of many notable events in the history of the country. Here it was that
the great Inca conqueror Tupac Yupanqui routed the Shiri of the Caras
and began the conquest of his possessions; it was here that Atahualpa’s
great general, Quizquiz, defeated the army of the Inca Huascar and
proceeded to the invasion of Peru; it was here that the daring
Conquistador Sebastian de Benalcázar defeated the victors and brought
the Kingdom of Quito under the sway of Pizarro. The city of Riobamba,
which is the first of importance on the line, is also said to have been
the birthplace of the eminent historian Juan de Velasco and several
others of South America’s most distinguished sons. It has a population
of only twelve or fifteen thousand, but, thanks to the demand created by
commercial travelers and the employees of the railroad, it serves as an
excellent resting place, for there are two or three very tolerable
hotels. From this point on to Quito, there are parts of the plain that
are arid and desolate. This is attributed partly to the fact that so
much of the country was long ago denuded of its trees and partly to
volcanic eruptions of a peculiar kind.
Describing one of them, Mozans says:
“But, destructive as are the eruptions of the volcano when it
belches forth ashes, cinders, and lava, it is even more so when
its terrific operations are followed by deluges of water and
avalanches of mud, carrying along with them immense blocks of
ice and rock to great distances, causing death and devastation
all along their course. Such an eruption took place in 1877,
and, so great was the velocity of the angry flood, that it swept
the plain with the momentum of an express train, carrying before
it bridges, buildings, and everything that stood in its path.
The very day of the eruption the irresistible torrent reached
the mouth of the Esmeralda River, nearly three hundred miles
distant. The catastrophe had been announced the preceding
evening by an enormous column of black ashes, which the roaring
mountain projected more than three miles above the crater, and
which an east wind carried far out over the Pacific. Vessels
going from Guayaquil to Panamá were suddenly enveloped in a
cloud of dust and transmitted to Europe and the United States
the first news of the disaster. After this eruption of ash,
there was a welling of molten lava over the rim of the crater
which melted the ice and snow and transformed them at once into
tremendous avalanches of mud. At the same time immense blocks of
ice were transported across the plain of Latacunga to a distance
of thirty miles, where they remained several months before they
were entirely melted. The foregoing is only one of many similar
eruptions that occurred during the last century.”
“But why, it will be asked, do people live in a land in which they are
constantly exposed to such sudden and awful disasters?” he
continues—“where thousands of victims are sacrificed in a single moment?
Why do people cling around the rich flanks of Kilauea and Mauna Loa and
huddle around the treacherous slopes of vine-clad Etna and Vesuvius, or
pitch their tents on quaking, incandescent Stromboli? Let philosophers
reply.” But, in the neighborhood of Quito itself no more of these arid
stretches are to be seen. “Notwithstanding the ever-menacing volcano
towering above it, Quito,” he tells us, “was always to the Ecuadorian of
the interior one of the world’s most favored cities. It was what
Damascus and Bagdad in their halcyon days were to the Arabs, what
Cordova and Granada were to the Moors. It was ‘_Quito bonito_’—charming
Quito—the city above the clouds, ‘the navel of the world, the home of
the _continua primavera_—perpetual spring—evergreen, magnificent Quito.’
It was like Heaven—_Como de Cielo_—where there is neither heat nor cold.
It was the Paradise of delights. Had Columbus discovered the beautiful
valley which it overlooks, he would, we are assured, have pronounced it
the site of the Garden of Eden.”
After Lima and Santiago, the suburbs strike one as rather squalid and
dilapidated. In the city proper, however, the houses improve in size and
finish and continue to improve until the Grand Plaza is reached in the
center. The more pretentious are of two stories, a few three, and of
massive construction, with adobe walls two or three feet thick and tiled
roofs, and are built around a square courtyard, or _patio_, in the old
Spanish style, often with a fountain or flower plot in the center. Here,
too, around the _patios_ are pillared arches supporting galleries used
as the passage way to rooms in the upper tier; the floors are paved with
large, square, red bricks. The public buildings, some of them dating
back to Philip II, are clustered about the three plazas. The most
imposing, the capitol, a low building adorned with a splendid colonnade,
faces the Grand Plaza. With its long rows of columns it looks a little
like the Fifteenth Street side of the Treasury Building in Washington.
To the right of it is an ancient but beautiful cathedral; on the other
side is the palace of the Papal Nuncio. All are fine specimens of the
architecture of the periods in which they were built.
The scene in the shopping district and around the market has quite an
Egyptian flavor. The shops are very small and exposed; groups in gay
ponchos stand chatting and smoking in front of them or lean idly against
the walls, enjoying the sunlight; soldiers saunter to and fro; Indians,
in every variety of costume, are scattered about guarding heaps of
vegetables they have brought in from the surrounding country for sale;
bronze-complexioned women in many-colored gowns peddle oranges and
alligator pears from baskets carried on their heads; purchasers, mostly
men and in more conventional attire, wander from store to store, for it
is not here so much as in the vicinity of the churches that one is
favored with a glimpse of the ladies of the upper class. They do little
shopping themselves, these _señoras_ and _señoritas_, yet they are very
devout, and it is their custom to wrap themselves in their black
mantillas and attend mass every day.
[Illustration: ROOM IN THE OLD PALACE AT QUITO, IN WHICH THE DECLARATION
OF INDEPENDENCE WAS SIGNED, AUGUST 16, 1809.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
X
COLOMBIA
Journeying overland into Colombia from Ecuador, there opens before the
traveler the vast mountainous country that was once the ancient kingdom
of the Chibchas—the contemporary of the Inca empire, and, later the
pivotal state of Bolívar’s great confederation. Colombia occupies the
extreme northwestern corner of the continent. With its 465,714 square
miles of territory, it is as large as Texas, Kansas, Arkansas and
Louisiana, and has a population of 4,320,000.
In this corner of the continent the Andes come to an end in a great
splurge of deep-cut ridges presenting an aspect very different from the
formations to the south. Here three clearly defined ranges diverge from
the Ecuadorian frontier and spread northward like the ribs of a fan; the
Western and Central Cordilleras merge before reaching the Caribbean Sea,
and slope off into foothills and plains near the coast, and the Eastern
Cordillera continues in an almost unbroken line until, as the Sierra de
Parija, it plunges into the sea at the end of the bleak, forbidding
peninsula (Goajira) west of the Gulf of Maracaibo. Rising from the
Pacific, on the west, is an almost entirely distinct range, separated
from the Andean terminals by the great basin of the Atrato River, and
running along the Isthmus of Panamá into Central America. Just north of
the Ecuadorian frontier lies the so-called “_Massif_,” from which branch
off the three Cordilleras just mentioned and in which the four important
Colombian river systems have their source; the Patia flowing westward to
the Pacific; the Caquetá, eastward, through the Amazon, into the
Atlantic, and the Cauca and Magdalena, the great highways of the
country, flowing northward to the Caribbean on either side of the
Central Cordillera, and joining their floods about one hundred and fifty
miles from the sea in the hot, marshy plains of the Magdalena basin.
The Eastern Cordillera slopes off into the Orinoco and Amazon
plains—over a territory constituting two-thirds of the republic’s
area—and thus gives to Colombia the same astonishing range of
productiveness that distinguishes her southern neighbors along the
Andean chain. Gold is scattered literally all over the Andean ridges and
is picked up along the streams that flow into the lower levels. Silver,
iron and lead are almost as universally present; the platinum deposits
are surpassed only in Russia; the emerald mines of Muzo, seventy-five
miles from Bogotá, have been famous ever since the brilliant stones were
torn from the turban crowns of the Indian kings by the Conquistadores,
and are the principal source of the world’s supply; the salt mines and
pearl fisheries add largely to the republic’s revenue.
The Review Number of the _Pan American Bulletin_ (August, 1911) says of
the emerald industry:
“All, or very nearly all, the emeralds mined to-day come from
Colombia. And, in spite of the supposed higher value of
diamonds, the emerald is the most precious of gems. Carat for
carat, a flawless emerald would bring perhaps three times the
price of a flawless diamond in the jewelry market. India, the
storehouse of precious stones, is credited with producing the
first emeralds, but the oriental emerald is not identical with
the modern gem, as it is a variety of the ruby, of a green
color, and extremely rare. The stone that adorned Aaron’s armor,
described in the writings of Moses, if it was a real emerald and
not a carbuncle, may have come from the mines of Coptos in
Egypt, which furnished the ancients with the precious green
gems. Certain of these old mines are known as ‘Cleopatra’s
Mines,’ because that remarkable Egyptian queen is supposed to
have obtained her jewels from that source. Nero wore an emerald
monocle at the gladiatorial combats that came perhaps from the
mines of Ethiopia. The Museum of Naples contains fine emeralds
taken from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, some of which
are carved, and the history of this gem shows that it was highly
treasured from the earliest recorded times....
“Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador were ravished of their mineral
wealth; so wonderful emeralds, as part of the spoil, found their
way into the treasury of the Spanish kings. Pizarro and Cortés
sent the first emeralds from the New World to Spain, where they
acquired the name ‘Spanish emeralds.’ Tradition has it that an
Aztec gem appropriated by Cortés was valued at forty thousand
ducats. Another wonderful stone, the size of an ostrich egg, was
found in the Manka Valley, Peru, where the Indians worshiped it
as the Goddess of Emeralds. The Spanish conquerors opened up the
mines in Colombia in 1540, enslaving the Indians to work them.
The richest mineral areas were those of Muzo and Cosquez, about
75 miles north of Bogotá, at an elevation of about 6500 feet
above sea-level. A curious fact in the history of these latter
mines is that they were closed and lost to the world in an
enveloping forest of jungle for over a hundred years, and only
rediscovered some fourteen years ago. The Government of Colombia
controls the exploitation, leasing the mining districts to the
working companies.
“The Muzo group, from which the finest emeralds come, has an
estimated yearly output of 262,548 carats of the first class,
467,690 of the second, 22,700 of the third, and 16,000 of the
fourth class. The Coscuez group, named for an Indian princess,
which produced a variety of emerald called canutillo, one of the
most valuable stones, is now in the category of lost mines. The
Samandoco or Chivor group, not now being worked, is supposed to
possess a matrix that would yield half a million dollars worth
of emeralds a year.... It was” (in the Muzo group) “that the
most valuable single emerald in the world was found. It belongs
to the Duke of Devonshire and is a perfect, six-sided crystal
that weighs 8 ounces 18 pennyweights, is two inches in length
and measures across its three thicknesses 2-1/2, 2-1/5, and
1-7/8 inches. Another fine stone is the Hope emerald, weighing 6
ounces, which was also found in Colombia. There can be no doubt
that this source of wealth will be greatly augmented in the
future, when improved transportation facilities shall make it
possible.”
A wealth of agricultural products, typical of nearly every clime, lies
in the great river basins and on the eastern slopes and plains in the
Orinoco and Amazon regions. In the river basins and part of the way up
the mountain sides are great forests, so dense as to be almost
impenetrable, but abounding in nearly every species of cabinet and dye
woods and nearly every medicinal plant known to science. In altitudes of
from two to four thousand feet the coffee plant thrives; the berries
from the celebrated Chimbi estates are said to produce the most
delicately flavored coffee in the world. But little of it ever reaches
the United States. In the _tierras calientes_, or “hot lands,” the
fragrant tonka beans, that have the sweet odor of new-mown hay and are
used in some blends of tobacco to give it a bouquet and in the
manufacture of soaps and perfumes, and cacao, bananas, yuccas, arracha,
sugar, indigo, tobacco, vanilla and rice are among the staple products.
The soil of this region is of a rich, black, deep-lying loam, well
watered and capable of a greater productiveness than the plains of
Louisiana or Texas. In the intermediate areas the culture includes
wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and other cereals and vegetables common to
the temperate zone. Along the Sinu River is a great cattle belt. This is
also the source of the cedar and mahogany, of which Colombia is one of
the chief exporters.
It follows naturally that, as in Ecuador, the diversity in altitude that
accounts for this varied productiveness gives to Colombia—a wholly
tropical country—a range in climate that makes it one of the world’s
most attractive abiding places. Von Humboldt is quoted as saying that
the traveler here needs but “a thermometer and a mule to find any
climate desired within the compass of a few leagues.” When one tires of
the torrid heat of the valleys, the frozen sierras are just in sight.
When the perpetual spring of the table-land palls upon him, he can by a
few hours’ ride find autumn on the steppes above or summer in the plains
below. If he is a sportsman, he can find his game among many species of
the fauna of three zones: the jaguar, sloth, armadillo, tapir, the red
deer, black bear, and panther, and in the jungles of the Amazon region,
the tiger.
The overland route to Bogotá from Quito lies over a well-built highway
which, in the not distant future, will be paralleled by Colombia’s and
Ecuador’s contributions to the long-heralded Pan-American railway from
New York to Buenos Aires. Up to the present time Colombia has had but
six hundred miles of railways: the little system radiating from the
capital and connecting it with the Magdalena River, and, through that
natural highway, with the Caribbean ports, and the short lines that run
inland from the ports of both oceans; for Colombia is the only country
in South America that borders on both the Pacific and the Atlantic.
The traveler who enters the country in the saddle over the route
mentioned will profit more than by sailing up the Pacific coast from
Guayaquil and entering through the port of Buenaventura. The journey
along the lofty heights and down through the lovely green valleys will
not only give him much more of the inspiring Andean scenery, but will
make him acquainted with the country and village life which he could not
see at close range otherwise. But he will have to sacrifice many
familiar comforts on the altar of education. The _posadas_, or village
inns, at which he must stop are mere adobe huts with dirt floors, and
none but rawhide cots are offered for his rest. The few dishes served at
these primitive hostelries are plentifully seasoned with garlic,
saffron, and _morones_, or red peppers. The early hours of the journey
will bring the traveler in conflict also with the all-pervading
philosophy of _mañana_ (to-morrow), and his progress will be slow.
However, the unfailing good humor of his muleteer will do much to dispel
his exasperation at delays, and he will find himself more and more
repaid for his discomforts by the splendor and beauty and strangeness
through which he is making his way.
Passing over the bleak, frozen _paramos_, or mountain deserts, wrapped
in awful stillness by the great peaks rising above them, the scene
suddenly changes as the road descends along the heavily wooded slopes
and the country becomes alive with verdure and the sounds of birds.
Below, in a still more summery clime, lies, perhaps, a beautiful little
lozenge-shaped valley fringed about up the sides of the mountains with
coffee plantations and groves of bamboo, or some other scene even more
picturesque—and then, over equally sudden changes and different pictures
of native life, the traveler goes on until there begin to appear
extensive plantations with well-built houses and farm machinery, and,
finally reaches the railway, which takes him, not unregretfully, from
his guide and carries him up into the lofty _sabana_—the great altaplain
on which Bogotá, the capital, is located. This plateau is a level plain,
about seventy miles long by about thirty in width, containing some two
thousand square miles of cleared, arable land. It lies 8700 feet above
the sea in the very heart of the Eastern Cordillera, just below the
fifth degree of north latitude, and ranges in temperature from
fifty-nine to sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit the year around. From this
plateau the descendants of the Spanish conquerors have administered the
country since 1538. The _sabana_ is now covered with prosperous
plantations belonging to rich Bogotaños.
Bogotá lies on the eastern border. When Quesada, its founder, set foot
on the _sabana_, he was struck by its resemblance to the broad plain of
Santa Fé, in his native Granada, on which the armies of Ferdinand and
Isabella encamped during the siege that was to put an end to the power
of the Moors in Spain. He therefore called the new capital _Santa Fé de
Bogotá_, and New Granada became the name of the northern viceroyalty
which was carved out of the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1717. Both names have
disappeared. The capital has reverted to its ancient Indian name of
Bogotá, and the name of Granada, perpetuated until 1861 in the name of
the Republic of New Granada, was succeeded in that year by that of the
present Republic of Colombia.
The site of the present city, some twelve miles southeast of the ancient
Chibcha capital, was the location of the little Indian village of
Tensaquilla, the pleasure resort of the Zipas, nestling, like the
Spanish city of Granada, at the foot of two mountains—Monserrate and
Guadelupe. Down these mountains tumble the little streams that make up
the near-by Funza River, which spreads out over the plain and then
plunges down into the upper waters of the Magdalena. On the far side of
this great river runs the Central Cordillera, some ninety miles west of
the capital, and on clear days the giant white-topped volcano, Tolima,
18,400 feet high, and the Mesa de Herveo, but sixty feet
lower—constituting the culminating points in Colombia—are plainly
visible.
The traveler’s first impressions of Bogotá are those of surprise and
admiration—surprise at finding so large a city (150,000 in population)
perched high up in the Andes, fully “six hundred miles from anywhere;”
and admiration of the surpassing natural beauty of its locality. His
next impression is that it is one of the most conservative, quiet and
restful places on earth—conditions greatly to be appreciated after his
long, eventful journey. The discovery is soon made that Bogotá possesses
a climate that is simply perfect, and a highly educated and accomplished
society, that boasts for the capital the appellation of “the Boston of
South America.” Like Quito, Bogotá is old, and being so far inland and
inaccessible, its Tibet-like seclusion for centuries has bred within its
higher circles an aristocratic caste, somewhat arrogant but always
suave, kindly, and hospitable. In this eddied fragment of the old-world
Spain, the old ceremonious forms of address—“Your servant who kisses
your hand,” and that hospitable assurance, “_Aqui tiene su casa_,” with
which even the chance acquaintance is made to feel at home, as in his
“own house”—do not seem incongruous, as they would in Spanish cities in
closer contact with the outer world.
[Illustration: OVERLOOKING BOGOTÁ.]
The streets of the city run eastward up the slopes of a wide avenue cut
along the sides of the mountain, and are crossed at right angles by
others running north and south. The blocks thus formed rise one above
another like the benches of a great amphitheater, overshadowed by the
peaks of Monserrate and Guadelupe. On the crests of these peaks stand
two massive cathedrals. One wonders why great temples were built in such
inaccessible locations, and why, with over thirty more cathedrals and
churches in the city, they were needed at all. They can be reached only
by pedestrians, and then only after some three hours of hard climbing;
no one ever lived near them, and the bleak, icy _paramo_ beyond is
uninhabitable. Like the cross, however, their presence is objectively
effective in this very religious community.
The city is now well lighted by gas and electricity and is beautified by
three large plazas and many smaller parks, in nearly all of which the
Bogotaños have erected handsome bronze statues to the soldiers and
statesmen of the republic. The great central plaza bears the name of
Bolívar, and on a high pedestal in its center stands a bronze figure of
the Great Liberator, his sad, thoughtful face turned as if in mute
reproach toward the old executive mansion, where, for a brief reign, he
ruled the destinies of Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, then united in
his ill-starred Colombian confederation. From a window in that mansion
he once leaped, at midnight, to escape the hand of an assassin, raised
against him because the people distrusted his rule and permitted
themselves to forget his inestimable services to the country.
On the north side of the plaza stands the new capitol building, a plain
but well-proportioned structure of white granite; on the east is the
fine old metropolitan cathedral, and adjoining it, on the same side, is
the ancient palace of the Spanish viceroys, now, however, used for shops
and offices. Near the western outskirts of the city is the extensive
Plaza de los Martiros, so named in commemoration of the patriots
executed on its site by the royalist general, Morillo. Although
beautifully laid out and made into an attractive pleasure ground, it has
always been shunned by the people, for it was a veritable Golgotha
during the revolution, and was used as the execution ground until the
early sixties, when capital punishment was abolished in Colombia. Not a
great way from the tragic spot is another noted place now called
_Ninguna Parte_ (literally “Nowhere”). It is rather a disreputable part
of the city in these days, but, when General William Henry Harrison
resided there as United States Minister, in 1827, it was a fashionable
district. The old house in which he lived is still pointed out, as is
the still older, and, if possible, still more dilapidated, house
occupied by Baron von Humboldt during his year’s sojourn in Bogotá. On
the northern side of the little Plaza de las Nieves stands the city’s
oldest landmark—the house built by Quesada.