,y.r«-(?i«*' -¦ ' Sou.th America Bv 899 bt YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PRETTY GIRLS OF CHILE SOUTH AMERICA Social, Industrial, and Political A TWENTY-FIVE-THOUSAND-MILE JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF INFORMATION in the Isthmus of Panama and the Lands of the Equator, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Tierra del Fuego, the Falklands, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, "Brazil, the Guianas, Venezuela, and fhe Orinoco 'Basin : : : : THE RESOURCES AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE VARIOUS COUNTRIES- THE LIFE AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE— THEIR GOVERN MENTS, BUSINESS METHODS, AND TRADE BY FRANK G. CARPENTER Author of "THROUGH ASIA," and "THROUGH NORTH AMERICA* Tully Illustrated AKRON, OHIO THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK iqoi CHICAGO COPYR3GHT, l"900, BY FRANK G. CARPENTER PREFACE Jhe present volume is the outcome of a journalistic expe dition to South America in search of information for the American business man and the general reader. The journey occupied about a year of constant travel, during which the author visited the various countries, spending some time in their capitals and ports, and making many journeys into the in terior. During his travels the author wrote letters for many of the leading newspapers of the United States, and at the same time prepared the notes which form the basis of this book. His aim has been to take the reader as far as possible through the scenes described, and for this reason the matter is, in the main, given as it was penned on the ground. The work is more a study of the commercial and social life of the cities, and a description of how the people live and work in the country, than a diary of travel and adventure. It •describes the chief industries, notes the characteristic features of the inhabitants, discusses the resources and possibilities of the various countries, and incidentally points out the chances for the investment of American capital and the increase of American trade. These matters, however, are discussed from the standpoint of human interest and for the average reader, the aim being to give a plain, simple narrative, conveying the information about South America most desired at the present time. The author has as far as possible verified all statements of facts; but many of the (v) VI PREFACE South American republics are lamentably lacking in accurate statistics, and in order to secure information the traveller has to rely to a large extent upon personal interviews. The various so- called authorities on South America are now of little value, for the continent is rapidly changing, and what was true of its peo ple and condition a few years ago may not be so now. In his work the author has received assistance from so many sources that it is impossible for him to render proper thanks to all. He wishes, however, to express his gratitude to our Cabinet Ministers at Washington, to the General of the United States Army, and to other officials, for letters of introduction which opened to him the government sources of the South American republics, and also to our Ministers and Consuls stationed at the various ports and cities of South America for putting themselves at the author's disposal and materially assisting him in the col lection of information. He also tenders his thanks to the Presi dents of the various South American republics and their officials for many courtesies and favours, and also to the people of South America generally, for their very cordial treatment of him, a stranger in their lands. The Author. Washington, D. C, February, 1900. CONTENTS CHAPTER I FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA PAGE A Winter Sail over the Caribbean Sea on an American Steamer — A New Use for the Gulf Stream — Landing at Colon — -Its .Hospitals and its Cemeteries — A Graveyard of Foreigners — The Terrors of the Isthmus. 23 CHAPTER II ACROSS THE ISTHMUS BY RAILROAD The Story of the Panama Railroad, which has made Fortunes for its Owners — It Charges the Highest Fares and Pays Dividends of Millions — The Scenery of the Isthmus — The Chagres River — A Look at the City of Panama — Its Odd Social Customs — Its Lot- teiy and its Bull-Ring. 30 CHAPTER III THE PANAMA CANAL A Description of this Colossal Work, which has Cost a Quarter of a Bil lion Dollars and is not Half Done — A Walk along the Canal — Three Thousand Labourers and What They Are Doing — The Canal Scandals, and how De Lesseps and his Associates stole Millions — Fortunes in Machinery • now going to Waste — Will the Canal be Completed ? 40 CHAPTER IV THE WONDERS OE COLOMBIA An Undeveloped Empire still unexplored — A Look at the Cauca Valley, where Americans are now Settling — A River of Vinegar — Bogota, the Capital — What Colombia produces — It is a Land of Gold — Queer Features of Travel on the Southern Pacific — How one feels on the Equator 50 (7) 8 CONTENTS CHAPTER V THE LAND OF THE EQUATOR PAGE The Wonders of Ecuador — Trees that weave Blankets, and Mules that wear Pantalets — The Curious City of Guayaquil — Its Police and Fire Department — Where the Taxes are Low and the Death- Rate is High — Ecuador's Debt Slaves, and how they are Oppressed. . 54 CHAPTER VI THE BANGKOK OF ECUADOR A Ride up the Guayas River to the Foot of the Andes — The Floating Town of Babahoyo, whose People live upon the Water — A Visit to the Cacao Plantations, whence our Chocolate comes — Ecua dorian Farming, and its enormous Profits — Wages and the Cost of Living. ... ........ 62 CHAPTER VII THE MOUNTAINS OF THE EQUATOR The Highlands of the Northern Andes — Chimborazo and Cotopaxi — Quito, the highest Capital City in the World — Civilization in Ecua dor — The different classes of the People — How the Whites rule — The Aborigines — Savage Indians who bake the Heads of their Enemies. ... ....... 69 CHAPTER VIII ON THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT A Land of Dry Sand, where it Rains only once in Seven Years — Skeletons and Mummies — Travelling Sand-Dunes, which are always on the March — Among the Ruins of the Incas — The old City of Jequetepec — Cajamarca, and Atahualpa's Prison Cell, which he filled with Gold — The Sunsets of the Desert. .... 77 CHAPTER IX THE IRRIGATED VALLEYS OF PERU A Land where Cotton grows on Trees and is Red in Colour — The big Sugar Plantations, and how they are Managed — Peruvian Labour and Wages — A Look at the Peons and their Homes. . . 84 PAGE CONTENTS CHAPTER X AN HOUR WITH THE PRESIDENT OF PERU The Romantic career of a South American statesman — How he fought his way through Revolution to Power — His Narrow Escape in a. woman's clothes — The Resources of Peru — One of the Richest Countries in the World, with the poorest Inhabitants — Peru's War with Chile, and how her Treasure was Stolen. .... 88 CHAPTER XI THE CAPITAL OF PERU A Magnificent City made of Mud and Fishing-Poles — How Lima Houses are Built — Chickens that live on the Housetops — The Stores and the great Cathedral — The pretty Girls of Lima — Their odd Cus toms and Costumes — Lima on Horseback — Women who Ride Astride — A City where Mules take the place of the Huckster Cart. 95 CHAPTER XII DOWN THE ANDES ON A HAND-CAR An Exciting Trip from the Mountain-Tops to the Pacific ocean over the steepest Railroad in the World — Its Track climbs upwards of Three Miles in less than a Hundred — Its Cost in Money and Lives — The Scenic Wonders of the Andes — How One feels Three Miles above the Sea — The Horrors of Soroche, or Mountain Sickness — A Snowball fight in the Clouds — On the Eastern Side of the Andes. . . . . . . . 111 CHAPTER XIII IN THE HEART OF THE ANDES The Journey up the Mountains, from Mollendo to Puno — Across the Pampa de Islay — A Visit to Arequipa, the chief City of Southern Peru — The Harvard Observatory, and its wonderful Photographs of the Southern Heavens — Mount Misti, the highest Meteorological Observatory on Earth — The Plateau of Peru, and its Curious People. . . • . . 122 CHAPTER XIV STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS Lake Titicaca, the highest of Navigable Waters — It is half as large as Lake Erie, and twice as high up in the air as Mount Washington IO CONTENTS PAGE — How steel Steamers were brought to it on the Backs of Men and Mules over Passes higher than Pike's Peak — Its Sacred Islands, and their wonderful Ruins — The Curious Inhabitants who Live upon its Shores — Balsas, or Native Boats made of .Straw — Curious Animals about Titicaca — The Llama, the Vicuna, and the Alpaca . 136 CHAPTER XV THE WONDERFUL CITY OF LA PAZ Strange Features of Life and Business in the Heart of Bolivia — The Indians and the Cholos — Mules and Donkeys as Beer- Waggons, Bread-Carts, and Hearses — A Visit to the Markets — The Curious Vegetables and Fruits of Interior South America — Frozen Potatoes — Beans that taste like Ice-Cream, and Indian Corn that makes Flour without Grinding. ......... 145 CHAPTER XVI THE AYMARA INDIANS The Curious People who Live on the Plateau of Bolivia — A Nation of Slaves who are contented with Slavery — A Peep into their Huts — Their Feuds, and how they Fight with Slings — About Coca, the favourite Indian Chew — Chicha, or Bolivian Beer — Goats skinned alive to make Brandy Bottles 152 CHAPTER XVII IN THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA An Unexplored Country of vast Resources given up to Savage Tribes — The Cannibals of the Eastern Andes, who Shoot with Blow- Guns and Poisoned Arrows — Some Indians who go Naked, and Others who Dress in Bark Clothing — The Rubber Forests of the Andean Slope — Quinine and Peruvian Bark 160 CHAPTER XVIII A WILD RIDE WITH THE BOLIVIAN MAILS A Gallop over the dried-up Sea of the Middle Andes — Strange Scenes on the Highlands — The Bolivian Coachman, and his Cruelty — Nights in Bolivian Inns — Odd Features of Farming, where Oxen pull the Ploughs with their Heads — American Trade in Bolivia . . i(,g CONTENTS CHAPTER XIX AMONG THE GOLD AND SILVER MINES OF THE ANDES PAGE Bolivia's enormous Silver Output — It has produced $4,000,000,000 worth of the Metal — The Silver Mountain of Potosi and the rich Mines of Cerro de Pasco — The Gold Mines of Eastern Bolivia — The Tipuani Placer Deposits now being Worked by Ameri cans — Prospecting in the Andes — The richest Tin Mines in the World 177 CHAPTER XX A CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE GODS The Nitrate Deserts of Chile, in which the English have Invested $100,000,000 — How Nitrate of Soda is. Mined — A Visit to the Fields — The Extent of the Deposits, and the Peculiarities of the Nitrate Towns — A Look at Ascotan, the Borax Lake of the Andes — Six Hundred Miles by Rail over Salty Plains. . . .184 CHAPTER XXI AMONG THE CHILENOS The Yankees of South America, and their Country — Odd Features of the Slimmest Land in the World — Its Wonderful Riches — Its Vast Deposits of Guano, Gold, Silver, and Copper — Valparaiso, the New York of the Southern Pacific. ....... 192 CHAPTER XXII ON ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND The Scene of Alexander Selkirk's adventures — The Island of Juan Fer nandez, and how the Chilean Government proposes to Colonize it — The Guano Islands, out of which Peru has dug Millions — What Guano is — The Galapagos Islands, and the Robinson Crusoe of Ecuador. ........ . 203 CHAPTER XXIII THE CITY OF SANTIAGO Special Features of Life and Business in the Chilean Capital — A Bird's- Eye view from Santa Lucia — Palaces that cover Acres and cost Fortunes — A Street-Car Ride for a Cent — High Life among the Chilenos — Paris Dresses and Diamonds — How the Nabobs enjoy themselves — Scenes at the Opera and the Races. . . 215 j 2 CONTENTS CHAPTER XXIV THE PRESIDENT OF CHILE PAGE A Visit to the Chilean « White House0 — The President and Congress — How Chile is Governed — The Influence of the Church, and its great Wealth — Its vast Ecclesiastical Property in Santiago, and its rich Nuns and Monks — Education in Chile, and the Ameri can Schools 224 CHAPTER XXV FAR .MING ON A GRAND SCALE A Land where a Thousand Acres are only a Garden-patch, and many Farms are worth Millions — Special Features of Life on the Ha ciendas — Peons who Work for Twenty Cents a Day and get Drunk every Week — Their extraordinary Strength and the great Mortality among them — A Visit to an immense Estate managed by a Woman — The Wheat Lands of Chile — Its Fine Cattle and Horses 231 CHAPTER XXVI LIFE ON THE CHILEAN FRONTIER How the Southern Part of the Country is being opened up to Settle ment — Government Auctions, where Land is sold in lots of Thousands of Acres — A Look at the frontier City of Temuco, and something about Concepcion, the Metropolis of the South — The Chances for Investment — Big Farms at low Prices — Valua ble Mines — A Journey into the Coal Mines under the Pacific Ocean on an Electric Trolley 243 CHAPTER XXVII THE ARAUCANIAN INDIANS Odd Features of Life among the Richest and Bravest of the South American Indians — A Visit to their Reservations in South Chile — Pretty Indian Maidens — How they are Courted and Married — Curious Customs of Birth and Death — The Araucanian Religion — An Araucanian Woman, who claims to be 130 Years Old. . . 249 CHAPTER XXVIII AT THE TAIL END OF OUR HEMISPHERE A Trip through Smyth's Channel into the Strait of Magellan — Sailing amidst the Clouds among Icebergs and Andean Snows — A Look CONTENTS I3 PAGE at Cape Froward, the southernmost Continental Point in the World — The Savages of Patagonia — The naked Alacalufes, who live in Canoes — Lassoing an Iceberg — A Description of the Strait and its magnificent Scenery 259 CHAPTER XXIX IN THE CAPITAL OF THE MAGELLANS How the People live and do Business in the most Southerly City in the World — Lots which formerly Cost a Postage Stamp now worth Thousands of Dollars — The Big Sheep Farms of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, some of which Feed Flocks of Tens of Thousands and make Fortunes for their Owners — Vultures that pick out the Eyes of Live Sheep — The Panthers and the Indian Sheep-Stealers. . 271 CHAPTER XXX TIERRA DEL FUEGO New Facts about one of the least-known parts of the World — An Island covered with a Dense Vegetation, having Mighty Forests and Grass-Grown Plains — Where the Gold Mines are Located, and how Nuggets and Scales of Gold are Picked out of the Sands of the Sea — The Indians of Tierra del Fuego — The Onas, who go Naked, Sleep in Holes in the Ground, and Wage War upon the Whites — The Yaghans, who are Semi-Civilized — Their Wonderful Language. .... ..... 278 CHAPTER XXXI IN THE FALKLAND ISLANDS John Bull's new Naval Station in the South Atlantic — It Controls Cape Horn and the Strait of Magellan — Where the Falklands Are — Their Vast Sheep Farms, which are Managed by Shepherds on Horseback — A Visit to Stanley, the Capital — Travelling School masters — Postal Savings Banks and other Features of the thrift iest Island Community in the World. 285 CHAPTER XXXII THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC A Bird's-Eye View of the Country — Its Vast Wheat-Fields, Sugar Plantations, and Extensive Pastures — How it Compares with the United States — Its People, and their Characteristics — The Latin- American as a National Type — How Argentina is Growing — Its Railroads and Telegraphs — Its Normal Schools, founded by Yankee School-Teachers. ......... 294 I4 CONTENTS CHAPTER XXXIII BUENOS AIRES PAGE The Metropolis of South America, and the largest Spanish-speaking City in the World — How it Contro's Argentina Politically, Socially, and Financially — Buenos Aires from the Housetops — A Town of Shreds and Patches — A Look at its Churches — The Largest Catholic City on Earth — A South American Botany Bay. . . 3°5 CHAPTER XXXIV HIGH LIFE IN ARGENTINA How the Nabobs of Buenos Aires look, act, and live — A Nation of Gamblers, who spend Millions a Year on Races, Lotteries, and the Stock-Exchange — Behind the Scenes at the Clubs — A Night at the Opera — Well-Dressed Women and Impudent Young Men — Curious Customs of Courtship and Marriage — Odd Features of Family Life ... 316 CHAPTER XXXV LO W LIFE IN ARGENTINA How the Poor Live — The Conventillos of Buenos Aires, and their Miserable Inhabitants — Work, Wages, and Trades Unions — The Chances for Women — Strange Ways of Washing and Ironing — Among the Gauchos or Cowboys of the Pampas — A Peep into their Homes — Their Terrible Duels — « I Feel like killing Some One.M . ... . . .... 327 CHAPTER XXXVI ODD ARGENTINE CUSTOMS The Hospitality of the People — Presents with Strings to Them — The Cemeteries and Funeral Customs — How the Dead are filed away in Pigeon-Holes — Rented Graves — Curious Gastronomic Tastes — Snails and Armadillos as Tidbits — The Greatest Meat-Eaters in the World — How Turkeys are Sold — Milkmen who cannot Water their Milk . .... 336 CHAPTER XXXVII THE WHEA T-FIELDS OF ARGENTINA Where they are, and What they are — How the Grain is Raised and Marketed — The Wheat Farmers are Italians, who live CONTENTS : ,. in Mud Huts — Rosario, the Chicago of South America — The Locusts that come from Brazil in Swarms and eat up the Wheat and everything Green — How they are Destroyed — The Future of Wheat-Raising in South America, and its probable Competition with the United States 342 CHAPTER XXXVIII SHEEP AND STOCK-RAISING IN ARGENTINA Argentina has more than 100,000,000 Sheep, and produces a Hundred Pounds of Wool to each of its Inhabitants — A Look into the greatest Produce Market in the World — How Argentina is improv ing her Cattle and Sheep — A Ram which Cost $2,000, and Bulls at $5,000 Each — A Visit to the la3-gest Meat-Freezing Establish ment in the World. ......... 350 CHAPTER XXXIX HOW THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC IS GOVERNED Its President and Congress — Elections held on Sundays in the Churches — Everything in the hands of Rings — Politicians who steal Mil lions — The Frauds of the National Banks — The Judicial System and the Police — The Army and Navy. ... . 35S CHAPTER XL ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA ON THE TRANS-ANDEAN RAILROAD Concerning the Trans-Andean Railroad, which crosses Chile and Argen tina — How the Track climbs the Andes — Snow-Sheds cut out of solid Rock, and other curious Features of Railroad-Building — Groceries on Wheels, and Freight Cars with Sails — A Look at Aconcagua, the highest of the Andes — Singular Features of Na ture on the Pampas, where it sometimes Rains Mud. . . . 369 CHAPTER XLI THE UNITED STATES AND ARGENTINA What should be Done to Better our Trade — We need American Steamers and an International American Bank — How the English are making Money in South American Banking — Stock Specula tion in Buenos Aires — A Day on the Exchange — Opportunities for Investments • 382 X6 CONTENTS CHAPTER XLII UP THE PARAGUAY RIVER PAGE A Thirteen-Hundred-Mile Trip on the Rio de la Plata system into the Heart of South America — How the Rio de la Plata surpasses the Mississippi — The Parana River, and its Ten Thousand Islands, which are floating down to the Sea — Strange Sights on the Paraguay River — Monkeys, Parrots, Jaguars, and Crocodiles — Life on the River Steamers — Peculiar Table Manners. .... 389 CHAPTER XLIII IN THE CITY OF ASUNCION A Walk through the Capital of Paraguay — A Town older than any in North America, but still new — Its Telephones and Telephone Girls — A General View of Paraguay — Its Cities, Towns, and Vil lages — Its Queer Colonies, one of which was named after Presi dent Hayes. ... . 399 CHAPTER XLIV THE PRETTY GIRLS OF PARAGUAY Strange Customs of a Land where there are more Women than Men — The War with Brazil, that Killed off the Men — How the Women Manage the Country — Their Business Ability — A Visit to the Mai-kets — Orange Girls and Butcher Women — A Look into a Paraguayan Home — Paraguay Tobacco, used by Women and Children who both Smoke and Chew. .... 409 CHAPTER XLV INDUSTRIAL PARAGUAY Its Resources and Possibilities — A Land of vast Pastures and many Cattle — Its Dense Forests of valuable hard Woods — Its Tobacco and Cotton Fields — Low Prices of Land — The Chances for Ameri cans and American Trade. . . .... 4*8 CHAPTER XLVI ROUND ABOUT PIRAPO Strange Adventures in the Wilds of Paraguay — A Night in a Country Hotel — Paraguay's only Raih-oad, and its odd Passengers — How Women Peddle raw Meat at the Stations — Country Scenes — Tens of Thousands of Ant-hills — A Land where Oranges grow wild — •Odd Features of Life outside the Cities 428 CONTENTS jy CHAPTER XLVII IN THE WILDS OF BRAZIL PAGE The Trip up the Paraguay into the Province of Matto Grosso — A Look at Cuyaba — A Stop at Corumba — Tigers and Alligators — Savage Indians who are Born without Hair and Grow Hair only on the Head — Something about the Chaco and its Curious Tribes — The Tobas, Lenguas, and others. . . 439 CHAPTER XLVIII IN THE LITTLE LAND OF URUGUAY A Bird's-Eye View of the smallest of the South American Republics — The richest Land south of the Equator — A Look at Montevideo and its beautiful Harbour — Its Public Buildings, its Theatres, Banks, and Stock-Exchange — How Uruguay is Governed — Its Post Offices, Telephones, Telegraphs, and Schools — Strange Street Scenes. ... . ... . 454 CHAPTER XLIX THE PRESIDENT OF URUGUAY He lives upon a Political Volcano and is always in Danger of Assassi nation — A Land of Revolutions — An Evening at the <( White House » of Montevideo guarded by Gatling guns on the Roof — High Life in the Uruguayan Capital — Queer Customs of Coui-tship and Mar riage — How the young Men play the Dragon, and why there are no Breach-of-Promise Suits. 465 CHAPTER L THE BABY REPUBLIC OF BRAZIL The Portuguese half of South America — An enormous Country of Vast Resources — Travels through West Deutschland — Thriving Cities and vast Pastures owned by Germans — A Visit to the Death Harbour of Santos — How Coffee is loaded for America — Up the Mountains to Sao Paulo, the great Coffee Metropolis. . . . 481 CHAPTER LI A VISIT TO THE LARGEST COFFEE PLANTATION An Estate which has 5,000,000 Coffee Trees, and is Forty Miles around — How the Soil looks, and how the Coffee Trees are grown — Picking Coffee, and preparing it for the Market — A Ride over the Plantation 'on its Railroad — Its Italian Colonies, and how they are Managed — Among the Pretty Coffee-sorters. . . 493 t8 CONTENTS CHAPTER LII MORE ABOUT COFFEE PAGE Brazil, the chief Coffee-country of the World — It Produces two-thirds of all the Coffee used by Man — Where the Coffee-fields are, and how the Product is handled at Rio and Santos — The Kinds of Coffee, and why our Mocha and Java Coffees come from Brazil — Behind the Scenes in the Warehouses — How the Beans are Pol ished and Painted up for the Market — Coffee Detectives and Coffee Thieves 500 CHAPTER LIII IN RIO DE JANEIRO The largest Portuguese city in the World — A Look at the Harbour of Rio, and a Visit to its Botanical Gardens — A Walk on the Ouvi- dor — Strange Street Scenes — Auctions and Lotteries — A Visit to the Markets — Life in the Restaurants and Cafes — What Good Coffee is — A nervous Nation, always on the Twitch. . . 508 CHAPTER LIV IN THE SWITZERLAND OF BRAZIL Petropolis, the Summer Resort of the Capital — A Trip up the Organ Mountains on a Cog Railroad — Where our Minister lives, and where Dom Pedro had his Palaces — An American College for Girls — Woman's Rights in Brazil, and some Peculiarities of Brazilian Women . 523 CHAPTER LV BAHIA, AND THE DIAMOND MINES How the Precious Stones are Dug out of the Rivers of Brazil — Mined by Native Indians, who Dive for the Diamond Gravel — Concerning the Carbons, or Black Diamonds, found near Bahia — The Gold Mines of Minas Geraes, and the new Gold Regions of Northern Brazil — The old City of Bahia, once the Brazilian Capital — Its 200,000 People, most of whom are Coloured — American Gold Dol lars as Vest Buttons. .......... 535 CONTENTS ,„ CHAPTER LVI UP THE COAST OF BRAZIL PAGE Peculiar Features of life on a Brazilian Steamer — The city of Pernam- buco, and its wonderful Reef — A great Cotton Country — Brazil's new Cotton Factories, and their enormous Profits — A visit to Ceara and its Capital, Forteleza — Terrible Famines — The Car- nauba Palm, which Houses, Feeds, and Lights the People. . . 548 CHAPTER LVII ON THE MIGHTY AMAZON Travelling on an Ocean Steamer up the greatest Valley in the World — The wonderful size of the Amazon — Its many Tributaries, and its floating Islands — Steaming through the Delta — How the River looks a Thousand Miles from the Sea — Sketches of the People and their Homes — The Floods in the Amazon Basin, the Rain iest part of the World — The Cacao Plantation, and how Chocolate is Raised. ....... .... 561 CHAPTER LVIII THE GREAT CITIES OF THE AMAZON Some features of Para and Manaos, which control the Trade of the Valley — High and Low Life at the Amazon's Mouth — Manaos, the Metropolis of the Rio Negro — An Ocean Port a Thousand Miles from the Atlantic — A town of Electric Railroads, Telephones, and Charitable Institutions — Iquitos, on the Peruvian Amazon, a Steamship Port 2,300 miles inland. . . . . . . 572 CHAPTER LIX IN THE INDIA-RUBBER CAMPS A visit to the Rubber forests, and a description of how the Trees are tapped for the Markets — How Rubber is made — Who owns the Trees — Something about the Rubber Slaves of the Upper Amazon — The Cost of Rubber, and how I made an ounce at a cost of $100. 583 CHAPTER LX BRAZIL AND THE UNITED STATES Chances for American Capital — The Banks, and their enormous Profits — Railroads that Pay — Cold-Storage Plants — Steamship Compa nies that discriminate against our Trade. 594 CONTENTS CHAPTER LXI IN THE GUIANAS Where the Guianas are, and what they are — Their wild Lands, and their savage Indians and bush Negroes — British Guiana, and its mixed Population — A land of Hindus, Chinese, and Negroes — The rich Sugar plantations, and how they are Managed — Dutch Guiana, the little Holland of South America — French Guiana, and its Penal Colony — A look at Georgetown, Paramaribo, and Cayenne. . 603 CHAPTER LXII VENEZUELA, AND THE ORINOCO BASIN An Enormous Country of great Possibilities — How Named — Its Sugar lands and Cacao Orchards — Its Coffee, which we drink as Mocha — The Orinoco, and its vast Pastures — How the Llanos look — The Gold regions — On Lake Maracaibo — In Caracas, the National Capital. . . . . ...... 610 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Pretty Girls of Chile (Frontispiece) Avenue of Palms, Colon (Aspinwall), Colombia 26 Panama Cathedral 33 Wash-day on the Panama Isthmus 36 Fruit Market at Panama 39 Route of the Panama Isthmian Canal . . 41 Excavating for the Panama Canal 43 Dredging Machine at work on the Pan ama Canal 45 The Eastern End of the Panama Canal 48 Guayaquil, Ecuador 59 Indians who Cure and Trade in Human Heads 73 A Field of Sugar Cane 83 The « White House," Lima, Peru 89 Nicolas de Pierola, President of Peru ... 90 Lima, Peru, showing Cathedral 97 Church of the Mercedes, Lima, Peru . . 302 A Lima Belle 104 Church of San Domingo, Lima 105 Down the Andes of Peru on a Hand- Car 310 Railway Viaduct in the Andes of Peru. . 316 Snowfields around Aconcagua 123 Arequipa, Peru 326 A Street in Arequipa 127 Great Telescope in Arequipa Observa tory 132 Cholo Girl, La Paz ) I44 The Vicuna > Aymara Hut and Family 153 Pachita (Peru) Indian 164 La Paz Indians 167 A Typical Forest View 169 Bolivian Llamas 376 Chilean Types 193 Valparaiso, Chile 398 Island of Juan Fernandez 202 Coast Scene, Juan Fernandez 205 Alexander Selkirk's Monument 209 The Alamedo (Public Walk) Santiago 212 S. A.— 2 PAGE Arcade in Santiago, Chile 213 Vegetable Seller, Santiago, Chile 219 Interior of Santiago Cathedral 223 President Errazuriz of Chile 225 Archbishop of Santiago 227 Round-up of Cattle 230 Arrival of Visitors at a Farm : <(Every Child has his Pony » 234 Owner and Chiefs of Placiendo 234 The Niagara of Chile 242 An Auraucanian Woman 254 Savage Womanhood of the Strait of Magellan 267 Indians of Patagonia 272 An Onas Family — Tierra del Fuego 282 Penguins in the Falkland Islands 286 Argentine Maidens 299 Entrance to Dock No. 3 (Buenos Aires) 302 Bird's Eye View of Buenos Aires 306 Buenos Aires — Rendena Street 307 An Avenue in Buenos Aires 330 The Cathedral of Buenos Aires 333 Plaza de Mayo 334 Palm Avenue, Palermo 317 Argentine Lady and Her Children 320 Bread-Vendor 330 Buenos Aires — Washing Clothes on the Beach 332 Gaucho and His Horse — Argentina.... 333 Social Gathering, Argentine Farm House 343 Argentina Farm House 346 Flock of Sheep in the Argentines 351 In the World's Biggest Wool Market. . . 355 General Julio A. Roca, President Argen tine Republic 359 Argentine Troops of the Line 366 On the Trans-Andean Railroad 368 Upsallata Pass — Stone Houses built to protect Mail-Carriers when overtaken by Storms in the Mountains 371 The Andes — Coach- Road from Argen tine to Chile , 373 21 22 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Frontiers of Argentina and Chile, Sum mit of the Andes 377 Southern Railroad Depot — (3tals and 3ts cemeter3es — a graveyard of fore3gners — the terrors of the Isthmus. am in the city of Colon, on the eastern shore of the Isth mus of Panama. The emerald waves of the Caribbean Sea, coming in with the tide, are dashing up a silvery spray at my feet. A row of tall palms runs between me and the beach, each tree loaded with bunches of green cocoanuts, every one of which is as big as the head of that naked negro baby who is playing there on the edge of the water. The air a little back from the shore is that of a hot July at home, but here there comes in from the sea a breeze which is soft, cool, and delicious. When I left New York a week ago, I had to wade through the snow to the steamer; here my sur roundings are those of midsummer. I am in a land of the tropics. The distance from New York to Colon is 2,000 miles, and the trip took just seven days. Our steamer was the Advance, one of the three boats of the Panama Railroad and Steamship Com pany, the only line which plies regularly between New York and the Isthmus of Panama. It was a steady little vessel of 2,700 tons, only about one-fourth the size of the great ocean grey hounds of the Atlantic; but it had all the modern improvements, and my corner cabin on the promenade deck had two large win dows, which gave me a cool breeze day and night. We had the satisfaction of sailing under the American flag. Although the Panama Railroad and Steamship Company practic ally belongs to the French, it is managed and officered by Amer icans, and on the Advance even the sailors were full-blooded Yankees. Most of the passengers were citizens of the United (23) 24 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL States; some on a pleasure trip to San Francisco via the Isth mus, others cn route for the gold mines of Peru and Bolivia, others again were commercial travellers starting out to buy goods and take orders in South America. We had also on board a bishop and a party of missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The missionaries were to be teachers in the schools of Chile and Peru, while the bishop was on a tour of mission in spection. In addition to these, there were some Frenchmen, Ger mans, and Spaniards. The Frenchmen were Parisians about to inspect the work of the Panama Canal. The Germans were coffee-planters from Guatemala returning home from their vaca tions in Europe; and the Spaniards were business men engaged in the Pacific coast trade. The party was a pleasant one, and the life of it was the bishop. He was a mine of humour, stories, and valuable informa tion. It was he who, as we passed Cape Hatteras, told us that we were in the Gulf Stream, that wonderful river of the ocean which carries the hot water of the tropics across the Atlantic to Great Britain and Ireland, and makes them habitable. As we crossed the stream, the bishop recalled the story of the Yankee sea captain who, when denouncing England for its sympathy with the South during our Civil War, said: " You English had better look out, for Uncle Sam has you at his mercy. If you are not careful, President Lincoln, when he has set tled this trouble with the South, will send down our army and cut a channel through the Isthmus of Panama, which will turn the Gulf Stream into the Pacific Ocean and thus freeze your two little islands into icebergs." It was also the bishop who sprang this riddle upon the ship's party: "Who was the lonesomest scholar in the geography class ? The answer was: "The little girl who could not find Pa-nor-Ma" (Panama). As we crossed the Gulf Stream the air grew perceptibly warmer, and as we sailed on its outer edge down toward the Caribbean Sea we soon came into summer heat. We passed the island of San Salvador, where Columbus first landed after his thirty-five days' voyage from Spain, in a vessel which was not more than one-thirtieth as large as ours. The morning following we saw the lighthouse of Bird Rock Island, one of the Bahamas, rising (26) AVENUE OF PALMS, COLON (ASPINWALL). COLOMBIA FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 27 out of a grove of palm trees; and a day later the bleak hills of eastern Cuba came into view. We steamed over the waters where our gunboats lay off Santiago when they sunk the Spanish fleet; we sailed for hours in sight of the blue mountains of Haiti, and then passed into the blue Caribbean, seeing nothing but flying fish, nautili, and gulls, until we neared the Isthmus of Panama. I shall never forget our first sight of the Isthmus, that won derful strip of earth and rock which blocks the commerce of the world in tying the continents of North and South America to gether. At first there was only a thin hazy line of blue on the western horizon. Then the blue deepened; low hills rose out of the mist and piled themselves one on top of another ; little islands floated up out of the water along the shore; and a little later we were in sight of the low houses and wharves of Colon, the great palm trees above them shaking their fan-like leaves and appar ently waving a welcome to the Isthmus of Panama. As we came to anchor, a crowd not unlike that on the wharves of New Orleans gathered about the ship. It was composed of negroes and mulattoes, in all stages of raggedness. There were a few native Colombians, who jabbered at us in Spanish ; and there were several Americans in the employ of the steamship company; but the rest were negroes and mulattoes from Jamaica. They addressed us in English with a cockney accent, and offered their services as guides through Colon. Colon is the chief city on the Caribbean side of the Isthmus of Panama. It is at the terminus of the railway across the Isth mus, on the site of old Aspinwall. The town was rebuilt at the time of the commencement of the Panama Canal, with the idea that it would become a mighty city as soon as the canal was com pleted. Many of its houses were constructed in the United States and brought here in pieces. Palaces were erected for Ferdinand de Lesseps and his son, and about them a city was laid out on a grand scale. An iron market-house, large enough for a town of half a million inhabitants, was put up, and along the wide streets lines of cocoanut trees were planted. Then began the work of dredging out the land at what was to be the eastern end of the huge ditch which was to join the two oceans. Tens of thousands of workmen were employed, and money flowed like water. Such was the condition in the early eighties. To-day Colon is as ragged as any town on the hemisphere. Its beautiful cot- 28 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL tages, weather-beaten and rotten, are falling to pieces. Its iron market-house is peppered with holes eaten by rust, and the palaces of the De Lesseps are dilapidated. Everything about it is the picture of ruin, especially at the mouth of the canal, where tons of cars, dredges, and other valuable machinery are rotting away. Colon has now about 5,000 people, made up largely of the remains of the vast number who came to work on the canal. They are Jamaicans and Colombians, with a smattering of Chin ese. The town has some business as the terminus of the rail road, but the French have apparently given up their idea that it will ever be a great city. Its future depends entirely upon the completion of the canal. Colon is notoriously unhealthful. I venture to think there is not a man living in it to-day who has not been afflicted with fever, and it is significant that its chief sights are a fine hospital and a well-filled cemetery on Monkey Hill. This part of the Isthmus is in fact a veritable graveyard of foreigners. The excavations for the canal and the railroad were made through the miasmatic swamps of the Chagres river, where the very air breathes death. It is said that there was a death for every cartload of earth which was moved in making the ex cavations. Away back in the fifties, when the railroad was built, a regular funeral train was needed to carry the dead. They were buried in pits, being laid crosswise, one on top of the other, and stacked up as it were like cord- wood. It is said that during the construction of the railroad, there were more deaths than there are ties in its track. Among the labourers on the road were about 1,000 Chinese, who were imported because it was thought they could stand the climate. Many of them died within a month, and so many of the remainder committed suicide that one of the stations at which they were working was called (< Matachin,8 or Dead China man. Even in the quiet of to-day, when Colon is more healthful, the air is full of reminiscences of the fevers and horrors of the past. The terrors of the region have even gone into poetry, as the following, written by an American in the employ of the Panama Railway Company, will testify: FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 29 BEYOND THE CHAGRES Beyond the Chagres river Are paths that lead to death ; To fever's deadly breezes — To malaria's poisonous breath! Beyond the tropic foliage, Where the alligator waits, Is the palace of the devil — His original estates. Beyond the Chagres river Are paths fore'er unknown, With a spider 'neath each pebble, A scorpion 'neath each stone ! 'Tis here the boa constrictor His fatal banquet holds, And to his slimy bosom His hapless victim folds. Beyond the Chagres river Lurks the panther in his lair, And ten hundred thousand dangers Are in the noxious air. Behind the trembling leaflets, Beneath the fallen reeds, Are the ever-present perils Of a million different breeds. Beyond the Chagres river, 'Tis said — the story's old — Are paths that lead to mountains Of purest virgin gold; But 'tis my firm conviction, Whatever tales they tell, That beyond the Chagres river All paths lead straight to hell ! CHAPTER II ACROSS THE ISTHMUS BY RAILROAD The Story of the Panama Railroad, which has made Fortunes for its Owners — It Charges the Highest Fares and Pays Dividends of Millions — The Scenery of the Istjhmus — The Chagres River — A Look; at the Csty of Panama — Its Odd Socsal Customs — Its Lot tery AND 3TS BULL-R3NG. Ihe railroad which crosses the mountains from Colon to the city of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is perhaps the best-paying railroad in the world. It has made fortunes for its owners in the past, and its receipts are still far in excess of its expenditure. It has an absolute monopoly of all railroad rights on the Isthmus of Panama, and it charges accordingly. What would be thought of paying $200 for a ride from New York to Boston, $450 for a first-class ticket from New York to Chicago, $1,000 to go from the Atlantic to Salt Lake City, or $1,500 to be carried from the East to San Francisco ? Such a rate would be about fifty cents per mile, or a trifle less than what the Panama Railway Company received for every passenger it carried during more than thirty years. The length of the road is forty-seven miles, and the fare until 1889 was twenty-five dollars in gold. At present all through passengers to Panama on the New York steamers are charged ten dollars in gold for transportation across the Isthmus. The local fare from Colon to Panama is four dollars in gold, but the baggage rate is three cents a pound, and only fifteen pounds are allowed free. The Panama Railroad is an American institution, although now owned by the French, the majority of the stock having fallen into the hands of the Panama Canal Company. The road was built by Americans, and even now its officials, including the ticket-agents, conductors, and engineers, come from the United States. It is through its concession that the French hold their (30) (31) PANAMA CATHEDRAL ACROSS THE ISTHMUS BY RAILROAD 23 right to the canal. The concession was granted in 1850, and it includes all rights of way across the Isthmus of Panama, a coun try four hundred miles long. No one can 3nake even a waggon road over the Isthmus without the company's permission, and so far no other road of any kind has been attempted. The original grant gave the company a large amount of pub lic land along the line of the track, and provided that Panama and Colon should be free ports. The original concession was for forty-nine years, but it has since been extended with some modi fications to ninety-nine years, during which the company must pay $250,000 annually to the Colombian government. The Panaina Railroad is a monument to American skill and energy. The difficulties in building it cannot be adequately de scribed. It took five years to construct it, and it had to be cut through one of the most miasmatic of tropical wildernesses. Be ginning with Colon, the road runs through the swamps, up the valley of the Chagres, crossing the mountains at an elevation of 268 feet, and then going down to the Pacific at Panama through the valley of the Rio Grande river. It is only forty-seven miles long, and yet it cost more than $8,000,000. It was begun when the California gold excitement was at its height, and was able to earn money as soon as the first few miles of track were laid. The travel was so great that, when the road was formally opened in 1855, it had already received more than $2,000,000 for transportation; and within four years thereafter, its earnings amounted to more than its original cost. It has carried as much as 500,000 tons of freight in a year; and during the twelve years following its completion, $750,000,000 worth of specie was taken over the road on its way from San Francisco to New York. The freight rates were especially heavy, averaging about $160 per ton, and the miners were made to pay an extra-baggage rate on their outfits, in addition to their $25 fare. I crossed the Isthmus in a special car in company with the superintendent of the road. The roadbed is very smooth, and the track is well kept. It has a five-foot gauge, fifty-six pound rails, and ties of lignum-vitae, which are about the only ties that will withstand the wood-eating ants. Lignum-vitse is so hard that spikes cannot be driven into it, and holes have to be bored for every bolt. It is so hard that the ants, which eat almost 34 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL everything wooden, do not attack it. It is on account of the ants that iron telegraph poles are used, and that everything else possible is made of iron. All the rolling stock of the Panama road comes from the United States. The private observation car of the superintendent was made in Wilmington, while the locomotives are from Phila delphia. The cars are of two classes, first and second. The first-class cars have wicker seats, like those of our smoking cars. The second-class are built like long street cars, with benches running lengthwise under the windows. It is in the second-class cars that the common people ride. Half of their passengers are Jamaica negroes, about one-third of the remainder are Chinese, and the others native Colombians. The Chinese are the neatest and best dressed of the passengers. During my ride over the road I asked the superintendent as to wages. He told me that they varied considerably, the Amer icans being paid in gold, and the natives, who are chiefly com mon labourers, in silver. Engineers get $157 a month, conductors $148, and telegraph operators from $75 to $100. The native brakemen receive $1.75 a day in silver, or about sixty cents a day in gold. Common labourers get from thirty-five to seventy- five cents silver a day. Most of the latter are Jamaican negroes. They put in ten hours a day, bringing their first meal of coffee and bread to the track and eating it there. They begin work at six a. m. At eleven o'clock they stop for breakfast, which con sists of rice and a bit of dried meat. At one o'clock they are again at work, and at six they quit and go home to dinner. The ride across the Isthmus of Panama is a delightful one. After you pass the few miles of swamp which line the Atlantic coast, the land rises into wooded hills. There are palm trees here and there amongst the other forest trees. You pass banana plantations, go by villages of thatched huts, about which half- naked children play; and, where the railroad skirts the line of the canal, see on every prominent hill houses which were erected for the petty officials. A closer look at the vegetation brings new wonders at every turn of the road. You see bread-fruit trees, cotton trees, and at times go through jungles of bamboo. There are more than twenty varieties of bamboo on the Isthmus, and many kinds of palms. There are woods which equal the Siamese teak in beauty (36) WASH-DAY ON THE PANAMA ISTHMUS ACROSS THE ISTHMUS BY RAILROAD 37 and hardness, and back from the railroad are forests of mahog any and dye-woods. Many trees and plants unknown to our physicians are used by the Indians for medicinal purposes. One of these is the ca cique tree, a stick of which, if held in the hand, will almost instantly stop the flowing of blood. A bit of cacique dust put upon a cut will cause the blood to stop running; so the Indians believe it to be an infallible cure for internal hemorrhages. Ca cique wood looks much like mahogany. It is costly, a piece as big as a walking-stick being worth in Panama $10 or more. Another Isthmian tree is an antidote for snake poisoning; and there are plants which are said to cure cancers and tumors. One plant is a powerful emetic, as the experience of an English man living in Panama shows. He had heard of this plant and wished to test it. So he asked an Indian girl to make some tea of its leaves for himself and his partner, they agreeing that each would drink a cupful. They did so. The liquor was sweet and was easily swallowed, but it had hardly gone down before both men made a rush for the door. Their stomachs, in the words of the Englishmen, were turned inside out, and they seemed to feel their very heels coming up through their throats. Panama, the Pacific terminus of the road, is a picturesque lit tle city running about a magnificent bay. The town near the bay makes one think of Venice. The houses hang out so over the water that you involuntarily look for gondolas to go from one to another. Away from the bay the city is more like one in old Spain. Its streets wind in and out, up hill and down. It has a plaza in the centre, about which the principal buildings stand. The houses are built close to the narrow sidewalks. Many of them have patios, or courts, within them, and from each second story a balcony hangs out, so that you are protected from the sun as you walk through the city. Very few of the Panama people own a whole house. Almost all live in tenements, the richer people in comfortable rooms on the upper floors, and the poor on the ground floors and base ments. All the stores have dwellings above them, and many well-to-do people live above stores. The doors of the ground- floor rooms are usually open, so that you see all sorts of house hold arrangements going on as you pass through the streets. Here a woman is combing her hair, there one is sewing, and S. A.— 3 38 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL a little farther on a third is cutting up beef for the breakfast stew. The stores are not large. They have no display windows, and the goods are piled up in them without regard to order or show. Most of the trading is by bargaining. There are no fixed prices. You offer about one-half the sum the merchant asks for an article, and usually get it for about two-thirds of his first price. I arrived in Panama on a Saturday night, and had a chance to see something of a Colombian Sunday. The day opened with the ringing of church bells. There was so much noise that I imagined myself in one of the most pious of cities until I went into the streets. Then I found that the stores were open, and that most of the day was to be given up to amusement and business. It is true that many of the people attended church in the morning; but in the afternoon they devoted themselves to things which would be anything but Sunday-like in the United States. At two o'clock, for instance, there was a cock-fight, and at four a bull-fight began inside the ruined walls of one of the churches of Panama's past. A large audience of both sexes was present, who cheered and grew wildly excited while five bulls were tor tured to death by a band of bull-fighters. At one o'clock occurred one of the chief events of the day. This was the weekly drawing of the Panama lottery, presided over by the mayor. The lottery is so well patronized that all Panamanians are more or less interested in it, 10,000 tickets being sold each week. The tickets are a dollar each, and the prizes range from $3,000 downward. There are so many blanks that the lottery makes a big profit. It has a capital of $200,000, and pays annual dividends of 45 per cent. I happened to be passing the lottery office at the time of the drawing, and stepped in. A boy of about eight years, who had been picked out of the crowd, stood upon a table, with a revolving wire basket before him. The basket was filled with hollow ivory balls, each of which contained a number ranging from one to ten. The basket was given a whirl, and was then opened for the boy to pick out a ball. The number in the ball chosen gave the figure for the thousands of the prize. The basket was again whirled, and another ball was taken out. The number in this represented the figure for the hundreds; a third ACROSS THE ISTHMUS BY RAILROAD 39 whirl gave the tens, and the fourth the units. The drawing seemed to be fairly done, but there is not more than one chance in five hundred of a ticket-holder drawing anything. I spent the evening in the plaza, listening to the city band and watching the people who had come out for their usual Sun day promenade. There were many pretty girls among them, but each had an elderly sister, cousin, or aunt with her. Society in Panama is governed by Spanish etiquette, an in flexible rule of which is that no unmarried woman should ever be left alone with a man. The Panama girl has no moonlight walks or drives with her lover. She dare not receive him at her house, except when the family is present, and when he invites her to go to the theatre or the bull-fight the other ladies of the family are supposed to be included in the invitation. This cus tom is somewhat surprising to foreigners. One young American, for instance, shortly after his arrival in Panama asked a young lady to go with him to the theatre. When he called for her he found thirteen old and middle-aged women dressed and ready to go with him and his inamorata. His tickets that night cost him more than his weekly salary, and it was only by chance that he happened to have enough money to pay his bill at the box-office. FRUIT MARKET AT PANAMA CHAPTER III THE PANAMA CANAL A DESCR3PT30N OF THIS MlGHTY WORK, WH3CH HAS COST A QUARTER OF A BIL LION Dollars, and is not Half Done — A Walk along the Canal — Three Thousand Labourers, and What They Are Doing — The Canal Scandals, and how De Lesseps and hss Assocsates stole Millions — Fortunes in Machinery now going to Waste — Will the Canal be Completed ? ¦ --'¦ ,iLL the Panama Canal ever be completed? The officials of the new French company which has taken charge of the work say that it will. They have had 3,000 men labouring on it for three years, and in that time a vast deal of dredging and cutting has been accomplished. During my stay on the Isthmus, I walked over a large part of the canal route. The deepest cutting is to be done at the Cule- bra tunnel or Pass. Here I found 800 men at work cutting down the mountain, and was told that more than 2,000 were employed within a mile of each side of this point. The scene was a busy one. Long trains of iron cars were carrying their loads of rock and clay from one point to another. Immense steel dredges, each as tall as a two-story house and ten times as big as the largest threshing-machine,, were gouging out rock and gravel and carrying them in big iron buckets fastened to endless chains, and pouring them into the cars. Here negroes from Jamaica were drilling holes in the mountain and charging them with dynamite; and from the other side of the hill, a mile away, I could hear the boom, boom, boom of the explosions of another gang. A little farther on, at the station of Emperador, seven huge dredges were scooping up rock into enormous buckets, which the machinery elevated to trolley lines so arranged that the rock was carried by gravity to the places where it was most needed. (40) CARIBBEAN ii SEA %M iv Hv ex ,*©/4< a^^. Isthmus of Panama^ Sax* ROUTE OF THE PANAMA ISTHMIAN CANAL (4D THE PANAMA CANAL 43 On the Pacific the entrance to the canal is being deepened by dredges; and at different points along the line more or less work is going on. The construction is now in the hands of the new company which was founded after the bursting of the great Panama bubble. This company, I believe, is working honestly, and it has done a vast amount of cutting and dredging with the money it has spent since its organization. Its managers estimate that at least one-third of the canal has been already completed, EXCAVATING FOR THE PANAMA CANAL and that they can finish it at an expenditure of a little more than $100,000,000. Their claims have, however, a questionable foundation. Many people on the Isthmus think they have really no hope of completing the canal, and that they are merely working with the idea that the United States government or some syndicate of capitalists will buy them out. They claim that the Panama route is far superior to the Nicaragua route, and that the United States can never build the canal which it contemplates farther north. 44 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL But let. me give in a nutshell the story of the canal. It is one of the most remarkable, yet most scandalous, in the annals of civil engineering. First, let us see what has been attempted. The Isthmus of Panama as it lies on the map looks like the neck of an hour-glass, of which North and South America are the globes. It is a neck uniting the two continents, and it is made up of hard rock and of exceedingly stiff soil. It ranges in width from 30 to 180 miles, but it is big enough to block the commerce of the world. If it could be dropped down under the sea, San Francisco would be 10,000 miles nearer to New York, as far as our ships are concerned, and the commerce of Europe and the United States would in large part pass through it on its way to and from Asia. The Isthmus of Panama is just about as long as the distance between Washington city and Boston via New York. A range of low mountains runs through it, and along the coasts are mias matic swamps and morasses. The distance between the two ends of the canal, as the crow flies, is not more than forty miles; but the canal route winds about so that it is more than forty-five miles in length. It has the advantage of the river valleys of the Chagres on the Atlantic and of the Rio Grande on the Pacific. Where it crosses the Isthmus, there is a pass through the moun tains, which is only 1,360 feet high, and the deep cutting which is to be done through this is not more than twelve miles in length. If the canal should be cut down to sea level, it will be nec essary to cut away all this 1,360 feet of rock and earth; but if, as is now contemplated, locks are made, much less cutting will be necessary. Already a large part of the deep cutting and dredging has been done. On the Atlantic side, for instance, the contract for dredging the Chagres river and constructing some miles of the canal was given to Americans. They employed modern machinery, and opened up the canal for about fourteen miles back from the coast. From six to eight miles have been dredged out on the Pacific side, so that after the mountains are cut through, the ex cavations from ocean to ocean will be comparatively easy. I examined the work at the Culebra ridge. The rock is soft, and the cutting is by no means an impossibility. It is merely a question of money and labour, and these are the conditions, so the best engineers say, as to all parts of the canal. (45) DREDGING MACHINE AT WORK ON THE PANAMA CANAL THE PANAMA CANAL 47 One of the great difficulties is the taking care of the water of the Chagres river. The canal will cross the river six times in its course. In dry seasons the Chagres is a sluggish stream, 300 feet wide, and about three feet in depth. When I crossed it on my way over the Isthmus, it seemed little more than a creek. In the wet season it often rises thirty feet in one night; it then becomes a raging torrent, and bears along everything on its floods. This river will have to be held back by a mighty dam, so constructed that the waters can be let out gradually, so as not to injure the canal. This was one of the problems which De Lesseps proposed to solve when he founded the Panama Canal Company. With his triumph as to the Suez Canal before him, he thought the canal could be easily made. He organized a great association. Stock was issued by the hundreds of millions of francs, and was greed ily taken up by the French people. When the money gave out, printing-presses were set to work to make more stock, so that within less than ten years the enormous amount of $265,000,000 worth of stock and bonds was manufactured and sold. A large part of this vast sum was spent on the Isthmus of Panama. The French officials poured out money here for years. They bought everything wholesale. When the bubble burst they had on hand among other things, 150 floating derricks, 180 tow- boats and launches, 6,000 iron dumping waggons, 190 miles of rail road track constructed for canal work, and more than 10,000 cars. This plant was scattered along a distance not greater than from Washington to Baltimore. They had, moreover, built beautiful cottages on every hill along the line of the canal. There were 5,000 buildings along the route, some of them costing thousands of dollars. They constructed quarters for 30,000 workmen, and had hundreds of houses made in pieces in the United States and brought to Panama to be put together. Most of these houses are now unoccupied save by negroes, and all are fast going to ruin. The waste is indescribable. I saw machinery, which must have cost millions, rotting and rusting away. I saw enough car- wheels to equip a trunk line of railroad; and there were so many rotten trucks that if their pieces could be put together, they would make a train reaching half-way across the Isthmus. The officials bought these materials in vast quantities because they made money out of every contract, and the more they bought the more they 48 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL made; so when a train ran off the track or rolled down an em bankment they let it lie, and ordered more cars. Those were the days when money was the cheapest of all things on the Isthmus. Gold was more common at Panama than copper is in Montana. Train-loads of it were carried across the Isthmus, and men made fortunes in a lump. Eiffel, the man who built the big tower at Paris, had one contract which netted him $5,000,000. New York parties had contracts amounting to $20,- 000,000. They did honest work, too. Irresponsible engineers took THE EASTERN END OF THE PANAMA CANAL all sorts of contracts, and made fortunes. I heard of one man who had been discharged as worthless by a New York contractor. A few weeks later his old employer met him driving about in state with a black valet. Being asked how he had got along, the ex-engineer replied: "¦I am rich now, I took a contract to fill a hole along the canal for $50,000. Another man had a contract to cut down a hill near my hole for $150,000. We joined hands, and I charged him $50,000 to put his hill into my hole. The result was that I made $100,000 without spending a cent." THE PANAMA CANAL 49 Another man measured up a part of the Chagres river as a section of his excavation contract, and by collusion with the French accountants received the money. And so the game went on. Everybody was getting rich. The banks made loans at ten per cent, a month. Champagne flowed like water; and Sarah Bernhardt and other actresses were brought from Paris to amuse the canal officials. At the same time the corruptionists of Paris were sharing the profits. Five million dollars were spent upon the French news papers, other millions were used to bribe the officials of the French government; altogether more than a quarter of a billion dollars were spent before the owners of the canal stock realized that they were being swindled. The stockholders were chiefly the peasants of France, the most hard-fisted, economical, and accumulative people of Europe. They had come to the assist ance of the government at the close of the war with Germany, and had lent it a billion dollars to pay its debt. They had again shown their faith in the so-called great men of France in this canal scheme, but only to find themselves terribly swindled. If France is ever to finish the canal, it is from the French people that its money must come. Will they respond with the investment of another hundred millions or so when the money is needed ? In all probability not. The Panama canal may be built; it probably will be built some day; but that France alone will build it does not seem among the possibilities. CHAPTER IV THE WONDERS OF COLOMBIA An Undeveloped Empire, still unexplored — A Look at the Cauca Val ley, where Americans are now Settling — A River of Vinegar — Bogota, the Capital — What Colombia produces — It is a Land of Gold — Queer features of Travel on the Southern Pacific — How One Feels on the Equator. js I begin this chapter I am on the hottest geographical line on the globe. I am on the deck of the steamship Santiago, opposite the coast of Ecuador, almost exactly on the equator, which we shall cross within an hour. If it were not for a slight breeze, which still follows us from the northeast trade winds, the air would be stifling ; as it is, the very sea seems to steam. On the right is a vast extent of ocean, which the sun has turned into molten silver. Ten billion diamonds are dancing up and down on the wavelets; and, although I am under cover, the light of the sun as reflected from the water dazzles my eyes as do the direct rays of a July sun at home. On the opposite side of the steamer, in the shadow, the water is of an indigo blue; and as I stand up and look about me I see nothing but a vast expanse of what in the hot, hazy air appears to be a steaming sea. To the westward the Pacific stretches a distance of about 10,000 miles before it reaehes the lower part of Asia; to the east is the equatorial region of South America, including the snow capped Andes and the mighty Amazon, my present field of travel. It is now three days since I left Panama for Guayaquil, the port of Ecuador, and until this morning we have been sailing by the coast of Colombia, though in many places only 150 miles from the shore. In this way we have saved four or five days of travel, and will make Guayaquil in four days, while the coasting steamers take ten. The boats of the southern Pacific are far different from those on the northern Pacific. Indeed, they are unlike the steamers of (50) THE WONDERS OF COLOMBIA 51 any other part of the world. The cabins are larger, and the quiet of the sea — for a storm is rare here — allows the ship to have several decks and to keep everything open. There is about a quarter of a mile of walking space on the two upper decks of the Santiago, and on the top deck there are places so large that one could almost lay out a croquet ground, and have room to spare. I awake every morning thinking I am on a farm. ' There is a bleating of sheep, a crowing of cocks, and a cackling and quack ing of geese and ducks. Now and then a cow moos or a pig squeals. We carry all our meat with us. On the upper deck, within ten feet of where I am writing, there are two big coops full of chickens, ducks, and geese. The coops are two-story af fairs, walled with slats. The chickens are in the top story, some roosting and others poking their heads out to get at the water and corn in the troughs outside. The ducks and geese are on the ground floor. A little further over there are crates filled with potatoes and onions, and others containing oranges and pine apples. The sheep and cattle are in pens and stalls two floors below. They are in the steerage, near the butcher shops and the kitchens. These South Pacific steamers, indeed, carry a travelling market with them. There are men who pay big sums for the privilege of selling from the ships to the people at the ports. The mar- ketmen on the Santiago had in stock about a dozen waggon-loads of oranges and pineapples from Panama and ten fat beeves from Chile, and they will load up with other things at Guayaquil. They will take this stuff to the ports along the deserts of Peru and Chile, and as nothing grows there they will get high prices. Travel is very costly on the South Pacific. Two lines of steamers sail between Panama and Valparaiso. One belongs to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, the other to the Chileans. The two companies have combined, and as they have a monopoly of the business they keep up the rates. I have never paid so much for steamship travel as now. The fare to Guayaquil from Panama is $67 in gold for a distance of about 800 miles, or more than eight cents a mile. The fares to Europe by the first-class Atlantic liners are not more than three cents a mile, and on some of the boats only two cents or less. The South Pacific lines have steamers every week, north and south from Panama to Val paraiso, a distance of 3,000 miles. The through rate is $154, but 52 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL all passengers are charged extra for stop-overs at the ports, and the local rates are correspondingly higher. I am surprised at the extent of these South American coun tries. The republic of Colombia, along which we have been sail ing, and of which the Isthmus of Panama forms a part, is longer from north to south than the distance between St. Paul and New Orleans, and wider in some parts than from New York to Chi cago. It contains an area of more than 500,000 square miles. It is about one-sixth the size of the United States, without Alaska; and would make more than ten states the size of New York, or twelve as big as Ohio or Kentucky. The Isthmus, or department, of Panama has an area almost four times as large as Massachu setts, and Cauca, one of the Colombian departments, is almost as large as Texas. I have met a number of Americans and others who have re cently travelled in many parts of Colombia. They tell me that the country is an undeveloped empire, and that much of it is as yet unexplored. There are a few Americans in the extreme north, in the Chiriqui lands of the upper Isthmus, raising coffee, and others have been buying lands in the Cauca valley. This valley is over the mountains, a little back of the Pacific. It is several hundred miles long, and about twenty or more miles wide, and is said to have some of the most fertile lands on the globe. The chief mode of getting about through Colombia is by means of the rivers, and on the mule and donkey paths, which everywhere cross the mountains. No country has more curious streams. One of them is known in Columbia as a river of vinegar. It is the upper part of the Cauca river. The Cauca rises in the southern part of the country, near Ecuador, and after flowing 680 miles north, empties into the Magdalena. In the upper part of its course its water contains eleven parts of sul phuric acid and nine parts of hydrochloric acid in every thou sand, and is so sour that no fish can live in it, and it goes by the name of the Rio Vinagre — the Vinegar river. The Magdalena, the chief river of Colombia, corresponds with our Mississippi. It is more than 1,000 miles long, and is as wide though not so deep as the Mississippi; it cuts the country right in two. Steamers of light draft sail weekly from Barranquilla, on the Caribbean Sea, up the Magdalena to Hondo, where you take mules and climb up to the plain of Bogota, on which the THE WONDERS OF COLOMBIA 53 Colombian capital is situated. Then there are branches of the Amazon and of other big rivers in Colombia, so that the country is almost as well watered as China. Ten of the little steamers on the Colombia were made at Pittsburg and brought from New York in pieces and here put together. Bogota is a city of about 120,000 inhabitants. It has electric lights and a street railroad, which were put in by Americans. It has a university ninety-five years old, a national theatre, a library of 50,000 volumes, an astronomical observatory, and a poor-house. The city is about a half mile higher up in the air than Denver, and its climate is much the same. It is the head quarters of the army, and is the scene of a revolution now and then. It is at Bogota that the President lives, and there the Colom bian Congress meets. The city is very healthful, as is the greater part of the country where the people live. It is only the coast lands of Colombia that are low, moist, and unhealthy. A short distance back the land rises, and there one finds plains and val leys of vast extent, from 3,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea. Many of these valleys are but sparsely inhabited. They contain good land, and they will sometime support a large population. Colombia is a land of gold. It is like Alaska in that you cannot wash the soil anywhere along the rivers without finding what miners call <( color. ):> I saw men washing the sands in the bay of Panama, and though they said they did not get much, I was told that they have been doing the same work for years. It was here that the Spaniards got some of their first gold; and since the conquest an aggregate of $700,000,000 worth of the precious metals has been taken out of Colombia. A great deal of mining is now going on in the department of Antioquia, which is reached by going several hundred miles up the Magda lena river. Here small diamonds are sometimes found with the gold. English concerns own the best mines of this region, and much capital is invested. S. A.— 4 CHAPTER V THE LAND OF THE EQUATOR The Wonders of Ecuador — Trees that weave Blankets and Mules that wear Pantalets — The Curious City of Guayaquil — Its Police and Fire Department — Where the Taxes are Low and the Death-Rate 3s Hsgh — Ecuador's Debt Slaves and how they are Oppressed. 'he city of Guayaquil, how shall I describe it ? It is one of the strangest mixtures among municipal creations. It lies about forty miles up the wide Guayas river, almost under the shadow of the equator, and is frowned upon by the snowy peaks of Chimborazo and Sangai. Wooded hills surround it, and the moist miasmatic air of the tropics lulls it to sleep. It is a strange combination of the Mediterranean and the Orient. Upon its wharves one is reminded of Naples; back in its business sections you are in a maze of bazaars, much like those of Cairo, Calcutta, or Constantinople. Even its smells smack of the far East. It has streets more slimy than Peking, and some of its customs are as vile as those of Seoul. Its sidewalks are filled with workmen who labor at their trades in the open, with fierce-looking Indians carrying bales and bags upon their backs, and black-haired Indian women peddling goods, who comb the insects from their own and their children's heads, and lunch upon them during the intervals of their sales. Guayaquil has also its better classes. It has well-dressed business men and beautiful women. The latter usually walk in couples, dressed always in black, with black shawls picturesquely draped about their olive-brown faces. In some parts of the town you find many fine houses built after the Spanish style, with closed balconies extending out from the second story. The bal conies are walled with windows, from under whose half-closed shutters dark-eyed beauties look down upon you as you go through the street. (54) THE LAND OF THE EQUATOR 55 The city has hundreds of donkeys. Here goes one loaded with boards so strapped to its sides that it walks along as if it were between two walls of pine planks. There is another with pan niers across its back. The panniers contain loaves of bread, the donkey taking the place of the baker's waggon. Guayaquil has about 50,000 inhabitants, and its buildings ex tend along the west bank of the Guayas for a distance of two miles. It is one of the best business points on the west coast of South America. It is the New York of Ecuador, the only com mercial port of a country three times as large as Ohio, having a population about the same as Philadelphia. Something like $10,- 000,000 worth of goods from the United States and Europe are landed at Guayaquil every year, and millions of dollars' worth of coffee, cacao, hides, and rubber are annually shipped from it to different parts of the civilized world. The Guayas river is so wide and deep that the biggest ocean steamers can sail up to the city, and all the ships which trade along the west coast come to it for goods. Guayaquil has two banks, one of which pays dividends of 33^ per cent a year. Its stores have stocks worth hundreds of thou sands of dollars, and its warehouses are filled with bags of cacao, coffee, and sugar. It has daily newspapers, a tramway, and a line of river steamers; the latter were imported in pieces from the United States. Guayaquil has an excellent club, at which you will meet as good fellows as anywhere south of the equator. It has numerous priests and a big church facing a beautiful park, where the band plays after worship on Sundays. It is, however, more a city of trade than of religion or pleasure. Its leading people are Italian, English, French, Spanish, and Chinese business men, who are in terested only in exports and imports. The city is so notoriously unhealthful that no one would live in it were it not to make money. I have visited many of the death-holes of the world, but I have yet to find one whose unsani tary condition equals that of Guayaquil. The streets are unpaved. In the dry season they are so filled with dust that the donkeys and mules wear pantalets to keep the gadflies and mosquitoes from eating them up. In the wet season the town is flooded whenever it rains, and between the showers the tropical sun coats the stagnant water in the streets with a sickly green scum. 56 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL This is the unhealthy season in Guayaquil — the season of yellow fever and malaria — when death hovers over the town, and the doctors make enough to give them summer vacations in Europe. Still Guayaquil could easily be made healthful. The town lies between two rivers, and could be drained with a ditch plough so that the tide, which is here very high, would flush it twice a day, but its people let it remain as it is. The result is that every now and then there is a great epidemic. Yellow fever often carries off thousands, and during the rainy season some kind of fever is almost always present. Guayaquil has no sewers. Its water-works are pit-holes sunk in the streets, into which pumps are inserted on the occasion of a fire. The result is that the city has been burned down again and again. There was a fire last year which consumed half of the houses, causing a loss of more than $30,000,000. This makes fire insurance extremely high, the current Guayaquil rate being seven per cent per annum on all city property. The American consulate has offices in a three-story building, which pays a yearly insurance of $4,000; and there are other buildings which cannot get insurance even at the high rate indicated, because the various companies have already written up - all the risks they care for in Guayaquil. At the same time the tax on real estate is only three-tenths of one per cent, and the natives would straightway have a revolution if you offered to tax them enough to pave the streets and establish a good fire department. Guayaquil, however, has a wide-awake police. I know this, for during my first few nights in the city I heard the policemen every fifteen minutes yelling out that they were awake. It is a police regulation that every man on watch shall call out or whistle every quarter of an hour. The cry is, El sentinel es alerto ("The sentinel is alert"), and the whistle is a combination more wonderful than anything except the cry of the Guayaquil frog, whose hi-hi-hi is screamed out all night long. The Ecua dorian police are soldiers. They carry swords and guns, and both look and act in the fiercest manner. One of them almost dropped his gun on my foot the other day as I attempted to pass him. He said "Atras!" which I suppose means "Back!" At least 1 backed, and walked around the other way. I have since learned that no one may pass between the police and the wall, but must go outside. I suppose, if the policeman has to fight, he prefers THE LAND OF THE EQUATOR 57 to have the wall at his back. Another regulation is that all peo ple out after eleven o'clock p. m. must give an account of them selves. The cry is, "¦ Who goes there ? " and the answer must satisfy the police or they will take you to jail. I doubt, however, whether there is a place in the world where it is so easy to break into jail as here. People are imprisoned for debt, and it is a common thing for a planter who wants hands on his estate to go to the jails and pay the debts of such of the prisoners as will agree to transfer their debts to him and work them out. He then gives them small wages, and takes out perhaps a dollar a week from each man's salary until the debt is paid. In the jail at Bodegas, a town further up the Guayas river, I talked with a Jamaica negro who told me he had been in prison for months because he had failed to pay a millionaire planter sixteen dollars which he had borrowed. Said he : " If I were free I could work to get the money to pay my debt, but they keep me here until some one buys me out, and then I must work for him, or he can put me in again." But before I go further let me tell something of Ecuador. The name means (< equator, " and Ecuador is the land of the equator. It lies sandwiched between Colombia and Peru, on the west coast of South America, in the shape of a great fan whose handle extends almost to Brazil and whose scalloped rim is washed by the Pacific ocean. It is one of the least-known countries of the world. Parts of it have never been surveyed, and to-day the geographical estimates of its size range all the way from the bigness of California to that of Texas. The coast of Ecuador is low. A rich tropical vegetation ex tends from the ocean back for one hundred miles or less to the foothills of the Andes. The Andes cross the country from north to south in two great parallel ridges, upholding between them a series of beautiful valleys, in which about nine-tenths of the peo ple live. These valleys are from a mile and a-half to two miles above the sea, and give the interior a healthful climate, which is more like that of New York city than the equator. East of the Andes the country is a tropical wilderness. The Maranon river, a great branch of the Amazon, flows along its southern boundaries, and steamers go up the Amazon, enter the Maranon, and bring you within a comparatively short distance of Quito. In fact, you can come to within four days' mule travel 58 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL of Quito by water via these great rivers and the streams which flow into them. Ecuador has some of the highest peaks of the Andes. Scores of its high elevations are always covered with snow, and it has mighty glaciers. Chimborazo, which on clear days is visible at Guayaquil, is 20,498 feet above the sea; the volcano Cotopaxi is over 19,000 feet high; and the great valley of Ecuador is guarded by twenty-one peaks, ranging in height from three to four miles ; while there are seventeen other peaks which are more than two miles in height. To-day in Guayaquil the air is filled with ashes which come from one of Ecuador's ten active volcanoes; and every week or so an earthquake makes the ground tremble. The houses of Guayaquil are built to withstand the earthquakes. They are of timbers so joined and spliced that they sway with the trembling of the earth, and do not break. The framework is covered with bamboo laths, made by splitting the canes; and on these bamboos a coating of plaster is spread. This makes the houses look as though their walls were backed with brick and stone, when, in fact, they are really made up of good-sized fishing- poles. Just now a vast deal of building is going on, and the hammer of the carpenter nailing on laths is always to be heard. Much of the lumber used comes from Oregon and Washington, and some from Georgia. The equatorial coast region is full of vegetable wonders. In my sixty miles sail from the Pacific up the river Guayas I passed vast meadows as green as Egypt in winter, in which fat cattle, horses, and mules stood up to their bellies in the grass, which they ate without bending over. I passed rich plantations of sugar cane, which here reaches the height of ten feet, and grows for twenty-five years without replanting. I saw cacao orchards loaded down with the fruit from which our chocolate comes, groves of cocoanut palms bearing bushels of green nuts as big as your head, and was offered so many strange fruits that I cannot give their names. They have, for instance, the papaya tree, which bears a fruit as big as a musk melon and of much the same nature. There are other trees which have very large fruit, among them the ivory palm, from which the vegetable ivory of com merce comes. This tree has burrs much the shape of chestnut- burrs, but eight or ten inches thick; and each burr contains a dozen or more nuts, which when green are filled with a soft (59) GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR THE LAND OF THE EQUATOR 6l jelly-like substance tasting not unlike cocoanut milk. As the nuts grow ripe the pulp hardens to a consistency so tough that it can be used for making buttons, combs, and other similar things. One of the most peculiar trees of Ecuador has a bark which serves the Indians for clothes. I have a blanket made of it. The blanket is six feet long, and five feet wide, and is as soft and pliable as though it were flannel. It can be rolled up and put into a shawl-strap without hurting it, and yet it is merely a strip of bark from a tree. The Indians make cuttings about the tree, and tear off the bark in sheets. They soak it in water un til it is soft, and then pound off the rough outside, leaving the inside perfectly whole. The inside bark is composed of fine fibres so woven by nature that they are not unlike cloth, and are warm enough to serve as a blanket, and soft enough to take the place of a mattress. CHAPTER VI THE BANGKOK OF ECUADOR A Ride up the Guayas River to the Foot of the Andes — The Floating Town of Babahoyo, whose People live upon the Water — A Visit to the Cacao Plantations whence our Chocolate comes — Ecuadorian Farming and its enormous Profits — Wages and the Cost of Living. "he Guayas river is to South America what the Columbia river is to North America. It is the biggest stream on the Pacific side of the continent. It is the outlet of a great network of streams which flow down from the Andes and in the rainy season, from December until May, convert much of the country into a vast lake. We entered the Guayas estuary just opposite the island of Puno, on which Pizarro landed when he started south to conquer Peru; and, skirting this, we came into the Gulf of Guayaquil, which forms the mouth of the river. At this point the estuary is sixty miles wide, and as we sailed up to Guayaquil city we seemed to be passing through an inland sea. The waters were of the colour and thickness of pea-soup. They were spotted with patches of green — great tiees and other debris, which they were carrying from the Andes down to the sea. At Guayaquil the Guayas is more than a mile wide, and over twenty-five feet deep. It furnishes a safe harbor for the largest of the South Pacific steamers, and is filled with craft of many kinds, from great ships to the dug-outs, rafts, and cargo boats used by the natives to bring their wares from the interior to the markets. I left Guayaquil in the little American built steamer Puigmir for the town of Babahoyo, which is far in the interior, at the foot of the Andes, where mules are obtained for the highlands on the other side of the mountains. Shortly after leaving Guayaquil we passed the mouth of the Daule river, and a few hours later came into the river Babahoyo, which is the headstream of the Guayas. We sailed up this stream all night, and in the early morning (62) THE BANGKOK OF ECUADOR 63 came to anchor among the floating houses of Babahoyo, the Bang kok of Ecuador. Owing to the floods the houses are built upon piles, and at such times the people practically live upon the water, and go from one place to another in canoes. Only a small part of the town is out of the water, and even there the streets are little better than rivers. On landing I was carried ashore on the shoulders of a half-naked Indian; and it was on bridges of logs that I crossed from street to street. The business section of the town is on a short strip of elevated land, so that the stores are free from water. As you cross the low places, however, you must hug the buildings, and balance yourself on logs. Babahoyo is so different from an American town that it is difficult to describe it. Its houses are of wood. The larger ones are of two stories, the ground floors being taken up with cave like stores, and the floors above forming the living quarters of the people. There is nothing in the way of pavements or modern improvements. The town has neither sewers nor gutters. Its only bathroom is a floating shed with holes in its floor, through which you may dip yourself into the river, with the possibility of losing a leg by the nip of an alligator. There is not a fireplace nor chimney in the city. There is not a glass window, the rooms on the second floor are ventilated by a lattice work running around the ceiling. The front walls of the lower stories are movable. They are thrown back in the daytime, so that you can see all that goes on, as in the ground floors of Japan. The houses of the lower parts of the city are built high upon piles. In dry seasons the ground under them is used for chickens, donkeys, and cattle; in the rainy season, as now, these animals are kept with the family on the second floor, or upon rafts swung to the piles so that they rise and fall with the tide. To-day there are hundreds of houses which can be reached only in canoes. The children go to school in canoes, and the marketing is done in boats. The poorer houses consist of little more than one room, about six feet square, built upon piles, gen erally ten feet above the ground, and reached by a ladder out side. The houses are thatched with broad white leaves tied to a framework of bamboo-cane. The floor is of cane, and it has so many cracks that the women do not need to sweep, the dirt of the household falling through to the ground or into the water. 64 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL Modern conveniences and sanitary arrangements are practically unknown to the natives of Ecuador. In the houses of the com mon people there is no privacy whatever; men and women, boys and girls, wives and maidens, all herd together, sleeping in the same clothes they wear in the daytime, lying indiscriminately on the floor, or in the hammocks which form the beds of the country. The cooking is done in clay pots on a fire-box filled with dirt. The fuel is mainly charcoal, the pots being raised upon tiles or bricks to allow room for the coals underneath. The chief food of the tropical parts of the country is the potato-like tuber known as the " yucca, " and plantains, or large bananas. Much rice is used, being cooked with lard, most of which comes from the United States. The people do not seem to know anything of butter, although the country has many fine cattle. Indeed, about the only butter-eaters in Ecuador are foreigners, the butter chiefly sold being Italian, in one and two pound tins. It sells for fifty cents gold a pound, and at this price the profit is small, as the tariff and selling charges are high. Landing at Babahoyo I was at a loss how to make myself understood by the natives. No one about spoke English, and my Spanish did not seem to be understood. At last, however, I heard that an American lived in the city. This was a Mr. Klein, a carpenter and undertaker. I found him among his coffins. He left his work and devoted himself to me for the day. Together we went to visit one of the biggest plantations of Ecuador, that of Mr. Augustin Barrios, a man who owns thousands of cattle and horses, and who sells hundreds of thousands of pounds of chocolate beans every year. The plantation was then under water, and we had to take a canoe to visit it. Our canoe was about thirty feet long and not over thirty inches wide. It was a dug-out, and was poled and sculled by two lusty brown-skinned gondoliers, one of whom stood at each end of it. Mr. Klein sat in the bot tom, and I was given a place in the centre of the canoe, and told to hold myself steady. Leaving the city we were pushed along through the wide streets of water, between the floating huts, until at last we moved on into the tropical forest. We rowed for miles among the tree tops, now grazing a great black alligator and again chattered at by monkeys who made faces at us as they scampered away. The trees were full of strange birds which fluttered and made cries THE BANGKOK OF ECUADOR 65 as we went by. We got a shot at one, a beautiful thing as big as a pigeon, with a blood-red bill, long legs of a golden yellow, and feathers of royal purple. Later on I shot at an alligator, but the canoe swayed as I stood up in it, and the ugly monster dived down unharmed. There were wild ducks and other birds which I had never seen before, and Mr. Klein told me that he often bags a deer on the highlands and sometimes a wild hog or a jaguar. The ride was wonderfully beautiful. Under us there were twelve feet of water, where a few weeks before all had been dry land. The trees made a thick arbour-like shade over us, and we wound in and out through their tops, now making our way along a narrow canal of green, and then shooting out into a great green-walled chamber of water, the trees about which were loaded down with orchids, which in New York would be worth many dollars. Insects were plentiful. Bugs and ants of every description fell upon us as we floated onward, and Mr. Klein told me how a boa-constrictor once dropped down into his boat from the branches above. The vegetation of this region is all strange and tropical. There are rubber trees, trees loaded with alligator pears, and here and there a tall palm had hoisted its green head above the others. The silence was almost oppres sive. The soft air was heavy with peace and rest, and the ripple of the water as our long canoe worked its way onward invited us to sleep. At one point a canoe with a family of Indians passed us; at another a great cargo-boat, loaded with cacao, was shoved along on its way to market. Nearly all the country over which we travelled belongs to the millionaire planter. When we left the forest we came directly into the grazing lands of his plantation. The grass was under water, and his herds had been taken to the highlands on the edge of the Andes. He was in a wide waste of waters, above which, here and there, the tops of wire fences were to be seen. We rowed right over the fences, now and then passing tenant houses of bamboo thatched with palm leaves. The houses were built upon piles like those of Babahoyo. Under each, just over the water, was a platform on which the chickens and pigs of the owner lived within six inches of drowning. As we neared the great white house of the planter we saw more and more of these houses. We passed a butcher's shop where the animals which S. A.— 4 66 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL furnish the meat for the planter are killed. It floated on the water. We went by a great barn upon piles, and sailed over the front gate, amid a lot of steel cacao boats, to the second story of a large three-story building roofed with red tiles, the home of the planter. We were met at the door by the owner. Our boat was tied to the veranda, and we were at once made at home. Wine and cognac were placed before us, and a breakfast was ordered. While we waited the two pretty daughters of the planter were called in to entertain us, and we drank to the better relations of our countries and continents. Later on the planter sent out an Indian servant to climb one of the cocoanut trees in the back yard for fresh cocoanuts. He gave us a drink of cocoanut milk, and then sent men with us in canoes to the cacao orchard and other parts of the estate. During my visit I learned much about cacao and the profits of Ecuadorian farming. The planter told me that he would har vest 300,000 pounds of cacao this year, and that his net profits from this source alone would be about $30,000. Cacao orchards pay well in Ecuador. There are few plantations which do not net ten per cent annually, and many about Guayaquil bring in from thirty to forty per cent. It costs about three cents of our money to raise a pound of cacao, which sells in Guayaquil for fourteen cents, making a clear profit to the farmer of eleven cents gold per pound. The amount produced here is enormous, about 40,000,000 pounds of cacao beans being annually shipped from Ecuador to Europe and the United States. Until I came here I had an idea that cacao beans grew on bushes. On the contrary they come from trees from twenty to thirty feet high. The cacao tree is much like a large lilac bush; it is ragged and gnarly. Its fruit, which is bigger than the pomelo, grows close to the stem or trunk. It is of the shape and colour of a lemon, although much larger, and the seeds are the chocolate beans of commerce. Each ball of fruit contains from twenty-eight to thirty seeds about as large as Lima beans. These are washed out of the pulp when the fruit is ripe, and are then dried and shipped to the chocolate factories all over the world. The cacao trees are grown in orchards. They are planted close together, so that several hundred trees can be grown to THE BANGKOK OP ECUADOR 67 the acre. Cultivated orchards are sold at the rate of sixty cents a tree, but wild land is cheap; and as it is only a matter of five years to bring an orchard into bearing, it is much more profit able for the investor to buy the land and raise the trees. The first thing is to clear and burn the ground. Then ba nana plants are set out about ten feet apart to furnish a shade for the young trees, a hill of cacao beans being set midway be tween each two banana plants. Three beans are put in a hill. They sprout quickly, and during their first few months look like little orange trees. At three years they begin to produce fruit, and at five years each tree should yield from one to two pounds of chocolate beans every year. The care of the orchard is very easy. It is necessary only to keep down the vegetation, for such a thing as hoeing or ploughing a crop is not known in tropical Ecuador. The greatest trouble of the farmer is the lack of good labour. Senor Barrios told me that he lost a part of his crop every year because he could not get hands to harvest it, and this, notwith standing the workmen on his plantation were in debt to him to the extent of about $80,000 in gold. He looked upon this sum as his labour capital, for the debts were to be worked out, and on this account he held back every day a certain proportion of the wages of each of his debt slaves. It is said that slavery no longer exists in Ecuador. It may not exist as it did in the days of Pizarro, when the Indians were branded, whipped, and killed at the will of their owners; but it is really in force through the debt laws and the customs of the peons, which keep them in debt to their masters. The wages are so low that, once in debt, it is almost impossible to get out. Near the coast peons are paid about eight dollars a month, but in the interior they do not receive over half this, and one-tenth of their earnings goes to the church. The planters give their labourers twelve ounces of meat, four teen ounces of rice or beans, and a little lard or salt a day. Each also gets a hat, three coarse cotton shirts, three pairs of cotton pantaloons a year, and a house such as I have already de scribed. Their hours of work are from sunrise to sunset, and if a man skips a day, it is charged to him. The women and children must work as well as the men, and if a man runs away he is put in prison for debt, and stays there until some other 68 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL planter is willing to pay him out and take him into his service. Even should a man get out of debt, the conditions are such that he is soon in again. If there is a death in his family, he has to borrow money to bury his dead. If he would be married, the priests will charge him six dollars for performing the ceremony; and if he wants a hog or a donkey, it is only by going into debt that he can get one. As to marriage, he usually prefers living without the ceremony to paying the marriage fees, and to-day it is said that, on this account, seventy-five per cent of the births in Ecuador are illegitimate. Wages in Guayaquil and along the coast are much higher than in the interior. In the cities common workmen get seventy-five cents a day; carpenters, a dollar and a-half or two dollars; masons, painters, and blacksmiths about the same, and men servants em ployed by the month, from |io to $12, with board. Women re ceive from $6 to $10, with board. Tailors and shoemakers receive from $6 to $12 per week; and printers, bakers, and barbers about the same. Living is in some respects cheap, but as regards imported articles it is exceedingly dear. I paid a dollar a pound for canned meats; and a camp bed, which I carry with me, worth perhaps $3 at home, cost me in Guayaquil $8 of our money. Chairs, which could be bought for fifty cents at home, cost here $3. They come in pieces, and are put together by the furniture dealers. CHAPTER VII AMONG THE MOUNTAINS OF THE EQUATOR The Highlands of the Northern Andes — Ch3mborazo and Cotopaxi — Peculiar features of Quito, the highest Capital City 3n the World — Civilization in Ecuador — The different classes of the People — How the Wh3Tes rule — The Aborsgsnes — Savage Indsans W3iu Bake the Heads of thesr Enemies. Although Ecuador straddles the equator, the greater part of it has an excellent climate. It is a land of the sky, for it has a dozen towns which are twice as high up in the air as Denver. Nine-tenths of its inhabitants live in the clouds. It has cattle ranches in the Andes which are more than two miles above the Pacific ocean; and it has in Quito the high est capital city in the world. Quito is situated in a valley between the two ranges of the Andes, on the very roof of South America. It is more than half a mile higher than the city of Mexico, and more than a thousand feet higher than the Hospice of St. Bernard, in the Alps, the highest point in Europe where men live all the year round. Quito claims a population of 80,000 people. It is doubtful whether it has 50,000. It is not half so large as it was before the country was discovered by the Spaniards. At that time it was one of the great centres of the Inca civilization, a civiliza tion which was better than that of many of the Ecuadorians of to-day. The city then had several hundred thousand inhabitants, and it was for many years more populous than it is now. Quito is thus one of the old cities of the world. The Indians have many traditions concerning it. They claim that there was a town upon its site before Christ was born; and it is known that there was a settlement there in a. d. iooo. At the time of the Incas it was a city of temples and palaces. Atahualpa, the Inca monarch, who was murdered by Pizarro, had a home in it, tbe roof of which was plated with gold; and the city contained S. A.— 5 (69) 70 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL vast treasures, which were buried by the Indians in order that they might not fall into the hands of the Spaniards. The Quito of to-day is like a Spanish city of the Middle Ages. The people of Guayaquil say that it is just about a hundred years behind the moon. It has nothing in the way of modern improvements, and few modern customs, and it is so difficult of access that travellers seldom get to it. The only means of crossing the Andes is on mules. You go first to Babahoyo, and from there make your way over the mountains, a distance of 165 miles, to Quito. The round trip costs about $100, and if you have baggage considerably more. All goods taken to and from the central valley of Ecuador are carried up the mountains on the backs of men and mules. At Babahoyo I saw twenty-four Indians starting out for Quito with a piano. The piano was cased, and the men were bearing it along on their heads. The cost of transportation was almost as great as the price of the piano. Ordinary packages cost from $60 to $70 per ton; the freight on a small boiler recently shipped was $100. Absolutely nothing has been done in the way of mak ing roads, and you travel along narrow paths, fording streams, your mule at times wading through mud up to its belly. Parts of the road are so steep that you have to lean over and clasp the neck of the animal you are riding to hold on, and in de scending some of the declivities the mules sit down arid slide. The Ecuadorians say, <( Our roads are for birds, not for men. " You realize this again and again during the journey, which in the wet season is uncomfortable from start to finish. There is almost constant rain ; and you cannot rest in the wretched inns, they are so infested with unmentionable insects. It grows colder as you ascend, and at the top you need your heaviest clothing. Crossing the coast range you enter a wide valley more than two miles above the sea, finally reaching the little town of Ambato, about seventy miles from Quito. Here you get a stage, which takes you to the capital. The stage-coach is of English make, but antiquated. It is pulled by relays of mules, which carry you on the gallop. Another route from Guayaquil to the capital is over Ecua dor's only railroad to the foot of the mountains at Chimbo. The road is a narrow gauge, fifty-four miles long, built by an Amer ican named Kelley. The original idea was to carry it over the AMONG THE MOUNTAINS OF THE EQUATOR 71 Andes, and this may be done at some time in the future, a conces sion to that effect having been granted to an American syndicate. Quito is beautifully situated, right in the mountains, walled in, as it were, by some of the highest peaks of the Andes. Just back of it is the active volcano, Pichincha, its snow-capped peak so near the city that the ice for making Quito's ice-cream comes from there. Pichincha has a crater half a mile deep and. a mile wide at the bottom. It is a mile higher up in the air than Mt. ^tna; and its eruptions, which occur at long intervals, are such that Mount Vesuvius would be a portable furnace beside it. It is a five hours' journey from the city to the top of this vol canic mountain. You can ride almost to the summit on horseback. Standing upon it you look down upon Quito in the valley below. It is a city of white adobe houses of one and two stories, roofed with red tiles. The buildings are low and squatty; they stand along narrow streets which cross each other at right angles. One is struck by the large numbers of convents, monasteries, and churches among them. Fully one-fourth of the city is taken up by church establishments, and there are as many priests and nuns to the square foot as in Rome. Quito is altogether Catho lic. It has always been a supporter of the Pope, its contribu tions to the Church having been so numerous that it has received the name of « The Little Mother of the Pope." The government is still largely a union of church and state, and the priests have great influence. Catholicism is the only re ligion, and by that I do not mean the liberal Catholicism of the United States, but Spanish Catholicism, which in Ecuador has as many evils as it had in the days of the Inquisition. The country is nominally a republic, but voters must belong to the Church, and must be able to read and write. Inasmuch as not more than one-tenth of the people can read or write, the educated whites control the elections. Ecuador is a land of revolutions. Every now and then a new party ousts the President and takes possession, going through the ceremony of an election afterwards as a matter of form. The President lives at Quito, and in his Cabinet of five ministers, one represents the Church. In addition to the President and Cabinet, there is a Congress of two Houses, a system of courts, and a num ber of governors, one for each province, who are appointed and subject to removal by the President. 72 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL Ecuador has a small national debt, payment of the interest on which has been suspended since March, 1896. There are but few direct taxes. Seventy per cent of the government income is de rived from customs duties; fifteen per cent from taxes on cacao, real estate, rum, and tobacco; and six per cent from salt and gun powder monopolies. Every city has its government salt ware house, where the merchants or private consumers must come to buy, and where they pay several times as much for a very poor article as they would if salt were free. I visited such a warehouse at Babahoyo. There were hundreds of tons of dirty salt, banked up in large barn-like rooms, and I saw salt weighed out to pur chasers on a pair of American scales. The salt costs the govern ment sixty cents a hundredweight, and its price at the warehouses is almost two cents a pound. The revenue from this source amounts to about $200,000 dollars a year. Ecuador has now a public school system, but, as I have said, only about one-tenth of the people can read and write. There are over a thousand primary schools, and more than forty schools of higher grades. The children all study out loud, and the din is as great as in the schools of China. Quito has a university, which is largely managed by Jesuits, and there are colleges at Cuenca and Guayaquil. At Guayaquil there are two newspapers, both of which get brief cable dispatches. The papers are sold by newsboys on the streets; they are printed on old American presses, from type made in the United States; but their paper and ink come from Germany. Among the other public institu tions are a hospital at Guayaquil, and asylums for lunatics and lepers at Quito. The most interesting people of Ecuador are the Indians, who are of two classes, the semi-civilized and the savage. Among the latter there are about 150,000 or 200,000 who have never been subdued, and are less known than the people of interior Africa. Some of the tribes along the Napo river, which flows through eastern Ecuador into the Maranon, use poisoned arrows, which they shoot at their enemies through blow-guns made of reeds. With these guns they can send the arrows long distances, and a scratch from one of them causes death. Another tribe of this region, the Jivaros, have a curious method of preserving the heads of such of their enemies as are killed in battle. While I write these words a human head, cut (7.3) INDIANS WHO CURE AND TRADE IN HUMAN HEADS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS OF THE EQUATOR 75 off just below the chin, lies on the table before me. Whether it is that of a woman or a man I do not know. The hair is long, black, and silky, and so thick that I can hardly grasp it all in my hand. The head came from this Indian tribe. It was offered to me as a curiosity for $100 in gold, and I can buy several more at the same price. It is a gruesome object, not larger than my fist, but the features are as perfect as in life. All the bones have been removed, and the skin has shrunken into its present shape. It is black, its eyes are closed, the forehead over which the dark hair hangs is low, and the nose is almost negro in shape. The lips, which were once full and sensuous, are sewed together with long cotton strands, which hang down like a ma- craine fringe; and the chin has a pronounced dimple in it, which may have been admired by the sweetheart and friends of the owner of the head. It is now against the laws of Ecuador to sell these heads, but they are surreptitiously offered to every traveller. How they are prepared is a mystery. A red-whiskered German came to Quito some years ago to learn the process. He made his way into the wilds of the eastern Andes and disappeared. Nothing has since been heard of him, but it is' said that about six months after he started out on his expedition a head beautifully cured was brought in for sale. Its features were German in cast, and on the chin was a beard of the same brick-dust hue as that of the German explorer. From native sources I learn that the Indians, after they have removed the bones of the skull, cure the heads by filling them with hot pebbles and passing them from hand to hand, pressing them so carefully inward that in shrinking they do not lose their shape. After this they are baked in the sand and so treated that they will last for ages. The skin of the neck of the head before me is about one-sixth of an inch thick. Its pretty ears are about the size of a silver quarter, and as I push back its hair and look at its closed eyes I almost fear that they will open and glare at me. Most of the Indians of Ecuador are semi-civilized. We have, it is estimated, about 260,000 Indians in the United States. Ec uador has 870,000 in a total population of 1,250,000, the remainder of the inhabitants being made up of about 100,000 whites and 76 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL about 300,000 of mixed races, or crosses of the whites and negroes with the Indians. The whites are the ruling class. They are the government — the wealth, the brains — the Ecuador that we know in business and in trade. The Indians who constitute the working population are chiefly Quichuas, the descendants of the people who inhabited the plateau when the Spaniards first came. They are thriftless, and seem to have little spirit or ambition. Their highest idea of pleasure is plenty of liquor; and the Ecuadorian "smile" is as common as the drink of America. They live like dogs, and work almost from birth to death. They till the soil, carry the freight on their backs up and down the mountains, and are in fact often treated more like cattle than the animals themselves. They submit to the whites, and are accustomed to being advised by them. Only a comparatively few of these Indians can read or write, and very few accumulate property. The semi-civilized Indians are Catholics. They are ruled by the priests, and a large part of their earnings goes to the Church. From this it will be seen that the people of Ecuador will never be a large consuming class. A suit or two of cotton clothes, a little rice and meat, a cane hut in the lowlands or one of adobe brick in the mountains, will suffice for most of them. It will be long before Ecuador can have a large trade. There are no accurate trade statistics, and it is consequently difficult to get at what the business of the country amounts to. It probably ranges somewhere between $10,000,000 and $15,000,000 a year, the imports being less than the exports. There are practically no factories, hence all its manufactured goods are imported. Ex cept lumber, lard, kerosene, flour, and barbed wire for fences, which are largely shipped from the United States, most of the imports come from Europe. Freight rates are at present lower to France or England than to New York, and the banking connections are altogether in favor of London. Many American articles might be introduced into the country if our people would study the markets, accom modate their prices to European competition, and so pack their goods that they could be shipped upon the backs of mules to the high plateau across the mountains. CHAPTER VIII ON THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT A Land of Dry Sand, where it Rains only once in Seven Years — Skele tons and Mummies — Travelling Sand-Dunes, which are always on the March — Among the Ruins of the Incas — The Old Csty of Je- QUETEPEC — CAJAMARCA, AND AtAHUAL3>a's PR3S0N CELL WH3CH 3-3E FILLED with Gold — The Sunsets of the Desert. left Ecuador, sailing in a Chilean steamer down the Guayas river into the Pacific, and am now at Pacas- mayo, Peru. I am in the heart of the great South American desert, that wonderful strip of sand which extends from the borders of Ecuador for two thousand miles southward, along the Pacific coasts of Peru and Chile. It is as long as the distance from New York to Salt Lake City, and is in no place more than eighty miles wide. I have seen something of other great deserts of the world. From the top of the pyramids I have looked over the sands of Egypt; I have sailed through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea along the deserts of Arabia, and on the Mount of Olives have cast my eyes over the bleak wastes between Jerusalem and the Jordan; I have travelled through the rocky highlands of our arid West, and have had my eyes dazzled by the alkali deserts of Mexico; but so far I have seen nothing like this South Amer ican desert. The origin of the Peruvian desert may be explained by stat ing that the atmosphere forms the clothing of the earth, and that old Mother Earth works well only when her clothes are pe riodically wet. The mountains are great clothes-wringers, which squeeze the rain out of the air, and by the difference in temper ature cause it to fall on the land. If we except the Himalayas, the Andes kiss the sky at higher points than do any other mountains on the globe. The chief winds which sweep over South America come from the east. I am now as near the (77) 78 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL equator as I was a few weeks ago, when I waded through trop ical mud amidst the dense vegetation of the Isthmus of Panama. The sun is continually drawing up vapor from the sea, but the winds are carrying it northward and westward, and the only breezes we have are the cool dry winds which come down upon us from the Andes. These winds originally started out from the west coast of Africa. As they swept over the Atlantic they pumped themselves full of water, and when they reached the coast of Brazil they were well-loaded. As they crossed the con tinent, they dropped their moisture, feeding the great rivers of lower South America, and covering the land with tropical ver dure. They dropped more and more as they climbed up the eastern slopes of the Andes, until they reached the top, where they left the last water there in the form of snow, so there was nothing left to make fertile the western slope. The result is that all the water that comes down to the west coast is from the melting of the snows. This is enough to form a river here and there through the desert; and it is in the val leys of such rivers that one finds the habitable parts of the coast regions of Peru and northern Chile. There is another habitable region farther up in the mountains, between the two ranges of the Andes which run almost parallel in this part of South Amer ica; and there is a wild strip on the eastern slope, which, through the agency of railroads, will some time be one of the most pro ductive parts of the globe. One of the wonders of the desert is its travelling sand-hills. Just back of the shore there are great mounds, containing hun dreds of tons of fine gray sand, which is always moving under the influence of the winds. The mounds are of crescent shape, and their little grains, not so large as a mustard seed, are ever rolling up, up, and over the top of the crescent, going always toward the north. They climb over hills, they make their way through valleys, as uneasy but as steady in their march as the Wandering Jew. Here, at Pacasmayo, there .is a railroad which crosses the desert on its way up the Jequetepec valley. When it was built the engineers thought nothing of the sand-hills, which were then far to the southward. The sands, however, are no respecters of railroads. They moved onward, and swallowed up the track, so that it had to be taken up and relaid on the other side of them. ON THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 79 In a ride on a hand-car up the valley I saw one place where a mound of sand containing some thousand of tons was encroach ing upon the track. A stream of water from the river had been let in through a ditch at the side in a vain attempt to carry it away, and the men were at work shovelling the sand from the rails. As I passed I saw the sand coming down in a stream like thick molasses, and it seemed to me that it would be almost im possible to conquer it. I took photographs of some of the moving hills. I climbed to the top of one of them fearing that I might sink down to my neck in it, but discovered that the sand was so compact that even my shoes were not covered. Some of the sand-hills are stopped on their course by the algoroba bushes, which grow here and there in the desert. The sand gathers about the bushes, almost covering them, and forming hills topped with patches of green. The chief animals used to carry freight in the desert are donkeys, mules, and horses; the last named are sometimes used for riding. The only roads are bridle-paths, which are often covered up by the sands. This makes travelling in the desert very dangerous. No stranger does well to attempt to cross it alone. He must have a guide, who will direct his course by the stars at night and by the wind during the day. I can imagine no place where it would be so terrible to lose one's bearings. You might wander about for days without finding anything to eat or drink. You would pass by the skeletons of animals which had been lost and died there, and, perhaps, see the bodies of some at which the buzzards were still picking. I passed the bones of men, donkeys, and cattle, and at one point stopped to rest on a pile of skeletons which had been dug from an Inca ruin and left there to bleach. It is an odd thing that there are no bad smells on the desert. Flesh does not decay, for the air is so dry that it sucks the juices out of everything left upon the sand. In the northern part of Peru is the valley of the Piura river. Not long since a traveller, going through this valley, saw in the cemetery an open coffin, and in it the body of a dead priest clothed in a purple shirt and white cotton drawers. The tropical sun was beating down upon the corpse, and the traveller, who was a devout Catholic, proposed to bury it, expressing great indignation that one of the fathers should be so treated. The priest of the town, however, refused 80 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL to permit it, saying: " My dear sir, you do not understand. That is the body of my friend, which I have put out there to dry, so that I may send him in good condition to his family in Guayaquil. " It is owing to this dryness of the air that the mummies of Peru are found in good preservation. There are plenty of them in the desert, and, in excavating the ruined cities which were in existence when the Spaniards came, some of them are dug up every now and then. The mummies are usually found in a sit ting posture, wrapped in cloth and tied up with strings. All about Pacasmayo I noticed vestiges of the Incas. They are to be found throughout the coast region of Peru, as well as on the highlands. Among the most remarkable near here are the ruins of the old city of Jequetepec, which I visited. I doubt whether the reader has ever heard of them. Still, they are the remains of what was once a populous city. They are situated high above and far back from the irrigated lands along the Je quetepec river. Near them are the remains of Inca fortifications, great mounds of sun-dried bricks, about 200 feet high. These ruins are in the heart of the desert. They cover sev eral hundred acres; and the walls, in many places higher than one's head, still stand, while within them the outlines of the houses can be plainly seen. In the centre of the city is a large mound, probably the site of an Inca palace or of a temple devoted to the vestal virgins of the sun. I rode my horse up to the top of this mound, and in my mind's eye could easily re-people the ruined streets below me. All about were bits of pottery, the broken dishes of that great people of the past. Here were the outlines of a square, and there the remains of a large house, which may have been the residence of one of the rich nobility from whom the Spaniards stole their gold. In my travels over the desert I saw the ruins of many other towns. In that acme of civilization, which makes every rood of earth maintain its man, the Indians were far superior to the Spaniards. When Pizarro came, the Inca king had, it is estimated, about 40,000,000 subjects. Peru was far more thickly populated then than now, and it undoubtedly had a higher state of civiliza tion. Most of the people then lived on the high plateau between the two ranges of the Andes, but they irrigated vast regions of the coast desert; and even the mountain slopes were turned into farms. They had large cities and magnificent roads. ON THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 8l Not far back from the coast across the Andes is the town of Cajamarca, where, more than three and a half centuries ago, the Inca king, Atahualpa, received the Spanish freebooter Pizarro, and was treacherously captured by him. When Pizarro entered the country, with a handful of soldiers and a few horses, he was kindly treated by the Indians. Atahualpa heard of his coming, and met him at Cajamarca. Pizarro asked him to dine with him, and when Atahualpa came unarmed into the palace which Pizarro by his favor was occupying, Pizarro closed the doors and captured him, while the Spanish soldiers slaughtered his attendants. The person of the Inca king was so sacred that the event paralyzed the nation, and at Atahualpa's request war was not made. Then Atahualpa said that if Pizarro would release him he would fill the room in the palace in which he was confined with gold to a point as high as he could reach. This was agreed to, and for several weeks gold was brought in great loads from all parts of Peru. The room was seventeen- feet long by twenty feet wide, and the point up to which it was to be filled was designated by a red mark nine feet above the floor. The gold was in all sorts of shapes. Some of it was in gold plates torn from the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There was a variety of golden basins, drinking-cups, and dishes. There were vases of all kinds, and many pieces of beautifully carved workmanship. When the room was almost filled up to the mark indicated, Pizarro ordered the Indian goldsmiths to melt the whole into ingots, and there was so much gold that they worked at it day and night for a month. Then Pizarro refused to let Atahualpa go, and after a mock trial put him to death. There is a stone in Cajamarca which the In dians say is stained with Atahualpa's blood. Notwithstanding that this part of the Pacific coast has had no rain for a long time, the people are expecting it this year. The reason for this expectation is that it rains almost regularly every seven years in some parts of the desert. The last big shower was in 1891; there was a shower seven years before that; and I am told that about every seven, eight, or nine years there is a period, of a week or more, during which the rain falls in bucketfuls. As the water touches the earth, vegetation springs up. After a day and a night the desert becomes green. Soon great fields of grass spring up, and flowers by myriads appear in blossom. There are plants which we in the North have only 82 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL in hot-houses, and flowers more brilliant than any we know of. This vegetation oftens lasts but a few days. It has, however, been known to flourish for a month; and at its height the cattle are driven from the irrigated valleys to the desert to feed. Seeds of all sorts of plants, trees, and shrubs, seem to keep perfectly in the hot, dry sand, and to be ready to leap into life when touched with moisture. I doubt, indeed, if a more fertile soil than that of the desert of Peru exists anywhere. It seems to be as fat as the valley of the Nile, and where it can be irrigated it usually produces two crops a year. In the irrigated valleys planting goes on all the year round, and I saw corn being dropped in fields adjoining those in which it was almost ripe enough for husking. I have never been in a land that has so many fruits. We had nine different kinds at our last dinner, all of which were raised here. There are oranges, bananas, limes, and lemons, growing almost side by side with peaches, apples, and pears. There are grapes as luscious as those of California; cherries, plums, dates, and figs. There are watermelons and musk melons, guavas and mangoes. We have the alligator pear, which has a flesh that looks and tastes not unlike fresh butter, and is eaten with salt. Then there are the palta, the tumbo, and the papaya, and in some places cocoanut and other species of palm trees. In every little town and at every railroad station are women peddling fruit, and at such prices that for a few cents one can buy all one can eat. The coffee I drink is made from berries which come from a plantation near by, and the sugar with which it is sweetened is ground out on a sugar plantation not ten miles away. But I despair of giving a picture of these little irrigated val leys of Peru. Nature has here painted things in a way differ ent from that which she has employed in any other part of the world. Now you imagine yourself in Egypt; at the next step you think of the highlands of Mexico; and again of southern California or of the Pacific coast of Asia. Even the sky is dif ferent. Every evening the sun sets in the waters in a blaze of colour such as I have never seen elsewhere. The tints are more gorgeous than those of the Indian Ocean, more soft and beauti ful than the skies of Greece. Such colours have never been put upon canvas, and such scenic effects are unknown in our part ON THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 83 of the world. The sun at its setting looks twice as large in the clear air as at home, and as it sinks down toward the sea the waters seem to pull it to their surface so that it assumes the form of a balloon, the lower end of which is slowly submerged. A moment later the top spreads out, and you have a great golden dome resting on the dark blue horizon. It sinks lower, and the waters then turn to gold and silver, and the most delicate tints of purple and red, which match the soft, bright colours of the sky. Last night, just before the sun went down, we had double rain bows in the Andes, although there was no sign of rain on the coast. The air is clear, and although it is now mid-summer, the heat is not oppressive, for we have a steady breeze every afternoon. A FIELD OF SUGAR CANE CHAPTER IX THE IRRIGATED VALLEYS OF PERU A Land where Cotton grows on Trees and is Red in Colour — The big Sugar Plantat30ns, and how they are Managed — Peruvian Labour and Wages — A Look at the Peons and their Homes. although most of the people of Peru live on the high tableland beyond the coast range of the Andes, the country, as we know it, is chiefly confined to the coast. It is made up almost wholly of little irrigated valleys, fed by the snow-water rivers on their way from the mountains through the desert to the sea. At the mouths of such rivers are the chief ports, and in the interior are numerous villages and towns. Lima, the capital, lies in the valley of the Rimac river. Paita, at the north, is the port for the valley of the Piura river, while Pacasmayo, where I am now writing, is at the mouth of the Jequetepec. At the different ports of northern Peru our steamer took on thousands of bags of rice, boxes of tobacco, and quantities of skins and hides. At Paita we received a number of bales of red cotton, which came from the Piura valley, the chief cotton- raising section of Peru. Indeed, the irrigated lands of the desert seem to be the natural home of the cotton plant, which grows wild here, and often reaches the size of a small tree. Some of these trees, from fifteen to twenty feet high, have produced cot ton from ten to twenty years. There is in Pacasmayo an hotel in the back-yard of which is a cotton tree from which, so the landlord says, comes enough cotton annually to pay for all the eggs consumed in the hotel. The native Peruvian cotton is not white, like ours. It is of different shades of brown, some being almost red in colour. The finest quality is raised in the Piura valley, the best yields coming after the seventh year's rain. At such times the rivers flood the (84) THE IRRIGATED VALLEYS OF PERU 85 country, bringing down rich slime from the mountains, and when the rains have ceased everyone starts to plant cotton. The de mand for labour is such that many people go there for work, the wages paid being from twenty-five to thirty cents for a day of ten hours. Raising cotton in Peru may be called the luxury of agricul ture. The soil is so rich that the plants do not need manure or tillage. The ground is not ploughed; holes for the cotton-seeds are simply dug with a spade, and the seeds are covered up. They soon sprout, and from one planting the farmers are sure of three good crops within the next year or so, the first crop maturing in nine months. After these three crops, there are irregular crops from the same plant or tree for a number of years. All that is necessary is to keep them trimmed, and to pick the cotton. In the lands along the river, which can be irrigated, the crops are regular, and from two to three crops a year are common. The cotton ripens, in fact, throughout most of the year, and you see buds, blossoms, and cotton-wool on the same tree at the same time. In the irrigated lands the yield is from 300 to 400 pounds to the acre. It is estimated that the growing and baling cost about a dollar in gold (4 shillings sterling) per bale. Peruvian cotton is very valuable. It brings thirteen cents a pound at present, and has brought as high as twenty-three cents. It is especially valuable because it can be used as wool. Its fibre is so much more like that of wool than cotton, that when ginned it would easily pass for wool. It is used by the manu facturers of hats, hosiery, and underwear, to mix with wool, giv ing the articles into which it goes a finer lustre and a better finish, and rendering them less liable to shrink. The fibre is longer than that of any other cotton except the Sea Island and the Egyptian; but the area in which it will grow is compara tively small. The country scenes of Peru are unlike those of any other part of the world. Let us look at some of them, as we ride through the valley of the Jequetepec to the foothills of the Andes. We go on a railroad built by an American a few decades ago, but now owned by an English syndicate, the Peru vian corporation. The cars came from the Eastern States, the ties from Oregon. The telegraph poles are discarded rails, to which supports have been bolted to bear the wires; iron is used S. A.— 6 86 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL on account of the ants. Our conductor is a little Peruvian in a linen suit, and we have another official on board in the travelling postmaster, who sells stamps, takes up the letters from the various small villages and estates as we stop, and hands out mail to the people who come to the train. Notice the little farms we are passing. The fields are fenced in with thick walls of mud as high as your waist, and irrigating ditches carry sparkling water here and there through them. The water comes from the river, but the irrigating is carelessly done, and much water goes to waste. There is a rice field, rice being one of the best-paying crops in this part of Peru; and there are mills at Pacasmayo where the rice is hulled, polished, and prepared for shipment. We go through large sugar plantations. These are owned by foreigners, and many of them are managed on a magnificent scale. We pass one factory which makes 5,000 tons of sugar annually. The buildings on it have cost over $1,000,000; its ma chinery was imported from Philadelphia. We see steam ploughs, harrows, and cultivators at work in the fields, and notice that the cane is hauled to the factories by steam-engines, over a port able railroad. More than 100,000 tons of sugar are now annually produced in Peru. There are, moreover, more than sixty fac tories scattered through the irrigated valleys of the coast desert, and upwards of $20,000,000 is employed in the business. The labour comes from the native Peruvian Indian, who re ceives from twenty-five to forty cents a day for his work. He is given a house on his master's plantation, and is furnished with a pound of meat and two pounds of rice as his daily rations. He is also allowed to run up bills at the plantation stores, and his habits and temperament are such that he is always in debt. I wish I could show our American farm-hands how the Peru vian workmen are housed. I visited one of their homes to-day, a sample of thousands all over Peru. It was merely a hut made of canes so put together that you could see out of the cracks on all sides. The floor was mother earth, the roof was of reeds, being needed only to keep out the sun. The house had but one room about eighteen feet square. A wooden platform about as high as one's knees in one corner of the room furnished a sleeping- place for the heads of the family, while the children slept on the floor. In another corner was the family cook-stove — two stones THE IRRIGATED VALLEYS OF PERU 87 just wide enough apart to allow an earthen cooking-pot to rest upon them. There was no window, no chimney, and, except a soap box, no furniture. In the house a family of six were living, and I doubt not they deemed themselves happy. Their chickens and goats lived with them ; and all they wanted was enough to eat and drink, and a chance to get drunk now and then. Like all of their kind, they have no ambition whatever, and are per fectly satisfied with their lot. I asked some questions as to food and hours of work. On rising they take a glass of pisco, or native whiskey, and go to work without breakfast. This is at five o'clock in the morning. The whiskey serves them until eleven a. ml, when they knock off for lunch, or breakfast. This usually consists of a stew of goat's meat and rice. At one o'clock they go back to work, and at five they stop for the day. When they get home they have another stew of meat and rice, and perhaps a piece or more of bread. After dinner they sit about and talk, and at eight or nine o'clock lie down in the clothes which they have worn all day, and go to sleep. The working classes of Peru have no education, and not one in a hundred of them can read. Their clothes cost them almost nothing. The men wear a pair of cotton trousers, a cotton shirt, a pair of leather sandals, and a straw hat. The women wear cotton dresses and straw hats, with black woollen shawls for Sun days and feast days. The men have also ponchos — the blankets and overcoats of South America. These are merely blankets with a short slit in the middle large enough to slip the head through. They are worn by the better classes as well as by the poor, and are costly or otherwise according to the purse of the owner. The fine farm machinery of which I have written is to be found only on the large estates. The native Peruvians do their work in the rudest way. They use ploughs of wood, tipped with iron, with oxen as the motive power. The Indian holds the plough with one hand and drives with a goad, as the Palestine farmers did in the days of Abraham. CHAPTER X AN HOUR WITH THE PRESIDENT OF PERU The Romantic career of a South Amerscan statesman — How he fought H3S WAY T31ROUGH REVOLUT30N TO POWER — HlS NARROW ESCAPE IN A WOMAN'S CLOTHES — The RESOURCES OF PERU — One OF THE RICHEST Countries in the World, with the poorest InhaB3tants — Peru's War with Chile, and how her Treasure was Stolen. jT was in company with the secretary of the American legation that I called upon Nicolas de Pierola, the Presi dent of Peru. His Excellency had appointed two p. m. for my audience, and at that hour we entered the long one-story building which forms the White House and the government offices of the Republic. Soldiers in uniforms of white duck, with rifles at their sides, were at the door, and as we passed in we went by a company of infantry ready for immediate action in case of revolution. Additional rifles stood in racks against the walls, and we seemed to be in a fortress rather than in the capitol building of a country supposed to be ruled by the people. Peru is a land of revolutions. Its present executive is a rev olutionist, who gained his position after months of hard fighting. In the houses and churches of Lima you may still see the holes where the cannon-balls of his soldiers went crashing through. He besieged the city, and for days his army fought with that of the former President in the heart of Lima. They had Gatling guns trained upon one another, and swept the streets with them. The dead were carried out each morning by the cartload, and there were so many dead horses that they could not be buried, but were sprinkled with coal-oil and burned. The end of the revolution was the deposition of the old president Caceres, and the election of the present executive. President Pierola's career is a typical one. It illustrates the ups and downs of South American politics, and shows us how (88) AN HOUR WITH THE PRESIDENT OF PERU 89 republics are managed below the Caribbean Sea. Nicolas de Pierola is the son of a Peruvian scientist, his father having been a co-worker with Alexander von Humboldt, Sir Humphry Davy, and Von Tschudi, the noted Austrian philosopher and traveller. Pierola was born in southern Peru. He was educated in Paris, where he married the granddaughter of Iturbide, the unfortunate Emperor of Mexico. On returning to Peru at the close of his school days, he began his life work in Lima as an editor sup porting the President. A revolution overturned the administra- THE « WHITE HOUSE," LIMA. PERU tion, and Pierola was banished. This revolution was succeeded by another, with one of Pierola's friends at its head, and the young man was brought back to the capital and made Secretary of the Treasury. He had hardly received his seal before the President who had been last driven out appeared before Lima with another army, and again Pierola and the executive whom he had been supporting had to leave. Then the war with Chile came on, and Pierola was called back to be one of the generals of the Peruvian army. His soldiers were defeated, but, the 9o SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL President having fled the country, he became dictator. After a short time, however, the Chileans conquered, and deposed Pier ola. He was ordered to leave the country, and fied to France. Later on, Caceres, who had been elected President, became very unpopular, and Pierola returned to raise a revolution against him. Caceres accused him of treason; he concealed some guns on Pierola's estate, and based his charge upon their discovery by the soldiers sent to find them. Pierola was arrested, brought to Lima, and confined in the palace. One day a French lady NICOLAS DE PIEROLA, PRESIDENT OF PERU called to see him. She was admitted, and the two were left alone for a time in Pierola's cell. During this time they changed clothes, and an hour or so after it was supposed the lady had de parted, the guards found that Pierola had passed out instead, and that all that was left of him were his brown whiskers, which he had shaved off in order to perfect his disguise. Pierola fled to the mountains, raised an army, and declared war. He skirmished about the country for some time, and then attacked Lima. After three days' fighting President Caceras was AN HOUR WITH. THE PRESIDENT OF PERU 91 forced out of office, and a provisional governor was appointed until an election could be held. At the election Pierola was chosen President by an overwhelming majority. Thus trained in revolutions, the President is too good a sol dier to sleep upon his arms. He does not go about without guards, and during our visit to his residence we found soldiers everywhere present. As we went on through the palace, going through one room after another, we passed many officers in uni form, until we met the President's private secretary, who told us that the palace, the President, and himself were at my disposal, and that His Excellency would receive me at once. He then went out, and a moment later he ushered us into a large hall furnished not unlike one of the reception-rooms in the State Department at Washington. In the centre of the room stood a straight, handsome man with a military bearing. It was Nicolas de Pierola, President of Peru. He stepped towards us as we came in and shook hands with me on my presentation. After we were seated he told me that he was glad to have an Ameri can journalist come to Peru, saying he felt that his country was not properly known in North America. He then went on to give me a description of the mineral and agricultural possibilities of Peru, describing its resources and the enterprises which are under way to develop them. He said he was anxious to see an in creased trade between Peru and the United States, and that he hoped one of the Trans-Isthmian canals would be pushed to its completion as a means to that end. He said he was in thorough accord with the Monroe Doctrine, and that he believed the re publics of this hemisphere should aid and defend one another in protecting their rights as free governments. The resources of Peru are much greater than is generally sup posed. Peru is about one-eighth the size of the United States; it would almost make nine states of the size of New York; and in it are vast areas of good land. In addition to the coast desert, with its numerous irrigated valleys, there are extensive pastures in the highlands; and over the mountains on the eastern slopes are valleys which will produce as fine coffee as any in the mar ket. The Peruvian corporation, an English syndicate, has a grant of 5,000,000 acres of coffee land in this region, and other com panies are setting out coffee trees. Parts of Peru are well adapted to the raising of the cacao, such, for instance, as the province of 92 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL Cuzco, in which there are nine estates, having altogether 27,000,000 cacao trees, or an average of 300,000 each. The mines of Peru will be treated of further on. They include both gold and silver mines, some of them being exceedingly rich. In northern Peru, along the coast, are petroleum fields now being worked; and rail roads have been projected to tap valuable anthracite coal deposits which lie across the coast range of the Andes. From this description it might be thought that the Peruvians were one of the richest peoples of South America, whereas they are among the poorest. The small class of aristocrats, who were so wealthy before the war with Chile, are now comparatively poor; and the vast majority of the people were never anything else. Peru has about 3,000,000 people, not more than Greater New York. Of these 57 per cent are pure Indians, about 23 per cent are of the mixed race, and the remainder are whites. Not one Peruvian in five is pure white, yet the whites have most of the land, and the others work for them. Three centuries ago the Spaniards subjugated the Indians and made them slaves. They worked them in the mines, and from their labour Spain became rich. The Spaniards carried away tons of gold and silver, taking from one Inca temple alone 42,000 pounds of gold and 82,000 pounds of silver. When the gold mines were partially exhausted, they tapped the silver mines of Cerro de Pasco and other places, out of which came so much wealth that one of the viceroys was able to ride through Lima from the palace to the cathedral over a path paved with ingots of silver. The horse upon which he sat was shod with gold, and, if tradition is to be believed, every hair of its mane and tail was strung with pearls. Later on the wealth of the guano islands was added to that of the mines, and Peru received hundreds of millions of dollars from her manure piles. Then the nitrate deposits were discov ered, and other millions came. The bulk of all this money went to a few of the governing class and their friends, and the phrase, "as rich as a Peruvian," was current in South America. Such was the situation when the Chileans turned their covet ous eyes to the north. They were poor, but brave and strong, and nationally without a conscience. They trumped up a bound ary line as an excuse for war, and invaded Peru. They had an army of 25,000 men, with which they overran the country, laying it everywhere waste or demanding ransom for refraining from AN HOUR WITH THE PRESIDENT OF PERU 93 doing so. The outrages of this war are unsurpassed in history. At Chimbote a Chilean general demanded that a sugar-planter should pay him $100,000 within three days. The planter was un able to do so, and the Chilean thereupon destroyed his sugar fac tories, blowing up the machinery with dynamite. He tore down the houses of the estate, and he killed five hundred sheep which his soldiers could not carry off. The Chilean army destroyed the magnificent residences of the summer resorts below Lima. They looted Lima, occupying the university as a barracks. They destroyed the archives and sacked the public library, which contained 50,000 volumes and many val uable manuscripts. They even robbed the zoological gardens, sending its elephants and other animals to Santiago. In their battles they gave no quarter, bayoneting not only the wounded soldiers, but the defenceless civilians as well. The war lasted three years, and when it was ended Chile annexed the nitrate territory which she coveted. Since that time Peru has had a series of revolutions. The people have been ground between the upper and nether millstones of personal politics, and until lately have had but little chance to do more than keep out of the way of bullets. Since the inauguration of President Pierola peace has pre vailed and business has been steadily improving. Foreign capital has been coming in, and the President is doing what he can to develop the country. The President of a South American republic is a very im portant factor in its prosperity. He has more power in many ways than the President of the United States. He practically decides upon everything, controlling Congress, and having much to say as to concessions for public and private works. Congress is constituted in the same way as in the United States. It consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives, the Senators being elected for four years, and the Representa tives for two. All laws originate with Congress, and all appro priations are supposed to be determined upon by the two Houses. The salaries of the members of Congress are less than with us; they are paid $7.50 a day, and, as the sessions are limited to ninety days, each receives less than $700 a year. After leaving the President I paid a visit to the two Houses of Congress. They are situated on the Plaza of the Inquisition, 94 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL the site of the terrible trials and tortures of the past. They look out upon a square where scores of heretics were burned at the stake. The Senate has its chamber in the room where the Court of the Inquisition held its sessions, so that speeches in favour of free thought are made in the very hall where the bigots of the past tortured and slaughtered human beings in the name of .religion. CHAPTER XI THE CAPITAL OF PERU A Magnificent City made of Mud and Fishsng-Poles — How Lima Houses are bu3lt — chickens that l3ve on the housetops — the stores and the great cathedral the pretty g3rls of l3ma the3r odd Customs and Costumes — Lima on Horseback — Women who rsde astr3de — a c3ty where mules take the place of the huckster Cart. Pet us take a walk together through the quaintest city of this hemisphere. We are in Lima, the capital of Peru. The streets on which we stand were laid out more than three hundred years ago. Lima was a city when Boston was in its swaddling clothes, when Philadelphia was a baby, and all to the west and south of it was an unbroken wilderness. There are houses in Lima which are two hundred years older than Chicago or Cincinnati, and I can even introduce you to one of the oldest citizens, the founder of the town, who, dried and pickled by the pure Peruvian air, has for over three centuries stayed here with his property. I refer to the Spanish freebooter, the robber and butcher of the Indians, Pizarro, who laid out Lima in 1535. He was assassinated on the spot where the Presi dent of Peru now lives, and his skeleton and his brains are kept in a glass case in a cathedral across the way. The skin is dried, and it sticks to the bones, but, with the exception of patches here and there which have been cut off for relic-hunters, the hide is intact, though decidedly leathery and the worse for the wear. In Lima everything lasts long, except money. Where else in the world will you find a city three hundred years old built of mud? Lima has more than 100,000 people; it is about six miles around it, and two miles from one side to the other. It has a network of narrow streets, that cross one another at right an gles, with spaces clipped out here and there for parks or plazas. (95) 96 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL The houses are of one and two stories, flush with the sidewalks; and in the business sections cage-like balconies hang out from the second stories, so that you are shielded from the sun as you pass along the streets. Still, Lima looks very substantial; you might easily imagine it to be made of massive stone, here and there wonderfully carved. Some of its walls look like marble; others imitate gran ite. The houses are of all the colours of the rainbow, and they line the streets with solid walls. About the chief square there are enclosed balconies walled with glass extending out from the second stories, and under these are imitation massive stone pil lars, forming an arcade, or cloister, around two sides of the square in front of the stores. These pillars are of mud, the pol ished walls of the houses are made of sun-dried brick, coated with plaster of paris, and the second stories are a combination of mud and bamboo cane. The whole city is built of mud and fishing-poles. Here some of the finest churches of the continent are made of mud. The great cathedral, which cost millions, is a mud structure, and could you take a sharpened rail and thrust it against one of its massive towers, it would go through it as it would through a birdcage. But let us go up to the roof of our hotel and take a bird's- eye view of Lima before we begin to explore it. We are in a vast field of flat roofs, above which here and there rise the mas sive towers of great churches. At the back of us, at the edge of this field, are the bleak foothills of the Andes, gray and forbid ding; their tops in a smoky sky, and white clouds rushing here and there over their sides. On the edge of the city we see the green crops of the valley of the Rimac, and we can readily make out the three bridges which cross the river as it flows through Lima. Look down on the roofs all about us. They are more like garden beds than the coverings of houses. Do not stamp your feet or step heavily as you walk to and fro. The roof trembles beneath us and with little effort we could push our feet through. The supports of many of the roofs are merely cane poles on which dirt is spread. On some matting is first put and then a layer of earth, sand or ashes. It is supposed rarely to rain here; almost from year's end to year's end Lima has not a shower. Waterproofs are unknown, (97) LIMA, PERU, SHOWING CATHEDRAL THE CAPITAL OF PERU 99 and the umbrella-mender's cry is unheard. It is on this account that these mud walls stand throughout the generations. It is indeed only through lack of rain that Lima exists. A big shower would reduce the town to a mud heap, while a two-weeks' pour would wipe it out of existence. Even here, however, nature sometimes varies her course. Last year the people were horri fied by hearing the raindrops pattering on the roofs. The water which fell would hardly have been called a sprinkle in some parts of the world, but it did more damage than an earthquake. Much of the light of the Lima houses comes from the roofs. Each house has a court in the centre, around which the rooms run. Many of the larger buildings have several courts. When there is a double row of rooms the inner ones are lighted by little dormer windows, which extend up through the flat roofs, and from where we are standing look like chicken-coops. It is difficult, in fact, to tell the dormers from the real chicken-coops. Thousands of chickens are born, lay their eggs, and grow fat on the roofs. Over there a hen is cackling. I am awakened every night by the crowing of the roosters above me, and even in the heart of the city the noises of the early morning make one im agine one's self in a barnyard. There is one asthmatic old rooster that crows me awake regularly at five a. m. , and another that sometimes makes the air shake at midnight. I have not yet seen a cow on the roofs, though I am told that some families have their stalls so located, the cattle not being taken down until they are ready for killing. From this one might think the houses of Lima would be al ways tumbling down, and that the city would be in constant danger from fires. This is not the case. The houses are almost earthquake proof, the first-story walls of the larger buildings be ing often from four to six feet thick, although those of the second story are thin. The mud walls never take fire. The fur niture may go up in smoke, but as soon as the roof is ablaze it falls in, and the mud which covers it puts out the fire. There are, indeed, but few losses from fires here; and even out in the country, away from the fire companies, houses like these are in sured for one-half of one per cent. Such a thing as a block or square burning down is unknown in Lima. From the hotel roof we get some idea of how compactly the city is built. There are no gardens, and but few back-yards. 100 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL The larger houses cover a great deal of space, as they are con fined to one, or at most two, floors. The smaller ones are so small that it is hard to imagine they are houses at all. There are hundreds of little blind alleys, which are reached through doors in the walls along the main streets. The alleys are walled with cell-like rooms, each not more than ten feet square. Each of these rooms is a house. In one alley which I visited I was told that there were on the average about eight people to each tenement. Such houses have yards about six feet square sur rounded by high walls. They have no windows, and the light comes in through the front and back doors. None of the houses have chimneys. Most of the cooking is done over charcoal fires. Even the best houses have few windows on the ground floor; as a rule the light comes from the interior courts or the roof. In the two-story houses of the better class, galleries run around the courts, and the rooms opening out into these are large and airy. All outside windows and doors are barred with iron, and the better streets of the city look like long rows of prisons. Many fine homes are entered through iron-barred gates — palatial mansions surrounding courts filled with flowers. In the business sections the people live in the second stories, which are divided into flats, or apartments. Many rooms are rented, and only the wealthy have large houses. On the ground floors are stores and shops open to the street. The stores have no windows, and the doors run the full width, so that the whole front is pushed back or taken away during business hours. The light is usually from the front, though the larger establishments have courts, and extend a long distance to the rear. Many of the shops are like caves. They are cells separated only by thin walls. Indeed, a walk along the Mercadores is like a journey through a museum or one of our large department stores. The business streets are from twenty to thirty feet wide, more often the former; and the sidewalks are not over four feet in width. Four people cannot well walk abreast, and a party must go along double file. A donkey with panniers took the right of way from me this morning, for I was forced to step out into the road to let him go by. The street scenes of Lima are interesting. Let us stop un der the arcade, which runs about the plaza, and watch the crowds. We are among some of the best shops of the city. They are full (102) CHURCH OF THE MERCEDES, LIMA, PERU THE CAPITAL OF PERU 103 of fine goods, and here between four and five o'clock every after noon the people come to buy and do business. These hours are the gayest of the day, when the crowd is as dense as that of lower Broadway at noon. The crowd in the Lima arcades, however, is far different from that on Broadway. No one hurries. The men saunter along or stand on the street and chat with their friends. We see little knots of them every few yards, and the messengers, the mer chants, and the clerks seem to have time and to spare. Almost everyone is well dressed. There are tall hats and kid gloves ; and nearly everyone, old and young, carries a cane. All are very polite. They bow, smile, shake hands, and lift their hats when they meet; and bow, smile, and tip their hats when about to de part. So far as form goes, they are the pink of perfection, and_ you would imagine them gentlemen of leisure rolling in wealth. The truth is, most of them are poor. Peru has for years been playing a losing game with fortune, and the day of her enor mous riches has long gone by. If you look closely, you will see that many a coat is shiny at the seams, and that the silk hats are fast losing their nap. There are, perhaps, more reduced gen tlemen in Lima than in any other city in the world. They have been patronizing the pawnbrokers and the foreign bond-buyers until the people, nationally and individually, are comparatively poor. They are not a business people, and, having fallen, do not know how to get up. The business of the country is in the hands of foreigners; there are not two big Peruvian business houses in the Peruvian capital. The young Peruvians are clerks in the stores or in the government offices, while their fathers, as a rule, are skimping along on the remains of their once great estates. But we must not forget where we are. We are in the main shopping section of' Lima at 4.30 p. m., and some of the prettiest women south of the equator are going to and fro past us. The young ladies of Lima are famous for beauty. They are straight and well-rounded, and their soft oval faces, with their luxuriant hair combed high up from the forehead, are lighted by eyes which seem to shine with the over-soul of their owners. If you could drop Lima down into New York, the men would think the city had been captured by widows or female orphans who had just gone into mourning. When the women in Lima 104 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL go out to walk they dress in black. They do not wear bonnets, but they wrap fine shawls of black goods about their heads, pin ning them fast to their shoulders, so that the face alone shows. The background adds to their beauty, and the costume on the whole is becoming. It saves the buying of new hats or bonnets, and is easy to put on and take off. Doubtless many a seedy waist and frowsy head are hidden under those black shawls. The Peruvian woman needs to wash only her face for the streets, for the rest of her per son is hidden. I was told that she often dis penses even with washing her face, for she thinks that cold water brings fevers, and that frequent bathing is productive of all kinds of disease. A good deal of face- powder is used, and Lima has as many perfumery shops as any city of its size in the world. Both men and women are fond of sweet smells, and at carnival time they go about with squirt-guns and atomizers, with which they drench their friends of the opposite sex. The girls throw powder on the men, and boys and women dash water into each other's face. A crowd of Lima belles will sometimes catch hold of one of the beaux and souse him in a bath-tub full of water. Yesterday I came across a young man who was suffer ing with fever from a cold which he had taken from a recent similar ducking. The Lima women are very devout. Almost every one we meet carries a prayer-book, and we seldom enter a church without find ing a score or more of them on their knees. No woman is allowed A LIMA BELLE l * ~-?»gP "-^••-^WM inir ¦¦€7t7S77XM i. IP A: ^ I CHURCH OF SAN DOMINGO, LIMA '105) THE CAPITAL OF PERU 107 to enter a church wearing a hat or bonnet; those who attempt to do so are touched with a long stick by the sexton and told to uncover their heads. A church congregation is indeed one of the curious sights of Lima. The people are Catholics, and the ceremonies are impressive, the costumes of the priests being re splendent with gold and silver braid. The men and women sit apart, and the women and girls, with their black headgear, make you think of a congregation of nuns, dead to the world. At their own homes, however, Peruvian ladies dress much like their sisters in other parts of Christendom. They are fond of gay dresses, and talk much of the fashions. In conversation they are vivacious, and quite able to hold their own with the men. They are interested in politics, and do much to create public sen timent. The women of the better classes are well educated ; many of them speak French. All are fond of music, and not a few play the piano, mandolin, and guitar exceedingly well. None of them has any woman's-rights tendencies: so far the new woman has not yet appeared in Peru. Lima on horseback is quite as interesting as Lima afoot. There are few private carriages. The streets are paved with cobbles, and all sorts of vehicles jolt you terribly as you ride over the stones. For this reason the people prefer to ride in the street-cars or on horses. The horses of the Pacific coast of South America are small but spirited, and they have a delightful gait — a cross between a pace and the gait of a high-stepping hackney, which carries the rider along as easily as though he were in a rubber-tired car riage. One is coming down the street now. The rider, were it not for the big silver spurs on his boots, would not be out of place in Hyde Park. He is in full riding costume, and his horse is magnificently apparelled. Notice his bridle! It is trimmed with silver, and the stirrups and bit are of the same shining white metal. His saddle is plated with silver, and rests upon a heavy saddle-blanket of fur. How the horse prances as his master touches him with the spur! and how those demure, sombre-clad maidens who are passing by steal sly glances at the rider out of the corners of their eyes! He has stopped and dis mounted, and is stooping at his horse's front feet, buckling a short strap about the forelegs, to hobble the animal. He leaves him thus, without tying, and goes into a store. That is the way Io8 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL all Peruvian horses are fastened. There are no hitching-posts, rings, or horse weights, and it is a police regulation that every horse left alone on the street must be hobbled. The straps used are so short that they can be easily carried in the pocket. The drivers of carts hobble their mules by tying the lines about their fore-feet. Much of the peddling of Lima is done on horseback, and in many cases the peddlers are Indian women who ride astride. The milk of the city is carried about in cans tied to the sides of a horse, on the back of which, with her legs straddling its neck, sits a bronze-faced woman dressed in bright calico, and wearing a broad-brimmed Panama hat. When the milk-woman reaches the house of a customer, she slides down over the horse's neck and lifts one of the cans out of the pocket in which it is fast ened, and carries it into the house. The bread-waggon of Lima is a horse with two panniers full of loaves. Vegetables are also peddled by women. All sorts of things are peddled on donkeys ridden by men or boys, who sit just in front of the tails of the beasts, with their backs against the loads of goods they are ped dling. There are no huckster waggons; and the drays are long two-wheeled carts drawn by three mules abreast. CHAPTER XII DOWN THE ANDES ON A HAND-CAR An Exc3T3ng Tr3p from the Mountain-Tops to the Pacific ocean over the steepest Railroad in the World — Its Track Climbs upwards of Three Miles in less than a Hundred — Its Cost in Money and Lives — The Scenic Wonders of the Andes — How One feels Three Miles above the Sea — The Horrors of Soroche, or Mountain Sickness — A Snowball fight 3n tp3e Clouds — On the Eastern S3de of the Andes. t£5t&tP (Own the Andes on a hand-car; coasting upon the steepest railroad in the world; dashing through clouds to find clouds below you: hanging to precipices; rushing along bridges over frightful chasms; whirling around curves, now in the midnight darkness of rocky tunnels, and anon where the light of day makes you shudder at the depths below you ; — these have been among my experiences in the past few days. I have climbed to the top of the Andes, and have slid back to the sea. My trip was over the Oroya Railroad, one of the most won derful pieces of railroad engineering ever constructed. The road is only 138 miles long, but it climbs up the steepest mountains of the globe. It rises more than three miles in less than a hun dred, and its highest point is 15,665 feet above its starting-point at Callao on the Pacific. At its highest point it is still 2,000 feet below the summit of Mount Meiggs. It cuts right through this mountain by a tunnel to the other side of the Andes, and then descends to the valley of the Jauja, through the rich silver- mining region of Yauli, and finally ends at Oroya, an Indian market town 12,178 feet above the sea. The Oroya Railroad is one of the most expensive railroads ever built. It was costly in both men and money. Seven thou sand lives were lost during its construction, and the first 86 miles of it cost $27,000,000, or over $300,000 per mile. Between the coast and the tunnel at the summit there is no down grade, and (in) 112 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL the speed of our hand-car was regulated only by the pressure on the brake in the hands of an Indian conductor. On many parts of the road the grade is over four per cent or 211 feet to the mile; and at such grades the track winds about and up the An des, passing through cuts in the solid rock, and through sixty- three tunnels, some of which are of the shape of the letter S. Its track is of the standard gauge, well laid out and in excellent condition. This road was built by an American, though it was suggested by a Peruvian. Henry Meiggs, a Californian, laid out the road, acted as its engineer-in-chief, raised the money to build it, and superintended most of its construction. The road was originally intended to reach the Cerro de Pasco silver mines, but the $27,- 000,000 gave out when about eighty-six miles had been built, and the extension is- still some forty-odd miles away from these famous mountains of copper and silver. The portion of the road above where Mr. Meiggs left off was constructed by the Peruvian corporation under what is known as the Grace contract. The intention is to extend the road ulti mately into the Perene, a rich coffee-raising district, thence to the, head of the steam navigation of some of the tributaries of the Amazon. The preliminary surveys for this have already been made. The total distance from the sea to the navigable Amazon is not more than 210 miles, but there is at present no sign of the road being soon completed. It is doubtful whether the rail road now pays more than its operating expenses, and it will be long before it will yield dividends in proportion to its enormous cost. Only two passenger trains are run over it a week, its chief business being the carrying of silver and copper ore down the mountains. The usual journey over this road is taken on the passenger train, which carries the traveller up the mountains one day and brings him back the next. Through the kindness of the Ameri can firm of Grace & Co. of Lima, I was taken up on a small en gine and brought down on a hand-car, thus having an excellent opportunity to study the railroad and the mountains up which it climbs. Our special engine was a dainty little locomotive called " La Favorita. M It was half engine and half passenger-coach. Its cab was walled with glass and fitted with comfortable seats. It took DOWN THE ANDES ON A HAND-CAR 113 the place of the tender which the ordinary engine has for coal, our fuel being coal-oil from the petroleum wells of northern Peru Our party consisted of the American minister, Mr. Dud ley, and his secretary of legation, Mr. Neale, Mr. Sherman, the manager of Grace & Co., a Frenchman named Piper, a Mr. Pier- son, an electric-street-railroad man from Ohio, and myself. The engineer and his helper were Peruvians. We left Lima at seven o'clock in the morning, and spent the whole day on the road, stopping at the most interesting points to take photographs, and going as fast or as slow as we wished. Lima is situated in the valley of the Rimac river. It is right at the foot of the Andes, and our trip was up the mountains along the course of this river to its source on the summit. At Lima the Rimac is what we, in America, would call a good- sized creek It is not navigable, and is, in fact, a stream of foaming white water from the top of the Andes to the sea. The descent is so steep that quiet pools are nowhere to be found. The river is a succession of waterfalls, foaming churns, and rush ing rapids. During the ride we could often see the river above and below us at the same time, and we went up, climbing the sides of the mountains, cheered on our way by the rushing of the waters. We first passed through the sugar and cotton plantations which fill the valley above Lima. The fields look like gardens made for show They are surrounded by mud walls, and the crops are as green as those of the United States in June. We passed a sugar hacienda in which two steam-engines were pulling a cable plough through a field on one side of the track, while on the other side men were ploughing with oxen and wooden ploughs, urging the beasts onward with goads fifteen feet long. Farther on gangs of Indians were working among the cotton with over seers on horseback. The cotton plants were in blossom, and the fields looked like vast gardens of pink and yellow roses. The men weed the plants, and the fields are as clean as any rose garden at home. Here we pass a cotton mill, and farther on we fly past a sugar' factory which grinds out thousands of pounds of sugar a day. We notice that most of the rich land is used. It is all watered by the Rimac, for nothing grows here without irrigation. 114 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL Now we are in the foothills of the Andes. How bleak and bare and gray they look in the early morning! Not a green spot is to be seen anywhere on the vast walls which here face the sea. We find the ascent difficult as we rise to the mountains behind. The foothills are gigantic masses of soft, silver-gray velvet, where the sun casts its shadows, and of dazzling white where it strikes full in their faces. The only green is the little strip along the banks of the river. Farther on we notice a thin fuz of green cropping out of the gray. It is as though the vel vet was sprinkled with a dust of ground emeralds. Here we come across a little cactus, and there a small bunch of weeds. As we ascend, the mountains grow greener, until at the level of Mount Washington we find them covered with a thin coat of vegetation. At the altitude of Leadville there is plenty of grass, and at one point, at a stopping of our engine, we count forty different kinds of flowers. There are buttercups without num ber, silver-gray mosses, and flowers of all colors, the names of which I do not know. As I remark upon the vegetation, saying that it is still very scanty, Mr. Sherman tells me that, were it not the rainy season, there would be no green at all, and that at other times of the year the whole western side of the Andes is bleak, dry, colourless, and sterile. Still higher we come into a region of rock, with bits of soil here and there. In such places every inch of ground is culti vated. The mountains are terraced clear to their tops, and some of them are covered with steps of green built up with rock, so graduated that a man can stand on one of the lower steps and plant the seed, or weed the crops, of the next ledge without stooping over. Some of the fields are not as large as a bedspread, and some on the opposite side of the mountain do not look as big as a pocket handkerchief. Some patches of corn seem almost inaccessible, and remind one of the farmers of West Virginia, who are said to have to plant their crops with the rifle, as the hills are so steep they are unable to stand on the sides long enough to drop the corn in the rows. We see Indians planting and working in the fields, and pass numerous little villages of one-story houses made of sun-dried bricks, and roofed with thatch or sheets of corrugated iron. In most places the iron plates are not nailed to the huts; they are merely laid upon the rafters and kept there by covering them (n6) RAILWAY VIADUCT IN THE ANDES OF PERU DOWN THE ANDES ON A HAND-CAR 117 with stones. Many of the houses are not larger than dog-kennels, and they are quite as squalid as an American pigsty. Their in habitants, who gather around us at the stations, are of the Peon variety, dark-faced Indian men, women, and children, the latter frightened to crying when I posed them for my camera. They have evidently never heard of photographs, and one little fellow howled like a Cherokee Indian when I pointed the instrument .at him. I will not say that the Andes are more beautiful or more im pressive than the Alps, the Rockies, or the Himalayas, but they surpass them in some respects, and their wonders are their own. Here the mountains rise almost abruptly. You ride for miles between walls of rock which kiss the sky thousands of feet above you. Some of the rocks take the shapes of gigantic cathe drals, very temples of the gods, their spires hidden in the clouds. Others look like vast fortifications, walls of rock to shut the na tions of the West away from the riches of this great continent. There are no pretty bits of scenery such as you see amid other mountains. All is on the grandest and most terrible scale. In our ride, we climb along the sides of these walls. Now we pierce them by a tunnel high up in the air, and, higher still, see another tunnel which we shall reach later on. In going from one tunnel into another we cross gorges, on an iron network of a bridge, which looks awfully frail as " La Favorita * passes over it. Now we pierce a wall of rock where a river has been turned aside that it may not interfere with the road, and then by a winding tunnel we dash out into what is called <( the Infernillo," or hell. It is a slender iron bridge two miles above the sea, high up between walls of rock. Far below we see waters rush ing, and out of the wall we have left a great torrent of foam ing water plunges. Before us, at the other end of the bridge, is another wall of rock in which is a black hole pierced by the track, and, as we look upward between these walls, we see, as through a narrow slit, the blue sky of heaven above this Andean hell. There are several such hanging bridges on the route. We stopped at the Veruguas bridge, which spans a chasm 580 feet wide, and hangs to tunnels 300 feet above the Veruguas river. Some time ago this bridge was swept away and, for months, both S. A.— 8 118 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL passengers and freight were carried across on a cable, the little car running on a rope stretched from wall to wall across the frightful chasm. At times we saw tunnels above and below us. The road goes up its steepest places in a zigzag route, so that at one time we counted five tracks running almost parallel below us. Almost the whole line was blasted out of the mountain rock. On many places along the line, the hills are so steep that men had to be lowered by ropes over the edges of the precipices to drill holes for the powder which blasted awray the ledges for the track. Falling rocks killed some, landslides swallowed up others, and many died of fever. You can imagine something of the sensation of going down such a road on a hand-car. The reality is wilder and more ex citing than one can conceive. The hand-car on which I rode was of the rudest order. It was merely a platform five feet long, and a little wider than the track, on four ordinary car- wheels. On the front part of the platform a strip of wood two inches thick and about as wide was nailed, and at the back was a seat much like that of a farm waggon. The seat was just wride enough for three. The conductor, a brown-faced Indian, sat in the middle, with his hand on the brake in the centre of the plat form. Mr. Sherman and I sat on the right and left, our feet braced against the strip on the floor of the car, and our hands on the side and back of the seat, holding on for dear life as we rushed down the mountains. The only means of stopping the car was by the brake, and the danger as we rushed through the tun nels was not only that the car might jump the track in going around the curves, but also that we might meet a donkey or an Indian coming through. The rocks in many places are loose, and the possibility of a landslide is such that a hand-car is al ways sent five minutes ahead of the regular passenger train to see that the road is free. At one time we chased a cow for about a mile, and at another two llamas blocked the track for a few moments. At times the road seemed to go down at an an gle of forty-five degrees, and many of the severest grades were along the edges of precipices, or where we seemed to be clinging to walls of rock. I cannot say that I was not afraid, nor that my heart was not often in my mouth, but I will say that the experience was such that, knowing what I now do, I would risk DOWN THE ANDES ON A HAND-CAR 1 19 the journey again to feel the same exhilarating sense of pleasure and danger combined. The sensation of standing on the top of the Andes was also worth experiencing. As we climbed up and up above Casapalca, which is about 14,000 feet above the sea, the air grew colder and rarer. We rode out of a heavy rain into a dense snow-storm. Soon we .were in banks of snow. The mist and the clouds surrounded us so that we could not see twenty feet beyond the car. We rode through the clouds and saw the storm sweep down the Andes below us. As the mist disappeared, we caught a glimpse of the country through which we had been passing, and shuddered as we looked at the precipices over which we had gone. Mount Meiggs was almost straight above us, and we stopped the en gine a moment in front of the black mouth of the Galera tunnel on the very roof of the South American continent. Behind us all the waters were flowing into the Pacific. On the opposite side of the tunnel the waters find their way through the Amazon into the Atlantic. The dividing of the waters is, in fact, within the tunnel itself, and you could really stand at a certain point in the Galera tunnel and drink from waters which will lose themselves in both oceans. I did not do this,, for the interior was as dark as pitch, and I was too anxious to see the other side of the Andes. We passed through the tunnel, and stopped (< La Favorita B at the other side, amid some of the grandest scenery of our jour ney. The mountains all about us were capped with snow. Over us towered Mount Meiggs, 17,575 feet high, its top a-half mile above where we stood. Our altitude was more than three miles above the sea. We were on the highest railroad point in the world, far higher than the top of Fujiyama, the snow-capped mountain of Japan, almost as near to heaven as the top of Mount Blanc, a thousand feet higher than Pike's Peak or any mountain in Colorado, higher than Mount Whitney, and, in fact, higher than any mountain in the United States outside Alaska. As I looked at the grandeur about me I felt like the expressive but not irreverent cowboy who woke one morning in the midst of the Alps. His method of showing his approbation had always been by a hurrah, and when he looked up at the snow-capped peaks rising one upon another as far as his eye could reach, he could contain himself no longer, and throwing his hat into the air with a cowboy yell, he exclaimed, a Hurrah for God ! >J 120 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL This was how I felt, but I acted differently. My voice was so weak from the rarity of the air that I could not have whistled a dog. At about 10,000 feet above the sea, the conversation of our party began to flag. On the outside platform of <( La Favor- itaw it was almost impossible for us to talk to one another, and I found myself again and again weighing my thoughts to decide whether they were worth the breath it would take to utter them. Any kind of exertion took triple strength. My boots suddenly grew heavy, and I changed my step to that of an old man. At the eastern end of the Galera tunnel we stopped amid banks of snow, and Mr. Sherman and myself had a snowballing fight up there in the clouds. It was not an exciting contest. Every throw sent our hearts into our throats, and we had to stop and pant for breath. After this, when we walked at all, we went very slowly, and in climbing up the hills we crawled. As the day went on, the uncomfortable feeling increased. We descended about 1,000 feet, and stopped for the night at Casapalca, where there is a big silver and copper smelter owned by Americans, and where we were received by the vice-president of the com pany, Captain H. Guyer, an Idaho mining engineer, who made us at home and put us up for the night. Before we got to the house, the Frenchman and Mr. Pierson were attacked with so roche, or mountain sickness, a disease common to strangers in high altitudes; and later on all members of the party were more or less affected. My attack did not come until midnight. I awoke feeling as though the top of my head were rising into the air. I had a terrible pain in the temples, cramps in my legs, and at the same time a strong inclination to vomit. I lay on my back all night, to give my lungs as full play as possible, and hardly slept a wink. I managed to get up at daybreak and drink some coffee, and by keeping out of doors recovered suffi ciently to take my hand-car ride down the mountain. Mr. Sher man fared even better than I, but Secretary Neale said that, between the smell of sulphur from the smelting furnaces and the soroche, he thought he was in Hades, and he dreamed all night that a hundred devils were dancing on his chest. The soroche is common throughout the Andes. It usually begins at the altitude of 12,000 feet. With some people it does not last more than a day or so, and then passes off. With others it is very serious. The first symptoms are pains in the head DOWN THE ANDES ON A HAND-CAR 121 and nausea, then comes vertigo and weakness of sight and hear ing; fainting fits follow, and blood flows from the eyes, nose, and lips. Those who have weak lungs are liable to hemorrhages; and those whose hearts are weak are liable to drop dead. It is especially hard on full-blooded and stout people and those ad dicted to liquor and high living, but healthy, thin people of tem perate habits soon get over it. CHAPTER XIII IN THE HEART OF THE ANDES The Journey up the Mountains from Mollendo to Puno — Across the Pampa de Islay — A Visit to Arequipa, the chief City of Southern Peru — The Harvard Observatory, and its wonderful Photographs of the Southern Heavens — Mount Misti, the highest Meteorolog- scal Observatory on Earth — The Plateau of Peru, and its Curious People. am in the attic of the South American continent, in the heart of the Andes, on what, with the exception of Tibet, is the loftiest tableland of the globe. At my feet lies Lake Titicaca, and looking down upon me is the snowy peak of Sorata, which, next to Aconcagua, is the highest of the Andes. For the past week I have been travelling in these mountains, among which are the highest places of the earth where people live. Back of Lima I visited a village more than three miles above the sea; there are mining camps near Titicaca at an elevation of 16,000 feet; and during my railroad journey to Puno, where I am now writing, we stopped for water at Vincocoya, near a locomo tive roundhouse which is higher up in the air than Pike's Peak. Leaving Lima I went south by sea to Mollendo, and thence to Puno over one of the steepest railroads of the world. I am now three hundred miles inland from the Pacific, on the mighty plateau of Titicaca, which is upheld between two of the Andean ranges at a height of more than 12,000 feet above the sea. The wonders of the Andes grow upon me. Their scenery here is as grand perhaps as at any point in the 4,000 miles of their length. Think of peaks which pierce the skies at four miles above the level of the ocean. Let them be covered with glaciers, snow, and ice. Make a wall of them, bathe their feet in a lake of silver studded with emerald islands, paint their sides and tops with the vivid colours, shades, and tints of the Andean skies, and you have a faint idea of my surroundings. (122) (12.1) SNOWFIELDS AROUND ACONCAGUA (Alt. 23,900 feet) IN THE HEART OF THE ANDES 1 25 The journey up the Andes was a continuous panorama. I am on the Pacific ocean in front of Mollendo. There it lies, a shabby wooden town on the ragged edge of the Peruvian desert. Our ship has cast anchor in the harbour, lying outside, for the surf rolls in with great force, striking the black rocks and sending the diamond spray fifty feet into the air. It is so rough that the baggage has to be lowered with ropes into the boat which is com ing to the side of the steamer. I jump far down to get into the boat, feeling my stomach rise as I sink into the deep. As our brawny coffee-coloured boatmen pull for the wharf, we roll about terribly. We pass between huge rocks, now grazing a great boulder, and now running into a lighter which is bringing out a cargo of goods to the steamer. It is difficult to land, and I pay four men two dollars to carry my trunks up the hill to the custom-house. A little later I am seated in the railroad car which is to take me over the Andes. The first stopping-place is to be Arequipa, which, though only a hundred miles inland, is higher up in the air than the top of Mount Washington. Our train first skirts the coast, and then shoots off into the bare foothills of the Andes. There is not a shrub, not a vestige of green. We climb up the hills, now winding about in horseshoe curves, and now seeing the tracks over which we have passed running parallel with us, but far below. Now we are on the side of a mountain facing the ocean. The sky-blue Pacific, hazy and smoky, stretches on and on toward the west until its delicate tint fades into that of the sky. A patch of gray sand skirts the foot of the brown hills, separated from the blue water by the silvery surf which is dash ing its waves on the shore. The scenery changes at every puff of the locomotive. No where does Mother Earth wear more royal garments than here. At times the Andes look like masses of blue and brown plush. The clouds, although of a fleecy whiteness, so interrupt the rays of the sun that they cast shadows of velvet upon the hoary hills, and at times it seems as though the ink-bottles of the heavens had been spattered over the mountains. In other places the sun tints the mountains with delicate blues, which fade into lighter blues in the distance, until the whole range seems a billowy, waving sea of blue, dusted with silver, rolling on and on until at last it loses itself in a silver-blue sky. 126 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL Winding in and out among such hills we rise to the extensive desert, the Pampa de Islay. Here everything is gray or dazzling white. Huge mountains of travelling sands, tons of bleached bones of animals which have died trying to cross the desert, meet the eye ; the only things apparently living are the mirages which, in the shapes of cool lakes, inverted cities, or luxuriant vegeta tion, now and then meet the thirsty traveller's eye. At the little town of Vitor, a mile above sea-level, we come to the end of the pampas, and then again begin to ascend. We AREQUIPA, PERU are soon in ragged hills. We travel among the clouds, and close our first day's journey at Arequipa, in the midst of the desert, 7,500 feet above our starting-point. Arequipa is the second city of Peru. It lies in the little val ley of the Chile river, whose waters here make green about fifty square miles of irrigable land. The city is one of the neatest, prettiest, and brightest of South America. It is more than four hundred years old, and has been battered and knocked to pieces by the earthquakes of the past; but it looks as though it had come out of a bandbox, and seems almost brand-new. The (127) A STREET IN AREQUIPA, PERU IN THE HEART OF THE ANDES 1 29 houses are chiefly one-story stone boxes, with walls painted in the most delicate tints of blue, pink, cream, green, and gold. I mailed my letters in a post office tinted in ashes of roses, I bought fruit for breakfast in a sky-blue fruit store, and cashed a draft on London in a bank whose outer walls were the colour of gold. Another peculiarity of Arequipa is its vault-like rooms. The stores are vaults from ten to fifteen feet wide, and from ten to thirty feet deep, with doors fronting the streets. In many of them there is no way out at the back, and the only light except that from the door comes through holes in the roof. I ate my dinner at the hotel in a vault, I was shaved in a vault, and slept in a vault. I went out on the roof once or twice to look over the city. The vaulted roofs give it the appearance of a Chinese graveyard or a city of bake-ovens. The streets of Arequipa are narrow, and they are paved with cobbles. Down one side of each street flows a stream of moun tain water, which, as it gurgles along, makes you dream of rain, so that when you awake in the morning you go to the window to see if it is really clear or not. In Arequipa it rains only a part of the year, but when it does rain, it pours. At such times the streets are flooded, and the water from the roofs is carried out through tin pipes about as thick as a broomstick to just over the middle of the sidewalk, where it flows down the necks of the unwary passers-by. Every house in Arequipa faces the sidewalk, every window is covered with iron bars, and the locks on the doors are of mam moth size, so that the houses look like small fortresses. The barred windows and locked doors, however, are not to keep thieves out, but to cage the girls in. The windows have seats behind the bars, but no Peruvian beau stops to chat at them with his lady-love. The bars are as thick as one's finger, and so close together that the most ardent lips could not meet be tween them. The seclusion of the women by the Spanish people is prob ably a relic of their admixture with the Moors, centuries ago. It is the same with the black costumes which the women wear in the streets. Not long ago their heads were wrapped so closely in black shawls that only one eye showed out, the features being more concealed than those of the women of Morocco. Now the 13° SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL whole face is exposed, and many of the women of the upper classes wear hats. The Peruvian parent believes in keeping his daughters some what secluded. The custom here is the same as in Colombia, Ecuador, and other Spanish-American countries. When a young man calls on his sweetheart he is expected to entertain the whole family; and when he invites her to the bull -fight he takes mamma, auntie, and old-maid Sissy with him. The most interesting thing in Arequipa is an American insti tution — the Harvard observatory. Some years ago Uriah H. Borden gave $200,000 to Harvard College with the understanding that it was to be used to establish an observatory at the best place in the world for the study of the stars and meteorological conditions. The college authorities first tried different points in Colorado and California, and then sent an expedition to South America. The scientists of this expedition first experimented at a place in the mountains back of Lima, 6,600 feet above the sea. In 1890 they removed to Arequipa, and there established an ob servatory which has become one of the great scientific centres of the world. The observatory is situated back of the city at an altitude of 7,550 feet above the sea. It is in a region where it is said there are more clear days and nights to the year than al most anywhere else on the globe. There are fully nine months when the sky is perfectly clear, and the rest of the year is such that astronomical work can go on almost all the year round. Arequipa has also the advantage of being south of the equator, at one of the best points for viewing the constellations of the southern hemisphere. Americans who pride themselves on having beautiful skies cannot appreciate what the words mean until they' have visited South America. Nothing is duplicated in the heavens, and South America has stars and constellations which we do not have in the north, and the Milky Way south of the equator is far more brilliant than with us. You have all heard of the Southern Cross, which enthusiasts say looks like the handwriting of God on the face of the sky. There are only four stars in it, and these are so comparatively small that they would not attract attention were it not for their configuration. The best records of the southern heavens are those taken by our Harvard scientists at Arequipa. They spend their nights GREAT TELESCOPE IN AREQUIPA OBSERVATORY (132) IN THE HEART OF THE ANDES 1 33 photographing the stars. They have four great telescopes, which night after night throughout the year are pointed at the skies. Each telescope has a photographic apparatus, so hung and so con nected with fine machinery that it moves with the stars in their courses, so that their images can be registered on the photo graphic plates. About fifty negatives are made every night, and about 5,000 plates are annually exposed and developed. The neg atives are shipped at once to the University of Harvard, at Cam bridge, Mass., where they are kept on file for study in scientific work, forming, as it were, an astronomical library of the southern heavens. At the same time the scientists of Cambridge are al ways watching the northern heavens. The Arequipa observatory takes in the sky from the equator to the South Pole, and the records of the two observatories give a view of the heavens as a whole. Within the last few years the Arequipa astronomers have es tablished a meteorological station near the top of the volcano El Misti, at an altitude of 19,200 feet. This mountain is one of the highest of the Andes. It is just back of Arequipa, standing out against the horizon almost alone in its grandeur, its top kissing the sky at an altitude of 20,320 feet above the sea. It is more than a mile higher than our observatory on Pike's Peak, and is over 3,500 feet higher than any other scientific station of the world. The site of the station is on the edge of a huge crater, which now and then sends clouds of yellow sulphurous vapor a thousand feet into the air. At this great altitude, nearly four miles above the sea, the Harvard men have the finest of scientific instruments for regis tering the conditions of the atmosphere, the velocity of the wind, the pressure of the barometer. The instruments are, of course, automatic, running for three months without being touched. No one could live at such an altitude, but the observers go up pe riodically to get the records and re-wind the instruments. The trip is a very arduous one. Some of the men get soroche, or mountain sickness, and many cannot make the trip at all. I left Arequipa in the early morning, and occupied the whole day in going over the coast range of the Andes to Lake Titi caca. The trip was made by way of the Puno and Arequipa Railroad, one of the most expensive ever built, the cost having been $44,000,000, or about $135,000 per mile. The road, includ- S. A.— 9 134 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL ing the branch line from the lake toward Cuzco, the famed capi tal of the Incas, is 327 miles long. It crosses the Andes at an altitude of 14,666 feet, and has but few tunnels, though many cuttings. It was built by Mr. Henry Meiggs, the American en gineer, who also constructed the Oroyo Railroad from Lima, as already described. The present manager of the road is an American, and all the rolling-stock is of the American pattern, although of late the cars and engines have been made in the company's shops at Arequipa. I visited the shops and found about four hundred Peruvian la bourers engaged in all kinds of car and engine construction. The American foreman told me that the men were quite as good me chanics as those we have in our shops at home, but that they worked for much lower wages. Men employed in the shops re ceive seventy-five cents and upwards per day. Trackmen and brakesmen get seventy-five cents a day, conductors from $30 to $65 a month, and engineers $100 a month. The ordinary day's labour is one of nine hours, but with the men on the road the day lasts without extra pay until the cars come in. Trades unions are unknown, and the men never strike. Arequipa is the half-way station on this railroad. The trains all stop there over night, the remainder of the journey requiring a day. After leaving Arequipa we rose rapidly, and at eleven o'clock were two miles and a-half above the sea. This was at the station of Punta de Arrieros, consisting of a few stone huts thatched with straw, and a dining-hall made of Oregon pine. At one end of the dining-room there was a bar presided over by a fat Peruvian girl. The breakfast table was at the opposite end, and the meal, which cost fifty cents, was quite as good as any fifty-cent meal served at our railroad stations in the Rocky Mountains. The bill of fare was: chicken soup with rice, well- browned codfish balls, boiled beef and green peas, beefsteak with onions and red pepper, a sweet omelet, and some very good tea. After breakfast I bought four clingstone peaches of an Indian girl for two cents, and three oranges for a nickel. This fruit came from the irrigated valleys of the lowlands. On the high plateau over which we travelled there was only a scanty growth of moss-like grass. There were no trees and no cultivated crops except little patches of potatoes, barley, or quinua about the widely scattered mud huts. The barley is grown only IN THE HEART OF THE ANDES 135 for forage, as it will not ripen so high up in the air. The quinua is a plant peculiar to the Andean highlands. It is like a cross between the red dockweed and the mullen plant, has yellow or red leaves, and seeds of white, each about as big as a pin-head. Its leaves are eaten like spinach, and its seeds are threshed out and boiled with water or milk into a mush, looking when cooked much like oatmeal or ground hominy. The quinua is cultivated, being planted in rows, and hoed. It is the hardiest food grain in the world. After crossing the coast range of the Andes the grass became greener, and we passed through a vast plain of rich moss. We went by beautiful lakes, and rode over plains dotted here and there with the mud huts of Indians. We passed large flocks of llamas, alpacas, and sheep, each flock tended by an Indian woman, who wore a black or blue dress, and a queerly-shaped hat not unlike the turned-up broad brims of the Catholic priests. Each shepherdess had a spinning spool in her hand, and spun away as she watched. At the stations we saw many Indians. The men wore bright- coloured shawls, or ponchos, and wide pantaloons slit up at the back as far as the knee. Each had on a knit cap much like a nightcap, with flaps coming down over the ears, and on the top of this a little round felt hat, which was apparently more for ornament than warmth. With the men were women dressed like those in the fields. All were in their bare feet, although the weather was bitterly cold, and the hail at times came down in torrents, whitening the ground. CHAPTER XIV STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS Lake Titicaca, the Highest of Navigable Waters — It is half as Large as Lake Erie, and twsce as H3GH up 3N the A3R as Mount Washing- ton — How Steel Steamers were brought to it on the Backs of Men and Mules over Passes higher than Pske's Peak — Its Sacred Islands, and their wonderful Ruins — The Curious Inhabitants who Live upon its Shores — Balsas, or Native Boats made of Straw — Curious Animals about Titicaca — The Llama, the Vicuna, and the Alpaca. teamboating above the clouds; floating calmly on the high est navigable waters of the globe; sailing under the gla cial snows of the loftiest peaks of the Andes, so near the sky that heaven and earth seem to meet around you, and to make you feel that you are on the roof of the world; — such have been my experiences for a day and night on Lake Titicaca. As I write, the United States is sweltering under the hot sun of an American summer. It is always winter on Lake Titicaca- — a cold, wet winter during half the year, and a cold, dry winte$ dur ing the remainder. At times the winds from the Andes sweep over the waters like a blizzard, and again it is as calm as the Dead Sea in midsummer. The air is now as fresh as a sea-breeze. It is cold and bracing, but so rare that when I walk fast my heart leaps up into my throat. Some of you often go to Mount Washington to avoid the heat of the city. Lake Titicaca is more than twice as high up in the air as the top of Mount Washing ton, and it is situated amid scenery which is infinitely more grand. Titicaca is almost as big as Lake Erie. It has a greater average depth than Lake Superior, and its scenery is a combination of the beauties of Lakes Lucerne and Geneva and of our beautiful Lake Champlain. Our great lakes freeze over during the winter. Titicaca never freezes. I have written of the skies of the Andes. Those of Titicaca have all the beauties of the Andean heavens combined with others (136) STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS 137 peculiarly their own. I cannot describe the sense of loftiness one has here. The clouds rise up about the shores of the lake like walls upon which a canvas of heavenly blue fits closely down, making one feel that beyond the walls there, are mighty depths, and that if one should sail through them he would drop into space. The air is so clear that you can see for miles. Soon after leav ing Puno, Peru, I was shown the sacred blue island of Titicaca, fifty miles away. A little later on other islands came into view, apparently floating on the waters as though they were balloons or balls, and not the outcroppings of the highest mountain chain of our hemisphere. One island rose out of the water in the shape of a gigantic mushroom of soft blue velvet; another looked like a mammoth whale, whose head and tail stood out high above the surface of the lake. These curious shapes were optical illu sions due to a peculiarity of the atmosphere, for the islands, when we reached them, looked much like those on other waters. Lake Titicaca is well known from text-books on geography. They tell us it lies in the Andes about half-way between the Isthmus of Panama and Cape Horn, 12,550 feet above the sea. They represent it as oval in shape, and state that it is 120 miles long and 57 miles wide, and that it has an area of 5,000 square miles. Some of these statements are true: others are merely con jecture. The lake has in reality never been carefully surveyed. It has great bays which have never been explored; in places it- winds in and out like a river, affording a succession of beautiful views of islands, mountains, and coast. In crossing from Peru to Bolivia we sailed a distance of no miles over water which was in many places, the captain said, more than 1,000 feet deep. Lake Superior has an average depth of something like 600 feet. Some parts of the bottom of Lake Titi caca have never been reached, and the captain told me that, if he should land on certain parts of Titicaca island, he would have to cast anchor high up on the rocky shores, as the waters which wash them are so deep that the grappling-hooks could not reach the bottom. Think of a body of water like this at an altitude of more than two miles above the sea! It is more than three miles from the ocean, in a basin, which, next to Tibet, is the loftiest inhabited plateau of the world; remember that you must cross a 138 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL mighty" desert and climb on the railroad over a pass which is nearly three miles above the sea to get to it, and you have a slight idea of Lake Titicaca. You must add, however, that, while it is fed by the snows and glaciers of the Andes, it has itself no visible outlet to either ocean. Nine rivers flow into it, but only one carries off any part of its waters. This is the Desaguadero, which connects it with its little sister, Lake Poopd, which lies about 280 miles farther south on this same Bolivian plateau. In this distance the river has a fall of 500 feet. It is a rushing, turbulent stream, big enough to be navigated by steamers for a part of its length. It carries off a large volume of water, but Lake Poopo has no outlet to the sea; and, notwith standing this drain, Lake Titicaca remains at the same level, whether the season be wet or dry, year in and year out. Lake Titicaca has many beautiful islands. Most of them are ragged mountain peaks rising out of the water. They consist of rocks with a thin coating of soil. Eight of the islands are in habited, and are cultivated to the very tops of the mountains. If the United States were as carefully tilled as this part of Peru, it would, I believe, furnish food for all the world, and leave enough grain to glut the Chicago markets during a corner on wheat. Patches of soil no larger than a bed-quilt are walled with stones and carefully tilled. Bits of land between the rocks are green with scanty crops of potatoes, barley, and quinua, the only things that will grow at this altitude. I see people working on the sides of the hills where they almost have to hold on with one hand while they use their rude little hoes with the other. This grubbing for a bare existence goes on over the greater part of the plateau in which Lake Titicaca lies, the plateau which was once the seat of the Inca civilization. Lake Titicaca was, indeed, the centre of a mighty empire generations before that of the Incas, for on its shores still stand ruins so old that the Incas could not tell the Spaniards anything about them. They said that the mighty monuments were made by a race of giants who lived about the lake before the sun ap peared in the heavens. These ruins lie near the little town of Tiahuanacu. They cover an area of about three square miles, and consist of the remains of massive walls and terraced mounds, and the ruins of a great edifice supposed to have been a temple. The ruins show that the building covered about four acres; it STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS 1 39 was made of great blocks of hewn black stone, each 36 feet long and 30 inches thick. The stones, like those of the buildings of Cuzco, were fitted together without mortar so carefully that it was impossible to insert a knife-blade between them. From these ruins some very curious archaeological relics have been taken, many of the most valuable having been secured by Pro fessor Adolf Bandolier, who is spending his life here as a col lector for the New York Museum. Professor Bandolier has made many new discoveries about Lake Titicaca, and from his researches he is inclined to believe that much which has been published about this region is pure fiction. He has spent months upon Titicaca island, which some authorities claim was the Garden of Eden of the Inca mythology, the spot on which their Adam and Eve first lived on earth, and whence they started out to found Cuzco and build up the human race. According to this theory our first parents were the child ren of the sun. There were two of them, Manco Capac and Mama Oello, his sister-wife. On this account, says Squier, one of the authorities on Lake Titicaca, the Incas considered the lake, and especially Titicaca island, holy. On the island they built temples and wonderful palaces, and even brought soil from the mainland, so that corn might be grown. According to one of the old chroniclers, who, Professor Bandolier thinks, had a very lively imagination, this corn was considered so sacred that, when a grain of it was put in one of the public warehouses, it sanctified and preserved all other grains, and when placed in a private granary it insured the owner's having food for the remainder of his life. There are to-day many ruins on Titicaca island, and the very rock on which Manco Capac and his sister-wife stepped when they dropped from the sun is shown. According to tradition, this rock was once plated with gold and kept covered with a veil. The inhabitants of the island are chiefly Quichua and Aymara Indians, the descendants of those who were so numerous about the lake ages ago. They now live in little huts of mud or stone, thatched with straw, and show no signs of having had gorgeous temples or the more extensive civilization which they possessed when the Incas were their masters. They are Catholics, and are superstitious in the extreme. The steamboats on Lake Titicaca might be called the steam ers of the heavens. They sail at times in and out of the clouds, and are nearest the sky of any similar craft on earth. Think of 14° SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL lifting an iron ship of 600 tons over a pass higher than Pike's Peak. This is what was done with the steamer Choya on which I took a trip. The ship was built in Scotland, brought to Mol lendo in pieces, loaded on the cars, and carried over the Andes to Puno, and there put together. It now sails as well, and fur nishes its passengers with as comfortable accommodations, as any steamer of its size on American waters. It is as beautiful as a gentleman's yacht, and it can easily make twelve knots an hour. It is propelled by a screw, and its fuel is Australian coal, which is brought over more than 7,000 miles of water and lifted on the railroad over the Andes to Puno, at the edge of the lake. By the time it reaches the ship the coal costs about $25 in gold per ton, but the traffic on the lake is so great that the steamers pay for themselves and their running expenses many times over. There are three other steamers on Lake Titicaca; and there are smaller steamers on the Desaguadero river, which carry copper, sil ver, and tin to the lake from the rich mining region of Oruro, Boli via. The vessels now belong to the Peruvian corporation, although the line was originally established by the Peruvian government, and the first steamers were placed on the lake at government expense, costing, it is said, more than their weight in silver. They were built in England, and shipped in pieces to the Peru vian coast. Here they were loaded upon the backs of men and mules and carried step by step up the Andes. It took ten years after landing to get them to Lake Titicaca. Much of the smaller traffic on the lake is done in balsas, or boats made of straw. I can see a dozen straw boats as I write. Some are filled with Indians; and one has a mule, a donkey, and a llama in addition to its human freight. The captain of each boat is an Aymara Indian, who stands up and poles the boat when close to the shore, and manages the sail when out on the lake. Balsas are peculiar to Lake Titicaca. They were used there when the Spaniards came, and before the advent of steamers they carried all the freight of the lakes. They are rafts made of rolls of straw-like reeds so tightly woven together that they keep out the water, and they have straw sails. An extra roll around the top of the balsa prevents the passengers from falling 'out. The ports on Lake Titicaca do a large business. Most of the freight from Bolivia is sent over the lake to Puno, thence down the railroad to the seaport of Mollendo. Cargo is brought hundreds of miles to Chililaya on mules, and on steamer days it STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS 1 41 is not uncommon to see a thousand mules being loaded and un loaded at the wharves. In 1895 more than $1,000,000 worth of imports went into Bolivia over Lake Titicaca, and more than $300,000 worth of Bolivian goods were shipped out. There are now steamers weekly from Puno to Chililaya, and nearly all the passengers and freight to and from La Paz, the largest city of Bolivia, go by this route. Much of the freight is brought to Lake Titicaca on llamas, the little animals which form the freight-carriers of the Andes. They are to be seen everywhere in all parts of the plateaus of Bolivia and Peru. I pass llama trains every day, and see llama flocks feeding on the plains. The llama is one of the aristocrats of quadrupedal creation, and rightly so, for he is one of the most beautiful of four-footed beasts. He has a camel's head, a sheep's body, and the feet and legs of a deer. From the sole of his hoof to the top of his head he measures about four feet and a-half, and from his feet to his shoulders about three feet. The female is usually smaller than the male, and not quite so strong, but her wool is much finer. Llamas hold their heads high up in the air as they walk, treading the earth as though they owned it. They are very stubborn, but are not sulky like the camel, although apparently fully as proud. When you load a camel he cries like a baby. The tears roll down his cheeks, and at times he fairly bellows with grief. As he marches off with his load he pouts and pouts, and groans and groans. The llama carries his burden with a proud air, scanning the landscape with his eyes as he goes, and pricking up his ears like a skye-terrier at every new thing. He will carry only so much, his usual load being 100 pounds. If you put on more, he does not cry or groan, but calmly kneels down and waits until the load is lightened. If you make a llama angry, he does not bite you, as does the camel. He shows his contempt by spitting upon you. I would rather be bitten by ten camels than be spat upon by one llama. The spittle has a most disagreeable smell. If it touches you it is almost impossible to get rid of the odor. The llama chews the eud, like a cow, and he has a special reservoir somewhere in his anatomy well stored with saliva for such occasions. Llamas are gentle when well treated. They seem fond of their masters, who are usually Indians. The Indians are also fond of the llamas; they pet them and talk to them as though I42 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL they were human beings. They often dye the wool, and some times tie bright-coloured ribbons through holes which they make in the llama's ears. When on a journey they always walk beside the beasts, stopping from time to time to let the animals graze. Every where on the highlands you see Indian women spinning llama wool from the fleeces and weaving it into cloth. The wool is coarser and longer than sheep's wool, but it serves to make the ponchos and the rough dress of the people of the highlands. The meat of the llama is eaten by the Indians. It is of a soft, spongy nature, and of a disagreeable flavour. The llama also furnishes the people's fuel. There are no trees or bushes, and no one thinks of using fires for warmth. Fires are only for cook ing, and the only fuel is the droppings of the llama. Every hut has a pile of such fuel beside its fireplace, and the better classes of houses have special quarters for it. La Paz, a city of nearly 50,000 people, depends entirely on llama manure for its fuel; and the steam which moves its electric-light plant is created by a fire of this manure. The cooking is all done over such fires, and for this reason I have for the time given up such things as broiled beefsteaks and mutton chops, and am now sticking religiously to soups, fries, and other victuals cooked in pots or pans. In this connection it seems a curious dispensation of Providence that the llama has one place for making his fuel deposits. When possible he uses the same place every day, so that the manure is easily saved. Llamas have curious habits as to their love affairs. The fe male, I am told, picks out the male she specially loves, and makes all the advances. It has been stated that the female llamas are not allowed to carry burdens. This is a mistake, for the freight trains of llamas I have seen, numbering many hundreds, have had almost as many females as males. Other animals of the same genus as the llama live on these highlands. The vicuila is smaller, but far more beautiful. It runs wild, and is often hunted for its fur. The alpaca, which is also smaller than the llama, is celebrated for its fine wool. There are many alpacas about Lake Titicaca. The animals are kept in flocks, and are herded as we herd sheep. They are of different colours, generally black or brown. The wool of the young is as fine and soft as silk, and after a year's growth it becomes a foot long. Several million pounds of it are exported every year, most of it going to Europe. CHOLO GIRL, LA PAZ THE VICUNA (144) CHAPTER XV THE WONDERFUL CITY OF LA PAZ Strange Features of Lsfe and Business 3N the Heart of Bolsvsa — The In dians and the Cholos — Mules and Donsceys as Beer- Waggons, Bread- Carts, and Hearses — A Vssit to the Markets — The cursous Vege tables and Fruits of interior South America — Frozen Potatoes — Beans that taste like Ice-Cream, and Indian Corn that makes Flour without gr3nd3ng. "here is no city in the world like La Paz. Away back from the Pacific ocean, beyond some of the highest mountains of our hemisphere, on one of the highest plateaus of the earth, it lies in a little basin surrounded by nat ural walls. I have seen the walls of Peking, of Jerusalem, and of Seoul, the capital of Korea. The greatest of them is not over fifty feet high. La Paz has walls a thousand feet high, and on one side of it towers the snow-capped peak of Illimani, one of the three highest of the Andes, which kisses the morning and evening suns at an altitude of about four miles above the sea. Man made the walls of other cities: God made the walls of La Paz. At La Paz the great Bolivian plateau, which stretches away to the north and south almost as level as the waters of Lake Titicaca, abruptly drops so as to form a great pit 1,000 feet deep. In this pit the city is built, its walls of green slop ing almost precipitously upward on all sides but one, where the Andes, ragged and torn, rise in rocky grandeur in all the colours of the Grand Canon of the Colorado. Coming to La Paz on the stage from Lake Titicaca you ride for forty-five miles across a flat plain, by villages of mud huts, through little farms of barley, quinua, and potatoes. On your left is the mountain wall of the great Sorata range, the highest but one of the Andes. Away to the right are the hills of the coast range; in front is a seemingly endless plain. The team, of eight mules, is changed every three hours. If you sit with the driver, (i45) 146 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL as I did, you look in vain through the clear air for the city. It is nowhere in sight. At last, on the brink of a precipice, the mules are pulled back on their haunches, the stage stops, and there below you lies La Paz. It is so far down that you can make out only the outlines. You see a plain covered with terra cotta roofed houses, jumbled together along narrow streets. Here and there is a church; at one end is the big white penitentiary; and just under you is the cemetery, an enclosure walled with pigeon-holes, in which the dead La Pazites are stowed away at so much rent per year until their descendants forget to pay, and the holes are wanted for another generation. In getting down to the city the stage winds over a road that curves in and out in loops and figures of 8. You see parallel roads far below you, and at last, having left the heights, you gallop over the cobblestone pavements of La Paz. The town is one of hills and valleys. Its streets go up and down, seeming unusually steep because of the altitude, which so rarities the air that you can walk only a very few steps without stopping to rest. La Paz is a perpetual masquerade of bright colours and curious scenes. Even the houses seem more fitted for the stage than for real life. The terra-cotta roofs look so clean in the clear air that you can count the tiles of which they are made. The houses have walls of the most delicate tints of pink, sky-blue, lavender, yellow, cream, and green. They are of one and two stories, so open to the street that you can see much that goes on within. The colours worn by the people on the streets are even brighter than those of the houses. For every white man in the city there are at least five Indians, whose dresses are of the gayest reds, yel lows, blues, and greens that aniline dyes combined with the Indian taste for the gaudy can make. The especially bright garment is the poncho, or blanket, with a hole in the centre for the neck, which every Indian man and boy wears. Ponchos are usually made in stripes, yellow, green, red, and black being the favorite colours. Every Indian has also a bright-coloured knit cap, with ear-flaps hanging down on each side of his face, and some times in addition a black felt hat. He wears pantaloons cut full at the hips, so that the pockets stick wide out at each side. The legs of his trousers are full, and from the knee down at the back they are slit, showing what at first seem to be wide drawers which flop about the ankles. Closer investigation, however, shows THE WONDERFUL CITY OF LA PAZ 147 that they are merely half legs of white cotton sewed fast to the inside of the legs of the trousers, in order that the wearer may more easily roll up the latter when in wet grass or crossing a stream. The Indian women wear queer-shaped felt hats, and their dresses are as gaudy as those of the men. La Paz has about 62,000 people. It is the chief commercial city of Bolivia, but it has not a street-car, a cab, or a dray. I doubt if it has a dozen private carriages. It has no waggons of any sort, and in going about town everyone walks. All the heavy traffic is carried by mules, donkeys, llamas, or Indians. My trunks are taken from place to place on the backs of Indians at about eight cents a trunk. The bread-carrier of La Paz is a donkey, the skin boxes in which the bread is kept being slung across his back. The beer-waggon is a mule with a large case of bottles on each of its sides; and the furniture-movers, even if the thing moved be a piano, are Indians, who carry the articles on their backs, heads, or shoulders. All manner of freight is brought into the city on mules, llamas, donkeys, and Indians. The fuel, as I have said, is llama manure. This comes in bags on the backs of llamas. Coca is brought in chiefly on donkeys, and Peruvian bark and rubber from the hot ter lands lower down come the same way. I saw an odd load on a mule yesterday. It was a limp bundle about five and a-half feet long, and, perhaps, eighteen inches in diameter, thrown over a mule, so that the ends hung down at the same distance from the ground on each side. Beside it on another mule rode a policeman; and a crowd of Indian women came wailing behind. It was the dead body of a woman rolled up in a blanket. She had been murdered a few days before for about $50 which she was known to have saved, and the policeman was bringing in the corpse and the criminals. Next to the Indians the most interesting characters in La Paz are the Cholos, or half-breeds, the offspring of the Indians and the whites. The men dress much like the whites, but the women are clad in all the hues of the rainbow. Some wear shawls of rose-red and skirts of sky-blue; others have skirts of sea-green; and not a few wear skirts as red as the sun at its setting. The skirts are propped out with hoops, and they reach only to the curve of the calf. The women wear shoes of white or yellow kid, with Parisian heels under the instep, and with high tops, 148 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL which in some cases end in rose-coloured stockings, but more often in the rosy tint of healthy bare skin. They wear little felt hats of different colours, so that altogether they look very queer. The Cholos do most of the business of La Paz. A few large stores are managed by Germans, but the smaller establishments are owned by Cholo men and women. The women do as much business as the 'men, all of the saloons belonging to them. The average Cholo store is little more than a hole in the wall. Some of the tailor shops, dress-making establishments, and groceries are in rooms not more than ten feet square. Such stores have no windows. The light comes in through the doors, and as you walk by you can see the employer and his hands at their work. Nearly every merchant is also a manufacturer, and in some cases the store is so small that the men sit outside and work in the street. Much of the business of La Paz is done in the streets. The Indians make most of their purchases in the markets, which are both under cover and scattered along the sidewalks. There is one market in the centre of the city where all the week long people are buying and selling, but where, as in all South Amer ican markets, the chief day is Sunday. On that day the streets for blocks about the market-house proper are taken up with Indian peddlers, and all the queer characters of La Paz and the surrounding country are buying and selling. The sight is worth seeing. Let us take a look at it. We walk from the Plaza in the centre of the city down the hill to where Market Street crosses our way at right angles, picking our steps in and out through three blocks of Bolivian humanity, until at last we stand in a living cross of all the hues of the rainbow made by the market people and their customers. In front and behind, to right and left, the streets are filled with curious people moving to and fro in waving lines of kalei doscopic colours such as you will see nowhere else in the world. We talk of the Oriental hues of Cairo and Calcutta. La Paz has a dozen different hues to Cairo's one, and the costumes of Cal cutta would seem tame among these about us. Reds, yellows, blues, and greens are ever mixing, making new combinations every second. The most delicate tints of the Andean sunsets seem to have been robbed to furnish the dresses. Scores of Indian women are carrying bundles on their backs in striped THE WONDERFUL CITY OF LA PAZ 149 blankets of red, blue, yellow, and green; and Indian men and boys are wearing ponchos of the same gorgeous hues. There are ladies in black, with black crape shawls wound tightly about their olive-skinned faces, and with prayer-books and fur prayer-mats in their hands. They have stopped at the market on their way home from church, and some are accompanied by the men of their families dressed in tall black hats, black clothes, and black gloves. How quiet it is' There is the hum of conversation, the chat ter of gossip, and now and then the jangle of bargaining; but the crowd moves in and out without friction, and though there are thousands about us we hear but few footfalls. Take a look downward. Most of the feet about you are bare, and a large number of the Indians wear leather sandals, which make no sound as their owners pass over the streets. What a lot of babies there are! We have to pick our way about carefully to keep from treading upon them. Some lie on the cold streets and paw the cobbles or play with the mer chandise their mothers are selling. Some are too young to crawl, and are tied up in shawls to the backs of their mothers, who go on with their business with apparent disregard of the precious freight. There is one now peeping out of that red shawl below us. Its face is as brown as a berry, and its little black eyes blink at us from under its yellow knit cap, the ear- laps standing out like horns on each side of its face. Another, a few months older, is being dandled on the knees of its Indian father; and on the other side of the street are two little tots taking their meals at their mothers' breasts. Most of the babies are laughing; one or two are crying; some are quite pretty, some are homely, but nearly all are dirty and lousy. There is one whose head is undergoing a search at the hands of its mother, who cracks and eats all that she finds. This business, however, is not confined to the heads of babies. It is com mon to both the Indians and the lower-class Cholos; and men, women, and children unite in the hunt and the feast, the rule being that the hunter is entitled to all the game he catches, no matter on whose hairy preserves he is pursuing the chase. Let us stop a moment and notice some of the queer things sold all about us. The wares are spread on blankets or on the cobblestone streets. The vegetables and grains are divided into S. A.— -10 150 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL piles. There are no weights or measures. All things are sold by the eye. You pay so much for such a number of things, or so much a pile. The piles are exceedingly small, and things are bought in small quantities. Marketing is done only for the day. I doubt if there is a cellar in La Paz, and the average cooking- stove would hardly be big enough for a doll's playhouse in Amer ica. Think of carrying home half-a-dozen potatoes from market. That is the size of many of the potato piles offered for sale. Here is a brown-faced Indian girl who is selling some at our feet. I venture you never saw such small potatoes before. They are not larger than marbles, and she offers us eight for five cents. What queer potatoes they are! Some are of a bright violet colour, some are as pink as the toes of the baby who is playing among them, and some are as black as the feet of the Indian girl who is selling them. Potatoes will not grow large at the altitude of La Paz, and although there are large ones in the market, they come from the warmer lands lower down. But the most curious potatoes are those known as chuno. These are sold in large quantities. We see piles of them at every step as we go through the market. Look at this woman before us. She has a large stock spread out on a blanket in front of her. The potatoes are as white as bleached bones. They are almost as hard, and when you break them apart you find them quite as tough. They are ordinary potatoes so frozen and dried that they can be kept for a year without spoiling. The method of preparation is to soak them in water and allow them to freeze night after night until they become soft. Then the skins are rubbed off by treading upon them with the bare feet, and the potatoes are thoroughly dried in the open air. Af ter drying they are as white as snow and as hard as stones. Such potatoes form one of the chief articles of food of the Boliv ians. They are a staple article among the Indians of the An dean highlands. They have to be soaked for three or four days before they can be eaten, and are often served in the form of a stew. I have tasted chufio several times. All the life of the potato seems to have been taken out of it, and it is insipid and unappetizing, qualities which are not improved by the frequent sight of the dirty bare feet of the Indians with which the vege table is sauced. THE WONDERFUL CITY OF LA PAZ 151 The Indian corn of Bolivia is also a novelty. Many species of maize are grown here which are unknown in North America. One variety has grains twice as large as those of the largest corn grown by our farmers. One kind is of a bright-yellow colour, every grain being as big as a thumb-nail. When bitten into it crumbles up almost like flour, and with a slight bruising it could be turned into meal. Another variety is white, and a third, called "maize morado," is of a mulberry colour, and has a floury kernel. It is used in making and colouring liquors. The most of the corn sold here is grown in the Yungas country to the east, and far lower down than La Paz. The fruits are equally interesting. There are fruit peddlers on nearly every square of the city and the market is filled with quinces, pears, oranges, and pineapples. There are sweet and sour lemons, and white grapes each berry of which is the size of a damson plum. There are clingstone peaches as big as the White Heath, and figs and other fruits which we do not have. A peculiar one, known as the "picae," looks like a mammoth green bean-pod. When opened it shows big black beans encased in a pulp which has the appearance of the finest of white spun- silk. The pulp cold tastes much like a finely flavoured ice-cream. These fruits come from forty or fifty miles lower down on the eastern slopes of the Andes. By going that distance you get into tropical Bolivia, and during a few days' trip can pass through all the climates, from frigid cold to tropic heat. The snow never melts on Illimani; the climate of the plateau is about that of Paris; but in the Yungas and the Beni regions, not far away, there are pineapples and palm trees, wild orange and wild cotton trees, and coffee plantations; also rubber forests in which the Indians gather sap to be shipped down the Amazon to Para and the United States. CHAPTER XVI THE A YMARA INDIANS The Curious People, who Live on the Plateau of Bolivia — A Nation of Slaves, who are Contented with Slavery — A Peep into their Huts — Their Feuds, and how they Fight with Slings — About Coca, the Favourite Indian Chew — Chicha, or Bolivian Beer — Goats SmNNED ALIVE TO MA3CE BRANDY BOTTLES. HfoME of the most curious Indians of South America live on the high table-lands of the Andes. They are the de scendants of the tribes which were there when the Span iards made their first invasion. The most prominent were the Quichuas and the Aymaras. The Quichuas were found chiefly in the highlands of Peru and Ecuador, while the larger part of the Aymaras lived farther south, on the plateau of Bolivia. Both these tribes were ruled by the Incas, and it is their descendants who form the labouring classes of these regions to-day. In form and feature both Aymaras and Quichuas are much like the In dians of Mexico. They have short thick-set frames, reddish com plexions, broad faces, and black eyes. Their faces are usually sullen-looking, and they seldom laugh. They are shy and sus picious of strangers. For centuries they have been oppressed by the whites, and to-day they look upon all white men whom they do not personally know as their enemies. For generations both tribes were enslaved by the Spaniards. They were decimated by hard labour, millions of them being worked to death in the fields and in the mines; and although slavery has been abolished by law, it still prevails. Bolivia is a feudal country, and in it Aymar£ men, women, and children are bought and sold with the farms on which they live. The fact that they could perhaps leave on paying their debts does not al ter the matter, because it is known that they have such an at tachment for their homes that they will stay; and the proprietor, (152) Ifaan-IJ—W-, •.'. ~; f» •»<: AYMARA HUT AND FAMILY (153) THE AYMARA INDIANS 1 55 in selling his estate, often agrees to deliver his human goods with the property. Most of the land in Bolivia is owned by the Cholos, or half- breeds of Spanish and Indian blood, and by the whites, who are the descendants of the Spaniards. On each farm there is a com munity of Indians, who work three days of the week throughout the year for the owner, and the remaining days for themselves. They receive no wages, and are supposed to work instead of paying rent for the spot on which they have built their mud huts, and for the little garden patches about them. If their master has use for only a part of their time, he has the right to hire them out to others; and if they do not obey him he can, within certain limits, inflict punishment upon them. They expect to be whipped, and I have heard it facetiously said that Indian servants grumble when they are not often punished, because they consider it a sign that their master has ceased to like them. An Aymara Indian has in few things any rights that anyone else is bound to respect. It is not uncommon to see one struck to make him move faster or understand more quickly. Notwithstanding this ill-treatment the Indians stick to their masters. They seem absolutely without ambition and content with their lot. They will work for their masters for nothing rather than for pay from a foreigner, and will fight to the death the Indians of a neighbouring plantation with whom the master is angry or of whom they themselves are jealous. Feuds often exist between the Indians of the farms of a neighbourhood, and gun- fights and sling-fights are common. The sling is the natural weapon of the Aymara. He has the skill of a David, and often kills his Goliath. From behind his hut he watches for his enemy, and sometimes sends a stone crashing into his brain. He takes part in his master's troubles, and will engage in almost any con flict instigated by him. One of the most curious characters among the Aymara In dians is the pongo, or scullion. All dish-washing, fire-making, and water-carrying in La Paz are done by him. He fetches and carries for the family, going with the cook to market, and bring ing home the vegetables and meats. He does all the dirty work of the household, emptying the slops, and cleaning the pots and pans. He sleeps at night on the cold stones inside the street door, and must be ready to open it at any hour to anyone who 156 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL knocks. The other servants will not do his work, so that every family is dependent on him. He does all this without wages, the money for his services being collected by his master, who may receive as much as thirty-five gold dollars a year for him. Many families change their pongo every week or so, often having fifty-two different pongos a year. This arises from a cus tom which demands that the Indians of each estate, in addition to three days' labour a week, must furnish a certain number of men to attend to the dirty work about the house of the master. The number is larger or smaller according to the number of In dians on the plantation, so that on a large estate many more are furnished than are needed, and some are hired out. The rule is that one man can be made to do such work for only a week at a time, so, when a householder in La Paz makes a contract of this kind for a year's service, he expects to be furnished with a different pongo every week. The Indian women are the better working half of the family. The men work too, but the roughest and the hardest of the work is done by the women. I have seen them digging potatoes, bending over the hills and scratching the tubers out with trowel like hoes. I found them everywhere minding the flocks, and spin ning as they ran this way and that to keep the sheep and llamas from straying. When an Indian and his wife go together, the woman carries the bundle, and in the markets the Indian woman and not the man sells the goods and does the trading. The Aymara women are not at all handsome. Each Indian is supposed to have but one wife and the women are exceed ingly jealous of their husbands. They will not tolerate the advances of other men, and are, according to their light and cus toms, very dutiful wives. Marriage ceremonies are performed by the priests. The Indians are devout Catholics and the priests rule them. Every Indian hut has a wooden cross on its roof, and in many huts one finds images of the Virgin with tapers burning before them. Aymara" children are often sold into slavery by their parents. They are bound out, as it were, to the whites for a money con sideration, with the understanding that they are to receive a cer tain amount of education. The law provides that their parents may reclaim them by paying twenty cents a day for the time they have been in service; but as the Indians are never able to THE AYMARA INDIANS 157 get money ahead the sales are absolute, continuing in force until the child is grown up. Most of the house servants of La Paz, especially the females, have been bought as children and raised by their masters. Each well-to-do family requires a number of servants, one usually being allotted to the care of each child. When wages are paid they range from ten cents to a dollar per week. The best place to study the Indians is out on the plateau. You see their huts scattered everywhere over it and about them men, women, and children hoeing in the fields, picking stones and tending the flocks. I wish I could take you into one of the huts and show you how the Aymaras live. It is not an easy matter; for the Aymara hates strangers and will not admit one if he can help it. I have passed thousands of huts, but have yet to receive an invitation to enter. Once or twice when I asked an Indian to let me look into his home he showed fight, and once when I thrust my head into the door of a hut the owner threatened to have me arrested. And still when you have explored one of these homes you have seen very little. The average hut would not be a respect able cow-stable in America. Imagine a box-like structure of mud, six, eight, or twelve feet square, with a ridge roof of straw thatch. Let the wall be so low that you can reach the roof without effort. Let the hut have no windows and its only en trance be an opening two feet from the ground, so low that you have to stoop to go through. Let it be so small that you can hardly turn around in it on account of the farming utensils, donkeys, chickens, and llamas which stay in the hut with the people. The inhabitants of these homes sit upon the floor. They sleep sitting, backing themselves up against the wall and keep ing as close together as possible for warmth. In one corner of the hut is a cook-stove, a little hearth or bowl of clay with a pile of llama fuel beside it. There is no chimney and the dense smoke blackens everything, finding its way out as it can. Aymara cooking is very simple. A favourite dish is challona stew with chuno. Challona is jerked mutton, cured after the following manner: The sheep having been killed is split open and left outside to freeze. The next day water is sprinkled upon it and it is frozen again. It is then hung up to dry and after a 158 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL time becomes so tough that it will keep for months. When used it is cut into bits and stewed for some hours. The Indians con sider it delicious. There is one thing that is more important to the Bolivian Indian than his meals. This is his daily, hourly, and I might almost say his perpetual, chew. He begins chewing as soon as he gets his first teeth and he rolls a cud of leaves between his toothless gums when he is on the verge of the grave. Both women and men have their jaws continually going, and it is rare, indeed, to find an Indian without a lump inside his cheek. And what is it he chews ? Tobacco ? No, he smokes that sometimes, but the chew he uses is the coca leaf. Coca is the shrub from which cocaine is made. It is a food and a stimulant and the Indians say it keeps out cold and allays hunger. Many of the Aymaras will work for hours on nothing else, and in go ing over the high mountain passes they chew coca to sustain their strength. They begin chewing at breakfast and chew all the day through. They will not work unless they have an allow ance of coca leaves in addition to their wages, the Indians in the mines insisting upon five ounces per man per day. They chew the leaves much as the Siamese chew the betel nut, mixing them first with the ashes of lime. Strange to say, they swallow the juice. Coca-raising forms one of the chief industries of Bolivia. There are plantations on the eastern slopes of the Andes from where the leaves are brought to La Paz. The plants grow from two to five feet in height. Each plant gives three crops a year. The leaves which are not unlike wintergreen leaves are gathered by Indian women, packed up in bundles of twenty-five pounds and brought to the markets on the backs of llamas and mules. The favourite drink of the Bolivian Indian is raw alcohol. Drunkenness is to him the acme of pleasure and the most of his earnings goes toward keeping himself and his family in a chronic state of inebriety. On feast days men, women, and children get drunk and keep so until their money runs out. Much of the alcohol is imported, but a large amount is consumed in the shape of aguardiente or sugar brandy, which is carried over the coun try in goat-skin bottles. The skins for this purpose are torn from the bodies of the goats while still living, as such skins are more pliable and less liable to shrink. The goat is hung up by THE AYMARA INDIANS l59 its horns, then a cut is made about the neck and the men, seiz ing hold of the skin, pull it from the body of the tortured and dying animal. The native beer of Bolivia is chicha. It is made of Indian corn and looks very much like thin buttermilk of a yellowish tinge. It is sold everywhere throughout the country and you find hundreds of chicha shops in all the cities. Those of La Paz are owned by Cholo women, who ladle the beer out of immense earthern jars into glasses much like the <(beer schooners" of the North, selling it for a few cents a drink. I have tried chicha several times. It tastes like old buttermilk and is not so intoxi cating as our lager beer. It has for ages been the national drink of the Indians, and was in use when the Spaniards came. The process of manufacture is not especially appetizing. The corn is first bruised with a heavy stone, and then handed over to a group of women who chew the crushed grains mixing them with their saliva until they have turned them into a paste which they spit out into a dish or cup. When a sufficient amount of the paste has been collected it is spread out upon a board to dry. It is next put into an earthern vessel as large around as a wash-tub and as high as one's waist. This is filled with water and a slow fire kept under it for three or four days. The fire is then re moved and the liquor is cooled and left to ferment. After a week's fermentation it is ready to drink. Good chicha will easily intoxicate a foreigner, but some of the Aymaras can drink a gallon at a time without being affected by it. At harvest time some of the Indians celebrate the occasion with a feast. The people of each village prepare quantities of chicha and go from one village to another for a grand chicha drunk. They continue drinking until all the chicha is consumed. The women sit around the fire with the men behind them. They pass the chicha first to the men and then they drink. As drunk enness comes on, their orgies grow more and more wild and towards the last they act more like beasts than like women and men. CHAPTER XVII IN THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA An Unexplored Country of vast Resources given up to Savage Tribes — ¦ The Cannibals of the Eastern Andes who Shoot wsth Blow-Guns and Poisoned Arrows — Some Ind3Ans who go Naked and Others who Dress in Bark Clothsng — The Rubber Forests of the Andean Slope — Quinine and Peruv3an Bark. Bolivia is one of the least-known countries of the world. The geographers are now disputing about its area, and the different estimates vary by more than 100,000 square miles. Senor Manuel V. Ballivian, president of the La Paz Geo graphical Society, and one of the best-informed men upon such matters, tells me that Bolivia contains more than 567,000 square miles. This is about one-sixth the size of the United States, without Alaska. It is larger than ten states of the size of New York, larger than any country of Europe, with the exception of Russia, and larger than Germany, France, Great Britain, Greece, Switzerland, and Belgium combined. This vast territory has not as many people as has the State of Massachusetts. Its population is estimated at about two mil lions, and of these not more than half a million are of white blood. Think of giving a territory one-sixth the size of ours and proportionately as rich in its natural resources to half the people of Philadelphia, and you have about the conditions which prevail here. The whites own Bolivia, and the other three-fourths of the people, who are Indians, are their servants. Of course there are a few exceptions, but as a rule this classification holds good. It is especially so as regards the domesticated Indians, who num ber much more than half the population, and who are in many cases practically the slaves of the whites. In La Paz there are at least five Indians to every white man. The richest parts of Bolivia have not been surveyed and sev eral of its provinces are practically unexplored. Some sections (160) IN THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA ^ of it are as unknown as central Africa, and their inhabitants have as curious customs as have the savages of the Sahara. Take for instance that strip of Bolivia, several hundred miles wide and about five hundred miles long, which lies between the plateau and the boundary of Brazil. It has resources of great wealth. I have met men here who have crossed it in travelling overland to Paraguay and the Argentines. They tell me of vast plains covered with tame and wild cattle in herds so enormous that they can be bought for from two to three dollars a head, for there is no means of getting them to market. A syndicate was recently formed in London to connect these rich grazing lands with the head of navigation of some of the Amazon branches by a railway which will run along the boundary between Brazil and Bolivia, but on Brazilian soil. The road is planned on the line of a concession granted some years ago to Colonel Church, and its purpose is to carry the cattle to the rubber camps of the Amazon. There are other important projects on foot to build railroads for Bolivia. One is to construct a line sixty-six miles long, from La Paz to the Desuaguadero River. Another scheme is to extend the Central North Argentine Railroad to Sucre. This road would pass through a rich cattle-grazing, agricultural and mining territory; it would furnish an outlet to the Atlantic for Bolivian products and open a large part of eastern Bolivia to settlement. At present it is extremely difficult to travel anywhere in Bo livia. In coming to La Paz from the coast, a distance of nearly five hundred miles, I spent two days on the railroad in Peru be fore I reached the shores of Lake Titicaca. It took another day to cross that lake. I had to wait at Chililaya a day, and the fifth day was taken up in the stage ride which landed me in La Paz. In going back, I shall have three days of difficult staging from here to Oruro, and then three days upon the smallest of the long narrow-gauge railroads in the world in going down the Andes to the sea. With the same money and time I could comfortably cross the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a dis tance almost five times as great. My travels are to be through the most inaccessible parts of Bolivia. Most of the country is to be reached only upon mules or on foot. The American Minister, I find, is about to pay a visit to the capital at Sucre, four hundred miles from La Paz. j;62 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL He will have to take mules or stage for one hundred and fifty miles to the railroad, and after a short ride on the cars will take mules again for a five days' journey through the mountains to Sucre. The only route from Sucre to the famous mining town of Potosi is a bridle path, and from Oruro to Cochabamba, a town of twenty-five thousand, is a three and a-half days' ride on horseback. Nearly all of the large towns are to be reached only on mule-back or horseback; they are situated on the high lands and in the mountains. Eastern Bolivia is one of the most interesting parts of South America. I have recently met several men who have gone from La Paz down the rivers which flow into the Amazon, thence to the Atlantic. They tell wonderful stories of the rubber forests, of trees of wild cotton, of plants with fibre-like silk, and of vege tation so dense as to be almost impenetrable. They met savages who are cannibals and other Indians who go about stark naked and regard the laws of neither God nor man. At Lima I met a young German explorer named Kroehle, who had spent three years travelling through the eastern provinces of Peru and among the Indians of the far-away branches of the Amazon. He had a camera with him and made some excellent negatives from which I secured prints. Mr. Kroehle was many times in danger of his life. He was twice wounded with poisoned arrows and he describes the travels through these regions as dangerous in the extreme. He was for a time among the head hunters of the River Napo, in Ecuador and Peru, the first pictures ever taken of these people being made by him. The Indians of one tribe whom Mr. Kroehle saw near the Napo river wear plates of wood or metal in the lobes of their ears, each plate being as big around as the bottom of the aver age tumbler. Their ears are pierced when they are children, and at first bits of grass and twigs are thrust through the holes to keep them open. From time to time additional twigs are in serted until the aperture is as large as the inside of a bracelet. The same custom prevails among the Burmese and the natives of Southern India. It is not an uncommon thing in Burma for a woman to carry a cigar as thick as a broomstick, made of to bacco wrapped in corn husks, in the slits of her ears. The Napo River Indians have even larger ear-holes than the Burmese. This, however is their only extravagance of fashion, for both PACHITEA (PERU) INDIAN (164) IN THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA 165 men and women go naked. On the Pachitea river there are Indians who wear waist cloths only; the Mojos of the Beni have long smocks made of bark, and the Guayaros, farther south in the same region, are in full dress when their skins are coated with red and black paint, their legs bound about with garters, and sticks thrust through the cartilage of their noses. Some of the tribes on the eastern slopes of the Andes, such as the Chacaros, are cannibals; they eat the flesh of their ene mies and are especially fond, it is said, of baby roasts and maiden stews. They as well as other Indian tribes of the region use blow-guns and poisoned arrows; the arrows are made of iron wood, tipped with flints poisoned at the points. The guns are reeds, ten or eleven feet long. The poison is so deadly that the slightest scratch of an arrow is fatal, although the meat of the animal killed is not injured. The composition of the poison is kept secret. It is made, I am told, by thrusting the arrows into putrid human flesh which has already been poisoned in some other way. In trading with the wild Indians it is necessary to carry a stock of goods with you. They do not understand the use of money, for all their dealings are by barter. They are, however, fond of trading and will exchange gold for hatchets, knives, and guns. They wash the gold out of the streams and bring it to the traders in nuggets and in coarse dust. These savages live chiefly by hunting and fishing. There are many wild fruits in the forests and everything grows so easily that it is necessary only to plant the seeds to get a crop. The Indians burn over the ground and plant little patches of corn without ploughing. They plant also onions, beans, and turnips and in some parts of the valley of Maranon they have small plantations of sugar-cane. The cane is ripe at nine months, and the same plants will pro duce for twelve years in succession. A large number of Indians are engaged in the rubber camps where they work for the whites, only a few gathering rubber for themselves. Bolivia is increasing very rapidly in its rubber pro duct. It is now exporting about four million pounds of rubber a year, the rubber camps being scattered along the banks of the rivers on the eastern slopes of the Andes. The rubber comes entirely from wild trees, there being but one cultivated planta tion in Bolivia. The trees grow best far down in the valleys, S. A.— n 1 66 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL near the foot of the mountain. They are of all sizes, from the size of your leg, to some so large that three men joining their hands could not reach around one of them. In some places there are as many as six thousand trees to the square mile, and there is one grove which contains ten thousand trees on this area. Getting out the rubber necessitates large capital. It cannot be done successfully with an investment of less than fifty thou sand dollars, and the more the money the greater the profit. The trees are all private property, but many of the forests are in the hands of Cholos, who have bought government lands at low prices. They usually have not the money to work them, and are therefore ready to sell at reasonable prices. The gathering of the rubber is all done by Indians, who gash the trees with small hatchets and chisels. A white sap then flows out of the gashes, and this is caught in clay pots and is smoked for the market. As the smoke touches the sap it hardens: it is then so treated that it can be made into balls. These are tied up in nets and carried to La Paz or Lake Titicaca on the backs of donkeys or mules, or are loaded upon boats to be shipped down the Beni and the Madeira to the Amazon. Bolivia is the land of quinine. We know the bark of the cinchona tree from which quinine is made as Peruvian bark, but it would be more in accord with the facts to call it Bolivian bark. The best quinine is from the bark of trees grown in the Department of La Paz; and Bolivia far exceeds Peru in the num ber of her cinchona trees. There are millions of trees growing on plantations in eastern Bolivia. These plantations were established when quinine was high in price and before some of the Bolivian trees had been taken to India and Ceylon, to start plantations there. As a result of the Indian plantations the market became overstocked, and the price of quinine fell. The bark which in 1882 brought in Bolivian money, at La Paz, $220 a hundred weight, now sells for from $16 to $18 a hundred weight, or, taking into considera tion the fall in the price of silver, about one-thirtieth of what it brought sixteen years ago. The fall of prices has ruined a great many Bolivian capitalists. More than $3,000,000 were invested in such estates by the people of La Paz, and the foreign houses who had advanced money on them were severely hurt. The bark at one time was rated so low that it did not pay to cut it and IN THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA 167 carry it to market; to-day, however, while there is somewhat of a revival in prices, the margin of profit in the business is small. Quantities of cinchona bark may be seen here every day. The bark is brought in to the exporters on the backs of donkeys, each of which carries two bundles of about one hundred pounds apiece. Most of the South American quinine product now comes from wild trees which grow at the head-waters of the Beni and the Madeira rivers. It is carried for miles through the forests on men's backs, and then loaded on the donkeys which bring it to La Paz. So far as I could learn there is no money to be made by foreigners in the quinine business, although any number of good plantations can be bought. A rich planter of interior Bolivia told me that he could buy me eight hundred thousand trees, if I wished them, for less than eight cents of our money per tree. Quinine trees are planted nine feet apart, and after five years an orchard is ready for the market. The trees are then chopped down and stripped of their bark. Sprouts spring up the follow ing season from the stumps, and at the end of another period of five years there is a further crop. The cinchona tree grows wild, and it is to be found wherever the rubber tree thrives; it usually grows to a great height, its foliage forming a magnificent crown to the tree, which is of such a colour that the quinine hunter can pick it out at a long distance in looking over the trees of a forest. LA PAZ INDIANS CHAPTER XVIII A WILD RIDE WITH THE BOLIVIAN MAILS Gallop over the vast dried-up Sea of the Middle Andes— Queer Scenes on the Highlands — The Bol3V3AN Coachman and his Cruelty . Nights in Bolivian Inns — Odd Features of Farming where the Oxen pull the Ploughs with their Heads — American Trade in Bolivia. |or the past three days I have been riding over the high plateau of Bolivia and am now in the middle of it, away up over the Coast Range of the Andes, in the mining town of Oruro. The Bolivian plateau is one of the won derful tablelands of the globe; it is situated between the two ranges of the Andes, at from 11,000 to 13,000 feet above the sea. The plateau, which runs from north-west to south-east, is five hundred miles long, about eighty miles wide, and has an area as great as the State of Ohio. The plateau has a soil, a vegetation, and a climate of its own. Its skies seem different from any which hang over the United States. Its people are like none we have on our bontinent, and my surroundings altogether are such that I seem to be in another world. It is the world of the heights, the highest land of the earth upon which numerous cities and villages exist, a very land of the sky. The geological history of the Bolivian plateau is largely con jecture. There are evidences that there once lay between these two Andean ranges a vast inland sea, hundreds of miles long, and in places over sixty miles wide, of which the Bolivian pla teau is a part. Its waters reached to Lake Titicaca, and thence flowed on through the plateau of Peru. From here they extended southward to the highlands of the Argentine Republic. Where I crossed the plateau from Lake Titicaca to La Paz the ground was as flat as a boarded floor. It is almost level also from La Paz to (168) A TYPICAL FOREST VIEW (169) A WILD RIDE WITH THE BOLIVIAN MAILS 171 Oruro, and everywhere there are signs that the whole country was once covered with water. I rode for miles over beds of peb bles and boulders and passed over wide stretches of what seemed like sea-sand. Sea-shells are often found here, and there are other evidences that the land, as I have said, was once covered with water. Professor Agassiz believed that the water once rose some four hundred feet above the present level of the Bolivian plateau. To-day the only large bodies of water upon it are Lake Titicaca and Lake Pampa-Aullagas, or Lake Poop6, the two being con nected by the Desaguadero river. Lake Poop6 is very near Oruro. It is about as large as Rhode Island, and is a brackish lake deep enough for steamers. It is now proposed to put steam ers on it, and should this be done, we may look for a line of ships sailing from Oruro across Lake Poop6 and through the Des aguadero river to Lake Titicaca. My journey from La Paz to Oruro was over this dried-up sea- basin. The distance is 165 miles, most of the road being as smooth and as hard as any in Central Park, New York. There is a stage line which carries mails and passengers twice a week from La Paz to Oruro. The stage-coach has six seats inside and one outside with the driver. In planning my tour I coveted the driver's seat, but on going to the stage office I found that not only it but the whole coach had been reserved. There was no better chance for the next stage, three days later, and for a time it seemed that I should have to go on the back of a mule. At this moment my guide and adviser in ways Bolivian, Mr. Sam Klotz, of La Paz, suggested that I get a seat on the mail coach, where there is always room for one passenger. I jumped at the chance, and readily paid twenty dollars, the price of the ticket. This was several days before leaving. The day previous to starting I sent my baggage to the station, my three trunks go ing on the backs of three Indians from the hotel to the stage office. When they arrived a second dilemma arose: only 200 pounds of baggage, I found, were allowed to each passenger. My trunks weighed 370 pounds, and it was only by paying $21 for extra baggage that they were allowed to go with me. I confess to a feeling of pride when I told my friends at La Paz that I was going to travel on the mail coach. They smiled rather pityingly as I did so, and at the time I attributed their 172 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL pity to envy; but I know better now. I know that the Bo livian mail coach is not a gorgeous red vehicle, with postman in livery and magnificent steeds. I had my first sight of it at daybreak on the morning of my starting. It is merely the bag gage waggon .of the stage, a skeleton waggon on springs. The floor of the vehicle is so high that you can almost walk under it without stooping, and when it was loaded with trunks and mail- bags it looked more like a hay waggon coming to the barn in harvest time than the Royal Bolivian Mail. The baggage was tied on with rawhide ropes and was covered with canvas to keep out the rain. There was only one seat and this was oc cupied by the driver, his assistant, and myself. The seat was at least eight feet above the ground: it had no cushion until I im provised one out of my own coat and blankets. As there was no canopy over the seat, I suffered when it rained and snowed, as it did at intervals on the journey. Our drivers were Bolivian Cholos, whom I found so cruel to the mules that I again and again protested. Even when first hitched up the beasts were raw and sore ; their harness was twisted out of all shape, and their collars did not fit, the ragged rough leather pressing in upon the raw flesh. Every mule had sores on its back, and the legs of some had been almost cut to pieces by the whip. I remember one little yellow mule who had lost two patches of skin, each as large as the palm of one's hand, from the front of his shoulders. When he was harnessed I objected to taking him, as there were better mules in the cor ral. My protestations were however of no avail; he was hitched up next to the waggon, right under the driver, and we started off on a gallop. The little mule soon began to lag. The driver cut at him with a whip, which brought blood at almost every spot it touched, and the helper, who ran along with the coach and whipped up the lazy mules, picked out the little yellow fel low for his special attention. We had not gone five miles before the backs of the mule's legs were bleeding in half a dozen differ ent places, and I could see that his collar was smeared with blood from sores on his neck, From time to time I noticed that the driver, when he found that his whipping and whistling failed to stir up the mules, took a heavy trace, with an iron chain and ring at the end of it, and rattled it. This never failed to frighten the team into increased speed. As the little yellow A WILD RIDE WITH THE BOLIVIAN MAILS [73 fellow again fell behind, I found the secret of the inspiring sound of the trace and chain. The driver swung the trace about his head and brought it down with a terrible thud upon the little mule's back. It was a wonder it did not break the bones, for the heavy iron chain hit him on the spine, and the pain must have been intense. The' blow in this case did not break the skin, though I saw subsequent ones given to other mules which made bloody gashes in their backs. We changed mules every fifteen or twenty miles, and we rarely had a team that was not deeply scarred and bloody when we reached a stopping- place. On this journey I had a taste of the country hotels of Bolivia. They are more like stables than taverns. The stalls for the mules and the one-story huts which contain the rooms for the human guests are built together, so that one can hear the don keys bray and the hogs grunt as one goes to sleep. None of the rooms have windows; the floors are of mud and stone, and the beds are mere ledges of sun-dried bricks, tipon which mat tresses are laid. Most of the rooms have several beds in them, so I seldom slept without room-mates. Before retiring the land lady always came in and collected a "Bolivian," equal to 33 cents of our money, for the use of the bed. She did not give me a light, so I had to use a candle I brought with me, a spot of melted grease on a table or chair serving as the candlestick. We left the hotels at five o'clock every morning. We usually were up before daybreak and at half-past four a cup of tea and a biscuit were served. This is the first breakfast of all hotels in Bolivia, and it had to suffice for our first twenty miles. At eleven o'clock we generally reached a station for breakfast. This usually consisted of a vegetable soup, followed by dishes of stewed meats swimming in grease. Dinner was served at the close of the day's journey. It was about the same character as the noon breakfast. Luckily I had had a lunch put up for me on leaving La Paz: this cost me ten dollars; but it seemed cheap when I found that it gave me the only food I could eat on the way. And this was upon one of the most travelled roads of Bolivia, where the accommodations are considered extraordi narily good. The fare on the mule trails is far worse, and those who go into the less travelled parts often suffer severely. Their only sleeping-places are in the huts of the Indians, who do not 174 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL like strangers and will not entertain them if they can possibly help it. The fact that you offer them money makes no differ ence; often indeed the only way to get a night's shelter is to enter by force and take possession of the best part of the hut. If there is anything eatable at hand you had better take it and afterwards give the owner some money in payment. If you offer to buy he will refuse; and even when he has plenty will tell you he has nothing. When you leave in the morning you pay him for the night's lodging, and he then thanks you for what he has granted only by force. The Bolivian Indians are great cowards and they will submit even to much abuse without fighting. I saw the Indians all along the plateau from La Paz to Oruro. Nearly all were working, toiling hard for a bare living. The climate is such that only potatoes, barley, and quinua will grow, and the soil is so poor that it is only here and there that a patch can be farmed. Indeed the effort to get cultivable land is a serious drawback to industry: in many places the soil is too stony to cultivate; in others cultivation is only possible when the stones have been picked off to make place for the crops. We passed long stretches of country dotted with piles of stones, and I often saw Indian women going along bent double, gather ing stones into the held-up skirts of their dresses, and carrying them to the piles. Parts of the plateau are covered with a scanty growth of grass, upon which herds of sheep and llamas feed. Each herd is watched by an Indian shepherdess, who uses a sling to keep the animals from straying, and with unerring aim sends the stone straight at the llama or sheep that strays to a neighbour's fields. There are no fences in this part of Bolivia. The cattle in the fields are, as a rule, staked or hobbled by tying a rope about their front legs just above the ankles. One often sees a drove of donkeys so fastened. The farming is all done after the crudest methods. I saw no manure anywhere used, although there were great piles of it lying at each stable where we got a new relay of mules. I am told that the natives know nothing of fertilizers, and that they recu perate the land by letting it lie fallow, or by a rotation of crops. Most of the farming tools are of native manufacture, the only American tools being Hartford axes. Potatoes are dug by the A WILD RIDE WITH THE BOLIVIAN MAILS 175 women, who use short strips of iron, shaped something like an arrow, with a wide flat stem. This is grasped in the middle with the hand, and the woman, bending double, thus scoops the pota toes out of the hills. Barley is cut with small sickles with saw teeth, and such rude hoes as are used have handles so short that the workers have to bend over toward the ground to use them. The ploughing is all done by oxen with rude wooden ploughs, to which a point made of a flat iron bar about two inches wide is fastened. A long tongue or beam extends from the plough to the yoke, which is tied to the horns of the oxen, the weight of pull ing the plough being done with the head, and not with the shoul ders as with us. The ways through the Bolivian mountains are mule trails, some of which have been cut out of the sides of precipices so that you crawl along within an inch of destruction. Now and then a pack mule drops three thousand feet or more, and is usu ally, left to lie where it falls. One often has to dismount to help the mules, and it sometimes takes hours to advance a few miles. The total length of the Bolivian stage lines is less than the dis tance between New York and Cleveland. Freight is carried from one part of the country to another on the backs of women and men or on donkeys, mules, or llamas. On the way I passed many droves of donkeys and llamas coming to Oruro. Some were loaded with bundles of cacao, while others carried bags of silver ore. Each train was managed by a party of men and women who walked with the animals, never riding them. Owing to the poor methods of transportation it is questionable whether Bolivia can offer much to Americans in the way of a market. Such goods as are sold must be put up in boxes or bales, of about one hundred pounds each, so that two packages will just form a load for a mule; otherwise the chief centres of trade cannot be reached. The character of the Bolivian people is such that they can never be large consumers. The Indians who form the majority have few wants which the country does not supply. The naked savages of the eastern slopes require nothing. The semi-civilized Indians of the plateau, as I have al ready said, weave their own clothes of llama wool. They make their cooking utensils of clay and raise their own food. At present the bulk of the foreign trade is in the hands of the Germans, who are established in all the large towns and who 176 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL deal not only in German, but in English and American goods. I saw many American sewing machines in La Paz, and also Con necticut hardware and firearms. The imports of Bolivia, as esti mated by one of our Ministers, are about $12,000,000 a year, and the exports amount to about $20,000,000, the latter consisting of the products of the mines and forests. From the mines come vast quantities of copper, silver, and tin, and a small amount of gold, and from the forests are taken rubber and Peruvian bark. BOLIVIAN LLAMAS CHAPTER XIX AMONG THE GOLD AND SLLVER MINES OF THE ANDES Bolivia's enormous Silver Output — It has produced four billion dol lars' worth of the Metal — The silver mountain of Potosi and the rich mines of Cerro de Pasco — The gold mines of eastern Bolivia — The Tipuani placer deposits now being worked by Americans — Prospecting in the Andes — The richest tin mines in the World. |ruro is one of the chief mining centres of Bolivia. There are rich deposits of silver and tin in the mountains about it, and the work in the mines goes on night and day. There are valuable copper mines not far from here; the whole •country, in fact, seems to be a bed of rich minerals. In the Huanani tin district there is a conical mountain containing a network of tin veins, in some of which the pure ore has been followed down for six hundred feet. In the Avecaya district, nearby, the tin lodes are from one to three feet in thickness, now and then widening out into great masses of solid ore; in ether mines there are veins of tin from six to eight feet wide. The word Titicaca means <( Tin Stone " ; the tin, moreover, is so pure that it is shipped to Europe as it comes from the mines. Quite recently tin mines have been discovered near the shores -of Lake Titicaca at an altitude of thirteen or fourteen thousand feet above the sea. The tin is extracted in the same way as in silver mining: the ore is first blasted down and dug out. It is then broken into pieces, and smelted in blast furnaces, and finally run off into fifty- pound pigs. Oruro makes me think of the larger villages in the Valley of the Nile, with the green fields and the Nile left out. It lies amidst the bare gray hills of a desert. Its streets are narrow and unpaved. Its houses, with few exceptions, are of one story, made of mud bricks and thatched with straw. They are squalid in the extreme, and everything connected with them is dilapidated (i77) 178 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL and dirty. The town is devoted to mining. It is supported by the silver and tin mines about it, and its people are mostly min ers. They are Cholos, for the pure Indians do not like to work in the mines. One of the largest of the silver mines is just above the city. It is the property of Chileans, though managed by Bolivians. Its capital is $1,000,000, and its stock is said to be 250 per cent above par. The miners are Bolivian Cholos. They labour half- naked in the tunnels, for the mine is as hot as an oven, and its ventillation is poor. In all about 700 hands are employed, the workmen receiving daily wages equal to thirty cents of our money. Only the best of the ore is taken out of the mines, and this is broken into little pieces and sorted over at the surface. The breaking is done by Indian women, who pick out the rich ore and throw the poorer pieces away. There were about 300 women at work at the time of my visit. They were squatting on the ground and pounding the rock to pieces with hammers. Every one of them was chewing coca leaves, and I could see the fat quids swelling their cheeks. I asked as to the wages paid them, and was told that they worked from daylight till dark for about seventeen cents of our money per day. It is by such methods, and at this low cost, that most of the sil ver of Bolivia has been given to the world. The country has had the richest silver deposits ever discovered. Bolivia has produced more than four billion dollars' worth of silver, and should the price of silver again rise she could flood the markets. Her methods of mining have been so wasteful that there are to-day, in the refuse of her abandoned mines, millions of ounces of silver ore which modern machinery could reduce at a profit. The mineral territory of Bolivia is very large. Deposits of tin and silver are found throughout the mountainous parts of the country for a distance, north and south, of 1,500 miles, and, east and west, of 210 miles. The region is full of abandoned mines, out of which only the richest of the ore has been taken. Some of the mines were opened up by the Spaniards, who forced the Indians to do the work, making them burrow through the earth to get out the ore. Some of the mines have been in operation for centuries; among others the silver mountains of Potosi, out of which have been taken almost three billion dollars' worth of silver. AMONG THE GOLD AND SILVER MINES OF THE ANDES 179 The mineral deposits of the Andes are in truth compara tively unknown. Peru has silver mines almost as rich as those of Bolivia. It has indeed two thousand different mines, although, owing to the low price of silver, only a few are now being worked. At Hualgayoc, in northern Peru, there are within the area of forty square leagues four hundred silver mines, some of which are producing as much as three hundred ounces of silver to the ton. This is the region which, according to Alexander Humboldt, produced thirty-three million dollars' worth of silver in thirty years. The ore is mined by Indians with hammers and drills; they burrow through the mountains like rats, taking out only the richest parts of the ore. They labour almost naked, wearing only breech cloths, and utter weird and melancholy cries as they work. They carry the ore out of the mines in rawhide sacks upon their backs. An Indian will climb up a ladder or notched stick bearing 150 pounds of ore and go off on a dog trot with it. At the surface the ore is broken up with hammers into small pieces. It is next ground by rolling circular stones over it and then mixed with quicksilver after the patio process by driving mules around through it. Much of the ore is now reduced to a sulphide and taken in this shape on mules to the coast, where it is shipped to Europe for farther treatment. The same sort of work goes on at the famous Cerro de Pasco mines, in the Andes back of Lima, and in nearly all the silver regions of Bolivia and Peru. The Cerro de Pasco mines, now in active operation, number more than 300, and about 60 miles away, at Yauri, on the Oroya railroad, 225 silver mines are being worked. Cerro de Pasco has always been thought to be the crater of an extinct volcano. It is situated about 14,000 feet above the sea in one of the bleakest parts of the Andes. The town, which has now 5,000 people, lies in a basin surrounded by barren rocks. The deposits consist of a great body of low- grade silver ore more than a mile and a-half long by three- quarters of a mile wide. This has been worked down to a depth of over 250 feet, at which level numerous tunnels have been driven in to drain the mines. The great trouble is the water, and farther mining can be done only by lower tunnels or heavy pumps. Henry Meiggs, the American engineer who constructed so many great works in Peru, began a tunnel 150 180 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL feet below the present level. The work was stopped, however, when 900 feet in from the surface, and at present nothing is being done. The tunnel will need to be extended from 900 to 1,800 feet farther before the ore is struck, and at the pres ent low price of silver there is little prospect of this being at tempted. Within a short time there has been something of a revival of the silver industry at Cerro de Pasco, owing to rich deposits of copper which lie under the low-grade silver ores, and the camp to-day is more one of copper than of silver. In the past the Cerro de Pasco mines have produced enormous quantities. Be tween the years 1630 and 1824, 27,200 tons of pure silver were taken out of them, and the dumps of the mines, if scientifically worked, would still yield a fortune. Twenty years ago Cerro de Pasco was turning out more than a million ounces of silver a year, and sixty million dollars' worth of silver have already been taken from under the ground where this mining camp now stands. The mines were discovered in the seventeenth century by an In dian who camped out one night near the spot. Before going to sleep he built a fire upon two stones and awoke to find that his stones had melted and that a lump of silver slag had taken their place. There are but few smelting works in the Andes. One of the largest has been built by three Americans, Messrs. Backus and Johnston, capitalists of Lima, and Captain H. Geyer, an Ameri can mining engineer. This smelter is situated on the Oroya railroad, about 95 miles back from the coast, at an altitude of two and one-half miles above the sea. The station is called Casapalca. The smelter is similar to the great smelting works of Denver. The ore is brought from the mines near by and a great deal is carried from Cerro de Pasco, about seventy miles away, on the backs of llamas. It is not an uncommon thing for 1,200 llamas to be unloaded in one day at Casapalca, and during my visit to the smelter I found the yard filled with these curious beasts of burden. Within the past few years a number of Americans have been prospecting for gold in Peru and Bolivia. They find colour every where, but so far have discovered no quartz mines of great value. Professor A. A. Hard, a Denver mining engineer with whom I travelled, says that there are rich veins and deposits of gold in AMONG THE GOLD AND SILVER MINES OF THE ANDES 181 the Sorata mountains; he predicts that they will some day fur nish a gold excitement equal to that of the Klondike. Several days north from La Paz is the Tipuani river, one of the most famous of the gold streams of the eastern Andes. Its placer mines were worked in the days of the Incas, and from it the Spaniards have extracted large amounts of gold. The Tipuani rolls down the eastern slope of the Andes into the Maperi, thence into the Beni, through which its waters find their way into the Madeira and the Amazon. It is about 300 feet wide, and so deep in most places that the Indians have not been able to reach the bed rock in the centre of the river. So far they have washed only along the banks during the dry season. Their mode of working is to stand in water up to their waists and scrape the gravel together with their feet. When they have made a little pile they dive down and gather it up in pans, often washing fifty cents worth of gold out of one pan of gravel. Some years ago a Spaniard made a fortune by working one hole in the bed of the Tipuani. He formed a brigade of Indians whom he equipped with rude cows-skin buckets. He then par tially drained the river by means of a dam and by passing the buckets of gravel and water rapidly from one Indian to another was able, after three years, to reach the bed rock. Within four years thereafter he took out, it is said, $140,000 worth of gold dust and nuggets. According to another story, he mined 900 pounds of gold in a single year. In this region some Colorado miners are now working with steel dredges. The dredges were made in Denver and were sent in pieces to Mollendo, Peru, thence up the railroad to Puno, and by boat across Lake Titicaca to Chi- lilaya. From here they were brought over the mountains to the river on the backs of mules. The miners expect to dredge out the Tipuani, and to have the bed rock swept and scraped by men in diving suits. Most of the gold mining of Bolivia is carried on with native labour on a very rude plan. Take for instance the placer diggings of the Chuguiaguillo river, not far from La Paz. The river has cut a gully several hundred feet deep through the basin in which La Paz is situated. This gully is walled with gravel which contains more or less gold. When I visited the mines a score of Indians were digging down the dirt, loading it into wheel barrows and dumping it into wooden sluice boxes, through S. A.— 12 1 82 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL which the water from the river was conducted. On the bottom of the boxes were iron frames so laid that they caught the heav ier parts of the gravel and the gold, while the water carried the dirt off into the river. There was no quicksilver used, the miners depending entirely upon the weight of the gold to throw it to the bottom as it went through. Shortly after I arrived the water was partly turned off and the gravel left in the boxes panned out for the gold. The panning was done by three Indians, who sat on the sides of the sluices with their bare legs in the water and dipped up the gravel into bowls like those we use for making bread or chopping hash. Such bowls are common everywhere in Bolivia for gold-panning. The Indians carefully washed the dirt out of the gravel. They picked it up by the handful and threw it away, looking for bits of yel low metal among the dark stones. After a while the gravel was all thrown out and in each bowl was a little pile of gold peb bles. There was no gold dust, the deposits ranging from bits of pure gold as big as the head of a pin to nuggets as large as one's little finger nail. One of the larger nuggets weighed about half an ounce, and I was told it was worth ten dollars. The gold was all coarse gold, and if there was any dust it was lost. The gold of this part of Bolivia does not lie in pockets, but is distributed with regularity through beds of gravel. Now and then large nuggets are found. One for instance was picked up out of the mines I have just described two hundred years ago and sold for more than $11,000. It was sent to Spain and kept for a time in the Museum at Madrid. One day it was discovered that it had been stolen and a gilded imitation left in its place. The director of the museum was arrested, but nothing could be proved against him. The nugget was never recovered. While we were at the mine the skeleton of an Indian was dug up. He had probably been searching for gold and the earth had caved in and buried him. There are gold fields in Peru which have recently been sold to an American syndicate for $285,000. There are also regions in Bolivia which could be profitably worked, but it is safe to say that there is no mining country here to which an American who has not capital can come with a reasonable expectation of mak ing a fortune. The Indians have been mining in Bolivia for centuries. In the days of the Incas they worked the gold-bearing AMONG THE GOLD AND SILVER MINES OF THE ANDES 183 grounds over and over. They were forced to do the same under their Spanish taskmasters, so that to-day the only gold possibili ties are those which require the expenditure of large capital and considerable modern machinery. Prospecting in the Andes is exceedingly difficult. The miner must take his provisions with him, for there is no game to speak of, and it is almost impossible to live off the country. He must carry his own tents, for there are no houses whatever in the out-of-the-way districts. There is no fuel, and the winds of these high altitudes are damp, cold, and bone -piercing. In the rainy season the grass on the plateau forms a soft mat which so holds the water that going over it is like walking on wet sponges, and no boots can keep one's feet dry. The best of leather is little protection, and rubber cracks and peels when exposed to it. In the dry season the winds and sun of the high lands tan you, and at times the cold is so intense that the na tives wear masks of knitted wool to protect their faces. The masks have holes for the nose, eyes, and mouth, and they make their wearers look like Mephistopheles. I used a mask during my travels in the Andes, and found it such a protection that I would not now travel in a cold country without it. CHAPTER XX A CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE GODS The Nitrate Deserts of Chsle, 3n which the English have Invested One Hundred M3LL30N Dollars — How Nitrate of Soda is Mined — A Visit to the Fields — The Extent of the Deposits and the Pe culiarities of the Nitrate Towns — A Look at Ascotan, the Borax Lake of the Andes — Six-Hundred Miles by Rail over Salty Plains. Reaving the silver-mining town of Oruro, I came down the mountains on the little narrow gauge which connects it with its seaport, Antofagasta, in Chile. The distance is 600 miles, or about as far as from New York to Cleveland. The track is only two feet six inches wide. It is, I believe, the longest one of this gauge in the world. The cars are of the American style and were built in Massachusetts. They are so small that you feel you are riding in toy cars, rather than on the through trunk line and only rail connection between two great countries. Nevertheless the road is smooth and well laid. It has ties of Oregon pine and its stations are built of corrugated iron from Europe. The fares are exceedingly high. I paid $51 in silver for my ticket, and, in addition, $36 for extra baggage, as nothing whatever is allowed free. My meals at the dining stations cost me $1.50 each in silver, and when I stopped over night, as I did twice during the journey,' the hotel charges were at the rate of $4 per day. The chief purpose of the road is to carry the silver and other metals to the seacoast. Our train had several cars loaded with lumps of silver ore, and we passed train loads of tin on our way to the Pacific. The ride was through a desert. Shortly after leaving Oruro we entered the salt plains of Bolivia. These are of vast ex tent, lining the road for hundreds of miles. In fact, there are but few places between Oruro and the sea where the soil is not more or less mixed with salt, and in some districts salt covers (184) A CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE GODS 185 the land like a sheet of dirty white snow. Along some parts of the line the salt looks hard and icy, and one feels like jumping off the cars for a skate. At other places it lies in gullies, and at still others it only sprinkles the ground and a ragged growth of scrubby vegetation struggles up through it. The road runs for nearly the whole of its length through a desert valley, the salt-covered land reaching away on either side to the hills. Here and there along the railroad are lakes on which seem to be floating cakes of ice. The cakes are not ice, however. They are borax. One of the lakes is the great borax lake of Ascotan, Bolivia, which has enough borax to supply all the laundries in the world. This lake, it is estimated, has more than 100,000 tons of pure borax ready to be shipped to the outside markets. I saw the lake on my left on the way to the coast. It is about six miles square. The borax (borax of lime) lies in great masses which, when taken out, look like the finest of pure white spun silk, wadded up or woven into lumps. It is not of so good a quality, I am told, as the borax of similar lakes in California. Still it is of considerable value, for the lake was recently sold to a German syndicate for ^90,000 sterling. Lake Ascotan, however, is as a drop in the ocean compared with the enormous value of the nitrate fields which I crossed as I neared the Pacific, — fields so valuable that they could almost pave the desert of Chile with gold. They have produced millions upon millions of tons of nitrate of soda; and it is estimated that more than 1,200,000 tons of nitrate will be shipped from them this year. The value of the nitrate deposits is such that when they were in the hands of the Peruvians they made that nation rich, and now that they belong to Chile, as a result of her war with Peru, she gets more than half her revenue from the export duties which she collects from them. The working of the fields is in the hands of foreigners and more than $100,000,000 of English capital is invested in the oficinas or factories through which the nitrate is taken from the earth and prepared for the foreign markets. For years Chile has been exporting from $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 worth of nitrate. She annually ships close upon 1,000,000 tons to Europe, and not a small amount to the United States. We buy about $3,000,000 worth annually, using it for fertilizers and for making powder and high explosives. It is as 1 86 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL a fertilizer that the chief demand for nitrate arises, the bulk of the product going to Germany, where it is used in growing the sugar beet. There are nitrate fields near Antofagasta, but the best nitrate is found farther north, near Iquique, which I visited. This is the chief nitrate port of the world. During my stay I went out to the fields and visited the factories, spending some time at the oficina of the Agua Santa Company, which has a capital of $3,000,000 and which produces nitrate by the millions of pounds every month. But before describing how nitrate is taken out of the earth, let us see where the fields are. In the first place the word " fields " is misleading. It suggests the idea of fences and visible boundaries. The nitrate fields are lost in the desert; their only boundaries are white posts at the corners of the property. With this excep tion there are no marks whatsoever and no material at hand to make them. There are no stones lying about, and not enough waste wood to fence a city lot. There is not a blade of grass, and only now and then a scrubby tree. Outside the region all is bare gray sand, with here and there a glint of white, where the salt rock has caught the rays of the sun. There are, indeed, few more barren places in the world than the coast of this des ert. The upper part of Chile is as bleak as the most arid regions of the Rocky Mountains. It is a mass of sand and rock extend ing from the shore almost to the top of the Andes. Bordering the coast there is a low range of foot-hills rising in places a mile or more above the sea. Beyond this a rolling valley runs from north to south, and on the other side of the valley are the foot-hills of the Andes. It is along the western edge of the valley that the nitrate is found. In some places it is not more than 15 miles and in others as far as 90 miles from the sea, but the deposits all lie along the western edge of the valley, forming a strip of an average width of about a mile, which runs irregularly from north to south for a distance of more than 300 miles. In some places the de posit is 4 miles wide, and in others it plays out altogether and crops out some distance farther on. In a few fields the nitrate rock lies on the top of the soil. In others it is found 30 or 40 feet below the surface, with a strata of salt rock on top. The nitrate itself is seldom found pure in nature, though much of the A CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE GODS I87 rock contains from 40 to 60 per cent of nitrate. The Antofagasta rock does not average more than 14 per cent and other fields vary with the nature of the deposit. It is getting the nitrate rock out of the earth and extracting the pure nitrate salts from it that constitutes the immense industry of the nitrate fields. As to where the nitrate originates there are a number of the ories. One is that the desert was once the bed of an inland sea and that the nitrate came from the decaying of the nitrogenous seaweed. Another theory is that the ammonia rising from the beds of guano on the islands off the coast was carried by the winds over the range of coastal hills and there condensed, settled and united with other chemicals in the soil to form the deposit. Still a third theory is that the electrical discharges of the Andes combined with the elements of the air to make nitrate acid. This acid, it is supposed, was carried down through the ages in the floods of the Andes and deposited on these beds in the form of nitrate of soda. None of these theories is entirely satisfac tory, and as yet no one has absolutely solved the problem whence the nitrate comes. We shall see better how nitrate is mined by a visit to the great pampa of Tamrugal. This pampa has 60 miles of oficinas and nitrate fields. A railroad has been built through it to carry the nitrate to the seacoast at Iquique, and on it have grown up vast factories, thousands of corrugated iron huts, in which the workmen employed in the business live, and other buildings, the homes of the well-educated Europeans who manage the proper ties. Leaving Iquique the railroad carries you up the hill and brings you right into the nitrate fields. It continues over a plain about 30 miles wide, with low hills rising up to the right and left. On the side of this plain nearest the sea the earth looks as if it had been ploughed by giants; it is covered with mammoth clods of all shapes and sizes. These are the nitrate fields which have been or are being worked. The rest of the land is bleak, bare sand. There is no vegetation and no sign of life of any kind. All is sand salt rock and amid the clods pieces of nitrate rock or, as it is here called, caliche. It is a soluble rock of different colours. In some places it is almost white and looks like rock salt. In others it is yellow, and in others still all shades of gray, lemon, violet, and green appear. 1 88 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL The strata of nitrate usually lies two feet or more under the earth, and there is often a salt rock or conglomerate strata above it. The method of getting it out is to bore a round hole, about a foot in diameter, through the upper crust and for a few inches into the soft earth below the nitrate rock. Into this hole a boy is let down. He scoops out a pocket for the blasting powder and arranges the fuse. He is then pulled out and the fuse is lit. With the explosion which follows, a yellow cloud of smoke and dust goes up into the air and the earth is broken for a radius of about thirty feet about the hole. The nitrate rock is now dug out with picks and crow-bars. It is broken into pieces of thirty pounds or less and loaded upon iron carts to be taken to the factories. Each cart will hold three tons of rock, the carts being hauled by three mules, the driver riding on one of the animals. The factory to which the nitrate rock is taken usually stands in the midst of the field. It is a collection of buildings, with tall smoke-stacks rising above them, containing thousands of dollars' worth of costly machinery, vast tanks for boiling the nitrate rock, crushers like those of a smelter to break it to pieces, and settling vats in which the liquid containing the pure nitrate of soda is left until it has dropped its burden of valuable salt. The caliche of the Agua Santa fields, as we saw it blasted out of the earth, contains only about 40 per cent of nitrate of soda. The nitrate of soda sent to the markets is 95 or 96 per cent pure, and the rock must be so treated that the impurities will be removed from it. This is done by boiling it, just so much and no more. The crushers first reduce it to pieces about two inches thick. It is then taken to the boiling tanks situated in a building erected upon a framework, so that the tanks are about 50 feet above the ground. Each tank is large enough to form a bath-tub for an elephant. They are 24 feet long, 9 feet wide, and 8 feet deep. In each there are coils of steam pipe by which the temperature of the fluid in the tank can be raised to any desired point. The caliche is carried in cars up an inclined railway and dumped into the tanks. Then water is admitted and allowed to flow from tank to tank in such a way as to act to the best advantage on the salts within. Nitrate of soda will remain in solution at a lower temperature than other salts. This A CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE GODS 189 fact and others of a scientific nature are taken advantage of, everything being done with the greatest care, and the result is that when the fluid is drawn off nearly all the pure nitrate of soda in the rock goes with it. From the boiling tanks the nitrate of soda flows into other tanks which lie at a lower level in the open air. It now looks like pale maple molasses or thick lemon syrup. In a short time it begins to crystallize and the tank is soon half-filled with almost pure nitrate of soda. This is shovelled out into piles to dry. It is then bagged up in sacks of 300 pounds each and hauled on the railroad to the seacoast to be shipped off to the United States or to Europe. After the salt has settled in the tanks the liquor still contains a large amount of nitrate. In this case it is conveyed back to the boiling tank, where it is loaded with more nitrate by being flowed over the fresh rock. But I shall not describe the techni cal details of the process, which is complicated in the extreme. They were explained to me by Mr. James T. Humberstone, the manager of the Agua Santa oficinas, who, of all the nitrate man agers, is perhaps the best posted upon such matters. I will only say that the greatest care is taken to get every atom of nitrate out of the rock at the lowest possible cost, and that I was again and again surprised at the careful saving of every cent in pro duct and labour throughout the works. It was indeed a lesson in economy, and when I referred to it Mr. Humberstone said: "The nitrate profits of to-day are a question of small things. Our product is so great that the difference of a cent in the cost of 100 pounds is an important item. It would, indeed, mean to us a saving of at least $1,200 a month." Mr. Humberstone also showed me how the iodine of com merce is made from the nitrate liquor. It is a constituent part of the caliche, separate from the nitrate of soda, and it forms a valuable product of the nitrate fields. It is precipitated from the nitrate liquor by means of bisulphide of soda and is drawn off in the shape of a dirty black powder. The powder is washed and filtered and then put into iron retorts and heated. It soon turns to a vapour, which being conducted into pipes of fire-clay changes as it condenses into crystals of a beautiful violet colour. These crystals are packed and shipped to Europe, all going to a London firm which has the monopoly of the iodine trade of the world 190 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL Connected with this company are the nitrate owners of Chile who have combined into a trust which dictates just how much each factory may make every year. The price of nitrate lands has steadily risen for years and to day the only properties to be had outside those owned by the 79 factories now working are from the Chilean government, which sells at auction only when it is anxious to raise money. At the last auction 2,000 acres were appraised at $3,500,000; they sold for more than their appraisement. The demand for nitrate of soda is limited, and while it is believed that the amount in sight will last the world at the present rate for 50 years and more, the Chilean government is anxious not to ruin the business by throwing more land just now upon the market. Even after the land has been bought it costs a great deal to establish a nitrate factory. The Agua Santa establishment, for in stance, has a capital of $3,000,000 in gold. Its factory alone cost nearly $700,000. It has buildings which cost $200,000, and its water supply cost $50,000. It is now employing 800 hands, to whom it pays an average of $2,000 a day in wages, and the colonies sup ported by its. works numbers 3,000 souls. It owns the seaport of Caleta Buena and has a railroad from its nitrate fields to the sea. It has, all told, an enormous expenditure, but notwithstanding this it pays regular dividends of 10 per cent. Such is one of the establishments which this salty rock has built up in the desert. It amazes one to see the other factories which lie in the fields here and there, some of which are almost as large. All along the nitrate railroad in this barren valley are towns of corrugated iron, with hotels and stores, and upon the seacoast, which is if anything more barren and desert-like than the nitrate fields, there are a number of thriving cities, whose very existence is founded upon nitrate of soda. I wish I could take the reader for a walk through one of them — through this town of Iquique, for instance. It lies on the edge of the sea under the bare ragged hills which fringe the coast. There is not a blade of grass about it and not a drop of water, save that which comes to it in ships or flows through the iron pipe lines, 75 miles long, which have been laid down to bring the springs of Pica to it. Still Iquique is next to Valparaiso the most thriving seaport of Chile. It has 30,000 inhabitants and does an enormous trade. It has wide streets, telephones, and A CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE GODS 191 electric lights, and a street-car line, with Chilean girls as conduct ors. It has a newspaper, a theatre, and as good an English club as one will find along the west coast of South America. It has fine stores and markets, and although it produces nothing but nitrate of soda and must get everything from the outer world, one can live as well in it and have as great a variety of interest as in any place in South America. Antofagasta, although not so large as Iquique, is equally well-favoured, as are also several other ports on the desert. CHAPTER XXI AMONG THE CHILENOS The Yankees of South America and their Country — Odd Features of the Slimmest Land 3n the World — Its Wonderful Riches — Its vast Deposits of Guano, Gold, Silver, and Copper — Valparaiso, the New York of the Southern Pacific 'he voyage down the coast of Chile gives one an idea of its enormous length. It is five days by steamer from the ni trate fields to Valparaiso, and the German ship on which I shall sail for Tierra del Fuego will require nine days to reach Punta Arenas, on the Strait of Magellan. Chile is like a long- drawn-out sausage or an attenuated worm. The only land that compares with it is Egypt, which drags its weary length for more than 1,000 miles between deserts along the valley of the Nile. Chile begins in a desert, and continues a desert for more than 1,000 miles. Later on, it bursts out into a green valley between high mountains, ending in the grassy islands of the southernmost part of this hemisphere. Chile is nowhere over 200 miles wide, and in some places not more than 50; but it is so long that if it were laid out upon the United States, beginning at New York, it would make a winding track across it to far beyond Salt Lake. If it could be stretched upon our country from south to north, with Tierra del Fuego at the lowermost edge of Florida, its upper provinces would be found in Hudson Bay, almost even with the top of Labrador. Its length is 2,600 miles. Chile embraces all of the land between the tops of the Andes and the Pacific ocean south of the River Sama, which divides it from Peru, and it possesses in addition most of the islands about the Strait of Magellan. The question as to just where the boundary of Chile and the Argentine Republic lies has been one of dispute between the two countries, and although now appar ently settled it is one which may bring about a war sooner or later. (1923 (193) CHILEAN TYPES AMONG THE CHILENOS 195 Chile is a land of many climates. It is now winter on the south side of the Equator, but 1 found it quite warm in the north. At Valparaiso one needs an overcoat when the sun is not shining, but at the Strait of Magellan the ground is cov ered with snow, and during the winter months darkness comes on at four o'clock in the afternoon. In my travels in west ern Peru and Bolivia weeks passed without a drop of rain. It never rains in northern Chile; the cities there are as dry as the Sahara, the great question in most of them being where to get water to drink. At Mollendo, Peru, a little above the Chilean boundary the water supply comes from the Andes through an iron pipe more than 100 miles long. At Iquique, water is piped a distance of 80 miles, and Antofagasta gets its drinking water away up in the Andes, 180 miles back from the coast. The Antofagasta aqueduct is, I believe, the longest in the world. I travelled for days along its course in coming down to the sea, and on the borders of Bolivia I visited the great reservoir within a stone's throw of a dead volcano down which its mountain water flows. At many of the nitrate settlements water is bought and sold. The steam at the factories is condensed and there are engines which are used to make potable water from that of the sea. As you sail from the desert region southward you now and then pass valleys in which a little river from the Andes has made everything green, but it is not until you reach Valparaiso that the rainfall is heavy enough to cover the whole country with verdure. Still farther south the rains increase until at a distance of 300 or 400 miles you come into a territory where the people facetiously say that it rains thirteen months every year. At Port Montt, in South Chile, the rainfall is 118 inches every twelve months, while at Valparaiso it is only 15 inches. Here, and in the northern part of the central valley, the climate is much like that of southern California. The skies are bright for at least eight months, and during the remainder of the year there are only occasional showers. Considering Chile as a long sausage, we find it full of excel lent meat. There are few countries of its size which have such natural resources. I have written of the nitrate fields, which have already netted hundreds of millions of dollars and which cannot possibly be exhausted for half a century to come. A member of the Chilean Congress tells me that there are deposits 196 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL of guano near the nitrate fields which surpass in richness the guano islands of Peru, being worth many hundred million dol lars. He says this guano lies on the mainland and only a few feet below the surface. All of North Chile, is full of minerals. In coming to Val paraiso I stopped at several ports which have copper and silver smelting works. At Antofagasta there is a smelter, said to be the largest in the world. It belongs to the Huanchaco Mining Company. When I visited it I was shown several acres covered with bricks of silver ore which had been ground to dust and so moulded that they might be the more easily smelted. At Iquique I met a New Yorker who owned valuable silver mines not far from that city. His mines are so profitable that they have rapidly made him rich; they have netted him so much that he has, it is said, laid aside ^£3, 000,000 sterling, as a reserve fund in the Bank of England. This seemed to me a rather extrava gant story, but there is no doubt that the man is very rich. One of the chief copper ports of Chile is Coquimbo, a town of 7,000 inhabitants, situated on a beautiful bay about 190 miles north of Valparaiso. Not far from it is. one of the richest copper deposits of South America. The ore is almost pure copper, and the mine owners aver that the deposit is inexhaustible. Chile has already produced nearly four billion pounds of copper. In 1896, it shipped about 50,000,000 pounds, most of which went to Europe. This, however, is not great in comparison with the United States, whose copper product during the same year was more than nine times as large. From Coquimbo they are now exporting about 1,000 tons of copper per month, and several smelters are there kept busy turning the ore into bars. Chile has also large deposits of iron manganese, quicksilver, and lead. There are gold mines in the southern sections, and much gold-washing is now being done along the shores of Tierra del Fuego. There is also gold in the north, where a large part of the mountains have not been well prospected and where the mines have so far been worked after the most wasteful methods, so that the waste ore on the dumps could be smelted at a profit. The Chileans, or the Chilenos, as they call themselves, are the Yankees of South America. They are by far the most progress ive people on the western coast of the continent. One notices this at once on entering the country. Even the nitrate ports have a J* mm \i imm^rvh f \ i. f »»* -? »•«¦ a ta -j O OCO << a.-j < > AMONG THE CHILENOS 1 99 stirring business air about them. I found cabs at the stations ready to take me to the hotels, and I could post my letters with out fearing that the mail clerks might destroy them in order to steal the stamps, as some of the clerks in the smaller post-offices of Peru and Bolivia have been charged with doing. The Chilenos number nearly three millions. They are like the nations north of them, the descendants of Spaniards and Indians and of the union of Spaniards and Indians, but the Spaniards who came to Chile were from the Basque provinces, which have the best of the Spanish population, and the Indians of Chile at the time of the Conquest were probably the hardiest Indians on the hemi sphere. It was long before they could be subdued, and their strength is still seen in the mixed race formed by their union with the Spaniards. These Indians were the Araucanians, a few of whom still live in a semi-civilized state in southern Chile, and of whom I shall have more to say farther on. To-day only about one-third of the population is pure white, the remaining two-thirds being from the cross of the Spaniards with the Indians. Notwithstand ing their fewness, the whites own most of the property. They rule the country and are practically the masters of the half- breeds, who form the labouring class of the Chilenos. Valparaiso is the chief seaport of Chile, the New York of the Pacific coast of South America, being the best business point on the west coast. It is the port nearest the capital and the great central valley of Chile, and thus forms the chief entrepot of the country, having an import and export trade of more than $100,- 000,000. Valparaiso has in the neighbourhood of 150,000 peo ple, but its business is twice as large as any town of its size in the United States. It is beautifully situated, being built about a bay, the shape of a half-moon, and large enough to float the ships of the world, but not altogether safe at periods when the great storms prevail. About the bay is an amphitheatre of hills, rising almost perpendicular and forming the site of the city. The busi ness section is at the base of the hills. It is upon ground re claimed from the sea by walls of stone and iron railing which give the place excellent wharves. The harbour was filled with ships when we came to anchor, and our first glimpse of the city was through a forest of smoke stacks and masts belonging to the large and small craft in the bay. Through this forest we could see green hills covered with 200 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL houses, hills so steep that I wondered how the houses could stand upon them. The streets rise one above another in the form of terraces, and the buildings above hang out and are apparently about to fall upon those below. There is, here and there, a break or gully in the hilly walls of the amphitheatre, and at several points cable cars were seen crawling up or down the steep incline. On landing I was surprised to find that nearly every man I addressed answered me in English. Valparaiso is more like a European port than any I have yet visited on the South Ameri can continent. Some of its business blocks remind one of Paris, its store signs bear European names, and the goods seen through plate-glass windows are as well displayed as are those of New York or Chicago. I saw many English and German women, fash ionably dressed, shopping in the stores. The streets of Valparaiso are paved with Belgian blocks. The city is lighted with electricity. It has cable connections with Europe and the United States; it has telegraph lines reaching to all parts of Chile, and long-distance telephone lines to the larger cities. The scenes on the streets are interesting. There are drays, cabs, and carriages rushing along, and among them peddlers with their stocks in panniers slung across mules. There are street cars with pretty girls as conductors, Chile being one of the few coun tries in the world where women collect the street-car fares. The custom originated at the time of the war with Peru, when all the men were needed for fighting. At that time the street-car con ductors resigned and enlisted, and women were engaged to take their places. They did so well that the street-car companies re tained them after the war was over, and they form to-day one of the pleasantest features of rapid transit in every Chilean city. The conductresses wear sailor hats, dark dresses, and white aprons, in the pockets of which they carry their money and tick ets. Some of them are remarkably pretty, but it is said that the pretty ones seldom stay long. They get lovers or husbands, and give up the service. The conductresses are usually honest, but the companies have spotters, men spies who go through the cars to see that the girls make proper registration of all the fares they receive. The spies are hated by the girls, who have nick named them Judases. 1.202) ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ CHAPTER XXII ON ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND The Scene of Alexander Selkirk's Adventures — The Island of Juan Fer nandez, and how the Chilean Government proposes to Colonize it — The Guano Islands, out of which Peru has dug Millions — What Guano 3s — The Galapagos Islands, and the Robsnson Crusoe of Ecuador. Iobinson Crusoe's " Desert Island B is to be a desert island no longer. The President of Chile and a party of officials have recently explored it and the Chilean government expects to colonize it. During my stay in Valparaiso I learned much of the condition of the island from members of the Presi dent's party, and it is from photographs made by them that the illustrations of this chapter are taken. The island is, as is known, that of Juan Fernandez, lying about 600 miles west of Valparaiso. It is now about 200 years since Alexander Selkirk, the sailing-master of an English vessel of ninety tons, was placed upon it. Selkirk had fallen out with the captain and headed a mutiny, the result of which was that he had the choice of being hanged at the yardarm or left on the is land of Juan Fernandez. He accepted the latter alternative and with a small supply of provisions was landed in what is now called Cumberland Bay. This was in September, 1703. He lived there four years and four months, when an English privateer, at tracted by his watch-fires, called at the island and conveyed him to England. During his stay, Selkirk had many of the adventures described in Defoe's tale of <( Robinson Crusoe, M although Defoe, having a better knowledge of the islands north of Brazil, in the Carib bean sea, has made much of his story correspond to them in its descriptions of scenery, products, and climate. The outline of (203) 204 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL Defoe's story was, however, suggested by Selkirk's adventures, and one can almost trace poor Crusoe's wanderings in his life on Juan Fernandez. In the first place, the terrors which assailed Selkirk, when he found himself alone on the island, were the same as those of Crusoe. He wished for a time that he had chosen to be hanged rather than have come ashore. Later on he found an Indian who had been lost in the woods, having landed with a party which Selkirk did not see. This Indian he adopted, and his story concerning him was the foundation of Robinson Crusoe's man Friday. You remember the nursery rhyme which depicts how Robinson Crusoe was dressed: <( Poor old Robinson Crusoe ! Poor old Robinson Crusoe ! He made him a coat of an old nanny goat! I wonder how he could do so.B When Selkirk was found, according to the narrative of Captain Rodgers, who took him to England, (< he was clad in goat-skins and was running about as though he were demented." He had built a fire on a rock, now known as K Robinson Crusoe's Look out,8 and had in this way attracted the ship's attention. This lookout is on an immense hill, which rises almost perpendicularly from the shore and the top of which can be seen miles off at sea. When Selkirk arrived in London he became the talk of the town. He was discussed at the clubs and coffee-houses, and Sir Richard Steele wrote a paper describing his adventures. In this he told how Selkirk, on first landing in England, seemed to have become eccentric and odd through his solitude, but how, later on, this eccentricity wore off. Selkirk himself published a small pamphlet of twelve pages describing his wanderings. The bulk of " Robinson Crusoe, n however, came from the brain of Daniel Defoe. It was his genius that made it the greatest story of adventure the world has ever known. It was written in London and was first published 180 years ago. A copy of the first unabridged and original edition is to be seen in a glass- case in the library of the British Museum. Later editions have been considerably altered, and it is said there are few books COAST SCENE, JUAN FERNANDEZ (*>5) ON ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND 207 which have been so mutilated by the printers. It is now to be read in almost every known language, having been trans lated into Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Greek, and Arabic. When I was in China, a few years ago, I was told that in a Chinese edition it was exciting the minds of the youthful Celestials. The Island of Juan Fernandez is a great mass of rock, twelve miles long by seven miles wide, which rises in places almost abruptly from the sea. It is made up of mountains, valleys, and ravines. Its northern half is covered with dense vegetation, but on the south it is as bare and bleak as the Peruvian desert. The best landing-place is at Cumberland Bay, where there is a fishing settlement which includes most of the people on the island, num bering all told not more than fifteen. Back of the settlement are some straw huts which were once occupied by agriculturists and stock-raisers. The huts are made of cane and wattled straw. The farming and stock-raising did not pay, and to-day the only animals on the island are wild goats and mules. The new colony is to be established on the northern part of Juan Fernandez, where the soil is rich. The hills are covered with wild oats, and every open spot has a covering of good grass. There are fruit trees, the product of some planted by Selkirk 200 years ago; there are also wild fruits, and grapes as delicious as those which Robinson Crusoe dried for raisins. Pears, peaches, and quinces are to be found, growing wild, and vegetables es caped from cultivation. There are many caves on Juan Fernandez, in some of which, it is said, Alexander Selkirk lived. One is in a ridge of volcanic rock. It is as large as the average parlour, with a roof fifteen feet above the floor. The entrance to it is sixteen feet in height, the cave extending inward about thirty feet. In the walls are little holes or pockets such as Robinson Crusoe describes in his cave home, and here and there are rusty nails, hammered into the rock, it is stated, by buccaneers who used the cave when the island was one of their favourite resorts. Other caves are covered with ferns, which grow so luxuriantly that it is easy to imagine that Selkirk planted the hedges there to hide his home from view. There is a monument to Selkirk on Juan Fernandez. It is a marble tablet set in the rocks at Robinson Crusoe's Lookout by 208 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL some English naval officers in 1868. It bears the following in scription : In Memory of Alexander Selkirk, Mariner, A native of Largo, in the County of Fife, Scotland, who lived on this island, in complete solitude, four years and four months. He was landed from the K Cinque Ports8 galley, g6 tons, 18 guns. A. D. 1704, and was taken off in the (( Duke, n privateer, 12th February, 1709. He died Lieutenant of H. M. S. <( Weymouth, » A. D. 1723, aged 47 years. This tablet is erected near Selkirk's Lookout by Commodore Powell and the officers of H. M. S. « Topaz," A. D. 1868. The uninhabited Galapagos Islands, which I passed in coming down the coast of Ecuador, have more recently had an Alexan der Selkirk. This man, who was deserted by his companions, was found years afterwards quite naked and carrying a pig on his back. He had lived upon fruits and roots, and had caught wild cattle in traps and killed them with a spear, formed of a pocket knife tied to a stick. His hut was made of hides. The cattle came from some which had been left there years ago when the Galapagos Islands were used as a penal colony by Ecuador. The most interesting of the islands of the southeastern Paci fic are the guano islands. In proportion to their size, they are, perhaps, the richest islands on earth, for they have already added more than one billion dollars to the world's wealth. Think of realizing a billion dollars out of a dung-hill ! That is what Peru has done in the case of her guano islands. Her creditors are getting something out of them to-day, although not so much as Peru got in the past. The guano islands are scattered all along the South Pacific coast. I first met them north of Lima, near Salavary. When at Pacasmayo I saw a guano ship from the Lobos islands, and off the Bay of Pisco, Peru, I saw the famous Chincha Islands, which have produced more than 12,000,000 tons of this bird manure, and brought into the Peruvian treasury millions upon millions of dollars. The shipping of guano is going on from the islands' to day, although the deposits are so nearly exhausted that the pres ent annual exports probably do not exceed 30,000 tons. ALEXANDER SELKIRK'S MONUMENT (209) ON ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND 211 The guano islands are masses of volcanic rock which rise up out of the ocean in a region where it never rains. The result is they have not a blade of grass or any green thing upon them. They are merely islands of dry rock, which for some reason the pelicans, sea gulls, and other birds which feed by the millions along the shores of the South Pacific ocean have chosen as their nightly roosting-places. Night after night for ages the birds have come to rest upon them, disregarding other islands near by, which to all appearances are quite as desirable. The rocks of the islands are covered with a gray deposit. This is the guano, which is chiefly the manure of birds, although it has mixed with it other things, such as seals, which when alive climbed upon the rocks to die. Thousands of seal-skins have been found in the guano, 500 tons of such skins were, I was told, recently ex cavated from one spot. The guano-making birds are of many kinds, the most import ant being the pelican. The latter fly about the islands in such flocks that they sometimes darken the face of the ocean. They feed upon fish, and a flock of pelicans is a sign that there is a school of fish near by. They scoop up the fish with their bills into the pouches under their necks. They are the gluttons of the sea, and at times so gorge themselves that they cannot rise from the water, but must rest there until enough of their food has been digested to lighten their weight. I saw millions of pelicans on tbe Lobos islands. They are sociable birds and hunt in flocks, showing no sign of fear of human beings, and one can go up on the islands and approach them without disturbing them. The guano of the Lobos islands is found in pockets covered with layers of sand, which vary in thickness from two to fifteen feet. The sand is shovelled off and the guano taken out. As it is dug into, so strong a smell of ammonia arises that the men wear iron masks over their faces to keep the ammonia dust out of their mouths, noses, and lungs. The guano looks like fine sand, which is first loaded on trucks and carried on a tramway to the shore, where it is transferred to the ships, to be taken to Europe or America. After a few days at sea the odour disappears. The ammonia of the upper crust passes off, and the filthiness of the cargo is not detected until one goes into the hold. Guano is not worth so much now as it was years ago. Other fertilizers have taken its place, and its price is less than half what it once was. 2 12 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL There have been times when it brought $100 a ton. To-day it can be bought, I am told, for $30 to $40 a ton. The first guano shipment to Europe was made more than fifty years ago. At that time twenty barrels of it were taken to Liverpool and used on a farm near the city. The result was that orders were sent back for more, and soon hundreds of ships were engaged in carrying guano to Europe. Often 200 vessels could be counted at the different islands at one time. Chinese coolies were imported to get the guano out. Usually they were horribly treated, and to-day it is not uncommon to find dead Chinamen mixed with the new deposits. For a long time the guano islands provided the Peruvian government with a revenue of $15,000,000 a year. Now they are practically exhausted, and Peru, having lost its income from the nitrate fields as well, has fallen from wealth to poverty. THE ALAMEDO (PUBLIC WALK) SANTIAGO ¦ S. A.— 14 ARCADE IN SANTIAGO, CHILE (213) CHAPTER XXIII THE CITY OF SANTIAGO S3'ecial Features of L3fe and Bussness 3n the Chilean Capital — A Bird's- Eye view from Santa Lucsa — Palaces that cover Acres and cost Fortunes — A Street-Car Rsde for a Cent — HiG3-i Life among t3le Chilenos — Parss Dresses and Diamonds — How the Nabobs enjoy themselves — Scenes at T3le Oi'era and tsle Races. 5he capital of Chile in many respects compares favorably with the United States national capital. Santiago is of about the same size as the city of Washington, and is situated a like distance from the ocean; it is six hours distant by rail from Valparaiso. The way is over the Coast Range of the Andes, and the express trains have cars like those on the roads between New York and Washington. Our national capital is washed by the Potomac; Santiago has its river Mapocho, which cuts the city in two. We have our Capitol Hill, and Santiago has its Santa Lucia. Santa Lucia lies in the midst of the city; it is a mass of volcanic rock, three- fifths as high as the Washington Monument. It has a base of an acre and rises precipitously above all the buildings, so that at its top one is far above the spires of the cathedrals and churches. In the rocks green mosses, flowers, bushes, and curious plants are growing. Out of them rise eucalyptus trees; from their sides gigantic ferns reach out so that the hill seems a very gar den in the air, almost as wonderful, if not so extensive, as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The best view of Santiago is from Santa Lucia. Let us look at it together. The way to the summit winds about through one wonderful rock formation after another. We go past beauti ful grottoes and cozy nooks and finally stand upon the peak with all Santiago below us. On this spot we are above a vast expanse of square ridges of terra cotta tiles, out of which, here and there, (215) 216 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL rise trees and a wealth of green. The ridges are the roofs of the Santiago houses, which are built about patios and courts, the only gardens of the people. From the hill we see that most of the buildings are of one or two stories. They are close to the streets, which cross one an other almost at right angles, the city being divided in two by the wide Alameda. The Alameda is the Pennsylvania Avenue, the Champs Elysee, the Unter den Linden of Santiago. It is twice as wide as Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, and it runs the full length of the city. It has a roadway on either side and in the middle, bordered by gurgling streams of the clearest moun tain water, are rows of great poplar trees which furnish an arbour of dense shade extending from one end of Santiago to the other. In this arbour are the statues of many of Chile's heroes, and at every few feet throughout its full length are stone seats upon which people rest after their promenade. Other green spots in the plain of terra-cotta roofs are the parks of Cousino and the Quinta Normal, or Agricultural College, the Hipico race course, and the new avenue which has recently been laid out along the river Mapocho. The Mapocho is one of Santiago's characteristic features. It is 130 feet wide and runs through the city for about two miles. This part of its bed has been paved with stone and the banks are massive stone walls, along which shade trees have been planted. But let us go down from Santa Lucia and ride through San tiago on the top of a street-car. There is no better way of see ing the city than this, and none quite so cheap. The car-fares here are the cheapest in the world, the roof seats costing only about one cent of our money. It is worth more than that to look at the pretty girl conductor, who smiles as she puts our fare into her white apron pocket. As we board the car we notice that the streets are well paved with Belgian blocks. They are rather narrow, however, and the big ox carts, which are the drays and freight waggons in Chile, are crowded almost to the walls of the houses as we go whizzing by. How large the houses are and how low. Many of them cover acres; though few are of more than two stories, and many are only of one. In the best parts of the city the houses have Greek fronts. They are all of brick, plastered smooth with yellow or white stucco. Their doors are upheld by columns of stucco, and THE CITY OF SANTIAGO 217 I am certain that there are more Corinthian columns in Santiago to-day than in Athens. Some of the residences are like Italian palaces, and homes, which have cost $100,000 and upwards, are many. I doubt if there is a capital of its size in the world that spends so much money; one has only to look at the well-dressed people on the streets, and at the fine turnouts which pass our tram as we ride through the Alameda, to see that Santiago is a very rich city. The business streets have as fine stores as have any of the European capitals. The costliest of diamonds sparkle in the jewellers' windows and the finest of all kinds of goods are in demand. The shop windows are tastefully dressed, especially in the many great arcades, roofed with glass, which are cut through a number of the larger business blocks from one side to the other. The Plaza des Armes, where the car stops, is the ganglionic centre of the Chilean capital. About it are the chief business streets; on one corner is the cathedral, on another the post- office, and all around are portales or corridors filled with booths and walled at the back with fine shops. The plaza itself is a beautiful little park containing several fountains, palm trees, and many tropical plants and flowers. It is surrounded by a hex agonal walk or promenade sixty feet wide made of tiles which are as beautifully laid as is the tiled floor of a Washington ves tibule. Let us enter the portales and watch the people buying and selling. We are in one of the oldest sections of Santiago, a sec tion which was in existence more than two centuries before the city of Washington had its birth. The portales have stores like those of the old cities of Spain; they are different from the modern shops on the other side of the Plaza; they are merely caves in the walls, the floors being covered with piles of goods so arranged that it is easy for the purchasers to handle them. Some of the merchants stack up their best cloths in the doorways and upon the pavement outside. Scores of women are moving through the portales. Many are shopping, and we notice that the desire for a good bargain is quite as keen as at home. Most of the women wear black gowns and black mantas. The younger girls drape their mantas coquettishly around their heads so that they form a sort of a bonnet, showing only the face. They look quaintly 218 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL pretty and are noted for their beauty. They are tall, slender, and well-formed. They are not as dark as the girls of Peru, and they are more stylish and appear to have more intelligence than the girls farther north. But let us look at the stores. We see that some have their goods marked and that among the lower-priced figures on pieces of cloth are $i, $2, and $3 per yard. Across the way is a store where silk hats are labelled $25 a piece, and next door ladies' shoes are selling for $10 and $15 a pair. These prices however are in Chilean money, which is worth just about one-third as much as ours, so that the real cost of the goods is about the same as in the United States. All imported articles are high: for instance, one of the Santiago ladies told me that she pays $30 a pair for American shoes: she added that her imported bonnets cost her $50 a piece. At my hotel I have a fairly good room for $8 per day, the charge including two meals. It is the same in the restaurants and, indeed, everywhere. About the only things that are especially cheap are the street-car fares and cab rides. The cab fares are only seven cents of our money a trip, and the hour rate is usually not more than thirty-five cents. I wish I could take the reader into some of the more preten tious houses of Santiago and show him how the rich Chilenos live. Every one here is now talking of hard times, and I am told that many of the supposedly wealthy people are overloaded with mortgages. However that may be, they spend enormous sums of money and live like princes. I have been in Santiago houses which have upwards of fifty rooms, and which are fur nished as expensively as some of the palaces of Europe. Many of them have their billiard rooms and ball rooms. They contain fine paintings, statues, and elegant furnishings. The curtains in one palace on the Alameda cost $200,000; another house is a reproduction of the Alhambra in Spain, and a third, sit uated in a garden of five acres, has a series of beautiful halls, ending in a Moorish bath-room, with a marble pool in the centre of the floor. These great houses are commonly of one or two stories, the rooms running around patios or gardens. They have ceilings frequently fifteen or sixteen feet high, and are furnished more with regard to striking effect than to comfort. Much of the furniture is plated with gold leaf, and the general style of the hangings is French. (2lg) VEGETABLE-SELLER, SANTIAGO, CHILE THE CITY OF SANTIAGO 221 There are no fireplaces in. the Chilean houses. There are no stoves or chimneys with which they could be connected if so de sired. Though Santiago has a temperate climate, it is sometimes as cold as Atlanta, Georgia, in winter, and I am writing in my room at the hotel with my feet in a fur bag and a poncho over my shoulders. Chilean gentlemen keep on their overcoats and the ladies their furs in the parlours, and it is not an uncommon thing for men to wear their overcoats above their dress suits when at dinner. The meals of a Chilean family of the wealthy classes are different from ours. No one comes down stairs for his first breakfast; it is served in the bed room, and usually eaten in bed. It is merely coffee and rolls, without butter or jam. The meal is called (< desayuno. B I pay forty cents a day extra for this meal at my hotel. Breakfast, or <( almuerzo, w is partaken at eleven or twelve o'clock. It consists of a soup, some fish and meat, with perhaps a pancake at the close. As a rule, wine is taken at breakfast, with a small cup of coffee after it. At seven or eight in the evening comes dinner. This is much like the breakfast, only more elaborate. There are always wines on the table, and there are many courses served separately. There are soup, fish, entrees, roasts, game, and salads, ending with a dessert. I have never dined more generously than in Chile, and have never visited a country where the hotels were so uniformly good. But to return to the butterflies of Chile, — for the lives of many of the rich people here are almost as idle as that of the butterfly, — they rise at about eight o'clock or later. From the time they get up until breakfast the hours are spent in walking or driving and to some extent in attending to business. After breakfast they rest and between three and six p. m. they are ready to receive or make calls. At six o'clock every person of note who owns a carriage goes to the Cousino Park. All are dressed in their best, the men wearing silk hats, frock coats, and well-cut suits, and the women having on Paris-made gowns and bonnets. In the park they parade their carriages up and down the principal drives and stare at one another. After about thirty minutes, by a sort of common consent, they all make for the Alameda, where they form a procession of carriages three or four abreast and drive up and down for a distance of about four blocks, still staring at one another. The driving is superintended 2 22 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL by mounted policemen and the scene is imposing, although rather stilted and fantastic to the eyes of a stranger. The vehicles are of all kinds. There are drags, victorias, landaus, and four-in- hands; some are driven by their owners and some by coachmen in gorgeous liveries. The parade continues for perhaps half an hour, during which time no one speaks to another, but merely bows to his friends. After the parade all go home to dinner, some one carriage breaking the line and the others following suit on the trot. After dinner the nabobs of Santiago go to the opera. The municipal theatre here is one of the largest opera houses on the Continent. It is subsidized by government, and has an annual season of Italian opera, the companies being brought from Italy. The season lasts for eighty nights and during its progress nearly every person of note has his box, which costs him a sum equal to about $400 of our money. Each box will hold six people. Usually all the boxes are taken, although two of the galleries of the large hall are divided up into boxes. At the Santiago opera both sexes always appear in full dress, the ladies usually being resplendent with diamonds. The people pay but little attention to the music, devoting most of their time to looking at one another. In order that they may do this the bet ter the lights are never turned down. Ladies fake their hats off when they enter the boxes and the men bare their heads during the acting, but as soon as the curtain goes down every man puts on his hat. Between the acts both ladies and gentlemen go out to promenade in the lobbies, where there are restaurants at which the ladies can have ices and the gentlemen, if they wish, can have other kinds of refreshments. All varieties of liquors are sold, and one can have anything from a bottle of champagne to a special variety of cocktail, which was introduced into Chile by a former United States secretary of legation. It is, indeed, the one thing American that now holds and will always hold its own in Chile. During the intermissions visiting goes on among friends in the boxes, and the opera is thus more a social function than a musical one. The Chilenos do not have as intimate a social intercourse as we have. Women are by no means so forward, and I have yet to hear of women's clubs in Chile. The people are fond of dancing and the President often closes one of his large recep- THE CITY OF SANTIAGO 223 tions with dancing. At such times the display of diamonds is magnificent. Quarts of precious stones are dragged out of the vaults, and their brilliance vies with that of the electric lights. At a recent reception one lady wore eight diamond stars and another a large bouquet of diamonds. There were chokers of diamonds, buckles of diamonds, and in fact almost every variety of diamond ornament that one can imagine. No one wore such common things as roses, although one or two ladies had bou quets of orchids so rare that in New York they would have cost as much as the jewels. Among the social features of life in Santiago are the horse races, which are held regularly every Sunday afternoon during the season under the auspices of the Club Hipico. This is the event of the week. The men go dressed in tall hats, black frock coats, light pantaloons, and white kid gloves. The women put on their handsomest street gowns and . the (< four hundred " of the upper crust call upon one another between the heats. All bet more or less, and at times the scene is an exciting one. INTERIOR OF SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL CHAPTER XXIV THE PRESIDENT OF CHILE A Visit to the Chilean <( White House" — T33E Pres3Dent and Congress- How Chsle is Governed — The Influence of the Church and its great wealth — Its vast Ecclesiastscal Property in Santiago and its rich Nuns and Mon3<;s — Educatson in Chile and the American Schools. ¦''Turing my stay in Santiago I had an interview with the President of Chile. His Excellency gave me an ap pointment and it was with our American Minister that I chatted with him concerning matters of mutual interest to our respective countries. The audience was held at "the Moneda/' or Presidential residence, a three-story building so vast that you could put the White House into one corner of it. Its ground floor is, I judge, as large as that of the Capitol at Washington. The building is constructed in Spanish style, with many rooms built about hollow squares, filled with flowers and trees, and in some of which fountains play. The Moneda contains not only the private apartments and offices of the President, but also the offices of several of his Ministers. It is one of the busiest places in Santiago, and its surroundings are quite imposing. The Chilean officials are fond of pomp and display. As we entered the Mo neda we passed soldiers with drawn swords in their hands, and just outside were ranged the President's military guard, of 200 cavalry, ready to accompany His Excellency on a drive he was about to take after my audience was over. We went through long halls to the offices of the Secretary of State, who took us in and introduced us to His Excellency, Presi dent Errazuriz, who received us cordially and through an inter preter talked with us for about an hour. The President of Chile is a slender, courtly man of perhaps forty years of age. He has a dark, handsome face and a dignified manner. He is very en thusiastic about the prospective development of Chile, and a large (224) THE PRESIDENT OF CHILE 225 part of our conversation was about the proposed Isthmian Canals and the possibility of an Inter-Continental railroad. He had many friendly words for Americans and American capital ists, and advo cated closer social and financial rela tions between the United States and Chile. During this in terview and others which I have had with the leading men of the gov ernment, I asked many questions as to the political condition of the country. Though a Republic, it dif fers in many re spects from that of the United States. The Chil ean President, for instance, is elected for five years in stead of four, as with us, and is not eligible for a sec ond term. The Presidential election day is June 25, of the fifth year of each presidency, and Inauguration Day is September 18, of the same year. The 18th day of September is the Chilean day of Independence, corresponding to our 4th of July. The Presi dent of Chile receives a salary of $18,000, and has in addition an allowance of $12,000 annually for expenses. These sums, being in Chilean money, are equivalent to not more than $11,000 in Amer ican gold. The President has the veto power, as our President PRESIDENT ERRAZURIZ OF CHILE 226 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL has, but his veto can be over-ridden by a two-thirds' majority of the Members of Congress present at the time the measure is brought back; and the political situation is such that, when a Presidential measure fails, it is usually the custom for the Cab inet to resign, so that Chile has a new Ministry on an average of once a month or so. In addition to the Cabinet, which is made up of ministers much on the same lines as those of our own Cabinet, the President has a Council of State, consisting of five members appointed by himself and six chosen by Con gress. The Chilenos, if unmarried, cannot vote until they are twenty- five years of age, though married men can vote at twenty-one. Members of the House of Deputies, which corresponds to our House of Representatives, must have an income of $500 (^100) a year, and Senators must have incomes of ^400, or $2,000 a year. Congress sits in regular session from June 1 until Sep tember 1, but the President may call an extra session when he chooses. Congress is housed in the finest building in Santiago. It covers a whole square, and looks not unlike some of our public buildings at Washington, save that it is built of brick covered with stucco of a terra-cotta colour. The sessions of Congress are often stormy. The Chilenos are fond of politics, and usually one hears more political talk in a day in Santiago than in a week in Washington. There are frequent ups and downs in political life. New cabinet ministers are chosen upon slight provocation, while other officials are also frequently changed. The country is divided up into provinces presided over by intcndentes, and the provinces are divided into departments ruled by governors. A department consists of one or more municipal districts, each of which has a council elected by popular vote. Most of the officials are appointed by the President, and the county is to a large extent ruled by him and his ring. The masses of the people have little to say as to the manner of gov ernment, about two hundred families or so controlling everything. There are, however, two great political parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals. The Conservatives are the more compact, but the Liberals are more numerous. The latter are the progres sive party, advocating popular education, the elevation of the masses, and everything modern. The Conservatives are more THE PRESIDENT OF CHILE 227 than their name implies, and they include among them the cler ical or church element, which in Chile has enormous influence. The Chilenos are satisfied with Catholicism, though the edu cated Chilean man does not like to have the Church meddle with political matters. He does not go to church save on Sundays and feast days, and, like many men outside South America, leaves most of the church exercises to his wife and daughters. The women of Chile are the strongest upholders of Catholicism and its influence. They are very devout. You see them in the churches on week days and on Sundays kneel ing on the stone floors, saying their prayers. You meet them on the streets going to confes sion or mass, each carrying a prayer rug in one hand and a prayer book in the other, and if you enter the churches, you may, perhaps, see a pretty devotee, who will look at you out of the tail of her eye as she mumbles her prayers, with a cross old duenna in the background. As in Peru and Bolivia, the women of Chile wear solid black when they go to Church. They cover their heads with black mantas, so that a church congregation makes you think of ARCHBISHOP OF SANTIAGO 228 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL a nunnery, with all of the nuns clad in black. Indeed, to wear white at such times is a sign of grief and shame, rather than of purity and joy. It is the custom for women who have done wrong to put on white clothes and to shroud their heads in white shawls as a sign of penitence and of a resolution to be good for the future .4 The Catholic Church of Chile is enormously wealthy. Its property in Santiago alone is said to be worth more than $100,- 000,000 in gold. It owns some of the best business blocks in the city. The whole of one side of the Plaza, which is the centre as well as the most valuable of Santiago business property, is taken up by the palace of the archbishop and the cathedral, and there is other property in the neighbourhood which belongs to the Church. It has acres of stores, thousands of rented houses, and vast haciendas, upon which wine and other products are manu factured and offered for sale. Nearly all is controlled by the archbishop, although much of the Church property is held by its different organizations. The Carmelite nuns of Santiago are the richest body of women in South America, if not in the world. They have whole streets of rented houses near their nunnery, and also own large farms, which bring them in a steady income. These nuns never allow their faces to be seen by men, and if for any reason men must be employed in the nunnery, for the work of repairs, etc., the nuns shroud their forms and heads in thick black cloth for the time being. Of course no man is admitted to the convent proper, but through a friend, who has influence with them, I was shown the beautiful chapel which they have established for the use of their employees and outsiders. In obtaining permission my friend and I talked with the nuns, though we did not see them. Our speaking-tube was a dumb-waiter and the voice which came down to us was singularly sweet; as I heard its tones, of musical Spanish, it seemed to me a shame that it should, as is the rule in the establishment, be confined to a whisper. The Dominican Friars also own millions of dollars' worth of property in Santiago. I walked past blocks of houses, every one of which, I was told, belongs to them and pays them rent monthly. The Dominicans dress in black hats and gowns, with soft white flannel undergowns; they look quite imposing as they file along the streets. Their Church is perhaps the finest in Santiago. It THE PRESIDENT OF CHILE 229 is cathedral-like in size and appearance, and its altar is one of the most beautiful on the Western Hemisphere. Santiago is a city of schools as well as of churches. The schools are of different kinds, from the University of Santiago, which has more than 1,000 students, down to the public primary schools, which are found all over the country, and are attended by more than 114,000 youthful Chilenos. This is, however, less than one-fifth of the children of school age, so that four out of every five remain at home. The National University has branches of law and medicine, as well as the ordinary collegiate depart ments. No tuition is charged, for the professors are paid by the State. Chile is proud of her educational system and is doing all she can to extend it. She spends millions of dollars upon it every year. There are public schools now in all the towns and the larger places have liceos, or high schools, of which there are twenty-five in the country. There are two lycees for girls in Santiago maintained by the government. The national institute, or high school of Santiago, has more than 1,000 pupils; while the private schools and colleges have an average attendance of 18,000 pupils. There are two American schools in Santiago, one for girls and another for boys. The girls' school — I should say the girls' college, for it is as good a college as one will find almost any where — has been in operation for years, and it has a great reputation in Chile. It is under the direction of an American, and has a corps of American girls as teachers. It has several hundred students, among whom are the daughters of many of the best Chilean families. This school is connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church, although religious instruction forms no obligatory part of its tuition. The boys' school is under the control of the American Presbyterian Church. It is called the Instituto Inglese, and it proposes to give Chilean boys an aca demic and collegiate education. It has handsome buildings and grounds and is fairly well attended. Chile has also its normal and military schools. It has an agricultural college and an experimental farm. It has a fish commission and a weather bureau, the latter furnishing forecasts of the weather, just as our bureau furnishes at Washington. The telegraph lines are owned by the Government, and one can send S. A.— 15 230 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL a ten-word message to any part of the country for about seven cents of our money. There are now in use about 9,000 miles of wire, and all the large cities can be reached by telegraph. The postal service is good. More than 60,000,000 letters and newspapers are sent through the mails every year, and the mails on the whole are safe. Girls are employed as postal clerks, and when I register my letters for the United States it is a Chilean maiden who affixes the stamps and gives me the registry receipt. She charges me a sum equal to three and one-half of our cents for doing so, or less than it costs one to send letters from the United States to Chile. ROUND-UP OF CATTLE CHAPTER XXV FARMING ON A GRAND SCALE A Land where a Thousand Acres are only a Garden-Patch and many Farms are worth Millsons — Spec3al Features of lsfe on the Haciendas — Peons who Work for Twenty Cents a Day and get Drunk every Week — Thesr extraordsnary Strength, and the great Mortality among them — A visit to an Immense Estate Managed by a Woman — The Wheat Lands of Chile — Its Fine Cattle and Horses. "he Chilean farmers are perhaps the richest of their class in the world. They live like feudal lords on their great estates, often numbering their retainers by the hundred, and massing their cowboys like an army at the annual round ups. They have great flocks of sheep, vast droves of cattle, and the finest horses on the west coast of South America. They raise every year more than 28,000,000 bushels of wheat, quantities of excellent wine, and export all kinds of fruits and vegetables to the desert lands farther north. Agriculture is, in fact, the chief business of Chile. Fully one- half the people are engaged in it, but only the nabobs are the landowners. In the whole United States, with its seventy-five million inhabitants, there are only 31,000 persons who individu ally own 1,000 acres or over. Here a thousand-acre farm is a garden-patch. I meet daily, men who have 10, 20, and even 30,000 acres of land, and I have visited several estates each worth more than $1,000,000. I have a geographical text-book of Chile, just published, which gives the government valuations of the farms of each province. There are hundreds in every State assessed at more than $100,000, and in all Chile there are scores valued at $1,000,000 and upwards. I am writing this chapter at the little railroad town of San Rosendo, about 1,200 miles south of the Peruvian frontier, and 300 miles south of Santiago, in the great central valley of Chile. The valley is from 20 to 100 miles wide, and about 600 miles (231) 232 SOUTH AMERICA: SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL long. It extends from above Santiago to hundreds of miles south of it. On the east of it are the snowy walls of the Andes, with here and there the cone of a dead volcano rising above the other peaks, and on the west the lower mountains and hills of the coast range, their sides covered with green. Between these almost parallel but winding walls lies some of the best soil of South America. The valley is cut by many creeks and small rivers, which, fed by the Andean snows, carry with them to the sea loads of silt so rich that it makes fat every inch of soil upon which it drops. In some streams, such as the Mapo, the amount of silt is so great that it coats the lands, by the aid of irrigation canals, to the depth of an inch per year. Other streams, such as the Biobio and some streams of southern Chile, are almost as clear as crystal. The whole of the valley north of this point is irrigated, and the country is like a vast garden, made up of fields divided by canals along which hedges of Lombardy poplars have grown up to the height of sixty feet and more. Some of the estates are walled with stone, and it is only oc casionally that you see fences of wire or boards. There are no barns standing out on the landscape; the only buildings are the great low, rambling structures of the owners and the mean, squalid houses of the labourers. The latter I shall describe more fully farther on. Oxen everywhere take the place of horses or mules. Clumsy carts drawn by these beasts, with yokes tied to their horns, are the farm waggons, and the ploughs are forced through the furrow by the same motive power. The estates are as a rule well kept. I passed vast vineyards, the vines of which, now covered with the red leaves of winter, spotted the landscape with fields of blood. The vines are dwarfed as they are in France, and in many cases are trained upon wires. They are planted in rows about five feet apart, and oxen are used to plough them. The Chilean wines, both white and red, are excellent, and the amount exported every year is constantly increasing. The climate of Chile is similar to that of California. The same crops and fruits are raised in both places and the conditions of successful farming are alike, save that in California one finds most of the farms very small. What would one of the California women who tells you that 40 acres are more than enough for one person to take care of, ARRIVAL OF VISITORS AT A FARM: ''EVERY CHILD HAS HIS PONY" (234) OWNER AND CHIEFS OF HACIENDO FARMING ON A GRAND SCALE 235 think if she were asked to manage a farm worth $1,000,000 and comprising more than 11,000 acres? There is a woman who owns an estate of this size near Santiago. She directs it herself, and this notwithstanding that she is now considerably over three score and ten. She keeps her own books and at the same time manages all the details connected with her household and its numerous inmates. This woman is one of the remarkable char acters of Chile. Her name is Senora Emilia Herrera de Toro. She belongs to one of the oldest families of Chile, and the estate has been in her family for hundreds of years. It lies within two hours by rail of Santiago, and, as is the case with most of the wealthy farmers of the country, the family live upon it during the summer months only, spending the winter in their home at the capital. It was in company with our American Minister and his wife that I visited Madame de Toro and thereby had one of the most pleasant and interesting experiences of my stay in Chile. Leaving Santiago, on the train we rode under the snow walls of the Andes, through hacienda after hacienda, by vast vineyards of blood-red vines, by walled fields filled with herds of cattle and sheep, until we came to the station of the "Aguila" estate. Here we were met by a spanking team of bays and driven for a mile or so over the estate before we came to the home. This con sisted of many long, low, one-story buildings, with roofs of red tiles and wide porches floored with brick, running about patios and gardens. A grove of trees, at least 100 feet high, looked down upon it, and the long leaves of a great palm rustled a wel come as we stepped upon the porch. There were, I judge, 100 large rooms in the house, and all on the ground floor. The fur nishings were more with regard to comfort than to the show which one sees in all the Chilean city homes. We were made to feel that we were in