A GLIMPSE OF ECUADOR
_Tranquil Ship Life--Dissolving View of Panama Bay--The Comforting
Antarctic Current--Seeking Cotopaxi and Chimborazo--Up the Guayas
River--Activity in Guayaquil Harbor--Old and New Town--Shipping
via The Isthmus and Cape Horn--Chocolate and Rubber
Exports--Railway toward Quito--A Charming Capital--Cuenca’s
Industries--Cereals in the Inter-Andine Region--Forest
District--Minerals in the South--Population--Galapagos
Islands--Political Equilibrium--National Finances._
Ship life along coast from Panama south is dreamful, placid,
nerve-soothing.
“This South Sea,” wrote the Augustine Friar Calancha, in his
chronicle of the early Spanish voyagers, “is called the Pacific
because, in comparison with the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, its
storms are less violent and fewer and its calm is more tranquil.
It is also called the sea of drunkards because a drunken man might
navigate in it. Both oceans and ships are ruled over by five
beautiful stars in the form of a cross, in a happy prognostic of
holy domination over sea and land--at the sight of which the devil
even when most enraged retreats and leaves all in tranquillity.”
This is surely a happy description of the quiet ocean and a devout
poet’s image of the Southern Cross.
The steamers are commodious floating Summer homes. The smooth
waters of the Pacific make it possible to have a type of vessel
that would be impracticable for transatlantic voyages. Deck cabins,
a dining-saloon on the upper deck, and ample room are properties
of them all. Some of the steamers are twin screw, though such
enterprise hardly was demanded by the traffic and this type is not
so comfortable as the single screw. From Panama to Valparaiso, 3,100
miles by the stops, there is rarely enough of a ripple to send the
most sensitive traveller below with symptoms of sea-sickness.
The voyage is a marine trip along a great winding Continental street,
with stops at many corners and turns up many lanes. Up and down
the coast means putting into innumerable wayports. This makes them
more or less acquainted with one another, and one coast community
feels an interest in what is happening in a neighbor port a thousand
miles away. The vessels bring the gossip,--usually of trade, of
the value of the last cargo, of quarantine, of troubles with the
native longshoremen, of disputes with the minor officials, and of
political events or the latest revolution. The through freight is
not yet sufficient for the big steamers to omit the minor landings
and make quick time, which could be done if Guayaquil, Callao, and
Valparaiso were the only ports touched. This should be a matter of
eight or ten days from Panama to Valparaiso, whereas now it takes
from twenty-one to twenty-three days. The time will be shorter when
the through traffic developed by the Panama Canal has had a chance
to grow.
As the steamer threads its way out into the ocean through Panama Bay,
the vista is of cone-shaped, vivid green-clad volcanic mountains
rising sheer out of the water. On a disappearing view they look like
gopher mounds on the prairies. At sunset the sky is of indigo-blue
and the waters are a maroon expanse, but the next night the great
copper disk in the west burnishes the liquid plain, which seethes
at its embrace.
For two days the voyage is apt to be disagreeably hot, though the
air rarely becomes so stifling that the deck cabins have to be
abandoned. The weather is decently comfortable in the daytime. The
nights may be choking, but this does not last long. The third day
the equatorial line is crossed, not very far out at sea yet out of
sight of land. The Humboldt, or Antarctic, current is met as it
sweeps up from Cape Horn, and its refreshing coolness is enjoyed
for the remainder of the voyage. The only unpleasant feature is
that during the season from April to August the fogs which hang
over the mainland charge the atmosphere with too much moisture,
and there is no relief by their precipitation into rain; yet the
discomfort from this cause is not serious.
Only the small coasting-vessels put into the minor Colombian
and Ecuadorian ports. On the Pacific side Colombia has but one
shipping-point of consequence--Buenaventura, where the bay bends
in a deep inlet. It is the gateway to the immensely rich country
of the Cauca and of the overland route by Cali and the mountain
passes through the Cordilleras to Bogota.
“It is a strange thing,” says my Lord Francis Bacon, “that in sea
voyages where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men
should make diaries.” But down the West Coast, after crossing the
equatorial line, much more than sky and sea is to be seen and the
diary-maker need not be furtive in his occupation. On the larger
steamers one is always straining the eyes for Ecuador’s famous
volcanoes, Cotopaxi and Chimborazo. They are not often visible from
the sea, though Cotopaxi is sometimes to be discerned. One evening
I thought I caught a glimpse of one of these giant summits. It was
towards sunset. Off shore was a seeming range of peaked clouds, then
through a pink mist a sloping green and brown profile disclosed
itself; after that bolder conical elevations, a dim fringe of
them, and finally an unmistakable crown. “It is Monte Cristo,” the
ship’s mate told me. “We are in the Bay of Caracas.” The chalk-like
surface was of sheer cliffs sliced as by a knife and with a fleece
spreading alongside half-way up to the summit. “Snow?” “Oh, no;
only the surf.”
We are not more than ten miles off shore, but Monte Cristo dominates
as though it were one of the colossal volcanoes. The vapors close
in, the ribbons of gold in the western sky unroll themselves and
are lost. It is night, and our last chance of seeing Cotopaxi is
gone.
The voyage up the Gulf of Guayaquil and the Guayas River gives a
vista of conical and pinnacled hills of living green, sparkling
in their verdure like raindrops on the leaves when the sun comes
out after a thunder shower. The gulf narrows, and the point is
rounded at the island of Puna, which is the Ecuadorian customs
and quarantine port. There are bathing-houses and pretty Summer
or Winter homes,--we do not know which, for we realize that under
the Equator there are no seasons. Beyond Puna the river is hardly
more than half a mile across from one low bank to the opposite low
bank. These are bordered with _algaroba_ trees and cocoanut
palms. There are open pastures and some neat houses, with ridges of
mountains in the background, brown and green. The borders of the
river are pleasant, but the miasma seems to hang over the land like
a steaming blanket, and one gets the impression of malaria,--which
impression is a correct one.
Lower Guayaquil is first seen, then the sloping part of the city
proper. The big rectangular building in the saddle of the hills, the
most prominent of all the structures, is the famous hospital,--a
comforting reflection for strangers who have heard of Guayaquil’s
yellow fever record and are told grewsome tales of the epidemics.
Fewer than eight cases in the hospital count as a cipher, and ships
get a clean bill of health. The profile of peaks back of the town
apparently is not very high, and the valleys open gently between
them. A closer view of the city from the ship’s deck shows that it
is not such a bad sort of tropical port. Church spires and domes
are many, and some very handsome buildings are discernible.
[Illustration: The Waterfront at Guayaquil]
The harbor is full of maritime life. Pointed shoe-like canoes and
sail-boats are constantly shooting around, while farther down the
river are the _balsas_, or house rafts, with their tenants, including
men and women, children, poultry, pigs, and other accessories. The
timbers of these house rafts are from a native wood of the cork
variety, said to be unsinkable. Apparently the living occupants
of the rafts also are of cork, tumbling off into the water and
bobbing about just as easily. I did not hear of any of them, even
the smallest, being drowned. I noted the old American river-boat
patterns, and could imagine myself on the Mississippi or the Ohio,
except that this craft is even more blunt as to outline and more
tub-like than anything that ever floated down from Pittsburg or
St. Paul.
The crooked old part of the city is attractive in its
picturesqueness, and is inviting at a distance. The newer section is
so regular as to be uninteresting. The Guayaquil climate is trying
to foreigners, though many of them manage to acclimate themselves.
The mean temperature is 81° Fahrenheit. The extremes in the shade
are 90° and 65°. During two or three days in the harbor it seemed
to me that there was but one extreme and that the maximum.
The city, in addition to its commerce, has a number of local
industries which include sugar-mills, breweries and distilleries,
tanneries, foundries, saw-mills, and shipbuilding and repair shops.
Besides the _balsas_ small vessels built of the native timber are
constructed in Guayaquil.
Guayaquil is a city of 60,000 inhabitants, the most populous port
south of San Francisco, with the exception of Valparaiso. About 300
foreign vessels, with a tonnage varying from 360,000 to 375,000,
enter and clear the port every year. The coasting commerce employs
a considerable number of small vessels,--2,000, whose tonnage
aggregates from 22,000 to 23,000. The relation of the port to a
waterway across the Isthmus appears very clearly from the statement
of the distances, which may be repeated. From Guayaquil to New
York around Cape Horn is 11,470 miles, and the time required for
the steam cargo vessels varies from 60 to 74 days. From Guayaquil
to Panama is 835 miles, and to New York by this route it will be
2,864 miles, or to New Orleans 2,263 miles. The time now required,
allowing for transshipment by the railway and the consequent
unloading and reloading of the freight, varies from 14 to 20 days.
With through water communication and the advantages which will
justify supplying coal for faster trips, the time need not exceed
eight or nine days. From Guayaquil to Liverpool via Cape Horn is
10,795 miles; to Havre, 10,577 miles; to Hamburg, 11,203 miles. The
difference in maritime advantage is exhibited by the subtraction
of the distance from Panama or Colon to those ports.
In years when no long-continued quarantine interrupts the commercial
movement, the imports vary from $7,000,000 to $7,500,000, and the
exports are $9,000,000 to $9,300,000. In 1904 the imports were
$7,670,000, and the exports $11,642,000. Relatively, 90 per cent
of the foreign commerce of Ecuador passes through Guayaquil. It is
the _entrepôt_ for the interior region and also for much of the
coast. Esmeraldas in the north has a little foreign trade, and also
Machala in the south. But their imports and exports hardly affect
the volume of commerce that is concentrated in Guayaquil.
One-third of the world’s supply of cacao, or chocolate, is had
from Ecuador, and this is measured by shipments through Guayaquil
of 450,000 to 550,000 quintals, or 45,450,000 pounds to 55,550,000
pounds. In one year, of a total crop of 499,000 quintals, 456,000
were exported through this port. In a later year the value of the
cacao exported was $7,624,000. A large section of the cacao-producing
region is directly tributary to the city. The exportations of
vegetable ivory--the tagua or ivory nut of commerce--vary from
39,000,000 pounds to 44,000,000 pounds annually, valued at from
$600,000 to $750,000, according to the market price. In one very
successful year the value was $1,100,000. For the last year given
the exports of crude rubber reached 1,100,000 pounds, valued at
$600,000. The United States takes 75 per cent and upwards of the
rubber product. The coffee shipments were worth $500,000. There is
also a considerable export trade in the various kinds of straw and
felt hats which are manufactured in the interior. Hides are also
an article of export.
[Illustration: Cacao Trees]
The statistics of production and of the foreign trade are compiled
by the Guayaquil Chamber of Commerce, a very progressive institution
in a country that is not excessively enterprising in exhibiting the
natural resources. From the figures supplied me by the Chamber,
I found that the United States enjoyed a fair proportion of the
Ecuador commerce. France takes the larger portion of the chocolate
and coffee, but the United States furnishes Ecuador a market to
the amount of $2,250,000 to $2,600,000 annually, and ships goods
in about the same proportion. Germany received in one year about
$2,150,000; Great Britain, $2,000,000. In the imports England has
the advantage over all others in cottons and woollens. The heaviest
item in the exports from the United States to Ecuador is provisions,
which amount to $500,000 yearly. Petroleum, lumber, machinery, and
hardware also find a market.
This United States trade and all the foreign commerce of Guayaquil
are so essentially a Panama Canal traffic that their details do not
call for analysis. In the increase of the future the largest
proportion belongs to the United States.
[Illustration: The Wharf at Duran]
The ambitious project of a railway to connect Guayaquil with Quito,
the capital, was many years in assuming form, but the narrow-gauge
line is creeping to Quito. The railway starts at Duran, on the
bay across from Guayaquil, and runs eastward through a very rich
agricultural plateau to Alausi, 80 miles distant, where it bends
to the north. The tropical vegetation of foliage and weeds along
the roadbed is so very luxuriant that the railway company has found
it necessary to erect a plant midway in the hothouse belt for
preparing and distributing, by a process of spraying, a solution
composed of arsenic and nitre. By means of vats and steam-pipes
the ingredients are boiled and dissolved into a strong solution,
which is drawn off into a large tank, similar in construction to a
regular railway water-tank, from which the spraying-car is filled.
When the rainy season opens, the weed-killing plant begins its
operations, spraying the roadbed at regular intervals. This is a
very interesting feature of tropical railway operation.
[Illustration: Weed-killer Plant, Guayaquil and Quito Railway]
[Illustration: Railway Spraying Cart]
The road surmounted the greatest engineering difficulties when it
reached Guamote, 115 miles from Guayaquil; and the mountain section
was completed so that trains could be hoisted from the coast level to
the Andine plateau, a sheer vertical distance of almost two miles.
The railway will cheapen the traffic both for imported merchandise
and for exports.
The corporation had an up-and-down financial history. The railway
construction was begun, or rather a local line was continued, by
Americans who secured the concession from the government of Ecuador,
the money being furnished mainly by Glasgow and London capitalists.
The Americans who held the concession had frequent difficulties,
not only with the bondholders but with the contractors and the
laborers. The work of excavation and grading was done by Jamaica
negroes. The nation guaranteed the bonds of the railway, and by a
somewhat subtle process the government debt was funded into these
railway bonds which are a second mortgage on the customs duties. The
obligations were issued as the respective sections of the railway
were completed. Notwithstanding the frequent financial difficulties
of the contractors and of the English bondholders, the government
paid the interest, 6 per cent, regularly.
Quito is accounted by all travellers, in what relates to climate
and picturesqueness, one of the most charming capitals in South
America. It lies in the central plateau, at an elevation of 9,371
feet. Though an ancient and historic capital, it has been modernized
by electricity. The city has a population of 80,000, and supports a
variety of local industries, including flour-mills, woollen mills,
potteries, sugar refineries, and small manufactories of Indian felt
hats; yet it is chiefly interesting as the seat of government.
Forty years ago a German-American, Frederick Hassaurek, who had
represented the United States as Minister and Consul-General, wrote
his impressions of Quito and its people,[6] and there has been
little to add since then.
6 _Four Years among the South Americans_, by F. Hassaurek,
Cincinnati, 1865.
One leaf from the Quito municipal records may be worth extracting.
The _Cabildo_, or Council, under date of August 16, 1538, adopted
this resolution:
“Since the arrival at Quito of a certain attorney, Bachiler
Guevara, many suits have been stirred up whereby, as there was no
other attorney in the town, many persons might lose their legal
rights; and therefore the said Bachiler Guevara is forbidden to
exercise his profession, or to give advice or his opinion on any
controversy or matter of litigation, under penalty of 100 pesos for
the first offence and one year’s banishment for the second offence.”
Cuenca, in southern Ecuador, is an important industrial and
commercial centre. It has between 25,000 and 30,000 inhabitants, and
is surrounded by a rich agricultural and stock-raising district.
It is seeking a railway outlet to Machala on the coast; but in the
course of years it will have railway communication with Quito, for
the route is a natural one for commerce along the central plateau.
This location is a link in the ultimate Pan-American Railway trunk
line. From Cuenca to a junction with the railway already built from
Duran beyond Guamote is less than 100 miles.
Misunderstanding of the topography of Ecuador causes the country’s
resources to be underestimated. By many persons no account is taken
of any section except the humid and productive coast lands. But
there is the vastly productive inter-Andine region between the two
chains of the Cordilleras. The transverse ranges between these two
Cordilleras have the appearance of knots, and are generally described
as the _nudos_. They do not offer insuperable obstacles to railway
construction and other interior development, though ordinary roads
are lacking.
All the cereals are grown in this central plateau lying under the
torrid zone at an altitude of 10,000 feet. It is the growing
of corn, wheat, and other grains at these heights which causes
the Spanish writers, with their warm imaginations, to write so
enthusiastically of cultivation in the clouds. The region offers
great opportunities for stock-raising, and generally it may be said
to be the field for future immigration and colonization. Public
officials of Ecuador glow with enthusiasm over this section of
their country. A cabinet minister, in his official report, thus
poetically and prophetically voiced the national aspiration:
“Not much time will have passed when the inter-Andine railway,
vanquishing all the obstacles which have halted our progressive
march, will salute the wall of the Andes and come with the whistle
of the locomotive to awaken the spirit, almost dead, of our mountain
populations to the civilizing influence of industry and commerce,
giving easy outlet to the richness of our fertile zones, and
assuring us a broader life by placing us in immediate contact with
the coast and bringing us nearer to the exterior at will, multiply
the relations of common interest, break the yoke of preoccupations
and routine custom to which we have submitted blindingly, and will
stimulate us for work, and supply the deficiencies of our education.
“The line of iron and steel will traverse our climates and will
go collecting in its train diverse productions, to bear them to our
ports and deliver them to the commerce of the world. The struggle for
subsistence will then be borne among the peoples of the interior,
and from province to province will be established reciprocally the
interchange beneficial to their respective provinces.”
The Montaña, or forest region lying on the eastern slope of the Andes
and with its network of river basins stretching to the Amazon, is
less exploited in the Ecuadorian than in the Peruvian territory. The
rubber in these tropical forests will be secured in the process of
time. The development of this region on the part of Ecuador is not
remote. But there must be means of communication. The government,
realizing this, decided to build a railway from Ambato, on the
Guayaquil and Quito Railroad, 100 miles to the Curarey River, a
branch of the Amazon with head-waters near Iquitos in Peru. This line
will enable that district to export its rubber through Guayaquil
instead of out through the Atlantic Ocean. The railway route lies
east of the Andes.
Tobacco is grown in the north near the coast for home consumption.
Sugar-cane is cultivated successfully on the nearer border of the
Montaña and also nearer the coast, but it will be a long time
before Ecuador exports sugar in appreciable quantities. This may
be less true of cotton, which is becoming a national industry. A
fine quality is grown in the northern districts, of which Ibarra
is the centre, and the cotton tree thrives in other sections. The
mills, which employ the cheap labor of the native Indian women,
have proven successful, and they find a profitable home market,
though it will be many years before Manchester is seriously hurt
by their output.
The minerals of the country are principally in the southern zone,
though there are rich placers in the rivers of the north. The
southern province, of which Zaruma is the centre, in the last
century was famous for its gold-mines, and it is still known as
El Oro, or the gold country. In late years little has been done,
though the quartz veins have been worked intermittently and in
some of the streams gold-washing has been carried on. Minerals
are abundant farther south in the district of which Loja is the
centre. Some copper is found, and there are deposits of iron and
anthracite coal, silver, and lead. The engineers who made the
Intercontinental Railway survey were impressed with the richness of
this district, but its development awaits the building of the links
in the Pan-American railroad, for the lack of transport facilities
under present conditions renders exploitation of the mines too
costly to be attempted except with large capital.
In proportion to its size Ecuador, though sparsely populated, is as
well inhabited as other South American countries. The population is
very largely Indian, with the usual Spanish intermixture. The total
number of inhabitants is 1,275,000. The whites and the _mestizos_,
or mixed bloods, comprise about 25 per cent of the population. The
central plateau easily could sustain an agricultural population of
twice that number.
The volcanic Galapagos Islands, lying 600 to 700 miles west of
the mainland, on the equatorial line, usually are considered an
Ecuadorian asset. They are not, however, a source of revenue, and
the 300 or 400 people who inhabit them are not likely to increase
to a larger number. At different times the government has been
willing to dispose of the islands under the form of a perpetual lease
for coaling or naval stations. Tentative offers have been made in
Europe, but European governments hardly would seek to lease them
for naval purposes without ascertaining the wishes of the United
States. Since the Monroe Doctrine as interpreted under President
Roosevelt’s administration forbids military establishments of
foreign Powers to be set up in the Southern Hemisphere, no European
country is likely to come into their possession. Naval officers
on various occasions have urged the purchase of the Galapagos
group by the United States, but the high price at which they are
held by Ecuador, or opposition in Washington, prevented a bargain.
The last negotiation was by Secretary Blaine during the Harrison
administration. With the authority of the United States established
on the Canal Zone and with the Pearl Islands in Panama Bay under
the same authority, the necessary naval base in the Pacific is
secured, and no further suggestions for purchasing the Galapagos
group are likely to be favored by public sentiment. The only ground
would be that, through the control by the United States, European
intrigues and, possibly, complications would be avoided.
Chile at different times has been credited with wanting to control
the Galapagos Islands and establish a naval base at the Equator.
Since the Chilean national policy is no longer one of unlimited
naval expansion, it may be doubted whether that country now would
care to undertake the expense of establishing and maintaining a
station off Ecuador. But should Chile take this course, probably
there would be no objection on the part of the United States, which,
in the broad sense, as related to Europe, is a party in interest
with Ecuador.
Of recent years Ecuador has maintained political equilibrium, if not
absolute political stability. President Alfaro during his term was
compelled to combat the reactionaries and the Church party, but his
programme of Liberal measures was sustained. The greatest progress
that has been made is toward financial stability. The money of the
country was put on the gold basis, and that having been maintained
for several years, the promise of its continuance is encouraging.
The standard of coinage is the gold _condor_, equal to the English
sovereign in weight and fineness. The common circulating medium is
the silver _sucre_, ten of which constitute the _condor_, or the
pound sterling. The _sucre_ is equal to 48.66 cents. Paper money
is circulated, but the outstanding issue is not very large. There
are two banks of emission, each of which has a capital of 3,000,000
_sucres_. By the last report the total amount of bills emitted was
6,356,000 _sucres_.
The Ecuador banks do a profitable business in international
exchange. The Guayaquil institutions regularly pay 14 and 15 per
cent dividends. Their deposits in the period from 1898 to 1904 rose
from 20,688,000 to 31,492,000 _sucres_.