Across Unknown South America Part 78

It is seldom one can visit a place where the people have more primitive habits than in the city of Cuzco. The streets, so wonderfully picturesque, were not fit to walk upon. The people threw into them all that can be thrown out of the houses, which possess no sanitary arrangements of any kind. Much of the pleasure of looking at the magnificent Inca walls--constructed of great blocks of stone so well fitted that no cement was necessary to hold them together--was really lost through being absolutely stifled by the suffocating odour which was everywhere prevalent in Cuzco.

The photographs that are reproduced in the ill.u.s.trations of this book will give an idea of the grandeur of the Inca works better than any description. As I intend to produce at a later date a special work on that country, I am unable here to go fully into the history of the marvellous civilization of that race.

A photograph will be seen in one of the ill.u.s.trations showing the immensity of the three-walled fortress of Sacsayhuaman. Another photograph will show with what accuracy the Incas could carve stone--which, mind you, in those days must have been much softer than it is now, and not unlike the sandstone that is used in England for building purposes.

Many curious subterranean pa.s.sages were to be found on the mountains near Cuzco, the entrances to which were among picturesque rocks. The Incas seemed to have a regular mania for carving steps and angular channels in rocks. Not far from the fortress could be found the place of recreation of the Incas--the Rodadeiro--over which the Incas tobogganed, perhaps sitting on hides. Thousands and thousands of people must have gone in for the sport, as the solid rock was deeply grooved by the friction of the persons who have slid on it.

The remains of ancient altars for the worship of the sun and an Inca throne, where the king of the Incas must have sat while battles were taking place, were indeed most interesting to examine.

More interesting than any other to me was the particular spot on the mountain side where a kind of throne existed carved out of a huge block of rock, and where a battle of the Incas against their enemies could be reconstructed. Mounds of ammunition, consisting of round stones as big as a lawn-tennis ball, had been acc.u.mulated above and near the throne. Just below that high spot I found scattered upon the mountain side quant.i.ties of ammunition which had evidently been thrown by the Incas at the attacking foes.

Farther on was the "round table" where the Incas had their feasts--a huge circular table of rock situated near a conical boulder of immense size.

Interesting fountains with carved figure-heads; an Inca bath of graceful lines; and, some kilometres beyond Cuzco, the marvellous ruins of Viraccocha at Tinta, where gigantic walls of a palace were to be seen standing, and ruins of other fortresses filled one with amazement.

On the mountain side near the town were the strange gateways of Choquechaca, which in their lines resembled ancient Egyptian buildings.

Not far off were the blocks of rock to which the Incas fastened their prisoners by their legs, arms and heads, and exposed them to the ridicule of the populace.

Many were the wonderful things which had been found in digging near Cuzco; but most interesting of all to me were the deformed crania--some flattened to almost an incredible extent on the top, others elongated backward to an amazing degree, others still with the central part of the skull deeply depressed, so as to form two globular swellings at the sides. Others, again, had been squeezed so as to form an angular ridge longitudinally on the summit. One skull particularly interested me, which had a p.r.o.nounced elongation backward, and a dent just above the forehead which must have been caused by tying the cranium while young and still in a soft condition. Most of the skulls were of gigantic size when compared with those of modern times. The lower part was under-developed. Many of them possessed magnificent teeth.

Several of the skulls had been trephined, evidently while the person was still alive, some of the perforations in the brain-case being circular in shape, others quadrangular--most of the trephinations having been made in the forehead, others on the top of the skull. I saw one skull with as many as eleven apertures thus made. The operation had evidently been performed by a very able surgeon, for the little cap of bone removed fitted beautifully into the opening that had been made.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Inca Towers of Sillistayni, Puno (Lake t.i.ticaca).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: An Inca Statue, Bolivia.]

The Incas were great architects. They had an absolute craving for carving rock. They made models of their fortresses and palaces in blocks of hard stone, some of these being of remarkable perfection in their detail.

The pottery, red earthen vessels with geometrical designs upon them, was most interesting, especially the large jars which must have been used for fermenting wine. Those jars of a typical shape must have rested on a pedestal of wood, as they ended in a point at the bottom, which prevented their standing up on a flat surface. Two handles were attached to the lower part of those jars, and also to the great bottles in which they kept wine.

The Incas used tumblers, enamelled in red and green, and of most graceful shape.

They were fond of ornamenting their bottles and vessels with representations of human heads, reproduced with considerable artistic fidelity. Other bottles represented strange gnawing faces, with expanded eyes and a fierce moustache.

Judging from the representations of figures on their jars, the people in those days wore their hair in little plaits round the head. Heads of llamas sculptured in stone or else modelled in earthenware were used as vessels.

The Incas made serviceable mortars for grinding grain, of polished hard rock, mostly of a circular shape, seldom more than two feet in diameter.

The matrimonial stone was interesting enough. It was a double vessel carved out of a solid stone, a perforation being made in the part.i.tion between the two vessels. It seems, when marriages were performed, that the Incas placed a red liquid in one vessel and some water in the other, the perforation in the central part.i.tion being stopped up until the ceremony took place, when the liquids were allowed to mingle in emblem of the union of the two lives. Curious, too, was the pipe-like arrangement, called the _kenko_, ornamented with a carved jaguar head, also used at their marriage ceremonies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lake t.i.ticaca.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Guaqui, the Port for La Paz on Lake t.i.ticaca.]

Their stone axes and other implements were of extraordinary interest--their rectangularly-shaped stone knives, the star- and cross-shaped heads for their war clubs, as well as the star-shaped weights which they used for offensive purposes, attached, perhaps, to a sling. Many were the weapons of offence made of stone which have been found near Cuzco, some of which were used by holding in the hand, others attached to sticks.

The Incas were fairly good sculptors, not only in stone but also in moulding human figures and animals in silver and gold. Llamas, deer, long-nosed human-faced idols were represented by them with fidelity of detail, although perhaps not so much accuracy in the general proportions.

At a later date the Incas used metal implements, such as small rakes and chisels for smoothing rock. They made hair-pins and ear-rings, chiefly of a mixture of gold, silver, lead and copper.

I saw at Cuzco a stone arrangement which was used by the Incas for washing and milling gold. Many ornaments of silex, agate and emerald, and also of coral, which had evidently been brought there from the coast, have also been found near Cuzco.

The spoons and knives which the Incas used were generally made of gold, with representations of heads attached to them. The average length of these articles was from two to four inches.

I left the city on Friday, February 16th, going back the way I had come as far as the junction of Juliaca.

The Cuzco railway, to my mind, crosses the most beautiful and most interesting scenery of any railway I have ever seen. It is a pity that more English people do not travel by it. The great elevation makes people suffer from mountain-sickness, and that perhaps deters many travellers from attempting the journey. The railway has to contend with great natural difficulties--land-slides, which often stop traffic for days at a time, being frequent.

From Cuzco I went direct to Lake t.i.ticaca, where more Inca ruins, such as the cylindrical towers of Sillistayni, existed at Puno. Lake t.i.ticaca is a heavenly sheet of water, situated at an elevation by hypsometrical apparatus of 12,202 ft. With its magnificent background of snowy peaks, the lake looked indeed too impressive for words, as I steamed across it in the excellent steamer of the Peruvian Corporation.

Early in the morning of February 17th, having travelled the entire night in order to cross the lake from north to south, we arrived at Guaqui, the port for La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. Although I travelled in the most luxurious comfort, owing to the kindness of the Peruvian Corporation, the journey by rail and the going about examining the ruins at Cuzco had tired me considerably. My brain was so exhausted that it would really take in no more.

Worse luck, when I reached La Paz it was during carnival time, when it was impossible to go out of the hotel without being smothered in cornflour or chalk, and sprinkled with aniline dyed water. Even bottles of ink were emptied on one's head from the windows. So that, although I crossed Bolivia from one end to the other in its longest part, I was unable to do any further work. I tried to get down to the coast as quickly as possible in order to return home.

La Paz was a beautiful city, extremely neat, with bright red-tiled roofs and white buildings. It was situated in a deep hollow surrounded by a great barrier of mountains. So deep and sudden was the hollow that within a few metres of its upper edge one would never suppose a town to be at hand. Bolivia is a go-ahead country in which English people are greatly interested. We have in our Minister there, Mr. Gosling, a very able representative of British interests.

Bolivians have shown great enterprise in building railways in all directions in order properly to develop their enormously wealthy country.

Many important lines are in construction; others are projected--of which, perhaps, the most interesting will be the one from Santa Cruz to Corumba on the Brazilian boundary.

The day will come when the port of Arica on the Pacific Ocean will be joined to Oruro, on the Antof.a.gasta line, the well-known junction in Bolivia, and eventually to Santa Cruz. The present plan is to build a line from the already existing railway at Cochabamba to Porto Velarde on the Rio Grande (Rio Mamore), then to Santa Cruz. The Brazilians on their side will eventually connect So Paulo with Cuyaba and Corumba. It will then be possible to travel by rail right across the South American continent in its richest part.

There is also a project of connecting Santa Cruz with Embarcacion and Campo Santo, in the Argentine Republic, and eventually with the Trans-Andine Railway.

Other smaller lines projected are those between Potosi and Sucre, and one from the Chilian boundary at La Quiada to Tarija. That system of railways will greatly develop the entire southern portion of Bolivia. A small railway is also proposed in the most northern part of the Republic, between Riberalta on the River Madre de Dios and Guajara Merim on the Madeira-Mamore railway, a district of immense wealth for the production of rubber.

The exact elevation of La Paz by hypsometrical apparatus was 12,129 ft.

I left La Paz on February 21st, and travelled through flat, alluvial, uninteresting country--only a huge flock of llamas or vicunas enlivening the landscape here and there, or a group of Indians in their picturesque costumes. The women, with their green, violet or red shawls and much-pleated short skirts, generally blue, afforded particularly gay patches of colour.

I saw a beautiful effect of mirage near the lake in the vicinity of Oruro, as I was on the railway to Antof.a.gasta. We were going through flat country most of the time. It had all the appearance of having once been a lake bottom. Perhaps that great t.i.ticaca Lake formerly extended as far south as Lake p.o.o.po, which is connected with Lake t.i.ticaca by the River Desaguadero. In fact, if I am not far wrong, the two lakes formed part, in days gone by, of one single immense lake. The mountains on our right as we went southwards towards Oruro showed evidence that the level of the then united lakes must have reached, in days gone by, some 150 ft. higher than the plain on which we were travelling. The low undulations on our left had evidently been formed under water in the lake bottom.

The junction of Oruro, from which the Cochabamba railway branches, was quite a large place, of 8,000 inhabitants, but with no particularly striking buildings. Tin and silver mining was carried on in the surrounding mountains.

From Oruro I continued the journey to Antof.a.gasta via Uyuni. Immense deposits of borax were to be seen all along the line from the station of Ulaca; then we came to a most beautiful sight--the volcano of Ollague, 12,123 ft. above the sea level. It looked like a giant dome, snow-capped, and smoking on its southern side. Its slopes were fairly regular, and of most brilliant colouring, red and blue. Near the volcano were mounds of mud and shattered rock. Ollague stood on the boundary between Bolivia and Chile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On the Andes.]

After pa.s.sing San Martin, the first station on the Chilian side, the railway skirted the bed of an ancient lake, an immense circular flat stretch with deposits of sand and borax, in which could be seen occasional pools of stagnant water. On the west side stood a high three-peaked mountain covered with snow, while at the southern end of that plain was a charming lakelet. We had no sooner left this beautiful view than we had before us to the south-west an immense conical mountain, flat-topped. It looked just like the well-known Fujiyama of j.a.pan, only more regular in its sloping lines.

We pa.s.sed the works of a Borax Company, which were between the stations of Sebollar and Ascotan. There was to be seen another immense lake of borax, some 40 kil. (24 miles) long.

I arrived that evening at Antof.a.gasta, and was fortunate enough to get on board one of the Pacific Mail Line steamers the next morning on my way to Valparaiso. We were now in the height of civilization again--very hot, very uncomfortable, very ambitious, very dirty, the hotels abominable.

Had it not been for the kindness of friends I should have fared badly indeed in Valparaiso, for the place was invaded by a swarm of American tourists, who had just landed from an excursion steamer and rendered the place unbearable.

From Valparaiso, as soon as it was possible to obtain accommodation, I travelled across the Andes and as far as Buenos Aires by the Trans-Andine railway. The scenery on this line was most disappointing to any one who has seen the Andes in their real grandeur farther north; but for the average traveller the journey may prove interesting enough, although hot, dull, dusty, and not particularly comfortable.

While I was travelling on the railway between Mendoza and Buenos Aires there was a serious strike of railway employes. The railway had been attacked at many different points. Amateur engineers and attendants ran the trains. We were only two hours from Buenos Aires. The heat and dust were intense as we crossed the great pampas. The shaking of the train had tired me to such an extent that I placed a pillow on the ledge of the open window, and was fast asleep with my head half outside the carriage, when I woke up startled by the sound of an explosion. I found myself covered with quant.i.ties of debris of rock. A huge stone, as big as a man's head or bigger, had been thrown with great force at the pa.s.sing train by the strikers, and had hit the side of my window only about three inches above my head, smashing the woodwork and tearing off the metal frame of the window. Had it struck a little lower it would have certainly ended my journey for good.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Llamas in Bolivia.]