train comes to a terrace overlooking the city and then unfolds before
the traveler one of the most remarkable and picturesque scenes in South
America. The reds of the roofs of the flat, two-story houses and the
softer tints of the walls that make Caracas so alluring are here given a
more brilliant and positive tone. The Oriental atmosphere is tempered by
the rugged surroundings and the crisper, clearer air of the higher
altitude. Everywhere the bright, elemental colors—red, green, and
yellow—worn by the Indians, add to the brilliant scenes of outdoor life.
The streets of the city are a series of steep ascents, admirable for
drainage, no doubt, but affording little pleasure to the visitor who is
fond of walking, for to the newcomer the rarified atmosphere makes
exercise a trial. Surpassing Rome in one respect, La Paz seems to be
built upon at least fifty hills, but many level areas are laid off in
beautiful parks, a dozen or more in number, and here the _Paceño_ brings
his guests for the delightful social intercourse—perfected here for long
centuries for want of many of the other amusements—that makes his city
memorable to the visitor.
One of the most attractive parks, the Plaza Murillo, is named to
commemorate the inspiring genius of the revolution against Spain: Pedro
Domingo Murillo. The Alameda is a broad driveway of five parallel
avenues that run for over half a mile through rows of fine shade trees.
At night it is lighted with electricity and makes a delightful pleasure
ground for the people. An extension of this boulevard, the Avenida Doce
de Deciembre, leads to Obrajes, about three miles distant.
The most notable building in the city is the great cathedral. For more
than seventy years it has been in course of construction and when
completed will be the largest and most impressive church erected in
Latin America since the war of independence. In style it is Greco-Roman,
with a central cupola 150 feet high and two towers that rise to a height
of 200 feet. The interior work is of exceptional magnificence. Like many
of the old cathedrals of Spanish origin, its altar is of wonderfully
carved wood. Besides the cathedral, La Paz can boast more than a dozen
places of worship that compare favorably with the churches of other
South American capitals.
Only a short distance from La Paz by railroad are the prehistoric ruins
of Tiahuanaco, which Squier tells us
“Have been regarded by all students of American antiquities as
in many respects the most interesting, important and at the same
time the most enigmatical, of any on the continent. They have
excited the wonder and admiration alike of the earliest and
latest travelers, most of whom, vanquished in their attempts to
penetrate the mystery of their origin, have been content to
assign them an antiquity beyond that of the other monuments of
America and to regard them as the solitary remains of a
civilization that disappeared before that of the Incas began,
and contemporaneous with that of Egypt and the East....
Tradition, which mumbles more or less intelligibly of the origin
of many other American monuments, is dumb concerning these.”
They are on a broad, arid plain, overlooking Lake Titicaca, about twelve
miles from the shore, and occupy about a square mile. In his description
of them Mozans says: “In addition to a number of shapeless mounds, of
earth, there are remarkable traces of five different stone structures,
which writers, for the purpose of classification” (and because of their
resemblance to plans of such buildings elsewhere), “have agreed to call
the fortress, the palace, the temple, the sanctuary, and the hall of
justice.”
“The materials used in their construction,” he goes on,
“Are trachyte, basalt, and red sandstone. The fortress, to judge
from its present condition, originally resembled a Mexican
_teocalli_, or the pyramid of Sakkarah in Egypt, and must, when
first erected, have presented a very imposing appearance. It is
a great, terraced mound of earth, supported by stone walls, is
50 feet high, 620 feet long, and 450 in width. It is, however,
in a very dilapidated condition, owing to the depredations of
treasure-seekers and to its having been for centuries used as a
quarry whence material was obtained for buildings in the
neighboring towns, for the railroad and for structures in La
Paz. The temple is in the form of a rectangle, 388 by 445 feet.
It has been very appropriately called the American Stonehenge,
to which, at least in some of its monoliths, it bears a striking
resemblance.
“The other three edifices, especially at the hall of justice,
are likewise remarkable for the area they occupy and for the
cyclopean masses of stone that still remain to attest the
extraordinary character of their construction. It is these
wonderful megaliths, rivaling anything found in Italy, Greece,
or Asia Minor, that have excited the astonishment of travelers
since the time of the conquest. The platform, for instance, in
the hall of justice, is paved with immense slabs, some of which
are 25 feet long, 14 feet broad, and nearly 7 feet thick. But
the most remarkable feature in these cyclopean structures is the
great monolithic gateway, of very hard trachyte, ornamented with
numerous well-executed sculptures, apparently of a symbolical
character. This is more than 13 feet long, 7 feet above ground,
and 18 inches thick. Some of the stones are in a rough, unhewn
condition, but most of them are cut and fashioned in a most
remarkable manner. Squier, in referring to this feature of these
extraordinary ruins, writes: ‘Remove the superstructures of the
best-built edifices of our cities, and few, if any, would expose
foundations laid with equal care and none of them stones cut
with such accuracy.’”
[Illustration: CHURCH OF THE CONSERVIDAS, LA PAZ.]
[Illustration: OLD SPANISH RESIDENCE, LA PAZ.]
In a short time the new home of the president and national congress will
be finished and occupied, and the stately old palace where the president
now resides will be devoted to other uses. The city is well endowed with
public service conveniences, electricity, telephones, and handsome
public buildings, and its hotels are among the best to be found anywhere
on the continent outside of Buenos Aires, Rio and Valparaiso.
Of the 80,000 inhabitants, but one thousand are foreigners. As soon as
the railways now projected to radiate from this center are completed,
the city will be thrown open to all the bustle of cosmopolitanism, and
much of the charm given it by the old Spanish characteristics will be
swept away. But the nation will profit vastly by the change. The
development of its agricultural and mineral resources should multiply
its population of 2,500,000 by ten, and make of the country a Mecca for
the capitalist from the North as well as the tourist in search of
nature’s wonders and beauties.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
CHILE
I
“Chile,” which, by a curious coincidence, had about the same
significance in the Inca language that our word “chilly” has in English,
is the name that was originally given by the Incas to that part of the
Pacific slope of the Andes which lies beyond the river Maule, the
southern boundary of their great empire. At the time of the Spanish
conquest, the first Governor, Pedro de Valdivia, dubbed it “Nueva
Estremadura,” after his native province in Spain, and so called it in
his official communications, yet not only did the Inca name cling to the
country south of the Maule but soon it was popularly applied to that in
the north as well, as far up as Peru. And so when, some years afterward
(says the historian Rosales), the Emperor Charles V of Germany, who was
also King of Spain, was negotiating the marriage of his son Philip with
Mary, Queen of England, and was told that, being a sovereign in her own
right, she would enter into such an alliance only with a reigning
monarch, he caused Philip to be crowned King of Chile and Naples, and
thus incidentally, in distinguishing the province above his other
American possessions, confirmed its original name, and Chile it has been
called ever since.
The territory of the present republic consists of a strip of land of
most extraordinary conformation lying between the main Cordillera of the
Andes and the sea. It has an average width of less than a hundred miles,
yet stretches for nearly three thousand miles from a point in the
tropics considerably above the center of the continent, clear down to
Cape Horn, crossing thirty-eight degrees of latitude and embracing an
area of nearly 291,500 square miles. A strip of the same length in North
America would reach from Key West to northern Labrador, or, if measured
along the Rocky Mountains, from Mexico to the Yukon in Alaska. Reckoned
in square miles, it is larger than any country in Europe except Russia,
though it has a population, according to the last census (1907), of only
3,254,451—less than that of the city and suburbs of Paris or of New
York. In foreign commerce Chile ranks third among the South American
republics. In 1910 it amounted in value to $228,604,198.64. The
principal exports are silver, copper, nitrates, borax, sulphur,
vegetable products, wines and liquors. Her exchange of commerce with the
United States amounted to $38,050,652.
On ordinary maps this narrow Chilean half of the Andean region looks
like a mere strip of coast traversed by a single range. As a
consequence, it is not generally understood by those who have not
visited the country that there is really here, as in Bolivia, Peru and
Ecuador, a double formation, connected by transverse ridges in places,
but perfectly distinct, known as the Andes proper, or main Cordillera,
and the coast range, or western Cordillera. Between the two systems is a
vast plateau, called the central valley, which begins in the northern
Province of Atacama, and, gradually decreasing in height, extends south
for seven hundred miles, with an average width of from fifty to sixty
miles, through the Province of Llanquihue, about two-thirds of the way
down the coast, where it disappears, with the coast range itself, in the
long series of groups of islands into which the shore line is broken up.
From its culminating point back of Santiago, the main Cordillera also
decreases in height toward the south, but, instead of disappearing with
the coast range, extends throughout the whole length of the country,
from Peru to the southernmost islands of the Fuegian archipelago,
forming the most magnificent background imaginable to the view from the
sea.
In the northern section, between the Bolivian frontier and Coquimbo,
there are more than thirty extinct or dormant volcanoes of great
altitude—Toroni (21,340 feet, or about four miles, high), Pular (21,325
feet high), Iquima (20,275 feet), Aucasquilucha (20,260 feet),
Llulaillaco (20,253 feet), San José (20,020 feet), Socompa (19,940
feet), and many others over 17,000 feet. Imagine these in contrast with
Etna (10,875 feet) and Vesuvius, which is only 3800 feet, not as high as
the cones of some of them alone. South of the Province of Copaibo, the
main range itself develops a plateau formation that is crossed by
several relatively low passes, such as the Portezuelo de Come Caballo
(14,530 feet), Los Patos (11,700 feet), and, farther south, on a line
with Valparaiso, the Uspallata Cumbre (12,795 feet). Although little
used even now because of its extremely rugged character, Los Patos is
associated with perhaps the most memorable event in the war of
independence. It was there that, in the execution of that strategic
movement which South American historians say excelled that of Hannibal
in the Pyrenees and Napoleon’s crossing of the Alps, the Liberator San
Martín safely made his way through with his whole army in
1817—artillery, impedimenta, and all—and, within five days, joined
forces with the Chilean hero, O’Higgins, surprised the Royalist army
awaiting him on the plain opposite the Cumbre below, fought the great
battle of Chacabuco, and entered Santiago in triumph.
But this lower Uspallata Pass, which has always been the principal means
of land communication with Argentina, was destined to become famous in
another way, because (as already mentioned in the chapter on Argentina),
it was the place chosen as the most suitable for the route of the
Chilean-Argentine transcontinental railroad, connection between the
eastern and western sections of which was established in April, 1910, by
completion of a tunnel through the mountain two miles long and half a
mile beneath the Cumbre—a work of the utmost importance, for, aside from
the matter of comfort and saving of time, it has made it possible to go
from one country to the other by the land route in winter, when the pass
above is covered with drifts and the deadly winds and snowstorms are so
likely to whirl down on the traveler at any moment that few except the
hardy mail-carriers ever dared attempt it.
In this neighborhood the mountains attain their greatest altitude. A few
miles to the north and visible a little distance from the Cumbre is the
“Monarch of the Andes,” Aconcagua, which, according to the record at the
Harvard University Observatory in Arequipa (Peru), is 24,760 feet (more
than four miles and a half) high—the highest in the world, it is now
regarded, next to Mt. Everest in the Himalayas. In his interesting story
of the ascent of Aconcagua, Sir Martin Conway, one of the very few who
ever succeeded in accomplishing it, gives a good idea of the region,
viewed from a point near the lesser of the two summits. “At last I heard
a shout and looked up and saw Maquignaz a yard or two above my head,” he
says,
“Standing on the crest of the bed of snow that crowned the
_arête_. In a moment I was beside him and Argentina lay at our
feet. The southern snow face, delusively precipitous though
actually as steep as snow can lie, dropped in a single fall to
the glacier two miles below. To the right and left for over a
mile there stretched, like the fine edge of an incurved blade,
the sharp snow _arête_ that reaches from the slightly lower
southern summit to the northern. It forms the top edge of the
great snow slope down which we were looking, and is only visible
from the Horcones valley side as a delicate silver crest, edging
the rocks. At many points it overhung in big cornices, like
frozen waves about to break. The day had thus far been fine, but
clouds were now gathering in the east. Fearful lest the view
might soon be blotted out, I took a few photographs before
moving on. The view abroad from this point differed little from
that which we finally obtained. To the south was Tupungato
(22,408 feet), a majestic pile of snow, over which even more
majestic clouds were presently to mount aloft. To the north was
the still grander Mercedario (22,315 feet), beheld around the
flank of the final rocks. In the west were the hills, dropping
lower and lower to the Chilean shore, and then the purple ocean.
To the northeast, like another ocean, lay the flat surface of
the Argentine pampas. Elsewhere the Cordillera, in long parallel
ridges running roughly north and south, stretched its great
length along, crowding together into an inextricable tangle the
distant peaks, partly hidden by the near summits, which alone
interrupted the completeness of the panorama.”
All the high peaks are said to be of volcanic origin. Those from
Mercedario to Tupungato are precipitous and craggy and decked with great
glaciers. The sky line is jagged, like the walls of a ruined castle.
Below the snow, the rocks are richly colored. There are vast palisades
of dark reds and browns, slopes of purple streaked with yellow, and all
sorts of other gorgeous combinations, and, down in the lower valleys,
brilliant greens. The streams of melting snow pouring down the sides
seem to take on tints that correspond. In some places they flow red, as
with blood from the breast of a giant; in others, with the sun gleaming
on them, they look like molten gold. The main branch of the Rio Mendoza,
for instance, above Cuevas on the Argentine side, seems pink at first,
and, lower down, after mixing with the waters of its tributaries,
changes to a golden brown. It is one of those scenes that artists are
always accused of exaggerating and adding fanciful touches to when they
attempt the poor reproductions that the greatest only can give, so far
are they beyond human skill to portray—one of those scenes that few
mortals are gifted enough to comprehend the unutterable majesty and
magnificence of even when they have an opportunity to view the
originals. Even Burton Holmes, the great globe-trotter and lecturer, in
relating his impression in a recent article, confesses that he could not
appreciate it at first.
“Naturally, we were eager at least to see this monarch
mountain—Aconcagua, the King of the Cordillera,” he says.
“Accordingly, we organized a little expedition, and, under the
guidance of the capable young Britisher who is in charge of the
livestock of the camp at Puente del Inca, and his Chilean
‘_Capitaz_,’ or chief man, we rode away up a lateral valley
toward a well-known point of view, whence Aconcagua could be
clearly seen. A snow-clad mountain looms up at the end of that
barren valley. ‘That’s a rather fine peak,’ I remarked. ‘Well,
rather,’ replied the Englishman. ‘That’s the one you have come
to see; that’s Aconcagua.’ We were astounded, for the mountain
seemed no huger than the Jungfrau, as viewed from Interlaken. In
fact, it greatly resembles the Jungfrau in form and outline, and
its setting, from this point of view, is similar. We had
expected to be overwhelmed at sight of some sharp, tremendous,
towering shape—some magnified Matterhorn. What we beheld was
like a section of a snowy range—a culminating section of that
range, perhaps—but not a sharply defined peak. Yet we were
looking at the highest crest of the Western Hemisphere.
Everything about us was on a scale so vast that even Aconcagua
was dwarfed by the tremendous setting.”
The next great division of the range is defined on the north by the
Maipo Pass and by Las Demas Pass on the south. Its principal heights are
between 16,000 and 17,000 feet. From Las Demas on, few are over 10,000
feet, and, beyond Copahue, near the source of the Bio-bio River, the
average is about 9000. Beyond the volcano Tronador (the Thunderer), in
the latitude of Lake Llanquihue, and as far as Lake Buenos Aires, it
consists of a series of Swisslike mountains, still decreasing in height,
but with an occasional high peak, such as San Valentín (12,720 feet),
and glaciers growing ever larger and more numerous. San Valentín towers
in the midst of an elevated ice field eighty miles long and thirty wide
and sends down two great glacial streams, one to the south and the other
into the San Rafael Lake, where the ice glides along the bottom until it
breaks into fragments that drift away in the channel of Morelada. All
these places can now be reached by railroad or steamer.
No conception of the Chilean country as a whole can be formed, however,
unless it is understood that it is naturally divided into zones, as
characteristically dissimilar as are the various grand divisions of the
United States. For instance, there is the Magellan and Fuegian region,
where, to the east of the mountain ranges, the great Argentine pampa
extends clear down through Tierra del Fuego, and where, as the climate
is too rigorous to invite agricultural pursuits, the principal industry,
and the only important one, aside from a small amount of lumbering and
gold mining, is the raising of herds of sheep and cattle. With the
exception of the ranchers and the ten or twelve thousand people of Punta
Arenas—which is the only port of call in these parts, and is, therefore,
the distributing and shipping point for all the enormous expanse of
country round about, including the southern section of Argentine
Patagonia—the inhabitants are of the lower order of Indians and live in
the forests, supporting themselves by hunting and fishing, just as they
did before they ever saw or heard of a white man.
Then there is the island, lake, and forest region between Smyth Channel,
say, and Valdivia. In the southern part, the principal industries are
lumbering and fishing, but in the north, especially in the Province of
Chiloé (both the island and mainland) and in Llanquihue, there are also
wheat and barley fields, and the fruit, dairy, and cattle-raising
industries rank ahead of the timber and fishing, though in Chiloé this
last is among the most important. The inhabitants are mostly immigrants,
_mestizos_, and Indians, though of a better and far more amenable class
than the races farther south. Most of them are descendants of those
famous Araucanians, whom it took nearly four hundred years to subdue.
Here, throughout nearly the whole of the country, in the uplands as well
as near the coast, is the towering _alerce_ (the Chilean pine), often
two hundred feet high, sometimes two hundred and fifty, which has a
superb white trunk, varying from ten to fifteen feet in diameter,
according to height—the rival of the California giant redwoods—and here
is the _dingue_, that resembles the mighty German oak, and supplies wood
for railroad cars, carriages, casks, and ship-building, of wonderful
toughness and durability. There are cypress, walnut, cedar, ash, beech,
and others excellent for general building and cabinet purposes, too, and
other species of value for their barks.
Then, from Valdivia north through the Province of Coquimbo, comes the
great central valley, which is excelled by few, if any, of the temperate
agricultural regions of the world. It is here, of course, that the
principal centers of population are located—Valparaiso, the most
important seaport south of San Francisco, and Santiago, the capital, and
the ports of Concepción and La Serena, or Coquimbo. In this region all
the cereals, fruits, and vegetables are produced in abundance. There are
immense vineyards and sugar-beet and tobacco plantations, stock and
dairy farms, copper, silver, and coal mines, and factories of almost
every description.
North of Coquimbo are the desert provinces of Atacama, Antofagasta,
Tarapacá, and Tacna, where the rain so seldom falls that no useful
vegetation can thrive except in a few places where irrigation is
possible, yet which are the chief source of Chile’s revenue and wealth.
These constitute the fourth, or almost exclusively mineral zone, and,
aside from their gold and silver and copper, contain the famous nitrate
of soda beds, the only known extensive deposit of the kind in the world,
though here they are found thickly scattered over a strip four hundred
and sixty miles long, averaging about three miles in width. Every year
more than 2,000,000 tons (in 1910 it was 2,367,000 tons, worth
$86,018,000) are exported to fertilize the fields and make the gunpowder
of Europe and the United States, to say nothing of the iodine and other
by-products extracted in the process of preparation. “Plants make use of
nitrogen only when it is present in the soil in the form of nitrates,”
says the _Pan American Bulletin_ (Review Number, August, 1911)—
“And nitrate of soda is the only fertilizer that contains this
food in a suitable and available form. The manner of using it,
once it is applied, is the subject of technical, agricultural
chemistry, but every year it is better understood and results
are more satisfactory. On the first discovery of the value of
nitrate, it was scattered promiscuously in the soil in its crude
form, just as it was taken from the beds in Chile. As the
industry advanced, it was found that it was more economical to
export a purer mineral, and that, also, the purer the mineral,
the more plant nourishment it offered, provided that the need of
the plant was carefully investigated. The results have been a
more highly developed agriculture and the saving of certain
by-products, of which iodine is one, the profit from which aids
the manufacture. Another use for nitrate is in the manufacture
of nitric acid, and, ultimately, of many kinds of explosives....