SOUTHERN PERU
Mollendo is one of those places where nature never intended man to live.
The natural port, and the one that was used for centuries, is the bay of
Islay, a few miles north. As a matter of fact, this was to have been the
terminus of the Southern Railway of Peru, the outlet for the commerce of
the Lake Titicaca region. But the owners of real estate at Islay were so
convinced that there had arrived that “tide in the affairs of men which,
taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” that they attempted to make
the most of their opportunity and asked the railway prohibitive prices
for land and water-front. The result was that Islay missed its high tide
and the railway engineers carved out of the desert coast what is now the
port of Mollendo.
It claims to be the worst harbor on the West Coast. In fact, the author
of a recent book on South America was so impressed with the terrors of
disembarking here that he described it fully in three separate chapters
of his book! Although there was quite a little breeze blowing at the
time of my landing, I confess to being very much disappointed at the
tameness of the procedure. The reverend author had led me to expect “a
surf-lashed landing-place--a tremendous tossing and bouncing on the
mountainous swell.” Even in calm weather the boat was “tossed about
like a cockle shell, now thrown up to heaven on the crest of a wave, now
dropped down towards the nadir in its hollow. The swarthy Peruvian
oarsmen strain at the oars, they avoid the jagged rocks between the boat
and the pier by a hair’s breadth!” etc. etc.
One gets very little idea from such language of a busy little basin and
a dock where half a dozen steam cranes are at work loading and unloading
large freight barges. As would be expected from the fact that this is
the chief port in southern Peru, the docks were crowded with boxes and
bales of every description. Occasionally as many as eight or ten
freighters are anchored in the offing, and a large number of lighters
are kept busy most of the time. A new breakwater is being built of
enormous cubes of concrete, which it is hoped will resist the action of
the waves better than the natural rock of the neighborhood which
disintegrates rapidly.
A climb of fifty or sixty feet up the face of a steep cliff back of the
landing stage brought us to the little platform and gate of the local
custom house. Our arrival here was not expected by the officials, and we
received the customary hard looks that are given every one coming from
Chile. Mollendo has not forgotten the war. Nevertheless it needed but
the mystic word _delegado_ to the collector of the port to cause all our
luggage to be passed graciously through the custom house without even
the formality of an examination.
Our next difficulty, after landing on Peruvian soil,
[Illustration: MOLLENDO]
was in finding some one who would relieve us of our Chilean money and
give us coin of the realm in exchange. At first the local bank flatly
refused to oblige us, saying that so few people ever went from Peru to
Chile that there was no demand for Chilean money, and that they could
not realize anything on our Chilean currency without sending it by mail
to Valparaiso or Antofagasta, an expensive and risky undertaking which
they did not care to assume. In a word it was “against the rules.” So it
was necessary to say “_delegado_” again. As was to be expected, the
obliging cashier was now only too glad to relieve us of all our Chilean
money. How many bank cashiers in the States, after laying down a rule of
the bank to a foreigner, would be willing to break it because the
stranger was able to prove that he was an official delegate to a
Scientific Congress? I fear we are behind our southern neighbors in
realizing what is due to “science”!
The only thing we could find of interest in Mollendo, was a cock-fight
in one of the side streets. An audience of fifty or sixty boatmen and
their friends, relieved from their duties at the end of the day, were
hazarding their silver _soles_ on whichever bird they judged would last
the longest in the tiresome and bloody battle that was being fought out
on the cobble-stones. The excitement grew fast and furious as the fight
neared its close, and one poor bleeding rooster, nearly totally blind,
and almost dying, received a few final pecks from his victorious
opponent, himself dripping with blood. I have occasionally watched these
Spanish-American cock-fights in an effort to understand why the
spectator with Spanish blood in his veins gets so excited over them.
Apart from a realization that at present cock-fighting is the national
sport of South America, and as such, takes the place that baseball does
in the United States, and cricket does in England, I must admit that I
have failed to work out any reason to account for the frenzied interest.
Probably the Peruvians would have been just as bored if they had been
sandwiched into a crowd of “fans” at a baseball game.
We had not expected to stay over night in Mollendo, which has the usual
reputation of West Coast ports for harboring persons afflicted with
contagious diseases. But the daily train for Arequipa had gone and there
would not be another until the following noon, so we were obliged to
make ourselves as comfortable as possible in the Hotel Ferro Carril
which was not at all bad. The worst feature of it was the partitions,
which were extremely thin. The room next to ours was occupied by an
English-speaking individual who received a call in the course of the
evening from a fellow countryman, resident here, who tried to frighten
him out of his senses by vivid details as to the number of cases of
“yellow fever, bubonic plague, and smallpox” now raging in the town.
“More deaths occurring every day than the undertakers could possibly
attend to!” “Scarcely a house without its sick folk!!” “Not a family
still intact!!!” etc., etc. What effect these remarks may have had on
the person for whom they were intended, I am unable to say. I do know
they caused no little uneasiness among those _delegados_ who had landed
here on their way to the interior. We did not stop to make personal
investigations as to the truth of the rumors but were promptly on hand
the next day to take the train for Arequipa.
As there was not nearly enough space for all the people who desired to
leave Mollendo that morning, we were very much crowded for the first
hour or so. This exodus from town was not due to any fear of the
prevailing pest, but rather to the fact that January is the season for
leaving town and enjoying a short stay in the country. The train
followed the coast for eight miles to the south until it reached the bay
and beach of Mejia, a summer resort where many of the families of
Mollendo have built little villas. From here the road turns inland, east
and then north, climbing slowly and affording one a view of the pleasant
green valley of the Tambo River with its little country houses and its
plantations of sugarcane. Still climbing, the train continued almost due
north across the sandy plain known as the Pampa de Islay, or the desert
of Arequipa. For miles on either side of the track as far as the eye
could reach, there was not a green thing to be seen. Although there was
no animal or vegetable life, it is not exactly correct to say there was
not a living thing, for this is the home of the _medanos_, those
extraordinary crescent-shaped sand-dunes that travel across the hard
ground of the desert floor, driven by the prevailing southwesterly
winds. Each hill is a perfect crescent exquisitely drawn, the delicate
horns tapering off toward the north, away from the wind. They cause the
railroad no end of trouble, for when a _medano_ approaches the track, it
must get across some way or other. It is of no use to shovel back the
horns of the crescent as they encroach on the rails, for the main body
of the mound, twenty feet high and sixty feet or more wide, will advance
just the same and must be helped along.
Although we had started from Mollendo immediately after lunch and the
journey is only one hundred miles in length, it took us seven hours to
ascend the 7500 feet, and it was dark when we left the train at
Arequipa. We found on the other side of the station a long line of
mule-trams, one of which was reserved for intending guests of the Gran
Hotel Marone. After some delay incident to transferring a train-load of
passengers and their hand luggage to this caravan of tram-cars, we
started off and jingled our way through poorly-lit streets of one-story
houses where attractively carved stone doorways, dimly visible in the
semi-darkness, told of well-built mansions of former Spanish grandees,
whose walls had withstood Arequipa’s earthquakes.
To a person who has experienced a great earthquake, the mere mention of
the word is terrifying, and yet we were told by one of the astronomers
at the local Harvard Observatory that their seismograph recorded three
earthquakes during the four days of our stay here. In fact, scarcely a
week goes by without one or more disturbances. Fortunately for us, and
for Arequipa, these daily earthquakes that are so faithfully recorded by
the delicate instruments of the observatory are not usually
perceptible
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF AREQUIPA AND MOUNT CHACHANI]
[Illustration: AN OLD DOORWAY IN AREQUIPA]
[Illustration: CHACHANI AND MISTI]
to human beings. However, like San Francisco, Valparaiso, and many
another city of the west coast of America, Arequipa does have a serious
shake once or twice in a century and people do not build two-story
houses unless they can afford to use very strong construction.
We were most agreeably surprised and delighted with our accommodations
at the Hotel Marone. None of us had expected to find anything nearly so
comfortable outside of a South American capital. With this excellent
hotel and with the promised improvement of steamship service on the West
Coast, Arequipa is bound to become a Mecca for travellers. Charmingly
situated, with a delightful climate, picturesque streets, and remarkable
churches and monasteries, it offers the additional inducement of being a
base from which many pleasant excursions can be made. Mountain climbers
and those fond of mountain scenery will be attracted by the active
volcano El Misti, 19,000 feet high, and the snow-capped peaks of
Chachani that look down upon the city from their lofty altitude of over
20,000 feet above the sea. Arequipa is the distributing centre for
southern Peru and contains a number of banks and the warehouses of
several large importing houses. To the explorer intending to penetrate
the continent, it is an excellent place in which to purchase part of his
outfit. It was the base of the DeMilhau-Peabody Museum Expedition to the
Upper Amazon. I was astonished to find at the time of my visit, that in
one of the English warehouses it was not only possible to get a complete
supply of excellent canned goods, but even such luxuries as
folding-cots and Caracas chocolate. Professor Bandelier, that most
distinguished student of Spanish-American lands and peoples, says in his
recently published “Islands of Titicaca and Koati” that Mt. Koropuna,
lying about one hundred miles northwest of Arequipa, is probably the
highest mountain in America. Aconcagua is 6940 metres, while, according
to Raimondi’s map of the Department of Arequipa, Koropuna is 6949
metres. Here is a chance for a well-equipped exploring expedition.
For the less ambitious tourist there are shops where one may buy all
manner of foreign and domestic supplies, and excellent photographs, the
best of which I regret to say were stolen from a scientific expedition
many years ago by a native photographer. The lover of curious costumes
and quaint shops will be abundantly repaid by long strolls through the
Indian quarters.
As soon as the Prefect of Arequipa, Sr. Don Lino Velarde, heard of our
arrival, he made haste to call and place himself “entirely at our
disposal.” Sometimes this gracious Spanish extension of hospitality
means very little, but in this case it was genuine, and the Prefect did
everything in his power to make our stay both pleasant and profitable.
Horses and a military escort were provided for an excursion to the
Harvard Observatory, and the Prefect’s secretary was detailed to act as
our cicerone and see to it that we were shown the treasures of the local
monasteries.
We found the old Jesuit church the most interesting of all the sights
that the city afforded. It had once been superbly adorned and
embellished with elaborate gilded carvings and magnificent altars. The
last earthquake had overturned and destroyed three of the altars, but
the four remaining are well worth a visit, and there are many beautiful
paintings still on the walls. The west front of the church is a
marvellous example of stone-cutting and like the towers of the Jesuit
church in Potosí shows what excellent manual training the Jesuits taught
their followers. Their expulsion from South America was one of the most
serious in the long list of mistakes that Spain made in the government
of her American colonies.
The atmosphere of the Franciscan monastery took one back to the middle
ages. Everything was scrupulously clean and in good order. In the
sacristy we found a beautiful Madonna by some artist of the sixteenth
century. The monks treasure it highly and with good reason for the face
is as beautiful as any I have ever seen. A pleasant-faced, communicative
monk, who seemed glad enough to be permitted to break through the
monotony of his quiet life in the cloisters, took us to his favorite
spot in the gardens where, under the grapevines, a rude seat had been
made from a great millstone that dated back to Spanish days. From here
he led us to different trees in the orchard and begged us to sample the
pears, peaches, and plums that it was his delight to cultivate. We were
permitted also to visit the library and found it well stocked with rare
and beautifully printed old books. Naturally most of them were devoted
to theology and religious philosophy, but there was one section into
which old-fashioned works on natural history had crept, including a fine
set of Buffon. On the door of the library was posted a notice telling
the monks that on Mondays and Thursdays they could consult books on
piety; Tuesdays and Fridays, works on theology; Wednesdays and
Saturdays, other classes of religious books, etc., etc. We looked in
vain for any day on which it was permitted to use the books on natural
history. Much has been written of the degenerate conditions prevailing
in the South American religious houses. The Franciscan monasteries we
visited here and in Santiago, where an electric dynamo runs a modern
printing press for the dissemination of religious information, cannot be
included in that category.
As we wandered about Arequipa enjoying the picturesque Indian shops and
the bright colors of the native costumes, the Indians themselves were
courteous and polite and gave little evidence of any justification for
their reputation for turbulence.
The only evidence which we witnessed of any eagerness to join an
uprising was on the arrival of Dr. Durand, a notorious revolutionist,
who had fled from the country on the failure of a revolution which he
had instigated not two years ago, and was now being allowed to return,
thanks to the clemency of the Government. He had taken refuge in Bolivia
and in going to his home at Lima, had to pass through Arequipa. We
happened to be calling on the Prefect when the chairman of the local
committee of the Liberal party came to request the privilege of giving
Dr. Durand a popular reception. The Prefect had evidently received
orders from the Government to allow any kind of a demonstration short of
rioting, and after warning the Liberal chairman that there must be no
disturbance of the peace, gave him permission to carry out the plans for
the reception. We were somewhat surprised at the daring, one might
almost say the bravado, of the Government in extending clemency to a
notorious agitator who had done his best to upset the administration by
violence.
Our feelings were confirmed the next day on the arrival of the train
from Puno. The exile was received by a mob of three or four thousand
noisy Liberals who, inspired by the sight of their hero, went to the
limit in their manifestations of joy. It goes without saying that the
horses were taken from the exile’s carriage and that he was dragged
through the streets in triumph by his loyal supporters. The flat roofs
of the houses were crowded with interested spectators who did not care
to ally themselves with the Liberal party by joining the procession in
the streets. A few of the bolder Liberals, encouraged by cognac or
_chicha_, ventured to cry “Down with the Government!” “Down with the
President!” “_Viva Durand!_” “Long live the Liberal party!”
It may seem ungracious to criticise the policy of a country where one
has received as much hospitality and kindness as I have in Peru. At the
same time I cannot help expressing the conviction that if Peru wishes to
give the world evidence that she belongs to the same category of nations
as does Mexico, for instance, where capitalists may safely invest and
develop the resources of the country; if she seriously proposes to do
away with revolutions and make them matters of ancient history rather
than of present politics, she cannot afford to allow the instigators of
revolutions to enjoy public triumphs such as are usually accorded to the
true heroes of a nation.
There is too much of a tendency among South Americans to regard
revolutions as a popular game. One of the rules is that after the
conflict is over, your enemies must be treated with all the honors of
war, and that it will not do to be too severe on the conquered
revolutionist for fear that he may take revenge on you when the next
revolution succeeds. If these politico-military agitators were put to
death after being convicted of treason by a properly constituted
tribunal, Peru would enjoy an era of peace and prosperity such as she
scarcely dreams of at present--and the Peruvians are good dreamers. But
just as long as she enthusiastically welcomes home, after a brief exile,
men like Dr. Durand, she offers an extra inducement to any hot-headed
young firebrand to start another revolution. If he succeeds, all honor
and glory will be his, besides the emoluments of office and the
satisfaction of enjoying political power. If he fails and makes good his
exit from the country, it can mean at the worst but a brief exile and
then a triumphal return, crowned by an ovation. In either case, unless
he is so extremely unlucky as to get shot in the scrimmage, he is sure
of plenty of honor and glory and those plaudits so dear to the Latin
heart. Such a state of affairs insures more revolutions.
In talking the matter over among ourselves the evening after we had
witnessed this extraordinary reception to a man whom we could not help
regarding as an enemy of his country, we ventured to predict that before
the end of the year Peru would see another revolution. It was an easy
prophecy and we were not surprised at its speedy fulfillment. In fact,
in less than six months a revolution broke out in Lima that for a time
seemed as though it would succeed in overthrowing the Government whose
mistaken clemency we had witnessed. The President and the Minister of
Foreign Affairs were captured and dragged through the streets, and
narrowly escaped death in the resulting collision between the
revolutionists and the government troops. Fortunately, like so many of
its predecessors, the revolution was a failure. But coming as it did
just at a time when the city of Lima was endeavoring to sell its bonds
on the New York market, it acted as a very effective warning to
capitalists who were attracted by an eight per cent municipal bond.