Ecuador.--Extent.--Government.--Religion.--A Protestant Cemetery in
Quito.--Climate.--Regularity of Tropical Nature.--Diseases on the
Highlands.
The republic of Ecuador looks like a wedge driven into the continent
between the Marañon and the Putumayo. It has 1200 miles of Pacific
coast, and an area of about two hundred thousand square miles, including
the Galápagos Islands. Peru, however, claims the oriental half, drawing
her northern boundary from Tumbez through Canélos and Archidona; and she
is entitled to much of it, for she has established a regular line of
steamers on the Marañon, while the Quito government has not developed an
acre east of the Andes. Ecuador is hung between and upon two
cordilleras, which naturally divide it into three parts: the western
slope, the Quitonian valley, and the Napo region. The fluvial system is
mainly made up of the Napo, Pastassa, and Santiago, tributaries of the
Marañon, and the Mira, Esmeraldas, and Guayaquil, flowing westward into
the Pacific. There are no lakes proper, but the natives enumerate
fifty-five lagunes, the largest of which, Capucuy, is not over five
miles long.
Villavicencio tells the world that his country has a total population of
1,308,042. But Dr. Jameson believes it does not exceed 700,000. The
government is based on the Constitution of 1845, amended in 1853. The
president is chosen by a plurality of votes, holds his office for four
years, and has a salary of $12,000. He can not be re-elected,[30] nor
can he exercise his functions more than twenty-five miles from the
capital. But the law is often set aside by those in power. During the
administration of Garcia Moreno, prominent citizens were shot or
banished by his order, without trial by jury. To every plea for mercy
the stern president replied, that as he could not save the country
according to the Constitution, he should govern it according to his own
views of public necessity.
[Footnote 30: Since this was written, Garcia Moreno has been re-elected
to the presidency and the Constitution revised.]
Congress assembles on the 15th of September every other year, and
consists of eighteen senators and thirty representatives. The chambers
are small, and literally barren of ornament. The members sit in two rows
facing each other, have no desks, and give an affirmative vote by a
silent bow. Politics has less to do with principles and parties than
with personalities. Often it has a financial aspect; and the natural
expression on learning of a revolution is, "Somebody is out of money."
The party in feathers its nest as fast as possible; there is scarcely a
public officer who is not open to bribery. The party out plots a
premature resurrection to power by the ladders of corruption, slander,
and revolution.[31] Revolution has so rapidly followed revolution that
history has ceased to count them; and it may be said of them what Milton
wrote of the wars of the Saxon Heptarchy, "that they are not more worthy
of being recorded than the skirmishes of crows and kites." The Grand
Plaza, the heart where all the great arteries of circulation meet and
diverge, is where the high tides of Quito affairs ebb and flow.
[Footnote 31: Government has more than once paid its debts by
repudiation. Congress lately voted to pay only seven per cent. of the
claims against the state which are dated prior to a certain year. Among
the sufferers is the venerable Dr. Jameson, a distinguished foreigner,
who has served this country faithfully for forty years, first as
assayer, then as director of the mint, and always by his scientific
position.]
The Supreme Court consists of five judges. Criminal cases only are tried
by jury; and an attorney is not permitted to question a witness. There
are no penitentiaries: second-class criminals are made to work for the
public, while political offenders are banished to the banks of the Napo,
or to Peru. Here, as in no other country, every man's house is his
castle. No search-warrants are allowed; a policeman can be shot dead on
the threshold. The person and property of a foreigner are safe; and no
native in the employ of a foreigner can be taken by the government for
military purposes. All, except pure Indians, can vote if over
twenty-one, and can read and write. A man's signature is without value
if it lacks his flourish--a custom of Spanish origin.
The permanent army consists of two regiments. The soldiers are mostly
half-breeds, and are generally followed by their wives. They are poorly
paid; and as they are impressed into the service, they carry out the
principle by helping themselves wherever they go. In marching, they have
a quicker step than Northern soldiers. The chief expenditure of the
republic is for the army, about $500,000; the next is for the payment of
the national debt, $360,000. The foreign debt is £1,470,374. Ecuadorians
claim a revenue of a million and a half, of which one half is from the
custom-house, and one fiftieth from the post-office.
One would suppose that the people who breathe this high atmosphere, and
enjoy this delightful climate, and are surrounded by all that is truly
grand and beautiful, would have some corresponding virtues. But we find
that Nature, here as every where, has mingled base and noble elements.
The lofty mountains, bearing in their steadfastness the seal of their
appointed symbol--"God's righteousness is like the great
mountains"--look down upon one of the lowest and most corrupt forms of
republican government on earth;[32] their snowy summits preach sermons
on purity to Quitonian society, but in vain; and the great thoughts of
God written all over the Andes are unable to lift this proud capital out
of the mud and mire of mediæval ignorance and superstition. The
established religion is the narrowest and most intolerant form of
Romanism. Mountains usually have a more elevating, religious influence
than monotonous plains. The Olympian mythology of the Greek was far
superior to the beastly worship on the banks of the Nile. And yet at the
very feet of glorious Chimborazo and Pichincha we see a nation bowing
down to little images of the rudest sculpture with a devotion that
reminds us of the Middle Ages.
[Footnote 32: Asking the late Chilian minister for his view of the rank
of the different South American states, he gave us this order: Chile,
Brazil, Argentine Republic, Venezuela, New Granada, Central America,
Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador.]
[Illustration: Ecclesiastics.]
The belief is called _La Fe_, or the only true one. The oath of a
Protestant is not regarded in courts of law. One fourth of Quito is
covered by convents and churches. The convents alone number fifty-seven,
and are very extensive, sometimes spreading over eight or nine acres.
The Church revenue amounts to $800,000. There are more than four hundred
priests, monks, and nuns in the capital. The native ecclesiastics are
notorious for their ignorance and immorality. "It is a very common thing
(says Dr. Terry) for a curate to have a whole flock of orphan nephews
and nieces, the children of an imaginary brother." There is one
ex-president who has the reputation of tying a spur on the leg of a
game-cock better even than a curate. The imported Jesuits are the most
intelligent and influential clergy. They control the universities and
colleges, and education generally. Active and intellectual, though not
learned, they have infused new life into the fat indolence of the
Spanish system. Men of this world rather than the next, they have
adopted a purely mundane policy, abjured the gloomy cowl, raised
gorgeous temples, and say, "He that cometh unto us shall in no wise lose
heaven." Their chief merit, however, is the discovery of the turkey and
quinine.
The Protestant in Quito is annoyed by an everlasting jingling of bells
and blowing of bugles night and day. The latter are blown every third
hour. The bells are struck by boys, not rung. A bishop, returning from a
visit to London, was asked if there were any good bells in England.
"Very fine," he replied, "but there is not a man there who knows how to
ring them." Foreign machinery is sprinkled with holy water to neutralize
the inherent heresy; but a miller, for example, will charge more for his
flour after the baptism.
Lotteries are countenanced by both Church and State, and in turn help
support them; we saw one "grand scheme" carried out on the cathedral
terrace and defended by bayonets.
At half past nine in the morning all Quito is on its knees, as the great
bell of the cathedral announces the elevation of the Host. The effect is
astonishing. Riders stop their horses; foot-passengers drop down on the
pavement; the cook lets go her dishes and the writer his pen; the
merchant lays aside his measure and the artisan his tool; the
half-uttered oath (_carájo_!) dies on the lips of the Cholo; the arm of
the cruel Zambo, unmercifully beating his donkey, is paralyzed; and the
smart repartee of the lively donna is cut short. The solemn stillness
lasts for a minute, when the bell tolls again, and all rise to work or
play. Holidays are frequent. Processions led by a crucifix or wooden
image are attractive sights in this dull city, simply because little
else is going on. Occasionally a girl richly dressed to represent the
humble mother of God is drawn about in a carriage, and once a year the
figures of the Virgin belonging to different churches are borne with
much pomp to the Plaza, where they bow to each other like automatons.
"This is a bad country to live in, and a worse one to die in," said Dr.
Jameson. But times have changed, even in fossil Quito. Through the
efforts of our late minister, Hon. W.T. Coggeshall, the bigoted
government has at last consented to inclose a quarter of an acre outside
the city for the subterranean burial of heretics. The cemetery is on the
edge of the beautiful plain of Iñaquito, and on the right of the road
leading to Guápolo. "What a shame," said a Quitonian lady of position,
"that there should be a place to throw Protestant dogs!"
On St. Nathaniel's day died Colonel Phineas Staunton, Vice-Chancellor of
Ingham University, New York. An artist by profession, and one of very
high order, Colonel Staunton joined our expedition to sketch the glories
of the Andes, but he fell a victim to the scourge of the lowlands one
week after his arrival in Quito. We buried him at noon-day[33] in the
new cemetery, "wherein was never man laid," and by the act consecrated
the ground. Peace to his ashes; honor to his memory. That 8th of
September, 1867, was a new day in the annals of Quito. On that day the
imperial city beheld, for the first time in three centuries, the decent
burial of a Protestant in a Protestant cemetery. Somewhere, mingled with
the ashes of Pichincha, is the dust of Atahuallpa, who was buried in his
beloved Quito at his own request after his murder in Caxamarca. But
dearer to us is that solitary grave; the earth is yet fresh that covers
the remains of one of nature's noblemen.
[Footnote 33: This was a new thing under the sun. Quitonians "bury at
dead of night, with lanterns dimly burning." The dirges sung as the
procession winds through the streets are extremely plaintive, and are
the most touching specimens of Ecuadorian music. The corpse, especially
of a child, is often carried in a chair in a sitting posture. The
wealthy class wall up their dead in niches on the side of Pichincha,
hypothetically till the resurrection, but really for two years, when,
unless an additional payment is made, the bones are thrown into a common
pit and the coffin burnt. To prevent this, a few who can afford it
embalm the deceased. One of the most distinguished citizens of Quito
keeps his mummified father at his hacienda, and annually dresses him up
in a new suit of clothes!]
Turn we now to a more delightful topic than the politics and religion of
Quito. The climate is perfect. Fair Italy, with her classic prestige and
ready access, will long be the land of promise to travelers expatriated
in search of health. But if ever the ancients had reached this Andean
valley, they would have located here the Elysian Fields, or the seat of
"the blessed, the happy, and long-lived" of Anacreon.[34] No torrid heat
enervates the inhabitant of this favored spot; no icy breezes send him
shivering to the fire. Nobody is sun-struck; nobody's buds are nipped by
the frost. Stoves and chimneys, starvation and epidemics, are unknown.
It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day is a
combination of all three. The mean annual temperature of Quito is 58°.8,
the same as Madrid, or as the month of May in Paris. The average range
in twenty-four hours is about 10°. The coldest hour is 6 A.M.; the
warmest between 2 and 3 P.M. The extremes in a year are 45° and 70°;
those of Moscow are-38° and 89°. It is a prevalent opinion that since
the great earthquake of 1797 the temperature has been lower. "It was
suddenly reduced (says the _Encycl. Metropolitana_) from 66° or 68° to
40° or 45°"--a manifest error. The natives say that since the
_terremote_ of 1859 the seasons have not commenced so regularly, nor are
they so well defined; there are more rainy days in summer than before.
It remains to be seen whether the late convulsion has affected the
climate.
[Footnote 34: In the mountain-town of Caxamarca, farther south, there
were living in 1792 seven persons aged 114, 117, 121, 131, 132, 141, and
147. One of them, when he died, left behind him eight hundred living
descendants to mourn his loss. We confess, however, that we saw very few
old persons in Quito. Foreigners outlive the natives, because they live
a more regular and temperate life.]
The mean diurnal variation of the barometer is only .084. So regular is
the oscillation, as likewise the variations of the magnetic needle, that
the hour may be known within fifteen minutes by the barometer or
compass. Such is the clock-like order of Nature under the equator, that
even the rains, the most irregular of all meteorological phenomena in
temperate zones, tell approximately the hour of the day. The winds, too,
have an orderly march--the ebb and flow of an aerial ocean. No wonder
watch-tinkers can not live where all the forces in nature keep time.
Nobody talks about the weather; conversation begins with benedictions or
compliments.
The greatest variations of the thermometer occur in autumn, and the
greatest quantity of rain falls in April.[35] While on the western side
of the Andes, south of the equator, the dry season extends from June to
January, on the eastern side of the Cordillera the seasons are reversed,
the rain lasting from March to November. The climate of the central
valley is modified by this opposition of seasons on either side of it,
as also by the proximity of snowy peaks. Nine such peaks stand around
Quito within a circle of thirty miles. The prevailing winds in summer
are from the northeast; in the winter the southwest predominate.
[Footnote 35:
The mean annual fall of rain at Quito is 70 inches.
" " " " Charleston is 45.9 inches.
" " " " New York is 42.23 "
" " " " Albany is 40.93 "
" " " " Montreal is 36 "
" " " " Madrid is 10. "
]
There are only three small drug-stores in the great city of Quito. The
serpent is used as the badge of apothecary art. Physicians have no
offices, nor do they, as a general rule, call upon their patients. When
an invalid is not able to go to the doctor, he is expected to die.
Yellow fever, cholera, and consumption are unknown; while intermittent
fevers, dysentery, and liver complaints, so prevalent on the coast, are
uncommon. The ordinary diseases are catarrhal affections and typhoid
fever. Cases of inflammation of the lungs are rare; more coughing may be
heard during a Sunday service in a New England meeting-house than in six
months in Quito. The diseases to which the monks of St. Bernard are
liable are pulmonary, and the greater number become asthmatic. Asthma is
also common in Quito, while phthisis increases as we descend to the sea.
Individuals are often seen with a handkerchief about the jaws, or bits
of plaster on the temples; these are afflicted with headache or
toothache, resulting from a gratified passion for sweetmeats, common to
all ages and classes. Digestive disorders are somewhat frequent
(contrary to the theory in Europe), but they spring from improper food
and sedentary habits. The _cuisine_ of the country does not tempt the
stomach to repletion, and the climate is decidedly peptic. So the
typhoid fever of Quito is due to filth, poor diet, and want of
ventilation. Corpulency, especially among the men, is astonishingly
rare.
According to Dr. Lombard, mountain districts favor the development of
diseases of the heart; and contagious diseases are not arrested by the
atmosphere of lofty regions. This is true in Quito. But while nervous
diseases are rare in the inhabited highlands of Europe, in Quito they
are common. Sleep is said to be more tranquil and refreshing, and the
circulation more regular at high altitudes; but our experience does not
sustain this. Goître is quite common among the mountains. It is a sign
of constitutional weakness, for the children of goîtred parents are
usually deaf and dumb, and the succeeding generation idiots.
Boussingault thinks it is owing to the lack of atmospheric air in the
water; but why is it nearly confined to the women? In the southern
provinces about Cuenca, cutaneous affections are quite frequent. In the
highlands generally, scrofulous diseases are more common than in the
plains. There are three hospitals for lepers; one at Cuenca with two
hundred patients, one at Quito with one hundred and twelve patients, and
one at Ambato. Near Riobamba is a community of dwarfs.
D'Orbigny made a _post-mortem_ examination of some Indians from the
highest regions, and found the lungs of extraordinary dimensions, the
cells larger and more in number. Hence the unnatural proportion of the
trunk, which is plainly out of harmony with the extremities. The
expanded chest of the mountaineers is evidently the result of larger
inspirations to secure the requisite amount of oxygen, which is much
less in a given space at Quito than on the coast. This is an instance,
observes Prichard, of long-continued habit, and the result of external
agencies modifying the structure of the body, and with it the state of
the most important functions of life. We tried the experiment of burning
a candle one hour at Guayaquil, and another part of the same candle for
the same period at Quito. Temperature at Guayaquil, 80°; at Quito, 62°.
The loss at Guayaquil was 140 grains; at Quito, 114, or 26 grains less
at the elevation of 9500 feet. Acoustics will also illustrate the
thinness of the air. M. Godin found (1745) that a nine-pounder could not
be heard at the distance of 121,537 feet; and that an eight-pounder at
Paris, at the distance of 102,664 feet, was louder than a nine-pounder
at Quito at the distance of 67,240 feet.
According to Dr. Archibald Smith, the power of muscular exertion in a
native of the coast is greatly increased by living at the height of
10,000 feet. But it is also asserted by observing travelers that dogs
and bulls lose their combativeness at 12,000 feet, and that hence there
can never be a good bull-fight or dog-fight on the Sierras. This is
literally true: the dogs seem to partake of the tameness of their
masters. Cats do not flourish at all in high altitudes; and probably the
lion, transplanted from the low jungle to the table-lands, would lose
much of his ferocity. Still, cock-fights seem to prosper; and the battle
of Pichincha was fought on an elevation of nearly 11,000 feet. Bolivar
and the Spaniards, also, fought like tigers on the high plain of
Junin.[36]
[Footnote 36: Gibbon states that the temperature of the blood of a young
bull in Cuzco was 100°; air, 57°. At the base of the Andes a similar
experiment resulted in 101° for the blood, air 78°. The lieutenant
jocosely adds: "The Spaniards have forced the hog so high up on the
Andes that he suffers every time he raises his bristles, and dies out of
place."--Puna has been attributed to the presence of arsenical vapor.]
The sickness felt by some travelers at great elevations--violent
headache and disposition to vomit--is called _veta_; and the difficulty
of breathing from the rarity of the air is termed _puna_. Gerard
complained of severe headache and depression of spirits at the height of
15,000 feet on the Himalayas; Dr. Barry, in ascending Mont Blanc (15,700
feet), speaks of great thirst, great dryness and constriction of skin,
loss of appetite, difficult breathing, tendency to syncope, and utter
indifference. Baron Müller, in his ascent of Orizava (17,800 feet),
found great difficulty in breathing, and experienced the sensation of a
red-hot iron searing his lungs, and agonizing pains in the chest,
followed by fainting-fits and torrents of blood from his mouth;
Humboldt, in scaling Chimborazo, suffered from nausea akin to
sea-sickness, and a flow of blood from the nose and lips; while Herndon,
on the slope of Puy-puy (15,700 feet), said he thought his heart would
break from his breast with its violent agitation. Though ascending the
Andes to the height of 16,000 feet, and running up the last few rods, we
experienced nothing of this except a temporary difficulty in
respiration. We were exhilarated rather than depressed. The experience
of Darwin on the Portillo ridge (14,000 feet) was only "a slight
tightness across the head and chest." "There was some imagination even
in this (he adds); for, upon finding fossil shells on the highest ridge,
I entirely forgot the puna in my delight." De Saussure says truly: "The
strength is repaired as speedily as it has been exhausted. Merely a
cessation of movement for three or four minutes, without even seating
one's self, seems to restore the strength so perfectly that, on resuming
progress, one feels able to climb at a single stretch to the very peak
of the mountain."