Part 22

From Guayaquil to Callao, and in fact to the end of the continent, the western coast of South America presents an unbroken line of mountains, with a strip of desert between them and the sea. Occasionally some stream from the mountains brings down the melted snow and opens an oasis. These oases have been utilized by the planters as far back as the Conquest, when the industrious Jesuits made as vigorous a war upon the desert as upon the Incas, and conquered one as easily as they conquered the other. Wherever this barren strip has been irrigated it produces enormous crops of sugar, coffee, and other tropical products, and the whole of it might be redeemed by the introduction of a little capital and industry. If the money that has been wasted in revolutions had been expended in the development of its mines, and the soldiers had dug irrigating ditches with as much ardor as they have fought each other, there would be no richer country on the globe. Wherever the Incas touched the earth it produced in profusion, and their wealth was fabulous. Their empire extended three thousand miles north and south, and about four hundred miles east and west, from the Pacific to the great forests of the Amazon, which their simple tools were unable to subdue.

In no part of the world does nature assume more imposing forms. Deserts as repulsive as Sahara alternate with valleys as rich and luxuriant as those of Italy. Eternal summer smiles under the frown of eternal snow. The rainless region--this desert strip which lies between the Andes and the sea--is

about forty miles in width, and the panorama presented to the voyager is a constant succession of bare and repulsive wastes of sand and rocks, uninhabited, whose silence is broken only by the incessant surf, the bark of the sea-lions, and the screams of the water-birds which haunt its wave-worn and forbidding shore. The coast is dotted with small rocky islands, which have been the roost of myriads of birds for ages, and furnish guano for commerce. The steamers seem to furnish them their only entertainment, and they surround every vessel which passes, soaring about and above the masts, screaming defiance to the invaders of their resorts. The water, too, is full of animal life. Nowhere does the sea offer science so many curious forms of animate nature; monsters unknown to northern waters can be seen from the decks of the steamers, and at night their movements about the vessel are shown by a line of fire which always follows their fins. The water is so strongly impregnated with phosphorus that every wave is tipped with silver, and every fish that darts about leaves a brilliant trail like that of a comet. The larger fishes, the sharks and porpoises, find great sport in swimming races with the ship, and under the bowsprit a small army of them are to be seen every evening, sailing along beside the vessel, darting back and forth before its bows, leaping and plunging over one another. Their every motion is apparent, and the outlines of their bodies are as distinct as if drawn with a pencil of fire. Nowhere is this phenomenon so conspicuous.

The first point beyond Guayaquil is the island of Puna, where Pizarro first landed, and where he waited with a squad of thirteen men while the deserters from his expedition went back to Panama in his ships, promising to send reinforcements, which afterwards came. Beside Puna is the famous Isle del Muerto (dead man’s island), which looks like a corpse floating in the water. Just below, and the northernmost town of Peru, is Tumbez, where Pizarro met the messengers from Atahualpa’s army who came to ask the object of his visit.

Behind Tumbez are the petroleum deposits of Peru, which have been known to the natives ever since the times of the Incas, but they were ignorant of the character or the value of the oil. A Yankee by the name of Larkin, from Western New York, came down here to sell kerosene, and recognized the material which the Indians used for lubricating and coloring purposes as the same stuff he was peddling. An attempt has been made to utilize the deposits, which are very extensive, but so far they have not been successful in producing a burning fluid that is either safe or agreeable.

At each of the little ports on the Peruvian coast the steamer stops and takes on produce for shipment to Liverpool or Germany. These towns are simply collections of mud huts, inhabited by fishermen or the employés of the steamship company, dreary, dusty, and dirty. Back in the country, along the streams which bring fertility and water down from the mountains, are places of commercial importance, the residences of rich hacienda owners, and the scenes of historic events as well as prehistoric civilization. The products of the country are sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton, while those of the town are “Panama” hats and fleas. In each one of the ports the natives are busy braiding hats from vegetable fibres, and the results of their labor find a market at Panama and in the cities of the coast, where, as in Mexico, a man’s character is judged by what he wears on his head. The hats are usually made of _toquilla_, or _pita_, an arborescent plant of the cactus family, the leaves of which are often several yards long. When cut, the leaf is dried, and then whipped into shreds almost as fine and tough as silk. Some of these hats are made of single fibres, with not a splice or an end from the centre of the crown to the rim. It often requires two or three months to make them, and the best ones are braided under water, so as to make the fibre more pliable. They sometimes cost as much as two hundred and fifty dollars, but last a lifetime, and can be packed away in a vest-pocket, turned inside out, and worn that way, the inside being as smooth and well finished as the other. The natives make beautiful cigar-cases too; but it is difficult for a stranger to purchase either them or their hats, because they have an idea that all strangers are rich, and will pay any price that is asked. One old lady offered me a cigar-case of straw, such as is sold in Japanese stores for one or two dollars, and politely agreed to sell it for twenty dollars. When I told her I could get a silver one for that price, she came down to eighteen dollars, then to twelve dollars, and finally to one dollar. They have no idea of the value of money, and are habitually imposed upon by local traders, who exchange food for their straw-work at merely nominal rates, and then sell the hats at enormous figures.

At each of the ports where the steamer stops an army of officials come aboard to get a good dinner or breakfast and a cocktail or two at the expense of the steamship company. They wear gay uniforms and swords, and there is usually one inspector, or official, for every ten packages of merchandise. First, there is the “captain of the port,” with his retinue; then the governor of the district, with his staff; then the collector of customs, with a battalion of inspectors; and, finally, the commandante of the military garrison and all his subordinates. The deck of the vessel fairly swarms with them, and as the steamer’s arrival is the only event to give variety to the monotony of their lives, they celebrate it for all it is worth. It is little wonder that the governments of these South American countries are poor, with all these tax-eaters at every little town of four or five hundred inhabitants.

There are a great many more railroads in Peru than is generally supposed. Nearly all of the coast towns have a line connecting them with the plantations of the interior; and as there are no harbors, but only open roadsteads, expensive iron piers have been constructed through the surf from which merchandise is lifted into barges or lighters and taken to the ships, which anchor a mile or so from the shore. Where there are no piers the lighters are run through the surf when the tide is high, are loaded at low tide, and then floated off to buoys to await the arrival of vessels.

All along the coast there is a system of “deck trading” carried on by the people of the country. Men and women come on board with market produce, fruits, and other articles, which are strewn about the deck, and are sold to people who visit the vessel at each port for the purpose of buying. These traders are charged passage-money and freight by the steamship companies, but are a nuisance to the other passengers. Each female trader brings a mattress to sleep upon, a chair to use during the day, her own cooking and chamber utensils, and spends a greater part of her life abroad, sailing from one port to another.

At Payta we took on a battalion of Peruvian soldiers, with one brass-mounted officer to every seven men. The Peruvian soldier always has his wife with him; at least there is a woman who maintains such a relation. The ceremony of marriage is not observed, nor is it to any great extent in civil life, for the expense of matrimony is so great that among the _cholos_, as the peasants are called, men and women live their lives together without any formality, and with the sanction of public sentiment, even if they lack the sanction of the law. For this the Catholic Church is responsible, and to it can be traced the cause of the illegitimacy of more than half of the population. The fee charged by the priests for performing the ceremony of marriage is so excessive that the poor cannot pay it; hence marriage is practically placed under what may be called a prohibitory tariff. This prevails in all of the South American countries where the Church still holds its power, but in those which are now under the control of the Liberal party the rite of civil marriage has been established by law, and the ceremony now costs from twenty-five cents to a dollar.

With each company of Peruvian troops is a squad of women called _rabonas_, generally one to every three or four men, volunteers who serve without pay but receive rations, and are given transportation by the Government. They are always with the men--in camp, on the march, and in battle. In camp they do the cooking and other necessary work; on the march they share the exposure and fatigue, being treated exactly as the men are, and do most of the foraging for the messes to which they belong. In battle they nurse their own wounded, rob the dead, cut the throats of enemies whom they find lying alive on the field, carry water and ammunition, and perform other brutal or useful services. They are always enumerated in the rosters of troops and in the reports of casualties, which read: so many men and so many rabonas killed and wounded; for they share the soldier’s death as well as his privations.

Some of these wives of the regiment have children with them, and there is scarcely a company without a dozen or so little youngsters, without any clew to their paternity, following their mothers’ heels. They are poor, miserable, degraded creatures, just one degree above the dogs with which

they sleep. Their powers of endurance are extraordinary. Often it is the case that they will march twenty or thirty miles over a dusty road, carrying a child on their back, without water or food. When the latter is scarce they eat leaves of the coca-tree, which when mixed with lime are said to be very palatable and nourishing. Each woman carries a little bag of lime round her neck, into which she dips her fingers and draws out a few grains of powder to leaven a lump of leaves she is constantly chewing. The poor children have the hardest time, for they are always without rest or shelter, and often without food. But it is the experience they are born into, and they know nothing of a better life. The officers told me that the children often die on the march, when their mothers strip the clothes from them, and throw the bodies into the sand or woods, without even a burial or a tear, glad to be relieved of an encumbrance by death.

With the battalion which boarded our steamer at Payta were two women and thirty children. They were quartered upon the hurricane-deck, without any shelter but the starlit tropic sky, and were packed in, men and women together, like steers in a cattle-car. Water and food were furnished them, the latter consisting only of frijoles and tortillas. Instead of complaining of their beds upon the surface of the shelterless deck, the soldiers told me that it was the most comfortable place they had found for months, and would be glad to stay there always; but the passengers and officers of the ship would have objected, as the stench that came from them was something horrible, resembling that which is usually noticed in a crowded emigrant-car.

One night, on the unsheltered deck of the vessel, without surgical assistance or even the knowledge of the officers or crew, a child was born. The mother wrapped it in an old blanket and laid it down upon the boards. Thirty-six hours afterwards she, with the rest of the party, climbed down th ship’s side on a ladder, got into a launch in which there was scarcely standing-room, and was towed to shore, where a long and tiresome march into the mountains was to be begun the same night. On her arms was the baby, and on her back was a bag which looked as if it weighed fifty or sixty pounds. She was a mere girl, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years of age, and they said it was her first baby, of which she, like all young mothers, was uncommonly proud. This appeared to be a commonplace occurrence, for it was scarcely noticed by the other women or men of the crowd, and when I asked an officer which of his company was the father of the child, he replied, “_Dios sabe_” (God knows). He said there had been four similar accouchements in his company within six months, and that he thought the mothers and babies were all doing well.

“Will the child live?” I asked the surgeon.

“Live? yes; you couldn’t drown it.”

The custom of having rabonas with the army grew out of the habit the Indians had of taking their wives to war, and the marital ties became slackened by common consent. The Government not only licenses but encourages the practice, as it makes the men more contented, and, as a sanitary measure, the surgeons say, is beneficial. The ratio of disease is very small in the armies where the rabonas are allowed, as compared with that in others, and any experienced surgeon can see why this is so.

All the private soldiers in South America, at least upon the west coast, are Indians or negroes, and all the officers white. A white man, a Spaniard, whatever be his station in life, cannot be forced or persuaded to carry a musket. During the defence of Lima against the army of Chili, however, lawyers, merchants, clerks, and everybody, regardless of caste or condition, served in the ranks as they did during our war, but without uniform. They would fight in defence of their homes, but were too proud to wear the uniform of a common soldier. Hence the rank and file is composed chiefly of Indians, or _cholos_, a term which is used to designate the mixed race descended from the ancient and aboriginal Inca and his conqueror the Spaniard. There are very few full-blooded Indians in the country, for during the three hundred and fifty years of Spanish supremacy the original inhabitants were almost entirely exterminated. There are a good many negroes and Chinamen in Peru who are mixed with the natives indiscriminately, and they all go to compose the cholos.

There are military schools for the education of officers, and the line and staff of the armies are made up of the sons of the aristocracy, as in Germany and England. They wear a very gaudy uniform, and always appear in it, whether on duty or not. Officers are never seen in anything but full military dress, with plenty of gold lace and “flubdubs.”

The soldiers are all “volunteers.” Conscription is forbidden by the constitution of most of the republics, and a “volunteer” is an Indian who is captured on the highway, or in a saloon, or at his home, and locked up until there are enough to send to headquarters, where he is taken before a recruiting-officer, and made to sign a statement setting forth that he “volunteered” to serve his country as long as his services are needed. Then his hands are tied behind him, and he is lashed to a dozen or more other “volunteers,” who are driven down to the garrison, where uniforms are put on them, muskets furnished, and they are turned over to a drill-sergeant, who puts them through the simple tactics until they know how to carry a gun and fire it. I saw a drove of about one hundred and fifty of these “volunteers” come into Lima one day, tied up like chickens or turkeys in bunches of ten each, with an escort of twenty men, who had probably gone through the same process of “volunteering” a year or so before, and rather enjoyed the remonstrances of the conscripts. Behind the column came seventy-five or so women, weeping and chattering, and some of them had children tugging at their hands and skirts. The women could stay with their husbands if they liked, and become rabonas, and probably most of them did. With such material composing its army did Peru attempt to defend its coast and cities, with their enormous wealth, against assault by Chili.

The soldiers of Chili are of an entirely different sort. They are naturally belligerent, and in the late war with Peru were promised free license to plunder. The soldiers of Peru were peaceable, quiet, inoffensive cholos, a silent, suffering race of people who had served under a system of peonage all their lives, had no idea what they were fighting for, and made as weak a defence as possible. Whenever they met the Chillanos in battle they always fled, even when they outnumbered the enemy; for the Chillano, reckless, daring, and combative, never remained in line of battle, but always fought with a charge and a whoop, carrying everything before him, taking no prisoners, but cutting the throat of every man he could reach.

The battle of Arica is a good example of all the engagements of the war between Chili and Peru. South of that town, which lies upon the Pacific coast, rises a great hill or promontory twelve hundred feet, and almost perpendicular, out of the sea, and then slopes off at a steep grade to the plain behind it. Upon the peak of this precipice the Peruvians placed a heavy battery for the protection of the city, manned by about twelve hundred soldiers. The Chillano men-of-war came in one day and engaged this fort in an artillery duel at long range which lasted until nightfall. During the darkness about two thousand soldiers were landed above the town; they flanked it, and creeping carefully to the foot of the hill, lay until daylight, when they dashed up the slope with a fearful charge. The cannon were all turned seaward, and were useless; the men were surprised in their sleep, and the demoralization among the Peruvians was so great that scarcely a shot was fired. Being shut off from escape, they jumped over the precipices into the sea, preferring drowning to having their throats cut with the knives of the Chillanos, who always carry them for that purpose. This was known, and always will be known, as the Arica massacre, for nearly three-fourths of the Peruvians were slaughtered.

The island of San Lorenzo, which was once the seat of a powerful fortress, protects the harbor of Callao, the second port on the Pacific coast of South America in population and commercial importance. It is the headquarters of the steamship lines and of the great mercantile houses, and the population is about one-half of foreign birth. One can hear all the languages of the earth spoken at Callao, and when we

arrived upon the dock there was a group to illustrate the cosmopolitan character of the citizens. A Chinaman, an Arab, a negro, and a Frenchman were sitting upon a box, while around them were clustered Spaniards, Englishmen, Irishmen, Germans, and Italians. The city is irregular and shabby-looking, but has been a place of great wealth. Millions after millions of dollars’ worth of silver have been shipped from here by the Spaniards--silver stolen from the temples of the Incas, or dug from the mines which they operated before the Spaniards came. It was here that the old buccaneers used to rendezvous and waylay the galleons on their way to Spain. Of recent years the importance of Callao has very much decreased. A constant succession of wars and revolutions in Peru has destroyed its commerce; and although there is usually a great deal of shipping in the harbor, the present amount of trade is below that of the past. There are two lines of railroad to Lima, the capital of the republic, which lies six miles up in the foot-hills of the Andes.

LIMA.

THE CAPITAL OF PERU.

Although the glory of Lima has long since faded, it is easy to see how grand and beautiful the place was in the days of its ancient prosperity, when it was called “The City of the Kings.” Few places possess such historical or romantic interest as this old vice-regal, bigoted, corrupt, licentious capital of Peru, the second city founded by the Spaniards in South America, and the seat of Spanish power for more than three centuries. Pizarro selected the location, and founded the city on the 6th of January, 1535, that being the anniversary of the manifestation of the Saviour to the wise men, the Magi. The pious old cutthroat called it “The City of the Kings”--_Ciudad de los Reyes_. The Emperor gave the infant capital a coat of arms of his own design, being three golden crowns upon an azure field, with a star above them. But the name Lima, which was an Inca term to denote the presence of an oracle near where the city stood, was at once applied to the place by the natives, and being so much easier to pronounce, soon forced itself into common usage in spite of Pizarro and the King, and is now alone recognized.

The population of Lima is about one hundred and twenty-five thousand. It has been much larger, for during the last twelve years war and decay have been the rule, and peace and growth the exception. Before that time there had been quite a “boom,” owing to the energy of Henry Meiggs, the California fugitive, and to the introduction of railroads; but the devastation of foreign invaders and the havoc of domestic revolutionists have made Lima only a pitiful shadow of its former greatness.

The churches and convents and monasteries of Lima are the finest and most expensive in America, while the architecture of private structures surpasses that of any other Spanish-American city except Santiago. The old palace of Pizarro, which was erected by him when the city was founded, and in which he was assassinated, is still used for the offices of the Government; while the Senate occupies the council-chamber of the old Inquisition building, which is famous for its ceiling of carved work, and infamous for the cruel and bloody work that has been done within its walls. This ceiling was imported from Spain in the year 1560, and was carved by the monks of the mother-country as a gift to the Inquisition council of the new. Here sat the most extensive and important dependency of the Church of Rome, extending its jurisdiction over the whole of the New World, roasting heretics upon live coals or stretching them upon the rack, long after the Inquisition in Europe had ceased to exist. The torture-room, which adjoined the council-chamber, is now a retiring-room for the Senate, while the dark pockets in the walls, in which heretics were sealed up until they were smothered, are used as closets and wardrobes.