I have placed in the mouth of Epicharmus the above propositions, which were disapproved by the acute Vicq d’Azyr, in his Traité d’Anatomie et de Physiologie, T. i. p. 5, but are now entertained by many distinguished persons among my friends. Reflection and continued study in the domains of physiology and chemistry have deeply shaken my earlier belief in a peculiar so-called vital force. In 1797, at the close of my work entitled “Versuche über die gereizte Muskel und Nervenfaser, nebst Vermuthungen über den chemischen Process des Lebens in der Thier und Pflanzenwelt” (Bd. ii. S. 430-436), I already declared that I by no means regarded the existence of such peculiar vital forces as demonstrated. Since that time I have no longer called peculiar forces what may possibly only be the operation of the concurrent action of the several long-known substances and their material forces. We may, however deduce from the chemical relations of the elements a safer definition of animate and inanimate substances, than the criteria which are taken from voluntary motion, from the circulation of fluids within solids, from internal appropriation, and from the fibrous arrangements of the elements. I term that an animated substance “of which the parts being separated by external agency alter their state of composition after the separation, all other and external relations continuing the same.” This definition is merely the enunciation of a fact. The equilibrium of the elements in animated or organic matter is preserved by their being parts of a whole. One organ determines another, one gives to another its temperature and tone or disposition, in all which, these, and no other, affinities are operative. Thus in organised beings all is reciprocally means and end. The rapidity with which organic parts, separated from a complete living organism, change their slate of combination, differs greatly, according to the degree of their original dependence, and to the nature of the substance. Blood of animals, which varies much in the different classes, suffers change sooner than the juices of plants. Funguses generally decay sooner than leaves of trees, and muscle more easily than the cutis.
Bones, the elementary structure of which has been very recently recognised, hair of animals, wood in plants or trees, the feathery appendages of seeds of plants (Pappus), are not inorganic or without life; but even in life they approximate to the state in which they are found after their separation from the rest of the organism. The higher the degree of vitality or susceptibility of an animated substance, the more rapidly does organic change in its composition ensue after separation. “The aggregate total of the cells is an organism, and the organism lives so long as the parts are active in subservience to the whole. In opposition to lifeless or inorganic, organic nature appears to be self-determining.” (Henle, Allgemeine Anatomie, 1841, S. 216-219). The difficulty of satisfactorily referring the vital phenomena of organic life to physical and chemical laws, consists chiefly (almost as in the question of predicting meteorological processes in the atmosphere), in the complication of the phænomena, and in the multiplicity of simultaneously acting forces and of the conditions of their activity.
I have remained faithful in “Kosmos” to the same mode of viewing and representing what are called “Lebenskräfte,” vital forces, and vital affinities, (Pulteney, in the Transact. of the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. xvi. p. 305), the formation-impulse, and the active principle in organisation. I have said, in Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 67, (English Ed. vol. i. p. 62), “The myths of imponderable matter and of vital forces peculiar to each organism have complicated and perplexed the view of nature. Under different conditions and forms of recognition the prodigious mass of our experimental knowledge has progressively accumulated, and is now enlarging with increased rapidity. Investigating reason essays from time to time with varying success to break through ancient forms and symbols, invented to effect the subjection of rebellious matter, as it were, to mechanical constructions.” Farther on in the same volume, (p. 339 English, and 367 of the original,) I have said, “In a physical description of the universe, it should still be noticed that the same substances which compose the organic forms of plants and animals are also found in the inorganic crust of the globe; and that the same forces or powers which govern inorganic matter are seen to prevail in organic beings likewise, combining and decomposing the various substances, regulating the forms and properties of organic tissues, but acting in these cases under complicated conditions yet unexplained, to which the very vague terms of ‘vital phænomena,’ ‘operations of vital forces,’ have been assigned, and which have been systematically grouped, according to analogies more or less happily imagined.” (Compare also the critical notices on the assumption of proper or peculiar vital forces in Schleiden’s Botanik als inductive Wissenchaft (Botany as an Inductive Science), Th. i. S. 60, and in the recently published excellent Untersuchungen über thierische Elektricität (Researches on Animal Electricity), by Emil du Bois-Reymond, Bd. i. S. xxxiv.-l.)
THE
PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA,
THE
ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA ATAHUALLPA:
AND
THE FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN,
FROM THE CREST OF THE ANDES.
After a residence of an entire year on the crest of the chain of the Andes or Antis[41], between 4° North and 4° South Latitude, in the high plains of New Granada, Pastos, and Quito, whose mean elevations range between 8500 and 12800 English feet, we rejoiced in descending gradually through the milder climate of the Quina-yielding forests of Loxa to the plains of the upper part of the course of the Amazons, a terra incognita rich in magnificent vegetation. The small town of Loxa has given its name to the most efficacious of all the species of medicinal Fever-Bark: Quina, or Cascarilla fina de Loxa. It is the precious production of the tree which we have described botanically as Cinchona condaminea, but which, under the erroneous impression that all the kinds of the Quina or fever bark of commerce were furnished by the same species of tree, had previously been called Cinchona officinalis. The Fever Bark was first brought to Europe towards the middle of the seventeenth century, either, as Sebastian Badus asserts, to Alcala de Henares in 1632, or to Madrid in 1640, on the arrival of the wife of the Viceroy, the Countess of Chinchon[42], who had been cured of intermittent fever at Lima, accompanied by her physician, Juan del Vego. The trees which yield the finest quality of Quina de Loxa are found from 8 to 12 miles to the south east of the town, in the mountains of Uritusinga, Villonaco, and Rumisitana, growing on mica-slate and gneiss, at very moderate elevations above the level of the sea, being between 5400 and 7200 (5755 and 7673 English) feet, heights about equal respectively to those of the Hospice on the Grimsel and the Pass of the great St. Bernard. The proper boundaries of the Quina-woods in this quarter are the small rivers Zamora and Cachiyacu.
The tree is cut down in its first flowering season, or in the fourth or seventh year of its age, according as it has sprung from a vigorous root-shoot, or from a seed: we heard with astonishment that at the period of my journey, according to official computations, the collectors of Quina (Cascarilleros and Cazadores de Quina, Quina Hunters),—only brought in 110 hundred weight of the Bark of the Cinchona condaminea annually. None of this precious store found its way at that time into commerce; the whole was sent from the port of Payta on the Pacific, round Cape Horn to Cadiz, for the use of the Spanish Court. In order to furnish this small quantity of 11000 Spanish pounds, eight or nine hundred trees were cut down every year. The older and thicker stems have become more and more scarce; but the luxuriance of vegetation is such that the younger trees which are now resorted to, though only 6 inches in diameter, often attain from 53 to 64 English feet in height. This beautiful tree, which is adorned with leaves above 5 English inches long and 2 broad, growing in dense woods, seems always to aspire to rise above its neighbours. As its upper branches wave to and fro in the wind, their red and shining foliage produces a strange and peculiar effect recognisable from a great distance. The mean temperature in the woods where the Cinchona condaminea is found, ranges between 12½° and 15° Reaumur (60°.2 and 65°.8 Fahrenheit), which are about the mean annual temperatures of Florence and the Island of Madeira; but the extremes of heat and cold observed at these two stations of the temperate zone are never felt around Loxa. Comparisons between the climates of places, one of which is situated in an elevated tropical plain, and the other in a higher parallel of latitude, can be from their nature but little satisfactory.
In order to descend South-South-East from the mountain knot of Loxa to the hot Valley of the Amazons, it is first necessary to pass over the Paramos of Chulucanas, Guamani and Yamoca,—mountain wildernesses of a peculiar character of which we have already spoken, and to which, in the southern parts of the Andes, the name of Puna (a word belonging to the Quichua language) is given. They mostly rise above 9500 (10125 English) feet; they are stormy, often enveloped for days in dense mist, or visited by violent and formidable showers of hail,—consisting not merely of hailstones of different spherical forms, usually a good deal flattened by rotation, but also sometimes of less regular forms, the hail having run together into thin plates of ice (papa-cara) which cut the face and hands. At such times I have occasionally seen the thermometer sink to 7° or 5° Reaumur, (47°.8 and 43°.2 Fahr.) and the electric tension of the atmosphere, measured by Volta’s electrometer, pass in a few minutes from positive to negative. When the temperature sinks below 5° Reaumur, (43°.2 Fahrenheit) snow falls in large and thinly scattered flakes. The vegetation of the Paramos has a peculiar physiognomy and character, from the absence of trees, the short close branches of the small-leaved myrtle-like shrubs, the large sized and numerous blossoms, and the perpetual freshness of the whole from the constant and abundant supply of moisture. No zone of Alpine vegetation in the temperate or cold parts of the globe can well be compared with that of the Paramos in the tropical Andes.
The impressions produced on the mind by the natural characters of these wildernesses of the Cordilleras are heightened in a remarkable and unexpected manner, from its being in those very regions that we still see admirable remains of the gigantic work, the artificial road of the Incas, which formed a line of communication through all the provinces of the Empire, extending over a length of more than a thousand English geographical miles. We find, placed at nearly equal distances apart, stations consisting of dwelling houses built of well-cut stone; they are a kind of Caravanserai, and are called Tambos and sometimes Inca-pilca (from pircca, the wall?). Some of them are surrounded by a kind of fortification; others were constructed for baths with arrangements for conducting hot water; the larger were designed for the use of the family of the Monarch himself. I had previously seen, measured, and drawn with care, buildings of the same kind in a good state of preservation at the foot of the volcano of Cotopaxi, near Callo. Pedro de Cieça, writing in the 16th century, called them “Aposentos de Mulalo.”[43] In the pass between Alausi and Loxa, called the Paramo del Assuay,—(a much frequented route across the Ladera de Cadlud, 14568 French or 15526 English feet above the level of the sea, or almost equal to the height of Mont Blanc),—as we were leading our heavily laden mules with great difficulty through the marshy ground on the elevated plain del Pullal, our eyes meanwhile were continually dwelling on the grand remains of the Inca’s road, which with a breadth of twenty-one English feet ran by our side for above a German mile. It had a deep under-structure, and was paved with well-cut blocks of blackish trap-porphyry. Nothing that I had seen of the remains of Roman roads in Italy, in the South of France, and in Spain, was more imposing than these works of the ancient Peruvians, which are moreover situated, according to my barometric measurements, at an elevation of 12440 (13258 English) feet above the sea, or more than a thousand feet higher than the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe. The ruins of what is called the Palace of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, and which are known by the name of the “Paredones del Inca,” are situated at the same elevation on the Assuay. Proceeding from thence to the southward towards Cuenca, the road leads to the small but well preserved fortress of Cañar[44], belonging probably to the same period, that of Tupac Yupanqui, or to that of his warlike son, Huayna Capac.
We saw still finer remains of the old Peruvian artificial roads on the way between Loxa and the Amazons, at the Baths of the Incas on the Paramo de Chulucanas, not far from Guancabamba, and in the neighbourhood of Ingatambo, at Pomahuaca. These last named remains are at a so much lower elevation, that I found the difference of level between the Inca’s Road at Pomahuaca and that on the Paramo del Assuay upwards of 9100 (about 9700 English) feet. The distance in a straight line is by astronomically determined latitudes exactly 184 English geographical miles, and the ascent of the road is 3500 (3730 English) feet greater than the height of the Pass of Mount Cenis above the Lake of Como. There are two great artificial Peruvian paved roads or systems of roads, covered with flat stones, or sometimes even with cemented gravel[45] (Macadamised); one passes through the wide and arid plain between the Pacific Ocean and the chain of the Andes, and the other over the ridges of the Cordilleras. Mile-stones, or stones marking the distances, are often found placed at equal intervals. The road was conducted across rivers and deep ravines by three kinds of bridges, stone, wood, and rope bridges (Puentes de Hamaca or de Maroma), and there were also aqueducts, or arrangements for bringing water to the Tambos, (hostelries or caravanserais) and to the fortresses. Both systems of roads were directed to the central point, Cuzco, the seat of government of the great empire, in 13° 31´ South latitude, and which is placed, according to Pentland’s map of Bolivia, 10676 Paris or 11378 English feet above the level of the sea. As the Peruvians employed no wheel carriages, and the roads were consequently only designed for the march of troops, for men carrying burdens, and for lightly laden lamas, we find them occasionally interrupted, on account of the steepness of the mountains, by long flights of steps, provided with resting places at suitable intervals. Francisco Pizarro and Diego Almagro, who on their distant expeditions used the military roads of the Incas with so much advantage, found great difficulties for the Spanish Cavalry at the places where these steps occurred[46]. The impediment presented to their march on these occasions was so much the greater, because in the early times of the Conquista, the Spaniards used only horses instead of the carefully treading mule, who in the difficult parts of the mountains seems to deliberate on every step he takes. It was not until a later period that mules were employed.
Sarmiento, who saw the Roads of the Incas whilst they were still in a perfect state of preservation, asks in a “Relacion” which long lay unread, buried in the Library of the Escorial, “how a nation unacquainted with the use of iron could have completed such grand works in so high and rocky a region (“Caminos tan grandes y tan sovervios”), extending from Cuzco to Quito on the one hand, and to the coast of Chili on the other? The Emperor Charles,” he adds, “with all his power could not accomplish even a part of what the well-ordered Government of the Incas effected through the obedient people over whom they ruled.” Hernando Pizarro, the most educated and civilised of the three brothers, who for his misdeeds suffered a twenty years’ imprisonment at Medina del Campo, and died at last at a hundred years of age “in the odour of sanctity,” “en olor de Santidad,” exclaims: “in the whole of Christendom there are nowhere such fine roads as those which we here admire.” The two important capitals and seats of government of the Incas, Cuzco and Quito, are 1000 English geographical miles apart in a straight line (SS.E., NN.W.), without reckoning the many windings of the way; and including the windings, the distance is estimated by Garcilaso de la Vega and other Conquistadores at “500 leguas.” Notwithstanding the great distance, we learn from the well-confirmed testimony of the Licentiate Polo de Ondegardo, that Huayna Capac, whose father had conquered Quito, caused some of the building materials for the “princely buildings,” (the houses of the Incas) in the latter city, to be brought from Cuzco.