The Andes and the Amazon; life and travel in Peru

Front matter

CHILE

Its History and Development. Natural Features, Products, Commerce and Present Conditions.

AUTHOR or “A NATURALIST IN MID'AFRICA."

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

1. INTRODUCTION ..... I

II. THE ANDES ...... IO

Introduction

Spanish - American Republics are generally vaguely thought of in Europe as small communities with an incipient civilisation and endless revolutions, where all soldiers are “generals,” and all citizens government employees. And there has really been some foundation for this view, especially among some of the lesser States of those fertile regions. But there are other and more favourable conditions underlying these communities ; conditions which are comparatively little known to the outside world, and which are worthy of serious consideration.

The foundation for the elements of greatness of a nation — after the weighty matter of race character — depends upon the geographical conditions of its soil. There is a certain condition of “ geographical continuity,” if I may invent the term, which should be characteristic of the territory of a great nation. This term involves a feeling of amplitude and extension ; of unconfined frontiers, bordering upon public or international highways, such as oceans or vast rivers — the possibility of ingress and egress at more than one side.

Peru has this condition of “ geographical continuity ” in a marked manner, in that whilst possessing a vast littoral and interior dominion upon the Pacific side, she stretches across the Andes, and also has her natural outlet upon the system of Amazonian rivers towards

A highest peaks on the globe, and many of its mineral deposits are, of their kind, the largest in the world. From all this greatness of nature, shall not there spring some day greatness of man — a leader of nations of her race and in her hemisphere? Time will show. Her children have a magnificent heritage, and they are working now towards the time when it shall no longer be said of them, as it might, indeed, have been written of all Spanish- America, “Unstable as water; thou shalt not excel ! ”

The country is worthy of a wider and better reputation than it possesses. Its inhabitants have had many difficulties to struggle against — difficulties of race, of inherited defects and characteristics from their Spanish ancestors; difficulties of topography and of geography ; and difficulties of border feuds and of rapacious neighbours. They arc striving to carry forward the principles of Western civilisation in a vast and difficult area of a little-known continent, and they arc worthy of help and encouragement from richer and more advanced nations.

1 have touched somewhat upon the climate and products of the country, and the very diversified character of the different zones into which the republic is divided by its physical formation. The vast chain of the Andes, which I have termed the father of the country, positively divides Peru into two regions of entirely different character, and, except in one case, it is impossible to pass from one to the other without ascending and crossing this vast range, at an altitude of 1 3, coo to 14,000 feet. This great difference of climate, and therefore of vegetation, is due to the fact that the whole of the coast-zone from the south of Ecuador down to, and including much of, Chile, is a region practically without rainfall.

To what is this phenomenon due? It is explained by two causes. The first is that the high chain of the Andes intercepts the prevailing wind, which blows from Africa and the Atlantic, and across the plains and forests of South America itself, intercepting the moisture with which this is laden, depositing it in the form of snow upon the

Introduction summits. Secondly, the cool current flowing up the Pacific coast of South America, from south to north, known as the Humboldt current, and which, being lower in temperature than the air and the sea, prevents the evaporation of the latter. This current flows at a rate of about io miles an hour, and is from 20 to 40 leagues in width ; and it gives rise to the relatively cool and equable temperature of the coast-zone, and is also the cause of the heavy mist upon the coast, known as Camanchaca , which prevails at intervals from December to May, and which permits the existence of natural pasture on the foothills.

I have spent long periods in observing the coast of Peru, from the decks of the comfortable steamers that ply up and down, and which are the only means of communication from one port to another. And I have ridden along it for days on horseback — days of azure sky and ocean, of yellow sands and lapping waves upon that junction where land and water unceasingly struggle for mastery : a solitude unbroken by any human element, except the occasional Indian fisher with his net.

What a fascination there is in those journeys ! Alone, except for my arriero and servant, generally far behind me on their respective beasts, driving the straying pack-mule with my baggage. Alone with those glorious expanses of Nature in that remote region, studying that open book, whose pages, one by one, she presents to the observer. What landscape studies in geology are laid bare there! Here are the underlying plutonic rocks of the very foundation of the continent, polished by the waves and sand ; here are masses of strange conglomerate, looking like some Titanic work of concrete ; here are strange wind-laid strata of sand, forming cornices and entablatures along the summits of low cliffs ; and curious caves, worn by the ceaseless action of wave and wind-blown sand.

From time to time I pass rocky promontories where the trail necessarily winds upwards from the beach to surmount them, and I look down where the rollers break below. Small rocky points of islands arise just beyond, b The Andes and the Amazon

covered with myriad sea - fowl — those manufacturers of the coveted phosphates — the “guano,” of commerce.

Of so much wealth in past years, and of such evil reputation has been this product, such fortunes made, such reputations ruined, that the very word conveys an evil odour ! One thinks of bribed Senators, fraudulent shipments, and ill-gotten gains squandered in Parisian delights !

The trail winds on, and the sea-front is for a moment hidden by sand-dunes, and suddenly upon my ear there falls a continuous bleating as of sheep in distress. I look around to discover them. “Where are the sheep?” I ask my native servant in surprise, as he rides up, for the sandy wastes show no single blade of herbage. “They are not sheep, Seftor,” he replies. “They are lobos del mar (sea wolves)”; and, sure enough, on emerging from the sand-dunes, I behold hundreds of seals upon a rocky promontory below, where the waves beat ceaselessly.

Further on my horse stumbles over some object half buried in the sand. It is a whale - bone, fully 14 feet in length, and here and there arc the enormous frontal bones of these great mammals, thrown up heaven knows how long ago. It is easy riding along the very verge of the ocean — the sand is wet, and the horse’s hoofs leave a bare impression. Higher up it is more difficult, and the animal sinks deep in the loose, dry sand. Here, also, are the curious travelling sand-dunes which one finds in these places, known in Spanish as Medanos , and which I have described elsewhere.

The Pacific coast of South America is at first sight disappointing, perhaps because the traveller has expected to find a region covered with tropical vegetation, forgetting that in a rainless zone nothing grows except under irrigation. Interminable barren stretches of sandy precipices, monotonous in the little-broken line of sea-front, present themselves to the eye when beheld from the steamer’s deck, and rocky promontories, washed by the waves. The whole coast-zone, the relatively narrow strip between the ocean and the Andes, seems to be largely a residue or

T hi Coast or Puu A Small Po«t

Introduction after-formation of the latter, with which the sea constantly disputes dominion. It presents in places a sharply cut-off face of unstable sandy soil, and, far beyond, the foothills of the Andes arise ; whilst behind there is the faint grey, serrated edge and mass of the main range, topped at times by the far-off white point of a snow-capped peak.

But there are, nevertheless, numerous bays ; unsheltered often, where the coast-line is broken away by some descending river, giving rise to a fertile plain, a town, irrigated plantations of cane and cotton, and the conditions necessary for the life of man. The steamer has anchored off such a port. A long mole stretches out beyond the succeeding lines of breakers, but not far enough into deep water for the steamers to go alongside. Huge launches, which have laid at anchor all night awaiting the steamer’s advent, now toil out towards us. They are loaded with bales of cotton, or sacks of sugar ; often they contain bags of ores — gold, silver, and copper, from the mines of that far-off Cordillera — or bars of bullion ; and the four or five rowers stand in the prow bending the long sweeps in their movement of the heavy mass they are slowly urging forward. Behold these sons of toil ! They are generally a mixture of the negro and the Cholo , or Peruvian- Indian, and they bear the imprint of their low caste upon their countenances. Yet life is not hard for them, except on steamer days, and they may take their fill of sunshine ; whilst empty bellies are more easily filled in tropical ports, where a handful of bananas may be begged, or stolen from the cargo — more easily than in the more civilised poverty of Britain or North America, where starvation is less picturesque and more frequent !

But the steamer’s siren blows. The dilatory captain of the port, in his gold-laced uniform, disturbed from his siesta, comes forth at length from the shore with the ship’s papers ; what time the skipper, tramping his quarter-deck, sends forth strange Anglo-Saxon oaths whose condemnation includes, for the time being, everything connected with Spanish America, geographically and ethnologically ! The rattle of the engine-room bell sounds “ stand by ” ; up comes the iron-linked cable from the bottom of the bay ; the shore recedes, and the freshening breeze succeeds the warm air of the land. The waves lap upon the prow and hull of the steamer in motion again, as I turn to contemplate and meditate.

The sea is always a silent and mournful watcher of human effort, that is if Nature in any of her elements takes any note of humanity at all, which is doubtful. The long-drawn moan of recurring wave-swells thrown off in monotonous succession from the steamer’s prow seems to speak, at times, of the inevitable and hopeless strife and work of man. This changeless and impressionless sea! The keels of a myriad barques have ploughed it, and left their momentary wake thereon — for as long as the following seagull could pursue it Here the keel of Drake, such centuries ago, scurried in harryings of goldladen galleons ; and gold, and galleons, and crew have left no ripple but in the minds of men. The voice of the sea seems often that of an unfeeling monster; its hollow waveechoes upon the shore seem soulless, its briny foam a protest flung against stable matter and sentient man!

Yet how strange a glamour hangs over the tales of the sea, of old ! What fascination enshrouds the old vessels of the past ! Think of their gleaming sails ; their trim hulls, as they came up over the edge of the world ; their captains, their crews ; the smells, the oaths, the battling with wind and tide, the long reaches against billow and adverse gale, all toward some distant port, longed for until reached, and left again with rejoicing! The poor and hard-worked crew with their miserable rations, blistered hands, and brutality ; striving, as man will ever strive, for mirth and profit Away, away they went ; on, on they toiled, beating beneath tropic skies far from their homes; thrashing through seething seas — for what ? For a wretched pittance of gain ! Then to disperse, or go down, lost and forgotten as the years roll on, buried in the misty halo of the past, leaving no trace upon that soulless medium whereon they lived and moved and had their being. And the silent sea, blue,

Introduction or grey, or angry, or reposeful, brims full and impressionless as then, as now, and as shall be for all time !

Ha ! but what is this ? A long Pacific roller, born in mid-ocean, or on the shores of China or Australia, 5,000 or 6,000 miles away, shakes the steamer from stem to stern. She rises to it, and throws a fringe of foam away on either hand, some of which soars upwards on the freshening breeze and is flung into my face sharply, and I taste the brine upon my lips. The sea protests ; she is not soulless, she seems to say. Rather, she bears us on — as she bore our fathers, and shall bear our sons — on towards new horizons of hope and knowledge ; on to fresh fields of action and accomplishment !

Chapter II The Andes

Heavenward thrown, crumpled, folded, ridged and fractured, with gleaming “ porcelain ” gnomons pointing to the sun ; shattered strata and sheer crevasse ; far terraces and grim escarpments, hung over with filmy mist-veils, and robed with the white clothing of crystallised rains and mists ; the birthplace of the winds and hails ; the father of the rivers whose floods are borne a thousand leagues away — the mighty Cordillera is ! From north-west to south-east, a wall 3,000 miles in length, dividing the Pacific world from the boundless empire plains of Amazonas and the east, it crouches, rears, and groans upon the western sea - board of the Continent. Kissing the cerulean space with snowy peaks, five miles above the level of the ocean’s ebb and flow, and groaning over its dun and desert wastes below, with earthquake grumbles, the ponderous mass, from rock-ribbed base to filmy summit-edge, where matter ends, keeps its eternal vigil! Mineral-loined, and girt with silver, gold, and cinnabar, abides this mighty banker of the sunset world ! The beautiful Andes ; the terrible Andes; the life-giving Andes; the death-dealing Andes! For the Andes are of many moods, and whatever change of adjectives the traveller may ring, he will fail of truly describing them.

When the delicate tints of early morning shine on the crested snow away on either hand in rarest beauty, and the light and tonic air invigorates both man and horse, and the leagues pass swiftly by, there is joy on the face of Nature, which enters into the traveller’s being.

Snow-capped Peaks in the And

Sketched on the spot by the Author.

The Andes

When the snow clouds gather and the icy breeze and pelting rain beat mercilessly upon him throughout an entire day : night approaches, and there is no shelter for rider or beast : then does the weight of weariness and melancholy descend upon him. Twelve times have I crossed these summits, and rarely did the snow, and sleet, and hail, and rain, and other cosmic matters fail to come out of the horizon what time I passed.

But the early morning is exceedingly beautiful. It is inspiring to those minds open to such influences. The bright sun and blue sky, the glorious light and shadowon the tree - filled valleys and canyons beneath are enchanting with their silent and uninhabited panorama. The white mist-sea is far below, but it is rising. It rolls against the grim and ancient rock-escarpments caressingly ; wisps, separated from the main bulk, float like thin white veils in horizontally-flung lines across the facades of the precipices, or move slowly upward, impelled by some faint air-current. But the sun is getting higher, and the whole mist-sea is ascending ; mark how it engulfs the ridges and peaks with its appalling crests ! Huge foam-billows menacingly breast the hills ; they rise and break like sea-waves against the obstruction. The milky line is sharply defined against the blue sky beyond — a moment, when the mist-sea is flung upwards, is dispersed in a thousand directions : fills the whole horizon, and covers the glowing sun-ball. A chill creeps over all, until, faint, thin, and evaporated, that seemingly irresistible ocean of unstable vapour has vanished in accordance with the laws it obeys. The sun emerges again, and makes glad the faces and the depths of the frowning Cordillera.

There is nothing more remarkable in the Andes than these mist effects. The most curious and weird transformation scenes take place, at morning and at evening. Now the sun has set. It still tinges the western sky with its beauteous but indescribable tints. The palest saffron fades into the pearly green of the zenith, and the last and orange rays, calm and cold, flash faintly and expiringly upwards. In and among the deep canyons of the stern and purple-green hills below, the fleecy cloud-masses of pearly vapour slowly pour, filling them with impalpable lakes, so soft, so pure, they seem the essence of the elements, nightly spread for the couch of some unseen god-traveller. No eye but mine beholds these rare stupendous beauties. My Indians, busied over their camp fire, do not note them, and my companions doze within the tent. Below, wrapped in the sombre veil of night, are those steeps, ways, and canyons I have passed, those precipices and trails I scaled, and traversed yesterday, which lead from the far, mysterious Montana. Now they are covered with the fleecy mist-masses, which some evening breeze is urging upwards. Appalling masses, which break over dim, distant peaks like awful billows. They rise slowly, surely, terribly, as if to engulf me even on the high point whereon I stand. But night is at hand, and even as they rise they are covered with its sleepy pall. A single and glorious jewelled planet has dominated the eastern escarpment and gleams softly down upon me. Rest!

I have said that the Andes is the father of Peru, the origin of all the country possesses, and this fact cannot fail to be impressed upon the traveller. The strong influence which topographical conditions exercise upon a people is here exemplified. The climate, which moulds to so considerable an extent the characteristics of races, is governed altogether by the existence of the Andes. The sterile and rainless region of the coast owes its condition largely to the interposition of the mountains between the easterly winds and the Pacific Ocean. The moisture, instead of descending upon this zone, is intercepted at the summit and forms the snow-cap, and gives rise to the constant rain-storms of those altitudes. Due to this circumstance the physical characteristics of the Peruvians who inhabit these higher regions differ from those of the dwellers on the coast, as elsewhere described. These differences are evident not only in physical, but also in sentimental matters, and Peru is still practically two countries divided from each other by the vast wall of the Andes.

The Andes

The natural resources of the country — and they are limitless — are due to the Andes. The great diversity and extension of the mineral deposits, such as iron, coal, copper, lead, silver, gold, quicksilver and all the metals known to commerce, are a result of the geological changes which have taken place in the formation of the chain. The varying temperatures of the various regions of the country are due to the vast differences of altitude occasioned by these mountains, and which give rise to the existence of such diversity of species in the vegetable world. On the barren coast-zone of the Pacific side life is only possible from the cultivation produced in the valleys under irrigation from the streams which descend from above, so that as far as their water supply is concerned the Andes have in the first instance intercepted it and then afforded it.

The topographical formation and the structure of the Andes is remarkable and interesting. The system consists principally of two parallel chains, one generally known as the Occidental or coast Cordillera, the other as the Oriental Cordillera, which in places is known as the “ white ” Cordillera, or “ Cordillera Blanca,” due to its snow-cap. These two ranges are joined in places by nudos or “ knots,” or transverse connections, four in number, and known respectively as — the knot of Vilcanota, near Cuzco ; the knot of Cerro de Pasco, the knot of Loja, and the knot of Pasto : the two last being out of Peru, beyond its northern boundary. Between these connections exist a series of longitudinal valleys or basins of immense extent. The southernmost of these is the lake-basin of Titicaca, bounded on the north by Vilcanota, and at the south terminating in the pampas of Bolivia ; next in the series, going north - westerly, is the river-basin of the Ucayali — that great waterway which at its junction with the Maranon forms the mighty Amazon. North of the Cerro de Pasco “knot” are such basins as that of the valley of Huaylas, and the upper Maranon.

Except in one place (Huarmarca), the traveller cannot pass the Peruvian Andes at a less height than about

13,000 or 14,000 feet above sea-level ; for the passes of the Cordillera reach invariably that altitude. Of the two railways which cross the summit, that of the Oroya, or Central, rises to 15,642 feet; and that of the Southern Railway, beyond Arequipa, to 14,666 feet. The highest peaks of the Coast Cordillera rise to 16,500 feet, but the phenomenon is observed that their summits are free from perpetual snow, notwithstanding that they are above the line of perpetual snow of the main parallel chain. The highest peaks on the Cordillera Blanca ascend to more than 22,000 feet, and among them are the highest in the whole of America, North or South. Indeed, one of them — Sorata, with its 23,600 feet altitude — is stated to be the third highest peak on the globe. I have elsewhere described some of the snow-capped ranges and peaks, some of which 1 have ascended. They are in many cases indescribably beautiful and imposing, and their imprint, perhaps, never fades entirely from the mind of the traveller who has sojourned among them.

Among geologists it is held that the western, or Coast Cordillera, is the oldest ; and the eastern the later formation. The whole is an upheaval of the plutonic rocks : granite, porphyry, diorite, basalts, etc., crowned by enormous areas of sedimentary and metamorphosed rocks and conglomerates, as limestones, slates, quartzites, etc. In some places, as, for instance, around Arequipa, are vast extensions of volcanic tufas, and terrible and barren wastes of contorted cUbris , without water, herbage, or life. The railway which descends from the Peruvian and Bolivian punas or plateau of the Titicaca basin to the fertile valley of Arequipa, winds for an entire day’s travel, with rapid grades and sharp curves, among these appalling heaps of Nature’s escoria of a bygone age.

So broken is the country, and so steep the descent, that the trajectory of this railway is remarkable, and the traveller has his eyes for hours upon the volcano of the Misti, which is close to Arequipa, but which, first on one side, and then the other, of his line of direction, seems almost to be elusive, and to recede as the train advances.

The Andes

As to the Oroya railway the altitude is dominated by a series of interminable loops and zigzags up the slopes, whereby the train, travelling alternately in opposite directions, at length gains the summit of the Cordillera.

But the traveller in Peru journeys far away, generally, from the lines of the railways. His road from the seaport, in the saddle, lies over the most diverse and marked geological formations, and as the coast-zone, the uplands, and the Cordillera are free from dense vegetation, generally, these changes are displayed to the eye. The enormous areas, at the higher levels, of granite, quartzite, slate, and limestone are the birthplace of great wealth in metalliferous minerals, as gold, silver, copper, lead, etc., and enclose in their strata innumerable seams of anthracite and other classes of coal, such as in the future will form one of the country’s most valuable assets. I have seen coal strata of many feet in width standing vertically within their enclosing rock walls, and towering upwards for distances of thousands of feet. No Engineer who has travelled in Peru can fail to appreciate the variety and extent of the country’s mineral resources, and all this prodigality of wealth has for the author of its being this vast and little-travelled Cordillera.

The Andes, like all great and portentous matters, whether physical or abstract, dawns slowly upon the observer’s mind, if I may use the term. The traveller, as he slowly approaches from the coast, obtains no coup cPceil whereby he might dominate its beauty and extent as a whole. The Queen of the snow-summits does not so easily display her charms, but only from time to time permits the weary horseman, toiling over the sunburnt plains, glimpses of her virgin towers above. Between the prosaic hills of the lower altitudes the snow-capped peaks at times appear, so white and dazzling that they might be close beyond — an hour’s ride, no more. But nothing is more deceptive. Ordinary ideas of distance are set at naught, and only days of riding will bring the traveller up to them. But when he shall have braved the tempest and the steeps ; when his slow and panting beast, soroche - stricken, has overcome the last few rising steps upon the trail that tops the summit of the western range, then as the dark horizon of the foreground rocks gives place his astonished gaze rests on that glorious range of whiteclothed sentinels beyond. There they mark the eras ; there they stand, performing their silent work ; and there, when evening falls, it tints their brows with orange and with carmine, and wraps their bases in the purple pall of finished day. The lurid sun has set upon the escarpments of an unfinished world !

Some time since the Jurassic or Silurian ages arose these mighty guardians of the western shore, carrying some ocean-bed from where it lay, and bore it upward three miles and more towards the clouds. Strange creatures of the deep :

“ Dragons of the prime,”

which had their being within its ooze in those long ages past, now stand in rigid schools upon the stiffened summits. Huge ammonites and cephalopods, whose petrified scrolls and fossil circles catch the traveller’s eye as his weary mule stumbles over the limestone strata ; and, blurred by the eternal pelting rain, and loosened from the stony grasp by frosts and sun, they, together with the rock-ribbed walls which enclose them, arc again dissolving into particles : a phase within the endless sequences of Nature’s work ; an accident of her ceaseless and inexplicable operations!

Fossil Ammonites in the Andes 14,800 ft. above Sea-level. Sketched on the spot by the Author.

Chapter III

WHAT, it may be asked, are the objects with which travellers would traverse these hot deserts, these high and snow-capped Cordilleras, cross and ascend these wind-swept steppes and altiplanicies , or penetrate these vast and uninhabited regions of the Peruvian and Amazonian forests? Some well-defined object must take him there, for no ordinary tourist, on mild distraction bent, is likely to brave the rigours and difficulties which at every turn present themselves. It is the Engineer, that pioneer of civilisation, with the stimulus of his scientific-commercial errand ; the explorer, the archaeologist, the botanist who principally have travelled through these fastnesses and labyrinths. The hunter, of course, finds fairly abundant quarry ; and the artist, the painter, could find among the snowy beauties and the azure lakes of the Cordillera, the rare and marvellous mist-effects, and the wondrous sunset skies, material such as might immortalise him.

But it is Nature and her resources that will be the object of his journey, be he whom he may, for of modern man there is not much to attract. That is, there is no flash and glow as of Eastern worlds; no galleries, statues, or palaces ; no gardens of delight, and no alluring bowers of pleasure. Nature is in a sombre mood in this her vast workshop of the Western world ; and even at times it seems that she is offended, as if the place were not yet prepared for man’s habitation, and she looked upon him as an interloper !

B

Indeed, it has sometimes occurred to me, as I wearily approached the end of some hard day’s ride, that Peru (as also other parts of the New World) is still in the making: not yet ready for man; and that Nature seems to protest in that her laboratory was invaded before her handiwork was perfected.

A barren shore, rainless and ugly ; hot, burning plains ; narrow V-shaped valleys where a little cultivation struggles to retain a foothold. Bleak and sterile uplands where the dreaded soroche weakens the venturesome traveller, and appalling peaks crowned with unconquerable snows and endless glaciers !

Nature protests. She required a short span of some few million years to round those grim escarpments ; to fill in those valley floors, and form her fertile plains ; to lower those towering Andean crests, and let the Amazonian dews over to form a gentle rain upon the western slopes : in short, to put her finishing touches upon it. But man, restless and exploring, has invaded the workshop, and now he must assist in the work.