The Valley of Quito.--Riobamba.--A Bed of "Fossil Giants."--Chillo
Hacienda.--Otovalo and Ibarra.--The Great Earthquake of 1868.
The Valley of Quito has about the same size and shape as the basin of
Salt Lake, but it is five thousand feet higher.[92] The two cordilleras
inclosing it are tied by the mountain-knots of Assuay and Chisinchi, so
that the valley is subdivided into three basins, those of Cuenca,
Ambato, and Quito proper, which increase in beauty and altitude as we
travel north. There are several subordinate transversal dikes and some
longitudinal ridges, but all the basins lie parallel to the axes of the
cordilleras--a characteristic feature of the Andes. The deep valleys on
the outside flanks are evidently valleys of erosion, but the basins
between the cordilleras were created with them.
[Footnote 92: Compare the table-lands in the Old World:
Thibet 11,500 feet.
South Africa 6,000 "
Mysore (India) 2,880 "
Spain 2,240 "
Bavaria 1,770 "
]
The first is fifty miles long. It contains the cities of Loja and
Cuenca,[93] the former distinguished for its cinchona forests, the
latter for Inca graves and mines of precious metals. The middle basin
(130 miles in length) is covered with vast quantities of volcanic
débris, the outpourings of Cotopaxi, Tunguragua, and Altar, on one side,
and of Chimborazo and Caraguairazo on the other. Nothing relieves the
barrenness of the landscape but hedges of century plant, cactus, and
wild heliotrope, which border the roads. Whirlwinds of sand are often
seen moving over the plain. The mean temperature is 61°.5. Here exist,
we can not say thrive, the cities of Riobamba, Ambato, and Tacunga,
already noticed. Riobamba,[94] properly Rayobamba, the plain of
lightning, was founded at the beginning of this century, or shortly
after the destruction of the old city. Excepting the ecclesiastical
buildings, the houses are of one story, built of stone plastered with
mud, sometimes of adobe or bamboo, and the windows are grated like those
of a prison. As in all Spanish-American towns, the main church fronts
the great Plaza where the weekly fairs are held. Save on fair-day, the
city is lifeless. Nothing is exported to the coast except a few eggs and
fowls, lard and potatoes. Such is the power of habit, an Indian will
take a hen to Bodegas and sell it for four reals (50 cents) when he
could get three for it in Riobamba, and six on the road. Another
instance of this dogged adherence to custom was related to us by Dr.
Taylor: The Indians were accustomed to bring the curate of a certain
village a bundle of alfalfa every day. A new curate, having no use for
so much, ordered them not to bring any more. He was besieged by five
hundred of his wild parishioners, and had he not been a powerful man,
they would have killed him. They told him they were accustomed to bring
the curate that much of alfalfa, and should continue.
[Footnote 93: The altitude of Loja is 6768 feet; of Cuenca, 8640 feet.]
[Footnote 94: According to Villavicencio, _Rio_ (or _Rie_) is Quichua
for road; _bamba_ is plain.]
Old Riobamba (Cajabamba) is situated twelve miles to the west. This has
been the scene of some of the most terrible paroxysms that over shook
the Andes. In 1797 a part of Mount Cicalfa was thrown down, crushing the
city at its foot; hills arose where valleys existed; rivers
disappeared, and others took their places; and the very site of the
city was rent asunder. The surviving inhabitants could not tell where
their houses had stood, and property was so mingled that litigation
followed the earthquake. Judging from the numerous sculptured columns
lying broken and prostrate throughout the valley, the city must have had
a magnificence now unknown in Ecuador. Around a coat of arms (evidently
Spanish) we read these words: _Malo mori quam fedari_, "I would rather
die than be disgraced." In the spring of 1868 another convulsion caused
a lake to disappear and a mountain to take its place.
Near Punín, seven miles southwest of Riobamba, we discovered in a deep
ravine numerous fossil bones, belonging chiefly to the mastodon, and
extinct species of the horse, deer, and llama. They were imbedded in the
middle of an unstratified cliff, four hundred feet high, of very compact
silt or trachytic clay, free from stones, and resting on a hard
quartzoze sandstone. In the bed of the stream which runs through the
ravine (charged with nitrate of soda) are some igneous rocks. The bones
were drifted to this spot and deposited (many of them in a broken state)
in horizontal layers along with recent shells. We have, then, this
remarkable fact, that this high valley was tenanted by elephantine
quadrupeds, all of which passed away before the arrival of the human
species, and yet while the land, and probably the sea also, were peopled
with their present molluscan inhabitants. This confirms the statement of
Mr. Lyell, that the longevity of mammalian species is much inferior to
that of the testacea. It is interesting to speculate on the probable
climate and the character of the vegetation in this high valley when
these extinct mammifers lived. The great pachyderm would have no
difficulty in thriving at the present day at Quito, on the score of
temperature or altitude. The mammoth once flourished in Siberia; and
Gibbon met an elephant on the high table-lands of Bolivia that had
walked over the Cordillera at the pass of Antarangua, sixteen thousand
feet above the sea. Darwin thinks that the climate of the Cordilleras
has changed since the pleistocene period. "It is a marvelous fact in the
history of mammalia (says this naturalist) that in South America a
native horse should have lived and disappeared, to be succeeded in after
ages by the countless herds descended from the few introduced with the
Spanish colonists."
The high ridge of Chisinchi, stretching across the great plateau from
Cotopaxi to Iliniza, separates the evergreen Valley of Quito from the
arid and melancholy valleys of Cuenca and Ambato. It rolls out like a
rich carpet of emerald verdure between the towering mountains of
Pichincha and Antisana, Cotacachi and Cayambi. This was the centre of
the most ancient native civilization after that of Titicaca. Here, while
the darkness of the Middle Ages was settling over Europe, dwelt the
Quitus, whose origin is lost in the mists of fable. Then, while Peter
the Hermit was leading his fanatic host against the Saracens, the Cara
nation waged a more successful crusade, and supplanted the Quitus. Here,
too, in the bloody days of Pizarro, reigned, and was buried, the last of
the Incas, ill-fated Atahuallpa. To him, indeed, it was a more
delightful spot than the vale of Vilcamayu--the paradise of Peru.
The Puengasi Hills, running through the valley from north to south,
partially divide the capital and its vicinity from the charming Valley
of Chillo, spread out at the foot of Antisana. Here is the venerable
hacienda of Chillo, where Humboldt and Bonpland resided for some time.
It is owned by the Aguirres, who are grand-nephews of Don Carlos
Montufar, the companion of the famous travelers. The hacienda contains
two valuable paintings--an original "Crucifixion" by Titian, and a
portrait of the great German from life, as he appeared in 1803. This
latter relic interested us exceedingly, and, through the kindness of Sr.
Aguirre, we were allowed to photograph it. It represents Humboldt in his
prime, a traveler on the Andes, dressed after the court-fashion of
Berlin; very different from the usual portrait--an old man in his
library, his head, thinly covered with gray hair, resting on his bosom.
[Illustration: Humboldt in 1802.]
Thirty miles north of Quito, near the volcanic Imbabura, is the ruined
city of Otovalo, a thousand feet lower than the capital. It was well
built, and contained 7000 inhabitants. Quichua was the prevailing
language. Its chief trade was in saddles, ponchos, straw hats, and
fruit. Here was the cotton factory, or _quinta_, of Sr. Pareja. Three
miles from Otovalo was the enterprising Indian village of Cotocachí, at
the mountain of the same name. It was noted for its hand-loom products.
A heap of ruins now marks the locality. It is a doomed spot, suffering
more than any other town in 1859.
Four miles northwest of Otovalo was the city of Ibarra, picturesquely
seated on a plain 2000 feet lower than Quito, and surrounded with
orchards and gardens. It numbered nearly 10,000 souls. It was not a
commercial place, but the residence of landed proprietors. The
neighborhood produced cotton, sugar, and fruit. A league distant was
Carranqui, the birthplace of Atahuallpa. And, finally, the great valley
fitly terminates in the plain of Atuntaqui,[95] where the decisive
battle was fought which ushered in the reign of the Incas.
[Illustration: Ibarra.]
[Footnote 95: Atuntaqui received its name from the big drum which was
kept here in the days of Huayna-Capac, to give the war-signal.]
This northern province of Imbabura was the focus of the late terrible
earthquake. At half past one on Sunday morning, August 16, 1868, with
scarcely a premonitory sign (save a slight trembling at 3 P.M. the
previous day), there was an upheaving of the ground, and then one
tremendous shock and rocking of the earth, lasting one minute. In that
brief moment the rich and flourishing province became a wilderness, and
"Misericordia!" went up, like tho sound of many waters, from ten
villages and cities. Otovalo, Ibarra, Cotocachí, and Atantaqui are
heaps of ruins. At Otovalo 6000 perished. After the first shock, not a
wall a yard high remained. Houses, in some instances, seemed to have
been cut from their foundation, and thrown ten feet distant. The large
stone fountain in the Plaza was thrown many yards. The cotton factory,
which was built on the edge of a ravine, was by one stroke reduced to
fragments. Such was the force of the concussion, the looms smashed each
other, the carding-machines were thrown on their sides, and the roof,
with part of the machinery, was found in the river below. The proprietor
was killed. Throughout this whole region roads were broken up, and vast
chasms created crossing the country in all directions. One is 2000 yards
long, 500 yards broad, and 80 yards deep. Large fissures were opened on
the sides of Cotocachí and Imbabura, from which issued immense torrents
of water, mud, and bituminous substances, carrying away and drowning
hundreds of cattle. A caravan of mules going to Chillo with cotton-bales
was found four days after grazing on a narrow strip of land, on each
side of which was a fearful chasm, while the muleteers were killed.
At Quito comparatively little damage was done. Fifteen lives were lost,
and the churches, convents, and many private houses are in a state of
dilapidation. Domes and arches, which are much used because of the
scarcity of timber, were first to fall.
In the fierceness of the shock, and the extent of the territory shaken,
the earthquake of August, 1868, is without a parallel in the New World.
The destruction of life (50,000 officially reported in Ecuador alone)
has not been equaled in any other earthquake during this century. The
tremor was felt over four republics, and from the Andes to the Sandwich
Islands. The water-wave was felt on the coast of New Zealand sixteen
hours after it had set a United States gunboat, on the sand-hills of
Arica. In some respects it is surpassed only by the Lisbon earthquake,
which reached from Sweden to the West Indies, and from Barbary to
Scotland. The loss of property seems to have been greatest in Peru, and
the loss of life greatest in Ecuador. The commotion seemed to be most
violent along the Western Cordillera, though it was felt even on the
Napo.
There are few places where the crust of our planet is long at rest.
Brazil, Egypt, Russia, and Greenland are comparatively free from
earthquakes. But had we delicate instruments scattered throughout the
world, upheaval and subsidence would doubtless be detected in every part
of the so-called _terra firma_. The sea, and not the land, is the true
image of stability.
"Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow:
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now."
Earthquakes have occurred in every period of geological history, and are
independent of latitude. The first well-known earthquake came in the
year 63, and shattered Pompeii and Herculaneum sixteen years before they
were overwhelmed by the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius. The most
celebrated earthquake, and perhaps the most terrible manifestation of
force during the human period, was in 1755. The shock, which seemed to
originate in the bed of the Atlantic, pervaded one twelfth of the
earth's surface. Unhappy Lisbon stood in its path.
An earthquake is a vertical vibration, having an undulatory progression.
An example of the simple bounding movement occurred in 1797, when the
city of Riobamba, in the Quito Valley, was buried under part of a
mountain shaken down by the violent concussion, and men were tossed
several hundred feet. We saw one massive structure which had nearly
turned a somersault. The ordinary vibrations seldom exceed two feet in
height. The wave-movement has a rate of from twenty to thirty miles a
minute, depending on the elasticity of the rock and the elevations on
the surface. When two undulations cross each other, a rotatory or
twisting motion is produced. The waves are generally transmitted along
the lines of primary mountain chains, which are doubtless seated on a
fracture. The Lisbon waves moved from southwest to northeast, or
parallel to the mountain system of the Old World; those of the United
States, in 1843, ran parallel to the volcanic chain in Mexico. In South
America they roll along the Andes. That of 1797 left its tracks along a
westerly line from Tunguragua through Peliléo and Guáno. It is a little
singular, that while the late trembling at Quito seemed to come from the
north, the great shock in Peru preceded that in Ecuador by three days.
Though the origin of earthquakes is deep-seated, the oscillation is
mostly superficial, as deep mines are little disturbed. The most damage
is done where the sedimentary plains abut against the hard, upturned
strata of the mountains. The shock is usually brief. That of Caracas
lasted fifty seconds, that of Lisbon six minutes; but Humboldt witnessed
one in South America which continued a quarter of an hour.
Several hypotheses have been advanced to account for earthquakes. Rogers
ascribes them to billowy pulsations in the molten matter upon which the
flexible crust of the earth floats. Mallet thinks they may be viewed as
an uncompleted effort to establish a volcano. Dana holds that they are
occasioned by the folding up of the rocks in the slow process of cooling
and consequent contraction of the earth's crust. In this process there
would occur enormous fractures to relieve the tension; tilted strata
would slip, and caverns give way. All this no doubt takes place; but the
sudden, paroxysmal heavings incline us to refer the cause to the same
eruptive impulse which makes Vesuvius and Cotopaxi discharge pent-up
subterranean vapor and gas. The most destructive earthquakes occur when
the overlying rocks do not break and give vent to the imprisoned gas.
There is some connection between volcanoes and earthquakes; the former
are, to a certain extent, "safety-valves." The column of smoke from the
volcano of Pasto suddenly disappeared just before the great earthquake
at Riobamba. In the spring of 1868 Pichincha and Cotopaxi showed signs
of increasing activity, but in the summer became quiet again. Cotocachí
and Sangai, 200 miles apart, were awaked simultaneously; the former,
silent for centuries, sent forth dense masses of earth and volcanic
matter to a distance of many miles, covering thousands of acres; the
latter thundered every half hour instead of hourly, as before. Still,
the greatest earthquakes do not occur in the vicinity of active
volcanoes. Lisbon and Lima (where, on an average, forty-five shocks
occur annually, and two fearful ones in a century) are far distant from
any volcanic vent; likewise Northern India, South Africa, Scotland, and
the United States.
An earthquake is beyond the reach of calculation. Professor Perrey, of
Dijon, France, is endeavoring to prove that there is a periodicity in
earthquakes, synchronous with that in the tides of the ocean, the
greatest number occurring at the time of new and full moon.[96] If this
theory be sustained, we must admit the existence of a vast subterranean
sea of lava. But all this is problematical. Earthquakes appear
independently of the geology of a country, though the rate of undulation
is modified by the mineral structure. Earthquake waves seem to move more
rapidly through the comparatively undisturbed beds of the Mississippi
Valley than through the contorted strata of Europe. Meteorology is
unable to indicate a coming earthquake, for there is no sure prophecy in
sultry weather, sirocco wind, and leaden sky. The Lisbon shock came
without a warning. Sudden changes of the weather, however, often occur
after an earthquake. Since the great convulsion of 1797 the climate of
the Valley of Quito is said to be much colder. A heavy rain often
follows a violent earthquake in Peru.
[Footnote 96: Professor Quinby, of the University of Rochester, has, at
our request, calculated the position of the moon at the late earthquake:
"August 16th, 1868, 1 A.M., the moon was on meridian 137° 21' east of
that of Quito, or 42° 30' past the lower meridian of Quito, assuming the
longitude of Quito west of Greenwich to be 79°, which it is very nearly.
This is but little after the vertex of the tidal wave should have passed
the meridian of Quito, on the supposition that the interior of the earth
is a liquid mass. The age of the moon at that time was 27.36 days,
_i.e._, it was only about two days before new moon." At the time of the
earthquake, 8 A.M., March 22, 1859, the moon was on meridian 25° 48'
east of that of Quito, and was 17.6 days old. Shocks have since
occurred, March 20th at 3 A.M., and April 10th at 8 A.M., 1869.]
No amount of familiarity with earthquakes enables one to laugh during
the shock, or even at the subterranean thunders which sound like the
clanking of chains in the realm of Pluto. All animated nature is
terror-stricken. The horse trembles in his stall; the cow moans a low,
melancholy tune; the dog sends forth an unearthly yell; sparrows drop
from the trees as if dead; crocodiles leave the trembling bed of the
river and run with loud cries into the forest; and man himself becomes
bewildered and loses all capacity. When the earth rocks beneath our feet
(the motion resembling, in the words of Darwin, "that felt by a person
skating over thin ice which bends under the weight of his body"),
something besides giddiness is produced. We feel our utter
insignificance in the presence of a mysterious power that shakes the
Andes like a reed. But more: there is an awful sensation of insecurity.
"A moment (says Humboldt) destroys the illusion of a whole life: our
deceptive faith in the repose of nature vanishes, and we feel
transported, as it were, into a region of unknown destructive forces." A
judgment day seems impending, and each moment is an age when one stands
on a world convulsed.