III
The long series of groups of islands beginning with Chiloé, about two-thirds of the way down the coast, is said to be nothing more than a partly submerged section of the Western Cordillera. Above the surface of the water, for a distance of about eighty miles, they still have an average elevation of about two thousand feet. Embraced in the Chonos Archipelago, between Chiloé and the Taytao Peninsula, are more than a thousand small islands, rocks, and reefs, and then come the large islands of Wellington, Madre de Dios, Chatham, Hanover, Queen Adelaide, King William’s Land, etc., each fringed by groups of little ones and all following the mainland in a graceful curve and separated from it by the Messier, Sarmiento, and Smyth Channels, which, together, extend for three hundred and sixty miles, from the Penas Gulf to the Strait of Magellan. As the steamer glides through, at times so straight are they and such is the uniformity of the shore line on either side, one fancies one’s self in a wide river in the interior of the continent; at others, when openings among the islands appear and the water stretches for miles toward the sea or far into the recesses of the Cordillera, it seems more like a great lake.
The fjordlike formations recall the more celebrated channel off the coast of Norway leading to the North Cape. Indeed, it is generally agreed by those who have seen both that there is little to choose between them, for, in both, the indentations and mountains of the coast and islands are similar in character; if there is less variety in the Chilean one, if the rainstorms are more frequent, to compensate for it there is a much greater and more attractive wealth of vegetation. From the water’s edge to a height of fourteen or fifteen hundred feet, the slopes, and even the smaller islands, are covered with an unbroken mantle of beautiful, dense, green forest that presents an astonishing contrast, in this inhospitable region, to the bleak, gray rocks and bluish-tinted ice sheets above and the pure white snow caps on the summits beyond.
In the country from Valdivia south to Smyth Channel, many of the trees, particularly in the ravines and sheltered places, are tall and shapely and their trunks and lower branches are incrusted with mosses and entwined with flowering creepers and vines, many with a sort of mistletoe that has clusters of dark-red blossoms; one of the creepers, called angel’s hair, is delicate and filmy and hangs from the branches like threads of lace, and there is an undergrowth of ferns and shrubs and bamboo. These last often shoot up as far as the tops of the trees and seem to mat them together so that they form arbors over the pathways between. Farther south and in the region of the Strait, these woods lose something of their mysterious beauty; here they are composed principally of antarctic beech, gnarled and bent by the winds, and the thicketlike undergrowth is somber and forbidding.
Emerging from the channel, for the first time the steamer encounters heavy rollers, which come dashing in through the broad gateway to the Pacific, not far to the west. Here, even in summer, it is seldom that there is neither storm nor fog, but, when it is clear enough, one can see the tempest-torn promontory of Cape Pillar, at the end of Desolation Island, the southwestern portal of the Strait. Eastward the conditions improve; the water grows smooth again and the clouds are usually lifted above the lower mountain tops; the scenery grows still more impressive than in the channel—only it is solemnly impressive now—at least, so it strikes most travelers. The Strait is much wider; the steamer is far enough away from the shore to enable one to see above the shoulders of the mountains to their summits, yet not so far that the distance renders them too indistinct; the water is steel gray, the bases and buttresses of the mountains take on a shade of purple, the summits seem whiter than ever, and over all, except during the comparatively rare intervals when the sun shines, are leaden clouds. In the center of the Strait, where the continent proper comes to a wedge-shaped point known as Cape Froward, and up to the eastern arm, only a few miles away, lies Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world.
In the jumble of ranges forming the transmagellan continuation of the great Cordillera of the Andes, the most important is that named after the scientist, Charles Darwin, who was the first to explore it, on the long western arm of the Island of Tierra del Fuego. The highest and most conspicuous happens to be the nearest to this remarkable port, and, as no better idea of the region in general could be conveyed, it seems to me, I quote from the story of a visit to Mt. Sarmiento, made by Sir Martin Conway the same summer he climbed Aconcagua, rather than attempt a description myself. He says:
“The sun was shining quite hotly and the ice was almost dazzlingly brilliant. After scrambling with difficulty onto the glacier and wandering about the moraine area, we returned toward the shore, finding an exit through the forest at a much narrower place. The air was cool, the sun bright; there were little puffs of breeze; it was the very perfection of a day for active open-air life. Yet the clouds still hung stationary on the summit of Sarmiento. We lay awhile on the shore beside the rippling waters; then rowed away in hopes of seeing our mountain’s misty veil lifted if only for a moment. The long, late midsummer sunset was at hand. A tender pink light, far fainter than the rich radiance of the Alpine glow, lay upon the surface of the glacier and empurpled its crevasses; it permeated the mist aloft. The cruel rocks, incrusted with ice, and the roof of the final precipice, with its steep ridges and icy couloirs, were all that could be seen. The graceful, ice-rounded foundation rocks of this and all the other mountains around slope up to the cliff and jagged arêtes above and make each peak beautiful with contrasted forms, massive, yet suave of outline beneath, splintered and aspiring above. In one direction we looked along the channel of our approach, in another, for twenty miles or so, along Cockburn Channel, with a fine range of snowy peaks beside it, prolonging Sarmiento’s western range.
“The water was absolutely still; we floated with oars drawn in. Looking once more aloft, I found the mist grown thinner. The pink light crept higher and higher as the cloud dissolved. Suddenly—so suddenly that all who saw it cried out—far above this cloud, surprisingly, incredibly high, appeared a point of light like a glowing coal drawn from a furnace. The fiery glow crept down and down as though driving the mist away, till there stood before us, as it were, a mighty pillar of fire, with a wreath of mist around the base, and, down through all the wonderful pink wall and cataract of ice to the black forest and reflecting water. We had seen the final peak now—a tower of ice-crusted rock, utterly inaccessible from the western side. A little while later, the fair couloir had faded away, mists had gathered and night was coming on apace. We rowed away for the steamer, but had not gone very far before a faint silver point appeared above the mist where the glowing tower had stood. The cloud curtain rolled slowly down again and all the summit crest was revealed, cold and pure. Then the southwest ridge appeared, and finally the entire mountain, like a pale ghost, illuminated by some unearthly light. A moment later the clouds rolled together once more and solid night came on; we hastened to the steamer for warmth, food, and sleep.”
PUNTA ARENAS, THE SOUTHERNMOST CITY ON THE GLOBE.
VIII
PERU
Northward bound from Valparaiso to Callao, the traveler leaves behind him the last of those south temperate zone Latins who contend for the title of “Yankees of South America.” (And there is flattery in that pretension if they but knew it, for in the old strongholds of our vaunted Yankeeism much of the feverish progressiveness has subsided; in these days the title “Argentino” or “Chileno” would confer a real distinction on some of us of the North.) In Chile one leaves triumphant modernism and now enters the realm of antiquity and romance, the home of Spanish tradition and old-world stateliness. Not even on the Peninsula have the Spanish tongue, the Spanish dignity and the old Castilian ideals been preserved in their pristine charm and perfection as they have in Lima, and the three ancient seats of colonial splendor hidden away in the fastnesses of the northern Andes—Quito, Bogotá and Caracas, the capitals of the countries next in order.
Not that romance and antiquity are all that Peru and her sister republics to the north stand for to-day. If Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, which constitute the agricultural empire spurned by Spain in her days of prosperity, are, as John Barrett says in the Independent for March 11, 1909, destined, with Brazil, “to become deciding factors in the food supply of mankind,” Peru and the other Andean republics have also their part to play in furnishing elements necessary for the growing commerce of the twentieth century. “The complicated social and financial life of the world,” Mr. Barrett goes on, “must have something besides food and drink. Gold and silver as a medium of exchange, and, in the arts, copper and tin as essentials in so many phases of industrial development, the other metals useful in a thousand ways in applied science, the nitrate salts for prime necessities in both peace and war—all these and much more are to-day supplied in high proportion from this part of South America.” Deprive the world of the nitrate of Chile, the copper, gold, and guano of Peru, and the silver and tin of Bolivia, and “there would occur a disturbance in our business machinery which might have very serious consequences.”
In preference to the more direct German line, the visitor should by all means make the trip northward by a “west coaster,” that cross between an Atlantic liner and a river steamboat which meanders leisurely in and out among the Pacific ports and carries a conglomerate of all types of the genus Latin American, and of all the products of his infinitely varied soil. As one writer whimsically describes it, it has all the characteristics of a house-boat, freight carrier, village gossip and market gardener. With no cause to fear rain or rough weather, the ocean here being truly “pacific,” the builders of these boats have placed all cabins on deck, and even thus they seem superfluous except as lockers for luggage, for the heat keeps one always in the open.
Here the newcomer to these shores talks politics or crops or railroad concessions with the substantial hacendado returning to his plantation, or haggles interminably with the cholo woman who offers for sale woven hats of jipi-japa straw (known commercially as Panamas), little golden images unearthed from Inca ruins, or imitations of them fashioned from vegetable ivory, great white-pulped, juicy pineapples, leather belts of exquisite workmanship, brilliantly colored ponchos, and the inevitable convent embroideries and laces. These women spend much of their lives on board, traveling back and forth between Valparaiso and Panamá, and in their allotted corners sell everything from candied sugar cane wrapped in banana leaves to emerald necklaces. It is said that one old woman on a recent trip actually had hoisted aboard a live cow, which she would have sold piecemeal, in steaks, if the long-suffering captain had not protested that his ship was no slaughter-house.
And, besides the surfeit of “local color” one gets on the ship, the traveler has an excellent opportunity to study that vague institution known as international trade, at a familiarly close range. The terms “exports” and “imports” mean little to him until he sees huge cases of sewing machines marked “Hamburg—fragile,” or sections of milling machinery from Chicago, or something of the sort, swung over the side into the lighters, and later sees other lighters towed from shore laden with curious little bales of Panama hats, or cotton, or casks of rum, and all the, to him, exotic products of a different world.
Always wonderful, the mighty ramparts of the Andes rise tier upon tier from the reddish strip of desert shore, first in solid black, then in slaten pallor to the misty heights of inland distance where the peaks are ill-defined against the sky, except when the sun burns through the haze and makes brilliant for a moment some snow-capped summit floating apparently in mid-air four miles above. Ever northward the lazy coaster dozes on her course, dropping in at Iquique, parched and stifling, or Arica where the sun-baked nitrate lies piled for shipment in such quantities as fairly to blister the imagination, or Mollendo, the other open door to Bolivia’s wealth; and, finally, after a fortnight of such coasting, one enters Callao, the port of Lima, which is only nine miles away, up the valley. Situated in the center of Peru’s coast line, Callao is the busy exchange for the bulk of the country’s commerce. Its population is about 35,000. Most of its business men, however, live in Lima and look upon the port city as the Chileans do on Valparaiso, merely as the “down town” district of the capital.
Arriving in port the traveler’s thoughts instinctively turn back through the four centuries of white dominion over the country; and he pictures in his mind the stirring tragedies of Spanish conquest and the colonial régime in this dazzling colonial empire won from the Incas. Until 1717 the Viceroy of Peru held sway over the whole of South America except the then Portuguese Colony of Brazil. On that date the Viceroyalty of Santa Fé or New Granada (embracing what is now Colombia and Ecuador) and the Captaincy-General of Venezuela were created and severed from his jurisdiction; and in 1776 it was reduced to the dimensions occupied by the present Republic, by the creation of the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, which included territory now occupied by Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia (then known as the Province of Alto Peru). The Captaincy-General of Chile had always enjoyed a high degree of autonomy and retained it until complete independence was gained by the revolution.
Although mightily shrunken from its former imperial estate, Peru is still a magnificent domain. Its area of 680,000 square miles is equal to the combined areas of Texas, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico; its coast-line of 1500 miles is as extensive as our Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia. The country is divided longitudinally into three distinct regions: the coast, the cordillera, and the so-called Montaña, or wooded slopes, the latter stretching away into the Amazon valley. Along the Pacific coast is a ribbon of dry, tropical lowland, varying in width from twenty to eighty miles, and reaching up to the foothills of the coast range. On these foothills, and increasing gradually in number, through the extension of the irrigating systems toward the sea, lie extensive plantations of cotton and sugar, which form a large part of Peru’s exports. But the coastal stretches are, for the most part, still unreclaimed desert, for, as in the nitrate region of Chile, the rain falls so seldom that, without irrigation, nothing can grow. The explanation given by the scientists is that the moisture from the Atlantic, swept across the continent by the African trade winds, lodges finally in the Andes and flows back over the continental valleys in the great rivers confluent with the Amazon, while that from the Pacific is diverted in some other direction. It has been demonstrated by experiment, however, that these arid parts need only irrigation to make them luxuriantly fertile.
Back of the coast the country is cast in a mold of heroic dimensions. Here the Andes spread out into separate cordilleras which are joined at intervals by transverse ranges, forming great nudos (knots), with high plateaux between, surrounded by lofty snow-covered peaks. This mountainous area approximates three hundred miles in width. In these heights lay the wealth that made of Peru a fabulous treasure land, and in the lower valleys the cereals and fruits of the temperate zone, as well as cattle, provide in great abundance for the Peruvian of to-day. In her extensive guano deposits, too, Peru has another great source of wealth.
Descending the eastern slopes of the Cordillera, the Montaña region stretches away gradually into the Amazon valley, covering an immense area. This Montaña country comprises more than two-thirds of the total area, and lies wholly within the Torrid Zone. Watered by mighty rivers that have their source in the Andean snows, and graded in elevation, its varied productiveness and fertility are phenomenal. It is in the Peruvian Andes that the Amazon begins its long course to the Atlantic; the river, however, goes by the name of Marañon throughout its length in Peru. In the beginning it is augmented by the Huallaga, Ucayali, and Yavarí and a dozen more mighty streams having their sources in the same heights or in the foothills on the eastern slopes, and, while still within Peruvian territory, becomes a river of such immense depth that ocean liners steam clear across the continent to Iquitos, thus giving to Peru a port accessible from the Atlantic for her shipments of rubber and other tropical products.
The disposition of the country’s population of 4,500,000 inhabitants is significant of the history of the nation’s development and suggestive of the prosperity that awaits her when the Andean barriers shall have been gridironed with the railroads that will open up the Amazon region to colonization some day. The coast areas now support a fourth of the total population, the cordilleras two-thirds, while the rich forests and fertile plains of the Montaña—the country of Peru’s present-day opportunity—support but half a million. The bulk of these inhabitants are of Indian and mixed Indian and Spanish descent. But little impression has yet been made by European immigration, as in the established agricultural republics of the Atlantic seaboard. It is confidently expected that the birth of the New Peru—the Peru of railroads, colonization, and great agricultural and mining activity—will reverse this disparity in distribution and increase the population to many times its present numbers, for now it is less than that of Holland, although Peru is three times the size of France.
The New Peru, which is heralded by all recent visitors to the west coast republics, is building an industrial and commercial nation on the long smoldering ruins of Spain’s golden empire, and it will be a worthier and more lasting structure than that with which Pizarro remorselessly smothered the unique civilization of the Incas. The war with Chile seemed to awaken her to the necessity of keeping pace with the times, not only in military but in commercial affairs. Since then she has made great strides.
A short distance up the coast near Ecuador’s port of Guayaquil lies the little town of Tumbéz, where Pizarro landed with his troop of two hundred men and planted the banner of Castile in the Inca’s domain. One of his first acts after establishing the power of Spain in the Inca country was to found a new capital nearer the coast than Cuzco, where, in the midst of the Andes, the Incas had for centuries had their seat of government. He chose the site of a pre-Incaic oracle on the Rimac River (the “river that speaks”) where the legendary predecessors of the Incas came to make their vows. For nearly three hundred years this city, which is now called Lima, but which he christened the City of the Kings, enjoyed the distinction of being the “second metropolis” of the great Spanish Empire on two continents and the center of a viceregal court, the splendor of which rivaled that of royalty itself. Stately palaces and churches were soon erected; wide avenues and beautiful plazas were laid out and substantial walls constructed for defense, and here came in the viceroy’s train the proudest nobility of Spain.
Lima is reached by both railroad and trolley line from Callao, and lies on a broad, fertile plain on the left bank of the river. Fifty miles back of the city the great chain of the Andes passes; but spurs from the majestic range stretch down and enclose it as within an amphitheater. Lima is only five hundred feet above sea-level, and in the summer season unquestionably hot, although the cool breezes from the Pacific temper the climate to a certain extent. In general appearance the early writers likened it to Seville; to-day, as the capital of a progressive republic, it has broadened out and become more active than its dreamy Andalusian prototype. As in Santiago and the old parts of Buenos Aires, the business and poorer residence streets generally are narrow and paved with cobble-stones, and most of the buildings are two or three stories high. In the better residence sections the visitor is agreeably surprised to find the charm of other days still remaining in the massive wooden street doors studded with brass, barred windows and Moorish balconies, or miradores, of heavily carved mahogany, and beautiful patios. The famous old Torre-Tagle mansion, where so many of the viceroys lived, is still standing to perpetuate this interesting type, as in the older tropical Spanish cities. Portales, or arcades, extend along the sides of the plazas in front of the shops to afford shelter from the sun.
The great cathedral and the government palace of the same period flank two sides of the Plaza Mayor. On the third side stands the city hall, above which are the balconies of the principal social clubs. Near by is the old Inquisition building. In the high-domed and mahogany-paneled room in which the Holy Office sat, the Senate now holds its sessions and signs the laws of the republic on the very table whence in the old days were issued warrants for autos da fé, and the legislators now hang their hats in the former torture chamber, in fine disregard of the horrors it once witnessed. There is a venerableness attached to the old churches and convents abounding in Lima which makes one hope that the exigencies of modernism may not demand the destruction of these splendid relics of colonial architecture.
PLAZA MAYOR, LIMA.
The Plaza Mayor was the very heart of the brilliant colonial régime. The courtly Dons of these days, many of whom are descendants of the principal courtiers of that period, still are delighted to tell of the brilliance of the viceregal court under the Marquis de Cañete or the Duke de Palata, or the dilettante Prince de Esquilache—a court that was the talk of two continents. In the gorgeous salons of the old palace the gayety reached its height in the days of the Viceroy Amat. It is not surprising to learn that the deposed Ferdinand VII would gladly have followed the example of the Portuguese king and moved with his court to his new-world capital had he been able to escape from the grasp of Napoleon. At one corner is the site of the house in which Pizarro fought in vain with his assassins. His skeleton now lies in a glass case in the cathedral, exposed to the visitor’s astonished gaze. In the center of the Plaza a beautiful bronze fountain has stood for three hundred years, untouched by the strife that surged about it as each new period of Peru’s stormy career was ushered in.
In the Plaza de la Exposición, on the Paseo Colón and in other parks and boulevards are erected the statues of the nation’s heroes, and other men who have made Peru’s history—Christopher Columbus, the two Liberators, San Martín and Bolívar, Colonel Bolognesi, who fell in the war with Chile, refusing to surrender “until we have burned our last cartridge,” and many others. The Paseo Colón runs through the fashionable residence section. It is one hundred and fifty feet wide and connects the Plazas Bolognesi and Exposición. Through the center runs a garden bordered with superb trees and artistically laid out flower-beds and flowering bushes, and interspersed at intervals with monuments, pillars, and fountains. The present day parade of the gente decente gives the visitor a picture of beautiful women and well-groomed equipages that measures up to the best traditions of Peru’s social eminence. In the heart of the city is the great bull ring, where once society gathered for other purposes than merely to take the air.
Excellent electric car service is a feature of Lima’s modern improvements. Trolley lines extend to the many seaside resorts for which society deserts the capital in the hottest months—Chorillos, the Newport of Peru, just south of Callao, or Miraflores, Barranco, Ancón and the numerous imitations of Coney Island.
Too much cannot be said of the charm of Lima’s culture and refinement. If the Limeños have inherited from their ancestors too much of the aristocratic pride and military arrogance that distinguish the Peninsulare, they have also fallen heir to the courtly grace and savoir faire that made the Knights of Alcántara famous among the first gentlemen in Europe four centuries ago. From the Lima home of to-day the visitor will take away with him recollections of hospitality, kindness and old-world dignity, lightened by a pronounced keenness of wit. They have the reputation of being generous and hospitable, if inclined to extravagance, and of forming warm and lasting friendships. Ardent imaginations and brilliant intellects lend a charm to conversation with the men, only less than that which the world-famed beauty, intelligence and kindly courtesy of the women lend to theirs. Very reserved when on their way to church in their black mantos or promenading the Alameda in their handsome toilettes, these ladies exert themselves to make their homes agreeable to their guests. The behavior of the young girls on the Alameda is more like that of their Chilean sisters.
At the head of Peru’s educational system stands the fine old University of San Marcos, in Lima, founded in 1551—nearly a hundred years before Harvard received its charter. It has now many additions and covers all branches of learning, and its courses are thrown open to every class.
SCENE ON THE OROYA RAILWAY.
Peru’s railroads cover but fifteen hundred miles, but they are pushing forward rapidly to fill in its section of the long-promised Pan-American railway from Panamá to Patagonia. One of these, the Oroya road, which ascends from Lima up into the plateau country, is altogether the most impressive piece of railroad engineering in the world; it is not only the highest, but there is no other that lifts its wondering passengers to any such altitude in such an appallingly short space of time. For an hour or more the train winds through a wide, irrigated valley, green and prosperous-looking with plantations of sugar cane. Farther up, the valley narrows and is closed in by naked rocks. Twenty-five miles from Lima a station is reached twenty-eight hundred feet above the sea; twelve miles farther the altitude is five thousand feet. At Casapalca, the town of smelters, thirteen thousand six hundred feet is achieved by the puffing, vibrating engine; at fourteen thousand feet the chimneys of Casapalca’s smelters look like pins stuck in the green carpet below, and finally, the passenger descends from the train, very uncertain on his feet, at the unprecedented height of 15,665 feet, and stands on the cold, wind-swept Andean roof. On every hand are peaks and hoods of snow. Beyond the station the rechristened Mount Meiggs rises another two thousand feet, as a monument to the indefatigable Yankee promoter and soldier of fortune who conceived and built the road—Henry Meiggs.
Turning to the west, one looks back over the long, infinitely varied descent; to the east lie the plateaus and the Andean treasure land. The northern branch of the road continues along almost equally high levels, past the historic plains of Junín on which Bolívar dealt his crushing blow to the viceroy’s army in 1824, to Cerro de Pasco, where the American mining syndicate is preparing to get rich.