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[Illustration]
THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN
PERU
GEOGRAPHICAL RECONNAISSANCE ALONG THE
SEVENTY-THIRD MERIDIAN
BY
ISAIAH BOWMAN
Director of the American Geographical Society
[Illustration: colophon]
PUBLISHED FOR
THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1916
LATIN
AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1918
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS
RAHWAY, N.J.
TO
C. G. B.
PREFACE
The geographic work of the Yale Peruvian Expedition of 1911 was
essentially a reconnaissance of the Peruvian Andes along the 73rd
meridian. The route led from the tropical plains of the lower Urubamba
southward over lofty snow-covered passes to the desert coast at Camaná.
The strong climatic and topographic contrasts and the varied human life
which the region contains are of geographic interest chiefly because
they present so many and such clear cases of environmental control
within short distances. Though we speak of “isolated” mountain
communities in the Andes, it is only in a relative sense. The extreme
isolation felt in some of the world’s great deserts is here unknown. It
is therefore all the more remarkable when we come upon differences of
customs and character in Peru to find them strongly developed in spite
of the small distances that separate unlike groups of people.
My division of the Expedition undertook to make a contour map of the
two-hundred-mile stretch of mountain country between Abancay and the
Pacific coast, and a great deal of detailed geographic and physiographic
work had to be sacrificed to insure the completion of the survey. Camp
sites, forage, water, and, above all, strong beasts for the
topographer’s difficult and excessively lofty stations brought daily
problems that were always serious and sometimes critical. I was so
deeply interested in the progress of the topographic map that whenever
it came to a choice of plans the map and not the geography was first
considered. The effect upon my work was to distribute it with little
regard to the demands of the problems, but I cannot regret this in view
of the great value of the maps. Mr. Kai Hendriksen did splendid work in
putting through two hundred miles of plane-tabling in two months under
conditions of extreme difficulty. Many of his triangulation stations
ranged in elevation from 14,000 to nearly 18,000 feet, and the cold and
storms--especially the hailstorms of mid-afternoon--were at times most
severe.
It is also a pleasure to say that Mr. Paul Baxter Lanius, my assistant
on the lower Urubamba journey, rendered an invaluable service in
securing continuous weather records at Yavero and elsewhere, and in
getting food and men to the river party at a critical time. Dr. W. G.
Erving, surgeon of the Expedition, accompanied me on a canoe journey
through the lower gorge of the Urubamba between Rosalina and the mouth
of the Timpia, and again by pack train from Santa Ana to Cotahuasi. For
a time he assisted the topographer. It is due to his prompt surgical
assistance to various members of the party that the field work was
uninterrupted. He was especially useful when two of our river Indians
from Pongo de Mainique were accidentally shot. I have since been
informed by their _patrón_ that they were at work within a few months.
It is difficult to express the gratitude I feel toward Professor Hiram
Bingham, Director of the Expedition, first for the executive care he
displayed in the organization of the expedition’s plans, which left the
various members largely care-free, and second, for generously supplying
the time of various assistants in the preparation of results. I have
enjoyed so many facilities for the completion of the work that at least
a year’s time has been saved thereby. Professor Bingham’s enthusiasm for
pioneer field work was in the highest degree stimulating to every member
of the party. Furthermore, it led to a determination to complete at all
hazards the original plans.
Finally, I wish gratefully to acknowledge the expert assistance of Miss
Gladys M. Wrigley, of the editorial staff of the American Geographical
Society, who prepared the climatic tables, many of the miscellaneous
data related thereto, and all of the curves in Chapter X. Miss Wrigley
also assisted in the revision of Chapters IX and X and in the correction
of the proof. Her eager and in the highest degree faithful assistance in
these tasks bespeaks a true scientific spirit.
ISAIAH BOWMAN.
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 28. Photograph by H. L. Tucker, Engineer, Yale Peruvian Expedition
of 1911.
Fig. 43. Photograph by H. L. Tucker.
Fig. 44. Photograph by Professor Hiram Bingham.
Figs. 136, 139, 140. Data for hachured sketch maps, chiefly from
topographic sheets by A. H. Bumstead, Topographer to Professor Bingham’s
Peruvian Expeditions of 1912 and 1914.
CONTENTS
PART I
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE REGIONS OF PERU 1
II. THE RAPIDS AND CANYONS OF THE URUBAMBA 8
III. THE RUBBER FORESTS 22
IV. THE FOREST INDIANS 36
V. THE COUNTRY OF THE SHEPHERDS 46
VI. THE BORDER VALLEYS OF THE EASTERN ANDES 68
VII. THE GEOGRAPHIC BASIS OF REVOLUTIONS AND OF HUMAN
CHARACTER IN THE PERUVIAN ANDES 88
VIII. THE COASTAL DESERT 110
IX. CLIMATOLOGY OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES 121
X. METEOROLOGICAL RECORDS FROM THE PERUVIAN ANDES 157
PART II
PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES
XI. THE PERUVIAN LANDSCAPE 183
XII. THE WESTERN ANDES: THE MARITIME CORDILLERA OR CORDILLERA
OCCIDENTAL 199
XIII. THE EASTERN ANDES: THE CORDILLERA VILCAPAMPA 204
XIV. THE COASTAL TERRACES 225
XV. PHYSIOGRAPHIC AND GEOLOGIC DEVELOPMENT 233
XVI. GLACIAL FEATURES 274
APPENDIX A. SURVEY METHODS EMPLOYED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF
THE SEVEN ACCOMPANYING TOPOGRAPHIC SHEETS 315
APPENDIX B. FOSSIL DETERMINATIONS 321
APPENDIX C. KEY TO PLACE NAMES 324
INDEX 327
TOPOGRAPHIC SHEETS
Camaná Quadrangle 114
Aplao " 120
Coropuna " 188
Cotahuasi " 192
La Cumbre " 202
Antabamba " 282
Lambrama "
PART I
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I
THE REGIONS OF PERU
Let four Peruvians begin this book by telling what manner of country
they live in. Their ideas are provincial and they have a fondness for
exaggerated description: but, for all that, they will reveal much that
is true because they will at least reveal themselves. Their opinions
reflect both the spirit of the toiler on the land and the outlook of the
merchant in the town in relation to geography and national problems.
Their names do not matter; let them stand for the four human regions of
Peru, for they are in many respects typical men.
THE FOREST DWELLER
One of them I met at a rubber station on the lower Urubamba River.[1] He
helped secure my canoe, escorted me hospitably to his hut, set food and
drink before me, and talked of the tropical forest, the rubber business,
the Indians, the rivers, and the trails. In his opinion Peru was a land
of great forest resources. Moreover, the fertile plains along the river
margins might become the sites of rich plantations. The rivers had many
fish and his garden needed only a little cultivation to produce an
abundance of food. Fruit trees grew on every hand. He had recently
married the daughter of an Indian chief.
Formerly he had been a missionary at a rubber station on the Madre de
Dios, where the life was hard and narrow, and he doubted if there were
any real converts. Himself the son of an Englishman and a Chilean woman,
he found, so he said, that a missionary’s life in the rubber forest was
intolerable for more than a few years. Yet he had no fault to find with
the religious system of which he had once formed a part; in fact he had
still a certain curious mixed loyalty to it. Before I left he gave me a
photograph of himself and said with little pride and more sadness that
perhaps I would remember him as a man that had done some good in the
world along with much that might have been better.
We shall understand our interpreter better if we know who his associates
were. He lived with a Frenchman who had spent several years in Africa as
a soldier in the “Foreign Legion.” If you do not know what that means,
you have yet all the pleasure of an interesting discovery. The Frenchman
had reached the station the year before quite destitute and clad only in
a shirt and a pair of trousers. A day’s journey north lived a young
half-breed--son of a drunken father and a Machiganga woman, who cheated
me so badly when I engaged Indian paddlers that I should almost have
preferred that he had robbed me. Yet in a sense he had my life in his
hands and I submitted. A German and a native Peruvian ran a rubber
station on a tributary two days’ journey from the first. It will be
observed that the company was mixed. They were all Peruvians, but of a
sort not found in such relative abundance elsewhere. The defeated and
the outcast, as well as the pioneer, go down eventually to the hot
forested lands where men are forgotten.
While he saw gold in every square mile of his forested region, my
clerical friend saw misery also. The brutal treatment of the Indians by
the whites of the Madre de Dios country he could speak of only as a man
reviving a painful memory. The Indians at the station loved him
devotedly. There was only justice and kindness in all his dealings.
Because he had large interests to look after, he knew all the members of
the tribe, and his word was law in no hackneyed sense. A kindlier man
never lived in the rubber forest. His influence as a high-souled man of
business was vastly greater than as a missionary in this frontier
society. He could daily illustrate by practical example what he had
formerly been able only to preach.
[Illustration: Fig. 1--Tropical vegetation, clearing on the river bank
and rubber station at Pongo de Mainique. The pronounced scarp on the
northeastern border of the Andes is seen in the right background.]
[Illustration: Fig. 2--Pushing a heavy dugout against the current in the
rapids below Pongo de Mainique. The indian boy and his father in the
canoe had been accidentally shot.]
[Illustration: Fig. 3--From the sugar cane, Urubanba Valley, at Colpani.
On the northeastern border of the Cordillera Vilcapampa looking
upstream. In the extreme background and thirteen sixteens of an inch
from the top of the picture is the sharp peak of Salcantay. Only the
lower end of the more open portion of the Canyon of Torontoy is here
shown. There is a field of sugar cane in the foreground and the valley
trail is shown on the opposite side of the river.]
He thought the life of the Peruvian cities debasing. The coastal
valleys were small and dry and the men who lived there were crowded and
poor (sic). The plateau was inhabited by Indians little better than
brutes. Surely I could not think that the fine forest Indian was lower
than the so-called civilized Indian of the plateau. There was plenty of
room in the forest; and there was wealth if you knew how to get at it.
Above all you were far from the annoying officials of the government,
and therefore could do much as you pleased so long as you paid your
duties on rubber and did not wantonly kill too many Indians.
For all his kindly tolerance of men and conditions he yet found fault
with the government. “They” neglected to build roads, to encourage
colonization, and to lower taxes on the forest products, which were
always won at great risk. Nature had done her part well--it was only
government that hindered. Moreover, the forested region was the land of
the future. If Peru was to be a great nation her people would have to
live largely upon the eastern plains. Though others spoke of “going in”
and “coming out” of the rubber country as one might speak of entering
and leaving a dungeon, he always spoke of it as home. Though he now
lived in the wilderness he hoped to see the day when plantations covered
the plains. A greater Peru and the forest were inseparable ideas to him.
THE EASTERN VALLEY PLANTER
My second friend lived in one of the beautiful mountain valleys of the
eastern Andes. We walked through his clean cacao orchards and cane
fields. Like the man in the forest, he believed in the thorough
inefficiency of the government; otherwise why were there no railways for
the cheaper transportation of the valley products, no dams for the
generation of power and the storage of irrigation water, not even roads
for mule carts? Had the government been stable and efficient there would
now be a dense population in the eastern valleys. Revolutions were the
curse of these remote sections of the country. The ne’er-do-wells became
generals. The loafer you dismissed today might demand ten thousand
dollars tomorrow or threaten to destroy your plantation. The government
troops might come to help you, but they were always too late.
For this one paid most burdensome taxes. Lima profited thereby, not the
valley planters. The coast people were the favored of Peru anyhow. They
had railroads, good steamer service, public improvements at government
expense, and comparatively light taxes. If the government were impartial
the eastern valleys also would have railways and a dense population. Who
could tell? Perhaps the capital city might be here. Certainly it was
better to have Lima here than on the coast where the Chileans might at
any time take it again. The blessings of the valleys were both rich and
manifold. Here was neither a cold plateau nor the hot plains, but
fertile valleys with a vernal climate.
We talked of much else, but our conversation had always the pioneer
flavor. And though an old man he saw always the future Peru growing
wonderfully rich and powerful as men came to recognize and use the
resources of the eastern valleys. This too was the optimism of the
pioneer. Once started on that subject he grew eloquent. He was
provincial but he was also intensely patriotic. He never missed an
opportunity to impress upon his guests that a great state would arise
when people and rulers at last recognized the wealth of eastern Peru.
THE HIGHLAND SHEPHERD
The people who live in the lofty highlands and mountains of Peru have
several months of real winter weather despite their tropical latitude.
In the midst of a snowstorm in the Maritime Cordillera I met a solitary
traveler bound for Cotahuasi on the floor of a deep canyon a day’s
journey toward the east. It was noon and we halted our pack trains in
the lee of a huge rock shelter to escape the bitter wind that blew down
from the snow-clad peaks of Solimana. Men who follow the same trails are
fraternal. In a moment we had food from our saddle-bags spread on the
snow under the corner of a _poncho_ and had exchanged the best in each
other’s collection as naturally as friends exchange greetings. By the
time I had told him whence and why in response to his inevitable
questions we had finished the food and had gathered a heap of _tola_
bushes for a fire. The _arriero_ (muleteer) brought water from a spring
in the hollow below us. Though the snow thickened, the wind fell. We
were comfortable, even at 16,000 feet, and called the place “The
Salamanca Club.” Then I questioned him, and this is what he said:
“I live in the deep valley of Cotahuasi, but my lands lie chiefly up
here on the plateau. My family has held title to this _puna_ ever since
the Wars of Liberation, except for a few years after one of our early
revolutions. I travel about a great deal looking after my flocks. Only
Indians live up here. Away off yonder beyond that dark gorge is a group
of their huts, and on the bright days of summer you may see their sheep,
llamas, and alpacas up here, for on the floors of the watered valleys
that girdle these volcanoes there are more tender grasses than grow on
this _despoblado_. I give them corn and barley from my irrigated fields
in the valley; they give me wool and meat. The alpaca wool is most
valuable. It is hard to get, for the alpaca requires short grasses and
plenty of water, and you see there is only coarse tufted ichu grass
about us, and there are no streams. It is all right for llamas, but
alpacas require better forage.
“No one can imagine the poverty and ignorance of these mountain
shepherds. They are filthier than beasts. I have to watch them
constantly or they would sell parts of the flocks, which do not belong
to them, or try to exchange the valuable alpaca wool for coca leaves in
distant towns. They are frequently drunk.”
“But where do they get the drink?” I asked. “And what do you pay them?”
“Oh, the drink is chiefly imported alcohol, and also _chicha_ made from
corn. They insist on having it, and do better when I bring them a little
now and then. They get much more from the dealers in the towns. As for
pay, I do not pay them anything in money except when they bring meat to
the valley. Then I give them a few _reales_ apiece for the sheep and a
little more for the llamas. The flocks all belong to me really, but of
course the poor Indian must have a little money. Besides, I let him have
a part of the yearly increase. It is not much, but he has always lived
this way and I suppose that he is contented after a fashion.”
Then he became eager to tell what wealth the mountains contained in soil
and climate if only the right grasses were introduced by the government.
“Here, before us, are vast _punas_ almost without habitations. If the
officials would bring in hardy Siberian grasses these lava-covered
plateaus might be carpeted with pasture. There would be villages here
and there. The native Indians easily stand the altitude. This whole
Cordillera might have ten times as many people. Why does the government
bother about concessions in the rubber forests and roads to the eastern
valleys when there are these vast tracts only requiring new seeds to
develop into rich pastures? The government could thus greatly increase
its revenues because there is a heavy tax on exported wool.”
Thus he talked about the bleak Cordillera until we forgot the pounding
of our hearts and our frequent gasps for breath on account of the
altitude. His rosy picture of a well-populated highland seemed to bring
us down nearer sea level where normal folks lived. To the Indians the
altitude is nothing. It has an effect, but it is slight; at any rate
they manage to reproduce their kind at elevations that would kill a
white mother. If alcohol were abolished and better grasses introduced,
these lofty pastures might indeed support a much larger population. The
sheep pastures of the world are rapidly disappearing before the march of
the farmer. Here, well above the limit of cultivation, is a permanent
range, one of the great as well as permanent assets of Peru.
THE COASTAL PLANTER
The man from the deep Majes Valley in the coastal desert rode out with
me through cotton fields as rich and clean as those of a Texas
plantation. He was tall, straight-limbed, and clear-eyed--one of the
energetic younger generation, yet with the blood of a proud old family.
We forded the river and rode on through vineyards and fig orchards
loaded with fruit. His manner became deeply earnest as he pictured the
future of Peru, when her people would take advantage of scientific
methods and use labor-saving machinery. He said that the methods now in
use were medieval, and he pointed to a score of concrete illustrations.
Also, here was water running to waste, yet the desert was on either
hand. There should be dams and canals. Every drop of water was needed.
The population of the valley could be easily doubled.
[Illustration: FIG. 4--Large ground moss--so-called _yareta_--used for
fuel. It occurs in the zone of Alpine vegetation and is best developed
in regions where the snowline is highest. The photograph represents a
typical occurrence between Cotahuasi and Salamanca, elevation 16,000
feet (4,880 m.). The snowline is here at 17,500 feet (5,333 m.). In the
foreground is the most widely distributed _tola_ bush, also used for
fuel.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Expedition’s camp near Lamgrama, 15,500 feet
(4,720 m.), after a snowstorm The location is midway in the pasture
zone.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6--Irrigated Chili Valley on the outskirts of
Arequipa. The lower slopes of El Misti are in the left background. The
_Alto de los Huesos_ or Plateau of Bones lies on the farther side of the
valley.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7--Crossing the highest pass (Chuquito) in the
Cordillera Vilcapampa, 14,500 feet (4,420 m.). Grazing is here carried
on up to the snowline.]
Capital was lacking but there was also lacking energy among the people.
Slipshod methods brought them a bare living and they were too easily
contented. Their standards of life should be elevated. Education was
still for the few, and it should be universal. A new spirit of progress
was slowly developing--a more general interest in public affairs, a
desire to advance with the more progressive nations of South
America,--and when it had reached its culmination there would be no
happier land than coastal Peru, already the seat of the densest
populations and the most highly cultivated fields.
* * * * *
These four men have portrayed the four great regions of Peru--the
lowland plains, the eastern mountain valleys, the lofty plateaus, and
the valley oases of the coast. This is not all of Peru. The mountain
basins have their own peculiar qualities and the valley heads of the
coastal zone are unlike the lower valleys and the plateau on either
hand. Yet the chief characteristics of the country are set forth with
reasonable fidelity in these individual accounts. Moreover the spirit of
the Peruvians is better shown thereby than their material resources. If
this is not Peru, it is what the Peruvians think is Peru, and to a high
degree a man’s country is what he thinks it is--at least it is little
more to him.