Transcriber's Notes:

A larger version of [the map on page 302] can be viewed by clicking on the map in a web browser.

[Additional Transcriber's Notes] are at the end.

SPANISH AMERICA

THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES

Demy 8vo, cloth.

1. CHILE. By G. F. Scott Elliott, F.R.G.S. With an Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map, and 39 Illustrations. (4th Impression.)

2. PERU. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With an Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map, and 72 Illustrations. (3rd Impression.)

3. MEXICO. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With an Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map, and 64 Illustrations. (3rd Impression.)

4. ARGENTINA. By W. A. Hirst. With an Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map, and 64 Illustrations. (4th Impression.)

5. BRAZIL. By Pierre Denis. With a Historical Chapter by Bernard Miall, a Map, and 36 Illustrations. (2nd Impression.)

6. URUGUAY. By W. H. Koebel. With a Map and 55 Illustrations.

7. GUIANA: British, French, and Dutch. By James Rodway. With a Map and 36 Illustrations.

8. VENEZUELA. By Leonard V. Dalton, B.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S., F.R.G.S. With a Map and 36 Illustrations. (2nd Impression.)

9. LATIN AMERICA: Its Rise and Progress. By F. Garcia Calderon. With a Preface by Raymond Poincaré, President of France, a Map, and 34 Illustrations. (2nd Impression.)

10. COLOMBIA. By Phanor James Eder, A.B., LL.B. With 2 Maps and 40 Illustrations. (2nd Impression.)

11. ECUADOR. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S.

12. BOLIVIA. By Paul Walle. With 62 Illustrations and 4 Maps.

13. PARAGUAY. By W. H. Koebel.

14. CENTRAL AMERICA. By W. H. Koebel.

"The output of the books upon Latin America has in recent years been very large, a proof doubtless of the increasing interest that is felt in the subject. Of these the South American Series edited by Mr. Martin Hume is the most noteworthy."—Times.

"Mr. Unwin is doing good service to commercial men and investors by the production of his 'South American Series.'"—Saturday Review.

"Those who wish to gain some idea of the march of progress in these countries cannot do better than study the admirable 'South American Series.'"—Chamber of Commerce Journal.

BRONZE STATUE OF BOLÍVAR IN THE PLAZA, CARÁCAS, VENEZUELA.

Vol. II. Frontispiece.

SPANISH AMERICA

ITS ROMANCE, REALITY AND FUTURE

BY

C. R. ENOCK, C.E., F.R.G.S.

AUTHOR OF "THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON," "PERU," "MEXICO," "ECUADOR," ETC.

WITH 26 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP

VOL. II

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD

LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE

First published in 1920

(All rights reserved)

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

SPANISH AMERICA

CHAPTER IX
THE LANDS OF THE SPANISH MAIN
COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA

A sea-wall of solid masonry, a rampart upon whose flat top we may walk at will, presents itself to the winds and spray that blow in from the Gulf of Darien upon the ancient city of Cartagena, and the booming of the waves there, in times of storm, might be the echo of the guns of Drake, for this rampart was raised along the shore in those days when he and other famous sea rovers ranged the Spanish Main, over which Cartagena still looks out.

Cartagena was a rich city in those days, the outlet for the gold and silver and other seductive matters of New Granada, under the viceroys, and the buccaneers knew it well, this tempting bait of a treasure storehouse and haven of the Plate ships. This, then, was the reason for the massive sea-wall, one of the strongest and oldest of the Spanish fortifications of the New World, which Spain had monopolized and which the sea rovers disputed.

There is a certain Mediterranean aspect about Cartagena, which was named by its founder, the Spaniard, Pedro de Heredia, in 1533, after the Spanish city of Carthage, founded by the Phœnicians of the famous Carthage of Africa. The steamer on which we have journeyed has crossed the American Mediterranean, as the Caribbean has been not altogether fancifully termed, for there is a certain analogy with the original, and passing the islands and entering the broad channel brings into view the ancient and picturesque town, with the finest harbour on the northern coast of the continent, a smooth, land-locked bay, with groups of feathery palms upon its shores.

Backed by the verdure-clad hills—whereon the better-class residents have their homes, thereby escaping the malarias of the littoral—the walls and towers of the town arise, and, entering, we are impressed by a certain old-world dignity and massiveness of the place, a one-time home of the viceroy and of the Inquisition. There are many memories of the past here of interest to the English traveller. Among these stands out the attempt of Admiral Vernon, in 1741, who with a large naval force and an army—under General Wentworth—arrived expecting an outpost of the place, which Drake had so easily held to ransom, to fall readily before him. The attempt was a failure, otherwise the British Empire might have been established upon this coast.

Colombia, like Mexico, has been a land of what might be termed vanished hopes and arrested development. But the old land of New Granada, as Colombia was earlier termed, has not the weight of wasted opportunity and outraged fortune which now envelops the land of New Spain, which in our generation promised so much and fell from grace. Colombia, by a slower path, may yet reach a greater height than Mexico as an exponent of Spanish American culture.

But a century ago, at the time Colombia freed herself, in company with her neighbours, from the rule of Spain, her statesmen as well as her neighbours hailed her as a favoured land upon which fortune was to shine, which was to lead in industrial achievement, to redress the balance of the Old World, to offer liberty and opportunity to the settler, riches to the trader, to be a centre of art and thought. At that time, indeed, New Granada was the leading State in all the newly born constellation of Spanish America, and during her earlier republican period one of her orators, with that command of grandiloquent phrase with which the Spanish American statesman is endowed, spoke as follows:

"United, neither the empire of the Assyrians, the Medes or the Persians, the Macedonian or the Roman Empire can ever be compared with this colossal Republic!"

The speaker—Zea, the vice-president—was referring to the Republic of La Gran Colombia, formed, under Bolivar, of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador—a union which was soon disrupted and which neither geography nor human politics could have done aught but tend to separate. The union, like that of Central America, fell asunder amid strife and bloodshed.

But let us take the road to Bogota, the beautiful and in many respects highly cultured capital of Colombia.

We do not, however, take the road, but the river, starting either from Cartagena by the short railway to Barranquilla, the seaport at the mouth of the Magdalena River, or direct from that port, and thence by the various interrupted stages of a journey that has become a synonym of varied travel to a South American capital.

Barranquilla is an important place—the principal commercial centre of the Republic. Here we embark upon a stern-wheel river steamer of the Mississippi type, flat-bottomed, not drawing more than three to five feet of water. The smaller boat, though less pretentious, may sometimes be the better on the long voyage upstream, and may pass the bigger and swifter craft if haply, as occurs at times, that craft be stranded on a shoal. For the river falls greatly in the dry season.

A SEAPORT ON THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN, SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA.

Vol. II. To face p. 14.

Journeying thus, we reach La Dorada, six hundred miles upstream, in about nine days, for there are many obstacles against time on the way, such as the current, the taking-in of fuel, the sand bars, which prohibit progress by night, slow discharge of merchandise and so forth. The heat may be stifling. A gauze mosquito bar or net is among the equipment of the prudent traveller, as is a cot or hammock, and rugs against the chill and damp of the nights. Also food, for the commissariat on board often leaves much to be desired. In Colombia the traveller requires clothing both light and heavy, as indeed in almost all Spanish American countries. Quinine, moreover, must always be among his equipment.

At Puerto Berrio, five hundred miles up the river, a railway runs to the interesting city of Medellin, in the mountains, the second city in importance in Colombia.

There are, from La Dorada, various changes to be made before Bogota is reached. We must change to the railway that runs to—near—Honda, circumventing the rapids, a line about twenty miles long. Here we have a choice of routes and methods. We may proceed on mule-back through magnificent scenery and the refreshing atmosphere of the Andes, with tolerable inns, or we may take the steamer again to Giradot, on the Upper Magdalena, and then a further trajectory of eighty miles by rail. Seven changes are necessary in this journey from Cartagena to the capital—ocean-steamer to train, thence to river-steamer, from that to the train again, thence to river-steamer once more, thence to the train, and again to another train—doubtless a record of varied travel.

The remote and famous city of Santa Fé de Bogota, founded by Quesada in 1538, the old viceregal capital of New Granada, the "Athens of South America" as some of its admirers have termed it, stands pleasingly upon its Sabana, or upland plain—one of the largest cultivated mountain plateaux in the world—at an elevation of 8,600 feet above sea-level, higher than the famous city of Mexico. It is in the heart of the Tropics, but four degrees north of the Equator, and its equable climate, a result of the offsetting of latitude by altitude, is in many respects delightful.

Here the typical Spanish American character is stamped on the city and reflected in the life of its people, where Parisian dress rubs shoulders with the blanketed Indian. Here the aristocracy of Colombia, implanted by Spain, centres. One street may be lined with the handsome residences of the correct and elegant upper class, folk perhaps educated in foreign universities, men of the world, passing by in silk hat and frock-coat—attire beloved of the wealthy here—or in motor-car or carriage, which whirls past the groups of half-starved, half-clothed (and perhaps half-drunken) Indian or poor Mestizo folk, whose homes are in the hovels of a neighbouring street and whose principal source of entertainment is the chicheria, or drinking-den, such as exists in profusion. And without desiring to institute undue comparisons—for wealth and misery go side by side in London or New York, or any city of Christendom—it may be pointed out that despite the claim of Bogota to be a centre of literary thought and high culture, little more perhaps than a tenth of the population of Colombia can read and write.

There are handsome plazas, with gardens and statuary, but few imposing public buildings, although a certain simplicity is pleasing here. The streets generally are narrow, and the houses low, as a precaution against earthquake shocks. The Capitiolio, the building of the Legislature, is spacious and handsome. Upon a marble tablet, upon its façade, in letters of gold, is an inscription to the memory of the British Legion, the English and Irish who lent their aid to Colombia and Venezuela, under Bolivar, to secure independence from Spain a century or more ago.

The story of the British soldiers in this liberation is an interesting one.

"With insubordination and murmurings among his own generals, decreased troops and depleted treasure, and without the encouragement of decisive victories to make good these deficiencies, the outlook for Bolivar and for the cause in which he was fighting might well have disheartened him at this time. In March, however, Colonel Daniel O'Leary had arrived with the troops raised by Colonel Wilson in London, consisting largely of veterans of the Napoleonic wars. These tried soldiers, afterwards known as the British Legion, were destined to play an all-important part in the liberation of Venezuela, and Bolivar soon recognized their value, spending the time till December in distributing these new forces to the best advantage.

"Elections were arranged in the autumn, and on February 15, 1819, Congress was installed in Angostura. Bolivar took the British Constitution as his model, with the substitute of an elected president for an hereditary king, and was himself proclaimed provisional holder of the office. The hereditary form of the Senate was, however, soon given up."[1]

Before the Conquest Bogota was the home of the Chibchas people—Tunja was their northern capital—the cultured folk of Colombia, who, although inferior to the Incas of Peru, had their well-built towns and a flourishing agriculture and local trade, their temples of no mean structure, with an advanced religion which venerated and adored the powers of Providence as represented by Nature; who worked gold and silver and ornaments of jewels beautifully and skilfully, such things as Quesada's Spaniards coveted—a culture which knew how to direct the Indian population, but which, alas! fell before the invaders as all other early American cultures fell.

To-day, as then, the high mountains look down upon the Sabana, and the rills of clear water descend therefrom. Still the beautiful Mesa de Herveo, the extinct volcano, displays like a great tablecloth from a giant table its gleaming mantle of perpetual snow, over 3,000 feet of white drapery. Still the emerald mines of Muzo yield their emeralds, and still the patient Indian cultivates the many foods and fruits which Nature has so bountifully lavished upon his fatherland.

Colombia, like Peru or Mexico, or Ecuador or other of the sisterhood of nations in our survey, is a land of great contrasts, whether of Nature or man. The unhealthy lowlands of the coast give place to the delightful valleys of higher elevations, which in their turn merge into the bitter cold of the melancholy paramos, or upland passes, and tablelands of the Andes. Or the cultivated lands pass to savage forests, where roam tribes of natives who perhaps have never looked upon the face of the white man.

Every product of Nature in these climates is at hand or possible, and the precious minerals caused New Granada to be placed high on the roll of gold-producing colonies of the Indies. The coffee of the lowlands, the bananas, shipped so largely from the pretty port of Santa Marta, the cotton, the sugar and the cocoa, grown so far mainly for home consumption; the coconuts, the ivory-nuts—tagua, or coróza, for foreign use in button-making largely—the rice, the tobacco, the quinine, of which shipments have been considerable; the timber, such as cedar and mahogany; the cattle and hides, the gold, silver, platinum, copper, coal, emeralds, cinnabar, lead, the iron and petroleum—such are the chief products of this favoured land.

Many of the mines and railways are under British control, but in general trade German interests have been strong, and the German has identified himself, after his custom, with the domestic life of the Republic. A rich flora, including the beautiful orchids, is found here, as in the neighbouring State of Venezuela.

Two-fifths of Colombia is mountainous territory, the plateaux and spurs of the Andes, between which latter run the Magdalena and Cauca Rivers. The roads are mule-trails, such as bring again and again before us as we experience their discomforts the fact that Colombia, in common with all the Andine Republics, is still in the Middle Ages as far as means of rural transport are concerned. Yet the landscape is often of the most delightful, and the traveller, in the intervals of expending his breath in cursing the trails, will raise his eyes in admiration of the work of Nature here.

Especially is this the case when, in the dry season, travel is less onerous and when nothing can be more pleasing than the varying scenery. Here "dipping down into a delightful little valley, formed by a sparkling rivulet whose banks are edged with cane, bamboo and tropical trees, inter-wreathed with twining vines; there, circling a mountain-side and looking across at a vast amphitheatre where the striking vegetation, in wild profusion, is the gigantic wax-palm, that towers sometimes to a height of 100 feet; then, reaching the level of the oak and other trees of the temperate zone, or still higher at an altitude of 10,000 or 11,000 feet, the paramos, bare of all vegetation save low shrubs, which might be desolate were it not for the magnificent mountain scenery, with the occasional view of the glorious snow-peaks of the Central Cordillera.

"At times the road is poor: now and then, cut into the solid rock of the mountain-side, towering sheer hundreds of feet above you, while a precipice yawns threateningly on the other side, it may narrow down to a scant yard or two in width; it may, for a short distance, climb at an angle of almost forty-five degrees, with the roughest cobble paving for security against the mules slipping; or in a stretch of alluvial soil, the ruts worn by the constant tread of the animals in the same spot have worn deep narrow trenches, characteristic of Andean roads, against the sides of which one's knees will knock roughly if constant vigilance be not exercised; worse yet, these trenches will not be continuous, but will be interrupted by mounds over which the mules have continually stepped, sinking the road-bed deeper and deeper by the iterated stamping of their hoofs in the same hollow, till deep excavations are formed, which in the rainy season are pools filled with the most appalling mud. Such is a fair picture applicable to many a stretch of so-called road in Colombia.

"The 'hotel accommodations' on the way are poor, of course; one stops at the usual shanty and takes such fare as one can get, a sancocho or arepas, eked out with the foods prudentially brought along. It is in such passes as the Quindio, too, when one reaches the paramos, thousands of feet in altitude, and far above the clouds, that one experiences the rigorous cold of the Tropics. The temperature at night is nearly always below forty degrees; occasionally it drops to freezing-point, and one feels it all the more after a sojourn in the hot lowlands. No amount of clothing then seems adequate. Travellers will remember the bitter cold nights they have passed in the paramos."[2]

This bitter atmosphere is experienced, let us remember, on or near the Equator. But we are led on to the beautiful Cauca Valley perhaps, whence, if we wish, we may continue on through the pretty town of Cali, and up over the tablelands of Popayan and Pasto, and, passing the frontier, so ride on to Quito, the capital of Ecuador—a journey which will leave us with sensations both painful and pleasurable.

TRANSPORTING MACHINERY IN THE COLOMBIAN ANDES.

Vol. II. To face p. 22.

"If you cannot withstand the petty discomforts of the trail for the sake of the ever-shifting panorama of snow-peaks, rugged mountains, cosy valleys, smiling woodlands, trim little valleys, then you are not worthy to be exhilarated by the sun-kissed winds of the Andes, or soothed by the languorous tropical moonlight of the lower lands, or to partake of the open-handed hospitality which will greet you.

"Such is the fame of the Cauca Valley that it was long known throughout Colombia simply as the valley, and that is now its legal name. It is the valley par excellence. The name is used to designate especially that stretch, about 15 to 25 miles wide and 150 miles long, where the Cauca River has formed a gently sloping plain, at an altitude of 3,000 to 3,500 feet above sea-level, between the Central and the Western Cordilleras. A little north of Cartago and a little south of La Bolsa, the two ranges hem it in. The Cauca is one of the real garden spots of the world. No pen can describe the beauty of the broad smiling valley, as seen from favourable points on either range, with its broad green pastures, yellow fields of sugar-cane, dark woodlands, its towns nestling at the foothills, the Cauca River in the midst, silvered by the reflected sun, and looking across the lomas of the rapidly ascending foothills, with cameo-cut country houses, topped by the dense forests of the upper reaches of the mountains, rising to majestic heights. From some places in the western range will be seen the snow-clad Huila in icy contrast to the blazing sun shining on the luxuriant tropic vegetation beneath.

"The best developed parts of the hot and temperate zones of Cundinamarca are along the Magdalena Valley and the routes of the Girardot Railway, the road to Cambao and the Honda trail. In the warmer zone there are good sugar plantations: in the temperate zone is grown the coffee so favourably known in the markets of the world under the name of Bogota: it attains its perfection at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, and nowhere else in Colombia has such careful attention been given to its cultivation. The Sabana itself, by which name the plateau of Bogota is known, is all taken up with farms and towns—there is scarcely a foot of undeveloped land. The climate is admirably adapted to the European-blooded animals, and the gentleman-farmer of Bogota takes great pride in his stock. The finest cattle in Colombia, a great many of imported Durham and Hereford stock, and excellent horses of English and Norman descent are bred here. This is the only section in Colombia, too, where dairying on any extensive scale is carried on, and where the general level of agriculture has risen above the primitive. The lands not devoted to pasture are utilized chiefly for wheat, barley and potatoes.

"To offset bad water, the food supply is excellent, and of wonderful variety. That is one of the beauties of the climate of the Sabana. One gets all northern fruits and flowers, blooming the year round, and vegetables as well as quite a few of the tropical ones. It is an interesting sight to see tropical palms growing side by side with handsome northern trees, like oaks and firs. Some of the Sabana roads are lined with blackberries, and one gets delicious little wild strawberries; apples, pears and peaches are grown, though usually of a poor quality, not properly cultivated. Even oranges can grow on the Sabana, and from the nearby hot country they send up all manner of tropical fruits and vegetables. Then there is no dearth of good cooks: the epicure can enjoy private dinners and public banquets equal to any in the world. The one lady who reads this book will be interested to know that the servant problem is reduced to a minimum in Bogota; good domestics are plentiful and cheap—five to ten dollars a month is high pay. In the houses of the well-to-do the servants are well treated and lead happy lives; they have ample quarters of their own, centring around their own patio; and enough of the old patriarchal regime survives to make them really a part of the family."[3]

Descending from the mountainous part of the country, we reach, to the east, that portion of Colombia situated upon the affluents of the Orinoco, a region which we may more readily consider in our description of that great river, lying mainly in the adjoining Republic of Venezuela. Here stretch the llanos, or plains, and the forests which are the home of the wilder tribes, for Colombia has various grades of civilization among her folk, of which the last are these aboriginals, and the middle the patient Christianized Indians, who constitute the bulk of the working classes. These last have the characteristics, with small differences, of the Indian of the Cordillera in general, of whom I have elsewhere ventured upon some study.

In Colombia, although in some respects the Republic is pervaded by a truly democratic spirit as between class and class, power and privilege, land and education are in the hands of a small upper class. This condition does not make for social progress, and in the future may seriously jeopardize the position of that class. Wisdom here, as elsewhere in Spanish America, would advise a broader outlook. Political misrule in the past has been rampant, although revolutions of late years have been infrequent.

There are innumerable matters in Colombia which the observant traveller will find of the utmost interest, but upon which we cannot dwell here. Our way lies back to the Spanish Main, whence we take steamer along the coast to the seaports of Venezuela.

Colombia is in a unique geographical position upon the South American Continent, in that it is the only State with an Atlantic and Pacific coast; added to which is the hydrographic condition which gives the country an outlet also to the fluvial system of the Amazon, by means of the great affluents the Yapura and the Negro, as also the Putumayo—if that stream is to be regarded in Colombian territory, for the region is on the debatable ground claimed by three countries, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Indeed, this portion of South America, one of the wildest parts of the earth's surface, is of great hydrographic interest, and looking at the map, we see how these navigable streams bend north, east and south, with the peculiar link of the Casiquiare "Canal" or river, uniting the fluvial systems of the Orinoco and the Amazon. (It is—but on a vaster scale—as if a natural waterway existed between the Thames and the Severn, or the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence.) This "Canal" lies but 150 miles from the Equator, a few miles from the border of Colombia, in Venezuela. Beyond, to the north-east, is Guiana, the land of Raleigh's El Dorado. Doubtless this region, in the future—far-off it may be—will become of much importance, and what is now savage woodland and danger-haunted waterways may some day be teeming with life and activity.

The conditions as regards navigability are, of course, relative in many instances here. Again, the region is not necessarily altogether an uninhabited one, for the rubber-stations have been increasing rapidly of late years.

A somewhat forbidding coast presents itself as our steamer, casting anchor, comes to rest in the waters of La Guayra, the principal seaport of Venezuela.

Here a bold rocky wall, apparently arising sheer from the sea, a granite escarpment more than a mile high, cuts off all view of the interior, and, reflecting the heat of the tropic sun, makes of the small and somewhat unprepossessing town at its base one of the hottest seaports on the face of the globe, as it was formerly one of the most dangerous from the exposure of its roadstead.

But, as if in some natural compensation, there lies beyond this rocky, maritime wall one of the most beautiful capital cities of South America—Caracas, reached by yonder railway, strung along the face of the precipice, and affording from the train a magnificent panorama of the seaport and the blue Caribbean.

La Guayra, ranged like an amphitheatre around the indentations in the precipice in which it lies, with its tiers of ill-paved streets, has nevertheless some good business houses, and the Republic expended a million pounds sterling upon its harbour works, executed and controlled by a British company.

Looking seaward from its quay walls, we may recall the doings of the old buccaneers of the Spanish Main, and of other filibusters, who from time to time have sacked the place since its founding in the sixteenth century. Upon these quays are filled bags of cocoa and coffee, and mountains of hides, brought down from the interior, and other products from plain and field and forest of the hinterland, for La Guayra monopolizes, for State reasons, much of the trade that might more naturally find outlet through other seaports.

The little railway which bears us up and beyond to Caracas winds, to gain elevation and passage, for twenty-four miles, in order to cover a distance in an air-line between the port and the capital of about six. We find ourselves set down in what enthusiastic descriptions of this particular zone love to term a region of perpetual spring; and indeed, at its elevation of 3,000 feet, the city is alike free from the sweltering heat of the coast and from the cold of the higher mountainous districts beyond.

A handsome plaza confronts us, with an equestrian statue of Bolivar. The plaza is mosaic-paved, electrically lighted, shaded by trees and, in the evening and on Sunday, the military bands entertain the people after the customary Spanish American method. Some showy public buildings, and a museum with some famous paintings are here; there are pleasing suburbs, luxurious gardens and well laid-out streets, and this high capital takes not unjustifiable pride to itself for its beauty and artistic environment and atmosphere—conditions which deserve a wider fame.

When we leave the Venezuelan capital and travel over the wide territory of the Republic, we find it is one of the most sparsely populated of the Spanish American nations. Conditions in internal development and social life are very much like those of Colombia, with highlands and lowlands, river and forest, cultivated plain and smiling valley, malarial districts and dreary uplands. We find the rudest Indian villages and the most pleasing towns: the most ignorant and backward Indian folk, the more docile and industrious Christianized labouring class, and the highly educated, sensitive and oligarchical upper class.

Again, we find the same variety of climate, products and the gifts of Nature in general. We see great plantations of coffee, especially in that fertile region of Maracaibo, which Colombia in part enjoys, and which gives its name to the superior berry there produced for export. We see broad estates, in their thousands, devoted to the production of the cacao, or chocolate, and similar areas over which waves the succulent and vivid green sugar-cane, whereon sugar is produced often by old-fashioned methods. These products yield returns so excellent that the growing of cotton, on the vast lands suitable thereto, are in large degree neglected, and must be regarded as an asset for the future, whenever local labour may become better organized or more plentiful.

Agriculture in this varied Republic, as in its neighbour, Colombia, has been kept backward by the same lack of labour, largely a punishment for the decimation of the labouring folk in the civil and other wars that have so often laid waste both man and land.

Maracaibo, lake and district, of which we have made mention, is in some respects a curious region. Let us look at the map. We remark a great indent on the coast of the Spanish Main. It is the Gulf of Venezuela, continuing far inland to what is termed Lake Maracaibo. The gulf is partly closed by the curious Goajira Peninsula.

From the appearance of the dwellings of the Indian on this lake-shore, the name of Venezuela, or "Little Venice," was given to the mainland here; the lake-dwellings are built on piles driven into the water. When the first Spaniards visited the coast, under Alonzo de Ojeada—on board with him was Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine who gave his name to America—they were struck by the curious appearance of the Indian settlements, and from so accidental a circumstance was the region baptized. The same type of dwelling still characterizes the lake, and were it not for the busy and important town of Maracaibo, the traveller might almost fancy himself back in the sixteenth century, coasting with the early explorers.

Indeed, as far as the Indians of the peninsula are concerned, we might still be in these early times, for these sturdy descendants of the Caribs, whom the Spaniards came to dread, have maintained their independence to this day, and although they trade with the white folk, resist all attempts at governmental control. This is a curious circumstance upon the coast, which was the first part of South America to be discovered, although it might be conceivable in the far interior—especially in view of the proximity of the busy and populous city on the lake, a port of greater importance than La Guayra in some respects, full of modern life and trade. Maracaibo was at one time one of the principal educational centres of South America. Unfortunately the bar at the mouth of the harbour unfits the place for the entry of large vessels.

In this district lie the important petroleum fields, which have been made the seat of recent enterprise for the production of that coveted oil of commerce.

CHAPTER X
THE LANDS OF THE SPANISH MAIN
VENEZUELA AND GUIANA

If, as we have said, the approach to the Republic of Venezuela at La Guayra seems forbidding and inaccessible, it must not be inferred that this is an inevitable characteristic of the coast. The Caribbean Hills are splendid in their aspect from the sea. They are forbidding in their grandeur. The mighty ramparts rise almost sheer from the ocean for thousands of feet, with cloud-veils flung across them at times, and if, from the steamer's deck, we may wonder how access to the hinterland can be gained, we shall find that Nature has furnished her passes, and some of the early English adventurers of the Spanish Main scaled these, as we may read in the stirring pages of Hakluyt.[4] Personally, I retain strong impressions of these cool-appearing, towering ramparts of Nature seen whilst sweltering in the tropic heat on shipboard.

Moreover, the great spurs of the Andes die out into the sea as we go east, and so Nature has broken down the rampart, giving vent to her marvellous hydrographic forces, which here triumph over the orographic, in the Gulf of Paria and the delta of the Orinoco, clothed with the densest of tropical vegetation, the home of wild beast and wild man, as shortly we shall observe.

There are further memories of British activity in regard to Venezuelan seaports, more modern, less picturesque than those we have already remarked. For, in the year 1903, the loans and arrears upon interest, the defaulted payments and disputed interpretations of contracts, in railway construction and other matters, and alleged arbitrary behaviour on the part of Venezuelan Government officials, came to a head, with the result that Great Britain, Germany and Italy sent a combined fleet to blockade the seaports, and an enforced settlement of the creditors' claims was brought about.

However, these unfortunate incidents are of the past. Venezuela has shown a desire for more cordial relations with the outside world. Lately she sent a representative to London with the purpose of inaugurating closer commercial relations with Britain.[5]

We have now to explore the great river of Venezuela, the famous Orinoco.

The Orinoco, which pours its huge volume of water into the Atlantic on the northern shore of the continent, through a vast delta of over thirty mouths, a volume derived from over four hundred tributaries which descend from the spurs of the Andes or from the wild and mysterious forests of Guiana, flows through what might be one of the richest valleys of the earth's surface, and doubtless in the future may so become. But, like the valley of the Amazon, its resources are comparatively little utilized at present. Devastating floods, malarious forests, ferocious crocodiles are some of the elements the traveller encounters on the higher waters of this great stream, notwithstanding that Columbus wrote to his Spanish sovereign that he had "found one of the rivers flowing from the Earthly Paradise."

Unfortunately it may be said that the Spaniard and his descendants have wrought destruction rather than benefit here, and the population of the valley is less now than it was four centuries ago.

We may ascend the Orinoco, in the stern-wheel steamers which ply thereon, for about four hundred miles to Ciudad Bolivar, which town forms the chief and indeed almost the only trade centre, and in the rainy season, when the river is high, which is generally from June to November, by smaller craft up the lengthy affluents. Such are the Apure, the Meta, the Arauca and the Guaviare, many hundreds of miles in length, rising far away to the west amid the Cordillera, the cold eastern slopes of whose lofty summits condense and pour down torrents of water into an extraordinary network of rivers which flow across the plains of Colombia and Venezuela, flooding enormous areas of land in their passage to the main stream. Boats and barges may reach the Andes, whose beautiful landscape forms the water-parting of this remarkable fluvial system.

THE MAINLAND FROM TRINIDAD, AND VIEW IN THE DELTA OF THE ORINOCO.

Vol. II. To face p. 34.

In the dry season snags and sandbanks render navigation almost impossible on many of these tributaries, and in some cases in the remote districts the hordes of savages who dwell on the banks add to the dangers of the voyager. There are miles of rapids on certain of the waterways, and great cataracts, whilst the forest comes down to the water's edge, forming an impenetrable screen of tropical vegetation, in which the traveller who strays from his way is lost. This jungle is flooded in the rainy season, the waters driving back all animal life to the higher ground.

From the east comes the great Ventuari affluent, with its unexplored head-waters in Guiana.

The Orinoco River is of much interest, whether to the traveller or the hydrographer, and doubtless some day its potentialities will be more greatly utilized. In some respects this fluvial system would lend itself to the improvements of the engineer, and might perform for the region which it waters services such as the Nile renders for Egypt, instead of being, as it is, largely a destructive agent. The general slope of the river is comparatively slight, and thus canalization and consequent improvement in navigation might be carried out. Nearly a thousand miles from the mouth the waters of one of the principal affluents are little above sea-level, but the rise and fall of the flood is sometimes as much as fifty feet, and confluences two miles wide in the dry season are increased three or four times during the rains.

One of the most interesting features of these rivers, as already remarked, is found in the singular natural canal connecting the Orinoco with the Amazon—the waterway of the Casiquiare Canal,[6] which cuts across the water-parting of the two hydrographic systems. Here the adventurous canoe voyager may descend from the Orinoco and reach the Rio Negro, falling into the Amazon near Manaos.

The endless waterways of the upper reaches of the Orinoco share often that silent, deserted character which we shall remark upon the Amazon tributaries, and which indeed, is common to tropical streams often. Bird and animal life seems all to have concealed itself. Even the loathly alligator is not to be seen, nor the turtle, nor other creature of the waters. Occasionally, however, a scarlet ibis appears to break the monotony, or an eagle or heron. For mile upon mile, league upon league, there may be no opening in the green wall of the dismal forest, until, suddenly, as we pass, the wall gives way, a small clearing is seen, with perhaps a Carib Indian hut, dilapidated and solitary, whose miserable occupant, hastily entering his canoe, shoots out from the bank with some meagre objects of sale or barter in the form of provisions or other.

Such, however, is not always the nature of these rivers. The scene changes: there are sandy shores and bayous, beautiful forest flowers and gorgeous insect life, the chatter of the monkeys and the forms of the characteristic tropical fauna. Rippling streams flow from inviting woodland glades untrodden by man, and high cascades send their showers of sparkling drops amid the foliage and over the fortress-like rocks around. Wafted along by sail or paddle, guided by the expert Indian boatmen, the craft weathers all dangers, and the passenger sees pass before him a panorama of the wilds whose impression will always remain upon his mind. Thus the charm of exploration never fails, and, borne upon the bosom of some half-unknown stream, the traveller's cup of adventure may on the Orinoco be filled to the brim.

For many hundreds of miles these western tributaries of the Orinoco flow through the llanos, as the plains of this part of South America—in Colombia and Venezuela—are termed, whose characteristic flatness we shall remark from the deck of the vessel. A sea of grass stretches away to the horizon on every side, giving place in some districts to forest.

The level plains, lying generally about four hundred feet above the sea, were once the home of enormous herds of cattle and horses and of a hardy, intrepid race of folk known as the llaneros, men who kept and tended the cattle and were expert in horsemanship and woodcraft. These folk flourished best in the Colonial period. They formed some of the best fighting material in South America, and made their mark in the War of Independence, when, under Bolivar, the Spanish yoke was thrown off. Again, civil war, revolution and hardships and losses consequent thereon seriously reduced their numbers, and to-day both they and their herds have almost disappeared.

The great plains which were the scene of these former activities might, under better auspices, become an important source of food supply, both for home and foreign needs. They could again support vast herds of cattle on their grassy campos, irrigated by the overflow of the Orinoco. This overflow, it is true, causes extensive lagoons to form, known locally as esteros or cienagas, but these dry up in great part after the floods, which have meantime refreshed the soil and herbage.

"The great green or brown plain of the Llanos is often beautified by small golden, white and pink flowers, and sedges and irises make up much of the small vegetation. Here and there the beautiful 'royal' palm, with its banded stem and graceful crown, the moriche, or one of the other kinds, forms clumps to break the monotony, and along the small streams are patches of chaparro bushes, cashew-nuts, locusts and so forth. The banks of the rivers often support denser groves of ceibas, crotons, guamos, etc.; the last-named bears a pod covered with short, velvety hair, within which, around the beans (about the size of our broad beans), is a cool, juicy, very refreshing pulp, not unlike that of the young cocoa-pod. Along the banks of the streams in front of the trees are masses of reeds and semi-aquatic grasses, which effectually conceal the higher vegetation from a traveller in a canoe at water-level."[7]

Much stress has been laid upon the possible economic value of the llanos by some writers, whilst others regard these possibilities as exaggerated.[8] Their area is calculated at 100,000 square miles. They are neither prairies nor desert. During a large part of the year they are subject to heavy rainfall and become swamped, followed by a drought so intense that the streams dry up and the parched grass affords no pasture for stock. There is a total lack of roads, and the rivers are unbridged, and the region is far from the ocean. The trade wind blows fiercely across them.

The view over these vast plains as the traveller's eyes suddenly rest upon them as he descends the Andes is very striking, and has been described by various observers, among them Humboldt.

In the wet season, when the river overflows, the cattle are driven back to higher ground. When the waters retire alligators and water snakes bury themselves in the mud to pass the dry season.

In this connexion stories are told of travellers and others who, having camped for the night in some hut or chosen spot, are suddenly awakened by the upheaval of the ground beneath them and the emergence of some dreadful monster therefrom. A certain traveller's experience in the night was that of being awakened by the barking of his dogs, the noise of which had roused a huge alligator, which heaved up the floor of the hut, attacked the dogs and then made off.[9]

As for the old type llanero, half Spanish, half Indian, the wild, brave, restless, devil-may-care cowboy, a Cossack of the Colombian Steppes and a boastful Tartarin full of poetic fire rolled into one, is rapidly disappearing. Vanished is the poetry and romance of his life, if it ever really existed outside of his remarkable cantos, wherein heroic exploits as soldier, as hunter and as gallant lover are recounted with a superb hyperbole. He seems to have tamed down completely, in spite of the solitary, open-air life, and in spite of the continuance of a certain element of danger, battling with the elements. Encounters with jaguars, reptiles, savage Indians are, however, the rarest of episodes in the life of even the most daring and exposed llanero.[10]

A "picturesque" character of original llanero stamp was the notorious President Castro of Venezuela, who defied the whole world at one time, and almost succeeded in bringing about a conflict between England and the United States over the Guiana-Venezuela boundary.

The wild tribes of Venezuela, and part of British Guiana, are typified in those inhabiting the delta of the Orinoco. They have preserved their racial character in marked degree here, and have been regarded as an offshoot of the Caribs.

"They are dark copper in colour, well set up, and strong, though not as a rule tall, and with low foreheads, long and fine black hair, and the usual high cheek-bones and wide nostrils of the South American 'Indians.' Where they have not come into contact with civilization they are particularly shy and reticent, but they soon lose this character, and some are said to show considerable aptitude as workmen.

"Living as they do mainly in the delta, their houses are of necessity near water, and are raised from the ground as a protection against floods, being sometimes, it is said, even placed on platforms in trees. The roof is supported in the middle by two vertical posts and a ridge pole, and is composed of palm-leaves, supported at the corners by stakes. The sides of this simple hut consist of light palm-leaf curtains, and the floor is of palm-planks. The hammocks are slung on the ridge pole, and the bows and arrows of the occupants fixed in the roof, while their household furniture, consisting of home-made earthenware pots, calabashes of various sizes, etc., lie promiscuously about the floor. Some of the Warraus are nomadic, and live in canoes, but the majority are grouped in villages of these huts, with captains responsible to the Venezuelan local government authorities.

"The staple diet of these people is manioc and sago, with chicha (a mixture of manioc meal and water). For clothing they dispense with everything in their homes, except the buja or guayuco, a tiny apron of palm-fibre or ordinary cloth, held in position by a belt of palm-fibre or hair. That worn by women is triangular, and often ornamented with feathers or pearls. Among the whites the men always wear a long strip of blue cloth, one end of which passes round the waist, the other over the shoulder, hanging down in front; the women have a kind of long sleeveless gown. For ornament they wear necklaces of pearls, or more frequently of red, blue and white beads, and tight bracelets and bangles of hair or curagua (palm-fibre); some pierce ears, nose and lower lips for the insertion of pieces of reed, feathers or berries on fête days. The characteristic dull red paint on their bodies is intended to act as a preventive against mosquitoes, and it is made by boiling the powdered bark and wood of a creeper in turtle or alligator fat. All hair is removed from the body by the simple but painful process of pulling each one out with a split reed.

"Marriage, as is usual among savage races, takes place at a very early age, the husband being often only fourteen, the wife ten or twelve years of age. Polygamy is common, but not universal; where a chief or rich man has several wives, the first, or the earliest to become a mother, takes charge of the establishment during the absence of the owner on his hunting or fishing expeditions. The girls are sometimes betrothed at the age of five or six years, living in the house of the future husband from that time on.

"At birth the mother is left in a separate house alone, where all food that she may need is placed for her, though she remains unvisited by any of her companions throughout the day; meanwhile the father remains in his hammock for several days, apparently owing to a belief that some evil may befall the child; there he receives the congratulations of the villagers, who bring him presents of the best game caught on their expeditions. This male child-bed, or couvade, is common to many of the Indian tribes.

"The dead are mourned with elaborate ceremony—shouting, weeping and slow, monotonous music; the nearest relatives of the defunct cut their hair. The body is placed in leaves and tied up in the hammock used by the owner during life, and then placed in a hollow tree-trunk or in his canoe. This rude coffin is then generally placed on a small support, consisting of bamboo trestles, and so left in the deserted house of the dead man."[11]

The wild animal life of this part of South America has always been of interest, whether to the scientist or the general reader. It is varied, as it is in Mexico and elsewhere in Spanish America, by the natural topographical and climatic divisions of tierra caliente, tierra templada and tierra fria, or hot, temperate and cold lands respectively.

The various kinds of monkeys include the spider-monkeys, the squirrel-monkeys, the marmosets, the vampires, the jaguar and puma—the former of which has been credited with living in the high branches of the trees in flood-times, to the perturbation of the monkeys, upon whose home it intrudes, chasing them to the tree-tops. In the Andes the peculiar "Speckled bear" has its abode. The manati is a native of the Orinoco, and the sloth of its forests, as also the "Ant-bear" and armadillo.

These creatures may not always be readily seen by the passing traveller, but the birds are more present, although, as elsewhere in the Tropics, their plumage is more noteworthy than their song.

"Beautifully coloured jays, the peculiar cassiques, with their hanging nests, starlings, and the many violet, scarlet and other tanagers, with some very pretty members of the finch tribe, are all fairly abundant in Venezuela. Greenlets, some of the allied waxwings, and thrushes of various kinds, with the equally familiar wrens, are particularly abundant, nor does the cosmopolitan swallow absent himself from this part of the world. The numerous family of the American flycatchers has fifty representatives in Venezuela, and the allied ant-birds constitute one of the exceptions to the rule, in possessing a pleasant warbling note. The chatterers include some of the most notable birds of Venezuela, and we may specially notice the strange-looking umbrella-bird which extends into the Amazon territory, known from its note as the fife-bird; the variegated bell-bird, which makes a noise like the ringing of a bell; the gay manikins, whose colours include blue, crimson, orange and yellow, mingled with sober blacks, browns and greens; the nearly allied cock-of-the-rock is one of the most beautiful birds of Guayana, orange-red being the principal colour in its plumage, while its helmet-like crest adds to its grandeur; the hen is a uniform reddish-brown. The wood-hewers are more of interest from their habits than the beauty of their plumage.

"The beautiful green jacamars, the puff-birds, and the bright-coloured woodpeckers are found all over Venezuela in the forests, but their relatives the toucans are among the most peculiar of the feathered tribe. With their enormous beaks and gaudy plumage they are easily recognized when seen, and can make a terrible din if a number of them collected together are disturbed, the individual cry being short and unmelodious. Several cuckoos are found in Venezuela, some having more or less dull plumage and being rare, while others with brighter feathers are gregarious. With the trogons, however, we come to the near relatives of the beautiful quezal, all medium-sized birds, with the characteristic metallic blue or green back and yellow or red breasts. The tiny, though equally beautiful, humming-birds are common sights in the forest, but a sharp eye is needed to detect them in their rapid flight through the dim light; some of the Venezuelan forms are large, however, notably the king humming-bird of Guayana; and the crested coquettes, though smaller, are still large enough to make their golden-green plumage conspicuous. The birds which perhaps most force themselves, not by sight but by sound, upon the notice of travellers are the night-jars; the 'who are you?' is as well known in Trinidad as in Venezuela. The great wood night-jar of Guayana has a very peculiar mournful cry, particularly uncanny when heard in the moonlight. The king-fisher-like motmots have one representative in Venezuela, but the other member of the group, which includes all the preceding birds, constitute a family by itself. This is the oil-bird, or guacharo, famous from Humboldt's description of the cave of Caripe in which they were first found. The young birds are covered with thick masses of yellow fat, for which they are killed in large numbers by the local peasantry. They live in caves wherever they are found, and only come out to feed at dusk.

"Other birds which are sure to be observed even by the least ornithological traveller are the parrots and macaws, which fly in flocks from tree to tree of the forest, uttering their discordant cries. The macaws have blue and red or yellow plumage, but the parrots and parraquets are all wholly or mainly of a green hue. The several owls are naturally seldom seen, and, in the author's experience, rarely heard.

"There are no less than thirty-two species of falcons or eagles known from Venezuela, and of these many are particularly handsome, such as the swallow-tailed kite and the harpy eagle of Guayana. Their loathsome carrion-eating cousins, the vultures, have four representatives.

"In the rivers and caños of the lowlands there are abundant water-birds, and the identified species include a darter, two pelicans, several herons or garzas, the indiscriminate slaughter of which in the breeding season for egret plumes has been one of the disgraces of Venezuela, as well as storks and ibises. Among the most beautiful birds of these districts are the rosy, white or scarlet flamingoes, huge flocks of which are sometimes seen rising from the water's edge at the approach of a boat or canoe. There are also seven Venezuelan species of duck.

"The various pigeons and doves possess no very notable characteristics, and one or two of the American quails are found in the Andes. Other game-birds include the fine-crested curassows of Guayana, the nearly allied guans and the pheasant-like hoatzin. There are several rails, and the finfeet are represented. The sun bittern is very common on the Orinoco. There are members of the following groups: the trumpeters (tamed in Brazil to protect poultry), plovers, terns, petrels, grebes, and, lastly, seven species of the flightless tinamous.

"Descending lower in the scale, we come to the animals which are, or used to be, most often associated in the mind with the forests of South America. The snakes are very numerous, but only a minority are poisonous. Of the latter, the beautiful but deadly coral-snake is not very common, but a rattlesnake and the formidable 'bushmaster' are often seen. Of the non-poisonous variety the water-loving boas and tigres or anacondas are mainly confined to the delta and the banks of the Guayana rivers. The cazadora (one of the colubers) and the Brazilian wood-snake or sipo, with its beautiful coloration, are common; the blind or velvet snake is often found in the enclosures of dwellings.

"One of the lizards, the amphisbæna, is known in the country as the double-headed snake, and is popularly supposed to be poisonous, but there are many species of the pretty and more typical forms, especially in the dry regions, while the edible iguana is common in the forests. There are eleven species of crocodiles, of which the caiman infests all the larger rivers and caños. The Chelonidæ include only two land tortoises, but there are several turtles in the seas and rivers, and representatives of this family from the Gulf of Paria often figure on the menus of City companies.

"There are some six genera of frogs and toads to represent the Amphibians, and the evening croaking of the various species of the former on the Llanos is very characteristic of those regions; one, in particular, emits a sound like a human shout, and a number of them give the impression of a crowd at a football match.

"Fish abound in rivers, lakes and seas, but, considering their number, remarkably little is known about them. Some are regarded as poisonous, and others are certainly dangerous, such as the small but ferocious caribe of the Llano rivers, which is particularly feared by bathers, as an attack from a shoal results in numbers of severe, often fatal, wounds. The temblador, or electric eel, is very abundant in the western Llanos, and is as dangerous in its way as the caribe.

"The insects are too numerous for more than casual reference, but it may be noted that the mosquito of the Spaniards is a small and very annoying sandfly; the mosquito, as we know it, is, and always has been, called zancudo de noche by the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of Venezuela. The gorgeous butterflies and the emerald lights of the fireflies are in a measure a compensation for the discomforts caused by their relatives, but of the less attractive forms, the most interesting are the hunting ants, which swarm through houses at times devouring all refuse, and the parasol ants, which make with the leaves they carry hot-beds, as it were, for the fungus upon which they feed.

"One of the most unpleasant of the lower forms of life in the forests is the araña mono, or big spider of Guayana, which sometimes measures more than six inches across; it is found in the remote parts of the forest, and its bites cause severe fever. The better-known tarantula, though less dangerous, can inflict severe bites. The extremely poisonous scorpions, and the garrapatas, or ticks, must be seen or felt to be appreciated.

"We may leave the lower forms of life to more technical works, but the amusing 'calling-crab' deserves special mention. With his one enormous paw of pincers the male, if disturbed, will sit upon the mud or sand and apparently challenge all the world to 'come on' in a most amusing fashion."[12]

The wild people and the wild life of northern South America remind us again that the first discovered part of the continent is in some respects still the least known and most backward. The "streams flowing from the Earthly Paradise" of Columbus still traverse an Elysium for the adventurous traveller.

The coast of the Spanish Main trends now eastwards to the possession of Britain, in the Guayanas, and the beautiful Island of Trinidad, which we shall now enter upon.

Columbus, on his voyage in 1496, approaching South America, beheld three peaks rising from a beautiful island clothed with verdure. Uniting the pious custom of his time with his impression of the topography of the new land, he called the island "Trinidad," or the Trinity. Spain held it. Sir Walter Raleigh burned its capital, and finally it fell to Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century. To-day, this land off this wild coast, under the flag of Britain, is a revelation to the traveller, who—British or other—may have forgotten its existence. Its capital, Port of Spain, is one of the most pleasing towns in the West Indies, with two cathedrals, shaded streets, tramways, government institutions and public buildings, libraries, shops, a beautiful botanical garden and other evidences of a very modern civilization and activity. The soil is rich, the climate good, the hurricanes that from time to time devastate the West Indies do not visit it. It lies almost in the mouth of the river Orinoco. Venezuela claims it as hers. I well recollect the aspect of this foothold of Britain after the wilds of South America. But its modernity does not detract from the interest of the more ancient Spanish American communities.

British Guiana, whose coast we soon approach, and its neighbours, Dutch and French Guiana, are ranged in sequence along the Atlantic front for seven hundred miles, and present topographical conditions curiously alike.

Guiana, as a geographical term, is that district lying between the water-parting of the Orinoco and the Amazon and the coast; and is almost a topographical entity, embodying part of Venezuela. It is, in a sense, an island, by reason of the union of the Orinoco and Amazon fluvial systems by the Casiquiare.

Students of Anglo-American relations will recollect that the controversy over the boundary line between British and Venezuelan territory here became the subject of contention—and almost of war—between Great Britain and the United States in 1895, by reason of the work of the wild President Castro and the unwarranted behaviour of President Cleveland of the United States—behaviour which was greatly resented by English people in South America and which has not yet been forgotten. Happily arbitration was entered upon—Britain practically being awarded what she had justly claimed.

British Guiana is one of the neglected outposts of the British Empire, the only foothold of England on the mainland of South America, a place of considerable interest, beauty and utility, but about which the good folk of Great Britain know and perhaps care little.

The British public cannot be expected to be well acquainted with all the outlying parts of the immense empire which fortune or providence has delivered over to them, but, through their statesmen, they could, if they were so minded, bring about a much more constructive and energetic policy than that which the inaccessible and old-fashioned Colonial Office and Crown Colony officials consider does duty for government and development.

The population of this land is a handful of folk of about the size of a second-rate English town, notwithstanding that the extent of the country is equal to the whole of Great Britain. Its rich littoral is watered by large rivers, rising in a little-known interior. Sugar is produced, but might be produced in quantities to satisfy the British house-wife did British folk know anything about the subject. There are enormous timber resources and valuable minerals.

INDIANS AT HOME, GUIANA.

Vol. II. To face p. 52.

But in such development comes the cry for "labour." It is the first cry of all tropical possessions. Where is labour to come from? The remedy generally proposed is that of bringing in coloured labour from other parts of the empire, coolies and others. This policy has some fatal defects. Among these the practice of bringing in hordes of coloured men without their women or families is one of the most unwise. It is unnatural to condemn these folk to live without their female partners, and if persisted in will, sooner or later, bring serious evils upon the community that practises it. The existing labour should be more carefully fostered, and if labour be imported it should be as far as possible in the form of permanent settlers, with their wives and families, the condition of whose life and surroundings should be intelligently mapped out beforehand.[13]

Guiana brings back sad memories of Sir Walter Raleigh, he who by reason of his antagonism to Spain was a popular hero, and around whose figure much romance has centred.

Partly with the object of recouping his fortune, Raleigh sailed, in 1595, to Guiana, a voyage of exploration and conquest, with the main object of finding that El Dorado which was so strong an obsession of Elizabethan times, imagined to be hidden somewhere amid the Cordillera or forests of Spanish America. His book, recounting the incidents of this voyage, The Discoverie of Guiana, which he published upon his return home, is one of the most thrilling adventurous narratives of the period, although it has been said that it contains much that was romance rather than fact: and incredulity marked its reception. On his second expedition, after Elizabeth's death—an expedition which was perhaps one of the saddest of forlorn hopes, whereby Raleigh hoped, trusting perhaps to a chapter of accidents, to escape from the dreadful position of disfavour and threatened execution into which he had fallen in the reign of James I—he reached Trinidad and sailed up the Orinoco, fell sick of a fever and suffered many disasters in the endeavour to carry out his undertaking to find a vast gold mine upon territory not belonging to Spain. Should he fail, or trespass upon Spanish territory, he was to be executed as a pirate, a fate which practically befell him, though he was executed under his old sentence of conspiracy.

The illustrious Raleigh—whose name some writers love to belittle—"took a pipe of tobacco a little before he went to the scaffold," for the habit of smoking tobacco—that beautiful gift of the Spanish American Indian to the Old World—had become rooted among the Elizabethan courtiers.

But to return to Guiana. The topography of this part of South America is full of interest and variety, as are the history and customs of its people, aboriginal and other, although much of the past is marked by dreadful happenings. Wars, the deeds of buccaneers, rebellions of negroes, massacre of the whites, deaths from fevers and so forth stand out from its pages.

It is a magnificent country, with grand rivers, cascades and the most wonderful mountains and scenery, which it is difficult to surpass in any part of South America. And here the traveller and the naturalist may revel in the works of Nature.

Guiana was the first part of the New World to be explored by adventurers other than the Spaniard and the Portuguese, and to this day it stands out as foreign to the rest of Spanish America. The English, the French, the Dutch fought between themselves for its territory and its colonizing and trading stations. The English sought an El Dorado, the Dutchman thought of its tobacco—which the Spaniards would not permit him to obtain from their colonies—the Frenchman took part possibly out of national pride, thinking he ought not to be left out in the partition, but his work seems to have been of a disastrous nature ever since he set foot there. The Pilgrim Fathers, before they "moored their bark on a wild New England coast," had dreams of settling here, where the warm climate and tropic possibilities seemed to hold out greater allurements than the cold coasts of the more northern continent. When Surinam, or Dutch Guiana, was exchanged for the New Netherlands and New Amsterdam—to-day New York—few Dutchmen dissented, and some English protested.

"Like the valley of the Amazon, to which system it may be considered an offshoot, it is a land of forest and stream. The coast is generally an alluvial flat, often below high-water mark, fringed with courida (Avicennia nitida) on the seashore, and mangrove (Rhizophora manglier) on the banks of the tidal rivers. Where it is not empoldered it is subject to the wash of the sea in front and the rising of the swamp water behind. In fact, it is a flooded country, as the name, from wina or Guina (water) seems to imply.

"The lowest land is the delta of the Orinoco, where the rising of the river often covers the whole. Coming to the north-west of British Guiana, we have a number of channels (itabos) forming natural waterways through swamps, navigable for canoes and small vessels. A similar series of natural canals is found in Dutch Guiana. From the Orinoco to Cayenne this alluvium is rarely above high-water mark, and is subject to great changes from currents, the only protection being the natural palisade of courida, with its fascine-like roots. On the coast of Cayenne, however, the land rises, and there are rocky islands; here the swamps come at some distance behind the shore, and between ridges and banks of sand.

"Behind this low land comes the old beach of some former age—reefs of white quartz sand, the stunted vegetation of which can only exist because the rainfall is heavy and almost continuous. This is the fringe of the great forest region which extends over the greater part of the country. Here the land rises and becomes hilly, and the rivers are obstructed by a more or less continuous series of rocks, which form rapids and prevent them running dry when the floods recede. Behind these, to the south, the hills gradually rise to mountains of 5,000 feet, and in the case of a peculiar group of sandstone castellated rocks, of which Roraima is the highest, to 8,000 feet.

"The numerous rivers bring down vegetable matter in solution, clay and fine sand suspended and great masses of floating trees and grasses. These form islands in the larger estuaries and bars at the mouths of most of the rivers; they also tinge the ocean for about fifty miles beyond the coast from green to a dirty yellow. Wind and wave break down the shore in one place and extend it in another, giving a great deal of trouble to the plantations by tearing away the dams which protect their cultivation. Every large river has its islands, which begin with sand-banks, and by means of the courida and mangrove become ultimately habitable. In the Essequebo there are several of a large extent, on which formerly were many sugar plantations, one of which remains in Wakenaam. The Corentyne and Marowyne have also fair-sized islands, but none of these has ever been settled. Off the coast of Cayenne the rocky Iles du Salut and Connetable are quite exceptional, for the coast is elsewhere a low mud-flat, sloping very gradually, and quite shallow.

"The longest river is the Essequebo, which rises in the extreme south, and like most of the larger streams, flows almost due north. It is about 600 miles in length; the Corentyne is nearly as long, and the Marowyne and Oyapok are probably about the same length. Other rivers that would be considered of great importance in Europe are seen at intervals of a few miles all along the coast. The Demerara, on which the capital of British Guiana is situated, is about the size of the Thames, and 250 miles long, and the Surinam, on the left bank of which is Paramaribo, 300. All are blocked by rapids at various distances from 50 to about 100 miles inland, up to which they are navigable for small vessels, but beyond, only for properly constructed boats that can be drawn through the falls or over portages.

"The smaller rivers, called creeks, whether they fall into the sea or into the larger streams, are very numerous; over a thousand have Indian names. Many of them are of a fair size, and the majority have dark water of the colour of weak coffee, whence the name Rio Negro has been given to several South American rivers. These take their rise in the pegass swamps, so common everywhere, and are tinged by the dead leaves of the dense growth of sedges, which prevent these bodies of water from appearing like lakes. There are, however, a few deeper swamps, where a lake-like expanse is seen in the centre, but no real lakes appear to exist anywhere. The creeks are often connected with each other by channels, called itabos, or, by the Venezuelans, canos, through which it is possible to pass for long distances without going out to sea. During the rainy season these channels are easily passable, and light canoes can be pushed through from the head of one creek to that of another, the result being that large tracts of country are easily passed. In this way the Rio Negro and Amazon can be reached from the Essequebo in one direction and the Orinoco in another, the watersheds being ill-defined from there being no long mountain ranges.

"The higher hills and mountains are not grouped in any order. The group called the Pakaraima are the most important from their position on the boundary between British Guiana, Venezuela and Brazil, and also from the neighbourhood of Roraima giving rise to streams which feed the Orinoco, Amazon and Essequebo. This peculiar clump of red sandstone rocks forms the most interesting natural object in Guiana. Roraima is the principal, but there are others, named Kukenaam, Iwaikarima, Waiakapiapu, etc., almost equally curious and striking. All have the appearance of great stone castles, standing high above the slopes, which are covered with rare and beautiful plants, some of which are unknown elsewhere. The main characteristics of this group are due to weathering, the result being grotesque forms that stand boldly forth, together with fairy dells, waterfalls decorated with most delicate ferns and mosses and grand clumps of orchids and other flowering plants."[14]

It is not to be supposed that British Guiana has been neglected by its modern administration. A great deal has been done in draining, in reconstructing the villages, in fostering agriculture, in organizing the natives, in providing against malaria and disease by scientific methods, such as at Panama had been found so beneficial. The treatment of immigrant labour is almost paternal in some respects. Surinam is also progressing, stimulated by the example of Demerara. Cayenne, the French possession, suffers still from being a penal settlement.

The life of the coloured folk, who so largely predominate among the population, offers many problems, whose solutions will doubtless work themselves out. The people of Guiana are possibly more varied than those of any other community in the world, with representations of every race—the European and Indo-European, the African negro, the Chinese, folk from Java and Annam, together with its own native races, and the white American, with many mixed breeds.

In the views of the writer already quoted—

"Among the other points of interest there is the impress of the three nationalities upon the negro, which are very conspicuous in the women. The French negress is unlike her sister in Surinam, and she differs also from the English type in Demerara. Again, they all stand apart from the real African and the bush negro, illustrating the possibility of the perpetuation of acquired characters and the manner in which tribal differences have been developed. 'The French,' said an old writer, 'are a civil, quick and active sort of people, given to talking, especially those of the female sex'; the Dutch have a more heavy look and wear their clothes loose and baggy, cleanliness being more conspicuous than a good fit; the English (including specially the Barbardian) are decidedly careless and slovenly, and inclined to ape the latest fashion. A Frenchman speaks of the Demerara negress as dressing up in her mistress's old gowns and wanting a style of her own; we have seen a cook going to market in an old silk dress once trimmed with lace, now smudged with soot and reeking with grease. They all have a love for finery but no taste in colour; here and there, however, a girl with a pure white dress and embroidered head-kerchief pleases the eye and proves that dress is of some importance in our estimate of these people.

"The negro man has no peculiarity in his clothes; he simply follows the European. His working dress is generally the dirty and ragged remains of what we may call his Sunday suit. He may be clean otherwise, but his covering gives us the contrary impression. There is a character about the Demerara creole, but he is not so English as the Barbadian, who is 'neither Carib nor creole, but true Barbadian born.' Loyalty to the Mother Country as well as to his own island is very conspicuous; he has followed the white man in this as well as in his language, which retains some of the obsolete words and phrases of the Stuart period, including the asseveration 'deed en fait' for 'in deed and in faith.' These national characteristics go to prove that the negro has been changed somewhat by environment, and this can be easily seen when he is compared with the African, who is represented here and there by a few of the old people who were rescued from slavers.

"The bush negro of Surinam, who ranges also through Cayenne and into Brazilian territory, is a distinct type. Made up of a number of African tribes, and probably dominated by the Coromantee, the most independent of these, he has not been much affected by his short service under the Dutch. From a physical standpoint he is a fine fellow, muscular and brawny; a good boatman and warrior, he has held his own for two centuries. Having first gained his freedom by his strong arm, he fought to retain it; the result is a man that must be respected. Possibly he learnt something from the native Indian, but he has never been very friendly, for the aborigines do not like the negro. In Demerara, and to a less extent in Surinam, Indians were formerly employed to hunt runaway slaves, and this accounts for the ill-feeling.

"We may consider the bush negro as an African savage, very slightly altered by the change from the forests of the Congo to the wilds of Guiana. Like African tribes, the communities have no bond of union, but are each under its own granman, or chief. This segregation has been the cause of much trouble in the past, for a treaty might be made with one chief which was by no means binding on the others. Their huts are low and confined, lacking any conveniences and without order. Their few arts are of African types, and their tribal marks coarse scars. Small clearings are made near their dwellings in which ground provisions enough to support their families are raised, and sometimes a little rice to sell. They also cut timber and bring it to Paramaribo for sale, with the proceeds of which they buy finery. Latterly they have been found useful to carry gold-diggers and balata-bleeders into the interior, for they are well accustomed to navigate the rapids. In Surinam the latest estimate of their number is 8,000; a few years ago they were put down as about 25,000 in all Guiana. They do not appear to increase to any extent; in fact, judging by the number of runaways who have taken to the bush in two centuries, the decrease from war and other causes must have been enormous. Their sexual relations, which are very loose, as among negroes generally, do not consist with an increase, but at the same time there is no doubt that we have here a survival of the strongest. Whether these people will ever mingle with other negroes is doubtful; at present the bush negro despises the fellow with a master or employer, and the black man of the settled portion of the colony treats him as a savage.

"In British Guiana the runaways were hunted by Indians; it followed, therefore, that no such communities of wild men were possible. The river people are largely of mixed African and Indian blood, more often perhaps with more or less of the European. They carry on the timber trade and are prominent as boat hands. Formerly, every family had its bateau or corial, but since steamers have been plying up the rivers a craft is less needed.

GEORGETOWN, BRITISH GUIANA.

Vol. II. To face p. 64.

"The coloured people are of all shades. The offspring of black and white is the mulatto, who generally partakes equally of the character of both races, but with variations. The man is coarser-looking than the woman, but as a rule he is strong and healthy; if, however, he marries a woman of his own colour the offspring are in many cases weaker than the parents. A cob is a reversion towards the negro, the child of one black parent with a mulatto, three-quarters black and hardly distinguishable. The mustee or quadroon, who is three-fourths white, and the costee or octoroon may be considered as practically white and in many cases can only be distinguished as coloured by those who know their parentage. In Guiana colour prejudice is most conspicuous among these lighter people, for they want to marry a 'higher' colour than themselves, and are considered as degrading the family when demeaning it by coming down towards the negro. A black woman will think more of her illegitimate mulatto children than of those she has borne to her negro husband. The ideal of the pure negro is the bucra—the well-to-do European; poor whites or coloured people are in his opinion unworthy of respect. He rarely gets on well as servant to one of his own colour; quarrels and fights are common among workmen where they are under men of their own class. The negro also despises the Chinaman and East Indian, who in turn prefer to have few dealings with them. The general result is that there are not many sexual unions between the races. Now and again a respectable black man, doctor or lawyer, marries a white woman, but such unions generally bring trouble. The tendency now is for the darker coloured people to merge themselves in the black and the lighter in the white; the probable result will ultimately be to increase the distinction and reduce the present variations.

"There will almost certainly, however, always remain a coloured class, the future of whom has often been considered by travellers and anthropologists. Some have gone so far as to say that they will ultimately be the rulers of the West Indies, but there is little foundation for such an opinion. No doubt the lighter-coloured people will in time take the place of the pure whites from their greater suitability to the climate; their number will, however, probably never be great enough to make much impression. The coloured man is not so aggressive as the educated negro, who has come to the front in late years as a political agitator, and who speaks of 'the people' as being those of his own race, notwithstanding the fact that in British Guiana they are exceeded in number by the East Indians.

"The negro is prominent in the Legislature and the learned professions; he is the schoolmaster, the dispenser or sick nurse, and the lower grade clerk, but he does not succeed as a shopkeeper. The gold and diamond diggers and balata-bleeders are also black men under white superintendence. He undoubtedly fills a place which, in his absence, could only be occupied by inferior workmen of other races, and is gradually becoming a useful member of the community. As a plantation labourer he fails, mainly because he expects higher pay than estates can afford. He is capable of doing more hard work than any other tropical labourer, but he prefers a job of a few hours rather than steady, continuous work. His passions are easily roused, and when the fit is on it is useless to reason with him. After giving his employer volleys of abuse he sometimes asks a favour as if he had done nothing. Some will boast that they bear no malice, that they are open-minded, much better than some other people who will not forget an offence. Morality is largely a matter of law. 'You can't do me nothing' is a common reply when he is told that something he was doing was wrong. Many of them are well versed in the law, for crowds assemble round the magistrates' courts every day. Sometimes one will say that if he had ten dollars to pay the fine he would do something illegal; in fact, it is notorious that people who complain loudly of poverty can often pay fines of what is to them very large amounts. One day a poor woman will be begging a penny and the next paying two to five pounds in the court. Yet they have rarely anything saved, but the fines can be raised by loans and gifts from their relations and friends.

"The East Indian will certainly be the man of the future in Guiana if the immigration system is continued. Already he is ahead in British Guiana, and forms more than a third of the population of Surinam, if we include the Javanese. Though not so strong as the negro, he is more reliable, and without him there would be no Demerara or Surinam sugar. He enjoys better health in the Tropics than other races, as is easily seen by the census returns of India and the death-rates on the plantations. A great increase of population may generally be predicted where people are kind to their children, and in this the East Indian is pre-eminent. We shall say something further about him in another place, and will only here deal with his clothes. He is probably the only real tropical man who dresses to suit the climate, and he is always well dressed. With a few yards of cotton cloth he drapes himself in a manner that could only be emulated by a great artist. Any one who knows what tight-fitting European clothing means in the Tropics can appreciate the loose folds of the East Indian. Through the ages he has learnt how to dress in a graceful and picturesque manner, which, however, is practically inimitable by others. The women wear most gaudy colours, but their taste is so perfect that there is rarely anything discordant. And yet these people are hardly ever of a higher class than that of the field labourer. This natural taste in drapery and colour must have been the result of experience during long ages; that light clothing is a success is proved by the natural increase, notwithstanding war, famine and pestilence.

"The Chinese were imported as agricultural labourers, but may be considered as failures in that line, although in other respects very useful colonists. They have been condemned in other countries as undesirable, and even in British Guiana they were once stigmatized as sly rogues and thieves. Now the stigma is undeserved, for they form a trading class of considerable importance. A few have worked at the gold-diggings as well as in the forest as wood-cutters and charcoal-burners; there is also a small agricultural settlement on the Demerara River which is a picture of clean economic cultivation. They are, however, more conspicuous for their success in carrying on small country shops, where the profits are hardly sufficient to support people who are not content with a very bare living.

"The only white men ever imported as labourers were the Madeira Portuguese. Madeira was almost ruined by the vine pest about the time of the slave emancipation, and thousands of poor people came to British Guiana. For want of care during the year of seasoning many died, and the remainder were found quite unfit for field work. They were, however, useful colonists, and are now traders and in many cases well-to-do property owners. They came as paupers, but by thrift and industry went ahead, until practically every spirit-shop and corner grocery was in their hands. Only the Chinaman can compete with them, and he only does so in the villages. The Madeiran is a law-abiding citizen, but he cringes too much to the negro. The general result of the competition of the small shops is that the poorer classes get their provisions very cheap. Unfortunately, by giving way to the demands of their customers, a condition of things has arisen that no independent shopkeeper could possibly endure. However, the Madeiran has learnt to bear and forbear, and he hardly ever resents the insults and bullyings which the negress with her penny is always ready to launch upon him. He is generally looked upon as mean, and willing to stint himself to save, but this is a character which is generally wanted in the Tropics, where the tendency to thrift is always sadly lacking.

"The native Indian can hardly be reckoned as a member of the community; he is, however, useful to the traveller, the gold-digger and balata-bleeder. As a boatman, wood-cutter or huntsman, he is in his place, but his sturdy independence prevents him from becoming a reliable servant. Make him your friend and he will do anything in his power for you, but he takes orders from no one. This refers to the man of the forest whose wants are few, and when satisfied, there is no further necessity for his working. For a gun, powder or shot you may induce him to help you; when he gets these he naturally wants to be free to use them. There is, however, a class of half-civilized Indians growing up who are fairly reliable, but they do not remain in town longer than is necessary for transacting their business as carriers of timber, charcoal and cord-wood. No Indian man can endure the trammels of civilization; sometimes a buckeen, as the women are called, will take a place as house-servant, but even these are not common. Unfortunately, the men are given to rum-drinking, and laws are made for the country districts to prevent the sale to them of spirits.

"The real wild Indian is disappearing from his old haunts. Forty years ago he could be found in many of the creeks of the Demerara River where now only a few of his degenerated descendants exist. As a huntsman he must have a sort of game preserve, which is impossible where gangs of wood-cutters and balata-bleeders carry on their work. He still exists, however, in the far interior, living in much the same way as he did when America was discovered, except that he does not fight. The men are still expert hunters and fishermen, and the women as proficient in cultivating and preparing the staff of life, cassava-bread. Their old weapons, the bow and blow-pipe, are largely replaced by the gun, but the large fishes about the rapids are still shot in the old way."[15]

The things of the natural world which meet the eye of the observant traveller are of extreme variety and interest here.

"Nowhere in the world, perhaps, are such beautiful adaptations to natural conditions and such perfect interdependence. The trees bear nuts and fruits to feed monkeys, rodents, birds, bats and fishes, and because these are present in such numbers the cat family is also well represented. Again, every tree has flowers that require insect fertilization, consequently myriads of insects are here; these, in turn, are kept within bounds by ant-eaters, birds, monkeys, lizards, and those classes of insects which feed on them, such as mantids, wasps and robber flies. In the water the smaller fishes feed on fallen fruit; they provide sustenance to the larger species, which in turn become the prey of alligators and otters. On the ground, in the water, and up in the trees the struggle goes on by which the balance of life is kept even. Notwithstanding this universal war on every side, species hold their own and develop great capabilities according to their needs. Beautiful contrivances have been gained to suit the conditions under which they live, among them being protective coloration and the careful adjustment of means to the end, whether to catch and hold or to get away. The jaguar stalks the acourie so that not a twig is snapped or a leaf rustled, but the sharp rodent is always on the alert, ready to leave its feed of nuts the moment it recognizes the nearness of its foe. Under this pitch-dark canopy, through which no glimmer of moon and stars can penetrate, many a painful tragedy goes on every night. But the acourie still lives, in spite of its enemies, for, like its relation, the guinea-pig, it is very prolific. The Indian says that every animal has its tiger; he himself is one of these, and must move as silently or be content to go without meat."[16]

Guiana is within comparatively easy reach of Europe and the United States. It cannot be doubted that, in the future, it will more and more become a resort of travel, and possibly of much greater settlement and development. Its bad name will be lost: its virtues brought to the front.

South of the Guiana region and of the Orinoco lies the great region of the Amazon Valley, which we shall now traverse.

CHAPTER XI
THE AMAZON VALLEY
IN COLOMBIA, ECUADOR, VENEZUELA, BOLIVIA, PERU, BRAZIL

The River Amazon, whilst it has not the classic interest of the Nile, nevertheless appeals to the imagination in a way that that now well-mapped and travelled waterway may not—in its still mysterious and gloomy solitudes, traversing the largest areas of virgin forests on the face of the globe, spreading its vast and numberless arms over an area unexceeded in size by any other river.

The Amazon is born amid the high ranges and the snowy peaks of the Andes—the greatest mountain range in the world being a fit parent of the earth's greatest river. These high streams watered the territories where dwelt a civilization or native culture, moreover, as ancient perhaps as that of Egypt, the Andine people, and their successors the Incas of Peru, the remains of whose temples and habitations are still to be encountered on headland and plateau in those high regions of the great Cordillera, as we have already had occasion to see.

Except for a few towns upon its main stream, which were brought into being by reason principally of one natural product—the rubber of the forests—the presence of civilized mankind upon its waters or its shores is almost a negligible quantity.

The first echo of the white man's voice in the woods and across the waters of the Amazon was in the year 1540, when a party of intrepid Spaniards, after the Conquest of Peru, trusted their fortunes to its mighty bosom and floated eastwards into a world of which they had no knowledge, and, borne down by the current across an entire continent for nearly three thousand miles, were carried into the Atlantic Ocean.

The voyage is one of the most remarkable in the history of fluvial, or indeed of any navigation. Let us briefly recall it.

One day early in the above-mentioned year there was movement in the city of Quito, the ancient capital of the Shiris, in the northern kingdom of the conquered Incas, when a body of Spaniards, captained by Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of the famous Conquistador of Peru, Hernando, set forth to reach a fabled land of gold, an unknown El Dorado, which Indians, imaginative or deceptive, told their white masters lay far within the forest fastnesses beyond the Andes, a land of "Oriental spices," an empire in some beautiful and languorous region which might far surpass in riches and enjoyment anything which even Peru had yielded.

A clever guerilla captain, esteemed the best lance and master of horse in Peru, Gonzalo Pizarro, fired by the idea of this fresh conquest, called together over three hundred Spaniards, part of the retinue of the Government of Quito to which his brother had appointed him. Half the company were mounted, all were well equipped: a mountain of provisions was borne by a band of four thousand Indian servants; a great herd of swine was driven in the rear, further to furnish food for the party; and a thousand dogs, some of a ferocious breed, to hunt down Indians should such be necessary, completed the outfit. Quito lies in a broad recess of the Andes, leaving which the expedition climbed the forbidding and snow-crowned slopes which lay between them and the forests beyond, and disappeared.

Little did the members of this eager band, or the folk of Quito, know of what lay in store, or how the forces of Nature should overwhelm even so well-prepared an expedition.

The many tributaries of the River Amazon that have their rise in this portion of the Andes cut their way through extremely rugged territory, profound gorges, buried in tangled forests, where passage even for a few travellers must often be cut out through the jungle, and which to a large body of horsemen offered almost impenetrable obstacles. The intense cold and rarefied air of the mountain solitudes caused considerable suffering to the explorers, and the traveller to-day, whilst impressed with the grandeur of the scenery of the high Andes of Ecuador, crowned by the magnificent avenue of snow-capped volcanoes of which Chimborazo and Cotopaxi are the chief, gladly escapes from the inclement altitudes to the warmer climate of lower elevations. Then, as now, the land was frequently shaken and devastated by terrific earthquakes and discharges from the volcanoes, and it would appear that such a state of unrest was abroad at the moment when Gonzalo and his party appeared, as if Nature resented their intrusion.

However, at length a land known as that of Canelas, or perhaps so named by the Spaniards from the profusion of beautiful cinnamon-bearing trees, the name being Castilian for that spice, was reached. This was as far as the leader had expected to come, and finding their hopes unrealized, it would indeed have been well had the band returned to Quito, reading from the dreadful forest its true lesson. But, lured onwards by the tales of the Indians, who persisted that a few days' march beyond there lay a land teeming with gold, and inhabited by civilized and docile peoples, they pressed onward. Broad plains opened to the view, those vast savannas of the Montaña of the Amazon plain, and trees of stupendous growth, such as perhaps only the equinoctial regions of America produces, interspersed with beautiful flowering shrubs.

But it is a peculiarity of these regions that Nature herein provides practically nothing for the sustenance of man. Of extreme fertility under cultivation, there is little of fruits or game such as would support life, and the traveller to-day caught in these vast solitudes without an ample supply of provisions may wander about miserably, far from human aid, until he perishes. Moreover, the incessant deluges of rain which descend upon this part of America, and which are indeed the sources of the mighty flood of the Amazon, cause provisions to deteriorate and clothing to decay, and add infinitely to the burdens of the traveller. So it befel the band of Spaniards. Their provisions, after several months of travel, had become exhausted, and their clothing was reduced to rags. Part of the herd of swine had escaped, and now they were obliged to subsist on the lean bodies of the dogs and of their horses, together with such roots—often unknown and poisonous—which they dug up in the forest.

In this condition Gonzalo and his companions reached the borders of the considerable river which, known later as the Napo, is one of the principal Ecuadorian tributaries of the Amazon, and which to them, accustomed to the comparatively small rivers of Europe, seemed an enormous stream, for so far they had not gazed upon the Amazon itself. Some encouragement was derived from this river; its waters were at least a living thing; its current might be a highway leading to the desired land.

IN THE PERUVIAN MONTAÑA.

Vol. II. To face p. 78.

At a point where the Napo—after the manner of many of these Andine rivers—rushes through a narrow chasm cut like an artificial canal through the last range of the mountains to escape to the plain the band crossed, constructing a frail bridge by the method of felling a huge tree across it, over which men and horses painfully made their way, losing, however, one of their number, an unfortunate Spaniard, who, missing his footing, seized with vertigo, plunged downwards several hundred feet into the boiling torrent which thundered along the rocky gorge.

Little was gained here. There was still no prospect of the promised land. They were spent with toil and hunger; their provisions and their powers were alike exhausted. Tribes of savage Indians were occasionally met, who fought from behind rock or thicket with deadly poisoned arrows; tribes such as still exist to-day in parts of this wild region of the Amazon basin, and which still receive the traveller in similar fashion. To go on or to return—that was the question which now pressed itself on Gonzalo and his companions. But still the insidious tales of gold and plenty lured them on.

At a point where the walls of the Amazon forest closed in impenetrably upon the river verge, as is the natural character of these waterways, monotonous by reason of their enclosure of the trees and creepers, and affording no pathway along their banks, Pizarro called a halt. It was decided that the present mode of progression was impossible. They must take to the stream. A vessel of some sort must be constructed.

Necessity aiding their efforts, the Spaniards, after two months' work, built a "brigantine," a vessel rudely constructed from the timber of the forest joined together with nails from the horses' hoofs, rendered watertight with the tattered clothes of the travellers used in lieu of oakum, soaked in natural gums which abound in the trees, in the place of pitch. This craft was capable of carrying only part of the Spaniards: the remainder must continue to force their way along the shore.

And now we hear of Orellana, destined to navigate the Amazon, in this, the first European vessel—born of the forest, however, and not of any foreign seaport—to float upon its waters, the first white man to do so. For although the mouth of the Amazon had been visited by the Spanish navigator, Pinzon, some time before, in 1500, the river had only been ascended for some fifty out of its several thousand miles of navigable waterway. Orellana, the lieutenant of Gonzalo, was given command of the brigantine, which aided in transporting the weaker members of the party; and thus, floating and journeying, the expedition proceeded onwards.

But food, with the exception of "toads, serpents and a few wild fruits," now gave out entirely. The last horse had been eaten. Famine and death stared the expedition in the face. They could not go on on foot. It was necessary that the vessel should be dispatched to obtain succour from that fruitful land which it was still believed lay but a few days distant, at a point where, according to information obtained from wandering natives, the River Napo united its waters with those of the main stream of the Amazon. Orellana, with fifty of the band, was instructed therefore to descend the river and return with all speed with the much-needed assistance. He embarked, and the brigantine and its company disappeared from view round a bend of the river.

This was the last that Gonzalo and his remaining companions ever saw of the vessel. They waited for weeks, supporting themselves heaven knows how, day by day straining their eyes, hoping to see the form of the returning bark upon the waters, but all was in vain.

Meantime, Orellana and his crew, borne down by the swift current, reached in three days the point of confluence of the Napo and Amazon, a mighty flood of waters, but there was no sign of the land of promise, and instead of being able to load up with provisions and return, he could barely obtain sustenance for his ship's company; nor did it seem possible to make his way back against the current. What should he do? Were it not better to proceed on his way, descend the river to its mouth, reach the Atlantic, proceed to Spain and the Court, and cover himself with glory as the discoverer of the great Amazon and all the vast territory it traversed might contain? Eagerly his companions accepted the idea. As to those left behind they must succour themselves, and turning their prow downstream again the brigantine pursued its way, swept along for two thousand miles by the vast waters of the river.

How they escaped the dangers of rocks, whirlpools and savage Indians; how they found considerable settlements of natives, and at length reached the mouth of the river, and taking ship arrived at the Court of Spain needs not to be related here. Orellana received considerable honour at the hand of the Spanish Sovereign, with command over the territory he had discovered.

The unfortunate Gonzalo and his companions, thus left starving in the Amazon forest, suffered many vicissitudes and many lost their lives. They were forced to return to Quito without having reached any El Dorado of their dreams. The backward journey was one of the most terrible in the early history of America, and out of all that great band which set forth with such high hopes only about eighty Spaniards and half that number of Indians returned to tell the tale—little over a hundred haggard adventurers, who, falling down on the floor of the cathedral, rendered thanks to heaven for their own escape from the terrors of the Amazon wilds.

Thus ended the first expedition to the Amazon.

It was Orellana who gave the river its name. On his dangerous journey adown the current, his band fought with what they believed to be an army of women-warriors, or Amazonas, who rushing from the depths of the forest, attacked the white men, but who, in reality, were only wild Indians in loose cotton chemises or shirts flying in the breeze. There is no legend here of an empire of women.

That the Amazon could be navigated was again shown later by Pedro de Texeira, who, with his companions, performed the great feat of ascending from the mouth of the river up to Quito, and returning thence—a marvellous voyage for that period.

The River Napo, by which the Spaniards first entered upon the main stream of the Amazon (there was an earlier exploration of the mouth of the river in Brazil), is but one of many great navigable tributaries which traverse the territories of those nations—Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil—which lies partly within the region. Many thousands of miles of such navigable waterways intersect it, some of them very little known or used.

We may gain an idea of the size of the region drained by the Amazon by noting that it covers four-tenths of the entire area of South America. Yet less than a hundred square miles of it is cultivated, and its "population"—if the term may be used for the bands of savage or semi-savage Indians that dwell there and the few white settlements—number perhaps half of that of the city of London: a few million souls, who are lost in this immensity of forest, jungle and river.

The chief obstacles to travel and development in the valley are the broken or flooded nature of the country, the impenetrable forests, through which, except off the few trails, the traveller has to hack his way by means of the machete, wielded by his Indians. The heavy rains, the mosquitoes and the malaria, the unreliability of the natives. Dangers from wild beasts have been exaggerated. The worst of these is the mosquito! The forests are not teeming with beasts of prey, although they are to be met with. Often the traveller may pursue his way for vast distances without seeing any living creature, and he must not depend upon game for any particular addition to his larder, for there is little, in many regions. Food must be carried, and the matter of transport is one of the most serious obstacles. Without adequate supplies the traveller will starve, and leave his bones in the dismal forest, as has befallen many an adventurer here.

Except by actual travel no adequate idea of the Amazon forests can be obtained: of their alternating gloom and splendour, of their superabundant vegetation, of the impenetrable ramparts of their dense foliage and matted trunks. The forest is the largest area of virgin woodlands on the face of the globe, extending back from the Atlantic seaboard to the slopes of the Andes for more than 2,500 miles, and ranging in breadth from 200 miles on the coast, at the mouth of the river or in Brazil to 900 miles between Venezuela and Bolivia.

The marvellously rich flora is among the wonders of the world. The principal characteristic is in the variety of genera and species. A single acre of ground may contain hundreds of different species of tree and shrub, including palms, acacias, myrtles, mimosas and others. The forest is in this unlike the great coniferous or other forests, and the condition is not favourable in a commercial sense as regards the industry of timber-cutting, although industrial kinds of its trees afford the basis of profit. The trees are not always of great height here, the average being perhaps a hundred feet, with many kinds reaching two hundred feet, the shorter varieties being upon the flood-plains.

The remarkable tropical growth is shown in the myriad lianas, or creepers, which often bind the mass together, overgrowing even the tallest trees. The traveller who has had to cut his way through these networks of vegetation can best understand their impenetrability. Above his head may tower that monarch of the forest the "Cow-tree," or Massaranduba. This remarkable tree takes its name from the milk, or milky sap, it yields—a latex used in rubber-curing and for medicinal purposes. The timber is valuable for shipbuilding, and is also esteemed by railway-builders for sleepers, the wood being highly resistant, whether in air or water. Here, too, the mighty cedar rises amid its neighbours, growing to an immense height; its great trunk a hundred feet to its first branch. The wood is light, strong, and susceptible of a high polish and is valued for these qualities for many purposes.

Here is another tree we shall view with a special interest in these forest fastnesses. We shall regard it with such interest not only for its great height—for it is one of the loftiest on the Amazon—but by reason of its familiar product, as it is that which produces the Brazil nut. The tree, however, will not be crowded by its neighbours, loving the open ground. It is slender relatively for its height, perhaps three or four feet in trunk diameter. Of the two varieties one is known as the Bertholetra, the other the Sapucaya.

The collector of Brazil nuts will have a care not to approach the trees in a high wind, that is when the nuts are ripe. For the nuts, enclosed in their capsule or covering, are as hard and heavy as a small cannon-ball, and will certainly crack his crown if by mischance one falls upon his head. Prudently he waits until the pod falls, or, opening the lid with which Nature has furnished it, flings the enclosed nuts abroad, where they may be gathered. Many nuts, however, are wasted in this dispersal. The only capital required by the nut-gatherer is that involved in the ownership of a boat.

In view of the appreciation of the Brazil nut in foreign lands, and its high price, the industry of its gathering, it would be supposed, might have been more extensive.

The monarch, in a commercial sense, of the Amazon forests is the rubber, the beautiful Hevea and others. These have their own special habitat. They are not found anywhere, but are solitary in their nature.

For description of the animal life of the Amazon we must turn to those works of naturalists and travellers who have made this field their special study. There we may learn about the manati, or sea-cow, one of the most remarkable of mammals, growing at times to a size of twenty feet in length, having its home in the lower and larger reaches of the river. The world of the monkeys embodies fifty species. We find them up as high as the denser parts of the Peruvian Montaña, and a colony of these creatures in conclave is always a remarkable sight, with their semi-human attributes. We shall see the sloth, and hear and see the jaguar as also the peccary. The alligator will be our constant companion amid the backwaters, and a dangerous and voracious one at times he proves. The turtles may furnish the traveller with its flesh and eggs for food, as it has done for the Indians always. The traveller on occasion need not despise, moreover, the flesh of the monkey, however repugnant it may seem in life to contemplate the creature as a constituent of the forest larder. The mighty boa-constrictor will be seen by the fortunate. The brilliant plumage of the many-hued birds is perhaps a compensation of Nature for the lack of song of the many feathered tribes of the valley. As for the parasitic creatures, the ticks, the dreadful ants and a host of others, the traveller here will rarely fail to make their close acquaintance.

The western or upper edge of the Amazon Valley differs much from the denser region such as that to which the foregoing description regarding the forest applies, conditions obtaining more particularly in the Brazilian portion of the territory. This upper edge—extending, however, in some cases a long way to the east—is known in Peru as the Montaña, and embodies a much more broken and diversified landscape, more beautiful and more habitable. Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela also partake in territory of this character, which is formed by the slopes of the Andes.

As the traveller descends the eastern slopes of the Cordillera, whose tablelands and ridges we have traversed in a previous chapter, and leaves behind him the vast grass-covered uplands, with their towering peaks, he enters upon the line of tree-life, which lies at an elevation of perhaps 11,000 feet: enters indeed upon another world. The climate becomes warmer, the mists lie heavier, thickets of flowering shrubs spread their beauty, cascades of falling water are projected like giant fountains over sheer precipices, and timber-clad ridge and profound cañon, between whose walls the torrential rivers now hurry eastwards, diversify the journey; transformation scenes which delight the eye and give an added zest to the arduous march.

A very small portion of the Montaña is occupied or inhabited. The old Inca civilization did not penetrate it, nor did the Spaniards of the Colonial period, nor yet did the white folk of the Andine Republics establish more than nominal sway over savage nature and savage man in these remote regions. Beyond the few settlers who live isolated from the world, the folk consist of more or less uncivilized tribes of Indians.

Each of these tribes generally bears its distinctive name and has its various customs—curious, useful or bestial. The Aguarunas of the Marañon build fixed dwellings and cultivate the soil. They are of middle stature, the women often well-featured, and both sexes wear short garments, in distinction to other tribes which go naked and unashamed. A warlike people, fighting with poisoned arrows, they have on various occasions destroyed the white man's settlements. These people signal their messages through the forest for long distances by means of the tunduy—a hollow log tautly suspended from a cord attached to a tree, and which reaches the ground, and struck hard blows with a club it emits a far-carrying sound, which, under a species of "morse" code, carries the message onward—a kind of native "wireless-telegraphy."

The Campas Indians occupy an enormous territory on the great Urubamba and Ucayali Rivers, and have assimilated some degree of civilization and are friendly to the whites. The Nahumedes are those who attacked Orellana and were taken for women-warriors. The Orejones are so called from the practice of making their ears of enormous size, by inserting weights in the lobes. The Huitoto Indians, in Peru and Colombia, were those who suffered under the excesses of the Putumayo, the great stream descending from the Colombian Andes.

It would be impossible here to enumerate the many tribes of the Montaña. Some of them were influenced by the Incas, and in consequence are of a higher calibre. The Incas, according to the legends, had a God-given mission to civilize the rude folk of Western South America, and marvellously they carried it out, in a way that puts the modern white man to shame, with his ruthless negligence or with the studied barbarity he has visited upon the poor aboriginal rubber-gatherers.

Many of these tribes cultivate the ground and subsist upon the fruits of their toil. Many of them have a more or less hazy belief in a Supreme Deity, evolved from their inner consciousness or inherited from the Incas or from the childhood of the world. The tribes have no particular cohesion, and are thus at the mercy of whoever may oppress them. At the head of each tribe is generally a curaca, a chief chosen by reason of his superior strength or ferocity. Often they dwell in huge community-houses.

The "Conquest of the Montaña" is for the Peruvian people a matter of considerable moment; the region, embodying what in the future may be perhaps the most valuable part of the territory of the Republic, and the Government is becoming more humanely alive to its potentialities.

It has been calculated that the aggregate length of navigable waterway of the Amazon affluents in Peru exceeds 10,000 miles, for steamers varying from a draught of twenty feet down to two or four feet; that is during high-water period throughout a part of the year. This navigability is reduced to about half the distance in the dry season.[17] In addition, the smaller channels for vast distances may be utilized for canoe-journeys.

The Oriente, or corresponding region in Ecuador, offers analogous conditions for navigation, although more limited in extent.[18] In Colombia, as described elsewhere, navigation is possible by small craft from the fluvial system of the Amazon to that of the Orinoco, a remarkable hydrographic condition.

UNCIVILIZED FOREST INDIANS OF THE PERUVIAN AMAZON.

Vol. II. To face p. 90.

In Bolivia the Amazon system provides also some 10,000 miles of navigation (and the Plate system a further thousand miles). The principal affluent in Bolivia of this fluvial network is the Madeira and the Mamoré.

The famous Madeira-Mamoré railway was built to avoid the cataracts and rapids on that river, and provides a link in a chain of 2,000 miles of river navigation, serving Bolivia and Brazil. The line has had a terrible history, in the deaths during earlier explorations of the route and during its construction, brought about by the adverse forces of Nature in these forest wilds.

We reach the lower terminus of this railway by the steamer which ascends the Amazon from Para and Manaos, at Porto Velho, 1,000 miles upstream from the last-named town, and here our vessel, which may have brought us from Liverpool or other European ports, lies 600 feet above the level of the sea, where it has ascended under its own steam, 2,000 miles from salt water. Here the impenetrable curtain of the forest closes in, and from it timidly emerge the harmless—if sometimes cannibal—little Indian folk who dwell in its sombre depths.

"The northern region, including the territory of Colonias, the department of El Beni, and a portion of that of La Paz, is that in which the river navigation is most considerable, for it is in this region that the majority of the barracas are situated. These are the establishments installed on the river banks by which the rubber of the region is collected. They are at the same time warehouses for the storing of rubber and stores containing the most varied merchandise. The barracas are often surrounded by plantations.

"Despite their number and their importance, the rivers of this part of the country are subject to the common fate of all the higher affluents and sub-affluents of the Amazon—namely, a considerable diminution of their waters during the dry season, which renders the channels difficult and unreliable on account of the obstacles which accumulate at certain points. It is really only during the season of high water that steam navigation is easy and rapid; in general, on the Rios Beni and Madre de Dios, the steamboats run freely from December to May. From June and July the steamers encounter increasing numbers of obstacles and are exposed to the risk of a sudden fall of water, when the types of vessel peculiar to each river come into use, particularly from August to November.

"During the months of July and August navigation is inconvenient on account of the expanse of mud, which has not as yet had time to harden, but is left uncovered by the falling waters on either bank, making landing a difficult matter. The reefs uncovered at low water and the entanglements of tree trunks disappear with the rise of the waters, and the steamers recommence running.

"Descending the rivers during high water, navigation is both easy and rapid, but it is also rather dangerous on account of the swiftness of the current. It is difficult to estimate the time needed to navigate this or that river, as the day's journey, ascending or descending, varies according to the river, the amount of water in it, the kind of vessel employed, the amount of cargo carried, and the crew which steers or propels the vessel.

"The vessels peculiar to the rivers of those regions which do not permit of steam navigation, and which are everywhere employed when the waters are low, are the balsa and the callapo, each a species of raft; together with boats of various dimensions—monterias or batelon, egariteas, canoas or pirogues, the latter being dug-out canoes.

"The balsa is a raft consisting of seven pieces or trunks of a peculiar and very light wood known as palo de balsa (raft-wood); these pieces are either bound together or pinned with stakes of chonta, a kind of black palm which is very hard. The fore part of the raft is narrowed slightly, and the trunks are arranged on a curve whose elevation is perhaps eighteen inches, so that the sides are higher than the middle. Each of the seven trunks is perhaps five inches in diameter. On the framework thus made is placed a platform of plaited bamboos, known as chairo; this platform, which is intended for the reception of the cargo, and on which any passengers take their places, is called the huaracha. At each end of the raft a space of three to five feet is left free of any covering; here sit or stand the three boatmen who form the crew—two at the bow and one at the stern. A good raft is usually twenty-two to twenty-six feet long, by five to six feet wide, and will carry about 7 1/2 cwt. of cargo, as well as the three boatmen.

"A callapo or monteria consists of two or three balsas lashed together; such a raft will carry as much as 34 cwt. The crews of these rafts, according to their dimensions, consist of three to fifteen men; these men are Leco Indians, or Mosetenes, or Yuracares, who are highly skilled in this kind of navigation.

"The pilot is the captain of the crew; he is naturally the calmest and the most expert; the punteros, who are stationed at the two ends, are the strongest; the rest are the rowers. The navigation of the balsa is terribly hard work when mounting against a current; as a rule two men go ashore and tow the raft from the bank, pulling on a rope some fifteen yards in length; a third, armed with a pole sixteen or eighteen feet long, keeps the raft a certain distance from the bank, so that it shall not run aground. Where the water is too shallow to float the raft, it must be dragged over the stones in the bed of the river. In reaches where it is impossible to make one's way along the bank the raft is poled up-stream, a method of progression which costs more effort and is less speedy.

"The crew of a balsa or monteria will usually navigate for some ten or twelve hours a day, during which they will perhaps make nine or ten miles; to rest, eat or sleep they go ashore, which action is known as encostar.

"The navigation of the Mapiri (one of those rivers which run into the Beni) must be made in balsas or callapos manned by Leco Indians. From Mapiri the descent is rapid as far as Huanay, and the only obstacles are a few sunken reefs, which cause dangerous vortices in the impetuous stream. Where the Mapiri takes the name of Kaka (river of rocks)—that is, at the confluence of the Coroico—there are many dangerous passages full of surface rocks. This river finally flows into the Beni.

"The Rio Boopi also leads to the Beni; rafts like those of the Mapiri are piloted by Mosetenes Indians. The passage is rapid, for at the outset the river enters a narrow gorge, that of the Meniqui, in which the current flows at a dizzy speed; eventually the Beni is reached at Guachi. Rafts are employed as far as Rurenabaque and Salinas or Puerto Brais, as between the two ports there is the dangerous passage of the Altamirani, which is encumbered with rocks and rapids.

"The Rio Beni is then freely navigable by large steamers as far as Riberalta, at the mouth of the Madre de Dios, a distance of 473 miles. Steamers cannot proceed to Villa Bella on account of the Esperanza rapids or falls, which are 340 yards long with a declivity of 18 feet; the river here is nearly a thousand yards wide, and its depth is three fathoms. The current is so rapid that boats and rafts must be unloaded both ascending and descending. The railway now being built between Riberalta and Guayaramirim will circumvent this difficulty.

"The Rio Madre de Dios, on the banks of which there are numerous settlements, is navigable for steamers during the months of high water from Riberalta as far as its remotest tributaries, such as the Inambari, the Manu, the Tambopata or Pando, etc.; during the rest of the year the journey must be made in callapos. The navigation of this river is difficult only about the middle of its course, where there are two rapids, which are, however, completely covered when the water is high. The Madre de Dios is navigable by its affluents as far as the outlying spurs of the Andes.

"To pass from this river to the Rio Acre there is a choice of two routes. One may go overland from the Carmen barraca to Cobija, or by water, by way of the Rios Manuripi and Tahuamanu, affluents of the Orton. The Orton, an affluent of the Beni, is, like the Madre de Dios, navigated by steam-launches during the season of high water, and by other vessels—rafts and canoes—all the year. Numerous barracas (rubber stations) lie along the Orton, whence one can easily pass to the Rio Acre."[19]

The wealth of the rubber-bearing regions of Peru and Bolivia has of late years been made the subject of considerable study, but the industry of rubber-gathering and export has been overshadowed from a variety of causes. The Acre territory in Bolivia and that of Colonias have been regarded as regions of untold wealth in this respect. Difficult roads lead thereto from the capital of the Republic, but these, in some cases, are extremely picturesque.

INDIANS OF THE NAPO, PERUVIAN AMAZON REGION.

Vol. II. To face p. 96.

"Hardly has one crossed the Cordillera when on all sides, on the flanks of the mountains, far off on the plains, in the valleys, the vast virgin forests show as great sombre patches emerging from fields of verdure. Varied as the vegetation which composes them, some seem impenetrable, their huge trees garlanded with lianas and loaded with innumerable parasites. These trees are not of great diameter because, being huddled so closely together, they struggle upward to seek the air and the light.

"Others, undulating in the wind, waving their palmated crests, seem like the parks of some destroyed Eden; they are often so burdened with flowers that when the wind blows it is as though the snow were falling. Some of these forests are incessantly alive with myriads of splendidly coloured birds and monkeys of every species; others, on the contrary, are so full of silence and shadow and mysterious solitude that the traveller might believe himself in a virgin world.

"Everywhere innumerable watercourses drain the country; some contain flakes of gold, but the true wealth of the country is in its vegetation, so marvellously vigorous and varied that even in America the forests of the Amazonian basin are proverbial.

"Although this region lies wholly within the Tropics, it contains every plant and animal to be found under the sun—from the cedar to the banana with its velvet leaves, which never thrives but under the Equator; from the jaguar to the heat-loving monkey gambolling in the sun, and even, in the great plains of the east, from the shepherd watching his flocks to the collector of rubber and the planter of cocoa established beside the rivers or in the depths of the odorous valleys.

"Despite these natural advantages, the greatest to be found on earth, civilized man inhabits this region only at rare and isolated points. This portion of Bolivia is still a wilderness almost unknown, into which the Bolivians of the high plateau, attracted and held by the metalliferous strata from which they strive to tear their treasure, only come by chance to tempt fortune by the exploitation of rubber. As men are everywhere prone to generalize, the territory of Colonias has the reputation of being full of mosquitoes, Indians and wild beasts, each category more dangerous than the other. There is a manifest exaggeration here. Certainly the mosquitoes are an objectionable race, but they are not found everywhere, and as for the Indians, if they have on occasion displayed a certain malevolence—possibly justified, but of which they themselves are always the first victims—they are as a rule invaluable as boatmen and collectors of rubber, and it is regrettable that they are not more numerous. Remain the dangerous wild beasts: well, they fear man far more than he fears them, and moreover they speedily desert such localities as man inhabits or frequents.

"The climate of the territory of Colonias varies according to the proximity of the chain of the Andes, the altitude, the abundance of watercourses, and the direction of the winds. The temperature in May, June and July is mild and agreeable, moderately cool in the morning and evening, varying between 53·6° and 76·6° from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and from 76·6° to 89·6° between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. during the hottest months (September to December). Rarely does the thermometer rise or fall above these extremes. The normal temperature does, however, suffer a sudden fall when the cold south winds blow that are known as surazos; they come in September and produce violent storms with great and almost daily variations in the temperature, which may give rise to affections of the lungs and throat as the sequel to sudden chills. The force and direction of the winds contribute greatly to modify the salubrity of any region; places reputed to be unhealthy have become notably healthy when the forest has been opened or closed in a given direction.

"The great defect of the climate here is the abundance of the rains. They fall continually through the whole rainy season, which lasts from December to May. The vapours of the Atlantic are brought up by the east winds, which are prevalent at this season; on reaching the Cordillera they are chilled as the air expands and loses heat with its increasing altitude; then the vapours condense and fall in torrents of rain, which often lasts for whole days together. But these rains are never cold, so they are not unpleasant as such rains would be in Europe; one braves them without thinking anything of it, as in Europe one braves a summer shower.

"When it does not rain (the dry season lasts from June to November) the climate is delightful; the middle of the day is hot, with a somewhat heavy heat, although the sky is usually covered with a diaphanous mist which tempers the rays of the sun.

"Floods are caused not only by rains in the western mountain regions, but also by local rains. They are dependent on the slope of the surface and the insignificant fall of the rivers. When the larger rivers are full the tributaries rise because their waters are dammed up or even flow backwards. The waters then become stagnant in every sense of the word, and decompose rapidly through the action of the heat and the vegetable and other detritus which they contain; at such times they produce paludian fevers; principally in April and May, when the waters begin to fall and the larger rivers receive the supplies of stagnant waters released from their tributaries. As the fall continues the mud left uncovered on the banks becomes an additional cause of fevers.

"These paludian fevers, which are prevalent more especially during the rainy season, attack more particularly the rubber collectors—an ignorant and primitive population who know nothing of the most elementary rules of hygiene. Careless or imprudent whites pay the same penalty.

"The lack of medical attendance, intemperance, negligence which results in the drinking of stagnant water drawn from pools or swamps or from the river banks; above all, the bites of the mosquito, against which no protection is employed, and which convey malaria to healthy but debilitated persons: these are the causes of the ravages occasioned by paludism in this region, as throughout the Amazon basin.

"These conditions do not obtain throughout the Territory; there are numerous healthy localities as, for example, along the middle reaches of the Madre de Dios, in all parts which lie at any altitude, and in regions not subject to floods where a portion of the forest has been cleared in order to give the beneficent breezes a free course. On the other hand, and we speak from long personal experience, any healthy individual of robust or even average constitution can maintain himself in good health, suffering, in the long run, from nothing worse than a little anæmia, by observing the following rules:

"Do not drink stagnant water unless it has been boiled; if one must drink unboiled water take it from the river, not from the bank, but from the middle of the current; do not walk or ride or exert yourself in the morning fasting; cover the loins with a belt of wool or flannel; take short but frequent baths or douches in order to facilitate perspiration and to avoid congestion of the pores; and in fever belts, or during the rainy season, take daily, as a preventive, four to eight grains of sulphate or hydrochlorate of quinine (in a cachet or compressed in tabloids) as well as a few granules of arsenic; finally, keep to an abundant and nourishing diet and do not forget that the nights being cool it is indispensable to take warm clothing and good blankets; and, most important of all, never omit the protection of mosquito-nets.

"Such is the territory of Colonias and the greater portion of El Beni, a land of magnificent vegetation; it is regarded, not without reason, as a country where tropical agriculture may have a future before it. At present this vast country possesses a population of only some 40,000 to 45,000 inhabitants, without counting its 15,000 to 18,000 wild Indians, a population of which the greater portion if not the whole is occupied in the production and transport of rubber, the chief product of the territory and the neighbouring countries."[20]

The conditions of life and the treatment of the rubber gatherers of the Amazon Valley were brought strongly before the world some years ago by the disclosures of the Putumayo, in Peru, when it was shown that terrible ill-treatment was meted out to the aborigines of the forests, in the greed for rubber. They were shown to be frequently starved, flogged to death, or tortured in various ways, their "crime" being that they would not or could not bring a sufficient quota of rubber. A powerful London company was involved in these scandals, but the directors, when brought before a Parliamentary Commission, protested that they had no knowledge of the matter.

It cannot be doubted that cruelties are still practised on the Indian folk, in the rubber-districts of Peru and Bolivia, under the curtain of the forest, although the authorities of these countries have taken measures to endeavour to prevent these.

The condition of the rubber industry in the Amazon forests are not, of course, all barbarous or uneconomic. It afforded, or affords, a means of livelihood to a considerable number of people, and created wealth where there was little other means of enrichment. It is, to an extreme, unfortunate that the industry is, in parts, a dying one—superseded in large measure by the active rubber plantations of the Straits Settlement, Malaysia and elsewhere. But it remains to be seen if, some day, under better auspices, the Amazon industry will not be revived. It also remains to be seen if the exotic plantations of Malaysia will be permanent, or whether exhaustion of the soil and other matters with what is an exotic industry there may not lead to deterioration, or decrease of the commodity and its yield, although it is to be hoped that such eventualities may not occur.

It is affirmed by experts that wild rubber is superior to plantation rubber. One of the evils of the Malaysian system is that whereby coolie labour is brought in without their women, and consequently no family life is possible among these coloured workers. In the Amazon Valley there are no such restrictions, and under better auspices the native rubber-gatherer could prosper and multiply. Herein lie important matters for the future, especially for that fortunate part of civilized mankind that rides on the rubber tyres of the modern motor-car.

Let us cast a passing glance at a rubber metropolis, here on this mighty South American river, at Manaos, a name familiar at least to the London reader of financial newspapers and to the shareholders of British concerns thereat—for British capital furnishes light, and power, and docks, and other matters, for some of these Amazon river ports.

Near that fork of the great river where on the one hand the black waters of the Rio Negro come down from a thousand miles' course from Venezuelan, Colombian and Ecuadorian forests and mingle with the muddy waters borne from the Peruvian Marañon and its tributaries, there stood, in the middle of last century, a riverside village of Indians, a handful of Portuguese, negroes and half-breeds. From this humble beginning a city sprang to being, the geographical and trade centre of the Amazon, with every comfort and every vice of modern civilization. What was the cause of this transformation? It was the discovery of the uses of rubber, the exploitation of the "black gold" of the forests. Manaos grew until the place, to which all the rubber-producing lands of the neighbouring Republics are tributary, provided ninety per cent. of the world's supply of rubber. It has not, however, given its name to this commodity, which has been associated rather with that of Para, another riverside city near the mouth of the Amazon, itself created largely by this trade.

"Formerly the basin of the Amazon was almost unpopulated. In 1848 the city of Belem, the only one in Amazonia, had 15,000 inhabitants, but two years later an epidemic of yellow fever greatly diminished their number. As for Manaos, even thirty years later it was only a village; Mathews, who visited it in 1879, estimated its population at 5,000. The Indian tribes of the forest refused to work; and a few thousand half-breeds, tapuyoz, a mixture of Portuguese, Indian and negro blood—were utterly inadequate to draw upon the wealth that men were beginning to recognize in the bordering forests. Labourers were demanded on every hand. The first immigrants, who settled about Manaos, were Indians from Bolivia and Peru; but their numbers were wholly insufficient.

"It was the influx of the inhabitants of Ceará, during the draught of 1877-79, that made the development of the rubber trade possible. From that date the colonization of the forest proceeded rapidly. The seekers of rubber dispersed themselves throughout Amazonia; but the region most regularly exploited was the basin of the Rio Purus and that of the Rio Jurua. These two rivers are navigable for a greater distance upstream than any other of the affluents of the Amazon, and in the virgin forest, which the rubber-seekers were the first to invade, the exportation of rubber is only possible along the navigable water-ways. The Brazilians who mounted the Purus and the Jurua did not stop at the Bolivian frontier; a war with Bolivia very nearly broke out on the subject of these lands, which a few years earlier had not even been explored. The foundation of the independent Republic of Acré, the treaty of Petropolis, and the cession of Acré to Brazil, were the result of the westerly march of the rubber-seekers.

"The economic development of Amazonia was prodigiously rapid. In 1890 it exported 16,000 tons of rubber; in 1900, 28,000 tons; in 1905, 33,000 tons. It became, next to San Paulo, the most important centre of exportation in Brazil.[21] The cities increased in size; the population of Para surpassed 100,000; that of Manaos attained to 50,000; and this growth of the cities, which was more rapid than the growth of the total population, is an index to the rapidity of the commercial development of the country. The Amazon became one of the great river highways of the world, serving not only the Brazilian Amazon, but also the regions of Peru which are crossed by the upper tributaries, and a portion of Venezuela, where products descend to Manaos by the Rio Negro.

"The exportation of rubber created wealth on all sides. All other occupations were abandoned for the collection of rubber. The herds of cattle on Marajo and the cocoa plantations along the banks were neglected. Similarly, in the neighbouring districts of Guiana the fields and plantations were abandoned on the discovery of 'placer' gold. No one thought of anything but rubber. Up to that time the country had produced its own food; now it had to resort to importation. It became a market in which the other States of Brazil were able to sell their products at a highly profitable rate. All these changes were due to the importation of labour from Ceará."[22]

We have seen elsewhere that the ocean steamer which carries us up the Amazon will reach the Peruvian port of Iquitos, a place of much importance, due to its position in the very heart of the continent, the centre of a vast tributary region, whose value the future will better be able to estimate.

A region of the utmost interest lies before the traveller who will adventure himself upon these tributary streams and the diversified territories which they drain. There might be fleets of motor-boats upon these waterways, whether bent upon pleasurable exploration, whether upon business and trade. The civilized folk of the eastern slopes of the great Cordillera are, metaphorically, stretching out their arms towards the east, casting eager glances thereover, for from thence must come economic prosperity and civilized peoples.

And now, once more, a glance at the past in the great valley, though brief, at those influences which have tried to make for good as against evil: the forces of the Church and the missionary.

The Jesuit friars in Brazil have had terrible charges laid at their doors, but they and the Franciscan friars did noble work in the forests and the rivers among the savage or humble denizens. Had their work been allowed to continue, it might have flourished greatly. Among the missionaries the name of the Padre Samuel Fritz stands out (as did that of Las Casas in the Cordillera and the coast). Fritz gave the greater part of his life, from 1686, in work among these unfortunate Indians. But the fighting between the Spaniards and the Portuguese, around the forts built near Manaos, destroyed this work. The Portuguese dispatched armed bands against the Spaniards, and destroyed the missions and the settlements, waging war in their jealous pretensions over this savage territory.

It will be recollected by students of history that the Popes—among them Paul III—strove to protect the Indians of the Amazon. This Pontiff, in 1537, issued a decree to the effect that "the Indians were men like others." Later, alarmed by the atrocities which were perpetrated in Mexico and Peru upon the aborigines, the Pope sanctioned slavery as a means of avoiding such horrors. In 1639 Pope Urban VIII excommunicated the captors and vendors of Indians, but later the Portuguese Government allowed the establishment of slavery. Under Dom John VI, the Indians were to be considered as "orphans" in the eyes of the law, and to be protected. But the present condition of the Amazon Indians is one in which they appear to have no civil or legal rights.

As regards modern missionary work here, this is full of difficulty, for if it is to be carried out by Protestants it involves a clashing with the Roman Catholic priesthood, which naturally occupies the whole continent. The work, however, whether by Protestant or Catholic, is not by any means neglected, although much greater effort is needful. Such effort should go hand in hand with economic elevation—also a difficult problem, due, in part, to the attitude of vested interests in the field.

It would but weary us to dwell upon the economic possibilities of the Amazon Valley in detail. Its climate and the fertility of its soil would render possible the cultivation of all those tropical products which are needful to the growing and hungry world, which, complaining that the cost of life is unbearable, is yet unable to set its hands to the fuller development of the great fallow areas, among which lies the vast Amazon territory. Here, then, is work for the future.

We now turn to the huge Republic of Brazil, mistress of the greater part of Amazonia, and of much else.

CHAPTER XII
BRAZIL

When, in the year 1502, the early Portuguese navigators entered the Bay of Rio de Janeiro—it was the first of January, hence the name they gave to what they believed to be the estuary of a great river—they little dreamed of that superb city which, as the centuries rolled on, should arise on the edge of the sparkling waters, with their background of picturesque mountains, with a harbour perhaps the finest in the New World.

But such is the capital of Brazil to-day, and the traveller approaching Rio de Janeiro revels—if the weather be propitious—in the sunlit sea, the emerald islets that stud its bosom, the palm-fringed shores and colour of the vegetation upon the mountain slopes, fit setting for the handsome buildings, esplanades and avenues which unfold to the view. Here the beauty of the Tropics, shorn by modern science of much of its lurking dangers, combines with the handiwork of man to form a metropolis which South America may contemplate with pardonable pride as an instance of its civilization. In this vast oval bay, which stretches inland for twenty-five miles, the navies of the world might lie at anchor, and indeed the flags of all maritime nations unfurl their colours near the quays of this vast mercantile seaport below the Equator.

It is a vast land which we thus approach. Brazil spreads like a giant across its continent. Its arms are flung westwards over South America for over two thousand miles to the base of the Andes, and from above the Equator to beyond the Tropic of Capricorn, crowding its smaller neighbours—if crowding be possible here—into the extremities of the continent, an area in which the countries of Europe might be more than contained, and which is larger than the vast Anglo-American Republic, the United States.

Still almost unknown are great portions of this great territory, still inhabited by tribes as savage as when first the white man set foot upon it, or as when the faithless Orellana, Pizarro's lieutenant, abandoning his companions in the heart of the dreadful forests of the Amazon, floated down the mighty waters of that river from the source to the sea.

Brazil is, of course, not a Spanish American country, although it was at one period under the dominion of Spain; and it stands apart from the remainder of the great sisterhood of the Latin American Republics by reason of its Portuguese origin and language, although the common Iberian ancestry renders it similar thereto in other respects. It differs, furthermore, in the constitution of its people, in that the African negro race has been so considerably absorbed into the twenty-two million souls which form the population of the Republic: an admixture which is of considerable ethnological interest, and may have some important bearing on the future relation of the white and coloured races of the world.

THE BAY OF RIO DE JANEIRO.

Vol. II. To face p. 112.

The magnificent but somewhat incoherent land as is Brazil to-day, offered at the time of its discovery few attractions to the sovereigns of a Mother Country into whose coffers the wealth of Africa and of India flowed. Its poor and barbarous tribes had no stores of gold ready to the hand of the Conquistador; there was no civilized empire with a polity and architecture and organized social life, with armies to protect it, such as Mexico and Peru offered, and consequently neither glory nor riches urged the European discoverer or invader to tempt its hinterland and people its valleys and seaboard. For thirty years the Portuguese sovereigns paid little heed to this newly acquired dominion, except that they fought off the encroaching Spaniard and the adventurers of France, who would have entered or traded with it.

Twenty years before the Conquest of Mexico it was that the first explorer sailed the Brazilian coast—and only eight years after Columbus had sighted the American mainland—that the Spaniard, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, a companion of Columbus, with whom sailed Amerigo Vespucci—who gave his name to America—sighted the shore of what is now Brazil, near Cape San Augustine, reconnoitring the mouth of the Amazon and coasting along to the Orinoco. He took away some gems from the Indians, some drugs and a load of dye-wood.

From this later commodity of the dye-wood, the great dominion of Brazil took its name. "Brazil" was originally a legendary island in the Atlantic, which long retained its imaginary position in the lore of the forecastle and upon the ancient charts, and from this circumstance the name came to be bestowed upon that enormous part of South America which produced the red dye-woods similar to those which bore the name of Brazil in the Middle Ages.

A few months after the keel of Pinzon had furrowed these unknown seas, another explorer, Cabral, close upon Easter in 1499 (O.S.), following the course of Vasco de Gama to the east, was drifted by an adverse gale so far from his proper track that he reached this same coast, and, anchoring in Porto Seguro, erected an altar there, celebrated Mass, set up a stone cross and took possession of the country for the King of Portugal. He, like Columbus, thought he had reached India, and sent a vessel to Lisbon with the news.

Let us turn for a space to examine the great land thus brought to knowledge by these early voyagers.

To-day, the traveller in Brazil will soon be impressed by the immensity of its spaces, will remark how broad are these wide tablelands, how interminable the serras and mountain ranges, how boundless the forests. The territory of this great land is fifteen times that of France. It is larger than the United States (without Alaska); it is over 2,600 miles long upon the Atlantic, and 2,700 miles wide from its coast to where, across the heart of the continent, it touches the frontier of Peru. Its boundaries touch those of every South American nation except Chile. Persistent trespassers were the Portuguese in the early Colonial period, and their land-hunger carried them beyond those boundaries which the Pope, as we have seen in a former chapter, fixed between Portugal and Spain.

What is the general nature of this great territory? Here is a coastline with many sandy beaches, mangrove swamps and lagoons, with inland channels following the coast for long distances, but giving place to rolling, fertile coastal plains terminating in headlands overlooking the Atlantic waves. The coast is indented with many land-locked bays, forming large and easily accessible harbours, with others smaller and difficult of approach.

Back from this characteristic littoral, from Cape San Roque—nearly the easternmost point of South America, whose tropic headland here juts out far towards Europe—and southward to Rio de la Plata extends a vast tableland, covering half Brazil, and beyond this we reach immense undulating plains of sandy soil, forming the great depression of South America from the basin of the Amazon in the north to the basin of the Paraná River in the south.

Thus do we remark a singular incoherence and lack of symmetry in the physiography of Brazil, largely due to geological conditions. Yet Brazil is a land which has been immune from violent geological disturbances from an early time. Such oscillations as there have been have not brought to being enormous mountain chains or intensive foldings of the rocks, such as are so marked elsewhere in South America. Flat bedding or low angles mark the geological horizons since the Devonian Age, and since that age it would seem that none of Brazil has been beneath the sea. There are eruptive rocks in the Devonian and carboniferous beds, but since the Palæozoic epoch it does not appear that there has been any volcanic activity. These devastating forces of Nature seem to have had their vent on the western side of the continent. The Palæozoic beds of the interior are of red sandstones, and these have their place in marked degree in the economics and appearance of the landscape.

The formation of the country has been interestingly described by a well-informed recent writer, whom we may quote here.

"The high plains of the interior, which shed their waters both north and south, have never been of economic importance; the valley of the Amazon has been developed only of late years, and its population is as yet small. It is therefore the tableland of the Atlantic seaboard, from Uruguay to Ceará, that constitutes the soil of historic Brazil. Through its length of 1,800 to 2,200 miles this tableland presents the greatest variety of aspect, and has no hydrographic unity. Its height is greater to the south, where it reaches some 3,200 feet. This general slope from south to north is revealed by the course of the San Francisco. In Brazil the name of Borburema is employed to denote the northern portion of the plateau. This old geographical term deserves preservation, as it represents a region which has its own peculiar characteristics. The dry season there is a long one, and the Borburema does little to feed the small seaboard rivers which flow fan-wise into the Atlantic; for the plateau in that region slopes gently to the sea.

"It is otherwise in southern Brazil. From the State of San Paolo southwards the seaward face of the plateau is a huge bank, some 2,500 or 3,000 feet in height, which separates a narrow strip of coast from the basin of the great rivers inland. This long bank or watershed bears successively the titles of Serra do Mar and Serra Geral. From San Paolo to the Rio Grande no river pierces its barrier; but the streams which rise upon its landward side, almost within sight of the sea, cross the whole width of the plateau before they join the Paraná or the Uruguay. Thus the Serra do Mar is not really a mountain range; though it has, from the sea, all the appearance of one, owing to its denticulated ridge; but the traveller who reaches the crest by crossing the inland plateau arrives at the highest point by the ascent of imperceptible gradients, and only discovers the serra when he breaks suddenly upon the sight of the ocean thousands of feet below.

"Beyond the serra is the territory of Minas; a confused mass of mountainous groups, among which it is no easy matter to trace one's way, either on the map or on the trail itself. An enormous backbone of granite, the Mantiqueira, crosses the southern portion of Minas; and the railway painfully ascends its grassy slopes. The Mantiqueira, which receives on its southern flank the rains brought by the ocean winds, is the highest point of the plateau, and the hydrographic centre of Brazil. It gives birth to the Rio Grande, the principal arm of the Paraná.

"As soon as we cross the southern frontier of the State of San Paolo the plateau is transformed; there is no more granite, and the landscape grows tamer. The primitive measures of gneiss and granite, out of which the Serra do Mar is carved, are covered to the westward by a bed of sedimentary rocks, of which the strata, dipping toward the west, plunge one after the other under other more recent strata. They consist exclusively of red and grey sandstone, and the sandy soil which results from their decomposition covers the western portions of the four southern States. The topography of the country changes with the geologic structure. The outcrops of sandstone, which one crosses in travelling westward, cut the tableland into successive flats. Irregular ranges turn their abrupter slopes towards the east, as the banks of the Meuse and Moselle in the basin of the Seine; the rivers flow close underneath them, running through narrow gorges. Even the least experienced eye could never mistake these cliffs of sandstone for ridges of granite; these are not mountain chains, not serras, but, according to the local term, serrinhas.

"In Santa Catharina and Rio Grande enormous eruptions of basaltic rocks have covered a portion of the plateau. The basalt has even reached the seaboard, and southward of the island on which Desterro is built it overlies the granites of the Serra do Mar. The south flank of the plateau, which overlooks the prairies of Rio Grande, is also basaltic. The popular judgment has gone astray, having given the same name—the Serra Geral—to the granitic chain and to the edge of the basaltic overflow, as if one were a continuation of the other.

"If we except the prairies of Rio Grande, where the pampas of the Argentine and of Uruguay commence, there is nothing in front of the Serra do Mar but a narrow sandy waste. The rains which scar the face of the serra, wearing it into ravines, do not irrigate it sufficiently; and the rivers, of little volume, are spent in slowly filling the marshes that border the coast; they are lost finally among the granite islets, in the deep bays which the first explorers insisted were great estuaries. From the Rio Grande to Espirito Santo the Parahyba is the only river that has been able to deposit, at the foot of the serra, and around its outlets, a solid and fertile alluvial plain; it is there that the sugar-mills of Campos are established.

"It is the vegetation above all that gives the various regions of Brazil their peculiar character. It is a mistake to suppose that Brazil is entirely covered with forests. The forests are concentrated upon two regions: the basin of the Amazon and a long strip of seaboard along the Atlantic coast between Espiritu Santo and Rio Grande. The forests require abundant rains; and the Serra do Mar, receiving the humidity of the ocean winds upon its dripping flanks, incessantly hidden by mists, produces far to the south the conditions which have made the Amazonian basin the home of the equatorial forest. For a distance of 1,200 miles those who have landed at the various practicable inlets have found everywhere on the slopes of the serra the same splendid and impenetrable forest. Even to-day it is almost untouched. It encircles and embraces Rio; it seems to refuse it room for growth, as in the tale of Daudet's, in which the forest reconquered in a single springtide the land which the intrepid colonists had stolen from it in order to found their settlement.

"Beyond the belt of swamps which extends along the coast, where ill-nourished trees, overladen with parasites, struggle against imperfect drainage and poverty of soil, at the very foot of the serra, the true forest begins. The dome-like summits of the great trees, ranged in ascending ranks upon the slope, completely screen the soil they spring from, thus giving the peculiar illusion that this wonderful vegetation rises, from a common level, to the extreme height of the range. Here and there only emerges from the foliage the smooth water-worn side of a granite bluff. The railway track runs between walls of verdure; the underwoods, which elsewhere suffer from the lack of light, grow eagerly along the sides of the trench-like clearing. Lianas, ferns, bamboos, grow vigorously as high as the tree-tops. One seems actually to see the brutal struggle of the plants toward the sunlight and the air. Many travellers have spoken of the sense of conflict and of violence produced by the virgin forest. There is, indeed, along the clearings cut by man, and over the trees which he fells but does not remove, a fierce battle between species and species, individual and individual; a desperate struggle for space and air. As always, it is man who introduces disorder into the heart of Nature. Far from his track order reigns, established by the victory of the strongest; and the forest which has never been violated gives a profound impression of peace and calm.

"The serra is the true home of the equatorial forest. But it covers beyond the ridge the southern and western portions of the State of Minas and the basins of the Rio Doce and the Parahyba. The Martiqueira very nearly marks the limit of the forests; beyond commences a dense growth of bush. I remember a long journey along the northern slope of the range upon which is built the new capital of the State of Minas, the city of Bello Horizonte. Towards the north we could see vast stretches of uncovered land; the mountains were partly clothed with narrow belts of forest, which climbed upward through the valleys to the very sources of the streams; we passed alternately through thickets of thorn and prairies where the soil was studded with the nests of termites. The dense trees, deprived of their leaves by months of drought, were beginning to revive, and were decking themselves with flowers, of a startling wealth of colour unknown to the forests of the humid regions. There it was that the bush commenced. It stretched unbroken to the north—unbroken save for the streams, which were full or empty according to the rain they had received.

"In San Paolo also and Paraná the region of afforestation is not limited by the ridge of the serra. Forests and prairies alternate on the plateau. The fires which the Indians used to light in the savannahs have destroyed the forest in places; yet man has played but a little part in the present distribution of vegetation. The forest has persisted wherever the natural conditions were favourable, holding tenaciously to the humid slopes of the hills or to rich and fertile soils. Certain soils, either by reason of their richness or their moisture, particularly favour the forest, while on lighter soils the trees can ill resist the drought. The diabasic soils of San Paolo are always covered with a mantle of forest; so much so that a map of the forests would be equivalent to a geological map.

"The forest of the plateau, intersected as it is by stretches of prairie, is less dense and less exuberant than the forest the serra; and as we approach the south the difference is yet more evident. Towards the boundaries of San Paolo and Paraná the tropical trees are replaced by resinous varieties. The immense pines of the Paraná, with straight trunks and wide, flattened crests, whose shape is rather reminiscent of that of a candelabrum with seven branches, cover with their sombre grey the wooded portions of the plateau from the Paranápanema to beyond the Uruguay. With their open foliage, pervious to the light, these woods resemble the pinewoods of Europe.

"To find the tropical forest once more we must push as far as the Serra Geral, whose southern slopes run down towards the prairies of Rio Grande, as on the east they descend towards the sea. There, on the basaltic flanks of the serra, is a last fragment of the tropical woods. In magnificence it almost equals the forests of Rio or of Santos. It is the equatorial forest that makes the continuity of the serra, not its geological constitution. When the Brazilians speak of the serra they think of the forest rather than of the mountains. Incautious cartographers, who have worked from second-hand data, which they have not always interpreted correctly, have sown the map of Rio Grande with a large number of imaginary ranges. One seeks them in vain when traversing the country; but one finds, in their place, the forests which the inhabitants call serras; the term for mountain has become, by the latent logic of language, the term for forest. Nothing could better emphasize the importance of vegetation in the Brazilian landscape; it effaces all other characteristics.

"Forest, bush and prairie change their aspect with the cycle of the seasons. The whole interior of Brazil knows the alteration of two well-defined seasons. The temperature is equal all the year through; there is no hot season, no cold season, but a dry season and a rainy season; this latter corresponds with the southern summer. At the first rains, which fall in September or October, the wearied vegetation abruptly awakens. Then comes the time of plenty, when earth affords the herds of cattle an abundant pasturage. March brings back the drought to the scorching soil. The region of rainy summers includes all the State of San Paolo, extending sometimes as far as Paraná. Further south the rhythm of vegetable life is no longer swayed by the distribution of the rains, but by the variations of the temperature, which grow always greater as one travels south. From June to September frosts are frequent in Rio Grande. The cattle on its pastures suffer from cold as much as from hunger. Spring returns, and the grass grows as the sun regains its power. This is the only portion of Brazil in which the words winter and summer are understood as they are in Europe.

"But the ocean side of the serra knows no seasons; all the months of the year are alike; all bring with them an almost equal rainfall. There vegetation is truly evergreen, everlasting, unresting. The ridge of the serra divides two different countries. If it is true that the division of the year into well-marked seasons, that powerful aid to the agriculturist, is the privilege of the temperate regions, then tropical Brazil is found only at the foot of the serra and on its slopes; the interior is another Brazil.

"Its advent into Brazilian history dates very far back. The first colonists immediately climbed the serra, and so discovered the vast territories which offered them a climate more favourable to their efforts. The belt of seaboard was too narrow and too hot to be the cradle of a nation. Colonization was effected otherwise than in the United States. In North America the pioneers settled along the seaboard, in a bracing, healthy climate, and there dwelt for a long period without any thought of crossing to the west of the mountains which limited their outlook. They prospered and multiplied in their narrow domain, and, having formed a nation, only then began to extend their territories toward the west. In Brazil, although the administrative capital of the colony remained upon the coast, men quickly began to penetrate the interior. To-day even to the seaward of the plateau to which the immigrants made their way, and which they have everywhere opened up for exploitation by labour, the soil remains but sparsely populated. While the forests of the interior gradually recede before the agriculturist, Brazil has kept the forest of the littoral intact, and man has not disputed the claim of the woods. They form, between the seaboard cities and the agricultural regions of the plateau, an uninhabited frontier, a sumptuous but deceptive frontage. Many travellers know nothing of the country but the seaboard forest. It deceives them as to the nature of Brazil, and as to its economic progress. The living members of Brazil are hidden behind it as behind a screen.

"After the first astonishment has abated, and when one has travelled far and for long periods, the eyes at last become tired; they become inured to the opulent scenery, and even find the landscape monotonous. The sombre green of forest or prairie everywhere hides the rocks; the soil stripped bare by the roads, is of a dull, uniform red; even the dust is red. Bright colours and broken lines are equally rare. One travels continually among rounded hillocks of green; the humid climate hides or softens the contour of hill and valley alike. The memories of one's journey's blend and grow confused; reminiscences of forests, skirted or traversed; clumps of banana-palms near fordable streams; windings of the twisted trail in the midst of undulating prairies."[23]

From mountain slopes and forest glades let us turn to glance into the Brazilian home, at the Brazilian people.

In one sense, Brazil is an old country, as far as any American nation may be termed so, and in its three hundred years of life since the white man became established within its shores life has taken on a settled form and engrafted itself upon its environment. It is a land of marked social customs and distinctions. It has an aristocracy, a culture refined and stable. Education, music, poetry, the arts, are revered and enjoyed, and in this sense the traveller is transported to the Old World. Yet Brazil is democratic in its ideas, as far as democracy has been possible in the Latin American Republics—a matter which is of circumscribed limits at present.

The foreigner, unless he specially lay himself out to know the folk of the Latin American lands, cannot readily look into their homes. They are a people, as elsewhere remarked, full of reserve, almost mediaeval in their seclusion, sensitive, yet extremely hospitable and open-handed whenever these barriers of reserve are penetrated. This is naturally but the Iberian social character transplanted to America.