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[Illustration: Running the Rapids of the Ratama
PAGE 217]
ACROSS THE
ANDES
BY
CHARLES JOHNSON POST
A Tale of Wandering Days Among the Mountains of Bolivia and the Jungles
of the Upper Amazon
_Illustrated by the Author_
NEW YORK
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
MCMXII
Copyright, 1912, by
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
All rights reserved
_Thanks are due to Harper and Brothers and to the Century Company for
permission to incorporate as chapters in this volume, articles appearing
in Harper's Magazine and The Century, and to the latter for the drawings
and paintings accompanying such articles._
THE TROPICS
"The legion that never was listed,"
The soft-lilting rhythm and song,
The starlight, and shadowy tropics,
The palms--and all that belong;
The unknown that ever persisted
In dreams that were epics of bliss,
Of glory and gain without effort--
And the visions have faded, like this.
From dusk to dawn, when the heat is gone,
The home thoughts nestle and throb,
And the drifting breeze through the dim, gray trees
Stirs up the fancies wan
Of the old, cool life and a white man's wife
With a white man's babes on a lawn,
Where the soft greens please--yet each morrow sees
The flame that follows the dawn.
From dawn till eve the hot hours leave
Their mark like a slow-burned scar;
And a dull, red hate 'gainst the grilling fate,
Impulse and fevers weave;
While the days to come--in years their sum--
The helpless thoughts perceive
As an endless state, sans time or date,
That only gods relieve.
Rubber or gold--the game is old,
The lust and lure and venture;
And the trails gleam white in the tropic night
Where the restless spirits mould;
A vine-tied cross 'neath the festooned moss,
Bones in a matting rolled;
No wrong or right, the loss is slight,
The world-old fooled of gold.
"The legion that never was listed"--
The glamor of words in a song,
The lure of the strange and exotic,
The drift of the few from the throng;
The past that was never resisted
In the ebb or the flow of desire,
The foolish, the sordid, ambitious,
Now pay what the gods require.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Old Panama, Agamemnon, and The Genial Picaroon 13
II. The Fighting Whale, and Chinamen in the Chicken Coop 27
III. Through a Tropical Quarantine 46
IV. A Forced March Across the Desert Of Atacama 62
V. Arequipa, the City of Churches 76
VI. Through the Inca Country 88
VII. Out of La Paz by Pack Train 103
VIII. The Back Trail Among the Aymarás 118
IX. Over the First Great Pass 131
X. The Toll Gate and Mapiri 145
XI. Waiting for the Leccos 159
XII. Off on the Long Drift 172
XIII. The Lecco Tribe 184
XIV. Drifting Down the Rio Mapiri 200
XV. Shooting the Ratama 214
XVI. Opening up the Jungle 224
XVII. Twenty-Three Days Against the Current 238
XVIII. By Pack Mule Through the Jungle 252
XIX. The Indian Uprising 266
XX. Ambushed by Ladrones 280
XXI. The Music of the Aymarás 289
XXII. Back Home 299
XXIII. Off Across the Continent in a Batalon 309
XXIV. Through the Rubber Country 321
XXV. A New Crew and Another Batalon 337
XXVI. The Falls of the Madeira and Home 350
ILLUSTRATIONS
Running the Rapids of the Ratama _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Announced that a person, a somebody, was awaiting me below 13
Pointed scornfully to the outside 15
Agamemnon 18
Those who refused to pay were thrown into the chicken coop 35
When the end lid was taken off the bodies of eight dead Chinamen were
taken out 37
A deserted brigantine at anchor dipped slowly with the long Pacific
swells 42
What the diplomat said was direct and voluble 49
A wide dusty canal which in the intervals between showers serves as a
market (_facing page_) 50
Close resemblance to an army of drunken bugs 52
Every day our winches whirred and clattered off some dusty, sand-blown
port (_facing page_) 54
Lima, a delightful city of contrasts 58
An Arequipa carrier 78
In Arequipa, the city of churches (_facing page_) 80
Hardly a day without its Saint's _fiesta_ 83
An Andean touring car 85
In Pizarro's day it was probably the same--costume, craft, and barter
(_facing page_) 100
Haggled with arrieros over pack mules 104
Prisoners along the trail up from La Paz (_facing page_) 106
Aymará driver of pack llamas 111
Members of a gang of prisoners 112
The guard for the road menders 114
Rodriguez and his Cholo helpers tightened the rawhide cinches and
replaced the packs 116
Aymará herders played their weird flutes 123
A few streets were still plainly marked, though the village has been
dead these many centuries (_facing page_) 128
Blizzards blowing from the Andean passes 133
Soldering the food in tin cans 138
Scattered in hysterical flight up and down the precipitous slope 141
Skirted the base of an unbroken cliff 142
Toll gate in Mapiri 145
An Andean mountaineer 146
There loomed the big mound of stones with a twig cross on top
(_facing page_) 148
Slowly the rafts sank under the weight 172
The shrewish, leather-skinned Indian wife 174
There were, according to the Lecco standards, no "bad places" yet 179
Leccos lowering the callapo through shallows 181
Lecco of the twig raft 182
These Leccos are among the finest Indians 184
Napoleon, a Lecco chief 188
A Lecco type 189
We seemed to move with intolerable slowness 203
But it is those parts of the river that the Leccos fairly love 209
A rubber picker 211
On a rope a trolley worked back and forth from which was suspended a
tiny platform 258
Never was there such a ride--not even in the Rapids of the Ratama
(_facing page_) 264
The Tacana brides, adjusted for themselves comfortable niches in the
cargo 314
At the tiller presided a huge Tacana 316
Never was such an exhibition in the history of firearms 319
But it was monkey that furnished them with the greatest delicacy 323
Often we pass a little shelter of palm leaves 326
Night camp on the Rio Beni on the way out (_facing page_) 328
It was only the shack of a lonely rubber picker 330
In the thin blue smoke, it at once turned a pale yellow 332
Justice is administered according to the standards of his submissive
domain 333
The bolachas of rubber are threaded on long ropes 348
Dragging a batalon around the portage of the Madeira Falls 351
ACROSS THE ANDES
CHAPTER I
OLD PANAMA, AGAMEMNON, AND THE GENIAL PICAROON
[Illustration: ANNOUNCED THAT A PERSON, A SOMEBODY, WAS AWAITING ME
BELOW.]
It was in Panama--the old Panama--and in front of the faded and
blistered hotel that I met him again. A bare-footed, soft-voiced mozo
had announced that a person, a somebody, was awaiting me below. Down in
the broken-tiled lobby a soured, saffron clerk pointed scornfully to the
outside. Silhouetted against the hot shimmer that boiled up from the
street was a jaunty figure in a native, flapping muslin jacket, native
rope-soled shoes, and dungaree breeches, carefully rolling a cigarette
from a little bag of army Durham. It turned and, from beneath the frayed
brim of a native hat, there beamed upon me the genial assurance of Bert,
one time of the Fifth Army Corps, Santiago de Cuba, and occasionally of
New York; and within my heart I rejoiced. Without, I made a signal that
secured a bottle of green, bilious, luke-warm native beer and settled
myself placidly for entertainment.
A panicky quarantine stretched up and down some few thousand miles of
the West Coast that left the steamer schedules a straggling chaos. For
fifteen dull, broiling days I had swapped hopes and rumors with the
polyglot steamship clerk or hung idly over the balcony of the Hotel
Marina watching the buzzards hopping about the mud flats or grouped
hopefully under the quarter of a slimy smack. Once I had inspected the
Colombian navy that happened to be lying off the Boca and observed a
bran-new pair of white flannels go to their ruin as a drunken Scotch
engineer teetered down an iron ladder with a lidless coal-oil lamp
waving in discursive gestures; once I had met a mild, dull, person who
had just come up Magdalena River way with a chunk of gold that he
assured me--without detail--had been hacked off by a machete, but here
his feeble imagination flickered out and he wrapped the rest in a poorly
wrought mystery until finally he fluttered over to Colon for the next
steamer of innocent possibilities.
[Illustration: POINTED SCORNFULLY TO THE OUTSIDE]
With these the respectable amusements were exhausted and I therefore
rejoiced as I confronted that cheerful, raconteuring adventurer under
the battered Panama. A ship's purser, a drummer of smoked hams, a Coney
Island barker, a soldier, a drifter, and always a teller of tales, he
had lain in the trenches on Misery Hill before Santiago in support of
Capron's Battery with a gaunt group around him as he wove the drifting
thread of adventure from the Bowery to the Barbary Coast in a series of
robust anecdotes. And they bore the earmarks of truth.
Now, in the genial silhouette framed against the tropic glare, I
realized that whatever days of waiting might be in store they would no
longer be dull. A true rumor had put him in a lone commercial venture
somewhere down these coasts and here at my elbow was to be placed all
the shift and coil of petty adventure, whimsical romance, and the
ultimate results of two years of adroit piracy in and out of the Spanish
Main that had ended, as I observed, in dungaree breeches, rope-soled
_alpargatas_, and a battered Panama hat.
Therefore through the ministrations of an occasional bottle of the
native bilious beer and other transactions that shall remain private,
the days sped themselves swiftly and unheeded guided by the adept hand
of Romance. Again, as in the trenches, I viewed the world under Asmodean
influences, but what I heard has no place in these pages; it is worth an
endeavor all its own. Then, one morning, the news spread that at last
the _Mapocho_ lay at the Boca and the hour of departure for the first
stage to the interior of South America was at hand; the night before was
the last I saw of my genial friend. In the morning he did not appear,
and it was strange, for I had expected to do the proper thing, as I saw
it, realizing that dungarees and _alpargatas_ are poor armor and that
our consulates offer but a desperate and prickly hospitality.
In the afternoon I went aboard, crawling down a gangway that dropped to
the deck like a ladder where, in the morning, it had reared itself with
equal steepness against the _Mapocho's_ sides. Such are the Pacific
tides at the Boca. Agamemnon, the shriveled little Barbadoes darky,
scuttled about importantly, stowing our baggage and giving an occasional
haughty order to some steward in a nondescript patois that passed mainly
as Spanish and that often served, as I learned, better than the purest
Ollendorfian Castilian. Later it appeared that Agamemnon had left one of
these same steamers under a cloud--a trifling matter of a few sheets and
pillow cases--and now to return clothed with trust and authority over
"de fixin's an de baggage of gent'mens" swelled him with an inarticulate
triumph.
[Illustration: AGAMEMNON]
In the long months that followed none could have given more faithful
service or loyalty than this skimpy Barbadoes darky. That is within his
limitations, for he could no more resist liquor than a bear can honey,
but nevertheless when he had transgressed, his uncertain legs would
bring him back to his duties, speechless perhaps, but with arms wavering
in gestures of extenuation.
Also to Agamemnon wages meant nothing; a shilling now and
again--sometimes even the equivalent of a whole dollar--advanced him
with the specific understanding that it was for gambling and not for
liquor. Once, in La Paz, he won a hundred and fifty dollars, Mex, and
became an impossible animal until it had been frittered away. In the
same city he went to the bull fight and joined in the play against the
final bull that is "dedicated to the people" and fought so cleverly that
we became prominent by reflection and gave a party at the _corrida_ the
following Sunday to see Agamemnon's promised performance.
By this time Agamemnon had become a character and a score of little boys
scrambled over the barrier eager to hold his hat, his coat, and his
cuffs. With a flourish he handed each to its eager guardian and then,
with a coat held as a _capa_, gave a flourish and advanced toward the
bull. The crowd applauded. Agamemnon made a bow and a flourish and
waggled the coat. The bull snuffed briskly and charged. Alas! The hand
had lost its cunning, for Agamemnon shot ten feet skyward, turned an
involuntary somersault at the apex of his flight, and then sprawled back
to earth. A half dozen of the _toreros_ drew off the bull; the small boy
custodians flung his garments at him scornfully, while the Bolivian
audience laughed itself hoarse as the dusty, dishevelled figure hobbled
out of the ring and away from the crowd.
For himself Agamemnon asked but little although where he felt that the
dignity of his position was involved he became a tower of strength. It
was in the same city that he felt the hotel people were not treating him
fairly, as they were not, and his remonstrance was met by a Cholo mozo
who hurled a sugar bowl at his head and followed it up with a knife.
Agamemnon dodged and beat down the Indian with a chair; on the instant a
half dozen Cholos poured at him and the kitchen was in a riot. Backing
away, he denuded the dining tables of service and used it as a light
artillery fire. By the aid of an earthenware jar, some handy crockery,
and a chair he was able to retreat safely across the patio and up the
stairway that led to our rooms. A water pitcher laid open a skull and a
wash-bowl stopped the rush long enough for him to grab a gun from the
pillow when we arrived, together with some stubby Bolivian police and
the bony Russian proprietor; order was restored, fortunately, for it
might have been serious.
Agamemnon explained satisfactorily and incidentally showed only a minor
bump or so, but his Cholo and Aymara antagonists bore most proper marks
of the conflict. That night in the midst of his shoe-polishing and
packing he remarked briefly: "If you gent'mens hadn't er-come jes' den I
cer'nly would have licked dem fellers, bahs!" Apparently no victory was
complete to his mind until he had accomplished a massacre.
At another time he waded into a crowd of Cholos in the interior and took
from them their machetes and shot-guns, acting on his own initiative,
because he knew that in that far interior laborers were too precious to
waste by their own fighting. From our tent we heard two shots and the
rising yells of a small riot and then, before there was time to grab a
gun or gather the few white men, the figure of Agamemnon staggered up
the crest of the river bank with his arms full of the commandeered
machetes and trade-guns.
There was the time when a balsa upset in a boiling eddy and Agamemnon
jumped in as a faithful rescuer only to still further complicate
matters; also when--but it is useless, Agamemnon is a story in himself.
Tireless, uncomplaining, honest, loyal, yet of the aimless tribe of
bandar-log, apparently only merely the mouse of a man in a wrinkled
black skin and yet the paragon of retainers. Peace be to him wherever he
has drifted.
At the table that evening on the _Mapocho_ the few passengers looked
each other over in the customary, stand-offish way,--a couple of fresh
faced young Englishmen adventuring to clerkships, a German commercial
traveler--an expert in those Latin countries who makes one blush for the
self-complacent, brusque, greaser-hating jingoes that are only too
typical of our export efforts--three mining engineers, a returning
Peruvian diplomat for whose presence we later blessed him and a couple
of native Ecuadorean families, wealthy _cacao haciendados_, who flocked
by themselves in a slatternly, noisy group.
But by the next evening, drawn together by the prospect of a tedious,
uncertain voyage through erratic quarantines, we were one large family.
We lay back in our canvas chairs under the galvanized iron roof of the
upper deck--so generally peaceful are those seas that the awning is
permanent--and watched the Southern Cross flickering dimly above the
southern horizon. The cigars glowed in silence for, though it was the
hour for yarning, each bashfully hung back. Then an engineer started.
The Philippines, Alaska, the boom camps, Mexico rose in successive
backgrounds and then the talk shifted round to our respective objectives
down this long coast. One was for the nitrate fields, one for the
Peruvian silver mines, and one for the rich placer banks of the far
interior. The one who was bound for an examination of Peruvian silver
mines--a mountain of a man--finally made a confidence:
"Gold," he remarked as an obvious preliminary, "gold--or silver, I'm a
Bryan man--is generally good enough for anyone, but if I had my choice I
don't mind saying that I'd rather have a coal mine down here in South
America than either or anything!"
The others sighed enviously. A coal mine in South America where there is
no coal except that from Australia and Wales and where a couple of
hundred miles from the coast it is worth twenty dollars, gold, a ton! A
coal mine--well--it is the stuff of which dreams are made in South
America.
"Yessir," he went on raptly, "coal is the thing. And I don't mind
admitting that I've got it."
He hauled a black object from his pocket and held it out. Eagerly it was
snatched from his hand. There it was, hard, shiny, black, varying in no
way from those in the kitchen scuttle at home--a splendid sample of
anthracite coal! It was too good. They laughed.
"Bring it from home?" they asked pleasantly.
The mountainous engineer chuckled contentedly. "That's anthracite and as
fine a specimen as I ever saw. I don't mind talking a little freely
since I've got it covered in an iron-clad contract.
"You see," he went on good-naturedly, "I'm always wide awake and the
morning we left the Boca a young chap came aboard--American, too, and
right pleasant spoken--where I was sort of loafing and we got
acquainted. To make a long story short, he'd been wandering around up in
the back country of Colombia and had located this coal. He didn't have
any special idea of what coal meant down these ways--he was from
Pennsylvania, son of a pit boss or something and coal was as common to
him as water to a duck--but when he pulled out a couple of these samples
you bet I froze fast. He tried to be mighty quiet and mysterious when he
saw I was interested--you know how such a chap is when he thinks he's
got a good thing, and he was sort of on the beach, down on his luck you
know--but I pumped him all right.
"He had a fool idea of going home as best he could and then taking the
family sock and combining it with other family socks and coming back and
opening up his coal mine." The big engineer chuckled again. "Why there's
a king's fortune in that mine, so your Uncle Jim stepped right in and
tied him up close. I cabled my principals and I'll get a cable when we
reach Callao. This coal makes their silver look like thirty cents. Of
course, I wasn't going to take any chances at this stage--it might be
phony--but that fellow is on the level. Said he wouldn't take any money
down--not that I'd have given it by a long shot--but after I got back
he'd join me and come back into Colombia. He gave me a map of the
location in case of accident."
"Gave him no money--poor fellow, art for art's sake?" asked one.
"Well, yes," the big man nodded good-humoredly, "thirty dollars--enough
to take him back to the States steerage--I felt almost ashamed. Said he
didn't need any more to get home with--that sounded on the level, didn't
it? He'd had a tough time all right--fever, grub and etcetery back in
the country--and was down to dungaree breeches, rope-soled shoes, and
one of these slimpsey native calico jackets."
"And he could roll a cigarette with one hand better than most can with
two?" I asked.
The big engineer paused for an instant's thought and then suddenly sat
up. No wonder my friend of the Fifth Army Corps and the dungaree
breeches, alpargatas, and battered Panama and muslin jacket had suddenly
disappeared. Thirty large, golden dollars of real money, good at par in
the States or for three pecks of local paper collateral anywhere on the
Mosquito Coast! And all that for one paltry little yarn.