Chatter of monkeys mingles with roar of falling water, hairy manikins,

shrieking and gamboling, “very gentle and delightful apes,” Father

Acosta called them. Tiny, blear-eyed monkeys scream in disapproval of

all they can see, hear, or smell. Scarlet-faced monkeys, owl-faced

monkeys, swing from branch to branch with crazy gestures, “taking

one turn of the tail at least around anything in passing, just

provisionally.”

Thick masses of _quinar_ trees are draped in luxuriant parasites, and

_agave_ bushes are filled with red flowers. The wonderful _maguey_

grows

[Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE PERENÉ.]

here, yielding water, oil, and vinegar, honey, thread, needles, and

soap. Its juice boiled in rain-water takes away weariness.

Clear water drips over blocks of granite, covering the stone with moss

in falling. The terrible jaguar lies curled up asleep in some far-off

notch, gently purring. Ferns and palms, forerunners of the great empire

of vegetation below, cluster along the brooks swelled with snow. “Tall

and whispering crowds of tree ferns” droop their filmy fronds from

lofty, slender stems. Ferns of every conceivable size and texture

smother rocks and decaying trees. Some are as small as mosses, others

appear monstrous, like those of a moonlight night. Humming-birds flit

above the pomegranates or lose themselves in a banana blossom. “The

rose-colored plumage of the silky cuckoo peeps out like a flower from

the thick foliage.”

It is an earthly paradise, where bloodsucking bats emerge at night

and lightning rages uncontrolled, destroying trees and cracking open

precipices. Pumas live in these clefts hewn through the mountains, and

they spring on to the shoulders of a victim, drawing back the head

until the neck snaps. _Pumayacu_ is the stream of the puma, with its

tumultuous torrent whose very stones are treacherous.

Such are the rain-soaked slopes of the Andes, a tangled mass of

jungle. The woods are all enchanted. Thousands of fairies dance in the

sunbeams, and during the rain myriads of them hide in the flowers. If

disturbed, they disappear underground. One can never be sure that “what

one surveys is what it purports to be, nor even, that in surveying

nothing, one is not gazing through an invisible being,” as Guenelette

observed so long ago.

The half-Indian guide began to speak, taking a coca-leaf from his

fawn-skin pouch.

“Pigmies live in the undergrowth. They are not more than so tall, ...

and very, very wild. No, they’re not monkeys. They have a language,

although we cannot understand it. How do I know they live here? Why! I

know! Have I ever seen them? No. But--I’ve seen their shadows.

“And then there are jaguars near here, jaguars with the hoofs of

bullocks. At night I can hear them springing upon the thatch of my

thin roof. They roar and roar and one might call them the devil

himself if one did not know that they were jaguars with the feet of

bullocks. Have I ever seen them?... No, but then--I’ve seen the prints

of their hoofs.

“Here in the bottom of the river, lying full length, lives the great

Mother of Waters. She is so long that she could stretch from bank to

bank and lie sleeping on either side at the same time. That is why she

lies lengthwise in the river bed. Sometimes there is an awful, rumbling

noise, like an approaching earthquake. Then the waters of the river

are churned like the smallest mountain torrent tumbling over a rock

in mid-stream. The great snake lifts her head, then her heavy body

from the stream bed, and crashes off through the jungle. The track she

leaves behind her is a desert waste; no growing thing is left, and the

wake is as broad, why, as broad as this stream, under which she is now

lying,” and he pointed with wide eyes to the water, rushing headlong to

join the Amazon.

All the snakes of that particular locality did miracles, so I was told

by a wise man who could himself turn men into beasts at will.

“This river,” the guide concluded, “used to flow up on one side and

down on the other, until white men sailed upon it. Then one half turned

about, and the river now flows in but one direction, as you can see.”

As the gloomy, bottomless ravines descend, the forest becomes more

dense, with murmurs of flowing water everywhere. Mists hang from above,

barely concealing the jagged, black peaks. Sheets of continuous foam

veil the side of a polished cliff. Water drips over every precipice.

Cascades tumble from one mossed basin to another or let fall a clear

column into a rock-pool deeply buried in tropical vegetation.

Finally mountains and ravines subside, and with the energy of one

final, mighty leap, the rushing water plunges into the heart of the

jungle, comes to rest, then glides out with the flush of a flood-tide

across the Land of Water.

“As the serpents of this basin exceed all other serpents in size, so

does the Amazon exceed all other rivers.” As the whirl of branches

is to the trunk of a tree, as everything in nature is tributary to

something else, so are streamlets in the mountains of the snowy desert

to this mighty river. Collecting itself upon the frozen _puna_ far up

among the clouds, it gets an impetus which makes fresh, wide stretches

of ocean thousands of miles away.

So vast is the Amazon that, like the Andes which form a barrier to

separate two worlds, different species of animals inhabit its opposite

banks. It swarms with fish that will fight for a right to live, and

some of them, the _paichi_, for instance, reach the length of ten

feet and must be caught by harpooning. The water is full of swimming

animals. There are river-cows like sea-lions, and oceanic fauna such as

frigate birds and flying-fish. In the mud along the banks are tracks of

crocodiles and tortoises.

The Amazon has gained mastery over the land and has turned it

into a sposhy ocean, interspersed with flats of jungle flowers. A

watery labyrinth, “an aquatic not a terrestrial basin,” it is the

Mediterranean of South America. The greatest river in the world twists

and turns about, makes short cuts across its own bends and leaves

behind a delicious lagoon here, or a little, land-locked inlet there.

The Victoria Regia spreads its great, leathery leaves, and scarlet

ibises tilt about upon them.

This land beyond the Andes is known as the “rain-shadow.” The already

overflowing rivers are constantly swelling, since it rains so violently

that a stream of the Amazon valley can rise fifteen feet in a single

night. A passing and re-passing is continually going on, for, as the

water flows back toward the ocean, the winds above it are returning

from the Atlantic, bringing rain to moisten the jungle and to be

stopped only by the wall of the Andes.

Rain discloses the resources of the jungle. Plants push, burst upward

in astonishing growth. Flowers paint themselves with ineffable new

colors distilled from the rain, and those whose day has come and gone

lie in heaps of yellow, pink, and white petals on the ground, fallen

from beyond the tree-tops.

A single, heavy tapir, _anta_, the somber-colored wood-cow, roused

by the rain and encouraged by the added gloom, wanders forth to tear

off new sprouts within its reach. Peccaries rustle by in little

droves--wild pigs which, it is said, will bite around a tree if their

object of attack has climbed beyond reach. The minute, silky marmoset,

filled with perennial terror and shivering at the rain, has crept

into shelter, and just daring to show its wrinkled little face, howls

dismally.

It is after a rain, too, when the wondrous notes of the _organista_,

the sweet flute-bird, drip through the trees, mellow, melancholy, yet

with a musical accuracy of pitch as clear-cut as the circle of a drop

of water fallen on a slab of alabaster. These notes share the mystery

of the vast silence itself. Even savages rest on their paddles to

listen. Would you capture the magician and carry the jungle-silence

home? You can take the little gray bird--but it always dies in

captivity.

CHAPTER III

JUNGLE GLOOM AND JUNGLE SHEEN

I

Since the earth was first moistened by rain, and plants first grew, no

limit has been set to the rights of vegetation in the jungle. Its sway

is uncontested. It has known no master. Its insatiable desire to reach

up and out and down has been uncurbed and undirected. And heaven seems

to wish it well. Intensest heat, light, and moisture are showered upon

it. Under such conditions, life would spring spontaneously into being,

were there not myriads of progenitors to be responsible for whatever

form it chose to take.

All the creative force of nature is behind the infinitely varying

forms, and the frightful luxuriance of reproduction. Vegetation has the

extravagance of first geologic ages, bursting with life, rejoicing in

weird, vegetable arabesques and green out-thrusts of leaves.

Amazing trees yield coloring matter of yellow, red, and blue. Trees

cure bites of snakes, the malignant _manzanillo_ infects any one

who sleeps beneath it. Then there is the cow-tree of milky sap, the

red-wooded blood tree, and those furnishing food for curious animals,

which transform it into curious shapes. Beneath the iron-wood, whose

sharp edges are hard as steel, crawls the sensitive plant. There are

whole forests of _cinchona_, whose beautiful flowers are forgotten

because of the value of the bark. The dead man’s tree grows here,

whose stems are sucked by witch-doctors to produce a trance; also the

wonderful tree of rain, which Boussingault referred to when he said:

“By the light of the moon we could distinctly see drops of water

dripping from the branches.” The drier the night the more water it

condenses, letting it fall upon the ground beneath. Ponderous leafage

overarches great trunks, columns of a giant’s castle, each with its

peculiar color. While some are smooth, others are deeply fissured or

armed with long spikes. Most of the tree-trunks are indistinguishable

for the mass of vines “sculptured” upon them. They cleave to the smooth

bark, darting out roots as they ascend. “The green eaves of foliage

seem supported by pillars of leaves.”

Tapering ribbons sway to and fro, tangling themselves in the long

moss-beards. “Green, fleshy chains” festoon themselves upon the

branches, and hang heavily on slender stems. They stretch taut from

one tree to another, or rigid, fasten tree-tops to the ground. The

whole jungle is knit together. If a supporting tree falls, the confused

masses of _lianas_ adhering to it snatch at whatever is nearest for a

fresh start. They twist about each other tighter and tighter, gaining

always a firmer and firmer hold as they ascend. Far up above, they

will weave back and forth a close fabric, spreading out wide roofs of

flowers.

Indistinguishable tree from creeper, parasite from supporter, all are

clamoring for space and light and air. Those which have struggled

through to the top reach toward the scalding sun or alternate

cooling deluge, riotous, irrepressible in vigor, radiant with color,

distilling intense perfume, drooping with the succulence of their own

leaves and stems, breaking with the weight of their over-developed

fruit.

Vegetation invades everything. It even shoots out over the water,

covering it with lovely forms. Hardly a growing thing can get its

impulse directly from the soil. That was long ago preëmpted. There

must be other things to grow upon or in. Wherever there is a suspicion

of foothold, a new form of life springs up spontaneously, gleaning

nourishment from whatever it touches, exuberantly prolific from the

start, parasites one and all, living at the expense of some earlier

comer.

Even parasites have their own parasitic growth. Parasites flourish as

trees self-grafted upon trees. Draperies and tapestries and motionless

cascades, this inundation of parasitic life falls back again to the

ground in great growing clumps. What indeed is a parasite?

Little rifts of color have collected here and there, concentrated deep

in the nooks and crevices of trees, moulded into orchid form. Some

are tiny as mosses and grow upon the ground, dewy-looking, little

violet-colored flowers. Some lie upon the water, some droop over the

edge of precipices, their great mass of fleshy, aerial roots sucking

damp nourishment from the air. Certain trees seem destined by nature as

orchid gardens. Numberless varieties, each with its peculiar bearing,

perch upon the limbs, night-scented blossoms with a spongy texture

fringed and fluted in a thousand ways; beautiful monsters of crimson

and black, whose queer little phantom faces, with beards of fine hairs,

make mouths at you. Hot and moist, the imperceptible odor of each

mingles with the mass of other imperceptible odors, oppressive at last

by sheer force of numbers.

The habits of orchids, if so they may be called, are amazing; for

example: their attraction of insects and means of scattering their

pollen about on a moth’s body; their bright color luring day-flyers and

their strong odor night-flyers to the same flower; the elastic flaps,

a resource of others for a similar end. As Darwin said: “With parts

capable of movement and other parts endowed with something so like,

though no doubt really different from sensibility, they seem to us in

our ignorance as if modeled by the wildest caprice.”

Whimsical and wayward, restrained by no precedent, an orchid dares

defiance in all the properties it possesses, odor, form, and color, so

that the line of its descent is sometimes impossible to distinguish.

This anarchist of flowers throws out an unexpected leaf or petal

wherever it chooses, and if interfered with, refuses even to produce

its own blossoms, veering off in independence. The most elegant flower

that grows, able to conventionalize even nature herself by lusciously

designed leaves--patterns whose suitable background would be courts of

kings--riots here alone in “languid magnificence,” merely glanced at by

a passing humming-bird.

If a tree or a vine has a little less succulence than its neighbor or

a little less vital impulse, nature calmly watches it pounced upon and

extinguished. No one “compassionately tries to save the unfit from the

consequences of their unfitness.” Having endowed this prolific land,

the lavish elements can withdraw and survey unmoved the scattering

showers of seeds, that prodigal industry of plants in busily

perfecting seeds which will never be given an opportunity to grow. So

little chance has a seed that new attempts at life are more secure

if supplied by the energy of the parent stem. The elements are not

responsible for the death-struggle of vegetation which results. As far

as they are concerned, each seed that falls and each little shoot that

springs upward would be given an equal chance. But every form being

equally favored, its neighbors contest its right to live. Coöperation

to make life possible at all, only begins when united force is needed

to conquer a common foe. Life here is for viper and vampire as well as

for butterfly, and the parasite has an equal chance with the benevolent

vine. It is a battlefield where militant nature fights in civil warfare

through the ages. Plants once given birth demand the right to make the

most of their own particular form of life, fighting for sun, fighting

for air, fighting for the right to live. Ironically enough, warfare is

fiercest between forms most closely allied. “They interlace, strangle,

and devour each other.” Parasitic alliances are possible only between

very divergent forms, each benefiting by the use of what the other

does not need. Parasites are leapt upon by other parasites; there

is strife even among them. Forever fighting with each other, they

all suffer equally from hereditary enemies descending from above or

creeping up from below, capturing by attack or poisoning by stealth.

Plants not only crowd their neighbors out of the soil, they seem to

dispute the air as well. Each begrudges the other a breathing space.

The ingenuity of nature is taxed to invent compensations to each for

lack of what it has a right to expect as its due. An impenetrable

disguise of buttresses is substituted for roots and want of underground

space. Air-roots drop from branches. Smaller trees, adapted to

the dimness, live in the shade of larger ones. Nature uses every

subterfuge, restrained by nothing known as customary. Plants maintain

a life whose pertinacity we have no scale for measuring. Each asserts

its own individuality and insists upon it with inexhaustible energy.

Each is convinced of its own desirability, convinced it was intended to

live, proclaiming that intention to the death of its neighbor.

Out of the remains of the dead arises a new generation with an

increase of vital impulse. The instant a plant has reached a sense of

completeness, it is sprung upon, twitched from decay into the vitality

of some lovely form whose time has come. Whatever lapses into the past

is at once metamorphosed. Whatever should look forward for opportunity

would be snuffed out by some exuberant growth determined on immediate

perfection.

There can be no seasons in the jungle, no general periods of growth,

maturity, or rest. All stages of development are flaunting from

independent plants in a single locality. Each is appropriating whatever

it can use in the elements or in its neighbor to weave into its own

perfecting tissue. Each is as little influenced by the other as are two

trees rubbing against each other with the wind, mingling their branches

and blending their foliage. Though forced during a lifetime to closest

proximity, they are members of remote families, and the nature of

neither is modified in the slightest degree.

Indeed, all seasons concentrate on a single tree; for some of the

massive fruits require more than a year to ripen, so that fruit is

maturing and flowers are budding on the same tree.

Only heat can penetrate. Light is almost excluded by the unbroken

canopy of interlaced branches. It is left up above, absorbed into

whirls of vivid flower or expanding the luscious leaves. Heat and

moisture are imprisoned. Plants flourish in “the boundless, deep

immensity of shade.” Left in wan half-light they push up into the

“green gloaming,” adapted to the dimness yet straining upward to the

light which would kill them if they could reach it. Even bats sometimes

make mistakes and emerge at noonday, unhooking themselves from branches

on which the sun has never shone. All forms are confused, and the

strange shapes but half-seen are concealed by others no less vague.

Deep within the wilderness, more silent than the noiseless solitude

itself, lies a mysterious lagoon sacred to the giant Mother of Waters.

All about, coiled in the half-putrescent, vegetable mould, are myriads

of venomous creatures, gliding, writhing, crawling in and out. Minute

snakes, whose bite is death, curl in tendrils or lie like coral

necklaces upon the leaves. Larger ones drape in vinelike garlands

overhead, to be distinguished from a blossoming festoon only by a

sudden, loose-swinging end.

But the pool! What wet blackness and horrid mystery! The surface of the

water is never ruffled by a breeze. It has no moods. Unperturbed in

perpetual gloom it lies in quivering stagnation, oozing nauseous odors

under the twilight of a full, tropical noon. No roseate spoonbill, no

delicate white heron tilts about upon its banks. The black, stagnant

water can barely cover the solid, seething mass of “hairy, scaly,

spiny, blear-eyed, bulbous, shapeless monsters, without name ...

wallowing, interwriggling, and devouring each other.”

Here sleeps the Mother of Waters, congenially imbedded, her shining

coils slipping about over each other--the great _yacumama_--the mighty

boa-constrictor, who can swallow almost any creature whole, and whose

breath withers any beast lured within reach by her fascinating poison.

Humanely she intoxicates before squeezing the unyielding bones to pulp

of digestible consistency.

Sometimes she unfolds her darkly iridescent coils out into the

hospitable closeness of the jungle. Laboriously she winds upward

in over-arching trees; but, as if too languid, leaves part of her

frightful weight dragging below. She looks moss-grown, like the stem

of an old tree, and treelike, remains motionless for days at a time.

When she does wander forth in search of prey, a track follows through

the lush, yielding vegetation--her huge weight lingering heavily upon

succulent stems.

II

The atmosphere is full of color--weird, miasmic exhalations. Next to

the shade lingering under the dark velvet foliage on the edges of

streams, the glossy leaves toss off sheets of silver light or reflect

a “russet glamour” from their under sides. Beds of yellow butterflies

settle along river banks and concentrate the sunlight with blinding

intensity. Every leaf seems to blaze like a gem; even the black shadows

pulsate with inner light. It is part of jungle mystery that even the

light comes in iridescence.

Legions of beautifully colored spiders silently spin their geometric

webs. Insects all dipped in silver, with waving antennae laid back

along their heads, red beetles with golden heads and wings of

chintz, buzz to and fro. Moss-grown leaf-insects--ossified, living

scarabs--walk about on tree-trunks. Stinging bees and wasps fill

chinks of jungle trees with wild honey. Myriads of ants swarm: driver

ants; parasol ants carrying a bit of leaf about over their heads;

fever-bearing ants, and ants that live in the hollow, white stems of

the cecropia tree and furnish the sloth’s food. Centipedes hurry by,

legs moving with “invisible rapidity like a vibration,” and numerous

flies, ticks, mosquitoes, cicadas, dragon-flies. Some of these strange

beings need two or three years of larval life to prepare for a flight

of a single hour, possibly after sunset. What a limited idea of the

world must they have who never see the light of day!

We are assured that the unseen world is a very substantial place; so is

the microscopic. And an ear-trumpet reveals a new universe of sound.

What a region of ultra-violet murmurings must lie beyond that we never

catch at all! If only an elemental apperception can grasp the vastness

of the jungle, what can be said of the delicacy of its silver-point

drawing? For here is greatness on the invisible scale, “a creation at

the same time immense and imperceptible.”

Side by side with sloths, ant-eaters, and armadillos, dwarf descendants

of mastodon days, still lumbering about undeveloped in spite of their

ancient lineage, humming-birds have flashed through the ages. They

have profited by cycles of centuries to elaborate their little bodies

beyond imagination with pendent beards, crests, waving ear-tufts, and

ornaments colored in fantastic manner. Their tails, fashioned in queer

shapes, always consist of ten feathers. Even the tiny, sharp feet,

minute as they are, differ greatly in form and are sometimes covered

with a delicate, white down. There are feathers on a humming-bird’s

eyelids. The little saw-edged tongues for extracting insects from

flower-honey all differ. Their bills are as long as their bodies, and

their tails are twice as long.

What can be said of their color, brighter than any other in nature?

The hue of every precious stone, the luster of every metal sparkles

from some part of the diminutive body. Often only a twinkling of

emerald-gold-green or ruby-colored light reveals their passing--

“A route of evanescence with a revolving wheel!”

Sometimes the flash comes from throat or back or brow of iridescence,

sometimes from a body sheathed in little gold scales; sometimes from

the very tips of long white feathers frilling the neck about. The

colors come and go, shift and change with every motion, “embers flung

about by in visible hands.” The wing feathers are gray. No eye could

discern anything but a dusky film, so a bright display would be lost!

And all this is within a thimble’s compass, for the smallest of all

humming-birds grows in Peru. It is hardly larger than a bumblebee, and

the giant of the race measures less than a swallow. Doctor Brehm says

the Dwarf Humming-bird is the only one that has a song.

There is as much diversity in the names of the humming-bird as

in everything else pertaining to it: Tresses-of-the-day-star,

Rays-of-the-sun, Sun-gems, Sun-stars, Flame-bearers, Frou-frou,

Pecker-of-flowers, Flower-sipper, Honey-sucker, Sipper-of-roses,

Fly-bird, and the sweet Colibri. It has, besides, many local names, as

Tominejo, _tomin_ being the smallest weight.

Birds migrate south from the tropics as well as north. The humming-bird

whirls through the jungle and luxuriant valleys of the Andes, out

to islands in the Pacific, and follows the fuchsia down to the very

boundaries of barrenness in the tail of South America. A mere dab of

brain can engineer this infinitesimal motor from Patagonia to Canada.

One minute Flame-bearer lives only inside the crater of an extinct

volcano in Veragua, marked with red like the fire-stealer wren of

Brittany, and many battle with storms of the high Andes and can be

seen mingling their vivid flashes with snow. They who live by means of

flowers! One called Sappho, a blend of red and green, lives upon the

bleak heights of Bolivia, frequenting the haunts of the condor.

It has been thought that the humming-bird has no wish-bone, its frame

being more compact than such construction would allow, in order to

withstand the immense strain of its wings--immense, yes, measured by

millimeters. At any rate the largest organ is the breast muscle, and

the heart is three times as large as the stomach. Its senses are alert,

and a well developed skull could prove the excellence of the brain

beneath did not its habits do so.

The humming-bird always trusts itself to the air for however brief a

distance, and flings its supple body about from one flower to another

in vibrating flight. Now it hovers near without disordering a petal,

now it hangs from tall grasses by the tip of its thornlike bill, a

sparkling of wings with spurts of precious stones in a setting of

petals, lost in another instant in wide air.

Never smutted by earth, because never touching it, the humming-bird

juggles among the flowers. It never follows all the flowers of a single

bush nor even exhausts all the sweetness of a single flower--“a dart,

a glance, a sip, and away;” butterflies, a symbol of caprice, are

not more fickle. This utterly erratic creature performing its aerial

gambols holds within itself the reason for its being unmolested by any

enemy--the chase not being worth the morsel!

Ineffable is the whole field of its labor. The coarsest materials of

its nests are the finest straws it can pick up. Inside they are lined

with down and spiders’ webs. Consistently they are attached to a

pendent branch or long-swinging vine. Thither the humming-bird flies to

supply a family’s microscopic wants.

To a giant looking through a microscope, what a revelation of the

infinite industry of nature in worlds beyond the grasp of any sense of

his, the humming-bird would be!

CHAPTER IV

ANIMALS OF DARKNESS AND LIGHT

I

What a land of silence! The vast forest seems wholly uninhabited

save for the chatter of a passing train of harlequin parrots or

angry apes. And yet it is not silence. There is the great movement

of lapsing and becoming perpetually going on; both composition and

decomposition rustling on toward completion. They are mere phases of

that “illimitable sun force which destroys as swiftly as it generates

and generates again as swiftly as it destroys.”

“So fast do the flowers expand that an actual heat, which may be tested

by the thermometer, is given off during fructification.” The tepid

water forces all growing things to prodigious size. Exuberance seems to

have no boundaries. The length of the young shoots is only less amazing

than their growth in a single day. Leaves expand until they are twenty

feet long, and ferns tangle their own fronds in haste to push out to

the utmost limit of their nature. One sees things growing in the damp

heat as one hears a yucca palm grow.

But where growth is on a stupendous scale, there decay is exuberant,

for “the powers that build are the powers that putrefy.” Above are

light, warmth, and moisture: such are conditions of growth. Below are

darkness, warmth, and moisture: such are conditions of decay. Which

is more effectual, that mighty power of evolution elaborating “the

rain-water hurrying aloft” into tissue of leaf and flower, or those

great forces of dissolution which can so soon transmute the fallen

trunk of iron-wood into a pregnant, humid mound? It merely lapses into

those elements composing it, and is instantly absorbed by fresh leaves

culminating to-night.

The noble heat blends the smell of laboring sap and that of aromatic

mosses with the pungent odor of decay, the damp smell of death with

those sweet poisons which drip off the trees and envelop like a

caress. The incense tree was described by Martin Fernandez de Enciza

in the early sixteenth century. “Incense doth hang at its boughs,”

he said, “as the ice doth at the tiles of a house in the winter

season.” Over-ripe fruit drops smashing on the ground with scent of

strawberries. A musky humming-bird leaves behind a thin trail of heady

perfume. The air is filled with vegetable breath, weird, far-off

blossoms, mere ghosts of fragrance mingling in a wave of sweetness.

Smell is indeed man’s most emotional sense. It gives a poignancy to

a remembered scene which no detailed picture can, and sharpens the

whole sight perception. An entire chapter should be written about

jungle-perfume.

The silence of day is succeeded by the “soundless tune” that fills the

night. It surges up from below and shuts down from above. Pervasive

as the murmuring of water, it spreads out through the night, pierced

by a sudden brilliant squeak near at hand. With darkness settles a

humming, booming, drumming, croaking, deafening uproar from thousands

of diversified insect throats filling up every chink of space,

each one crowding out the other. Insects here are not a miniature,

far-off chorus, one ingredient of a summer night, but overwhelming,

terrifying, absorbing the dark atmosphere.

Mysterious animals live in the depths of the ocean where no ray of

light has ever pierced. They light the way for their own fishing,

as the glow-worm is struck by its own brightness before seeing any

other. Fire-beetles and phosphorescent caterpillars and flickering

fireflies--little stitches of a shining thread in the soft, verdured

blackness of the tepid night--make the primeval forest discernible.

The true life of the jungle begins with darkness and ends with

light. As if the habitual gloom were not deep enough, jungle animals

wait until night has enclosed them further to carry on their life

activities, those weird creatures which lurk in the shade, primeval

instincts always alert, living on suffrance in this land of vegetation.

They have persisted since early geologic ages, the only remnants of

their kind, haunting the nights from then until now. Dwarfs of a former

age, growing constantly smaller and fewer and less important, they will

dwindle through coming ages until zoölogical gardens can no longer be

supplied, and their toothless skulls in glass cases will be the only

evidence that they ever existed.

The antediluvian ant-eater hunches along on his stiff, curved claws,

stopping now and then to rake out a crowded ant-hill, whose compact,

crawling interior he cleans out with an efficient slash of his spiral

tongue.

The giant armadillo, the glyptodon of former ages, developed a complete

coat-of-mail by which his small descendant is still protected. He

can open and shut the scales at will, hiding himself inside them. He

trundles to and fro, burrowing out well-flavored roots. His voice is

dull, without ring or expression. But his little shell is used as the

bowl of a curious, three-stringed guitar from which natives can coax

sweet sounds.

The tapir is another twilight animal, protected by his enormously

thick hide. He snuffs about with his long snout, follows paths made by

himself to the water, and sounds his queer whistle as alarm.

The cavernous croak of the violet-colored throat-bladder matches the

twilight. The goat-sucker, with softly flapping wings, rises to greet

the night, and from deep within the forest resounds the drawling cry

of the sloth. His small, ghoulish face peers into the oncoming darkness.

Night settles. Bloodthirsty bats emerge, bright eyes flashing eagerly.

Leaf-nosed vampires, whose empire is gloom, are prepared for their

nightly bacchanale.

When utter blackness has obliterated the jungle, the _carbunculo_

slinks slowly out of the thickets. “If followed, he opens a flap in

his forehead from under which an extraordinary brilliant and dazzling

light issues, proceeding from a precious stone; any foolhardy person

who ventures to grasp at it is blinded, the flap is let down under the

long black hair and the animal disappears into darkness. The Incas

believed in him. The viceroys in their official instructions to the

missionaries, placed the _carbunculo_ in the first order of desiderata.”

II

“The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie,

The silken down with which his back is dight,

His broad, outstretchèd horns, his hairy thighs,

His glorious colors, and his glistening eyes!”

SPENSER, _Muiopotmos_

With great broad strokes the tropical butterfly descends at sunset

time to the jungle pool. The soft color of its wings is hardly

distinguishable from the mold. It sips the water quietly.

A small bird, ready for a feast, swoops down with a whir of wings ...

but where is the butterfly? In its place is a fierce owl, bulging

eyes flashing, and every feather on his head bristling in eagerness

for his prey. The little bird of supper-intentions has precipitately

departed, never to return, a permanent lesson learned in the terror of

an instant; yet it was learned from the under side of a butterfly.

Who so much as a butterfly is a child of the sun? Evoked by his warmth,

it comes forth with all facilities developed for the fullest enjoyment

of a new life, in which it seeks out the sun-spaces in the damp forest.

What a direct response to warmth in the up and down motion of a

butterfly’s wings, wide-spread on a sunny mass of leaves! How quickly

it folds its lustrous wings and sinks, drooping, upon a flower when the

sun goes in, as rainbows disappear at the sun’s withdrawal!

Nor does its sun-worship end here; for Iris, symbol of the sun, is

imprisoned upon its wings. Those magic wings! Nature writes upon them

all the changes which the organism undergoes, the patterns of the

minute feathers, the direction of the fine veins, their shapes, their

pencillings varying with the slightest external change. Each can be

distinguished from all the rest by what is written on these evanescent

tablets, the most delicate on which laws have ever been inscribed.

The Peruvian butterflies have a world-wide reputation, from the

triple-tailed _theclas_ making up in elegance of form for their

diminutive size, to the azure _morphos_, those noble insects as large

as two hands laid side by side, the desideratum of collectors who press

their burnished wings between glass walls. Abnormal tails reach in

abnormal directions like ingrowing horns, sharply pointed and oddly

curved. An imp-like dot of silver near by calls attention to them.

Bold, uneven blotches of gold and black are surrounded by demure,

parallel lines. A spot of crimson pulsates in the midst of a whole

wing of iridescence. The extravagant creature carries his black velvet

body about on yellow legs. Some are as finely mottled as partridge

feathers. In others the design just glimmers through mother-of-pearl.

Some are transparent in color, a stained glass window leaded in design

with living veins. The spaces between veins, however small, are

exquisitely fashioned, and always the corresponding patterns of the two

sides are perfectly aligned. Some are transparent like dragon-flies’

wings. Some are almost veinless, visible only by a dip of color on

the tip of the wing--phantom butterflies. From others, apparently

colorless, certain lights can flash the segment of a rainbow.

What fine fitness in a French expression for the blues--_papillons

noirs_!

Many of the most brilliant butterflies are so colored because they are

unpalatable, even uneatable, flaunting their warnings in the face of

the lizard, which might eat them unawares were they not so conspicuous.

They can flutter lazily about, with no attempt at concealment,

preserved by their own poison. In making the injurious butterfly

resplendent, nature saves both the butterfly and the bird which might

have gulped it down.

Others are preserved by having adopted bark-designs or leaf-color

or twig-shapes. Some even float about mimicking each other, if

advantageous to do so. Some gain protection by imitating the

brilliantly colored but uneatable butterflies for which they are

mistaken. Mimicry or warning, each protects as is most beneficial, by

concealing or making conspicuous. Seen and recognized, they are not

molested; or, hidden, they escape notice.

How varied are their habits! Poisonous ones fly slowly. Others merely

frisk about, toying with life, air, and sunlight; skirt-dancers they

are called (_megaluras_), “sown and carried away again by the light

air.” Some heavy-bodied butterflies gain protection by flight so rapid

as to make them mistaken for humming-birds. The broad, strong strokes

of the wide-winged _morphos_ float them across wide rivers. The flight

of butterflies is a biologist’s problem, as well as their colored

juices and seasonal forms.

Some, flying low, have their greatest brilliancy on the under side of

the wings; others, flying high, are dull underneath to protect them

from enemies below, as the bell-bird, whose home is in the dazzling

sunshine above the tree-tops, is made invisible to any eyes looking

upward by its snow-white plumage and transparent wings.

“Crepuscular” butterflies emerge at sunset. Such are the _caligos_,

amazing creatures equipped on the under side with an owl’s head, which

can terrify their pursuers by merely turning wrong side out. All

animals are suspicious of a strange-looking eye; and at dusk, when

the butterfly descends to the jungle pool to drink, the owl-eyes are

particularly effective. The harmless butterfly spreads the one view of

itself to the enemy which could save its life, and continues slowly to

sip the dark water.

Some butterflies stop in the gloomiest shades of the forest in darkness

of noon. They all love the damp, and quantities of them surround

puddles. Some settle with wings erect, some expand them and rest

head downward, pressed closely against the supporting surface. The

“swallow-tails” never allow their long tails to touch anything. Some

alight upon the end of a stick, others rest upon dead leaves, others

upon rocks or sand, some on the under surface of leaves, entirely

disappearing when they alight. While some are protected for motion,

others are protected for rest. Flickering noiselessly into the deep,

wet shade in the network of vines and succulent leaves, they flash

out into the clear sunlight. The glow of colors pulsates on their

shining blue wings, intense as the fathomless blaze of a fragment of

copper-saturated driftwood. Creatures of the sky they are, indeed,

touched with the celestial hue. It was not without reason that the

Greeks gave the same name to this wondrous insect and to the soul.

CHAPTER V

THE JUNGLE IN PARADOX

“There is a strange beast, the which for his great heavinesse,

and slownesse in moving, they call _Perico-ligero_, or the

little-light-dogge; hee hath three nailes to every hand, and mooves

both hand and feete as it were by compasse, and very heavily; it is

in face like to a monkie, and hath a shrill crie; it climeth trees,

and eates ants.”

FATHER ACOSTA

The uncouth sloth! Can any greater emblem of misery be conceived?

He hangs upside down upon a branch like a bundle of rags on a nail.

His hair is like dried grass, stiff, with a greenish tinge, and, as

might be expected, goes the wrong way. His long arms are jointless,

swinging to and fro like the end of a rope. He can turn his head all

about, till his round, simple face meets the wind; then he opens his

toothless mouth to take it in, giving rise to a tradition that he lives

on air. His want of teeth is supplied by long nails--his only means of

attack--with which he scrapes out ants. Whether

[Illustration: A SLOTH, FROM THE _HISTORIAE RERUM NATURALIUM

BRASILIAE_, AMSTERDAM, 1648.]

he lives upon cecropia buds and dew, as Doctor Brehm declares, or upon

armies of ants swarming in the hollow stems of the cecropia tree, it is

certain that he haunts only that tree, which spreads out broad leaves

whose white, lower sides reflect light into the sepulchral shade.

It furnishes him with more food than he needs, and food is his only

necessity.

The rain pours, he listlessly hugs his branch, a sorry spectacle,

emitting from time to time a deep sigh. His eye is dull, he knows no

joy, no sorrow. He needs no sleep, no relief from a life which is

nothing but respite. The odds seem too great against him to perform the

simplest acts of life.

The climax of activity is reached when, like a wad, he falls to the

ground, apparently devoid of life.

After a while he unrolls and progresses with circumspection upon closed

claws to the next cecropia tree. Then he climbs to the very top, where

he begins to eat, supplied with food on the down journey. Hunger

compelling, he unbends from a position of unusual discomfort and pushes

himself along his branch upside down. Over-cautious in every motion,

he never loosens his rigid hold from one limb until securely clamped

to the next one. Each movement causes a long, sad yowl of pain. It is

amazing that so cutting a sound can issue from his soft mouth.

His weird cry is a jungle symbol--mysterious hint of antediluvian days

when the elephantine sloth lifted up a mammoth wail to be taken up by

the glyptodon and the dodo.

* * * * *

In the desert man exclaims: “If only there were water! The soil is

fertile. There is sunlight and warmth enough to make a tropical

paradise. If only there were water!” And so, although he does not

exactly worship water as the Yuncas of antiquity did, this man sings

secretly in his heart a hymn to the god of water.

Up on the icy highlands man exclaims: “If only there were warmth! The

soil is fertile, there is plenty of water, only warmth is lacking

to make a paradise. If only there were warmth!” And he sympathizes

with the Incas, whose god was the Sun, and waits through the long

night-watches until, with his rising, life is renewed.

In the jungle, water brings fertility to a soil bathed in the light

and warmth of a tropical sun. It pours down from melting snows of the

mountain-tops and gushes from the ground to meet the rain. Here, where

man might live with least effort, he squats on the lowest rung of the

human ladder, his savage desires satisfied as soon as realized. The sun

needs no propitiatory offerings, water needs no exhortation. Invisible

powers have conferred all gifts which his mind could imagine or his

heart desire.

But in the midst of luxuriant plenty, like the Indian above the mine,

poverty-struck for want of the very riches he sits upon, he is merely

dying out for lack of everything with which he is surrounded. With a

remedy at his command for every ill, he hangs about his neck a string

of tapirs’ claws in case of need. As there is lack of nothing to supply

his wants, so there are few wants to be supplied. A whole tribe lives

on a single species of tree, like insects depending on one fruit or

leaf for subsistence, or the sloth hanging on the cecropia tree, which

has senses sufficient to appreciate sights and sounds and smells, but

remains insensible. The jungle people seem to recognize the likeness

and call one another “beast of the cecropia tree.”

As there is surplus of everything here, evil gifts have been bestowed

as well. Poisonous insects sting for life; the fierce jaguar and

fatal vampire, whose velvet kisses are a death-brand, bite for life;

so do snakes; and the huge boa crushes the bones of its victim. The

strong attack the weak, the cunning inveigle the unwary. Injurious or

beneficent, all must fight for life, joining in the great struggle.

Each variety contends with every other, vegetation fights to keep

out animals, animals with birds, insects with one another, and all

against the water, whose level silently rises over its foes. So man

must struggle against nature. The jungle is his only teacher. He takes

from it what it offers. He is the mere imitator of the vegetable world,

a product of it in modified form. He sees strife in air, earth, and

water. His religion can conceive only strife of two extremes, dying

and living, evil and good, one injurious, the other beneficial. Evil

spirits inhabit birds and beasts and whirlpools of the mighty rivers.

The dim forest is filled with powers of destruction. They lurk in

the black lizard and less dangerous ones in the parroquets. Since all

sickness is brought by evil spirits, it is they to whom prayers are

made. Some jungle savages believe in a transformation into animals and

name their children for them. If there are any thoughts of a future

life, they are in jungle terms. After death these people wish to be

turned into animals, which sometimes happens. “On the eighth day a

red deer jumped from the grave and ran away into the forest. They did

not see the soul enter the deer, but they saw the deer rise from the

grave”! Some worship sun and moon, an Inca custom. But the moon with

its phases and its weird shadows in the jungle is involved in special

mystery. These savages understand the jungle, but facts plain to us

compose their mystery.

If a man is sick, something grows near by to set him all right

again. They use nature’s remedies against her poisons, as they have

learned from birds and beasts to do. They collect various sympathetic

medicines, such as teeth of poisonous snakes, and carefully fix them in

leaves and tubes of rushes--powerful specifics against headache and

blindness. They fill flask-gourds with balsams, and collect odorous gum

for incense.

War is their only object lesson, so quite naturally their only

preëminence is in the art of killing. The chief cause of war is

stealing of women; some are worth as much as a hatchet, some only the

price of a knife. In times of fighting the savages howl through a

giant reed in blood-curdling discord. They shoot with parrot-feathered

cactus-arrows dipped in famous poisons, or thrust through an enemy

with a _macana_--a wooden sword as sharp as steel--or fell him with

a club of wood like iron. Then they make drums of his skin to serve

as warning to his friends. They protect themselves with a shield of

creeping plants interwoven, covered with a tapir skin and edged with

the feathers of parrots.

The only amicable exchanges between tribes are the poisons done up in

reeds into which they will dip the arrows used each against the other.

Some poisons, made by women and old men, can kill an animal without

injuring his flesh for the use of man. Some make him merely wither

away. Some do not take effect until three days after the wound is

inflicted.

The whole history of man, beginning with the Stone Age, could be

studied among the wild tribes of Amazonian Peru. The largest tribe

numbers nearly twenty-five thousand, many but a few families, and one

tribe has now not a single member left. Differing each from the other,

they are similar only in that they all represent the first steps of

human development.

A savage of the jungle perforates his face to insert feathers and

shells; he gouges it with sharp flints and rubs in indelible color. He

slashes his lips both within and without and stretches his ear-lobes

as far as the shoulder. Then he inserts knobs of _chonta_-palm wood.

He paints his face yellow and suspends a red bean from his nose. Or he

paints his face in the four quarters, blue, yellow, red, and black,

and dyes his hair red with _achote_, his body orange with _armatto_,

staining it in design with dark juices. The Prios color their teeth;

others leave their teeth unstained and wear a long, yellow mantle. The

Conibo flattens his head, or that of his child, between boards into

fantastic shapes, leaving holes through which the cranium can develop.

He leaves single locks of hair on conspicuous promontories. Toucans’

feathers are stuck to them with wax. On days of celebration he dances

in ropes of iridescent birds strung through the bills, his bead girdles

of barbaric design hung with humming-birds as tassels. He knows no

fashion but personal caprice. There is no limit to the vagaries of the

world about him, neither are any suggested for his own decoration.

Cross-wise over his shoulders he slings long scarfs of brilliantly

colored birds hung at the end of chains made of their little leg-bones,

along with boxes of poison for his arrow-heads. His necklaces are of

the teeth of jaguars, wildcats, and monkeys, or of the curling teeth

of the white-lipped peccary. From his anklets and wristlets of heavy,

wooden beans he shakes a jungle call, wielding a feather scepter in

savage rhythm about the stiff feather halo upon his head.

As might be expected, the jungle savage adores music, if so it may be

called. He imitates the cries of forest animals. Some tribes have war

songs; then they use a bone flute or a reed. The Aguarunas have a

violin with three strings. This is the most intelligent tribe, but they

use their superior intelligence in reducing the heads of their enemies.

One is often compelled to wonder whether greater brain-development

means greater usefulness.

These seem to be the facts: The head of an enemy being cut off, poisons

are poured into it, softening the bones so that they can be drawn out

through the neck. They are then replaced by red-hot stones to which the

head, reduced to one-fifth its original size, adjusts itself in the

steam of a bonfire made of roots of certain palms.

A jungle story runs that a scientist from Germany tried to investigate

these sinister processes. But his head, in miniature form, was soon

stuck upon a pole. It could be recognized by the long, reddish beard,

which had retained its original proportions.

To qualify as a warrior a youth must possess at least one reduced head

of his own making. As time goes on, he adorns himself with more and

more such trophies.

Some similar custom existed on the coast in ancient times, for these

little masks have been found in the _huacas_ (grave mounds). The first

reduced heads were exhibited in Lima in 1862 under the rare title,

“Heads of the Incas”!

The Macas and Jivaros are believed to have this practice as well, and

a tribe exists near the Cusicuari, the Rio Negro, and the Orinoco,

reported as able to reduce entire bodies in the same manner.

Some tribes preserve their enemies’ hands, others keep their teeth, and

some eat their enemies whole. A man speaking a different dialect is

eaten like an animal of a different species. The Amahuacas pulverize

the bones and eat the ashes in their food, in order to absorb the

physical strength as well as the moral virtues of the person gone

before. Although they are never eaten, the women of cannibal tribes

are said to be more cannibalistic than the men. Prior to such feasts

they fatten the prisoners of war, who “rather enjoy the prospect, and

gorge themselves to accommodate their keepers. They occupy themselves

tranquilly with their duties as slaves without attempting to escape.”

Another practice of the Aguarunas is making the _tundoy_, or _tunduli_,

their jungle signal-service. They hollow a tree-trunk and make three

holes in it with red-hot stones, then hang it aloft on a high tree,

fastening the lower end securely to the ground. Blows upon it with

a wooden mallet reverberate as far as ten miles, and form a code,

by their swiftness or slowness and their pitch above, between, or

below the holes. As a hundred words suffice for a language, so would

three tones for a drum of war. Primitive man in the primeval jungle

sending blood-curdling signals to reduce the heads of his enemies!

Reverberations whose wave-lengths are intercepted on their echoing

passage through the forest by the flight of royal butterflies and

challenged by the chatter of antediluvian apes!

The weaker tribes are actually, not in name merely, pushed back into

the woods. Many traits in us find a literal, physical parallel in

them. We speak of “licking the dust;” in the jungle there are tribes

of earth-eating savages. A civilized man in the jungle learns their

literal ways. He puts gunpowder on the bite of a serpent and cauterizes

by igniting it. Having no language adequately to express the venomous

thoughts they may feel, they use poisoned arrows. They literally reduce

an enemy’s head, and are more humane than we, doing it after death!

The Inje-inje represent the Stone Age, both in their tools and

language. They come out of inaccessible hiding-places to perform their

primeval rites by full moon and are the least known of all the savage

tribes. This small tribe of the Inje-inje, whose name is the sum of

their language, need only a word to steer their craft through life. As

has been said, the development of language from the primitive Inje-inje

to the somewhat developed Aguaruna can be studied in this mysterious

place. No tribe can count further than ten; most of them use only a

movement of the fingers. Though there are hundreds of “languages,” not

one Amazonian tribe can write.

* * * * *

In temperate zones nature is to be relied upon. Roots grow in the

ground, branches and leaves in the air, flowers come forth at certain

seasons, and fruit follows. Trees give us shade in which no fever

lurks. Vegetables do not relieve agony and want, as insects and plants

do not cause it. No animals lie in wait to seize us, no snakes to

uncurl and engulf us. Rain comes in measurable quantities. We live

on a tempered, miniature scale. We can afford to neglect reckoning

with nature, for we understand her laws, and we direct her by that

understanding.

But what can be said of the jungle? Had we thought of gardens as

suitably placed in tree-tops? Or of an edge of wood as sharp as an edge

of steel? Here accustomed flowers grow as shrubs, and shrubs as trees.

It is a region where insects are mistaken for birds, where animals

imitate a flower on the branch where they like to rest; where plants

have fragrance, and blossoms burst forth from roots or rough bark;

where birds gain protection by assuming the dazzling colors of tropical

sunlight, and butterflies by the warning colors of their neighbors.

It is a region where roots grow in the air; oils, wax, and honey are

secreted by leaves; where the death of anything gives new, vital

impulse to something else, and parasites are as significant as their

supporters. Curious region, where there are night-flying butterflies

and softly-feathered moths to fly in the daytime; where everything is

reversed: animals, whose normal is upside down, prefer tree-tops to the

ground, birds of prey are frightened by the painting on a butterfly’s

wings, caterpillars sting, spiders kill birds, and water is the

principal element of the land.

Dramatic indeed is the silent jungle. The insect is imprisoned in the

throat of the orchid, whose honey it had been unwarily seeking. Trees

distil venom. Plants have fangs. Perfumes affect the brain. Cold, green

creepers blister like fire. From vampires which suck your blood as you

sleep, to the touch of a vine which paralyzes your entire body, the

jungle knows all modes of attack and furnishes the cure for every ill

it has created.

What can be taken as the symbol of the jungle? The snake, mysterious,

deadly, bound together in savage traditions with lightning, wind,

fire-streams of lava, and river-whirlpools, those emblems of serpent

treachery? Or butterflies, with their symbolism of life-recurrent? Or

the orchid, emblem of wayward unwholesomeness? In the troops of monkeys

which skip, swing, bounce from tree to tree, throwing themselves to be

caught by prehensile tails, is its exuberance. In the honey dripping

from hollow trees and running off unused, is typified its surplus.

Iridescence darting from insects and from birds, rainbows glinting over

cataracts or caught by the equatorial sunshine from misty hillsides,

might be its symbol; or the beneficence of jungle trees and bushes.

Not one would be more or less typical than any other. All are equally

emblematic. If we think of caprice, there is law; of life, there is

death; of beauty, there is horror. When each seems most dominant, then

its opposite is most uncontrolled.

The seed dies that the plant may live; the blossom withers that the

fruit may set; the worm vanishes that the butterfly may spread its wide

wings and fly. Plus and minus signs are never far apart indeed.

CONCLUSION

Peru is the Land of the Sun. Its light and heat descend upon the coast

with tropical fury, reducing the desert to a shimmering vibration which

breathes back scorching odors toward the sun. The sun alone makes life

possible upon the arctic heights where, in Inca days, it was worshipped

in name as well as in fact. Yet beyond the mountain-barrier the same

constant sun has no longer undisputed sway. The jungle is “almost

uninhabitable through too great abundance of waters.” Peru is the Land

of Water, without which the desert is barren, because of which the

jungle is luxuriant.

But the sun, the god of Peru, controls the water. It can combine with

its opposing element. It is able to transfigure even the rain, which,

like human hopes, becomes iridescent because the sun shines. The

rainbow is a willing Ariel, the servant of each, retreating from the

sun only as far as the rain allows and illumining the rain only as far

as the sun permits.

The rainbow is visible nature’s alphabet. In terms of it are spelled

sky and sea, trees, birds, and flowers. It shoots the desert-mists and

twinkles along the streams which intersect it. It fearlessly embraces

the austere crags of the mountain-peaks and shimmers in the craters of

volcanoes.

Entire it flings itself from the heart of a shower, follows the

waves of the sea along, or glints on a butterfly’s wings or from a

humming-bird’s throat.

It reveals the elements of the stars, it lists the ingredients of the

sun, and sets down upon its ephemeral tablet the red-hot vapors rising

from the desert. Even the breath of the volcano has a place in the

rainbow alphabet.

It is hard to avoid so fundamental a thing. Close your eyes in the

sunlight, and its whole scale is thrown in glistening repetition across

your own eyelashes.

Even the ultra-violet--the unknown, the unperceived--must be discussed

in rainbow terms, the only letters the eye’s alphabet knows.

The Incas chose it for an empire’s emblem and dedicated to it a temple

close to that of the Sun.

It symbolized to the Spaniards the astounding country which had fallen

as by miracle into their grasp, the land of mystery, whose romantic

wealth and dazzling promises encircled them as with the rainbow arch,

and, like it, receded as they advanced.

Peru still keeps the rainbow symbol. Many-colored mysteries hover about

the man who leans over its glittering jewel-casket. And wherever the

ends of its bright bow touch the desert, flit over the mountain-tops,

or sweep across the jungle, nature’s unexplored secrets lie concealed.

There is, however, a difference. For the rainbow-arch which mingles

sunlight and water is only an evanescent promise, vanishing almost as

quickly as it can flash a new gleam of hope into a human heart. But

Peru, with its changing beauties and its mysterious allurements, is a

fact. The pot of gold which it promises is real.

THE END

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Of all the general works on Peru none has greater weight than _Peru;

Beobachtungen und Studien_ (1893) by E. W. Middendorf. He has exploited

the country in a large, three-volume work with such German thoroughness

that hardly a fact has been left for subsequent writers to disclose.

I have referred to it constantly. Other shorter, general studies of

the country are Von Tschudi’s _Reisen durch Südamerika_, giving much

attention to folk-lore, and _Twenty Years’ Residence in South America_

(1825) by W. B. Stevenson, secretary to Lord Cochrane. He traveled far

and wide in Peru and made observations in regard to remote details.

Typical of descriptive writings is _Two Years in Peru_ (1876) by T. J.

Hutchinson. Various general works by Bernard Moses and his publications

in the _University of California Chronicle_ are valuable, notably his

work on the produce of the mines.

Reliable observations on ruins are those made by E. G. Squier in his

_Peru: Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas_, by Mariano

Rivero y Juan de Tschudi in _Antiguedades Peruanas_, and by Charles

Wiener in _Pérou et Bolivie_. Studies of ruins in particular localities

have been made by many archaeologists; for example, on Tiahuanacu,

L. Angrand, in _Antiquités Américaines_, though his book is now out

of date, Adolph F. Bandelier in his _Islands of Titicaca and Koati_,

Max Uhle, with whom I visited some of the ruins, on Tiahuanacu and

Pachacamac, and Hiram Bingham in recent explorations.

Sir Clements Markham has spent more than fifty years studying every

stage of Peru’s history from the time when it was a land of myth to the

Chilian war. His researches as well as his careful translations have

been published in a series of volumes. Authorities on various periods

of the history are legion. Relating to pre-Inca times, in which studies

of myths and theories of ruins are intermingled, original sources are

the _Memorias Historiales_ of Montesinos, first published in French in

1840, and Cieza de Leon, the soldier, whose _Crónica del Perú_ (1553)

is authority on the Incas. Some modern scientists who have written

about the pre-Inca period are Ernest Desjardins in his _Pérou avant la

Conquête Espagnole_, Tylor’s _Primitive Culture_, Meyen’s _Uber die

Ureinwohner von Peru_, and Brinton in his _Myths of the New World_ and

other works. Many persons are studying the legends, as, for instance,

Professor Liborio Zerda of the University at Bogotá. The _Miscelaneas

Australes_ of Miguel Cavello Balboa, a soldier, is an original source

for knowledge of the remote Chimus. _Das Reich der Chimus_ by Otto von

Buchwald, and especially _Das Muchik oder die Chimu Sprache_ by Doctor

Middendorf, who quotes largely from Calancha and Carrera, are modern

authorities.

In regard to the Incas: As a background there are the old, picturesque

chronicles which read like romances, but on which reposes most of

the knowledge that modern authorities have corroborated in regard to

the earlier inhabitants of Peru. These contemporary accounts have to

be carefully studied in order to distinguish fact from fiction. Next

to the _Crónica_ of Cieza de Leon are the _Comentarios Reales_ of

Garcilasso de la Vega, in whose own veins the turbulent blood of the

Conquistador mingled with the blood of the Sun. During his lifetime the

imperial race of his mother was exterminated by the fierce adventurers

becoming grandees, of whom his father was one. His book has the value

of personal reminiscence. His enthusiasm adds a certain glamor; but

even if his unique work has been spurned as an Utopian romance, it has

been reluctantly accredited as the foundation of facts set forth by its

critics. _De las Antiguas Gentes del Perú_ by Bartolomé de las Casas,

works by Diego Fernandez, Betanzos, Oviedo, Sarmiento, Cobo, Ondegardo,

Molina’s _Fables and Rites of the Incas_, and the great _Miscelaneas_

of Balboa must be consulted. Many of them have been translated by Sir

Clements Markham and published by the Hakluyt Society of London.

It is bewildering to try to single out one or two modern works upon the

Incas, for their name is legion. The definitive authority in English

is of course Sir Clements Markham, whose _Incas of Peru_ (1910) has

followed numberless more detailed works of his own upon the subject.

_Der Belus oder Sonnendienst auf den Anden oder Kelten in America_ by

Frenzel, presents one field of theory which observations on the remains

of the Incas’ walls suggest. The temptation to interpret by means of

analogies to other remote civilizations is withstood with difficulty.

From John Ranking and his _Historical Researches on the Conquest of

Peru by the Mongols_, to Ignatius Donnelly and his evidence in favor of

its conquest by the Egyptians via Atlantis, Peru has given an unlimited

field for speculation. Lord Bacon believed, by the way, that Peru was

a proud kingdom in the time of Atlantis. A striking example of immense

erudition expended on a futile, though technically well-supported,

fancy, is Rudolph Falb’s _Das Land der Inca_. Painstaking scholars are

tracing out similarities between the Peruvian language and the Semitic

and Phoenician tongues--“astounding affinities,” of which common stems

are purest in Quichua, so that the human race seems to have emanated

from the tops of the Andes; similarities, too, between Peruvians and

the long-bearded Druids whose rites were chiefly sun-worship; they

also kept memoranda with strings tied in different knots, like the

_quipus_, and built vast structures of stone without tools. There are

analogies between Peruvians and Hindus, who worshipped the Sun as Rama

and called their first legislator Vaivasaonta, the Son of the Sun,

and between Peru and Farther India. The Seccos have been called the

Malays of Bolivia. There are analogies between Peruvians and Chinese,

whose royal color was also yellow, whose peculiar god from earliest

times was the Sun, who used _quipus_, who had terrace-cultivation and

irrigation-systems like those of the Incas, who used foot-messengers

for royal emissaries, and brought all the gold and silver of the

realm for the beautifying of royal temples. “The buildings, religious

institutions, division of time, and mystic notions,” which “seem in

Asia to indicate the very dawn of civilization,” are found here upon

the Andes. Whether there was intercommunication, or whether such facts

merely suggest the instinctive discovery of all peoples, their origin

is wrapped only in mystery--a veil whose lightest corner is only just

lifting.

But to continue with the succeeding periods of history. Spanish

vice-regal days and the civil wars of the conquerors, the fleets

of treasure, the Inquisition, have been the subject of romantic

histories. Besides Prescott’s well-loved _Conquest of Peru_, William

Robertson’s _History of America_, published more than a century

ago, gives a concise, general survey since the Conquest. Drake’s

_Worlde Encompassed_ and Southey’s account of Drake’s voyage in his

_English Seamen_, as well as Froude’s, together with various Hakluyt

publications, are authorities for freebooter days. Also there are such

cold authorities as the Calendars of State Papers of many countries,

E. Armstrong’s _The Emperor Charles V_, and for the Inquisition, H.

C. Lea, Vicuna Mackenna, and Ricardo Palma. The reports to the Royal

Council of the Indies of the sixteenth century enter into minute

details. Father Acosta was the historian of the third council. His

_Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias_, first published in 1590, is

an indispensable book, although it has borne the reproach of being

superficial.

The French Academicians came to Quito in 1735 to measure an arc of

meridian, an enterprise which d’Alembert considered the greatest

ever attempted by science. One of these scientists, La Condamine,

made extensive studies in quinine, named cinchona for the Countess

of Chinchón, vice-queen, and one of the first to feel its beneficent

power. His _Voyage fait dans l’Intérieur de l’Amérique Méridionale_

(1745), and the _Voyage Historique de l’Amérique Méridionale_ by

Antonio y Jorje Juan de Ulloa (Spanish edition in 1748, French in

1752), who accompanied the French expedition, both aim at truthfulness.

Another delightful as well as dependable work of the eighteenth century

is the _Voyage dans la Mer du Sud_ by Amédée François Frézier (1716).

In particular must be mentioned Lozano’s _Histoire des Tremblements de

Terre arrivés à Lima_. Hales of the Royal Society of London has added

to this French edition of 1752 accounts of Lima in his day, trustworthy

as his observations on the geology and meteorology of the coast.

Such facts as I have stated in regard to the natural history of the

coast are vouched for by Ferdinand von Hochstetter, _Die Erdbebenfluth

im Pazifischen Ocean_, Friedrich Goll, _Die Erdbeben Chiles_, a remote

work on _El Desierto de Atacama_, Humboldt’s _Vues des Cordillères_,

Darwin’s _Journal of Researches_, and the _Voyage of the Beagle_,

the three latter describing the natural history of the mountains as

well. One or two of Sir Martin Conway’s books, Alfons Stübel, _Die

Vulkanberge von Ecuador_, and Neveu-Lemaire, _Les Lacs des Hauts

Plateaux de l’Amérique du Sud_, may also be added. In describing the

animals of Peru I have as authority Brehm’s _Thierleben_.

Ricardo Palma’s _Revista de Lima_ and Carlos Romero’s _Revista

Histórica de Lima_, Manuel A. Fuentes’ _Estadística General de Lima_,

published in Paris in English as _Lima_ in 1866, give interesting

information in regard to that city.

When it comes to the Amazonian wonderland no exaggeration could compete

with fact. But I have not withstood the temptation wholly on that

account! There is Louis Agassiz’ _A Journey in Brazil_, H. W. Bates’ _A

Naturalist on the River Amazon_, two books by Alfred Russel Wallace,

_Tropical Nature_ and _Life on the Amazon_, Raimondi’s _El Departemento

de Loreto_ as well as his _El Peru_, Robert Southey’s _History of

Brazil_, and the publications of the _Sociedad Geográfica de Lima_.

I am happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Wilberforce Eames

of the New York Public Library for access to its _Americana_; to Dr.

Martin and to Dr. Stevenson of the _Hispanic Society of America_; to

Mr. C. L. Chester for many of my pictures; to Dr. F. S. Archenhold,

Director of the Treptow _Sternwarte_ at Berlin for the freedom of his

library, where I found most of the German works consulted, and to Don

Ricardo Palma, former Librarian of the _Biblioteca Nacional de Lima_,

for permission to inspect many of his rare books and manuscripts.

INDEX

_Achachibas_ (piles of stones), 222.

Acllahuasi (convent of Sun-Virgins), 207.

Acosta, 48, 80, 174, 179, 226, 229, 242, 280, 303.

Agassiz, L., 5, 304.

Aguarunas, 289, 291, 292.

Alameda (Lima), 106, 107;

(La Paz), 163.

Almagro, Diego de, 73, 89.

Alpacas, 54, 157, 226.

_See_ llamas, huanacus, vicuñas.

Amahuacas, 290.

_Amautas_ (wise men), _See_ Incas.

Amazon, 5, 6, 10, 123, 124, 141, 233, 236, 237, 245-248, 304.

_See_ jungle.

Amazons, 236-237.

Amiel, 61.

Andalusia, New, 84.

Andes, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 15, 30, 36, 43, 53,

59, 60, 123, 134, 175, 247, 248, 301, 302;

animals of, 155-158;

birds of, 168;

dangers of, 147-149;

description of, 143-148;

lakes of, 166-167;

light in, 149-150;

mines of, 152-154;

storm in, 150-151;

valleys of, 165, 240-246, 265.

_See_ condor, cordillera, Incas, Indians, mines, _puna_, valleys.

_Andenes_ (terraces), 183.

Antarctic, _See_ ocean, Pacific.

Ant-eater, 56, 263, 272.

Antis, 197.

Aqueducts, _See_ irrigation.

Argentina, 121.

Arianza, Juan de, 92.

Arica, 78.

Armada, 91.

Armadillo, 263, 272.

Armatambo, 104.

Atahualpa, 67, 69-71, 77, 136, 188, 215.

Atlantic, _See_ ocean.

_Auto de fe_, _See_ Inquisition.

Aztlan, 113.

Badeor, Federico, 79.

Balboa, 40, 300, 301.

_Balsa_ (boat of reeds), 41, 48, 168, 234.

Bandelier, A. F., 234, 299.

Bats, 47, 243, 273.

Betanzos, 176.

Bezoar stone, 225.

Bingham, Hiram, 161, 299.

Bolivia, 265.

_See_ Tiahuanacu.

Borax, 32.

Bougainvillea, 35, 57, 59, 125.

Boussingault, 251.

Brazil, 229, 304.

Brehm, 264, 281, 304.

Bridges, swinging, 123, 165, 185.

Brittany, 81, 164, 265.

Buccaneers, 81, 236.

_See_ El Dorado, freebooters, pirates.

Buenos Aires, 85.

Bull-fights, 7, 16, 87, 139.

Butterflies, 59, 65, 121, 125, 261, 273-279.

Cacafuego, 82.

_Cacique_ (chieftain), 196, 199, 235.

Cajamarca, 69, 71, 186.

Cajamarquilla, 104.

Calancha, 50, 300.

_See_ Chimus.

Callao, 15, 85, 86, 100, 101.

_Camarones_ (crayfish), 121.

Candia, Pedro de, 68.

_Cantut_ (flower of Incas), 172, 200.

Caras, 197.

_Carbunculo_ (mythical animal), 273.

Carnac, 164.

Carranza, Angela, 93.

Carvajal, 74.

Casma, 27.

Cavillaca, 44.

_Cazuela_ (soup), 24, 109.

Cecropia, 281, 283.

Cerro de Pasco, 153.

Chancas, 199.

Chanchan, _See_ Chimus.

Chachapoyas, 198.

Chasca, _See_ Dawn.

_Chasqui_ (runners), 184.

_See_ Sun, messengers of the.

_Cheireoque_ (bird), 129.

Chibchas, 197.

_Chicha_ (beverage), 45, 69, 171, 180, 207, 210, 212, 222.

Chile, 54, 89, 121, 129, 197.

Chimus, 47-52, 186, 300.

Chincha Islands, _See_ guano.

Chinchaycocha, Lake of, 166.

Chinchilla, 4, 24, 155.

_Chirimoya_ (fruit), 53, 57.

Chorillos, 103.

_Chulpas_ (towers of the dead), 184.

Churches, 21, 78, 87-88, 97, 99, 100, 111, 112, 138, 215.

_See_ convents, Dominicus, Franciscans, Indians, Inquisition,

Jesuits, Lima, Santa Rosa, Spain.

_Cinchona_ (quinine), 6, 251, 303.

_Ciruelas_ (fruit), 23, 62.

Civilizations, ancient, _See_ Indian races.

Coal, 7, 168.

Coast, aborigines of, 37;

birds of, _see_ ocean;

characteristics of, 3, 4, 16-18;

climate of, 29-30;

geology of, 15, 20, 40, _see_ earthquake;

inhabitants of, 15-16;

towns of, 21-24.

_See_ desert.

Coati, 172.

_Coca_ (cocaine), 6, 93, 181, 207, 212, 224.

Columbus, 76, 233.

Con, 30, 175, 177, 178.

Condamine, 236, 303.

Condor, 6, 140, 144, 157-158, 160, 199, 210.

Condorcanqui, _See_ Tupac Amaru.

Coniapuyara, 236.

Combos, 287.

Conquerors, _See_ Spaniards.

Conquest, Spanish, bibliography of, 302-303.

Convents, closed, 114-119;

open, 113-114, _see_ Franciscans;

of Sun-Virgins, _see_ Sun, Virgins of the.

Cordillera, 4, 72, 77, 103, 131, 227, 303.

_See_ Andes.

_Corequenque_ (bird), 190.

Coricancha, _See_ Sun, temples of the.

Cotton, 6, 32, 35, 43, 52.

_Coya_ (wife of Inca), 204, 207.

_Coyaraymi_ (marriage-day), 207.

_Cuculis_ (desert doves), 122.

_Cueca_ (dance), 58.

Cuntisuyu, 186.

_Curacas_ (governors), 211, 212.

_Cushma_ (garment), 237.

Cusicuari, 290.

Cuzco, 67, 166, 174, 178, 179, 182, 184, 196,

197, 199, 200, 204, 206, 210, 217, 220, 223.

Darwin, 169, 254, 303.

Dawn (Chasca), 203, 205;

lodgings of the, 178.

Desert, 3, 4, 5, 25-26;

aborigines of, 37;

climate of, 29-30, _see garuas_;

emptiness of, 30;

legends of, 36;

lifelessness of, 30-31;

phenomena of, 26-29;

character of, 32;

rivers of, _see_ rivers;

ruins of, 35;

showers in, 31;

valleys of, _see_ valleys;

vultures of, _see gallinazos_.

Desaguadero, 169.

Dominicus (Santo Domingo), 88, 116, 117, 223.

Drake, Francis, 82, 302.

Dürer, Albrecht, 77.

Earthquake, 4, 15, 27-29, 41, 44, 55, 63, 67, 99-102.

Ecuador, 71, 197.

El Dorado, 85, 234-236.

Elizabeth, Queen, 82.

Elmo, fire of Saint, 167.

Enciza, 270.

_Encomienda_ (tax), 91.

_Escandalosa_ (bush), 62.

Eten, 49.

Falb, Rudolf, 163, 301.

Fierro, Pancho, 130.

Fish-worship, 40, 41, 44, 51.

_See_ Chimus.

Fishes’ eyes, 17.

Franciscans, 21, 105, 107-109, 139, 153.

Freebooters, 20, 82.

_See_ El Dorado, buccaneers, pirates.

_Gallinazos_ (vultures), 21, 32, 43.

_Garuas_ (mists), 30, 105.

_See_ desert, climate of the.

Gold and silver, 9, 27, 51, 56, 64-66, 68, 71,

76-83, 84, 90, 152-155, 171, 182, 193, 199, 204-207.

_See_ Incas, Spaniards, Sun, Treasure.

Golden Hynde, 81, 82.

_Granadilla_ (fruit of passion-flower), 240.

Guano, 19-20, 27, 56, 76.

Guavas, 24, 57, 61, 62, 125, 133.

_Guayabas_ (fruit), 23.

Guayaquil, 85.

Guatavitá, 234, 235.

Guenelette, 9, 244.

Hassel, Georg von, 233.

Heads, reduced, 289-290.

Heredia, José-Maria de, 9.

_Huaca cachu_ (plant of the grave), 222.

_Huacas_ (grave mounds), 290.

Huacho, salt lakes of, 32.

_Huacos_ (objects in _huacas_), 73, 126-129.

Huadca, 104.

Hualpa, 153.

_Huanacus_ (wild llama), 157.

Huancayo, 153.

Huayna Ccapac, 66, 166, 209.

_See_ Incas.

_Huerequeque_ (bird), 22.

Huguenot hermit, 104.

Huira Capcha, 153.

Humboldt, A. von, 81, 161, 169, 184, 185, 235, 303.

Humming-birds, 57, 65, 132, 146, 160, 172, 243, 263-267, 270.

Iguana, 35, 240.

Incas, aeroplane named for, 139;

_amautas_, 163, 215;

analogies to other races, 301-302;

arms of, 205;

books about, 300-301;

bridges of, 185;

boundaries of, 20;

campaigns of, 40, 49, 195-197;

at Chanchan, 47, 49, 51;

chinchillas valued by, 155;

clothes of, 189, 207;

coca, divine plant of, 181;

conquest of, foretold, 66-67;

contemporaries of, 37;

court of, 199;

description of, 70, 160;

in desert, 39, 47;

distinctive marks of, 189-191;

divinity of, 188-189;

dramas of, 136;

empire of, 197-199;

festivals of, 208, 210-213;

flute of, 135;

gold of, 7, 64-65, 76;

human sacrifices of, 211;

irrigation works of, 186;

in jungle, 231-232, 285;

last of, 214-221;

laws of, 19, 193-194;

llamas worshipped by, 157;

male title, 205;

mercury, a mystery to, 152;

messengers of the, 192;

myths of, 175-179;

Nature, teacher of, 183;

origin of, 178-179;

Pachacamac spared by, 41, 42;

attitude toward Pachacamac, 177;

pageants of, 163;

passion-flower carried by, 58;

pleasure gardens of, 165;

pleasure houses of, 185;

predecessors of, 160-162;

rainbow emblem of, 206, 298;

roads of, 36, 40, 184-185;

subjects of, 66, 191-193;

Sun, god of, 34, 42, 176, 282;

thunderbolt in palace of, 67;

Titicaca, Island of, 170-173;

tribute to, 192-195;

vicuña fur worn by, 24, 156;

worshipped by Indians, 174.

_See_ Atahualpa, Huayna Ccapac, Manco Ccapac, Sayri Tupac, Tupac Amaru,

Uiracocha, Yupanqui, also gold and silver, and Sun.

Inca Rocca, 231.

Indians, characteristics of, 221-224;

called Children of Israel, 93;

Christianity of, 223-224;

near Eten, 49;

saying about God of, 28;

horses terrify, 72;

lift chain of Huayna Ccapac, 166;

Incas’ attitude toward, 195;

Incas’ buildings benefit, 187;

punishment of, 192;

death of Incas witnessed by, 217-219;

Incas worshipped by, 174;

of jungle, 283-292;

language of, _see_ Quichua;

legends of, 36, 174-181, 244;

the llama, an interpretation of, 225-227;

melancholy of, 135;

mines of, 153-154;

mothers of, 112;

music of, _see yaravís_;

poverty of, 8;

prehistoric races of, 3, 17, 19, 32,

36, 38, 42, 52, 55, 122, 146, 160, 161, 187;

reed vessels of, _see balsa_;

revolts of, 215-216, 220-221;

Sachsahuaman built by, 201;

attitude toward Spaniards, 72, 214;

Spaniards copy, 83;

first encounters with Spaniards, 68-71;

Spaniards’ treatment of, 89-91;

cure _surumpe_, 149;

treasure concealed by, 80;

vicuña hunts of, 156;

warriors, 86;

_yaravís_, 134.

_See_ Aguarunas, Chancas, Chachapoyas, Chimus, Incas,

Inje-injes, Muratos, Nahumedes, Yuncas.

Indies, 73, 77, 79, 80, 81.

Inje-injes, 239, 292.

Inquisition, 91-99, 104, 302, 303.

Inti (Sun), 42, 203.

_See_ Sun.

Inti-cancha (Cori-cancha), 66, 204, 206.

_See_ Sun, temples of the.

Iquitos, 123, 125.

Irrigation, ancient systems of, 50, 52, 55, 89,

101, 103, 104, 161, 183, 186-187, 192, 193.

Isles, of Pearls, 89;

of Solomon, 85.

Islay, Pampa of, 32.

Jaguars, 68, 129, 194, 198, 199, 210, 234, 235, 243, 244-245, 284.

_Jalca_ (table-land), 3.

_See puna._

Jauja, 71.

Jesuits, 72, 111, 237.

_See_ San Pedro, churches.

Jivaros, 290.

Juan Fernandez, Islands of, 121.

Jungle, a land of adventure, 231-239;

Amazon basin, 246-249;

animals of, 271-273, 280-282;

appearance of, from above, 239;

approach to, from Andes, 240-246;

birds of, 241;

butterflies of, 273-279;

characteristics of, 3-6, 10;

color of, 261;

Columbus in, 233-234;

present conditions in, 238;

gloom of, 259;

heat in, 259;

humming-birds of, 263-267;

Incas defied by, 197;

Incas in, 231-232;

insects of, 262, 270-271;

legends of, 244-246;

lianas of, 251;

rhythmic life of, 258;

loam from, 183;

Jesuits in, 237-238;

orchids of, 253-255;

paradoxes of, 292-295;

parasites of, 253;

largest part of Peru, 3;

perfume of, 269-270;

rain in, 29, 248-249;

savages of the, 10, 18, 283-292;

no seasons in, 258-259;

silence of day in, 268;

night sounds in, 270-271;

Spaniards in, 234-236;

trees of, 57, 250-251;

vegetation in, 250-259;

warfare of vegetation in, 255-257.

La Paz, 163.

Lea, H. C., 95, 303.

_See_ Inquisition.

Leon, Cieza de, 65, 185, 300.

Lima, 84-140;

Alameda, 107;

bells, city of, 110-113;

bishop of, 93;

books about, 304;

churches of, 87-88;

climate of, 104-105;

City of Kings, 3, 86, 90, 99, 214;

collections in, 125-126;

composer of national opera in, 133-138;

contrasts in, 138-140;

convents of, 107-109, 113-120;

destruction of, in 1746, 99-102;

dinner party in, 121-125;

galleons of, 77;

Geographical Society of, 237, 304;

reduced heads exhibited in, 290;

Incas in, 215;

Inquisition in, 91-99;

lady of seventeenth century in, 106-107;

national librarian in, 129-132;

market of, 139;

milk-women of, 140;

Paséo Colón, 140;

Spanish splendor of, 7, 84, 85, 86, _see_ gold and silver;

surroundings of, 103-105;

university in, 140.

_See_ Spaniards.

Lisle, Lord, 79.

Llamas, prehistoric carvings of, 55;

drove of, 58;

Christian

sacrifice of, 223;

Incas’ sacrifice of, 207, 211;

Incas’ talismans, 222;

Incas’ use of, 160;

Incas’ worship of, 157;

an interpretation of Indians, 224-227;

in Lima, 140;

ransom of Atahualpa, 71.

_See_ vicuñas.

_Llautu_ (fringe of Inca), 190, 207.

_See_ Incas, clothes of.

Lopez, Francisco, 65.

Loti, Pierre, 1.

Loveday, G., 79.

Lurin, 43, 47.

Macas, 290.

_Mamacunas_, _See_ Sun, Virgins of the.

Mama Ocllo, 179.

_Mamayacu_ (mother of waters), 245, 259-261.

Madera, 233.

Madre de Díos, 231.

_Maguey_ (plant), 242-243.

Manco Ccapac, 174, 176, 178, 179, 189, 233.

_See_ Incas, Sun.

Manoa, 236.

_Mantas_ (head-shawls), 22, 108.

Markham, Sir Clements, 300, 301.

Marmontel, 9.

Marmoset, 249.

Mastodon, 38, 169, 263.

Maui, 37.

_Médanos_ (sand-dunes), 33-35.

Megalithic ruins, _See_ Tiahuanacu, Sachsahuaman.

Mercury, 144, 152.

Mexico, 128, 154.

Middendorf, 96, 236, 299, 300.

Mines, 5, 6, 7, 10, 27, 39, 90, 91, 152-155.

_See_ gold and silver.

Mirage, 26, 57, 147.

Mishagua, 232.

_Mita_ (tax), 91.

Mochica, 49.

_See_ Chimus.

Monkeys, 9, 45, 242, 288.

Monuments, _See_ ruins.

Moon, (Si), (Quilla), 34, 47, 49, 50, 67, 72, 172, 203-205, 212.

Morgado, Alonzo, 79.

Mother of Waters, _See mamayacu._

Mountains, _See_ Andes.

Mountain-sickness, _See soroche._

Mummies, 42, 44-46, 125, 204.

Muratos, 237.

Mutayces, 233.

Myths, 36, 174-181.

Nahumedes, 237.

Negro, Rio, 290.

Nitrate, 27, 32, 54, 56, 61, 62, 77.

Ocean, Atlantic, 29, 168, 238, 248.

Pacific, 15, 44, 158;

Antarctic current of, 30;

argosies on, 77-78;

birds of, 16-20, 28, 56, 247;

influence of, on climate, 30, 105;

islands of, 121, 265;

pirates on, 81-83;

maker of terraces, 183;

tidal waves, 29, 100;

winds of, 33;

worship of as Ni, 48.

Ollanta, 133, 136, 137.

Orchids, 253-255.

Orcos, Lake of, 166-167.

Ore, Geronimo de, 177.

Orellana, 236.

_Organista_ (bird), 249.

Orinoco, 233, 236, 290.

_Pacay_ (fruit), 23, 57.

Paccari-tampu, 178, 179.

Pachacamac, 40-47, 48, 148, 174, 177, 178, 214, 218, 299.

_Paichi_ (fish), 247.

Palma, Ricardo, 129-132, 303, 304.

_Palta_ (alligator-pear), 57, 122, 198.

Paraguay, 107, 237.

Parrots, 45, 185, 240-241.

Passion-flower, 50, 58, 113, 128.

_See granadilla._

Pastasa, 237.

Patagonia, 37, 62, 265.

Paucartampu, 231.

Paul III, 95.

Paytiti, 233.

Peccaries, 248, 288.

Pedro, San, 111, 112.

_See_ Jesuits.

Petroleum, 32.

Philae, 164.

Philip II, 24, 92, 216, 217.

Pica, 53-63.

_Picante_ (sauce), 23, 60.

Pirates, 76, 81-83.

_See_ buccaneers, freebooters, El Dorado.

Pisco, Candelabrum of, 20-21.

Pizarro, Francisco, 69, 70, 73, 140.

Gonzalo, 89, 236.

Hernando, 41.

Plague, bubonic, 21.

Plata, Duque de la, 86.

Pliny, 152.

_Poncho_ (cloak), 57, 221.

Poopo, Lake of, 169.

Potosí, 78, 154.

Prescott, 302.

Prios, 287.

Puma, 45, 171, 194, 243.

_Puna_ (table-land), 3, 4, 31, 137, 146-147, 150-151, 156, 184, 227, 247.

_See_ Andes.

_Quebradas_ (gorges), 165.

_Quena_ (flute), 131, 135, 224.

_Quichua_ (language of Indians), 134, 175, 176, 221, 301.

Quick-silver, _See_ mercury.

Quinine, _See cinchona._

_Quipus_ (system of knots), 69, 156, 160, 191, 302.

Quito, 303.

Races, _See_ Indians.

Rainbow, (_cuychi_), 159, 191, 206, 296-298;

lunar, 60.

Raleigh, 76, 236.

Rig-Veda, 202.

Rimac, 66, 103, 104.

Rivers, buried, 4, 31, 54, 55.

_See_ irrigation, valleys.

Rosa, Santa, 47, 102, 114-120.

Rubber, 6, 10, 238.

Ruins, 10, 35, 42, 43, 46, 51, 104, 160, 161, 162-164, 182-187, 299.

_See_ Chanchan, Pachacamac, Sachsahuaman, Tiahuanacu.

Sachsahuaman, 179, 200-201, 208, 223.

Salcamayhua, 175.

_San Benito_, (mantle), 98.

Sayri Tupac, 214, 215.

Seals, 18, 37.

Seville, 79.

Shelley, 13.

Shore, _See_ coast.

Silver and gold, _See_ gold and silver, mines.

Sloth, 263, 273, 280-282.

_Soroche_ (mountain-sickness), 72, 148.

Soto, Hernando de, 69.

South Sea Islands, 164.

Southey, Robert, 85, 302, 304.

Spain, 74;

cost to, of El Dorado, 85;

gold, a curse to, 76-83;

Inquisition in, 95;

missionaries of, 8, 50;

Peru as near unto heaven as, 9;

vicuña garments taken to, 24, 189.

_See_ Andalusia, Seville, viceroys.

Spaniards, Arab blood of, 7-8;

arrival of, 68-73;

conquerors, 24, 49, 72, 76;

coca spoken of by, 181;

coming foreshadowed, 66-67;

greed of, 160;

at Guatavitá, 235;

Incas as treated by, 214-221;

Inca empire destroyed by, 198;

Indians as treated by, 89-91, 220, 221;

in jungle, 236;

mines of, 154, _see_ mines;

pirates harass, 82;

rainbow a symbol to, 298;

treasure sought by, 79, 167, 171;

viceroy served by, 85.

_See_ Almagro, Candia, Carvajal, _cinchona_,

gold and silver, Indians, Orellana,

Philip II, Pisco, Pizarro, Plata, Soto.

Spenser, 141, 273.

Squier, E. G., 200, 299.

State Papers, Calendar of, 82, 302.

Stonehenge, 164.

Stübel, Alfons, 63, 304.

Sugar, 6, 35, 43, 131, 143.

Sun, (Inti), arms of the, 72;

blood of the, 300;

body of the, 72;

Children of the, 9, 145, 179, 200, 211, 223;

City of the, 72;

cliff sacred to, 171;

daughter of the, 136;

empire of the, 198, 207;

Father of Incas, 68, 131, 170, 174, 188, 195;

festivals of the, 207-213;

flocks of the, 170, 175;

gold belonged to, 66, 77;

god of Incas, 34, 39, 42, 159, 176, 193, 203, 282;

Incas doubt divinity of, 209-210;

labor given the, 194;

land of the, 34, 203, 296;

messengers of the, 185, 205, 208;

parentage of the, 175;

priests of the, 41, 206;

ritual, 40;

sacrifices to the, 211-212;

service of the, 202-213;

Setting of the, 70;

temples of the, 40-42, 66, 89, 174, 196, 204-206, 223, 298;

Virgins of the, 40, 41, 43, 172, 184, 189, 207, 212;

worship of the, 41, 43, 49, 175, 178, 198, 223, 285, 301, 302.

_See_ gold and silver.

_Surumpe_ (snow-blindness), 149.

_Tamarugo_ (tree), 54.

_Tambo_ (inn), 185.

Tambo de Mora, 36.

Tapir, 248, 272.

Tarapacá, 54, 55, 56.

Thunder and lightning, 4, 29, 67, 71, 105, 205, 212.

Tiahuanacu, 162-164, 176, 200, 299.

Titicaca, Lake, 167-173, 179.

Toribio, Santo, 102.

Torture, _See_ Inquisition.

Totora (reed), 168.

Treasure, buried, 36, 42, 49, 51, 71, 73, 81, 83;

buried in lakes, 66, 80, 166-167, 171, 235;

of churches, 88, 99;

fleets of, 9, 76-83, 302;

in Luna, 84.

_See_ gold and silver.

Tschudi, Juan de, 80, 211, 299.

Tuaregs, 27.

Tumpinambaranas, 233.

_Tundoy_, or _tunduli_ (drum), 291.

Tupac Amaru, 216, 217;

Condorcanqui, called, 220, 221.

Uiracocha, Con Tici, 164, 175;

god of all Quichua-speaking people, 176;

Huayna Ccapac speaks of, 66;

identified with Pachacamac, 41, 174;

identities of, 175-176;

Incas produced by, 179;

Son of Sun, 178;

Spaniards called after, 71-72, 220;

in Tarapacá, 55.

Ulloa, 236, 303.

_Uzaque_ (chieftain), 234.

Valleys, of desert, 3, 6, 35, 39, 40, 43, 47, 48, 53, 57, 103-105, _see_ Pica;

of mountains, 6, 144, 147, 165, 166, 197, 198, 215, 224;

of jungle, 240-244, 246, _see_ Amazon.

_See_ rivers.

Vega, Garcilasso de la, 37, 89, 171, 185, 186, 194, 214, 215, 216, 300-301.

Veragua, 265.

Viceroys, 85-87, 96-98, 102, 117, 139.

Vicuñas, 24, 149, 153, 155-156, 189, 207.

_See_ llamas.

_Viscachas_ (animal), 147, 155.

_Yaravis_ (music of Indians), 134.

_Yareta_ (moss), 225.

_Ychu_ (grass), 225.

Yucay, 165, 170, 215.

Yuncas, 38, 39, 51, 126, 128, 282.

_See_ Chimus.

Yupanqui, Tupac Inca, 41, 49, 162, 186, 198, 209, 231.

Zarate, 184.

Zerda, 235.