Panama to Patagonia; the Isthmian canal and the west coast countries of South America

Front matter

Smithsonian Institution

b wraries

G-Uxfc* o*a

Preface

MY purpose in this work is to consider and describe the effect of the Panama Canal on the West Coast countries of South America from the year 1905. At this period its construction by the United "States may be said to have begun. If my own deep conviction that this influence makes powerfully for their industrial development and their political stability be an illusion, the pages which follow may afford the disbelievers grounds for pointing out wrong premises or false conclusions. " We doubt " long has been the dogma of the North American and the European in everything relating to the permanency of progress in the Spanish- American Republics. " I believe " is yet only the creed of the individual. A huge material fact obtruding itself may secure a listening ear from the doubters. The Canal obtrudes.

The severely practical Northern mind finds itself in a brain-fog with reference to the Southern Continent. Speculative reasoning regarding new forces of civilization does not appeal to it. It wants the concrete circumstances. Now the Canal is not an abstraction. The industrial and commercial energies which it wakens are not abstractions. The interoceanic waterway is a national undertaking, but it shows the way to individual enterprise. More than the gates of chance are viii PREFACE

opened to American youth. They are the gates of opportunity. Consequently the need of knowledge.

The number of recent books relating to the history of South America seems to indicate a demand for this knowledge in its primary form. They open the path for a volume which may be limited more strictly to industrial, fiscal, and political information. For that reason, while not overlooking the historical element in the institutions and governmental systems, I have not thought it necessary to consider them chronologically from the colonial epoch or even from the era of independence.

The effort to divorce economic and social forces from places and peoples in order to analyze a principle usually is so barren that I have not attempted it. Places have their significance, and people are the human material. Customs and institutions are only understood properly in their environment. So many excellent descriptive works have been written about South America that I have sought to subordinate these features ; yet since the information applies to localities something about them could not entirely be omitted. Moreover, I have that abounding faith which leads me to look forward to the time when the engineering marvels of the Canal construction may prove enough of a magnet to draw thither the travelled American who would know what his country is doing and who, once on the Isthmus, will be likely to continue down the West Coast with a view to determining the relative attractions of the noble Andes and the Alps. Yet I have made no attempt to preserve the

PREFACE ix

form of continuous narrative. The treatment of the subject does not demand it.

To South American friends who may be offended at the frankness or the bluntness of the views expressed, a word may be communicated. The confidences extended me while on an official mission widened my own vision of the aspirations of their public men. At the same time they conveyed the idea that the economic evolution to which all look forward will come more swiftly if reactionary tendencies are combated more openly and aggressively. Opinions on the policy of the United States being uttered with freedom, I have not thought it necessary to adopt the apologetic attitude in regard to other Republics. In seeking the constructive elements in the national life and character of the South American countries, it has been with the undisguised hope that the contact and the impact of North American character may be a reciprocal influence.

Acknowledgment of material for the general map, which amplifies that of the permanent Pan-American Railway Committee, is due its chairman, Hon. H. G. Davis, whose faith in the future relation of the United States to the other American countries is an example to the generation which will share the benefits both of the Canal and of railroad construction.

C. M. P.

Washington, D. C.

January, 1906.

CHAPTER I ECONOMIC EFFECT OF THE CANAL pAGS

Philosophic Spanish- American View — Henry Clay's Mistaken Population Prophecy — The Andes Not a Canal Limitation — Intercontinental Railway Spurs — Argentina and the Amazon as Feeders — Centres of Cereal Production — Crude Rubber — Atlantic and Pacific Traffic — Growth of West Coast Commerce— North and South Trade-wave — Distances via Panama, Cape Horn, and the Straits of Magellan — Waterway Tolls and Coal Consumption — Ecuador and Peru — Bolivia and Chile — Isthmian Railroad Rates — Value of United States Sanitary Authority — American Element in New Industrial Life . i

Chapter II

TRAVEL HINTS Adopting Local Customs — Value of the Spanish Language — Knowledge of People Obtained through Their Speech — English in Trade — Serviceable Clothing in Different Climates — Moderation in Diet — Coffee at its True Worth — Wines and Mineral Waters — Native Dishes — Tropical Fruits — Aguacate and Cheremoya Palatal Luxuries — Hotels and Hotel-keepers — Baggage Afloat and Ashore — Outfits for the Andes : Food and Animals — West Coast Quarantines — Money Mediums — The Common Maladies and How to Treat Them 21

Chapter III

THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA Canal Entrance — Colon in Architectural Transformation — Unchanging Climate — Historic Waterway Routes — Columbus and the Early Explorers — Darien and San Bias — East and West Directions — Life along the Railway — Chagres River and Culebra Cut — Three Panamas — Pacific Mouth of the Canal — Functions of the Republic — Natural Resources — Agriculxii CONTENTS

Page ture and Timber — Road-building — United States Authority on the Zone — Labor and Laborers — Misleading Comparisons with Cuba — The First Year's Experience 37

Chapter IV

Tranquil Ship Life — Dissolving View of Panama Bay — The Comforting Antarctic Current — Seeking Cotopaxi and Chimborazo — Up the Guayas River — Activity in Guayaquil Harbor

— Old and New Town — Shipping via the Isthmus and Cape Horn — Chocolate and Rubber Exports — Railway toward Quito — A Charming Capital — Cuenca's Industries — Cereals in the Inter-Andine Region — Forest District — Minerals in the South — Population — Galapagos Islands — Political Equilibrium— National Finances 57

Chapter V

PERUVIAN SHORE TOWNS Pizarro's Landing-place at Tumbez — Last Sight of the Green Coast — Paita's Spacious Bay — Lively Harbor Scenes — An Interesting and Sandy Town — Its Climatic and Other Legends

— Future Amazon Gateway — Sugar and Rice Ports — Eten and Pacasmayo — Transcontinental Trail — Cajamarca — Chimbote' s Naval Advantages — • Supe's Attractions — -Ancon's Historic Treaty — Callao's Excellent Harbor — Importance of the Shipping— Customs Collections — Pisco* s Varied Products — Rough Seas at Mollendo — Bolivian and Peruvian Commerce for the Canal 73

Chapter VI

LIMA AND THE CORDILLERAS Pleasing Historic Memories — Moorish Churches and Andalusian Art — Pizarro's Remains in the Cathedral — Transmitted Incidents of the Earthquake — The Palace, or Government Building — General Castilla's Humor — Decay of the Bull-fight — . Cultured Society of the Capital — Foreign Element

— San Francisco Monastery — Municipal Progress — Chamber of Commerce — A Trip up the Famous Oroya Railway — Masterwork of Henry Meiggs — Heights and Distances — Little Hell — The Great Galera Tunnel — Around Oroya . — Railroad to Cerro de Pasco Mines — American Enterprise in

the Heart of the Andes 89

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER VII AREQUIPA AND LAKE TITICACA pAGE

Capital of Southern Peru — Through the Desert to the Coast — Crescent Sand-hills — A Mirage — Down the Canon — Quilca as a Haven of Unrest — Arequipa Again — Religious Institutions— Prevalence of Indian Race — Wool and Other Industries — Harvard Observatory — Railroading over Volcanic Ranges — Mountain Sickness at High Crossing — Branch Line toward Cuzco — Inambari Rubber Regions — Puno on the Lake Shore 109

Chapter VIII The Regions And Their Resources

Topography a Key to Economic Resources — Coast, Sierra, and Montana — Cotton in the Coast Zone — Piura's High Quality — Lima and Pisco Product — Prices — Increase Probable — Sugar-cane as a Staple — Probability of Growth — Rice as an Export and an Import — Irrigation Prospects — Mines in the Sierra — Geographical Distribution of the Deposits — Live-stock on the High Plains — Rubber in the Forest Region — Iquitos on the Amazon a Smart Port — Government Regulations for the Gum Industry 123

Chapter IX

Importance of River System — Existing Lines of Railroads — Pan- American Links — Lease of State Roads to Peruvian Corporation of London — Unfulfilled Stipulations — Law for Guaranty of Capital Invested in New Enterprises — Routes from Amazon to the Pacific — National Policy for Their Construction — Central Highway, Callao to Iquitos — The Pichis — Railroad and Navigation — Surveys in Northern Peru — Comparative Distances — Experiences with First Projects — Future Building Contemporaneous with Panama Canal 137

Chapter X The People And Their Increase

Density of Population in Time of the Incas — Three Million Inhabitants Now Probable — Census of 1876 — Interior Country xiv CONTENTS

Page

Not Sparsely Populated — Aboriginal Indian Race and Mixed Blood — Fascinating History of the Quichuas — Tribal Customs — Superstition — Negroes and Chinese Coolies — Immigration Movements of the Future — Wages — European Colonization — Cause of Chanchamayo Valley Failure — Climatic and Other Conditions Favorable — An Enthusiast's Faith in

CHAPTER XI Peru's growing stability

Seeds of Revolution Running Out — Educated Classes Not the Sole Conservative Force — President Candamo's Peacemaking Administration — Crisis Precipitated by his Death — Triumph of Civil Party in the Choice of his Successor — President Pardo's Liberal and Progressive Policies — Growth in Popular Institutions — Form of Peruvian Constitution and Government

— Attitude of the Church — Rights of Foreigners — Sources of Revenue — Stubborn Adherence to Gold Standard — Interoceanic Canal's Aid in the National Development . . . - . 164

Chapter XII Along Coast To Magellan Straits

Arica, the Emerald Gem of the West Coast — Memorable Earthquake History — A Future Emporium of Commerce for the Canal — Iquique the Nitrate Port — Value of the Trade — Antofagasta's Copper Exports — Caldera and the Trans- Andine Railway to Argentina — Valparaiso's Preeminence among Pacific Ports — Extensive Shipping and Execrable Harbor — Plans for Improvement — No Fear of Loss from the Interoceanic Waterway — Coal and Copper at Lota — Concepcion and Other Towns — Rough Passage into the Straits — Cape Pillar

— Punta Arenas, the Southernmost Town of the World — Trade and Future 180

Chapter XIII

Railway along Aconcagua River Valley — Project of Wheelright, the Yankee — Santiago's Craggy Height of Santa Lucia — A Walk along the Alameda — Historic and Other Statues — The Capital a Fanlike City — Public Edifices — Dwellings of the Poor — Impression of the People at the Celebration of

CONTENTS xv

Page Corpus Christi — Some Notes on the Climate — Habits and Customs — "The Morning for Sleep" — Independence of Chilean Women — Sunday for Society — Fondness for Athletic Sports — Newspapers an Institution of the Country . . . . 20 1

Chapter XIV

Extensive Use of Nitrates as Fertilizers — Enormous Contributions to Chilean Revenues — Resume of Exportations — Description of the Industry — How the Deposits Lie — Iodine a By-product — Stock of Saltpetre in Reserve — The Trust and Production — Estimates of Ultimate Exhaustion — A Third of a Century More of Prosperous Existence — Shipments Not Affected by Panama Canal — Copper a Source of Wealth — Output in Northern Districts — Further Development — Coal — Silver Mines Productive in the Past — Prospect of Future Exploitation 217

Chapter XV

chile's unique political history

National Life a Growth — Anarchy after Independence — Presidents Prieto, Bulnes, Montt, Perez — Constitution of 1833 — Liberal Modifications — The Governing Groups — Civil War under President Balmaceda — His Tragic End — Triumph of his Policies — Political System of To-day — Government by the One Hundred Families — Relative Power of the Executive and the Congress — Election Methods Illustrated — Ecclesiastical Tendencies — Proposed Parliamentary Reforms — Ministerial Crises — Party Control 23a

Chapter XVI Palpitating Social Questions

Existence of the Roto Discovered — Mob Rule in Valparaiso — Indian and Caucasian Race Mixture — Disquieting Social Phenomena — Grievances against the Church — Transition to the Proletariat — Lack of Army and Navy Opportunity — Not Unthrifty as a Class — Showings of Santiago Savings Bank — Excessive Mortality — Need of State Sanitation — Discussion of Economic Relation — Changes in National Tendencies — Industrial Policies to Placate the Roto 248 xvi CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVII chile's INDUSTRIAL FUTURE pAGE

Agricultural Possibilities of the j Central Valley — Its Extent — Wheat for Export — Timber Lands of the South — Wool in the Magellan Territory — Grape Culture — Mills and Factories — Public Works Policy — Longitudinal and Other Railway Lines — Drawbacks in Government Ownership — Trans- Andine Road — Higher Levels of Foreign Commerce — Development of Shipping — Population — Experiments in Colonization — Internal and External Debt — Gold Redemption Fund — Final Word about the Nitrates 262

Chapter XVIII Wayfaring In Bolivia The Royal Andes

Old Spanish Trail from Argentina — Customs Outpost at Majo — Sublime Mountain View — Primitive Native Life — Sunbeaten Limestone Hills — Vale of Santa Rosa — Tupiza's People and Their Pursuits — Ladies' Fashions among the Indian Women

— Across the Chichas Cordilleras — Barren Vegetation — Experience with Siroche, or Mountain Sickness — Personal Discomforts— Hard Riding — Portugalete Pass — Alpacas and Llamas — Sierra of San Vicente — Uyuni a Dark Ribbon on a White Plain — Mine Enthusiasts — Foreign Consulates . . . 278

Chapter XIX Wayfaring In Bolivia The Central Plateau

A Hill-broken Table-land — By Rail along the Cordillera of the Friars — Challapata and Lake Poopo — Smelters — Spanish Ear-marks in Oruro — By Stage to La Paz — Fellow-passengers

— Misadventures — Indian Tombs at Caracollo — Sicasica a High-up Town, 14,000 Feet — Meeting-place of Quichuas and Aymaras — First Sight of the Famed Illimani Peaks — Characteristics of the Indian Life — Responsibility of the Priesthood

— Position of the Women — Panorama of La Paz from the Heights — The Capital in Fact — Cosmopolitan Society . . 297

Chapter XX The Mexico Of South America

Depression and Revival of Mining Industry — Bolivia's Tin Deposits and Their Extension — Oruro, Chorolque, Potosi, and

CONTENTS xvii

Page La Paz Districts — Silver Regions — Potosi' s Output through the Centuries — Pulacayo's Record — Mines at Great Heights

— Trend of the Copper Veins — Corocoro a Lake Superior Region — Three Gold Districts — Bismuth and Borax — Bituminous Coal and Petroleum — Tropical Agriculture — Some Rubber Forests Left — Coffee for Export — Coca and Quinine

— Cotton 313

Chapter XXI

Panama Canal as Outlet for Mid-continent Country — Railways for Internal Development — Intercontinental Backbone — Proposed Network of Lines — Use Made of Brazilian Indemnity

— Chilean Construction from Arica — Human Material for National Development — Census of 1900 — Aymara Race — Wise Governmental Handling of Indian Problems — Immigration Measures — Climatic Variations — Political Stability

— General Pando's Labors — Status of Foreigners — Revenues and Trade — Commercial Significance of Treaty with Chile — Gold Legislation — A Canal View 331

Chapter XXII New Basis Of The Monroe Doctrine

John Quincy Adams' Advice — Canning's Trade Statesmanship

— Lack of Industrial and Commercial Element — Excess of Benevolent Impulse — Forgotten Chapters of the Doctrine's History — The Ecuador Episode — President Roosevelt's Interpretation — Diplomatic Declarations — Spectres of Territorial Absorption — Change Caused by Cuba — Progress of South American Countries — European Attitude on Economic Value of Latin America — German and English Methods — Proximity of Markets to United States Trade Centres — Conclusion 351

APPENDIX — Hydrographic Tables of Distances . . . 373 INDEX 379

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

A Mountain Bridge Frontispiece

Scene on the Chagres River 10

Swamp Section of the Canal 10

The Atlantic Entrance to the Canal 10

Abandoned Machinery — Two Views 1 8

Pineapple Garden 28

Banana Grove 28

The De Lesseps House, Colon ....... 44

Caribbean Cocoa Palms 44

Panama Natives from the Swamp Country .... 50

Panama Natives from the Mountains 50

Ruins at Panama — Two Views 54

The Waterfront at Guayaquil 60

The Wharf at Duran . 60

Weed-killer Plant, Guayaquil and Quito Railway . . 64

Railway Spraying Cart 64

Cacao Trees 70

View of Mollendo Harbor and Railway Yards ... 86

Interior of Cathedral, Lima 92

Church of San Francisco, Lima 94

Church of San Augustin, Lima 94

Scene on the Oroya Railway, Chicla Station ... 98 Scene on the Oroya Railway, San Bartolomew Switchback and Grade 102 xx ILLUSTRATIONS

Pagb

Pyramid of Junin 106

Independence Monument, Lima 106

View of Arequipa and the Crater of El Misti . . . 114

Ruins of an Inca Fortress at Cuzco 120

A Farmhouse in the Forest Region 130

View of Oroya, the Inter-Andine Crossroads . . . 142

Group of Peruvian Cholos 154

Portrait of Jose Pardo, President of Peru . . . . 170

View of Arica 182

Scene in the Harbor of Valparaiso, showing the Arturo

Prat Statue 190

View of Talcahuano 194

Scenes at the Straits of Magellan ; Cape Pillar, the

Evangelist Islands, and Cape Froward . . . . 198

Scene on the Aconcagua River 202

View of Los Andes 210

The Roman Aqueduct on Santa Lucia, Santiago . . 214

Group of Araucanian Indian Women 250

" Christ of the Andes " 270

Sandstone Pillars near Tupiza 286

Bolivian Indian Women Weaving 292

Aymara Indian Woman and Child 292

Scene in the Plaza at Oruro 302

Ancient Tombs at Caracollo 302

Primitive Methods of Tin-crushing 302

A Drove of Llamas on the Pampa 306

View of the Cathedral, La Paz 310

Gathering Coca Leaves in the Yungas — Two Views . 328

Portrait of Ismael Montes, President of Bolivia . . . 344

MAPS

Page I. The United States and other American Countries

— Transportation Routes 2

II. General Plan of the Panama Canal . 38

III. Peruvian Waterways and Railways . . . . 138

IV. Bolivian Railway Routes 334

Chapter I Economic Effect Of The Canal

Philosophic Spanish- American View — Henry Clay's Mistaken Population Prophecy — The Andes Not a Canal Limitation — Intercontinental Railway Spurs — Argentina and the Amazon as Feeders — Centres of Cereal Production — Crude Rubber — Atlantic and Pacific Traffic — Growth of West Coast Commerce — North and South Trade-wave — Distances via Panama, Cape Horn, and the Straits of Magellan — Waterway Tolls and Coal Consumption — Ecuador and Peru — Bolivia and Chile — Isthmian Railroad Rates — Value of United States Sanitary Authority — American Element in New Industrial Life,

THE effect of the Panama Canal on the West Coast industrial development and the reciprocal influence of this South American progress on the waterway are economic facts. The citizen of the United States who would know the subject in a wider range than the mere gratification of his patriotic impulses and his national pride, should turn to the study of commercial geography, the potential political economy of unexploited natural resources. The European statesman, jealously watchful of trade conditions in the New World and the causes which modify them, will follow these channels without suggestion.

Whether the digging of the Canal take ten, fifteen, or twenty years, does not affect its industrial value. The Spanish-American, with his inherited inertia and his lack of initiative, in waiting for to-morrow would be content if the work consumed half a century. What Humboldt prophesied of the Southern Continent as the seat of future civilization, what Agassiz predicted of the Andean and the Amazon populations, he is sure now will be realized. He even reverts to his favorite method of comparing the square miles of Belgium with the square miles of his own South American country, whichever one it may be, and exhibits the latter's possibilities for the human race by explaining the number of people it can sustain when it shall have as many inhabitants to the square mile as has Belgium. Yet while he believes that the destiny of the Southern Continent is at the threshold of realization, Yankee impatience only would amuse him. Since the interoceanic waterway and all its benefits are to be, what matter a few years ? Time, says the Castilian proverb, is the element. This philosophic Latin view may serve as a curb to fault-finding if the construction work on the Canal seems to halt while the engineering obstacles are studied and experiments are made in order to determine the best means to overcome them.

But though the Spanish-American, who is of the race that controls the West Coast countries of South America, is patient in his waiting for ultimate results, he does not fail to grasp the immediate effect. All the processes of the economic evolution unroll before his mental vision. For Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia, the standard already has been set,

> i

• and the goal towards which they must work has been fixed. Their national policies and their commercial and industrial growth at once come under the stimulus of the waterway. "The Panama Canal," said the leader of public thought in one of the Republics, " will precipitate our commercial evolution.,, It is the spring from which will gush the streams of immigration.

In the present volume I shall have little to say of Colombia, for though the Isthmus of Panama is the reception-room of that country, the Canal is to be considered jointly with relation to the Caribbean and the Pacific shores. I include Bolivia because, while as a political division it is not ocean-bordering, geographically it is a Pacific coast country on account of its outlet through Chilean and Peruvian seaports.

Population in South America is not marked by periods of phenomenal increase. Henry Clay, in his generous pleas for the recognition of the struggling Republics, was led in the warmth of his imagination to foresee the day when they would have 72,000,000 and we would have 40,000,000 inhabitants. The population of the United States was then less than 10,000,000. Clay spoke when the resources of the Louisiana Purchase were still distrusted by many conservative public men, and long before Daniel Webster had delivered his celebrated philippic against the Oregon region as a worthless area of deserts and shifting sands. Mindful of the slow growth in the Southern Hemisphere, I make no predictions of sudden leaps, but merely seek to indicate what proportion of the present and future inhabitants comes within the sphere of the Canal.

The population of western Colombia and of Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia is approximately 11,000,000, dwelling chiefly along the seacoast. It has been assumed that only this long slope of almost continuous mountain wall from Panama to Patagonia is subject to the direct influence of the Canal, and that the barrier of the Andes makes all the rest of the South American continent dependent on Atlantic outlets. The assumption is presumptuous. It is based on an unflattering lack of geographical knowledge and on a complete ignorance of political and economic conditions.

The primary mistake is in considering the Coast Cordilleras as the principal chain. The great rampart of the Andes in places is hundreds of miles across. Productive plains and fertile valleys lie on the western side of the Continental Divide as well as on the Atlantic slope. Besides, there are many bifurcations of these lofty ranges which must be pierced toward the Pacific. The mineral belt with its incalculable wealth, after centuries only partially exploited, has its basis of profitable production and export by means of the water transport of the Pacific. And greatest of all the facts is the certainty that railways will bore through the granite ramparts in a westerly direction. The central spine or backbone of the Intercontinental or Pan-American trunk line is not all a dream, and from its links spurs will shoot out toward the Pacific. It would have been as reasonable to imagine that the Rocky Mountains could forever shut in the region between them and the Sierra Nevadas, barring all outlet to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, as to suppose that the Pacific Ocean from Panama south is everlastingly restricted to the fringe of coast for its commerce. This is in the industrial sense and aside from the reasons of national polity which by railway enterprises on the part of the various governments are causing the Andes to disappear.

The grain fields and pastures of Argentina lie close to the Pacific. How close ? Within less than 200 miles. The pampas of the western and northwestern provinces are from 500 to 1,200 miles distant from the Atlantic seaboard. The pressure of the agricultural population is westward. A generation — perhaps a decade — will bring it to the slopes of the Andes. The first railway to join the Atlantic and the Pacific, that from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso, will be completed by means of a spiral tunnel long before vessels are propelled through the Canal.

But Valparaiso is far south, so far that, in the opinion of some authorities, it is the limit of the Canal radius. Let this be granted momentarily while the map is scanned. Place the thumb on the Chilean port of Caldera, 400 miles north of Valparaiso ; the index finger on Tucuman, and the middle finger on Cordoba. The lines forking from these Argentine cities forecast the next chapter of railway expansion. Let it be known also that Nature, in kindly mood, has formed a saddle in the mountain range in this section, and that engineering surveys of routes through the depression are the basis of projects which only await a larger agricultural area under cultivation in order to become railway enterprises with an assured commercial basis. Both Cordoba and Tucuman will be in rail communication with the Pacific coast some years before the waterway is finished. Nor are these the only trans-Andine lines in prospect. They serve the purposes of illustration, so that a description of the others may be omitted. I cite the first two in order that it may be known there is an Argentine relation to the Canal, and a highly important one as to population and as to the exports and imports which are the foundation of maritime and rail traffic.

If this suggestion is new and strange, I follow it by a more startling proposition. As one result of the Panama Canal, a measure of Amazonian commerce will flow to and from the Pacific.

To begin with, there is the nearness. By several trans-Andine routes the navigable affluents of the Amazon are less than 300 miles from the coast. Steamships of 800 tons navigate as far as Yurimaguas on the Huallaga River, which was the historic route of the Spaniards over the Continental Divide. Steam vessels also go up the Maranon from Iquitos, 425 miles to the Falls of Manserriche, which by several practicable railway routes are within less than 400 miles of the Bay of Paita. Minor Peruvian ports below Paita are able to offset its shipping advantages by shorter trails. Not more than 225 miles of difficult railway construction are necessary to open to a large section of the vast Amazon region the commerce of Callao, Peru's chief port.

In relation to the Amazon as a feeder, it has to be recognized that the Andes form a greater obstacle than in Argentina, and that the river basins will be populated much more slowly and never so densely as the Argentine pampas and sierras. But the mighty stream is within the sphere of the Canal, as I shall have occasion to explain more fully in subsequent chapters.

For the present purpose a single illustration, perhaps fanciful, will answer.

It may seem a far cry from the 200,000 telephones used by the farmers of Indiana, the trolleys which tangle their way through that State, and the automobiles and bicycles which traverse the country roads, to the gum forests of South America. But the world's hunger for crude rubber is a growing one. Bicycles, the infinite variety of motors, electric lighting, and telephones, all demand more of this article ; and the 55,000 tons, which was substantially the world's production in 1905, is insufficient for future needs. This increasing demand will stimulate the rubber production of an extensive region in northeastern Peru, and Peru has imperative reasons of national policy for wanting to turn that traffic down her own rivers, and across and over the Andes to the Pacific, instead of letting it flow out through Brazilian territory. Iquitos, the centre of this commerce, is 2,300 miles up the Amazon from Para, and Para is 3,000 miles from New York, a total of 5,300 miles by the all-water route. By river and future rail Iquitos is, at the furthest, 800 miles from Paita, and Paita, via Panama, is a little short of 3,100 miles from New York ; so that the total distance is less than 4,000 miles. New Orleans by the isthmian route is within 3,300 miles of the Peruvian rubber metropolis.

Instead of the Pacific commerce being limited to the seashore strip after the Panama Canal is dug, the view which receives attention in South America is the probable influence of the waterway in diverting traffic from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Trade may not be turned upstream, and commerce is slow to leave established lines of transportation, but trade-waves are not so fixed as isothermal lines. They may show variations until the current finds its natural course to the newer markets created.

I do not mean from this to infer that the aggregate commerce of the Atlantic coast countries of South America will be lessened by the Panama Canal. Tropical Brazil, for an indefinite period, will continue to supply the bulk of the coffee consumed, and the maritime movement will follow the existing courses of navigation. Temperate Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and Uruguay will develop as the granary and the grazing-ground of the world in proportion as the United States consumes its own wheat and beef. Their exports increase with the widening of the market for these staple products. Political economists and crop statisticians have been slow to perceive that the extension of the area of agricultural cultivation and the growth of population in this great cereal region depend more on the ability of Europe to take the surplus grain, beef, and mutton than on the demands for home consumption. Public men, especially in the Argentine Republic, in their measures for encouraging immigration also have neglected to take into account this overshadowing economic factor. But it explains why during certain periods immigration has been almost stationary, while at other periods the incoming of settlers for the field and farm has been a rushing one. As a natural balance, therefore, for the diversion of traffic to the Pacific coast through the agency of the artificial waterway, the Atlantic slope has the certainty of steadily growing exports of agricultural products.