the clouds into the mountains. Massive dams and reservoirs were erected to collect the floods that came from the melting snows, and the water was taken to localities which were rainless. Under these conditions, in this great struggle for existence, the Incas established and sustained a Government—the first in which the equal rights of every human being were recognized—and worshipped a being whose attributes were similar to those of the Christian God. The great sea, breaking with ceaseless thunder upon the rocky coast, impressed the dweller in the desert with reverence and awe, and he recognized by an equally natural logic that the sun was the source of light and happiness. Hence these two objects, the sun and the sea, were personified, and were seated upon the thrones in the magnificent pantheons of the Incas. The race which conquered them came with dripping swords and lust for plunder. Skilled in the arts of peace, but powerless in war, there was no adequate resistance, and the blood-and-gold-thirsty Pizarro rode up this valley on a mission of murder, rapine, and destruction. The towns stand as he left them, with not even an echo to break the silence. Occasionally the Spaniards built new places of residence to utilize the improvements of the Incas, but in 1882 the Chilian army came down the valley, and treated the Peruvians as Pizarro had treated the race which he found here.
A visit to the Incas’ cemeteries, where millions of bodies are buried in the drifting sand, gives a clew to the extent of the original population, as well as to their arts, religion, and customs. The dead were preserved after the custom of ancient Egypt, and a few moments’ toil with a shovel will disclose mummies whose features are perfectly preserved, whose eyes are petrified, whose fingers are clasped with rings, and who are surrounded with such implements and utensils as those who buried them thought they would need in the other world. As the soldier takes his blanket and the cooking-kit, his food and his portable treasures, so did the doctrine of future life cause the dead Incas to be equipped for their departure from one world to another. In this rainless region, protected by the magnetic sand, nothing can decay, and the contents of the Inca graves are as well preserved as if their age were counted by days instead of centuries. Wood, vegetable, and flesh petrify, fabrics and articles of stone and clay are preserved. There is no moisture to produce decay of the bodies, and there are no insects to consume them. The contents of the sand-hills are protected from every form of destruction, and their extent has never been measured.
It is still fashionable to go on resurrection expeditions to the Inca burying-grounds for mummies, and for the articles that were placed in their graves. In each grave are found articles of decoration, as well as the utensils required by the spirits to set up house-keeping in the happy land—rings and other ornaments of gold and silver, cups and platters of both metals made in quaint designs, copper articles, strings of beads, weaving and cooking apparatus, water-jugs, weapons of war, and other curiosities that interest antiquarians nowadays. Professor Ramondi, a distinguished French scientist in Lima, has a collection of Inca relics for which he was offered two hundred thousand dollars in gold by the British Museum. Under the patronage of the Government he is writing a voluminous work on the antiquities of Peru, three volumes of which have been published, and five more are yet to come.
The most curious things in Peru are the mummies’ eyes—petrified eyeballs—which are usually to be found in the graves, if one is careful in digging. The Incas had a way of preserving the eyes of the dead from decay, some process which modern science cannot comprehend, and the eyeballs make very pretty settings for pins. They are yellow, and hold light like an opal. It is an accepted theory among scientists, however, that before the burial of their mummies the Incas replaced the natural eye with that of the squid, or cuttle-fish, and that these beautiful things are shams.
“The Callao painter” is something that skippers dread. Its brush is the breeze, and its pigments are in the air. It comes and goes without premonition, and its work is usually done in the night. A vessel will enter the harbor of Callao with its timbers as white as the virgin snow, and its planking as clean as holy-stone and elbow-grease can make them. The disgusted sailors may awaken in the morning and find everything covered with a brown, nasty film, which penetrates the cabin, and even the battened hatchways of the vessel, filling the air with a repulsive odor, and clinging to the wood-work until it is scraped off. It looks like a chocolate-colored frost, but does not melt in the sun. When it is damp one can remove it easily, but if it once dries it sticks like paint, and its tenacity is not easily overcome. The origin and source of this mysterious and aggravating artist is unknown, but it is peculiar to that harbor. Nowhere else is the phenomenon noticed, or at least ship-masters who have sailed the world over say that Callao is the only place where a ship can be painted inside and outside in a single night. Of course there are theories about it which may or may not hold good, and over them scientific minds have argued, and will argue interminably. Some say that the guano is forced up by vapors into the atmosphere, while others assert that it is a species of volcanic dust driven through the water by subterranean forces. However, the only point on which all agree is that it is a repulsive phenomenon, and has been the cause of more profanity than anything else which seamen encounter on the west coast. It is never noticed on land, but only in the harbor, and for a few miles up and down the shore.
The glory of Callao as a shipping centre has departed. Where formerly there were a hundred vessels in the harbor, there are only half a dozen now. The lack of trade in Peru, the poverty of the people, the enormous tariffs imposed by the Government, and the exorbitant port dues charged, have driven commerce away. Two years ago the Government in its poverty and need of funds was willing to dispose of everything it could control for spot cash, and practically sold the harbor at Callao to a French company, to whom the docks and anchorage have been leased for a term of years at two hundred thousand dollars a year. This company has the right to tax shipping to any extent it pleases, and has established a system of rules so oppressive as to drive most of the vessels away.
From Callao to Valparaiso the coast is a panorama of desolation—a constant succession of bleak and barren cliffs, with not a green or lovely thing for fifteen hundred miles. On one side is the Pacific Ocean, with its great swells sweeping almost around the globe, as regular and constant as the throbbings of the human pulse. On the other side rise the impenetrable Andes in a range whose altitude averages fifteen thousand feet, and whose peaks tower twenty and twenty-two thousand feet above the sea. Between the ocean and the mountains for a thousand miles, with a varying width from twenty to fifty miles, lies a strip of drifting sand, which no rivers water, and where rain never falls. All the water used by the inhabitants is taken from the ocean, that for mechanical purposes being used in its natural condition, and that for food being condensed into steam, and purged of its salt by machinery. There is not a well or a spring along the coast, and drinking-water is an article of merchandise, like ice or flour, costing about seven cents a gallon to the consumers.
Some distance below Callao, upon a great rock which rises from the sea, and shows an unbroken surface to the western sun, is carved the image of a candelabra—an eight-horned candlestick—about one hundred feet long and fifty feet across from end to end of the lower arms. The execution is perfect, and it is said to be carved in lines about a foot deep and a yard wide. When and how the picture came there no one can tell. The oldest sailor on the coast says that the oldest man he knew when a boy could tell nothing of its origin. They call it “The Miraculous Candlestick,” and pious Catholics say that St. James dropped it when he came to Peru and placed himself at the head of the Spaniards, at the time they were driving the Incas out of their ancient homes.
In the interior of Peru, upon a similar rock, is the imprint of a human foot as long as a pikestaff, which is supposed to mark where the Apostle alighted when he dropped down from heaven to aid in the subjugation of the heathen and the triumph of the Cross. At any rate, like the foot of St. James, this image of the Holy Candlestick, if made by human labor, must have cost months and months of toil at a time when such things were needed to impress the Indians with a reverence for the Church of Rome and the doctrines it taught. Sometimes, if the wind blows seaward, the carving is covered by the drifting sand, when the padre of the nearest village goes down with a lot of Indians to dig it out.
The first port of importance on the coast south of Callao is the town of Mollendo (pronounced Molyendo), the western terminus of the railway that furnishes means of communication for Bolivia and the interior of Peru to the sea. It was built in 1876 by Henry Meiggs for the Peruvian Government, at a cost of forty-four million dollars—an enormous average of one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars per mile; for it is only three hundred and twenty-five miles long. Its western terminus is the highest point now reached by steam, being something over fourteen thousand five hundred feet above the sea, although the Oroya road will be higher when it reaches the Cerro del Pasco mines. No other railway in the world can show an equal amount of excavation or such massive embankments, but the Oroya road has more tunnels. The line is now under the management of a Boston man, Mr. Thorndike, and everything is conducted upon the United States plan. Along the side of the track, for a distance of eighty-five miles, is an eight-inch iron pipe, for the purpose of supplying the stations with water, as there is none on the coast; and it is the longest aqueduct in the world, coming from springs in the mountains, seven thousand feet above the sea, to the port of Mollendo.
Across a hot, lifeless, desolate desert the railway runs one hundred and seven miles to the city of Arequipa—the name appropriately signifying “a place of rest;” and it is one of the oldest, most celebrated, and beautiful towns in Peru, situated in a small oasis in the desert, rich in its agricultural resources, and surrounded by valuable mines. Just behind the city is as magnificent and imposing a mountain as can be found anywhere in the world—the volcano Misti, 18,538 feet high, and covered with eternal snow. The city was founded by Pizarro in 1540, and has always been second to Lima in size and importance, being the political as well as the commercial capital of the Southern provinces, and the seat of a university which for nearly three hundred years has been the most famous upon the west coast in South America, and has
graduated the most eminent scholars and statesmen in the history of Peru.
Crossing the Paso de Arricroo between the greatest cluster of peaks in the Andes, south of Quito, the railway reaches Vuicarrago, one hundred miles from Arequipa, the highest town in the world, where the barometer in the plaza shows an elevation of 14,443 feet. The ascent to it is usually made by stages, the traveller taking two or three days for it, so as to accustom himself gradually to the altitude; for the sudden change from tide-water to this enormous elevation—a distance of only two hundred and seven miles—generally brings on that distressing disease sirroche. It is always painful, and often dangerous. The first symptom is numbness of the limbs, then dizziness and nausea; the blood bursts from the ears and nose, the lips crack and bleed, a feeling of faintness makes it impossible to stand, and there is no cure but absolute quiet or a return to a lower altitude. During the construction of the railway a great many men died from the effects of the dreaded sirroche, which is often followed by a sudden and quickly fatal mountain fever. Few people escape the ailment, and no animal but the llama and others of that species native to the mountain regions can survive. At every town along the road droves of llamas can be seen which have been driven in from the mountain settlements laden with furs and skins, or with ore from the mines. The llama is the only beast of burden in the Upper Andes, and is docile, patient, sure-footed, and speedy. It can carry a burden of one hundred pounds, which is fastened to a pack-saddle, and when that weight is exceeded will lie down and refuse to move until the surplus is removed. The llama is about as large as a one-year-old colt or a good-sized black-tail buck. It has a heavy coat of wool; but those that are used for transportation purposes are seldom sheared.
The vicuña, a sort of gazelle, a gentle, timid animal, is found in large numbers in the interior of the Andes, particularly in Bolivia. It is fawn-colored, has long, soft, silken hair, with a peculiar gloss that resembles what are known as “changeable
silks,” and changes color in different lights. In the old Inca days, before the Spanish invasion, centuries ago, the vicuña was the royal ermine of the Inca kings, and no one but the Imperial family and nobles of a certain rank was allowed to wear it. The animal was also protected by some sacred tradition, and was allowed to go unharmed in the forests, where it accumulated in great numbers; but the Spanish invaders, regardless of all rights, human and divine, hunted it down, and slaughtered it for food. The Indians expected that some severe penalty would be visited upon the invaders for destroying and eating the sacred animal, and lost faith when they escaped divine retribution. Now vicuña skins are very scarce and are expensive, and the natives attempt to
impose upon strangers who seek them robes made of the skins of guanaco kids, killed and skinned the moment they are born.
The guanaco is supposed to be a cross of the vicuña and the llama, and is next in value and beauty to the vicuña. If the kid is killed the moment it is born the hair has the same color, and is about as fine as the genuine vicuña, but is not so long or so luscious. This animal is numerous, easily domesticated, and breeds rapidly. It is almost as plentiful in South America as the goat, and is valuable for its skin and flesh. The body is deep at the breast, but narrow at the loins, and is covered with long, soft, very fine hair, which is usually a pale yellow, except under the belly, where it is a beautiful snowy white. It has many of the characteristics of the North American deer, being very swift-footed and graceful, combined with the strength and endurance of the llama, being able to carry a load of from seventy-five to one hundred and twenty-five pounds for a long distance. The flesh resembles that of the antelope, but is not as juicy as venison. The skin is invaluable to the Indians, as it furnishes the material of which their garments are made. Occasionally in the stomach of a guanaco is found what is called a “bezoar” stone, a magical sort of affair, which will cure any kind of disease if carried in the pocket. Large numbers of guanaco skins are sent to Europe, where they are used for carriage robes, for lining coats and cloaks, for trimming, and for other purposes to which fine fur is adapted. Large quantities of alpaca and also llama wool are exported from Chili and Peru; some of it comes to the United States.
The alpaca is a sort of cross between the llama and the sheep. The llamas, alpacas, and guanacos have a peculiar way of defending themselves. If abused or made angry by teasing, they will turn upon their assailants, and squirt a pint or so of saliva, like a shower-bath, from between their teeth, being able to throw it with great force five or six feet. If this saliva gets into the mouth or eyes, or upon any place on the flesh where the skin is broken, it is poisonous, and inflammation sets in at once. It is said that men frequently die of blood-poisoning from this cause, and a native will keep clear of the nose of a vicious guanaco as a colored person will avoid the heels of an Irish mule.
Traversing the pass of Alto del Crucero, 14,660 feet above the level of the sea, and the highest altitude reached by any railway in the world, the road descends into the great basin of Titicaca, the heart of the Andes, stretching northward and southward between the two great chains of the Cordilleras for fifteen hundred miles, almost level, and twelve thousand feet above the ocean. Here in majestic splendor lies Lake Titicaca, one of whose islands was the Eden of the Incas, the birthplace of that prehistoric empire whose civilization has been the wonder and mystery of centuries. Here Manco
Capac (the Adam) and Mama Ocllo (the Eve) of Inca tradition, the Children of the Sun, arose like Aphrodite, and bearing a golden rod, marched down the valley until they reached the place where Cuzco now stands, and there commanded the Indians to erect a city, the seat of an Imperial dynasty which lasted a thousand years, and possessed a wealth and an industry that had no measure. Around the lake stand the mighty temples and palaces, erected of blocks of stone as large as those of the Pyramids, quarried and conveyed by means that still remain a mystery, and will never be known. These monuments of an extinct civilization, these evidences of art and industry that surpass any prehistoric architecture on the earth, are standing now in mute impressiveness, mocking decay, as they taunted the conquistadors who tried to overthrow them. But the Spaniards stripped them of their treasures, murdered their inmates, and destroyed everything that could not withstand their power.
The riches of Peru and Bolivia have been their curse from the time when Pizarro invaded the continent to the plunder of their nitrate deposits by Chili. It is true that few countries have suffered from such an evil, but it is nevertheless a fact that the wealth of these republics has been the cause of their disasters. For three hundred years the people sat with folded hands, and enjoyed the profits of the development of their natural resources by foreigners, and now, stripped of them, sit impoverished, mourning the departure of their prosperity.
Just how much plunder Pizarro got in his raids upon the Incas is not known, and cannot be estimated, but millions went to the King of Spain as his twenty per cent.; the Catholic Church got millions more as her share; Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, and other pirates got away with an immense amount of gold and silver; and the quantity expended in the erection of churches, convents, monasteries, and palaces by the viceroys is incalculable. History asserts that ninety millions of dollars’ worth of precious metals was torn from the Inca temples, and the faithful subjects of Atahualpa filled the room in which he was imprisoned with gold, in their endeavor to satisfy the avarice of the invaders. Prescott and Robertson and other historians tell fabulous stories of the wealth of the Incas, and we know it was enough to restore financial prosperity to Spain, and to give every cutthroat who came to the coast a fortune.
The amount of money made by Peru from her guano deposits cannot be estimated any more accurately than by the plunder stolen from the Incas. The exports have continued from 1846 to the present day, and the annual shipments have amounted to millions of tons, valued between twenty and thirty million dollars, and this to the benefit of a State whose population has never reached two millions, and three-fourths of which were Indians who had no share in its profits. The exhausted lands of the Old World required this manure to revive them, and their owners paid high prices for what cost Peru nothing. The result of this revenue was the continuation of the extravagance among the people which was practised by their forefathers when the mountains poured out streams of silver. It was an epidemic of riches, and the Government of Peru, instead of wisely hoarding its source of wealth and protecting it, plunged into a system of reckless expenditure, until the end of the war found its revenues cut off and the country burdened with a debt of two hundred and fifty million dollars which it never can pay.
But even if Peru and Bolivia have been robbed of all their guano, the deposits of nitrate of soda in the deserts along their coasts would have made them rich again; but Chili has stolen these also. The whole coast, from the twenty-third to the twenty-fifth parallel of latitude, appears to be one solid mass of this valuable mineral, fit for a hundred different uses, and worth in the market from forty to sixty dollars a ton. It was discovered in 1833 by an accident, the hero of the discovery being a forlorn old Englishman by the name of George Smith. There is no telling how much lies in the mines, but it is the opinion of those who have explored the country that at the present rate of excavation it will take eight or ten centuries to dig it away.
Under the sand of this desert, which drifts before the wind like snow, nature has laid the bed of nitrate. No one knows how it was formed, and man has not attempted to measure its extent. The sand is first shovelled off, and then a crust of sun-baked clay from four to twelve inches thick is removed. This discloses a bed of white material that looks like melting marble, full of moisture, and is as soft as cheese. The strata is often four or five feet thick, and averages two or three feet. It is broken up by crow-bars and shovelled into carts, then taken to crushers, which grind it up into particles as large as pebbles. These are lifted by elevators into great vats, where it is boiled until dissolved in ordinary sea-water. Then the solution is run off into a series of shallow iron vats exposed to the air, which, being moistureless, and heated by constant sunshine, causes rapid evaporation. The salt from the water mixed with the nitrate causes crystallization, and after a certain period of exposure to the air and sun the vats are found to be covered upon the bottom and sides with white sparkling crystals, like alabaster, under a yellowish liquor. This liquor is carefully drawn off, for it is even more valuable than the saltpetre, and is conducted by pipes to another crucible, where it is boiled and chemically treated until it produces the iodine of commerce, useful for a hundred medical and chemical purposes, and costing as much per ounce as the saltpetre brings per hundred-weight. The liquor having been withdrawn, the saltpetre is shovelled upon drying-boards, where it is exposed to the sun for a while, then put into bags and shipped to Europe and America. It is graded like wheat and corn, according to quality. The highest grade goes to the powder-mills, the next to the chemical works, and the third to the fertilizer factories, where it is made into manure. The iodine is packed in little casks, and covered with green hides, which shrink with drying until they are as tight as a drum-head, and keep out moisture. It was these nitrate of soda deposits that caused the late war between Chili and Peru.
After the independence of South America, when the several republics were being divided, Bolivia was given a little strip of land between Peru and Chili in order that she might have a pathway to the sea. It lay between the twenty-third and the twenty-fifth parallels, and was so recognized on all the maps of Chili, as well as those of other nations. It was a barren, waterless desert, worthless in every respect, as was originally supposed, but some years ago the rich deposits of silver and nitrate of soda were discovered. When their value became known, Chili suddenly ascertained that under some ancient right this strip of territory belonged to her, and kindly offered to divide it with Bolivia in such a way as to leave the silver and soda on the Chilian side. Bolivia of course resisted, and having a treaty of offence and defence with Peru, called upon the latter nation to assist in the defence of her rights. This was the real cause of the war. The ostensible excuse for it was that Bolivia charged an export duty of ten cents a hundred-weight on nitrate exported. This the Chilians deemed excessive, and sent a fleet to defend her citizens in refusing to pay it. Now that she has secured the territory and the mines, she charges one dollar and twenty-five cents a hundred-weight export duty on the same article at the same place, and thinks people impertinent when they complain. The results of the war are that Bolivia has not only lost her seaports and her nitrate, but Peru has lost all her guano and a large portion of her richest territory, while Chili is so much the richer.
At one time Peru might have prevented the invasion of her territory, and caused the entire army of Chili to perish, but the instincts of noble generosity and the unwritten law of common humanity were observed. If Peru had been as merciless as Chili the struggle would have been shortened and the result would have been different. Along the coast from Guayaquil, Ecuador, to Coquimbo, Chili, a distance of more than two thousand miles, stretches a desert on which a drop of rain never fell. Occasionally a stream, born of a union between the burning sun and the eternal snows of the Andes, finds its way to the sea, bringing nourishment to the soil and making a little oasis where men can live. But unless the water-supply is very great—and it is only so occasionally—the stream is swallowed by the thirsty sands and absorbed by the atmosphere, which is so dry that nothing ever decays, and causes more rapid evaporation than is known elsewhere. In this desert lie the nitrate mines, and towns have sprung up around them the inhabitants of which are supplied with water by artificial means. Salt water is turned into fresh by means of enormous condensers, and a supply is kept in vast iron reservoirs, from which it is sold to the people at a price about the same as we pay for beer. At the saloons one can get a glass of filtered ice-water for five cents; at the reservoirs a bucket of warm, nasty stuff is sold for ten.
If you ask a learned man why it never rains there, he will say that the clouds are deprived of all their moisture when they cross the mountains from the eastward, and when they come up from the westward ocean are at once sucked dry by the heat that radiates from the sun-baked sands. Occasionally along the coast are found immense cemeteries in which the Incas buried their dead; and the contents of the graves are as well preserved as if their age were counted by weeks instead of centuries. The most interesting and extensive of the burial grounds is at Pachacamac, south of Lima, in Peru, where millions of bodies lie, often in three stratas, and very generally in two. Near this place was the famous temple dedicated to Pachacamac, the chief divinity of the Incas, and whom they acknowledged as the creator of the world. It was the Mecca of that day, and each believer was expected to visit it at least once in his life. The pilgrims came from all parts of the empire, bringing votive-offerings, which made the temple very rich; and Pizarro is said to have obtained a vast quantity of plunder from it. Around the temple arose a large city of monasteries to accommodate the priests and devotees, and inns to shelter the pilgrims; but the place is in ruins now.
At one of these towns the whole army of Chili was concentrated—forty thousand men—preparing for the invasion of Peru. The Peruvian gun-boat Huascar (pronounced Wascar) came into the harbor, and with a few shots might have destroyed the reservoirs and the condensing establishments, and left these forty thousand men to die of thirst, for there was no fresh water within two hundred and fifty miles of them. But the commander of the Huascar had a heart. He was a noble, generous German—Admiral Grau—and he sent word to the Chillano commander that he presented his army with their lives. He said he would not attack defenceless men, and sailed off in pursuit of some Chillano gun-boats which had run away when they saw the Huascar coming.
The present terminus of the Bolivia railroad is at Puno, a little town of five thousand inhabitants, at an elevation of twelve thousand five hundred feet; but it is proposed to extend it farther up the valley, through another pass of the Andes, and then down the eastern slopes to the head of navigation on the Amazon—neither a difficult nor an expensive undertaking. An expedition has recently started from Buenos Ayres to make an exploration from the head of navigation on the Paraguay River into the mountains of Bolivia, for the purpose of constructing a cart-road, and ultimately a railroad to connect the mining regions of the latter republic with the Atlantic ports of the continent, and great hopes are entertained of its success. The little town of Puno owes its origin to the rich mines that surround it, and some of them are producing generously. It has a small amount of other commerce in hides and wool, coca-leaves, and cinchona. It is the centre of the alpaca wool trade, and considerable is exported.
To reach La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, from Puno one must cross Lake Titicaca, sailing its full length, and, reaching its southern shores, mount a mule and ride twenty-five miles along the ancient highway of the Incas, a wonderful road, nearly four thousand miles long, built eight hundred years or more ago, and still in a good state of preservation, notwithstanding the neglect of the Spaniards to keep it in repair.
Perhaps the most glorious monuments of the civilization of the Incas were the public or royal roads, extending from the capital to the remotest parts of the empire. Their remains are still most impressive, both from their extent and the amount of labor necessarily involved in their construction, and in contemplating them we know not which to admire most—the scope of their projectors, the power and constancy of the Incas who carried them to a completion, or the patience of the people who constructed them under all the obstacles resulting from the topography of the country and from imperfect means of execution. They built these roads in deserts, among moving sands reflecting the fierce rays of a tropical sun; they broke down rocks, graded precipices, levelled hills, and filled up valleys without the assistance of powder or of instruments of iron; they crossed lakes, marshes, and rivers, and without the aid of the compass followed direct courses in forests of eternal shade. They did, in short, what even now, with all of modern knowledge and means of action, would be worthy of the most powerful nations of the globe. One of the principal of these roads extended from Cuzco to the sea, and the other, which is followed to La Paz, ran along the crest of the Cordilleras from one end of the empire to the other, their aggregate lengths, with their branches, being about four thousand miles. Modern travellers compare them, in respect of structure, to the best works of the kind in any part of the world. In ascending mountains too steep to admit of grading, broad steps were cut in the solid rocks, while the ravines and hollows were filled with heavy embankments, flanked with parapets, and planted with shade-trees and fragrant shrubs. They were from eighteen to twenty-five Castilian feet broad, and were paved with immense blocks of
stone. At regular distances on these roads tambos—buildings for the accommodation of travellers—were erected. To these conveniences were added the establishment of a system of posts, by which messages could be transmitted from one extremity of the Incas’ dominions to the other in an incredibly short time. The service of the posts was performed by runners—for the Peruvians possessed no domestic animals swifter of foot than man—stationed in small buildings, likewise erected at easy distances from each other all along the principal roads. These messengers, or chasquis, as they were termed, wore a peculiar uniform, and were trained to their particular vocation. Each had his allotted station, between which and the next it was his duty to speed along at a certain pace with the message, dispatch, or parcel intrusted to his care. On drawing near to the station at which he had to transmit the message to the next courier, who was then to carry it farther, he was to give a signal of his approach, in order that the other might be in readiness to receive the missive and no time be lost; and thus it is said that messages were forwarded at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day.
The bridges constructed by the Peruvians were exceedingly simple, but were well adapted for crossing those rapid streams which rush down from the Andes and defy the skill of the modern engineer. They consisted of strong cables of the cabuya, or of twisted rawhide stretched from one bank to the other, something after the style of the suspension-bridges of our times. Poles were lashed across transversely, covered with branches, and these were again covered with earth and stones, so as to form a solid floor. Other cables extended along the sides, which were interwoven with limbs of trees, forming a kind of wicker balustrade. In some cases the mode of transit was in a species of basket or car, suspended on a single cable, and drawn from side to side with ropes. It would appear at first glance that bridges of this description could not be very lasting, yet a few still exist which are said to have been constructed by the Incas more than four hundred years ago. The modern inhabitants of some parts of Peru, Bolivia, and Chili still use the same means of crossing their torrent rivers.
The city of La Paz has about seventy thousand inhabitants, mostly Aymara Indians, poor, degraded, and ignorant. The full name of the place is La Paz de Ayacucho, and it means “the peace of Ayacucho,” being so christened in 1825, to commemorate the victory which established the independence of Bolivia from the hated crown of Spain. At that time the republic was a part of the old Province of Peru, and a separate State was founded by Bolivar, the Venezuelan Liberator of the Continent, who gave freedom to these people as he did
to his own countrymen, and the new republic was christened in his honor. La Paz was originally called Nuestra Señora de la Paz—“the peace of the Virgin”—by Alonzo de Mendoza, who founded it in 1548. It is thirteen thousand feet above tide-water, and is surrounded by a group of gigantic mountains, the most notable of which is the volcano Illiniani, twenty-one thousand three hundred feet high. Through the city runs the river Chiquiapo, a noble mountain-stream, which is crossed by a number of fine old bridges. The streets are narrow, irregular, and uneven, being paved with stone, and having narrow sidewalks, scarcely broad enough for two people to pass. The town resembles all others of Spanish construction, except that the houses are mostly built of stone instead of adobe, the walls being massive and enduring, and in some instances ornamented with carved stone or stucco-work. The cathedral is large and grand, the front being handsomely carved, and in a niche over the entrance stands a marble image of the Virgin, which was presented to the city by Charles of Spain, and transported from the seaboard at an enormous cost. The cathedral is built entirely of stone, and was over forty years in course of erection, hundreds of men being constantly employed. No derricks or other machinery were used in its construction, but the walls were built in a curious way. As fast as a tier of stone was laid, the earth was banked up against it inside and outside, and upon this inclined plane the stones for the next tier were rolled into their places. Then more earth was thrown on, and the process repeated until, when the walls were finished, the whole building was immersed in a mountain of dirt. This was allowed to remain until the roof was laid, when the earth was carried away upon the backs of llamas and men. It is said to have taken thirteen years to clear out the inside of the building, as the earth could only be taken away through the narrow windows and doors. There are fourteen other churches of considerable size, and several large monasteries, which are now used for military barracks and schools. A university is sustained by the Government, and there is a nominal free-school system, but education is at a low ebb.
In the centre of the city runs the Alameda, a public promenade which is frequented by all classes of citizens, and during the twilight hours is quite gay. The cemetery is very extensive, and one of the finest in South America. There are few stores or shops, most of the trading being done in the market-places, where all things are sold, and by peddlers who go through the city with baskets of provisions and notions upon their heads, crying their wares. The way customers call street-venders is worth noticing and imitating. They step to the door or open a window, and give utterance to a short sound resembling shir-r-r-r-r—something between a hiss and the exclamation used to chase away fowls—and it is singular what a distance it can be heard. If the peddler is in sight, his attention is at once arrested; he turns, and comes direct to the caller, now guided by a signal addressed to his eyes—closing the fingers of the right hand two or three times, with the palm downward, as if grasping something—a sign in universal use, and signifying “Come.” There is here no bawling after people in the streets, for in this quiet and ingenious way all classes communicate with passing friends or others with whom they wish to speak. The practice dates, I believe, from classical times. A curious custom is the peddling of fuel through the streets. Llamas are loaded with their own excrement, which when dried in the sun is called taquia, and sold by the basketful. It is used by all classes for cooking.