a gloomy and peculiar man, absorbed in his studies and making no
account of the ordinary pleasures and interests of mankind, he
had reached the age of fifty-five and assumed supreme power
without marrying.... His severities against the educated classes
increased; he ordered wholesale executions and seven hundred
political prisoners filled the jails when he died. He feared
assassination and occupied several houses, letting no one know
where he was going to sleep from one night to another, and, when
walking the streets, kept his guards at a distance before and
behind him. Woe to the enemy or suspect who attracted his
attention! Such was the terror inspired by this dreadful old man
that the news that he was out would clear the streets. A white
Paraguayan literally dared not utter his name. During his
lifetime he was ‘_El Supremo_,’ and, after he was dead, for
generations he was referred to simply as ‘_El Defunto_.’... He
did not rise by any sycophantic arts. Indeed, he never veiled
the contempt he felt for the party schemers and officials around
him. When he had supreme power in his hands, he used it for no
selfish indulgences. His life was austere and abstemious; but,
though parsimonious for himself, he was lavish for the
public.... In his manners and life, he was absolutely modest; he
received any one who chose to see him. If he was terrible, it
was to the wealthy and powerful; the humblest Indian received a
hearing and justice. During his reign Paraguay remained
undisturbed, wrapped in a profound peace; the population rapidly
increased, and, though commerce and manufactures did not
flourish, nor the new ideas that were transforming the face of
the civilized world penetrate, food and clothing were plentiful
and cheap and the Paraguayans prospered in their own humble
fashion.”
Following the reign of Francia came a long period of open intercourse
with the neighboring states and foreign countries under the dictatorship
of Carlos Antonio Lopez, and some measure of progress was made, but
still there was no development of republican institutions. His death
made room for his son Francisco, who was a man of thirty-five at the
time of his accession, and, having spent some time in Europe, had
returned permeated with the vices of the great capitals and a consuming
ambition for military renown. A very different character of man morally,
he is said to have been, from the first of his line. He is described as
vain, licentious, gluttonous, and unscrupulous to the last degree,
though good-looking and an eloquent speaker. “He began his reign like a
Mohammedan sultan,” says Dawson, “ridding himself of his father’s most
trusted counselors, imprisoning and executing the most intelligent and
powerful citizens.... He ordered his best friends to execution; he
tortured his mother and sisters and murdered his brothers. The only
natural affection he ever evinced was a fondness for a woman he had
picked up in Paris, and for her children. He seems to have treated her
well to the last, but his numerous other mistresses and their children
he heartlessly abandoned.”
He soon raised an army of more than eighty thousand, the largest that
had ever been assembled since the conquest, and, by assuming the
aggressive in certain boundary disputes with Brazil and Argentina and
interfering in civil disturbances that were going on in Uruguay,
involved the country in war with these three powers, which, alarmed at
his Napoleonic aspirations, promptly formed an alliance for the purpose
of resisting him. This war lasted five years and for Paraguay was one
long succession of appalling disasters. Before the first battle was
fought her population numbered more than 1,300,000; when Lopez was
finally defeated and killed in 1870, but 221,079 remained, of whom only
28,746 were men. “No modern nation has ever come so near to complete
annihilation,” says Dawson. “Not less than 225,000 Paraguayan men—the
fathers and bread-winners, the farmers and laborers—had perished in
battle, by disease or exposure or starvation. One hundred thousand adult
women had died of hardship and hunger, and there were less than 90,000
children under fifteen in the country. The surviving women outnumbered
the men five to one; ... but the integrity of Paraguay and her
continuance as an independent power had been mutually guaranteed by
Brazil and Argentina when they began the war against Lopez, and neither
of them could afford to let the other take possession of her territory,
so the country was left substantially intact.”
Asunción shows on its face the two phases—the modern business houses,
residences and public service improvements of the new era, and the
ruined districts and wrecks such as those of cathedral, presidential
palace and old public buildings that emphasize the lessons of the old.
To-day the visitor looks with a shudder at the ruins of the uncompleted
mausoleum in which the last tyrant expected his remains to rest and at
the two-million-dollar palace where, in rooms hung with rare laces and
crimson satin, his unspeakable orgies were held; he turns with relief
toward the modernism now beginning to be apparent which proves the
substantial worth of a people which can arise from such a past and
prosper. The survivors of the old régime have been severely tested for
fitness to enjoy the fruits of their well-favored country.
The republic—no longer such in name only—is governed under an
enlightened constitution modeled after our own. The present
administration has opened wide the doors to immigration and foreign
capital, and the artificial barrier erected by her political system of
the nineteenth century no longer exists as the complement to the natural
barriers that have stood for four centuries between the northern and
southern countries of South America.
Those who may be so fortunate as to obtain control of Paraguay’s
highways, the Paraguay and Pilcomayo, and supplement them by extending
its 155 miles of railway into a system that will develop the vast
agricultural and mineral empire of central and southern Brazil and
Bolivia, and carry the produce to the Argentine seaboard, will gain a
prize unequaled in the railroad world, and make of Paraguay a country of
first importance on the continent.
Throughout the country the forests are being cleared to make room for
_potreros_ (cattle ranches) and the growing agricultural industries.
_Yerbales_ are coming more and more under the scientific culture which
greatly enhances the value of the country’s leading product, _yerba
maté_, or Paraguay tea.
Paraguay is the namesake and chief producer of the famous _yerba maté_
or Paraguay tea, which is the national drink—the cup of ceremony and
popular tipple throughout the central part of South America below the
coffee belt; that is, on the Argentine _Campo_, in Uruguay, Paraguay,
the lower part of Brazil, Bolivia and Chile. So well adapted is the
beverage to the climate that the German colonists forsake their beer and
the European-Latins their sweet cordials for the stimulating and
non-alcoholic native product.
The _yerba_ leaf is prepared by steeping in boiling water, as in the
case of the tea with which the rest of the world is familiar. The _maté_
is the dried gourd in which the tea is brewed. Into the aperture left by
removing the stem, a tube (the _bombilla_), made of reed or bone, is
inserted and through this the drinker sucks the refreshing brew.
Whenever the occasion offers “_Toma usted maté?_” is almost a form of
greeting in the _yerba maté_ countries, so universal is its popularity.
Among the rich the _maté_ and _bombilla_ are fashioned in costly metals,
but elsewhere the gourd and reed serve their purpose with equal, if not
greater, satisfaction.
The _ilex paraguayensis_, to give the herb its botanical name, is an
evergreen tree or shrub from twelve to twenty-five feet high, with
bright green leaves clustered in a bushy mass that cause it from a
distance to resemble the orange tree. Although much of the _yerba maté_
is still obtained from the immense natural forests, the ever-increasing
demand has made cultivation a necessity. Many plantations have been
successfully laid out, and crops of leaves have recently been gathered
with commercially profitable results. The scientific methods now being
adopted in the _yerbales_ (_yerba_ plantations) of Paraguay to supplant
the destructive system of the past will insure for this growing industry
a rich return to the owners.
The drink is taken without the addition of condiment and for the most
part hot, like the Japanese _sake_. It is stimulating and sustaining,
and soothes instead of irritating the nervous system. Unlike the
concoctions made from the coca leaf (cocaine), sugar cane (rum), pulque,
sake, vodka and other stimulants stumbled upon by native peoples and
become destructive habits, _yerba maté_ has no deleterious effects
either immediate or after prolonged use.
Dr. Lenglet, President of the International League of Pure Food, says of
it:
“The noteworthy point of the effect of _maté_ on the system is
its stimulating action on the cerebro-spinal organs. Taken with
sugar the first thing in the morning it is very wholesome. It
gives great capacity to undergo fatigue and invigorates the
brain, and although it prevents feeling hungry, one does not
enjoy one’s meals any the less. It does not appear to affect the
intestinal organs; the nervous system is, nevertheless,
insensible to the organic losses caused by the want of
nourishment which are made known by hunger.
“In _maté_ is found one of the most important means to obtain a
maximum of strength and energy. It can be compared to a
reservoir of vitality.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
BOLIVIA
In the heart of the continent a vast table of land as large as all our
Middle States has been crowded up into the air by some titanic
convulsion to a height of more than two miles, or fourteen thousand
feet. The surface in many places is deeply encrusted with salt,
suggesting the upheaval of a great mediterranean sea and a spilling of
its waters over the succession of terraced slopes that finally break off
abruptly and merge in the summer valleys of Brazil and Paraguay; for
from these heights innumerable streams shimmer off toward the distant
Amazon.
The plateau is hemmed in by the _Cordillera de la Costa_ (the coast
range) and the _Cordillera Real_, the main range, on the east, and is
intersected in various directions by cross-sections, the whole producing
a topography of a grandeur that makes all attempts at description
pitifully inadequate. The majestic snow-clad peaks of Guallatiri and
Miniquis in the coast range, and Illampú (Sorata), Illimani,
Chachacomani, and Karkaake in the _Cordillera Real_ rise to a height of
over 22,000 feet. A dozen more in both ranges exceed 20,000. On the
northwestern border along the Peruvian frontier, lies Lake Titicaca,
unique also in that it is the highest navigated body of water on the
globe. It is 160 miles long by thirty wide and is fed by the melting
Andean snows.
This plateau is the center of Bolivia’s life to-day, as it was the
cradle of successive aboriginal civilizations that finally culminated
many centuries ago in the Inca empire. It is the highest inhabited land
on the face of the earth, with the possible exception of Tibet. The
evidence at every hand of nature’s tremendous activities must have left
its impress on the races that formerly had their being here. The
gigantic relics which are now the enduring monuments of these peoples
are proof of the bigness of their point of view. They saw largely and
the range of their vision embraced great distances, great altitudes, and
great depths. There is evidence also that the newly awakened present
race will prove worthy of its surroundings.
The people now inhabiting this great Andean _Massif_ have in their veins
the blood of both the intrepid Conquistadores and the hardy Aymara and
Inca stock, and it is in the nature of things that the present-day
Bolivian, now that his republicanism is established after a century of
turbulent assimilation, will make great strides in industrial progress
in justification of the spirit that is his birthright. In this altitude,
so high that at first most foreigners suffer from its effects, the
Bolivians have built their capital and chief cities. Here the first blow
was struck against the oppression of Spain, and in the mountain defiles
of the Peruvian Andes leading down to the Pacific coast the last shot
was fired that drove the viceregal army to its transports. With the
departure of the Spanish came the establishment, in 1825, of the
Republic of Bolivia, the name given to the old Buenos Airean province of
Alto-Peru by its first president, Bolívar’s famous lieutenant, General
Sucré, in honor of his chief.
Bolivia is fourth in size among the South American republics. It covers
708,195 square miles, and could include within its limits the combined
areas of California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Oregon, and
Washington. The republic lies wholly within the torrid zone, but the
gradation of its topography extends from the _yungas_ (“hot valleys”) at
the border of the Amazon basin to the _punas_, or high table-lands,
ranging from four to fourteen thousand feet, so that animal and
vegetable life of every clime is represented—from the brilliantly
colored flamingo and butterfly of the Amazon plains to the dread condor
of the Andes; from the rubber tree, through all stages of arborial and
plant life, to the little yellow bitter potato, grown near the point at
which vegetation vanishes in the Arctic cold of the higher peaks.
Of course, the shortest and most direct route to Bolivia’s capital and
chief cities is by rail from either of the Pacific ports of Mollendo, in
Peru, or Arica or Antofagasta, in Chile. The quick change of view from
the arid coast to the grandeur of Andean mountain scenery, and the
familiar comforts of railway travel incline most visitors to the
approach from one of those points. But, as the greater part of Bolivia’s
territory is that which falls away from the plateau, like a lady’s
train, northward and eastward to the frontiers of Brazil and Paraguay, a
more comprehensive and impressive acquaintance with the country can be
had by entering either from the north, via the Amazon and Maderia rivers
to Villa Bella on the Brazilian frontier, and thence over a thousand
miles on horseback to La Paz, or from the east, starting from our last
resting place at Asunción in Paraguay. From Asunción one travels up the
Paraguay River to Corumbá in Brazil, thence, by a small affluent to
Puerto Suárez, eighty-one miles distant on the frontier, thence by a
zigzag course of eight hundred miles up the rising elevation to Santa
Cruz, a thriving city of 20,000 population, and thence to Cochabamba,
still larger and 8000 feet in altitude. From here there is a stage line
over one hundred and ten miles of mountainous country to Oruro, where
connection is made with the Antofagasta-La Paz railway to the capital.
Or one may go by railroad from Buenos Aires via Rosario, Cordoba and
Tucumán to La Quiaca on the frontier and then north for only two hundred
miles by stage-coach to Uyuni, through which the Antofagasta-La Paz line
passes on its way to the capital. But, in any event, the approach from
the east or north richly repays the visitor for the time consumed and
discomfort he may have to undergo on the way. The noted naturalist,
D’Aubigny, says of the _yungas_ region, through which one must first
make his way on leaving the Paraguay: “If tradition has lost the records
of the place where Paradise is situated, the traveler who visits these
regions of Bolivia feels at once the impulse to exclaim, ‘Here is the
lost Eden.’”
Leaving the dense and weirdly impressive tropical forests of the
hinterland, the rolling areas of the _yungas_ ascend toward the
plateau—a succession of vast gardens delicately scented and brilliant
with color. As the country is coming more under cultivation each year
the traveler’s eye rests frequently upon plantations of coffee, cacao,
and coca, the plant from which we get cocaine. The coca leaf is highly
prized by the native as a stimulant; he chews it as a Northerner would
chew tobacco but with a better excuse, since by its use he can perform
great feats of endurance and go many hours without food. With his pouch
filled with coca leaves and a small supply of parched Indian corn, he
can run fifty miles a day, for these fleet-footed Indians constitute the
telegraph system of this region. The output of the _cocales_, or coca
plantations, was nearly nine million pounds last year.
This is also the home of the highly nutritious if impossibly named
_jamacch’ppeke_ plant, which, when dried and powdered and mixed with
water, produces a delicately flavored milk much used in hospitals and
even for babies. Higher up in the _valle_ zone wheat and corn fields may
be seen as well as the famous _chincona_ tree, so named because, in
1638, the Condesa de Chinchon (wife of the Peruvian Viceroy) wrote of
her wonderful cure from malaria by an Indian draught prepared from the
bark of this tree. It has been known since as chincona or Peruvian bark,
but it was not until 1820 that the French chemist, Pelletier, extracted
from the tree the calisaya or quinine with which we are now familiar,
and which, by the way, is said to be one of the two or three natural
specifics ever yet discovered for disease.
On these slopes also grows the new substitute for wheat, _quinua_, a
grain more nutritious and more cheaply produced than its northern
prototype, also the delicious _camote_, a delicately flavored type of
sweet potato, the _palta_, known in Cuba and Mexico as the _aguacate_
and in Florida as the alligator pear, which makes the rich salad, and
all variations of the sweet, pulpy fruits like the pomegranate,
_granadilla_, _capote_, etc. This is also one of the homes of the
nutmeg, olive, and castor bean, and of sugar, cotton, oranges, cinnamon,
vanilla, saffron, indigo, and ginger; also of a remarkable variety of
medicinal plants: for instance, those from which are derived aconite,
arnica, absinthe, belladonna, camphor, quassia, cocaine, digitalis,
gentian, ginger, ipecaque, jalap, opium, sarsaparilla, tamarind, tolu
and valerian. The Indians of this belt are the most artistic leather
workers in the world, and their beautiful _ponchos_ (a sort of circular
cape the mountaineers wear, with a hole in the center for the head to go
through), woven from native silk, are eagerly sought by all visitors.
Leaving this richly endowed agricultural region for the still richer
location of Bolivia’s mineral wealth, the traveler ascends to the great
plateau on which the capital and important cities are built. At Potosí
one is in the heart of the great silver country. From one mountain here,
the Cerro de Potosí itself, over three billion dollars’ worth of silver
has been taken since its discovery in 1545. The luxury and almost
unbelievable extravagance told of in the annals of this city have given
it a world-wide fame. Its principal building, the mint, cost the then
unprecedented sum of two million dollars, an expenditure that brought
many qualms to the miserly ascetic, Philip II, who would have preferred
to pour the flood of wealth into the coffers of the church. The author
of “Don Quixote” refers to Potosí as the synonym for fabulous wealth,
and there is hardly a writer of the early days of the colony who did not
mention the silver mountain to illustrate the idea of lavish abundance.
In those days silver was regarded as equally valuable with gold.
Bolivia’s marvelous wealth in tin is unexcelled even in the Malay
Peninsula. Already one of the chief centers of the tin industry, this
metal promises to bring to the twentieth-century Bolivia as much
commercial fame as the gold mines brought Alto-Peru in the sixteenth
century. Copper, iron, lead and bismuth, as well as topazes, emeralds,
opals, jasper, and marble, are also present in large quantities
throughout the plateau.
After descending from Potosí, which is at an altitude of 15,380 feet,
one should visit the white city of Sucré before proceeding to the
present seat of government, La Paz. In Bolivia the name of Sucré is as
omnipresent as Bolívar’s in Venezuela and Colombia, and most naturally
when the new republic was formed the name of its chief city, Charcas,
was changed to Sucré to honor the hero of Ayacucho—Antonio José de
Sucré—when this “right hand” of Bolívar became its first president. The
city is ancient, kindly, and romantically beautiful in its setting on
the eastern slope of the royal range, and once, under a law enacted some
eighty years ago, it was the capital.
[Illustration: SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF CAPACABANA, ON BOLIVIAN SHORE OF
LAKE TITICACA.]
[Illustration: TOWN AND MOUNTAIN OF POTOSÍ, BOLIVIA.]
Its extreme altitude, however, made impossible the cosmopolitanism that
must pertain to a capital city—the foreign diplomats in most cases
refused to reside there because of the severity of the _siroche_, or
mountain sickness, that nearly always assails the newcomer to these
altitudes. So the seat of government was removed to La Paz, and now it
is the tribunal of the Supreme Court and Archiepiscopal see only. Here
also are located the University of San Francisco Xavier and the homes of
many of Bolivia’s most aristocratic families. Thus far, modernism has
had a beneficial influence on the city in many respects, but has not
changed its appearance. Its public works have made it healthful and
comfortable, but its stately old dwellings and public buildings preserve
their peculiar charm unaltered to suit the modern architectural taste.
Farther north, and not yet connected by rail with Sucré, lies the
present capital, La Paz, the actual seat of government. There for many
years have resided the president, the congress, and the representatives
of the foreign governments, so that the _Paceño_ is justified in looking
upon his city as the metropolis. Like its predecessor in this
distinction, it was rechristened when the Spanish régime came to an end.
When the Conquistadores exterminated the Indians resident on its site
and built the present city, for some occult reason they named it _La
Ciudad de Nuestra Señora de la Paz_! Our Lady of Peace clung to the
name, no doubt, with grim humor during the turbulent times that
followed, until the decisive battle of Ayacucho brought to the nation a
more effective peace from Spanish oppression, and to-day _La Paz de
Ayacucho_ is the official name of the seat of government.
La Paz, Quito, Bogotá, Caracas, and Mexico are the five highest capitals
in the world, but the first-named is loftier by half a mile than any of
its rivals. The visitor is always surprised at the location of La Paz.
Having been told of its great elevation—12,300 feet above the sea level,
he naturally expects to see a city perched on a high mountain; in fact,
it is at the bottom of a deep canyon, backed, however, by the giant peak
Illimani, which towers above, to a height of 22,500 feet. Its startling
location results in daily variations in temperature that greatly
incommode the stranger; frequently the thermometer drops from 80° F. at
noon to below zero at night, although generally these extremes vary but
little during the year.