The famous Yungas of La Paz is the paradise of northern Bolivia. Nowhere does Nature smile with more bewitching candor than in these valleys of magnificent verdure, through which rippling streams, and sometimes raging torrents, carry a crystal tide down from the snow mountains of the Royal Range to the tropical forests and plains of the Amazon, bathing a region rich in the choicest gifts of a lavish Providence. Nature’s most patrician whims find delicate expression in the whiff of perfume which is carried on the breeze from a thousand dainty blossoms, and in the music trilled by a host of pretty song birds from the recesses of her wooded dells. The name yungas is given to the deep valleys which lie at the foot of the snow-covered range, in the tropical region where the temperature never falls below sixty degrees and often rises above one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The Yungas provinces of La Paz cover a territory extending northward from the city of La Paz to Puerto Pando, at the head of navigation on the Beni tributary of the Madeira, which is the chief affluent of the Amazon. They are rich in production, as well as enchanting in scenery, and the visitor to Bolivia who fails to see the famous Yungas, misses one of the most enjoyable features of a trip to this wonderful country. The naturalist D’Orbigny was enthusiastic in his praises of its marvellous attractions, and, in a glowing description of its charms, he says: “If tradition has lost the records of the place where paradise was situated, the traveller who visits these regions of Bolivia feels at once the impulse to exclaim: ‘Here is the lost Eden!’”

The eastern slope of the great range presents a totally different aspect from that of the Pacific side. As seen from the west, the landscape is grand and imposing, where the summits tower above the surrounding heights, but the lower levels show no such magnificence of foliage and varied beauty as the rich valleys of the Yungas on the eastern slopes. One of the greatest surprises which the natural scenery of Bolivia presents is experienced, when, after riding over the bare plateau until the range is reached, the prospect suddenly reveals a scene of tropical splendor, and out of the snows one enters immediately a valley of perpetual summer. The rapid scenic transformation is dazzling for a moment, as the sight dwells on the new panorama. In four or five hours’ riding it is possible to pass from the glaciers and the condor’s nest to sunny canefields and humming birds’ haunts, and almost before the sensation of the stinging blast and the cold snows has passed, one feels the midsummer heat and perfumed zephyrs of the tropics. From icicles to orange groves in an afternoon’s paseo! The province of South Yungas lies between the rivers La Paz and Tamampaya, which join to form the Bopi River, a tributary of the Beni; North Yungas province lies between the Bopi and Coroico Rivers, which have their confluence at Puerto Pando. Both provinces are situated in a rich productive belt, where coffee, cacao, coca, rice, sugar, quinine, and all tropical fruits and hardwoods in abundance are obtained. The celebrated coffee of the Yungas is considered by many connoisseurs superior in quality to Mocha, and at one time this important product was in such great demand in the European market that it sold for fifty bolivianos per hundred pounds. The cultivation of coffee has been somewhat neglected in recent years, the difficulties of transportation having made it impossible for Bolivian producers to meet increasing competition among other coffee-raising countries. But the plantations of Chulumani, the capital of South Yungas, and of Coroico, the chief city of North Yungas, are still in a flourishing condition.

Chulumani, a town of five thousand inhabitants, occupies a singularly picturesque site on a tributary of the La Paz River, at an altitude of about six thousand feet above sea level. Not only is it the centre of a rich coffee district, but on the surrounding plantations are cultivated cacao and sugar cane, the neighboring districts produce quinine, coca, and vanilla, and rich cabinet woods are found here in abundance. Gold is taken from the river in considerable quantities, by the method of placer mining which is generally followed in all Bolivian gold fields.

No product is more highly prized by the Indian than the coca. He chews the leaves as people of other countries chew tobacco, and there is seldom a moment when he does not have a roll of the precious stimulant in his mouth. He will go days without food and perform marvellous feats of endurance, often running fifty miles or more during a day, provided he has his little pouch of coca leaves, which he sometimes hangs at his belt, and at other times carries in the crown of his cap. His staple food is parched Indian corn, and with his corn and his coca the Indian is contented. As coca is the plant from which cocaine is manufactured, it is needless to explain that the Indian uses the leaves as a stimulant. So constantly does he resort to its use, that without this artificial aid, he is not able to work nearly so well, but grows apathetic and dull over his tasks. When the coca habit is indulged to excess the effect is very injurious. It is an evil which stands greatly in the way of the Indian’s mental and moral development, but so fixed is the practice that there is little prospect of its being abandoned. The coca plant grows abundantly in the tropical regions of Bolivia and Peru, attaining a height of from two to eight feet, according to the locality. Its leaves resemble bay leaves. It grows best at an altitude of from two thousand to five thousand feet above sea level and produces three crops annually. Three-fourths of the coca grown in Bolivia is cultivated in the Yungas of La Paz, the remainder coming from neighboring provinces and from the Yungas, popularly called the Yuracarés, of Cochabamba. The total production of all the cocales, or coca plantations, in Bolivia is about eight million pounds annually, amounting in value to three and one-half million bolivianos. For the privilege of gathering the coca the Bolivian government collects a tax of two hundred and fifty thousand bolivianos annually. A duty of two bolivianos per hundred pounds is paid in La Paz on exportation. Indians are employed to gather the coca and to carry it to the nearest station for shipment, and it is not unusual to see these human freight carriers, loaded so heavily that only their legs are visible under the huge bundles of coca, slowly making their way through the forests. The cocales of Chulumani, Irupana, Chupe, Chirca, and other towns of South Yungas will be within convenient shipping distance from the proposed railway now under construction from La Paz to Puerto Pando. Two routes for this railway have been surveyed, one of which goes through Obrajes and past the flourishing town of Palca, entering the Yungas where the La Paz River flows through an opening in the Andes range, and following the margin of that river and the Bopi to its northern terminus. The other route crosses the range and enters North Yungas at Unduavi, passing through Coroico, Unduavi, Coripata, and other North Yungas towns.

Coroico, the capital of North Yungas, is a prosperous little city of five thousand inhabitants. It is beautifully located on the river of the same name, at an altitude of seven thousand feet, and is the centre of a rich agricultural region. Flourishing fields of corn, rice, and sugar cane are numerous in the vicinity, the corn growing on the uplands, while the sugar cane and rice are cultivated close to the river bank. Quinine, or cascarilla, is exported in large quantities from North Yungas, where the cinchona tree grows in abundance. The bark from which the quinine is extracted is thick and reddish in appearance, and is shipped in small pieces just as it comes from the tree. It is found in several departments of Bolivia, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, where vast regions contain bosques, or woods, of cinchona trees which remain untouched for lack of facilities to transport the precious product to the shipping centres. The quinine of Challana, a town in the neighboring province of Larecaja, is the best in quality, a hundred pounds of bark yielding forty-eight ounces of sulphate. The great rubber-producing region of Bolivia extends as far south as North Yungas and Larecaja, in the department of La Paz, a considerable amount of rubber being shipped from Coroico, Songo, Challana, Mapiri, and Huanay through Puerto Perez on Lake Titicaca to Puno and thence to Mollendo.

There are few products of any zone which are not to be found in the Yungas of La Paz. It is the rich storehouse from which La Paz is supplied daily with the necessities and luxuries of the table, and there are no better cereals, vegetables, and fruits than those grown in these fertile valleys. Yet the vast resources of this region are still comparatively unknown, and many of its valuable products are neglected, which, if cultivated, would prove an important source of revenue. An effort is being made by those particularly interested in this part of Bolivia to promote the cultivation of its natural products on a larger scale than formerly, and a thorough study is being made of its flora with this end in view.

The attention of agriculturists has recently been called to a very nutritious plant, which is supposed to be indigenous to the Yungas, and which the Indians call jamacch’ppeke, an Aymará word meaning “bird’s head,” which was given because the bulbous roots resemble the head and beak of a bird. The natives eat it as a delicacy, and it is used as an article of food on many of the plantations of the Yungas, its starchy properties making it a substitute for milk when boiled with sugar and water. It is said to be extremely efficacious as a food for invalids, and in the orphan hospitals of the Yungas it is used in feeding even the youngest babies. This product is prepared by first crushing the bulbs on flat stones, then washing and drying them in the sun, a process by which all the water is drawn out and the starch remains. It is said that eighty per cent of this remarkable tubercle is starch. A Bolivian writer on the subject says: “The starchy quality of this bulb is unknown to botanists, and up to the present time it has not been well described or classified. Not the slightest information regarding it is to be found in any book on South American flora, or in the works of the great botanists of the world. The jamacch’ppeke is a herbaceous plant which seldom grows beyond four feet in height. It lives in the shade of trees and bushes, and on the plantations where it is cultivated in the Yungas it is usually grown between rows of trees in the cocales and cafetales. It has a beautiful flower of bright yellow color, and of the form peculiar to orchidic plants. Its fruit is a membranous capsule, the tiny seeds of which are preserved and planted to produce a new crop of jamacch’ppeke. Nothing more clearly proves the neglect which this wonderful plant has suffered at the hands of the Yungas agriculturists than the fact that they have not renamed it.” The Bolivian writer referred to suggests “Orchis,” as it appears to bear a close resemblance to the Orchis Morio of Linnæus.

The medicinal plants of the Yungas and other provinces of the department of La Paz have been classified and their uses specified. From the list published by Señor Don Belisario Diaz Romero, of the Geographic Society of La Paz, it is seen that out of one hundred and twenty-two medicinal plants the majority may be found in the provinces of North and South Yungas. The classification was originally made by Dr. Nicanor Iturralde, and includes the pharmacopœia of the callaguayas, or Aymará Indian doctors of these regions. The greatest difficulty was experienced in securing the list, as the Indian doctors carefully guard the secrets of their cures, and their people will never reveal anything which might come to their knowledge by accident regarding the mysterious plants used by their medicine chiefs. The Aymará doctors have learned the curative properties of many more plants than those in the classified list; and though their system of cures is not always to be recommended, every traveller who has been in the interior knows that they have many excellent remedies.

Vegetation of every description grows in riotous abundance in the fertile valleys of the Yungas, where the upper tributaries of the great Amazon River are fed from a thousand streams that find their way down the innumerable crevices of the Andean range. They form a network of waterways for the callapos, or rafts, used to transport cargo in this region, and they serve to fertilize the entire country so completely that every foot of ground may be utilized for agriculture. Here the Beni River receives its chief tributary, the Bopi, which rises in the Cordillera Real, fifteen miles north of the city of La Paz, flows southward through the city, and waters the valleys of Sopocachi and Obrajes, under the name of the La Paz or Chuquiapu River. A few leagues southeast of La Paz the river receives an affluent which enters it from the north near the town of Palca, and at the point where it crosses the Royal Range through a deep cut south of Mount Illimani, an important stream, the Caracato, joins it, in the province of Loayza. From this point the river turns northward and is reinforced by several tributaries, among others the Tamampaya, Miguilla, and others with their many small affluents, such as the Loayza and similar picturesque waterways. Though South Yungas is watered chiefly by the Bopi, the valleys of North Yungas depend for their fertility and for the transportation of their products chiefly on the Coroico branch of the Beni and its innumerable small tributaries. Not only the Yungas provinces, but those of Inquisivi, Larecaja, and Muñecas, which adjoin them and are sometimes included in the general term of “the Yungas,” are abundantly supplied with water by the Beni system. The Coroico River, which flows northward from its source in the Royal Range, has many tributaries navigable for small boats and callapos. In North Yungas the Songo River, on the banks of which are important rubber forests, is one of the largest branches of the Coroico. The Mapiri flows through the province of Muñecas, and the Tipuani and Challana through Larecaja to join the Coroico River a few leagues south of Puerto Pando. Along the course of all these rivers rubber is found in abundance, and in some of them placer gold mining is carried on with most satisfactory results. The Tipuani River has long been celebrated for its rich gold washings. Rising in the Andes, on the eastern slope of the celebrated snow mountain Sorata, it flows northeastward and joins the Mapiri at Huanay, near the junction of the Mapiri and the Challana with the Coroico. This is one of the most celebrated gold bearing regions of Bolivia, and has been under exploitation since the time of the Incas, who received from their subjects in this part of the empire tribute paid in gold dust. According to historians, the Incas’ emissaries collected sixty pounds of gold dust every four months from the section now known as Larecaja. As early as 1560 some Portuguese miners got large quantities of gold here, and a few years later the Spaniards established the industry on a permanent basis. Marvellous stories are related of the riches of this region, where gold was so abundant that sacks of precious gold dust were piled up around the walls of the miners’ huts to serve as beds and chairs. Hundreds of negro workmen were brought from Brazil by the Portuguese, and the whole district was a busy hive of industry. It was at this time that Sorata became famous as a city of wealth and luxury. In 1780, one of the mine owners obtained six thousand pounds of gold washings from this river. The variety of mineral and vegetable products everywhere found in the valleys of these rivers makes this a favorite field for speculation, and few instances of failure in any enterprise undertaken in this region have yet been recorded.

So varied are the attractions of the Yungas that the scientist goes there to study botany, the speculator to make a fortune, and the tourist to see the sights, and each one returns enchanted with the success of his mission, and usually broadened in mind by having enjoyed the trip from the standpoint of the other travellers. The botanist grows enthusiastic over the commercial possibilities of his newly discovered “specimen,” the fortune seeker has looked around him while on his way to the gold fields, the rubber forests, or the fruit farms, and cannot help feeling a glow of interest in the wonderful secrets of the forests and the mountain sides; and the tourist, who goes merely to enjoy the scenery and to learn something of the customs of the country, finds that there is more to see than magnificent mountains and picturesque valleys, and that the quaint types that pass him on the road tell more than the contour of the face or the curious style of the dress reveals; and he often returns with all the enthusiasm of the student and the speculating spirit of the gold hunter combined.

The proximity of the Yungas to the highways of travel gives this region an advantage over others of great promise, which, though abundant in natural resources, are more difficult of access. With the conclusion of the La Paz and Puerto Pando Railway, this territory will be brought into close connection with La Paz, and will, at the same time, have convenient access to the great Amazon waterway. Some day it will be one of the richest and most popular resorts of Bolivia, where fashionable society will make its annual visit. The Yungas hillsides will be dotted with the handsome country homes of wealthy Paceños, and merry outing parties will throng its valleys. The foreign tourist will find his way more frequently to this part of the world, for there is an irresistible attraction in the prospect of a comfortable trip in a railway train which carries one in an hour or so from the Alpine splendors of the snow range to the blossoming hedges and balmy groves of the fertile region of the Yungas!