China to Peru over the Andes: a journey through South America

Front matter

'tbuiOAcl fiuctuJ:

ST. VINCENT, CAPE DE VERD ISLANDS. Page

OVER THE ANDES

Preface

“ Let observation with extensive view Survey Mankind from China to Peru.”

So wrote Samuel Johnson, and it has been my keenest desire and my good fortune to act upon the injunction.

“ Forty Thousand Miles over Land and Water ” told of the impressions made upon me in the United States of America, Australasia, and the vast Empire of India.

‘‘Newfoundland to Cochin China” detailed my experiences in the Dominion of Canada, amid the fascinating Japanese, and around the Walls of the Forbidden City at Peking.

This volume speaks of a third journey, whereof the furthermost point completed our “ survey of mankind from China to Peru.” At the request of many friends and for our warm-hearted constituents, the people of Central Sheffield, these records are printed and published.

Ethel Gwendoline Vincent.

i, Grosvenor Square,

Appendix

PAGE

I. — To the Land of Revolutions . . .219

II.— British South America Won and Lost . 233

III. — The Paris of the West 240 *

IV. — Argentine Politics 244

V.— Argentine Travelling in 1827 . . 250

VI.— Over the Cordillera 252

VII.— The English of the Pacific .... 256

VIII. — The Nitrate Fields of Chili . . .261

IX. — Peru and the Peruvians .... 267

X. — Venezuela and England .... 272

XI.— The West Indies 277

XII. — British Interests in Brazil .... 283

XIII. — British Commercial Interests in Argen-

tina 291

XIV. — British Trade in Chili ..... 302

XV. — British Interests in Peru .... 309

XVI.— The Panama Canal 318

Index . 327

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGH

St. Vincent, Cape de Verd Islands 2

Pernambuco ......... 6

Corcorado and the Sugar Loaf . . .22

Plaza Libertad— Buenos Ayres 40

Rosario de Santa Fd . . . . .68

Posada on the Andes . 102

Road over the Andes between the Argentine Republic and

Chili no

Santiago de Chili 124

Bridge on the Valparaiso and Santiago Railway . 134

The Esplanade, Valparaiso 136

Nitrate Works 156

Scene on the Oroya Railroad . . . .178

Monte Meiggs, Summit of Oroya Railway . . .184

Panama Canal Company’s Hospital ..... 200 Panama Canal Works . . . . .318

View of the Panama Canal . 322 flclrria*

•fittalah gVtST INDIA

Galapag'i

X}lnU

Covdoxx

Chapter I. Over The South Atlantic

A LITTLE green bay surrounded by olive- covered slopes, with the white and buff town of Vigo lying above it, gives the comfort of shelter, after a dreary day of tossing in the Bay of Biscay, for all on board the Royal Mail Steamer Thames.

We embark a goodly number of emigrants, who come out in flat-bottomed lighters, sitting enthroned amongst their household gods, and getting wet through, ere a lucky jump lands them on the gangway.

The next morning we are steaming merrily up the Tagus, past the bar and lighthouse and the Tower of Belem, and Lisbon lies white and smiling in the sunshine, its white and pink houses terraced one above each other, high up on the hill.

We take a run up to Cintra ; beautiful Cintra, with its green valley, amid the barren mountains, filled with splendid Spanish oak and chestnut trees, its overhanging gardens gay with every tropical creeper ; where the fuchsias grow in bushes and the magnolias flower on full-sized trees. Such a view too over many

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China to Peru.

bare brown ranges, out to the ocean, wjiilst always immediately above us is the grey parapet of the ancient Moorish fortress, running up and down, to right and left, on the high-most peak.

On the evening of the second day after leaving Lisbon, we could just distinguish, on a cloudy moonlight night, the pale shadowy outline of the great rock peak of Teneriffe, rising out of a translucent grey range of mountains on the Island of Grand Canary. To port, Las Palmas, another island of the Canary group, is marked by a single lighthouse.

Four days afterwards we are up at six o'clock to see the morning mists roll away from St. Antonio and St. Vincent, two of the islands of the Cape de Verd group. Weird and fantastic are the volcanic peaked rocks of the mountain ranges — now rising in conical needle peaks, now massed like craggy castles or opening out into deep craters. Abundant rain must have fallen lately, for St. Vincent is not the bare and barren island so oft depicted, but shows a pale green vegetation, very fresh and sparse, but which, mixed with the bright chrome and madder tints of the volcanic strata, gives to it a curious and not unattractive character. It reminds us much of Aden, possessing, like that place, a varied grandeur of its own, produced by Nature trying to make a play of colour with the sparsest materials.

Lying in the absolute centre of the Bay of Porto Grande is the most curious freak of creation : a little pinnacled rock island, tapering to a natural peak, which in its turn is crowned by a white lighthouse. The base is completely hollowed out by the action of the continuous swell of the South Atlantic breakers,

Over the South Atlantic .

forming a black cavernous circle around, which is broken into perpetually by clouds of foam and spray.

This bears the commonplace name of Bird Island, and looks as if it had just been placed there on purpose to carry the dazzling white lighthouse, with its steep zigzag path and final approach by a balustrade and stone steps, whose faithful light guides the ships to a safe anchorage.

There are the red-roofed cluster of houses, with the large white building of the Brazilian Submarine Telegraph Station, which makes up the whole of the town. We land to find a few clean paved streets, peopled chiefly by negroes and negresses, and proceed to the telegraph station. About forty clerks, under the care of Mr. Lloyd, live here, and transact the business of the electric current, joining South America with Europe. Cable messages pass through the operating room we visit in every language, but as codes are chiefly used it must be dull work, hour after hour, writing off meaningless words from the ceaseless click, click of the instrument. The only amusement of these exiled clerks is cricket, and their chief excitement as to whether incoming vessels will stay long enough to enable them to get up an opposition team for a match. St. Vincent belongs to the Portuguese, and one cannot help regretting that it is not one of England’s possessions, as forming an invaluable coaling station. We may, however, take comfort in the fact that all the ships in harbour this morning, with the exception of a Portuguese gunboat, carry the Union Jack, showing, as always, the complete supremacy of England on the seas in all parts of the globe.

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Sunday in the Doldrums ! with the most awful heat. Some little amusement may be extracted from the manner in which passengers, at the extremity of endurance, lie panting on the deck, and for once our unpleasant Portuguese and Brazilian passengers are somewhat subdued. Everything but most absolutely necessary clothing is discarded, and everybody gasps and perspires during this loss of our hitherto pleasant companion, the north-east trade wind. This true experience of the tropics is succeeded by the day of tropical downpour, which is generally found just north or south of the equator, where the different wind-currents meet.

The following day we crossed the line about midday ; but with a cool breeze on the port side it is difficult to believe we are on the equator. With the picking up of the south-east trade wind in another day, the extremes of temperature are over.

A word about the Royal Mail steamer Thames. She is a splendid vessel of 6000 tons, and commanded by Captain Hicks, the best captain that in our many sea voyages we have sailed under. She is very comfortable in all respects but one. The largest part of the passengers are Portuguese and Brazilians, indeed they appear always to support the line, and to use it more than the English. Suffice it to say that their manners, habits and customs do not harmonize with ours, and indeed appear to us repellent. The contents of the cruet are poured over the food, or you may see several raw eggs broken into a tumbler, with wine and Worcester sauce added impartially thereto. Add this drawback to an unfair proportion of children and a greatly overcrowded ship, and our month’s sojourn on the Thames is otherwise like any other long sea voyage.

A scudding white-crested breeze, with a bright sun chasing shadows across the green island of Fernando Noronha, the Convict Settlement of the Brazils, is the next point of interest. The island has a most curious natural phenomenon. From the green hills that slope gently upwards from the centre of the island springs an horizontal basaltic pyramid, 1000 feet high. In the far distance it resembles a steeple, but as you come nearer it appears to be a great mass of rock, balanced on, and shelving outwards, so as to overhang, the mountain on to which it is accidentally thrown. We clearly distinguish the pink and red houses of the penal settlement, with their broad thatched roofs, the red prison where they are confined at night, the road running through the centre of the town, and the white stone house, probably the Governor’s, about half-way up on an open space. The further end of the island is covered with forest, and at its extremity is an archway, cleanly cut through the rock, called the “ Hole in the Wall,” and through which we get a glimpse far out to sea. On the beautiful yellow beach the sapphire waves, crested with foam, roll continuously in.

Fernando Noronha is four and a half miles long, with a population of 2000, out of which 200 are women convicts. It is garrisoned by a company of Brazilian soldiers, commanded by a major, who acts as governor. The island seems too pretty and attractive a spot for a penal population, and efforts are being made to persuade the Brazilian Government to form a quarantine station here for the northern ports.

China to Peru .

“ Land on the starboard bow ! ” calls out the look-out, in the customary monotonous yet melodious pitch, in place of the usual “ All’s well,” that echoes through every hour of the night, as the bells strike, and here is our first view of the green-blue line of the great continent of South America, our first view of the coast of Brazil, which forms one-fifth part of this same continent, and again one-fifteenth part of the whole world.

Pernambuco, the Recife of the natives, and the second largest city in Brazil, is coming into view, and soon we are opposite the bold green-clad height of Olinda, with its verandahed houses scattered amongst palm-groves. Well may its appearance have caused Decarte Coelleo, as he explored the coast to exclaim in Portuguese : “ O linda stuaceo para se funda una villia.” “ Oh ! beautiful site for a town/’ Exclamation immortalized as being used in part, to furnish the name of this pretty suburb.

Pernambuco, with its houses all white and red-roofed, lying among groves of tufted palms, seems to rise out of the ocean. Brilliantly shines the sun in tropical clearness. The sea is the usual perfect ultramarine of this South Atlantic, with never a trace of the green of the North Atlantic in its unfathomable depths.

Creamy-white is the foam that girdles the reef, thrown high in mid-air from off that wonderful natural breakwater. Truly may Pernambuco be called the Brazilian Venice, with its many intersecting* streams, and its quiet lagoon lying inside the bar.

This Recife (the native name for reef) is a mighty coral reef which extends along nearly the

PERNAMBUCO. Page

Over the South Atlantic.

whole extent of the northern coast of Brazil. For five miles from Pernambuco, it continues without a break, and is laid so exactly straight and even that it resembles a breakwater of concrete. There is one opening opposite the town, and vessels of no great draught can pass the bar, and anchor alongside the wharf. From our deck it appears as if the spray dashed on to the wharf itself, but in reality there is a green lagoon, between the reef and the dock. At low water the reef is exposed and seems formed of a hard, dark brown rock which, when broken up, resembles yellow sandstone containing imbedded bivalves. A coralline reef it must have been, constructed laboriously during perhaps, hundreds of years, by the patient, industrious hives of submarine life, and when deserted by them, has become filled up with sand and shells.

Our yellow quarantine flag flies mast high. Some forty passengers, all packed and ready to land, await with feverish eagerness the result of much signalling from the shore, whilst the remainder discuss the prospects of landing ; for Pernambuco is exposed to the fury of the great Atlantic rollers, and a jump into a boat as it is carried swiftly by the gangway on the crest of the wave, or even being lowered in a basket, is as nothing compared to the soaking with spray as you cross the bar. Therefore is opinion divided as to the prudence of landing.

A boat is sent off from shore. All watch it dashing on the heights of the rollers, and then ploughing into their troughs. The doctor stands, papers in hand, on the gangway ; but when the green flag comes within speaking distance, a polite little official stands up and

China to Peru .

delivers himself of a fiat of quarantine. No mails are to be received or delivered, no cargo disembarked, no passengers landed, our clean bill of health not even inspected, but an unreasoning arbitrary order for the ship to proceed to Isla Grande, 1200 miles down the coast, and the nearest and only quarantine station for this vast seaboard of Brazil.

Blank disappointment, utter dismay, is depicted upon the countenances of all, as we turn away from the bulwarks, but we feel the greatest commiseration for those who have nearly, so very nearly reached home, and to whom it means a journey at their own expense of 1200 miles, quarantine and fumigation at a lazaretto, and a tedious return by a coasting steamer. Worse even is the case of the second-class passengers and steerage. Many will have paid away their bottom dollar in passage-money, and here they will be landed in a strange country, far from their destination, without means for return. Quarantine is the curse of the European inhabitants of South America, and the Government with its arbitrary orders delays the development of trade and progress in the country.

With sad little groups scattered about the decks, discussing the situation and picturing worse future evils, the anchor is quickly weighed and once more we' are ploughing our way through the brilliant blue waves.

The “ might have been’s J’ of life! Yesterday we should have touched at Maceio, the capital of the Province of Alagoas, a thriving town with a large trade in sugar and cotton. To-day we should have cast anchor in the Bay of All Saints’ before Bahia

“ a gulf formed by nature for the emporium of the Universe.”

Out here in South America we are constantly on the track of the ancient Spanish mariners, the discoverers of the New World. It was from Bahia that Americus Vespucius, in 1 503, carried home from the newly discovered country a cargo of the dye wood, which when cut in pieces resembled “ brazas ” or “ coals of fire,” from which circumstance it was called Brazil wood, indirectly giving the name of Brazil to the country.

We should like to have landed at Bahia, on the four mile long Praya, or beach, of the old town and business quarter. Thence ascended to the newer and more habitable quarter of the town on the hill by a steam lift. We should like to have seen the negresses, the finest in South America, and the fattest, who are thus described by an American author : “ The

women who hawk fish or pine-apples in the streets, are marvels of physical development and grace. They are as straight as palms, and as lithe as willows, and they walk like Greek goddesses. With purple, pink, or blue waists cut low in the neck, they display arms of the finest modelling, and a development of muscle and sinew and an erect and queenly carriage, which must be the envy and despair of the Brazilian ladies of the highest rank/’ We missed, too, taking on board the luscious pineapples, and pipless oranges for which Bahia is celebrated.

But, alas ! we are steaming on past all these Brazilian ports, until on a cloudy Sunday morning, slowly Cape Frio loomed up before our eyes, a stately mountain of rock, the beginning of a range of sixty

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miles, which ends abruptly at the entrance of Rio Harbour. Here we are, sailing straight past the haven where we would be. The mountains open out. The entrance guarded by the twin islands of Pai and Mai is seen, the Sugar-loaf, Corcovado, Tijuca, recede before us. Another sixty miles and we are anchored at our quarantine retreat, at Ilha Grande.

Painfully intense is the long wait before the launch sets off from the pier, appallingly long seem the lengthy and deliberate turnings over of the ship’s papers, and the parleyings between the doctor and health officer. Experience has made us nervous. We crane over the ship’s side to catch the first intimation of our fate. It comes. Glad news. A day’s fumigation on the morrow, and we may return to Rio on the day after.

Early next morning we are turned out of our berths, and the health officers come off and order all the mattresses and bedding to be thrown into a barge and borne off to the fumigating buildings we see lying low in a sandy cove. Soon comes an all-pervading smell of carbolic, from a watering-can which sprinkles disinfecting fluid freely, leaving a little puddle of the same in each cabin, whilst fore and aft from the steerage rise columns of sulphurous fumes.

We escape ashore in the afternoon. Now Ilha Grande is very far from being the desolate quarantine station you might suppose. It is a very pretty peaked island, tropically covered and fringed with palms, with the pink lazaretto nestling by the water’s edge. A ramble round the white sands of the beach, where the waves lazily wash ashore shells and seaweed, up and down the hillside, entrances us with visions of

Tropical America. There are the sword-like leaves of the banyans clustering under the cocoa palms, tall clusters of white belled datura growing beside the glossy leaved bushes of the coffee plant, all covered with its exquisite white starred blossom, giant cacti, clinging and growing upon the rocks of the sea-shore, orchids nestling on the branches of trees, and every specie of tropical fern and creeper grow in this luxuriant isle.

The lazaretto and adjoining buildings form quite an imposing square on the landing-stage. The former is very large and really well-furnished, and they show the apartments where the late Emperor and Empress performed their quarantine in common with their humbler subjects. The expense of building was over 60,000/., and the maintenance of such a large establishment must be costly in proportion. Yet when we remember the deathly scourge of yellow fever, which yearly claims its hundreds of victims, we can scarcely wonder at their precautions to refuse admittance to an equally deadly enemy, cholera. But a very few weeks ago an Italian steamer came into port with 1 20 cases on board and sixty deaths to report.

At 11 p.m. we are still waiting for our bedding to return, and it is a ludicrous sight soon afterwards to see all the passengers turning over piles of mattresses and pillows in search of their own. When secured we find them emitting a strong perfume of sanitas and wet through, for it is raining diligently.

Chapter II. The Haven Of Brazil In Revolution

Torrents of rain usher in the morning of our return to Rio de Janeiro, and continue whilst we retrace our course. Soon we see the sleeping outline of the “ Gavia ” or “ Look Out,” which forms the extremity of the Tijuca range of mountains. Now we are under the towering summit of the Corcovado, such a perpendicular peak of rock, but the umbrella on its summit tells us that ; from the other side, facing the harbour, a railway renders it accessible. Lastly, from amid the mist and spray, slowly emerges the great Sugar Loaf.

The similitude from the entrance is absolute. The Sugar Cone is rounded and graduated to perfection. With the waves sullenly booming round the base, this unscalable mass of rock, without chink, jut, or cavity on its entire surface rising up immediately at the point of entrance, forms a fitting introduction to the most beautiful harbour of the world. It inclines slightly over, leaning towards the sea and from inside, a green shoulder projecting from halfway up joins it to the peninsula.

Two flat little islands, called Pai and Mai (father

1 3

The Haven of Brasil in Revolution.

and mother in Portuguese) guard the entrance, and threading our way between them we are passing within a stone’s throw of the battlemented Fort of Santa Cruz, mounting a triple row of a hundred guns. The tiny islet of Lage, with another fortress, lies as nearly as possible midway between Santa Cruz and the Sugar Loaf, completing a perfect defence to the entry of the harbour. Villegaignon another island fortress and naval depot, is a little further to the left, and, see, it flies the white or rebel flag, having gone over to the enemy but yesterday. Little did we imagine that two hours later, all these same forts would be booming forth smoke and fire, and that the whole sea would be surging with a hail of shot.

How describe the harbour now we are well inside it ? We seem to see an intricate panoramic succession of wooded mountain peaks, many of them terraced with brightly coloured houses undulating round the curves of the bay, and a little condensed as they touch the water’s edge. Sydney Harbour is perhaps more beautiful and is certainly larger, but Rio is the grandest. The town proper of Rio is difficult to distinguish, so numerous and far extending are its suburbs. Numberless green islands stud the deep blue of the harbour, whilst the fluted tops of the Organ Mountains form a completing circle to the further edge of the bay. Now the sun gleams forth lighting up the spires and towers of Rio, and bringing out the brilliant green of the tropical vegetation.

The political situation, however, detracts from the interest of the harbour, for now we see that all the

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shipping is collected at the head of the bay opposite to Nichteroy, the capital of the province, possessing the arsenal, and that the men-of-war of all the European powers are anchored near. There is the British cruiser Sirius , and two gunboats, the Beagle and Racer . The first is commanded by Captain Lang, who performed for the Chinese navy what Gordon did for their army. One French man-ofwar, two Italian, two German, and two United States, are all near together. The rebel fleet with top-masts lowered, and decks cleared for action, lies in different parts of the bay. Over there is the Aquidaban , the flagship of Admiral Custodio de Mello, the leader of the Naval Rebellion. Its deck is crowded with people.

On anchoring confusion reigned supreme on board, but we were extricated by courteous letters from Mr. (now Sir Hugh) Wyndham, the British minister, and Captain Lang, who had sent a steam launch from the Sirius to convey us ashore, and in a few minutes we were on our way thither in his genial company.

There to the left is the Ilha das Cobras with the red cross flag hoisted on the Marine Hospital. It is also the site of the Naval Cadet College, commanded by that admirable man, Saldanha da Gama, and it is mainly owing to his good influence that up to now the cadets have maintained an attitude of neutrality. Thus Ilha das Cobras and another adjoining island, also remain neutral, and their partisanship is eagerly desired and sought by both parties.

We land at the Naval Arsenal, near the Custom House, remembering that it was from here that the late and last Emperor, Pedro II., was taken on board the gunboat, at dead of night, and last set foot in Brazil.

A few days ago the Government attempted to seize Ilha das Cobras, so the Aquidaban anchored at the buoy we see about 200 yards away, and commenced to bombard the lower part of the town which contains the business quarter. The steeple of the Church of the Pescadores was knocked down, and the shell exploded in the room of a house below, which we afterwards saw with the wall blown out.

We land and take a “ bond ” (or tramcar) through the Rua Primo de Marco, past the Hospital of the Misericordia lying by the harbour shore, until we reach a steep street where we get out. A climb up some winding steps brings us to the house and garden of Mr. Mendes, the well-known purveyor to the British Navy, under the familiar name of “Portuguese Joe.” Mr. Wyndham, unable to get a room in any hotel, is lodged for the present here. All the Legations are situated at Petropolis, Rio being too unhealthy as a place of residence. We are assured that the hotels in the lower part of the town are unsafe, and whilst they telephone for rooms at the Hotel International at St. Thereza, we are put in possession of the political situation.

On the morning of September 6th, Rio awoke to find that the navy under Admiral Custodio de Mello had rebelled against the military dictatorship of General Floriano Peixoto. All the officers happened by a curious coincidence to be ashore that night, and by morning Mello was in possession of twelve vessels of war, five torpedo boats, five coasting steamers, and two steam launches, twenty-four vessels x6

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in all. The arsenal at Nichteroy was bombarded, and Mello issued a manifesto. Being in possession of the harbour, he was able to cut off supplies and all communication by water. On Wednesday there were signs that the city was to be bombarded by the rebels. Suddenly at ten o’clock, firing commenced. It was the signal for a stampede of women and children, and a general exodus to the mountains. It is estimated that one-third of the population left the town. The banks and places of business were closed. Few casualties were reported, but the press censorship is so rigorous, that the newspapers are a perfect blank as to current events.

Once or twice the bombardment was renewed, and some shots and shells fell in the lower town, one unfortunately killing a young English clerk standing on the balcony of a restaurant. Gossip says that he was one of four clerks who came out together from England last October. Three died of yellow fever within three months of landing, and now the fourth has met with a violent death.

On September 25th the fleet notified their intention of bombarding the city. Mr. Wyndham issued a manifesto to the English to leave Rio as quickly as possible. The same notice was issued by the other ministers to warn their countrymen, and it was arranged that in case of necessity, the Europeans were to assemble on the Palace Square to be taken off to the various men-of-war. Two rockets from the town, answered by one from the cruiser, were to be the signal for landing some 700 bluejackets from the united fleet. All the European powers are working harmoniously together, with the strange

The Haven of Brazil m Revolution . 17

exception of Germany, who holds completely aloof, perhaps because the French Admiral happens to be the “ doyen ” of the fleet on this occasion, and they do not choose to work under him.

The intervention of the foreign Powers, headed by Mr. Wyndham, served to avert the destruction of the city. The Government consented to dismount the guns on the heights just above the lower town, on condition that Admiral Mello undertook not to bombard the city. The desertion of Villegaignon, one of the three forts in the harbour, on the previous day, has been one of the severest blows yet received by the Government.

Such is the position of affairs. We find Rio in a state of siege, and yet the apathy of the people is astounding. They assemble on a good vantage-point to watch the firing, as if it had been a sham battle. Partisanship does not run high, but as many arrests ♦ have been made, men fear for their opinions. We gather that the rebels are gaining ground. The National Guard has been called out, but comprising as they do the worst elements of the town, more is to be feared from their excesses perhaps than from the landing of the rebels. A strange incident happened the other day. A boat flying the British flag was seen at the customary anchorage of the Aquidaban (foreign launches and boats have been allowed to land when bearing the flags of their nationalities). On investigation by the British flagship, it turned out that an American named Boynton and an Englishman were preparing with a torpedo to blow up the Brazilian ironclad ; the former averring that he had been offered a large sum of