the sea, and the highest altitude reached by any railway in the world,
the road descends into the great basin of Titicaca, the heart of the
Andes, stretching northward and southward between the two great chains
of the Cordilleras for fifteen hundred miles, almost level, and twelve
thousand feet above the ocean. Here in majestic splendor lies Lake
Titicaca, one of whose islands was the Eden of the Incas, the birthplace
of that prehistoric empire whose civilization has been the wonder and
mystery of centuries. Here Manco
[Illustration: RUINS OF AN INCA TEMPLE.]
Capac (the Adam) and Mama Ocllo (the Eve) of Inca tradition, the
Children of the Sun, arose like Aphrodite, and bearing a golden rod,
marched down the valley until they reached the place where Cuzco now
stands, and there commanded the Indians to erect a city, the seat of an
Imperial dynasty which lasted a thousand years, and possessed a wealth
and an industry that had no measure. Around the lake stand the mighty
temples and palaces, erected of blocks of stone as large as those of the
Pyramids, quarried and conveyed by means that still remain a mystery,
and will never be known. These monuments of an extinct civilization,
these evidences of art and industry that surpass any prehistoric
architecture on the earth, are standing now in mute impressiveness,
mocking decay, as they taunted the conquistadors who tried to overthrow
them. But the Spaniards stripped them of their treasures, murdered their
inmates, and destroyed everything that could not withstand their power.
[Illustration: CONVENT OF SANTA DOMINGO, CUZCO.]
The riches of Peru and Bolivia have been their curse from the time when
Pizarro invaded the continent to the plunder of their nitrate deposits
by Chili. It is true that few countries have suffered from such an evil,
but it is nevertheless a fact that the wealth of these republics has
been the cause of their disasters. For three hundred years the people
sat with folded hands, and enjoyed the profits of the development of
their natural resources by foreigners, and now, stripped of them, sit
impoverished, mourning the departure of their prosperity.
Just how much plunder Pizarro got in his raids upon the Incas is not
known, and cannot be estimated, but millions went to the King of Spain
as his twenty per cent.; the Catholic Church got millions more as her
share; Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, and other pirates got away with
an immense amount of gold and silver; and the quantity expended in the
erection of churches, convents, monasteries, and palaces by the viceroys
is incalculable. History asserts that ninety millions of dollars’ worth
of precious metals was torn from the Inca temples, and the faithful
subjects of Atahualpa filled the room in which he was imprisoned with
gold, in their endeavor to satisfy the avarice of the invaders. Prescott
and Robertson and other historians tell fabulous stories of the wealth
of the Incas, and we know it was enough to restore financial prosperity
to Spain, and to give every cutthroat who came to the coast a fortune.
[Illustration: WHAT THE SPANIARDS LEFT.]
The amount of money made by Peru from her guano deposits cannot be
estimated any more accurately than by the plunder stolen from the Incas.
The exports have continued from 1846 to the present day, and the annual
shipments have amounted to millions of tons, valued between twenty and
thirty million dollars, and this to the benefit of a State whose
population has never reached two millions, and three-fourths of which
were Indians who had no share in its profits. The exhausted lands of the
Old World required this manure to revive them, and their owners paid
high prices for what cost Peru nothing. The result of this revenue was
the continuation of the extravagance among the people which was
practised by their forefathers when the mountains poured out streams of
silver. It was an epidemic of riches, and the Government of Peru,
instead of wisely hoarding its source of wealth and protecting it,
plunged into a system of reckless expenditure, until the end of the war
found its revenues cut off and the country burdened with a debt of two
hundred and fifty million dollars which it never can pay.
[Illustration: WHERE THE GUANO LIES.]
But even if Peru and Bolivia have been robbed of all their guano, the
deposits of nitrate of soda in the deserts along their coasts would have
made them rich again; but Chili has stolen these also. The whole coast,
from the twenty-third to the twenty-fifth parallel of latitude, appears
to be one solid mass of this valuable mineral, fit for a hundred
different uses, and worth in the market from forty to sixty dollars a
ton. It was discovered in 1833 by an accident, the hero of the
discovery being a forlorn old Englishman by the name of George Smith.
There is no telling how much lies in the mines, but it is the opinion of
those who have explored the country that at the present rate of
excavation it will take eight or ten centuries to dig it away.
[Illustration: A NITRATE MINING TOWN.]
Under the sand of this desert, which drifts before the wind like snow,
nature has laid the bed of nitrate. No one knows how it was formed, and
man has not attempted to measure its extent. The sand is first shovelled
off, and then a crust of sun-baked clay from four to twelve inches thick
is removed. This discloses a bed of white material that looks like
melting marble, full of moisture, and is as soft as cheese. The strata
is often four or five feet thick, and averages two or three feet. It is
broken up by crow-bars and shovelled into carts, then taken to crushers,
which grind it up into particles as large as pebbles. These are lifted
by elevators into great vats, where it is boiled until dissolved in
ordinary sea-water. Then the solution is run off into a series of
shallow iron vats exposed to the air, which, being moistureless, and
heated by constant sunshine, causes rapid evaporation. The salt from the
water mixed with the nitrate causes crystallization, and after a
certain period of exposure to the air and sun the vats are found to be
covered upon the bottom and sides with white sparkling crystals, like
alabaster, under a yellowish liquor. This liquor is carefully drawn off,
for it is even more valuable than the saltpetre, and is conducted by
pipes to another crucible, where it is boiled and chemically treated
until it produces the iodine of commerce, useful for a hundred medical
and chemical purposes, and costing as much per ounce as the saltpetre
brings per hundred-weight. The liquor having been withdrawn, the
saltpetre is shovelled upon drying-boards, where it is exposed to the
sun for a while, then put into bags and shipped to Europe and America.
It is graded like wheat and corn, according to quality. The highest
grade goes to the powder-mills, the next to the chemical works, and the
third to the fertilizer factories, where it is made into manure. The
iodine is packed in little casks, and covered with green hides, which
shrink with drying until they are as tight as a drum-head, and keep out
moisture. It was these nitrate of soda deposits that caused the late war
between Chili and Peru.
After the independence of South America, when the several republics were
being divided, Bolivia was given a little strip of land between Peru and
Chili in order that she might have a pathway to the sea. It lay between
the twenty-third and the twenty-fifth parallels, and was so recognized
on all the maps of Chili, as well as those of other nations. It was a
barren, waterless desert, worthless in every respect, as was originally
supposed, but some years ago the rich deposits of silver and nitrate of
soda were discovered. When their value became known, Chili suddenly
ascertained that under some ancient right this strip of territory
belonged to her, and kindly offered to divide it with Bolivia in such a
way as to leave the silver and soda on the Chilian side. Bolivia of
course resisted, and having a treaty of offence and defence with Peru,
called upon the latter nation to assist in the defence of her rights.
This was the real cause of the war. The ostensible excuse for it was
that Bolivia charged an export duty of ten cents a hundred-weight on
nitrate exported. This the Chilians deemed excessive, and sent a fleet
to defend her citizens in refusing to pay it. Now that she has secured
the territory and the mines, she charges one dollar and twenty-five
cents a hundred-weight export duty on the same article at the same
place, and thinks people impertinent when they complain. The results of
the war are that Bolivia has not only lost her seaports and her nitrate,
but Peru has lost all her guano and a large portion of her richest
territory, while Chili is so much the richer.
[Illustration: GUANO ISLANDS.]
At one time Peru might have prevented the invasion of her territory, and
caused the entire army of Chili to perish, but the instincts of noble
generosity and the unwritten law of common humanity were observed. If
Peru had been as merciless as Chili the struggle would have been
shortened and the result would have been different. Along the coast from
Guayaquil, Ecuador, to Coquimbo, Chili, a distance of more than two
thousand miles, stretches a desert on which a drop of rain never fell.
Occasionally a stream, born of a union between the burning sun and the
eternal snows of the Andes, finds its way to the sea, bringing
nourishment to the soil and making a little oasis where men can live.
But unless the water-supply is very great--and it is only so
occasionally--the stream is swallowed by the thirsty sands and absorbed
by the atmosphere, which is so dry that nothing ever decays, and causes
more rapid evaporation than is known elsewhere. In this desert lie the
nitrate mines, and towns have sprung up around them the inhabitants of
which are supplied with water by artificial means. Salt water is turned
into fresh by means of enormous condensers, and a supply is kept in vast
iron reservoirs, from which it is sold to the people at a price about
the same as we pay for beer. At the saloons one can get a glass of
filtered ice-water for five cents; at the reservoirs a bucket of warm,
nasty stuff is sold for ten.
If you ask a learned man why it never rains there, he will say that the
clouds are deprived of all their moisture when they cross the mountains
from the eastward, and when they come up from the westward ocean are at
once sucked dry by the heat that radiates from the sun-baked sands.
Occasionally along the coast are found immense cemeteries in which the
Incas buried their dead; and the contents of the graves are as well
preserved as if their age were counted by weeks instead of centuries.
The most interesting and extensive of the burial grounds is at
Pachacamac, south of Lima, in Peru, where millions of bodies lie, often
in three stratas, and very generally in two. Near this place was the
famous temple dedicated to Pachacamac, the chief divinity of the Incas,
and whom they acknowledged as the creator of the world. It was the Mecca
of that day, and each believer was expected to visit it at least once in
his life. The pilgrims came from all parts of the empire, bringing
votive-offerings, which made the temple very rich; and Pizarro is said
to have obtained a vast quantity of plunder from it. Around the temple
arose a large city of monasteries to accommodate the priests and
devotees, and inns to shelter the pilgrims; but the place is in ruins
now.
[Illustration: ACROSS THE CONTINENT.]
At one of these towns the whole army of Chili was concentrated--forty
thousand men--preparing for the invasion of Peru. The Peruvian gun-boat
_Huascar_ (pronounced _Wascar_) came into the harbor, and with a few
shots might have destroyed the reservoirs and the condensing
establishments, and left these forty thousand men to die of thirst, for
there was no fresh water within two hundred and fifty miles of them. But
the commander of the _Huascar_ had a heart. He was a noble, generous
German--Admiral Grau--and he sent word to the Chillano commander that he
presented his army with their lives. He said he would not attack
defenceless men, and sailed off in pursuit of some Chillano gun-boats
which had run away when they saw the _Huascar_ coming.
[Illustration: A STATION ON THE ROAD.]
The present terminus of the Bolivia railroad is at Puno, a little town
of five thousand inhabitants, at an elevation of twelve thousand five
hundred feet; but it is proposed to extend it farther up the valley,
through another pass of the Andes, and then down the eastern slopes to
the head of navigation on the Amazon--neither a difficult nor an
expensive undertaking. An expedition has recently started from Buenos
Ayres to make an exploration from the head of navigation on the Paraguay
River into the mountains of Bolivia, for the purpose of constructing a
cart-road, and ultimately a railroad to connect the mining regions of
the latter republic with the Atlantic ports of the continent, and great
hopes are entertained of its success. The little town of Puno owes its
origin to the rich mines that surround it, and some of them are
producing generously. It has a small amount of other commerce in hides
and wool, coca-leaves, and cinchona. It is the centre of the alpaca wool
trade, and considerable is exported.
To reach La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, from Puno one must cross Lake
Titicaca, sailing its full length, and, reaching its southern shores,
mount a mule and ride twenty-five miles along the ancient highway of the
Incas, a wonderful road, nearly four thousand miles long, built eight
hundred years or more ago, and still in a good state of preservation,
notwithstanding the neglect of the Spaniards to keep it in repair.
Perhaps the most glorious monuments of the civilization of the Incas
were the public or royal roads, extending from the capital to the
remotest parts of the empire. Their remains are still most impressive,
both from their extent and the amount of labor necessarily involved in
their construction, and in contemplating them we know not which to
admire most--the scope of their projectors, the power and constancy of
the Incas who carried them to a completion, or the patience of the
people who constructed them under all the obstacles resulting from the
topography of the country and from imperfect means of execution. They
built these roads in deserts, among moving sands reflecting the fierce
rays of a tropical sun; they broke down rocks, graded precipices,
levelled hills, and filled up valleys without the assistance of powder
or of instruments of iron; they crossed lakes, marshes, and rivers, and
without the aid of the compass followed direct courses in forests of
eternal shade. They did, in short, what even now, with all of modern
knowledge and means of action, would be worthy of the most powerful
nations of the globe. One of the principal of these roads extended from
Cuzco to the sea, and the other, which is followed to La Paz, ran along
the crest of the Cordilleras from one end of the empire to the other,
their aggregate lengths, with their branches, being about four thousand
miles. Modern travellers compare them, in respect of structure, to the
best works of the kind in any part of the world. In ascending mountains
too steep to admit of grading, broad steps were cut in the solid rocks,
while the ravines and hollows were filled with heavy embankments,
flanked with parapets, and planted with shade-trees and fragrant shrubs.
They were from eighteen to twenty-five Castilian feet broad, and were
paved with immense blocks of
[Illustration: CHASQUIS AT REST.]
stone. At regular distances on these roads tambos--buildings for the
accommodation of travellers--were erected. To these conveniences were
added the establishment of a system of posts, by which messages could be
transmitted from one extremity of the Incas’ dominions to the other in
an incredibly short time. The service of the posts was performed by
runners--for the Peruvians possessed no domestic animals swifter of foot
than man--stationed in small buildings, likewise erected at easy
distances from each other all along the principal roads. These
messengers, or _chasquis_, as they were termed, wore a peculiar uniform,
and were trained to their particular vocation. Each had his allotted
station, between which and the next it was his duty to speed along at a
certain pace with the message, dispatch, or parcel intrusted to his
care. On drawing near to the station at which he had to transmit the
message to the next courier, who was then to carry it farther, he was to
give a signal of his approach, in order that the other might be in
readiness to receive the missive and no time be lost; and thus it is
said that messages were forwarded at the rate of one hundred and fifty
miles a day.
[Illustration: CHASQUIS ASLEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS.]
The bridges constructed by the Peruvians were exceedingly simple, but
were well adapted for crossing those rapid streams which rush down from
the Andes and defy the skill of the modern engineer. They consisted of
strong cables of the cabuya, or of twisted rawhide stretched from one
bank to the other, something after the style of the suspension-bridges
of our times. Poles were lashed across transversely, covered with
branches, and these were again covered with earth and stones, so as to
form a solid floor. Other cables extended along the sides, which were
interwoven with limbs of trees, forming a kind of wicker balustrade. In
some cases the mode of transit was in a species of basket or car,
suspended on a single cable, and drawn from side to side with ropes. It
would appear at first glance that bridges of this description could not
be very lasting, yet a few still exist which are said to have been
constructed by the Incas more than four hundred years ago. The modern
inhabitants of some parts of Peru, Bolivia, and Chili still use the same
means of crossing their torrent rivers.
[Illustration: A BIT OF LA PAZ.]
The city of La Paz has about seventy thousand inhabitants, mostly Aymara
Indians, poor, degraded, and ignorant. The full name of the place is La
Paz de Ayacucho, and it means “the peace of Ayacucho,” being so
christened in 1825, to commemorate the victory which established the
independence of Bolivia from the hated crown of Spain. At that time the
republic was a part of the old Province of Peru, and a separate State
was founded by Bolivar, the Venezuelan Liberator of the Continent, who
gave freedom to these people as he did
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AT LA PAZ.]
to his own countrymen, and the new republic was christened in his honor.
La Paz was originally called Nuestra Señora de la Paz--“the peace of the
Virgin”--by Alonzo de Mendoza, who founded it in 1548. It is thirteen
thousand feet above tide-water, and is surrounded by a group of gigantic
mountains, the most notable of which is the volcano Illiniani,
twenty-one thousand three hundred feet high. Through the city runs the
river Chiquiapo, a noble mountain-stream, which is crossed by a number
of fine old bridges. The streets are narrow, irregular, and uneven,
being paved with stone, and having narrow sidewalks, scarcely broad
enough for two people to pass. The town resembles all others of Spanish
construction, except that the houses are mostly built of stone instead
of adobe, the walls being massive and enduring, and in some instances
ornamented with carved stone or stucco-work. The cathedral is large and
grand, the front being handsomely carved, and in a niche over the
entrance stands a marble image of the Virgin, which was presented to the
city by Charles of Spain, and transported from the seaboard at an
enormous cost. The cathedral is built entirely of stone, and was over
forty years in course of erection, hundreds of men being constantly
employed. No derricks or other machinery were used in its construction,
but the walls were built in a curious way. As fast as a tier of stone
was laid, the earth was banked up against it inside and outside, and
upon this inclined plane the stones for the next tier were rolled into
their places. Then more earth was thrown on, and the process repeated
until, when the walls were finished, the whole building was immersed in
a mountain of dirt. This was allowed to remain until the roof was laid,
when the earth was carried away upon the backs of llamas and men. It is
said to have taken thirteen years to clear out the inside of the
building, as the earth could only be taken away through the narrow
windows and doors. There are fourteen other churches of considerable
size, and several large monasteries, which are now used for military
barracks and schools. A university is sustained by the Government, and
there is a nominal free-school system, but education is at a low ebb.
In the centre of the city runs the Alameda, a public promenade which is
frequented by all classes of citizens, and during the twilight hours is
quite gay. The cemetery is very extensive, and one of the finest in
South America. There are few stores or shops, most of the trading being
done in the market-places, where all things are sold, and by peddlers
who go through the city with baskets of provisions and notions upon
their heads, crying their wares. The way customers call street-venders
is worth noticing and imitating. They step to the door or open a window,
and give utterance to a short sound resembling shir-r-r-r-r--something
between a hiss and the exclamation used to chase away fowls--and it is
singular what a distance it can be heard. If the peddler is in sight,
his attention is at once arrested; he turns, and comes direct to the
caller, now guided by a signal addressed to his eyes--closing the
fingers of the right hand two or three times, with the palm downward, as
if grasping something--a sign in universal use, and signifying “Come.”
There is here no bawling after people in the streets, for in this quiet
and ingenious way all classes communicate with passing friends or others
with whom they wish to speak. The practice dates, I believe, from
classical times. A curious custom is the peddling of fuel through the
streets. Llamas are loaded with their own excrement, which when dried in
the sun is called _taquia_, and sold by the basketful. It is used by all
classes for cooking.
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT BRIDGE IN LA PAZ.]
The mineral wealth of Bolivia has been proverbial almost from time
immemorial. The silver-mines of Potosi have long been celebrated as
perhaps the richest deposit of silver ore in the world. From the year
1545, when they were discovered, to the year 1864, these mines,
according to official data, produced the enormous sum of $2,904,902,690
of our money. Besides Potosi there are other rich silver-mines, and many
large deposits of gold. The great want of these mines is skilled labor
and improved modern machinery. In early days the Indians were forced to
work them against their will, and were treated with great harshness and
cruelty. The historical student will call to mind the efforts of
philanthropists to mitigate their sufferings. When their labor could no
longer be controlled, the mines fell into comparative decay. The
Indians will not work them with energy and industry to-day. They
doubtless hold in memory through their traditions the wrongs inflicted
on their ancestors by merciless taskmasters. If worked by experienced
miners, with all the improved modern machinery, the gold and silver
deposits would yield as abundant returns, perhaps, as in the days of
their early history. Recently a party of Californians have gone into the
country and taken charge of a gold-mine. If a good many others would
follow them, mining in Bolivia would experience a renaissance that would
remind the Bolivians of the El Dorado of the olden time.
[Illustration: A BOLIVIAN ELEVATOR.]