Part 25

Don Miguel Iglesias, the head of the government which Caceres tried so long to overthrow, is a descendant of one of the oldest and most aristocratic families of Peru, and before the war with Chili he occupied several posts of eminence and honor, having been Secretary of the Treasury, and afterwards Secretary of War. He is a _plantador_, or planter, and lives at the old town of Caxamarca, which the readers of Prescott’s story of the Conquest will remember as the seat of Atahualpa. During the war with Chili General Iglesias also took a prominent part, but was not considered a successful military leader, having no taste or inclination in that direction. After the downfall of the Calderon government Iglesias was made provisional President, and continued to exercise power for four years, but lacked the energy and ability necessary to meet the crisis; and although the people generally regarded him as an honest and patriotic man, he lost their confidence, and the victory of Caceres was welcomed.

Another of the leading men of Peru is Don Nicolas Pierola, who has been a conspicuous figure in the political dramas and military tragedies that have been enacted during the last ten years, and will continue to be heard from in the future. He has had a most remarkable career, having been four times banished from the republic. Pierola is a son-in-law of the ill-starred Emperor Iturbide of Mexico, whose daughter he met while a student in Paris. His life has been a romantic one, and illustrates the ups and downs of South American politics. Pierola _père_ was a famous scientist and _littérateur_, and was the intimate friend and co-worker of Humboldt, Sir Humphry Davy, Doctor Von Tschudi, the Austrian philosopher, and other men of that age. He was for a long time a professor of natural sciences at the University of Madrid, and returned to Peru, his native country, to pursue his inquiries into the traditions of the Incas, and to preside over the university at Arequipa, the second city in Peru. He had something to do with politics too, and was the Peruvian Minister of Finance for several years.

Pierola the younger, who was educated in Europe, is one of the most accomplished and able men in South America. He commenced life as an editor, and in 1864 became the manager of _El Tiempo_, the organ of President Pezot, who was overthrown by a revolutionary army under General Prado. The latter banished the young and ardent editor until he was himself overthrown. Then Pierola returned to Peru, and became the Minister of Finance under President Balta, being the ruling spirit of the administration, and inaugurating the vast system of public improvements under Henry Meiggs. Prado again led a successful revolution, and in 1878 Pierola was banished for the second time. When the war with Chili broke out he returned to Peru, and tendered his allegiance and his sword to the man who had driven him into exile. His services were accepted, and he became the commander of a regiment, and afterwards a general of division.

In December, 1879, President Prado deserted his post and secretly fled from the country, leaving a proclamation on his desk which authorized the Vice-President to exercise the duties of the office “until he had returned from the transaction of some very urgent and important business which demanded his presence abroad.” The army of Chili had been successful in several battles, and was marching upon the capital. The army of Peru had been practically destroyed; its ports were blockaded, its treasury was empty, and the President, Prado, had fled from the results of his blundering imbecility. He has never returned, and is understood to be in Europe.

There was a mere gleam of hope left for Peru, and the people called on Pierola to become their leader. A junta or convention of leading men was quickly called, and the power of military and political chief, which is the polite way of describing a dictator, was conferred upon Pierola. He had no money, no ammunition, and only the frightened remnants of a demoralized army; but he made the best fight he could, and compelled the Chilian army to stop the carnival of devastation they had begun. When Peru was conquered the Chilian Government would not recognize Pierola as dictator, and in the absence of Prado, the constitutional President, set up a dummy administration of their own choice, with which terms of peace were made, forfeiting the strip of territory containing the deposits of guano and nitrate of soda. This was what

Chili desired, and for this she made the war. Her Government knew that Pierola would never consent to sacrifice the richest portion of the republic, hence it refused to treat with him, and caused his banishment for the third time.

Pierola went to France again, and remained in exile until May, 1885, when he was sent for by the business men of Lima, who endeavored to secure a suspension of hostilities between Caceres and Iglesias, the leaders of the rival factions of Peru, and to place Pierola in power, in order to restore peace to the country and revive its paralyzed trade and industries. He returned reluctantly, and his friends arranged to have him proclaimed President, but the Iglesias Government hearing of the plot, banished him for a fourth time, shortly before Caceres captured the city. Pierola is now in France, but expects to return to Peru, and do his share towards restoring the country. This can be done only by the introduction of foreign capital and labor, as the land-owners and merchants of Peru are bankrupt, and the native laboring element largely reduced by the casualties of almost thirteen years of constant warfare. A large amount of English and American capital is already going into the country, and will tempt labor to follow. The most important act of the Government has been to contract with Mr. Michael P. Grace, of New York, recently, for the completion of the famous Oroya railroad, and the development of the Cerro del Pasco mines.

A quarter of a century ago an unknown man, a fugitive from justice, arrived at the port of Callao, and appeared among the Spaniards, as Manco Capac, at once the Adam and the Christ of the Incas, appeared to the Indians two thousand years before. As the mysterious and deified Manco Capac taught the Indians a knowledge of the agricultural and mechanical arts, this unknown man taught their successors to build railroads, and stands to-day as the ideal of Yankee enterprise and engineering genius. He plunged the Government of Peru into a debt that will never be paid, but laid the foundations for a system of internal development that would bring the republic great wealth if peace could be only secured.

Everybody has heard of Henry Meiggs, the partner of Ralston, the California banker, who drowned himself in the Golden Gate, the friend of Flood, O’Brien, Mackey, Sharon, and one of the princes of the golden era of ’49. Bret Harte has written of him, and Mark Twain has used him as a text. He committed forgeries in San Francisco years ago, and when his crime was discovered he took a boat and rowed out into the bay; but instead of jumping overboard, as Ralston did twenty years afterwards, he climbed upon the deck of a schooner, purchased her, and sailed away from the scene of his remarkable career. He went to Peru, bringing much of his wealth and all of his irresistible energy with him. These he applied to the difficulties that had staggered that country, and overcame them. He sent back money to California to reimburse with good interest those who lost by his forgeries, but remained away till he died, one of the richest, most influential, and famous men on the coast. From Ecuador to Patagonia, through Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, Meiggs’s enterprises extended, and the result is a series of railroads at right angles with the coast, connecting the interior of the country with the seaports, and giving the estates, and the mines in the mountains, the sugar haciendas, and the nitrate beds, easy outlets to the ocean. Nearly every port on the west coast has its little railroad, from twenty to two hundred and fifty miles in length, some of them reaching into the very heart of the Andes, the arteries of the continent’s commerce, and intended to make profitable possessions which would otherwise have no worth.

The Oroya road, which Meiggs left incomplete, has been counted as the eighth wonder of the world, for there is nothing in the Rocky Mountains or the Alps which compares with it as an example of engineering science, or presents more sublime scenery. But neither scenic grandeur nor engineering genius can alone make a railroad pay, particularly if it goes nowhere. In this instance the money gave out, and Meiggs died when the road was only partially completed, there remaining fifty miles between the present terminus (Chicla) and the point which was aimed at--the mines of Cerro del Pasco, one of the richest and most extensive silver deposits in the world. Most of the grading and tunnelling between Chicla and the mines has been completed, and it only remains to lay the ties and rails and put in the bridges to send a locomotive over the Andes into the great valley which stretches north and south between the two Cordilleras. This Mr. Grace has agreed to do. The completion of the line to the mining regions will cost ten million dollars, but that portion already constructed and in operation, with all its rolling stock, station-houses, and equipments of every sort, he gets for practically nothing, as under the conditions of a ninety-nine years’ lease he has the use of the railroad and all that belongs with

it free for the first seven years, and pays but twenty-five thousand dollars per year rental for the property during the remainder of the term. In other words, Mr. Grace gets a property which cost twenty-seven million six hundred thousand dollars, eighty-six miles of railroad already equipped and in operation, fifty miles of the most expensive tunnelling and grading in the world for nothing, provided he will complete the line. And more than this, he gets the Cerro del Pasco silver mines, which were worked for centuries by the Jesuits, and have yielded hundreds of millions of dollars even under the primitive system of working which was applied to them by the monks and the native Indians. They were discovered by a native, who while watching sheep on the hills was overtaken by night. He piled together a few stones, under the lee of which he built a fire. In the morning he noticed that the heat had split some of the stones, and he was attracted by something shining from what had been the interior of one of them. He picked up the stone, and took it home to show to his friends. The bright substance was found to be silver, and the great mines of the Cerro del Pasco were discovered.

From 1630 to 1824 the mines of the Cerro del Pasco are said to have produced nearly twenty-seven thousand two hundred tons of pure silver. The ore is not in fissure veins, but in an enormous mass, similar to the carbonates of Leadville, and yields from forty to one hundred dollars per ton. It is worked at a cost of three dollars per ton. Even the tailings, which the priests and Indians have left during the two and a half centuries they have been digging away in their rude manner, can be shipped to New York at a profit, and they amount to millions of tons, with silver enough in them, it is estimated, to pay the cost of constructing the road, and to afford it a business that will pay the expense of operating.

About ten per cent. of the Cerro del Pasco district is now occupied by native miners, who are pegging along in the old-fashioned way, losing more silver than they gain in their operations, and securing about one-quarter of the profit they could obtain by the use of improved machinery. Their mines are constantly flooded with water, and have to be abandoned for the greater part of the year. There are also a number of old mines, which were worked first by the Jesuits and then by the Government, but which have been given up long since and allowed to fill with water. These abandoned mines Mr. Grace agrees to pump and place in working order, and when they are cleared he has the privilege of working them to his own profit for ninety-nine years. The local miners have agreed to give him twenty per cent. of their gross product for introducing pumping machinery and operating it. The same set of pumps will serve the whole district, and the revenue which will be derived from the native miners will pay the expense of keeping in order the mines which Mr. Grace will operate. It is estimated that seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars will clean up the property and pay for the necessary machinery to do thorough work, and the profits cannot be overestimated if all that is told of the mines is true.

I will not repeat the fables and tradition about these mines, of which the air is full. The El Dorado for which the world was hunting two centuries ago was but a shadow of the substance said to have been found here. Away in the heart of the Andes, almost beyond the reach of men, involving an enormous cost for transportation, and an expense of operation which miners of modern times would consider unprofitable, the priests and monks in past centuries found untold tons of treasure. The one-fifth which was always set apart for the King of Spain, and of which a record was scrupulously kept by the viceroys, reached into the millions, and the tithes which were paid to the Church amounted to millions more. During the last few decades the mines have scarcely been worked, for as large a product of silver as Peru could consume was found in more convenient localities.

The railroad was begun by Mr. Meiggs in 1870. Starting from the sea, it ascends the narrow valley of the once sacred Rimac, rising five thousand feet in the first forty-six miles to a beautiful valley, where the people of Lima have found an attractive summer resort; then it follows a winding, giddy pathway along the edge of precipices and over bridges that seem suspended in the air, tunnels the Andes at an altitude of fifteen thousand six hundred and forty-five feet--the most elevated spot in the world where a piston-rod is moved by steam--and ends at Oroya, twelve thousand one hundred and seventy-eight feet above the sea. Between the coast and the summit there is not an inch of down grade, and the track has been forced through the mountains by a series of sixty-three tunnels, whose aggregate length is twenty-one thousand feet. The great tunnel of Galera, by which the pinnacle of the Andes is pierced, will be, when completed, three thousand eight hundred feet long, and will be the highest elevation on the earth’s surface where any such work has been undertaken. Besides boring the mountains of granite and blasting clefts along their sides to rest the track upon, deep cuttings and superb bridges, the system of reverse tangents had to be adopted in cañons that were too narrow for a curve. So the track zigzags up the mountain side on the switch and back-up principle, the trains taking one leap forward, and after being switched on to another track, another leap backward, until the summit is won; so that often there are four or five lines of track parallel to each other, one above another, on the mountain side. Almost the entire length of the road was made by blasting. There is no earth in sight except what was carted for use in ballasting, and the work of grading was done, not by the pick and shovel, but with the drill and hundreds of thousands of pounds of powder.

It is estimated that the construction of this road cost Peru seven thousand lives. Pestilence and accident, landslides, falling boulders, premature explosions, _sirroche_--a disease which attacks those who are not accustomed to the rare air of the high latitudes--fevers due to the deposits of rotten granite, and other causes resulted in a frightful mortality during the seven years the road was under construction; but the project was pushed on until the funds gave out. The cost in human life was no obstacle. At several points it was necessary to lower men by ropes over the edges of precipices to drill holes in rocks and put in charges of blasting-powder, and this reckless mode of construction was attended by frequent fatalities. A curious accident occurred at one point on the line, where a plumber was soldering a leak in a water-pipe. A train of mules, loaded with cans of powder, was being driven up the trail. One of them rubbed against the plumber, who struck at the animal with his red-hot soldering-iron, which in some way came in contact with the powder, and caused an explosion that blew the whole train of mules, the gang of workmen, the plumber, and everybody who was by, over the precipices, the sides and bottom of which were strewn with fragments of men and mules for a mile.

The scenic grandeur of the Andes is presented nowhere more impressively than along the cañon of the Rimac River, which this railroad follows. The mountains are entirely bare of vegetation, and are monster masses of rock, torn and twisted, rent and shattered by tremendous volcanic upheavals. At

the bottom of the cañon, and where it occasionally spreads out into a valley of minute dimensions, are the remains of towns and cities, whose origin is hidden in the mists of fable, and whose history is unknown. This region bears no resemblance to any other picture of nature--lifted above the rest of the world, as coldly and calmly silent, as impenetrable, as the arctic stars. Here was developed a civilization which left memorials of its advancement, genius, and industry carved in massive stone, and written upon the everlasting hills in symbols which even the earthquakes have been unable to erase. Here are the ruins of cities which were more populous than any that have existed in Peru since--evidences of industry which their destroyers were too indolent to imitate, and of a skill which could cope with everything but the destructive weapons of the invaders. A survey of their remains justifies the estimates given of their enormous population, which are that the people once herded in these narrow valleys were as numerous as those now spread over the United States. The struggle which they had to sustain themselves is shown in the traces of their industry and patience. They built their dwellings upon rocks, and buried their dead in caves, in order to utilize what soil there was for agriculture. They excavated great areas in the desert until they reached moisture enough for vegetation, and then brought guano from the islands of the sea to fill these sunken gardens. They terraced every hill and mountain side, and placed soil in the crevices of the rocks, until not an inch of surface that could grow a stalk of maize was left unproductive.

The steep mountains along the Rimac are terraced up to the very summit, these terraces being often as narrow as the steps of a stairway, and many of them are walled up with stone. They are veritable hanging-gardens, and lie on such slopes that they look as if it were impossible for any one to get foothold to cultivate them, or even for the roots of what was planted there to sustain the mighty winds which sometimes sweep down the valley.

The irrigation system of the Incas was perfect, their ditches extending for hundreds of miles, and curving around the hills, here sustained by high walls of masonry, and there cut through the living rock. They were carried over narrow valleys upon enormous embankments, and show evidence of engineering skill as great as that which lifted the Meiggs railroad above

the clouds into the mountains. Massive dams and reservoirs were erected to collect the floods that came from the melting snows, and the water was taken to localities which were rainless. Under these conditions, in this great struggle for existence, the Incas established and sustained a Government--the first in which the equal rights of every human being were recognized--and worshipped a being whose attributes were similar to those of the Christian God. The great sea, breaking with ceaseless thunder upon the rocky coast, impressed the dweller in the desert with reverence and awe, and he recognized by an equally natural logic that the sun was the source of light and happiness. Hence these two objects, the sun and the sea, were personified, and were seated upon the thrones in the magnificent pantheons of the Incas. The race which conquered them came with dripping swords and lust for plunder. Skilled in the arts of peace, but powerless in war, there was no adequate resistance, and the blood-and-gold-thirsty Pizarro rode up this valley on a mission of murder, rapine, and destruction. The towns stand as he left them, with not even an echo to break the silence. Occasionally the Spaniards built new places of residence to utilize the improvements of the Incas, but in 1882 the Chilian army came down the valley, and treated the Peruvians as Pizarro had treated the race which he found here.

A visit to the Incas’ cemeteries, where millions of bodies are buried in the drifting sand, gives a clew to the extent of the original population, as well as to their arts, religion, and customs. The dead were preserved after the custom of ancient Egypt, and a few moments’ toil with a shovel will disclose mummies whose features are perfectly preserved, whose eyes are petrified, whose fingers are clasped with rings, and who are surrounded with such implements and utensils as those who buried them thought they would need in the other world. As the soldier takes his blanket and the cooking-kit, his food and his portable treasures, so did the doctrine of future life cause the dead Incas to be equipped for their departure from one world to another. In this rainless region, protected by the magnetic sand, nothing can decay, and the contents of the Inca graves are as well preserved as if their age were counted by days instead of centuries. Wood, vegetable, and flesh petrify, fabrics and articles of stone and clay are preserved. There is no moisture to produce decay of the bodies, and there are no insects to consume them. The contents of the sand-hills are protected from every form of destruction, and their extent has never been measured.

It is still fashionable to go on resurrection expeditions to the Inca burying-grounds for mummies, and for the articles that were placed in their graves. In each grave are found articles of decoration, as well as the utensils required by the spirits to set up house-keeping in the happy land--rings and other ornaments of gold and silver, cups and platters of both metals made in quaint designs, copper articles, strings of beads, weaving and cooking apparatus, water-jugs, weapons of war, and other curiosities that interest antiquarians nowadays. Professor Ramondi, a distinguished French scientist in Lima, has a collection of Inca relics for which he was offered two hundred thousand dollars in gold by the British Museum. Under the patronage of the Government he is writing a voluminous work on the antiquities of Peru, three volumes of which have been published, and five more are yet to come.