
 _ 50,000 
 _ -49,000 
 .-44,000 
 .-44,000 
 22,000
 
 TABLES 
 
 395 
 
 Table XII. Principal Silver-Producing Countries 
 
 ^Jnited States— 
 
 Uexico 
 
 Canada 
 
 Peru 
 
 Australasia 
 
 Japan 
 
 Bolivia & ChileL- 
 Spain & PortugaL 
 
 MILLIONS OF OUNCES, TROY 
 
 20 3.0 40 50 
 
 70 
 ._ -6^200,000 
 
 62,400,000 
 
 .21,600,000 
 .J0,800,00O 
 ._ 9,600,000 
 
 6,600,000 
 
 .4.320,000 
 .3,120,000 
 
 Table XIII. Principal Tin-Producing Countries 
 
 THOUSANDS OF TONS 
 20 30 
 
 Fed. Malay States. 
 
 Bolivia 
 
 Dutch East Indies. 
 
 Siam 
 
 China 
 
 .49,000 
 -23,500 
 -22,000 
 .-9,900 
 -9,000 
 
 Table XIV. Principal Coffee-Producing Coltntries 
 
 Brazil | 
 
 Central America 
 
 West Indies 
 
 Venezuela 
 
 Colombia 
 
 Dutch East Indies 
 
 Mexico 
 
 British India 
 
 MILLIONS OF POUNDS ANNUALLY ( AV. 1009-13) 
 
 500 1000 1500 2000 
 
 I l-_l,C72.000,00O 
 
 _195.0OO,0OO 
 .114.000,000 
 _ 111,000,000 
 _ 104.000.000 
 -_ 54 .000,000 
 ._ 49.000,000 
 ._28.000.000 
 
 Table XV. Principal Rubber-Producing Countries 
 
 THOUSANDS OF TONS 
 
 States ^^^^— 
 
 East Indies. ^HH^^^H 
 
 -K 
 
 Malay States 
 
 Dutch East Indies 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Ceylon 
 
 Bolivia 
 
 .105,000 
 _ 52.000 
 _ 50,000 
 .25,000 
 ..5,000 
 
 Table XVI. Principal Cacao-Producing Countries 
 
 British Colonies. _ 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Ecuador 
 
 St.Thomas (Africa 
 
 San Domingo 
 
 Venezuela 
 
 MILLIONS OF POUNDS (1917) 
 
 100 200 300 
 
 .320.000.000 
 .121.000.000 
 .88.000.000 
 -68,000,000 
 .55,000,000 
 . 42,000,000
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aconcagua, Mount, 17, 98, 158, 215 
 
 Alpacas, 105 
 
 Amazon River, 17, 333-363 
 
 Amazon, Valley of the, 333-363 
 
 Andes Mountains, 17, 31, 66-76 
 
 Antofagasta, 135, 144 
 
 Argentina, 196-231, 241-247 
 
 Armadillos, 228 
 
 Ascotan, Lake, 136 
 
 Asuncion, 257-263 
 
 Atahualpa, 74, 84 
 
 Bahia, 318-324 
 
 Bahia Blanca, 198 
 
 Balboa, port of, 38 
 
 Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, 27 
 
 Bananas, 43, 45, 62, 290, 373 
 
 Barranquilla, 46 
 
 Bodegas, 61 
 
 Bogota, 48-50I 
 
 Bolivar, Simon, 117, 376 
 
 Bolivia, 1 17-134 
 
 Borax, 136-137 
 
 Brazil, 275-363; rivers of, 177, 322; 
 
 water powers of, 277, 322 
 Buenos Aires, 223-231 
 
 Cabot, Sebastian, 243 
 
 Cacao, 19, 43, 62, 64, 276, 355, 373 
 
 Callao, 86 
 
 Cape Horn, 179 
 
 Caracas, 371-378 
 
 Cattle, 43, 208-210, 240, 264, 366, 371 
 
 Cauca River, 44 
 
 Ceara, 330-332 
 
 Cerro de Pasco, 99 
 
 Cayenne, 388 
 
 Chile, 135-196 
 
 Chimborazo, Mount, 68 
 
 Chocolate (See cacao) 
 
 Cinchona, 126 
 
 Ciudad Bolivar, 368 
 
 Coal, 54, I75-J7Q, iQO 
 
 Coca, 129 
 
 Coffee, 19, 43, 64, 276, 289, 293-301, 308, 
 
 373 
 Colombia, 40-55 
 Colon, 26 
 Concepcion, 176 
 
 Copper, 54, 64, 99, 145, 190. 372 
 Cordoba, 215-217 
 Corrientes, 247 
 Cotopaxi, Mount; 68 
 Cotton, 43, 81, qi, 94, 293, 322, 328-331 
 Cristobal, 26 
 Cuyaba, 282-284 
 Cuzco, 104- 1 10 
 
 Desert, South American, 77-85, 135-145 
 Diamonds, 325-327, 382 
 
 Ecuador, 56-76 
 
 El Dorado, 380, 382 
 
 Emeralds, 51-55 
 
 Flax, 222 
 
 Forests, 173, 247-253, 278 
 
 Galapagos Islands, 56 
 
 Gauchos, 211 
 
 Georgetown, 384-385 
 
 Germans, 174, 224, 288 
 
 Gold, 27, 64, 131, 190, 284, 325, 372, 382 
 
 Gran Chaco, 247-353 
 
 Grapes, 165, 215 
 
 Guanaco, 199 
 
 Guano Islands, 142-144 
 
 Guayaquil, 34, 57-60 
 
 397
 
 398 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Guayas River, 56 
 
 Guiana, 379-389; British, 384; Dutch, 
 
 386; French, 388 
 Gulf Stream, 24 
 
 Honda, 48 
 
 Iguassu Fails, 284-286 
 
 Iguassu River, 284-286 
 
 Illimani, Mount, 112 
 
 Indians — Alacalufes, 185 ; Araucanians, 
 136, 17s; Arawaks, 359, 383; 
 Aymaras, 107, 119; Bolivia, 122, 
 126; Botocudos, 357; Brazil, 357- 
 360; Caribs, 359; Colombia, 49; 
 Ecuador, 72-75, Guaranis, 257; head 
 hunters, 75; Incas, 104-109; Lenguas, 
 250; Mundurucos, 360; Onas, 194- 
 19s; Paraguay, 250; Peru^ 83-85; 
 Quichua, 107; Tobas, 250; Yaghans, 
 
 195- 
 Iodine, 142 
 Iquique, 139 
 Iquitos, 280, 337, 362 
 Iron, 145, 276, 325 
 Italians, 224, 301, 312 
 Ivory nuts, 62 
 
 Kaietur Falls, 386 
 
 Lace, 268 
 
 La Guaira, 373-374 
 La Paz, 120-124 
 Lima, 85-92 
 Llamas, 102 
 Locusts, 217 
 
 Madeira River, 355 
 Magdalena River, 45-49 
 Magellan, Ferdinand, 28, 187 
 Magellan, Strait of, 181-196 
 Manaos, 356 
 Manganese, 325 
 Manioc, 263, 340 
 Maracaibo, Lake, 371 
 Mate, 271-275 
 Matto Grosso, 280-288 
 Meat, 210, 228, 238 
 Meiggs, Mount, q6 
 Mendoza, 215 
 
 Montevideo, 234-240 
 
 Negroes, 19, 320-321, 384 
 Nitrate, 135-142 
 
 Oranges, 43, 81, 257, 263, 268-271, 322 
 Orinoco River, 364-370 
 Oruro, 132-133 
 
 Pacific Ocean, 27, 40-41 
 
 Pampas, 203-213 
 
 Panama, 27-39 
 
 Panama Canal, 28-39 
 
 Panama hats, 64 
 
 Pan American Union, 14 
 
 Para, 337-342 
 
 Paraguay, 254-275 
 
 Paraguay River, 254, 280 
 
 Parahyba, 330 
 
 Paramaribo, 386 
 
 Parana River, 241-247 
 
 Passports, 13 
 
 Patagonia, 197-203 
 
 Paulo Affonso Falls, 324 
 
 Peccaries, 253 
 
 Pernambuco, 328 
 
 Peru, 76-117 
 
 Petroleum, 54, loi, 372 
 
 Pichincha, Mount, 70 
 
 Pizarro, 74, 84, 89, 104, 106 
 
 Platinum, 54 
 
 Porto Alegre, 286 
 
 Portuguese, 278 
 
 Potatoes, 91, loi, 124; chimo, no 
 
 Punta Arenas, 188-189 
 
 Quinine, 126 
 Quinua, loi 
 Quito, 61, 66-75 
 
 Railways — Andes, 92-98; Bolivia, 118; 
 Brazil, 288, 290, 324; Madeira- 
 Mamore, 362; Peru, 113; Transan- 
 dine, 150-159 
 
 Rhea, 200 
 
 Rimac River, 86 
 
 Rio de Janeiro, 278, 305-318 
 
 Rio de la Plata River, 241-247 
 
 Rio Negro River, 355, 363 
 
 Rio Teodoro River, 352
 
 INDEX 
 
 399 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 352 
 
 Rosario, 220, 244 
 
 Rubber, ig, 64, 124, 276, 342-351 
 
 San Salvador, 25 
 
 Santiago, isg-i6s 
 
 Santos, 289-290 
 
 Sao Francisco River, 324 
 
 Sao Paulo, 290 
 
 Sheep, 43, 189, 192-194, 198, 203-206, 264 
 
 Silver, 64, 99, 131, 145 
 
 Snakes, City of, 301-303 
 
 Sorata, Mount, 112 
 
 Soroche, 96-98 
 
 Sugar, 43, 81-82, 214, 257, 328-331, 38s 
 
 Tequendama Falls, 50 
 Tierra del Fuego, 189-195 . 
 
 Tin, 99, 131, 133 
 Titicaca, Lake, 110-117 
 Tobacco, 262, 276, 293, 322 
 Trinidad, 369, 372 
 Tucuman, 214 
 Turtles, 56, 341 
 
 Uruguay, 232-240 
 
 Valparaiso, 146-150 
 Vanadium, 99 
 Venezuela, 370-379 
 Vespucius, Americus, 15, 306 
 Vicuna, 104 
 Vultures, 341 
 
 Wheat, 165, 217-222 
 Wool, 227. See sheep.
 
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