South America Observations and Impressions

The view which I am here presenting is based chiefly on what I saw in Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, the three countries in which there is a larger educated class than in the less populous republics. It applies in a less degree to Chile; and there are, of course, exceptions in the three first-named republics also, though not numerous enough to affect the general truth of what I am trying to state. The phenomenon is all the more remarkable because in the days when America began to be settled there was no part of Europe where religion had so strong a hold on the people as it had in Spain and Portugal. The Conquistadores, whatever may be thought of the influence of their faith upon their conduct, were ardently pious in their own way. Even in the desire they professed for the propagation of the faith among the Indians, they were not consciously hypocritical, though they never allowed their piety to stand in the way of their avarice.

The fiery vigour of that extraordinary group of men has often blazed out in their descendants. It is the appearance in almost every state of men of tireless energy and strenuous will that gives their chief interest to the wars and revolutions of the last hundred years. Few of these men, besides the heroes of Independence, such as San Martin, Belgrano, Miranda, Bolivar, and Sucre, are known to Europe, and of those who are known, some like Francia and Artigas and Rosas and Lopez, have won fame by ruthlessness more than by genius. Of late years the leading figures have been more frequently statesmen and less frequently soldiers. Both types are honourably represented to-day in many of the republics. There is plenty of strength in the race, and Juarez of Mexico is only one of many examples to show that Indian blood does not necessarily reduce its quality. Into what channels its force will be hereafter directed, and whether it will develop a gift for thought and for artistic creation commensurate with the activity which it has shewn in other fields, is a question upon which its history since 1825 sheds little light. The wind bloweth where it listeth.

In the more progressive states, conditions are changing as fast as anywhere else in this changeful age. Here, as everywhere, the Present is the child of the Past, but the features of the child change as it grows up, and all we know of the future is that it will be unlike the past. No countries have more possibilities of change than those of South America. European immigrants are streaming into the southern republics. The white race is commingling with the aboriginal Indians in the west and with the negroes in the east. Scientific discovery is bringing its latest appliances into contact with countries still undeveloped and with peoples long left behind in the march of progress. Till the middle of the eighteenth century the world of trade, politics, and thought was practically a European world. It then expanded to take in North America, then southern Asia and Australia, and then, last of all, the ancient nations of the Far East. South America, which has hitherto, except at rare intervals, stood outside, has now begun to affect the commercial and financial movements of the world. She may before long begin to affect its movements in other ways also, and however little we can predict the part that her peoples will play, it must henceforth be one of growing significance for the Old World as well as for the New.

NOTES

Note I. The reader who desires fuller information regarding the countries treated of here may wish to be referred to some books in English. The most convenient general historical accounts are perhaps to be found in Mr. Akers' History of South America, 1854–1904, and in Mr. T. C. Dawson's The South American Republics (2 vols.). For Peru Sir Clements Markham's History of Peru is still the best, to which may be added, for the earlier period, his recent work, The Incas of Peru. Mr. Scott Elliot's History of Chile is useful. The chapters on Peru in The History of the New World, by Mr. E. J. Payne, a scholar of great talents too soon lost to historical science, contain a thoughtful study of the causes to which the progress towards civilization of the ancient Peruvians was due. The two books of Professor Moses, The Establishment of Spanish Rule in America and South America on the Eve of Emancipation, are fair in spirit and throw much light upon topics regarding which little has been written in English. The fullest and most careful account of Peruvian and Bolivian antiquities is still that of Mr. Squier: Peru, Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas (1877). Of more recent works of travel that which stands first in the field of natural history is John Ball's Notes of a Naturalist in South America (1887). Among others of a more general kind the following may be named: Across South America, by Hiram Bingham; The South Americans, by Albert Hale; The Other Americans, by Arthur Ruhl; Uruguay, by W. H. Koebel; Argentine Plains and Andine Glaciers, by Walter Larden; Panama, by Albert Edwards; Argentina, by W. A. Hirst; and the Ten Republics, by Robert P. Porter. Sir M. Conway's Travels and Explorations in the Bolivian Andes is addressed primarily to mountain climbers, but contains much that is interesting to other readers also. A recent book in French entitled Le Brésil au XX me Siècle, by M. Pierre Denis, is short, but singularly clear, well informed, and judicious.

In the publications issued by the Pan American Union in Washington a great deal of valuable statistical information brought up to date may be found. The South American Supplements issued monthly by the London Times are well edited and constitute a useful current record of what is going forward.

Note II. Some readers may also wish to hear what are the facilities for travel in the parts of South America covered by this book. There are now many well-appointed railways in Argentina and Uruguay, and a smaller number in Chile and Brazil, and both in these and other states the work of construction is going on steadily. Roads fit for driving are still comparatively few and rough, but in level countries like Argentina one drives over the Pampa wherever wire fences do not bar the way. Travel in the Andes is mostly upon mule back; it is slow and has become expensive. The capital cities of the republics have good hotels. In Arequipa, the larger coast towns of Chile, and three or four of the Argentine and Brazilian cities, fair accommodation can be had. Elsewhere it is very poor, and the food no better. The scale of prices is everywhere high, but most so in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, which have won the reputation of being the most expensive places in the world to live in, surpassing even Petersburg and Washington.

A great deal of what is most interesting in the six republics above referred to can now be seen by railway, and if a few plain but fairly comfortable hotels (such as that at Santa Rosa de los Andes on the Transandine Railway) were placed here and there upon the chief Peruvian, Chilean, and Brazilian lines, journeys along them would present no exceptional difficulties. There is now no yellow fever except in Guayaquil and on the Amazon; and the conditions of health are on the whole not unfavourable. Those who intend to travel in the loftier parts of the Andes ought, however, to satisfy themselves that their hearts and lungs are sound.

Note III. A remarkable testimony to the harm wrought by the Spanish Conquest on the aboriginal inhabitants of Peru may be found in the will of Leguisamo, one of the last survivors of the Conquistadores, made at Cuzco in 1589, and printed in Sir Clements Markham's book, The Incas of Peru.

"I took part in the conquest and settlement of these kingdoms when we drove out the Incas who ruled them as their own. We found them in such order and the Incas governed them in such wise that there was not a thief nor vicious man nor adulterer nor bad woman admitted among them. The men had honest and useful occupations. The lands, forests, mines, pastures, houses, and all kinds of products were regulated and distributed in such sort that each one knew his property without any one else seizing it, nor were there lawsuits. The operations of war, though numerous, never interfered with the interests of commerce or agriculture. All things from the greatest to the smallest had their proper place and order. The Incas were feared, obeyed, and respected by their subjects as men capable and versed in the arts of government… We have subdued these kingdoms and we have destroyed by our evil example the people who had such a government as these natives enjoyed. They were so free from committing crimes that the Indian who had a large quantity of gold in his house left it open, only placing a small stick across the door as a sign that its master was absent. With that according to their custom no one could enter or take anything… But now they have come to such a pass, in offence of God, owing to the bad example we have set them in all things, that these natives have changed into people who do no good or very little."

Some allowance must be made in this description for the disappointment and sadness in which Leguisamo wrote, as appears from other parts of his will; and other evidence at our disposal shews that his picture of Peru under the Incas is too favourable, yet even after making these deductions, the admission of the harm wrought by the conquerors and the consequent decline in native character and conduct carries weight.

1

All things tend naturally towards non-existence. So in the original statutes of Oriel College, Oxford (founded in A.D. 1327).

2

All that comes into being deserves to perish.

3

The trade to the Philippines crossed the Continent at Tehuantepec.

4

The reader will find at the end of the volume a small map which may help him to understand the topography of the region.

5

The highest point of excavation at Gold Hill is 534 feet above sea level and the highest elevation of the original surface of the ground along the centre line of the Canal was 312 feet above sea level. The vertical depth of the cut on the centre line is thus 272 feet, the bottom of the cut being 40 feet above sea level.

6

The unskilled labourers employed are mostly West Indian negroes from Jamaica and Barbadoes, with some Spaniards, but no Chinese. The skilled men are from the United States. Many Chinese were here in the French days and died in great numbers.

7

Among the white population of the Zone, excluding the cities of Panama and Colon, the rate was higher, viz. 16.47 for 1910 and 15.32 for 1911, the part of the population not under official control being less careful to observe health rules.

8

Fascinated by the example of Suez, and not realizing how greatly the problem of construction was affected by the difference between the very wet climate of Panama and the absolutely dry climate of Suez, the French engineers originally planned a sea-level canal. To have carried out that plan would have added enormously to the cost, for the Culebra cutting must have been not only eighty feet deeper, but immensely wider. Few who examine the spot seem now to doubt that the decision to have a lock canal has been a wise one.

9

The last estimate presented puts the amount at $375,000,000. The fortifications are expected to cost about $12,000,000 more.

10

London to Sydney via Suez 11,531 miles, via Panama 12,525; London to Auckland via Suez 12,638 miles, via Panama, 11,404.

11

Since our visit Coropuna has been ascended by my friend Professor Hiram Bingham of Yale University (U.S.A.). The average of his observations gives it a height of 21,700 feet. A very interesting account of his long and difficult snow climb may be found in Harper's Magazine for March, 1912.

12

The Harvard Observatory Report gives it as 7550.

13

Quoted in the learned notes to Mr. Bandelier's valuable book, Islands of Titicaca and Koati, p. 161, from a MS. in the National Archives at Lima. Omate is probably the volcano now usually known as Ubinas.

14

Chapter XVI.

15

Paramo is the name applied to these bleak regions between the valleys.

16

This is the term of respect by which an Indian usually addresses a white man of superior station. The word was in Inca mythology the name of a divine or half-divine hero – it was also the name of one of the Inca sovereigns.

17

Above this valley, nearly a hundred miles away to the northeast, rises the splendid peak of Salcantay, whose height, said to approach 22,000 feet, will some day attract an aspiring mountain climber.

18

It is fair to say that when the conquest was once accomplished, Valverde seems to have protested against the reduction of the Indians to slavery.

19

While these pages are passing through the press (April, 1912), I am informed that a serious effort is about to be made to lay drains in and generally to clean up Cuzco.

20

The name "Inca" properly belongs to the ruling family or clan in the Peruvian monarchy, of whose ethnic relations to its subjects we know very little, but I use it here to denote not only the dynasty, but the epoch of their rule, which apparently covered two centuries (possibly more) before the arrival of Pizarro. The expression "The Inca" means the reigning monarch.

21

A patient archæologist might be able by examining and photographing specimens of each style to determine their chronological succession and thus throw some light on the history of the city. The oldest type appeared to be that of the Inca Roca wall, very similar to that of the Sacsahuaman walls to be presently described.

22

Good specimens of all these things may be seen in the American Museum of Natural History of New York.

23

Some of the granite blocks in the fortress at Osaka in Japan are even larger, but these belong to the time of Hideoshi, early in the seventeenth century. There is some reason to think that the city or at least the neighbourhood of Cuzco may have been inhabited from very remote times.

24

Such as that at Choqquequirau described by my friend Professor Bingham in his book entitled Across South America. He discovered, in 1911, an Inca building at a place on the river Pampaconas fifteen days' journey north of Cuzco and only two thousand feet above sea-level. It was not previously known that their power had extended so far in that direction.

25

Dr. Sven Hedin gives the height of Tso Mavang as 15,098 feet above sea level.

26

In some parts of Mexico the Indians use the seeds of a species of Chenopodium for food. Civilized man has not yet troubled himself to enquire what possibilities of development there may be in some of the plants which primitive or barbarous man turned to account.

27

Dr. Uhle has suggested that the so-called seats may have been places on which to set images. Mr. Bingham thinks they were more probably spots on which priests stood to salute the rising sun by wafting kisses with their hands, a Peruvian practice described by Calancha, who compares the book of Job, chap. xxxi, v. 27.

28

Lake Titicaca was originally, it would seem, called the lake of Chucuito, from an ancient town on its western shore.

29

St. Thomas, according to an early legend, preached the Gospel on the coast of Malabar, so the Spanish ecclesiastics when they came to Mexico and Peru and heard tales of a wise deity or semi-divine teacher who had long ago appeared among the natives, concluded this must have been the Apostle, the idea of the connection of Eastern Asia with these new Western lands being still in their minds.

In the ancient city of Tlascala in Mexico I have seen a picture representing St. Thomas preaching to the natives in the guise of the Mexican deity Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Snake. St. Thomas is depicted as half serpent, half bird, but with a human head.

30

Sir M. Conway gives the height of the higher peak Ancohuma (Hanko Uma) at 21,490. The loftiest summits in Peru seem to be Huascaran (some way N.N.E. of Lima), about 22,150 feet, and Coropuna (see p. 57), 21,700 feet. Aconcagua in Chile is the culminating point of the Andes and the whole Western World (see p. 260).

31

Climbing and Exploration in the Bolivian Andes, 1901.

32

See Bandelier, Islands of Titicaca and Koati, ch. I, and notes.

33

They have some likeness to the carved stone found at Chavin in northern Peru, figured in Sir C. Markham's The Incas of Peru, p. 34. There was also found lately in a grave near Lima a textile fabric with a pattern resembling this.

34

The arrow point may however have been brought from the northeastern shores of Titicaca. Mr. Bingham tells me that such obsidian tips are sometimes found in auriferous gravels there.

35

The primitive inhabitants of the Canary Isles, who were apparently of Berber stock, also preserved their dead as mummies.

36

Abundant evidence on this subject may be found in Mr. J. G. Frazer's Golden Bough. In Cornwall and Ireland sacred wells still receive offerings. I once met a French peasant who believed in were-wolves and knew one; and I remember as a boy to have been warned by the peasants in the Glens of Antrim to beware of the water spirit who (under the form of a bull) infested the river in which I was fishing.

37

It is, however, probable that the early Spanish accounts of the excellence of the roads were exaggerated, for few traces of them can be discerned to-day.

38

See note III at end of book.

39

It is not clear how much territory this enumeration covered and it was probably only a rough estimate; still, the fact that the population was far larger in the middle of the sixteenth than it was in the eighteenth century seems beyond doubt.

40

A vast deal still remains to be done both in Mexico and Peru, perhaps even more in the latter than in the former, to examine thoroughly both the accounts given by the early Spanish writers and the existing remains of buildings and graves and the objects found in or near them, so as to lay a foundation for some systematic account of the ancient native civilizations.

41

Its habitual use may have contributed to give the Aymarás that impassive dulness which characterizes the race.

42

Mr. Bandelier (Islands of Titicaca and Koati) gives an interesting description of such a ceremony.

43

Mountain Spirit.

44

This line has now (December, 1912) been completed.

45

I take these details from Dr. Romero's Los Lagos de los Altiplanos, translated from the French of Dr. Neveu Lemaire.

46

The name Cholo properly means the offspring of a mestizo and an Indian, but it seems to be currently used to describe a peasant with a marked Indian strain.

47

An admirable study of desert scenery may be found in a book by Mr. Van Dyke of Rutgers College (in New Jersey), entitled The Desert.

48

Pronounced Oyawe.

49

It is called Yareta, and reminds one a little (though it is larger and harder) of the Cherleria sedoides of the Scottish Highlands.

50

In the thirty years from 1880 to 1909 the Chilean treasury received £82,637,000 (about $412,000,000) in export duties on nitrates.

51

Buenos Aires, Rio, and São Paulo are the three larger cities.

52

It is sometimes said that one hundred families rule Chile.

53

A distinguished Chilean officer whose presence added greatly to the pleasure of the trip was detailed to accompany us.

54

Except when Spanish ships of war bombarded Valparaiso in 1866.

55

The word roto seems originally to have been a term of disparagement; it meant 'a broken man.' Now it merely denotes one of the poorer class, and is opposed to pelucon, one of the upper class (literally a wig wearer).

56

The Yaquis of Sonora in Northwestern Mexico have never been subdued, but they are a small tribe dwelling in mountain fastnesses difficult of access.

57

This is the form of the name that was given to me at Temuco. Others call them Moluche or Maluche.

58

First part written in Chile, where he was fighting, in 1558, and published in 1569.

59

Ἀλλ' ἀεὶ Ζεφυροῖο λιγυπνείοντας ἀήταςὨκεανὸς ἀνίησιν ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους.– Odyss. IV.

60

Thuja gigantea.

61

Many cattle are exported from Argentine to Chile, but these can here, as in the passes of southern Chile, be driven over the top of the ridge, though many now go by rail.

62

An account of the ascent and of all this region will be found in Mr. E. A. Fitzgerald's High Andes, the author of which was prevented by illness from reaching the summit.

63

This name is in the Andes usually applied to the sharp little peaks of ice that stand up, like the pyramidal points of seracs, on the surface of Andean glaciers, and it suits them better, because penitents wear white garments. The similarity of form has however caused it to be applied to these black towers also.

64

It was first ascended by Mr. Vines in 1897. The measurements of Aconcagua vary from 23,200 to 22,425 feet. Mercedario is given at 22,300 and Tupungato at 22,015.

65

The finest representation I have ever seen is a twelfth-century mosaic figure of Christ in the apse of the Norman cathedral at Cefalu in Sicily.

66

The distant view of Badrináth and Trisul from the heights above Naini Tal in Kumaon is also quite as imposing as anything we saw in the Andes.

67

Whether the discovery of India was his original aim, a point recently brought into question, there is no doubt that he thought after his first voyage that he had found some part of eastern Asia.

68

Unless Magellan had got farther to the west than the rest of the narrative would imply, three days seems a short time for the boats to proceed to the western opening and back again.

69

Cape Horn was discovered in 1616 by Van Schouten and Le Maire sailing from the East.

70

Notes of a Naturalist in South America.

71

It is hardly necessary to refer for information regarding the Fuegians to the classic book of Charles Darwin, the Voyage of the Beagle, in which the genius for observation and speculation of that great man was first made known to the world.

72

Fagus (or Nothofagus) betuloides, or Fagus antarctica.

73

He is called Settaboth in the record of Sir Francis Drake's voyage (The World Encompassed, p. 487, Hakluyt Society Edition). (I take this reference from Robertson's edition of Pigafetta.) "Sycorax my dam," "the foul witch Sycorax," does not appear in Pigafetta, and comes from somewhere else: the name sounds Greek. As to Caliban and the Patagonians, see the notes to Dr. H. H. Furness's monumental edition of the Tempest, p. 379. Every one remembers Robert Browning's Caliban upon Setebos, or Natural Theology in the Island. The Settaboth mentioned in Drake's voyage is probably a mere repetition from Eden, for the Indians to whom Fletcher (in narrating that voyage) refers were encountered on the Chilean coast in lat. 38° S., a different set of people altogether. Fletcher's account is in many points hardly credible. See Barrow's Life of Sir Francis Drake, p. 121.