ALONG THE PACIFIC COAST
IN COLOMBIA, ECUADOR AND PERU
An enormous horizon opens to the traveller who essays the voyage along the Pacific coast of South America, from Panama perhaps to the extremity of the continent; a voyage through every range of climate, from the Equator to the frigid south, past verdant tropic shores or barren desert, or beneath eternal snowfields; a voyage redolent of the early heroic history of the New World, with, to-day, a setting of the picturesque modern life of the old viceregal, one-time colonies of Spain.
We shall touch at innumerable seaports, the outlet of five different countries; those of Colombia and Ecuador, of Peru, Bolivia and Chile. From Panama to Cape Horn this vast trajectory of some five thousand miles may be roughly divided into six parts of eight hundred miles each; that is, Panama to Guayaquil, thence to Callao, thence to Iquique, thence to Valparaiso, with the remainder along the southern coast of Chile: a voyage equal approximately to one from Liverpool to New York and back again.
Due to the comparative tranquillity of the ocean, the voyage is made in steamers of coasting type, in which the state-rooms are all upon the deck, and open directly therefrom, a pleasing arrangement in comparison with the stuffy hold of trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific vessels.
Behold, then, a sterile coastline, beaten by never-ending surf, broken by rocky promontories, bird-covered perhaps, and seal-haunted, whence the distant roar of breaking rollers at times comes seaward, and, inland, a rising, undulating zone of desert and cañon, brown or tawny or purple in its shadows, stretching away mysteriously for perhaps a hundred miles to where it meets the solemn Cordillera, which, grey, faint and serrated, with no form save that of outline—the true test of distance—forms our horizon on the east.
Above is a deep blue sky, but inclining to greens and opals, for, in the west, with banners of gold and crimson vapours—the colours of Spain, whose mariners first beheld it here, the sun is setting, its disc already upon the bosom of the Pacific. The sun-god of the Incas goes down, and rose-tinted rays shoot across the stark and rugged littoral and touch the edges of the green, refreshing seas, rising between the steamer and the distant surf. It is the coast of Peru, and in this romantic hour of sunset yonder deserts might be peopled with the spectral forms of mail-clad Spaniards, the gaunt Pizarro at their head, heedless of all save empire and El Dorado.
But not a sail or hull disputes possession of the fast-darkening sea, with the quivering steamer upon whose deck we stand, cleaving its way a thousand miles from Panama; and if ghosts there be, why not one of a caravel of Drake, hot on the Plate ships' track from Callao? Nor on the seaboard does a single habitation denote the presence of man, for we are passing one of those stretches of desert of which this coast is largely composed.
But let us look more closely, and imagine we behold for a moment the forms of the intrepid white men who first broke in upon this desolation.
It is the early part of the sixteenth century. Upon the seashore there is a band of mail-clad Spaniards, at their head a tall bearded man, spare of frame, but full of spirit, that spirit which dares the unknown and dares again, in spite of famine and privation. It is Pizarro, the famous conquistador, and in his hand is a drawn sword. There has been disaffection in the band, wrought of sufferings and disappointment in that desolate region. "Where is the gold we have been promised?" the malcontents exclaim. "What profit is there in fighting famine and miserable savages? Let us go back to Panama before we all perish!"
For reply Pizarro drew the point of his sword across the sand. "Comrades," he said, "on the south of this line lie perhaps hardship and death; on the north salvation and ease. Yet perhaps on the south is Peru and untold wealth; on the north Panama and poverty. Choose you which you will. I go south. Who follows?" And thus speaking, he stepped across the line.
Twelve faithful spirits followed this action, and, later, the thirteen received special reward from the Spanish Sovereign.
Others arrived from Panama, and the voyage was continued. Among the band was a valiant Greek of great stature, Pedro de Candia, and he, on one occasion, contemplating from the ship a distant fertile valley, went ashore alone to traverse it. "Resolved I am," he said, "to explore yonder valley or die," and, bearing a great wooden cross in one hand, and his sword and carbine, he broke in upon the astonished Indians, returning unharmed with tales of gardens filled with artificial flowers of gold, and other wonders. This was at Tumbez.
But the conquest of Peru was not thus easily to be performed. The Spaniards' resources were limited, and they returned to Panama. But a few gold and silver toys and some Indian sheep—the llamas—which they took back, did not greatly impress the unimaginative Governor of that colony, and Pizarro was obliged to proceed to Spain, where he made a good impression at Court. His further expedition was, however, rendered possible mainly by the Queen—a woman again furnishing the imagination and means to discover the New World! She it was who rewarded Pizarro and his twelve faithful companions, in the capitulacion she caused to be drawn up.[12]
Pizarro and his men returned to brave the hardships of the coast again, but we must leave this interesting history and turn to our topography.
The conditions of aridity on this coast, upon which rain never or scarcely ever falls, is a result of the interception by the Andes of the trade winds, whose moisture is deposited on the summits, and of the cool Peruvian or Humboldt current, flowing northwards up the coast, its lower temperature preventing the evaporation of the sea and discharge of the moisture as rain.
We shall have noted this peculiar change to aridity soon after passing the Equator, as before remarked. The shores of the Gulf of Guayaquil and part of the Ecuadorian coast are vividly green from the dense mangrove thickets and other vegetation, but as soon as the mist zone of the Equator is left behind the coastal zone becomes stark and unfruitful, beaten by tearing surges between the few havens.
Upon leaving Panama and its famous Canal—whose great works rapidly fade into the haze of distant shore and mountain, reminding us how small the greatest human mark on the face of Nature really is—we have passed the Pacific coast of Colombia, which does not present any very noteworthy features. It is shut off from the interior by the high mountains, and is often unhealthy and but thinly populated, notwithstanding that it affords certain resources and potentialities that in the future should be valuable. At the principal port of Buenaventura it is unlikely that our steamer will call. The settled and prosperous Colombia—the old viceregal colony of New Granada—lies in the highlands, whose means of access are from beyond the Isthmus of Panama, upon the "Spanish Main," as we shall see elsewhere. However, Buenaventura is the port for the beautiful Cauca Valley, the garden vale of Colombia, with its pleasing town of Cali, and a line of railway has painfully made its way up this steep littoral thereto. Buenaventura was reached by the first Spaniard to sail this sea, Andagoya, who named it the Port of Good Fortune, but the great prize of discovery lay in Peru, which he did not reach: the prize which fell to the more fortunate and adventurous Pizarro. The port has been described as perhaps the most beautiful on the Pacific coast, but the traveller who desires in addition material comforts will not prolong his stay thereat.
Our vessel, pursuing its way, will shortly have sighted the coast of Ecuador, and may, if conditions concerning quarantine be favourable, have to enter the great indentation which forms the Gulf of Guayaquil.
The Guayas River, with the Island of Puna at its mouth, is of considerable width, but narrows as the ocean steamer ascends it so much that passage at times is difficult. Memories of Pizarro centre about the island.
The seaport of Guayaquil lies over thirty miles upstream, and its aspect on approaching is a striking one; its buildings clustered along the water-front, backed by verdure-clad hills, and the shipping in the harbour, and, at night, the rows of lights of the streets, give an impression of considerable importance to this tropical seaport. The river off Guayaquil has been likened to the Mississippi at New Orleans. In early times the town was frequently sacked by buccaneers—French, English and others, among them the ubiquitous Dampier. Its dreadful reputation for malaria and yellow-fever has caused travellers to shun the place, but these matters have experienced some improvement of recent years, especially since the building of the Panama Canal.
As the steamer lies in the stream, enterprising Indian boatmen bring off certain native wares for sale to the passengers, among them the famous "Panama" hats—which are, be it noted, not a product of Panama, but of the coastal district north of Guayaquil, notably Jipijapa and Monte Cristi. They are also made in Colombia. Great industry, patience and knowledge are displayed by the Indians in making these hats, of which the material is a palm fibre, not a straw or grass. They are a really beautiful and dexterous example of native industry.
Upon the Manabi coast, in the same region, we may see some remarkable vestiges of the ancient folk of Ecuador, in the great carved stone armchairs or seats ranged upon a flat hill-top. These seats are unique in early American archæology and form a puzzle to the antiquarian.[13]
Six hundred miles to the west, far out of our track here, lie the Galapagos Islands, a possession of Ecuador, the home of the monstrous turtles whose name the archipelago bears.
The Guayas River and its affluents command our attention and interest by reason both of their beauty and economic importance. They form the only considerable fluvial system on the whole western coast of South America, where, in general, the streams are of small volume and unnavigable. Here we may navigate the river and its arms for two hundred miles, and our vessel will convey us past many a flourishing hacienda on the banks, where the famous cacao of Ecuador is grown—the chocolate of commerce, of which the region produces, or has been accustomed to produce, a third of the world's supply. This fertility is due to the nature of the alluvial soil, which for ages has collected in what are locally termed bancos; areas or deposits specially suitable for the cultivation of the cocoa-trees. Many such haciendas flourish upon these rivers, and are sources of much wealth to their proprietors and to the nation. The alluvial mud of such remarkable fertilizing properties is carried along by the waters, which have deposited it in these favoured spots upon the network of streams which fall into the Guayas.
Groups of feathery coco-palms, with their slender columns and graceful foliage, which flourish around the haciendas, form a pleasing picture, which serves to offset the somewhat monotonous appearance of the sabanas, or barer stretches of flat land which we overlook from the steamer's deck, and which alternate with the cacaotales, cafetales and cañaverales, as the coco and coffee plantations and the great cane brakes—of monstrous bamboos, which are a valuable article of construction—are termed.
THE WHARF AT GUAYAQUIL.
Vol. I. To face p. 158.
We remark here the curious native rafts, which without other agency than the current ascend and descend the rivers on the flowing and the ebbing tide, reaching Guayaquil, and returning thence upstream.
Continuing our voyage along the coast, the eye may fall upon the white guano-covered headlands, and the attention is suddenly arrested by what appears at first sight to be a low dark cloud moving on the face of the waters. It approaches, and we see that it is not a cloud, but a flight of birds, innumerable, and flying in close formation—at times, indeed, they obscure the sky. These are the guano-producing birds, which haunt the rocky headlands and islets, and whose product has been so considerable a source of wealth and contention on this coast. Guano was used by the Incas in their intelligent and painstaking agricultural operations, and its misuse or monopoly was prohibited.
The Incas, vestiges of whose remarkable structures and curious customs we find scattered in profusion throughout the enormous territory—perhaps two thousand miles in length—which formed their empire, upon whose coast we are journeying here, made little use of the sea, except for fishing. By relays of posts, of Indian runners, fish was carried in fresh, across the deserts and over the Cordillera, for the table of the Inca at Cuzco, which town, the ancient Mecca and capital of the early Peruvians, is situated in a valley 11,500 feet above sea-level and over two hundred miles inland—a remarkable performance.
The Incas were not a seafaring people, and their civilization—for it fully merits the name of such—was indeed cut off from the rest of the world both by the ocean and by the enormous rugged chains of the Andes, and by the impenetrable forests of the Amazon basin on the east. As far as is known, they appear not to have had knowledge even of the contemporaneous cultures of the Mayas, the Aztecs, and the Toltecs of Mexico and Central America, although all these early American cultures may have had a common origin, in times much nearer the general childhood of the world.
Was this coast first explored and even settled by the Chinese long before Columbus sailed? There are reasons for thinking this may have been so.
The exploits of Pizarro and his followers took place in the neighbourhood of Tumbez, near the westernmost point of the South American Continent. How, fighting against famine, they made their way along this stark and inhospitable littoral and ascended the Andes, where by a combination of intrepidity and treachery they overcame the reigning Inca chief and his people, forms one of the most fascinating episodes of early American history.
To-day, when we leave our comfortable steamer and follow those same paths, we find little alteration, in many respects, after the lapse of four centuries. We must journey in the saddle over the roughest and often most dangerous of mountain trails. At night it may be that an indifferent fonda, or inn, in the poor Indian villages on the road will afford some hospitality, but this will be of the meanest description. Railways are few and far between along this immense and little-travelled seaboard; food is scarce and life primitive.
But the stamp of Spain is over all, and there is an atmosphere—attenuated it may be—of the times of Don Quijote de la Mancha in its social regimen. We cannot withhold a tribute to Spain, in remarking how she stamped, for all time, her own characteristic culture throughout thousands of miles, east, north and south, of tropic seaboard and rugged Cordillera, upon this great continent.
But "Spanish gentlemen should not soil their hands in trade" ran a decree of the old "Laws of the Indies," and the Spaniards, except for their exploitation of the rich gold, silver and quicksilver mines (at a terrible toll of Indian lives), did not reap much commercial profit from their possessions. This great mineral wealth was poured for centuries into the needy coffers of Spain—poured as into a sieve, for it was largely squandered. Under the viceroys the mines were worked with feverish activity. In one instance an urgent mandate for increased production so worked upon the official in charge of one of the huge mines, those of Huancavelica, in yonder mountains—a veritable labyrinth of underground galleries and chambers, among which was a chapel, deep below the surface, with candles ever burning before its shrines—that he ordered the supporting columns of ore to be taken out, with a result that the mine fell in, entombing five hundred miners, whose bones remain in the ruin to this day, it is said.
As for commerce, the British are the great Phœnicians on this coast; transporting cargo hither and bearing it hence. The German activity became marked before the war, but the Kosmos line of steamers stopped, and the Teutonic bagsman ceased his assiduous traverse of the interior villages with his wares.
Mining in Peru is not what it was in the time of Spain. A wealthy company of United States capitalists, it is true, ships great quantities of copper from the wonderful deposits of Cerro de Pasco, 15,000 feet above sea-level, and there are many smaller concerns of varied nationalities. But thousands of irregular subterranean workings all over the vast Cordillera remain waterlogged and abandoned—mines where the visitor is told of fabulous wealth extracted, and which still contain untold riches, awaiting the time when they shall be called upon to surrender their hidden stocks of gold and silver, of copper and a host of other minerals. The glories of Potosi have in large measure departed, but the tin mines of Bolivia yield annually a large proportion of the world's supply of that metal.
Enormous coalfields—notwithstanding that South America has been regarded as a coal-less continent—exist in the Andes, their upturned strata outcropping in the bleakest regions, in some cases amid the perpetual snow.
To-day the cultivators of sugar and cotton in the irrigated valleys of this vast littoral have come into their kingdom, reaping, during the war, fortunes from the shipment of these commodities to Britain; their only plaint that of the restriction of carriage. The merchant and the shopkeeper made the same lament, and the fashionable and simpatica dames of Latin American Society bewailed the impossibility of their enjoyment of the latest Parisian modes.
Away on the slopes and tablelands of the grim Cordillera the ancient palaces and temples of the bygone Incas look down, unknown, unvisited, save by those whom interest or chance may take that way. Once washed by the waves of Lake Titicaca—that most remarkable of lakes, 12,500 feet above the sea, yet whereon we may journey out of sight of land—lie the ruins of that strange temple of Tiahuanako, of unknown age, the most ancient handiwork of man in the New World.
To-day, all that remains of that epoch are these old stone structures, save that the Indian, as evening falls, preserving some sentiment of an ancient state, climbs the lonely hills, and there, alone, makes mournful music with his flute of reeds: notes which fall weirdly upon the ear as we pass beneath, across the wide plateau.
The empire of the Incas lay principally in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, and extended to the northern part of Chile, but the Incas did not overcome the Araucanian Indians—fierce and intractable—who dwelt in Chile. Nor did they, apparently, descend very much beyond the eastern slopes of the Andes, into the forests and plains of the Amazon and of the Plate, though there are some vestiges of their occupation there. They established a line of forts, of blocks of squared stone along the ceja, or edge, of the Montaña, some of which we may see to-day, doubtless to ward off the attacks of the forest savages.
The Incas possessed great stores of gold, which they used to make household vessels for the princes and for religious purposes, and the Spaniards possessed themselves of this gold. Much of it was sent down to the coast for shipment to Spain, to fill the needy coffers of the Spanish sovereigns. Some of it fell into the clutches of Drake and other enterprising adventurers into these realms of gold, who disputed the Spanish monopoly of the New World.
Let us imagine, as we pace the deck of the steamer and look over towards the setting sun, touching the bosom of the broad Pacific, an early scene upon these waters. Here is Drake's ship, Golden Hind or Pelican, blowing out of Callao with every stitch of canvas set. Drake has heard that a Plate ship, laden with gold and silver, has just set sail for Panama, and he is chagrined at having missed it. The Spaniards had feared no danger. As far as they had known there were no craft in these waters save those which flew the colours of Spain. But now the viceroy of Lima, Don Francisco de Toledo, is uneasy. The, to him, unspeakable Drake—"Caramba! Draco, a Dragon"—is about!
The English ship overhauls the plate ship. But the wind drops and she is still hull down, many a mile of heaving sea between. Shall they lose the prize? No; the boats are put out, and for three days the men of Devon towed their vessel, straining at their oars as British seamen will, and the sluggish Plate ship rises more upon their horizon. Away they toil, past the river of Guayaquil, above which the gleaming Chimborazo rears his distant head, until, six hundred miles to spare from the haven of Panama, she is overtaken, off Cape San Francisco, in what is now Ecuador. They board the ship and seize the treasure, which, according to the Spanish chroniclers, amounted to nearly a million pounds sterling.
The viceroy did not altogether lose hope of recovering this treasure. He prepared a veritable hornets' nest for Drake, in the form of an armada, which was ordered to wait at the Strait of Magellan, which, he imagined, Drake must pass in order to get home. But Drake was not thus to be entrapped. He sailed on northwards—trying for a strait eastward through America—reaching the spot known now as Drake's Bay, in California; found, of course, no passage; careened his ship, cleaned it, and turning his prow westward, sailed across the Pacific, going completely round the world for England, where he was worthily knighted by Queen Elizabeth on the quarter-deck of his wave-worn ship.
Guayaquil is the gateway to ancient Quito, in the Cordillera, and between that port and Callao is Salaverry with the quaint and busy Peruvian town of Trujillo, founded by Pizarro. Callao, to-day, is the principal seaport upon this vast coast, between Panama and Valparaiso. The Oroya railway running therefrom takes us up to the summit of the Andes, nearly 16,000 feet above sea-level, first passing through the old viceregal capital, and ascending the valley of the Rimac, whose waters, the whispering oracle of the Incas, gave their name to Lima.
Lima, the old Ciudad de los Reyes, or "city of the kings," as Pizarro, its founder, termed it, in honour of his Spanish sovereigns, surrounded by its cultivated lands, irrigated from the Rimac, must be regarded as one of the premier cities of the Spanish American world, and one of the most quaint and pleasing, with many historical and literary attributes, a legacy of the old viceregal times. A handsome cathedral overlooks the broad, well-planted plaza, and its high towers, rebuilt after the disastrous earthquake of 1746, a sketch of whose terrors I have given later on, dominate the green campiña, or countryside.
It is a city of many churches and other ecclesiastical buildings, and has something of that mediaeval atmosphere we have remarked in the city of Mexico, and some of its public buildings are worthy of note. The gloomy structure which held the Inquisition faces upon a small plaza in the midst of which arises a bronze equestrian figure of Bolivar, a replica of that at Caracas. We remark the carved oak balconies to certain of the ancient houses, former residences of viceroys and nobles.
But Lima does not love to live upon its past. Its people have laid out a magnificent Paseo, or promenade, named after Columbus, and here a gay and fashionable throng parades upon the Sabbath day, or in the evenings, listening to the music of the band amid the palms and flowers. Here congregate the wealth and beauty of the city, its statesmen and leaders, and all those who customarily throng to these earthly paradises which the Spanish Americans customarily lay out as adjuncts of their cities. The latest modes are seen, the fashions of Paris and London—also the half-naked Indian, unlettered and unashamed.
Lima possesses many educational and scientific bodies and establishments, and has a well-deserved claim to being a centre of culture. Its Press is one of the best in South America: its people have strong poetical leanings and administrative genius. Among the more recent of successful presidents stand forth the names of Pardo, Pierola, and Leguia. The last-named, a capable administrator, lived in London during the Great War and went through the experience of air-bombardment, when he returned to Peru to take up his second term of office.
There is a certain isolation about Lima, due to its geographical position. The other large towns of the Republic are separated from it by vast stretches of desert and Cordillera, and the railways give access to but a few points, whilst any interruption of the steamer lines along the coast cuts it off from the outside world. However, its picturesque watering-places and well-built residential suburbs extend the amenities of Lima over a wider zone.
The upper-class folk of Peru, as we behold them in their capital and other large towns, have the pleasing traits of courtesy and hospitality we are accustomed to associate with their race in marked degree. They are extremely eloquent, and aim at a high standard of civilization—that sensitive characteristic of the Spanish American. Their women have justly earned a world-wide reputation for their beauty and vivacity, their good breeding and culture, as well as their piety and high standard of family life. If the hand of semi-mediaeval custom still hampers Peru in its social customs, this is a matter which time constantly modifies.
All parts of Spain furnished the ancestors of the Peruvians—Basque, Catalonian, Andalusian, Galician, and Castillian names being encountered among them, and in viceregal days there were many titles of nobility, which fell into disuse on the advent of the Republic. Nevertheless, it is an amiable weakness of the Peruvians—as it is of many other Latin American folk—to love titles, as we see by the so frequent use of the doctorate degree. In a Peruvian Cabinet, it would be rare to discover a minister who is not addressed as "Doctor"—of laws or science—for the degree is often taken in Latin America largely as conferring some social distinction, and not necessarily with the purpose of practising this or that profession. Yet in justice to the Peruvians it must be said that they are clever professional men, whether at law, medicine or other, whilst practical science has its outlet also in the engineering profession, a considerable number of whose exponents make a study of the country's agricultural and mineral potentialities.
A pleasing feature of the Peruvians is their cordial welcome of foreigners, their desire to assimilate the things of the outside world, and strong notions of progress. It is not, however, to be supposed that their houses are readily open to the foreign visitor. Like all Latin Americans they are exclusive; and the traveller must be a caballero, a person of refinement, if he is to enter their family circle.
The main defect of the country and its governing classes is the neglect of the vast Indian and lower-class population, for this upper and enlightened class is but a small proportion of the population. The oligarchical tendencies which we find so strongly marked in Chile, in Mexico, and, indeed, in every Latin American State, are strong in Peru. These countries can never truly progress until they take their domestic responsibilities more seriously, thereby improving the economic and social status of the great bulk of poor folk whom Providence has delivered to their charge. On the contrary, they are more and more exposed to uprising and anarchy, such as that so terribly exemplified in Mexico, and farther afield in Russia. If they would preserve their culture they must extend it. It is true that these responsibilities concerning the Cholos and Indians have of recent years been more widely recognized, but much remains to be done in the field of practice. Elsewhere I venture to discuss, in the closing chapters of this book, what would appear to be the lines upon which the solution of this vital question of Spanish America should proceed.
Peru is not yet freed from the revolutionary habit, the game of politics which brings unrest and at times destruction. The sweets of office are always alluring. The game is generally played in Peru by but a few, the bulk of the people standing aloof. Its incidents are often extremely picturesque and at times operatic. A president may, one day, be in the zenith of his power, surrounded by his admirers and fellow-administrators. The next, arrested by a rival with a handful of soldiers, he may find himself on board a steamer for Panama, deported, banished and alone. This method is at least better than that which at earlier times involved political murders, some of which stand forth in the republican history of Peru.
In justice, however, it must be said that such stains on the pages of the past are not more marked in Peru than in the case of some of her neighbours in the New World. Moreover, it is useless for the European to pretend to arraign the Spanish American for these practices, whilst his own house is, or has so recently been, the scene of such dreadful disorders.
From the disorders of man here on the great Pacific coast, let us turn to the unrest of Nature. During our stay in Lima we may have experienced an earthquake shock, slight or considerable, and with others have hastily left our dwelling. Upon this coast the scourge of the earthquake and the tidal wave is at times laid heavy upon the dwellers. The destruction of Valparaiso is but a recent occurrence, as was that of San Francisco, in California. To-morrow, these or any other cities along the unstable edge of this hemisphere might be brought low from the same cause.
Here is a picture of terror from the middle of the eighteenth century. It was in Lima, the beautiful capital of Peru, when, on a summer night in October 1746, the folk of the city were leaving the temples after celebrating the fiestas of Saint Simon and Saint Jude. Rich and noble personages, escorted by their slaves, were exchanging, as was customary, friendly visits. The moon shone brilliantly from a cloudless sky; all was quiet and peaceful: the twang of a guitar or other evening whispers of the city alone broke the serenity. The bells of the convents and the church-tower clocks struck half-past ten. It was bedtime.
Suddenly a terrific shaking of the earth took place; the foundations of the world seemed loosened, the people were thrown from their beds; the towers of the churches fell; the walls and roofs of the houses crashed in; the most dreadful panic reigned as thousands of persons were smothered in living tombs. It was an earthquake.
The shock lasted three minutes, during which the earth was wrenched and torn as if by a giant. In the time it takes to tell the city was destroyed, and the work of over two hundred years brought to ruin. Of a city with 60,000 souls, not more than twenty-five houses remained. Of the two great towers of the cathedral, one fell upon the domed roof and the other on the belfry, destroying the temple in great part—so chronicled a Jesuit priest who witnessed it. Five magnificent churches were laid in ruins, with sixty convents, chapels and monasteries. The great buildings fell upon the small—all were demolished. The streets were blocked with wreckage: the inhabitants, in all states of dress and undress, striving to flee, were crushed by falling walls. Sweet maidens of Lima, old hags from the back streets, noble and priest, gallant and beggar, all in their terror jostled each other. Those engaged in illicit amours confessed their sins to unheeding ears. The viceroy's palace fell; the triumphal arch with the equestrian statue of Philip V fell; the Royal University and colleges fell; the Tribunal of the Inquisition was reduced to fragments.
In Lima at this time Catholicism was in the zenith of its power and splendour and the faith of the people strongest. But no one dare approach the churches, notwithstanding that they were the home of God. The shocks continued—more than two hundred in twenty-four hours—and went on for three days. Trenches were opened to bury the dead. The stench of the dead bodies of mules smothered in their stables was unbearable. Over six thousand persons perished.
Whilst the stricken people were seeking their lost relatives, another terror was visited upon them. Suddenly, from Callao appeared a negro on horseback, his eyes starting from their sockets, shouting in accents of terror: "Save yourselves! the sea is coming sweeping in over the coast! It will be upon you!"
Lima is but a few miles from Callao, with a strip of coastal land between. The earthquake had given rise, as it commonly does on that coast, to a tidal-wave, which was now rushing inland. It did not, however, reach Lima, falling some distance short, and, it is said, rising to 150 feet above sea-level. But the people already seemed to see themselves overwhelmed. A priest, half naked, wounding his own breast in penitential frenzy, rushed through the streets, ashes on his head, the bit and bridle of a mule in his mouth. "This is the punishment of heaven upon sinners!" he cried, and he beat himself with an iron bar until the blood gushed from his body. At the sight, thousands of persons fell on their knees, imploring pardon from heaven, confessing their crimes, but "as all were sinners, none lent ear to the confession of others, being too much occupied in recounting their own misdeeds."
In Callao a more dreadful scene was enacted. After the first great shock of the earthquake, the people tried to flee from the town, but the gates had been locked for the night, and whilst they flocked the streets, screaming and praying, endeavouring to avoid the falling walls, a terrible thing was seen. The sea had gone out for more than two miles from the shore, forming mountains of water that seemed to reach the skies. The mountains of water then rushed forward and fell with horrid crash upon the doomed city, submerging the ships in the bay or carrying them in among the houses. The cries for mercy to heaven were vain: there was no mercy shown them, and the people perished. When at length the waters retired, nothing was left of Callao but part of the wall and the two great doors of the city.[14]
To this day the image of Nuestra Señora de los Temblores—Our Lady of the Earthquakes—is carried through the streets of Lima, as of other Peruvian towns, such as Arequipa, which has suffered terribly from earthquakes in its history, whenever the earth trembles, that the heavens may be appeased.
A moral effect of these visitations is to be noted by the traveller in Peru. It is seen that the women of the labouring class wear very long skirts that often drag in the mud or dust. It was ordained that, the formerly short skirts being immodest and displeasing to heaven, which, it was held, had punished the people by that earthquake, they should henceforth be worn long enough to conceal the ankles!
Perhaps the devotees of exaggerated feminine fashion in Europe to-day might usefully ponder these occurrences!