■«» Aii«Tir ii>iliitiii ItaMtMIMUiiaiMiinMMtWMiiNMHMMH i «iMH ii» «i« i n i Hj*i. InhiibiUinti', p. 214. Topoj^raphy, p. 248. Material Condition of Ecuador, p. -i.-jS. Agriculture-Iimnigration, p. 259. Communiijations, p. 201. Govern- meut, p. 201. The GALArAoos Aboiiipelaoo 266—273 Voliianio Formation, p. i07. Climnte, p. 209. F.ora and Fauna, p. 270. VII. Pebu Disputed Frontiefs— E.\t(>nt. p. 274. Geographical Eosearch, p. 270. Physical Features, p. 278. The Northern Cordilleras, p. 279. llie Central CordiUeras, p. 281. The Southern Cordilleras, p. 282. The Pacific Coastiands, p. 284. Rivert— The Pacific Coast Streams, p. 289. The Amazonian Aftluents, p. 290. Climate, p. 290. Flora, p 2i)8. Fauna, p. 299. Inhabitants, p. 301. The Quiohuas— Empire of the Incas, p. 303. The Yuncas, Antis and other Aborigines, p, Spaniards— Negroes and Coolies, p. 314. Topography, p. 310. of Peru, p. 343. Agriculture, p. 344. Mineral Wealth, p. 345 cations, p. 347. Administration, p. 3oO. 274-363 309. The Material Condition Trade — Coromuni- VIII. Bolivia Boundaries- Extent, p. 334. Oe3. Physical Features— The Bolivian Andes, p. 337. Main Physical Divisions, p. 339. Lakes and Rivers— Lakes Titicaca and Pampa-AuUagas, p. 300. The Rios Boni andMadre de Dios, p. 303. The Piloomayo, p. 305. ainiat«, p. 305. Flora, p. 300. Fauna, p. 307. Inhabitants— The Aymaras, p. 307. The Chiquitos, p. 370. The Mojos, p. 372. The Canichanas and Guarayos, p. 374. The Chiriguanos, Tobas and Sirionos, p. 375. The Antisians, p. 370. The Apolistas, p. 379. Topography, p. 379. MaU'rial and Social Condition of Bolivia, p. 383. Administration, p. 393. IX. Chili Recent Conquests, p. 397- Islands— Boundaries— Extent— Population, p 398. Geographical Discovery, p. 400. First Exploration of Tierra del Fuego, p. 402. Later Explorations of Tierra del Fuego, p. 400. Topographic and Coast Surveys, p. 406. Physical Features— The Northern Highlands, p. 407. The Mejillones Range, p. 4C9. The Chilian Andes Proper, p. 410. The Southern Chilian Andes, p. 418. The Chilian Coast Range, p. 419. Chiloe and Neighbouring Archipelagoes, p. 421. Wellington and Southern Groups, p. 424. Tierra del Fuego, p. 426. Hydrography of Chili, p. 428. The Chilian Lakes, p. 432. Climate, p. 432. The Chilian Nitrate- fields, p. 434. Climate of Chiloe and Fuegia, p. 436. Flora of Chili, p. 438. Fauna, p. 440. Inhabitants, p. 441. The AraucMuians, p. 442. The Fuegions, p. 446. The Chilions, p. 447. Topography, p. 448. Materiitl Condition of Chi i, p. 468. Agriculture, p. 408. Mineral Uesources, p. 470. Manufactures— Trade, p. 471. Administration, p. 474. Appendix - Statistical Tables .' .> . . .»,..... 354—396 397—477 .(,: Iksex 478-496 497—604 I ^ ;** = X 1 ' I «ii I i).iv L ■L i t ' i i yw r wt r ••ip»"rw^f»n« ' .rUlt—t^. ' y ii i I >. < « ^i. «m m/iytnum fif ^f > n w». ' « .. n«nm j i, i w i |»i>n i mj w >>» iii i ii j i,» ,11,11 206—273 271-353 354—396 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. MAPS TRmTED IN COLOURS. 397—477 Caracas and La Guiiira , Bogota and its EnvironH . PilOB 112 184 Lima from Chancay to Paohaoamao Valparaiso and iSantiago . PAOB 322 458 PLATES. 478-496 497—604 Group of Antis (Peruvian Campos) . Fronli-ipieee. AtureH liapids, Orinoco — View taken at the Cerro Perriquito . . To face page 3 Ceiba Trees near Bolivar, Venezuela . . 35 The Asphalt Lake, Trinidad . . . .01 General View of Willemsted (Santa Ana de Cura9ao) 74 Group of Quaraunos Indians .... 106 General View of Carupano . .109 Lake Dwellings of Santa Bosa, near Mani- oaibo . . . . . .120 General View of Ciudad Bolivar . ,123 Old Spanish Fortifloations at Puerto Bello . 134 Sierra de Santa Marta— East View taken at Punta Tapias 140 Bongo on the Rio Magdale a . . .156 Muysca Indians, adorned with Antique Jewel- lery 169 Columns of an Indian Temple at San Agustin 180 Street View, La Mesa 186 Landing Stage on the Magdalena, near the Sogamoso Confluence General View of Ocafla .... Santa Marta— View taken from the North Ibarra, and the Imbabura Volcano . Pueblo de San Mateo, East of Lima 190 196 204 224 226 West View of Cotopaxi, taken near Santa Ana deTuipullo . . To face page East View of Quito and Mount Pichincha, seen from La Loma de Poingasi Guayaqiiil Arequipa and Mount Misti .... Group nf Peruvians Gener > View o' Lima, taken from the South . GuaL. :;-l.<) . liamifying Streams on the Brazil and Venezuelan Frontiers . Maipures and Atures Rapids AlM)rigines of Venezuela . Yunuiuri Oold-ndnos La Gdaiba ; View taken at Caevomal La Guaira Political Divisions of Venezuela Chief Exploring Expeditions in Venezuela and Colombia Zones of Altitude in Colombia . Sierra Nevada do Santa Marta . Mesa de Herveo and Ruiz Volcano Quindio Pass .... Colombia Mountains . Teuuendama Falls ; View taken at tub Fiebt Tebeaoe .... The Nare Gorge ; . . . Inland Delta of the Magdulena , Mouths of the Magdaleua . Mouths of the Ati-ato Tuquerres Plateau and Valley of the Gua itarti Pasto Plateau and the Cocha Basin . Road in the Hot Lands, Colomiiia Chief Vegetable Products of Colombia MuYscA Idol Chief Indian Nations and Tribes of Colom bia .... G«ajira Peninsula Suma Paz Basin Bogota and its Approaches Girardot Bend . Honda and La Dorada Railway BoYAOA Battlepield Chiquinquira and Lake of Fuquone Socorro, Buoaramauga, and Sogamo&o Gorges .... Cucuta District . Popayan and Guanacas Pjss Upjaer Cauoa Valley . Goldfields of the Department of Antioqiua Ramifications of Morapos . RoaJstead and Harbours of Savanilla Cartagena and its Harbours Port of Buenaventura Landing- staob at Saloab, Poet Savanilla , Gommunioations of Colombia . op MM 117 110 121 122 123 124 128 129 130 131 136 ■ 139 141 145 146 147 151 152 153 166 167 100 161 163 106 171 175 177 182 184 186 188 191 193 194 195 197 198 200 202 203 206 208 213 215 1 1 ' m II ^ m»0m^m!ir^tm»^0ffft M <>ii w «i> ^ ^ i«ii*»w m LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. Brazil and Jabvomal Venezuela lano U7 IIU 121 122 123 124 128 129 1»0 131 136 139 141 145 140 147 iKEN AT THE of the Gua- ianiii . LOUIIIA lolombia D8 of Colom- huone . SogamobO \ii Antioquia Lvanilla lol 162 163 16S 167 IGO 161 103 106 171 174 177 182 184 186 188 191 193 194 196 197 198 200 202 203 206 208 Poet of 213 215 no VAOI ria. 8.5. rA.voiiAmcVlkWOF noOOTA; TAKXNriiOM 137. THK K.\8T . ... 217 138. 80. AdniiiiiMtrativi! Div.iionx of Colombia 218 87. Disjiuti'd FiiintitTM of Kt^uador 221 139. 88. Dipiililf (/'liaiu of Eouadorean VoloinwH 231 140. 8». (^"himboni/ii 233 141. 01). (Jo dojfioal Fonnation of Kniiador . 234 142. 01. Ciiiifluonoo of till' (>iiayai|iiil HivorH 23(1 143. 92. 'riiiiKiira^iiH iiiid I'ltxta/a (lor^n 237 14t. 03. Kiiinfall iiiid ForcMti* of Ecuador 239 UJ. 01. E(M'At»OB SCK.N'KRY ; ViKW TAKE.V O.N THK 140. Banks of thk I'astaza fast op Altab 241 147. 05. Iiidi^'oiioiiK Popiilatioim of Etmador 247 148. 90. Ancon do las Hardiiias 249 97. Quito and its EnviroiiH 251 149. 9H. EHiiicraldaH 252 150. 09. Ouayaqiiil EHtuary .... 2o4 161. 100. CiiiMHia Banin 250 152. 101. Loja MoiintaiuM .... 2,57 163. 102. Political DivlHions of EcMiador . , . 203 154. 103. lialapaKo" Aroliipclafiri) . 200 155. 104. Volcanic Group of Albomarln IslaJid 208 lOo. 8( EXKBV IN iNnEFATIOAHLE FaLANP, OaLA 160. I'AdOS AnCHIPKLAOO 271 157. 100. Chatham iHUnd .... 272 158. 107. FrontiorH of Peru . a . 275 159. 103. Drainage Area of H uayla.s 280 100. 109. Zones of Altitude, Peru . 283 101. 110. Amotape MountainM . 285 102. 111. Ports of Chimboto and Casma . . 288 103. 112. Pongo de Manserieho . 2rtl 104. 113. Maraflon and lluullaga Confluenoo . . 293 114. MaraRon and llcayali Confluence . 294 105. 115. Mantaro, Pampas and Apurimao Valley a 2S5 160. 116. P'mpire of the Incas . 302 117. Ancient Hijrhways of the Incas . 305 107. 118. Stwno of Quipos .... . 306 108. 119. Indian Populations of Peru . 313 109. 120. Tumboz and its Deserts . . 316 170. 121. Trujillo and Grand Chimu . 318 171. 122. Caniz and Anoaohs Mountains . 321 172. 123. Oroya Railway .... . 324 173. 124. Pisco and loa . . " . . 325 174. 125. The Chincha Islands in 1858 . . 327 176. 126. Arequipa Gradieut .... . 328 127. Arequipa . 329 176. 128. From Pacasmayo to Cajamarca . 332 177. 129. Cebbo i)B Pasco .... . 333 178. 130. Cerro de Pasco .... . 334 179. 131. Cuzco . 338 132. Iquitos and the Napo Confluence . 340 180. 133. Loreto, Amazons- Yavari Confluence . 341 181. 134. Mines of Peru . 346 182. 13.i. Commnnications of Peru . . 348 183. 136. Lima-Oboya Railway ; View takki* a r 184. Cbiola . 349 ■ .' Admliii»trativo Divisions of Peru Chief IiincrariuD of Explorers in Peru and Bolivia ..... Old Like of the Bolivian Plateau BuNJii of the .Miidre de Dios YUNOAS ScKNKBY Cussn.I.ANI HacIK.NDA Aboriginal Populations of Bolivia Copacabana I'l-niiisula La Paz and Environs La Paz Paijicr of Conobbss Potosi and ttuc^ro Chief Miueral Deposits of Bolivia Inteniatioual ConiniunicatiDiis of B U- via Politioal Divisions of Bolivia . Conquests of Chili . Magellan Strait Htaton Island .... MejiUoucs Chain Parallel Cordilleras of the Chilian Andes Ascent of the Cumbbe -View taken FIIOM THE iSaI.TO DEL SoLDADO Aconcagua and La Cuniliro Caslcha del I'obtim.o. on the Cumhbe . Volcanic Dcscabozado Group . ChUoo Chonos Archipelago .... 8an Itafael Lake ..... San Felix and San Ambrosio Isles . " Petkbboboloh Cathedbal " Rio Laja and Biodio Conflue.voe- -Vikw taken opposite San Rosen ho Lakes of South Chili and Puerto MM*Mit*aHU i i » iJ i »»« i i>^w«>toi »i ii»i i »iw > » i »»i i ^ riii i 'iii ii ii i i ii ill«iiiiiii > iil>n i i i *Wir Ti^aLmiaiili'MiiBhiiiiwaMiti " t n fc t un have been the hemisphere to 18 indented by ilient physical ation has like- disposition of her, their most either side of in the contour- 'iangular form, raphic systems J between the ces of latitude, ht importance. America, with ih-west by the pass with the »y Is i'egarded can continent, America form- y the northern archipelagoes, and soldered of the North tremely vague ; contradictory he mysterious orld, although Dtinent in the ice ia really at ed to the more y the northern in islands and i West Indies, inent presents iless the Pata- • region. The I close to the )re-line8. ■fnii'W'iiir^ o Q % ^ i ""W^ HYDEOORAPHY OP SOUTH AMERICA. V. ' o I i % ^ § OS a Nevertheless, this difference in the relative proportion of indentations and archipelagoes fringing the two continents docs not possess the importance which has been claimed for it. An abundance of islands and peninsulas does not neces- sarily constitute an advantage in itself, and may even be a drawback. Every- thing, in fact, depends on the special conditions presented by each of the geo- graphical divisions. Thus the West Indies have become the "Jewel of the New World," thanks to their happy position at the confluence of the oceanic currents and in the forefront of the Caribbean Sea ; thanks also to their climate, to their natural resources, and to the facilities of communication from port to port. But the snowy lands of the Far North, washed by the Frozen Ocean, remain absolutely uninhabitable ; nor is it likely that they can ever attract any settlers. They may at most continue to be visited by seekers for gold and peltries, or by a few travellers anxious to study nature under its sternest aspects of dreariness and desolation. On the other hand, the North American peninsulas, such as Nova Scotia, South California, and even Florida, are far from possessing the same economic value for intending immigrants as the mainland itself. River Systems. But in both continental divisions the marine inlets, offering points of easy access to navigation, are increased ten or even a hundred fold by the network of fluvial or lacustrine arteries ramifying throughout the interior. In this respect the twin continents are equally favoured in comparison with the various sections of the Old World. South America certainly lacks the vast fresh-water basins characteristic of the North ; even Titicuca, its largest lake, although traversed by small vessels, is an isolated basin in an upland depression of the Andes, uncon- nected with any other lines of communication by water. But to the ramifying system of the Mississippi, with its 17,000 or 18,000 miles of navigable highways, South America may oppose the Amazons, largest river on the surface of the globe, with a development of deep channels at least twice as extensive as that of the Mississippi basin. To this vast network of inland waterways must be added the Orinoco basin, which also abounds in navigable streams, and the River Plate system, which includes the Paraguay, Parana, and Uruguay, and which rivals the Mississippi itself in the extent of its convergent watercourses. Moreover, South America is distinguished amongst all the continents by the absence of clear parting-lines between its great fluvial basins. To a certain extent all the hydrographic systems from the Orinoco delta to the La Plata estuary may be said to be merged in a single fluvial basin. So far as regards the Orinoco and the Amazons, the union is complete, thanks to the ramifying waters of the upper Orinoco, which are discharged in one direction southwards through the Caasiquiare, and in another straight to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Paria, forcing their way at the Maipures and Atures rapids over the rocky remains of eroded mountain barriers. Although between the Amazons and La Plata basins the communications are 4* SOUTH AMEEICA— THE ANDES EEOIONS. more obstructed, tho water-parting presents at various points certain tracts of undecided slope, where the spring or swamp waters flow now in one direction, now in another, according to tho sot of the winds, the abundance of local rains, the alluvial deposits, or the effects of landslips. At the foot of tho Bolivian Andes the various branches of tho Mamor<5 and Pilcomayo seem interlaced, and lower down tho level plains are dotted over with marshy tracts, whose Fig. 1. — Ikhabitable Regions in Nobth Ahebku.. Soal« 1 : 70,000,000. BO* West or Greenwich AriddMHrU. llonsaei. Glaeial lonM. 990 MUei. InbaUtable lands. sluggish waters drain to both basins. In the heart of tho continent the upper affluents of the Guapor^ and the Jauru are merged together during the rainy season. The Rio Alogre, a tributary of the Amazons,- has its source on the southern slope of the continent, and traverses a marshy parting-line before sweeping round the Serra Agoapehy range of hills on its northern course to the Quapor^. Nothing would be easier than to establish a permanent connection in tracts of •ection, now local raina, le Itolivian interlaced, acts, whoae 7V ■^T'flrTTr^ ! _ ' t;| ! iy- ' '"'!; T .TO w vr^» 3f ^j l»iiWi>IWfr! W^ fijiW . « i i ^• '9k EO' 70° at the upper ig the rainy ource on the g-line before course to the it connection nYDEOGRAPHT OF SOUTH AMERICA. 5 between the two fluvial systems, either by a series of portages, or by cutting a canal four or five miles long across the divide. Other interminglings of river basins have also been develoiied farther east between the eastern affluents of the Paraguay and the Arinos, a main branch of the Amazonian Tapajoz, and attempts to connect them by cuttings were made in the years 1713 and 1845. Fig. 2.— Inhabitablk Reoions in South A:^bioa. Beale t : 70,000,000. Horaaaea. Oladal lonea. QSOUilea. InfaaUUble landf. Viewed as a whole, the South American hydrographic system is remarkable for the prodigious volumes which are carried seawards by the main arteries, and much of which expands in the interior, not into deep lacustrine depressions, but in lateral backwaters and labyrinths of temporary channels, varying from year to year, and from season to season, with the periodical flooding and subsidence of the main streanu. 6 SOUTH AMEBICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. Geologists who have studied tho contours and general incline of these inland regions find that tho movement of waters has been developed in two principal directions, one parallel with tho meridian, and indicated chiefly by the trend of the Paraguay and of the Parana, the other intersecting the first at right angles, and flowing from the Andes to the Atlantic. The Amazons, a " liquid equator," as it has been called, follows the main axis of this second hydrographic system. The aspect presented by the semicircle of the Andes botwoen the Bogota and Bolivian plateaux attests the vast work of erosion that has been accomplished in this upland region. The eastern slope of the Cordilleras has evidently been eaten away by the running waters to an enormous extent ; numerous lateral ridges have been entirely levelled, and their triturated debris has been distributed by the streams over the beds of great inland seas, which at one time occupied tho central region of the continent. The sedimentarv matter thus carried down towards the fluvial estuaries was regarded by Humboldt as of old red sandstone origin, while Martins attributed it to triassic formations. But in reality these deposits are comparatively recent quaternary clays and sands, and according to Agassiz are partly of glacial origin. The part of the Andean system that has best resisted the fluvial action is the huge mass of the Bolivian uplands. This central fortress of the South American rampart is no less than 500 miles broad between the escarpments which plunge into the waters of tho Pacific and the eastern plains still roamed by the nomad Indians ; but a little farther north, in the very axis of the Amazons, under 3° south latitude, the main range of the Cordilleras is reduced to a thickness of scarcely more than 120 miles. East of Bolivia the hcadstreams, which trend some to the Amazons, some to the Paraguay basin, have not been strong enough to sweep away the Andean foothills. Along the parting-line the expanse of level plains intervening between the paleozoic Andean rocks and those of the Brazilian plateaux has a normal breadth of no more than 250 miles ; towards the centre it is studded with nume- rous hills and isolated ridges, surviving witnesses of the crystalline nucleus and other formations which at one time occupied the whole continent from sea to sea. The passages which the Amazons and the Orinoco have had to cut for themselves through the coast ranges are much narrower still than this central depression. Between the Tapajoz and Xingu mouths the Amazons valley is scarcely 60 miles broad from hill to hill. Forests and Habitable Lands. The enormous excess of pluvial waters which distinguishes the southern continent, and which has created this astonishing system of ramifying streams, has, however, conferred little more than a nominal advantage on its inhabitants, at least in the equatorial zone. Such liquid masses are too copious, too irregular in their regime to be controlled by man, who till recently has scarcely been able to utilibe them even for navigation. Moreover, the tepid and oppressive climate has hitherto been opposed to the acclimatisation of the white and half- FOBESrS— COMMUNICATIONS. ese inland I principal le trend of ;bt angles, equator," ic system, logota and jomplislied ently been eral ridges ributed by cupied the rried down [ sandstone sality tbese scording to tion is the 1 American ich plunge the nomad 8, under 3 thickness of caste races in largo numbers. The soil, with its excessive fertility, has clothed itself with continuous woodlands, a tangled muss of vegetation overflowing with sap, where whole generations will be unnble to effect more that a few narrow clearings. The Amazonian forest, which the Spaniards cull the Se/va in a pre-eminent sense, and which is continued southwards by the Mutto Grosso of the Portuguese, covers a space estimated at 2,800,000 square miles. In this boundless expanse travellers, and even the seekers for rubber, ipecacuanha and other medicinal or economic products, have for the most part no knowledge of the Selva beyond the winding avenues opened in its uhade by the rivers and backwaters. This densely timbered and almost uninhabited region separates the low-lying Venezuelan plains from those of Bolivia more effectually than if it were an absolute desert. Thus, despite its immense wastes of snow and ice, despite its tundras of mosses and lichens, which occupy about one-third of its whole area. North America offers at the present day a far more favourable territory for settlement than the southern continent. Its chief advantage is that the temperate zone, which is best suited for the development and prosperity of the white race, comprises its broader part, where the United States have been constituted. In South America, on the con- trary, the corresponding section begins where the land, already considerably con- tracted between the two oceans, continues to taper rapidly in the direction of the austral seas. Measured on Berghmunnls map by the isothermal lines of 46° and 68° Fahr., this climatic zone comprises over 4,000,000 square miles in the northern, and somewhat less than 2,000,000 in the southern continent. ns, some to the Andean ing between IS a normal with nume- nucleus and 1 sea to sea. • themselves , depression. «ly 60 miles he southern ing streams, inhabitants, too irregular jarcely been d oppressive le and half- COMMUNICATIONS. Another disadvantage of the South compared with the North as a region of colonisation results from its more remote position from the other great divisions of the globe. Apart from the Antarctic polar lands, South America is farther removed than any other continental region from the great commercial marts, and from the most densely-peopled countries — West Europe, India, and China — whose central point about coincides with the middle of the Eastern llemisphere. Never- theless, steam has helped greatly to shorten the time formerly occupied in the voyage from the European Atlantic ports to those of Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina. With the resources supplied by the mechanical arts, it may even be possible in the near future to bring the eastern ports of Brazil practically as near to London and Paris as are New York and Montreal at present. The South American coastlands are already directly connected by regular lines of steamships with those of Europe, but the construction of the projected north- west African railways may even reduce by one-half the journey between these points. In this respect the " Trans-Saharan " trunk line should be regarded as of more importance for South America than for Europe. Some French specu- lators, inspired more by colonial patriotism than by economic interests, are at present occupied with various schemes for connecting by rail the Mediterranean seaboard with the Sahara, Sudan, and Senegal. " •;'*«#-■ '^£r 8 SOUTU AMEIIICA— THE ANDES BEOIONS. Doubtless a line running from Algiers to liuke Chad, and continued south- ■warde to the Ubanghi and the Congo, would at some future time possess an un- deniable value in developing and utilising the still untouched resources of those regions. Hut the lines already begun at rhilippevillc, Algiers, and Orun would, if continued south-westwards to Dakar, present the advantage of not only con- necting Algeria and Senegal in a single commercial and political zone, but, as has already been pointed out by the engineers, would also serve to swell the great stream of international traffic between Europe and South America. Swift-sailing Fig. 3. — FcTUEB Routes between Pauis and Bubmos Atbb8. Scale I : 110,000,000. 50' Weat oP Grterwicti BailTTttys. Projeoted RailwaTS. Steamers. ._^^^.^_ 1,240 Miles. P in liners, such as those now plying between Liverpool and New York, could cross the Atlantic between Dakar and the Brazilian ports of Natal and Pernambuco in less than three days ; and on this short route at one cf the narrowest parts of the ocean, passengers would have the pleasure of sighting lai.d twice, at the islands of Sao Paulo and Fernando Noronha. The great Transatlintic lino connecting the three continents might also be continued by a coast raih/ay from Pernambuco to Buenos Ayres, with branches ramifying into the interior of the continent. By this route, at the present speed of the most powerful engines, the traveller might ;4;uj.L.j j sr mtmmr i .n III Ml ' m ti id south- I an un- of those m would, )nly con- ut, as has the great ift-suiliiig 0* ould cross lambuco in larts of the he islands connecting ernambuco nent. By ller might EXPLORATION OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN SEABOARD. 9 reach Buouos Ayres from Paris in eleven days, that is, in a third of the time occupied by existing lines.* Exploration of the Seaboard. The work of discovery, begun in North America centuries before the time of Columbus, was retarded in the southern continent by its greater distance from the populous and trading lands of the Old World. No Norse sea-rover ever landed on its shores ; no legend anterior to the age of the great navigators speaks of mysterious islands dimly seen by monks wandering, like St. Brendan, in these remote waters of the austral hemisphere ; the pretended Phooniciun inscription suid to have been found on the banks of the Purnahyba, in equatorial Brazil, was no more authentic than so many others reported from various parts of the New World. The Spanish caravels had already been plying for six years in the AVest Indian waters, when Columbus, in 1498, reached the mainland near the Orinoco delta. He recognised the importance of this immense watercourse ; but he explored none of its branches, and, escaping from the Gulf of Paria by one of the " Dragon's Mouths," where the marine currents clash, ho hastily returned to his mines and plantations in Espauola. Next year Peralonso Nino and Cristobal Guerra landed in their turn on the shores of the mainland, which they traced for some distance in the direction of the west, trading as they went with the natives. Then followed a few months later the memorable expedition of Hojeda, who was accompanied by the learned pilots, Juan de la Cosa and Amerigo Vespucci. The party extended its explorations for over 600 miles between the muddy shores of the present Guiana and the peninsula roamed by the Goajiros Indians, west of the Gulf of Maracaibo. During the first two years of the sixteenth century Bastidas de Sevilla com- pleted the survey of the Columbian coastlands as far as the Gulf of Uraba. About the same time the shores of the continent facing Africa were also visited by European navigators. Vicente Pinzon explored the coasts and fluvial estuaries of the Guianas, sailed into the " Freshwater Sea " encircling the Amazonian island of Marajo, and coasted the shores of the present Brazil to and beyond its easternmost headland of Cape Sfto Roque. Diego de Lepo traversed the same waters, while Alvarez Cabral, striking the land at Porto Seguro farther south, reported the discovery of the "island" of Santa Cruz, which subsequent discoveries showed to be a part of the continental seaboard visited by his predecessors. Then Amerigo Vespucci traced the coastline as far as the bay of Cananea, south of the present Brazil, and hither came Gonneville and other Normans of Dieppe • Dimensious of South America according to Ch. Perron : — Sapcrficial area with adjacent and dependent ifilanda . . 6,740,000 aq. miles. Mean area of the other continents with their islands . . 8,950,000 sq. miles. Coastline 18,000 miles. Extreme length 4,. 500 miles. Extreme breadth .- . 3,100 miles. f Extreme distance from the centre to the coast 1,740 miles. f'J w 111 10 HOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDKS HKOIONS. in search of BpiocH.* Thcso wore soon followed by Vicente Pinzon and Diaz de Solis, who in 1009 entered a grout river which six years later Solis surveyed more in detail. This was the vast southern estuary which receives the two rivers, Uruguay and Parana, and which was at first named the Ilio do Solis, But when Sebastian Cabot discovered, in lol^H, that tho Parana brunch led inland in the direction of tho Peruvian silver-mines, the name was changed to that of the liio de la Plata (" Silver River"), which tho estuary still bears. Magellan's memorable expedition of l^y20-2l completed the discovery of the Atlantic coast of the New World as fur us tho entrance of tho strait which sepa- rates the maitdand from the Fuegian archipelago. Six years later, Francisco do IIoccs, one of Loaysa's companions, coasted the senboard without entering the strait, and thus reached the southern extremity of Tierra del Fuogo close to the point where the two oceans intermingle their waters. But although the sailors taking part in the expedition unanimously declared that they had seen the "land's end," these shores were not accurately traced till the next century, when Lo Muiro rounded Gupe Horn in 1G16. The west coast of South America being further removed from Europe, its survey was naturally subsequent to that of the Atlantic seaboard Thirty years followed the discovery of Guanahani before Andagoya, advancing beyond the Gulf of Panama, coasted tho shores of the Pacific in the direction of the mysterious Biru, or Piru (Peru), which Francisco Pizarro went in search of two years later. In 1527 he reached Tumbez, its northernmost point, just below the Gulf of Guaya- quil ; and thenceforth the discovery of its shores and alpine coastlands went hand in hand with the conquest of the Peruvian empire. In 1534 Almagro had already pushed across the elevated plateau of the Andes and the Atacama desert as far as the northern districts of Chili. In 15-10 Valdivia penetrated still farther south along the narrow strip of Chilian coastlands between the crest of the Andes and the Pacific. But here all further exploration of the seaboard in the direction of Tierra del Fuego was long arrested. Little, in fact, was done before the present century beyond making a summary survey of the coast as seen from the ocean. A ship belonging to Loaysa's squadron had certainly passed through the Struit of Magellan towards Mexico so early as 1526, but its course lay too far seawards even to sight the coast of Chili. Fourteen years later Alonzo de Camargo, following in tho same direc- tion from the strait towards Callao, kept near enough inshore to determine the exact trend of the continent along the Pacific Ocean. In 1579 Sarmiento, one of Spain's best pilots, made the voyage in the opposite direction from north to south, and the coastline, as traced by him, gave a toler- ably correct reproduction of its true form. Drake, also, studying the best routes by which the Spanish settlements might be surprised, contributed not a little to a more accurate knowledge of the southern coastlands. Their exploration is still continued, and must last some time longer before complete surveys can be made of * D'Avezao, KouulUt Anmlu de$ Voyages, 1869. EXPLORATION OF THE INTRRIOB. 11 Diaz (le urvoycd a rivers, it when I in the the lUo y of the ich wpa- iicisco do ring the le to the ae BuilorB e "land's when Lo urope, its irty years [ the Galf ious Biru, later. In of Guaya- inds went nagro had ma desert strip of t here all was long making a on gin g to n towards t the coast »me direc- :?rmine the le opposite ve a toler- best routes little to a on is still )e made of the Chiloo and Fuogian archijwlagoos, with all thoir intricate passugos, projecting headlands, groups and chains of reefs and islands. Exploration ov iiik Intkrior. If the cartogrni)hy of the seaboard is not yet completed, tliat of tho interior is oven still more defective, despite the thousands of itineraries spread like a network over the well-known settled regions, and carefully reproduced in all their details on modern maps. Tho Cunquistadores were the first explorers, and the geographical history of tho continent begins with the reports of their expeditions. The Pizarros, the Almagrus, the Valdivias, and their lieutenants brought under their dominion every city, every civilised tribe throughout tho uplands and western valleys of the Peruvian and Chilian Andes. Farther north, in the Venezuelan and Colombian regions, other captains and leaders of armed followers — Germans in the service of the bankers of Charles V., or Spanish adventurers in search of fresh conquests and new viceroyalties — also forced their way through savannas, across mountains and rivers, losing half or more of their followers on the march. Alfinger, " cruellest of the cruel," roamed as a hunter of men the upland regions, where are intermingled the headwaters of the streams which flow in one direction to the Maracaibo inlet, in another towards the Rio Magdalenn. Ileredia, Cesar, Roblcdo, Fernandez do I^ugo penetrated into the mountainous northern districts of the present Colombia. Frcdemann, after traversing the overhanging cliffs between the Venezuelan seaboard and the plains of the Orinoco, retraced his steps to the coast, and then went in quest of the plateaux occupied by the empire of the Muyscas. When at last he reached this mysterious region beyond the forests, the river gorges and woodlands, he found himself, to his utter amazement, forestalled by other European conquerors who, in absolute ignorance of their rivals* movements, had penetrated by other routes to the same place. Quesada, starting from Santa Marta, had ascended the course of the Magdalcna as far as the Open confluence, whence he had made his way to the Cundinamarca plateau, while Belalcazar, at that time in Quito, had arrived at the same goal from an opposite 'direction by traversing the Tuquerres plateau and crossing the central Cordillera and the upper Magdalena. Like three vultures swooping down on the prey, they were fain, much to their regret, to share the booty between them. These expeditions towards the capitals of empires, towards cities to which roads had been opened by the natives from time immemorial, were succeeded by an epoch of journeys made at haphazard towards visionary regions. Nothing seemed impossible to these men, who, after the first years of monotonous life in Spain, suddenly found themselves launched on a marvellous career of battles and triumphs, traversing seas and continents, and sweeping whole populations away as in a storm. All the doughty deeds related in their romances of chivalry they had themselves performed. There remained nothing now but to crown their work with miraculous achievements, to triumph with magio weapons over dragons and demons, to •4* (J. 12 BOUTII A\fKHirA TIIK ANDES REOIONS. I.1H&V '^m' u • conquor golden piiliiccn, piivvd with (liuiiioiids, und adorned with coloiinudoa of glittoriiig f^eiiiM. Iliid not (^olumhun iilrrudy (UM'liircd that tho Orinoco irinucd from the " Kaithly I'limdiMo" Y And no they sot out in i\\wnt nt thut njiirvollous hind whfncd tlicir first pan-nts had hcon oxpollud hy tho urcliiinm-l. No faihiro could damp tluur Hiiiiguinu hopes or turn tliem iirtido U'om tin's purnuit of tho unknown. Every Indian lejjfond, every hallucination of wearied wayfarers, every lloeting mirage outho distant horizon, seemed in the eyes of the eager adventurnrs tt fresh vinion of tho enchanted city where reigned tho Man of Gold, tho {mtont Dorado ! For over a century u\\ the expeditions made east of the Andes in the Orinoco and Amazons husins wore directed or inspired hy these fanciful visi fuiluro t of tho rs, ovory •t'liturnrs lO potent )H in tho Uions. laz, cora- tho hope n(U'«l tho from tho i»>r of tho lit (luring iiinumon- plunt, but ) sato tho cinnamon iga in the i forward Unfor- sclocted ;rea8on, to jcordingly to island, immense t time tho und, as it 0, not far >mpoi*arie3 and mis- for nearly rom GtT&o ontaining nmiiber of Peru and La Plata iizona*. banini. SottlcmcntH wen* ovm forrni>il in ihf <'araviiyii furostH, which clotho oortuin piirtN of thiN dividing region. Ititt Miiolt wiih tho grood of tho Spaniards that thoy niurdorod ouoh other to provent the oovotcd gohl-niinoa from fulling into other hiindn. nf two mniill hiin(U of advonturort who canio into cidliHion in tho milling dint riot, tMt nioro than throo pontotm tmcuped from tho maHHitcro.* Solitude vuN thus roetorcd t(» these regions, where minions niiglit live in comfort, und evon now, after an interval of I reo hundred years, lands have to ho again di8» i r ' »^! ^'* » ''* '>' ' -;, ;» > *^ .wf * j i^ min wi y ii SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION. 16 n. Then, iring, less 3 attitude, iitiative in its densely idreds and ^^ 140 rately trans- ne Republic rom those of by the half- first days of old ard now overgrown with tall herbage and trees. The work of discovery instead of pro- gressing continued for a long time to recede, so that the children began to doubt or to forget what their fathers had done ; certain formerly well-known districts fell into complete oblivion. During the long colonial period, journeys deviating from the frequented high- ways occurred only at long intervals. On the other hand, even the most success- ful expeditions served but little to increase the general knowledge of the land, for the jealous Spanish and Portuguese Governments sought to reserve for their own use the acquired results, keeping many precious documents in their secret archives, where they became worm-eaten past recovery. The navigators of all nations continued the systematic survey of the coastlands, while the interior of the continent still remained wrapped in a dense cloud of ignorance. The detailed reports, accompanied, by maps, which the officials were required to forward to the Council of the Indies on every province of the vast colonial domain, reports which are now of such value to students, were never published, and remained neglected by their custodians. Thus, at the time of the union of the two kingdoms, a joint Ilispano-Portuguese expedition was made in 1638 up the Amazons between Para and Quito. But the Spanish Government, which had allowed the monk Acuna to write an account of the voyage, hastened to confiscate the book as soon as the Portuguese had recovered their independence. It feared that this work, the first that gave a detailed description of the great river, might be of service to some enemy.* The epoch of scientific exploration began with the researches of Feuill^e, a priest and astronomer, who, in 1707-12, made the circumnavigation of the southern shores of America in order to determine the exact position of a few points on the seaboard. But the modern geographical history of the continent may be said to date from the time when Bouguer, Godin, La Condamine, and Ulloa undertook the measurement of an arc of i,he meridian of about three degrees between the two parallel chains of Ecuador. ' " Over a century and a half has passed since the memorable year 1736, when the learned geometricians landed at Guayaquil, and made their way to the group of mountains which they had to measure, and which was at that time regarded as the culminating point of the globe. Many wore the difficulties which they had to overcome, in an almost desert region, destitute of communications, furrowed by tremendous ravines, exposed to frequent earthquakes, covered lower down by almost impenetrable forests, higher up by rocks and snows. Hence the work, although steadily prosecuted, lasted six years ; but it was of supreme importance, not only for the study of South America, but also for that of the whole world, and for determining the exact shape of the planet. It is a remarkable fact, attesting the extreme care with which the scientific commission carried out its labours, that the positions assigned by it to the cities of the plateau and to the surrounding mountains were far more correct than those • Acufia, ytuvo Descubiimiento dol gran Rio da Un Amatoiias; C. R. Markham, Expeditiotu into the Valley of tkt Amaton*, llaHdMji^oavetj. '-"¥- '('J ■"f^^thir^^ 10 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS, Fig. 5. -Determination of the Meuisian op Quito. Scale 1 : 3,500,000. Meridian oF Quito .Mira Ct/fc^cfii QUITQ Cormam, Latacun|a * Ambato • \ Gayamia } .;v-;^>f i.y i^ambamarca i y Riobumbii,' . v.- Alausi'" y. Zllffif/^fU* ^Sm/^f^ obtained sixty years afterwards by the great Humboldt when determining certain astronomic points in Ecuador, All the cartographic documents prepared during the course of the present century down to recent years had taken for their base Humboldt's observations of latitude and longitude, with the result that the section of the northern Andes between Bogota and Cuzco was shifted much too far west- wards. In some places, notably between Guayaquil and the inland city of Alausi, the error was as much as 20 geogra- phical miles.* Hence all the lines on the map had to be altered, so as to cor- respond with the old network traced by Bouguer and his as-ociates. On his return La Condamine, descending the course of the Amazons, prepared the first chart of the river based on astro- nomic obs'^rvations. The Spanish Government had de- parted from its traditional policy in allowing the French geodesians to establish themselves in its American colonies. Over fifty years afterwards it made a like concession in favour of Alexander von Humboldt and his com- panion, Aime Bonpland, who were per- mitted to visit its Transatlantic terri- tories without any restriction. Landing in 1799 at Cumana, the two travellers traversed Vt;nezuela ; placed beyond doubt the remarkable bifurcation of the Orinoco already well known to the mis- sionaries and local traders, but at timcB questioned by ignorant writers of the Old World ; visited the Bogota plateau, the upper Magdalena basin, Quito, and its lines of volcanoes. Humboldt tried to scale Chimbornzo, which he believed to be pre-eminently the giant amongst the great mountains of the globe ; although he failed to reach the summit, he reached a higher point on its elopes than any other previous climber. He never completed the descrip- tion of his five years' travels in the " equinoxial regions." NeverthelesB, his studies, embracing all phenomena of planetary life, as well as the discussion of all problems associated with them, became a veritable guide and tade-mecum for • Theodor Wolf, rerhandlnngen der Oe»eU»chaft fiir Erdkunde zu Btrlin, Nos. 9 and 10, 1891. ipu//i aaAam» ;:^xMt ■ Cuenca : ■ Wormm ' ii^///ttrx/uftim W.or Greenw'cW 79' 78* . 60 MUeB. t;-mmimm--:rM^:''':WiSS^'^^^^^f^^>^^^^^^'^'^ "WTW | i >i ( j <» ji> ' )ii ■-■';-}.'v' SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION. 17 g certain 1 during heir base le section far west- er between of Alausi, ! lines on as to cor- traced by On bis nding tbe jpaved tbe on astro- jt bad de- policy in desians to I American afterwards a. favour of ad his com- were per- untic terri- Landing travellers ed beyond ationof tbe to tbe mis- )ut at times liters of tbe ;ota plateau, , Quito, and Dbimbornzo, te- eminently lit mountains tiigber point 1 tbe descrip- rtbeless, bis iiscussion of Ve-mecum for U, 1891. a large number of inquirers who entered either as disciples or rivals on tbe same career of scientific exploration. Humboldt's journey was thus not only of capital importance for the history of Spanish America, but it must also be considered as the event which has given the most powerful impulse to the comprehensive study of the great terrestrial organism. Humboldt has even been called, though with some exaggeration, tbe " founder " of meteorological geography, of pelagic science, and of geographic botany. He devoted half a century to an orderly digest of tbe materials collected during his expedition. Since this pioneer, legions of naturalists or men of leisure have traversed the various regions of South America, and hundreds of them have left their mark on the history of tbe discovery. By their itineraries they have modified the relative positions of many places wrongly laid down on the maps, and by their observations they have contributed in various degrees to a better knowledge of the country and its inhabitants. Thus Von Eschwege and, after him, Maximilian von Wied, Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, and, in a more complete and thorough manner, Spix and Martins explored in various directions the interior of Brazil anJ the Amazonian lands, some as geologists, others as botanists or anthropologists. Fentland sojourned on tbe elevated Bolivian plateaux, and measured the encircling giants, to which, however, he wrongly assigned tbe first rank amongst the loftiest summits of America. D'Orbigny, Castelnau, and Marcoy devoted themselves especially to the geography of tbe central regions between tbe La Plata and Amazons basins ; and while they were plodding patiently through the forests, heading or drifting with the stream, Darwin was making the famous voyage roimd the continental periphery where be collected the materials which, combined with the observations of Wallace and Bates on the banks of the Amazons and its affluents, were destined to help in definitely establishing the theory of the Origin of Species. It was through the exuberant life of the South American world, through the study of its plants and animals, that Darwin, Wallace, and Bates ushered in the order of research which has renovated science. Each of the several South American regions bad its special explorers, who contributed to determine its relief, to reveal its natural resources, and throw light ^ on the character of its inhabitants.' Thus the island of Trinidad has been described by Wells, Sawkins, De Verteuil and Kingsley. Codazzi, Myers, Sachs, Ernst, v Sievers, Chaffanjcn have distinguished themselves by their travels in Venezuela and neighbouring lands. Colombia has been explored in every direction by Rauliu, Boussingault, Ancizar, Acosta, Earsten, Stiibel, Reiss, Saffray, Andre, Steinheil, , Hettner, and Vergara. Wolf, R^my, Whymper, and De la Espada have studied Ecuador in its relief, its physical features, and natural history. Peru, one of tbe best-known regions of South America, has been traversed in all directions by Poeppig, Tschudi, Rivero, Bollaert, Angrand, Markham, Wiener, Paz Soldan, Raimondi, Simons. The Bolivian tracks have been followed by Weddell, Orton, Minchin, Reck, Guillaume. Domeyko, Philippi, Gay initiated the exploration of Chili, which has since been continued by numerous geologists and engineers. 8 'L: 18 SOUXn AMEEICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 1 - M II'; ill •jli;, Ml Cox, Moreno, Musters, Rogers, Moyano, Lista have ventured into the wilds of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuogo. Martin do Moussy, Burmeister, Page, Crevaux, Thuar, Do Brettes, and many others have led the way for settlers, miners, and traders in the Argentine lands. In the vast Brazilian domain Agassiz and Hart have ascended the Amazons in the wake of numerous predecessors. Halfeld has prepared the map of the San Francisco basin ; Wells has studied the fluvial valleys inclining towards Silo Luis de Maranhao ; Von den Steinen has ascended the Xingu ; Ehrenreich has resided amongst the Carib Indians of the Amazonian woodlands ; Church has surveyed the Madeira and its rapids. The exploration of the Purus, begun by Chandless, has been completed by Labre, who has connected tlie various routes of this river and its affluents with the course of the Madre de Dios and of the Mamore. Sosa's exploration of the 19a (Putumayo) between Ecuador and Amazonia has been resumed after a lapse of two hundred and fifty years by Crevaux and Simson, Lastly, in the Guianas, where Schomburgk had opened the way to the interior, and where Appun and Brown had made important geological and natural history studies, Crevaux and Coudreau have advanced across the mountains and descended by various routes towards the banks of the Amazons. Every year numerous travellers continue the work of discovery, and their steps are followed by miners and railway builders. Nevertheless there still remain vast territories in South America which have never j'et been traversed and described by any white man ; notably in the bound- less forest region of the Amazons valley there are compact spaces, 20,000 square miles in extent, which still await the explorer. In these districts the course of the rivers has been traced at haphazard or on hea'";ay reports. No part of the continent has been figured with an accuracy comparable to that of the charts of West l^urope. Even the countries which have made the greatest progress In this respect, the Colombian plateau, Chili, West Peru, the Argentine Ilepublio, possess no thorough surveys. The best charts are naturally those of the seaboard fcequented by the mariners of all nations, and those of the agricultural and mining regions in the interior, where the populations are already grouped in numerous towns and cities. IL i| The triangular mass of South America forms two distinct natural divisions, differing greatly in their form, relief, climate, products, inhabitants, and historic evolution. In the western section of the continent are comprised the mountain ranges of varying size and altitude, and of comparatively recent origin, which follow the coastline of the Caribbean and Pacific waters between the two extreme points of Trinidad and Staten Island, and which have a total development of no less than 5,900 miles. The eastern section, less in absolute length, but of far greater superticial extent, embraces the vast plains of the interior, together with the irregular mass of uplands which skirt the Atlantic as far south as the La Plata estuary, and which are of great geological age. . ; . ■ ' . , The political divisions of the continent correspond in a general way with swv I IMI HJ,|N. ' _W il|il i j. i j-l I w 'li i ' lli i' i ri.' i *' i U Li' ii ' ii t i«i Vi ' I 'n i V' r '^ i , 11 » I ^ THE SOUTH AMERICAN BELIEF— THE ANDES. 19 wilds of Crevaux, ners, and and Hart vlfeld has ial valleys snded the Lmazonian oration of connected Madre de ) between and fifty aurgk had t important need across B Amazons, their steps which have the bound- ,000 square e course of part of the e charts of ress in this blio, possess Ihe seaboard |ultural and grouped in il divisions, ind historic mountain Irigin, which two extreme jment of no but of far ftfrether with Ithe La Plata [al way with these natural features. Thus the three republics of the ancient province of Colombia (Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador), Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, all belong to the western (Andes) section ; while the Guianas, Brazil, and the Argentine States form part of the eastern section, sloping towards the Atlantic. The limits, however, of the respective physical and political divisions are far from coinciding with any approach to accuracy. "With the exception of Cliili, comprised entirely within the Pacific slope, all the Andean states encroach considerably on the inland plains. The whole of the Orinoco basin, although lying in the Atlantic area of drainage, is, nevertheless, comprised within the two Andean republics of Venezuela and Colombia. But these frontiers, laid down by diplomatists, run for nearly their entire length through regions inhabited only by the aborigines and a few half- castes. Even in the eyes of the geographer their importance is but slight. The Andes Orographic System. The characteristic feature of South America, as compared with other continents, is the remarkable regularity of the orographic system which forms its backbone. From east Venezuela to the Strait of Magellan the line of the Andes nowhere presents a single break. Throughout its vast extent, however, it ramifies into two or more foldings, for the most part parallel, and enclosing extensive elevated and level tablelands. The system develops two main curves — the first, intersected by the equator, turns its convex side towards the Pacific, ftnd projects its most advanced point at the headland of Punta Parina in north Peru ; the second, sweeping round to the south-east and south, has the centre of its concave side at the point where now stands the city of Arica. South of Arica the system runs parallel with the coast nearly in a straight line from north to south. But towards the extremity of the continent it develops a second convex curvature, traced as if with the compass, which is continued sea- wards by a submarine ridge connecting Tierra del Fuego with the archipelago of South Georgia. Everywhere the Andes hug the coastline, and in many places, as at Guayra, in Venezuela, the escarpments plunge sheer into the sea, where they are con- tinued, without any intermediate terraces, down to the abysses of the oceanic cavities. No real plains occur between the foot of the mountains and the seashore, except in the northern provinces of Colombia, where, thanks to the abundant rainfall, the eroded rocks have been transformed to broad alluvial flats. On the Pacific side, where the rainfall is much lighter, there are scarcely any plains, but only a series of terraced lands between the mountains and the sea. Here also the marine waters deepen rapidly, abysses of 1,000 fathoms occurring normally within 120 miles of the coast. Thus the submerged roots of the Andes present an aspect analogous to that of the upraised slopes, except that their incline is considerably less abrupt. Evidently the coast ranges and the coastline are due to the same cosmic phenomenon. But, however regular it maybe in its main outlines, the Andes orographic system presents great difierences in its several sections, which vary in breadth and altitude ("sf ao SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. aa well as in the number of their parallel or divergent chains. The great central plateau, which may be culled the heart of the Andes, is one of those where the ramifi- cations are most numerous ; but these ramifications are mere ridges compared with Fig. 6. — Odtlinks of tub Andes aih) of tub Easteiik ITiqulanos. 8cale 1 : B6,000,0()0. ^|1 U to 1,000 l.flOOFeet Feet. and apwarda. The thicknen of the black lines is io proportion to the height of the ranges : ih inch to 3,800 f«et. 1,210 MUes. the huge pediment of the elevoted tablelands, which have a mean altitude of from 14,000 to 16,000 feet for a space of over 80,000 square miles. From the Pacific shores eastwards to the plains watered by the Amazon and La Plata affluents, the uplands of the Bolivian Andes have a breadth of from 460 J |5l>|!*W;i«|.l-W»'/; ""." ' ^.ifc'i ' ' ''T ' "" '• "" r- ^ - ~ " . r' «. - • '>i'M', i y1Hi - I i( i l im II f i i u li i h I J li i |> i ,» l i. I 1 1 'i n.. m m i lj f eat central the ramifi- pared with JO- KK) feet. I altitude of Amazon and of from 460 THE SNOW LINE— GLACIERS. 21 to 500 miles in a straight line. In this highland region are found, if not the culminating point of the South American continent, at least the groups of peaks and domes which have the greatest mean altitude. Here rise Illampu and lUimani, both of which exceed 21,000 feet. These giants indicate with sufficient accuracy the central point of the Andean system, and the central points of the northern and southern sections are similarly indicated by the other loftiest sum- mits of America — in Ecuador, Chimborazo, long supposed to be the highest moun- tain in the world ; and in the Argentino-Chilian Andes, Aconcagua, which at any rate is the culminating peak of the New World. Besides these extreme summits, dozens of other crests in Venezuela, in Colombia, and in all the other Pacific states exceed 13,000 feet, an altitude far above the zone of arborescent vegetation. Snows and Glacirrs. The snow-line varies with the latitude ; but, as Whymper asks, what is this line P Certain completely isolated mountains of the Ecuadorian Andes have no permanent snows at 16,500 feet ; others, more exposed to the moist winds and less subject to rapid evaporation, remain white throughout the year at an altitude exceeding 14,450 feet. Speaking broadly, the snows descend lower and are more abundant in the eastern highlands facing the trade winds than on the western ranges ; for each summit also the rule holds good, the eastern being more snowy than the western slope,* In the equatorial Andes from the Nevada de Santa Marta to the Bolivian uplands the limit of perpetual snows may, in a general way, be said to oscillate between 14,750 and 16,400 feet. By a remarkable contrast, the explanation of which must be sought in the varying proportions of moisture brought by the pre- vailing winds, the snows descend as a rule considerably lower on the domes and cones of Ecuador, that is, on the equinoxial line itself, than on the Bolivian and Argentine mountains, under the southern tropical line, or even within the tem- perate zone. The Sierra de Zenta, which rises to 16,400 feet under the tropic of Capricorn, is never snow-clad in summer, and rarely in winter. In the Bolivian Andes Pentland tells us that no perennial snows are met on the western slopes lower than 18,370 feet. The flukes are evaporated as fast as they fall without passing to the liquid state to form running waters. The vapoury cloudlets that are seen during the heat of the day rising above the summit of the mountains are the snows returning in this form to the atmosphere.t But south of this S5one of dry winds the line of persistent snows is rapidly lowered by the abundant moisture precipitated by the clouds. In the Magellanic archi- pelago and in Tierra del Fuego the lower limit stands at about 4,900 feet. Glaciers have been seen in all the Cordilleras in the tropics exceeding 13,000 feet, as, for instance, on the Nevada de Santa Marta, the Sierra de Cocui and the Mesa de Herveo, in Colombia. Humboldt having seen none in the Ecuadorian Andes, either because of the foul weather or because they were covered in some • Edward Whymper, Traveli amotigit the Great Andes of the Equator. t Martin dfi Monasy, Oonfidiratim Argentint. Id'i.l 22 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEOIONS. places by sliinglo, in others by fresh-fuUcn snow, denied their existence in these tropical Alpine regions. But he was mistaken, as the observations of Whymper have clearly shown. Certain great igneous cones in the Quito district have their circular snowficlds fringed with as many m fifteen glaciers, scored by crevasses, furnished with lateral and frontal moraines like those of the European Alps. In the Bolivian Andes, Illimani has also its frozen rivers, and in Chili the nlpid lowering of the snow-lines corresponds with the appearance of numerous glaciers. South of the IJoth parallel every upland coomb receives its crystal stream descending lower and lower towards sea-level. In the inner channels of the Magellanic archipelago, a glacier may be seen issuing from every valley on the mainland. Towards the southernmost point of the continent the crystalline masses at last reach the seashore, where they break away in small blocks which arc borne northwards by the marine current. Volcanoes. The Andes belong to those orographic systems in which numerous volcanoes have cropi)cd out through rocks of a different formation. Nevertheless, the sub- terranean fires have not found "safety valves" along the entire length of the chain between the Caribbean Sea and the Strait of Magellan. On the mainland the craters are grouped in three great clusters, those of Colombia and Ecuador in the north, of Bolivia in the centre, and of southern Chili in the south. At least sixty still active cones rise above the Andean axis, and hundreds of others now quiescent formerly shared in the work of eruption**^ The line of igneous crests is even continued beyond the Fuegian archipelago, away to the Antarctic lands, where navigators have seen the clouds aglow with the flumes issuing from burning mountains. West of the South American coast, and under the same latitude as the volcanoes of Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands form a short chain surging, as it were, above abysmal waters some 1,500 fathoms deep. But east of the Andes along the prolonged axis of the Antilles, the South American continent has not a single eruptive cone. Here the igneous distur- bances appear to be arrested at Trinidad and the opposite coast of Venezuela, where the oil wells and mud volcanoes may perhaps stand in some relation with the underground forces. In this respect the contrast is certainly very marked between the two sections of the continent, the Andean region and that of the Guianas and Brazil. In the former the planetary life manifests itself with the greater energy, and this section is also the younger of the two. Formed in more recent geological epochs, it has not yet completed its upward movement. The several ranges, however, appear to have been upheaved in an extremely irregular manner, and some of the loftiest crests are amongst those whose origin dates from comparatively modern ages. The Eastern Orographic System. Taken as a whole, the Andine crests rose above the ocean during geological periods later than those that witnessed the birth of the eastern uplands in the in tlit'Ho Vhympor avo ihoir jrevasses, Ips. Chili the aumorous ts crystal annela of vulley on rystalline ks which volcanoes the sub- th of the mainland cuudor in At least thers now jhipelago, ' with the coast, and mds form )ras deep, the South lus distur- ^enezuela, ition with sections In the bis section ;hs, it has appear to he loftiest ages. THE BRAZIL AND GUIANA UPLANDS. Guianas and Hrazil. These con.int vhivtty of nystaliine a.ul ar.-haic nu-kH, sand- stones, ami schistH, which are overlain to a vast extent by meso/oic unci, ospt-ciully, FiK. 7.-AN..K8 ScENKBT. V.Kw r.KK» AT T„K ( ■.,M,n,-„An. H„„k,k. T„ha- U Okova RAMwn- 24 SOUTH AMKHICA-TIIE ANDES EEOIONS. W '■i: I Mb i|i! 88 in the alfcitu le, general trend, and rolativo position, the Brazilian Hfrras rosomblo the AII(!ghunioH, while tho Andes corrcHpuud to the Rouky Mountuina, of which they were formerly rogurdcd an tho southeru continuation. Curvi'd into a numbor of fragments by tlio great streams doscondiiig from tho eastorn slope of the Andes, the uplands facing tho Atlantic present no contin- uity in tho direction from north to south ; in some districts they are even distri- buted without any apparent order. Thus the hilly I'urima region, where so many gold-huntora hoped ut one time to find the city of 1*11 Dorado with all its fabulous treasures, develops its main axis in the direction from the north-west to the south-east. The other Guiuna ranges also follow, for the most part, in the same direction, as indicated in the intermediate valleys watered by the affluents of the Orinoco. South of the Amazons several chiiins of low elevation have tho same trend, running parallel with the coast between the Amazons estuary and Cape H&o Itoque. But west of the Parnahyba and thence to the Rio Grande do Sul, the ranges are disposed mainly north-cast and south-west, in tlie same direction as the seaboard. The more elevated and precipitous ranges are almost completely sepa- rated from the inland plateaux by tho two valleys of the Silo Francisco and Parana, which are inclined in opposite directions, and which communicifL'> across a low parting-line about the region of their sources. This double valley, vv'iich in reality forms oaly a single depression, is also roughly parallel with the Brazilian coast, whose sinuosities it follows at u mean distance of 300 miles, and for a total lengih of over 1,250 miles. The loftiest summits of the Brazilian uplands lie under the same latitude as that part of the Andes where is situated, if not the culminating point, at least the most imposing group of the whole system. Like the Andes also, whose precipitous slopes face the Pacific, the Brazilian highlands, and especia*-/ the Serra do Mar, turn their steep escarpments towards the deep waters of the Atlantic. Upheaval and Subsidence. The eastern and western seaboards differ, to a marked extent, in the changes of level that have taken place along their respective coastlines. Indications of au upheaval of the land, or else of a subsidence of the sea, are much more numerous, and give evidence of far more extensive oscillations on the Pacific than on the Atlantic side. In fact, the opposite movement has been at work along the east coast, where the encroachments of the ocean, either by actual upheaval or by a sinking of the land, are still going on to an extent which is probably unequalled in any other part of the world. On the shores of Chili and of the adjacent island of Chiloe, as was already observed by Pccppig over fifty years ago, there are everywhere visible old marine beaches of perfectly regular formation, and ill covered with shells belonging to species of the present epoch. The studies of Darwin, Philippi, and Domeyko leave no doubt on this point. At the issue of all the valleys where occur lateral terraces, the remains of an ancient plain eroded by the running waters, the distinction has Ill iiiBii m i mum pii m i M l OSCILLATIONS OF THE SI&AI iV. •26 •osomblo )f which II g from contin- n distri- 8o many fabulous at to the the same its of the no trend, Hape Sio 3 Sul, the ion an the tely sepa- cisco and ut'> across vliich in Brazilian }r a total titude as least the recipitous do Mar, jhanges of ons of an [luraerous, in on the ilong the )heaval or probably 18 already )ld marine onging to eyko leave ,1 terraces, nction has been cU'iirly estublished between the two typos of tt'rru> h. wl .cfa otli' 'v\m sonie- whttt closoly resemble each other in thoir giuorul ttsfiect Tn many places the beaches left high und dry by I: rotreatiuj; vater* or hy the upraised coast take the fonu of flights of stepe, the highest of wiuch ••' »• over 1,0(10 feet above the present sea-level. Under the tropic of Cupricon ue mountain range projecting beyond the normal shore-line, between the b« of Mejillones and Antofugastu, has been subjected to a still more violent tliniMt A' u height of 1,-100 feet on the slopes of the Cerro (Jordo are seen sbell-mouuds Fig. 8.— Reqion op Ooxakio ENcnoAcnicENTS about tuk Amajcunr Edtuabt. Bral* 1 : 11,4(1(1,000. Ilepths to 100 Fathomi. ino to r.ooo Faihomi. I,n«i0 tn 2,000 FRthoma. 12fi MilM. S.OOn Fstliom* and upwonli. consisting of quite contemporary species, but in certain places associated with a cardium which is now found no longer in the Pacific, but only on the coasts of Africa. This extraordinory fact sho,ws that at the epoch when the. Cerro Gordo was submerged the distinctive Atlantic fauna was still represented on the Boli- vian seaboard, thanks to one or more now obliterated marine channels.* The depressions noticed on the Brazilian coasts extend over a vast space, com- prising the entire margin of the Amazons estuary, and reaching eastwards as fur as the Itapicuru and the Parnahyba. No other river brings down an equal quantity * B. A. Fhilippi, Lie ttrtiaren und quarlaren Verateinerungen C/iile't. 26 SOUTH AMKIlirA THE ANUKH UEOIONS. of iilliiviiil mutter, which roprcHontH at thu lowest eHtitnate a Holid inana 40 a08itod in the gulf, which would else he rapidly iillud up ; but it is carried away by the murine current crossing the Atlantic from the Gulf of Guinea to the West Ind.es, and thus gets lost in thu depths of the sea, or else is dislributud along the blimy margin of the Guiana Neuboard. The work of erosion, aided doubtless by a general subtiidenco of the marine bed, progresses at such a rapid rate that observers have been able to record many indications of its action during the brief period of the last half-century. The shores retreat, so to say, and become indented by new inlets, while the shallow ramifying creeks are transformed to deep channels; the islands and islets slowly melt away until they disappear altogether ; lighthouses erected at some distance from the shore have had to bo replaced by others built still farther inland. Owing to this incessant encroachment of the sea on the mainland, the Amazonn is esti- mated to have lost from 400 to oOO miles of its former length, and the ohl beach would now appear to be indicated by the lOO-fathoms lino. The Parnahyba, the Itapicuru and the Tury-assu, former affluents of the main- stream, now reach the sea in independent channels ; the Tocantins, also, which at one time flowed to the Amazons, is now connected with it only by a network of lateral branches, which shift their beds with the periodicnl floods of the tributary streams. Thus the invasions of the ocean are decomposing the great fluvial basin into secondary systems. Owing to these different oscillations of ^.he seaboard — subaidence on the Atlantic, upheaval on the Pacific side — the whole continent may in a sense bo said to have boon displaced westwards : it has moved farther from Europe and nearer to Australia. III. The very nature of the soil and the continental relief arc, no less than the vegetation itself, to a large extent the result of the climate, as determined by the prevailing winds, by the rainfall and the running waters fed by it. Thus the Orinoco has cut itself a passage through the northern coast range and the Guiana mountains. In the same way the Amazons has swept away the obstructions to its course, dividing into two sections the whole system of the eastern uplands. In the central parts of the continent, also, the waters, diverging in two opposite directions, have removed all the transverse ridges formerly connecting the Cor- dilleras with the Rrazilian highlands. To the effects of the climate must also be attributed the gradual contraction and lowering of the Cordilleras themselves in that part of the system exposed to CMMATK OF HOUTII AMEBICA. 27 t)i(> ftction of tlMi iiltornatir.g north cunt mid Hoiith-cuMt trado wIikIh, Ixitli chiirfjtd will) itltiiiiilunt tnoiHtitrc, hy which thu rovUn hiivo hcoii ruvincd und thi-ir dutiituH HWi'pt iiwiiy. Th« hitoral rid)(«'H formorly diHjMmcd jmnilh-l with tho main runp;o huvu dinappourod ; tho gutdngical Htruta, whoxo dobriH uro Ntill Mcen iiortli and Hoiith of tho br»'i«ch, have heon doMtroyt'd atid rophicod hy drift of more recent orijjfiii, h»'ro and tlicro hoapcd up around iHoIafeto60». t(f to W. 60^0 66". 66^ to 7r. 77»to86°. 86" and upwards. — — — ^— — — .^— 1,240 Mile». as Puget Sound. Thus South America, although its terminal point falls short of 56° south latitude, lies none the less, to some extent, well within the glacial zone. Another factor contributing not a little to the cooUng of the South American continent is the marine current which sets from the Antarctic regions straight for Tierra del Fuego, and which continues its northerly course along the west 80 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. coast of the raiiinland. In this respect the northern division of the New World is privileged. Under the latitudes of California and Oregon, which correspond to the Chilian and Magellanic archipelagoes, the seabof-d is washed, not by a cold Fig. 11. — DisTBinuTiON of Rainfall in South Aubrioa. Scale 1 : 66,000,(100. Under 8 Inches, 80 Inches and upwards. 1,240 Miles. current, but by the relatively tepid waters setting across the Pacific eastwards from the China and Japan seas. It may be inferred from numerous geological phenomena that, at a more or less remote epoch, the climate of the Andes was far more humid than at present. iiw '»| | V ii »l, ''* *iiii j ^ i'u ^ tt ^ tt> i tl,^ m CLIMATE OF SOUTH AMEBICA. 81 Old lacustrine basins, dry watercourses, and other indications of extremely ener- getic water action occur { ocisely on the western slopes where the work at present accomplished by the moisture, under the form of dews and rare showers, is insigni- ficant compared with that produced by the changes of temperature. Noteworthy especially are the deep quebradas, or narrow gorges, excavated to depths of from 300 to 600 feet in the escarpments of the Peruvian plateaux. One asks in amazement, what downpours could have scored such tremendous furrows in the live rock ? They are certainly not the work of the few showers which fall every thirty or forty years, as if by a miracle, in this now almost rainless region. The hypothesis of a formerly moist climate is confirmed by the facts drawn from the domain of natural history. Various plants flourishing on the Ecuador and north Peruvian uplands reappear in South Chili, but are completely absent from the intervening arid Bolivian tablelands. So also with certain species of animals, such as the Oervua ant.isensis of the Peruvian Andes, which has been described by D'Orbigny and Tschudi, and which appears to be identical with the guermul or Cerviis chilenais of the southern Andes and Magellanic lands. It occurs nowhere in North Chili, and the question arises, how has its range been severed in two ? How does it happen that the panie plants also occupy two distinct domains, one cold, the other hot, while avoiding the intermediate temperate zone P The explanation is that rain and atmospheric moisture are a necessary element in the evolution of these organisms. So long as the Andean plateaux were suffi- ciently watered, plants and animals roamed freely over the region at present occupied by the Atacama desert and neighbouring heights. But when the rains failed, a solution of continuity was effected between the northern and southern biological areas. In the heart of the Atacama desert, where nothing now sprouts except a few almost leafless stalks, the miner's pick often turns up the roots of large trees which formerly grew in forests on the now arid steppe.* To the increasing dryness of the climate is also due the fact that the great Bolivian lake, Titicaca, has ceased to form part of the Amazons system. Formerly it sent its overflow to the Beni afiluent, but it is no longer able to cross the parting line, and the slowly subsiding waters have left vast spaces unflooded. What remains of the old inland sea is nearly fresh, doubtless because the isolation of the lacustrine basin dates from a comparatively recent geographical epoch. Floka. In the relative extent of its area under timber South America is surpassed by the Eastern Archipelago alone. Even Central Africa with its prodigious seas of verdure, which the Stanley expedition up the Aruwimi hud so much difficulty in traversing, presents no such extensive space under continuous arboreal vegetation as the boundless woodlands of the Amazons basin and its affluents. These wood- lands comprise also the whole of the Guiana seaboard, and are continued north- westwards by those of the Magdalena and Atrato valleys in Colombia. ; - ■ With the exception of the interruptions caused by rocks, lakes, swamps, and • rhilippi ; H W. Bates, Slmfotd'i South America. 82 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEQIONS. rivers, the forest presents an unbroken surface in which human labour has hitherto made but a few isolated clearings. They are scarcely even traversed by any beaten tracks, except those made by the puma, tapir and peccary. Like the ocean, like the snowfields of the polar regions, the verdant seas covering tropical America seem to constitute a world apart, presenting an endless diversity of species, but of remarkable uniformity in its general aspect. The trees interlace their branches ; trunks and foliage are bound together by the coils of the lianas, until the whole forms an inextricable tangle of vegetation, vibrating in long undulations with every breath of wind. These continuous woodlands, which branch off southwards up the valleys of the Amazons affluents, are continued across the inland plateaux of Brazil by a less densely timbered region, in which the trees stand out with more distinct individuality, but which none the less constitutes an immense expanse of true forest, the Matto Grosso, or " Great Wood," as it is called by the Brazilians. Still farther south follow the catingas and the campos, or " fields," that is, open spaces dotted over with araucaria thickets. These are succeeded in the southern parts of the La Plata basin by treeless plains, producing little but low plants, such as grasses and thistles. Here the arborescent vegetation is repre- sented only by a few isolated trees, visible far and wide on the boundless plain. Such are the pampas, corresponding to the llanos north of the equator, that is, the open Venezuelan plains, everywhere encircled by the tropical forest zone. Less extensive than the pampas, the llanos are also less destitute of trees ; in many places the heights, or even the simple rising grounds, are crowned with thickets or clumps of trees, resembling at a distance green islets in a shoreless sea. Here also the streams are lined with a fringe of leafy vegetation. All these transitions from dense forests to more open woodlands, from groves and thickets to treeless savannas, correspond with the varying proportion of rain- fall. The regions clothed by the Amazonian forests receive copious downpours nearly throughout the year, the dry season, as it is called, lasting less than three months. The absence of forest growths, as in the llanos, and in the districts of Guiana sheltered from the east winds by coast ranges, is due to the presence of a screen hi mountains, by which the rain-bearing clouds are inter- cepted. In Matto Grosso and the neighbouring provinces, where the dry season lasts more than three months, the moisture is insufRcient to'nourish an exuberant vegetation such as that of the Amazonian woodlands. It diminishes in the region of the Brazilian campos, and still more in the pampas of Argentina. Lastly, the few deserts of South America, also called "pampas," the sands of Tumbes and of Sechura in north Peru, the Pampa de Tamarugal, the Atacaraa desert in the territories recently annexed to Chili, all owe their lack of vegeta- tion to the almost total absence of rain. The southern extremity of the continent is too far removed from the Ant- arctic Pole for the temperature to destroy the forest vegetation. But the virwi i j.,y ' ivBii> i fw , w ! j.|,i4r.'j,j;:'iiM » :i FLORA OF SOUTH AMERICA. 88 eame effect is produced by the altitude of the mountains. Numerous summits, and, in fact, all the Cordilleras taken as a whole, rise in the cold atmospheric regions above the forest zone. As a rule, the upper limit of this zone lies at Fig. 12.— DanDK's Main Botanioax Diyisio.vs of South America. Scale 1 : 67,000,000. Tropical Zone. Temperate Zone. Sonthern Cold Zone. ' 6 7 1,240 Mile». about 3,000 feet below the snow-line. Under the equator and in Bolivia forests still reach an elevation of 11,500 feet on the flanks of the mountains. But above them plants of low growth range right up to the edge of the snows, and even higher in those spaces where the snows have been cleared by the winds 4, m\::i ■■■■ 34 80UTU AMERICA— THE ANDES EEOIONS. .1.3 51 or the solar boat. Boussinpfault found a suxifrugo growing at a height of 15,770 feet on Chiniborazo, while mosses and li<;heu8 have been gathered on the same mountain at altitudes of 10,500, 17,000, and even 17,;350 feet. On the slopes of the mountains and along the main ranges the different floras follow in succession one above the other — at their base tropical plants, higher up those of the temperate zone, and towards the summits an ulpine or glacial vegetation. Thus the Andes and the other South American highlands contribute by their superimposed climates to the great variety of species characteristic of this continent. In Europe, where most of the ranges are disposed in the direction from east to west, the vaiiors vegetable forms spread freely in the same direction from one end of the continent to the other. But not so in South America, where the plants of the east are abruptly arrested by the barrier of the Cordilleras, while on the opposite side, even under the same lati- tude, other forms have been developed, analogous, but still distinct enough to constitute an independent flora. Lastly, the oceanic archipelagoes of the Galapagos and Juan Fernandez are distinguished amongst all marine lands for the original character of their floras, forming in this respect little worlds apart. By keeping in view the chief contrasts between the floras diversely intermingled at the points of transition from zone to zone, South America may be divided into eight great botanical domains, to which mu.st be added the archipelagoes, as forming so many different provinces. The Falkland Islands, however, resemble Tierra del Fuego in their herbaceous and scrubby growths, and in the general aspect of their vegetation. According to 0. Drude* the eight divisions are as under : — Tropical Zone. — 1. Evergreen virgin forests ; rains throughout the year, or for not less than nine months. 2. Forests and savannas intermingled ; dry season of over three mouChs. 3. Tropical flora of the uplands. Temperate Zone. — 4. Evergreen forests with palms and pines ; summer rains from December to March. 6. Evergreen shrubs ; few or no trees ; no palms ; winter rains. 6. Evergreen trees, with deciduous leaves ; bush ; pine forests ; no palms ; rains throughout the j'ear. 7. Prairies, steppes, and deserts ; great variations of temperature ; slight rainfall. Frigid Zone in the south and on the uplands. — 8. Impoverished arborescent vegetation. Thanks to its extremely diversified flora. South America has, during the lust four centuries, given to the civilised world more plants useful for alimentary, medicinal, and industrial purposes than any other division of the globe. The potato, which has become the staple food of so many millions of human beings, is of South American origin, growing wild at various altitudes in the region of the * Berghaus'a Phytikalitcher Allot. 1 .iL__.-..:s_^-„l;-^^^, ':.M .*N* "^tfis'i ■ ,^im,nu i i_ i FLOEA OP SOUTH AMERICA. 80 3 'S »{ Andes from Colombia to Chili. Manioc and yums, even more indispensable to certain negro and West Indian populationH of Latin Anierioa than the p^'tato can ever be to the Germans and Irish, are also indigenous in the southern section of the New VVorld. From the same region also come a species of bean, the tomato, the ground-nut, cacao thcohroma (" food of the gods "), the pineapple, guava, chirimoya, and many other fruits now flourishing in the tropical zone of the Old World. Sooner or later South America will supply the gardens of Europe with other economic plants not yet acclimatised, such as the quinoa, a species of chenopodium, whose seeds when ground yield a kind of bread ; the arracacha root, which resembles celery ; mat^ (" Paraguay tea "), which takes the place of tea in Argentina and South Brazil ; perhaps, also, the ceiba (cheese-tree), which attains a great size in the Bolivar district, Venezuela. The industries have received from South America the sap of various rubber plants ; and medicine is indebted to it for, amongst other products, such drugs as ipecacuanha ; tolu balm ; cinchona, which dispels fevers; and the coca leaf, which allays pain and the pangs of hunger. In return the South American continent has been enriched by nearly all the alimentary and industrial species of Europe and Asia. The banana spread so rapidly in the hot regions that most naturalists supposed it to be indigenous ; it was introduced into the New World by the now almost forgotten bishop, Thomas de Berlanga, the same benefactor of his kind to whom we owe the discovery of the Galapagos Islands.* Unfortunately, with the useful species came also the weeds of the Eastern Hemisphere. On the elevated plain of Bogota, as well as on the surrounding slopes, the foxglove {digitalis purpurea) thrives vigorously. 'm 4' Fauna. The fauna of the South American mainland is of a very distinct character. In this relatively isolated division of the globe the untmal forms have necessarily diverged from the types prevailing elsewhere. But there survive none of the huge beasts of former epochs, such as the " mastodon of the Andes " whose remains are found in the gravels of the Chilian lacustrine formations. Hence South America has no longer any animals comparable in size to the Asiatic or African elephant, the giraffe, hippopotamus, or rhinoceros, the tapir being, in fact, the largest of all its mammals. There are, however, long-tailed apes, differ- ing greatly from the anthropoids of the Old World, and from the lemurs of Madagascar. The forests are infested by carnivora of the feline and canine families, by bears, martins, otters, and weasels, while the order of bats is represented by nume- rous species, including the blood-sucking vampire. South America has no camels, which are here replaced by the analogous but smaller llamas and vicunas of the Andes. Various forms of marsupials range the whole continent as far south as the southern Argentine states and Patagonia. The avifauna has received an enormous development, containing no less than 2,300 species ; and the fishes of * MarooB Jimenez de la Egpada, Boletin de la Soeitdad Oeografiea d* Madrid, 1891. SOUTH AMERICA— TUE ANDES REGIONS. < %«•'.' the inlund Mfreuiiis and aurrounding murine waters are even still more numerous. The manatee, one of the murine munnu:«l all iutolli^'oncu to tho South Aincricuii ubon'^iuos. " Thoy hiivo iH'ithor (li«cr«tion nor undorKtiindin^ " ; tlicy iiro "aniinula," " brutoH,'' iind so on. So also numy koUUth in llrazil cuMed thcni /nrhos do mulo, " boii.st8 of tho forest." Hut Burh oxprciHions roHoct cliioHy on those who uttur thorn. Tiio fact is, those nativos, liito all other human racos, share in cur strength and our weakness, possess in various degrees our intellectual and moral faculties, rise to the performance of great deeds, and relapse into degrading practices, advanoo or recede according to the struggles in wliich thoy are <*ngngod, the environment in whioh they^ dwell, tlio degree of liberty which they enjoy. Several South American nations, such as the Muyscns, (iuicliuas, Aymaras, and other Andean races, made HufFieient progress to entitle their social system to be called " civilised." They had acquired tho arts of husbandry ; they wore able to make oarthonwaro, to weave textiles, to work in copper, gold, and silver, to build oditiccs lasting for centuries, to carve statues, to embellish their vases and garments with artistic designs, to construct highways and bridges, and if not to write, at least to keep regular records by moaas of knotted strings. Yet they lay under a heavy disadvantage compared with tho peoplas of tho Old World. They possessed no domestic animals strong enough to supplement their own physical efforts. The extraordinary skill displayed by them in taming tho beasts of the field gave them pets, but no fellow-workers. In this respect, they had nothing but the feeble llama and the dog to compare with tlie camel, tho horse, the aas, ox, goat, and sheep possessed by the inhabitants of other continents. The so-called wild tribes occupying the central and eastern forests have also their place in the history of human progress, and several of them haVe already begun to co-operate with the whites on a footing of equality. But the transition from one social state to another cannot be effected without profound disturbances. The hunting populations, Avho have succeeded in keeping aloof from the whites and mestizoes in the forests remote from the fluvial highways, or in their secluded upland valleys, have preserved their graceful carriage, their proud glance, and straightforward speech, whereas the enslaved peasantry tremble before their masters, bow their necks to the yoke, and carefully measure the words addressed with downcast eyes to their employers. Chief Divisions of the South American Aborigines. Thanks to the researches and linguistic studies of numerous intelligent observers, it has become possible to classify most of the aborigines according to their probable genetic descent, although difficulties are still presented by certain tribes remote from the bulk of their ethnical family. One of the best- defined groups is that of the Muyscas, or Chibchas, aa they called themselves, who had formerly established their dominion on the Cundinamurca plateau, in the midst of numerous kindred tribes. M -^m f.-'^i 40 SOUTH AMEBICA— THE ANDl-lS REOIONS. m 8/ 1} Farther south both slopes of the Ecuador and Peruvian Andes belonged to the great Quichua nation, followed in the present territory of Bolivia by the distantly connected Aymaras, ruder of manners, but of equally inoffensive Fig. 13. — Main Divisions of thk Soutu Akebioan Aborioines. Scale 1 : 60,000,000, 1^? Hilea. character. The southern extremity of the Cordilleras, with the dependent terri- tories, formed the domain of the more warlike Araucanlans. In the eastern part of the continent the formerly powerful Carib (Caraib) race, till recently supposed to be extinct, because no longer found in the Antilles, are still represented by various tribal groups, reaching far into the interior of the Amazons basin. Intermingled with them are the Arawaks of the Upper Amazons and other districts. But in their long conflicts with hostik ' ' ■*}', ' VS ' V>»>!^S.r/>iiiSJSS-JSkAffi-;»S!*>t4i'ia ,;•.■.:,, Tie.":?'?.^^ SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES BEGIONS. process may even bo regarded as completed in all the more populous districts of Venezuela and Colombia, in certain parts of Peru, in north and central Chili, as well as in Uruguay and along the banks of the Plate river. On the other hand, nearly all the tribes of the eastern slopes of the Cordilleras, and in the great Amazonian forests, have preserved their social characters by keeping entirely aloof from the whites. Farther east, on the Guiana and Brazilian seaboards, the populations of mixed origin again become dominant. But in these regions the process of miscege- nation has taken place, not so much between the aborigines and the European settlers, as between the latter and the Africans, descendants of formerly imported slaves. In South America the strain of black blood increases in the direction from west to east, and the coloured element even greatly predominates in the Brazilian provinces which project nearest to the African continent. Full-blood families, whether white or black, are scarcely met at all along this eastern seaboard. Besides the blending of the white type on the one hand with that of the Indians, on the other with that of the negroes, there occur, here and there, a limited number of half-breeds, the direct issue either of native men and African women, or of African men and native women. But as a rule the ethnical combina- tions are much more complex than such mixtures as these. During the course of the ten or twelve generations that have followed since the period of the conquest, the fusion of the various elements has assumed an endlessly diversified aspect. Although every individual half-breed may possibly be classified and denotated in a general way by his complexion and more salient features, the proportions vary beyond all calculation. This ethnological problem is further complicated by the phenomena of atavism, in virtue of which the blends show a tendency to revert to one or other of the original types. The question of miscegenation, everywhere so difficult, should be studied especially in South America, where every town, village and hamlet in the neighbourhood of every tribe presents "specimens" of every conceivable variety. Attempts have been made to determine the comparative value of the results of such and such crossings. Thus, according to D'Orbigny, the issues of unions between different Indian races have always proved superior to either of the original types. So also the progeny of white men and Guarani women is dis- tinguished by noble features and fine figures, nearly always of white colour from the outset, whereas Araucanian and Quichua mestizoes long preserve the cha- racters of the native stock. The fusion of negroes with Guarani women appears highly favourable for the physical improvement of the race. Other crossingo are, on the contrary, regarded as baneful, resulting, as is asserted, both in bodily and moral degradation. But despite the facilities offered by the southern continent for the study of miscegena- tion, the subject is still involved in much obscurity. The fact, however, remains that, viewed as a whole, the population of South America is the most " human," representing the most complete fusion of the most characteristic primitive re^ '^ii^^B?'-^ iiii>.Mi.niMii! .\ tff ^ ^^^ ^ xnv. '-^fp^ ^'i HISTORIC SUEVEY. 48 the rded But jena- lains lan, elements — American Indian, African black, and white of Europe. Here is being physically developed the most representative race of the human species, taken in its entirety. In this respect what a contrast between this continent and North America, where the Anglo-Saxon race has kept mainly aloof both from the redskins and the blacks, thrusting them aside, and even exterminating them rather tlian sully their racial purity by contact with lower elements. Historic Retrospect — The Revolution. For over two centuries after the prodigious and horrible romance of the Con- quest, the South American populations may be said to have been overcome by a heavy social and political sleep. Under the system of bondage imposed by the Council of the Indies, tempered or aggravated at intervals by the caprice of the viceroys, the natives and even the settlers of European origin ceased to have any historic existence ; all intercourse with aliens involved confiscation of property and capital punishment. As if by a sort of embryonic life, the movement of the American nations was carried on, no longer on the surface, but in the depths of society, where was accomplished the transformation of hostile races into a com- pact nationality. Spaniards and Quichuus, Portuguese, Africans and Guarani were preparing for their second birth as South Americans. But meanwhile silence reigned supreme, jealously guarded from interruption by their rulers. The sub- mhC. / cf the aborigines seemed absolute, and a force of 2,000 men sufficed foi ■ anish Government to maintain an atrociously despotic administration ove ' 9se multitudes of enslaved peoples. In such a vast region as South America, destitute of easy communications, and inhabited by peoples of diverse speech and origin, insurrections could not be organised for combined and sudden action. The partial and isolated struggles for independence were even necessarily attended and followed by reaciionary move- ments. In Peru the first blow struck for emancipation, so far from being of a bold and resolute character, was, on the contrary, disguised under the form of a pretext for a " legitimist " restoration. In the revolt of 1780 the leader of the insurgents was a descendant of the Incas named Tupac Amaru, like the last sovereign of that race. But he was soon vanquished, and, like hira also, perished on the gallows after the massacre of his followers. The first Brazilian rising was inspired by a feeling of patriotism, its object being the expulsion of the Dutch from Pernambuco. After seven years of san- guinary conflicts it achieved its purpose, the insurgents storming the Batavian fortifications in the year 1634. Men of all Brazilian races, Indians, negroes and whites, had taken part in the struggle, and Fernandez Vieira, generally regarded as the hero of the war, was a mulatto. Later the negro slaves rose against their masters, and even founded in the interior a few independent republics, which enjoyed an ephemeral existence. Then came in 1798 the first attempt at political independence, led by Xavier, better known by the name of Tiradentes. But the great South American revolution was heralded by a series of petty revoltSj breaking out now in oue place, now in another, all suppressed in their o: foi th( wa rep HISTOEIC SURVEY. 46 late," mder tut in Gradually the various elements of local revolution, in one place the discontent of the Creoles at the appointment of Spanish or Portuguese functionaries, in another racial hatreds between whites, blacks, and Indians, elsewhere the struggles of " the masses against the classes " — all was merged in the tremendous contact between the innovators and the representatives of the old con orvative ideas. In this conflict everybody, yielding to his sympathies, his traditions or interests, took sides with the party with which his personal feelings were most in harmony. Thus it happened that in the two armies, whites found themselves arrayed against whites, blacks against blacks, aborigines against aborigines. And so the very war itself had the effect of welding the three races in a more intimate national unity. On issuing from the struggle the old Spanish colonies had, under the influence of the French encyclopedists, constituted themselves republics based on the model of the United States, while Brazil, still hampered in its evolution by the great number of its slaves, was satisfied with a change of sovereigns ; it ceased to be a colony to become an autonomous empire. The community of interests binding all the Brazilian slaveowners together, and the national cohesion presented by the various groups of settlements along the coast and on the inland plateaux, enabled Brazil to preserve a state of almost unbroken public tranquillity for one or two generations. But in the Hispano- American stttes the relations were very different. In these regions, differing in climate, relief of the land, origin, speech and customs of its inhabitants, con- flicting interests gave rise to incessant struggles. Hence the attempt proved hopeless to unite in a single commonwealth of vast dimensions the Andean highlands, the seaboard and inland plains, the torrid and temperate zones, the Pacific and Atlantic coastlands. At first it had seemed natural enough to merge in a single political body the immense possessions formerly owned by Spain in the New World. In fact, from the purely geographical standpoint, South America is admirably suited to be occupied by a united people. While resembling Africa in its general outline, it differs altogether from that continent in its internal structure, and in the perfect harmony of all its parts. Most of the regions on the African seaboard are com- pletely isolated one from the other by solitudes and, till recently, unexplored tracts, whereas the regions of South America abutting on the great backbone of the Cordilleras, and watered by tributaries of the same mainstreams, stand in a relation of close mutual dependence. They constitute collectively a geographical unit of a strikingly simple character. But if the salient features of the continent and the disposition of its relief forecast political unity in a more or less renr.ote future, the actual distribution of the populations in widely diffused groups, and unconnected by any common trading relations, necessarily tended to create independent centres of political life. Federal decentralisation, followed by complete separation of the several states, was brought about by the very force of circumstances in each of the new republics. •*»i,.7.0jmi>"a ' }0f) i'> in* i jin i i i uiyi. i '. i >i > | ^ ip« J ii " ' > 1 .1 'f SPANISH AND POllTUGUESE SOUTH AMERICA. 40 have replaced the imperial system in Bruzil by ii foderul republic analogous to that of several Hispano-American states, will huvo tbo inevitable consequence of bringing the two groups of Latin populations into cloeor contact, 08j)ecially in the FiK- m.-ETumoAi. Divisions ok South Amkbioa in 1893 Seal* 1 : SH.UOO.onO Spaniacds pure Portaipiese pure and mixed. and mixed. FieDob. Engliih fuid AngUciied. Datoh. t,S40T iM. Blaoks Blarkn and Hnlat- and MoJattoM. toe* in majority. Item jen- Cheir but Jhich La Plata basin, where Brazil is conterminous with Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argen- tina, Here a levelling process in social respects, and even in speech, is already in progress between the neighbouring populations. But, despite all contrasts, South America remains as a whole the Latin con- tinent in a pre-eminent sense. With the exception o£ Trinidad and Tobago, 80 SOUTH AMERICA—THE ANDE8 REGIONS. i CuriH.'iio and noij^bbnurinp islota, nritish and Dutch OuianiiH, und tho Falkland archi[)olug(), tlu- wliole tonitory belongs to peoples of lloinunco cpcoL-h, while tlio largest stream of innn:gruiil8 directed to this rejjion are Italians, the most direct heirs of lloman cultute. Thus the ruling race iu this part of the world presents a sort of balance, in its different character and natural genius, to tho Anglo- Saxons (Unninant in North America from Labrador to the Rio Grande. The Spanish and Portuguese Americans, yielding to tho influences of French culture, and looking towards I'aris as towards a metropolis, reflect P'rench ideas in their literature, their fashions, and pastimes. Till recently the tie between tho old Spanish colonies and the mother country had l)een almost completely severed in consequence of the rancour engendered by the War of Independence. Now, however, it has been again strengthened, thanks to their common origin id language ; thanks also to the increasing tide of immigration, in which the Basque element has taken a large jjart. In IJrazil active relations have always been maintained wil'i the old sovereign state, Portugal, having never been interrupted by any war. From Oporto and liisbon crowds of Portuguese immigrants take passage for l^ahia and Rio do Janeiro, although in recent years they have been outnumbered by settlers from the Italian peninsula. FoRKiGN Relations. — Railway Projixts. The share of Spain in the foreign trade of her old American colonies is rela- tively sliglit, far inferior to that of other nations, such as Great IJritain, France, Gern^any, and the United States. On tho Pacific seaboard the English, formerly excluded from all right of intercourse with the Spanish main, have now more than one half of all the exchanges. Hence, so far as regards its foreign trade, South America cannot be said to have preserved its character of a Latin continent. The settlers come from the Europe of Romance speech, while the merchandise is for the most part imported from the English-speaking world. Great Britain and the United States. These relations will probably continue until such time as the local industries may enable the Spanish and Portuguese republics to become independent of foreign manufacturers, or at least to give the first place to the inland trade between the conterminous states. But were the projects of certain United States politicians to be realised, Latin Europe and even England would be completely excluded from all commercial deal- ings with tho southern division of the New World. A skilfully arranged custom-house league, analogous to the German Zollverein, would place the con- sumers of South America completely in the hands of the producers of North America. With a view to developing these plans, the United States traders, sup- ported by a " bureau " of the American republics installed at Washington, have already organised numerous lines of steamers to ply regularly between New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Francisco, and all the more important points along the South American seaboard. New lines are yearly established, and at the Pan-American Congress of 1889 the delegates of the Soiithern republics were H H MW **■*- F '. 'I H il .<-,mipr|l i'l K l y i ;»n ».i RAir.WAY PIJOJEOTS. gj awurod thut tho cornmuni..uti.,n between North and South would «oon become still more frequent luul rupid. Nor ifl this ull : although the sinuous form of the Central American isthmuses their obhquo disposition to the meridian, and the easy communieations by water Fig. 17. -Zonks or Distanoks bbtwkk.s London or Pabh and South Akicbioa. Haile 1 : 60,(I0(»,(J00. 50* 100° Weat op Greenwirh 20° E3 16 Days. DistanceH by time. 16to2i) Bays. 20 to 20 Days. Days'" fM*';^"' ''M"°»'» Days. 2 Months. and upwards. Regular st«am service. Kailwaya. Proje'oteu And'ea'n Une. ■ 1,240 Miles. along both shores render absolutely useless a longitudinal railway between the volcanic plateaux of auatemala and the Colombian forests of the Atrato valley, the United States Government has given countenance to the project of such a trunk ,. ■mn^mviit'W'!""'.'- '' sa SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES IIEOIONS. s line, as boiiig of tho first iinportunco for connecting in a single system the innuinoruble railrouds of North America with tho few that huve liitherto been con- strtictod in the southern continent. In CongroHs a chart was oven exhibited showing tracings of the main linos wliieh wore, as if by enchantment, to bring into close })roximity tlie groat cities of tho New World now separated by journeys of weeks or months. But since then little has been heard of those grand schemes, although partial siirveys have been made of some of the sections. According to these tracings, the first section of the southern trunk line would ascend the Cauea valley to Popiiyan, and run thence to Quito and Cuenca, and so on through the Upper Amazons valley to tho Cerro do Pasco. From this point the route is contiinied towards Cuzco, descending to Jujuy after skirting tho banks of Lake Titioaca and its emissary. There is little doubt that this part of the project will eventually be realised, unless, indeed, the value of land routes as means of communication becomes suddenly mininiised by some perfected scheme of navigation through the aerial spaces. Peru and Chili already possess some completed railways, forming impor- tant links in the future longitudinal line along the Pacific seaboard. From Rio do Janeiro and IJuenos Ayres, also, dozens of branches are already diverging in the direction of those which are one day to descend the eastern slopes of the Andes towards the Atlantic. Tho Cordillera skirting the Pacific will serve to indicate the route to be fol- lowed by the great inter-continental trunk line, for all tho chief cities are situated along its base, in its longitudinal valleys, and on its plateaux. Tho maritime routes on the Pacific side are olso disposed in the direction of the meridian along the coast of South America, and parallel with the Andes. Except under the lati- tudes of Panama and of Magellan Strait, the boundless waste of waters stretching from the Andean region westwards to Australasia is rarely traversed by naviga- tors. None of the oceanic regions within the temperate zones are more desolate. SooiAi. CoNniTioN. — Material Progress. — Prospects. Amongst diplomatists and politicians it was long customary to affect an air of contempt or of hopelessness in speaking of the Ilispano-American republics ; and this attitude seemed justified by the language of those South Americans them- selves whom the vicissitudes of party politics had deprived of power and sent into exile. Having lost their fortunes or their prestige, they fancied that the country itself was lost. Even Bolivar, who had nevertheless grasped the highest honours before experiencing the ignominy of defeat, was said to be one of those who des- paired of the fatherland, and reference has often been made to the words uttered by him on his dying bed : " Those who serve the revolution plough the deep." Nevertheless, if the present material and social condition of the South Ameri- can populations be compared with what it was during the last years of the colonial system, it will be found that during the six or seven decades of political indepen- dence great progress has been made in population, wealth, and general education. The advancement in these respects has been relatively far greater than that of ^'t ■ II i! i'y i i i n wKt-jawf'^^r^^w— «»f~ MATKUIAL rUOOHKSa. nn many Kuroju'im natioiiH during tho iiaino poriod, Thci ofKotiil «tatistic8 (iro on eloquent roply to the ponsinnNiH. Such hiiH been the progroHsivo dovolopmont of tho South Amcricnn popnla- tioDB that some writers have already uskcd whctlior the SpuuiHh tongue may not Pi|r. 18. — DbNWTT of POHULATIOK IN HoiITIl ..HKKIOA. Smle 1 : 60,IKN),0(X). ito red 3ri- lial leu- lon. of lubabitants p ieet, or, according to the marine charts, a little over 1,900 feet. In consequence of its oblique position to the meridian, Tobago lies well in the track of the trade winds, so that both shores, running south-west and north- east, enjoy the same purifying marine breezes. Both sides also have the advan- tage of some well-sheltered natural havens. The heights of the central district Fig. 19.— ToBAoo, Scale 1 : 470,000. Depths. S Oto?6 lathoma So to SO Fathoms. 60 Fathoms and upward* . 6 Milea. rising above the sugar plantations and the palm-groves along the seashore are still forest-clad. The more rocky escarpments are overgrown with thickets of the " pimento " myrtle, which yields the so-called " allspice," a berry of a highly agreeable aroma. The berry is eagerly devoured by swarms of parrokeets, who form a sort of confederacy warding off all other birds from the thickets. Like that of Trinidad the rich native flora is essentially South American, interspersed, however, with numerous plants from the West Indies. Its fauna also includes a few birds not found in the neighbouring island. One of the inlets on the coast was formerly known as the " Idlers' Cove," from the large number of turtles that resorted to the place to deposit their eggs. The inhabitants had only ^iiiitt. 68 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEOIONS. K to turn these animals over to obtain an abundance of food. But here as elsewhere turtles have become rare, and the struggle for existence haj grown as intense as iu most other places. There are no longer any full-blood aborigines, who, according to Lavaysse, had been reduced in 1803 to three families, comprising altogether 26 souls. At present the great bulk of the population consists of blacks and people of colour, settled in the villages and on the plantations, which form a vast belt of gardens round the whole island. In 1871 the white population numbered only 120 persons. Scarhoroiiyh, the capital, lies on an inlet of the south-west coast facing south- wards. Although a mere hamlet, it is the centre of an export trade which in 1891 exceeded <£24,000, and which before the fall of prices in the sugar market averaged £80,000 a vear. III. — Trinidad. The Yere of the natives, re-named Trinidad by Columbus in 1498, in honour of the " three Persons united in one God," is one of the largest islands washed by the Caribbean waters, ranking in size next to Puerto Rico, whose almost geo- metrical outlines it faintly reproduces. Like Puerto Rico it has the form of a rectangle, which is compared by the Spaniards to an *' oxhide " from the two peninsular appendices prolonging the north and south coasts in the direction of the mainland. Physical Features. From the geological point of view Trinidad is a fragment of the Venezuelan region. The rim of rounded crests skirting its north side is continued on the continent by the Paria range, which in its turn reappears beyond the Cumana Gulf in the elevated chain separating the Caribbean Sea from the elevated plains of Caracas and Valencia. In the island and on the mainland the formations are everywhere the same, plutonic and metamorphic masses of a highly compact argil- laceous schist, whose steeper escarpments face seawards. Despite the two breaks in the chain, at the Dragon's Mouth and the Gulf of Cumana, the axis of the system maintains its regular trend from Galera Point to Puerto Oabello, a total distance of about 500 miles, inclining but slightly from a line parallel with the equator. Beginning at the easternmost point of Trinidad under 10° 50' 15" north latitude, the coast range crosses the 10th degree at the point where it is deflected south-westwards to merge in the general system of the Andes proper. The break which occurs in the coast range between the Gulf of Paria and the Caribbeiin Sea is, moreover, studded with islands and islets representing the crests of submerged hills, which form a continuation of the north-west headland of Trinidad. The opening between the gulf and the open sea is thus decomposed into several channels, such as the Boca de los Monos, the Boca de los Huevos, the Boca de Navios and the Boca Grande. In this inlet, which represents the com- bined erosive action of the marine and Orinoco currents, the greatest depth in the main channel is about 150, and in the smaller passages 100 fathoms, while the i Bi mmfr' ^,v ^if-mm^kJf>lgm'^ fi^n i i9l ^ iJ^I^ *^ TEINIDAD. 59 coast ranges vary in mean altitude from 1,500 to 3,000 feet. The two culiniuuting points, Tucutcho (Las Ciievas), in the middle of the cordilleru, and the Cerro de Aripo in the north-oast, attain the respective heights of .'J, 100 and '»,f:44 feet. The rugged crags of the Dragon's Mouth are over 650 feet high, one of them in Mono (" Monkey ") Island rising to 1,000 feet. But even on the steepest slopes strewn with ruptured blocks, the bare rock is everywhere concealed by a leufj^ vegetation. South of the chain of primitive rocks skirting the north side of Trinidad the plains and undulating tracts constituting most of the surface belong to the same cretaceous horizon as those facing the coast range along the Gulf of Cariaco, as ■wor as those reappearing west of the Unare to the south of the Caracas coast range. The uniformity of the inland plains is broken only by Mount Tamona, a solitary mass 1,028 feet high, and mariners plying on the Gulf of Paria guide their course by the crest of Mount Naparima, which rises 590 feet above the water near the town of San Fernando. Lastly, the south side of Trinidad, which, like the north, affects the aspect of a coast range, consists of dunes and tertiary rocks, as does also the chain of heights which, beyond the muddy banks deposited by the Orinoco and neighbouring streams, forms the northern edge of the llanos. The south-western, like the north-western, peninsula terminating the Trinidad quadrilateral is continued towards the mainland by an islet, some reefs and the Soldado rock, which at a distance resembles a sail, and which is enveloped in a cloud of countless sea-fowl. Thus in all the elements constituting its framework Trinidad is essentially a part of the mainland. Even the shores of recent forma- tion, by which its surface is increasing, are of continental origin. The sands and muds, which develop a convex curve on the east side washed by the Atlantic, have been brought down by the currents of the Amazons, of the Guiana rivers and the Orinoco. The channels of the Serpent's Mouth, giving access to the Gulf of Paria along the south side of the island, are no longer deep troughs like the northern channels of the Dragon's Mouth. They have already been partly filled in by the alluvial matter washed down with the Orinoco current. The yearly soundings show constantly varying results. Thus the east passage has shoaled from 8 to 4 fathoms, while in that of the west beyond the Soldado reefs the line every- where reveals 12 or 13 fathoms ; here the marine bed is incessantly scoured by a regular current. Gfological Changes, Trinidad gives undoubted evidence of having undergone great geological revolutions. Erosions have taken place to a vast extent, as shown by the masses of quartz, containing some magnificent rock crystals, which are met on the plains, in the valleys, and on the hillsides. These are evidently the remains of old crystal- line rocks, all the softer parts of which have disappeared, either changed to alluvia or carried away to the sea. Great beds of gravel or shingle 300 or 400 feet thick are seen at the southern entrance of all the valleys along the northern coast range. In a more northern zone, such, for instance, as Scandinavia, moraines would mmtMuittm uMmnunx!" ""«dp« 60 SOUTH AMERICA— TKE ANDES EEGIONS. certainly bo found in this district. Aa it is, the detritus must be regarded as the dt'bris of cliffs undermined by the marine waves beating against the foot of the hills raised by successive thrusts above sea-level.* The central districts comprised between the northern pnd southern coast ranges present in the neighbourhood of the sea extensive expanses which were formerly marine inlets ; now they are filled to a great depth with alluvial matter formed by the decomposition of mangroves and other plants. Possibly to the presence of this fluvial sediment is to be attributed the absence of continuous coralline formations on the coasts of Trinidad. Here and there, however, there occur a few coral reefs, fragments of which are strewn on the beach after every storm. The gradual subsidence of this part of the coast is placed beyond doubt by the numerous dead tree-stems on the beach, killed by the surging tide.f Reference is often made to " volcanoes " in various parts of the island ; but there exist only some groups of " mud volcanoes," one of which, towards the centre of the island, rises 135 feet above a morass called the " Lagon Bouffe " by the Creole negroes. Those of Cape Icacos at the south-west extremity, surrounded by swamps and fringes of mangroves, are conic hillocks, some mere molehills, others from 14 to 16 feet high. All are pierced by a terminal vent, whence escape periodical ejections of a whitish substance tasting like alum, and emitting an odour like that of sulphuretted hydrogen. The muddy waters bubbling up to the surface have no higher temperature than that of the surrounding atmosphere, although they at times eject shingle and lumps of sulphur with great force. According to the residents the Cape Icacos mud volcanoes utter bellowings every year ab')ut the spring equinox, and at this period also are said to occur the erup- tions of pebbles, accompanied by the uprooting of trees. An old map indicates in the Gulf of Paria an islet which was said to have made its appearance simultaneously with a violent earthquake on the neighbouring mainland. In several parts of the south-western peninsula are seen beds of porcellanite, clays, and vitrified sands which have assumed the appearance of jasper. These beds, which are of no great thickness, and which occur in the midst of the quicksands, have evidently been exposed to t^e action of fire, like the slag of smelting furnaces, and they are supposed to have resulted from the burning of asphalts or lignites. This part of the coast also appears to be in process of subsidence like that of the east side. Thus two forces acting in opposite directions are continually modifying the contour-lines of the island — that of the currents depositing sedi- ment on the beach, and gravity or some other agent causing certain parts of the coast to sink. The Asphalt Lake. In the same south-western peninsular district is also situated the " marvel " of the island, the so-called Brea, or Asphalt Lake, one of the greatest natural • G. P. Wall and J. O. Sawking, Beport on the Oeolngy of Trinidad. t Charles Kingsley, At Last, a Chrittmat in tht Wut Indiet, . Jiigmii.^^yiui I ■•■atjjJilSWifcw^ 'ffgU^.-'^! i K^Jt^[ i,.^.,l >,V ' -;^!.j....i - - -ij < B ■'.''m uv ^■■■'"naj^ HIBIUMW II TRINIDAD. 01 I s B curiosities in the world. Tlio basin, which occupies rather more thun 100 acres on a slight rising ground about 85 feet above Heu-level, usually presents the aspect of an exposed coalpit ; but during the great heats the surface li(|nofie8 to a depth of about an inch. Even before the contents began to bo worked for industrial purposes, the surface underwent frequent modifications ; islands wore formed and rapidly covered with agaves, wild pineapples and other vegetable growths; then they were swallowed uji by the surging flood of pitch, to reappear on the circumference of some sluggish eddy in the viscous substance. The underground forces acting on the asphalt cause it to rise in masses of unequal size, rounded off like huge toadstools and separated by narrow spaces filled with water at the normal temperature of the surrounding a'laosphere, in which fishes disport themselves. The visitor may walk without any risk on the solid asphalt round the margin of these channels, although, according to the report of numerous travellers, the surface yields gently under the weight. Towards the centre of the lake the bituminous substance is continually rising, mixed with sulphurous gases, and. it often ejects logs of wood, branches or stems completely transformed by the saturating matter. The wood thus cast up always presents its pointed end to the air, so as at times to resemble rows of stakes. The pitch, which is very impure and consequently of small commercial value, contains from about one-fifth to cne-third of earthy matter. The 78,000 tons exported in 1890 were valued at a little over £90,000. The soil of the cultivated district encircling the lake is also charged with asphalt, yet is extremely fertile, yielding the best and finest fruits in the island. The pineapples especially are less fibrous, larger, more fragrant, and of a more golden colour than elsewhere. The very road leading from the lake to the neighbouring port of La Breu. runs through a bed of picch, and moves slowly seaward: like a bhick glacier. The little houses erected along the truck follow the same onward movement, so that they have to be periodically rebuilt. The shore also is fringed with bituminous reefs, and some 800 yards south of the headland a yawning chasm in the bed of the sea occasionally dis- charges boiling masses of petroleum, -which rises and spreads out on the surface of the water. ' . ' : Under about the same latitude, but in Mayaro Bay on the east side of the island, there occurs another submarine vent, whose eruptions, according to native report, take place with a certain regularity in the months of March and June every year, and are accompanied by a roar as of thunder, and apparently also by " flames." It is at all events certain that on these occasions the sea casts ashore lumps of hard, black and shining asphalt, which is collected by the inhabitants of the district. So long ago as 1805 it was manufactured by the English into a tar used for caulking purposes. According to Wall and Sawkins, the geologists who have most carefully studied this region, the asphalts both of the island and of the neighbouring mainland are derived from vegetable remains which, under temperate and polar climates, would assume the forms of turf and lignite. ' 'fl "■'M .^;/Ai »»• ^ip.Wi'jf*- 02 SOUTH AUEKICA-TIIE ANDES REOIONS. i ■»tt Rivers — Ci.tmatr. TImnks to an abundant rainfall, Trinidad i8 watered by numornufi streams wliicli arc navigable by small cruft for a considerable distance from the coast. The (^aroni, most frequented of these rivers, bears a Carib name, which recurs in various parts of the neighbouring continent. It flows nearly j)arallel with the north coast range, from which it receives its chief affluents, and falls into the Oulf of Paria, near Port of Spain ; but during the floods a considerable portion of its waters are discharged laterally into riverine marshes. TheOaroui is navigable by boats for about 24 miles, and it is proposed to connect this waterway with the (Jropuche, on the eastern slope of the island, by means of a canal cut through the slightly elevated central waterparting. The Guaracuaro, which falls into Naparima Bay on the south-west coast, develops a course symmetrical with that of the Caroni, while the Nuriva (Mitan) and Quataro (Ortoir) have a common delta towards the middle of the east coast iu the great curve extending from Galera Point to Galiota I'oiut. Between the two mouths runs a channel protected from the surf by a fringe of mangroves. Nume- rous lagoons, the " lagons " of the French Creoles, skirt the low-lying coast on both sides of the delta. Lying entirelj'^ in the truck of the trade winds, and being practically a part of the mainland, Trinidad escapes from the thousand vicissitudes of climate to which the Antilles proper are exposed. The seasons follow in the normal sequence, and during the rcraiio (" spring ") or dry season, lasting from November to the end of April, scarcely a drop of rain ever falls. The moisture collected on the surface is derived mainly from the heavy dews. But in the wet season, from May to October, storms are of almost daily occurrence. They are accompanied by sharp, heavy showers, coming on suddenly, especially in the afternoon, and never at night except a short time before dawn. Neither Trinidad nor its neighbour, Tobago, is ever visited by those terrific hurricanes by which Grenada, some 80 miles to the north-west, is frequently wasted. Flora — Fauna. As in its geological structure and climate, Trinidad contrasts also with the Antilles proper in its flora and fauna. In their natural history both Trinidad and Tobago are mere dependencies of the South American continent. The former presen^^s in its central part extensive tracts covered exclusively with grasses and plants of low growth in every respect similar to those of the Venezuelan llanos. Thr" are savannas analogous to those traversed by the Orinoco and its affluents, and in the central parts of the island geologists, in fact, suspect the former presence of a great fluvial current. But the treeless spaces are everywhere encircled by dense tropical woodlands, where flourish, in the closest proximity, nearly all the innumerable species belong- ing to the forests of Guiuna. These multitudes of trees, lianas, and parasites of all kinds are amply fed by the yearly rainfall, which is estimated at nearly 80 inches,^'" • Mean temperatiire of Port of Spain, 77° Fahr. Bainf all (mean of twenty-five years), 67 inches. U*t ^-l^^:r "" I V"]— *• " - - ■' TRIN'IDAD. M liotunixta htivo nut yot cxlmuntod tho study of the iiiHiiliir floni, which contiiins no loss than 140 specios of trocs with bark |)088cs.siiiij;' mt'dicinul uiul ospcciully fobrifuj^ul proportios ; tiinbor and cabiiiot-woodH are rockoned by tho hundredH, nearly all of South Amoriciin origin, althou^rh soiuo West ludiuii aud even African forms occur. Such is the rhi//)M(ili»t conni/i/id, a cactus of Angolan origin, and tho only member of this family found in tho Old World. Amongst the forest giants special veneration is paid to the coiba (eriodi'iidroii anfinctuosum), which the negroos gouerally rofuse to fell, regarding it as a magic tree. Anyone PI(J. '20.— Vow TAXJIN At Saint Jamrs, Port or Si-ain, Tbinidad. ' o ')'■ - . ' . ■:' ' ..•;;•. 11 \' '■-.■. . ■ ' '-f.'- ....-•■ •.•."\,i- ^i=:,,-?^^#,..;::. Miv .„,;"*►■ ■■•■::■ ....:5^^^;f: „ IHwWilKllicT/^lHl^nHnKBill^^^^AJ^H^^Hl - ■'' ' V . 1 1 ;-,^v ^ _ 1 t/'P * ■ , '■■■■'■ , ■ ( ' j. ■•■' - **- ;; ? uH 4. .. .,.;S.. .. . . rAi- ,/ ..-ti . . -. ' \ '■-• :V^:'Vi>v;^.-7f ■ , ■ ; , , ^ bold enough to apply the axe to its roots without firBt propitiating it with a bottle of rum, would inevitably die within a year, and other calamities would overtake those throwing stones at it, The palm family is represented by numerous species, amongst others the oreoj/od-ff, some of whose stems exceed 150 feet in height; the timit {manicaria), whose leaves are used for thatching cabins ; the maiiricarea acnleata, the desmoncus, and others, armed with formidnble thorns. According to a local tradition, a vessel freighted with coconuts from an island in the Orinoco delta was shipwrecked in 1730 on the east coast of Trinidad, where the nuts washed " • '-iTi«fiiiiiini«Hi»rlill|-|iiiini|iiiiiiiiia'i r» W i» mili i i , I i .i i i i Aii ii Mm r I i m i8 ^ ^^■■il.l■^lm ^ ,■ ^ ||l■| ^ , « ■>!» » H iii H ii) i | | «)ii m i n i mi. !■ r/ i I m u i | ii i m i y TiUNIDAI). ee formerly numcruua; but they wore Iiuntud down and aiiippod us alaven to KNpunolu and ottu'r iHliindH, to work in ttui iniuea or on the ^/liiiitutionH. Boon the gretiter purt of Triiiidud wiih chungod to u a«)litude, till the aborigiium having poriahcd, except u ftyN of the north. In l7H'\2 Indiuna, (ind these hud been reduced to 1, 407 by tho year I HOT. At present u few faniilies of these peuceful uborigini's atill survive in tho neigh- bourhood of Ariinu, ut tho foot of the mountiiina, where they eke out a wretched exiatcnce by making baskets of reeds or foliage, und manufacturing other small urticles. Even these are half-breeds crossed with Spaniards, and especially with runaway negroes. Till recently somo naked Indians arrived once a year from tho Orinoco delta, landed silently at San Fernando, and donning the slight cos- tume required by the police regulations, passed through the town to niuko their annual collection of fruits and root* in the neighbouring forests. Then they returned us silently us when they arrived, re-emburked, and rapidly disappeared, puddling their eunoes across the gulf towurds the mainland. The first Spanish settlers having been nearly exterminated by tho Knglish, French, Dutch, and Pichilingue corsairs, the island remained for about two centuries unoccupied, except by a few planters, who bad established themselves on the west coast. In 1783 there were only 120 whites, and COo black slaves or freedmen ; including the Indians the whole population fell short of 3,000 souls. It was at this time that the adventurer, Iloume de Saint- Laurent, a native of Grenada, succeeded in obtaining from the Madrid Government the repeol of the laws interdicting all foreigners from entering the Spanish possessions. Roman Catholica were even invited to settle in the island, the Government undertaking to protect them for five years against prosecution for ar J debts previously contracted. Roume de Saint-Laurent hastened forth- with to engage colonists in France and in the Antilles, and six years after the issue of the edict from Madrid the colony had already 2,150 whites and nearly 4,500 free people of colour, who had brought with them over 10,000 slaves. Breaking with the national traditions of intolerance. Governor Chacon pre- vented the introduction of the Inquisition, and interdicted the establishment of monasteries. No settler was molested for his religious or philosophic opinions, and during the troubles at the close of the century the planters from the French islands were able to take refuge without let or hindrance in the Spanish colony. In 1787 Picot de Lap^rouse erected the first sugar refinery, and ten years later there had sprung up 159 others, besides 300 " habitations," where coffee, cotton, and cacao were cultivated. ^ - Since that time Trinidad has steadily increased in population and wealth, even during the wars which resulted in the British conquest. As in most of the Antilles, the bulk of the inhabitants are negroes und half-breeds, descendants, like their former owners, of immigrants from the other islands, and speaking the French creoIe patois. ^This is an extremely soft idiom of highly simplified .J | .w«JJlM^^j « ^,4 l !^l i i., « l^ui, ^^ lJ-^4ll l ^u■, | ' l l. | .t l '.i^i l l r •, | i. ,-1t» 66 SOUIH AMEEICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. etructure, though still possessing its own grammatical and euphonic laws. The Trinidad dialect, which has been studied by Thomas, a native of colour, possesses quite a literature, consisting, like the Martinique and Haiti varieties, especially of wise sayings and proverbs. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that in the near future the numerical preponderance will cease to belong to these French or Gallicised ethnical elements. A large number of extensive plantations and of the agricultural factories have Fig. 21. — Wife of a Rich Hindu Coolie. already changed hando, having been purchased from their former owners by English and Scotch settlers. The latter have the reputation of being very grasp- ing, as illustrated by the local expression, " Scotch friend," applied to the murderous lianas which entangle the trees in their deadly coils. Under analogous influences, negroes of English speech from Barbadoes and othfer islands are con- tinually replacing the French blacks, and driving them to the interior. The latter, rejoicing in their emancipation, and naturally anxious to take advantage of vm • ^ ■w m ' . ' .vw j M w i w ii i i ■"■ — ' - 7 * "- V; V'* ' *^ ' Vyv- ' '' ' S''. ' 'V'; ' > ' '■■'■■i'j ' IW ' JWl TBINIDAD. 67 the changed relations, have nearly all abandoned the plantations, and now culi i- vate their own little plots, which yield enough for all their wants. There exist over 20,000 such small holdings, belonging, for the most part, to these Africans. But the great landowners, deprived of the slaves who formerly garnered their crops, have had to replace them by hands procured through agents from the Far East. So early as the year 1800 some traders had already introduced from Macao about a hundred Chinese, amongst whom was a solitary woman ; at present these " Celestials " are estimated at some 3,000, many of whom have in their turn abandoned the large plantations, and taken either to petty dealings or to cultivating small plots on their own account. Since the year 1845 the imported labourers are nearly all Hindus, engaged directly by speculators, who are subsidised by the colonial government to the extent of about £80,000 a year. The coolies, almost exclusively from Bengal, are engaged according to the season, to the number of 2,000 or 3,000, for a term of five years, after which they have the right of a free passage home. All but 700 or 800 remain in the island, where they contribute with the negroes to increase the class of small freeholders. Some even return from their Asiatic homes, and settle in Trinidad with their families and friends. Thus the traveller may here recognise the natives as well as the scenery of India in the coconut-groves of the east and west coasts. The effect is heightened by the gay banners fluttering from tall bamboos to indicate from a distance the Hindu temples, where the devotees come to make their floral offerings. The coolies, who at present form a third of the population, generally keep aloof, contracting no alliances either with the whites or the blacks. Never- theless, there have already sprung up some fine types of Eurasians, a class daily acquiring an increasingly important position in Trinidad society.* The Sivaites, forming the majority of the Hindus, live on bad terras with the Moham- medans, and sanguinary conflicts have even taken place between the votaries of the rival religions. Nearly all their savings are spent by the coolies in the purchase of jewellery for their wives, which in case of divorce gives rise to much wrangling and lawsuits. • Agricultural Resources. — Topographs. In his work on the C-inoco regions, published in 1727, the Jesuit Qumilla informs his readers that the soil of Trinidad had been condemned to perpetual sterility ever since the first settlers had refused to pay the tithes. Nevertheless, the fecundity of the island has been amply vindicated by its white, black and yellow cultivators. Although scarcely one-eighth of the land hae been reclaimed, the foreign trade, consisting chiefly of sugar, molasses and cacao, has long exceeded £4,000,000, while the local traffic in fruits, vegetables and other provisions is incref •»ig still more rapidly. "■< y all the coffee-grounds have been abandoned, and tobacco also is now • F. H. Hart, rWwiaorf. ni i ^ ''"" ' *jlfll'1'¥ 68 SOUTH AMEEIOA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. but little grown, although the leaf is scarcely inferior to that of Cuba. One of the most costly operations on the plantations is the uprooting of the para-grass, which, although yielding an excellent fodder, grows with a vigour that threatens to stifle the more valuable sugar-cane. Most of the agricultural and commercial life of the island is centred on the west coast, where are situated the two largest towns, now connected by a railway and by a regular line of steamers. The east I ■ In I ^1 f«i:!'ii Fig. 22.— Teinidad. Boale 1 : l.IWO.OOO. West or Greenwich 6I°40 61° 10' Utol2 Fattaom*. Depths. 12totiO Fatbonu. 60 Fathoms and apwardB. 80 MilFR side, facing the Atlantic and the trade winds, is almost a solitude dt ?titute of towns or harbours. Besides its agricultural and commercial importance, Trinidad has a certain value in the eyes of the restless South American populations, as a place of refuge for political exiles and lugitives from Venezuela and the other Spanish republics. In former times it was also the headquarters of British military operations in the West Indies. Many an expedition was here organised during the wars of independence, and from this station English traders may now command the entrance of the Orinoco, one of the great highways to the interior of the continent. «t en pa re bu Joi vm^. ■W^^PBWpwjf^^i^feipipilP^^ TEINIDAD. 69 Trinidud is already the depot for the Venezuelan lands which border the great river, and it might one day take the same position with regard to the Colombian plateaux through the Rio Meta. Fort of Spain {Puerto Espam), usually designated by the simple word " Town," is in truth the largest town, as well as the political capital, of Trinidad.* Yet Fig. 23.— PoBT OP Spain. Soale 1 : IIB.OOO. ei'jig West or Greenwich ersa' Deiittw. SanUa ezpimed at low water. Oto6 rathoma. 5 Fathoms and upwards. m § HHUes. «t a distance it seems lost in t^e surrounding vegetation. Whole quarters are embowered in verdure, and the shady avenues of the city are continued by fine parklands towards the suburban villas dotted over the slopes of the hills. Till recently water had to be brought by boats from u distance of nearly two miles, but it is now supplied from the little river Maraval by an aqueduct three miles Jong. The tranquil roadstead to which the place owes its popularity is well sheltered, • r. H. Hart, Trinidad. 70 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. but too shallow for large vessels, which have to ride at anchor some miles from- the quays. .spite this drawback, Port of Spain has attracted to itself nearly all the commerce of the island, while splendid natural harbours, such as that of Chaguaratnas, near the Boca Mono passage at the extremity of the north-west peninsula, are completely deserted. Being surrounded by rocks and swamps, and remote from the cultivated districts, these havens are useless for the purposes of trade. Chaguaramas, sheltered by islets and reefs, is deep enough for the largest vessels, and it was here that the Spanish fleet took refuge in 1797, when Admiral Apodoca delivered it to the flumes rather than accept the challenge of aa English squadron of equal strength. The Spanish Government preferred to be defeuted by its English enemies than defended by its French friends ! * During the season thousands of visitors resort to the beach at Chaguaramas, to the neighbouring islets, and to the Ish doa Monos {" Monkey Island ") in the Dragon's Mouth. A road and, :"i.rther south, the navigable course of the Caroui connect Port of Spain with the old capital, San Josef (San Josi), which crowns a rising ground commanding a wide prospect of cultivated lands. Beyond this place a branch of the railway runs east to the village of Arima, while the main line runs south to San Fernando at the foot of Mount Naparima. As an agricultural centre San Fernando ranks in importance with the capital itself. In the district are situated the richest plantations in the island, and farther inland the villages of Montsemd and Princestown are surrounded by extremely fertile tracts in the hands of independent farmers, amongst whom are distinguished some Venezuelans of Spanish race. Administration. Trinidad, to which its neighbour, Tobago, is administratively attached, forms a British Crown Colony, so that its inhabitants are subjects with scarcely any electoral rights. The Queen appoints the governor, as well as the executive council of three members by whom he is assisted. The legislative assembly, also appointed by the Crown, consists of six ex-offich and eight other members. The elective principle, however, is allowed free play in the municipal a£Fairs of the capital and of San Fernando, fifteen members being elected for the town council of the former and seven for that of the latter place. The only armed forces are about 500 police and the same number of volun- teers, who meet from time to time for drill and target practice. The schools, which are frequented by the great majority of the white, Hindu, Chinese, black, and coloured children, partly depend on the Government, which has founded and endowed the secular establishments, while also contributing grants in aid both to the Catholic and Protestant educational establishments. The revenue, large for a still thinly-peopled island, is derived mainly from the customs. There is a public debt of £520,000 (1892), contracted almost exclusively for the railways,, which have a total length of 54 miles. • Dauxion Lavuyiwe ; Kingsioy, op, cit. . Jj5!iV'*«N«P».x^" '»»a»!JIMiP ^mww.w«] i MM»i iii...ii. ..nM.^.ij^^^ I ■^j^j ^1^ , ^ ., i .„. ..,,,., ,„ i ■f . ' I» i ...lu i i i ^^ i|j .^ wi Yi i )M i )> |i y , , i, .m ,i ,, i,,,iii | ^ , 1 MARGARITA. 71 The island is divided into eight administrative districts —Saint George and Saint David in the north ; Caroni, Saint Andrews, Victoria and Nariva in the centre ; Saint Patrick and Mayaro in the south. IV. — Margarita and Neighbouring Islets. Margarita, the " Pearl," one of the islands discovered by Columbus in his voyage of 1498, belongs, like Trinidad, to the Andes orographic system, although not disposed in a line with the Paria range. It develops a parallel chain, indicated by two principal masses, and reappearing some 60 miles farther west in the islet of Tortuga. In fact, Margarita may be regarded as forming two distinct . islands— in the east Margarita, properly so called, in the centre of which Mount Copei rises to a height of 4,170 feet ; and in the west Macanao, so named from its culminating point, 4,484 feet high. Although of less extent than Trinidad, Margarita greatly exceeds it in the altitude of its mountains. Between the two sections of the island stretches the so-called Restinga, or Laguna Grande (" Great Lagoon "), which communicates with the gulf on the south side by a shifting channel, while on the north side the two islands are connected by a thin but continuous strip of sands. At its narrowest point this line of dunes is scarcely more than 164 feet wide between the lagoon and the open sea. Margarita is one of those islands which were first colonised by the Spaniards. In 1499, the very year following the voyage of Columbus, Guerra discovered the pearl-banks of Cocho Island off the south coast, and soon after others were reported round the main island and on the coast of the islet of Cubagua (Cuagua), which immediately attracted numerous adventurers. In 1625 a fort had already been erected on Margarita ; it did not, how ever, prevent the capture and plunder of the island by the dreaded " tyrant," Lopez de Aguirre, in 1561. Then came the English, and in the next century the Dutch. During the War of Independence the Margaritans took sides with the rebels, for which they wero cruelly punishf d by tht; Spaniards. This earned for the insula ..roup the official title of Niu-^va Usparta ("New Sparta") from the grateful republicans of Venezuela after the revolution. As a whole the island must be regarded as arid, being largely covered with bare rocks, dunes, saline marshes, and even coral reefs formerly built up round the coast. The inhabitants find little room for tillage except in the narrow upland valleys, and their chief resources are fishing and the collection of salt, which, under the name of sal dc espnma (" foam salt"), is highly appreciated in the trade. The women, who are very industrious, make earthenware and light cotton stuffs, besides hats of a coarso fibre, which are sold at a low price in every part of the republic. The pearl industry is almost abandoned, nearly all the banks being exhausted while the pearls themselves b.ivo fallen considerably in value. But the fisheries proper are still very prwiuctiv-.', that of Coche Island being farmed by the 4 •j#laag««i». "y.J )*^mA.1i ttWft J- r*.-.^ , 72 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. Government to speculators at a high figure. The fish is* largely captured with enormous trawl-uets, each worked by 1 80 or 200 hands, ail members of the Guay- queri tribe. A single haul occasionally represents as much as twenty-five tons of dried fish. During the season, which lasts nine months, a good chinchorro (net) should take altogether at least 225 tons. When the Hue closes round the seething multitudes, hundreds of fishes leap out and fall into the boats which crowd round the periphery. The oil of the sharks and of the other non-edible kinds serves for lighting the houses and varnishing the boats. Nevertheless, all this marine produce, with the slight resources of the island, are insufiicient to support the inhabitants, who consequently emigrate in consider- ■Fier. 24. — Maboarita. Scale 1 : 800,000. 64°30- West oF Greenwich 65-50' Dept'oa. Oto 5 5 Fathoms and npvrards. __ IRMileH. able numbers to Venezi oia. The great majority are half-caste Guayqueri natives, who increase very rapidly. In 1881 they -iumbonvii over 37,000, of whom more than 20,000 were women, an enormous disjidrity due to *»e emigration of the men to the mainland. In average year^ -he birth-rate far exceeds the mor- tality in this salubrious island, which attracts consumptive patients from great distances. The chief centres of population, Asuncion, the capital, noted for its miraculous Virgin adorned with a robe of pearls, the two ports of Pampatar and Pueblo de la Mar {Porlmnar), and, near the bay of Juan Griego, Pueblo del Norte, have all been found, d in the eastern part of the island. Nueca Cadiz, founded in Cubagua & m Wm ^•: RW"* -'W" ' M)lt!tNk i y^i ' j|^i ' !i y^ jyf.riH| | i.y-:>t'i! '< i^^ ■ L i M, p mM ii* ^ ' -^» ' ^.yi'., ' j"J ' ■ ■j .iiw j i -j -v m i vjg OROHILLA— CURACAO. 78 Isluni 80 early as the year 1515, and consequently the oldest of all Spanish settle- ments in South America, was abandoned when the neighbouring pearl fisheries <5eased to be productive. East of Margarita the little group of the Teatigos (" Witnesses ") recalls the presence of a formidable pirate of the first years of the eigliteenth century, Captain Teach, the " Bluebeard " of West Indian legends. Frequeut attempts have been made to recover his treasures, said to have been buried " three hundred paces " from a certain point in the chief island of the group. Tortuga, farther west, is occupied by a small village and encircled by a cortege of Tortuguillos (" Little Turtle Reefs"). Blanquilla in the north, as indicated by its name, is an expanse of whitish sands aud rocks with a stunted vegetation ■of cactuses and mimosas. A few depressions here and there have enough vege- table humus to repay cultivation. During the wars of the Revolution a planter from Guadaloupe established himself with his slaves in Blanquilla, where he wanted to set up a cotton-mill. But the Spanish Government expelled the intruders, and restored this remote land to solitude, to its wild oxen and packs of runaway dogs. V. — The Leeward Islands. — From Obchiixa to Ahuba, These islands, which run first west and then north-west in continuation of the eastern chain beginning with Blanquilla, develop an extremely regular curve parallel with the Venezuelan coast ; each member of the group even affects a trend identical with that of the opposite mainland. All represent the upraised summits of a submarine ridge belonging like Margarita to the Andes system, but rising to a much lower elevation above sea level. The culminating crest of Orchillais only 400 feet high, while Sanct Christoffel, highest summit in Cura9ao and in the whole ohain, scarcely exceeds 1 ,200 feet. On the other hand the islands have been enlarged horizontally by the coral- builders. The Los Roques cluster, which abuts south-eastwards on a rock 150 feet high, has its reefs rising here and there above the surface disposed in cir- oular form like the atolls of the Indian Ocean. The neighbouring Aves (Bird Islands) are also of coralline origin, whereas Aruba (Oruba), in the extreme west, presents a nucleus of largely disintegrated syenite and granite, whose detritus forms the soil of the island, itself encircled by a broad fringe of coralline lime- stone. The eastern islets and reefs, Orchilla, Los Roques, and Aves, are uninhabitable rocks visited only by fishermen and lighthouse-keepers. After the Revolution they were left politically dependent on Venezuela, while the three western islands of Buen Aire, Curd9ao, end Aruba, all of relatively large siae and cultivable, had long previously been detached from Spain. Curasao. In 1499 Hojeda had already discovered Cura9ao, which he called the " Isle of Giants." It was occupied to the sixteenth century by some Spanish settlers, but I ■ ■it ^ '•S 74 SOUTH AMEBICA— THE ANDES BE0I0N8. it was seized in 1632 by tho Dutch, who remained masters of the archipelago till the wars of the Empire, when it was temporarily occupied by the English and restored to Holland in 1814. Despite its small extent and scanty population, this colony is highly valued by its possessors on account of the deep and well-sheltered harbour on the south coast of Cura9ao. At the time of the conquest by the Dutch traders Cura9ao was still inhabited by a tribe of about 500 aborigines, who are said to have accompanied the Spanish settlers to the muinland. Willemstad, capital of the colony, lies on the east side of the harbour, which is still often designated by its old Spanish name of Santa Ana. The capital itself is m ;*i Fig. 25.— OxmA9Ao. Soale 1 : 700,000. 69* 10' 68° 60' West 0? Greenwich Depths. OtnSOO Fathoms. 600 Fathom* and upward!. . It Hilea. better known by the name of Cura9ao, which is that of the whole island. Tho houses are built in a style resembling that of Amsterdam as far as was possible under the conditions required by a tropical climate. In the passage separating it from the western suburb of Overzijde ("Overside"), and in the swampy waters ramifying inland, Willemstad also presents the aspect of a Dutch town. The quays are everywhere crowded with shipping, while men-of-war ride at anchor in the Schottegat, a deep lagoon forming a northern extension of the harbour. A bridge of boats connects the capital with its suburb just above two forts guard- ing the entrance to the basin, which is accessible to the largest vessels through a . channel 6 to 10 fathoms deep. ' 'f y X — \A* mi ml i m I'pp '""p ■•fiiiimii CURASAO. 7» Liko those of Huen Aire the plains of Curu(;ao are largely occupied by arid wastes. Nevertheless, some sugar, tobacco, fruits, and vegetables are raised for the export trade in a few glens, some naturally fertile, others rendered productive by much patient labour. The Willomstad traders also forward phosphate of lime obtained in Klein Cura(;ao, a rocky islet near IJuen Aire. Other products of the colony are the seeds of the diridici-tree, used for tanning, and considerable quan- Fig. 26.— WiLUilUTAD. Baal* 1 : 48,000. Vrtd.ntforiV ^ .AsUnte W«»t oFGrfenwich 68*57- 68*58 0to5 Fathomi. Depths. 6 to 10 FaUioms. 10 Fathoms and upwards. i MUe. .i^' titles of salt, till recently procured by natural evaporation alone, but now more rapidly crystallised by artificial processes. But the local traffic is of small account compared with the transit trade with the Venezuelan mainland, to which Wiljemstad is mainly indebted for its commer- cial prosperity. Here the Colombian and Venezuelan shippers obtain the vessels and crews engaged in the coasting trade, as well as the advances required to carry on their operations. The Jewish and Christian bankers of Curasao are amongst the principal creditors of the Hispano- American speculators. Like Trinidad, the fc-iiu'ii.—-. .-^-.'.^-^.l^riU, 'fm f"> I ' i ' 1 H 70 SOUTH AMEUKJA— THE ANDKS lUiUlONS. Dutch iHliiiul hiiH uIho lon^ nervt'd nn n pliioe of refuse unci a centre of politio.i! intriguo for the oxilon uiid coiiHpiratora of tho noighhourinji; ropublicH. Willom ud in uIho u sort of liiifj;uiiitiu cupit.il, for horu iiioru thun ol^owhero in eurrotit i.he iui<(;iill(>d /i(i/mmiento (papimicnto), u curioua lingua fninca composed of Spunish, Dutch, KtigliMh, und nutivo (Arubu und Goujiru) ulouiuttts. It even contains some PortugucNo words, the presouco of which is difficult to explain, the Portugueso never having navigated theso waters. Ahuha. Aruba, weHtornmo.it member of the group, formerly bore the name of Azua, from u shrub very common in the locality. It is tho best cultivated of the throe Dutch islands, although Rutfering from a want of water, which has to ') husbanded in cisterns or drawn from tidal wells sunk in tho sands. Now seldom visited by travellers, Aruba is, v vertholess, the most interesting isliind in tho atohipolugo from the archsuologicul point of viow. Here are found many stone and clay objects, besides rock inscriptions of Indian origin. The earthenware is almost invariably embellished with little figures representing frogs' or owls' heads. The inscriptions, painted in various colours, but never carved, differ little from those occurring in many places on tho mainland.* The aborigines, all half-breeds, have preserved nothing of theii iiitive language ■except certain forms of incantation and medical recipes. Till recently they deposited their dead in large con> shaped vessels, which were buried under little barrows. The Spanish conquerors found in Aruli a populous city abounding in the precious metals, which gave rise to the whimsical and evidently erroneous ■etymology of the name Aruba (Oruba) : Oro hul^ ! *' K vo was gold ! ** At present only fiiint traces of th(? precious metals ciin t o> * cte^^ ' i the rocks of the island. According to the geologist Martin, Aruba wr 'Le last member of the Leeward group to be separated from the mainland ; iere are still seen some species of animals which have disappeared irr>m Buun Aire and Cura9ao; such especially are a species of parrokeet, a frog, anii a rattlesnake. In recent times indications have been observed of an upheaval of the coasts. * Alph. Pinart, Exploration de Curafao el d^ Aruba. 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AMAZOJVTIA AND LA PSm^boFEDUoj^ ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS AND MAPS. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1895. %JV i I if; 1^ ■■ i''' ^'^^^*■:'''<»rt:f/T>.f•.;;■■"^■^f'Ay>^r,,>.., ■■ -^.|;/.:^v,''''*f ' '•• *A!*ij;'l'''^;:'''.'*%^r^*t*fl'***=*'^^' #-' ■■fehV>rr".f#Ji^nAK»TfagyA^^ii.,..ilja^ri,'iiJ^ , ,'_'t^- | \ »^•r^^;>!;^;f^■l^|^^WlV.'»^ ^■W l^f^■ « ^ylt-■^^^.y^^;■N^y WJ^ j'j«jir^«abiting it, I had tried in another work, The Earth* to study tho life- history of tlie globe itself, such as it is presented isolatedly, prepared to receive the humanity by which the great body is animated. That work was a sort of introduction to tho series of volumes which I now bring to a close. But is not a conclusion still lackingr ? Man, like the Earth, has his laws. Seen from above and from afar, the diversity of features intermingled on the surface of the globe —crests and valleys, meandering waters, shore-lines, heights and depths, superimposed rocks — presents an image which, so far from beino- chaotic, reveals to him who understands a marvellous picture of harmony and beauty. Tho man who scarchingly surveys this universe, assists at the vast work of incessant creation, always beginning, never ending, and himself sharing by the largeness of his grasp in the eternity of things, he may, like Newton, like Darwin, find the word that sums all up. And if the earth seems consistent and simple amid the endless complexity of its forms, shall the indwelling humanity, as is often said, be nought but a blind chaotic mass, heaving at hazard, aim' s. without an attainable ideal, unconscious of its very destiny ? Migrations in dive. ,e directions, settlements and dispersions, growth and decline of nations, civilisations and decadence, formation and displace- ment of vital centres ; are all these, as might seem at the first glance, mere facts, nay, facts unconnected in time, facts whose endless play is uncontrolled by any rhythmical movement giving them a general tendency, which may be expressed by a law P This it is that it concerns us to know. Is the evolution of man in perfect harmony with the laws of the Earth ? How is he modified under the thousand influences of the modifying environment P Are the vibrations simultaneous, and do they incessantly modulate their tones from age to age p * The Earth : A Descriptive History of the Physical Phenomena of tho Life of our Globe. By Eliaee Eoclus. — - '» '■■^■^Wr^f K »"'r t »W-t--«tf'yj'r'V • F'Ci^r'peTrr :? ?' ;^- '":'V"' X:<:,^!?Pr.r<'^i' • *" I, r ; i' ■ K fi A I'ARTINO WORD, Tossibly tlio little alrcudy known iniiy enable ustosce further into tho durknoss of iho future, and lo usMist ut events which uro not jet. Possibly wo niuy succeed in contemplating in thought tlio ^poctucle of human history beyond the evil days of strife and ignorance, and there again behold the picture of grandeur and beauty already unfolded by the earth. Here is what I would fain study accorfUng to the measure of my strength. From the myriad facts which I have hud to record from chapter to chapter I would fain extract a general idea, and thus, in a snmll volume written at leisure, justify the long series of bojks now ended without apparent conclusion. Eu»iB Reci.us. ,■ , , . .. 1 ■ ■M i mr-t i ..li ir.B r-itfi ri ■"'rii-^i-ii«'-"i-tv,->.if j:*r ' "^m^jm" 7~V. '" ' .]J* ^!' ^^.^,^rff ' '.ft| l l<^'' ' i'>^ ' ''? ' MMJ ' l l |l " .. W J ii W. 'i U ii . l Jmm I »m^ p ' 'W mw ^- W i CONTENTS. » MM A Pautino Wonj) iii CHAP. I. TbE OuiANAS 1 10 Gonoral Surrey, p. I. Nitiinil and Politiiial Divisions, p. 2. Physical Feuturos, p. 3. Eivers, p. 11. Lukes, p. 22. Climate, p. 25. Flora, p. 20. Fauna, p. 31. Inhabitants, p. 32. II. Bbitish Guiana 47—63 The North- West District, p. 48. E-snquibo Basin, p. 49. Georgetown, p. 61. Material Condition, p. o3. Administration, p. 64. III. Dutch Gotaxa 5g g^ Niokerie, p. 60. Paramaribo, p. 57. Eastern Settlements, p. 59. Natural Ee- souroes, p. 69. Administrutiou, p. 01. IV. Fbenoh Guiana ^2 76 Convict Stations, p. 04. Ciiyonno, p. 00. Natural ResouroeB, p. 69. Adminis- tration, p. 70. The Contested Frunoo-Brazilian Tenitory, p. 71. V. Brazil: Genebai, Survey 77—89 Geographical Exploration, p. 77. Settlement, p. 79. Political Relations, p. 81. Ethnical Elements, p. 85. PJiy»ical Divisions, p. 80. VI. States of Amazonas and Paha 90 i24 The Amazons River, p. 90. Rio Negro, p. 93. The Madeira, p. 90. The Amazons Estuary, p. 100. The Climate, p. 103. Flora, p. 103. Fauna, p. 100. Inhabitants, p. 108. Topography, p. 114. Para, 120. VII. State of Goyaz . . . . r\i^ 128—132 Tooantins Basin, p. 120. Oimate, p. 128. Flora-Fauna— Inhabitants, p. 129. Topography, p. 130. VIII. States op MabanhXo, Piauhy, Ceaba, Rio Gbande do Nobtb, Pabahyba, Pkb- NAMBuco, AND Alaooam 133 — 151 Geographical R"<.oaroh, p. 133. Physical Features— Rivpw, p. 134. Fernando de Noronha, p. 130. Climate— Flora— Fauna, p. 137. luhabiiauts, p. 138. Topo- graphy, p. 139. .» " ' •; !'''■' y . ■"- -1 ,, I i I I J- < ^H P 1 viii CONTENTS. IX. Ktatk* or MiNAd Okham, Bahia. SeiuitPR, akd Empirito Hawto .... 11)3— 17H Diiu'dvi'ry mill St'ttU'iiii'tit, j>. I'Vl. I'liyHioiil l''rii».iiri'H, ji. liVl. IMror 8. I'ViinclHpn, ]i. li'>>i. CoiiMt StriMiniN, p. li'iH. C'Unmtu Fluni Fauiiit, ]i. liJ'J. luhubitui.tM, p. lO'l. TDiHiffruphy, p. 107. X. Htati or Rto dr .lAiteiuo anu Nkutrai. Trbritokv . Phy-icul FnituiiM, p. ITU. IUvitm, p. IN'J. Climito, p. Uft. Inhal)ituiitH, p. 1H(I. Tupo^nipliv, p. tN7. 170-198 Floro— Fiiuiin— XI. Statkh or S. rAiii-o, Pahana, and 8anta Cathauina 11)0—233 Tlic I)(-iii, p. jOil. Climato, p. UlO. Flora— Fuuua, p. 2 1 1 . InliubitaiiU, p. 212. TojxiKi-aphy, p. 21'). XII. State or Ilio Gbandk do But. 234 — 248 PhyHldul FouturpH, p. 230. Coant Lagoon*, p. 230. RivtTH, p. 230. Cliaiuto, p. 230. Flora— Fauna, p. 210. Topography, p. 242. Xni. Htatk of Matto (inosso 249—262 IIiMtorio Hiirvoy, p. 241). I'liyniiral Fnaturoo, p. 2.il. Kivortt, p. 254, (Jlimato, p. 2.'50. Flora— Fauna— Inhulntjiiito, p. 257. ToiKjgniphy, p. 200. XIV. MATKRtAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF BbAZIL Immigration, p. 200. Agriculture, p. 208. Iinnil Tt'nuro, p. 271. InduHtrips, p. 273. CommuuicationH, p. 27H, Eduuutiou— Uuligion, p. 2H3. AdmiuiHtration, p. 285. 203—291 XV. Pakaouay 292-328 IliHtorio Uetros]x?ct, p ■-'!)3. Extent — Population, p. 205. Dincovory, p. 20G. PhyNical Features, p. 207. Rivers, p. 21)8. (Jliniat«, p. 30i. Flora— Fauns, p. 303. InhabitantN, p. 305. Tlio Paraguay MissionH, p. 300. Topography, p. 313. Material and Souial Coudition, p. 321. Oovorument, p. 327. XVI. ITuuouAY . . ' 320—343 Physical Feature»— Rivers, p. 330. Climato, p. 332. Flora— Fauna- Inhabi- tants, p. 331. Topography, p. 335. Honto Video, p. 336. Social and Material Condition, p. 33U. Oovomment, p. 342. XVII. Ahoentina Progress of Discovery, p 344. Frontier Questions, p. 340. Physical Features, p. 352. Tlie Patagonian Steppe, p. 305. The Pampas, p. 307. Rivers, p. 370. The Parana Delta, p. 374. The Plate Estuary, p. 376. Closed Basins, p. 378. The Rio Negro, p. 382. Patagonian Rivers and liakcs, p. 385. Climate, p. 392. Flora, p. 396. Fauna, p. 308. Inhabitants, p. 404. Topography, p. 421. Ro^ sario, p. 427. Salta, p. 420. Tuouman, p. 430. Meudoza, p. 437. Cordoba, p. 442. Buenos Ayres, p. 445. Towns of Patagonia, p. 450, New Wales, p, 458. Material and Social Condition, p. 401. Stock-breeding, p. 463. Land Tenure, p, 407, Industries — Trade, p, 409. Administration— Finance, p, 474, XVIII, Falkland Islands and South Geoboia 344—470 ArpENDDC— Statistical TAbLEa 477— ' 483-492 ■li'- ''^r- ' ^^fiS w i iMW ii H , ttfn ii J | ))i-j j ,i i „, ,, n ^ .i H j ij'.M ^ , »i„,4^ii)l | iji '■"^r^^.','. '"." .''WF-^'JP?^ M ' l fj i l / i ^ ll lll l'i ylji ' I t j^L^ rjj ' w.j ' "- ' » iw j i w LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. -*— «- MAPS PRINTED IN COLOURS. South America (upper part) South America (lower purt) FAOB 46 124 Rio do Janeiro and EnvirotiM , BuenoB Ayreg, Lu Pliita und the Ehtuary MOB 178 344 PLATES. Gran Chaco Indians .... FrontupUce Mount Roraima . . . Tofncepnge 8 Galibi Habitation on the Banks of the Maroni 30 Cayenne — View taken from Ceperou . . 6') The Marailou at Tubatinga .... 90 Amazonian Scenery - -Cacshocira, near Manuoa . 96 Plootle^i ',iiv>;*rr^<^»_^^.'imm! i r^ '"^"Sm :l III'' LIST OF ILLTTSTEATIONS. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. no, 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Islimd of the Giiianas Routes of the Chief Explorers of Guiana Tumuc-Humao Mouutaius KAiETEim Falls .... Essequibo and Upper Rio liraum Basins Sources of the Oyapok Rivers of the Franco -Brazilian Contested Zone ...... 8. Takutu Savannas .... 9. Forests and Savannas of Guiana 10. Indians of the Guianas 11. Galihi Man 12. Galidi Woman 13. Inhabitants of Guiana 14. North-Westem District, Tritish Guiana 15. Georgetown 16. Paramaribo and Surinam Estuary . 17. Cultivated Zone, Dutch Guiana 18. Penal Settlements of the Maroni 19. Cayenne Island 20. Cayenne ...... 21. Mouth of the Oyapok 22. Gold Mines of Guiana 23. Mapa and Carapaporis Bay 24. Political Divisions of Guiana 25. Land of Vera Cruz, Section of Brazilian Coast first Discovered . 26. Old Political Divisions and Frontiers Brazil 27. Brazil and Portugal .... 28. Colonia del Sacramento 29. Relief of Brazil .... 30. Solimoes and Japura Confluence 31. Uaupes Confluence and Rio Negro Cata racts 32. Lower Course of the Rio Branco 33. Amazonian Depression and Outer Zone of the Cataracts 34. Amazonian Gulf 35. Diurnal Temperatures of Para and London 36. Amazonian Selva .... 37. Cafusa Half-breed 38. Indian Populations of Amazonia 39. Teffe and Japura Confluence 40. Madeira Falls and Projected Railway 4 1 . Itttcoatiara and Madeira Confluence . 42. Obidos 43. Alemijuer — Santarem 44. Para and its Road.stead 45. Routes of Explorers in the Amazous and Tocaatins Btsins . . 46. South Goyaz and Future Federal Territory of Brazil .... of PAOK 3 6 10 13 14 19 20 27 29 35 36 37 43 49 52 68 60 63 66 67 68 09 73 75 78 80 82 84 87 92 94 95 99 101 104 105 109 HI 116 117 119 120 121 123 127 131 ""• >A '.'W ' - fft Wif '** ""*"■ ! "- '"'^ V, THE EARTH AND ITS INHABITANTS. AxMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. CHAPTER I. THE GUIANAS. General Survey. URING the last three centuries the term Guiana, as a geographical expression, has been diversely modified. When the first Spanish, English, and Dutch navigators visited the banks of the Orinoco they found them occupied by the Guayano, Guayana, or Guaya- naze Indians, whose name came to be applied in a vague way to the whole region roamed by them south of the great river. This extension of its meaning was all the more natural that the word was already current in various forms, not only as a tribal designation, but also as the name of several rivers in different parts of the Continent. Thus the Guaraunos (Warauns). of the Orinoco delta would appear to be simply Guayanos; the Rucuyennes farther east also called themselves Wayana, and gave the same name to a great tree, mythical protector of the tribe. Lastly the Upper Rio Negro, in its higher reaches below the Andean foothills, I ears the name of Guainia, a native term identical with Guinna, as is also Waini or Guainia, the name of one of the coast streams between the Essequibo and the Orinoco delta. But the name Guiana, as first employed by Europeans, did not include the Atlantic coastlands, which are at present more particularly designated by that name. It was, in fact, restricted to the region now known as Venezuelan Guiana, and was thus limited by the vast semi-circular bend of the Upper Orinoco. But in geographical terminology it gradually acquired a wider application, being at first extended to the Brazilian lands bounded southwards by the Rio Negro and the ^4 iiif* JWPMWMI'P ut^^yi ' yymiiBippg^i^ - ■ yj 'wi y 2 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. :i Amuzons, ami then to the eastern slopes of the mountuins, formerly known, in a general way, as the Serra de Pariraa, and figuring on the early maps as Curibana, that is to say, " Land of the Caribs." Extent — Natural Divisions. "VVitbin those n ider limits Guiana constitutes a well-defined section of the South American mainland. It comprises the whole of the oval space, some 800,000 square miles in extent, which is cut off from the rest of the Continent by the valleys of the Orinoco, Cassiquiare, Rio Negro, and Lower Amazons. This vast region of South America has been called an "island," but there is no question here of a real island completely encircled by a navigable waterway. Although it may probably one day assume this character, by means of a series of artificial canals, the navigation is at present interrupted by the famous Aitures and Maipures rapids on the Orinoco, as well as by others on the Cassiquiare and on the Upper Rio Negro, where boatmen have to land their goods and surmount the obstructions by portages. Thus, even under the most favourable conditions of weather, currents, and conveyance, the circum- navigation of Guiana could not at present be completed under three or four months. From the geological stundpoint also, Guiana constitutes an isolated region distinct from the rest of the mainland. It consists of a separate mass of granites and other eruptive rocks, which have been upheaved since the Triassic epoch. The whole system, however, presents considerable diversity, and may be decom- posed into four nearly equal natural divis^ms by t*vo lines intersecting each other at right angles. The first is formed by the crests of the mountains which are dis- posed nearl}' parallel with the equator, running from the low water-parting near the Cassiquiare towards the northern headland of the Amazons estuary. The second is somewhat less distinctly indicated by the transverse depression traversed in one direction by the Essequibo, in the other by the Rio Branco. Political Divisions. But the rival conquering Powers in the American continent could scarcely be expected to pay much attention to this natural segmentation of the Guianas, more especially as the European settlers had easy access only to the coastlands and the banks of the great rivers. Even within a few miles of the sea the interior of the country long remained absolutely unknown. Adventurers made their way into the recesses of the forests and savannas, but they brought back no clear geogra- phical details, and of the mountainous central regions nothing was known bevond vague or fabulous reports. As in so many other parts of the southern continent, rumour spoke here also of the El Dorado, who was supposed to bathe in liquid gold, and who dwelt in an emerald and ruby palace. Frequent attempts were made to discover this "man of gold " and plunder his treasures. But no system- atic exploration was undertaken before the present century. Thus it happened that the political divisions were made, not along the lines of natural separation, but were developed from the seaboard towards the interior. Spain, whose domain is inherited by the republic of Venezuela, took possession of :"fe le lines nterior. ssion of " ^^?f! !l ^%-j:,/ '' .-:J'- ' . V'^^ ^i POLITICAL DIVISIONS OF GUIANA. 8 the whole of northern and western Gui8'.ia, along the crescent described by the Orinoco. Portugal, now replaced by Brazil, appropriated that section of the Guianas which lies on the Amazonian slope. % Thus for the other European Powers nothing remained except ho maritime region comprised between the Orinoco delta and the estuary of the Amazons. Here the English, Dutch, and French secured a footing as conquerors and colonists. To their settlements on the seaboard they added the " hinterlands " of all the coast streams traversing their several domains, claiming the whole region between the 8ea and the unknown watersheds of those rivers. The three colonial Fig. 1. — Island of the Gotanas. Scale 1 : 20,000,000. .fiOOUUe*. domains thus constituted form the territory now specially known as Guiana, properly so called. The frontiers of these colonies, however, are still fluctuating. Towards the south the water-partings have not yet been surveyed in their entire length and in all their intricate details. Numerous expeditions have been undertaken in this direction, but none of them have been commissioned to determine with accuracy the parting lines between the several conterminous territories. , - r. , , Towards the west and east the question of frontiers assumes a different aspect, and here tracts of considerable extent are still a subject of contention. Great Britain claims a right not only to the whole of the Essequibo basin, but also to a section of the upper Rio Branco, which is disputed by Brazil. In the direction of Venezuela the frontiers of British Guiana have been advanced to the southern margin of one of the chief branches of the Orinoco delta along the channel of 35= 4 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. the Amacuru. The boundary has also been drawn so as to include the rich auriferous alluvia of the Cuyiini valley, and the whole of the disputed territory, which has already led to sanguinary conflicts, comprises a superficial area more extensive than that of the region recognised as belonging indisputably to Great IJrituin. At the other extremity of the Guianns, France contests with Brazil a large tract estimated at about half the size of France. The district in dispute forms a long strip of the Amazons basin, extending along the Atlantic seaboard between the Araguari and the Rio Branco. All these disputed lands on the south, west, and east frontiers form so many distinct political domains comprised within the natural limits of the " island of Guiana." The whole region thus contains five separate territories, with superficial areas as under : — iq. mjle*, British Guiana, including the distriot disputed by Brazil . . 46,700 Guiana contested by Great Briiain and Venezuela . . . 60,000 Dutch Guiana (undisputed) 4fi,700 French Guiana (undisputed) 31,000 Guiana contested by Franco and Brazil 100,000 Total according to H. Coudreau . . 272,400 All these Guianas greatly resemble each other in their general physical aspects, their geographical constitution, the direction and character of their running waters and marine currents, the erosions and deposits of their ooastlands, their climatic relations, the distribution of their animal and vegetable species, the aifinities of their indigenous populations. To human agencies are mainly due the chief contrasts observed in the different colonial territories, which have been subjected by the respective mother countries to different social and economic conditions. Numerous travellers, some acting on individual impulse, some in their official capacity, have carefully studied many of the river valleys, agri- cultural and mining districts, and their itineraries have been connected with those of other explorers who have traversed the whole region, either from one slope to the other, or from the banks of the Orinoco to those of the Amazons. Thanks to these collective surveys, a general picture may now be formed of the physical and biological features of the Guianas. , Pkogress of Discovery and Settlement. /,.,.;> Our first knowledge of the seaboard is due to the Spanish navigator, Vicente Yafiez Pinzon, who had accompanied Columbus on his voyage of discovery. In the year 1500 this pioneer, after coasting the shores of Brazil east of the Amazons, crossed the estuary and skirted the low-lying coasts of Guiana as fur as the Orinoco delta. He was followed by Diego de Lepe and other mariners, who explored the same waters ; but nearly a century passed before any European settlers ventured to penetrate into the interior. v A few Spaniards had already landed on the coasts near the Orinoco, when some Dutchmen attempted in 1581 to establish themselves on the banks of the Demerara and open trade with the natives. Other pioneers were attracted by the love of •■f^ ';gm»i DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF GUIANA. 8 adventure and by the hope of discovering the treasures of El Dorado. In 1596 the English explorer, Keymis, following in the footsteps of Sir Walter Raleigh in the " Empire of Guuya," thut is, in Spanish Guiana, went in quest of the fictitious lake Manoa, which figures on Raleigh's map as a great sheet of water 200 miles long, with a city at its eastern extremity, reported to be " the largest in the world." This map, for the first time published in 1892,* showa the course of the Orinoco and Amazons rivers, and covers the whole continent from tbeir mouths to the Pacific coast. Writing in 1595 to Lord CharloR Howard on " the disco .ery of the large, rich, and beautiful empire of Guaya," Sir Walter remarks in reference to the map : " How these rivers crosse and encounter, how the country lieth, and is bordered, the passage of Camenes, and of Berreo, mine own discoverie, and the way that I entred, with all the rest of the nations, and rivers, your lordship shall receive in a large chart or map, which I have not yet finished, and which I shall most humbly pray your lordship to secret, and not to suffer it to pass your own hands ; for by a draught thereof all may be prevented by other nations. For I know it this very yeere sought by the French, although by the way they now take I fear it not much." But instead of taking the route of the Orinoco, Keymis ascended the river Oyapok, which traverses the region that has since become French Guiana. In 1688 la Motte Aigron sailed up the same river a distance of " fifty leagues " from the sea, in the vain hope of reaching the banks of the Amazons, and perhaps even of discovering the route leading to the famous region of gold and precious stones. So late as 1739 the same mirage of a city with bouses of rubies and other gems was still powerful enough to attract Nicolas Hortsmann, who, following the course of the Essequibo, penetrated far into the interior. But regular colonisation had its origin not in adventure but in commerce. Onre settled on the Guiana seaboard, the traders of various nationalities began to struggle for the ascendancy in the conquered lands, and their respective Govern- ments took part in these rivalries by organising warlike or plundering expeditions. Thanks to these expeditions a better knowledge was gradually acquired of the more favoured districts on the seuboard ; the geographical fi atures of the coast- lands, estuaries, and watercourses as far as the first rapids, were more accurately laid down, and some vague notions of the inland regions were obtained from the reports of the Indians and of the Bush Negroes. In 1672 Richter made liis famous discovery of the flattening of the globe at its poles. Two years later the Jesuits, Grillet and Bechamel, were sent to Cayenne to study the physical geography of the country ; but after penetrating to the territory of the Nurag and Acoqua Indians, these pioneers succumbed to the hard- ships of the journey. The scientific exploration of the Guianas was thus delayed till the eighteenth century, when a beginning was made in 1743 and 1744 by • Sir Walter Raleigh's Karte von Out/ana nm 1595, von L. Friedrichsen. Separatabdruck aus FnUehrift der Hamburgi»ehen Amerika-Feier, 1892. This is a fao-simile of the original preserved in the British Museum. J ,; .'tv >•:■■ t •, ;'„ ,;.; I BBBT! n, » „, . F .ww.m.". imis.mmm '* ;!!, ' ' 6 AMAZONIA AND LA PliATA. iK' Bttrr^ro and by La Condiiraine on his return from his memorable expedition to the equatorial Andes. Twenty years luter Simon Montelle arrived at Cayenne, where he sojourned under conditions of the greatest difficulty for thirty- six years. During this period he visited, in his capacity as engineer, the whole of the seaboard of French Ouiana, and had his advice been attended to, many a disastrous expedition would have boon avoided. The same rogion was traversed in 1762 — 64 by the botanist, Fusee Aublet, whose work on the Plants of Ouinna is still a standard book of reference. In 1787 his associate, Patris, ascended the Oyapok and its Camopi afHuont, and Lcblond, another naturalist of considerable intelligence and enter- prise, followed nearly the same route, returning by the riyer Sinnamari. He spent \WR' ili Fig. 2. — Routes of the Chief Explobebs of Guiana. Soale 1 : 18,000.000. 1 \ "t -' -^ — ■ ' 60- West 01 Greenwich . 200 MUea. several years in exploring a great part of the land, studying its economic plants, searching especially for the quinquina, which he failed to find, observing the aborigines, and developing projects for the settlement of the uplands. Both in French and Dutch Guiana the engineer Guisan constructed numerous navigable and drainage canals, taking advantage of these works to investigate the character of the soil, climate, and local products. Stedman, an English officer in the Dutch service, turned to profitable account a residence of five years (1772-77) in the interior of the colony of Surinam. He has left us a valuable record of his travels and observations in this region, as well as an excellent history of the wars with the Bush Negroes, in which he was actively engaged. Later the gangs of convicts transported to French Guiana contributed to a i Si^mieMm{iiii a i ! , i |i n ! i,-nw,m;D » ) iii , ■ iiii i .<[ »m « m/ s-'t PROQEESS OP OEOORAPHICAL RESEARCU IN GUIANA. to a wider knowledge of the country ; for which, however, they earned the evil reputa- tion of a lund of pestilence and death. Of all the educated exiles who eventually returned to the mother country, not one was found capable or willing to prepare u work of permanent value on the lund of his banishment. After the wars of the Revolution and of the Empire the first voyages of discovery modelled on the memorable expeditions of Humboldt and Boiipland to the New World were those undertaken by the brothers Schomburgk in the years 18y5-y}). After investigating nearly the whole of British Guiana, these distinguished tra- vellers crossed the mountains and connected their itineraries with those of Humboldt and other explorers in the Orinoco basin. In French Guiana the divide between the Oyapok, Yari, and Araguari rivers had already been crossed by Adam de Baiive in 1830. Leprieur hud traversed the same regions, descending the Yari for a distance of over fifty leagues, while Gatier surveyed the course of the Mana to its sources. During the twenty years from 1849 to 1868, Appun, friend and associate of the forest Indians, devoted himself to the study more especially of the plants and animals of exuberant tropical nature in British and Venezuelan Guianas ; the geolo- gists Brown and Sawkins continued on the mainland as fur as the Faoaraima mountains the researches they had successfully carried out in the neighbouring island of Trinidad ; Idenburg occupied himself with the climatology and sanitary condition of Dutch Guiana ; Crevaux in 1876 and Coudroau in 1883 resumed the work of the Schomburgks at other points nearer to the Amazons, thus connecting the itineraries of the seaboard with those of the inland Brazilian dupes in the Rio Branco and Rio Negro basins. Since the year 1883 Everard im Thurn has been occupied with careful carto- graphic surveys of the disputed north-western territory claimed by Groat Britain on the Venezuelan frontier. Triangulations are still lacking for accurate maps of that region, but we already possess all the elements needed to lay down with suffi- cient precision the course of the ramifying streams and the relief of the mountains, bringing the details into harmony with the more scientific surveys of the coastlands and fluvial estuaries. Of the numerous publications dealing with the geographical literature of the Guianas, their populations, administration, and economic conditions, some are of great value to students of anthropology and political economy. Amongst them are the writings of Eappler and Anthony Trollope, GifEord Palgrave's Dutch Guiana (1876), and, above all, Everard im Thurn' s classical work on T/te ludians of Guiana (1883). . . Physical Features — Roraima. Between Venezuela and British Guiana the chief mountain mass, forming the natural frontier of both regions, is the superb Roraima, a square block or table of pink sandstone, which discharges from a height of 7,500 feet several cascades blown into ribbons of spray by the breeze. The whole system of mountains, col- , lectively known as the Pacaraima range, presents its loftiest crests to the west and south-west in the Upper Rio Branco basin. _ ,.^ i ■s lyywpf^ i ".-H »i ", i ni »i i 8 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. Towardu the east, tbut is, in British Guiana, few of tho peaks and terraces exceed iifiiH) feet. Hut dcMpite their moderate elevation these mountains present un imposing aspect, thanks to their sandstone walls rising hundreds of yards ver- tically above the surrounding plains, their bare white cliffs forming a striking background to the tropical vegetation which clothes the talus accumulated at their base. Iloruima is continued north -eastwards in the direction of the Ma/aruni river by other qiiadrangular masses, which present the appearance of citadels raised by tho hand of num. The regular disposition of the upper strata, level us tho surface of the marine wafers in which they were deposited, recalls the geological epoch when the now deeply eroded fuce of the land presented tho aspect of a vast uniform plain unbroken by a single undulation of the surface. The Pacaraima Mountains. Carved by the running waters into distinct sections, trending for the most part north-west and south-east, the I'aoaraima (" Basket ") Mountains gradually con- tract in the direction of the east. Here they terminate on the bunks of the Essequibo in a bold diorite bluff resembling a calabash, whence its Indian name, Camuti. The unfossiliferous sandstone range is pierced here and there by other diorite masse!). In the depths of the surrounding forests is occasionally heard a loud noise like a long peal of thunder, which may probably be caused by portions of the vertical cliffs from time to time giving way and falling with a crash.* South of these mountains, which are the highest on the Guiana slope of the Atlantic, follow other less elevated masses rising in the middle of the savannas, which appear to have at one time formed the bed of a vast inland sea disposed in a line parallel with the neighbouring oceanic waters. Cauucu, Cumucumu, Cora- tamung, and the other isolated groups, which have a meon ultitude of about 2,000 feet, formerly constituted a chain of crystalline schist or gneiss islands disposed in the same direction as the Pacaraima range. Further south other ridges of like formation run east and west between the Essequibo and the copious Takutu affluent of the Rio Branco. These eminences rise above alluvial lands, which at some i-emote epoch were also flooded by lacus- trine waters. In several places the parting line between the Atlantic and Amazonian basins is indicated by no perceptible rising ground, and, according to Brown, this low-lying divide has an absolute elevation of not more than 348 or 350 feet. One of its depressions is flooded by the little Lake Amuku, which lies on the zone of separation between the Pirara, a sub-affluent of the Tukutu, and the Rupununi tributary of the Essequibo. Hence in this region of savannas the passage from one slope to the other is extremely easy, and has been followed at all times by the Indian tribes in their migrations between the Amazonian and Atlantic watersheds. The absence of natural frontiers between the Essequibo and Amazons basins -,••■-••-■,. ■■ ' ■ . * Charles Barrington Brown, Canot and Camp Lift in Briiiih Ouiana, ^&Saim - »imm s M mi Sk. -' ~^ ' m^S f * ; ||I W.ti»l i| | |>lli( J I(l " ll l^ l l|„, l l nrt I N II 'I'l . i THE OUIANA UPLANDS. 9 uIno iirconviis for tho tlifTnreiicoH tlmt huvo itriHoii botwoon the Oovommonts of Grviit Rrifain uiul H^'ii/il rcf^urditig tlio limitH of their roH{Miii(l llio llranco uflliieiitN. The whoh) of the dividiii)^ Kuue 8Jllt«timcB tiil. 10 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. tropical vegetation ; hence the same species occur on their slopes and summits as on the surrounding plains, and their thickets everywhere present the same obstacles to the progress of the wayfarer. The winter fogs also, which creep up to the highest summits, make all observations almost impossible. Of two hundred pet.kfl scaled by Coudreau not more than three rise above the forest vegetation, so that from these alone it is possible to obtain a complete view of the horizon and to follow the outlines of the surrounding heights. Of these natural observatories the finest appears to be Mitaraca, a summit 1,900 feet high, terminating in a bare granite cone, which affords not a single tuft of grass to help tlie climber and gave him from a dangerous fall. Nevertheless, Coudreau ikr,--- Fig 3.— TuMuo-HuMAo MoxntTAiKa. Scale 1 : 3,400,000. West oP Grwifiwich . 80 Miles. assures us that the ascent and the unrivalled prospect commanded by Mitaraca is worth the journey from Paris to the Guianas." * Viewed as a whole, the Tumuc-Humac range is disposed in the direction of the east by south, parallel with the section of the coast comprised between the Maroni and Oyapok estuaries. In the western region the system develops two distinct chains separated by an intervening space of some 25 miles. In the northern chain rises the Mitaraca " belvedere," while the culminating peaks, Timotakem and Temomairem, dominate the southern ridge. Towards the east the two chains are connected by transverse offshoots, and towards the north they throw off ramifying ridges, which enclose the Maroni basin and separate it from that of the Oyapok. Farther on the eastern section of the system is prolonged in the direction of the east, without, however, forming u continuous divide between the river valleys. * £(ude de la cfiaine det monts TumucSumac ; MS. "Homoix. ':'-^r ■ '■■ 'i ^k» i!i i>miii^ »'^) mm!iiimM'fm m-- iflilr'^l' '...•Jt;,:,' .,'^ , THE GUIANA UPLANDS. 11 ks. , and aroni iBection )rmiug At their eastern extremity the Tumuc-IIumac mountaino ramify like the ribs of a fan towards the north-east, the east and south-east, but retain the aspect of distinct ridges only above the low-lying marshy tracts. About the sources of the Oyapok between these ridges the water-partings are so indistinct that the channels of the Oyapok, Cachipour, Araguari, and even of the Yari affluent of the Amazons, are all connected during the rainy season by continuous chains of meres and lagoons. These shallow expanses, however, are unnaviguble and inaccessible even to the canoes of the surrounding Indian tribes. In that section of the Guianas which is comprised between the southern uplands and the seacoast, there nowhere occur any heights forming continuous chains of mountains or hills. Here all the rising grounds are broken by the fluvial valleys into separate ridges of short length, such as the so-called " Montague Fran^aise " on the right bank of the Maroni ; the Magnetic Mountain (715 feet) towards the south-east between the Inini and Mana rivers; and the granitic Mount Leblond (1,335 feet), towards the sources of the Sinnamari. Near the shore the eminences are for the most part nieriely isolated masses of gneiss, schists, or sandstone ranging in height from 300 to 720 feet. Formerly washed by the marine waves, they are now surrounded by alluvial matter deposited in the marine waters. One line of beach after another was here laid down, enclosing the old islands and archipelagoes, which are now to be sought in the interior of the Continent. In French Guiana nothing is seen along the seaboard except a few rocky prominences on the beach or in the vicinity of the coast. North-west of Cayenne a few bluffs stand out near Mana, Iracoubo, Sinnamari, and Kourou. South-east of the capital stretch the hills of Caux, whose French nume, as spelt in the eigh- teenth century, has been altered to the English form Kaw. This range of coast hills culminates in Mount Matouri (836 feet), in the "Tour de I'lle," south of Cayenne. Mount Argent, serving as a landmark to mariners at the mouth of the Oyapok, is a mere hillock scarcely 300 feet high. The district known as the " island of Cayenne," though separated from the mainland only by a few marshy channels, is also studded with knolls representing former islands now connected by sedimentary deposits. Such are Cabassou dominating the capital, and farther east the Reraire " Mountains," which were formerly called volcanoes. The neighbouring depressions where rise the springs which supply Cayenne with water were similarly regarded as old " craters." Along the coast occur a few rocky islets, of which the most important, thanks to its deep anchorage, is the Salut Archipelago ; further east are the Enfant Perdu ; the Malingre, Pere, M^ro and Maraelles, all disposed in a chain parallel with the shore ; lastly, farther seaward, the two Conn^tables facing the mouth of the Approuague, upheaved peaks of a submarine plateau. ; Rivers of Guiana — The Essequibo Basin. The Essequibo (Essequebo), largest of all the Guiana rivers, flows entirely in British territory ; but the Cuyuni, one of its chief affluents, takes its rise beyond 12 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. the Venezuelan frontier. The main stream, like all the other watercoursea of this region, appears to bear a native name, in which the final syllable bo indicates direction in the Galibi group of languages ; hence Essequi-bo would have the sense of " Kssoqui-wards," in the direction of the Essequi. Nevertheless, Schom- burgk refers to a legend which attributes the origin of this name to Don Juan Esscquibel or Juizquibel, one of Diego Columbus's companions.* Formerly the difEerent. sections of this great watercourse bore different native names. In the coast region, where it develops a broad estuary, the surrounding populations called it the Arauaunia, while the main branch was designated Chip Wa, that is, Chip River, by the Wapisianas and the neighbouring tribes. It would appear to communicate with the upper Trombetas, an Amazonian affluent, through the Apini, a river which, like the Cassiquiare, is said to have a double incline. . Rising in the Awarriwa mountain, the Essequibo, which has a somewhat shorter course than that figured on the English maps of Schomburgk and lirown, flows first north-eastwards through the forest inhabited by a few groups of the Chiiiu and Taruma Indians. Farther on it is joined by the Yaore, which flows in a winding course eastwards through the uninhabited wilderness border- ing on the savannas. A human figure carved on the face of the rock near a cascade on the Yaore is said by the Indian boatmen to be a portrait of Schomburgk sculptured by the explorer himself, whose name has remained famous amongst the natives ; but the eflSgy is too rudely drawn to accept this legend. Below the Yaore confluence the Essequibo bends gradually round to tho north. Here its bed is still in process of formation ; the stream, interrupted by numerous rocky barriers, descends from reach to reach through a succession of cataracts. One of these, bearing the loyal but somewhat eccentric name of " King William the Fourth's Fall," long marked the limit of legitimate trading operations on the upper course of the Essequibo. None ventured beyond this point except the kidnappers who went to capture slaves for the planters of the coaltlands. Numerous affluents follow along the left bank of the Essequibo, whose basin broadens out towards the west and contracts to very narrow limits towards the east, from which direction it consequently receives only a few slight contributions. The Cuyuwini, which collects the surface waters of the western savannas, is suc- ceeded lower down by the Rupunini, which is itself joined on its right bank by the copious river Rewa some miles above the confluence with tho main stream. The whitish current of this affluent, which mingles with the black water of the Esse- quibo, offers a navigable route towards the west utilised by the native boatmen to reach the Amazons basin through Lake Amuku and the Pirara river. The only interruption to the waterway between the two systems is a single portage, Avhich is reduced to about half a mile in length during the rainy reason. During this period the flood waters overflow in both directions, on one side to the Rupunini, on the other to the slope drained by the headstreams of the Rio Branco. A great part of this district about the divide between the Essequibo and Amazons basins is occupied by savannas, which would appear to have formerly * Bobert A. Schomburgk, Description of British Ouiana. Hakluyt calls the river Detsekeie. ' • ;y » ii?^,:iv ' Wt/ i :' '< ;W; ' »ijJ i ^ i . . i ^ i ■ .luj,, hmhilj ,, j.i ii i iif rt «| | i ;M| filVERS OF GUIANA. 18 been the bed of an extunsive lacustrine depression, probably the great inland sea celebrated in legend as the Lake rarima where dwelt the "Man of Gold." A Fig. 4.— KAUixim Falls. tradition still survives amongst the natives that the bed of the little Lake Amuku, scarcely more than a flooded mere, is " entirely lined with gold." * • Gustavo da Saokov, Geographical Journal, March, 1893. r-r^"^"^ ^ <\ ^' •• jj^j. y-r^'jsr''^ '>■»'*"'' u AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. I^M< The Potaro and the Kaieteur Falls, Lower down the Essequibo is joined by the Burroburro nnd Potaro rivers, both flowing from the foothills of the Pacaraima uplands, and in their descent tumbling over numerous cascades and rapids. The Kaieteur Falls, formed by the waters of Fig. 5. — EssEouiBo AND UpFEB Rio Branco Basins. Scale 1 : T.OOO.OUO, nepth", Bapids or CaniraoU. 0to6 Fittboms. 6 to 26 Fathoms, 26 FHthoms Mud upwardi. , 126 Miles the Potaro about the middle of its course, are amongst the finest in Guiana and even in the whole world. Yet their very existence was absolutely unknown to Europeans till the year 1871, when they were discovered by Mr. C. Barrington Brown, at that time engaged on a geological survey of the British Colony. Here ■T5r«5i" Wj?Mi.''jfTi --^a-ri ■ i 4> '»'> i i , i i>ttW » "'"i ' RIVERS OF GUIANA. IS the Potaro is precipitated over an abrupt cliff 741 feet high, and at flood wafer the full is 370 feet wide, decreasing at lo.v water to rather less than half that width. During the rainy season Mr. im Thuru compares the spectacle to a vast curtain of water nearly 400 feet wide rolling over the top of the cliff, and retaining its full width until it crashes into the boiling water of the pool which tills the whole space below ; but of the pool itself only the outer margin is visible, the greater part being ceaselessly tossed and hurled up in a great and high muss of surf, foam, and spray. The floor of the amphitheatre over which the Potaro tumbles " is occupied by a waste of fallen rocks, made black by constant moisture, but capped with short, intensely green grass, except round the dark stormy pool, where the rocks are entirely bare, slippery, and black. Immediately behind the fall a huge dark cave is visible in the cliff, the upper edge of the cliff serving as a horizon to the whole scene when viewed from below." * Lower down the Potaro continues still to descend as from step to step through a series of romantic cascades. Formerly the great fall, at that time over 1,000 feet high, stood some 15 miles farther down ; but by incessantly eating away the sandstone plateau over which it is hurled down to the plain, it has gradually retreated while diminishing in height. The cornice of rocks from which the river is precipitated consists of a hard conglomerate overlying a more friable sandstone. This sandstone is incessantly eroded by the seething waters of the pool, detaching huge blocks from time to time, and excavating a dark recess beneath the over- hanging edge of the plateau. At sunset myriads of swallows, gathering from the surrounding woodlands, sweep the precipice, dart like a flash into the misty spray, and then reappear at the mouth of the cuve. Such is the rapidity of their flight that " their wings produce a hissing noise, which is not the least curious pheno- menon of this wonderful place. After descending straight down they settle for the night on the face of the cliff, by and behind the fall." t la and |)wn to rington Here The Mazaruni and Lower Essequibo. Below the Potaro affluent the Essequibo is almost doubled in volume by the contributions of the Mazaruni, which is itself joined by the Cuyuni eight miles above their common mouth on the left bank of the mainstream. Rising on the highest slopes of the Pacaraima Mountains, where it receives the streams tumbling from Boraima, the Mazaruni is of all the Guiana rivers the most obstructed by cataracts. The falls and rapids occur especially in the lower part of its course, so that, despite its great volume, this river is almost entirely closed to navigation. At the falls of Chichi, that is, the " Sun," in the Macusi language, the fluvial bed descends a total height of 890 feet (1,380 to 490) in a space of about eight miles. The last obstructions occur at the so-called " Monkey Jump," some 15 miles above the point where the Mazaruni is joined by the Cuyuni. Below the confluence of the Mazaruni, the Essequibo expands into a broad estuary, which attains a width of no less than 15 miles where it enters the sea. • Amony t/ie Iiultani nf 6utana,Tf, 6i. . -^ ■ t lb. 16 AMAZOMA AND LA PLATA. But this great expanse is broken and divided into three main navigable branches by a number of islands, whose long axes are disposed in the same direction as the tidal currents. The enormous volume of water which is discharged by the Essequibo, and which makes itself felt at a distance of some twelve miles seawards, is explained by the great extent of its catchment basin, combined with an abundant rainfall and the impermeable character of the si)il. During the winter season the upper reaches, dammed up by their rocky barriers, overflow their banks in many places, thus periodically restoring the chain of lakes which at one time existed in the fluviul valley. The Demerara, BERiutE, and Corextyne. The Demerara (Demerari), formerly Lemdrare, flows east of and parallel to the Essequibo with such regularity that it might almost be taken for a lateral channel, into which were formerly discharged the flood waters of some stream rivalling the Amazons itself in magnitude. Rising amid the northern spurs of the dividing range, the Demerara traverses the same geological formations as the Essequibo, first granite masses, then sandstones with diorites cropping out at) various points, and towards the coast broad alluvial tracts strewn here and there with sandhills from 50 to GO f£et high. Sluggish channels and backwaters ramify eastwards, connecting the Demerara with the Mahaica, a river of similar aspect, but of much smaller volume. The Berbice and the Coreutyne (Corentijn), which follow in the direction of the east, also flow in parallel courses quite as regular as those of the Essequibo and De- merara. They develop the same curves and have to surmount the same obstructions by cascades tumbling over rocky granite, diorite, or sandstone barriers. But they vary considerably in length, the Berbice rising far in advance of the dividing range, whereas the Corentyne has its source in the Curucuri mountains away to the south. The latter is already a copious stream at the point where it pierces the rocky hills, in which its western neighbour the Berbice takes its rise. In this district the Corentyne is joined on its left bank by the New Biver, through a labyrinth of i-amifying branches, and below the confluence the united waters descend to the plains through a series of superb falls and rapids. To one of these, Robert Schomburgk gave the name of King Frederick William the • Fourth, as to the corresponding cataract of the Essequibo, which lies under the same latitude, and which presents the same general aspect amid its rugged granite walls. The Corentyne develops another grand fall at the crystalline rocks of Wonotobo, where three or four branches ramifying into several chan'^ .?^« aro precipitated from a heipht of about 100 feet into a lake about a mile ».ido, from "vhich it issues in a single stream about 1,000 feet broad and 80 feet deep. Beyond this point the Corentyne is entirely free from rapids for the rest of its course of some 170 miles to the sea. But its broad estuary, studded with islands, reefs, and shoals, is of difficult access, and practically closed to vessels drawing more than 10 feet of water. l||l WtUHtltUBSSimm^t'^miw -TTTr' -4y' y. ' fw*',jw) i' w ' » r- "t t "? *' """^' f ' / ' ■ ' '*<^^^T^^•^■•; : •ii'--::-^^ '■•:■:■:■ ■■/:.■ •fv.'V" ••?'.••>•'".•.••.'.■'.: • .•:Vj«'.>;i..vw-'. • ■•. ' •. Vf ;4o 53° -40- Wwt cF Greenwich 53*10' 18 MUes. [)ng8t Izons. Lhem lasiDS \s to lAwa the of the two forks is only 650 feet above sea-level; hence in its descent through successive terraces to the coast the Maroni is interrupted by no cataracts of great height. The rocky barriers which at intervals dam up the stream, and which form so many reaches with scarcely perceptible current, have been eroded so as to form a series of natural sluices, through which the river descends in sheets of loam, small cascades, or falls of slight elevation. At the Hermina (Aramina) Falls, 50 miles from the sea, the Maroni descends a total height of 15 or 16 feet, in a distance of about half a mile. Beyond this point its course is free from all obstruction, and accessible to steamers of some size. Here the river flows between two wooded banks, 3,000 to 6,000 feet apart, and at its mouth forms a bar 16 feet deep at low water. ./ ''"•.■iiiLivQjgui 20 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. Tho rivers of FroiuOi Ouiunii followinj? the Mnroni in tlio direction of the east have their source not on the Amnzoniun wuter-piirting, but in u few isolutrd hiiln lying midway between that range mid the Hea. Of these streams the largest are the Maiia, tho Siunamari, the Approuagne, each of which is about 200 miles long, k i'lt' i! Fig. 7.— RiTBBa or thk Fbaxco-Hr^ilun Gontkstkb Zonk. Bcalt 1 : 1,600,000. West or Greenwich 50° 40' 49*4C' otoie i^ect. Depthi. , letoaa Feet. afi Feet and apwardn. : 30 Milea. traversing sparsely peopled districts, and flowing in straight courses to the coast, which here trends round to the south-east. Beyond ,hcm follows the Oynpok, whose name, applied to several other water- courses, and d>.nved from the Indian words ui/aptieti, "long river," would bo more !■';!! RIVERS OP Of XA. » »i yi i ,. i>; niy i j iii' -■*- past, iter- lore appropriiito to t)io Ainu/oiiH thiin to any olbcr South Ainoriuuii str< Like f m Muroni, t)io ( )yui)ok riios uiulur tlic iiutno of tho Souuuro in the ' niiuo*HHaL .k< Mountuins ut tho Wufugnupu I'ouk, uiid Borves us tho oustoni froi i if the uin- (liNputod portion nf Froiitih Uuianu towurcU Hru/.il. The " crooks " • or houdwutors of the Oyupok approueh tho.so ot tho Maroni, und these two rivers ciosi'ly rosenible euoh other in thtir genoral clmructor. Tho Oyapok aloo, which was usuitUy followed by travellers bound for Hrazilian Quiana, descends from roach to reach through u tiucccssion of fulls and rapids, which, how- ever, are both more numerous and higher than those of the Maroni. Coudrcau speaks of two which plunge over precipices some GO or 70 foot high, and tho Troiti Snu(8 (" Tnree Leaps ") is probably the finest in the whole of French Guiana. The Robinson Full, last of the series, lies about 50 miles frotn the sea. The Araoi'aki, Caciupoik, and Mai'a Guandk. East of the long alluvial promontory of Cape Orange, which is formed by the deposits of the Oyapok, tho whole of the triangular space comprised bctwenn this river and the Araguari belongs to the same zone of drainage. Like the Oyapok, the Araguari, the Cuchipour, the Cunoui, the Carsevenne, the Mupa Grande (Amapa of the Brazilians), the Frechal, and the Tartarugal all rise umid the marshy foothills of the Tumuc-Humac range, whence they diverge in all directions like the ribs of a fan. The Araguari estuury marks the extreme limit of the Guiana seaboard, beyond which immediately begin the waters and islands of the Amazonian basin. Gkneual Character of the Guiaxa Rivers. As in Venezuelan and Brazilian Guianas beyond the dividing range, tho rivers of Guiana north of that range differ greatly in the colour of their waters. Some, those especially of the savannas, are doudy and whitish, while others flowing from the woodlands seem black or blackish, although reully transparent. In the Esse- quibo basin the blackish hue of these forest streams is attributed to the roots and branches of the wallaba tree growing in the water along their banks. Although most of the Guiana rivers traverse continuous woodlands from the mountains to the sea, they are far less obstructed by snags than many other watercourses of the tropical regions. This is due to the great specific gravity of nearly all the arborescent species growing along the margins of the Guiana rivers. Instead of floating, the trees falling into the water through erosion or storms siuk to the bottom and rot on the spot. But on the narrow and shallow upper reaches, the tangle of branches and lianas is a great impediment to the boatmen, who are often obliged to hew their way through with the axe or knife. Here the fallen timber accumulates in barrages, the so-called tahtba of the Essequibo Indians, and the barrancas of the Brazilian refugees in the contested territory. Other obstructions are formed by massesof aquatic plantfl, like the sudd of the White Nile, which often present as effectual a barrier to the cunoe-men as the lalls and rapids themselves. In most of the watercourses * In French Guiana the term crique (=' oreek ") is generally applied to mountain torrents. '"86 k' 'I'i AMAZONIA AND LA I'LATA. the «iiii(lstoiu<, fifrttiiito, or dinritu reefs riainp; to or iiliovo tlm surfuco uro covered, iiH witli u ooutiiig of tiir, by ii tilin coiii|h)ni'(I of iron and inunguneNo oxidcN. Ah on the Orinoco, tho hurdur the ruck tliu blucker thu film, whiub in ruiny wi'utber ciniU iMxiouH odoui'H. llelovv tbo reeft und riipidt t)iu broad dei>p riverH, diitcoloured and dammed up by tbo tithtl current, roll down a yelluwiHb water often hidden beneath tloutii )f vegetation. In their h)wer rcaehoH these MtreaniH merge in tlio riversicK* niorassoN, lakes, or lagoons, which in French Guiana take the name of /tri/iiin. In the more settled und better-cultivated districts of the Dritish and Dutch neabourd thi» direction and discharge of the fl(M)d waters liuve been regulated by dykes und canals. On the plantations sluicrs uro used to arrest the tides, while the percolat- ing waters are discharged at ebb through the so-called kolccrx, or ditches. About the estuaries the fresh water of the (iuiaiui rivers flouts on the heavier ^alt wutir for a distance of six or eight miles seawards. TlIK Ol lANA LaKKS. Thanks to the uniform slope of the land, the old lakes whii formerly studded the surface of Quiuna, and whose contours muv often still be traced in those of the savannas, have nearly ull been discharged. These ancient lacu^^trine depres- sions have been best preserved in the contested Franco-Brazilian territory between the Mapa Grande and Araguiiri rivers. This iako-studded district lies back of the low-lying peninsular headland of Cape do Norte und the equally low island of Maraca. Within a comparatively recent epoch the zone of fresh-water lagoons extended much farther north all the way to the Oyapok river, and at that time all these lakes, creeks, and channels presented u continuous waterway, over 200 miles between Amazonia and French (iuiuna, navigable throughout by boats and barges. According to the officers in command of the French fort of Mapa, which was maintained during the years 1836 — 41, craft of forty tons were still able to follow this route about the middle of the nineteenth century. The Ligo Grande, immediately south of the Mapa Grande river, is now a mere fragment of the large sheet of water encircling the island on which stood the French fort abandoned in 1841, and reoccupied by the Brazilians in 1890. South und south-east of the peninsular Cape do Ncrte follow other lakes, one of which, Lake Jac, near the Carapaporis Strait between the mainland and Maraca Island, appears to still preserve the form of a spacious bay, but without shelter, hence exposed to the Atlantic storms, and scarcely any longer navigable by the native boatmen. The Lago Novo, near the Aruguari river at the southern extremity of the lacustrine chain, also resembles a marine inlet, and even affords a retreat to manatees, which here browse on the forests of aquatic plants. But it is also acces- sible to barges, which find shelter from the Atlantic gales under the lee of the insular groups which form so many transverse breakwaters. Having a depth of from 30 to 40 feet, this basin might easily be transformed to a magnificent 'iiii!^ise>,sm&iseiiie»Mi''Xsi-K'fyssmeiSfi ■■■i • l'{f '' - ?' i ^l> Ji!> ' ,(!ie8 and even shrubs strike root. These verdant carpets are f'-oni time to tinio lent by the storms and driven to the surrounding margins, licre they are soon again massed together and thickened. Thus tho lake becomes gradually filled in, or trunsfornjed to a floating (juagmiro, firm on tho surface, boggy in the l^wer depths. In a short time nothing remains of tho lagoou except tho navigable channel, tho iijanipv, or "canoe truck." Coudrcau even hazards tho theory that the lakes are emptied by a kind of see-saw movement of tho banks.* In several of the lacustrine beds have been found huge trunks, whose origin it is difhcult to explain, except on tho supposition that the hikes were at first dry land, which afterwards subsided through some sudden disturbance of tho ground. Another explanation of tho phenomoTion, however, is suggested by tho form and trend of the seaboard. Tho alluvial promontories at the Oyapok, Approuague, and Cachipour estuaries are all disposed in tho dii rtioa of the north, and in their lower course these rivers also follow the same direction, evidently under the influence of tho marine current, which deposits its sedimentary mutter along the shore. It may therefore be assumed that at contact with this current the Aruguuri was also deflected northwards, and that the chain of lakes which have the same trend are tho remains of the old fluvial bed. Tho Curapaporis Strait, which flows between ^luracu Island and tho mainland, and which is clearly distinguished by its greater depth from all the surrounding shallow basins, would on this hypothesis be tho old mouth of the Aruguari, scarcely modified since the lime when the rivcv reached the sou more to the oast. If 80 much be allowed, there would be nothing surprising in the fact that, like the Amazons, the copious Aruguari should flout down large trees and deposit them along its lower winding course, which afterwards became a system of lugoons con- nected together by tortuous channels. In the same way the marine current itself intercepts the snags washed down by the Amazons, depositing them along its muddy course, where they afterwards become eribedded in the alluvial coustlands of more recent formation. Such ligneous deposits have been found at depths of 78 or 80 feet. But however this be, great changes have been in progress even during the contemporaneous period. A mere glance at the map suffices to show that the sea- board of the contested Franco-Brazilian territory between the Araguari and the Cachipour presents u striking contrast to the section of the coast running east and west between Cayenne and the Corentyne estuary. This section develops a regular convex curve, indicating the incessant deposit of sediment by the marine * La France JEguinoxiale, Voyage it traven Us Ouyanei et VAmazonit. 24 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. current. But the southern section has, on the contrary, been deeply eroded by the marine waters ; a portion of the old shore has been washed away, and the Cape do Norte, as well as Maraca Island, are so many fragments of the ancient continental seaboard. Along the whole length of the coast of Dutch Guiana east and west of Paramaribo, the existence of older beaches may be traced by the lines of snags deposited by the marine current and now embedded in the littoral alluvia. Analogous contrasts are presented by the character of the coast streams in both regions. Off the shores of Dutch Guiana the soft mud covering the bed of the sea yields like a movable carpet to the action of the Atlantic billows, and thus tends to diminish their force. Thus the rollers gradually subside until the sea becomes quite smooth, so that vessels often find safe anchorage between the marine current and the shore while the storm rages on the high sea. About the Cape do Norte and Maraca Island, on the contrary, the tides rush in with extreme violence. Nowhere else, not even in the Amazonian estuary, does the pororoca, as the bore is locally called, roll up more suddenly, or with a succession of more powerful waves. So far back as 1743 La Condamine had already described the waters about the Araguari estuary as amongst the most dangerous for shipping. The tides, pent up in the narrow gulf on a gradually shoaling bed, rise in a few minutes to one-third of high water level ; they have occasionally been observed to rise almost suddenly as many as 5^0 or even 26 feet. The floods spread far over the low-lying coastlands, and during the spring tides, when there is a rise of from 40 to 60 feet, whole strips of the mangrove-covered beach have been swept away. These verdant islands, drifting with the current, are stranded farther north about the Caohipour and Oyapok estuaries. Even at neap tide the difference between ebb and flow in these waters is still about 10 feet. Subjoined is a table of the chief Guiana rivers between the Orinoco and the Amazons, with approximate estimates of their length, areas of drainage, dis- charge, and extent of navigable waters for small steamers : — Area of bisin Me»n discharge Length navigad Lentrtbin ID square per seoond in miles. miles. cubic font. watervi Essequibo . . 620 64,700 70,000 40 Demerarrt 175 3,000 7,2.')0 94 Berbice 325 14,000 18,000 165 Corentijn 460 23,000 35,000 70 Surinam . 300 14,000 18,000 96 Muroni 390 23,000 39,000 46 Approusgae 190 4,000 2,700 38 Oyapok . 300 12,000 26,000 46 Cachipour 320 P 8,000 14,000 60 Cnnani 175? 4,000 7,250 44 Araguari 310? 9,600 14,000 125 fK At a distance of from 15 to 50 miles off the coast flows the great marine current, which sets from Cape S. Roque towards Trinidad, Its axis extends on an average 134 miles from the mainland, and its total breadth may be esti- mated at from 230 to 250 miles. It varies in velocity with the winds, at times exceeding 90 or 95 miles a day, while at others, when retarded by the trade . ' m ii m^^is^sl i m m M jj a aMf C i atw r-- - ' . ■' >t W t " t ll l i i» f llH'^ l _ l CLIMATE OP GUIANA. 26 winds, it moves ut scarcely more than a mile an hour, and even develops lateral counter- currents and whirlpools. At such times it rises in the harbours along the seaboard like a fluviul current above the weirs. 'M ine ids Sti- les ide Climate op the Guianas. The Guianas lie entirely within the zone of the north-east trade winds. Nevertheless they are sufficiently near the equator to come within the influence of the. prevailing south-easterlies for a part of the year. At Cayenne, which may be taken as the central point of the Guiana seaboard, the normal wind, setting usually from the north-east, blows regularly from the beginning of December, and acquires its greatest force in January and February. At the spring equinox its fury abates a little, and then follows the period of calms interrupted by squalls, while in the month of July the general shifting of the atmospheric currents towards the northern hemisphere is indicated by the steadily increasing south-easterly breezes. Nevertheless, these south-easterlies, or rather east-south- easterlies, do not blow continuously ; they prevail usually at night, being replaced during the day by the land breezes. The Guiana seaboard lies entirely beyond the sphere of the cyclonic storms. The period during which the north-easterly trade winds prevail corresponds to the rainy season, which usually sets in with the normal winds, and lasts till the period of irregular breezes and of the dry south-easterlies. In March the rainfall is least abundant, whence the expression, " March Summer," which is applied in French Guiana to this relatively dry month. But in May the moisture-bearing clouds discharge their contents in cataracts, and these heavy downpours are known as the Pluies de lu Poussinihre, " Pleiades llains." On the Guiuna seaboard the mean rainfall exceeds 100 inches, and in some years the rain-gauges have registered ever 160 inches,* while Mr. im Thurn records a downpour of no less than 13 inches in twelve hours. t But the precipitation varies greatly from year to year, rising at Georgetown, for instance, from a little over 60 inches in 1885 to double that quantity in 1890. During the rainy season the temperature is slightly lower than in summer ; but it never varies more than a few degrees from the nolrmal for the whole year, which may be taken at about 80° or 8 1° Fahr. In the interior, the range between the extremes is slight, thanks to the uniform relief of the land, which presents no great elevations except in the Pacaraima uplands. But the greatest differences are observed in the distribution of moisture. Thus the rain-bearing clouds intercepted by the mountains discharge their contents in torrents on the higher summits, whereas they part with but little of their humidity on the plains, where thev meet with no obstacles. But even here the atmosphere is nearly always charged with a large quantity of aqueous vapour. At dusk the fogs spread like a vast shroud over the wood- lands, where they are often pierced by the large trees, whose crests rise above the * Riiinfall of Cayenne in 1874 : 108 inches (Maurel and Hardf). fJou>nal«/l/i*Monta(Itutitiite,lB9i—93. ^<*w4«''=^ 4* 26 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. dense bazo liko rocky islets in the midst of the sea. The plains, the headlands everything is wrapped in this damp covering, with which are intermingled the miasmatic exhalations of the soil. On the Tumuc-IIumac Mountains, where in the space of five months Coudreau made over fifteen hundred ohsjrvutions, the atmosphere is less charged with moisture tlian on the coastland^^. " Here the fogs are drier, and the night temperature falls to 16 degrees " (61° Fahr.).* Flora of the Giianas. To the irregular distribution of the rainfall must be attributed the striking contrasts presented by the flora of 'he Guianas. There are two distinct botanical zones — the savannas, or campos, as the Brazilians call them, and the primeval woodlands. But account must also be taken of various sandy and arid tracts destitute of all vegetable humus, and of other districts, where, despite the moisture, arborescent plants are prevented from springing up by the dense forests of reeds. The treelc-8 regions extend for the most part below the hills or mountains, whose upper flanks are exposed to constant rains. Thus in British Guii:ua the upper Takutu basin, sheltered from the moist winds by the eastern offshoots of the Pacaraima range, lies altogether within the zone of savannas. But certain plains in close proximity to the Atliintic coast are completely destitute of forest growths, although in their geographical position and absence of relief they closely resemble other well- wooded plains. Thus in the contested Franco- Brazilian territory the savannas, interrupted only by fringes of trees along the river banks, extend parallel with the Atlantic coast all the way from Cupe Orange to the Amazons estuary, and nearly the whole of the loner Araguari valley forms a vast treeless campo. In British and Dutch Guiana, the savannas form a narrow bolt of open ground reaching from the banks of the Demerara to those of the Surinam. The existence of these treeless tracts between the mangrove-covered littoral and the in- land forests is due partly to a local disturbance of the moist winds, partly to the nature of the soil, formerly the bed of a lake. Like the Venezuelan llanos, the savannas of Guiana present the whole series \ of transitions from a wooded to a grassy surface. In some districts the limits of the different zones are as sharply defined as those of land and sea formed by vertical cliffs. Ou emerging from the virgin forest with its tangle of lianas and parasites, the wayfarer suddenly finds himself surrounded by a sea of herbaceous growths, where the eye sweeps unhindered over a vast horizon limited in the dis- tance by a sky-line of mountain crests. Elsewhere the woodlands break into an irregular fringe of glades, distribute their trees more openlj', and lower their height, scattering clusters of wooded islets round about their verge. • Sleteorolog'icat oonditionH of the Gumna HealHinrd : — Georgetown l'Hr«mnribo Cayenne Mean Temperature. SfF. HiKhent Temperntiire. 90^ F. Lowest Tetnperutura 74° F. 79" 96" 70° 80' 92^ 72' nninjr Daya. 170 177 lOO nainfuU 119 iucho?< 140 „ UO „ FLORA OF GUIANA. 27 The aavannp also present analogous differences Some, especiuUy in the neighbourhood oi the dividing range between the British and Brazilian Guianas, are entirely destitute of arborescent vegetation, and these the Brazilians call campoa limpos, " savannas proper." But in most of the Guiana prairie lands are seen a few trees, either scattered or disposed in rows. Every winding stream has its fringe of forest growths ; every brook and gorge has its screen of Mauritia palms, regular colonnades, whose capitals are formed of 10 or 12 pendent fan-shaped leaves, the resort of whole flocks of parrots. Where the watercourses ramify into a multitude of channels, the savannas are decomposed into as many secondary prairies with intervening screens of the same palms, or of other trees, !2t Fig. 8.— Takttu Savannas. Scale 1 : S,2C0.000. 60' West oF GreenwicP< 59' eOMUei. resembling the long lines of poplars which border the meadowlauds in the Loire vullpy. ■ ^■'- .;:?;■■:'■■ -'^:v>-"^"..';' v '- /J' • -.*,- The general aspect and the vegetation of the savannas are modified with the varying quantity of atmospheric moisture or the greater or less aridity of the soil. In the neighbourhood of the sea and of the coast streams or creeks, the pripris or swampy tracts have sonfiewhat the character of the savannas proper. They dry up in summer when the ground yields a scanty growth of grasses, continuing sea- wards the surface of the arid inland prairies. In French Guiana most of these swamps take the name o( pinotih'ea, from the j:inot palms (assai or euterpe edulin), which border their margins. • «. - ,^ i S8 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. As the ground rises towards the interior, the savannas become clothed with various grasses and leguminous plants analogous to those of the European meadows. Pale green during the rainy season, tbey assume a russet or a yellowish garb in summer ; but they are for the most part destitute of flowering species. They nowhere array themselves in bright colours, nor do they emit the fragrance pecu- liar to the flowery meads of west Europe. But what they chiefly need is the aid of man in developing a more extensive growth of alimentary plants. From the re- sults of the few agricultural clearings that have been made, especially for fodder crops, some idea may be formed of the natural fertility of these regions. With few exceptions, the inhabitants contribute little to modify the flora of the savannas beyond tlie rough-and-ready process of firing the withered grasses in the summer season. The object of these conflagrations is merely to collect a few turtles amid the embers No attempt is made to improve the pastures, and on the high lands beyond the alluvial tracts, the fires have in many places consumed plants, roots and all, down to the sandy subsoil. A few arid heights, whose under- ground recesses are the resort of huge lizards, have already here and there assumed somewhat the aspect of sandliills. The fire, under the influence of the winds, is at times propagated with great rapidity, but as a rule it spreads much slower than in the Algerian bush or on the prairies of the Far West in North America. The plants, containing more moisture, are less inflammable, and the conflagration is usually arrested on the verge of the forests after devouring a few of the more exposed trees. Even in the savanna itself it spares the verdant clusters which are formed round about the springs, and which afibrd cover to the animals during the summer heats. The Guiana forests, which on the eastern slopes occupy by fur the greatest part of the whole region, belong to the Amazonian botanical world. Nearly all the species of the scka are represented in the Guiana woodlands, which neverthe- less form but a relatively small division of the continent. Instead of monotonous forests consisting mainly of one or two sociable plants, such as tho European or North American pine, spruce, oak, or beech groves, this region possesses a vegetable world characterised by the prodigious variety of its forms. French Guiana alone presents as many as 260 forest species, that is to say, 10 times more than are found in France itself. The marine current setting from Cape S. Roque along the Brazilian sea- board round to the Guianas certainly contributes its share to the distribution of the southern forms by the seeds, fruits, and branches which it casts up along the seaboard. But all the vegetable treasures of Guiana are still but approximately known, some regions not having yet been visited by any naturalists. Nevertheless, the itineraries followed by botanists already cover most of the ground. In 1872, Grisebach estimated at 3,500 the number of species described up to that date. The most widespread families are those of the leguminous type, which represent about a ninth part of all the local forms. Next to them the most numerous are the ferns and orchids. The palms, of which as many as 30 varie- ties occur in French Guiana alone, comprise about the hundredth part of the U^Jt: lea- of Ithe lely lost rie- FLOEA OF GUIANA. 20 whole flora ; but their majestic appearance, making them conspicuous objects at a distance, gives them a seeming importance far beyond their mere numbers. The members of the Venezuelan and Colombian zones, which are not found in Guiana, are mainly the Alpine plants flourishing in the Andes at altitudes much higher thuu the summits of the Pacaraima and Cuirrit ranges. At least 200 varieties of tree ferns grow on the slopes at heights of over 3,000 feet ; in a few days Richard Schomburgk discovered as many as 93 different members of this family in the Roraima district, which has been called the " Eldorado of botanists." Here the slightest difference of relief, aspect, or soil is marked by fresh forms. The bp/aria {bejaria), or " rose of the Andes," and u plant allied to Fig. 0.— FoBESTS AND Savanras of Guiana. Scale 1 : 18,000,000. ,360 Miles. the cinchona, are also represented on the slopes of Roraima. On the banks of the Essequibo the Indians make use of arrows obtained from a poisonous bamboo, which produces the same effect as the curare.* The superb Victoria regia, discovered in 1837, in the Berbice River, British Guiana, and afterwards met in many other watercourses in the Amazonian region, is an example of the marvellous beauty that efllorescence may assume in equato- rial America. In some places the surface of the lakes almost entirely disappears under a carpet of enormous leaves and tufts of white petals intermingled with other flowers, blue, pink, or yellow, and with quaking grasses. Under certain favourable atmospheric conditions, the flowers of a nymphtsacea abounding in these fresh-water basins shine with the calm glow of a night light, much less vivid • C ^. ^mvn, Canoe and Ciimp L\ft in British Ouiana, ■hJ' BV ^:r^y^' €-^''-':m^ 80 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. I?f>ii m fe'^C than tliat of tropical fire-flics and of other luminous insects, but brighter than that emitted by decaying timber. Amongst alimentary plants are tho wild cacao, several varieties of edible passion worts, wild pine-apples, some sap-yielding palms, the marantaceno from which arrowroot is extracted, the twelve varieties of raanioo, the euphorbiacea from which cassava, coac, and the so-called paiourai beverage are prepared, tho carainbola {averrhou v.), the tuka {bertholctia excc/m), whose fruit, resembling a cannon ball, and about the size of a man's hend, contains in four cells six or eight of the excellent Brazil or Para ruts. The " traveller's tree " of Madagascar is represented in the Guiunas by the rnrenala guianeum, a wild plantain with enormous leaves shooting up from near tho ground to a height of 10 or even 15 feet. "Tho bases of the leaf-stalks" sheath the one over the other, and in the pockets formed by each of these sheath- ing parts much rainwater is retained even through the dry season. Another noticeable feature in those plants is that the seeds within the tough thin shell o? the fruit are packed in a large quantity of short fibrous substance like clippings of wool, in tho Guiana species of brightest scarlet colour, but in the Madagascar plant of blue. — {Tin T/nirii.) In the coast region are met the oleaginous, medicinal, resinous, and aromatic species of Amazonia, and room might still be found for all those of equatorial Africa. The awara [nUalcn xjwciosa), a member of the palm family, yields an oil as valuable as that of the Guinea oil-palm, which was introduced into Guiana in 18C6. Other kinds, such as the carapa giii/aneiisis, whose nuts contain as much as 70 per cent, of their weight in oil, the wax-tree (rirohi sahifera), and the incorruptible wapa (faniariiicond man stands still to receive a lash from the other. They lasU each other in this way until their calves are striped with weals and blood Hows freely. The punishment is borne and inflicted with perfect good temper, and was probably originally devised as a test of endurance. Finally the dancers retire and drink together." — {[,n T/uini.) Those Arawaks appear to have been by fur the most civilised of all the Guiuna peoples, f^r they possess fictile vases of most varied forms embellished with ornaments and grotesque human and animal figures in high relief. The pottery of other Guiana tribes is extremely simple, without any decorative work beyond a few rude designs executed in thin lines. To the Arawaks should per- haps bo attributed the stone porringers met in several parts of the Guiunas, the CTcle of standing stones seen by Harrington Brown in the Pacarai(na Mountains, and resembling that of Stanton Moor, the timehri or inscribed rocks of the Ber- bice, Corentyne, and Maroni rivers, covered with figures of men and animals, especially frogs, together with other eccentric forms, some shallow, some deeply incised. Thk "Wapisianas and Atorais. Tlie Wapisianas and Atorais, who dwell about the region of the water-parting, being rarely visited by the English travellers, have still preserved their primitive type. The Atorais would probably be the losers by miscegenation with other tribes, for their women are distinguished by remarkably perfect figures and great dignity of expression. The profile of the face differs little from that of Europeans, and the complexion is almost white. According to Coudreau, many of the Atorais are no darker than the Andalusians, the Sicilians, or the peasantry of South France. On the other hand, the Wapisianas are of a browner colour, with less regular features and less graceful carriage. Like the Atorais, they have a hairless face with only a few short bristles on the upper lip and chin, while the hair of the head is very abundant. Both stxes pierce the lower lip with at least two pins, and insert another in the cartilage of the nose, to which they attach a piece of metal. This, it would seem, is the distinctive mark of the tribe. Formerly the Wapisiana girls were obliged to have the two upper incisors extracted ; but this custom appears to have fallen into abeyance. These natives wear nothing but the oalembe, the loin-cloth of the negroes ; but they pay great attention to the head-dress and other personal embellishments, decking themselves with all the beads, coins, and trinkets they can pick up. Maize is grown, but only to extract from the grain a kind of beer, called cashiri, which throws the drinkers into a state of hilarious intoxication. It is during these orgies that the young men's brides are usually carried off, marriage being still made amongst the Atorais and Wapisianas by abduction. '"*%i INilAUrrANTd ()!'' OUIANA. 8ft Liko most other Guiuna tribca, tho WupisiuimB pructJHc tho Htrango cuntom of ouuvudo. Throughout the rogiouof tho dividu butwooti tho Takutu und KsHiM|uibo bu.siuM, tiicir lunguiige has becoino tho chiuf modiutn of Iriido uud gonoral inter' eourHO between the Hurrounding groups, even those of Curib origin. Tho Atorais, or at Icust tho men, huve uhnost complotoly given up their own in fuvour of tho soft and sonorous Wupisiuna tongue, which, being highly vocalic, is well suited for oratory. Amongst the indigenous tribes connected with tho Arawuks shouhl perhaps be included tho Wurruus (Guaraunos) of l^ritish Guiuna, who luivo their camping grounds in the wooded alluvial tracts of tho north-west, and who have partly adopted Christianity. Scarcely differing from those of the Orinoco delta, they live fcing Fig. 10.— Indiaub of the Quianas. Scale I': 11,000,000. (A) Arawalu. (C)Carib«. (T) Tupi. ___i_ 186 Mile*. like them in cabins built and entirely furnished with the wood, leaves, and fibre of the Mauritia palm, from which plant they olso procure their clothing, food, and drink. The Warraus never perform any ablutions, in this respect differing altogether from most of the other natives, who take great delight in bathing. When there are any family disputes to settle, the tribe gathers on some sand- bank, where the men of all ages range themselves in two opposite rows armed with shields made of the Mauritia palm. Then all advance, each facing an opponent and watching his opportunity to spring fni ward and thrust him back. The shields now meet and clash, the two antagonists planting one foot firmly on the ground, and pushing with the knee of the other leg with might and main against his opponent's shield. Whoever succeeds in forcing the other back from his position m AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. i'. ■ I is (l((l to hiivo guiiiod tlio caso in diMputo, whicth is accordingly nettled in favour of tli(> Hide which huH proved nioftt aucccNNfiil in thin wreNtling mutch. All tho Wurniu women, siiyi? Uichurd Schomhurgk, hiivc a profoundly mid and indu8orib- ultly Hoft physiugnomy. Thk Cahihs. The Carib (Caraib) division bus reprosentufivos in every part of tho Ouiunas, and 3onio of the tribes even bear tho general name of the whole family. One of Fig. 11.— Qaubi Max. these groups is settled at Warramuri, west of the Moruka estuary, close to an enormous shell mound and other kitchen refuse, attesting a long sojourn of several centuries in the district. To these natives Everard im Thum gives the distinctive name of " true Caribs," on the assumption that they landed here on their arrival from the West Indies, supposed by him to be the original home of the race. This view is so fur confirmed by certain legends bringing them from \ihe north, while f\A\ Ifwln '"'■'11 ,.j. ^-'".ti •::;^S3r?s*Sfe:5j- - m< wc to mo I Ml A, two cent present f rivers, ni Anot have helc famous ] M •^•< IXHABITANTS OP GUIANA. 87 the Curibs themselves chiim to have desoonded from above through a hole iu the sky. But most American ethnologists look on the central regions of Brazil as the most probable cradle of the Carib race, in which case the expression " true Caribs " would be more applicable to the tribes dwelling in the interior of the Guianas than to those now settled on tlie seaboard. The Gulibi of French Guiana, who are also of pure Carib stock, and who even bear this name under a somewhat more euphonious form, have occupied Uie coast zone west of Cayenne for at least Fig. 12.— Gaubi Woman. two centuries and a half. Here they had some twenty villages in 1652, and at present some of their settlements are scattered along the Sinnamari and Iracubo rivers, and especially along the right bank of the Maroni. Another Carib people, the Calinas, remnant of a great and powerful nation, have held their ground in the Surinam valley. To the same stock belong the famous Roucouyennes of the interior, who are so named by the Creoles from the 37 '■.; i> ■:^,,-' ■ ,„!,;■:■,;■:■: ■^;^.C- -■- ■■ ■■-;■•- :f^f-t7:^~- 88 AMAZOXIA AND LA PLATA. roucou (rucu) with which they paint their bodies, but who call themselves Wayana, perhaps another form of the word Guiana. The fine Akawoi (Waika or Kapohn) Indians of the mountainous districts of British Guiana watered by the Ma/aruni, the Partamonas of the Potaro river, the formidable Arecuuas, who dwell in the upland valleys about Roraima, the Wuye- w^s of the Upper Essequibo, the Tairas of French Guiuna, laatly the Macusi about the headwaters of the Rio Brauco, all belong to the widespread Carib family, and speak closely related dialects of the same stock language. Like the Wapisiana in the dividing range between the Essoquibo and Rio Branco, the Galibi tongue has become a sort of lingua franca for all these tribes. Several Carib words, such as cai/man, toucan, and hammock, have found currency in the European languages. In general, the Caribs of Guiana are inferior in physique to the Arawaks, especially if the Atorais be taken as the type of this race. The Galibi have short, slender figures, while their round, soft, and beardless face gives them a feminine look. The Mauusi, though more hirsute, have heavier frames and more miissive figures. Like most Indians, the Roucou^'ennes look taller than they are, which is due to the length and fulness of the bust contrasting with the slight development of the extremities. The long bandages in which they wrap themselves in accordance with their hygienic ideas give them the appearance of groat corpulence. Their figures are very short, while the feet are broad and flat, and the eyelids slightly oblique, as with the Chinese. They have the habit of plucking out the eyebrows •* the better to see," as they say, but more probably as an offering to the sun.* Some of the Galibi tribes also follow the Wapisiana fashion of piercing the lower lip with bits of bone or a peg, which they keep constantly moving with the tongue, and of causing the calves to swell by means of wide garters tightly clasped below the knee. The Tupi and othek Aborigines. The Tupi, who form the third ethnical division of the Guianas, are a branch of the great Brazilian race represented by hundreds of tribal groups between the Maroni and Plate rivers. In Guiana territory the two chief Tupi tribes are the Oyampi of the Tumuc-Humac range about the Upper Oyapok, and the Emerillons, who dwell farther west between the Approuague and the Maroni affluents. Both are skilled agriculturists, raising quantities of manioc for the gold hunters, with whom they are becoming assimilated in speech and costume. But amongst the tribes of these inland regions several still survive whose lan- guage is unknown, and whom it is not yet possible to affiliate to any of the sur- rounding ethnical stocks. Such are the Oyaricoulets, who are reported to occupy the valley of the Itani, which flows through the Awa to the Maroni. According to local report — for no traveller has yet described them from personal observation — they have a white complexion, with blue eyes and light beard ; hence some writers have felt inclined to regard them as whites keeping aloof from their European * tUe Reolus, MS. Notes. ■ i w liwr fc i ili ii Bij ii n il l lcV i ll Wil ii ,»^l !li ,^4,j!, i ^i.;yi.^j i |)l- ' > ")l|>^iyiiyjw » i j i^^t TXUAUITANTS OP GUIANA. 89 kindred. Coiulreau, however, was assured by the Roucouyenuea that these Oyari- coulets were " like the other Indians." In British Guiana rumour speaks also of the fabulous Didi, a hairy race, whom all the other natives dread without ever having seen them. But in these regions, when an Indian is afraid of seeing any formidoble being, or even a rock of fantastic shape, he rubs his eyes with red pepper. Then, seeing nothing, he is happy in the thought that there is nothing more to be seen. Generai- Chakacteristics of the Guiana Indians. But to whatever ethnical divisions the Guiana Indians may belong, they have all very much the same usages. Were habits and customs to be taken as a criterion of racial affinity, many peoples of different speech would have to be classed together. Thus the Galibi, Oyambi, Emerillons, and Wapisianas, all practising the couvade, would be grouped in the same category. But such resemblances may be due rather to a common environment and like economic conditions than to blood relationship. In none of the tribes has authority been firmly established on the model intro- duced by the European settlers. Certain persons may bear more or less distinctive titles ; but for all that they are not true " chiefs " in the common acceptation of the term. Their personal qualities may ensure them great influence, but they lust not interfere so far as to issue orders. Each member of the tribe enjoys .uU personal liberty in all his movements and actions. This freedom extends even to the children, who are never punished. " Dogs alone are beaten," says a Macusi proverb. Nevertheless, the ordeals formerly inflicted on the young of both sexes on reaching the adult period were atrocious. Thus the mother suourged her daughter while father and brothers slept, and woe to her if her cries roused them from their slumbers. Amongst the lloucouyeunes the initiatory rites consisted in subjecting both boys and girls to the sting of wasps and bite of ants. The unhappy viclim-s swooned away in sheer agony without uttering a groan. To their healing and divining powers the peatmen {piai, pvyai, pearlznn, or medicine-men) are indebted for a larger share of moral authority than that of the so-called chiefs ; but even they would never presume to exercise any direct control. Perhaps the veneration in which they were formerly held should in great measure be attributed to the severe trials which they had to undergo before being considered worthy of admittance into this primitive order of priesthood. More than one of the candidates succumbed to the prolonged hardships they hud to suffer during the terrible years of novitiate. But at present the preliminary training has been greatly mitigated and curtailed. The chief instrument of the rite is the maraca, a small calabash about the size of the fist enclosing a few rattling pebbles. This maraca serves to scare the devil and, if need be, to raise him, especially when a kenaima or avenger has to be summoned in case of bloodshed. Inspired by the relentless spirit of the vendetta, the man who undertakes the duty of following and killing W, *■■% 40 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. iW the wrong-door, or, failing to find him, any of his kindred, is no longer a respecter of persons ; for the time being he has neither clan nor family ; he disappears in the depths of the forest, and does not again show himself in public until he has throttled, poisoned, or even tortured his victim. But the kenaima plays many parts, and to his malevolence are usually accredited all diseases ; henco to circum- vent him trees are often cut down and strewn across his presumed track. In some tribes, and especially amongst the Roucouyennes, the dead are still occasionally cremated, all their belongings being heaped on the pyre and con- 8umed with the body. AH travellers are unanimous in asserting the former prevalence of anthropophagy. But the chief tribes that were addicted to this horrible practice, such as the Nouragues of the Approuague valley and the Acoquas of the Tumuc-IIumac mountains, have already disappeared. Amongst the descendants of these cannibal tribes are mentioned the Tairas and the Oyampi. So recently as 1830 the Oyampi still sang the burden of the songs celebrating the old rites : " In the olden time we were men, we ate our enemies ; now like women, we eat nothing but manioc." The very word Oyampi would appear to mean " Men-eaters." But it may be confidently stated that since the close of the eighteenth century cannibalism has completely ceased amongst all the known tribes. The Caribs burnt the heart of the vanquished foe, and mingled its ashes with their drink. The largest share in the steady decrease of the native populations is taken by the warlike tribes, who have generally best preserved their racial purity. More than hiilf of the groups mentioned by the old writers have already disappeared. Nevertheless the survivors are still far more numerous than is commonly supposed. Explorers ascending the rivers often overlook the groups encamped in the recesses of the forests. The indigenous population of the Guiana seaboard, exclusive of the Amazonian slopes, would appear to still numt)er about 8,000. The Bi-acks — the Bush Negkoes. Thanks to the slave trade an African population has been introduced into the Guianas, chiefly by the Antilles route, which, jointly with the half-castes, far outnumbers the aborigines. Tistributed at first in the plantations of the coast- lands, and afterwards removed by their owners to the towns as domestic servants, the negroes have everywhere throughout this region supplanted the aborigines, who have retired before the progress of culture farther and farther into the back- woods. A stop was put to the importation of black labour in the Guianas by the abolition of slavery, first proclaimed in the French territory in 1794, and later carried out eilectively in British Guiana in 1838, and successively thereafter in tlie other ooloniea. Nevertheless a part of the overflowing black population of Barbadoes found its way to the Guianas, thus continuing the movement of African immigration by new elements under new conditions. Thousands of free Kroomen from Liberia also find employment in the timber-yards and as sailors on board the coasting vessels. But after procuring by strenuous efforts enough money to '■^l,v'-^'S^'^ '3«3*?^>J^5«K!*#_-Srs9L**E^'er*f'Tsri>»»!ra^s INHABITANTS OF GUIANA. 41 le purchase several wives, these natives of Liberia usually return to their native luud. At present the Guiana negroes form two natural groups — the descendants of the slaves who, after intermingling with the free immigrants, have always remained in contact with the white settlers on the coa«t, and the independent blacks, who live in the interior of the country. These descendants of the Maroons, or runaway slaves, who have now become peaceful citizens, reconciled with the offspring of their former masters, are universally known as Hush Negroes, the Jiosch Negei's of the Dutch, and the Negves Boeh or Nigrcs des Hois of the French. But, despite their name, these blacks do not roam the woods like wild game, but are, on the contrary, peaceful agriculturists, settled along the banks of the river, where they occupy permanent villages surrounded by cultivated lands. Negro republics have been founded in the British, Dutch, and French territories ; but the most numerous groups have established themselves in the Surinam and Maroni river basins. The first migrations took place in the year 1663, when the Portuguese Jews of the Surinam valley sent their slaves to the forests in order to avoid the poll- tux, hoping they would return as soon as the tax-gatherers* backs were turned. But the fugitives, having tasted freedom, remained in their camping-grounds. About fifty years later (1712) some French marauders having invaded the Suri- nam and Commewijne riverside plantations, the proprietors took refuge in the capital, leaving their slaves to shift for themselves. The majority joined the French in plundering the abandoned houses, and ou the return of the owners took refuge in the neighbouring forests, where they began a protracted war of pillage and reprisals with the whites. The number of predatory bands increased from year to year, and suddenly', in 1730, a formidable insurrection broke out in the Upper Surinam basin on the plantations belonging to the Government itself. The struggle lasted with vary- ing success for nearly 20 years, when the authorities were fain to recognise the insurgents as belligerents and freemen. Then followed a treaty of peace, in which the boundaries of the independent territory were determined. Other risings took place in 1757, when Arabi, a chief probably of Mahom- medan origin, defeated the Dutch planters, and in 1761 compelled the Government to agree to terms of peace in the treaty of Auca, from which the principal black republic became known as that of the " Aucan (Jocan, Yukan) Negroes." Ne.\t year another group, that of the Maroons of the Saram-jcca river, also secured its political independence. Later other communities were established, such as those of the Poligudus (Poregoedoe) and of the Paramaccas on the Upper Maroni, the Koffi, Becoes, Matrocanes, or Musingas. In 1772 Boni, the legendary hero of the Bush Negroes, led his bands nearly up to the very walls of Paramaribo. Regular war had to be declared against him, and an anny of 1,200 men despatched from Europe, one of the chief officers being Stedman, well known for his excellent work on Guiana. The war lasted several 42 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. years, during which nearly the whole of the expedition perished, scarcely 20 of ihe men returning in good health to Europe. At last an alliance with the Aucans, who had remained loyal to their treaty eiigagementB, enabled the Dutch to drive Boni back to the foot of the Tumuc-Humac mountains. As a general rule the negroes of the interior succeeded in asserting their independence, while the slaves on the coastlands about Paramaribo and the forts were crushed by the disciplined troops opposed to them. The Maroons of the West Indies, even those of the large island of Jamaica, were never able to make head against regular soldiers proceeding systematically to the general occupation of the islands by erecting forts and opening strategical routes. But the Bush Negroes of Guiana had space in their favour. They were always free to retire farther and farther towards the unknown interior, and thus escape the pursuit of their owners. Various estimates ranging from about 8,000 to some 20,000 have been made of these Bush Negroes, who till recently enjoyed absolute independence, but who are now being brought gradually under the control of the central administrations. Owing to the interminglings brought about by slavery, migrations, and wars, all memory of the original stock races has perished, and the only known fact, obvious enough in itself, is the almost pure African descent of the Maroons. Of these, the finest and most civilised are the Aucans, while the most degraded by isolation and poverty are those belonging to the Matrocane communities. But according to Gilford Palgrave, all alike present a perfectly African type. " The men are often six feet and more in height, with well-developed limbs and pleasing open countenance ; and the women in every physical respect are, to say the least, worthy of their males. Ill-modelled trunks and disproportioned limbs are, in fact, as rare among them as they are common among some lighter-com- plexioned races. Their colour is, in general, very dark, and gives no token of the gradual tendency to assume a fairer tint that may be observed among the de- scendants of negroes residing in more northerly latitudes. Their hair, too, is as curly as that of any Niam-Niam or Darfooree chief, or native of Senegal. I have heard it asserted more often than once that, by long domicilement in the South American continent, the negro type has a tendency to mould itself into one approaching that of the Indian aboriginal ; and something of the kind might be looked for, if anywhere, among the Bush Negroes of the Surinam interior. But in the specimens that I saw, and they were many, I could not detect any such modification." * Nevertheless, both Paul Levy, who has lived with the negroes of the auriferous regions, and Carl Appun, who resided many years in British Guiana, affirm that the tendency is perceptible. The colour of the skin would appear to be less black, the hair longer and less woolly. But it is not always easy to distinguish between full-blood and half-caste types, and interminglings have taken place not only between blacks and Europeans, but also between blacks and Indians. Thus the Curbougres (Karboegers) of the Cojipename river are the issue of negro • J)utoh Guiana, p. 170. 'Tl'*jS^JE *]ms;^w, ^if .yiiivyin^i" ,ijii|.u«,!;il)jl!i wi^i.. :^ '■ gA y w* ' ^'^'^"''^^' ' ' '•'" ' INHABITANTS OP GUIANA. 48 troud [that leas kuish not ihus legro fiithors and Indian mothers, and eonspquently any inferences drawn from their uppearance would be fallacious. Some few words of the African negro or Bantu dialects are said to have been preserved in the language of the Maroons, which has an English basis with a very large Portuguese element. Next in order of importance come the Dutch and French contributions, all uttered with the thick soft African pronunciation, and connected together by an extremely simple syntax. But this primitive jargon is gradually yielding to the cultured languages, English, Dutch, French, and Por- tuguese, of the European settlers. Descendants of the black insurgents, whose war-cry everywhere was " Land and Fig. 13. — Inhabitants of Guiana. Scale 1 : 18,000,000. Bugb NeRToes. Indian!, Clviliwd or DHiinilatfd. 310 M iles. Liberty," the Bush Negroes have all remained agriculturists. They grow sufficient produce for their own consumption, and also supply the towns and plantations of the seaboard with rice. But their main resource is wood-cutting, which is exclusively in their hands. They fell the large forest trees suitable for building and cabinet work, and convey the lumber to Paramaribo by the rivers and canals. They run little risk of losing this monopoly, thanks to their sober habits, by which they are favourably distinguished from the aborigines. They have, however, suffered from the demoralisation rampant in the gold-mining districts. Indispensable as boat- men on the upper courses of the rivers, they show remarkable skill in managing their coriala or curiares, and the light craft to which the English have given Ihe 44 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. nnmo of " wootl-skitis." These arc frnil canoes macle from flie btiik of copaifern pnhliflora or of /if/iixriira coiirhnri/, like tho bircb-burk cuiioos of the Huron Indians. So early as IT-'JO, the Moravian nii.isionaries bud already founded stations amongst, tbo Bush populations, but tbey have had little success e.xcept witli the Moesinga communities. From a vague reminiscence of tho teachings received during tho period of slavery on tho plantations, the negroes have retained a sort of belief in a Supreme Being, creator of muii, monkeys, and manioc, on tho whole H beneficent deity, whose wife was called Jfaria, and whose son bore the name of Ji'st Kixti. But apart from this shred of Christianity, most of the Bushmen have preserved their nature worship, and, in fact, " they believe what their mothers believed." But the fervour even of this primitive cult seems to be on the wane in most of their villages, and tho fetishes and ffddiia or effigies of tutelar animals have generally disappeared from the neighbourhood of tho white settlements. At j)re8ent tho chief object of negro worship is the ceiba or cotton-tree, that noblest forest growth of tlie West Indies, which rises in solitary grandeur in the vicinity of the settlements, its wide-spreading branches affording shelter to the community like some beneficent deity. Traces may often be seen of offerings, such as fowls, yams, libations of drink, scattered round its stem, the object being to propitiate the spirit dwelling in its branches, who is of a beneficent disposition, unlike his demon brother of the poison tree JJiari, who also finds some votaries inspired rather by fear than gratitude. No idols properly so called are worshipped, but the negroes of the more inland districts cover themselves with obeeufm or amulets of shells, bones, or feathers; such charms are even hung round the necks of tlieir dogs to improve their scent in the chase. A curious trait is the custom of bringing buck and burying with all honours the hair of those who may happen to die at a distance from their homes. These communities dwell in peace unruffled by the wranglings of rival chiefs contending for the supreme power. Enjoying an equal share of comfort, the Bush Negroes also enjoy absolutely equal rights. Nevertheless every village has its nominal headman nearly always chosen from the same family, and distinguished amongst his fellow-citizens, not by any personal authority, but by the privilege of parading on feast days in a military uniform and flourishing a gold-headed cane in public. But the chiefs in a pre-eminent sense, those of the Aucan community, bear the distinctive title of Gramman, from the English " Grand Man." The Aucan chief is allowed a respectful precedence by his Saramaccan and Moesinga colleagues, and is, in fuct, recognised as the overlord of all the Surinam Bush Negroes, though in rank and title rather than in power. His pedigree goes back to the first Aucan chief, Pamo, but in the female line, the matriarchal traditions having been preserved from times anterior to the period of slavery. The Gramman is even recognised by the Dutch Government, which, however, has taken the precaution to provide him with a European Resident under the title of Posthoudcr. This "Hf W B INHABITANTS OP GUIANA. 46 " PoHtlioldur *' wiiR formorly a simple dologute from the whites, who at lust became the chief mngistiute and arbitrator in lawsuits between private persons and in differences between the various village communities. The Qrammun of the IJoni people in French Guiuna is no longer mnch more than a civil functionary receiv- ing a regulur subsidy from the Colonial (lovernmont. Like the aborigines, the negroes, other than the immigrants from Trinidad, Uarbadoes, and Martinique, are decreasing, although the climate of the Quiuiuis appears to bo as favourable to the black race as it is unfavourable to l']iiropoan8. Miscegenation with other races raaj', to a small extent, explain this decrease ; but even amongst those living apart, as well as amongst those intermingled with the cosmopolitan populations of the towns and coastlunds, the number of deaths exceeds that of the births everywhere except amongst the Aucans. In the last century it was supposed that the Africans could never multiply in Guiana, because nearly all 'he infants died of convulsions during the first nine days after birth. This excessive mortality is attributad by Palgrave to the ill-regulated affection of the molhera for their offspring, wliom they literally "kill with kindness," which takes the form of overfeeding. liut this cause being prevalent elsewhere as well as in Guiana, some other explanation must be souglit. It would seem, in fact, that the blacks have not yet become perfectly acclimatised, as shown by their feeble resistance to such disorders as leprosy, elejihantiasis, small-pox, and many others, which commit great havoc amongst them. Those dwelling in the bush are also exposed to the attacks of the lucilia homiimora, a horrible insect pest which deposits its eggs in the ears and nostrils with fatal results. 3S, ?^ rst len len Ion his Thk Coomks— Eukopean Seitlers. After the emancipation most of the freedmen having abandoned the planta- tions either to seek work in the towns or else to cultivate their own holdings, the great lando^^ners had to seek elsewhere for labourers. French ard Dutch Guianas were too poor to import many alien hands ; but British Guiana, with its wider extent of cultivable lands, and with the great labour market of British Icaia thrown open by the Government, has engaged no less than 170,000 Asiatic coolies since the year 1845. At present this element represents fully one-third of the whole population of the English colony, the most valued being the so-called hill-coolies from the uplands south of the great Lend of the Ganges. Emigrant offices have been opened in Calcutta and Madras to meet the demands of the Demerara planters, who have also engaged a few thousand Chinese coolies. On the other hand, the Surinam • 'lanters have introduced labourers from Java, while Arabs, Annamites, and Senegal negroes have been attracted to the French colony. Even white labour has been sought, but only '.n such markets as Madeira and the Azores, whose inhabitants are accustomed to a tropical climate. These immigrants, collectively called " Portuguese," though a very mixed race, seem destined to become the true ethnical element of the Guianas of the future. They have already established themselves in several districts beyond the zone of plantations which it has taken the French, Dutch, and English some two hun- m 40 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. dred and fifry years of patient labour to reclaim from tlie swamps and woodlunds. h\(jn the whites who formerly succeeded best in Dutch (liiiaua were Jews for the most part of l'ortu r ^— ^-01^ %ii f^ V r ■■^ MONMTOWM Larata ^-, /i^^^ .:^ ^ Z I L (' A^i G U I A W A ; lV;5 'V- IrOKwIs iuT?1 .-'/ ^ \ «!;a WEW YORK, r>. Al'PLETON 8c C9 1834. Bated ouUte Usdat' liie Usu\-«rMl Of^o^t-aphy aiid other recent Docuniunla 8c«l« IISOOOUOO M^-M I U V ATN C U I A mUi«v«H«nai-«^l«natolIiJli-'*llMl mUi tt«ifio«MlbUbyihaaa«ol' Ami tyf (V .fiX'O V WtOff <» MM IMOKii • (>Tw UO.OOO InhjibiUM* • 0««r Sn.OOO 1 • On UOOO '• • OVK U CKIO •• ■ UMbr n.OOO n IX)rt>u am u txK ,.jpr l ' ' . J_ ^ ^ W S-f. ' j» i . ' I , ^PV I l ' Ktt.'l ' n li W, ' !! ' , -'«» J'ii:ii» « M i Ww ^ ijljj|)| CHAPTER II. British GriAXA. niS section of the Guianas, with its still unde'errained political frontiers, is by far the most important, both for population and commercial activity. It is usually taken for granted, without fur- ther inquiry, that this remarkable superiority of British Guiana as a field of enterprise is primarily due to the administrative genius of the English. But if this relative prosperity may at least in part be attributed to the non-intervention of the home government in local affairs, to the comparatively limited staff of office-holders, and to the continuity of the policy pursued towards the colony, it is none the less true that British Guiana also enjoys considerable natural as well as political advantages. In the first place, it possesses the largest river basin, while its chief plantations are more accessible to shipping both from Europe and the West Indies. Hence these plantations had already been profitably worked by the Dutch long before the English conquest. The cultivable zone stretches along the coast, with a good seaward outfall for drainage purposes. Consequently, numerous towns and villages have been founded and estates laid out in close proximity between the Atlantic and the stagnant waters of the interior. But in Dutch Guiana and in the greater part of the French colony the marshy zone lies on the coast, masked only by a mangrove screen from the ocean. It was easy to begin agricultural operations on the open coastlands of the British territory, and, thanks to the proximity of the West Indies, the first planters, for the most part Scotchmen, were able without difficulty to procure all the labour they needed. Since 1802, when Great Britain occupied this northern part of Guiana, which was officially ceded to her in 1814, the rulers of the land have largely profited by the neighbourhood of the West Indian colonies to favour the iinm ignition of the negroes of the overpeopled island of Barbadoes, as well as of the large island of Trinidad. Later, when the emancipation deprived the great landowners of the slaves who worked their estates, the Indian Government threw open its coolie market for the benefit of the wealthy sugar-growers of Demerara. All these circumstances secured for British Guiana a decided advantage over (he conterminous colonies, and as a natural result this very advantage brought n. i i Wyii ii 'y ti W'l' 48 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. about a better coratnerciul stiitus, a more rapid development of its industrial resources, more numerous and more active relations with the outer world. All actual progress acts as a stimulant of further prosperity. If British Ouiana is no more a colony in the strict sense of the word than are the other two territories under European rule, it has at least become a sphere of spontaneous colonisation for settlers from the West Indies and the Azores. In ordinary language, the English speak of their possessions on the South American mainland as in fact forming part of the West Indies. The North -West District. Till recently the zone of large agricultural domains was limited in British Guiana to that section of the seaboard which is comprised between the Pomerun and Berbice rivers. The north-western region, the possession of which is con- tested by Venezuela, remained uninhabited. During the early days of colonisa- tion a few Dutch settlers had established themselves on the banks of the Pomerun, the first arrivals dating from the year 1580. But they had never advanced west- wards in the direction of the Orinoco. Their plantations on the Pomerun itself were even abandoned one after the other, and about the middle of the nineteenth century the only inhabitants of this district were some Indians and negro half- breeds encamped in the forest glades. The latter are descendants of runaway slaves who had taken refuge here in 1738, and whom their owners feared to pursue ; but the Maroons on their part did not dare to remain in the vicinity of the whites, and so joined the Indian tribes. Regular colonisation in this district was first undertaken by some Portuguese speculators about the year 1 870, and since then agricultural progress has been continuous and rapid. The chief difficulty was the interruption of the communi- cations during the dry season. The itabbo or ditch connecting the Monika and Waini rivers is completely dry for six months in the year, and even during this period the alluvial lands are not firm enough to afford a footing to wayfarers in the woodlands between the two basins. At present the steamers plying between Georgetown and the Orinoco delta have brought the whole of the " north-western district " into easy relations with the rest of the colony. The new domain thus opened up has been occupied at three diflFerent points by traders and others engaged especially in the lumber business. One, lying nearest to the plantati ns on the banks of the Pomerun, stands at the junction of the waters formed by the Baramanni lagoon with the Waini river ; another at ihe confluence of the Morawhanna, which connects the Barima with the Waini ; the third at the mouth of the Barima in the Orinoco estuary. The natural and administrative centre of the whole district is the Morawhanna station, where the British Government has erected a group of public buildings, including a courthouse, police barracks, and hospital. This may be taken as a proof of the determination of the Foreign Office absolutely to ignore the pretensions of Venezuela to the north-western district, which has a superficial area of 9,400 square miles. In colonial times the nearest UUITISH GUIANA. 49 Spaiiinh slations were those on the banks of the Orinoco boyond the frontiers proponed by Great IJritain, and since then no part of the territory has ever been occupied by tlie Venezuelans. The negotiations that had been opened in 1894 with a view to the settlement of these frontier questions fell through because the Veno^••elan Government insisted on including their groundless claims to tlie nort'i-w( ,(ern district, claims that the British Government "considered to be so unfounded in fact, and so unfair to the colony of British Guiana, as not to bo proper subject for arbitration " (Lord Rosebery). The lower alluvial parts of the district comprise some of the richest soil in. Fiff. U.^NoErH-WKSTBBN DlSTBIOT, BRITISH GuiANA,. 6«ale 1 : 8,000,000. WwteF Graenwicli 59* DrpUu, otoie Vatt. 16 to 8S Feet. 32 to 160 Feet. 160 Feet and upwards. ,60 Mile*. the world. Some of the tracts that have recently been drained "now yield crops of tropical produce in simply an^azing abundance. As an illustration of this I may mention that the garden which hardly two and a-half years ago I cleared and drained for myself now already has in it avenues of trees (casuarina) over 40 feet high which I then planted. On the other hand, the higher part of the new district is being fast overrun by very successful gold-diggers." * ThK EsSEQUIBO E.\SIN QUATATA. . Despite its vast extent and the great development of its ramifying waters, the Essequibo river basin has hitherto received but a very small portion of the Guiana * Im Thum, Proceedings of the Soyal Oeographical Society, October, 1892. 60 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. popultttioiis, Tior has any centre of European enterprise Veen yet established within its limits. The region about its headwaters is occupied by the Taruma Indians, who are rarely visited by travellers, and whose relations with the colony are con- ducted through the agency of a few traders thinly scattered over a wide space. Groups of hamlets follow at great distances along the course of the rivers, especially about the portages, where the cataracts have to be turned by the boat- men. The river tratfic carried on by their means is almost entirely limited to the section of the Essequibo below the confluence of the Rupununi, although this affluont follows the natural route between the Atlantic and the Amazons basin through the Pirara depression. But everywhere the riverside stations are wide apart, and till recently they were exclusively inhabited by Indians and half-breeds, with a few black or Portuguese dealers from the distant coast towns. Neverthe- less, there can be no doubt that sooner or later the broad highway leading from the Atlantic to Amazonia will acquire great commercial importance. Meanwhile, the chief group of huts near the Pirara depression is the obscure village of Qnntata, trysting-ground of the Wapisiana, Macusi, and "Wayewe Indians, who here carry on a barter trade in hammocks, sarbacanes, and other objects of native industry, taking in exchange the cutlery, beads, dogs, and manioc rasps supplied by the European dealers. The natives have been visited both by Protestant missionaries from Deraerara and by Catholic Fathers from ^lanaos, and near Quatata are seen the remains of the little Fort New Guinea, erected by the English to uphold the claims of Great Britain to this important strategical position. The district is yearly visited by half-caste Brazilian immi- grants engaged in stock-breeding. Bartica. — Zeelandia. At the confluence of the navigable Mazaruni and Cuyuni affluents above the estuary stands the little town of Burtica Grove, or simply Bartica, at one time a flourisl.i ng mission station, till lately reduced to a few wooden huts embowered in the overhanging riverside vegetation, a recently restored church, some small residences, and a few timber-sheds. The picturesque village, with i\s avenues of tall mango-trees and tangle of flowery shrubs overtopped by groups of graceful palms, was till recently occupied chiefly by the so called "river -men," idle negroes and half-breeds, who make a precarious living on the Government timber-grants, or as boat-hands to help travellers in surmounting the numerous cataracts of the Essequibo affluents. Since 1887 the prosperity of Bartica has revived, thanks mainly to the develop- ment of the gold-mining industry in the western districts. The place is now rapidly increasing, and tends to become the chief trading centre of the colony. Chinese and Portuguese traders have already opened numerous stores for the supply of the mining populations, and the future of Bartica seems to be assured by its advantageous position at the convorgii;g point of a network of navigable waters leading in one direction up the Essequibo to the Amazons and Brazil, in another by the Cuyuni towards the Orinoco and Venezuela. ■ li>, |! ii|iji^jiyiff^i^ ; |iy. y j i uM","i i iUL ■" ■ H 'lr u. ^ n ^' iMi 'i w i fiWf'Wn BRITISH GUIANA, 51 A few miles to the west an eminence rising above the left bank of the Maza- runi-Cuyuni, a short distance above the confluence, is crowned by the extensive buildings of the penal settlement, established in 1843, and containing about 300 convicts. To prevent the prestige of the ruling race from being lowered, no English criminals are confined in this establishment, which is surrounded by a magnificent park, planted with fine trees of rare species. The man^ion of the governor, the houses of the officials and turnkeys are all shaded in an exuberant vegetation of tropical growth. The convicts are mostly employed in working the neighbouring quarries, which supply Georgetown with the granite required for its quays and buildings. Some of the well-conducted enjoy a moderate share of freedom, being allowed to seek employment in the district as carpenters, gardeners, or woodmen. A steamer plies regularly between the settlement and Georgetown, Bartica being the chief station on the route. Below the Mazaruni confluence the Essequibo develops its broad estuary, at first in an open expanse some miles wide, and lower down in numerous channels winding between an archipelago of islands, nearly all inhabited. One of these, three milos from the sea, contains the still-imposing ruins of Fort Zeelandia, which was erected by the Dutch in 1743 as the commercial and administrative centre of their colony. Each island is rounded off in a superb dome of rich vegetation, while the view is everywhere bound by a circle of arborescent growths. The larger members of the archipelago are occupied by plantations surrounded by large timber, and cultivated grounds stretch along the estuary north-westwards in the direction of the Poraerun, north-eastwards towards Georgetown, at the mouth of the Demerara. Georgetown. — New Amsterdam. The old Dutch town of Stabrock, which in 1774 supplanted Zeelandia as the residence of the governor, has acquired considerable importance since it has become the capital of British Guiana under the name of Georgetown. It is already the largest centre of population on the stretch of seaboard between the Orinoco and Amazons estuaries, and here are concentrated twice as many inhabitants as are found in the whole of French Guiana: Yet, seen from the sea, Georgetown almost escapes observation, little being visible except a dense mass of leafy vegetation overtopped by clumps of cocoanufc palms and oreodoxas. But a nearer view reveals the shipping which crowds the broad Demerara estuary, with a background of elegant white houses skirting the right bank of the river, Georgetown, which is inhabited in large majority by blacks and people of colour, extends considerably over a mile along the estuary between Fort William at the entrance and the group of villas dotted over the plains. Even in the vicinity of the busiest thoroughfares and of the quays where are stored nearly all the products of the Guianas, the houses with their verandahs of flowering creepers are surrounded by shady gardens, and each dwelling has its cistern for watering the trees and flower-beds. 'r'm, AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. Numerous urtesiun wells, sunk at distances of 300 or 400 yards yield u supjily of water slightly charged with minerals. Till recently the suhurb of Ilopduwn was almost exclusively inhabited by Chinese, and a large agricultural population is also distributed over the rich and carefully cultivated plantations which extend for great distances round about the capital, both on ihe seaboard and along the river banks. The railway running eastwards to Mahuica, ou the river of like name, has developed a large local traffic in goods and passengers. This line, 23 miles long, dates from the year 1850, being the first opened in South America ; it is to be continued towards Berbice, but is meantime the only railway in British Fig. 15.— Gboboetown. Scale 1 : 87,000. ::JJ1 Bnnks expnaed at low nater. Depths, Otoie Feet. tfl Feet and upwards. i 2 Miles. Guiana. At Mahaica has been founded a lazaretto, with accommodation for about 200 victims of leprosy drawn from every part of the colony. jyi'jT Anpitonlam, called also Berbice, from the river on the right bank of which it stands, occupies in the eastern district a position analogous to that of George- town farther west. As indicated by its name, this place is also of Dutch origin, as might almost be inferred from the numerous canals flowing between its different quarters. Although the first buildings date from the year 179G, sub- sequent changes have failed to efface the primitive aspect of the town, with its silent canals, its shady squares, and quaint houses embowered in verdure. 1 1!' f^;ryi<'&fV*W>'|y >' ^fyj;jl!f 'I'fM. ^ fM' i ^^ w«mvimmii,mjil f )^^f,,jf_j <> _ ;' .r - ,w - » \< % BRITISU GUIANA. 58 Material Condition of British Giiana. As in other regions exploited by slave labour, field operations, performed by men like machines, controlled by overseers armed with the lash or the stick, were iucomputiblc with the cultivation of any great variety of crops in British Guiana. Simple processes carried out in a mechanical way were alone possible ; hence the products of the sugar-cane — rum, " foots," molasses — besides cotton and coffee, were the only articles of export during the plantation days. Even still, despite the abolition of slavery, the crude old agricultural systems linger on, and land tenure has undergone no change, large domains still everywhere prevailing. Only the gangs of black slaves are now replaced by contract labour, though the Hindoo coolies have to conform to the same old rigid methods of routine work. A single estate on the left bank of the Demerara comprises as muny as d,GOO acres, and yields 5,500 tons of sugar, employing altogether 3,730 coolies and f reodmen. The administration, however, has. at last discovered that it would be unwise to dispose of the remaining unallotted lands in great domains. With a view to attracting settlers, efforts are being raadi^ to create a numerous class of small free- holders by limiting to 50 acres the lots granted to new arrivals. The Sugar Industry. As in the slave days, sugar continues to be the staple crop. About half of all the cultivated land is under cane, and this single item represents on an average over nine-tenths of all the colonial exjiorts. Thanks to the fertility of the soil, improved processes of production, and the excellent quality of the sugar, the Demerara planters have hitherto been able to hold their own against the tierce competition of the European beet-sugar growers. But to maintain their ground they shrink from no necessary outlay. While utilising the upheaved strip of coastlands, they have encroached on the sea itself, by the construction of an ex- ceedingly costly system of dykes, which at the same time serve as roads. The land has been cut up by a network of canals and trenches, by which the surface is drained, while facilities are afforded lor the transport of the cane. The soil is renovated by a liberal employment of chemical manures, and the mills have been provided with the most improved machinery and general plant for crystal- lising the sap to the best advantage. ' The cane, containing on an average 17 per cent, of sugar, is thus made to yield as much as 16 per cent., whereas by the old processes of crushing scarcely one-half could be extracted. The best " Deme- rara " commands on the English markets prices far higher than the product of all other sugar-canes. It is also exported to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and other British colonies, and, despite the heavy protective tariffs, it competes successfully with the sugars of Louisiana and of Cuba in the United States markets. The Demerara rum, which is greatly inferior to that of Jamaica, is exported chiefly to Great Britain ; while the Georgetown molasses are highly appreciated in the French Antilles. • ' ' . • ' The Berbice coffee plantations, which formerly yielded a choice variety of the berry, have now been almost everywhere replaced by cane ; in fact, the shrub is 88 # 54 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. scurccly nnywherc vnot except in gardens and in the Hmall negro holdings. Next to sugar the chief prwluct of IJritish Quiana at present is lumber, which is cut by the Purtamona and Calina tribes on the banks of the Essequibo above Bartica and in other fluvial valleys south of the plantations. These Indians are closely related to the Gulibi who dwell on the banks of the Muroni about the Franco-Dutch frontiers. In late year? the trade in fruits, cucounuts, and bananas has acquired some importance, and, despite the distance, might compete with the fruit trade that has sprung up between Central America and the United States. The Guiana fruits, especially the bananas, have a delicate flavour fully equal to those of the West Indies, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. TuADE — Apministkation. Altogether British Guiana has a mean annual export trade of about £8,000,000 in sugar and other products of cane, timber, cabinet woods, and fruits, to which in late years have been added gold dust and small diamonds collected on the banks of the Barima and Cuyuni rivers and in the alluvia of the coast streams in the north-western district. " In 1884 the gold exported was only 250 ounces from the whole colony, and this had increased in steady and natural ratio in 1891 to 101,297 ounces. From the Morawhanna river, from which the first gold — 129 ounces — was obtained only in November, 1889, 2,836 ounces were obtained in March, 1892. It should be added that though the metal as yet obtained has been got by means of such primitive instruments as the battel, the tom, and the sluice from the alluvial mud, there are already signs that the more serious enterprise of quartz-crushing will soon be entered on." * British Guiana imports provisions, machinery of all kinds, textile fabrics, and other manufactured wares chiefly from England, and to some extent from the United States. Georgetown is now connected by regular lines of steamers with Great Britain, the West Indies, and Canada. Till the year 1831 Demerara and Berbice constituted two distinct colonial governments, as they had under the Dutch rule. Most of the laws and local regulation J had been maintained, and numerous traces still survive of this system. The polit'cal power is almost exclusively in the hands of the governor as repre- sentative of the Queen. He is assisted in his administration by a " Court of Policy " composed of the five chief colonial officers, and of five members chosen by the Court and the two presented by the notables, who form electoral bodies num- bering altogether 2,046 in 1893. To the Governor and Court of Policy are also entrusted the legislative and executive functions. But in determining the rate of ts.-ses the Governor has to consult six financial representatives, who form, with the osher Government officials, a " Combined Court." The colony is still administered under the Dutch civil law, modified by various decrees and ordinances ; but the '•riminal law has been con- formed to that of England, though the jury system has not yet been adopted. • Im Thum, Froe. R. Geo. Soe., October, 1892. :^f i ^ ' Mfr^<:^|%/ l 'i| ; *)^>.?«y^g»V.IJ;;^ imrTiHii our ANA. j^ Tho 80-cullod '•Rhenish " scale of weights and measures still prevails on the banks of tho Demerara, although abolished in Holland itself. The police comprises a few hundred men, while the military garrison num- bers about 300 soldiers, drawn from the West Indian black regiments. The Church of England, which is tho national church, has a hierarchy of one bishop, with a number of rectors and curates supported by tho llritish Oovernmenti which also subsidises the Presbyterian and Catholic Churches. In 1801 about 28,000 children, or one-ninth of the whole population, were receiving regular instruction in the colonial schools. The annual budget usually balances itself, while the public debt amounted in 1890 to £200,000. The colony is divided into the four administrative districta or counties of the North-West, Easequibo, Demerara, and Berbice. "1 . I •: 1^ CHArTER III. DUTCH OUIANA. HE Dutch, who were the first settlers in Britioh Giiiuim, laid the fuundatioiiH of the prosperity of thut colony to the benefit of their English rivals. Whut they huve preserved of their old possoH- sions is of fur loss vnluo than what they have lost. Surinam, as they call their present colony of Quiana, has scarcely one-sixth of the population grouped round Demenira, in the British possi'ssions, while its trade hardly amounts to onc-Hfth of the commercial transactions curried on by the neighbouring colony. The economic crisis following the abolition of slavery in 1803 involved numerous plantations in utter ruin, and vast stretches of cultivated land reverted to the solitude of the savannas and woodlands. The population even decreased by emigration, and several years of decadence elapsed before the first symptoms of a slow revival became manifest. At present the population is on the increase, though this is due to the arrival of a few Indian coolies. The planters are gradually resuming possession of the land, but are for the most part devoting their attention to economic plants different from those cultivated by their predecessors. As in British Guiana, the inhabited and cultivated zone forms but a small part of the whole territory. It comprises the coastlands between the outer belt of bush and mangrove swamps ana the inland savannas. But even in this cultivated zone there are numerous gaps occupied by scrubby and marshy tracts. NiCKEUIE — GrOXINGEN. Nickene, the westernmost district, lying east of the Corentyne and its estuary, is but thinly settled, and the population is still very slight. At the beginning of the nineteenth century some planters and traders established a colony at the headland close to the confluence of the Corentyne with the River Nickerie on the right bank of the estuary. The site seemed favourable, and the settlement increased rapidly. But in less than two generations the very ground on which the quays and buildings had been erected was swept away by the Atlantic waves y>,: i >. '«! f fi yi ' j-r - -i-.-' - . »1>- ^ iil| , i , IIW ip III 1^1* I " H IM " IIH ^ , DUTCU GUIANA. fi7 continuully oncronching on the luiid. The inhabitants, dishourtunod and coni- jH'licd to rotrout conatuntly towards the interior, at lust disporsod, and nothing rcmuined except a little group of cottages at the entrance of the estuary. According lo I'ulgravo, the rapid advance of the sea at this point is duo to a subsidence of the laud, and not, as the rosidents supposed, to a change in the direction of the winds and currents, giving more force to the breakers. This observer sfjeuks of " a broud, triangular space of shallow water, lushed into seeth- ing waves 1)V wind and current, whore, a few feet under the surface, lies what was onco tlie busy area of populous streets. Meanwhile the breakers, not content with the mischief already done, continue ceaselessly tearing away the adjoining land bit by bit. lliglit in front a largo house, left an empty shell, without doors or window-frames, by its fugitive inhabitants, is on the point of sinking and disappearing among the waters that, unopposed, wash to and fro through the ground floor. Close by the victorious sea has invaded the gardens of the neigh- bouring dwellidgs, and will evidently soon take possession of the buildings thern- selv( ■<. Farther on a few isolated fragments of what was once a carefully constructed sea-dam rise like black specks among the yeasty waters, and the new earth- wall built to protect what yet remains of Nickerio has a dospondinp, makeshift look, as if uwuro that it will not have long to wait for its turn of demolition." * Oroiiinijcii, another colony of which its promoters had great expectations, hos proved even a greater failure than Nickerie. It was founded in 1843 near the Suraraacca estuary, and peopled with Frisians carefully chosen for the purpose of introducing " white labour " into these equatorial regions. But the enter- prise met the fate that invariably overtakes all such experiments. Of the 384 settlers about one half were dead within six months, and most of the survivors had to remove to the neighbouring plantations. Several have prospered as artisans and gardeners in Paramaribo, but Groningen itself has all but disappeared. It stood about midway between Paramaribo and Batavia, which lies a few miles to the south-west on the right bank of the Coppename estuary. Here is a lazaretto, where the patients are maintained by their friends and families. But the village lies too near the settled districts, and another leper- house is to be established on the right bank of the Upper Surinam in the unin- habited district of Grand Chat''l!on. Nowhere are the ravages of this loath- some malady more destructive than in Dutch Guiana, especially among the blacks and people of colour. In 1893 nearly a thousand were said to be tainted. "!l m Paramaribo. Unlike Ge)rgotown and New Amsterdam, Paramaribo, capital of Dutch Guiana, does not lie on the sea coast. In this region the form and character oi the seaboard has required the towns and settlements of the plantations to be established in the relatively dry zone, which is traversed by the coast streams flowing parallel with the strip of swumpy mangrove-covered foreshore. Para- • Duleh Ouiann, p. 17. 86 AMAZONIA AND LA I'l-ATA. ijaf"' innribn is a Fn-iicli foundiitioii dating from tho year 1040, w'l < 'oine rofugco« from Ciiyonno built u littl« fortalico on tlio spot wlioro now Mtand > i '.'t jtt'lii kUk, on tl>e left Imnk of tliii Surinam juHt aJkJVo its estuary. IVn y^ar» later L' nl Willoughby of I'lirhuin raisud the place to tho dignity of a capital, and whoii it NOon aftor panHcd into tho hands of the Dutch, it beoumo the admiuiHtrutivo oeutre of their Surinam possossionH. Puramaribo, which is an Indian uamo and not a corruption of Tarham, stands on a terrace of shingle, coral, and shells at tho point whore tho rivor describes a 'ii I: Fig. 10.— Pabamaribo anh Subinax Estuabt. B«nU 1 i 880,000. Bandi exposed at low water. Depths. otoie Feet. 16 Feet nnd upwards. . 6 Milei. curve round to the east before its junction with tho Coramewijne at the head of the estuary. It has the aspect of a tropical Amsterdam, and, despite the difference of materials, its wooden houses painted grey recall the more substantial brick structures of the Dutch city. Some Government buildings, such as the Govern- ment palace, the synagogue, and a few churches impart an air of importance to this somewhat old-fashioned town. Being well kept it is by no means an unhealthy place, although the atmosphere, unrefreshed by the sea breezes, some- what resembles that of a hothouse in Kew Gardens. ,'v;-i;''yfs)itfi95r.fsrtt,'3i ' Jj>.J,| i v T -ip|^ i iy i yiHBf| i » i i|. W f i i »t | y >i, ^niwij,ui i| i„y ii i ' j.iy i uH i > ' 1 1 I I DiJTrri ourANA. RO Puranmribo Ih nonn to bo coniioctfd by ruil witb tlio forliUi rivorHidcdiHtriiitM in tht) Sarumacca vull«y. 'I'bo approucthim from th«» Huuuro (loiniiuiiidctl hy Fort Nieiiw Amtfcniiim, which occupies u ntratogicul position of vital iinportaiico at the ('oniini>. wijni! conHut'iico in full view of tho »>.sluury. Kasikkn Sktii.km knts. Kast of Paramaribo the banks of tho Commowijno and Cotlioa rivers wen- lined with an uninten^upted 8ucco8»i(m of ganhtnH and plantutiouR, wliich uro \ow partly abandoned, while mo8t of them have changed bandfl. Hluck descendants of tho old slaves have become the owners of many a domain which ut one time depended on some great Dutch landed estate. Tho villago of Sommvlndi/k, com- manded by a pentagonal fort at tho junction of tlio two stronms, rccallH tiic name of the famous Dutch governor, who was himself owner of one-third of all the colonial plantations. Home 50 milen above Puramaribo on the Surinam river, are soon the ruins of a synagogue and of a group of cottages at a place called Joedvn Sfuaiir, "Savanna of the Jews," which preserves the memory of tho Portuguese and liOf^horn Jews, who, after their expulsion from Pernambuco, took refuge in Guiana and oHtablislicd themselves on the banks of the Surinam in l(i4l. Tho wiiite population is still largely composed of Israelites, who control the money market of Paramaribo, and supply the colony with most of its professional men — doctors, lawyers, and judjjes. During the eighteenth century these Somites had their own administration of justice, at lea)st for all cases heard ih tho lower courts. During their religious feasts also they, enjoyed the privilege of immunity from arrest or legal prosecution of any kind. The left bank of the Maroni on the French frontier is very thinly peopled. Here the scattered groups of cabins nearly all belong either to the Galibi Indians or to the descendants of the Maroons, now universally known as Bush Negroes. The western streams are inhabited by u few communities of Bovianders, that is, half- breeds sprung from Dutch fathers and Indian mothers. Natural Resources. During the slave period, sugar was the chief crop in Surinam, as in British Guiana. But the planters, unable to resist tho crisis following on emancipation, abandoned most of their large estates ; hence the colony even now possesses only a small number of sugar mills belonging to wealthy capitalists, who have pro- vided them with plant and machinery as completo as those of the Georgetown factories. A single proprietor employs as many as 1,580 hands, negroes, Hindus, Javanese, and Chinese. The cultivation of the coffee shrub, which had formerly acquired great iii.por- tance, producing about 6,000 tons for the annual export trade, was neglected to such an extent that the colony had to import tho coffee required for its own consumption. This industry, however, has been revived with fair prospects of permanent success since the year 1883, when some speculators introduced the / vrt:>- :|: ii: mi: Wm 60 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. Liberian plant, which thrives admirably in the Surinam territorj', better even than in Java itself. In the north-western districts some attention has been paid to the bnhitn, a plant which has been called the gutta-percha of Guiana. Cotton is no longer grown, being entirely supplanted by cacao, the staple product, the cultivation of which requires little care. Although the cacao tree produces nothing for eight or ten years, after that it yields a certain and regular harvest. Asa rule, the large plantations, whose products f( ed the export trade, enrich the country less than do the smull holdings, in which the negroes and peasantry of various races rai?e provisions, vegetables, fruits, and especially bananas. An experiment in communism has been carried out on the Oiivericaclit estate, which is Fig. 17. — CXTLTIVATED ZoNB, DlTTCH GulANA. Scale 1 : 4,000,000. 57' . West of. Greenwich^ m\ f«Kiiiib] H<) CulttTated Lan'ls. Lands tmnted to Gold Slinera. ml Savanoas \m Virgin FureaU. Sand and BbeU Mounde. jointly held by a colony of 300 negroes, engaged in husbandry and the lumber business. In Dutch, as in British Guiana, ihe gold industry has lately acquired some importance. Diggings had already been carrie' on for some 20 years in the French territory, when the Dutch Government had the affluents of the Maroni explored, and here the precious metcil was discovered by the prospector. Alma, in 1874. Since that time further discoveries have been made in the upper valleys of all the rivers, and especially on the banks of the Awa, the tributary of the Maroni recently awarded to Holland. The yearly yield of gold has steadily increased without having yet reached the sura of £IG0,000. At first the auriferous sands alone were washed; but ;'!j^' ijy.iR'^ ;»V3s/'v ' . ' tiW^ ' j ! Ti ; ?.;': DUTCH GUIANA. 61 recentlj'^ the miners have ascended the valleys, and have beg i to attack the primitive rocks in which the mineral is embedded. Thus the mining industry has rapidly become one of the important branches of the colonial industry, which had hitherto been limited to a small number of products. With a view to the development of the gold-mines, a road 50 miles long has been opened between the Surinam and Maroni rivers. !\ i i Administration. Despite certain empty parliamentary forms, the colonial government enjoys absolute authority. The governor, named by the Crown, is also president of the " House of Assembly," comprising 13 members, of whom he nominates four. The nine others, elected for six years, owe their nomination to notables enjoying an income of at least 40 florins. The governor proposes, and, if .he chooses, disposes. Should his advice be rejected, he puts in writing the reasons of his dissent from the delegates, where- upon the majority has to consider the matter settled. Instruction is obligatory for all children between the ages of seven and twelve, and in 1887 nearly 5,400 pupils were attending the 48 public schools. The annual budget amounts to about £100,000. Dutch Guiana is divided for administrative purposes into 16 districts with variable circumscriptions. But all decentralised or provincial administration can be no more than nominal in a country whose capital alone contains more than half of the entire population, excluding the Bush Negroes, who are not com- prised in the census returns. The German Government is said to entertain the idea of purchasing Dutch Guiana with the view of converting it into a penal settlement like that of French Guiana. I u',j.ww» 'i miw.i i aiw !T^«Pi CHAPTER IV. FRENCH GUIANA. Fkench Guiana Phoper, ERE French Guiana increased by the addition of the contested region extending from its recognised frontiers southwards to the Ara- guari estuarj', it would equal the British territory in superficial area ; but in respect of population, trade, industry, political and social life, no comparison is possible between the two colonies. Of all the French possessions beyond the seas not one has prospered less than Guiana. Its story cannot be told without a feeling of humiliation, and the example of this territory is usually chosen to show the incapacity of the French as a colonising people, as if the country had ever been a colony in the strict sense of the word. No really spontaneous stream of immigration has ever been directed from France to Guiana ever since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when some French freebooters, roving the seas, established a few ports of refuge or refitting stations at favourable points along the seaboard. All who, during the last 250 years, have landed on these shores between the Maroni and Oyapok estu- aries, have come either as colonial officials and soldiers, or else in gangs of slaves and hired labourers, or even in convoys of criminals and convicts often of the worst type. Essays at C•». •. 0»« .*• • 0. ••■.«'• ! • •. 6* ,♦. • r-*^9^^^^ •••*•.• •••■•'•• -•;.•: t-'/.*:" ■'■'■ .•• •• :'• :-v.: \l/ pT , ""^ ■ — " • -■ ' — .-: • ■ ■ • 1 j^-AA West or GreeowicK 53"50' Depths. Otoie Feet. 16 Feet ■nd upwards. SmilM. than once notoriously unhealthy districts were assigned to the exiles ; tribunals which shirked the responsibility of pronouncing sentence of death were thus none the less able to call in its aid, and " the dry guillotine " became the popular name of Cayenne. • JuleB Ider, NuUs itatittiquti tur la Ouyatu franqai$t. '■4 '':f.\yYi ;''->''i^'-<: ..\.-'^^\ 64 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA, Such a by-word easily enough explains the repugnance felt by all freemen for .i. region, which nevertheless is not cursed with the deadly climate attributed to French Guiuna by the popular fancy since so many wretched victims of sen- tences of transportation began to be cast upon its shores. The very failure of the frequent attempts to colonise the country had the natural consequence of causing much indecision in the plans of the central government, as well as in the activity of the local administrators. Few oiRcials enter on their functions in Cayenne without forthwith yearning to return to their native land. Being merely " birds of passage," they can take but slight interest in a region which they hope soon to quit. But without attaching themselves to the land, they may perhaps be tempted to distinguish their administration by some ambitious scheme at variance with those of their predecessors in office, and calcu- lated to enhance their reputation in high places. Thus the affairs of the colony are managed in a shiftless way without a con- tinuous policy, as needs must be in a territory which has seen thirty-four governors replace each other since the middle of the century. Hence whatever real pro- gress is made in French Guiana, either in an increase of population or in the development of its natural resources, must be attributed, not to the administration, but to the slow ferment working spontaneously in the mass of the aboriginal elements increased by a few immigrants from Martinique, some Bush Negroes from Surinam, Portuguese and Brazilians from the conterminous regions. But on the other hand, the introductiua of Hindu coolies has been made without system or humanity. Of 8,372 engaged in the prime of life, 4,5'i2, more than half, perished within 22 years (IHijG-TS), and of the whole number only 67-) were restored to their native homes. Co X VIC r Stations — Man a . The basin of the copious River Maroni, which separates French from Dutch Guiana, is inhabited in its upper and middle course only by a few scattered groups of Indians, negroes, and gold-hunters. The first white settlements are seen some 38 miles above the estuary, and even these are nearly all occupied by convicts. Free colonisation in this district is represented only by a few plantations which were granted to some Algerian Arabs after their discharge from detention. Saiut-Jodi), which lies farthest up the river, has the advantage of railway com. munication with the cspital of the penal colony ; but the surrounding district is marshy and unhealthy. Saint-Laurent, a little lower down, also on the right bank of the Maroni, is better situated, and here reside the directors of the penal station. The cabins of the Negro, Arab, and Annamite convicts occupy the sunny glades of a densely-wooded park not far from the cemetery. Opposite Saint-Laurent stands the village of Alhina, the only settlement founded by the Dutch on the left bank of the Muroni. In Portal Inland, a little higher up, is situated the most important plantation in French Guiano, occupied mainly with the production of roucou. .p5»?;- ' ■i ^ ^|| | ^^^^;^'^: ^ ^fpf r:'^ ^^ pff^T'Vf^.r^rirty in'ui M«y^ ■'I'VliJ.V;' ', FRENCH GUIANA. 66 The Mana river, which follows the Maroni in the direction of the east, has its little comtuune of Mana, named from the river, but the other coast streams, such as the Organebo, the Iracubo, and the Counaraano, traverse almost uninhabited dis- tricts. Mana recalls some essays at colonisation, which were carried on with great vigour and perseverance. The enterprise was undertaken by a religious sister, Madame Javouhey, with, a rare display of determination almost indepen- dently of Government control, although aided by the ofRcials. With the help of the sisters of the community, of numerous hired labourers, and several hundred slaves, she founded various establishments, plantations, asylums, schools, a general hospital, and a lazaretto. The present village of Mana is regarded as one of the most salubrious in Guiana, and was formerly the " rice granary " of the whole colony. SiNNAMARI — KOUROU. Sinnaman, originally a Dutch settlement, founded near the mouth of the river of like name, has become famous as a place of banishment. In 1797 and 1798, after the Royalist conspiracy of Fructidor, over five hundred suspected were transported to this place ; of the 329 landed by the Charente, 171, more than half, rapidly succumbed to their hardships, despair, and disease. But far more disas- trous had been the attempt made to colonise the district in 1763, when about 13,000 emigrants from Alsace, Lorraine, and Saintonge were landed on the banks of the Kourou, some thirty miles east of the Sinnamari. Friince had just ceded Canada to England, and Choiseul, who with his cousin, de Praslin, at that time ruled the Monarchy, decided to replace the lost territory by calling Guiana " Equatorial France," and despatching thither fleet after fleet of colonists. Even some players were included for the purpose of amusing the future " Guianese " in their hours of relaxation. In memory of Canada they were provided with skater, but the provisions were forgotten, and no arrangements were r.'iade for landing and housing the settlers, while the Clievalier de Turgot, who had been appoint«d leader of the expedition, remained in France. Even during the voyage the jnhuppy victlron were decimated by the plague, and on the banks, of the Kourou famine carried off those spared by typhus. After at least 10,000 had perished miserably, a few hundred survivors at last succeeded in getting back to Saint-Jean d'Angely, the port from which they had sailed.* A coffee plantation belonging to the Government marks the spot where most of the " colonists " had succumbed to their miseries. A few critical remarks on the colonising genius of the promoters of this scheme cost Fr^ron six months in the Bastille. Farther east the district about the Kourou estuary was also the scene of some colonising experiments. At present some convicts are engaged on the plantations ; but the Kourou penitentiary is a mere dependency of the three Sahd Islands belonging to the neighbouring penal establishment. Saint-Joseph and the Jle Boyale form the convict station proper, reserved for dangerous subjects, or for * J. Mourie, la Guyanefran^aiu. ■5 4 ■m m fim. ii'i.'itiii Til \*i,xi .riiiiiii 00 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. f'i . such as are placed under special control. Vessels of large size find good anchorage under the shelter of the Salut Islands. Cayenne. Cayenne, which appears to take its name from an old Indian chief, is one of the earliest settlements in Guiana. The island on which it stands was occupied Fig. 19.— Cayenne Island. Soalo 1 : 20U,U0O. Wect or breer\\icK 52' IJ' 52-15 • OtolO Feet. Leptlie. 10 Feot, and upwards. SMUes. ill IG04 by a party of Frenchmen under the leadership of the Norman, La R:!,vardiere, who had been commissioned by » trading company of Rouen. The first immigrants, as well as the Dutch Jews and others who followed them, had wi«" ? *&■■'"" !•*:. ^mi*:' •.■r""'*'T"wv;''^- L FRENCH GUIANA. 07 settled at the foot of the Eerairo Hills some distance to the east of the present town, which was founded at the little fort of Saint- Loiiin, but did not become the permanent capital of French Guiana till the year 1877. Cayenne is comparatively speaking ii large place, containing 10,000 inhabi- tants, or about one -third of the whole population of the colony. It is laid out in the usual American chessboard fashion, with streets at right angles and shady squares on a peninsular space at the foot of the verdant Ce|)erou eminence at the north-west extremity of the island. The adminiatrativo and Government buildings, hotels, barracks, and prisons occupy a large part of the town, which is encircled by parks and magnificent avenues of palm-trees. Being well exposed to the Seabreeze, Cayenne would Fig. 20.— Cayenne. Scale 1 : 30,000. S?*I9' vWest op Gremwlch 52*18- to8 Fvet. DtpthR. 8to6 Feet. tttolO iieet. to Feet and upwordif. . 1,100 Tarda naturally enjoy a healthy climate but for the canals in the environs, which often get choked. A supply of water is brought by conduits from a neighbouring height fed by the Rorota rivulet. By far the greater part of the population consists of negroes, chiefly descendants of the freedmen who flocked to the place after the emancipation of 1848. But all the other races of the colony have their representatives in Cayenne. Most of the domestic servants are Creoles from Martinique ; th6 booths and stores are chiefly in the hands of Chinese hucksters, while the fish markets are supplied by natives of Annam. The harbour is accessible to vessels drawing 14 feet, but it is partly exposed, and the shipping has occasionally been wrecked by high tides occurring in rough weather. A lighthouse has been erected on the Enfant Perdu, a rock at the northern entrance. Formerly gardens and plantations abounded in the environs of Cayenne, '^IT' 08 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. cflpocially ult)n^ the oanuir and in the eastern parta of tlio isltind. Tiio Jesuits possessed rich coffoo pluntutions at the toot of the Iloiniro hill, and Gafirielle, on the mainhmd south-east of the capital, was oven ut one time famous for its spices. During tlie first years of the Restoration the cloves of this estate yiehled a revenue of £1(),0()() in favourable years. But at present all the old cultivated tracts have reverted to t)io fiti*to of bush, and nothiuj; is now seen except here and there a few coffee and cacao shrubs run Fig. 21. — Mouth of the Oyapok. Scnlu 1 : 1,100,000. Depttts. otoie Feet. 16 to 82 Feet. 32to6« Feet. 64 Feet and upward*. .18 Miles. wild. The island is traversed by some carriage roads, one of which, 11 miles long, runs to the so-called Digrad den Cannes, a landing stage for the little steamer which plies on the Mahuri creek as far as the village of Roura. Farther on, that is, always to tho windward of Cayenne, flows the Kaw river with a settlement of the same name, beyond which follows the Approuague, famous for its auriferous alluvia. It was in the valley of the Aratai, a western affluent of the Approuague, that gold was first discovered in this basin by a 1^ ■■ ^ ''iM^^l^^I^j^i •T , ff V""'^ 7 »'l!« l ' | lT ^^ ' |J> l !'y ^' w « Hy| l l^' ' wmK:^^^ ^ ^yJ^ ' g. ^ . '"' ^v^^f . ' ■'■y W i '' <^ ' '! '' !'j ' iw' FRENCH OUIANA. OU nriiKiliun ntimed PuiiHno in the yeiir l8o5. Since then hoth the Appniuiigiie und the Upper Maroni goldHrhlH Imve yiehled ii continuous supply of the precious metal to the miners. On the count between the A[)pr(mague and Oyapok estuaries the so-calh'd Montatjue tVAryviit {" Silver Mountain "), u little cminonco 2VA I'eel high, also recalls some old minin"^i^-^ ^jn:.:::: ^ :. Gold Mloea (Placers). «6i . 2A0 Milea. explored by prospectors, banks of the stream. Nothing was found except a few particles along the Natukai, Resources. — Tuadk. In French Guiana are found all the products of the tropical zone, but none in sufficient abundance to support a large export trade. In 1890, after half a century of agricultural decline, not more than 9,400 acres were under cultiv&,tion in the whole colony, and of these fully two-thirds were devoted to the production of provisions for the local consumption. Sugar, coffee, and cacao represent altogether a total annual crop of not more than 100 tons. The so-called hatte^i or nieiKfffen'er (cattle farms, farmsteads), contain very few cattle, and in 1890 the 3P 70 AMA/(1NIA AND I,A I'f.AfA. ^^i' ^■1! wliolo colony poHsosHcd only lilW woody, l)adly-l)ri'd horsfn. Of liornod mttio, which Hucceod bust, there wore over ({,()()(), and ubout the fiiini<< number of pigs, boHides thonc running wild in tho wondH. A few hundred shco]), gouts, aascs, und niulos complete the list of livestock. The industries, properly Ho-cullod, iir(> in ii rudimentary stiite, being limited to u few tiifia (course rum) diMtillerioH, Home suw-mills, und other Bmiill cstublishmonts. Tho largest industrial operations uro those connected with auriferous cpuirtz- crushing. Hut the yield of gold has gradually fallen off since lH7o. In that year the registered return rose to about 4, *)()() pounds, valued ut £'227,000, to which, perhaps, half us much more should be added for the pilfering^ ut the works and for the njold smuggled ubroail. The iron or-'s, which abound in some districts, have novo; y^vn worked. Despite certttln st'itonients to the contrary, tho trade of b'rcnch Guiana is certainly greater ut present thun it was before tho devolution. The yearly exchanges with tho rest of tho world average from i'o^O.OOO to £720,000. The imports greatly exceed the exports, most of the merchandise brought into the colony being destined for tho convict staticms and tht garrisons, which produce nothing in return. At present the whole of tho shipping falls below 100,000 tons, but it is steadily ii. creasing, thanks to tho greater facilities of cominunicu- tion enjoyed by stoumc -s over suiling yssels. Cayenne is couuectod by a regular line of steurasliips with Murtinique und France by tho Surinam and Demeruru route. Smull steamers ply on the cous. , und a telegraph line 200 miles long con- nects Cuyenne with the Muroni. A" ;iSTRATIOX. Although French Guiana pos :soj a general couuijil of 16 elected members, of whom seven for Cuyenn' and also nominates a deputy to the French Chambers, the population is too small and tho army of ofBcials too strongly organised for tho absolute power of the governor to be checked by this initial measure of local representation. Under the direct orders of tho governor are tho military com- mander, (he heads of tho naval forces and of the marine, the director of the interior, tho procurator-general, the head of tho penitentiary department. All these functionaries constitute his privy council, to which, as a matter of form, are added three of the inhabitants whom he chooses, and whose vote he can always depend upon. But even were the whole council in opposition, the governor might still defy them, and even manipulate the annual budget, not to say expel any refractory members. Except during the elections, the Moniteur Ofliciel, issued weekly, is the only journal in the Colony. In a word, the penitentiary system of adminis- tration may be said to mould civil society itself. After the Coup d'Etat of 1801, the transportation system was introduced by special decree, and is now the sole motive for the maintenance of French rule in Guiana. The first convoy of condemned criminals arrived at the Salut Islands in 1852, and by the year 1867 over 18,000 had been despatched to the various 'Jf»litM