Part 18

Here the newcomer to these shores talks politics or crops or railroad concessions with the substantial _hacendado_ returning to his plantation, or haggles interminably with the _cholo_ woman who offers for sale woven hats of _jipi-japa_ straw (known commercially as Panamas), little golden images unearthed from Inca ruins, or imitations of them fashioned from vegetable ivory, great white-pulped, juicy pineapples, leather belts of exquisite workmanship, brilliantly colored ponchos, and the inevitable convent embroideries and laces. These women spend much of their lives on board, traveling back and forth between Valparaiso and Panamá, and in their allotted corners sell everything from candied sugar cane wrapped in banana leaves to emerald necklaces. It is said that one old woman on a recent trip actually had hoisted aboard a live cow, which she would have sold piecemeal, in steaks, if the long-suffering captain had not protested that his ship was no slaughter-house.

And, besides the surfeit of “local color” one gets on the ship, the traveler has an excellent opportunity to study that vague institution known as international trade, at a familiarly close range. The terms “exports” and “imports” mean little to him until he sees huge cases of sewing machines marked “Hamburg—fragile,” or sections of milling machinery from Chicago, or something of the sort, swung over the side into the lighters, and later sees other lighters towed from shore laden with curious little bales of Panama hats, or cotton, or casks of rum, and all the, to him, exotic products of a different world.

Always wonderful, the mighty ramparts of the Andes rise tier upon tier from the reddish strip of desert shore, first in solid black, then in slaten pallor to the misty heights of inland distance where the peaks are ill-defined against the sky, except when the sun burns through the haze and makes brilliant for a moment some snow-capped summit floating apparently in mid-air four miles above. Ever northward the lazy coaster dozes on her course, dropping in at Iquique, parched and stifling, or Arica where the sun-baked nitrate lies piled for shipment in such quantities as fairly to blister the imagination, or Mollendo, the other open door to Bolivia’s wealth; and, finally, after a fortnight of such coasting, one enters Callao, the port of Lima, which is only nine miles away, up the valley. Situated in the center of Peru’s coast line, Callao is the busy exchange for the bulk of the country’s commerce. Its population is about 35,000. Most of its business men, however, live in Lima and look upon the port city as the Chileans do on Valparaiso, merely as the “down town” district of the capital.

Arriving in port the traveler’s thoughts instinctively turn back through the four centuries of white dominion over the country; and he pictures in his mind the stirring tragedies of Spanish conquest and the colonial régime in this dazzling colonial empire won from the Incas. Until 1717 the Viceroy of Peru held sway over the whole of South America except the then Portuguese Colony of Brazil. On that date the Viceroyalty of Santa Fé or New Granada (embracing what is now Colombia and Ecuador) and the Captaincy-General of Venezuela were created and severed from his jurisdiction; and in 1776 it was reduced to the dimensions occupied by the present Republic, by the creation of the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, which included territory now occupied by Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia (then known as the Province of Alto Peru). The Captaincy-General of Chile had always enjoyed a high degree of autonomy and retained it until complete independence was gained by the revolution.

Although mightily shrunken from its former imperial estate, Peru is still a magnificent domain. Its area of 680,000 square miles is equal to the combined areas of Texas, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico; its coast-line of 1500 miles is as extensive as our Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia. The country is divided longitudinally into three distinct regions: the coast, the cordillera, and the so-called Montaña, or wooded slopes, the latter stretching away into the Amazon valley. Along the Pacific coast is a ribbon of dry, tropical lowland, varying in width from twenty to eighty miles, and reaching up to the foothills of the coast range. On these foothills, and increasing gradually in number, through the extension of the irrigating systems toward the sea, lie extensive plantations of cotton and sugar, which form a large part of Peru’s exports. But the coastal stretches are, for the most part, still unreclaimed desert, for, as in the nitrate region of Chile, the rain falls so seldom that, without irrigation, nothing can grow. The explanation given by the scientists is that the moisture from the Atlantic, swept across the continent by the African trade winds, lodges finally in the Andes and flows back over the continental valleys in the great rivers confluent with the Amazon, while that from the Pacific is diverted in some other direction. It has been demonstrated by experiment, however, that these arid parts need only irrigation to make them luxuriantly fertile.

Back of the coast the country is cast in a mold of heroic dimensions. Here the Andes spread out into separate cordilleras which are joined at intervals by transverse ranges, forming great _nudos_ (knots), with high plateaux between, surrounded by lofty snow-covered peaks. This mountainous area approximates three hundred miles in width. In these heights lay the wealth that made of Peru a fabulous treasure land, and in the lower valleys the cereals and fruits of the temperate zone, as well as cattle, provide in great abundance for the Peruvian of to-day. In her extensive guano deposits, too, Peru has another great source of wealth.

Descending the eastern slopes of the Cordillera, the Montaña region stretches away gradually into the Amazon valley, covering an immense area. This Montaña country comprises more than two-thirds of the total area, and lies wholly within the Torrid Zone. Watered by mighty rivers that have their source in the Andean snows, and graded in elevation, its varied productiveness and fertility are phenomenal. It is in the Peruvian Andes that the Amazon begins its long course to the Atlantic; the river, however, goes by the name of Marañon throughout its length in Peru. In the beginning it is augmented by the Huallaga, Ucayali, and Yavarí and a dozen more mighty streams having their sources in the same heights or in the foothills on the eastern slopes, and, while still within Peruvian territory, becomes a river of such immense depth that ocean liners steam clear across the continent to Iquitos, thus giving to Peru a port accessible from the Atlantic for her shipments of rubber and other tropical products.

The disposition of the country’s population of 4,500,000 inhabitants is significant of the history of the nation’s development and suggestive of the prosperity that awaits her when the Andean barriers shall have been gridironed with the railroads that will open up the Amazon region to colonization some day. The coast areas now support a fourth of the total population, the cordilleras two-thirds, while the rich forests and fertile plains of the Montaña—the country of Peru’s present-day opportunity—support but half a million. The bulk of these inhabitants are of Indian and mixed Indian and Spanish descent. But little impression has yet been made by European immigration, as in the established agricultural republics of the Atlantic seaboard. It is confidently expected that the birth of the New Peru—the Peru of railroads, colonization, and great agricultural and mining activity—will reverse this disparity in distribution and increase the population to many times its present numbers, for now it is less than that of Holland, although Peru is three times the size of France.

The New Peru, which is heralded by all recent visitors to the west coast republics, is building an industrial and commercial nation on the long smoldering ruins of Spain’s golden empire, and it will be a worthier and more lasting structure than that with which Pizarro remorselessly smothered the unique civilization of the Incas. The war with Chile seemed to awaken her to the necessity of keeping pace with the times, not only in military but in commercial affairs. Since then she has made great strides.

A short distance up the coast near Ecuador’s port of Guayaquil lies the little town of Tumbéz, where Pizarro landed with his troop of two hundred men and planted the banner of Castile in the Inca’s domain. One of his first acts after establishing the power of Spain in the Inca country was to found a new capital nearer the coast than Cuzco, where, in the midst of the Andes, the Incas had for centuries had their seat of government. He chose the site of a pre-Incaic oracle on the Rimac River (the “river that speaks”) where the legendary predecessors of the Incas came to make their vows. For nearly three hundred years this city, which is now called Lima, but which he christened the City of the Kings, enjoyed the distinction of being the “second metropolis” of the great Spanish Empire on two continents and the center of a viceregal court, the splendor of which rivaled that of royalty itself. Stately palaces and churches were soon erected; wide avenues and beautiful plazas were laid out and substantial walls constructed for defense, and here came in the viceroy’s train the proudest nobility of Spain.

Lima is reached by both railroad and trolley line from Callao, and lies on a broad, fertile plain on the left bank of the river. Fifty miles back of the city the great chain of the Andes passes; but spurs from the majestic range stretch down and enclose it as within an amphitheater. Lima is only five hundred feet above sea-level, and in the summer season unquestionably hot, although the cool breezes from the Pacific temper the climate to a certain extent. In general appearance the early writers likened it to Seville; to-day, as the capital of a progressive republic, it has broadened out and become more active than its dreamy Andalusian prototype. As in Santiago and the old parts of Buenos Aires, the business and poorer residence streets generally are narrow and paved with cobble-stones, and most of the buildings are two or three stories high. In the better residence sections the visitor is agreeably surprised to find the charm of other days still remaining in the massive wooden street doors studded with brass, barred windows and Moorish balconies, or _miradores_, of heavily carved mahogany, and beautiful _patios_. The famous old Torre-Tagle mansion, where so many of the viceroys lived, is still standing to perpetuate this interesting type, as in the older tropical Spanish cities. _Portales_, or arcades, extend along the sides of the plazas in front of the shops to afford shelter from the sun.

The great cathedral and the government palace of the same period flank two sides of the Plaza Mayor. On the third side stands the city hall, above which are the balconies of the principal social clubs. Near by is the old Inquisition building. In the high-domed and mahogany-paneled room in which the Holy Office sat, the Senate now holds its sessions and signs the laws of the republic on the very table whence in the old days were issued warrants for _autos da fé_, and the legislators now hang their hats in the former torture chamber, in fine disregard of the horrors it once witnessed. There is a venerableness attached to the old churches and convents abounding in Lima which makes one hope that the exigencies of modernism may not demand the destruction of these splendid relics of colonial architecture.

The Plaza Mayor was the very heart of the brilliant colonial régime. The courtly Dons of these days, many of whom are descendants of the principal courtiers of that period, still are delighted to tell of the brilliance of the viceregal court under the Marquis de Cañete or the Duke de Palata, or the dilettante Prince de Esquilache—a court that was the talk of two continents. In the gorgeous salons of the old palace the gayety reached its height in the days of the Viceroy Amat. It is not surprising to learn that the deposed Ferdinand VII would gladly have followed the example of the Portuguese king and moved with his court to his new-world capital had he been able to escape from the grasp of Napoleon. At one corner is the site of the house in which Pizarro fought in vain with his assassins. His skeleton now lies in a glass case in the cathedral, exposed to the visitor’s astonished gaze. In the center of the Plaza a beautiful bronze fountain has stood for three hundred years, untouched by the strife that surged about it as each new period of Peru’s stormy career was ushered in.

In the Plaza de la Exposición, on the Paseo Colón and in other parks and boulevards are erected the statues of the nation’s heroes, and other men who have made Peru’s history—Christopher Columbus, the two Liberators, San Martín and Bolívar, Colonel Bolognesi, who fell in the war with Chile, refusing to surrender “until we have burned our last cartridge,” and many others. The Paseo Colón runs through the fashionable residence section. It is one hundred and fifty feet wide and connects the Plazas Bolognesi and Exposición. Through the center runs a garden bordered with superb trees and artistically laid out flower-beds and flowering bushes, and interspersed at intervals with monuments, pillars, and fountains. The present day parade of the _gente decente_ gives the visitor a picture of beautiful women and well-groomed equipages that measures up to the best traditions of Peru’s social eminence. In the heart of the city is the great bull ring, where once society gathered for other purposes than merely to take the air.

Excellent electric car service is a feature of Lima’s modern improvements. Trolley lines extend to the many seaside resorts for which society deserts the capital in the hottest months—Chorillos, the Newport of Peru, just south of Callao, or Miraflores, Barranco, Ancón and the numerous imitations of Coney Island.

Too much cannot be said of the charm of Lima’s culture and refinement. If the _Limeños_ have inherited from their ancestors too much of the aristocratic pride and military arrogance that distinguish the _Peninsulare_, they have also fallen heir to the courtly grace and _savoir faire_ that made the Knights of Alcántara famous among the first gentlemen in Europe four centuries ago. From the Lima home of to-day the visitor will take away with him recollections of hospitality, kindness and old-world dignity, lightened by a pronounced keenness of wit. They have the reputation of being generous and hospitable, if inclined to extravagance, and of forming warm and lasting friendships. Ardent imaginations and brilliant intellects lend a charm to conversation with the men, only less than that which the world-famed beauty, intelligence and kindly courtesy of the women lend to theirs. Very reserved when on their way to church in their black mantos or promenading the Alameda in their handsome toilettes, these ladies exert themselves to make their homes agreeable to their guests. The behavior of the young girls on the Alameda is more like that of their Chilean sisters.

At the head of Peru’s educational system stands the fine old University of San Marcos, in Lima, founded in 1551—nearly a hundred years before Harvard received its charter. It has now many additions and covers all branches of learning, and its courses are thrown open to every class.

Peru’s railroads cover but fifteen hundred miles, but they are pushing forward rapidly to fill in its section of the long-promised Pan-American railway from Panamá to Patagonia. One of these, the Oroya road, which ascends from Lima up into the plateau country, is altogether the most impressive piece of railroad engineering in the world; it is not only the highest, but there is no other that lifts its wondering passengers to any such altitude in such an appallingly short space of time. For an hour or more the train winds through a wide, irrigated valley, green and prosperous-looking with plantations of sugar cane. Farther up, the valley narrows and is closed in by naked rocks. Twenty-five miles from Lima a station is reached twenty-eight hundred feet above the sea; twelve miles farther the altitude is five thousand feet. At Casapalca, the town of smelters, thirteen thousand six hundred feet is achieved by the puffing, vibrating engine; at fourteen thousand feet the chimneys of Casapalca’s smelters look like pins stuck in the green carpet below, and finally, the passenger descends from the train, very uncertain on his feet, at the unprecedented height of 15,665 feet, and stands on the cold, wind-swept Andean roof. On every hand are peaks and hoods of snow. Beyond the station the rechristened Mount Meiggs rises another two thousand feet, as a monument to the indefatigable Yankee promoter and soldier of fortune who conceived and built the road—Henry Meiggs.

Turning to the west, one looks back over the long, infinitely varied descent; to the east lie the plateaus and the Andean treasure land. The northern branch of the road continues along almost equally high levels, past the historic plains of Junín on which Bolívar dealt his crushing blow to the viceroy’s army in 1824, to Cerro de Pasco, where the American mining syndicate is preparing to get rich.

II

A still more extensive railroad and one which gives the traveler a more varied view of the Andes, is that ascending from the port city of Mollendo, near the Chilean frontier. This line is the outlet for much of the commerce of Bolivia, and was built by the same gifted Yankee who fathered the Oroya road. Leaving Mollendo, the train speeds over the desert for a few miles and then begins its steady climb upward. All day it labors along the tortuous ascent through echoing walls of rock, bare, repellent, and awe-inspiring in their cold majesty. Suddenly, around a jagged precipice, the passengers look down upon a lovely valley—an oasis of green. In its midst lies the quaint, picturesque old city of Arequipa, which Pizarro, who founded it, was wont to call _la villa hermosa_—the city beautiful. Seen from the heights, it somewhat resembles La Paz, a group of low, white and blue walled, red roofed buildings, arranged in squares, with a large plaza in the center, the general flatness relieved by many church spires, and its spacious patios a mass of foliage and trees.

Thus far the penetration of the railroad into this quiet retreat has produced but little change in its old-world aspect. It has long been famous for its delightful climate and location, and as Mozans truly says of it, “If it is not the most beautiful place in South America, as its admirers claim, it is certainly the most restful. It is such a place as one would like to retire to after the stress and storms of a busy career, to pass one’s days in quiet and a congenial environment. The people who retain all the light-heartedness and cordiality and culture of old Spain, are worthy denizens of their charming city, and the better one knows them, the more he admires and loves them.”

Overlooking the city are the buildings of a branch of the Harvard Observatory. It is said that, because of the remarkable clearness of the atmosphere and the great number of cloudless nights, this observatory is probably more favorably located than any other in the world, and that, as a consequence, the astronomers stationed there have achieved results of the greatest value to science, especially in photographing the southern skies. Also they are doing valuable work in measuring the heights of the Andean peaks and charting the general topography, as well as in keeping open house to their fellow-countrymen who hunger for the sound of their native tongue after many weeks of effort to comprehend the idioms of the Castilian speech and the patois of the ever-present _cholo_. The verandas and trim green lawns and tennis courts are a reminder of Cambridge, indeed.

Above the observatory, snow-capped Misti rises sheer from the valley some 21,000 feet, like a perfect cone. Its appearance is so distinct, so impressive in its constancy and brooding grandeur, that it possesses a personality almost human. One feels impelled to address it with the prefix “_Señor_,” after the manner of the Japanese with their Fuji-san, which, by the way, greatly resembles Misti in shape and location.

Continuing upward through the mountain desert, the Mollendo road ascends to a height of 14,666 feet in the short latitudinal distance of less than two hundred miles, and across the divide to Juliaca, a town near the northern shore of Lake Titicaca, where it separates, one branch extending south to Puno, the center of the gold mining district, thence around the great lake to La Paz, the other extending northwest for about two hundred miles, down the sloping plateau to the valley of Cuzco, at the head of which is the ancient imperial capital of the Incas. Plantations and pastures begin to appear as the train descends from the high ridges into the plain, and, great as is the altitude even here, on an island in this very lake, according to tradition, the remarkable native dynasty had its birth. The legend, as Mozans quotes it from the works of Garcilaso de la Vega, the historian of the conquest, and who was himself, through his mother, a descendant of the royal Inca line, is that—

“Our Father, the Sun, seeing the human race in the condition I have described: living like wild beasts, without religion or government, or town or houses, without cultivating the land or clothing their bodies, for they knew not how to weave cotton or wool to make clothes; living in caves or clefts in the rocks, or in caverns under the ground; eating the herbs of the field and roots and fruit, like wild animals, and also human flesh—had compassion on them and sent down from heaven to the earth a son and a daughter to instruct them in the knowledge of our Father, the Sun, that they might adore him and adopt him as their God, also to give them precepts and laws by which to live as reasonable and civilized men and to teach them to live in houses and towns, to cultivate maize and other crops, to breed flocks, to use the fruits of the earth like rational beings instead of living like wild beasts. With these commands and intentions, our Father, the Sun, placed his two children in the Lake of Titicaca, which is eighty leagues from here” (Cuzco); “and he said to them that they might go where they pleased, and that, at every place where they stopped to eat or sleep, they were to thrust a scepter of gold into the ground, which was half a yard long and two fingers in thickness. He gave them this staff as a sign and token that in the place where, by one blow on the earth, it should sink down and disappear, there it was the desire of our Father, the Sun, that they should remain and establish their court.”