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 South American Life 
 
 BY 
 
 MANY WRITERS 
 
 ;■;;■ 
 
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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Bancroft Library 
 
 Univer$'ty of Californls 
 
 WITHDRAWN 
 
South American Life 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF PAST AND CONTEMPORARY 
 CONDITIONS AND PROGRESS IN 
 SOUTH AMERICA . 
 
 Edited and Arranged by 
 
 ETHLYN T. CLOUGH 
 
 Published by the 
 
 BAY VIEW READING CLUB 
 
 CENTRAL OFFICE, BOSTON BOULEVARD 
 
 DETROIT. MICH. 
 
 1912 
 
b^ 
 
 Copyrichted. 1912, 
 BY 
 
 JOHN M. HALL 
 
^ — '/ or Lolitornia 
 - VvlTHDRAWN 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 OUR apology for presenting this book is not that 
 so little has been written about Latin America, 
 but that so much literature on this wonderfully inter- 
 esting country exists that it is practically impossible 
 to get in concise form, and brief enough to be of use 
 to a student, the important information necessary to an 
 intelligent understanding of the subject. 
 
 Many books have been written about South Amer- 
 ica — some of them by enthusiastic tourists who may 
 have stayed but a night in each of its fascinating old 
 cities, and have filled in their impressions thus formed 
 with information gathered second-hand from other 
 books and marvelous tales. Other volumes have been 
 written by conscientious investigators like the late 
 William Elroy Curtis, who prepared for his newspaper 
 and magazine articles so much informing and inter- 
 esting material about the countries of Latin America, 
 more purely descriptive, however, than the student 
 cares for. And still other volumes have been written 
 by authoritative and long-time residents, which, while 
 they are all that can be desired in the information they 
 afford, are usually on a single Republic, in which the 
 writer happens to have spent his life; and to get a 
 comprehensive knowledge of all the Latin American 
 Republics, one would have to read many books. 
 
 It is the object, therefore, in compiling this little 
 volume to gather together from this bewildering mass 
 
 SIM 
 
4 PREFACE 
 
 of literature all that is best of the past and present of 
 South America, and to give some idea of its impor- 
 tance in the history and progress of the Western 
 Hemisphere. 
 
 We have thought of no better method in the ar- 
 rangement of these chapters that we have gathered 
 together, than to supplement, if this vv^ere possible, the 
 excellent book furnished the students of this course by 
 the Honorable Mr. Bryce; and to go v^ith him down 
 the Pacific Coast, around the Cape and up the Atlantic 
 Coast, pushing somewhat into the interior and dwell- 
 ing more in detail, than has the author of South Amer- 
 ica, on the history, geography, government, and man- 
 ners and customs of the people, leaving the education, 
 art, music, and literature of the country to be devel- 
 oped in the magazine articles that will portray on a 
 broader canvas the Latin life of our sister continent. 
 Some of these chapters have been especially prepared 
 for the book, while others have been gathered from 
 reliable sources, and a key-letter at the end of each 
 refers the reader to the last page of the book where 
 due credit is given. Liberty has been taken to revise 
 and correct the material to date, to eliminate unim- 
 portant matter, and to edit the whole in the interest 
 of a smooth and harmonious fabric. 
 
 Ethlyn T. Clough. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I PAGE 
 
 Introduction 7 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 The Geography of South America 17 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 Fragments of History 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Wars of Independence 50 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Geography of the Isthmus 68 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Panamanians 80 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Events Leading to Independence 92 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The Mountain Republics 110 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The People and Their Increase 133 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Peru's Growth and Government 146 
 
 5 
 
 \ 
 
6 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Chilean Conditions 161 
 
 CHAPTER Xn 
 Argentine Types, Manners, and Morals.... 175 
 
 CHAPTER Xni 
 Life on the Pampas 187 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 Venezuela and the Venezuelans 198 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 South American Characteristics 213 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 Thr Two Americas 226 
 
South American Life 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IT is a significant fact in the world's civilization that 
 the entire Western Hemisphere consists of a group 
 of republics, twenty-one in number, the most impor- 
 tant, of course, being our own United States of North 
 America, the remaining twenty forming what is gen- 
 erally known as Latin America. Eleven of these 
 twenty are South American republics, and it is with 
 them that we shall directly deal in this volume, 
 South American Life. 
 
 Discovered almost at the same time as its southern 
 sister, in the last decade of the fifteenth century, the 
 northern continent has progressed in many ways diver- 
 gent with the progress of the southern continent. In 
 all that has been written of the two continents, only 
 one reason has been given for the great development 
 of the one, and the retardation, in many ways, of the 
 other, and it is this: "North America was settled by 
 men who came to the New World seeking liberty; 
 South America was exploited by adventurers hunting 
 for gold. Our colonists cleared land, planted l>lds, 
 and established homes; when the time came to sepa- 
 
8 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 rate from the Old Country, they had a stable society, 
 an adequate political system spontaneously developed, 
 and a familiarity with self-government that had been 
 preparing from the time of the Magna Charta. 
 
 "South America was discovered and conquered by 
 an unbridled lust for gold. Whether it was the ag- 
 gressions of the English on the Spanish Main, or the 
 Dutch and French near the Amazon, or of the Portu- 
 guese in Brazil, or of the Spanish on the Rio de la 
 Plata, in Chile, Peru, or Panama, practically the only 
 motive actuating the colonists was the desire to exploit 
 or to despoil the territories they discovered, and with 
 their booty to hurry back to Europe, there to enroll 
 themselves among the rich and to become part of an 
 idle aristocracy. 
 
 "The civilization of the Incas was destroyed, and 
 this industrious, skilled people — adapted to their envi- 
 ronment, capable of attaining a level we only can guess 
 at, once acquainted with the civilization of Europe — 
 annihilated. All that they had done perished with 
 them, and the new owners of the land had to begin at 
 the beginning. When Bolivar and San Martin fol- 
 lowed the lead of Washington and Latin America 
 threw off the yoke of Spain, its people had had no 
 training in self-government, nor even in useful indus- 
 try, and their ideal was still the antique and romantic 
 one of the intrepid warrior and successful conqueror. 
 This was the seed. The harvest has been reaped all 
 these years in revolutions and more wonderful wars 
 for independence than we ever dreamed of. A conti- 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 nent can not be plowed and resown like a cornfield. 
 Education, immigration, the gradual infusion of saner 
 ideals and more stable blood — 'it is a long, discouraging 
 task that earnest Latin Americans of today are wres- 
 tling with, one in which they ought to have our appre- 
 ciation and sympathy, and to be able to bestow these 
 we must first have a knowledge of the situation." 
 
 In no way can we better come to an understanding 
 of our relations and our duties to our sister country, 
 and in no way can we have a better introduction to our 
 study than by quoting the racial contrasts, the moral 
 contrasts, the progress and the local differences that 
 Mr. Albert Hale points out to us in the introduction 
 to his recent book. The South Americans. 
 
 Mr. Hale says that "we should not allow ourselves 
 to think that we are altogether virtuous, nor that the 
 Latin races are altogether vicious. If we are practical 
 and progressive, if we recognize the gain to the human 
 race by modern industry and commerce, if we have the 
 skill and energy and knowledge to make two blades of 
 grass grow where one grew before, they have a poetry, 
 a sprightliness of imagination which we lack ; if we are 
 solid and rationally hospitable, they are cordial and 
 spontaneously hospitable, and they have preserved a 
 kindliness in their social intercourse which we might 
 well emulate. If the Anglo-Saxon idea of the home is 
 one that seems to come closest to the ideal, we should 
 not forget that certain phases of the home life in 
 southern Europe and South America are very sweet, 
 commendable, and worthy of admiration and emula- 
 
10 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 tion. If our restlessness of spirit leads us to the assump- 
 tion of new duties and to an expansion of interests 
 which exhaust our energies and foster discontent with 
 present conditions, their lack of it, which we are apt to 
 call laziness or indolence, helps to preserve the poetry 
 of life, and often tends to a peace and happiness for 
 which we sigh. 
 
 "We have not much to boast of in the way of 
 superiority, either morally or commercially. Although 
 the average North American business man is faithful 
 to his obligations, so also is the average South Amer- 
 ican, as the credit system of English and German 
 exporters bears steady witness. In the main, our 
 moral standards are higher, even if we do not live up 
 to them, but their business dealings are honorable and 
 fair. In the domestic virtues they are equal to us, 
 and their sacredness of family ties is unsurpassed. 
 The women of the upper classes are as good wives and 
 mothers, according to their light, as women in other 
 parts of the world; they have a horror of divorce, 
 partly because it is anti-Catholic, and partly because it 
 is contrary to their conception of the marriage sacra- 
 ment. Among the lower classes illegitimacy is com- 
 mon ; but if we give credence to the disclosures of the 
 working-people in our large industrial centers, the lack 
 of illegitimate children does not by any means imply 
 purity. There is a vital distinction between morality 
 and virtue, and the problem with us is the same as it 
 is with them, except that the Latin American man has 
 no conception of chastity. 
 
* INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 "They are superior to us in one respect. Undoubt- 
 edly the sense of beauty, the appreciation of what is 
 artistic, is far more highly developed with South 
 Americans than with us. It is hard to find in their 
 countries ugliness in extended form. Utilitarianism, 
 such as characterizes our activities, is but a flickering 
 factor in their life ; admiration for northern ways and 
 customs is spreading, but as a race or nation they 
 can not sacrifice their artistic tastes to such an extent 
 as to tolerate ugliness, even if thereby a material gain 
 is effected. Growing out of this is another condition 
 in which we must acknowledge our inferiority. I 
 mean the admirable condition of their municipal af- 
 fairs. Their cities, as instances of urban life, are 
 much better than ours. The Spaniards and Portu- 
 guese, following their innate love of beauty, always 
 selected for settlements sites that can not be sur- 
 passed for their natural attractions. The City of 
 Mexico, Panama, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, even Monte- 
 video, bear witness to this; but when their cities be- 
 came more than mere temporary stations for shipment 
 or commerce, when, within the last generation, a grow- 
 ing population demanded a municipal expansion, this 
 popular love for harmony and beauty was never vio- 
 lated. Today the cities of South America are pleasing 
 and inviting to the eye. The contrast between them 
 and our own cities, both as to location, use of natural 
 advantages and financial organization, shows against 
 us very unfavorably. 
 
 "Their two great points of inferiority are material 
 
12 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 development and public education. Where they have 
 vast unexplored tracts of land, fertile and fat, waiting 
 only for human activity to produce food for millions, 
 they have neglected their duty to mankind and left the 
 soil untouched; whereas we, with restless energy and 
 even extravagance, have eagerly utilized our open 
 spaces, and have so yielded to this impulse that we have 
 pushed ourselves into the position of one of the fore- 
 most nations of the earth, and occupied, within little 
 more than a century, an area equal to that of Brazil. 
 The development of our educational system is the re- 
 sult of our intellectual and moral ambitions, and while 
 it may not be perfect, it arouses the admiration of the 
 world and is undoubtedly the foundation-stone of our 
 democracy. Education in South America means al- 
 most entirely culture for the upper, the aristocratic 
 class, and superficially imparted elements for the lower 
 laboring class. 
 
 "And lastly, where we often come together is on 
 the plane of political corruption comprised in the 
 shameful but expressive term of graft. That we are 
 better than our ancestors is possibly true, but that 
 we are better than our neighbors will be a difficult 
 task to prove. Corruption has been the birth-mark of 
 Latin politics since the Christian era; it is nearly as 
 prevalent today as it was when Ferdinand drove out 
 the Moor, but it is not worse today than it is with us. 
 The saving factor in our government is our natural 
 morality — 'the simple honesty among the people, and 
 our genuine, deep-rooted, but sometimes forgotten 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 respect for the law. Crimes we commit with startling 
 frequency, but we are glad when the law is enforced 
 and we hope to see it obeyed. In South America there 
 is the redeeming fact that political graft satisfies itself 
 by a charge of two or twenty times the cost of the 
 work done, but they usually insist that the work be 
 done honestly and according to the best obtainable 
 specifications. The codified laws are, however, far 
 above the heads of the common people; they may be 
 afraid of the law, but they do not understand it; it 
 is artificial and often transgresses their instincts. 
 And, moreover, they have not what I have called a 
 moral sense. Yet any accusations of corruption 
 which may be laid at their doors can, with equal jus- 
 tice, in the light of our recent investigations, be laid 
 at ours. A few ofiices in our own national govern- 
 ment — president, cabinet members, and supreme court 
 judges — are surely impeccable, but the same can not 
 be said of every country in South America. 
 
 "Are there, then, any factors which are tending to 
 modify these evident differences? I am sure there 
 are. The adoption of steam and electricity is general- 
 izing ideas and habits, so that an improvement in one 
 part of the world is soon appreciated, understood and 
 adopted in another part. We accept European ad- 
 vances in physical and mental comforts and luxuries, 
 and the South American, with increasing momentum, 
 is accepting those which come both from Europe and 
 from us. Even the lower classes are no longer iso- 
 lated. But beyond that is the newer fact that they are 
 
14 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 absorbing some of the same blood that we have, and 
 that onto their Latin stock is engrafting a vigorous 
 branch of Northernism. They are no longer purely 
 Iberian or Lusitanian. The invasion of outsiders is 
 not going on so "rapidly as it did with us, but it is 
 undeniably evident, and not many generations will be 
 needed before a vigorous mixed race will push into 
 the background the pure-blooded Latin who can not 
 stand the pace. This migration and intermingling has 
 two great causes: the desire to escape into a republi- 
 can form of government, and the age-old impulse to 
 make use of virgin land. 
 
 "There are three principles of government polity: 
 The completely republican, such as we represent and 
 such as is, constitutionally at least, represented by the 
 independent nations of the Western Hemisphere; the 
 limited monarchy, of which Great Britain is the con- 
 stitutional type and Germany the military and bureau- 
 cratic type; and the autocratic monarchy, of which 
 Russia is the chief example. And the genius of each 
 of these principles is at work constructing South 
 America, as we shall see before we have finished this 
 volume. 
 
 "Of equal importance is that phase of modern ex- 
 pansion in which the land question plays an all-power- 
 ful part. With the areas of China, Japan, and India 
 overcrowded ; with the mutterings of what we call the 
 Eastern peril, it is easy to observe that, besides Africa, 
 uncertain areas of Australia, and the newer fields of 
 western Canada, there is no other continent capable of 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 offering virgin soils to the exuberant and rapidly 
 growing discontented dwellers of the Qld World, ex- 
 cept South America." 
 
 On the western slope of the Andes are Chile, Peru, 
 Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia, which may be called 
 the mountain republics. Their chief industries will 
 be those, such as mining, in which is demanded a 
 minimum of human and a maximum of machine labor. 
 They have untilled fertile land, but not enough to 
 draw great immigration, and it is to a noticeable ex- 
 tent already occupied by native races who were im- 
 pressed by the stamp of the Spanish conqueror, al- 
 though there is so much original blood that they can 
 by no means be compared to an Old World peasantry. 
 These countries on the Pacific Ocean offer no attrac- 
 tion for the European statesman who dreams of an 
 American sphere of influence; they are isolated by 
 the lofty Andes, by thousands of miles of water; but 
 they will soon be made easily approachable to us by 
 the completion of the Panama Canal, so that they will 
 develop along American lines with eagerness if we 
 treat them fairly. 
 
 For three-qiuarters of a century we have led this 
 victorious army of republics, and for even a longer 
 time than that our influence has been felt. But it is 
 evident that there are to be new and closer relations 
 between the two continents of the Western Hemi- 
 sphere, and in order to make the most of these rela- 
 tions we must learn more about our southern neigh- 
 bors; we must study their ambitions and their pros- 
 
16 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 pects and put much of the leaven of brotherhood into 
 our dealings with them. We must give a more vital 
 interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, that we may 
 be enabled to stand more firmly between the South 
 American Republics and the unscrupulous aggressions 
 of Europe.'* 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 PERHAPS a fact not generally known is that South 
 America is greater in area than North America, 
 and is situated to the east of the Northern Hemi- 
 sphere. If you are on Fifth Avenue in New York 
 City, the line which your eye takes looking down the 
 hill towards Madison Square, were it continued far 
 enough south, would hit South America near the west 
 coast of Peru. Practically all of the continent is east 
 of such an imaginary line, and from this point to 
 Cape St. Roque is as far as from New York to San 
 Francisco ; from Cartagena in the Caribbean to Punta 
 Arenas in Patagonia is as far as from Key West to 
 the North Pole. There are nearly half a million more 
 square miles within these extremes than in all of 
 North America. 
 
 Between the "twin continents," as the northern 
 and southern sections of the Western Hemisphere 
 have been called, the transitions are everywhere so 
 gradual that it is not at first sight easy to say where 
 one ends and the other begins. But when the question 
 is studied on a large-scale map, we see at once that the 
 true natural limits are laid down, at the northwest 
 extremity of the southern section, by the Gulf of 
 Darien, which formerly penetrated much farther in- 
 
 17 
 
18 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 land than at present, if it did not even present a free 
 waterway between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. 
 
 So obvious are the points of resemblance between 
 these divisions that they strike the eye at first glance. 
 Both present the same rough, triangular shape, with 
 base inclined from northwest to southeast, and sides 
 of nearly equal length converging to the apex south- 
 wards. In superficial extent there is little difference, 
 the northern triangle scarcely exceeding the southern 
 by one-eighth, while a surprising parallelism is pre- 
 sented by the general relief, the disposition of moun- 
 tain ranges, tablelands, plains, and fluvial basins. To 
 the Rocky Mountains and Central Sierras correspond 
 the Andean Cordilleras, both running close to the west 
 coast, and ramifying at intervals into two or even 
 three branches, which enclose vast plateaux often of 
 great elevation. Indeed, the resemblances are here so 
 striking, and extend to so many secondary features, 
 such as active and extinct volcanoes with extensive 
 lava fields and other igneous matter overlying sedi- 
 mentary formations, that a unity of the orographic 
 system from Fuegia to Alaska is suggested. 
 
 On the Atlantic side the correspondence is main- 
 tained by the Alleghanies in the north and in the south 
 by the Sierra de Merida, the Sierra de Mar, and the 
 Brazilian highlands. In both continents, the western 
 and eastern mountain systems enclose boundless cen- 
 tral plains — prairies, savannahs, llanos, pampas, wood- 
 lands — which are traversed in much the same direc- 
 tions by a few fluvial arteries rivaling or surpassing 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH AMERICA 19 
 
 in volume, length, and drainage area the great rivers 
 of the Eastern Hemisphere. With two important ex- 
 ceptions — Mackenzie and Yukon — the outfall is to the 
 Atlantic, recipient also of so many running waters on 
 its eastern seaboard. Thus Churchill, St. Lawrence, 
 and Hudson trending east and the Missouri-Missis- 
 sippi with a southerly course, find their exact coun- 
 terparts in the Orinoco and Amazon on the one hand 
 and the Parana-Paraguay on the other. 
 
 But these analogies, which lie somewhat on the 
 surface, are perhaps more than balanced by the con- 
 trasts, which are in some respects of greater moment, 
 and on the whole more favorable to the north than 
 to the south. Foremost among these is the position 
 in respect of the poles and the equator. Here the dis- 
 crepancy is enormous, sufficient in fact to constitute 
 the southern division mainly a tropical country, and 
 the northern mainly temperate. To be sure, much of 
 North America seems to lie within the Arctic Circle, 
 or near enough to be called Arctic. But the absolute 
 area of this section, consisting so largely of archipel- 
 agos with extensive intervening water-surfaces, is 
 less than is commonly supposed, and is amply compen- 
 sated by the bulging out and consequent great average 
 breadth of the continent in more favorable latitudes. 
 
 But the very opposite is the case of South Amer- 
 ica, where the bulging takes place about the equator, 
 with a consequent excess of heat and moisture, and 
 where beyond the tropic of Capricorn, the land tapers 
 so rapidly southwards that but a relatively small area 
 
20 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 is extra-tropical. Here only a fraction of the southern 
 continent would be suitable for European settlement 
 were the tropical heat not tempered by the great ele- 
 vation of the Brazilian and Andean uplands, and by 
 the moderating influence of sea breezes from the 
 Atlantic. Owing to these favorable conditions the 
 general climate of South America is more equable 
 and cooler by several degrees than that of the African 
 continent. Thus the isothermal line of greatest heat, 
 which runs from the isthmus of Panama mainly along 
 the seaboard to Cape San Roque, intersecting the 
 equator at the Amazon estuary, ranges from about 
 80° to 82" F., while the temperature of the corre- 
 sponding heat zone on the east side of the Atlantic 
 normally exceeds 86° F. 
 
 Other important consequences, also to the advan- 
 tage of the north, follow from this general latitudinal 
 position of the twin continents. During the glacial 
 epochs, whether simultaneous or not on either side 
 of the equator, a fairly warm temperature must have 
 at all times prevailed in inter-tropical South America, 
 with the result that the running waters suffered no 
 serious arrest, but continued their natural process of 
 development without interruption except in the sub- 
 arctic lands of the extreme south. 
 
 Hence on the Chilian coast and in Fuegia alone 
 are found those peculiar fjord-like formations which, 
 as in Scandinavia and Greenland, are due to the 
 grinding action of glaciers or frozen streams. Else- 
 where the rivers have excavated their beds down to 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH AMERICA 21 
 
 their natural levels, and in so doing have drained 
 nearly all the old lacustrine basins and effaced most 
 of the falls and rapids which formerly abounded in 
 many districts. Cataracts still survive in the Colom- 
 bian and Peruvian Andes, on the Parana, the Madeira 
 and elsewhere ; but all the large lakes have disappeared 
 except Titicaca and the still periodically flooded Mojos 
 basin about the Amazon-Parana water-parting, at the 
 northern extremity of the old Pampean Sea. Even 
 Titicaca, though still an imposing sheet of water, is 
 little more than a highland loch compared to its vast 
 dimensions in Secondary and Tertiary times. Colonel 
 G. E. Church tells us in his Geographical Journeys 
 that "geological examinations show that Titicaca was 
 once one of the large lakes of the world, and that it 
 has slowly been drying up." 
 
 How different from all this the picture presented 
 by the northern continent, where glacial action attained 
 a greater development than in any other part of the 
 world, where the ice-cap, thousands of feet thick, 
 advanced and retreated more than once over vast areas 
 millions of miles in extent, and where icebergs in great 
 numbers are still annually discharged from the Green- 
 land and Alaskan glaciers. Hence the mighty streams 
 held in their icy fetters till far into the Pleistocene age 
 have not since had time to arrive at maturity. They 
 still tumble over some of the grandest falls on the 
 globe, and have left undrained great lakes of the 
 Laurentian basin and many others strewn over the 
 Canadian Dominion, while the seaboard is so finely 
 
22 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 diversified with fjords, gulfs, bays, and other inlets 
 that it presents 26,000 miles of contour-lines compared 
 with 19,000 miles of the somewhat monotonous South 
 American coastlands. 
 
 Practically the South American coasts, always ex- 
 cepting Chile, Patagonia, and Fuegia, have no wind- 
 ings or inlets beyond the relatively insignificant Gulfs 
 of Darien and Venezuela in the north and Guayaquil 
 on the west, with the still smaller bays of Rio de 
 Janeiro and Bahia on the east side. The few other 
 indentations are not marine inlets, but great fluvial 
 estuaries, which by the deposits of silt are being 
 slowly transformed to deltas like that of the Orinoco, 
 or else converted into alluvial plains like that of the 
 Rio Colorado. Formerly the lower reaches of this 
 Pampean stream presented the aspect of a very large 
 estuary running over one hundred miles inland, 
 though still greatly inferior to those of the Plate and 
 Amazon, which are amongst the most typical and ex- 
 tensive of such formations in the world. 
 
 There is also a remarkable absence of islands or 
 insular groups. South America showing in this respect 
 a close analogy with the two other great Austral lands. 
 As South Africa has its Madagascar and Southern 
 Australia its Tasmania, so the southern continent of 
 the Western Hemisphere terminates in Terra del 
 Fuego. The few insular groups in the Caribbean 
 Sea should either be grouped with the West Indian 
 system or else regarded as almost still forming part 
 of the mainland. And now, keeping these compari- 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH AMERICA 23 
 
 sons in mind, let us go more into detail regarding 
 South America. 
 
 The southern continent extends from about 12** 
 North latitude to about 55° South, and from about the 
 35th meridian west of Greenwich to about the 80th. 
 Its area is estimated at 6,837,000 square miles, or 391,- 
 000 square miles greater than that of North America- 
 
 Along the west coast, from Panama to Cape Horn, 
 runs the wall of the Andes, separated from the Pacific 
 by a comparative ribbon of land and varying from 
 fifty to several hundred miles in width. There are 
 mountains in eastern Brazil, but these are so low, 
 comparatively speaking, that the continent may be 
 said to slope eastward from the Andes to the Atlantic 
 Ocean and the Caribbean. In the Andes is the highest 
 land in the Western Hjemisphere, supposed to be Mt. 
 Aconcagua, about 23,000 feet. Many other Andean 
 peaks are over 20,000 feet. The highest navigable 
 lake in the world is Titicaca, which is situated at an 
 altitude of nearly 13,000 feet, on the boundary be- 
 tween Bolivia and Peru. 
 
 The principal rivers are the Amazon, which trav- 
 erses nearly the entire breadth of the continent and is 
 the largest river in the world; the Orinoco and La 
 Plata, with its two great tributaries, the Parana and 
 Uruguay. West of the Andes and between upper 
 Peru and upper Chile there is practically no rainfall, 
 the moisture condensing and falling before the clouds 
 can pass the Andean rampart. 
 
 The configuration of the surface is divided into five 
 
24 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 physical regions : ( 1 ) Low-country skirting the shores 
 of the Pacific Ocean, from 50 to 150 miles in breadth, 
 and 4,000 miles in length. The two extremities of this 
 territory are fertile, the middle a sandy desert. (2) 
 The basin of the Orinoco, a country consisting of ex- 
 tensive plains or steppes, called Llanos, either desti- 
 tute of timber or merely dotted with trees, but covered 
 with a very tall herbage during a part of the year. 
 During the dry season the heat is intense here and the 
 parched soil opens into long fissures in which lizzards 
 and serpents lie in a state of torpor. (3) The basin 
 of the Amazon is a vast plain embracing a surface of 
 more than two million square miles, having a rich soil 
 and a humid climate. It is covered almost everywhere 
 with dense forests, which harbor innumerable tribes 
 of wild animals, and are thinly inhabited by savages, 
 who live by hunting and fishing. The great southern 
 plain, watered by the Platte and the numerous streams 
 descending from the eastern summits of the Cordil- 
 leras. Open steppes, which are called Pampas, occupy 
 the greater proportion of this region, which is dry, 
 and in some parts barren, but is generally covered 
 with a strong growth of weeds and tall grass, upon 
 which feed great herds of horses and cattle, and which 
 affords shelter for a few wild animals. (5) The 
 country of Brazil, eastward of the Parana and Uru- 
 guay, presenting alternate ridges and valleys, thickly 
 covered with wood on the side next the Atlantic, and 
 opening into steppes or pastures in the interior. 
 
 Having thus considered the resemblance between 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH AMERICA 25 
 
 the northern and southern continents of the Western 
 Hemisphere, and taken a general survey of the phys- 
 ical features of South America, let us turn our atten- 
 tion to the political divisions of the southern continent, 
 which at present consist of ten independent republics : 
 Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, 
 Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela; and the 
 colonies of Guiana under the British, French, and 
 Dutch. Besides these, there is the Isthmus of Panama, 
 which has recently gained its independence, and is no 
 longer considered a part of South America, but an 
 independent and individual country. 
 
 Commencing with the first of these republics, 
 which we have named in alphabetical order, we find 
 that the Argentine Republic extends from latitude 22° 
 South to 56° South, and from the summit of the 
 Andes to the Atlantic. The area is 1,212,000 square 
 miles, or about five and a half times that of France. 
 A recent estimate of the population places it beyond 
 the six million mark, with one million of this figure 
 in the city of Buenos Aires. For nearly three hundred 
 years after the discovery of the River Plate, in 1516, 
 the part of South America now known as the Argen- 
 tine Republic belonged to the viceroyalty of the 
 River Plate. In 1810, the Viceroy Baltasar de Cis- 
 neros was deposed, in 1816, independence was de- 
 clared, and in 1825 the new Republic was recognized. 
 From then until 1880 there was more or less continu- 
 ous trouble between the Portenos, people of the gate, 
 of Buenos Aires, who wished to dominate or separate 
 
26 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 from the confederation, and the provinces who were 
 jealous of Buenos Aires. The result was the making 
 of Buenos Aires a federal district and a strong cen- 
 tral government instead of a loose confederation. 
 The Argentine Republic includes within its boundaries 
 the country once known as Patagonia, and still known 
 by that name as a province of the new republic. The 
 Rio de la Plata, with its tributaries, the Parana and the 
 Uruguay, drains an area of 3,103,000 square kilo- 
 meters — slightly more than is drained by the Missis- 
 sippi. 
 
 Bolivia, named in honor of Bolivar, the liberator 
 of northern South America, gained independence in 
 1825. In the war of 1879 with Chile it lost its sea- 
 coast, and it is now completely landlocked. Trade 
 with the outside world is carried on through Chilian 
 ports and the Peruvian port of Ollendo by way of 
 Lake Titicaca. Most of the cities are situated on 
 the high western tableland, which, at the ancient town 
 of Potosi, rises to nearly 14,000 feet. La Paz, the capi- 
 tal, with a population of about 79,000, is situated at 
 an altitude of 3,630 meters, over 12,000 feet. The 
 area of Bolivia is estimated at 709,000 square miles, 
 or only about 60,000 less than that of Mexico; it is 
 the third country in size in South America. The popu- 
 lation is estimated at 2,300,000, of which about one- 
 fifth are white and the rest Indians and mixed races. 
 
 Brazil, which borders on the Atlantic, is the larg- 
 est country of South America, and extends from 4° 
 North latitude to nearly 34° South, with a coast-line 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH AMERICA 27 
 
 about 4,000 miles in length. Its greatest width, from 
 east to west, is between a point in the State of Per- 
 nambuco and one On the frontier of Peru, in longitude 
 30° and 58' West, the distance between these two 
 points being 4,350 kilometers, or about 3,500 miles. 
 The area is estimated at 3,218,991 square miles, or 
 about as large as the United States, including Alaska. 
 A recent estimate gives the population as 20,000,000, 
 of which one-third to one-half is white. The capital 
 is Rio Janeiro — population about 820,000; the princi- 
 pal cities Sao Paulo, with 332,000 population; Bahia, 
 230,000; Pernambuco, 120,000; Belem, 100,000; Port 
 Alegre, 80,000; Manaos, 40,000. Several other cities 
 have over 30,000. 
 
 Chile extends from 16° 30' South latitude to Cape 
 Horn, about 2,300 miles, and from the crest of the 
 Andes to the Pacific, an average breadth of 130 miles. 
 The area is 307,620 square miles, or about 50,000 
 square miles larger than Texas. The country is ex- 
 tremely mountainous and has no large rivers. The 
 population of the republic is about 5,000,000, 400,000 
 of which are residents of the capital, Santiago; the 
 remainder of the population is in the rural districts 
 and small towns, and such cities as Valparaiso, 143,- 
 000 population; Concepcion, 50,000; Iquique, 43,000; 
 Talca, 43,331; Chilian, 36,681; Antofagasta, 16,253. 
 
 Colombia, which once included what is now Venez- 
 uela and Ecuador, gained independence from Spain 
 in 1819; split up into Venezuela, Ecuador, and Repub- 
 lic of New Granada, in 1832; in 1858 New Granada 
 
28 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 changed into Confederation Granadina; in 1861 name 
 changed to United States of New Granada, which 
 was changed to United States of Colombia in 1863. 
 A revolution in 1885 brought about a new constitution, 
 by which the sovereign states became simple depart- 
 ments, with governors appointed by the president of 
 the republic. Revolutions have been almost continu- 
 ous, and this, with lack of communication, has kept 
 Colombia backward. The area of the republic is esti- 
 mated from 445,000 to 505,000 square miles — this on 
 account of disputed boundaries. The population is 
 4,279,674, including 150,000 uncivilized Indians. 
 Colombia has a fine capital — Bogota — situated in the 
 interior, 9,000 feet above sea level; population 120,- 
 000. The chief commercial towns are Baranquilla, 
 on the Magdalena River, and its seaport, Savanilla, 
 Santa Marta, and Cartagena, on the Caribbean; 
 Buenventura, on the Pacific, and IVDedillin, an interior 
 mining town. The Magdalena is navigable for 900 
 miles, steamers now ascending to La Dorada, 600 miles 
 from the coast. 
 
 Ecuador, separated from Colombia in 1830, has 
 been disturbed more or less continually ever since by 
 revolution. Its area is about 120,000 square miles, or 
 about the size of Norway. The population numbers 
 1,400,000, the bulk of which is Indian and mixed 
 blood. The capital, Quito, has 80,000 population. The 
 principal seaport and commercial center is Guayquil, 
 with about 70,000 inhabitants. 
 
 Peru, formerly the most important of the Spanish 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH AMERICA 29 
 
 vice-royalties, declared independence in 1821, and 
 gained freedom in 1824. Since then the country has 
 suffered from various revolutions and its power was 
 temporarily crushed in the war with Chile (1879- 
 1884), by which it lost the valuable nitrate provinces. 
 Its area is about 696,000 square miles, or about three 
 and one-half times that of France. It has a population 
 of about 3,500,000, of whom more than half are In- 
 dian. The capital is Lima, with 135,000 inhabitants. 
 Other important cities are Callao, the seaport of Lima, 
 Arequipa, Cuzco, and Iquitos; the latter is near the 
 eastern border and extensive trade passes through it 
 on its way to the Amazon. 
 
 Paraguay was originally a part of the viceroyalty 
 of Peru, later placed under the jurisdiction of Buenos 
 Aires. It declared its independence of Spain in 1811. 
 After a short government by two consuls, the supreme 
 power was seized by various dictators, and so held 
 until the great war between Lopez and the combined 
 forces of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, 1865-1870. 
 Lopez was defeated and killed at Aquidaban, March 1, 
 1870. The country was completely exhausted, and it 
 is only within the past few years that it has com- 
 menced to recover. The area of Paraguay is 98,000 
 square miles. The population of about 650,000 in- 
 cludes 15,000 Indians. The capital, Asuncion, has 
 about 62,000 people. Other towns are Villa Rica, 
 25,000; Concepcion, 15,000; Carapegua, 13,000. 
 
 Venezuela, which was discovered by Columbus on 
 his third voyage, in 1498, is one of the most inter- 
 
30 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 esting of the Republics. It was here that the revolu- 
 tionary movement began that freed the whole of the 
 northern part of South America from Spain. The 
 Republic itself was organized in 1830 by a secession 
 from Colombia, and since then it has had no fewer 
 than fifty-one revolutionary movements. Its area is 
 about 364,000 square miles, with a population of 
 2,602,492. Caracas, the capital, has about 75,000 peo- 
 ple, and among other cities are Valencia, 38,654 ; Mara- 
 caibo, 34,284; Barquisimeto, 31,476; Barcelona, 12,735 ; 
 Ciudad Bolivar, 11,686. The area of Venezuela equals 
 more than the combined area of Texas, Kentucky, 
 Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Okla- 
 homa, and Arkansas. 
 
 With this general outline of the geography, political 
 and physical, of South America, we are well prepared 
 to take up a chapter on the history of the country ; a 
 knowledge of both its geography and history are nec- 
 essary to an adequate understanding of the life of its 
 people.^ 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 
 
 THE very beginnings of the history of the south- 
 ern continent of America are shrouded in mys- 
 tery. Tradition, however, has been strong enough to 
 furnish a basis for the wonderful story given us by 
 Prescott in his Conquest of Peru that reads Hke a 
 fairy tale, but in which it is a little difficult to draw 
 the line between real facts and the glowing and fertile 
 imagination of the brilliant historian. Certain it is 
 that a great civilization existed there centuries before 
 the discovery of the Americas by Columbus con- 
 cerning which we have but meager information. In 
 short, the origin and character of the earliest South 
 American civilization are completely hidden from 
 view. The most ancient traces of man on the conti- 
 nent are the ''kitchen-midden" found on the coast of 
 Peru, consisting of shells and refuse, mixed with 
 fragments of earthen pots and ashes and occasionally 
 the rude implements used by these primitive people. 
 After these men who lived on sea-food, there came 
 more advanced tribes of whom we know nothing ex- 
 cept what may be inferred from their pottery and 
 textures found in the deepest layers of soil. This 
 development, such as it was, was confined to the sea 
 coast. It was followed by a wonderful civilization 
 
 31 
 
32 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 on the higli tablelands. Where this civilization came 
 from is a mystery. We know nothing of how long it 
 lasted or what its nature was except as its architectural 
 ruins show that it had oriental kinships and that it was 
 as interesting as it was powerful. These ruins can be 
 seen today at Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia, just south of 
 Lake Titicaca. Immense stone pillars and gateways, 
 which must have been brought from great distances, 
 prove that a people lived on these tablelands in cen- 
 turies which we can not fix now, akin to the race 
 which left its massive monuments in Central America 
 and Mexico, and capable of as great achievements as 
 the ancient Egyptians. Of their ideas and language 
 we know nothing ; but it is evident that their influence 
 extended from Colombia on the north to Chile on the 
 south, and as far as Tucuman and the Gran Chaco in 
 what is now Argentina. 
 
 This ancient pre-Inca civilization disappeared cen- 
 turies before the discovery of America. Its remains, 
 however, were scattered over the whole Andean pla- 
 teau, and on this base of an ancient culture it was easy 
 for the Incas to build their empire. The Incas had no 
 written language or literature, and while, according 
 to Garland, in his Peru in ipo6, ''there exist ancient 
 chronicles written by some of the conquerors and 
 missionaries, . . . it is impossible to place absolute 
 confidence in these narratives." So that the real char- 
 acter of the empire of the Incas and the conditions of 
 the South American people at the time of the Spanish 
 conquest are but uncertainly known to us. It seems 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 33 
 
 clear, however, that there was a widespread social- 
 istic, theocratic civilization organized and adminis- 
 tered by the Incas, reaching from Colombia to central 
 Chile and Argentina. Wonderful schemes of irriga- 
 tion and, it is said, not less wonderful systems of 
 roads were constructed. This matter of the wonderful 
 roads, it is now believed by experts who have been 
 over the ground, were mere Indian trails. Armies 
 were organized which brought the whole Andean 
 plateau under the Inca sovereigns, who appear to have 
 possessed from the eleventh century, when tradition 
 says they first came upon the scene, a sacred, semi- 
 divine character. The Inca empire had reached its 
 greatest prosperity in the generation before the Span- 
 iards came, and the disruption of that prosperity by 
 civil war was one of the conditions which played into 
 Pizarro's hands when, with a handful of audacious 
 desperadoes like himself, he came for glory and gold. 
 Apart from the Incas, the only other great people 
 in South America, whom we can identify, were the 
 Caras of Ecuador. Tradition says that they came 
 from the south in the seventh century and invaded the 
 seaboard of central Ecuador, and by the thirteenth 
 century the outlines of their empire which was ruled 
 by male succession, appear. The Cara kingdom 
 reached its zenith at the end of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, after which it was overthrown and absorbed by 
 the Incas. The Caras were a vigorous stock, how- 
 ever, and survived the Inca conquest and also outlived 
 the decimating tyranny of the Spaniards, so that 
 
34 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ninety-five per cent of the present population of Ecua- 
 dor is composed of their descendants. 
 
 The Incas and the Caras are the only South Amer- 
 ican races which attained any sort of organized and 
 advanced civilization, and even that civilization was 
 weak and inarticulate. History has shown us in their 
 fate the frailty of a socialistic order. Under the In- 
 cas the state controlled everything — agriculture, com- 
 merce, marriage, work and play. The result was that 
 when the central government fell, the whole civiliza- 
 tion collapsed. We read that there were thousands of 
 functionaries who spent their lives in superintending 
 the furniture, the dress, the work, the very cookery, 
 of the families under their charge, and inflicting cor- 
 poral chastisement on those whom they surprised in 
 a fault. These methods formed a correct and regular 
 society, drilled like bees in a hive, it formed a nation 
 of submissive slaves, but it could not nor did not make 
 a nation of men. And this is why a handful of un- 
 scrupulous Spaniards overthrew what is reported to 
 have been a great and powerful people. They were 
 great in numbers and in long-standing institutions, 
 but they were weak in character and could not stand 
 the test. Reville has called it a "skilfully constructed 
 machine, which worked like a chronometer; but when 
 once the marinspring was broken, all was over." 
 
 Beyond the empires of the Incas and the Caras 
 the native peoples were Indians with a primitive social 
 and political order, not very different probably from 
 the Indians of the present time. The strongest and 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 35 
 
 most virile race among them were the Araucanians 
 of Chile, who showed themselves well nigh inconquer- 
 able and whose sturdy, truculent qualities characterize 
 the Chilean people today. In Brazil, covering one- 
 half of the continent, and with an Indian population 
 whose size is absolutely unknown to us, there was only 
 a stagnant and rudimentary civilization, and the Bra- 
 zilian Indians melted away before the white man's 
 coming even more pitifully than did the Indians of the 
 Andean plateau. 
 
 The savage Indians of South America, whom the 
 discoverers found, were tame and feeble in compari- 
 son with the Indians of North America, and while 
 the civilization of the Incas surpassed that of the 
 Aztecs in Mexico, their resisting power was as noth- 
 ing in comparison with the energy and fierceness of 
 the Aztec race. The differences between North and 
 South America today are not more the transported 
 differences between the Latin and the Germanic peo- 
 ples than the continuance of the ancient and primitive 
 dissimilarities. The racial basis of the South Ameri- 
 can people is not Spanish nor Portuguese, but it is 
 Indian. The native stock was not wiped out by the 
 Conquistadores. They were decimated by disease and 
 misuse, but at the same time they were made the stock 
 upon which the Latin blood from Europe was grafted. 
 To this day no small part of the diversities of char- 
 acter among the South American republics is due to 
 the differences in the Indian racial stocks — Quichua, 
 Aymara, Araucanian, Guarany; and in the Latin 
 
36 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 racial grafts — Galician, Basques, Catalonian, Anda- 
 lusian, Portuguese. 
 
 Brazil was one of the first parts of South America 
 to be discovered, and the men who really found it were 
 not Spaniards, but Portuguese, though Pinzon, a 
 Spaniard from Palos, and one of the companions of 
 Columbus, was the first European to see the new 
 continent. Before Pinzon reached the limit of his 
 journey, the mouth of the Amazon, Portugal had 
 despatched Pedro Alvarez Cabral, who, in April, 1500, 
 sighted what is now the state of Bahia. Cabral was 
 followed by Amerigo Vespucci, whose name was' given 
 to the new world, and who gave the name of Brazil to 
 the shores on which he landed on account of the Brazil 
 wood he found there in quantities, and which was 
 highly prized in Europe on account of its bright red 
 and dyeing properties — Brazil meaning "the color of 
 fire." 
 
 It was Columbus himself who began the Spanish 
 exploration of South America. On his third voyage 
 he sighted the Venezuelan coast on Aug. 1, 1498. 
 The country was then inhabited by numerous Indian 
 tribes who were not of a peaceful character, and 
 who bitterly fought against the cruelties and en- 
 slavements of the Spaniards. Not until 1545 were 
 permanent settlements effected in the interior. On 
 his fourth and last voyage in 1502 Columbus sailed 
 along the Colombian shore, but no attempt to conquer 
 the country was made until 1508, when Ojeda effected 
 a settlement on the coast. In 1536, Quesada under- 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 37 
 
 took the subjugation of the Chibchas, a civilized peo- 
 ple similar to the Incas on the high plateau, and estab- 
 lished his capital, the present city of Bogota, near the 
 site of the Chibcha capital. In 1570, Diego da 
 Nicuera effected a settlement which extended from 
 the Gulf of Darien to Cape Gracias a Dios. In 1513 
 Balboa crossed the Isthmus and discovered the Pacific 
 Ocean. 
 
 It was Pizarro who finally opened the wealth of 
 Peru to the world and established Spanish dominion 
 on the whole of the Andean plateau. In 1532, after 
 several experimental expeditions with a little company 
 of one hundred and two foot soldiers and seventy- 
 two horses, the daring adventurer seized the Inca 
 emperor at Cajamarca, overpowered his futile sol- 
 diery and took possession of Peru, gathering in as the 
 first booty gold worth more than $20,000,000. Pizarro 
 wasted no time and stood on no scruples. The Inca 
 emperor he slew, the wealth he confiscated, and within 
 half a dozen years the whole of the vast region ruled 
 by the Inca power was overrun and subdued. Pizar- 
 ro's lieutenant, Benalcazar, conquered the northern 
 region of Ecuador and entered Quito on Dec. 6, 
 1534. Pizarro's brother, Gonzalo, was appointed gov- 
 ernor of the province of Quito, and here, as else- 
 where, the Spaniards apportioned the land and people 
 among themselves and established feudal estates on 
 which they lived upon the labor of the natives. To 
 the south of Peru, Pizarro's triumph was even easier, 
 and his brother Hernando was given charge of Bo- 
 
38 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 livia. Almagro, another one of Pizarro's lieutenants, 
 was sent further south to Chile, but here he encoun- 
 tered a vigorous, hardy people, not debilitated by the 
 weakening socialism of the Incas. Individual owner- 
 ship of property, rough struggle with nature and men, 
 had made the Chilean tribes strong and virile, and 
 although Almagro was victorious in his battle, he soon 
 .turned back from such an inhospitable and godless 
 land. Returning to dispute with Pizarro his posses- 
 sion of the wealth of Peru, Almagro fell at Pizarro's 
 hands, and the conquest of Chile was accomplished 
 in 1540-45 by another lieutenant, Pedro Valdiva, who, 
 after heroic marches and campaigns, subdued the land 
 and set up the landed aristocracy which rules the 
 country to this day. In the thirty years following 
 Valdiva's invasion, settlers from Chile and Bolivia 
 passed over the Andes and established Santiago de 
 Estero, Mendoza, and Cordoba in western Argentina. 
 Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires in 1536, 
 although it was not till thirty years later that the set- 
 tlement was securely established. The natural ap- 
 proach from Europe to the valley of the Rio de la 
 Plata and its tributaries was, of course, direct by sea, 
 and Juan de Solis, coming by water, is credited with 
 having discovered the great river in 1515. The ex- 
 plorer lost his life at the hands of the Uruguayan 
 Indians, and it is an odd fact that Paraguay, far 
 inland, was an earlier settlement than Uruguay on the 
 sea. A settlement was made on the site of Asuncion, 
 the present Paraguayan capital, in 1536, while the first 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 39 
 
 permanent establishments in Uruguay were not set 
 up until the Jesuits came in 1624. 
 
 The rapidity with which the Spanish explorers 
 overran the western and southern sections of the 
 continent is extraordinary. In fifty years they had 
 laid the foundations of practically all the Spanish 
 states which are now organized as nine independent 
 republics. One reason for the rapidity of the con- 
 quest was the fact that the Spaniards had not come 
 as agricultural settlers, but as adventurers for gold. 
 They were looking for quick and easy wealth. They 
 did no more work themselves than was avoidable. 
 They were equal to any heroism, but to no industry. 
 The Indian population were impressed to support and 
 enrich them. The newcomers passed on to their chil- 
 dren no inheritance of industrious conflict with com- 
 mon conditions, no disposition to seek wealth in the 
 orderly development of common resources, no agri- 
 cultural knowledge, but only the dominant ideas of 
 quick action or feudal ease. 
 
 One of the tragedies of the conquest was the 
 dramatic death of Pizarro at the hands of the friends 
 of Almagro, the general, whom Pizarro, as governor 
 of Peru, caused to be put to death. Almagro's 
 friends quickly carried the news of his illegal execu- 
 tion to Spain, crying for justice against the Pizarros. 
 The Spanish government was not unwilling to secure 
 a selfish advantage from the disputes among the orig- 
 inal conquerors, and sent out Vaca de Castro to inves- 
 tigate and report. 
 
40 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 When the royal commissioners arrived at Panama 
 early in 1541, the latest news from Peru was tran- 
 quilizing. Pizarro was busily engaged in enlarging 
 and beautifying Lima, in regulating the revenue and 
 the administration, in distributing encomiendas, and 
 in restraining the rapacity of his Spaniards. How- 
 ever, Lima was full of the "men of Chile," as Alma- 
 gro's adherents were called — all bitter enemies of the 
 governor. They passed him in the street without 
 saluting, and their attitude was so menacing that 
 Pizarro received repeated warnings and was urged to 
 banish them. Absolutely incapable of personal fear, 
 magnanimous when his passion had not been aroused, 
 he only replied, *Toor fellows; they have had trouble 
 enough. We will not molest them." He even sent 
 for Juan de la Rada, the guide, counsellor, and guar- 
 dian of the young half-breed who was Almagro's 
 heir, and condescended to try to argue him into a bet- 
 ter frame of mind, saying at parting, **Ask me frankly 
 what you desire." But the iron had entered too deeply 
 into Rada's soul ; he had already organized a conspir- 
 acy to assassinate Pizarro. 
 
 At noon on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1541, Pizarro 
 was sitting at dinner in his house with twenty gen- 
 flemen, among them his half-brother Francisco Alcan- 
 tara, and several of the most illustrious knights who 
 had taken part in the conquest. The great door into 
 the public square was lying wide open. The conspira- 
 tors, to the number of a score, had assembled in 
 a house opposite. All of a sudden they rushed 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 41 
 
 into the square fully armed and carrying their 
 swords naked in their hands. A young page standing 
 in front of the governor's house saw them and ran 
 back shouting: *To arms! all the men of Chile are 
 coming to kill the Marquis, our lord." The guests 
 rose in alarm from the table and all but half a dozen 
 fled to the windows and dropped into the garden. 
 Pizarro threw off his gown and snatched up a sword, 
 while the valiant Francisco Chaves stepped forward 
 through the anteroom to dispute the passage to the 
 staircase. The ferocious crowd of murderers rushed 
 up and laid him dead on the stairs. Alcantara checked 
 them for a few moments with his single sword, but 
 was soon forced back into the dining-room and fell 
 pierced with many thrusts. The old lion shouted from 
 inside, "What shameful thing is this! Why do you 
 wish to kill me?'* and with cloak wrapped round one 
 arm and his sword grasped in the other hand, he 
 rushed forward to meet his assassins and strike a 
 blow to avenge his brother before he himself should 
 fall. Only two faithful young pages remained at his 
 side. Though over seventy years of age, his practiced 
 sword laid two of the crowd dead before he was sur- 
 rounded. The two boys were butchered and in the 
 melee Pizarro received a mortal wound in the throat, 
 and falling to the floor, made the sign of the cross 
 on the boards and kissed it. One of the ruflians had 
 snatched up an earthern water jar and with this 
 pounded out the old man's brains as he lay prostrate, 
 disdaining to ask for mercy and murmuring "Jesus." 
 
42 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 The news of the murder threw Peru into confu- 
 sion. In Lima the governor's friends hid themselves 
 or fled ; a hundred sympathizers joined the assassins ; 
 the rudders and sails of the ships in port were taken 
 away so that no word could be sent to Panama; and 
 all the treasure in the city was plundered. Young 
 Almagro assumed the title of governor of Peru, but 
 he and Rada soon realized that the vast majority at 
 Lima regarded them with execration, while threaten- 
 ing messages came from the commanders in other 
 towns. Rada and the boy usurper started up the 
 road for Jauja and Cuzco. At the former place Rada 
 died, but his protege, though only twenty-two years 
 old, now showed unexpected ability and resource. 
 Suppressing with bloody severity a quarrel among his 
 captains, he took the road to Cuzco, where his father's 
 party was strongest. 
 
 In the meantime the royal commissioner, now be- 
 come legal governor of Peru, had sailed from Panama. 
 Shipwrecked off the coast of southern Colombia, he 
 resolved to proceed by land, and disembarking at 
 Buenventura, made his way with infinite difficulty 
 through the tangled forests and steep defiles of the 
 Maritime Cordillera to the valley of the Cauca River. 
 Thence to Quito over the highlands of Popayan and 
 Pasto was easier. As soon as the news of Pizarro^s 
 murder reached him, he hastened south, receiving 
 many offers of help from the friends of the dead 
 governor. At Jauja he found a considerable army 
 ready to his orders, so he proceeded promptly to 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 43 
 
 Guamanga, to which point Almagro was advancing 
 from Cuzco. The soldiers of the young half-breed 
 knew that they were fighting with halters round their 
 necks, and the battle was the bloodiest since the Span- 
 iards had landed in Peru. Of the twelve hundred white 
 men who went into the fight only five hundred escaped 
 unwounded. The rebels were practically annihilated. 
 Two days after the battle Pizarro's murderers were 
 executed in the great square at Guamanga. Young 
 Almagro managed to escape to Cuzco, but he was 
 quickly captured and relentlessly put to death. 
 
 Upon the death of Francisco Pizarro the right to 
 nominate a governor reverted to the Spanish Crown. 
 Though some disappointment was felt that Gonzalo 
 Pizarro had not been appointed, Vaca de Castro suc- 
 ceeded without opposition. Gonzalo's selection would 
 not have suited the new policy of the Spanish govern- 
 ment. Las Casas had written his famous book expos- 
 ing the unspeakable iniquities of the earlier conquer- 
 ors toward the West Indian natives. It produced a 
 tremendous effect on public opinion, and the authori- 
 ties at Madrid decided to root up Indian slavery, and 
 gradually abolish the existing encomiendas. Mani- 
 festly, such a step would excite bitter dissatisfaction 
 among the adventurers in Peru, and it seemed best to 
 name a viceroy, who would be ipso facto vested with 
 absolute power, and not subject to the influence of 
 the conquistadores. 
 
 This dangerous post was entrusted to Blasco 
 Nunez de Vela, an old bureaucrat of the Escurial, 
 
44 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 whose integrity, piety, and rigid obedience to orders 
 had pushed him into high positions. Arriving in Peru 
 early in 1554, he was received with outward courtesy 
 and respect, thinly veiling real alarm and distrust. 
 The *'New Laws" abolished personal service by In- 
 dians; the grandees of estates must hereafter be con- 
 tent with a moderate tribute from their tenants; en- 
 comiendas might not be sold or even descend by in- 
 heritance; and — worst of all — public officials and all 
 Spaniards who had taken part in the wars between 
 Almagro and Pizarro were to be deprived. The pro- 
 visions were drastic and rumor exaggerated them. 
 In his journeys down the coast the viceroy had sternly 
 ordered that no Indian be forced to carry a burden 
 against" his will. To the Spaniards this seemed an 
 outrageous violation of the natural order of things. 
 The whole fabric of their fortunes rested upon forced 
 Indian labor. Without it they could not work their 
 mines, farm their estates, or transport their goods, and 
 these "New Laws" enforced by a conscientious and 
 stubborn old bureaucrat, would virtually rob them of 
 all that their swords had won. 
 
 Dismayed encomienderos wrote to Gonzalo Piz- 
 arro, urging him to espouse their cause; his own vast 
 estates would infallably be wrenched away by the 
 viceroy, and he was told that his head was to be cut 
 off as soon as Nunez Vela could lay hands on him. 
 With the Pizarro instinct of running to meet a danger, 
 he hastened from southern Bolivia to Cuzco, where he 
 was proclaimed "procurator general" of Peru; sol- 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 45 
 
 diers flocked to his camp; he seized the artillery and 
 stores at Cuzco, and soon was at the head of four 
 hundred desperate men, well armed and provided. 
 Many, however, shrank from open rebellion against 
 the representative of the Castilian king, and the 
 Pizarros had enemies. The result was still doubtful, 
 when the viceroy himself turned the scale by his own 
 violent measures. He imprisoned Vaca de Castro on 
 suspicion of favoring the revolt; quarreled with the 
 judges of the royal court ; and finally in an altercation 
 with the popular factor of Lima, stabbed his opponent 
 with his own hand, and then attempted to conceal the 
 murder. Frightened at the burst of public indigna- 
 tion, he fled to Trujillo, while the royal judges took 
 the direction of affairs into their own hands. They 
 ordered the arrest and deportation of the viceroy, and 
 sent a conciliatory message to Gonzalo. But he knew 
 better than to rely on the unauthorized promises of the 
 judges. His answer was to send a detachment to 
 Lima, which seized three deserters and hanged them 
 on trees outside the town. The judges having no 
 troops upon whom they could rely, were forced to rec- 
 ognize Pizarro as governor. A few days later he 
 made his triumphal entry, riding at the head of twelve 
 hundred men. 
 
 Gonzalo's administration lasted three years, and 
 they were golden ones for the Spanish adventurers. 
 The marvelous silver mines of Potosi and the gold 
 washings of southern Ecuador were discovered. En- 
 comiendas were lavishly granted; the Indians went 
 
46 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 back to their fields; the mining industry began that 
 marvelous development which soon made Peru the 
 treasure box of the world and Potosi a synonym for 
 limitless wealth. But the dazzling sunlight of pros- 
 perity was dimmed by the shadow of Pizarro's scaf- 
 fold slowly creeping across the Atlantic and down the 
 coast. His chief lieutenants, knowing that they had 
 sinned past forgiveness, urged him to declare himself 
 king of Peru, but he was at once too proud and patri- 
 otic to fling away his right to die a loyal Spaniard. 
 Philip, the leaden-eyed, close-mouthed despot, was 
 regent of Spain. Bitterly chagrinned that the stream 
 of Peruvian gold had ceased to flow into the royal 
 treasury, his vindicative heart held no mercy for the 
 gallant soldier whose sword had helped win the 
 riches now temporarily diverted. He selected a man 
 after his own heart — Pedro de la Gasca, an ugly, de- 
 formed little priest, hypocritically humble, though 
 astute and untiring, whose success as an inquisitor 
 was a guaranty that he would be as pitilessly cruel as 
 even Philip could wish. Gasca landed at Panama in 
 the character of a modest ecclesiastic, a humble man 
 of peace who had been commissioned to investigate 
 the sad situation in Peru and re-establish peace. He 
 said he would recommend the repeal of the obnoxious 
 ISTew Laws, and had authority to suspend them. Gon- 
 zalo refused to put his head into the noose and de- 
 manded substantial assurances. But many Peruvians 
 were more easily beguiled, and welcomed the excuse 
 to renew their allegiance to lawful authority. While 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 47 
 
 Gasca remained at Panama, gathering troops from 
 the neighboring provinces, Pizarro's fleet deserted, 
 leaving the coast open to attack. An advance guard 
 came sailing down the coast, sending letters ashore at 
 every port promising amnesty and rewards. Deser- 
 tions were so numerous that Gonzalo was forced to 
 give up the hope of defending Lima and retreated 
 toward Arequipa. Gasca ascended to Jauja, while 
 Pizarro's old enemies in the Titicacan region rose, 
 gathered a thousand men, and sent word to Gasca 
 that they could overwhelm without help the five hun- 
 dred soldiers who remained faithful. But a Pizarro 
 never waited to be attacked. By forced marches he 
 crossed the dizzy pass where the Mollendo and Puno 
 Railway now runs, and fell upon his enemies near the 
 southern end of Lake Titicaca. Though outnumbered 
 two to one, the superior discipline of his men, his 
 admirable dispositions, Carbajal's skilful handling of 
 the artillery, and his own cool and intrepid leadership 
 of the cavalry charges, gave him a decisive though 
 dearly bought victory. 
 
 Meanwhile Gasca was coming up the road from 
 Jauja to Cuzco, his army increasing by accessions 
 from every direction until it numbered over two thou- 
 sand. The wisest of Gonzalo's counsellors advised 
 him to retire to southern Bolivia and make a defensive 
 campaign in that remote region, but he preferred bold 
 methods. For once, however, he could not inspire 
 his men with his own confidence. They followed with 
 heavy hearts his eager march against Gasca's over- 
 
48 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 whelming army. He drew them up for attack and the 
 battle was about to begin when, to his despair, he saw 
 several captains desert to the enemy and his soldiers 
 surrendering without a blow. Knowing that all was 
 over, he turned to Juan Acosta, who rode at his side, 
 saying, "What shall we do, Brother Juan?" ''Sir, let 
 us charge them and die like Romans." ''Better to die 
 like Christians," replied Pizarro, and he rode across 
 the plain and gave himself up. The exulting priest 
 grossly insulted the fallen warrior, and called a court- 
 martial to condemn him and his captains to immediate 
 execution. Though only forty-one years old when he 
 went to the scaffold, Gonzalo had taken a leading part 
 in nearly every one of the battles and expeditions of 
 Peru. 
 
 The property of Pizarro's friends was confiscated ; 
 the prisons filled with wretched victims; many were 
 put to death; many more were mutilated or flogged; 
 even the staunchest loyalists were not safe. Gasca 
 evaded and delayed as long as possible the distribu- 
 tion of land-grants among those who had earned and 
 been promised such rewards, and when he had to 
 announce the list he sneaked to Lima by an unfre- 
 quented route in cowardly fear of his miserable life. 
 He never dared to try to put the New Laws into 
 effect, and when a peremptory order came from 
 Spain that enforced Indian labor must cease, he kept 
 it secret until he could resign the government to the 
 royal judges, leaving instructions that it should be 
 published immediately he was at sea. 
 
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY 40 
 
 Peru was left in confusion. The prohibition of 
 Indian slavery added to the dissatisfaction felt over 
 Gasca's awards. The ad interim governments could 
 make little progress in securing its enforcement. 
 Rebellion after rebellion broke out, and civil war con- 
 tinued to desolate Peru, with a few intervals of quies- 
 cence during which the government allowed the pro- 
 prietors to do as they pleased, until the arrival of the 
 Marquis of Canete, the "good viceroy/' on. the 29th 
 of June, \SS6.'' 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 THE Spanish occupation of Peru was a conquest, 
 not a colonization. The narrow plateau from 
 Colombia to Chile and the adjacent dry valleys on the 
 Pacific and in northwestern Argentina had been found 
 fully populated by civilized races. The work of sub- 
 jugating them was practically accomplished within 
 eight or ten years after Pizarro landed in Ecuador, 
 and this marvelous result was achieved by private 
 adventurers, who, though they had commissions from 
 Madrid, really acted on their own responsibility. A 
 very few appreciated the advisability of well treating 
 the Indians and thereby preserving the effective in- 
 dustrial organization, but the vast majority concerned 
 themselves only with immediate profit. For eighteen 
 years the original conquerors and the adventurers 
 who followed in their track fought over the spoils. 
 When the Marquis of Canete was appointed viceroy, 
 he found eight thousand Spaniards in Peru alone, 
 four hundred and eighty-nine of whom had grants 
 of land and Indians. 
 
 We can never know the sufferings of the Indians 
 during the civil wars that have been briefly men- 
 tioned in the preceding chapter. The chronicles tell 
 us minutely the stories of the battles, marches, sieges, 
 
 50 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 51 
 
 surprises, assassinations, and deeds of military prow- 
 ess, but little of the destruction and abandonment of 
 the irrigating canals and terraces, the ruin of the 
 magnificent roads, the breaking up of the ancient 
 socialistic system, the impressment of natives into the 
 rebel bands, the death by exhaustion of thousands 
 dragging artillery over the steep mountain paths, the 
 starvation of whole villages robbed of their crops. 
 But the sturdy physique of the Andean Indians and 
 their perfect adaptation to the climatic conditions 
 saved them from extermination. In the midst of the 
 devil's dance of Spanish carnage, the Inca officers 
 reported minutely the crops stolen or destroyed, and 
 the deficiencies were made up as far as possible from 
 the villages which had escaped for the time being. 
 Naturally the Spanish government was anxious to 
 put an end to such a state of affairs. Considerations 
 of self-interest reinforced the eloquent indignation 
 of Las Casas, but the New Laws could not be put 
 into effect, notwithstanding the sentiment of fidelity 
 to the Castilian king and the growth of considerable 
 cities in which Spanish law and customs were domi- 
 nant. The enlightened advisers of Charles V came 
 to the conclusion that Peru could never become a loyal 
 and profitable appanage of the Crown until freedom 
 of action was granted to its government. Don An- 
 dres Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Caiiete, ac- 
 cepted the difficult post of viceroy. He was a scion 
 of the noblest house of Spain, distinguished alike in 
 arms and letters, capable and resolute, of mature 
 
52 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 years and wide experience. His salary was fixed at 
 the then fabulous sum of forty thousand ducats in 
 order to enable him to maintain regal state, and, ac- 
 companied by his vice-queen and an imposing retinue 
 he assumed power with ceremonial splendor. He 
 prohibited further immigration from Spain and or- 
 dered that no Spaniard in Peru should leave his dis- 
 trict without permission. Though the encomienderos 
 were left in possession of their estates, they were made 
 to understand that they must cease the more outrag- 
 eous forms of oppressing the natives. He sent for 
 the more notorious disturbers, and they came joyfully 
 expecting to receive more grants, but were summarily 
 disarmed and banished. He employed the more ad- 
 venturous in expeditions to the interior and in com- 
 pleting the conquest of Chile. All the artillery in the 
 country was gathered together under his eye, and the 
 corregidors were required to dismiss most of their 
 soldiery. Finally, the viceroy continued Pizarro's 
 policy of founding cities into which were gathered 
 the Spaniards who remained scattered over the coun- 
 try. He did much to alleviate the lot of the natives, 
 though he dared not venture on giving them all the 
 rights guaranteed by Spanish law. No efforts were 
 spared to Hispaniolise the Inca nobles, and native 
 chiefs who could prove their right by descent were 
 formally allowed to exercise jurisdiction as magis- 
 trates. Even the rightful emperor, Sayri Tupac, who 
 had maintained his independence in the wilds of Vil- 
 cabamba, was induced to swear allegiance and accept 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 53 
 
 a pension and estates in the valley of Yucay. When 
 the Inca had attested the documents by which he re- 
 nounced his sovereignty, he lifted up the gilded fringe 
 of the tablecloth, saying "All this cloth and its fringe 
 were mine, and now they give me a thread of it for 
 my sustenance and that of all my house." Retiring 
 to Yucay, he sank into a deep melancholy and died 
 within two years. 
 
 In the meantime Charles V had been succeeded by 
 Philip II. The Marquis of Canete's liberal and en- 
 lightened policy did not wring money fast enough to 
 suit the greedy despot. He listened to the slanders 
 against the "good viceroy" brought home by disap- 
 pointed Spaniards, and Cafiete's reward for five years 
 of brilliant service was a recall. Only his death saved 
 him from hearing with his own ears the reproaches of 
 his ungrateful sovereign. 
 
 After the recall of Cafiete, the most notable vice- 
 roy was Toledo, and he was notable for the very 
 opposite policy that he set up. Instead of pacification 
 and justice, his was a reign of destruction and atroci- 
 ties, which resulted in 1780 in the great Indian re- 
 bellion under the leadership of Tupac Amaru, the 
 lineal descendant of the last of the reigning Inca 
 emperors. In Peru proper it did not spread beyond 
 the southern frontier provinces, and the story of its 
 suppression belongs to the history of Bolivia. The 
 authorities were so alarmed that the reforms, to pro- 
 cure which Tupac had risked and lost his life, were 
 shortly afterward adopted. The vitality and fighting 
 
54 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 qualities of the half-breeds now stood revealed, and 
 the Creoles, jealous of imported officials and dis- 
 satisfied at their exclusion from places of honor and 
 profit, realized that a weapon lay ready to their hand 
 when they should determine upon revolution. 
 
 General Theodore de Croix, a Fleming, was en- 
 trusted with the reorganization and reform made nec- 
 essary by the Indian rebellion. The Corregidors, 
 petty tyrants over whom no effective control could be 
 maintained, were abolished; the country was divided 
 into a few great provinces, each ruled by an intendente 
 to whom were responsible the subdelgados who had 
 charge of local affairs, and measures were taken for 
 the enforcement of the laws intended to protect the 
 Indians. 
 
 By the year 1790 these valuable reforms had been 
 put into effect, but they came too late. Ideas of lib- 
 erty had begun to infiltrate into the educated classes, 
 and among the Creoles the abstract right of Peru to 
 autonomous government became the subject of secret 
 though wide-spread discussion. A succession of able 
 and liberal viceroys, however, averted the danger for 
 the time, and the outbreak of the revolution in the 
 rest of South America found Peru ruled by Abascal, 
 whose energy, foresight, and determination not only 
 prevented an insurrection at Lima, but nearly saved 
 all South America to Spain. 
 
 The storm soon to burst over South America was 
 gathering when the Viceroy Abascal assumed the reins 
 of power in 1806. He made no pretensions to states- 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 55 
 
 manship, but it did not escape his shrewd soldier's 
 eye and common sense that French revolutionary 
 ideas would soon make trouble. Her very existence 
 threatened in the titan conflict then devastating Eu- 
 rope, Spain could not be relied upon to spare any of 
 her soldiers to guard her colonies. He must take care 
 of himself. Wasting no time in seeking to propitiate 
 the revolutionary elements, he quietly set to work to 
 organize and arm an efficient army while vigilantly 
 watching the course of events. With the first overt 
 act he pounced upon the plotters. Two republican 
 visionaries, named Ubaldo and Aguilar, were the first 
 martyrs for liberty. A few learned and respected pro- 
 fessors in Lima dared to speculate on the future of 
 America as affected by recent events in Europe, but 
 the viceroy summoned them to his presence and his 
 stern warnings silenced them. Two young lawyers 
 held evening parties where politics were discussed by 
 the rising youth of the capital. One of the ring- 
 leaders was condemned to ten years' imprisonment 
 and the other sent to Spain, while several more were 
 shipped off to southern Chile. Although the liberals 
 continued to meet and conspire, and the priests were 
 particularly active, for the present nothing definite 
 came of all this. 
 
 For six years Abascal held things in splendid con- 
 trol, and in 1816 he thought that his work was vir- 
 tually completed and that he had earned the right to 
 retire. Resistance was confined to Buenos Aires, 
 to the thinly populated provinces of Tucuman and 
 
56 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Cuyo, and to the banks of the Orinoco. The Argen- 
 tine revolutionists were fighting among themselves, 
 and that they must succumb before an advance in 
 force from the Bolivian plateau appeared certain. 
 The last act of his administration was to send out a 
 fleet that compelled four Argentine ships which Ad- 
 miral William Brown had brought around the Horn 
 to withdraw to the Atlantic. He was succeeded by 
 General Pezuela, a strategist of no mean abilities, who 
 had borne a brilliant part in the Bolivian campaigns. 
 The new viceroy straightway set about final prepara- 
 tions for a decisive advance across the Pampas to 
 Buenos Aires, but like a thunderbolt from a clear sky 
 came the news that San Martin had made a sudden 
 descent on Chile and won the battle of Chacabuco, 
 annihilating the Spanish forces in that country. Pez- 
 uela saw himself obliged to begin a war to reduce 
 Chile to obedience — an undertaking sure to be long 
 and arduous; and in the meantime Venezuela had 
 risen in insurrection under Bolivar and Paez. 
 
 Having won the Chacabuco victory, San Martin 
 did not rest content until he had created a fleet. It 
 consisted of only three frigates and as many brigs, 
 mounting about one hundred and eight cannon against 
 four frigates and thirteen smaller ships, mounting 
 three hundred and thirty guns manned by the Span- 
 iards. But San Martin's disparity of force was more 
 than made up by the superior skill and experience of 
 the foreign seamen he had engaged. His admiral was 
 Lord Cochrane, a Scotchman of noble family, but 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 57 
 
 radical principles and adventurous disposition. A 
 daring and reckless fighter, inventive and fertile in 
 resources, he excelled in leading cutting-out expedi- 
 tions and surprises. 
 
 San Martin's plan was to wait patiently until a 
 rising should compel the Spaniards to retire to the 
 interior, and then to organize the country and gather 
 an army for the final campaign on the plateau. He 
 kept, therefore, at a safe distance from the Spaniards ; 
 sent out detachments which scoured the country up to 
 the walls of Lima; and entered into communication 
 with the conspirators in the city. Crowds of young 
 enthusiasts hastened out to join him; Cochrane dar- 
 ingly cut out the frigate Esmeralda under the very 
 guns of Callao castle ; an expedition sent to Tacna, 
 on the extreme southern coast, was enthusiastically 
 received; and numerous desertions from the Spanish 
 army culminated in a battalion of Venezuelans com- 
 ing over in a body. 
 
 Notwithstanding this encouragement, San Martin 
 saw that outside help was necessary, and, despairing 
 of obtaining it from Chile or the Argentine, turned 
 his eyes to the north. Bolivar's battles of Boyaca 
 and Carabobo had redeemed northern Granada and 
 Venezuela in 1819 and 1821, and he was now advanc- 
 ing toward Quito to complete the expulsion of the 
 Spaniards from that viceroyalty. With a force of 
 Colombians, Sucre went to Guayaquil by sea and 
 climbed the Ecuador plateau. Defeated and driven 
 back on his first attempt, he was reinforced by a divi- 
 
58 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 sion sent by San Martin, and renewed the effort with 
 better success. Although BoHvar had in the meantime 
 been checked in his southward march on Quito by 
 loyaHsts of southern Colombia, Sucre alone destroyed 
 the Spanish army which had held Ecuador for so 
 many years. The battle of Pichincha, fought in May, 
 1822, left Bolivar and Sucre free to employ their 
 numerous and well-disciplined troops in completing 
 the liberation of Bolivia. 
 
 Bolivar joined his victorious lieutenant at Quito, 
 incorporated Ecuador with his new republic of Col- 
 ombia, and proceeded overland to Guayaquil, where 
 San Martin lost no time in going to meet him for a 
 conference. The Argentine expected to find as un- 
 selfish a patriot as himself, but the "liberator" was 
 not single-minded. He had formed plans for his 
 own glory and aggrandizement to the accomplishment 
 of which San Martin might be an obstacle. When 
 the latter broached the subject of a joint campaign 
 against the Spaniards in Peru and Bolivia, Bolivar 
 gave him no satisfaction, and evaded the Argentine's 
 noble offer to serve in a subordinate capacity. The 
 silent soldier made no protest and uttered no re- 
 proaches. Confiding not even in his closest friends, 
 he calmly considered his plight on his way back to 
 Lima. His situation in Peru, bad already, would be 
 made ten times worse by Bolivar's intrigues. Seeing 
 that he could be of no further service to the cause 
 of South American Independence, he formally re- 
 signed his authority to a national congress, deliber- 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 59 
 
 ately sacrificing his own future for the cause he loved, 
 but leaving behind him a name untarnished by any 
 suspicion of self-seeking or personal ambition. 
 
 Bolivar waited in vain for the expected invitation 
 to come with his veterans. The leaders in Peru did 
 not propose to jeopardize their own supremacy. They 
 thought they were strong enough to whip the Span- 
 iards by themselves, and made great efforts to drill 
 and equip an efficient army. By the end of the year 
 four thousand men under the command of Alvarado 
 were sent to the southern coast to make an attempt 
 to get between the Spanish armies. It failed before 
 the astonishing energy of the Spanish general Valdez, 
 who by forced marches reached the pass which the 
 Peruvians were trying to climb, and taking up a strong 
 position, beat them back with great slaughter. Al- 
 varado retreated, but was caught by Valdez and com- 
 pletely routed; hardly a third of the army escaped to 
 the seashore. The news of this defeat brought about 
 a change of government at Lima. A revolution, 
 headed by the principal officers, made Riva Aguero, 
 the leader of the Peruvian liberals, president, while 
 General Santa Cruz, a Bolivian, received chief com- 
 mand of the forces. Word was sent to Bolivar that 
 his offer of help would be accepted; and another 
 Peruvian army was recruited. Before the six thou- 
 sand men promised by Bolivar had arrived, the Peru- 
 vians had regained confidence. With the aid of a 
 London loan, the patriots got seven thousand soldiers 
 ready for service, and in May, 1823, five thousand 
 
60 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 men under the command of Santa Cruz sailed from 
 Callao for southern Peru. This time they advanced 
 so promptly that the Spanish generals could not get 
 to the passes in time to dispute the way. Santa Cruz 
 entered La Paz and defeated the first army which 
 came against him. But the two main Spanish bodies 
 hastened up from Cuzco and Charcas, outmanoeuvered 
 Santa Cruz, united their forces, and routed his army 
 in a panic, not a fourth ever reaching the seaboard. 
 Shortly after Santa Cruz's departure on his ill- 
 fated expedition, Sucre arrived at Lima with the first 
 installment of the promised Colombian auxiliaries. 
 The Spanish general, Canterac, had concentrated a 
 large army at Jauja and descended on the capital; 
 Lima was denuded of Peruvian troops; the govern- 
 ment helpless against the Spaniards or Sucre. The 
 Colombian was made commander-in-chief, and retir- 
 ing to the fortifications of Callao before Canterac's 
 overwhelming numbers, procured Riva Aguero's depo- 
 sition and the nomination of one of his own tools as 
 nominal president, while he sent off an urgent message 
 to Bolivar to come in person. Canterac, after holding 
 Lima for a few weeks, went back to the mountains, 
 and Bolivar himself landed at Callao on the 1st. of 
 September, almost at the very moment when Santa 
 Cruz's army was getting involved in that snarl out of 
 which it never extricated itself. The news of its de- 
 struction left Bolivar undisputed master of the situa- 
 tion, and in February the submissive rump of the 
 Peruvian parliament conferred upon him an absolute 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 61 
 
 dictatorship. He now devoted all the wonderful en- 
 ergy with which nature had endowed him to prepara- 
 tion for a campaign which he meant to be final; and 
 united ten thousand men under his command, two- 
 thirds of whom were Colombian veterans and the rest 
 Peruvians, Argentines, and Chileans who fought for 
 the sheer love of fighting. His officers were the pick 
 of South America, men who had proven their bravery 
 and skill on all the hundred battlefields from Venez- 
 uela to Chile. With such a force he did not hesitate 
 to attack the Spaniards, although the latter were 
 nearly twice as numerous. 
 
 Suddenly, however, his plans were seriously dis- 
 turbed by a revolt of the garrison in Callao castle — 
 Argentines and Chileans who had not received their 
 pay. The mutineers hoisted the Spanish flag and sent 
 word to Canterac that he might come in and take pos- 
 session. This event produced a great sensation at 
 Lima. Many citizens who distrusted Bolivar or were 
 fearful of the final result vacillated in their allegiance. 
 Even men who had been prominent liberals went over 
 to the royalists. Bolivar abandoned the capital and 
 removed his base of operations to Trujillo, three hun- 
 dred miles north. But discouragement gave place to 
 confident enthusiasm v/hen news came that the Span- 
 ish generals were fighting among themselves. Olafieta, 
 the renegade Argentine, who commanded in Bolivia, 
 had quarreled with the viceroy La Serna, whom he 
 regarded as a pestilent liberal and an enemy of the 
 absolute pretensions of the Spanish king. The vice- 
 
62 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 roy sent Valdez against him, and some hard fighting 
 had taken place, when this fratricidal war was inter- 
 rupted by the news of Bolivar's preparations. 
 
 Though just recovering from a dangerous illness, 
 Bolivar lost no time in taking advantage of Olaneta's 
 revolt. His army numbered nine thousand men; it 
 was well supplied with cavalry, and the troops received 
 their liberal pay punctually. The patriots advanced 
 rapidly and unopposed over the Maritime Cordillera, 
 covered by a cloud of Peruvian guerillas, under whose 
 protection Sucre marked out the daily route and 
 brought in provisions. The city of Pasco, just south 
 of that transverse range which forms the northern 
 limit of the great Peruvian plateau, was reached and 
 Bolivar's army hastened south along the western shore 
 of the lake of Reyes to the marshy plain of Junin at 
 the southern end, where he met Canterac hurrying up 
 from Jauja with a slightly inferior force. 
 
 When Bolivar caught sight of the royalist army, 
 he held his infantry back in a defensible position, and 
 sent his cavalry toward the enemy. Canterac rashly 
 charged in person at the head of all his cavalry, but 
 instead of the easy victory he expected, his squadrons 
 were thrown into some disorder when they encoun- 
 tered the patriot lancers. The latter, however, were 
 compelled to retreat, and fled into a defile, followed by 
 the royalists. The royalists did not notice that a 
 Peruvian squadron had been drawn aside, and scarcely 
 were they in the defile than they were charged from 
 the rear. The fugitive patriots in front rallied, and 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 63 
 
 the disordered and huddled royaHsts, caught between 
 two fires, could make no effective resistance. They 
 were quickly cut to pieces and driven from the field. 
 The whole affair had not lasted three-quarters of an 
 hour; the numbers engaged did not much exceed two 
 thousand; the royalist loss was only about two hun- 
 dred and fifty, yet this battle of Junin produced al- 
 most decisive results. Though Canterac was not pur- 
 sued, he did not stop in his precipitate flight until he 
 had reached Cuzco, five hundred miles away, losing 
 two thousand men by desertion on the road. 
 
 Leaving Sucre in command of the army, which 
 now threatened Cuzco itself, Bolivar returned to Lima 
 to look after his political interests, collect money, and 
 urge the sending of reinforcements from Colombia. 
 La Serna called in all his outlying divisions, while 
 Sucre confidently scattered his forces. He under- 
 estimated the strength of the royalists, for to his con- 
 sternation La Serna suddenly broke out of Cuzco at 
 the head of ten thousand men, and before Sucre 
 could concentrate, his opponent was threatening his 
 rear and manoeuvering to cut him off from his base. 
 Happily the royalists were compelled to march in a 
 semicircle, and Sucre, by desperate exertions, united 
 his forces and cut along the radius, coming in sight 
 of La Serna just as the latter had succeeded in getting 
 between him and the road to Jauja. Sucre's position 
 was desperate. The valleys to the north were rising 
 in favor of the royalists ; a patriot column advancing 
 from that direction to reinforce him was driven back; 
 
64 • SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 his provisions and ammunition were beginning to fail. 
 Sucre's army was La Serna's real objective. Even 
 if he could shake off the pursuit, another march to 
 Lima would be as barren of results as Canterac's last 
 descent, and to leave the Colombian army at Gua- 
 manga would expose Cuzco and Bolivia to invasion. 
 During three days the opposing armies marched and 
 countermarched among the ravines on the west bank 
 of the Pampas River, and finally Sucre took the 
 desperate resolution of crossing the deep gorge in 
 which the river runs in order to reach the high 
 grounds on the other side. He managed to get his 
 main body over safely, but the Spaniards fell upon his 
 rear guard, killing four hundred men and capturing 
 one of his two cannon. The two armies were now 
 opposite each other on the high, narrow and broken 
 plateau which lies between the Eastern and Central 
 Cordilleras, separated only by the gorge of the Pam- 
 pas. They marched in plain sight of each other, the 
 royalists along the slopes of the Central Cordillera, 
 while the patriots skirted the foothills of the Eastern. 
 Sucre hoped to outrun the enemy and reach the main 
 road to Jauja, but La Serna again outflanked him; 
 he offered battle, but the viceroy had determined to 
 engage under conditions where not a patriot could 
 escape, and by skilful manoeuvres the royal army suc- 
 ceeded in getting into the protection of the eastern 
 range at a point north of Sucre. Iri-etrievably cut 
 off from the Jauja road, convinced by his previous 
 failures that he could not better his position by any 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 65 
 
 further manoeuvres, the Columbian general resolved 
 again to offer battle, although this time upon a- field 
 chosen by La Serna. He ceased marching and allowed 
 the enemy to dispose their forces at will. 
 
 On the 8th of September, 1824, La Serna's army, 
 numbering eight thousand five hundred men — of 
 whom only five hundred were Spaniards — encamped 
 on the high grounds overlooking the little plain of 
 Ayacucho, which sloped gently eastward to the little 
 village of Quinua. To the left the level ground was 
 bounded by a deep and precipitate ravine, and on the 
 right by a valley which, though less difficult, was im- 
 practicable for fighting. Sucre's army lay at the 
 eastern extremity of the plain, at the edge of the slope 
 which rises from Quinua. Behind was no cover to re- 
 form in if defeated. His forces were a little less than 
 six thousand, and he had only one cannon against the 
 enemy's eleven, but three-fourths of his men were the 
 pick of the Colombian veterans and the rest Peruvians 
 of high spirit. Tired of interminablie marching 
 through the mountains, isolated in a hostile region, 
 starvation staring them in the face, confident of their 
 superiority, man for man, to the royalists, and led 
 by fiery young generals, — Sucre was only thirty-one 
 and his chief lieutenant twenty-five, — they welcomed 
 the opportunity to fight it out once for all, face to face, 
 man to man. 
 
 The morning sun of the 9th rose radiant behind 
 the mountains where the Spaniards lay encamped. 
 Sucre deployed his army in the open plain, riding 
 
66 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 down the line exclaiming, "Soldiers, on your deeds 
 this day depends the fate of South America," while 
 the Spanish columns descended in perfect order from 
 the heights. La Serna realized that his men would 
 not fight with the same spirit as the patriots and that 
 defeat might be followed by wholesale desertion, but 
 he counted on his artillery and the reserve he had left 
 on the high ground as a sure refuge in case of a 
 reverse. 
 
 The story of the battle is soon told. The patriots 
 advanced to meet the Spanish attack; musketry vol- 
 leys on both sides did terrific execution, and the two 
 armies met bayonet in hand. On the left the Spanish 
 columns were unable to make any impression on the 
 Colombian infantry, and while the conflict was still 
 undecided the royalist cavalry rashly charged, hoping 
 to strike a deciding blow. But they were met by a 
 counter charge of the patriot squadrons and rolled 
 back to defeat. The whole left of the royalist army 
 dispersed, and such was the confusion that the impetu- 
 ously pursuing Colombians reached the Spanish camp 
 and spiked the artillery, defeating on the way the 
 enemy's center. In the meantime the Spanish right 
 under Valdez had outflanked the Peruvians who held 
 that part of the line and driven them back, but before 
 he could reach the patriot center the battle had been 
 decided. Attacked by the victorious cavalry, Valdez's 
 men were cut to pieces, and by one o'clock in the 
 afternoon the Spanish army, except the reserve under 
 Canterac, had ceased to exist as an organized body. 
 
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 67 
 
 Of the royalists, fourteen hundred were dead. The 
 viceroy was wounded and a prisoner, his men desert- 
 ing and dispersing by hundreds. Of the patriots six 
 hundred were wounded and three hundred dead. 
 Canterac sued for terms, and that afternoon fourteen 
 generals, five hundred and sixty-eight officers, and 
 three thousand two hundred privates became prisoners 
 of war. Never was a victory more complete and de- 
 cisive than Ayacucho. The war for independence 
 was over. Only under Olaneta in far southern Bo- 
 livia and at Callao castle did a Spaniard remain under 
 arms. Sucre marched to Cuzco, where he rested and 
 refitted and then went on to Puno and La Paz. 01a- 
 neta's troops deserted as the Colombian approached, 
 and the last of the Spanish generals fell at the hands 
 of his own men as he was bravely trying to suppress 
 a mutiny. Callao castle held out for thirteen months, 
 and with its surrender was hauled down the last Span- 
 ish flag which floated on the South American main- 
 land.'' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUS 
 
 THE Republic of Panama is 425 miles long and 
 averages 70 miles in width. Its most southern 
 point is a little above seven degrees north of the 
 equator, its northern point about 9° 50'. It is in the 
 same latitude as Ceylon and Mindanao. It is almost 
 due south of Buffalo. 
 
 It must be remembered that when Balboa discov- 
 ered the Pacific, he christened it the Southern Sea, for 
 the Isthmus runs east and west. Every new arrival 
 gets the points of compass twisted, because of the 
 habit of thinking of the Pacific as a western ocean. 
 Panama City is south and east of Colon, the Atlantic 
 entrance of the canal. In Panama the sun rises out of 
 the Pacific. 
 
 The land frontiers of the republic are less than four 
 hundred miles in the total, and are about equally di- 
 vided between the Costa Rican and Colombian border. 
 But the total coast line is over 1,200 miles, seven hun- 
 dred of which is on the Pacific. 
 
 The most important physical feature of the Isth- 
 mus is that here the great chain of mountains, which 
 form the backbone of the hemisphere from Alaska to 
 Patagonia, breaks down into scattered hills and low 
 divides. At Culebra — where we are making our deep- 
 
 68 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUS 69 
 
 est cut — the pass was only 290 feet above sea level. 
 The highest peak in the republic is the Cerro del 
 Picacho near the Costa Rican border. It is a little 
 over 7,000 feet. There are four other mountains in 
 the western provinces which are over 5,000 feet. They 
 gradually decrease in height to the center of the 
 isthmus and then begin to climb again towards the 
 Colombian borders, where they again approach 5,000 
 feet. 
 
 The republic is divided into the followmg prov- 
 inces: (1) Bocas del Toro, (2) Chiriqui, (3) Vera- 
 guas, (4) Los Santos, (5) Code, (6) Colon, and (7) 
 Panama. The la^t is by far the largest, more than a 
 third of the total, and Code is the smallest. 
 
 Bocas del Torro (the mouths of the bull) is the 
 extreme northwest. It is notable for the wonderful 
 Almirante Bay and Chiriqui Lagoon. They are really 
 one body of water, as the long narrow peninsula which 
 divides them is almost an island. It will be remem- 
 bered by students of President Lincoln's administra- 
 tion that this was one of the locations considered by 
 our government for a naval station. In fact, it is al- 
 most certain that if Lincoln had not been assassinated 
 we would have acquired Lagoon. He had been deeply 
 impressed by the difficulty of blockading the Gulf 
 ports without some such base, and he kept Seward busy 
 trying to acquire one of the West India islands or 
 some post on the mainland. 
 
 The Chiriqui Lagoon is thirty-five miles long from 
 east to west and about twelve miles wide. It is an 
 
70 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 unbroken sheet of water and almost everywhere navi- 
 gable for the biggest warships. 
 
 Almirante Bay — really the northwestern extension 
 of the Lagoon — is a maze of waterways between its 
 numerous islands. It has, however, a number of 
 fairly large harbors and deep water in most of its 
 channels. In many places the banks are so abrupt 
 that a deep draught steamer can tie up to the shore. 
 The mainland is a tableland about six hundred feet 
 high and within a few miles reaches an elevation of 
 2,000 feet. It is remarkably salubrious, and on account 
 of its ideal facilities for bathing and small boating and 
 its marvelous scenery, seems doomed to develop into 
 a smart winter resort. 
 
 At present the province is practically a feudal 
 domain of the United Fruit Company, and banana 
 growing is its principal industry. The Chanquinolo 
 River is one of the finest spots in the world for this 
 fruit. There is said to be coal of good quality in the 
 province, but it has never been mined. 
 
 Bocas del Toro, a town of about six thousand in- 
 habitants, is the capital of the province. It is built on 
 an island at the mouth of Almirante Bay and is a very 
 busy port of export. About five steamers and as many 
 sailing vessels clear from Bocas every day, loaded 
 down to the scuppers with fruit. 
 
 The province of Chirique lies to the south and 
 east of Bocas del Toro. It has considerable frontage on 
 both oceans. David, the capital, has about eight thou- 
 sand inhabitants and is rapidly growing. It is the 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUS 71 
 
 largest inland city of the republic and far and away 
 the most progressive. 
 
 There has long been a large grain and cattle trade 
 in this province and new crops are being planted, 
 new industries started with surprising frequency. It 
 is the favorite location for foreign settlers. The re- 
 ports one hears from those who have gone in for agri- 
 culture are universally favorable. The present gov- 
 ernment has passed a bill authorizing the building of 
 a national railroad from Panama to David. It is not 
 quite certain that the necessary financial arrangements 
 can be made, but if the railroad is built it will of course 
 give a new impetus to the prosperity of Chiriqui and 
 the intervening provinces. The talk about the rail- 
 road — the survey has already been made — has induced 
 a good deal of land speculation. But the values of 
 land in this district have been steadily rising for gene- 
 rations and even if the railroad project falls through, 
 real estate is a good investment. 
 
 In the early colonial days the Spaniards worked 
 some very rich gold mines in the mountains of Chiri- 
 qui, and one of the most popular industries today is 
 that of trying to relocate lost mines. It is here, also, 
 that the signs of the highest pre-Colombian civilization 
 have been found. The high development of art and 
 architecture with which Cortez met in Mexico, seems to 
 have petered out to the southward. In the other states 
 of Central America some imposing ruins have been 
 found. The largest are in Guatemala. In Costa Rica 
 there are few signs of architectural development and 
 
72 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 the pottery implements are very crude. In Chiriqui 
 one finds only a few "painted stones" and graves. A 
 popular form of vocation for the American employees 
 on the canal is to go grave- robbing in the mountains 
 back of David. A native walks in front of you and 
 pounds the ground with an iron rod. If he gets a 
 hollow sound, he digs. If he strikes a grave you are 
 almost sure to find weird pottery and sometimes gold 
 ornaments. M. de Zeltner, a former French Consul 
 at Panama, has written an interesting brochure on the 
 prehistoric graves of this district ; and the Smithsonian 
 Institute has published an elaborate description of 
 them. 
 
 Farther east is the province of Veraguas — wedge- 
 shaped, with only a few miles on the Atlantic coast 
 and a couple of hundred on the Pacific. It is remark- 
 able for its beautiful islands and Montijo Bay, the 
 second of the great harbors of the isthmus. 
 
 Coiba Island is the largest in the Republic. It is 
 more than twenty miles long, well wooded and fertile, 
 but is very sparsely settled. Jicaran, further out to 
 sea, is much smaller, but rises 1,400 feet above the 
 sea. It is the most beautiful of all — a real distinction 
 along a coast studded with beautiful islands. 
 
 Monti jo Bay is fourteen miles long by nine broad. 
 Cebaco, an island fifteen miles long, stretches across 
 its entrance and makes it one of the most sheltered 
 harbors ever contrived by nature. 
 
 Veraguas, and the small province of Los Santos, 
 form together a peninsula which reaches to the south- 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUS 73 
 
 ern extremity of the isthmus. The coast then turns 
 back — an accurate angle — and runs northwest up to 
 Parita Bay and the province of Code. 
 
 These three provinces are the least developed of 
 the republic. They are sparsely settled. The blood of 
 the population varies between the formulae: one-tenth 
 Spaniard, one-tenth Cholo Indian, eight-tenths negro, 
 and one-tenth Spanish, one-tenth negro, eight-tenths 
 Indian. Near the coast the negro strain predominates, 
 in the hills that of the Indian. 
 
 The roads are the merest trails — impassable, even 
 for Indians on foot, during much of the rainy season. 
 There is very little circulation of commodities beyond 
 navigable water. The population has the ingrown in- 
 dolence which comes from life in such bountiful coun- 
 tries. It is only necessary to scratch the earth with a 
 stick to make yams and plantains grow. The only 
 tools needed for rice are a pair of hands. And one 
 could not stop the plentiful harvest of cocoanuts if 
 one tried. 
 
 Colon Province is the extreme north of the isth- 
 mus. ,What has just been said about the three prov- 
 inces to the west applies to it, with the exception of 
 Colon City. And this city is entirely the work of for- 
 eigners. It was founded, and at first called Aspin- 
 wall, by the Panama Railroad Company in 1850. The 
 province, however, is rich in historical interest. Colum- 
 bus himself visited the coast on his last voyage in 
 1502. He named Puerto Bello, and what is now called 
 Colon Harbor, he christened Navy Bay. Not far from 
 
74 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 the present city of Colon he attempted to found a 
 colony — it would have been the first on the continent. 
 His brother Bartholomew landed a company of set- 
 tlers, but the day before the great admiral sailed away 
 they were attacked by the Indians and driven to the 
 ships. It was along this shore that Don Diego de 
 Nicuesa, seven years later, strove so desperately to 
 gain a foothold for his sovereign. He had set out 
 with a brilliant following to establish a Spanish colony 
 and met with a series of almost incredible disasters. 
 Beaten back by the savage natives, buffeted by storms, 
 his ships eaten by worms, he and the pitiful remnant 
 of his expedition came to a favorable looking harbor. 
 *ln the name of God," he cried, "let us stop here." 
 Nomhre de Dios, they called the place, and it is still 
 on the map. 
 
 East along the coast from Colon is the Gulf of 
 San Bias, »named after the most unique tribe of 
 Indians left in America. The San Bias have never 
 been conquered. And they have preserved their 
 ethnic purity as intact as their territory. Their coast 
 is famous for its cocoanuts — the finest on the market. 
 A number of schooners trade with the villages along 
 the shore and on the island, but there are no European 
 settlements in their territory. 
 
 The province of Panama, with long coast lines on 
 both oceans, is in the eastern extreme of the republic. 
 Most of it is undeveloped, but there is considerable 
 cattle raising. Several companies with foreign capital 
 have been established in the Bayano Valley. They 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUS 75 
 
 are interested in bananas, cocoanuts, vegetable ivory, 
 rubber, cocoa, and other native products. A lumber 
 company, an English affair, is planning to exploit the 
 mahogany and cabinet woods. And down towards the 
 Colombian border, near the head waters of the Tuyra 
 River, are the properties of the Darien Gold Mining 
 Company. The mines date from prehistoric times and 
 there have been very few long interruptions in the 
 taking out of bullion. At present the company is run 
 under an English charter, but most of the stockholders 
 and the technical managers are French. 
 
 The province of Panama contains the third of the 
 great natural harbors of the isthmus. San Miguel 
 Bay, with its inner Darien Harbor, from the immense 
 outer bay, is almost closed by a large island, on either 
 side of which are deep, safe channels, the Boca Chico 
 and the Boca Grande. Beyond them, is an unbroken 
 expanse of water, thirty miles long by half that width. 
 All the navies of all the nations could anchor here in 
 safety. Half a dozen submarine mines would make 
 the place the surest refuge in the world. 
 
 The big tides form a great advantage over the 
 Chiriqui Lagoon. They rise and fall fifteen feet — 
 and at "spring tide" twenty feet. The shores of the 
 harbor are natural dry-docks. Any ships which visit 
 these coasts can be run on the beach on the top of the 
 tide and left high and dry when it falls. A further 
 advantage is that the Tuyra River is navigable be- 
 yond salt water. A short anchorage in fresh water 
 kills the barnacles, here the pest of navigation. 
 
76 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Off the mouth of San Miguel Bay are the Pearl 
 Islands. The archipelago is over thirty miles long. 
 There are sixteen high islands and innumerable small 
 ones. The Isle del Rey is over ten miles long and as 
 big as all the rest put together. Most of the islands 
 which have fresh water are occupied. There is a 
 considerable output of cocoanuts and pineapples, but 
 of course the pearl fisheries are the big industry. 
 
 Taking the Isthmus as a whole its most noticeable 
 feature is the maze of innnumerable rivers. As a 
 rule the mountains are nearer the Atlantic than the 
 Pacific ; so most of the longer rivers are on the south- 
 ern slope. Hbwever, the Rio Code del Norte has its 
 source in the province of Code, and crosses that of 
 Colon to empty into the Caribbean. The Chagres 
 River, which is to furnish the water for the canal, is 
 also a northern stream. It is about one hundred miles 
 long and navigable half that distance by small boats. 
 
 The largest of all rivers is the Tuyra, or Rio del 
 Santa Maria, as the old maps have it. From its 
 mouth in Darien Harbor it is navigable for small 
 steamers and schooners fifty miles inland. The cayu- 
 kas, native dugouts, go up it and its tributary, the 
 Chucunaque, for fifty miles more. 
 
 In the face of the unquestioned resources of the 
 Isthmus, there is remarkably little development. There 
 are three main obstacles in the way of foreign enter- 
 prise : 
 
 1. The uncertainty of land titles. There are a 
 dozen large estates which would be bought up and 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUS 17 
 
 developed at once if titles were clear, which are tied 
 up in litigation. Always some of the heirs are ob- 
 structing a settlement, in the hope that the next turn- 
 over in politics will put some of their friends on the 
 bench. There are almost no accurate surveys and the 
 records of the land office are in a mess. In Hon- 
 duras an American once found a deed which recorded 
 the corner of the property as marked by "a dead 
 mahogany tree, with two ravens on the branch." 
 Perhaps the Panama records do not offer so crude an 
 absurdity; but nine out of ten of the myriad springs 
 in the country are called Aguadulce, and many deeds 
 give "a spring called Aguadulce" as the boundary 
 mark. Frequently the original land grants read "from 
 the sea back to the mountains." When the hinterland 
 had no value this was a satisfactory description, but 
 it is now a fruitful source of dispute. Very few land- 
 holders know definitely how much they own. 
 
 2. The next obstacle to progress is the dearth of 
 good roads — the almost total lack of bridges. The 
 country, for instance, is full of valuable cabinet woods. 
 A dozen companies have come to grief after acquiring 
 good title to enough standing mahogany to make a 
 fortune. It is next to impossible to get the stuff out. 
 And there are immense tracts of valuable banana land 
 lying fallow for want of transportation. It works 
 both ways, as it is just as difficult to get machinery 
 and provisions in as it is to get your commodity out. 
 
 3. The third obstacle — and the most serious of all 
 for a large undertaking — is the dearth of labor force. 
 
78 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 If the enterprise requires steady labor, it must be im- 
 ported. The native population is small and long tradi- 
 tion has habituated them to the simplest of simple lives. 
 Nature is so bountiful that a man can easily raise a 
 family according to accepted standards of living by 
 two days' work a week. It is easy almost anywhere 
 on the Isthmus to get fifty men to work for you. But 
 as soon as they have earned enough to buy a year's 
 supply of powder and shot, and half a dozen needles 
 for the wife, it is all over. Five dollars a day would 
 not keep them on the job. They will have to be edu- 
 cated up to a new and very much more complex sys- 
 tem of "wants," before they will become reliable 
 workmen. 
 
 The banana fields of the United Fruit Company in 
 Bocas del Toro are the biggest foreign enterprise in 
 the republic. They have successfully overcome the last 
 two obstacles. Their fruit grows near water and they 
 have built a network of rails into the more remote 
 fields. They control good harbors, so their transpor- 
 tation problem is solved. And they import their labor 
 from the West India islands. But their land titles 
 are in a bad tangle and it is costing many thousands 
 of dollars to get them straightened out. 
 
 The Darien Gold Mining Company is the oldest 
 and most firmly established in the country. Their 
 titles are clear. They run a small steamer weekly 
 from Panama to Marriganti on the Tuyra River, and 
 they transport upriver in cayukas and, during the rainy 
 season, in a flat-bottomed stern-wheeler to the head of 
 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUS 79 
 
 navigation, from which they operate a miniature rail- 
 road to the mine site. They also have to import most 
 of their labor. 
 
 Another industry in which there is invested consid- 
 erable capital — mostly local — is pearl fishing. It does 
 not seem to be well organized, but considering the 
 slipshod methods it is very profitable. The **mother- 
 of-pearl" from the shells pays a small interest on the 
 capital and all the real pearls are clear profit. There 
 are twenty or thirty ships equipped with diving appa- 
 ratus, which operate at the islands and up and down 
 the coast. But the majority of the diving is done by 
 the natives of the Pearl Islands. They are enslaved 
 to the companies by debt and are viciously exploited. 
 
 Any large enterprise by outsiders demands suffi- 
 cient capital and patience to secure clear titles, effi- 
 cient transportation and a steady labor force. This 
 applies only to "big business." The Isthmus offers 
 opportunity to half a million settlers of the type of our 
 forefathers who pushed across the Appalachians and 
 won the West. One who wants to live close to nature 
 will hunt long before he finds a location where the 
 Old Mother is kindlier. The opportunities for small 
 homes are limitless. Much fertile land is unoccupied 
 and can be taken up under the homestead law. Dozens 
 of profitable crops are practical — rice, onions, rubber, 
 bananas and other fruits.^ 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PANAMANIANS 
 
 THERE is little real friendship between the Ameri- 
 cans on the Isthmus and the natives. In tem- 
 perament and tradition we are miles away from the 
 Panamanians. The hostility between Latin and Saxon 
 probably dates back to the old Roman days when the 
 Saxons first began to plunder the Latins. 
 
 When the Spanish Empire sprang up in America, 
 its most relentless enemies were the Protestants of 
 England. Even in the odd moments when the two 
 mother countries were not at war, the colonists never 
 buried the hatchet. From the days of Drake till the 
 fall of Carthagena, the Latin people of Central Amer- 
 ica lived in constant fear of the English buccaneers. 
 
 Since our revolution, they have transferred this 
 dread to us. Gradually, but apparently restlessly, 
 the United States have expanded — always at the cost 
 of Spanish America. Florida, Texas and California, 
 the Philippines, Porto Rico, one after the other, have 
 disappeared down the maw of what our southern 
 neighbors are wont to call "The Northern Vulture." 
 
 Very many of our representatives in the Canal 
 Zone have made sincere efforts to establish friendly 
 relations with the native population. A few still con- 
 tinue such efforts, but most have given it up as hope- 
 
 so 
 
THE PANAMANIANS 81 
 
 less. The two people live side by side, meet occasion- 
 ally at the theatre or public receptions, but very rarely 
 become intimate. Perhaps half a dozen men have 
 married Panamanian wives, but I have not heard of 
 a single American woman marrying a native. 
 
 This age-old hostility to the "Gringo" is deep- 
 rooted. Differences in language, customs and reli- 
 gious practices keep the breach wide. So any descrip- 
 tion of the people is necessarily that of an outsider. 
 Very likely many of the things which seem ludicrous 
 or unlovely to us might be understood and overlooked 
 if they would admit us to greater intimacy. 
 
 Panamanian society is sharply divided in classes. 
 The people on top are either old Spanish families, 
 whose income is dependent on land, or well-established 
 families of foreign extraction who have been natural- 
 ized for many years and whose source of income is 
 industrial. The descendants of the Conquistadores 
 look down on these parvenu families in private, but 
 are so generally in debt to them that they dare not do 
 so in public. They form a pretty solid social block. 
 
 The division in regard to politics is sharper than 
 that of heredity. At present the Liberal party is in 
 power and the Conservatives are getting social as well 
 as political snubs. One of the most noticeable things 
 about these people is their inability to bury political 
 differences. Theirs is a politic of personalities, first, 
 last, and all the time. The Conservative members of 
 "The Union Club" are resigning — although the club 
 was formed as a place where the two sides could 
 
82 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 meet socially — because they feel that they have not 
 been fairly treated in committee appointments. As a 
 general proposition, Conservatives and Liberals will 
 not break any manner of bread together. During the 
 elections for the Queen of the Carnivals, all good 
 Liberals vote for the daughter of a Liberal. 
 
 This political bitterness, which shows itself so un- 
 pleasantly in social life, goes to even worse extremes 
 in the business of politics. Every political turn-over 
 means an entire house cleaning. Every government 
 official, from judge to street cleaner, loses his job — 
 to make way for a member of the triumphant party. 
 The Liberal party, now in power, has developed the 
 ''machine patronage system" to ludicrous lengths. 
 They seem bent on creating a job for every one of a 
 safe majority of voters. Panama City has enough 
 policemen for a city ten times its size. Consulates 
 have been sprinkled all over the map — often in places 
 that never saw a Panamanian till the consul arrived. 
 
 There is absolute unanimity on the question that 
 what the Republic needs before and above everything 
 else are roads. With its long coast lines and many 
 navigable rivers, it is unusually adapted to the cheap- 
 est of all forms of transportation — by water. Small 
 amounts of money spent in harbor works in half a 
 dozen places, a few good roads leading inland from 
 the harbors, would open up large districts. Yet the 
 1910 National Assembly voted to tie up all the re- 
 serve capital in a railroad of doubtful utility. In trop- 
 ical countries railroading is expensive transportation. 
 
THE PANAMANIANS 83 
 
 The little Republic of Panama made its bow to the 
 world in the enviable position of having, several dol- 
 lars per capita in the bank, when most of its older sis- 
 ters were heavily in debt. Most of this reserve has 
 been dissipated in the extravagant building of national 
 theaters and national universities, or in more extrava- 
 gant pay rolls. Very little of it has gone in real 
 development of the country. 
 
 Besides the class composed of landed gentry poli- 
 ticians and financial industrial politicians, lies the great 
 mass of the people, who take no more part in govern- 
 ment affairs than they do in government receptions. 
 One sees them at their worst in the cities, as is true in 
 every country. The Sanitary Department has cleaned 
 up the slums, and the housing conditions are better 
 than in more prosperous communities. In the coun- 
 try they lead a sort of Arcadian life. There is much 
 free land, and those who have not acquired any prop- 
 erty "squat" wherever the fancy strikes them. 
 
 Of course, the base of the population is Indian — a 
 squat, square- faced type, completely unlike the illus- 
 trations in the de luxe editions of Hiawatha. There 
 are two main ethnic groups of Indians. The Cholos, 
 a fairly pure type, is found in the mountains of Code 
 province, and are scattered all up and down the 
 west coast, from the borders of Mexico to the edge of 
 Peru. The early Spanish adventurers found that 
 friendly Indians from the Isthmus could act as inter- 
 preters within these limits. 
 
 In the northeastern part of the country, beginning 
 
84 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 at the Gulf of San Bias and extending almost to the 
 Colombian border, and inland to the Chucunaque 
 River, are the San Bias. Probably of the same race 
 as the Cholos, they have become differentiated in the 
 four centuries since the visit of Columbus, in that they 
 have never been conquered and have not allowed inter- 
 marriage. They are estimated at about 20,000 and are 
 reputed to be well armed. As the Republic has no 
 army, they have every prospect of maintaining their 
 independence for a long time to come. 
 
 They are not unfriendly to the white population, 
 and treasure an especial respect for the English, who, 
 tradition tells them, are irreconcilable enemies of their 
 enemies, the Spaniards. The San Bias men frequently 
 come up to Colon and Panama with cayukas laden 
 with cocoanuts, scrap rubber, and other products, 
 which they trade for powder and salt and needles and 
 cloth. They allow traders along their coast, but never 
 permit them to stay on shore during the night. They 
 guard their women to such an extent that a white man 
 rarely sees one of them except through glasses. The 
 moment a stranger approaches a village, the women 
 disappear into the bush. 
 
 The Cholo Indians have not preserved their ethnic 
 purity and seem to have no sentiment in the matter. 
 Most of the crossing has been with the negroes, the 
 slaves of colonial days, their descendants, and the 
 recent immigrants from the West Indies. But the 
 crossing of the races has been varied in the extreme. 
 At El Real on the Tuyra River, a pure type of Cholo 
 
THE PANAMANIANS 85 
 
 girl was married to the leading Chinese merchant, and 
 the two babies are almond-eyed and yellow skinned. 
 It is generally affirmed that aside from the San Bias 
 people, no native of Panama is of pure blood. The 
 color line is not drawn in the official and social circles 
 of the cities, so of course it is not on the country-side. 
 Family life is simple in the extreme. John and 
 Jenny, or more probably Jose and Dolores, walk off 
 some fine day. If they happen to pass a priest, they 
 may stop and get married. When they find a satis- 
 factory place, it does not take them many days to get 
 settled. They have probably started out with a couple 
 of machetes, an earthen pot and a hammock. They 
 build a roof and hoist it up on four poles. They begin 
 cutting out a clearing, and at the end of the dry sea- 
 son, burn off the fallen timber. Until their first crop 
 comes to harvest, they borrow rice and yams and plan- 
 tains from their relatives if there does not happen to 
 be a stranger more near at hand. In the course of a 
 few years they have many children, their original 
 shelter has been turned into a kitchen, and a new 
 ranche with woven walls has become their residence. 
 They have several acres under mild cultivation. The 
 bananas and oranges have begun to bear. Dolores has 
 woven several new hammocks, has molded several new 
 pots and pans, and has made a dozen different house- 
 hold utensils out of the fruit of their thriving calabash 
 tree. They have become people of consideration, and 
 are now in a position to lend yams and rice to more 
 recently established homes. 
 
86 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Once a year or so, Jose sets out for the nearest 
 town. He loads up with various medicinal gums they 
 have gathered, a few pounds of rubber scrap, and, if 
 Dolores is a clever artisan at hat weaving or gourd 
 carving, with her handiwork. On the way he stops at 
 every hacienda he passes and asks for work. In due 
 course he reaches town with a handful of silver, buys 
 what supplies he needs and returns to Dolores for 
 another long sleep. As soon as the oldest boy grows 
 up, he sends him to town instead, and sleeps all the 
 year round. 
 
 The formal tribal relations have broken down 
 among the Cholo Indians. They appear to be, accord- 
 ing to Herbert Spencer's ideal, the happiest of people, 
 for they are certainly the least governed. Half a 
 dozen whom I questioned did not know who was presi- 
 dent of the Republic. There seems to be in each com- 
 munity some old man who is generally considered 
 wise. Disputes are informally submitted to him, but 
 he has no authority to back up his decisions. 
 
 The jungle stretches on all sides invitingly. Very 
 few of the Indians have acquired sufficient property 
 to bind them to a locality or community; and if a 
 man feels that he is unjustly treated by his neighbors 
 he will move. 
 
 The landed gentry generally live in the cities. Their 
 haciendas are unattractive places, the cultivation of 
 their estates is almost nil. In general, their income 
 comes from cattle raising or those forms of agricul- 
 ture which require the least human labor. There is 
 
THE PANAMANIANS 87 
 
 none of the slavery of which one hears so much in 
 Mexico, partly because the Panamanian gentry are too 
 indolent to make effective slave drivers, but more 
 because the jungle offers such ready escape. Almost 
 every time you find an even moderately well-cultivated 
 estate, you will find a foreigner as foreman. 
 
 The homes of the rich are strangely unattractive to 
 Northerners, and this is especially remarkable, as most 
 of the upper class have been educated abroad. I spent 
 nearly a week in a household not far from Panama 
 City. They were the most important people of the 
 village, and reputed to be rich. They were so nearly ' 
 white that the daughters had been received in a smart 
 finishing school in the States. Several members of the 
 family had been in Europe, and, taking everything into 
 consideration, one would naturally expect certain 
 traces of advanced culture. 
 
 It was a large one-storied house, with unglazed 
 windows. One room, which served as a dining-room 
 and living room, was papered with a cheap, gaudy, 
 green and gilt paper, stained and moldy from humid- 
 ity. The walls of the other rooms were bare. In 
 this living-room there was a grand piano which had 
 been out of tune at least a generation, and had been 
 superseded by a graphophone. Sousa marches were 
 the family's preference in music. On the wall there 
 was a chromo portrait of Alphonso XIII, advertising 
 a brand of sherry, and a hideous crayon enlargement 
 from a photograph of the father. In a book-shelf 
 there was a fine old set of Cervantes, a couple of 
 
88 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 French and English dictionaries and text-books, and 
 a file of La Hacienda, an illustrated magazine pub- 
 lished by and in the interests of an American manufac- 
 turer of farm machinery. I did not see any member of 
 the family reading anything but the daily paper from 
 Panama, although they could all read and speak 
 French and English. 
 
 The ladies of the household spent the morning in 
 dingy mother hubbards and slippers. After a heavy mid- 
 day meal they retire to their hammocks. About four 
 o'clock they took a dip in the ocean, sat around the 
 rest of the evening v^ith a towel over their shoulders 
 and their hair drying. About a month later I encoun- 
 tered one of these young ladies at a ball in Panama. 
 She was dressed in an exquisite Paris gown, and was 
 strikingly beautiful. She would have passed muster 
 in the most exclusive set in any European capital. It 
 was hard to believe that three hundred days out of the 
 year she led the slipshod, slovenly life I had seen in 
 her home. 
 
 The married life of the better class natives does not 
 seem attractive to Americans. The women have no 
 social intercourse with men, except at infrequent 
 balls and formal dinners. They are expected to keep 
 their feet on the rocker of the cradle all the time. 
 The men lead their social life in cafes and clubs. 
 "Calling" is unknown. Many amusing stories are 
 told of the excitement and astonishment caused by 
 Americans breaking over this custom. There were a 
 great many love feasts in the early days. Every one 
 
THE PANAMANIANS gp 
 
 talked of friendship between the two nations and 
 the Americans believed in it. And our young men, 
 having duly met the ladies of Panama at these formal 
 functions, proceeded to "call" in form. Invariably 
 they found the ladies in "deshabille'* and tongue-tied 
 with astonishment at the invasion. The husbands 
 were outraged at this attack on the sanctity of their 
 homes, and while the affair fell short of diplomatic 
 incident, a lot of explaining had to be done to avoid 
 the duels which threatened. 
 
 The religion of the country is Roman Catholic 
 Most of the men, however, seem to be free-thinkers. 
 Even more than in Protestant countries the congre- 
 gations of the churches are made up of women. But 
 especially at fiestas the churches are packed. The 
 ceremonial in these Latin-American countries is not 
 as attractive as it is in Europe nor as impressive as 
 it is in Russia. The religious fervor which marked 
 the clergy in the early days of colonization — the mis- 
 sionary spirit — seems to have very largely given place 
 to formalism, and rather shoddy formalism at that. 
 Even the linen on the high altar of the cathedral is 
 seldom washed. The silken finery of Nuestra Senora 
 del la Merced is motheaten. The worshipers seem 
 uninspired, the celebrants of the mass half asleep. 
 Only once I heard some sisters chanting a mass in 
 San Felipo Neri, and it was a sadly untrained chorus. 
 
 "Sport," in the Anglo-Saxon sense, is hardly 
 known in Panama. The nearest approach to baseball, 
 for instance, is cock-fighting. It holds a place in the 
 
90 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 hearts of the people on a par with, if not above 
 political intrigue. There are cock-fights every Sun- 
 day, and elections only once a year. The birds are 
 raised with great care, and are trained and fed with 
 as much solicitude as a prize fighter. Sunday morning 
 while the women are at church, the men crowd into 
 the cock-pit. The excitement is intense, the tobacco 
 smoke dense — and the sport pitiful. Two cocks, most 
 of their feathers shaved off, are brought into the ring 
 by their keepers. There is a long wrangle over odds, and 
 then bets are tossed in from the circle of seats. When 
 the debate between the keepers is ended, they knock 
 the roosters' heads together and then turn them 
 loose. I sat through a couple of hours of it once, 
 and only one bout of a dozen or more had any action 
 to it — or any suspense. In the other cases, after a 
 little sparring, one cock ran and the other chased it, 
 round and round the pit. Every few minutes the 
 backer of the fleeing cock would persuade it to turn 
 round and face the foe, but in a second the chase 
 would begin again. The bout was ended when one 
 cock was smitten with heart failure. Perhaps the 
 worst thing which can be said of the Panamanians is 
 that cock fighting is their national sport. 
 
 Ice is almost a necessity of life in the tropics. A 
 private monopoly in Panama City manufactures it 
 and sells it at exhorbitant prices. The Commissary 
 has a fine modern plant and furnishes ice to canal 
 employees at cost. A few families reap immense 
 profit from the ice monopoly. All the natives pay 
 
THE PANAMANIANS 91 
 
 exorbitant prices for it. If the National Assembly 
 should pass a resolution instructing the President to 
 request the Commission to extend its commissary 
 privileges to the people of Panama, nine-tenths of the 
 population would benefit immensely, and only half a 
 dozen already rich families would suffer. It pays 
 these families to stir up patriotism to the extent that 
 the natives prefer to go without ice rather than touch 
 that of the Gringos. 
 
 An even more striking case is furnished by the 
 situation in regard to electric power and light. The 
 same clique who own the ice monopoly have an anti- 
 quated electric plant, operated by coal brought all the 
 way from the States. The unit cost is ludicrously 
 high, and the monopolistic profit is extortionate. A 
 few miles out of Panama, the Commission is install- 
 ing a large electrical power plant to operate the 
 Miraflores Locks. They must make it large enough 
 to handle the maximum of traffic, and there is no 
 possibility of the maximum being reached for years 
 to come. It would certainly pay our government to 
 furnish light and pov/er to Panama at less than cost. 
 This they undoubtedly would and could do, were it 
 not for the bitter hatred which the people have for 
 Americans. 
 
 We may have set out the characteristics of the 
 Panamanians rather harshly, but this is inevitable, 
 when it is considered that they are on the surface, 
 while their virtues they hide from foreigners.^ 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 
 
 THE .history of Panama is for the most part 
 identified with that of Colombia, of which re- 
 public it was until recently a province. It is necessary 
 to know something of certain movements and tend- 
 encies of the last half century in order to gain a just 
 understanding of the position and prospects of the 
 new republic. 
 
 All the principles of advanced democratic gov- 
 ernment were included in the program of the party 
 which ruled Colombia from 1863 to 1883, and the 
 leaders earnestly tried to put . those principles into 
 practical effect. They dreamed of an Utopia, but prac- 
 tically their efforts only aggravated the anarchical 
 tendencies bequeathed by the Spaniards and Bolivar. 
 Colombian liberals still insist that a persistent enforce- 
 ment of the constitution and principles of 1863 would 
 ultimately transform the character of the people — that 
 religious bigotry and priestly influence would gradu- 
 ally disappear; that the progressive enlightenment of 
 the masses would make military despotism and revolu- 
 tions impossible ; and that in process of time the rela- 
 tions of the states to the federal government would 
 reach a satisfactory and workable basis. But so far 
 
 92 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 93 
 
 as the experiment went, no progress was made toward 
 unifying the nation and pacifying the adverse ele- 
 ments. Discontent, disorders, civil wars increased in 
 violence as the years went by. Though one-fifth of 
 the federal revenues were spent on the public school 
 system, and one-tenth of the children were nominal 
 attendants, the clergy were permitted to have no share 
 in their control, and retaliated by excommunicating 
 the parents. The devoutly pious Creole mothers and 
 wives, threatened with the closing of the confessionals 
 and the denial of absolution, threw their incalculable 
 influence against the atheistic government. The de- 
 struction of the convents and the confiscation of the 
 vast ecclesiastical estates violently changed the owner- 
 ship of two-thirds of the land in the confederation, 
 but this imposition of new landlords on the indus- 
 trious, oppressed, half-enslaved tenantry did not much 
 modify real agricultural conditions. No extensive 
 subdivision of estates resulted, and the Creole aris- 
 tocracy continued to pay more attention to political 
 intrigue than to improving their property. 
 
 Not less disappointing in its practical working was 
 the independence of the states. Not only did the local 
 bosses constantly abuse autonomy for their own self- 
 ish purposes, but the presidents of Bogota often ig- 
 nored the constitutional rights of the states, and 
 selected for coercion precisely those states which were 
 farthest from the capital and most needed wide au- 
 tonomous powers. Though Panama's position was 
 isolated, its population cosmopolitan, its commercial 
 
94 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 interests and social structure peculiar, and though in 
 colonial times its dependence on Bogota had been only 
 nominal, the liberal presidents usually ruled it like a 
 conquered province. Members of the Andean oli- 
 gjarchy poured in to fatten on its revenues; the au- 
 tonomy guaranteed by the constitution proved illu- 
 sory, and discontent led to repeated efforts to achieve 
 absolute independence. 
 
 Rival ambitions among its own leaders furnished, 
 however, the immediate cause of the downfall of the 
 liberal party. A close oligarchy grew up and that 
 inevitable corollary, a powerful faction of dissident 
 liberals, while the clericals remained formidable and 
 irreconcilable even after their bloody overthrow in 
 1876. Rafael Nunez, a brilliant writer, a resolute 
 and ambitious party chief, and a leader in the con- 
 fiscation of church property, had been defeated in his 
 candidacy for the presidency in 1875. The younger 
 and dissatisfied liberals rallied behind him in his war 
 against the oligarchy, and in 1880 the old-fashioned 
 liberals could not prevent his election to the presi- 
 dency. He vigorously strengthened the prerogatives 
 of the federal executive and built up his personal fol- 
 lowing, but although the issue of paper money and the 
 discontinuance of interest on the foreign debt — a debt 
 which only ten years before had been scaled down to 
 $10,000,000, one-sixth its original amount, on a sol- 
 emn promise that at least this much would be faith- 
 fully paid — placed large funds at his disposal, the old- 
 line liberals were strong enough to prevent his re- 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 95 
 
 election in 1882. Their victory was illusory and tem- 
 porary; Nunez controlled both houses of Congress 
 and was able to block President Zaldua at every turn. 
 Eighty years old and in feeble health, the latter died 
 after a year of fruitless struggle. 
 
 After a short ad interim administration in which 
 Nunez's influence predominated, he was re-elected to 
 the presidency and installed in 1884. By this time 
 his centralizing tendencies were manifest, and the 
 measures he adopted unmistakably pointed to the sub- 
 stitution of a unified republic for the old loose con- 
 federation. Many of his liberal supporters fell away 
 and he was driven into an alliance with the conserva- 
 tives. Appointments of members of that party to 
 important positions were followed by the great revolt 
 of 1885. The insurrectionists delivered their main 
 attack on the Caribbean coast, whither the importa- 
 tion of arms was easy. Much of the department of 
 Magdalena fell into their hands, and they besieged 
 Cartagena in force. But when one of their expedi- 
 tions invaded the Isthmus, burning Colon, and inter- 
 rupting traffic on the Panama Railway, the president 
 appealed to the United States, as previous presidents 
 had done in similar cases, to carry out the guaranty 
 of free transit contained in the treaty of 1846. At 
 the same time the government troops attacked and 
 defeated the isolated insurrectionists at Colon, and 
 shortly afterwards the latter's main army suffered a 
 bloody repulse in an assault on Cartagena. This broke 
 the back of the movement against Nunez. 
 
96 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 The insurrection had been undertaken for the pur- 
 pose of defending the 1863 Constitution, and its de- 
 feat meant the destruction of departmental independ- 
 ence. As the logical and natural result of his victory, 
 the president proclaimed the abolishment of the con- 
 stitution and summoned a convention to adopt a new 
 one. Thenceforward, until his death ten years later, 
 Rafael Nufiez and his political ideas were supreme in 
 Colombia, and Panama was held in most rigid subjec- 
 tion. The old United States of Colombia was replaced 
 by a Republic of Colombia, one and indivisible; the 
 departments became mere administrative divisions 
 whose governors were appointed from Bogota; the 
 presidential term was increased to six years; the 
 radical liberal projects were abandoned; the clergy 
 regained many of their privileges; and the historical 
 conservatives continued the dominant party. 
 
 Panama suffered far more than the mountain dis- 
 tricts. Practically she was allowed no voice in either 
 her own or general affairs; the very delegates who 
 nominally represented her in the Constitutional Con- 
 vention of 1885 were residents of Bogota appointed 
 by Nunez; military rule became a permanent thing 
 on the Isthmus; all officials were strangers sent from 
 the Andean plateau; and the million dollars of taxes 
 wrung each year from the people of Panama were 
 spent on maintaining the soldiers who kept them in 
 subjection. In January, 1895, the harassed province 
 broke out in a rebellion which was suppressed by an 
 overwhelming force of Colombian troops in April. 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 97 
 
 Meanwhile in Colombia proper, the opposition to 
 the ruling clique grew stronger and stronger. Perse- 
 cution united the liberals, and they began organizing 
 for revolt all over the republic. The conservatives 
 themselves divided into two parties, one of which op- 
 posed the administration. Nunez did not live to finish 
 the second term to which he had been elected in 1892, 
 but his successor managed to suppress the premature 
 revolt of 1895, and in 1898 Sanclemente was elected, 
 the opposition refraining from going to the polls. 
 The new president soon found his position very diffi- 
 cult, and, unlike Nunez, was unable to dominate his 
 own party and hold the opposition in check. The 
 French Canal Company, whose concession, granted 
 in 1878, would expire in 1904, offered a million dol- 
 lars for a renewal, desiring to recoup, by a sale to 
 the United States, a part of the two hundred million 
 sunk by De Lesseps. Sanclemente's government 
 wished to accept, but the opposition and even the con- 
 servative congress insisted on the forfeiture of the 
 French rights. The administration rapidly lost pres- 
 tige, the discontented elements saw their opportunity, 
 and the long brewing storm now broke on the hapless 
 country. The liberals hurriedly completed their prepa- 
 rations, and in the fall of 1899 a civil war began — 
 the most terrible and destructive that has ever devas- 
 tated the republic. Before it ended in 1902, more than 
 two hundred battles and armed encounters had been 
 fought, and thirty thousand Colombians slain. The 
 detailed history of the campaigns has not yet been 
 
98 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 written, but it is apparent that the insurrectionists at 
 first gained many successes. The president declared 
 martial law, suspending the functions of congress, and 
 the extension desired by the French Canal Company 
 was granted by executive decree. But the pecuniary 
 relief thus obtained did not materially help the floun- 
 dering administration. Sanclemente became a mere 
 figurehead for his more resolute ministers, and in 
 July, 1900, the vigorous vice-president, Marroquin, 
 seized power by a coup d'etat, throwing Sanclemente 
 into a prison, where he remained until his death. 
 Thereafter the war against the rebels was prosecuted 
 with more energy, and the tide turned with the defeat 
 of an army of Venezuelans, eight thousand strong, 
 which had invaded the eastern provinces, to co-oper- 
 ate with the insurrectionists. 
 
 However, the liberals were still strong in the west 
 and north. On the Isthmus four insurrections had 
 broken out from October, 1899, to September, 1901, 
 and though each had been promptly suppressed, in 
 1902 the liberals were able to make a last great effort 
 to establish themselves in Panama. They had consid- 
 erable forces near the mouth of the Magdalena, and 
 gunboats on the Pacific. The secure possession of the 
 Isthmus would have enabled them to reinforce this 
 Magdalena army, cut off Marroquin's troops at Agua 
 Dulce, near Panama. But this was their last success. 
 Marroquin poured reinforcements into Colon, and 
 though the American admiral at first refused to allow 
 them to be transported over the railroad to Panama, 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 99 
 
 permission was granted when it became evident that 
 there would be no fighting near the line. News 
 came of the defeat of the liberal army near the 
 Magdalena, and General Herrera, the victor at Agua 
 Dulce, found himself isolated. In desperation he sent 
 an expedition in October, which surprised and cap- 
 tured Colon, but French and American marines were 
 promptly landed to prevent fighting in that city. The 
 expedition had no alternative but to surrender, and a 
 few days later General Herrera with the main body 
 capitulated on the Pacific side. 
 
 The three years of war left Colombia in frightful 
 demoralization. The victorious government was lit- 
 tle better off than the defeated liberals. Commerce 
 and industry had been prostrated ; revenues had dwin- 
 dled to nothing; the paper currency was worth less 
 than one per cent. The exhaustion of its adversaries, 
 not in its own strength, enabled Marroquin's govern- 
 ment to continue in power. In such a situation the 
 administration welcomed the opportunity which now 
 offered of renewing the building of the Isthmian 
 canal. The United States government determined to 
 undertake this great work itself, and finally decided in 
 favor of Panama as against the Nicaragua route. 
 Forty million dollars was agreed upon as a just price 
 for the work already done by the French company, 
 and nothing remained but to obtain Colombia's con- 
 sent to the transfer. The civil war helped to delay the 
 negotiation of a satisfactory treaty, but, as soon as 
 it was over, the Marroquin administration lost little 
 
100 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 time in coming to an agreement with the United 
 States. Colombia was to receive a bonus of ten mil- 
 lion dollars for consenting to the transfer and en- 
 larging the terms of the original concession ; her sov- 
 ereign rights were reserved and guaranteed, although 
 she agreed to police and sanitary control of the canal 
 strip by the United States. 
 
 When the treaty was submitted to the Colombian 
 Senate for ratification, opposition developed which the 
 administration was not strong enough to overcome. 
 Among the politicians at Bogota, the opinion was 
 almost universal that the executive should have 
 demanded more. The Colombian people have ever 
 regarded the political control of the Isthmus as their 
 most valuable national heritage, and cherished extrava- 
 gant hopes that some day they would be vastly en- 
 riched by the sale or rental of this strategic bit of 
 ground for its natural use as the greatest artery of 
 the world's commerce. Many now insisted, as they 
 had done in 1898, on enforcing a forfeiture of the 
 French rights, or at least on receiving a proportion 
 of the $40,000,000 to be paid for them. It was also 
 said that Americans could well afford a larger bonus, 
 and the opponents of the treaty made the further point 
 that the agreement was unconstitutional and contained 
 insufficient guaranties of Colombian sovereignty. 
 Against this storm the feeble administration probably 
 could do little and certainly did nothing. The Senate 
 was allowed to adjourn without ratifying the treaty, 
 and an attempt was made to negotiate a new one pro- 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 101 
 
 viding for a larger bonus and more stringent guar- 
 anties of Colombian sovereignty. 
 
 The United States, however, absolutely refused to 
 consider any other terms than those already agreed 
 upon, and the civilized world saw the completion of an 
 enterprise promising incalculable benefits to mankind 
 indefinitely postponed by the opposition of the Andean 
 provinces whom the accidents of war and international 
 politics had given an arbitrary control over a region 
 with which they had no natural connection. The situa- 
 tion was particularly hard for the people of the Isth- 
 mus, whose confident hopes were now disappointed of 
 at last receiving, by the prosperity which would follow 
 the building of the canal, some compensation for the 
 oppression and losses they had suffered during the 
 eighty years of misrule by the Bogota oligarchies. 
 Hardly had the treaty been rejected when plotting for 
 a declaration of independence began. The resident 
 population was unanimous, and good grounds existed 
 for believing that even the Colombian garrison would 
 offer no resistance unless reinforcements should come 
 from Bogota. In case of an armed conflict with 
 Colombia, the people of Panama could count on the 
 sympathy of all America and Europe. The stockhold- 
 ers of the French Company had a direct pecuniary 
 interest in their success. If once they could establish 
 independence and a de facto government, Colombia 
 could not deliver an effective attack without violating 
 the neutrality and security of transit guaranteed to 
 the Isthmus by the United States. Everything pointed 
 
102 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 to the success of a well-conducted movement. 
 Though the preparations for the revolt could not 
 be concealed, the Bogota government took no effective 
 measures to forestall it. Warned that trouble was im- 
 pending, the United States sent ships to prevent fight- 
 ing that might interfere with transit. The new repub- 
 lic was proclaimed at Panama on the 3d of November, 
 1903. The Colombian authorities made no resistance ; 
 the garrison surrendered without firing a shot; and 
 the entire population acquiesced in the appointment 
 of a provisional government, pending the calling of a 
 convention and the adoption of a constitution. A small 
 force of Colombians had been landed at Colon, but the 
 revolution at Panama found it still on the Atlantic 
 side. On November 4th the American naval com- 
 mander refused to give these troops permission to 
 use the railroad for warlike purposes. Because the 
 vital portion of the new republic is virtually neutral 
 under the treaty of 1846, the provisional government 
 having established itself in peaceable possession, was 
 safe from external attack. The useless Colombian 
 troops at Colon either joined the people of Panama or 
 retired. The inhabitants of Colon and the outlying 
 districts immediately sent in their adherence, and the 
 peace of the whole Isthmian region remained un- 
 broken. On the 13th of November the United States 
 recognized the new republic, being followed by France 
 on the eighteenth, and then by all other nations as 
 soon as diplomatic formalities could be complied with. 
 Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero was elected first presi- 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 103 
 
 dent of the Republic of Panama, being inaugurated 
 on February 19, 1904. A treaty with the United 
 States for the building of the canal was framed on 
 substantially the same lines as the one which had been 
 negotiated with Colombia. By the end of February 
 it had been ratified and proclaimed, and the United 
 States at once made the preparations for the beginning 
 of the work. 
 
 That Panama has a great future before her is 
 evident, and in his most entertaining manner the noted 
 traveler, Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, tells us something 
 of the probable future, having gained his information 
 from an interview with the president of the Republic, 
 Dr. Pablo Arosemena, who has been in office since 
 the death (March 1, 1910) of President Obaldia. Mr. 
 Carpenter, in a recent news letter, tells the story of 
 the interview as follows : 
 
 I met President Arosemena in the Isthmian white house, 
 or, as it is known here, the government palace. This is a big, 
 white, two-story building of Spanish architecture. It sur- 
 rounds a patio filled with palm trees, in the center of which 
 is a pond where huge turtles roll over and over and splash 
 about in the water. 
 
 I found soldiers on guard as I entered the palace with the 
 American minister, Mr. H. Percival Dodge, and we saw more 
 soldiers at the wide stone stairway to the second floor. At 
 the top of the stairway we waited until our cards were sent 
 in, and a moment later were ushered into the long narrow 
 parlor which forms the audience room of the mansion. This 
 parlor is furnished strangely for this land of the tropics. 
 The floor is covered with a warm velvet carpet, the windows 
 are veiled in hot-looking curtains, and the gold-plated furni- 
 ture is upholstered and hot. At each end of the room is a 
 
104 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 great mirror in a frame of gold and over the windows hang 
 lambrequins from gold frames. 
 
 We waited but a few minutes, when the president entered. 
 He is a lean, dark-faced, black-eyed man of medium height, 
 and he weighs, I should judge, about 150 pounds light. He is 
 seventy-four years old, but is still in his prime. When the 
 minister introduced me I was surprised to hear the president 
 address me in English. He speaks that tongue fluently, and 
 it was in English that our conversation was held. The first 
 part of it related to the political situation, and I asked as to 
 whether there was any danger of a revolution in case the 
 administration candidate should be defeated. 
 
 "There will be no revolution here," said President Arose- 
 mena, "and the day of revolution is fast passing away as far 
 as the whole of Latin America is concerned. As for us 
 Panamanians, we have given up such foolishness, and we 
 expect to have no revolutions for all time to come. I think 
 the same will be the case at no distant date throughout South 
 America. It is already so with Peru and Chile. We have now 
 no revolutions in Argentina and Brazil, and it will soon be so 
 in Colombia and Venezuela." 
 
 "How about Central America?" I asked. 
 
 "That eventually will be the case with Central America, 
 although I can not say when. The people of some of those 
 countries have had so many revolutions that they may be said 
 to have acquired the revolution habit, and it will be some time 
 before a condition of permanent peace can be established 
 there. Nevertheless, Central America is improving, although 
 the several republics composing it are not so free as ours. 
 The Panamanians have more liberty of speech. For instance, 
 my enemies call me a tyrant and I make no reply. If one 
 should denounce certain of the presidents of the republic 
 north of us, he might hear from his denunciation in no 
 favorable way." 
 
 The conversation here turned to the Panamanian republic 
 and its prospects, and President Arosemena said: 
 
 "I am enthusiastic over the future of Panama. It is the 
 baby of the nations, the youngest of all the republics. It is still 
 in its swaddling clothes, and is just beginning to grow. Look 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 105 
 
 at what we are doing! Take the city of Panama. It had 
 only 12,000 people nine years ago, and it has now 35,000. It 
 will have 50,000 as soon as the canal is completed. Colon, at 
 the other side of the Isthmus, had 5,000 population when you 
 made your deal with the French. It has 17,000 now, and we 
 have other towns which have greatly increased." 
 
 "But will not this population drop when we stop our work 
 on the canal?" I asked. 
 
 "I think not," replied the president. "Col. Goethals says 
 the United States may have to keep soldiers here to the num- 
 ber of 10,000, and also that it will take 2,000 additional em- 
 ployees to run the canal. These people will spend a great 
 deal. Then we shall have the tourist travel. That will stead- 
 ily increase. It will give us a stream of travelers passing 
 through and dropping dollars into Panama and Colon. Why, 
 take your own people! All of you Americans will certainly 
 want to come to see the canal. There are ninety millions of 
 you, and even at as low as a dollar apiece, that would give us 
 $90,000,000 to start with. If you should spend $10 apiece, the 
 amount would soon reach a billion." 
 
 "But can you accommodate the crowd?'* 
 
 "Yes. We shall have big hotels for the tourists," said Dr. 
 Arosemena, "and the tourist travel will bring in a great deal. 
 Paris gets a thousand million francs every year out of tour- 
 ists, and Switzerland feeds fat upon them. There is no reason 
 why we should not do likewise." 
 
 "Do you not think that the Americans will have cities of 
 their own here?" 
 
 "Very likely so. There will probably be a great business 
 city at Balboa, but that will be in the swamps, and while it 
 will contain the warehouses and great stores, it will hardly 
 be fit for the hotels and the residences. Panama will be the 
 Brooklyn, the residence quarter, and we shall have street-cars 
 which will go back and forth in five minutes. The people of 
 Balboa will do their business there and come to Panama for 
 the night." 
 
 "But has Panama nothing else but hotels to offer to the 
 world?" 
 
 "She has a great deal more," said the president. "The 
 
106 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Panama Republic is one of the richest countries in the tropics, 
 and by modern sanitation the most of it can be made one of 
 the most healthy. It is now open to settlement, and we will 
 do what we can to encourage the establishment of small farms 
 and farmers. We are offering land in tracts of fifty hectares, 
 or about 247 acres, at a little over 20 cents an acre, and 200 
 hectares at a still less price per acre. As the amount of land 
 goes up, the price goes down, and we are doing everything we 
 can to encourage development. We have been building roads 
 in many of the provinces, and we now have in the neighbor- 
 hood of 500 miles of roads and over sixty-one bridges." 
 
 "But tell me something about your lands, Mr. President," 
 said I. "What can you raise on them?" 
 
 *'We can raise all sorts of tropical fruits. We have good 
 lands for coffee and cacao. Coffee plantations are being set 
 out in some places, and cacao land is in demand in the coun- 
 try about Bocas del Toro. There are immense banana estates 
 there. The United Fruit Company owns thousands of acres, 
 and it ships millions of bunches of bananas a year. The most 
 of that fruit goes to the United States. We have also good 
 soil for rubber, and rubber plantations are being set out by 
 Americans and others. Some of the ex-employees of the 
 canal have rubber estates which are already in bearing. 
 
 "We have also large areas of fine grazing land," continued 
 President Arosemena. "The climate is such that the cattle 
 can feed out-of-doors all the year round, and we have three 
 varieties of rich grasses to fatten them. Take the province of 
 Chiriqui in the northern part of the republic. There is a 
 region there known as the Divila country, which has many 
 square miles of plains covered with grass which is dotted 
 here and there with groves. 
 
 "The country is well watered, but there are no swamps, 
 although it rains almost daily for about eight months of the 
 year. Still the rains are short and for the most of the time 
 the weather is clear. That land is splendid for cattle, and it 
 has more stock than all the rest of the republic. It has al- 
 ready a number of large ranches, and there is room for many 
 more. I doubt whether we have more than fifty or a hundred 
 thousand head of stock in Panama now, whereas I have seen 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 107 
 
 it estimated that our lands would sustain 5,000,000 head. 
 When the canal is completed, there will be a great demand 
 for meat, from the ships passing through, and it ought to be 
 supplied by the Isthmus. It seems to me there should be a 
 great deal of money in cattle raising. As it is now, lean 
 cattle may be purchased at from $15 to $20 a head. After 
 they have been grazed for six months they will bring $30 and 
 upward." 
 
 "What opportunities have you outside of farming?" 
 
 There is a great deal of money to be made in real estate,'* 
 said the president. "With the completion of the canal there 
 is sure to be a demand for farm lands and plantations of 
 various kinds. There is a steady rise in real estate values 
 also both at Panama and Colon, I have property here which 
 is worth ten times what I paid for it a few years ago, and I 
 have put up a building at Colon which cost me only $7,000 
 and which has been netting me $700 per month in rents. 
 That property is now paying for the building every year. I 
 know of buildings here in Panama which are doing as well. 
 Rents are exceedingly high, and we have a number of men 
 who have grown rich out of their real estate deals. We have 
 several millionaires and some of them have incomes of over 
 $50,000 a year. The Panamanian minister at Washington 
 receives something like $5,000 per month from his real estate 
 investments, and I venture that M. Espinoza of this city does 
 equally well. 
 
 "And then there is a great deal of money in banking," con- 
 tinued the president. "You can loan here all the money you 
 have on good security, at eight or nine per cent. The old rate 
 of interest used to be twenty-four per cent, but we have cut 
 that down by establishing our national bank, which makes 
 loans on real estate at seven per cent, and on jewelry and 
 other collateral at nine per cent. That bank has a million 
 and a half capital, and its net profits last year were $90,000." 
 
 "What is Panama doing to open up the interior of the 
 country ?" 
 
 "Not as much as we could wish," replied the president. 
 "We have some roads and we expect to build more. We have 
 had plans for railroads, but the time is not yet ripe to build 
 
108 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 them. All that will come, and in the end we shall be a thickly- 
 populated land." 
 
 "How about your mines?" 
 
 "We have some gold mines working right here in the 
 central part of the Isthmus, and there are others at Darien. 
 We know that we have copper and other minerals, but the 
 country has not been thoroughly prospected." 
 
 "How about your pearl fisheries?" 
 
 "They have produced a great deal in the past, but we have 
 not been taking care of them and they do not yield what they 
 did. I have been interested in pearls myself, and my father 
 sold one pearl for $4,500. It weighed twenty-three carats, 
 and was of a beautiful shape and fine color. That pearl would 
 bring $10,000 today. I think if we should let the pearl fish- 
 eries lie still for a while and keep a closed season for fishing 
 that we might make that a profitable industry." 
 
 "How about the hidden gold of Panama? It is said that 
 you have islands near your coasts where the treasures of the 
 Incas are buried and also that there is gold under old 
 Panama." 
 
 "That is the stuff that dreams are made of,'' replied the 
 president. "Many have hunted for those treasures, and have 
 never found them. We have now made a road to old Panama, 
 and it is probable that something may be discovered there." 
 
 "Tell me something about your trade with the United 
 States." 
 
 "We are buying more of you than of any other nation, 
 and the trade steadily increases. It might pay your merchants 
 to establish a great warehouse here for the display of Ameri- 
 can goods. There will be a continuous stream of merchants 
 passing through the canal, and that house could take orders 
 for both North and South America. As it is now, our 
 foreign commerce amounts to $11,000,000 per year, and of 
 that about $5,750,000 goes to the United States. Next to you, 
 our chief consumer is Great Britain, and after that come 
 Germany, France, and Italy. As to our exports, the most 
 of them go to the United States. Indeed, you buy nearly 
 all that we sell." 
 
 "Are you doing much in education?" 
 
EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 109 
 
 "We are preparing the way. We have established some 
 schools, and have a large number of students abroad to be 
 prepared for teachers. We have some girls studying for that 
 purpose in Belgium, and we have also scholarships in Chile, 
 which I arranged for during my trip there last year. We 
 have also built a national educational institute here at a cost 
 of about $800,000." 
 
 "How about the health of the Isthmus? Do you think 
 that the sanitation methods which we are using here at 
 Panama could be extended to the whole country?" 
 
 "Not as an entirety," said the president. "It would be too 
 expensive. Nevertheless, you have done a great deal for the 
 cities of Panama and Colon. Indeed, the sanitary commission 
 is the most absolute ruler we have. Every one has to obey it, 
 and the men who come in on the ships, no matter whether 
 they be presidents of other countries, American ministers, 
 or our own officials, are kept in quarantine for three days if 
 they come from any port that is even suspected of fever or 
 contagious disease. We did not like the sanitation methods 
 at first, and many of the people objected to having their 
 houses inspected. That has all passed away now and we are 
 congratulating ourselves on our new streets with good water 
 and freedom from disease." 
 
 "What are to be the future relations of Panama and the 
 United States?" 
 
 "I hope they will always remain two sister republics." 
 
 "Is there any chance that Panama will be annexed to the 
 United States?" 
 
 "I do not see any possibility of that at present," said 
 Dr. Arosemena. "We are glad to have you as our great and 
 good friend, and we want to work along with you as far as 
 we can. I believe that our people would prefer to be inde- 
 pendent." 
 
 At this point I rose to go, but the president asked me to 
 wait a moment and have some refreshments. A moment later 
 a servant brought in a tray of champagne, and we drank to 
 the health of our respective countries as we said good-bye. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 
 
 ON the western slope of the Andes are Colombia, 
 Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, which have 
 been designated as the Mountain Republics. Of these. 
 Colombia is the northernmost and the only one touch- 
 ing both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. In a 
 previous chapter we have gone somewhat into detail 
 regarding the area, government, and resources of all 
 the republics, and as for their history, it is identical 
 with that of Peru, all of the republics between the 
 Andes and the Pacific having once been comprised 
 under that name. 
 
 Colombia is the South American Persia without 
 Persia's excuse. It is a rich and fertile country, not 
 a desert. There is scarcely anything that it can not 
 produce from the fruits of the tropics to the grains of 
 the temperate zones. It has thousands of miles of low- 
 lying forests and pastures, capable of raising cattle 
 for the Central American and West Indian markets, 
 and bananas for the United States. It has thousands 
 of square miles of higher valleys and mountain pla- 
 teaus, thousands of feet high, where it is perpetual 
 spring time. No country can produce better coffee 
 and cocoa. It has the richest emerald mines in the 
 world. Its total output of gold has been $639,000,000. 
 
 110 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 111 
 
 Asphalt, rubber, salt, coal, iron, and all that is neces- 
 sary for the industrial independence of the country 
 and for the large export trade are found in abundance. 
 The whole country could be a garden. Great river 
 systems provide means of communication and high- 
 w2Lys for trade. Steamboats on the Magdalena River 
 can run from the sea to within eighty miles of the 
 capital, and there are other navigable streams tribu- 
 tary to the Magdalena or running into the Orinoco, 
 the Amazon, the Pacific Ocean, or the Caribbean Sea. 
 And yet this rich country is one of the most back- 
 ward and decrepit nations in the world. She has a 
 few little railroads, the longest of them only ninety- 
 three miles, and all of these were built and many are 
 owned by foreigners. She has only three or four high- 
 ways, and two of them, the most important of all, 
 from Cambao and Honda to Facatativa, are falling 
 into ruin. One of them, the road from Honda, has 
 already fallen. It never was a real road, but simply 
 a mountain trail, paved in parts, for the use of saddle 
 horses and pack-mules. For centuries this was the 
 only road to the capital for all imports and for the 
 people of most of the country. It was probably a 
 better road a century ago than it is today, when the 
 traveler finds it only a series of rocky inclines, the 
 stone pavements broken up and the road for the fifty- 
 six miles of its length, until it joins the Cambao road, 
 worse even than any road in Persia. There is an 
 automobile road built by Reyes as one of his spec- 
 tacular achievements covering over his private loot- 
 
112 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ing, running eighty miles north of Bogota over the 
 plain, but the country can be said to be without roads, 
 more without them than Persia and Korea were ten 
 years ago. 
 
 The cause of Colombia's special backwardness is 
 not the character of the great mass of the people. 
 We met no people in South America more hearty and 
 amiable. One never asks help in vain. In some South 
 American lands there is a great deal of the dourish- 
 ness of the Indian. There is much Indian blood in the 
 Colombian, but it is a good-hearted, friendly blood. 
 The moral conditions are the same as elsewhere in 
 South America. The control of marriage by the 
 Roman Catholic Church and the use of this control 
 by the priests as a source of income to the church 
 have resulted, as the priests themselves admit, in a 
 failure on the part of great masses of the popu- 
 lation to get married. Men and women live together 
 with no marriage ceremony. Sometimes the relation- 
 ship is maintained, but the very nature of it makes 
 fidelity too rare. In spite of the good nature of the 
 people there is a great deal of want and suffering. 
 In some sections goiter is almost universal, and there 
 is the same lack of medical provision which is found 
 in other South American lands. In the Bogota Hos- 
 pital, crowded so full with its one thousand patients 
 that some of them were laid on mattresses on the 
 floor, we were informed that the death rate both in 
 Bogota and in the country was abnormally, high^ 
 how high the doctors disagreed — and that in Bogota 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 113 
 
 with one hundred thousand people there were one 
 hundred eighty doctors and five hundred seventy 
 in the whole of Colombia, or one to each six thou- 
 sand, as against one to each six hundred in the United 
 States. In Colombia also we saw more poverty and 
 suffering than anywhere else in South America. In 
 Honda alone one afternoon more beggars came to us 
 as we sat under a tree in front of the hotel after the 
 ride down from Bogota, than we had seen in all the 
 rest of our trip. Colombia is the South American land 
 most praised by the Roman Catholic Church for its 
 fidelity. The church has here a unique control and 
 here least is done for the suffering and needy. We 
 did not hear of an institution of any kind for the 
 blind, for the cripple, for the aged. There are leper 
 asylums, but the state has founded them. The women 
 of Colombia are even more burdened than those of 
 other countries. We saw women with pick and shovel 
 working on the highway. The porter who came to 
 take our bags to the station in Bogota was a woman. 
 You may see women with week-old babies folded in 
 their breasts, staggering along under a sack of coffee 
 weighing 150 pounds, or a load of merchandise. The 
 butchers in the market in Bogota were women. And 
 I think one could find no sadder faces than those of 
 the women in the Bogota Hospital. The curse of any 
 land guilty of uncleanliness and untruth, is bound to 
 fall heaviest on its best hearts, the hearts of the 
 women. But Colombia is not behind the other South 
 American countries because the people are immoral 
 
114 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 or more unworthy. They are probably of about the 
 same moraHty and they are certainly more indus- 
 trious and more kindly and more eager than many of 
 the others. 
 
 The cause of Colombia's special backwardness is 
 twofold. First, is the character of the governing 
 class. No country, unless it has been Venezuela or 
 Paraguay, has been more cursed by politicians, men 
 who were concerned only to hold office, to have hands 
 on the reins of government, but who did not use of- 
 fice for any public service or handle the reins of gov- 
 ernment to guide the nation into better things. Bogota 
 is full of people who live on the state and talk politics 
 and play at life. Politics to them means holding of- 
 fice and drawing salary and talking of the nation and 
 its honor. It does not mean the development of its 
 resources, the improvement of its communications, 
 the education of its children, the progress of its in- 
 dustries. Each other South American country has 
 had its men of the Bogota stamp, but contact with the 
 outside world, the incoming of foreign capital, truer 
 ideals of education, have crowded these men aside or 
 checked them by the creation of another class who 
 are engaged in the real work of the world, in produ- 
 cing wealth and promoting progress. 
 
 The other great cause of the special backwardness 
 of Colombia is the dominance of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, which holds the land in a grasp which she has 
 been obliged to relax in other South American coun- 
 tries. In the first half of the last century the state 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 115 
 
 asserted for itself a large freedom. It took over many 
 of the great properties of the church, which the lat- 
 ter had acquired by its political character and put them 
 to public uses. In Bogota the postoffice, some of the 
 government buildings, the public printing office, the 
 medical school and the hospital are all old convents. In 
 1888 the church came back into power through a con- 
 cordat with the state. Since Ecuador threw off the 
 dominion of the church there is not one South Ameri- 
 can country where the influence of Rome is so power- 
 ful as in Colombia. The archbishop and the papal dele- 
 gate in Bogota are the most conspicuous figures after 
 the president. The papal delegate is the head of the 
 diplomatic corps, and it is said by many that there is 
 nothing which the church desires that it can not do. The 
 church controls education, and while the constitution 
 proclaims religious liberty, the church exercises its 
 authority to see that as far as it can order matters 
 the liberty shall not be exercised by the people. The 
 mission school for boys in Bogota was nearly wrecked 
 in 1909, though its prospects seemed brighter than for 
 some years, by the reissuance of a letter by the arch- 
 bishop, first sent out ten years ago, in which he warned 
 the people against the heretics who had come into the 
 country, naming specifically the Presbyterians. 
 
 The Roman Church in Colombia has been a reac- 
 tionary and obscurantist influence for centuries. At 
 Cartagena, the best port of Colombia and the most 
 picturesque city I saw, was the seat of the inquisition, 
 where it is said 400.000 were condemned to death, and 
 
116 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 while that terror has long since passed away, the 
 shadow of the church as a great repressive, deaden- 
 ing power has remained. The people have not been 
 taught. Peonage has endured and in a modified form 
 been sanctioned by law. The machinery of the church, 
 it is charged, has been used in the interest of personal 
 and commercial politics. In one word, the fact is that 
 one of the best countries and peoples in South Amer- 
 ica, and the one most docile to the church and most 
 under its control, is the most backward and destitute 
 and pitiful. 
 
 Of Ecuador, the "Report of Trade Conditions in 
 Central America and on the West Coast of South 
 America," issued by the Department of Commerce and 
 Labor in Washington, has this to say: 
 
 Ecuador and Colombia together may be regarded as 
 among the most backward of the South American States. 
 Their resources are undeveloped, their surplus products for 
 export are far below the proportion which might be expected 
 from their population, and their imports are correspondingly 
 insignificant. Their importance in the commercial world lies 
 rather in the possibility of future development than in their 
 present status. Ecuador, with an area of 116,000 square 
 miles and a population of 1,500,000, exported but $11,520,000 
 worth of goods in 1904, and imported to the value of only 
 $7,670,000. 
 
 The reasons for Ecuador's backwardness are given 
 as the unhealthfulness of the port of Guayaquil, no- 
 torious for its unsanitary condition as a pest hole of 
 yellow fever, the vexatious government regulations, 
 and the revolutionary spirit. Instead of improving 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 117 
 
 the condition, the Republic absorbed the appropriations 
 for the Guayaquil and Quito and Machala waterworks, 
 the parks in Quito, and public roads, for the payment 
 of current expenses of administration. Trade condi- 
 tions are improving and things are looking up for 
 Ecuador. Cocoa is the most important export of this 
 Republic. In 1908, 6,400,000 pounds were shipped, of 
 which the United States took about one-sixth. The 
 total export of cocoa in 1910 was $7,896,057 ; of Pan- 
 ama hats, $1,258,575 worth were exported. Forty 
 million pounds of rice are produced annually, but this 
 is not enough to meet the demands of the home 
 market. 
 
 The Montana, or forest region lying on the east- 
 ern slope of the Andes and with its network of river 
 basins stretching to the Amazon, is less exploited in 
 the Ecuadorian than in the Peruvian territory. The rub- 
 ber in these tropical forests will be secured in the proc- 
 ess of time. The development of this region on the 
 part of Ecuador is not remote. But there must be means 
 of communication. The government, realizing this, 
 decided to build a railway from Ambato, on the Guay- 
 aquil and Quito Railroad, one hundred miles to the 
 Curarey River, a branch of the Amazon with head- 
 waters near Iquitos in Peru. This line will enable 
 that district to export its rubber through Guayaquil 
 instead of out through the Atlantic Ocean. The 
 railway route lies east of the Andes. 
 
 Tobacco is grown in the north near the coast for 
 home consumption. Sugar-cane is cultivated success- 
 
118 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 fully on the nearer border of the Montana and also 
 nearer the coast, but it will be a long time before 
 Ecuador exports sugar in appreciable quantities. This 
 may be less true of cotton, which is becoming a na- 
 tional industry. A fine quality is grown in the north- 
 ern districts, of which Ibarra is the center, and cot- 
 ton flourishes in other sections. The mills, which em- 
 ploy the cheap labor of the native Indian women, 
 have proved successful, and they find a profitable home 
 market, though it will be many years before the mills 
 of the New England States will be seriously hurt by 
 their output. 
 
 The minerals of the country are principally in the 
 southern zone, though there are rich places in the 
 rivers of the north. The southern province, of which 
 Zaruma is the center, in the last century was famous 
 for its gold mines, and it is still known as El Oro, or 
 the gold country. In late years little has been done, 
 though the quartz veins have been worked intermit- 
 tently and in some of the streams gold-washing has 
 been carried on. Minerals are abundant further south 
 in the district of which Loja is the center. Some cop- 
 per is found, and there are deposits of iron and an- 
 thracite coal, silver, and lead. 
 
 In proportion to its size, Ecuador, though sparsely 
 settled, is as well inhabited as other South American 
 countries. The population is very largely Indian with 
 the usual Spanish intermixture. The total number of 
 inhabitants is 1,275,000. The whites and the mestizos, 
 or mixed bloods, comprise about twenty-five per cent 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 119 
 
 of the population. The central plateau easily could 
 sustain an agricultural population of twice that num- 
 ber. 
 
 Of recent years Ecuador has maintained political 
 equilibrium, if not absolute political stability. Presi- 
 dent Alfaro during his term was compelled to combat 
 the reactionaries and the church party, but the pro- 
 gram of Liberal measures was sustained. The great- 
 est progress that has been made is toward financial 
 stability. The money of the country was put on the 
 gold basis, and that having been maintained for sev- 
 eral years, the promise of its continuance is encour- 
 aging. The standard of coinage is the gold condor, 
 equal to the English sovereign in weight and fineness. 
 The common circulating medium is the silver sucre, 
 ten of which constitute the condor, or the pound ster- 
 ling. The Sucre is equal to 48.66 cents. Paper money 
 is circulated, but the outstanding issue is not very 
 large. There are two banks of emission, each of 
 which has a capital of 3,000,000 sucres. 
 
 The Ecuador banks do a profitable business in 
 international exchange. The Guayaquil institutions 
 regularly pay 14 and 15 per cent dividends, and their 
 deposits are constantly on the increase. 
 
 The key to the industrial growth of Peru and to 
 the mastering motives of her national policy is found 
 in the knowledge of the three zones into which the 
 country is naturally divided. The zones of the Coast 
 Region, relatively fifteen hundred miles in length, va- 
 rying in width from twenty to eighty miles, and ex- 
 
120 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 tending from the foot of the Coast Range to the 
 Pacific; the Sierra, or Cordilleras of the Andes, in- 
 cluding the vast tablelands, averaging three hundred 
 miles in breadth; and the misnamed Montaiia, or 
 mountain region, actually the land of tropical forest, 
 and plains extending from the eastern slope of the 
 Andes to the Amazon basins. The settlement of the 
 boundary disputes with Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, 
 and Bolivia have reduced Peru by 500,000 square 
 miles of territory, which Peru claims as her area yet. 
 The wealth of this vast region is in rubber and the 
 varied products of tropical agriculture. The Sierra, 
 in the future as in the past, is for the minerals, with 
 alpaca wools and live-stock as an agricultural addition. 
 
 The Coast Region is for tropical and temperate 
 products. The principal ones, — wheat, corn, oats; 
 grapes and the generality of fruit ; rice, tobacco, sugar 
 and cotton. Except in reference to the two great 
 world staples, they may be viewed almost solely in 
 the light of domestic consumption. Sugar and cot- 
 ton are on a different plane. 
 
 Peruvian cotton production can not become large 
 enough to affect the world's markets, yet it may be a 
 gain to the national wealth in the quantity which can 
 be raised for export and also for the domestic spin- 
 dles. The sands of Piura which stretch from the 
 coast at Paita back to the Cordilleras, have in them 
 possibilities that are yet undreamed of. The cotton 
 tree of Piura amazes the beholder when he sees it in 
 all stages of production — in bud, in fleecy bloom, and 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 121 
 
 in seed. The quality surprises the expert. It is finer 
 than the finest Egyptian and is equal to certain grades 
 of wool. It is known variously as vegetable wool and 
 as wool cotton. Irrigation is employed to a limited 
 extent. One ambitious scheme which was to bring 
 60,000 acres under cultivation was stopped for lack 
 of capital. 
 
 Cotton of good quality is raised in the central 
 district of Lima and in the southern region of Pisco 
 and lea. While rains are not common in these dis- 
 tricts, the fogs at certain seasons are heavy enough 
 to be accounted rainfall, and the moisture in the air 
 is precipitated in quantities sufficient for the product, 
 taken with the somewhat restricted means of irriga- 
 tion employed on the plantations. The cotton plant, 
 no longer the cotton tree as in Piura, is met with for 
 fifty miles north of Lima, and especially in the neigh- 
 borhood of Ancon. The plantations lie under and 
 between the overlapping sand-hills, side by side with 
 fields of sugar-cane. 
 
 Taken as a whole, the advantages of Peru as a 
 cotton-producing country are a suitable climate, the 
 alluvial soil of the valleys, the facilities for irrigating 
 the sandy plains, and a sufficiency of fairly cheap la- 
 bor. The price of the land is a fraction of the value 
 of similar soil in Egypt. An official publication of the 
 government places the yield per acre at 630 pounds, 
 of which 250 pounds is lint cotton. 
 
 Peru has produced sugar for many years, and the 
 industry has had the usual ups and downs, but it has 
 
122 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 capabilities of increase. About 125,000 acres were 
 under cultivation in 1905, and 2,500 persons found 
 employment on the plantations and in the mills. Both 
 natives and Chinese coolies form the field hands. The 
 production for export in recent years has varied from 
 100,000 to 125,000 tons, and it is gradually advancing 
 to 200,000. 
 
 The treasure beds of the Andes, as they have been 
 exploited for centuries, are in the Sierra, though the 
 output of the precious metals in the Coast Region 
 has been great. The Department of Ancachs, which 
 comes down to the sea, has enormous mineral wealth. 
 The district lies within the two Andean chains which 
 parallel the Pacific, and which are known as the 
 White Cordillera and the Black Cordillera, the latter 
 being nearest the coast. Silver, gold, and copper are 
 the chief sources of mineral wealth. In the Cerro de 
 Pasco district, since control was secured by the Amer- 
 ican syndicate, the copper output is more important 
 than the silver production. 
 
 The petroleum deposits are in the north between 
 Tumbez and Paita, around Tolara, Zorritos, and 
 Cape Blanco. Several of the English companies were 
 not very successful, owing to bad management. The 
 supply which is now obtained is utilized as fuel on the 
 railways and in many of the smelters. The value of 
 the annual production is approximately $750,000. 
 
 Live-stock or grazing may be said to be one of the 
 industries of the Sierra, but in relation to the foreign 
 commerce of the country it does not promise to be an 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 123 
 
 appreciable source of national gain. Sheep-raising — 
 alpacas, vicunas — is of the highest plains. With the 
 increase in the population at these altitudes through 
 mining settlements, the flocks are not likely to grow 
 extensively. The vicuna, not being domesticated, is 
 more apt to recede before the advance of civilization. 
 Such growth as the live-stock industry may have in 
 the Cordillera region may be looked upon chiefly as 
 a means of supplying local consumption. The exports 
 of hides and wool, while not necessarily stationary, 
 do not indicate a heavy increase. 
 
 The world does not yet fully grasp the possibili- 
 ties and limitations of the Amazon rubber produc- 
 tion, but the Peruvian government has a proper con- 
 ception of it and has enacted legislation both to secure 
 the development of the gum forests and to preserve 
 them from heedless destruction. The rubber region 
 within Peruvian territory has its main extension in 
 the department of Loreto and in the provinces of that 
 interior country, but the area reaches almost to Cuzco 
 and Lake Titicaca. All of it is within the Montana 
 or forest region. In the Loreto region the popula- 
 tion does not exceed 100,000 inhabitants, if it reaches 
 that number. The productive forests lie along the 
 banks of the rivers. The jehe is obtained from inci- 
 sions made in the tree, while the caucho is the sap 
 that is had from cutting down the tree which pro- 
 duces it and then extracting the milk. 
 
 The Peruvian government, having adopted effect- 
 ive measures for the protection of the rubber forests 
 
124 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 from prodigal destruction, also has sought to aid the 
 various private enterprises by supervising the supply 
 of labor. This is a much more difficult problem. The 
 native Indians and the cholo are hardly numerous 
 enough to meet the needs of the industry in its present 
 state, and both persuasion and compulsion are exerted 
 in order to force them to work. This condition of 
 affairs has recently been exploited at great length 
 through the public press and investigations have 
 proved that much cruelty is practiced. The ultimate 
 solution of the problem and the full exploitation of 
 the rubber wealth of Peru must rest on the coloniza- 
 tion of the trans-Andean region, and a gradual trans- 
 formation into tropical agriculture of the districts 
 which are not unfit for habitation and cultivation by 
 the annual high-water overflows of the Amazon af- 
 fluents. But for this river region, as for the other 
 regions of Peru, there is no artificial aid which can 
 compare with the Panama Canal. 
 
 The Great Central Plateau, where is located the 
 Republic of Bolivia, because of its mineral riches, 
 has been called by a noted geographer a gold table 
 with silver legs. Once the bed of a vast inland sea, 
 the tableland now forms the Titicaca basin and lies 
 between the Oriental and Occidental Cordilleras. Its 
 surface is broken by many conical hills and small 
 Sierras, supposedly the result of volcanic eruptions, 
 yet it comes within the definition of level country as 
 level country is understood in the Andine regions. 
 
 Life in Bolivia is a primitive pastoral existence, 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 125 
 
 and while not a joyous existence, does not appear to 
 be too somber. The religious festivals here are cele 
 brated with undeviating punctuality. No matter how 
 small the collection of huts, somewhere among them 
 is a church, and each group of cabins has its own 
 cure. I remarked everywhere the grass cross over 
 the dwellings. It was very rare to find a hut without 
 this symbolism. It seemed to indicate great devout- 
 ness, but what I have already seen of the cures and 
 their flocks made me doubt whether this was the cor- 
 rect explanation. The cross, I was told, was blessed 
 by the priest, and then it kept out the rain, which at 
 times is very heavy. One old man, who after pre- 
 tending that he knew nothing but the Aymara tongue, 
 had talked very well in Spanish, was asked if the 
 crosses really did keep out the rain. He replied 
 gravely, "Yes, if the roof is a good one." 
 
 Among the native population of Bolivia the cholos 
 are easily distinguished. They are the migratory 
 classes who live in the larger towns and some of whom 
 work in the mines. Many of them are freighters. 
 They have a distinctive dress, — the loose cotton 
 trouser, widening below the knee and with a V-strip 
 of different cloth in either side. They are a political 
 power, for while they take little part in the elections, 
 they are not unready to share in a disturbance. 
 
 The aboriginal native yet preserves many customs 
 distinct from the cholo. He wears a cap or gorro, 
 which was worn in the time of the Incas, and he con- 
 tents himself with a blanket instead of trousers if he 
 
126 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 can not afford the latter. The pure-blood Indians 
 are the best for the freight caravans where the llamas 
 are employed, for they can manage those whimsical 
 beasts of burden as no one else can. The llama feeds 
 as it goes along, and a born manager of animals is 
 needed to handle a tropa, or drove of them, and keep 
 them moving in regular order. The life of the 
 freighter is a hard one, tramping all day and at night 
 sleeping in the corral with the beasts. 
 
 The Indian woman in Bolivia occupies a plane 
 on equality with the man. She has no lord and mas- 
 ter, as has the American Indian woman in the noble 
 red man of the West. She works, but he also must 
 work. She accompanies him with the pack trains, all 
 the while that she is trudging along twirling her 
 spools and winding the wool into yarn. It is rare to 
 see an Indian woman without her spools unless she 
 is weaving at the loom. Walking and talking, gossip- 
 ing and scolding, shouting at the llamas, tramping 
 over the sharpest mountain passes or plunging down 
 into the gorges, she manages to keep the spool always 
 twirling. It is a most peculiar process, and would 
 drive a small boy who has a notion of spinning a top 
 on the end of his finger wild with emulation, though 
 he hardly would be able to imitate the process. 
 
 Mfarriage bonds among the Indians are not loose 
 ties. In all the settled communities where the little 
 church has been planted, the priest sees that the cere- 
 mony is performed, for it means a fee to him. But 
 when the man wanders away for work and is gone 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 127 
 
 for years, as sometimes happens, it is no interruption 
 to the family bond that on his return a brood of 
 children greet him. He resumes the matrimonial rela- 
 tion and accepts the children without question. 
 
 There is a prevalent delusion that in these alti- 
 tudes the birth rate is very low, and, moreover, that 
 many of the children come into the world deaf or lose 
 the sense of hearing soon after birth. While the 
 families are not so large as in the tropics or lower 
 altitudes, they are numerous enough, and it is said 
 that the report about deafness and the excessive rate 
 of infant mortality does not bear the scrutiny of sci- 
 entific investigation. 
 
 Bolivia is called the Mexico of South America, and 
 her mines have yielded precious metals for hundreds 
 of years. Not only gold, silver, copper and iron are 
 her heritage, but that rarest of all minerals, tin, is 
 found there. Bolivia was the casket of gems held in 
 pawn by the Spanish Crown. She poured the riches of 
 prodigal Mother Nature into the lap of the mother 
 country. 
 
 Of the world's total tin output, say 100,000 tons, 
 the Bolivian production under the present conditions 
 may be placed at from 9,000 to 10,000 tons, or more 
 than equal that of Cornwall and Australia combined. 
 Since the United States consumes 43 per cent of the 
 entire production of tin, the importance of the devel- 
 opment of the deposits in Bolivia and of the transpor- 
 tation facilities should be appreciated. 
 
 Besides its mineral productions, Bolivia is also 
 
128 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 rich in agricultural resources, and it is this possession 
 of varied resources that gives it the name of the 
 Mexico of South America. 
 
 Chile ranks second to Brazil in its enterprise and 
 progressiveness, and has many features similar to that 
 Republic and to the Argentine. And yet its similari- 
 ties are more in commercial progressiveness and in- 
 dustry, while the contrasts between the two countries 
 in their physical conditions are markedly noticeable. 
 One lies almost wholly within the tropics; the other 
 almost wholly in the temperate zone. One is as wide 
 as it is long, and the other is a thin strip one hundred 
 or so miles broad, stretched along the coast for 2,500 
 miles. The area of Brazil in round numbers is 
 3,220,000 square miles, and of Chile 300,000, about 
 one-eleventh the size of Brazil. The wealth is agri- 
 cultural, while of the 750 square kilometers of Chile 
 only 20,000 are cultivated lands; 100,000 are semi- 
 arid, 200,000 forest, and 430,000 sterile. Yet Chile's 
 wealth is in these sterile lands, embracing fifty-seven 
 per cent of the territory, for there are the great nitrate 
 beds, and the varied mineral veins. In Brazil every- 
 thing is spread out, expansive ; in Chile, drawn in and 
 compacted. Brazil is so big that it does not know it- 
 self. Distant provinces are like small independent 
 governments. Chile is highly centralized, with all its 
 activities focussed in the capital and ordered by a 
 small class of men. The Brazilian is placid and tran- 
 quil ; the Chilean energetic and enduring. "By reason 
 or by force," is the motto stamped on Chilean coins. 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 129 
 
 "Progress and order" are the words on the flag of 
 Brazil. In Brazil the population is a composite mix- 
 ture with a large immigration and a strong African 
 element. In Chile it is largely homogeneous, with a 
 negligible immigration and no negro element what- 
 ever. The fundamental problems are closely akin in 
 the two countries, but the contrasts serve to give an 
 edge to the facts. 
 
 Chile is made up climatically of at least three 
 countries. (1) There is the southern section, reach- 
 ing roughly from Cape Horn to Valdivia, a land of 
 forest and rain and storm. In this section are the 
 sheep-lands of Patagonia, Magallanes, and Terra del 
 Fuego. In the province of Magallanes or Magellan, 
 there is an area larger than the state of New York, 
 wind-swept and fog-covered, but well adapted to 
 sheep pasture. There are now millions of sheep here, 
 and besides the receipts for wool, mutton is the great 
 staple of export. In 1905, the shipments from Chile 
 amounted to 75,000 frozen carcasses that were shipped 
 from Punta Arenas. In 1908, one plant just east 
 of Punta Arenas froze and shipped 196,000 sheep. 
 (2) The real Chile lies between Valdivia and San- 
 tiago. Four-fifths of the population live in this cen- 
 tral section. It is the cultivated section, though there 
 is much waste land even here. In the provinces of 
 this section the population varies from five to forty- 
 seven per square kilometer. The average would be 
 near twenty. It is full of cities and towns and vil- 
 lages, readily accessible, railroads running up and 
 
130 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 down and to and fro across it, and all parts not 
 reached by rail are possible of an access which would 
 be deemed very easy in Bahia or Persia. This section 
 is one long valley, with subordinate valleys, covering 
 a region probably 500 by 100 miles, perhaps a little 
 more than this, perhaps a little less. The southern 
 half of this section, from Valdivia to Concepcion, is 
 still frontier. The remnants of the Araucanian 
 Indians, a race whom the Spaniards could not 
 conquer, live in the midst of this southern half. 
 (3) The rest of Chile is the dry land to the north, 
 from Santiago and Valparaiso, latitude 33°, to Tacna, 
 at the northern boundary at 18°. At Valdivia it rains 
 172 days a year, and the rainfall is 2841.1 m.m. At 
 Santiago it rains 31 days, and the rainfall is 264 m.m. 
 At Antofagasta and Iquique it never rains at all. The 
 nitrate and borax are piled in the open with no fear 
 even of a shower, and the shops display no umbrellas. 
 Here in the north among the nitrate officinas and at 
 the copper mines, an unstable population comes and 
 goes, with more money than in the south, and with 
 the freedom of opinion of such a moving company 
 detached from old moorings. 
 
 The great curse of Chile is alcoholism. In San- 
 tiago, a city with a population of 332,724, it was found 
 recently, when the municipality took up the matter, 
 that there were six thousand places where liquor was 
 sold, and in Valparaiso, we were told, there was one 
 saloon to every twenty-four men. Mr. Akers, in A 
 History of South America, 1854-1004, says that Val- 
 
THE MOUNTAIN REPUBLICS 131 
 
 paraiso, with a population of 140,000, shows six hun- 
 dred more cases of drunkenness reported to the poHce 
 than in all London, with five million souls. Drink has 
 nearly wiped out the Indians. The land is cursed with 
 drink, and foreigners are manufacturing it, or a good 
 part of it. 
 
 The general hygienic conditions also are appalling. 
 Smallpox is practically endemic in Valparaiso and 
 Santiago. There were many deaths daily when we 
 were in Santiago, and smallpox sufferers would be 
 seen even on the streets or on the street-cars, and the 
 pest-house was in constant use. The conventicles, or 
 tenements, in a land where all such houses are only 
 one story high and there is no excuse for congestion, 
 are simply breeding-places for disease and killing- 
 grounds for little children. Open sewers run down 
 the uncovered gutters before the long rows of sunless 
 rooms. Seventy-five or eighty per cent of the chil- 
 dren die under two years of age, and the general rate 
 of mortality is nearly double that of Europe. Well- 
 informed men declare that the population is stationary. 
 The census reports, which show a population in 1875 
 of 2,075,991, in 1885 of 2,527,300, in 1895 of 2,712,- 
 145, and in 1907 of 3,249,279, do not confirm this im- 
 pression of stagnancy, but the ablest and best-in- 
 formed men recognize the evil of the national suicide 
 through alcoholism and dirt, the uncleanness of the 
 houses and the murderous ignorance of the care of 
 little children. Property under $2,000 is not taxed, 
 and on property above that the maximum .ax rate is 
 
132 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 three per mille, or about one-tenth of what we pay in 
 many communities in the United States. There is 
 none of that spirit toward public interests which makes 
 their tax bills the most grateful expenditure of many 
 Americans. 
 
 Nevertheless it is a wonderful little republic, pa- 
 triotic to the last fiber, with many capable and public- 
 spirited men, but without the political or moral spirit 
 in the mass of the nation capable of sustaining repre- 
 sentative institutions or creating a progressive state.^ 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INCREASE 
 
 IN the times of the Incas the territory which is now 
 Peru supported a dense population. The vestiges 
 which remain of the intensive cultivation of the land 
 show that it must have sustained a very large number 
 of inhabitants. The population extended from the 
 Sierra and its sides down to the coast, and took little 
 account of the forest region stretching to the Amazon. 
 The enumeration made by the Spanish officials in 1793 
 has little value as a basis of estimating the increase, 
 because it was not limited to the present Peru. It is 
 interesting only as showing that out of a total of 
 1,077,000 inhabitants there were 618,000 Indians, 
 241,000 mestizos, 136,000 Spaniards, and 82,000 
 negroes and mulattoes Another estimate made at that 
 period was of 1,250,000 persons. 
 
 It is difficult to figure out that the population of 
 Peru at the end of 1905 exceeded 3,000,000 to 3,250,- 
 000, though an estimate of 4,000,000 was attributed to 
 the Geographical Society of Lima a few years ago. 
 The last census was taken in 1876. It gave a total 
 of 2,673,000 persons. The enumeration admittedly 
 was deficient, and an open question was whether the 
 semi-civilized tribes of the trans-Andine region had 
 been underestimated or overestimated. In subsequent 
 
 133 
 
134 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 years the province of Tarapaca was ceded to Chile, 
 and Peru suffered not only the losses' caused by war 
 with that country, but also from the complete indus- 
 trial prostration which supervened and from the in- 
 testine struggles of the revolutionary factions. 
 
 Only within very recent years a basis of normal 
 growth of population may be said to exist, and, with 
 reference to the natural increase, the high rate of in- 
 fant mortality, both in the cities and in the Sierra, 
 has to be kept in mind. A long period of comfortable 
 existence and of hygienic education must elapse before 
 this mortality will be sensibly diminished. In many 
 communities the birth rate and the death rate are 
 evenly balanced, while there are districts in which 
 the grave claims more than the rude cradle. 
 
 By the national census of 1876 Lima had 101,000 
 inhabitants. In November, 1903, a municipal count 
 fixed the population at 131,000. Lima has received the 
 cream of the immigration in recent years, and has 
 drawn to itself all the floating elements. The smaller 
 coast cities have shown no such growth, while in the 
 interior the towns appear almost stationary as to their 
 inhabitants. If the rate of increase were 30 per cent 
 for the whole country, as with Lima, and if the census 
 of 1876 could be accepted as a safe basis of calcula- 
 tion, the total population today would be approxi- 
 mately 3,5000,000. The notable increase of Peru's 
 foreign trade in recent years is evidence of improved 
 consumptive capacity, due to industrial prosperity, 
 rather than of an increased number of consumers. It 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INCREASE 135 
 
 came too swiftly to be accounted for by the growth in 
 population, and therefore does not support the theory 
 of upward of 3,500,000 inhabitants. 
 
 I have taken into account the statement of travel- 
 ers in the interior, who have found the people more 
 thickly distributed than they had thought. Two young 
 Americans, Messrs. Whitehead and Peachy, who in 
 1902 traveled through northern Peru to the Amazon, 
 encountered a relatively dense population. The engi- 
 neers, who in 1895 made the Intercontinental Railway 
 Survey from the border of Ecuador to Cuzco, calcu- 
 lated the number of inhabitants along the route to be 
 482,000, substantially in agreement with the national 
 census and with no signs of a marked increase. The 
 location was through the Sierra and directly on the line 
 of the most populous Andine towns. Engineers for 
 private companies who made a reconnaissance of a 
 route along the left bank of the Maranon, were sur- 
 prised to find every little stretch of plain or valley 
 between the glaciers occupied and cultivated by an 
 Indian family, yet when they came to estimate the 
 aggregate of the inhabitants, the total was not a large 
 one. This inter-Andine population may be numerous 
 enough to justify the belief that the census of thirty 
 years ago was not wide of the mark, but it is impos- 
 sible to find grounds for the assumption of an increase 
 of 30 per cent since then. The population of Peru 
 at the beginning of the Panama Canal epoch reason- 
 ably may be placed at 3,250,000. 
 
 In the enumeration of 1876 the estimate was, that 
 
136 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 of the inhabitants 57 per cent were pure Indian, 23 
 per cent mestizos, and, except for a fraction of ne- 
 groes, the remaining 20 per cent was Caucasian, chiefly 
 Spanish. The aboriginal proportion is now smaller 
 than it was thirty years ago, since European immigra- 
 tion has added to the white population, and the mixed 
 blood also has been augmented. 
 
 There is no more fascinating history than that of 
 the Quichuas, the aboriginal population of Peru which 
 still survives. The distinctions are yet marked be- 
 tween this basic race and the races which were sub- 
 jected, such as the Yuncas, who dwelt in the northern 
 part and along the coast and whose language is still 
 spoken by their descendants. Some of the tribes along 
 the shores of Lake Titicaca are not of pure Quichua 
 descent, being sprung from the rival race of the Aym- 
 aras, while in the forest region the Chunchos and oth- 
 ers of the uncivilized tribes have little of the Quichua 
 traditions and customs and speak dialects of their own. 
 But the great mass of the population of Peru today is 
 Quichua. The Spanish and other intermixtures which 
 have produced the cholos, or half-breeds, have had 
 four centuries to work out the blood mingling, and the 
 cholo in every community is easily distinguishable 
 from the pure Quichua. 
 
 The Quichua is of the soil. Under the Incas the 
 communal system of land cultivation prevailed, and the 
 natives, even in the loftiest recesses of the mountains, 
 were agriculturists. They found means to irrigate the 
 most barren of spots. On the plains and in the val- 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INCREASE 137 
 
 leys they cultivated the land. The fondness for the 
 freedom of the country still survives, and many of 
 them prefer this life to being grouped in villages. 
 
 On some of the great haciendas the crops are ap- 
 portioned on shares almost as in the times of the 
 Incas. The natives are born shepherds, and the pas- 
 toral life suits them. In the Cordilleras, wherever there 
 is a pass or a valley, the cabins of the Indians are 
 scattered about as thickly as the producing qualities 
 of the land will permit. 
 
 Much of the work in the mines is done by the 
 cholos or mestizos. These also are the freighters who 
 handle the droves of llamas, burros, and mules that 
 bring the ore from the mines and take back the sup- 
 plies. On the coast the population might be called 
 chiefly cholo, for here the intercourse with other races 
 has made the conditions different from those in the 
 Sierra. 
 
 In the forest region the tribal customs are observed 
 almost as before the Spaniards came. Many of the 
 tribes are still restricted to bows and arrows, and as 
 they are hostile to the government and accept its rule 
 unwillingly, the authorities take pains to see that they 
 are not encouraged in procuring fire-arms and learning 
 the use of modern weapons. The marriage relation is 
 primitive, but the traditions are rigidly maintained. 
 An Englishman who had spent some years in the basin 
 of the Ucayali told me that in one tribe polyandry 
 was practiced. An epidemic of smallpox had left more 
 men than women. The owner of an hacienda on the 
 
138 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 edge of the forest region gave me an account of the 
 marriage customs which had prevailed immemorially. 
 One instance which had come to his attention was of a 
 girl of nine married to a boy of eleven. When the 
 child-wife was eleven years old, she was a mother. 
 The gentleman had verified this incident himself and 
 had no question of the age of the husband and wife. 
 
 The native is deeply attached to his surroundings 
 and does not take readily to labor elsewhere. The 
 climate has something to do with this unwillingness 
 to move. It has been found by experiment that the 
 inhabitants on the punas, or tablelands 5,000 feet above 
 the sea-level, do not work well when taken up another 
 5,000 feet. They are not only homesick; they suffer 
 real physical illness. It is the same with those brought 
 down from the lower plains. Alcohol is the worst 
 drawback to their physical well-being and moral ad- 
 vancement. The coca leaf, the essential principle of 
 cocaine, which they use as a food, is far less respon- 
 sible for their lack of physical stamina than cane rum. 
 
 In many of the villages of Peru which I visited I 
 formed an impression that the natives were further 
 advanced than in similar villages in Bolivia and Chile. 
 There was more cleanliness, more evidence of good 
 order and of wise local administration. They are a 
 brooding, solitude-loving race, though not altogether 
 spiritless. How far they still preserve the traditions 
 ' and sorrow over the Incas I do not know, but their 
 gentle resistance makes it more difficult to impose 
 civilization on them than would be sullen opposition. 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INCREASE 139 
 
 While the army is distasteful to the Indian popu- 
 lation, and while they evade the conscription wherever 
 possible, it is one of the strongest civilizing forces. 
 The discipline is good, and the change of environment 
 also is advantageous. Obedience has been so fixed a 
 habit of the natives since the Spanish conquest that 
 they never think of questioning authority. As to the 
 degree of superstition which is mingled with the nomi- 
 nal adhesion given by the Indian population to the 
 church, I do not profess to judge. 
 
 The Peruvian government seeks to enforce a good 
 school system, and in the large towns and villages with 
 some success. But on the part of the mass of the 
 Quichuas there is still inextinguishable hostility to 
 learning Spanish, not less effective because it is pass- 
 ive. The suggestion has been made that the authori- 
 ties provide a system of primary schools where 
 Quichua shall be the language and shall be taught sys- 
 tematically. It is the lingua general, or common 
 speech, of a large majority of the inhabitants. 
 
 At Huanuco, where a German agricultural colony 
 was established forty or fifty years ago, the sons of 
 the early colonists still speak German, and many of 
 the Quichuas in the neighborhood have acquired a 
 smattering of that language. Apparently they dis- 
 tinguished between the tongue of the conqueror and 
 another strange tongue. 
 
 The negro element in the population in Peru is 
 sometimes remarked by strangers. They are told that 
 it has become thoroughly intermixed with the native 
 
140 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 race. In the early days of the viceroys, when African 
 slavery was exploited by the two great Christian pow- 
 ers, England and Spain, many Africans were brought 
 to Peru. It is thence that the name Zambo, or Sambo, 
 came. They are yet called Sambos. Though the 
 Spanish and Indian mixture is said to be thorough, 
 there seems to be much of the African racial identity 
 still preserved. 
 
 The Chinese coolies were brought to Peru in the 
 fifties. They still work in the sugar plantations and 
 the rice fields and a few of them also in the cotton 
 fields. The coolie in the second generation, however, 
 becomes a store-keeper or a property owner. On 
 some of the sugar estates the Chinese steward in the 
 course of a few years leases the plantation and later 
 becomes the owner. There are many wealthy China- 
 men in Peru, and not all of them made their money 
 as merchants at Lima. The policy of the government 
 is not to encourage coolie immigration. 
 
 For the industrial and political future of which 
 Peru dreams there must be immigration as well as 
 natural increase of the present native population- 
 The potter's clay is not all at hand. Some of it must 
 be brought in. This immigration will be along three 
 lines, which may be called topographical or geograph- 
 ical, — first, on the coast; second, in the Sierra; third, 
 in the trans-Andine country and the vast basin of the 
 rivers that feed the Amazon. A phenomenal growth in 
 the latter region during the present generation is not 
 probable, though it has enormous colonization possi- 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INCREASE 141 
 
 bilities which gradually will be utilized, especially with 
 the opening up of the means of communication. Some 
 of them, too, are European or Caucasian possibilities, 
 for the exploration of numerous scientists and their 
 studies have shown that the European can live and 
 thrive in these regions. These climatic and similar 
 observations may be had from a score of books giving 
 experiences of individuals. 
 
 In the development of the mines Peru necessarily 
 must add to the population of the Sierra. Mining 
 labor now is hardly sufficient, and the preference of 
 the natives for agriculture and for service as freight- 
 ers makes the problem one of increasing difficulty. 
 The wages in the mines are good, varying according 
 to locality. In the Sierra day labor can be had for 
 about half a sol, which is equivalent to twenty-five 
 cents gold. The American syndicate, in building the 
 Cerro de Pasco Railway, paid the natives a sol, or 
 fifty cents, and got satisfactory returns. But for the 
 mining development of the future, miners from Spain 
 and Italy should supply the deficiency that will exist 
 so long as sole reliance is placed on the natives. They 
 may come in considerable numbers. 
 
 Irrigation of the region between the Sierra and the / 
 coast is assured, and this is going to furnish the basis^ 
 for the largest and earliest increase in population. A 
 portion of this increase should also come from Italy 
 and Spain and perhaps also from Germany, for the 
 Germans are highly successful in semi-tropical agricul- 
 ture. The Italians have been very successful in Peru 
 
142 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 in retail trade and in some of the mechanical employ- 
 ments, but the conditions also are favorable for them 
 in agricultural pursuits. The vineyards in the region 
 around Pisco and lea seem to afford an especially in- 
 viting field for them. By the time the Panama Canal 
 is open the big trans-Atlantic liners from Genoa and 
 Naples which now come to Colon should be bringing a 
 full quota of Italian immigrants through the waterway 
 to the Peruvian ports. 
 
 The government has enacted liberal legislation pro- 
 viding for immigration and colonization, but it does 
 not follow the theory of government-aided colonies. 
 Its course is sound. It grants land to private enter- 
 prises for colonization, and in the industrial plans 
 which are now a part of its political policy there is a 
 certainty of an increased population to be drawn from 
 abroad. An old law authorizes an annual appropria- 
 tion of 50,000 for encouraging immigration, and the 
 passage of immigrants may be paid, but this is the 
 limit of state aid. 
 
 Colonization plans by private enterprises received 
 a check a few years ago, when the Peruvian Corpora- 
 tion abandoned its efforts. Of the total grant of 
 2,750,000 acres in the region of the rivers Perene and 
 Ene and the Chanchamayo valley, more than a million 
 acres were set aside for immediate peopling. The 
 corporation began to attract settlers to the lands, but 
 the movement was feeble and was not sustained. The 
 complaint made was that instead of inviting fresh and 
 virile European immigration it drew the dregs from 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INCREASE 143 
 
 neighboring countries, taking colonists who had proved 
 their own worthlessness in the places where they first 
 settled. The experiment was still another instance of 
 ignorant London directors and incompetent manage- 
 ment. 
 
 Many of the earlier colonists in this district went 
 into coffee-growing with fair success. The climates 
 the soil, the slopes of the Cordilleras, all were favor- 
 able. Good crops were raised and found a profitable 
 market. But this market was obtained at the period 
 when Brazil was changing from the empire to the 
 republic, and when through that and subsequent dis- 
 turbances the supply to meet the world's demand was 
 interrupted. When the Brazilian crop became abnor- 
 mal in its productiveness, weighting the price down 
 below the level of profitable production, coffee-raising 
 no longer was business for the colonists of Peru- 
 They themselves did not clearly perceive the cause 
 of their distress. Many of them, instead of turning 
 to other products, got discouraged and went away. 
 But merely because of this failure there is no ground 
 to believe that in the future colonizing movements in 
 this region, intelligently directed by the Peruvian 
 Corporation or by any private company, will not suc- 
 ceed. The climatic and soil conditions are inviting, 
 and the only question is the means of utilizing these 
 gifts of nature. The entire Pichis zone is favorable 
 to European colonization. When it is connected with 
 the Pacific by the extension of the present railroad 
 to Port Bermudez or some other river point, its colo- 
 
144 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 nization capabilities will be appreciated; for the lack 
 of access has been the drawback. This rich region lies 
 within three hundred miles of the coast. 
 
 A similar observation may be made concerning the 
 northern districts. From any one of half a dozen 
 little seaports the valleys of the Maranon and its tribu- 
 taries are less than two hundred miles distant. But 
 the Continental Divide lies between, and this mass of 
 mountain wall must be pierced by the railroad. Once 
 this is done, the immigration possibilities of northern 
 Peru will develop rapidly. 
 
 For all this there must be faith, and resolution, and 
 definite measures. It is not a question of settling a 
 new land, for Peru is an old, old country. Nor is it 
 the problem of reconstructing the ancient civilization 
 of the Incas, or the civilization which twentieth-cen- 
 tury iconoclastic antiquarians charge the Incas with 
 stealing from other races. In its economic aspect the 
 matter is simply one of getting more people into a 
 country which has plenty of room for them. 
 
 During a stay in Lima, I spent an afternoon with 
 Rev. Dr. Wood, a Methodist Episcopal missionary, 
 who had been in South America for thirty years, and 
 who had made the most discriminating study of social 
 conditions of any Yankee living in the Andes. I came 
 away permeated with some of Dr. Wood's enthusiasm 
 and, I hope, with some of his devout faith. The 
 South American continent, he declared, has been held 
 in reserve by Providence for a time when the popula- 
 tion of other countries would press for room and for 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INCREASE 145 
 
 means of subsistence. The present Peru, he thinks, 
 is easily capable of supporting 20,000,000 inhabitants 
 in conditions of life and comfort similar to those en- 
 joyed by dwellers in the Alps and the Appenines. 
 
 But if in the years pending the completion of the 
 Panama Canal, Peru by natural increase and by immi- 
 gration can add 1,000,000 to her population, that mod- 
 est addition will determine her industrial future. A 
 million more people during the next ten years will 
 mean an extra 2,000,000 in the decade that follows. 
 The horizon does not need to be extended farther.* 
 
CHAPTER X 
 Peru's growth and government 
 
 WHEN Honorable James Bryce wanted an apt 
 illustration of the numerous election^ in the 
 United States, he compared them in their frequency 
 to revolutions in Peru. The comparison was not un- 
 just. Civil wars have occurred almost as often. The 
 bloodiest drama was enacted as recently as 1895. In 
 that year the streets of Lima were choked with corpses 
 and ran with blood of brother shed by brother. No 
 one today can give a rational cause for it. A few 
 years earlier, when Peru yet was prostrate at the feet 
 of Chile, there were revolutions and counter-revolu- 
 tions. 
 
 But the seeds of revolution do run out after cen- 
 turies. The soil grows barren. The soil in this case 
 is the mass of aboriginal population, the Indians and 
 the mixed bloods, who have known only blindly to fol- 
 low one chief or another. Slowly they learned that in 
 the revolvmg of rulers they were no better off. An 
 English monarchist repeated to me the story of an old 
 Indian at Chosica. He was bent with age and hard 
 work, was in rags and was a beggar. This was after 
 the Spanish power had been broken and independence 
 established. He came one day to the group of political 
 chiefs who were then in control and were controlling 
 
 146 
 
PERU'S GROWTH AND GOVERNMENT 147 
 
 for the benefit of themselves. They were eulogizing 
 Liberty and the glory of having done with kingships. 
 The old fellow listened and then meekly remarked: 
 **But, sirs, it is all the same. Under the viceroy I 
 was a beggar. Under the Republic and your Honors 
 I am a beggar. I don't see that Liberty means any- 
 thing to old Juan Martinez." 
 
 For the bulk of the inhabitants it has not been quite 
 so bad, because even the republican semblance of gov- 
 ernment has been better training for them than the 
 monarchical rule. Yet in the uprisings and counter- 
 uprisings they were like the old beggar. Whatever 
 dictator was in and was promulgating high-sounding 
 proclamations of liberty, they were no better off than 
 under his predecessor. They followed one cacique or 
 another, killed one another at his behest, and then set- 
 tled back in the old way. But of late years the con- 
 dition of the mass of the Indian and mixed population 
 has improved. I take this statement on the evidence 
 of discriminating foreigners, and not as a conclusion 
 from my own observations, which were made within 
 too short a period to afford a basis for comparison. It 
 is the testimony of the Europeans that more than one 
 ambitious leader has been willing to lead a revolt when 
 his faction lost, but he could not get followers or 
 dupes, and therefore he acquiesced. 
 
 It is true also that the educated classes have be- 
 come more stable and have put forth a stronger influ- 
 ence against political disturbances. Yet over-credit 
 should not be given them, for the hot Spanish blood 
 
148 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 in all of them has not been brought down to an even 
 temperature. This was very forcibly impressed on me 
 during the spring of 1903, when the presidential elec- 
 tion was pending. Sefior Miguel Candamo, for sev- 
 eral years president of the Lima Chamber of Com- 
 merce, was the only candidate who had a political 
 party back of him. He had been an influential sup- 
 porter of the liberal administration of President 
 Romafia. He was the choice of the Constitutionalists 
 and Civilistas. There was another aspirant whose 
 canvass was entirely personal. Besides the Civilistas 
 the only important political organization was the Popu- 
 lar Democrats, who were supposed to represent the 
 popular element, or the masses. They nominated no 
 candidate, but they sought to control the Congress. 
 
 One of their leaders, Senor A , calmly ex- 
 plained to me that they would get control of Congress, 
 would declare the election null and void, and substi- 
 tute their own man for Sefior Candamo. He looked 
 
 on this as perfectly legitimate politics. Sefior A 
 
 had been educated in the United States in order to 
 have the benefit of free government, had spent his 
 youth there, and after returning to Peru had held im- 
 portant public offices. When he was explaining to me 
 the plans of his faction, the future of Peru hinged on 
 the peaceful succession to President Romafia. 
 
 After Sefior Candamo had been chosen for a fac- 
 tion which had not even proposed an opposing candi- 
 date, to seek to prevent his inauguration and put in 
 its own man — who never, had made even a pretense of 
 
PERU'S GROWTH AND GOVERNMENT 149 
 
 seeking the suffrage of the electors — meant to precipi- 
 tate, if not actual revolution, a condition fully as bad. 
 It meant to destroy the confidence of foreign capital, 
 and to take from Peru the prestige which she slowly 
 was regaining among South American nations. It 
 was inconceivable how a patriotic Peruvian could har- 
 bor a purpose of encouraging such a condition, and 
 
 yet Senor A • was intensely patriotic and ready to 
 
 fight for his country. 
 
 The election was held, and some of the hot-heads, 
 
 among whom was Sefior A , did undertake to 
 
 question the result, and for a brief period the fate of 
 Peru trembled in the balance. It was settled by the 
 stern displeasure of General Nicolas de Pierola, a 
 former president, himself the chief actor in many 
 revolutions and at that time the leader of the Popular 
 Democratic party. He told his radical followers that 
 insurrection against the government would be treason 
 to the nation, and Senor Candamo was inaugurated 
 with his support. 
 
 Another test came when, a few months after Presi- 
 dent Candamo's inauguration, he was taken ill and in 
 May, 1904, died. He had been conspicuously and hon- 
 orably identified with the history of Peru, had the con- 
 fidence of the whole people, and especially of the com- 
 mercial classes both foreign and native. His program 
 had been purely a civilian one. All the political parties 
 had been harmonized and were supporters of his ad- 
 ministration. His death inevitably brought on a con- 
 test for the succession. In this struggle there was to 
 
150 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 be an alignment of political organizations. Again 
 Peru was approaching a crisis which would test her 
 stability, and show the world whether confidence could 
 be placed that the progressive career on which she had 
 entered would be uninterrupted by domestic dissen- 
 sions. 
 
 Under the Peruvian constitution a first and a sec- 
 ond vice-president are chosen, but the vice-president 
 has not exactly similar functions to that official in the 
 United States. The first vice-president, in the absence 
 of the president or his temporary retirement from offi- 
 cial cares, discharges the responsibilities of the execu- 
 tive office, and in the absence or disability of the first- 
 vice-president the second one acts. But in the event 
 of the death of the Executive, the vice-president fills 
 the office only until an election can be called and a suc- 
 cessor chosen. It happened in 1903 that Senor Acorta, 
 who was chosen first vice-president, died before the 
 inauguration. On the death of President Candamo, 
 Sefior Serapio Calderon, the second vice-president, 
 discharged the executive functions and issued the call 
 for the election of a new chief magistrate. If the 
 emergency had been pressing, he could have called the 
 Congress in extra session. After some delay nomina- 
 tions were made by the opposing political parties. 
 The Civilistas united on Senor Jose Pardo as their 
 choice, and the Constitutionalists endorsed him, he be- 
 coming the candidate of this coalition. The Popular 
 Democrats and a political group known as the Lib- 
 erals named General Nicolas de Pierola, the former 
 
PERU'S GROWTH AND GOVERNMENT 151 
 
 president, as their candidate. His career in the stormy 
 periods of Peruvian history for forty years had made 
 him a leading character and he had strong influence 
 with the masses. On his retirement from the presi- 
 dency he had become the head of a business enterprise 
 in Lima. His old opponent, General Caceres, one of 
 the Constitutionalists, supported Sefior Pardo. 
 
 Jose Pardo is a member of a distinguished family, 
 one of several brothers influential in the business and 
 politics of the country, sons of the president who 
 founded the Civil party in 1872. He was educated for 
 the law, and had been in the diplomatic service in 
 Europe, but had returned to Peru and was occupied 
 as a sugar-planter when Miguel Candamo was chosen 
 president. He was one of Senor Candamo's active 
 supporters, and entered the latter's cabinet as Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs. He was generally recognized 
 as the coming leader of the Civilistas, and was sur- 
 rounded by a group of young men who were aggres- 
 sive in their advocacy of civilian policies. His speech 
 in accepting his party's nomination was singularly free 
 from the generalities and the apostrophes to Liberty 
 with which presidential candidates and dictators in the 
 Spanish-American republics are accustomed to season 
 their discourses. Instead it was a plea for a school 
 system, internal improvements, railways, irrigation, 
 harbor works, fiscal reforms, and economical adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 General Pierola also made industrial measures the 
 leading feature of his program. 
 
152 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 The campaign caused anxiety, though the tension 
 clearly was less than in the previous year in the period 
 between Senor Candamo's election and his inaugura- 
 tion. Demonstrations by the rival political groups re- 
 sulted in bad blood, there were collisions with the 
 police in which several persons were killed or injured, 
 and election riots after the manner of some sections 
 of the United States. But these incidents were not 
 numerous enough to show the existence of a revolu- 
 tionary spirit, and they were dismissed with the euphe- 
 mistic designation of "electoral effervescences." 
 
 Meanwhile the real electoral contest was going on 
 in the newspapers, in meetings, and by manifestos and 
 addresses to the public. It soon became evident that 
 the Civil party with Senor Pardo as its leader would 
 triumph. The Pierolists asked the government for a 
 postponement of the election. This was refused on 
 the ground that under the laws and the constitution 
 no authority existed for such postponement. Then 
 the Pierola ticket was withdrawn by the Popular 
 Democrats and the Liberals, and their followers were 
 advised not to vote. This action was a resort to the 
 minority method practiced in Spain and her offshoot 
 countries in America. It is an admission in advance 
 that the other party will win. 
 
 After General Pierola's withdrawal the Civilistas 
 and their allies exerted themselves against what in the 
 United States we call apathy. To comply with the 
 law and make the election valid, it is necessary to have 
 one-third of the registered vote cast. The proportion 
 
PERU'S GROWTH AND GOVERNMENT 153 
 
 of the ballots was much larger than that. Senor Pardo 
 was elected in August and inaugurated in September. 
 He formed his cabinet with young blood tempered 
 by experience. Senor Leguia, who as his colleague 
 in President Candamo's cabinet had been Secretary of 
 the Treasury and had been the warm advocate of the 
 new industrial policy, was called to the Treasury again 
 and became president of the cabinet. Other members 
 of the cabinet selected also had the confidence of the 
 public. The continuance of civil administration and 
 the dominance of civilian measures were reaffirmed, 
 and it was shown that Peru had taken another stride 
 toward stability by the acquiescence of the defeated 
 party. The opposition made no effort to question the 
 election. 
 
 The administration of President Pardo was a most 
 successful one, but it is one of the iron-bound rules of 
 South American politics, that no president may serve 
 two terms in succession. It was a very happy circum- 
 stance, however, that the Civilistas had still another 
 strong man in Senor Augusto B, Leguia, Secretary of 
 the Treasury under two administrations, who was 
 elected in August, 1908, and on the 24th of September 
 of that year was inaugurated. For four years now 
 President Liguia has splendidly managed Peru's na- 
 tional affairs, and while he has been progressive and 
 determined in his administration, he has still shown 
 that caution exercised by the presidents of Peru for 
 the last twenty years. Under his administration the 
 government has made great progress. 
 
154 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 I have given the substance of the spirit of the gov- 
 ernment of Peru as it exists today, leaving only brief 
 space for an analysis of the form. The constitution 
 now in force was adopted in 1860 and was modeled 
 after that of the United States. Power is centralized, 
 though there is a reasonable measure of local self- 
 government or local administration. Geographical 
 isolation of the different sections is one cause of the 
 centralized authority. The political division of the 
 Republic is into twenty-one departments, which are 
 subdivided into ninety-seven provinces, and these into 
 778 districts. The source of administrative authority 
 in each department is the prefect, who is named by 
 the central government. In many of the departments 
 the prefect is an officer of the regular army. Each 
 of the provinces has a sub-prefect, and the districts 
 have their local rulers or governors, depending from 
 the higher power. In the municipalities the alcalde 
 is appointed, but the members of the Council are 
 elected. The Amazon Province of Loreto has a sys- 
 tem of administration somewhat different from the 
 other departments. It is more under military admin- 
 istration. The customs administration at Iquitos also 
 requires a close supervision by the national authorities. 
 
 The powers of the Executive are defined with clear- 
 ness. They are complete, though there is something 
 of a limitation in the Council of State, which was 
 created by law in 1896, is in some respects an execu- 
 tive body. When the cabinet is in full sympathy with 
 the President, the Council of State is his instrument. 
 
PERU'S GROWTH AND GOVERNMENT 155 
 
 But when this body is made up of warring political 
 elements, the President is not always able to have his 
 way. The system obtains of having the various polit- 
 ical groups represented, and when there is a hostile 
 majority in the Congress that is the only means by 
 which the government can be carried on. Frequently 
 it results in an administration of cross purposes. The 
 Cabinet members may be also members of the Con- 
 gress, and may be summoned before either branch of 
 that body to give explanations and may take part in 
 the debates. The Peruvian Congress is peculiar in 
 one respect. This is in the election of suplentes, or 
 deputy representatives and deputy senators. When 
 the election is held, it is both for members and for 
 deputy members. Thus it happens that the Congress 
 never need be without a quorum in either branch, and 
 no district or department need be deprived of repre- 
 sentation temporarily by the death or absence of the 
 senator or representative. His deputy can be counted 
 on to attend the sessions. 
 
 The church is a part of the state in Peru, and has 
 been usually an unprogressive part. The ecclesiastical 
 organization consists of an archbishop, resident in 
 Lima, and eight suffragen bishops for the various 
 dioceses. The church as an institution has opposed 
 movements to liberalize Peru, and has instigated revo- 
 lutions against reforms. 
 
 Roman Catholicism is intrenched in the constitu- 
 tion, not only as a religion of the state, but by the 
 prohibition of other forms of worship. The Protest- 
 
156 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ant congregations are not numerous, and it is still 
 necessary to call their places of worship halls instead 
 of churches. Yet under liberal administrations no 
 real difficulty is experienced by the missionaries who 
 temper good sense with zeal. In remote districts the 
 central government can not always insure protection 
 against local prejudices, but its authority is exerted 
 to that end. The testimonies of the missionaries them- 
 selves is that they are meeting fewer and fewer diffi- 
 culties, and even in the strongholds of intolerance, 
 such as Cuzco and Arequipa, they are able to carry 
 on their proselyting labors without interference. 
 
 In the passing of years the constitution of Peru 
 will be amended so as to welcome Protestantism, 
 though the Roman Catholic Church will remain the 
 state church. This constitutional amendment is some- 
 what cumbersome, since it requires consecutive action 
 by two congresses in order to become effective; but 
 the sentiment in favor of it is spreading and proposi- 
 tions already have been presented to Congress. Wise 
 Protestants do not believe in urging it too rapidly. 
 They realize that with a succession of liberal govern- 
 ments and with the toleration that already is mani- 
 fest. Protestantism can afford to wait and work. 
 
 The provisions of the Peruvian constitution and 
 the laws with regard to foreigners are liberal. For- 
 eigners may be naturalized after two years' residence. 
 The government at Lima through the prefects extends 
 every possible protection to those who are traveling 
 or who seek to engage in mining or other industries. 
 
PERU'S GROWTH AND GOVERNMENT 157 
 
 The trouble which arises generally is with the local 
 authorities, and Europeans and Americans who have 
 a reasonable degree of tact and are willing to adapt 
 themselves to their surroundings usually can make 
 themselves personas gratas. Where they start in with 
 the disposition to flaunt their foreign citizenship and 
 to override the natives, not even the central authority 
 can prevent local antagonisms. In four cases out of 
 five the foreigner in Peru who gets into trouble with 
 the local authorities has only himself to blame. 
 
 The government in the laws it has promulgated for 
 the mining industry, for the exploitation of the rubber 
 forests, for irrigation, and for the navigation of the 
 waterways has sought especially to protect and en- 
 courage foreign capital and individuals. Foreigners 
 may be members of the deputations and delegations 
 which are provided in the mining code, and they also 
 may serve in the municipal councils. On the alder- 
 manic ticket at Cuzco and other places I found Eng- 
 lish and German names, and was told that these can- 
 didates had not been naturalized and had no intention 
 of being. This provision should be of particular value 
 in colonization movements where communities may be 
 established without the native Peruvians. 
 
 In relation to income and outgo there are three 
 sources of revenue, — general, municipal, and depart- 
 mental. The general revenues are had from the cus- 
 toms import and export duties, from the stamp tax, 
 and from the internal revenues on tobacco, alcohol^ 
 sugar, matches, and similar articles of consumption. 
 
158 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Salt IS a natural monopoly. The departmental reve- 
 nues are from the land tax (which is very light), from 
 the imposts on property transfers, from the inheri- 
 tance tax, and from a variety of industrial sources. 
 The municipal taxes are obtained from local tolls, 
 licenses, surveys, and like means. 
 
 Somewhat curiously in this age, the collection of 
 the internal taxes is farmed out by the national gov- 
 ernment. A joint-stock company known as the Na- 
 tional Tax Collection Society, by an agreement with 
 the government, collects all these revenues and turns 
 them in, retaining its percentage and providing loans 
 when needed for current purposes. The stock of this 
 company was taken mainly by the Lima Chamber of 
 Commerce. There is also in Lima a provincial tax 
 collection association, which takes charge of the local 
 revenues in the same manner that the national com- 
 pany collects the general revenues. Contrary to what 
 might be supposed, this system works very well, and is 
 satisfactory to the tax-payers, while the government 
 gets a larger return than if it itself were the col- 
 lector. 
 
 Peru is almost exceptional among the South 
 American Republics for establishing and maintaining 
 the gold standard. This is a brilliant and instructive 
 chapter of financial history. The beginning was made 
 in 1897, following the presidential election in the 
 United States. General Pierola was President and 
 was strongly in favor of the gold basis. Though Peru 
 was a silver-producing country, a law was passed pro- 
 
PERU'S GROWTH AND GOVERNMENT 159 
 
 viding that gold should be the sole standard, that cus- 
 toms duties should be thus paid, that there should be 
 no further silver coinage, and that the ratio should be 
 ten soles of silver, equal to the English pound sterling, 
 or the Peruvian pound sterling, which is the exact 
 equivalent in weight and fineness of the English pound 
 and is known as the inca. It also was provided that 
 silver should not be legal tender in amounts greater 
 than $100, that no person should be permitted to bring 
 more than ten soles into the country, and that the ex- 
 port duties on silver should be repealed. Subse- 
 quent legislation strengthened this law, and the gov- 
 ernment by an arrangement with the banks called 
 in and melted into bullion the redundant soles, it- 
 self taking the loss. There was opposition, especially 
 in the Cerro de Pasco mining region, where the out- 
 put of silver was greatest. In the interior also the 
 Indians, who had been accustomed to silver, could not 
 be made to understand gold. But as they have few 
 transactions in which a yellow coin is necessary, this 
 was not a serious drawback. 
 
 Paper money, either bank emissions or national 
 notes, is prohibited by the law of 1879. The cur- 
 rency which was in circulation in 1881 was converted 
 into internal debt. This internal debt grew out of 
 the calling in of the paper currency and the liquidation 
 of old accounts. The total is approximately $15,000,- 
 000. A small yearly disbursement is required for its 
 service. Part of this so-called internal debt earns one 
 per cent yearly interest, and the remainder receives 
 
160 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 no interest, being provided for out of a redemption 
 fund which amounts to $125,000 annually. This 
 liquidation has been regularly carried on since the 
 bonds were issued under the terms of the law of 1888. 
 The yearly fund appropriated for interest and the 
 sinking fund remain stationary unless increased by 
 Congress. 
 
 In the ten years following 1895, the banking capi- 
 tal of Peru increased at the rate of 150 per cent, while 
 the deposit accounts ran up from $4,500,000 to $14,- 
 000,000. The banks pay dividends of 14 to 16 per 
 cent. Volumes might be written about the causes 
 which are leading to the commercial and industrial 
 prosperity of the country and contributing to the 
 political stability. The convincing evidence of the 
 fact is the growth in the bank deposits. In these 
 chapters on Peru I have sought to show something of 
 the country and the people, of the resources and the 
 commerce, of the economic prospects and the political 
 conditions, for all of them must be known if the 
 country's future is to be judged. What the joining 
 of the Amazon to the Pacific means, what the new 
 industrial life promises, what the governmental stabil- 
 ity signifies, may find an answer in what has been writ- 
 ten, for I believe in the destiny of Peru, but not an 
 irridescent, dazzling destiny to be realized within a 
 twelvemonth or a decade. Instead, a gradual growth 
 to be attained by a plodding policy, sympathetic to the 
 popular aspirations yet rock-rooted in sound princi- 
 ples of national progress.'^" 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CHILEAN CONDITIONS 
 
 CHILE has a political history that marks an iso- 
 lated chapter among Spanish-American repub- 
 lics. Its unique and significant feature is four suc- 
 cessive and peaceful presidencies of ten years each. 
 The phenomenon is worthy of study. The tributes 
 which the Chileans pay themselves are merited. Their 
 national growth has been a growth, not a series of 
 spasms. 
 
 After independence was achieved through O'Hig- 
 gins in 1818, the Liberator was sent into exile, because 
 he sought to exert kingly powers as a dictator under 
 the merest crust of republican forms. The riot of 
 liberty followed for ten or twelve years with fre- 
 quent revolutions, changes of rulers, and unavailing 
 efforts to form a stable government. The anarchy of 
 license under the mask of popular institutions reached 
 its height during the period from 1828 to 1833, when 
 the Liberal party — that is, liberal in name — ^^A^as in 
 power. Then came the Conservatives or reactionists. 
 They forced the adoption of the Constitution of 1833, 
 which remained unchanged for thirty-seven years. 
 Order and tranquility was the motto, and general re- 
 publicanism was choked in order that a government of 
 law might live. 
 
 161 
 
1(52 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 From 1833 to 1873 Chile had four presidents, all 
 elected and re-elected under constitutional forms. 
 These chief magistrates were Joaquin Prieto, Manuel 
 Bulnes, Manuel Montt, and Jose Joaquin Perez. Dur- 
 ing General Bulnes' administration an army uprising 
 was attempted; during that of President Montt a 
 revolution started at Copoapo in the north. There 
 were also other disturbances. But all of them were 
 suppressed without long periods of civil dissensions, 
 and though liberty seemed to be smothered under 
 councils of war and the absolute suspension of indi- 
 vidual rights, it was a hardy plant and after a brief 
 period would begin to grow again. 
 
 Under the Constitution of 1833 the presidential 
 term was five years, and there was no prohibition 
 against a second term. In this manner each president 
 re-elected himself and enjoyed a ten years' tenure. 
 But he could not have done this if the privileged 
 classes, the family groups, had not sustained him. 
 They were aggressive in defending their share in the 
 oligarchy, and their individual independence they 
 maintained as sturdily as did the English barons who 
 forced the Magna Charta from King John. With the 
 national development assured, the country began to 
 chafe under the recognition of the autocratic power 
 which was vested in the Executive, and to feel that the 
 growth which would not have been possible without 
 the colonial despotism under republican form had now 
 reached the full measure. Consequently the agitation 
 for liberalizing the constitution began and^was contin- 
 
CHILEAN CONDITIONS 163 
 
 ued persistently instead of intermittently. In the 
 decade from 1860 to 1870 the Conservative reaction- 
 aries were pressed so vigorously and were on the de- 
 fensive so constantly that the harsh features of the 
 constitution were modified in the spirit if not in the 
 letter. 
 
 During the life of this old parchment and the four 
 Executives who put it into practice, — for there never 
 was a dictator among them, — Chile consolidated her 
 domestic interests, inaugurated the building of rail- 
 ways, and by the navy and other means prepared for 
 the war which it was felt one day would be had with 
 Peru and Bolivia. In view of all that was accom- 
 plished, it can hardly be said that the Constitution of 
 1833 and the power of the one hundred families as 
 exerted under that instrument, were bad for the coun- 
 try. But a change was inevitable, and in 1870 the con- 
 stitution was reformed in a manner to bring it within 
 the sphere of modern principles of government and 
 remove its aggressive antagonism to republican insti- 
 tutions. Greater independence was conceded to the 
 judicial power, and larger liberty of action to the 
 municipal authorities, while the electoral right of the 
 citizens was broadened. The presidential term re- 
 mained at five years, but successive elections were pro- 
 hibited so that the ten-year tenure could not continue. 
 
 Frederica Errazuriz was the first of the executives 
 to serve under the amended constitution. His term 
 was peaceful and progressive, but was devoted chiefly 
 to preparing for war by ordering the construction of 
 
164 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 the armored cruisers which rendered the Chilean navy 
 so formidable. He was succeeded by Anibal Pinto, 
 who had served in the cabinet as Minister of War. A 
 financial and economic crisis supervened during his 
 administration, and in its closing year was fought the 
 war of the Pacific, with Chile as the antagonist of 
 allied Bolivia and Peru. Chile's sweeping victories 
 not only gave her the nitrate territory which she ex- 
 acted as war indemnity ; it made her the most aggres- 
 sive and the most feared Power in South America. 
 
 It had been the custom for the outgoing president 
 to intervene in the elections in order to insure the 
 election of a candidate of his own choosing. President 
 Pinto announced his purpose of repudiating this prac- 
 tice, yet he was succeeded by Domingo Santa Maria, 
 who had held the portfolio of Foreign Relations in his 
 cabinet. President Santa Maria found himself antag- 
 onized by the Conservatives and one wing of the Lib- 
 erals. He tried to organize an administration party 
 and to control the election of senators and deputies 
 in the Congress, but failed. This was a clear mani- 
 festation of the inability of the Executive to rule with- 
 out the consent of the families who composed the va- 
 rious political groups. But the issue between the Ex- 
 ecutive and the families was to be forced by a more 
 resolute hand. Its outcome was dramatic, a tragedy 
 for the nation and a tragedy for one of the country's 
 greatest men. 
 
 Jose Manuel Balmaceda was chosen president in 
 1886, after a sharp electoral struggle in which Con- 
 
CHILEAN CONDITIONS 165 
 
 servatives and the reactionary faction of the Liberals 
 opposed him. He sought to conciHate the latter by 
 calling some of them to his cabinet. He had grand 
 plans for the development of the nation, and he 
 wanted a united support. 
 
 President Balmaceda strengthened the naval and 
 military establishment out of the nitrate proceeds; 
 but his guiding ambition was to apply them to public 
 improvements, railways, roads, harbors, and schools. 
 The Conservative-Liberal fusion thwarted him. It 
 prevailed in the Congress, and demanded that he 
 name ministers satisfactory to the majority. This he 
 claimed was in violation of his constitutional preroga- 
 tives. The Congress refused to authorize the taxes 
 and appropriations necessary for carrying on the gov- 
 ernment. When for any reason this was not done at 
 the regular session, the practice had been to convoke 
 Congress in extra sessions. President Balmaceda, 
 wearied with the controversy, abstained from taking 
 this action. On January 1, 1891, he announced that 
 the appropriations for the current year would be the 
 same as during the previous year. 
 
 Bloody, merciless civil war followed. The Con- 
 gressionalists proclaimed that their contest was against 
 executive usurpation. They removed to Valparaiso, 
 and took refuge on the warships which had been pre- 
 pared for them. They named Captain Jorge Montt 
 as Commander of the National Squadron. President 
 Balmaceda declared Montt and the naval commanders 
 who obeyed his orders traitors. The President orga- 
 
1^ SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 nized an army, while the navy sailed for Iquique and 
 seized the nitrate provinces. 
 
 The Congressionalists instituted their provisional 
 government there to carry on the war against Pres- 
 ident Balmaceda. They organized troops which were 
 transported to Valparaiso and defeated the garrison. 
 A second victory at Placilla and they were in control 
 of the capital, welcomed by the populace as liberators. 
 
 Balmaceda took refuge in the Argentine Lega- 
 tion. Flight across the Andes was open to him, but 
 he disdained it. He waited calmly till September 19, 
 the day on which his constitutional term as president 
 ended, wrote farewell letters to his family and friends, 
 arrayed himself in black, pointed a revolver at his 
 right temple, discharged it, and died instantly. His 
 policies live. 
 
 These swiftly tragic events have only been re- 
 called to show their relation to the political system 
 of Chile as it exists today, for they influenced it and 
 caused modifications of the Constitutional restrictive 
 of the Executive power. 
 
 By the books the form of Chilean government is 
 popular representative. To the foreign observer the 
 wonder grows that a system which gives such inor- 
 dinate power to small groups of families, who call 
 themselves political parties, and which binds the Ex- 
 ecutive hand and foot, can prove satisfactory. But 
 it suits Chile, or has suited her, and the country pro- 
 gresses. That is the conclusive answer. If Chile 
 chooses to make a straight- jacket for herself, that is 
 
CHILEAN CONDITIONS 167 
 
 her own concern, and if in that straight- jacket she 
 expands and develops a progressive national life, she 
 may be permitted to take her own way and her own 
 time for freeing herself. 
 
 But what of the governing classes ? Who com- 
 pose them? The Chilean professional man or mer- 
 chant or government official will tell you that there 
 are no class distinctions, and at the same time will 
 take pride in drawing himself and his fellows far apart 
 from the masses. It has been said that a hundred 
 families have ruled Chile for seventy-five years. The 
 numeral might be doubled or trebled, but the truth 
 would not be changed. The landed interests, the com- 
 mercial community, and the church have ruled the 
 country, and it must be said that they have ruled well. 
 They may accuse one another of being false to their 
 trusteeship, but the foreign observer is not impressed 
 with this charge. All of them have worked together 
 to make Chile the powerful and aggressive little na- 
 tion that she is, and have secured her respect that the 
 rest of South America has given her. But they have 
 taken all the benefits for themselves, — the honors and 
 emoluments of public office, the opportunities for 
 wealth that came from the nitrate fields, the chances 
 for careers that have been afforded by the army and 
 navy. It may almost be said that the army and navy 
 exist for the employment of the one hundred families. 
 
 Chile herself is not a country of great private 
 fortunes. One or two families have been enriched by 
 mines, a half-dozen by banking and commercial devei- 
 
168 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 opment, a larger number by nitrates. But when it is 
 all said, the Chilean hundred families are kin of mod- 
 erate means. Their main sources of income are from 
 their landed estates. These land-owners do not tax 
 themselves heavily. As in the maj.ority of countries 
 of Spanish-America, the government imposts are laid 
 on the revenue from the land and not on the land it- 
 self. The landed proprietors contrive that these im- 
 posts shall be light. 
 
 The existing regimen, as studied on paper, is al- 
 most a complete reversal of the regimen under w^hich 
 for nearly half a century Chilean nationality was de- 
 veloped and the little ribbon of a republic was con- 
 solidated and made strong. The old form was a 
 colonial despotism, with monarchical powers for the 
 Executive. The present system is congressional des- 
 potism without republican powers for the Executive, 
 but under both forms the one hundred families have 
 ruled. The president is selected by electors chosen in 
 the provinces through direct suffrage, since there is no 
 such thing as provincial legislatures. 
 
 In the fabric of Chilean social organization the 
 warp is the individual unit known as the roto. The 
 roto constitutes the mass. Pelucon, aristocrat, is a 
 term transmitted from the old regime. Violent ob- 
 jection is made to its use at the present day on the 
 ground that there are no privileged classes and that it 
 never had more than a restricted meaning. But it 
 describes the antithesis of the roto since his evolution 
 into the proletariat began, and it typifies a recognized 
 
CHILEAN CONDITIONS 169 
 
 social distinction, so that its use is permissible. Pelu- 
 con comes within the designation of the governing 
 classes and the one hundred families, and does not 
 require further explanation. 
 
 One morning in May, 1903, the Chilean govern- 
 ment and the foreign presidents awakened to the ex- 
 istence of the roto as an organized element in society, 
 with destructive capabilities and the courage of de- 
 structive tendencies. Disputes with the steamship 
 companies had resulted in a strike. That morning the 
 mob seized Valparaiso and took to burning property, 
 pillaging, and killing. It was a wild mob, but it had 
 perception and direction. It burned the offices of the 
 Chilean corporation known as the South American 
 Steamship Company, and undertook to sack one of the 
 newspapers, but it left unharmed the property of the 
 Pacific Steam Navigation Company, which was a 
 British corporation. Its grievances against both com- 
 panies were the same, but this Chilean mob would 
 give no ground for foreign intervention. 
 
 The authorities were blamed for the demoraliza- 
 tion which the strike developed. It was charged that 
 the forces were at hand to quell the disorder, and 
 that a firm show of strength would have saved the 
 hundred lives which were sacrificed before the rioting 
 and sacking were ended. The inquiry was made why 
 five hundred marines who were available were not 
 utilized. The sinister reply was that they had refused 
 to be used, that they had been on the point of mutiny 
 when it was attempted to use them. They were of 
 
170 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 the roto class, recruited from the same ranks as the 
 strikers. The exact truth never got to the public. 
 The Chilean government vindicated its ability to main- 
 tain order and by the presence of warships and of 
 troops silenced the clamor of the timid English and 
 French residents who were calling for cruisers to be 
 sent by their own governments. 
 
 A generation ago, J. V. Lastarria, the Chilean dip- 
 lomat and historian, asserted: "The Chileans are the 
 most homogeneous people of Spanish-America, and 
 they know how to use in the most practical and pru- 
 dent manner their political rights." He also declared 
 that the physical and social elements of his country 
 explained her salvation from the disastrous anarchy 
 which the other republics had suffered and her prog- 
 ress in all spheres of human activity. 
 
 This complacent judgment was not unjust, but in 
 describing his countrymen Senor Lastarria meant 
 chiefly the higher stratum, the governing classes. 
 When he wrote, the robust race mixture was yet going 
 on, the amalgam of peasant northern Spain and of the 
 Basque, after two centuries of transplantation, with 
 the fierce xAraucanian Indian blood. Not all of the 
 original amalgam has been Araucanian. There are 
 ten distinct aboriginal tribes known in Chile, and in 
 the northern part the mixture has been more that of 
 the Indians of the historic Upper Peru or Bolivia. 
 All of these tribes have been habituated to hardship, 
 and the grosser qualities of civilization have been 
 developed aggressively. 
 
CHILEAN CONDITIONS Ifl 
 
 The Chilean lower stratum of today is far from the 
 refinements of civilization. Its vices and its virtues 
 are equally strong. Among the virtues is native inde- 
 pendence. The vices are of crude, half-conscious 
 brute power, with little restraint of the passions. 
 
 The roto has many qualities in common with the 
 higher classes. His patriotism is fully as deep. Here- 
 tofore he has been willing to fight at the dictation of 
 the military commander, but the threatened mutiny 
 of the marines was a warning. At the very time the 
 conscription was going on, and an uncommon sullen- 
 ness was shown by the conscripts in the interior, and 
 a vague resentment against being enlisted to fight 
 their brothers. This was when the necessity of em- 
 ploying the army to break the strike was most openly 
 discussed. 
 
 i\mong the qualities of the roto, whether in the 
 army or navy or in the mass of the population, is 
 persistence in his prejudices. He is not easily changed 
 from that which is taught him. I was in Santiago 
 during the celebration of the peace pacts with Argen- 
 tina. The governing classes and the merchants en- 
 tered heartily into those festivities. They knew that 
 the prevention of war by the treaties had saved the 
 country from bankruptcy, even though war might 
 have brought territorial extension. But it was noticed 
 everywhere that the masses took no part in the demon- 
 strations. They either were surly or indifferent. 
 They had been taught to believe that Argentina was 
 an enemy with whom they would have to make war 
 
172 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 and from whom they would have a chance to take 
 spoils. They could not readily turn about and join 
 in the celebrations of peace. 
 
 In the economic discussion of the social movement, 
 citations will be made of the lack of thrift on the 
 part of the roto classes, and their unwillingness to do 
 anything for themselves. This is a loose assumption, 
 which is not warranted. On the seacoast he may be 
 reckless with his wages, but in the interior this is not 
 true, and I question whether it is true to the extent 
 claimed even in the seaports. There is some reason 
 for this doubt, since it is shown that the savings bank 
 carries 50,000 small accounts, and some of them very 
 small indeed. The depositors represented by these 
 accounts are soldiers, sailors, servants, students, seam- 
 stresses, shoemakers, merchants, farmers, and laun- 
 dresses. This surely indicates thrift on the part of the 
 mass of the population. 
 
 Trade and industry in the future will have a 
 broader scope in Chilean national policies. The pass- 
 ing of the era of unlimited naval expansion assures 
 this result. After the peace pacts with Argentina 
 were made effective, and the building of new battle- 
 ships was stopped, it was estimated that $1,000,000 
 went into industries of the soil. By the sale of other 
 superfluous naval armament to European Powers, 
 more funds can be released for public works and agri- 
 cultural development. 
 
 The industrial resources of Chile are mirrored, 
 though not with completeness, in the Permanent In- 
 
CHILEAN CONDITIONS 173 
 
 dustrial Exhibition which opened in 1904. This cov- 
 ers not only the products of the soil, but also the 
 home manufactures that are fabricated either from 
 imported raw material or from half-manufactured 
 products brought in to encourage home industries. 
 The Chilean policy is protective both by bounties and 
 by duties. The sugar refineries, which import the 
 raw cane-sugar from Peru, are among the most sta- 
 ble of the industries. The flour mills are also profit- 
 able enterprises. They grind the native wheat, and 
 have a market for the flour for export in Bolivia and 
 Peru, as well as farther up the coast. 
 
 The country has about 8,000 industrial establish- 
 ments. Among these are 400 engaged in tanning and 
 curing hides, 430 in various kinds of woodworking, 
 308 in metallurgy, 268 in chemical products, 560 in 
 ceramics or pottery, 1900 in food products, 1920 in 
 cloth manufacturing and tailoring, 700 in building, 
 and so on. Car-shops are maintained in connection 
 with the state railways. A disposition on the part of 
 foreign capital to engage in textile manufactures has 
 received encouragement, and woolen and cotton mills 
 are being established. The native labor, judged by the 
 experiments, is competent. 
 
 The public works policy has become the program of 
 all political groups, though the Congress sometimes is 
 laggard in voting the appropriations recommended by 
 the Executive. Railways are its most important fea- 
 ture. No chapter in Chile's history is more creditable 
 to her people than the sacrifices made for building 
 
174 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 railways, and nothing shows the national instinct bet- 
 ter than the perception that was demonstrated of the 
 part which railroads play in both the industrial and the 
 political development of a nation. Over three thou- 
 sand miles are in operation and new lines are under 
 way. The majority of the lines are owned by the 
 government, with the exception of the nitrate roads 
 and the Chilean section of the Antofagasta and Bo- 
 livian Railway. 
 
 What Chile needs most is immigration and this 
 she is seeking from northern Europe and Scandinavia. 
 Then with closer relations with neighboring countries 
 of South America and a wider trade with the world, 
 her industries will expand and she will enter upon a 
 new^ era of commercial and industrial life. With these 
 economic forces recognized and given proper sphere, 
 the collisions and the cross-purposes of domestic poli- 
 tics need have no deterrent influence on the industrial 
 future of Chile. Agriculture, mining, and trade are 
 better for her than battleships.^ 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ARGENTINE TYPES, MANNERS, AND MORALS 
 
 A SALIENT characteristic of the Argentinos is a 
 desire, not only to learn from Europe, but to 
 carry to the farthest possible pitch of perfection every 
 institution begun, whether public or private, and to 
 surpass their model. The obvious danger in all rap- 
 idly developed colonial settlements is the acceptance of 
 the "half-done," an almost obligatory condition in the 
 early stages of development, and one whose facility 
 of attainment is apt to militate against the persistency 
 of effort after that precision of completion which alone 
 can give good results. This defect, in fact, consti- 
 tutes the principal reproach brought by the systematic 
 Northerners against the impulsive Latin races, whose 
 temperamental traits lead them to content themselves 
 with a brilliant start, leaving thereafter to imagination 
 the task of filling in the blanks left in the reality by 
 this unsatisfactory method of operation. 
 
 In 1865, Buckle, who is a man of no ordinary men- 
 tal calibre, did not fear to write in his History of 
 Civilisation that the compelling action of land and cli- 
 mate in Brazil was such that a highly civilized commu- 
 nity must shortly find a home there. The event has 
 amply justified the bold prophecy. In the South 
 American republics, as in the United States and else- 
 
176 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 where, there are different degrees of fulfilment, of 
 course. At the outset, while waiting for land to ac- 
 quire value, all peoples have had to be satisfied with 
 an approximate achievement. But in the Argentine, 
 Uruguay, and Brazil it is plain that nothing will be 
 left half done, and the capacity to carry all work 
 methodically forward to its end, in no matter what 
 field of labor, promises well for the future of the race. 
 At Buenos Aires you will find that this quality exists 
 in a very high degree in the Argentino. 
 
 Buenos Aires is the least colonial-looking of any 
 place in South America, but at the same time the Ar- 
 gentino refuses to be simply a Spaniard transplanted 
 although society, in Buenos Aires, traces its descent, 
 with more or less authenticity, from the conquista- 
 dores, and did originally issue from the Iberian Penin- 
 sula. If we go farther and inquire what other in- 
 fluence, besides that of soil and climate, has been ex- 
 ercised over the European stock in the basin of the 
 Rio de la Plata, we are bound to be struck with the 
 thought that the admixture of Indian blood must count 
 for something. The negro element, never numerically 
 strong, appears to have been completely absorbed. 
 There is very little trace of African blood. On the 
 other hand, without leaving Buenos Aires, you can 
 not fail to be struck by some handsome half-castes to 
 be seen in the police force and fire brigade, for exam- 
 ple, and the regularity of their delicate features is 
 very noticeable to even the observer who is least pre- 
 pared for it. The Indian of South America, though 
 
ARGENTINE TYPES, MANNERS, MORALS 177 
 
 closely akin to the redskin of the North, is infinitely 
 his superior. He had, indeed, created a form of 
 civilization, to which the conquistadores put a brutal 
 end. There still subsist in the northern provinces of 
 the Argentine some fairly large native settlements 
 which receive but scant consideration from the gov- 
 ernment. I heard too much on the subject to doubt 
 the truth of this. Not but what many savage deeds 
 can be laid to the charge of the Indians, as, for ex- 
 ample, the abominable trap they laid for the peaceful 
 Crevaux Mission in Bolivia which led to the massacre 
 of all its members. Still, in equity we must remember 
 that those who have recourse to final argument of 
 brute force are helping to confirm the savages in the 
 habit of using it. In the interest of the higher sen- 
 timentality we must all deplore this. But our im- 
 placable civilization has passed sentence on all races 
 that are unable to adapt themselves to our form of 
 social evolution, and from that verdict there is no 
 appeal. 
 
 Not that the native of the South is incapable, like 
 his brother of the North, of performing a daily task. 
 I saw many natives among the hands employed by 
 M. Hilleret in his factories in Tucuman. Neither can 
 it be said that there is any lack of intelligence in the 
 Indian. But the fact remains that he finds a difficulty 
 in bending the faculties which have grown rigid in the 
 circle of a primitive state of existence to the better 
 forms of our own daily work, and this renders it im- 
 possible for him to carve out a place for himself in 
 
178 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 the sunlight under the new social organism imported 
 from Europe by the white men. With greater power 
 of resistance than the redskins of the other continent, 
 he, like them, is doomed to disappear. Yet in one re- 
 spect he has been more fortunate than his kinsman of 
 the North, and will never entirely die out, for he has 
 already inoculated with his blood the flesh of the 
 victors. 
 
 I am not going to pretend to settle in a word the 
 problem of the fusion of the races. I will only ob- 
 serve that the inrush of Indian blood in the masses — 
 and also to a very considerable extent in the upper 
 classes — can not fail to leave a permanent trace in the 
 Argentine type, notwithstanding the steady current of 
 immigration. And if I were asked to say what were 
 the elemental qualities contributed to the coming race 
 by a native strain, I should be inclined to think that 
 the Indian's simplicity, dignity, nobility, and decision 
 of character might modify in the happiest way the 
 turbulent European blood of future generations. 
 
 After all, the Argentino who declines to be Span- 
 ish has, perhaps, very good reasons for his action. 
 Here, he has succeeded, better than in the Iberian 
 Peninsula, in ridding himself of the Moorish strain, 
 which, though it gave him his lofty chivalry, has yet 
 enchained him to the oriental conception of a rigid 
 theocracy. Why should not native blood have taken 
 effect already upon the European mixture, and, with 
 the aid of those unknown forces which we may class 
 under the collective term of ''climate," have prepared 
 
ARGENTINE TYPES, MANNERS, MORALS 179 
 
 and formed a new people to be known henceforth by 
 .the obviously suitable name of "Argentinos" ? All I 
 can say is that there are Argentine characteristics now 
 plainly visible in this conglomeration of the Latin 
 races. The objection may be that the ''Yankee" shows 
 equally strongly marked characteristics which distin- 
 guish him from the Anglo-Saxon stock, while we 
 know that he is unaffected by other than European 
 strains. This is undeniable, and in his case soil, cli- 
 mate, and the unceasing admixture of European types 
 suffice to explain modifications which are apparently 
 converging towards the creation of a new type. 
 
 It is easier to generalize about the Argentine char- 
 acter than to penetrate beneath its surface. It is nat- 
 urally in "society," where refinement is the highest, 
 that traits which best lend themselves to generaliza- 
 tion are to be seen in strongest relief. The American 
 of the North is, above all, highly hospitable. If you 
 have a letter of introduction, his house is open to you 
 at once. He establishes you under his roof and then 
 leaves you to your own devices, while keeping himself 
 free to continue his daily occupation. The Argentino 
 receives you as kindly, though with more reserve. 
 Although I know but little of the business world, I 
 saw enough of it to gather that money enjoys as much 
 favor there as in any other country; but the pursuit 
 of wealth is there tempered by an indulgent kindliness 
 that greatly softens all personal relations, and the 
 asperities of the struggle for life are smoothed by a 
 universal gentleness charming to encounter. 
 
180 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 In their family relations the difference between the 
 social ideals of the North and South American are 
 plainly visible. The family tie appears to be stronger 
 in the Argentine than, perhaps, in any other land. 
 The rich, unlike those of other countries, take pleasure 
 in having large families. One lady boasted in my 
 presence of having thirty-four descendants — <:hildren 
 and grandchildren — gathered round her table. Every- 
 where family anniversaries are carefully observed, 
 and all take pleasure in c^^lebrating them. The great- 
 est affection prevails and the greatest devotion to the 
 parent roof-tree. Not that the Argentine woman 
 would appear to be a particularly admirable mother 
 according to our standard; for, on the contrary, it is 
 said that her children are turned out into the world 
 with very bad manners. How, then, are we to ex- 
 plain the contradictory fact that such children become 
 the most courteous of men? Perhaps a certain wild- 
 ness in youth should be regarded as the noisy, but salu- 
 tary apprenticeship to liberty. 
 
 All that can be seen of the public morals is most 
 favorable. The women — generally extremely hand- 
 some in a super-Spanish way, and often fascinating — 
 enjoy a reputation, that seems well justified, of being 
 extremely virtuous. I heard too much good about 
 them to think any evil. They were, from what I 
 could see, too carefully removed from the danger of 
 conventional sins for me to be able to add the per- 
 sonal testimony that I have no doubt they merit. 
 As to their feelings, or passions, if I may venture to 
 
ARGENTINE TYPES, MANNERS, MORALS 181 
 
 use the word, I know nothing. Are they capable of 
 the self-abandonment of love, of experiencing all its 
 joy and all its pain — inseparable as these but too often 
 are? They did not tell me, so I shall never know. 
 The most I can say is that they did not give me the 
 impression of being made for the violent reactions of 
 life as it is known in America and Europe. I hope no 
 one will see in this statement a shadow of criticism. 
 It is, indeed, a compliment if you will admit that in 
 an Argentine family love's dream is realized in the 
 natural, orderly course of events. But if it were oth- 
 erwise, it would still be to the highest credit of the 
 women that in their role of faithful guardians of the 
 hearth they have been able to silence calumny and 
 inspire universal respect by the purity and dignity of 
 their lives. 
 
 Above all do not imagine that these charming 
 women are devoid of conversational talent. Some ill- 
 natured critics have given them a bad reputation in 
 this respect. Their principal occupation is evidently 
 paying visits, and they gossip as best they can under 
 the circumstances, considering that neither their 
 friends nor their foes give any ground for tittle- 
 tattle. This deficit might cause conversation to lan- 
 guish. Dress and news from the Rue de la Paix are 
 a never- failing topic. It is also said that financial 
 topics come up for their consideration, since the 
 women are as free to speculate in land as are the men. 
 They are superstitious, too, and are supposed to attach 
 great importance to knowing exactly what must not 
 
182 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 be done on any given day of the week, or to what saint 
 they should address their petitions. Besides, the many 
 works of public charity in which the ladies of Buenos 
 Aires take a share would account for much time and 
 also for much talk. 
 
 Argentino men are as amiable as their wives, ex- 
 cept that they are jealous. If by chance, after dinner, 
 you remain chatting quietly with one or two ladies, 
 and in the inevitable ebb and flow of a salon you find 
 yourself for a moment left alone with a lady, be sure 
 that her husband, more genial than ever, will promptly 
 appear on the scene to claim his share in the talk. 
 
 Not much can be said of the Argentine girl, for 
 she is not much in evidence except in the home and at 
 an occasional concert. She remains on the edge of 
 society until the day of her marriage. At the same 
 time, the Argentine girl must not be supposed to re- 
 semble very closely her sister in Latin Europe. Less 
 educated, perhaps, but more vivacious and less timidly 
 reserved, she shows greater independence at Mar del 
 Plata, which is the sole meeting-place for wealthier 
 families, since the Pampas offer no resource outside 
 the estancia. At the Colon Theater and at the opera 
 she is seated well in view in front of the box, making 
 the whole ground floor an immense basket of berib- 
 boned flowers, and there, under the eye of her parents, 
 the young men who are friends of her family are per- 
 mitted to pay their respects to her. It is said that she 
 makes use of borrowed charms, applied with puff and 
 pencil. 
 
ARGENTINE TYPES, MANNERS, MORALS 183 
 
 In Argentine, gambling is a universal evil. The 
 form of gambling which is special is land speculation. 
 It is constantly stated that all the work of Buenos 
 Aires and the Pampas is done by foreigners, while 
 the Argentino himself sits waiting for the value of his 
 land to treble, quadruple, decuple his fortune without 
 effort on his part. This might easily be true since the 
 value of property has risen with giddy rapidity of late 
 years. 
 
 But while there is no denying that land speculation 
 occupies a special place in Argentine life today, it is 
 also incontestable that all ranks of society are here, as 
 elsewhere, devoting their energy to some great agri- 
 cultural, commercial, or cattle-rearing enterprise. The 
 estancia needs a head. Herds of ten thousand cows 
 must be well looked after if they are to be productive 
 in their three departments — dairy, meat, or breeding. 
 The magnificent exhibits to be seen at shows are not 
 raised by the sole grace of God, and the Argentinos 
 speak of their estancias with a wealth of detail that 
 shows a close interest, ever on the watch for improve- 
 ments. Yet th^y have other interests which claim part 
 of their time, and are ever ready to discuss topics of 
 general interest that happen to be engrossing the at- 
 tention of Europe and the United States. 
 
 The growing interest taken in all kinds of labor 
 on the soil and the need of perfecting strains of cat- 
 tle both for breeding and for meat have led the larger 
 owners to group themselves into a club, which they 
 call the Jockey Club. The name suffices to denote the 
 
184 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 aristocratic pretensions of an institution that has, 
 nevertheless rendered important services to the cause, 
 as well for horned cattle as for horses. The sump- 
 tuous fittings lack that rich simplicity in which the 
 English delight. The decorations are borrowed from 
 Europe, but the working of the club is wholly Ameri- 
 can. The greatest comfort reigns in all departments 
 of the palace, whose luxury is not allowed to dissem- 
 ble itself. The cuisine is thoroughly Parisian. Fine 
 drawing-rooms, in which the light is pleasantly dif- 
 fused. A large rotunda in Empire style is the show- 
 place of the club, but, like Napoleon himself, it lacks 
 moderation. A severe-looking library, reading-rooms, 
 banqueting-rooms, etc., complete the club building. 
 
 To explain the amount of money either amassed 
 or flung away here, it must be remembered that all 
 the receipts taken at the race-courses — less a small 
 tax to the government — come back to the Jockey Club, 
 which is at liberty to dispose of them at will. Hence 
 the large fortune of the establishment, which has just 
 purchased a piece of land in the best part of Buenos 
 Aires, for which it gave seven millions ; and here it is 
 proposed to erect a still grander palace. The building 
 they now occupy will be presented to the government, 
 and it is believed the Foreign Office will be moved 
 there. 
 
 In Argentine, as in Brazil, the internal arrange- 
 ments of the houses show that the greater part of the 
 time is spent out-of-doors. Italy, with its open-air 
 life, was naturally the land to which the Argentine 
 
ARGENTINE TYPES, MANNERS, MORALS 185 
 
 turned for architects to supply florid furniture, meant 
 rather to look at than to use; and when to this is 
 added cheap German goods with their clumsy designs, 
 one may be pardoned for finding a lack of grace as 
 of comfort. In aristocratic salons the best Parisian 
 upholsterers have at least left their mark — with a lit- 
 tle overcrowding in effect, if the truth must be told. 
 In a few, where "antiques" are discernible, there are 
 evidences of an appreciation of just proportions and 
 simplicity. But my criticisms must be taken in the 
 most general way possible. 
 
 It is in the hotels that one finds more particularly 
 a lack of comfort and convenience. A continual 
 change of servants and a bad division of labor ensure 
 infinite discomfort for the traveler. There is, it is 
 true, central heating, but it works badly. Is the 
 pampero blowing? The pipes of the radiators shake 
 the window panes with their tempestuous snorting 
 and bubbling, waking you out of your sleep with the 
 suddenness of their noise; but they diffuse only cold 
 air. An electric heating apparatus, hastily put in, 
 must be used to supplement the other. Do you want 
 to lock up some papers? You may, perhaps, after a 
 long search, find a key in your room, but it will as- 
 suredly fit none of the locks. As I was tiresome 
 enough to insist, the manager, anxious to oblige me, 
 ordered his own safe to be placed in my apartment, 
 with all his accounts therein. When I found the 
 drawer that was placed at my disposal, I found money 
 in it! Oh, marvelous hospitality! 
 
186 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 To the new houses in the town, chimneys are being 
 added. Those who come to the Argentine for the win- 
 ter months — ^June, July, and August — can but be de- 
 lighted with the change. But still he suffers keenly 
 from the cold, for even if the sun shines perseveringly 
 in a cloudless sky, an icy south wind proves very 
 trying. 
 
 It is difficult to speak of Argentine cookery — which 
 is rather international than local — always excepting 
 those households that boast of a French chef. The 
 influence of Italy, with her macaroni and her cheese, 
 predominates. The vegetables are mediocre ; the fruit 
 too tropical, or, if European, spoilt by the effect of 
 the tropics. Lobsters and European fish, imported 
 frozen, are not to be recommended ; table water is ex- 
 cellent. The national dishes, puchero, or boiled beef, 
 good when the animal has not been slaughtered the 
 same morning; asado, lamb, roasted whole — the same 
 savory dish that is met with in Greece under the name 
 of lamh a la palikare. I might add a long list whose 
 sole interest would be the strange sounding names 
 given to familiar dishes. Still, as the main conditions 
 of man and communities are necessarily unvarying, is 
 it not in appearances and forms of expression that we 
 find variety?' 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 
 
 EVERY capital is a world in itself — a world in 
 which national and foreign elements blend; but 
 to understand the life of a nation one must go out 
 into the country. A vast territory, ten times the size 
 of France, extending from Patagonia to Paraguay 
 and Bolivia, will naturally offer the greatest diversity 
 of soil and climate, representing differing conditions 
 of labor as well as of customs and sometimes of mor- 
 als. Ancient Europe can in the same way show eth- 
 nical groups with sufficiently marked features which 
 a long history has not been able to destroy or even 
 to modify. 
 
 It is quite another matter when, on a continent 
 with no history at all, you get men of every origin 
 spread over it, brought thither by a community of 
 interest and the hope of cultivating the soil by their 
 labor. I have already said what racial characteristics 
 subsist. The colonist will, of course, at first do all he 
 can to remain what the land of his birth has made 
 him; the first evidence of this is his tendency to fall 
 into groups and form national colonies. But the land 
 of his adoption will in time surely force upon him the 
 inevitable conditions of a new mode of life, the very 
 necessity of adapting himself to changed conditions 
 
 187 
 
188 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 making of him a new creature, to be later definitely 
 moulded by success. 
 
 The Pampas are not the Argentine. They form, 
 however, so predominant a part that they have shaped 
 the man and the race by imposing on them their or- 
 ganization of agricultural labor and the development 
 of their natural resources. While manufactures are 
 still in a rudimentary state and are likely to remain 
 so for a long time to come owing to lack of coal, the 
 Pampas from the Andes to the ocean offer an immense 
 plain of the same alluvial soil from end to end, ready 
 to respond in the same degree to the same effort of 
 stock-raising or agriculture. An identical stretch of 
 unbroken ground, with identical surface, identical 
 pools of subterranean water, no special features to 
 call for other than the unchanging life of the Campo. 
 
 Naturally, the first experiments were made in the 
 most rudimentary fashion on the half-wild herds of 
 cattle that could not be improved unless the European 
 market were thrown open. As soon as this outlet was 
 assured, the whole effort of skill and money was di- 
 rected towards the improvement of stock, and the 
 progress made in a few years' work far exceeded the 
 brightest hopes of those early days. And as at the 
 same time a powerful impetus was given to wheat- 
 growing, the Pampas from one end to the other of 
 their vast extent immediately took on a dual aspect: 
 cattle farms (herds grazing on natural or artificial 
 pastures), and acres of grain (wheat, oats, maize, and 
 flax) — this is the only picture that the Pampas offer 
 
LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 189 
 
 or ever can offer to the traveler. The system of cattle- 
 breeding, primitive in the extreme at a distance from 
 railroads, improves in proportion as the line draws 
 nearer; wherever the iron road passes, there is an 
 immediate development of land under cultivation. 
 
 All this goes to make up a man of the Campo — • 
 the estanciero, colonist, peon, gaucho, or whatever 
 other name he may be called. Certain conditions 
 of living and working are forced upon him from which 
 there is no escape. Whether landed proprietor, 
 farmer, servant, or agricultural laborer, the vastness 
 of the plain which opens up in front of him, the dis- 
 tance between inhabited dwellings, the roughness of 
 the roads, leave him no other means of communication 
 but the horse, which abounds everywhere and can be 
 unceremoniously borrowed on occasion. The man of 
 the Campo is a horseman. He is certainly not an ele- 
 gant horseman, whose riding woiild be appreciated at 
 a cavalry school. No curb; only a plain bit is used, 
 whose first effort is to bring down the animal's head 
 and throw him out of balance, while his rider, to rem- 
 edy this defect, raises his hands as high as his head. 
 To the unsightliness of this picture is added an un- 
 stable seat. As very often happens in similar circum- 
 stances, instinct and determination more or less mak- 
 ing up for all mistakes, the rider manages approxi- 
 mately to keep on his beast's back, thanks partly to 
 the fact that the horse is rarely required to go at more 
 than a moderate pace over level ground. The hoof 
 never by any chance can strike on a stone, though it 
 
190 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 may be caught in a hole ; the active little creole horse 
 excels in avoiding this danger. One can ask no more 
 of him. 
 
 On his enormous saddle of sheepskin, the peon or 
 gaucho, his hat pulled well down over his eyes, his 
 shoulders draped in the folds of the poncho, — a blan- 
 ket with a hole in it for the head to pass through, — 
 is encumbered with a whip whose handle serves on 
 occasion as a mallet, and a lasso, with or without metal 
 balls, coiled behind his saddle. He makes a pictur- 
 esque enough figure in the motonous expanse of earth 
 and sky, where rancho or tree, beast or man, stand out 
 in high relief against a background of glaring light. 
 Without sign or syllable, his eyes fixed on the empty 
 horizon, the man passes through the silence of infinite 
 solitude, rising like a ghost from the nothingness of 
 the horizon at one point to sink again into nothingness 
 at another. When riding in a troop, they talk together 
 in low tones. There are none of those outbursts of 
 fun that you might expect in a land of sunshine. It 
 is the gravity natural to men brought face to face with 
 Nature in the pitiless light of sky and earth where no 
 fold or break in the surface arrests the glance or fixes 
 the attention. 
 
 Still there are those gigantic herds of horned cat- 
 tle or horses which fill an appreciable portion of the 
 melancholy plain — "green in winter, yellow in sum- 
 mer." When you talk of a herd of ten thousand 
 cows, you make some impression even on a big farmer. 
 Well, I can assure you that ten thousand head of cattle 
 
LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 191 
 
 is a small affair out on the Pampas. You see a dark 
 shadow on the horizon that might be either a village 
 or a group of haycocks, until the vague shifting of the 
 mass suggests to your mind the idea of some form of 
 life. The lines show clearer, groups break off and 
 stand out, pointed horns appear, and at last you find 
 you are watching the tranquil passage of a monstrous 
 herd, whose outlines are stenciled in black upon the 
 whiteness of the sky-line like Chinese shadow pic- 
 tures. So distinct are the shapes here that you lose 
 the sense of distance and are astonished at the har- 
 mony of nonchalant impulse, as irresistible as slow, 
 which can thus set in movement this huge living mass 
 that makes its pass before us like a vision of Fate. The 
 dream fantasy is the more striking because it changes 
 so rapidly. Withdraw your eyes a moment from the 
 picture, and it is entirely altered. The heavy mass of 
 migrating cattle seem now to have taken root at the 
 opposite extremity of the horizon, while in the depths 
 of the luminous distance shadowy patches of haze 
 more or less distinct betoken further living bodies, 
 some stationary, some in motion. These are mirages 
 of the Pampas of which no one takes heed ; but upon 
 me they made a powerful impression, for I saw in 
 them the whole tragedy of this land, from the tuft of 
 grass on which the eyes of the beast first saw the light 
 down to the last step of that fateful journey which 
 ends at the slide of the slaughter-house. 
 
 Of Nature's scourges, the drouth is the most to be 
 feared, for it falls with fearful suddenness on great 
 
192 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 stretches of the Campo. In the absence of rain, 
 neither turf nor forage nor harvest can be looked for ; 
 for the cattle, death is certain. Winter in any case 
 is a hard season for them. Their coats lose their gloss, 
 their flanks fall in, and their pointed bones witness to 
 their sufferings, which the icy breath of the pampero 
 does nothing to assuage. With the spring comes the 
 hope of rain. But if this hope is betrayed, nothing 
 can save innumerable herds from starvation and death. 
 Forage is always stored for the more precious of the 
 stock, but to feed the herd is out of the question. 
 The Pampas then becomes one vast cemetery where 
 hundreds of thousands of dead cattle are lying in 
 heaps beyond all possibility of burial. It is the custom 
 to leave the body of the beast that dies by the way to 
 the tender mercies of the wind and the sun, the rain 
 and the earth, into whose wide-open pores the remains 
 are little by little absorbed. The birds of prey and 
 dogs are valuable assistants, but wholly insufficient. 
 
 The railways that extend into the Pampas have not 
 materially changed things. True, they have done away 
 with long and tiresome rides, have furnished a means 
 of transportation for the produce of the Pampas, and 
 have made possible more furniture for the ranches. 
 And yet the furniture in the Pampas homes is still 
 meager enough. In the huts of the half-castes near 
 Tucuman, the only piece of furniture I saw was a pair 
 of trestles, on which was laid the mat which served as 
 seat, bed, or table — the kitchen being always outside. 
 
 In the Pampas, dwellings that look modest, and 
 
LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 193 
 
 even less than modest, generally boast an easy-chair, 
 a chest of drawers, with a clock, a sewing-machine, 
 and gramophone, which, when fortune comes, is com- 
 pleted by a piano. The gramophone is the theater of 
 the Pampas. It brings with it orchestra, songs, 
 words, and the whole equipment of *'art" suited to the 
 aesthetic sense of its hearers. Thus, on all sides, dread- 
 ful nasal sounds twang out, to the great joy of the 
 youth of the colony. 
 
 The morals of the Campo are what the conditions 
 of life there have made them. Men who are crowded 
 together in large cities are exposed to many tempta- 
 tions. When too far removed from the restraint of 
 public opinion, the danger is no less great. In all 
 circumstances a witness, nine times out of ten, becomes 
 an accomplice. Between the menace of a distant and 
 vague police force and the ever-present fear of the 
 Indian, the gaucho became a soldier of fortune, pr2- 
 pared for any bold stroke. With his dagger in his 
 belt, his gun on his shoulder, and the lasso on his 
 saddle-bow, he rode over the eternal prairie in search 
 of adventures, and ready at any minute for the dramn 
 that might be awaiting him. To his other qualities 
 must be added a generous hospitality, that dispensed 
 to all comers his more or less well-gotten goods; he 
 had in him the material for an admirable leader in 
 revolutionary times. I saw no revolutions and hope 
 that Argentine is finished with them forever; but the 
 periodic explosions that have taken place there are not 
 so ancient but that an echo of them reached my ears 
 
194 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 I shall leave ou? of the question, of course, all remote 
 circumstances that might serve at hazzard to put a 
 body of adventurers in motion. You were on the side 
 of General X or General Z, according to the hopes of 
 the party ; but, in reality, that had little to do with it. 
 "When the signal was once given, a military force had 
 to be organized and the means adopted were admirably 
 simple. Any weapon that could be of use in battle 
 was picked up, and a band would present themselves 
 at the door of an estancia, 
 
 "We are for General X. All the peons here must 
 follow us. To arms ! To horse !" 
 
 And the order would be obeyed; otherwise, the 
 estancia and its herds would suffer. With such a sys- 
 tem of recruiting, troops were quickly collected, and 
 a few such visits would suffice to bring together a 
 very respectable force of men. My friend Biessy, 
 the artist, with whom I had the pleasure of making 
 the journey, witnessed such a scene one day at an 
 estancia which he was visiting. He was chatting with 
 the overseer when the man, hearing a suspicious sound, 
 flung himself down and put his ear to the ground. 
 A moment later he rose, looking anxious. 
 
 *'There are horsemen galloping this way. What 
 can have happened?*"' and sure enough a minute later 
 there appeared a band of men so oddly equipped that 
 at first they were taken for masqueraders. It was 
 carnival time. The leader, however, came forward 
 and called on the overseer to place all his peons at 
 the service of the revolutionaries. Biessy himself only 
 
LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 195 
 
 escaped by claiming the rights of a FrencH citizen. 
 And do not imagine that all this was a comedy. The 
 dominant sentiment in their camp was by no means 
 a respect for human life. On both sides these brave 
 peons fought furiously, asking no questions about the 
 party in whose cause they happened to be enrolled. 
 The overseer of the neighboring estancia, who was 
 talking with M. Biessy when called to parley with the 
 revolutionaries, was shot dead a few hours later for 
 having offered resistance to them. 
 
 If men are thus unceremoniously enrolled, it may 
 be imagined the horses are borrowed still more freely. 
 A curious thing is that when the war is over, and these 
 creatures are again at liberty, they find their way back 
 quite easily to their own pastures. The overseer of 
 one estancia told me that the last revolution had cost 
 him six hundred horses, of which four hundred, that 
 had been taken to a distance of from two hundred to 
 three hundred kilometers, returned of their own ac- 
 cord. How they contrived to steer their course over 
 the Pampas, with their inextricable tangle of wire 
 fencing, I do not undertake to explain. When I in- 
 quired of the overseer whether it were not possible to 
 steal one of his horses without being discovered, he 
 replied, "Oh, it is like picking an apple in Normandy ! 
 It often happens that a traveler on a tired horse las- 
 soes another to continue his journey. But on reaching 
 his destination he sets the animal at liberty, and he 
 invariably makes his way back to the herd." 
 
 There was a time when the gaucho would fell 
 
196 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 an ox to obtain a steak for luncK. In some of the 
 more remote districts it is possible that the custom 
 still subsists. But it is none the less true that a grow- 
 ing civilization and the railway, which is its most ef- 
 fectual and rapid instrument, are changing the gaucho, 
 together with his surroundings and his sphere of ac- 
 tion. The gaucho on foot is very like any other man. 
 Hiis flowing necktie of brilliant color, once the party 
 signal, has been toned down. His poncho, admirably 
 adapted to the climatic conditions of camp life in the 
 Campo, is now used by the townsmen, who throw it 
 over their arm or shoulder according to the variations 
 in the temperature. The sombrero, like the slashed 
 breeches or high boots, is no longer distinctive. There 
 remains only the heavy stirrup of romantic design, 
 more or less artistically ornamented, but now often 
 replaced by a simple ring of rope or iron. The days 
 of roystering glamor are passed. The heavy roller of 
 civilization levels all the elements of modern existence 
 to make way for the utilitarian but insesthetic triumph 
 of uniformity. Yet a little longer and the life of the 
 Campo will be nothing but a memory, for with his 
 picturesque dress the type itself is disappearing. 
 
 The modern gaucho has preserved from his an- 
 cestors the slowness in speech, the reserved manner, 
 and scrutinizing eye of the man who lives on the de- 
 fensive. But today he is thoroughly civilized, and can 
 stroll down Florida Street, in Buenos Aires, without 
 attracting any attention. It is in vain that the theater 
 seeks to reproduce the life of the Campo, as we oc- 
 
LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 197 
 
 casionally see it doing. What can it show us beyond 
 the eternal comedy of love, or the absurdities of the 
 wife of the gaucho who has too suddenly acquired a 
 fortune? Both subjects belong to all times and all 
 countries, in the same way as every dance and every 
 song are common to any assembly of young humanity. 
 Long before the gramaphone was invented the guitar 
 was the joy of Spanish ears to the farthest confines of 
 the Pampas. Between tv/o outbreaks of the civil war, 
 when men were rushing madly to death, joyous songs 
 and plaintive refrains alternated beneath the branches 
 of the ombu, where the youth of the district met, and 
 the sudden dramas of the ranch made them the more 
 eager to drink deep of the pleasure they knew to be 
 fleeting. They danced the Pericou and the Tango, as 
 they still do today ; but the audacious gestures in which 
 amorous Spain gave expression to the ardor of its 
 feelings have now passed into the domain of history. 
 The "Creole balls," where may be seen graceful young 
 girls in soft white draperies, dancing in a chain that 
 resembles the French Pastourelle, have been repro- 
 duced on post cards and are familiar to all. There are, 
 there will ever be in the Pampas — at least, I fondly 
 hope so — graceful young girls dressed in white and 
 destined to rouse the love instinct which never seems 
 to sleep in an Italian or Spanish breast.*'* 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 VENEZUELA AND THE VENEZUELANS 
 
 AT Citmana, in the middle east of Venezuela, is 
 the oldest European settlement in America. The 
 town was founded in 1512 by the Spaniards, but was 
 abandoned when the pugnacious Indians refused to be 
 immediately converted and enslaved, so that Panama, 
 founded in 1519, has been the oldest continuous habi- 
 tation. But Cumana was reinvested, and for almost 
 four centuries it has watched the forces of the West- 
 ern World trying to penetrate the tough crust of tra- 
 dition brought over by the Spanish along with their 
 search for gold. Past the island of Trinidad, along 
 this coast, Columbus made his third voyage in 1498, 
 and undoubtedly his first glimpse of the mainland, if 
 not the only place where he set foot, was near Cu- 
 mana in Venezuela. Las Casas, the one true friend 
 of the Indian, and alas ! the reputed father of Ameri- 
 can slavery, was a priest in Cumana. 
 
 The settlements grew and flourished in the valleys ; 
 Maracaibo was founded in 1529, and thereafter were 
 planted interior cities as far as the slope of the Andes 
 at San Cristobal in 1561, but always it was El Dorado 
 that lured. These cities nestling among brown hills, 
 formed the Spanish Main, and when the baroneted 
 pirates of England and Holland were not engaged in 
 
 198 
 
VENEZUELA AND THE VENEZUELANS 199 
 
 the spiderish pastime of capturing galleons with 
 Pacific treasures, they enjoyed themselves by landing 
 on the coast and sacking the seemingly secure abodes 
 of those who collected gold nearer at hand. Not a 
 league of the two hundred miles east and west of the 
 Silla but has history of battle and wreck, and sunken 
 treasure ; not a valley with its cathedral spire but can 
 tell of sack, ambuscade, slaughter, and buried pieces- 
 of -eight. 
 
 The Indians, driven to despair by the pious cruel- 
 ties of the conquerors, revolted when they could stand 
 no more; the mestizos, ignored by the overlords of 
 purer blood, revolted when with indignity they were 
 denied the exercise of those very rights which the 
 government of Spain had put on paper for their bene- 
 fit. The whole colony of Nueva Granada revolted 
 against the mother country when every promise had 
 been denied them, and decency in foreign rule had 
 ceased to be even a phrase in the council of Sevilla. 
 
 From the earliest times to the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century Spain had only exploited her colo- 
 nies; her rulers knew nothing of them except that 
 those who did not die there came home rich after 
 some years of a government clerkship. Misrule and 
 revolt were as familiar in the New Spain as they 
 were in the Old — and then the separation came. 
 
 Caracas — Venezuela — is the cradle of South 
 American liberty. Bolivar, Miranda, and Sucre are 
 three truly noble heroes; yet Bolivar died a disap- 
 pointed man, Miranda's life ended in a Spanish prison, 
 
200 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 and Sucre was assassinated after serving three new 
 nations honorably and well. The only practical in- 
 heritance they have given to liberty is license and re~ 
 volt. The lesson Spain had not learned and which 
 Spanish America is so slow to learn, is the simple one 
 of obedience to law. From the day that Bolivar 
 aroused the revolutionary forces in 1810 till the sepa- 
 ration of Venezuela from Nueva Granada, history re- 
 cords fighting, dictatorships, and rebellion. There was 
 righteousness in it, too, because the Spanish royalists 
 violated their treaties and so abused the patriots, who 
 were eager to accept a decent peace, that revolt was 
 the only resort. 
 
 The first constitution of 1820, for the countries 
 known as Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, was a 
 replica of that of the United States, with a more cen- 
 tralized government. This was soon broken by the 
 military authority of Bolivar himself. Bolivar quar- 
 reled with Peru and Ecuador — a logical consequence 
 of the enormous extent of the region his ambition and 
 popularity had placed under his nominal control. The 
 Captain General of Caracas grew jealous of. Bogota 
 (Colombia) and in 1829 threatened to withdraw from 
 the federation. Quito did withdraw, and when Bolivar 
 died, in 1830, the inchoate mass fell to pieces, leaving 
 the three nations as -we now know them — Ecuador, 
 Colombia, and Venezuela. 
 
 Venezuela dates its independence as a fighting na- 
 tion from 1831. Paez was its first president. Since 
 then, seventy-six intervening years have seen fifty- 
 
VENEZUELA AND THE VENEZUELANS 201 
 
 two revolutions and twenty-six presidencies, some- 
 times called constitutional, sometimes provisional, with 
 a cheerful intermixture of liberators, restorers and 
 dictators for good measures. In this brief chapter we 
 can not follow Venezuela's fortunes of war, rebellion, 
 and intrigue that involved the past three generations. 
 We migTit give a list of the revolutions and their lead- 
 ers, but this would be useless unless we could enter 
 into a consideration of the deeper forces that underlay 
 this chaos of militarism out of which came the growth 
 of a people. Besides, there is something more inter- 
 esting than the past history of this nation and some- 
 thing that we need to know more about, and that is 
 the contemporary life of the Venezuelans. And so 
 for a brief space let us turn our attention to the 
 Venezuela of today, which is still old Spain — the Spain 
 of Washington Irving eighty years and more ago. 
 She has as much beauty, her people have the same 
 Andalusian charm, and she can show as much romance 
 and intricate diplomacy, or as many primitive inns as 
 existed beyond the Pyrenees before guide-books were 
 bound in red. 
 
 Venezuela resembles Mexico and the Andean re- 
 publics of South America, differing from her Atlantic 
 sisters in that she still retains as a working-class a 
 large remnant of the aboriginal population which the 
 earliest Spaniards discovered when they landed. The 
 Indians were not agricultural, although they had all 
 facilities for becoming so; and they left no trace of 
 having been stirred into barbarism or a crude civiliza- 
 
202 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 tion, as were the Mexicans and the Peruvians. These 
 Caribs, if they were nothing else, were fighters, and 
 delayed the European attempts at benevolent assimi- 
 lation. They must have been numerous. They were 
 found everywhere, and even now there are 60,000 un- 
 mixed independent Indians and 240,000 who have 
 adopted some semblance of village life — Imore than 
 remain in Argentine and probably nearly as many as 
 Brazil contains. Upon this primitive stock, uncivil- 
 izable by any means within themselves, the Spanish 
 left their stamp. What they did not kill they enslaved. 
 Las Casas, the defender of the Indians, one of the 
 founders, as we have said, of Cumana, was the insti- 
 gator of the importation of Africans into Venezuela 
 and the West Indies; blacks and Indians became 
 mixed, and there was soon a subject race working in 
 the mines, in the fields and in the towns. 
 
 But Spanish is the dominant stock which has pro- 
 duced the native of Venezuela; he has little blood 
 from elsewhere ; neither Italians nor Portuguese have 
 come in sufficient numbers to exert an influence. Ger- 
 mans, when they entered Venezuela, came singly and 
 were absorbed by marriage, or as feeble colonists were 
 lost among themselves. The English, except as ad- 
 venturers or buccaneers, never hankered after Venez- 
 uela as they did for Uruguay and Argentina and parts 
 of Brazil, nor did the French attempt any conquest 
 or settlement beyond their tiny islands of Martinique 
 and Guadeloupe. The ingredients are altogether 
 Spanish, Indian, and African. This rather pure 
 
VENEZUELA AND THE VENEZUELANS 203 
 
 Castilian stock spread farther and farther westward, 
 avoiding the coast (contrary to the Brazilian habit), 
 settHng deeper inland as far south as Merida (1558), 
 always seeking gold, but absorbing a certain content 
 from the beauties of the mountains, and deriving prof- 
 its from agriculture and pasturage when they could 
 not discover precious metals. They differ from the 
 Mexicans, who found riches at hand. The Venezue- 
 lans had to be modest in their foundations ; the lux- 
 urious cathedrals of the City of Mexico and Tula are 
 not duplicated, nor could they populate towns of the 
 greatness of Zacatecas and Guanajuato; El Dorado 
 eluded them, so they had to remain agriculturists. 
 When coffee was introduced in 1784, they were ready 
 for country life, and since then they have become rec- 
 onciled, rugged and free. Not having been so be- 
 loved by Spain as the gold-bearing colonies of Mex- 
 ico and Peru, they had less intercourse with the 
 world in general, and their Spanish traits remain 
 quite untarnished. "Quien dice Espaha dice todo" 
 (Spain is the whole thing). "Venezuela first and last" 
 is the key to their character. 
 
 Democracy is the breath of their nostrils, not so 
 much in politics as in conduct, for your Venezuelan 
 is your true democrat. The traveler needs only to 
 read Ford's Gatherings from Spain and our own John 
 Hay's Castilian Days to catch the spirit of the trans- 
 planted Iberianism in the New World. The alms- 
 seeker is not a beggar here; he is merely the object 
 upon whom you bestow your good-will and who gives 
 
204 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 you his blesing, and he loses none of his dignity by 
 the exchange; he carries his cane with the grace of 
 an hidalgo and has as much right to the sunshine and 
 fresh air as the owner of cattle on a thousand hills. 
 Poverty makes no caste distinction; if the poor man 
 can not offer you a banquet with red wine, he is quite 
 as cordially hospitable with his simple beans, his ba- 
 nana and his cup of coffee ; he will take a light from 
 your cigarette or give you one from his, with no 
 thought but that you are both on the same highway, 
 though one may be afoot, the other on horseback. 
 Even in Caracas there is no tinge of servility, and the 
 coachman or the flower-seller instinctively proffers 
 and expects an equality of intercourse, with no pat- 
 ronage on the one side or humbleness on the other. 
 Caracas is not yet modern, not at all industrially ad- 
 vanced ; the old graces, the old ease, the old charm of 
 manners are practiced today. This epitomizes itself 
 into courtesy and kindliness. 
 
 A distinguished diplomat, visiting Caracas for the 
 first time and on an unpleasant errand, once exclaimed 
 in his astonishment at the genuine hospitality of his 
 reception, "Are they all so kind; do they really mean 
 it?" He had been brought up in the school where 
 there was a suspected ax-to-grind under all politeness. 
 But in Venezuela there is no undermotive and their 
 kindliness has not crystalized into a form in which 
 punctiliousness is of equal virtue with cordiality. In 
 Spain they use words of welcome which are merely 
 phrases ; in Venezuela these have not lost their mean- 
 
VENEZUELA AND THE VENEZUELANS 205 
 
 ing. ''La casa es la suya, senor'' (This is your house, 
 sir) is literally true for as long as you wish. 
 
 The pride, the honor of a Castilian, goes with this 
 kindliness. It is the honor which John Hay so ridi- 
 cules, which has impoverished Spain, made the no- 
 bility lazy and out of pocket and unable to care for 
 anything beyond the blueness of their blood. 
 
 Another Spanish trait, even more evident here 
 than elsewhere in Latin America, is the love of mili- 
 tarism. They take great pride in titles, these demo- 
 cratic Venezuelans; generals are thick in Caracas, or 
 would be if they did not have to flee to exile, while 
 judges and doctors are plentiful. This signifies that 
 it is easier to hold office, to decree a new constitution 
 and to organize a revolt, than it is to work patiently 
 from year to year, watching crops, improving agri- 
 culture and following the markets. The Spaniard 
 was born to command, to ride a horse — is he not a 
 cahallerof — and to build — republics; yet he can not 
 acquire the routine life by which alone material prog- 
 ress is accomplished. When coffee sold much higher 
 than it does now in Venezuela, the country was rich 
 in consequence; when, shortly before and after our 
 Civil War, cotton and sugar were exported from 
 Venezuela, money was plentiful and ,Caracas was 
 called Little Athens. But that was luck quite as much 
 as industry, so when luck departed, industry died also. 
 They can talk of work, but the Venezuelans do not 
 know how to work. ' Their talk, too, is inherited along 
 with their literature, and both lead them into that 
 
206 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 exuberant language which so abuses and, I am sorry 
 to say, disgusts the Anglo-Saxon. It is only verbiage; 
 it is chivalry gone to seed. Their culture is Spanish, 
 theoretic, idealistic. Nowhere else, unless it be in 
 Bogota, can such delightful society be found or such 
 poetic conversation be enjoyed, as in Caracas. 
 
 I went one afternoon to a tertulia in the house of 
 a modest family in Caracas. The ladies, young and 
 old, acted as hostesses and served the light refresh- 
 ments as informally and as daintily as would be done 
 in England. Some of them had been to school in 
 England, France, or the United States, and the con- 
 versation was indifferently carried on in Spanish, 
 French, or English. After the usual small talk about 
 the weather, music at the opera, and the game of base- 
 ball, which at present is the fashionable outdoor 
 amusement of the young men of Caracas, we drifted 
 unconsciously into a comparison of national litera- 
 tures, and I was impressed by the remarkable famil- 
 iarity shown by these ladies with our poets. Poe 
 seemed particularly to have touched the melancholy 
 temperament of the Spanish, but other poets and nov- 
 elists were mentioned with such freedom that I had 
 to confess my ignorance about some of them. I 
 went away feeling that in culture and profound ap- 
 preciation of many of the deeper emotions of the 
 human soul, an American could learn much from the 
 simpler aristocracy of Venezuela. The dress, the 
 manners, the elegance of diction and suavity of con- 
 duct, would be admired in any capital of Europe ; here 
 
VENEZUELA AND THE VENEZUELANS 207 
 
 in America it seems artificial, however charming. The 
 family life, too, when it retains its old-fashioned 
 savor, is intimate and quite patriarchal, though I fear 
 that recently it has become tainted by fin de Steele 
 cynicism ; but in the country on the cafe Uncas or large 
 haciendas the simple life can be found in as pure a 
 state as in Old or New England. 
 
 These conditions will not at first be noticed by the 
 stranger, especially if he does not speak Spanish and 
 is unacquainted with the mother country. His obser- 
 vation will be chiefly attracted by the neglected streets, 
 the quiet life, the lack of the hustle and noise by 
 which he usually gauges a country's activity. If he 
 goes to Valencia or Cumana or up on the mountain in 
 Tachira to San Cristobal, his first impression is one 
 of decay, though here, too, he will find the same man- 
 ners and the same philosophy. He can not fail, how- 
 ever, to be struck by the courtesy and kindliness of 
 the people, high and low. The culture will pertain to 
 the aristocracy, the other characteristics are general, 
 even to the lowest peon. 
 
 As he descends the social scale the traveler notices 
 more and more negro blood, and the student will de- 
 clare that within recent years this miscegenation has 
 increased ; it is difficult to draw today the line between 
 mestizo, that is, half-Spanish and half-Indian, and 
 negrito, in whose veins there is African blood. Yet 
 this impurity is evident only near the seaports, dimin- 
 ishing farther inland; it seems therefore to differen- 
 tiate these people from those in Spain who still pre- 
 
208 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 serve their race unalloyed since they mixed with the 
 Moor. The Venezuelan peasant is the democrat, 
 though he have a touch of the conquered in him ; and 
 if one word describes him it will be "docile." He has 
 been led since he was conquered, and is still subject to 
 the commands of the aristocracy and guided by the 
 ambitions of those superior to him; he has never 
 known another impulse. He is no fool ; he is no more 
 stolid than is the Spaniard ; his wit may not be violent, 
 but he can take a joke and give one with true Celtic 
 enjoyment. 
 
 There is an old but good anecdote of a priest, re- 
 cruited from the peasant class, who was driving over 
 one of the mule-paths so pathetically called a royal 
 road. He himself had been a muleteer in his youth, 
 but his sacred office seemed to compel him to protest 
 against the language commonly used in profane life 
 to encourage the steps of the lagging beast. At last 
 he said to the driver: "Not so much, my son," re- 
 ferring rather to the words than to the severity of the 
 untiring whip in the hands of his guide. "Let me try 
 my way," he said at last ; and the driver gladly relin- 
 quished his whip and his function to his superior, of 
 whose early expertness he had often heard. But the 
 good father forgot his office as he warmed to his w^ork, 
 and the old zeal of whip and tongue came back to him. 
 He plied both with a vigor born of thorough training, 
 but his muleteer, who imagined that he had assumed 
 sacerdotal authority when he changed his seat, in his 
 turn murmured: "Not so much, Padre mio, not so 
 
VENEZUELA AND THE VENEZUELANS 209 
 
 much." The father saw the joke and the reproof, 
 but he answered with a sigh, "Ah, but it was good 
 while it lasted!" 
 
 If the peon could be removed from the influence of 
 the priesthood and given that true liberty for which 
 he has always been so ready to fight, there would be 
 much hope for him; if he were stirred by a tide of 
 migration which would threaten him with extinction 
 if he did not work, he would enjoy his country as he 
 sings about it; for, contrary to superficial judgment, 
 the Venezuelan is not lazy; he simply does not know 
 how to work. He must be impelled by some exterior 
 force. The Jamaica negro is lazy, the southern black 
 is lazy ; most residents of the tropics are indolent, but 
 some will work of themselves if they are only shown 
 how. The Venezolano is now as the Mexican was 
 fifty years ago — inert. 
 
 This is applicable not only to the lower peasant 
 class, but to the whole nation. There may be certain 
 energies displayed at times and a mental or even phys- 
 ical activity latent, but there is no mainspring; the 
 whole nation is unproductive, overcome by the steril- 
 ity of the artistic temperament. Their civilization is 
 worn out. 
 
 I am making no exhaustive comparison between 
 their civilization and our own, or between that of 
 Brazil and Argentina. Our own has defects; we 
 might be better off if we lost the vices of commer- 
 cialism and replaced them by Latin graces, yet ours 
 breathes of the twentieth century, while their civili- 
 
210 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 zation is on dead models. If no substitution is possi- 
 ble, ours is still better because we produce ; the habits 
 of production we insist on, trusting that the faults 
 will be checked; they in Venezuela are sterile; with 
 the richest land in the world, they import foodstuffs 
 to feed their scanty wants. 
 
 Over both aristocracy and peasantry has fallen the 
 Moorish-Spanish mantle of fatalism; since revolu- 
 tion and lawlessness have always been, they assert that 
 therefore they must always be. The non sequitur of 
 the argument does not strike them, for out of it grows 
 a certain content which we can not understand. Am- 
 bition is not toward accomplishing more — they are 
 satisfied that their country has produced a Bolivar; 
 beyond this, imagination can not go except in their 
 oratory. This shows all the bloom of Castilian poetry. 
 Their country is great and glorious, their deeds im- 
 mortal, their generals conquerors and heroes, their 
 battles the clash of Titans; but most of it is mere 
 oratory, however beautiful and classic. 
 
 Their civilization is finer than ours, less .gross, less 
 sordid ; or, to use a word which brings out the feature 
 of greatest importance, less material, therefore unpro- 
 ductive. It is a relic of the time when an aristocracy 
 was real and deported itself as such, when culture be- 
 longed to the upper class and labor to the lower, when 
 breeding and pedigree signified everything, and poli- 
 tics was the sport of those who held the office for the 
 sake of the money it brought and the power it gave. 
 But it is a civilization obsolescent if not dead. We 
 
VENEZUELA AND THE VENEZUELANS 211 
 
 see the same in Spain today, where it has withered for 
 fifty years; in Italy, where it is giving place to a 
 sturdier culture whose sign is deeds, not words; in 
 our own South, where oratory and southern chivalry 
 were coexistent. But in this South, as well as in 
 Mexico, it is receding before the activity of that civi- 
 lization which materially develops a country for the 
 man who works, although it may appear for a time 
 to crush out the more delicate instincts of a race by 
 the struggle to give nourishment to both body and 
 brain. 
 
 Venezuela, strange to say, with her nearness to 
 the eastern world and her early start in history, is 
 the last to yield to the forces of industrialism. In 
 fact, she has not yet yielded and may not yield for 
 years to come. The ethnographic rule of Humboldt 
 that ''the accidents of climate and configuration are 
 felt in all their force only among a race of men . . . 
 who receive some exterior impulse," can, at the end 
 as well as at the beginning of her life, be applied to 
 Venezuela. Her people are of healthy stock ; they are 
 not irredeemably tuberculous, and, preserving the tem- 
 perate habits of the Latins, have escaped the dangers 
 from alcohol which threatens to destroy the West 
 Andean natives. If the Venezuelans have one vice 
 it is gambling; but that, while discouraging thrift, 
 never impoverishes a race; they love the excitement 
 of the hazard, whether at the card-table of an aris- 
 tocratic club, the official lotteries supported by church 
 and state, or the crap games of the village urchins; 
 
212 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 and they still love the bull-fight. In Caracas the qua- 
 drilla is as ceremonious as at Madrid ; but Mexico has 
 not abandoned bull-fights, and we admit that her vir- 
 tues have carried her safely beyond medievalism. 
 
 Thus the unavoidable comparison comes up again. 
 Mexico, too, was Old Spain before Diaz, foreign capi- 
 tal and American enterprise changed her from a land 
 of gilded romance into an enterprising, producing na- 
 tion, recognizing the need of material industrialism. 
 So it must be with Venezuela. Her agricultural 
 riches can never be exhausted, but they must be drawn 
 out by foreign brains, northern money and perhaps 
 by Teutonic energy.** 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN 
 
 UNTIL very recently, the average newspaper arti- 
 cle and the talk of the average person, so far as 
 it went, took it for granted that South America was a 
 region devoted to revolutions and fevers, where indi- 
 viduals called South Americans spent their time in a 
 cheerful state of anarchy. There are novels and plays 
 that still maintain this pleasing fiction, although, thanks 
 to a recent enlightened secretary of state and an ener- 
 getic director of the Bureau of American Republics, 
 we know much more about South America than we did. 
 In fact, we are beginning to distinguish to a certain 
 extent between the stable republics of Argentina and 
 Chile and the troublesome ones like Venezuela, but 
 we still speak of the people as "South Americans," 
 and it is fair to do so. 
 
 A race is rising in South America that is different 
 from anything that the world has yet seen. It is a 
 hybrid product composed for the most part of the 
 blood of Spaniards and South American aborigines, 
 such as Quichuas, Araucanians, and Abipones. There 
 is also an infiltration of various European stocks. It 
 is true that there are differences between the peoples 
 of the several South American republics, just as there 
 are differences between the aboriginal Indian tribes. 
 
 213 
 
214 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 At the same time, there is so much of the blood that 
 came from the Hispanic peninsula and this has been 
 for so many generations the dominant factor, that it is 
 possible to consider the people of South America more 
 or less as a whole. 
 
 It must also be admitted at the beginning that there 
 are many South Americans who can not be included in 
 any general criticism. There are many families of 
 pure Castilian ancestry who rightfully resent any im- 
 plication that they are hybrids because they are South 
 Americans, although the latter constitute a majority 
 of the population in the several republics, notably 
 Bolivia and Peru. We ought easily to be able to 
 appreciate the fact that such a broad term as "South 
 American" must include many diametrically opposite 
 types, for foreigners are finding it increasingly diffi- 
 cult, nay, almost impossible, to define and fix the limit 
 of our own characteristics as "Americans." A hun- 
 dred years ago it was simple enough. People of Eng- 
 lish descent dominated things everywhere. Today we 
 are a mixture of fifty races, and it is hard to say who 
 has the right to be considered the typical Bostonian 
 or New Yorker, he of English or Dutch extraction, or 
 he of Jewish or Irish ancestry. 
 
 Things are not quite so bad in South America, for 
 the most of the republics have seen but comparatively 
 little immigration and the politics of South America 
 are today directed by men of Spanish and Indian 
 descent. Even in Argentina, where the census shows 
 a more cosmopolitan population than in any other re- 
 
SOUTH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS 215 
 
 public, the game of politics is controlled almost exclu- 
 sively by Argentinos whose ancestors were Spaniards 
 and Indians. In another generation this may be 
 changed, for thanks to an increasing and extensive im- 
 migration, the Argentine type is becoming more and 
 more Europeanized. In Bolivia and Peru, on the other 
 hand, owing to scarcity of available and accessible 
 agricultural lands and the consequent lack of immigra- 
 tion, the typical politician is nearer a simple cross be- 
 tween Spaniard and Indian. In Chile there is more 
 Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic blood, while in Venezuela 
 and Colombia there is very much less. In Brazil there 
 IS more African. In fact, one is almost inclined to 
 leave the Brazilians out of the case, for their ancestors 
 have been of a very different stock from that in the 
 Spanish-speaking republics; Portuguese instead of 
 Spanish, Amazonian Indian instead of mountain In- 
 dian, and far more African blood than in any other 
 republic. Nevertheless, they, too, by the very fact of 
 their being a mixture of Caucasian, American Indian, 
 and African, living under similar geographical condi- 
 tions, have many of the same traits that are found else- 
 where on the continent. 
 
 Making due allowance for the exceptions, what are 
 the characteristics of the South Americans of today? 
 
 As one travels through the various South American 
 republics, becomes acquainted with their political and 
 social conditions, reads their literature and talks with 
 other American travelers, there are a number of 
 adverse criticisms that frequently arise. I shall at- 
 
216 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 tempt to enumerate some of them, to account for a few, 
 and to compare others with criticisms that were made 
 of the people of the United States fifty years ago. 
 The period of time is not accidental. The South 
 American republics secured their independence nearly 
 fifty years later than we did. Moreover, they have 
 been hampered in their advancement by natural diffi- 
 culties and racial antipathies much more than we have. 
 Although the conditions of life in the United States as 
 depicted by foreign critics seventy-five years after the 
 battle of Yorktown, were decidedly worse than the con- 
 ditions of life in South America seventy-five years 
 after the battle of Ayacucho, the resemblances between 
 the faults that were found with us fifty years ago and 
 those that are noticeable among the South Americans 
 of today are too striking to be merely coincidences. 
 It is surely not for us to say that there is anything 
 inherently wrong with our southern neighbors if their 
 shortcomings are such as we ourselves had not long 
 ago, and possibly have today. 
 
 The first criticism that one hears and the first one 
 is likely to make after getting beyond the pale of offi- 
 cial good breeding in South America, is that the man- 
 ners of the ordinary South American are very bad. 
 Let the traveler who is inclined to take such a state 
 of affairs too seriously, read what Dickens wrote 
 about us and our ways in 1885 in American Azotes and 
 Martin Chuzzlewit. It was a faithful picture of a cer- 
 tain phase of American life, and, furthermore, it paints 
 a condition of affairs worse than anything seen in 
 
SOUTH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS 217 
 
 South America. It must be remembered, too, that 
 these criticisms had to do only with certain phases of 
 American life, and when Mr. Dickens, the traveler 
 and incidental observer, applied the description to the 
 whole of American life, there was naturally an indig- 
 nant protest from the better bred class, just as there 
 is today from the cultured, refined class of pure Cas- 
 tilians in South America, when adverse criticisms are 
 made to apply to South Americans in general. 
 
 It is hard indeed to overlook the table manners of 
 the average South American. But how many years is 
 it since North Americans were all reading and conning 
 Don't! A Guide to Good Manners f To one inclined 
 to criticize the speed with which a company of South 
 Americans will dispose of their food, let me recom- 
 mend a reference to Dickens' description of an Ameri- 
 can boarding-house table, where "few words were 
 spoken; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost in 
 self-defense, as if a famine were expected to set in 
 before breakfast-time tomorrow morning." 
 
 The conversation of a group of young South Amer- 
 icans is not such as appeals to our taste. There is 
 usually too much running comment on the personal 
 qualities and attractions of their women acquaintances. 
 To them it seems doubtless most gallant. At all events, 
 it is not sordid, as was that conversation which Dickens 
 describes as "summed up in one word — dollars." 
 
 Another one of Dickens* criticisms of North Amer- 
 icans was the frequency of the expression Yes, sir, 
 and he made a great deal of fun of us for our use of 
 
218 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 it. Singularly enough, the Spanish "Yes, sir" — Si 
 senor — is so extremely common throughout South 
 America as to attract one's attention continually. 
 
 Another thing that Dickens notices was our tend- 
 ency to postpone and put off from day to day things 
 that did not have to be done. Yet there is no more 
 common criticism of Spanish-Americans than that 
 known as the Manana habit. You will hear almost 
 any one who pretends to know anything at all about 
 Spanish-America say that the great difficulty is the 
 ease with which the Spanish-American says ''Manana." 
 Personally, I do not agree with this criticism, for I 
 have heard the expression very seldom in South 
 America. It is true that it is hard to get things done 
 as quickly as one would wish, but I believe the criti- 
 cism has been much overworked. Dickens was un- 
 doubtedly honest in reporting that the habit of post- 
 poning one's work was characteristic of the "middle 
 west" as he saw it, but such remarks would be greatly 
 resented today and would be untrue. So we should 
 use care in accepting criticisms made on South Ameri- 
 cans by travelers of a few years ago as being true 
 today. 
 
 In many South American cities one is annoyed by 
 the continual handshaking. No matter how many 
 times a day you meet a man, he expects you to sol- 
 emnly shake hands with him just as did those western 
 Americans who so annoyed "Martin Chuzzlewit." 
 
 We also dislike intensely the South American habit 
 of staring at strangers and of making audible com- 
 
SOUTH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS 219 
 
 ments on ladies who happen to be passing. Unfor- 
 tunately, this is a Latin habit which will be hard to 
 change. The South American has a racial right to 
 look at such customs differently. But if some of his 
 personal habits are unpleasant and even disgusting 
 from our point of view, there is no question that we 
 irritate him just as much as he does us. Our curt 
 forms of address ; our impatient disregard of the ame- 
 nities of social intercourse; our unwillingness to pass 
 the time of day at considerable length, and inquire, 
 each time we see a friend, after his health and that of 
 his family; our habit of elevating our feet and often 
 sitting in a slouchy attitude when conversing with 
 strangers are to him extremely distasteful and annoy- 
 ing. Our unwillingness to take the trouble to speak 
 his language grammatically and our general point of 
 view in regard to the ''innate superiority" of our race, 
 our language and our manufactures are all evidences, 
 to his mind, of our barbarity. We care far too little 
 for appearances. This seems to him boorish. We 
 criticize him because he does not bathe as frequently 
 as we do. He criticizes us because we do not show 
 him proper respect by removing our hats when we 
 meet him on the street. 
 
 Furthermore, he regards us as lacking in business 
 integrity. We are too shrewd. Our standard of honor 
 seems low to him. In fact, a practical obstacle with 
 which one accustomed to American business methods 
 has to contend in South America, is the extreme diffi- 
 culty of securing accurate information as to a man's 
 
220 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 credit. Inquiries into the financial standing of an indi- 
 vidual, which are regarded as a matter of course with 
 us, are resented by the sensitive Latin temperament as 
 a personal reflection on his honesty. It seems to be 
 true that the South American regards the payment of 
 his debts as a matter more closely touching honor than 
 we do. He is accustomed to receiving long credits ; he 
 always really intends to pay sometime and he generally 
 manages to raise installments without much difficulty. 
 Yet when pressed hard in the courts, he is likely to 
 turn and resent as an intentional insult the judgment 
 which has been secured against him. I have known 
 personally of a case where a debtor informed his cred- 
 itor that it would be necessary for him to come well 
 armed if he accompanied the sheriff in an effort to 
 satisfy the judgment of the court, for the first man, 
 and as many more as possible, that crossed the door 
 of his shop on such an errand would be shot. This 
 we criticize as defiance of the law. To the South 
 American, the law has committed an unpardonable 
 fault in venturing to convict him of neglecting his 
 honorable debts. 
 
 It is unfortunate tHat the SoutH Americans them- 
 selves are generally quite unaware of their failings — a 
 species of blindness that has frequently been laid at 
 our own doors. It is due to a similar cause. South 
 American writers who have traveled abroad and seen 
 enough to enable them to point out the defects of their 
 countrymen, rarely venture to do so. The South 
 American loves praise, but can not endure criticism. 
 
SOUTH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS 221 
 
 It makes him fairly froth at the mouth, as it did the 
 Americans in the days of Charles Dickens' first visit. 
 So the pleasant-faced gentleman from Massachusetts, 
 Mr. Bevan, told young Martin Chuzzlewit : 
 
 If you have any knowledge of our literature, and 
 can give me the name of any man, American born and 
 bred, who has atomized our follies as a people, and 
 not as this or that party ; and has escaped the foulest 
 and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred 
 and intolerant pursuit ; it will be a strange name in my 
 ears, believe me. In some cases I could name to you, 
 where a native writer has ventured on the most harm- 
 less and good-humored illustrations of our vices or 
 defects, it has been found necessary to announce, that 
 in a second edition the passage has been expunged, or 
 altered, or explained away, or patched into praise. 
 
 There is a story in Santiago de Chile of a young 
 American scholar who spent some time there studying 
 localisms. When he returned to New York he ven- 
 tured to publish honest but rather severe criticisms 
 of society, as he saw it, in that most aristocratic of 
 South American republics. As a result, the university 
 from which he came received a bad name in Chile, 
 and his visit is held in such unpleasant memory that 
 his welcome, were he to return there, would be far 
 from friendly. This seems narrow-minded and per- 
 verse, but is exactly the way we felt not long ago 
 toward foreigners who spent a few months in the 
 States and wrote, for the benefit of the European pub- 
 lic, sincere but caustic criticisms. American sensi- 
 tiveness became a byword in Europe. Possibly it is 
 growing less with us. However that may be, South 
 
222 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 American sensitiveness is no keener today than ours 
 was fifty years since. 
 
 It is particularly important that we should realize 
 that the political conditions of the larger republics 
 are very much more stable than our newspaper and 
 novel-reading public are aware of. Lynchings are un- 
 heard of. Serious riots, such as some of our largest 
 cities have seen within the past generation, are no more 
 common with them than with us. It is true that the 
 Latin temperament finds it much more difficult to bow 
 to the majesty of the law and to yield gracefully to 
 governmental decrees than the more phlegmatic Teu- 
 ton or Anglo-Saxon. But the revolutions and riots 
 that Paris has witnessed during the past century have 
 not kept us from a serious effort to increase our busi- 
 ness with France. The occasional political riot that 
 takes place, of no more significance than the riots 
 caused by strikers with which we are all familiar at 
 home, is no reason why we should be afraid to en- 
 deavor to capture the South American market. 
 
 Climatic conditions and difficulties of rapid trans- 
 portation have had much to do with the backwardness 
 of the South American republics. With the progress 
 of science, the great increase in transportation facili- 
 ties and the war that is being successfully waged 
 against tropical diseases, a change is coming about 
 which we must be ready to meet. 
 
 There is not the slightest question that there is a 
 great opportunity awaiting the American manufacturer 
 and exporter when he is willing to grasp it with intel- 
 
SOUTH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS 223 
 
 ligent persistence and determination. South America 
 is ready to take American goods in very large quanti- 
 ties as soon as we are ready to take time to give 
 attention to her needs. Germany teaches her young 
 business men Spanish and Portuguese and sends them 
 out to learn conditions in the field. American univer- 
 sities long ago learned the advantage of adopting Ger- 
 many's thoroughgoing methods of scientific research. 
 American business men have hitherto failed to realize 
 the importance of adopting Germany's thoroughgoing 
 methods of developing foreign commerce. 
 
 There is one characteristic of the South American 
 that is to be deplored, and that is their disregard of 
 accuracy in giving information. This has been at- 
 tained by their seven centuries of association with the 
 Arabs and Moors. The student of the East realizes 
 that Orientals, including Turks and celestials, have no 
 sense of the importance of agreeing with fact. They 
 have, furthermore, a great abhorrence of a vacuum. 
 If they do not know the reply to a question, they an- 
 swer at random, preferring anything to the admission 
 of ignorance. If they do know, and have no interest 
 in substituting something else for what they know, 
 they give the facts. When they have no facts to give 
 they give something else. They not only deceive the 
 questioner, they actually deceive themselves. The same 
 thing is true to a certain degree in South Americans. 
 Sometimes I have thought they are too polite to say 
 "I don't know." 
 
 In South America, as in the East, it is of primary 
 
224 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 importance to reach the men who know and to pay no 
 attention to any one else. No one really knows, who is 
 not actually on the spot, in contact with facts. The 
 prudent observer must avoid all evidence that is not 
 first hand and derived from a trustworthy source. 
 
 I do not bring this as a charge against the South 
 Americans. I state it as a condition which I have 
 found to be nearly universally true. So far as the 
 South Americans are concerned it is an inherited trait 
 and one which they are endeavoring to overcome. 
 They are not to be blamed for having it any more than 
 we are to be blamed for having inherited traits from 
 our Anglo-Saxon ancestors which are unpleasant to 
 our Latin neighbors and for which they have to make 
 allowance in dealing with us. 
 
 In offering these adverse criticisms of the South 
 American as he appears to me today, I must beg not 
 to be misunderstood. There are naturally many ex- 
 ceptions to the rule. I know personally many indi- 
 viduals who do not have any of the characteristics here 
 attributed to South Americans in general. I have 
 in mind one South American, a resident of a much- 
 despised republic, whose ancestors fought in one of 
 the great battles of the Wars of Independence, who 
 has as much push and energy as a veritable New York 
 captain of industry. He has promoted a number of 
 successful industrial enterprises. He keeps up with 
 the times ; he meddles not in politics ; he enjoys such 
 sports as hunting with hounds and riding across 
 country. The difference between him and the New 
 
SOUTH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS 225 
 
 Yorker is that he speaks three or four languages where 
 the New Yorker speaks only one or two, and he has 
 sense enough to take many holidays in the year where 
 the New Yorker takes but few. I know another, a cul- 
 tured young Chilean lawyer who gives dinner parties 
 where the food is as good, the manners as refined, 
 the conversation as brilliant and the intellectual enjoy- 
 ment as keen as any given anywhere. He, too, speaks 
 four languages fluently and could put to shame the 
 average New York lawyer of his own age in the variety 
 of topics upon which he is able to converse, not only 
 at his ease, but brilliantly and with flashes of wit. I 
 know another, a distinguished historian, who has been 
 described by a well-known American librarian, himself 
 the member of half a dozen learned societies, as the 
 "most scholarly and most productive" biographer in 
 either North or South America. 
 
 The South Americans of today have so many of 
 the faults of the Americans of yesterday that all our 
 dealings with them should be marked by appreciative 
 understanding and large-minded charity. Any feeling 
 of superiority, like that "certain condescension" which 
 we have noted (and hated) in foreigners, will only 
 make our task the harder, and international good-will 
 more difficult to achieve.^ 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE TWO 'AMERICAS AND THE RELATION OF SOUTH 
 AMERICA TO EUROPE 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON bade his fellow citi- 
 zens to think continentally ; and Herodotus, in 
 the short introduction prefixed to his history explains 
 its theme as being an account of the relations of two 
 great continents, that is, Europe and Asia, and of the 
 reasons which produced such recurring strife between 
 them. Let us attempt to think a little of the southern 
 part of the western world as a whole, in its relations 
 as a continent to the other continents, and especially 
 to that other continent with which it is connected by 
 a narrow neck of land, the Isthmus of Panama, and 
 which has also drawn its name from the same navi- 
 gator. The series of incidents by which the name 
 of a Florentine was given, first, to a continent he 
 probably did not discover, and then to another which 
 he never saw, is a curious one. 
 
 Everybody knows Christopher Columbus sailed 
 out into the west in search of new lands, expecting 
 them to be a part of Asia, and that to the day of his 
 death, after four voyages, he believed that he had 
 found India. In the last of those voyages, when he 
 was wearily beating up along the coast of Darien 
 against the currents, he fancied himself near the 
 
 226 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 227 
 
 Straits of Malacca. It is natural, therefore, that nei- 
 ther he nor his first successors in exploration should 
 have given a name to the new western land south of 
 the Caribbean Sea, even when they had explored 
 enough of it to know it was a continent. They named 
 particular regions, but a general name was not needed 
 because it was expected that the parts seen would 
 turn out to be parts of Asia. Then in 1497 other 
 voyagers who sailed forth to explore said that they 
 found a new land, far off in the ocean to the south- 
 west of the Canary Islands. Next year Columbus 
 discovered on the south side the Caribbean Sea the 
 "Terra Firma," which we call Venezuela. Americus 
 Vespuccius of Florence, one of the ship's company 
 of the 1497 voyage, wrote letters, giving an account 
 of this (and of a later voyage, also) to the new land 
 far to the southwest in which he described it as "a 
 New World, a New Fourth Part of the Globe," 
 Europe, Asia, and Africa, being the other three. The 
 letters made a great sensation; and one of them was 
 made the basis of a book called Cosmo graphice Intro- 
 ductio, published in 1507, at St. Die in France, by a 
 certain Waldseemiiller (Hylacomylus), a professor 
 there, who suggested that as Americus was the dis- 
 coverer of this fourth part of the world, it should 
 be called after him. The book was read far and wide ; 
 the name took. It was not intended to be applied to 
 the lands west and south of the Caribbean Sea, which 
 between 1497 and 1507 had been discovered by Colum- 
 bus and others; still less to the lands discovered by 
 
228 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 John Cabot in the far north, but to an entirely dif- 
 ferent piece of land much to the south and east of 
 what Columbus had discovered. But when all the 
 lands bordering on that part of the Atlantic had been 
 sufficiently explored and the records of the voyages 
 compared, it appeared that the lands lying in the part 
 of the ocean to which the descriptions of Americus 
 referred, were, in fact, continuous with the coasts of 
 the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Thereupon all the 
 land from the Rio de la Plata (discovered in 15) 
 northward to the Isthmus of Panama, came to be in- 
 cluded under the name America, just because there was 
 no other general name for what had been, at least till 
 1513, when the Pacific was discovered by crossing the 
 Isthmus at Darien, still believed to be part of Asia. 
 When- the Pacific had been reached, and still more 
 when the ever-famous voyage of Magellan had shown 
 that Asia lay thousands of miles further away beyond 
 the Pacific, a general name was badly wanted. Much 
 later, and again, just because there was no other 
 competing name, the word America was extended to 
 include everything north of the Gulf of Mexico up 
 to the Arctic regions, and when the need was felt for 
 distinguishing the two parts,* the words North and 
 South were added. Although applied earlier to the 
 southern than to the northern continent, the name 
 when used alone, denotes, to most Europeans, the 
 latter. 
 
 How much simpler and better it would have been 
 if each continent had received a name of its own. 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 229 
 
 South America might have been called after Colum- 
 bus, as the first man who saw its terra iirma; and 
 North America might have received the name of 
 Cabotia or Pinzonia or Ponceana, whichever navigator 
 may be best entitled to be deemed its first and true dis- 
 coverer. How much trouble would have been saved 
 and how many mistakes avoided! Italian peasants 
 would not have fancied that a cousin who had gone 
 to Buenos Aires was the near neighbor of another 
 who had gone to New York. Similarities would not 
 have been imagined where differences exist. The 
 South Americans would not have resented the assump- 
 tion by the people of the United States of the name 
 to which they claim an equal right, and the people of 
 the United States would not have formed the habit 
 of believing that the Spaniards of the southern con- 
 tinent are their affectionate relatives, because they 
 share in the same family name. 
 
 These, however, are vain regrets. The names have 
 long been fixed, though for a great while the Span- 
 iards declined to talk of North America. The thing 
 is one instance among many to show how much may 
 flow from a name which is itself the result of a mere 
 accident. 
 
 Now let us turn from names to things, and con- 
 sider in what respect the two Americas, and their peo- 
 ples, resemble and differ from one another, and how 
 far they constitute, politically or otherwise, one whole 
 world apart, and what are the relations of the south- 
 ern, or Spanish and Portuguese, continent to the 
 
230 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 other, now mainly Teutonic, continent, and to the 
 countries of Europe. Some points in the history of 
 each continent may come out more clearly, and be- 
 come more significant when the two are compared. 
 The history of each illustrates that of the other. 
 
 The physical structure of the two continents shows 
 certain similarities. Each is traversed from north to 
 south by a great mountain chain, sometimes breaking 
 into parallel ridges and sometimes widening out into 
 high tablelands. In each this chain is much nearer 
 to the western than to the eastern coast, and in each 
 there are volcanic outbursts at various points along 
 the lines of elevation, these being more continuous 
 and on a vaster scale in the southern continent. In 
 each there is, moreover, an independent mountain mass 
 on the eastern side, the Appalachian system in North 
 America, the Brazilian highlands in South America. 
 Each has, nearer to its western than to its eastern 
 coast, a desert, and in that desert an inland river basin 
 with lakes. Great Salt Lake in Utah corresponding 
 roughly to Lakes Titicaca and Poopo in Bolivia. Each 
 has two gigantic rivers, though the Mississippi and St. 
 Lawrence are not equal in volume to the Amazon and 
 the Parana. The shores of both are washed by mighty 
 ocean currents, but while the Gulf Stream warms the 
 east coast of the northern, the Antarctic current chills 
 the west coast of the southern continent. Their cli- 
 mates are so far similar that in both the east side of 
 the continent receives more rain than the west. South 
 America, however, having its greatest breadth in the 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 231 
 
 tropics, lies more largely within the torrid zone. 
 
 It is, however, with the settlement and subsequent 
 history of the two continents that the real interest of 
 this comparison begins. There are three remarkable 
 points of similarity, but the points of difference are 
 more numerous and instructive, since, in noting them, 
 we see how potent each difference has been in direct- 
 ing the course of events and forming the character of 
 the communities that have grown up. 
 
 The points of similarity are these. Both continents 
 were inhabited by races entirely unlike those of Eu- 
 rope, who over the greater part of this area were in the 
 savage state, but had in a few regions favored by na- 
 ture made some progress towards civilization. Both 
 were conquered by Europeans, and easily conquered, 
 owing to the superiority of the invaders in arms and 
 discipline. The peoples of both (with one important 
 exception in the northern and three unimportant ex- 
 ceptions in the southern continent) ultimately revolted 
 against the kingdoms whence the European part of 
 their population had come and have ever since man- 
 aged their own affairs as republics, seven republics in 
 North, eleven in South America. 
 
 Having noted these general resemblances in the 
 fortunes of the two, let us inquire what were the dif- 
 ferences, natural and political, which made the lines 
 of their subsequent development diverge. 
 
 At this point, however, it is proper to leave off 
 talking of North and South America, for the southern 
 part of the former continent belongs historically and 
 
232 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 to some extent physically also, to the latter continent. 
 As Alexander Dumas said in his book on Spain, *'Af- 
 rica begins at the Pyrenees," — it is a saying which the 
 Spaniards have never forgiven, — so we may say, 
 ** South America begins at the Rio Grande del Norte." 
 Mexico and the states of Central America down to the 
 Isthmus of Panama were parts of the Spanish colonial 
 empire, conquered, settled, and administered in much 
 the same way as the still larger part of that empire 
 which lay farther south. We must, therefore, group 
 the regions that once belonged to that empire under 
 the general name of Spanish, or, when it is desired to 
 include Brazil (a Portuguese country), ''Latin" Amer- 
 ica, referring to the other parts of the northern con- 
 tinent as "Teutonic America." 
 
 The aboriginal tribes with which the English and 
 French came in contact when they settled the Atlantic 
 coasts of North America were scattered over a vast 
 wooded region, lived mainly by the chase, and had 
 formed no habits of regular industry. They were 
 mostly fierce fighters, proud and dogged, unwilling to 
 bear any control, and it was found impracticable to 
 make slaves of them, or use them for any kind of 
 regular labor. They were unfitted for it, and it would 
 have cost the settlers more effort to compel the Indians 
 to cut dov^^n trees and till the ground than to do the 
 same things themselves. There was, accordingly, 
 never any question of Indian slavery or serfdom, 
 either on the Atlantic coasts or further inland, as the 
 march of colonization advanced to the Mississippi, 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 233 
 
 and across the plains, and mountains to the Pacific, 
 nor was there more than a very Httle intermarriage 
 between the settlers and the natives. 
 
 Other reasons besides those connected with labor 
 prevented any admixture in these regions of the white 
 with the native races. There was little social inter- 
 course, because the Indians, even the majority of the 
 less warlike tribes of Virginia and the regions south 
 of Virginia, were driven out, or retired, or died out. 
 Their barbarous way of life drew a sharp line between 
 them and the white intruders. The latter, moreover, 
 brought their women with them, and had less tempta- 
 tion to seek wives among the Indians. Thus it was 
 only among the French voyagers and trappers of the 
 region round and beyond the Great Lakes that any 
 mixed race grew up, half white, half Indian, and this 
 race has now almost disappeared. 
 
 In Spanish America, the case was quite different. 
 Both in Mexico, in parts of Central America, and in 
 Peru there was a large sedentary population of abo- 
 rigines, cultivating the soil and trained to industry 
 during many generations. The conquerors imme- 
 diately turned them into serfs, parceling them out 
 among the persons who received land grants, and who 
 therefore lived on the produce of this semi-servile 
 labor. The result was that whereas in Teutonic Amer- 
 ica there grew up, slowly at first, a white agricultural 
 population and ultimately a white manufacturing pop- 
 ulation also, in Spanish America agriculture was left 
 almost entirely to the aborigines, the pure white popu- 
 
234 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 lation increased hardly at all, and because few new- 
 settlers came. There appeared, however, and that 
 within two or three generations, a considerable half- 
 breed, or mestizo, population, which has come, after 
 three centuries, to constitute most of the upper class 
 and practically the whole of the middle class in all 
 but two of the republics. 
 
 This was the beginning of the divergent careers of 
 the two sets of European colonists, Spaniards and 
 Englishmen, a divergence which ultimately gave to 
 the social system of each set its own peculiar struc- 
 ture. Two other circumstances helped to deepen the 
 divergence. One was the hot climate of most parts of 
 Spanish America, which made field labor, or, indeed, 
 any kind of manual labor, more distasteful to men of 
 European stock than such labor was in the northern 
 parts of Teutonic America. The same cause, it need 
 hardly be said, had much to do with the importation 
 of negroes on a vast scale into the southern parts of 
 the British North American colonies. Such an expe- 
 dient was less needed in Mexico and Peru, because 
 they possessed (as already remarked) a native popu- 
 lation that could be reduced to serfdom. In Spanish 
 America, accordingly, all forms of labor connected 
 with land were left by the European settlers to the 
 natives, and no white peasantry grew up. 
 
 The other circumstance was that whereas in Teu- 
 tonic America few or no mines were discovered or 
 worked for a long time after the country had begun 
 to be occupied, the Spaniards, having hit upon regions 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 235 
 
 rich, some of them in gold, many of them in silver, 
 began greedily to exploit this natural wealth and 
 forced the natives to toil for them in this (to the na- 
 tive particularly odious) kind of work. The destruc- 
 tion of human life was terrible, but in those days life 
 was little regarded. The development of mining in 
 Spanish America, immense for the sixteenth, seven- 
 teenth, and eighteenth centuries, when comparatively 
 little was going on elsewhere, had many effects for 
 Spain and for the world. For Mexico and Peru the 
 most direct effect was to enrich a good many persons 
 without any industrial efforts put forth by themselves, 
 and to lead the colonies as a whole to rely less upon 
 agriculture than men did in the English colonies. A 
 luxurious style of living established itself in the city 
 of Mexico and in Lima, most unlike the frugal sim- 
 plicity of Boston or Providence, or even of Philadel- 
 phia or New York in the eighteenth century. 
 
 It has often been observed that whereas the men 
 who went to the northern English colonies were 
 mostly small farmers or townsfolk of the trading or 
 artisan classes, the Spanish emigrants were mainly 
 adventurers, making gold and silver their first object, 
 the acquisition of plantations or mines to be worked 
 by natives the second. This stamped on Spanish colo- 
 nial society what can hardly be called an aristocratic 
 character, for many of the emigrant-adventurers, like 
 the Pizarros brothers, sprang from a humble social 
 stratum, but yet a character which lacked both the sen 
 timent of equality and a respect for industry. 
 
236 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Not less marked than these social differences were 
 those which belonged to the sphere of government 
 and administration. The English colonies were for 
 the most part left to govern themselves. Each had not 
 only its colonial assembly, but also local assemblies for 
 towns and counties, along with the English arrange- 
 ments for securing justice in civil and criminal mat- 
 ters by juries. Even the governors sent out from 
 England, where such there were, interfered but little 
 with the power of the colonists to regulate their own 
 affairs. The Crown did occasionally interfere, but 
 these instances and the resistance which arbitrary in- 
 terference evoked bear witness to the general adher- 
 ence to the principles of local self-government. In the 
 Spanish colonies, on the other hand, all power re- 
 mained in the Crown, and was exercised either di- 
 rectly from Spain by ordinances made or orders is- 
 sued there, or else through the viceroy or captain- 
 general of each colony. Much to the disgust of the 
 criollos, or men born in the colonies, nearly all lucra- 
 tive posts were reserved for persons of Spanish birth, 
 who obtained them by court favor at home, or perhaps 
 from a viceroy, who had brought them out in his suite. 
 In the field of religion the contrast was even greater. 
 Ecclesiastical power had in Spanish America been al- 
 most equal to civil. Although the Crown of Spain 
 yielded less authority to the Pope in its transatlantic 
 than it did in its European dominions, the church as 
 a whole, archbishops and bishops, the orders and the 
 holy office, were, in America, an immense and omni- 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 237 
 
 present force, with whom even viceroys had to reckon, 
 for their influence was great in the court at home as 
 well as over the minds and conduct of the colonists. 
 Society was saturated with clericalism, and a taint 
 of heterodoxy more dangerous than one of disloyalty. 
 
 Putting all these things together, it can be seen 
 how little in common Teutonic America and Spanish 
 America had when the colonial period ended for each 
 of them by its severance from the mother country. 
 They were, in fact, unlike in everything, except their 
 position in the Western Hemisphere. Few, and far 
 from friendly, had been their relations. There had 
 been very little commercial intercourse, but a great 
 deal of fighting. English and American buccaneers 
 and pirates, — the two classes were practically the 
 same, — had been wont to prey upon Spanish colonial 
 commerce and pillage Spanish colonial cities. There 
 probably remained more aversion between the two 
 races in America than in Europe, for in their hostility 
 to France during the eighteenth century the people of 
 Britain had forgotten their hostility to Spain. To the 
 New Englander or Virginian the colonial Spaniard 
 had been a Papist and a persecutor, to the colonial 
 Spaniard his neighbors on the north were pirates and 
 heretics. 
 
 What change was made by the two wars against 
 the two mother countries and the independence which 
 followed? It might have seemed likely that now, 
 when both parts of the New World were disconnected 
 from the Old and both had republican forms of gov- 
 
238 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ernment, they might begin to draw together. Inde- 
 pendence, though it came nearly forty years later to 
 Spanish America, made more difference there than 
 it had done to the English colonies. Those who had 
 been kept in leading strings by Spain were now left 
 to their own devices. Ill-built and ill-steered had been 
 the vessel that carried their fortunes, but now they 
 were left to drift and be tossed about with neithef 
 compass nor pilot. An era of civil wars and military 
 revolutions set in, which lasted in Mexico nearly half 
 a century, in Peru and Argentina still longer, and 
 which seems to have become chronic in some of the 
 more backward states. While Teutonic America was 
 making enormous strides in population and prosperity, 
 intestine strife checked all progress, educational and 
 material, in the Spanish lands during two generations. 
 It is to the last thirty years of the nineteenth century 
 that the development of Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and 
 Uruguay belongs. After the Latin-American coun- 
 tries had become independent, there was no more com- 
 mercial intercourse between them and the United 
 States than there had been in colonial days and no 
 more community of feeling. Much sympathy had been 
 expressed by the latter with the colonies in their 
 struggle against Spain, and the declaration made by 
 John Quincy Adams in concert with the English 
 George Canning against any interference by the Holy 
 Alliance to support the cause of monarchy in the New 
 World, was gratefully welcomed by the insurgents. 
 But no friendship between English-speaking and 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 239 
 
 Spanish-speaking men grew up, and the war of the 
 United States against Mexico in 1845, undertaken not 
 so much because there were grievances against Mex- 
 ico as from a desire to extend the area of slavery in 
 the United States, and strengthen the slave power 
 itself, exposed United States policy to suspicions that 
 sank deep into the Spanish-American mind. 
 
 From this consideration of the past relations of 
 the two American continents, let us return to the 
 divergence of their fortunes. At the time of the 
 discovery, the regions which passed under the rule of 
 Spain were richer, more advanced in the arts of life, 
 and far more populous than those whose settlement 
 began with the expeditions of Champlain and Raleigh. 
 We have no data for guessing at the population of 
 the New World either in 1500 or in 1600, but evi- 
 dently there were in Mexico and Central America far 
 more inhabitants than in all the rest of the northern 
 continent taken together. As regards South America, 
 the empire of the Incas alone probably contained 
 from nine to eleven millions of persons, a number 
 many times greater than that of all the aborigines 
 that at any one time dwelt between the Arctic Circle 
 and the Gulf of Mexico. Even in 1800 the population 
 of Mexico alone, without counting South America, 
 was far larger than that of the United States and 
 Canada. But from 1810, when the revolt of the 
 Spanish colonies began, down till 1860, the growth of 
 those colonies was slow, and in some there was even 
 retrogression. Meanwhile the United States, and 
 
240 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 latterly, Canada also, have been advancing with un- 
 exampled speed, so that now their population, about 
 108 millions, far exceeds that of all the Spanish re- 
 publics in both continents. Their hotter countries 
 were at one time more populous than the temperate ; 
 now the reverse holds. If we regard wealth, there is, 
 of course, no comparison at all between Teutonic 
 America, as it stands today, and the southern regions. 
 Yet Spain was long supposed to have got by far the 
 best parts of the New World, not so much because 
 they had tropical productiveness, as in respect of the 
 quantity of the precious metals they contained. The 
 economic change from the sixteenth century to the 
 twentieth which the progress of natural science and 
 mechanical invention has brought about can hardly 
 be better illustrated than by the changed importance 
 which coal, iron, and copper have for our time when 
 compared with that which gold and silver had in the 
 days of Charles the Fifth. 
 
 When the North American colonies separated from 
 England, they were a small nation of less than three 
 millions on the Atlantic Coast. Thence they spread 
 out over the vast spaces beyond the Alleghany Moun- 
 tains, then across the Mississippi, finally over the 
 Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, remaining one nation 
 over a territory thirty times greater than that which 
 had been actually settled at the time of the Revolu- 
 tion. The same process happened later and on a smaller 
 scale in the dominion which remained to England 
 in the north. The Canadians have spread out from 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 241 
 
 the banks of the St. Lawrence to Vancouver Island, 
 also remaining one people. Thus Teutonic America 
 now consists of two nations only. How different the 
 fate of the Spanish colonies. Scattered over a space 
 nine thousand miles long from San Francisco to Ma- 
 gellan's Straits, in days before railways existed and 
 with even steam navigation in its infancy, they did 
 not think of trying to maintain political connection 
 across vast distances, and naturally fell apart into 
 many independent states, roughly corresponding to 
 the administrative divisions of colonial days. The 
 number of these states has varied from time to time. 
 At present there are six on the North American con- 
 tinent, and ten on the South American, without count- 
 ing Portuguese Brazil and the three island republics 
 of Cuba, San Domingo, and Hayti. Out of the lands 
 that obeyed Charles the Fifth, nineteen states have 
 grown, all (except Hayti) speaking Spanish, while 
 the English-speaking peoples are but two. 
 
 They are alike in being (always excepting Canada) 
 republican in the outward forms of their governments ; 
 that is to say, there is nowhere any official called a 
 king. How far the governments of most Spanish- 
 American states are from being republican in spirit 
 and working everybody knows. To most men's minds, 
 however, the form means a great deal. So, too, in 
 Spanish America people who acquiesce in transitory 
 dictatorships would be horrified at the idea of a 
 hereditary sovereign, however constitutional. 
 
 Latin America consists of two separate state-sys- 
 
242 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 terns. One includes Mexico and the five small Central 
 American republics, two of which, Costa Rica and 
 Salvador, are peaceful within and seldom embroiled 
 abroad, while the other three have had more chequered 
 careers. Members of this group have had a good 
 deal to do with the United States, but seldom come 
 into contact with the South American countries. The 
 little state of Panama, which is virtually under the 
 protection of the United States, may now be deemed 
 a "buffer state," and no Central American republic 
 has a navy. The larger group is composed of the 
 eleven South American states. It presents some an- 
 alogies to the Europe of the eighteenth century in 
 which there were several great powers "playing the 
 great game" against one another and against the 
 smaller powers, nominally in the interest of that so- 
 called balance of power which was to prevent any one 
 from dominating the others, but often in reality for 
 the sake of appropriating territory, whenever a dy- 
 nastic pretext could be found. In this group there 
 are three great powers, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile; 
 and when these three stand together, they can keep 
 all the rest quiet, especially if (as they may usually 
 expect) the United States throws its influence into 
 the scale of peace. At present these three are toler- 
 ably friendly, and there is no reason why they should 
 not remain so. Between them there exists no longer 
 such territorial controversies as disturb the repose 
 of Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru. 
 
 Some publicists have suggested that troubles might 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 243 
 
 arise to affect South America from without if Japan 
 or China were to insist on flooding her with their 
 emigrants, and that if this were attempted gainst one 
 of the weaker South American repubUcs, either the 
 greater South American powers, or the United States, 
 or both, might be tempted to intervene. There are at 
 present some Chinese and a very few Japanese on the 
 Pacific coast, but no more were arriving in 1910. Any 
 danger of this nature seems remote and improbable. 
 
 With these three things, however, — repubHcan 
 forms, social equality, and detachment from European 
 politics, — the list of the things which the two Amer- 
 icas have in common ends. Far more numerous and 
 more important are the points in which they stand 
 contrasted. 
 
 Many causes have gone to the making of the con- 
 trast. Race and religion, climate and history have all 
 had their share. The contrast appears both in ideas 
 and in temperament. The Spanish American is more 
 proud and more sensitive to any slight. He is not so 
 punctilious in his politeness as is the Spaniard of 
 Europe, and is, indeed, in some countries a little 
 brusque or offhand in manners and speech. But he 
 feels a slight keenly; and he knows how to respect 
 the susceptibilities of his fellow-citizens. I will not 
 say that he is more pleasure-loving than the North 
 American, for the latter has developed of late years a 
 passion for amusement which would have startled his 
 Puritan ancestors. But he is less assiduous and less 
 strenuous in work, being, in this respect, unlike 
 
244 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 the immigrant who comes from Old Spain, especially 
 the Gallego, who is the soul of thrift and the steadiest 
 of toilers. He is not so fond of commercial business, 
 nor so apt for it, nor so eager to "get on'' and get 
 rich. The process of money-making has not for him 
 that fatal attraction which enslaves so many capable 
 men in the United States and (to a less degree) in 
 England and Germany, leaving them to forget the 
 things that make life worth living, till it is too late 
 in life to enjoy them. In South America things are 
 taken easily and business concerns are largely in the 
 hands of foreigners. The South American — and here 
 I include the Mexican — is an excitable being and 
 prone to express his feelings forcibly, having absorbed 
 from the Indians none of their stolid taciturnity. He 
 is generally good-natured and hospitable, and responds 
 quickly to anything said or done which shows appre- 
 ciation of his country and its ways. Private friend- 
 ship or family relationship have a great effect on his 
 conduct, and often an undue effect, for one is every- 
 where told that the difficulty of securing justice in 
 these republics lies not so much in the corruptibility 
 of judges, as in their tendency to be influenced by 
 personal partiality. Everything goes by what is called 
 favor. 
 
 These contrasts of temperament between North 
 and South Americans give rise to different tastes and 
 a different view of life, so that, broadly speaking, the 
 latter are, accordingly, not '"sympathetic" either to 
 the former or to Englishmen. To say that they are 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 245 
 
 antipathetic to the people of the United States would 
 be going too far, for there is nothing to make un- 
 friendliness, nor, indeed, is there any unfriendliness. 
 But both North Americans and Englishmen are built 
 on lines of thought and feeling so different from those 
 which belong to South Americans that the races do 
 not draw naturally together, and find it hard to appre- 
 ciate duly one another's good qualities. 
 
 The use of nicknames has a certain significance. 
 In South America a North American or Englishman 
 is popularly called a ''Gringo," as in North America 
 a person speaking Italian or Spanish or Portuguese is 
 vulgarly called a ''Dago." 
 
 Thus we return to the question when we started, 
 and ask again whether there is any sort of unity or 
 community in the two Americas. Are the peoples of 
 these continents a group by themselves, nearer to one 
 another than they are to other peoples, possessing a 
 common character, common ties of interest and feel- 
 ing? Or does the common "American name" mean 
 nothing more than mere local juxtaposition beyond 
 the Atlantic? Is it, in fact, anything more than a 
 historical accident? 
 
 The answer would seem to be that Teutonic Amer- 
 icans and Spanish Americans have nothing in com- 
 mon except two names, the name American and the 
 name Republican. In essentials they differ as widely 
 as either of them does from any other group of peo- 
 ples, and far more widely than citizens of the United 
 States differ from Englishmen, or than Chileans and 
 
246 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Argentines differ from Spaniards and Frenchmen. 
 
 Nevertheless, juxtaposition has induced contact, 
 though a contact which we shall find to have been 
 rather political than intellectual or social. It is 
 worth while to examine the attitude of each to the 
 other. 
 
 When the Spanish colonies revolted against the 
 Crown of Spain, the sympathy of the United States 
 went out to them profusely, and continued with them 
 throughout the war and long after. Their victories 
 were acclaimed as victories won for freedom and for 
 America, and children were called after the name of 
 Simon Bolivar, whose exploits in Venezuela had early 
 fixed upon him the attention of the world, and have 
 given him a fame in excess of his merits. 
 
 The struggling colonists were cheered by this as 
 by the similar sympathy that came to them from Eng- 
 land. They were, as already observed, grateful for 
 the support given them by the diplomacy of Can- 
 ning and John Quincy Adams, and when they framed 
 their constitutions, took that of the United States for 
 their model. Their regard for the United States, and 
 confidence in its purposes, never quite recovered the 
 blow given by the M.exican War of 1846 and the an- 
 nexation of California; but this change of sentiment 
 did not affect the patronage and good-will of the 
 United States, whose people, and for a time the Eng- 
 lish Whigs also, manifested their touching faith that 
 countries called republics must needs be graced by re- 
 publican virtues and were entitled to favor whenever 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 247 
 
 they came into collision with monarchies. This tendency 
 of mind, natural in the days when the monarchies of 
 continental Europe were more or less despotic, has 
 begun to die down of late years, as educated men have 
 come to look more at things than at names, and as 
 United States statesmen found themselves from time 
 to time annoyed by the perversity or shiftiness of 
 military dictators ruling in some Spanish-American 
 countries. The great nation has, however, gen- 
 erally borne such provocation with patience, abusing 
 its power less than the rulers of the little ones abuse 
 their weakness. For many years after the achieve- 
 ment by the Spanish colonies of their independence, 
 a political tie between them and the United States 
 was found in the declared intention of the latter to 
 resist any attempt by European Powers either to over- 
 throw republican government in any American state 
 or to attempt annexation of its territory. So long as 
 any such action was feared from Europe, the pro- 
 tection thus promised was welcome, and the United 
 States felt a corresponding interest in their clients. 
 But circumstances alter cases. Today, when appre- 
 hensions of the old kind have vanished, and when 
 some of the South American states feel themselves 
 already powerful, one is told that they have begun to 
 regard the situation with different eyes. ''Since there 
 are no longer rain-clouds coming up from the east, 
 why should a friend, however well-intentioned, hold 
 an umbrella over us? We are quite able to do that 
 for ourselves if necessary." in a very recent bo^jX 
 
248 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 by one of the most acute and thoughtful of North 
 American travelers, there occurs a passage which 
 presents this view: 
 
 ''Many a Chileno and Argentino resents the idea 
 of our Monroe Doctrine applying in any sense to his 
 country and declares that we had better keep it at 
 home. He regards it as only another sign of our over- 
 weening national conceit ; and on mature consideration 
 it does seem as though the justification for the doc- 
 trine both in its original and in its present form 
 had passed. Europe is no longer ruled by despots 
 who desire to crush the liberties of their subjects. 
 As is frequently remarked, England has a more demo- 
 cratic government than the United States. In all the 
 leading countries of Europe the people have practi- 
 cally as much to say about the government as they 
 have in America. There is not the slightest danger 
 that any European tyrant will attempt to enslave the 
 weak republics of this hemisphere. Furthermore, 
 such republics as Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, 
 Chile and Peru, no more need our Monroe Doctrine 
 to keep them from being robbed of their territory by 
 European nations, than does Italy or Spain. If it be 
 true that some of the others, like the notoriously 
 lawless group in Central America, need to be looked 
 after by their neighbors, let us amend our outgrown 
 Monroe Doctrine, as has already been suggested by 
 one of our writers on International Law, so as to 
 include in the police force of the Western Hemisphere 
 those who have been able to practice self-control." 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 249 
 
 As regards the United States there is a balance 
 between attraction and suspicion. The South Ameri- 
 cans desire to be on good terms with her, and their 
 wisest statesmen feel the value of her diplomatic ac- 
 tion in trying to preserve peace between those of 
 their republics whose smouldering enmities often 
 threaten to burst into flame. More than once in re- 
 cent years this value has been tested. On the other 
 hand, as has already been observed, they are jealous 
 of their own dignity, and quick to resent anything 
 bordering on a threat, even when addressed not to 
 themselves, but to some other republic. It is as the 
 disinterested, the absolutely disinterested and unself- 
 ish, advocate of peace and good-will, that the United 
 States will have most influence in the Western Hemi- 
 sphere, and that influence, gently and tactfully used, 
 may be of incalculable service to mankind. 
 
 The matters in which these republics are wont to 
 imitate or draw lessons from the United States are 
 education, especially scientific and technical education, 
 and engineering. Of the influence upon their consti- 
 tutions of the North American Federal Constitution I 
 have already spoken. Their publicists continue to 
 follow with attention the decisions given upon the 
 application of its principles to new conditions as they 
 arise, and attach value to the opinions of North 
 American international jurists. Otherwise, there is 
 little intellectual affinity, and still less temperamental 
 sympathy. The South Americans do not feel that the 
 name "American"^ involves any closer community or 
 
250 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 co-operation with the great Teutonic republic of the 
 north than it does with any other people or peoples. 
 They are just as much a race or group of peoples 
 standing by themselves as if the lands they occupy 
 had been that entirely detached continent out in the 
 southern seas, supposed to lie far away from all other 
 continents, to which the name of Amerigo Vespucci 
 was first applied. 
 
 With whom, then, have the Spanish Americans 
 real affinities of mental and moral constitution ? With 
 the peoples of southern Europe. If any one likes 
 to call them the "Latin" peoples, there is no harm in 
 the term so long as it does not seem to ignore the fact 
 that there exist the greatest differences between Ital- 
 ians and Frenchmen and Spaniards, for whoever has 
 studied the history and the literature of those peo- 
 ples knows that it is only the existence of still more 
 marked differences between them and the Teutonic 
 peoples that makes them seem to resemble one an- 
 other. 
 
 It might be supposed that the relations of the 
 Spanish Americans would be most close with their 
 motherland, Old Spain. But these relations are not 
 intimate, and have never been so since the War of 
 Independence. Even in those old colonial days, when 
 the ports were closed to all but Spanish vessels, in 
 order to stop all trade, export and import, except 
 with the mother country, the days when Englishmen 
 and Dutchmen were detested as heretics, and French- 
 men as dangerous rivals, there was an undercurrent 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 251 
 
 of anti-Spanish feeling. It was chiefly due to the 
 practice of reserving all well-paid posts for natives 
 of Spain. The criollos, as they were called, men born 
 in the colonies, were naturally envious of the strang- 
 ers, and resented their own exclusion and disparage- 
 ment. They suffered in many ways, economic as well 
 as sentimental, both from laws issued in Spain and 
 from authority exercised on the spot by men from 
 Europe who did not share their sentiments and flouted 
 their local opinion. Accordingly, when the separation 
 came, there was less sense of the breaking of a family 
 tie than there had been among the North American 
 colonists in the earlier stages of their revolution. 
 This antagonism to Spanish government was, of 
 course, accentuated and fenvenomed by the long dura- 
 tion of the struggle for independence which in Peru 
 lasted for fifteen years, and in the course of which 
 many severities were exercised by the governors and 
 generals who fought for the Crown. As for the In- 
 dians, the oppressions they suffered and the memory 
 of the hideous cruelties with which the rebellion of 
 Tupac Amaru was suppressed, made the name of 
 Spain hateful to them. After the flag of Castile had 
 ceased to fly anywhere on the continent, and the last 
 Spanish officials had departed, there were few occa- 
 sions for communication of any kind. Spain herself 
 was in a depressed and distracted state for many 
 years after 1825. There is today little trade between 
 her and the New World, nor is there, except to Mex- 
 ico and Argentina, any large Spanish immigration. 
 
252 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Where it does exist, it is valued, for the men who 
 come from northern Spain (as most settlers do) are 
 of excellent quality. Family ties between colonists 
 and the motherland have become few or loose. Sel- 
 dom in Spanish America does one hear any one speak 
 of the place his ancestors came from, as one con- 
 stantly hears North Americans talk of the English 
 village where are the graves of their forefathers. 
 Seldom do South Americans or Mexicans seem to 
 visit Spain, either to see her ancient cities and her 
 superb pictures or to study her present economic prob- 
 lems. They do not feel as if she had anything to 
 teach them, and her modern literature has apparently 
 little message for them. In all these respects the con- 
 trast between the position of Spain towards South 
 America and that of Britain towards North America 
 strikes an Englishman with surprise. If that revival 
 in Spanish literature and art, of which there have 
 recently been signs, should continue, and if Spanish 
 commerce should develop, the position may change, 
 for the tie of language will always have its impor- 
 tance. 
 
 I may add in this connection that among the edu- 
 cated classes of Spanish America one finds few signs 
 of interest in the history of Old Spain which the 
 North Americans take in the history of England. 
 The former have no link of free institutions brought 
 from the old soil to flourish in a new one. Is it be- 
 cause the Conquistadores were Spaniards, or because 
 many of their deeds shock modern consciences, or be- 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 253 
 
 cause it is felt that to honor them would be an offense 
 to Indian sentiment, faint as that sentiment is in Mex- 
 ico and still fainter in Peru, that there are no statues 
 or other honorific memorials of these brilliant and ter- 
 rible figures? Even the statue of Queen Isabella the 
 Catholic, which stood in Havana, was shipped back 
 to Spain, after the independence of Cuba had been de- 
 clared in 1899. There is no montmient to Cortez in 
 Mexico, nor to Pizarro in Lima, nor (so far as I 
 know) any statue of any of his companions except 
 one of Pedro de Valdivia, set up on the hill of Santa 
 Lucia in Santiago, where he built his fort and founded 
 the capital of Chile. On the other hand, Cuahtemoc 
 or Cuatemozin, the last of the Aztec kings, has a statue 
 in the park between the city of Mexico and the castle 
 palace of Chapultepec, and the name of Caupolican, 
 the Araucanian chieftain whom the Spaniards shot 
 to death with arrows, like St. Sebastian, is about to be 
 commemorated by a charitable foundation at Temuco 
 in Chile. 
 
 Between Italy and Latin America there never were 
 any direct relations except, of course, ecclesiastical 
 relations with Rome, until in recent years Italian 
 immigrants began to pour into Argentina and south- 
 ern Brazil. As many of these go backwards and for- 
 wards, and as swift lines of ocean steamers have been 
 established between Buenos Aires and the ports of 
 Italy, there is now a good deal of intercourse, but 
 this has not so far led to any closer connection either 
 political or intellectual. The Italian immigrants be- 
 
254 SOUTH AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 long almost entirely to the scantily educated classes, 
 and have brought with them little that is Italian except 
 their language and their habits of industry. 
 
 But are the South Americans really to be classed 
 among south or west European peoples? May they 
 not be — if one can speak of them as a whole, ignor- 
 ing the differences between Chileans, Argentines, and 
 Brazilians — a new thing in the world, a racial group 
 with a character all its own? 
 
 This is their own view of themselves. It would 
 need more knowledge than I possess either to deny 
 or to affirm it. They are all, except Argentines and 
 Uruguayans, largely Indian or (in Brazil) African 
 in blood. Even the Uruguayans and Argentines strike 
 one as differing at least as much from Spaniards as 
 North Americans differ from Englishmen. They give 
 the impression of being still nations in the making, 
 whose type or types, both the common type of all 
 Spanish America and the special types of each nation, 
 will grow more sharp and definite as the years roll 
 on and as life becomes for them more rich and more 
 intense. 
 
 When this happens and the world of a.d. 2000 
 recognizes a definite South American type (or types), 
 may there be thence expected any distinctively new 
 contribution to the world's stock of thought, of lit- 
 erature, of art? Each nation is in the long run judged 
 and valued by the rest of the world more for such 
 contributions than for anything else. There is a sense 
 in which Shakespeare is greater glory to England than 
 
THE TWO AMERICAS 255 
 
 the empire of India. Homer and Vergil, Plato and 
 Tacitus are a gift made by the ancient world to all 
 the ages, more precious, because more enduring, than 
 any achievements in war, or government, or commerce. 
 
 That there is vitality and virility in the Spanish- 
 American peoples appears from the number of strong, 
 bold, forceful men who have figured in their history, 
 including one, the Mexican Juarez, of pure, and many 
 of mixed, Indian blood. Few, indeed, have shown 
 that higher kind of greatness which lies in the union 
 of large constructive ideas with decisive energy in 
 action, the Napoleonic or Bismarckian gift. In most 
 of the republics, political conditions have been so un- 
 stable as to give little scope for constructive states- 
 manship. Still there is no want of vigor, and it is 
 something to have produced in San Martin one truly 
 heroic figure in whom brilliant military and political 
 talents were united to a lofty and disinterested char- 
 acter. 
 
 If Latin America has not yet produced any thinker 
 or poet or artist even of the second rank, this will not 
 surprise any one who knows what was her condition 
 before the War of Independence and what it has been 
 from that time till now. Could any one of those an- 
 cient sages whom Dante heard in Limbo, speaking 
 with voices sweet and soft, have been brought back 
 to earth and permitted to survey Europe as it was in 
 the welter of the tenth century, such a one might 
 have thought that art and letters, as well as freedom 
 and order, had forever vanished from the earth.^ 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF CHAPTERS 
 
 a. Compiled by the editor. 
 
 b, Compiled by the editor. 
 
 Cj Robert E. Speare's South American Problems, and 
 Thomas C. Dawson's The South American 
 Republics, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
 
 d, Thomas C. Dawson's South American Republics. 
 
 e, Albert Edwards' Panama, published by the Mac- 
 
 millan Co., New York. 
 
 /, Albert Edwards' Panama. 
 
 gy Dawson's South American Republics. 
 
 h, Robert E. Speare and Charles M. Pepper. 
 
 i, Charles M. Pepper's From Panama to Patagonia, 
 A. C. MbClurg, Chicago. 
 
 /, Charles M. Pepper, From Panama to Patagonia. 
 
 ky Adapted from Pepper's From Panama to Pata- 
 gonia. 
 
 I, George Clemenceau's South America Today, G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, New York. 
 
 m, Clemenceau's South America Today. 
 
 n, From Albert Hale's The South American, The 
 Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis. 
 
 0, Hiram Bingham, in Popular Science Monthly, 
 December, 1910. 
 
 pj Honorable James Bryce. 
 
SBV