Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America Volume Iii Part 10

We can never sufficiently praise the legislative wisdom of the new republics of Spanish America which, since their birth, have been seriously intent on the total extinction of slavery. That vast portion of the earth has, in this respect, an immense advantage over the southern part of the United States, where the whites, during the struggle with England, established liberty for their own profit, and where the slave population, to the number of 1,600,000, augments still more rapidly than the whites.* (* In 1769, forty-six years before the declaration of the Congress at Vienna, and thirty-eight years before the abolition of the slave-trade, decreed in London and at Washington, the Chamber of Representatives of Ma.s.sachusetts had declared itself against "the unnatural and unwarrantable custom of enslaving mankind."

See Walsh's Appeal to the United States, 1819 page 312. The Spanish writer, Avendano, was perhaps the first who declaimed forcibly not only against the slave-trade, abhorred even by the Afghans (Elphinstone's Journey to Cabul page 245), but against slavery in general, and "all the iniquitous sources of colonial wealth."

Thesaurus Ind. tom. 1 t.i.t. 9 cap. 2.) If civilization, instead of extending, were to change its place; if, after great and deplorable convulsions in Europe, America, between Cape Hatteras and the Missouri, were to become the princ.i.p.al seat of the light of Christianity, what a spectacle would be presented by that centre of civilization, where, in the sanctuary of liberty, we could attend a sale of negroes after the death of a master, and hear the sobbings of parents who are separated from their children! Let us hope that the generous principles which have so long animated the legislatures of the northern parts of the United States will extend by degrees southward and towards those western regions where, by the effect of an imprudent and fatal law, slavery and its iniquities have pa.s.sed the chain of the Alleghenies and the banks of the Mississippi: let us hope that the force of public opinion, the progress of knowledge, the softening of manners, the legislation of the new continental republics and the great and happy event of the recognition of Hayti by the French government, will, either from motives of prudence and fear, or from more n.o.ble and disinterested sentiments, exercise a happy influence on the amelioration of the state of the blacks in the rest of the West Indies, in the Carolinas, Guiana, and Brazil.

In order to slacken gradually the bonds of slavery the laws against the slave-trade must be most strictly enforced, and punishments inflicted for their infringement; mixed tribunals must be formed, and the right of search exercised with equitable reciprocity. It is melancholy to learn that, owing to the culpable indifference of some of the governments of Europe, the slave-trade (more cruel from having become more secret) has dragged from Africa, within ten years, almost the same number of negroes as before 1807; but we must not from this fact infer the inutility, or, as the secret partisans of slavery a.s.sert, the practical impossibility of the beneficent measures adopted first by Denmark, the United States and Great Britain, and successively by all the rest of Europe. What pa.s.sed from 1807 till the time when France recovered possession of her ancient colonies, and what pa.s.ses in our days in nations whose governments sincerely desire the abolition of the slave-trade and its abominable practices, proves the fallacy of this conclusion. Besides, is it reasonable to compare numerically the importation of slaves in 1825 and in 1806? With the activity prevailing in every enterprise of industry, what an increase would the importation of negroes have taken in the English West Indies and the southern provinces of the United States if the slave-trade, entirely free, had continued to supply new slaves, and had rendered the care of their preservation and the increase of the old population, superfluous? Can we believe that the English trade would have been limited, as in 1806, to the sale of 53,000 slaves; and that of the United States, to the sale of 15,000? It is pretty well ascertained that the English islands received in the 106 years preceding 1786 more than 2,130,000 negroes, forcibly carried from the coast of Africa. At the period of the French revolution, the slave-trade furnished (according to Mr. Norris) 74,000 slaves annually, of which the English colonies absorbed 38,000, and the French 20,000. It would be easy to prove that the whole of the West Indian archipelago, which now comprises scarcely 2,400,000 negroes and mulattoes (free and slaves), received, from 1670 to 1825, nearly 5,000,000 of Africans. These revolting calculations respecting the consumption of the human species do not include the number of unfortunate slaves who have perished in the pa.s.sage or have been thrown into the sea as damaged merchandize.*

(* Volume 7 page 151. See also the eloquent speech of the Duke de Broglie, March 28th, 1822 pages 40, 43 and 96.) By how many thousands must we have augmented the loss, if the two nations most distinguished for ardour and intelligence in the development of commerce and industry, the English and the inhabitants of the United States, had continued, from 1807, to carry on the trade as freely as some other nations of Europe? Sad experience has proved how much the treaties of the 15th July, 1814, and of the 22nd January, 1815, by which Spain and Portugal reserved to themselves the trade in blacks during a certain number of years, have been fatal to humanity.

The local authorities, or rather the rich proprietors, forming the Ayuntamiento of the Havannah, the Consulado and the Patriotic Society, have on several occasions shown a disposition favourable to the amelioration of the condition of the slaves.* (* Dicen nuestros Indios del Rio Caura cuando se confiesan que ya entienden que es pecado corner carne humana; pero piden qua se les permita desacostumbra.r.s.e poco a poco; quieren comer la carne humana una vez al mes, despues cada tres meses, hasta qua sin sentirlo pierdan la costumbre. Cartas de los Rev Padres Observantes Number 7 ma.n.u.script. [Our negroes of the River Caura say, when they confess, that they know it is sinful to eat human flesh; they beg to be permitted to break themselves of the custom, little by little: they wish to eat human flesh once a month, and afterwards once every three months, until they feel they have cured themselves of the practice.]) If the government of the mother-country, instead of dreading the least appearance of innovation, had taken advantage of those propitious circ.u.mstances, and of the ascendancy of some men of abilities over their countrymen, the state of society would have undergone progressive changes; and in our days, the inhabitants of the island of Cuba would have enjoyed some of the improvements which have been under discussion for the s.p.a.ce of thirty years. The movement at Saint Domingo in 1790 and those which took place in Jamaica in 1794 caused so great an alarm among the haciendados of the island of Cuba that in a Junta economica it was warmly debated what measure could be adopted to secure the tranquillity of the country. Regulations were made respecting the pursuit of fugitive slaves,* which, till then, had given rise to the most revolting excesses (* Reglamento sobre los Negros Cimmarrones de 26 de Dec. de 1796. Before the year 1788 there were great numbers of fugitive negroes (cimmarones) in the mountains of Jaruco, where they were sometimes apalancados, that is, where several of those unfortunate creatures formed small intrenchments for their common defence by heaping up trunks of trees. The maroon negroes, born in Africa (bozales), are easily taken; for the greater number, in the vain hope of finding their native land, march day and night in the direction of the east. When taken they are so exhausted by fatigue and hunger that they are only saved by giving them, during several days, very small quant.i.ties of soup. The creole maroon negroes conceal themselves by day in the woods and steal provisions during the night.

Till 1790, the right of taking the fugitive negroes belonged only to the Alcalde mayor provincial, an hereditary office in the family of the Count de Bareto. At present any of the inhabitants can seize the maroons and the proprietor of the slave pays four piastres per head, besides the food. If the name of the master is not known, the Consulado employs the maroon negro in the public works. This man-hunting, which, at Hayti and Jamaica, has given so much fatal celebrity to the dogs of Cuba, was carried on in the most cruel manner before the regulation which I have mentioned above.); it was proposed to augment the number of negresses on the sugar estates, to direct more attention to the education of children, to diminish the introduction of African negroes, to bring white planters from the Canaries, and Indian planters from Mexico, to establish country schools with the view of improving the manners of the lower cla.s.s, and to mitigate slavery in an indirect way. These propositions had not the desired effect. The junta opposed every system of immigration, and the majority of the proprietors, indulging their old illusions of security, would not restrain the slave-trade when the high price of the produce gave a hope of extraordinary profit. It would, however, be unjust not to acknowledge in this struggle between private interests and the views of wise policy, the desires and the principles manifested by some inhabitants of the island of Cuba, either in their own name or in the name of some rich and powerful corporations. "The humanity of our legislation," says M. d'Arango n.o.bly,* in a memoir written in 1796 (* Informe sobre negros fugitives (de 9 de Junio de 1769), par Don Francisco de Arango y Pareno, Oidor honorario y syndico del Consulado.), "grants the slave four rights (quatro consuelos) which somewhat a.s.suage his sufferings and which have always been refused him by a foreign policy. These rights are, the choice of a master less severe* (* The right of buscar amo. When a slave has found a new master who will purchase him, he may quit the master of whom he has to complain; such is the sense and spirit of a law, beneficent, though often eluded, as are all the laws that protect the slaves. In the hope of enjoying the privilege of buscar amo, the blacks often address to the travellers they meet, a question, which in civilized Europe, where a vote or an opinion is sometimes sold, is more equivocally expressed; Quiere Vm comprarme? [Will you buy me, Sir?]); the privilege of marrying according to his own inclination; the possibility of purchasing his liberty* by his labour (* A slave in the Spanish colonies ought, according to law, to be estimated at the lowest price; this estimate, at the time of my journey, was, according to the locality, from 200 to 380 piastres. In 1825 the price of an adult negro at the island of Cuba, was 450 piastres. In 1788 the French trade furnished a negro for 280 to 300 piastres. A slave among the Greeks cost 300 to 600 drachmes (54 to 108 piastres), when the day-labourer was paid one-tenth of a piastre. While the Spanish laws and inst.i.tutions favour manumission in every way, the master, in the other islands, pays the fiscal, for every freed slave, five to seven hundred piastres!), and of paying, with an acquired property, for the liberty of his wife and children.* (* What a contrast is observable between the humanity of the most ancient Spanish laws concerning slavery, and the traces of barbarism found in every page of the Black Code and in some of the provincial laws of the English islands! The laws of Barbadoes, made in 1686, and those of Bermuda, in 1730, decreed that the master who killed his negro in chastising him, could not even be sued, while the master who killed his slave wilfully should pay ten pounds sterling to the royal treasury. A law of saint Christopher's, of March 11th, 1784, begins with these words: "Whereas some persons have of late been guilty of cutting off and depriving slaves of their ears, we order that whoever shall extirpate an eye, tear out the tongue, or cut off the nose of a slave, shall pay five hundred pounds sterling, and be condemned to six months imprisonment."

It is unnecessary to add that these English laws, which were in force thirty or forty years ago, are abolished and superseded by laws more humane. Why can I not say as much of the legislation of the French islands, where six young slaves, suspected of an intention to escape, were condemned, by a sentence p.r.o.nounced in 1815, to have their hamstrings cut!) Notwithstanding the wisdom and mildness of Spanish legislation, to how many excesses the slave is exposed in the solitude of a plantation or a farm, where a rude capatez, armed with a cutla.s.s (machete) and a whip, exercises absolute authority with impunity! The law neither limits the punishment of the slave, nor the duration of labour; nor does it prescribe the quality and quant.i.ty of his food.*

(* A royal cedula of May 31st, 1789 had attempted to regulate the food and clothing; but that cedula was never executed.) It permits the slave, it is true, to have recourse to a magistrate, in order that he may enjoin the master to be more equitable; but this recourse is nearly illusory; for there exists another law according to which every slave may be arrested and sent back to his master who is found without permission at the distance of a league and a half from the plantation to which he belongs. How can a slave, whipped, exhausted by hunger, and excess of labour, find means to appear before the magistrate? and if he did reach him, how would he be defended against a powerful master who calls the hired accomplices of his cruelties as witnesses."

In conclusion I may quote a very remarkable extract from the Representacion del Ayuntamiento, Consulado, y Sociedad patriotica, dated July 20th, 1811. "In all that relates to the changes to be introduced in the captive cla.s.s, there is much less question of our fears on the diminution of agricultural wealth, than of the security of the whites, so easy to be compromised by imprudent measures.

Besides, those who accuse the consulate and the munic.i.p.ality of the Havannah of obstinate resistance forget that, in the year 1799, the same authorities proposed fruitlessly that the government would divert attention to the state of the blacks in the island of Cuba (del arreglo de este delicado asunto.) Further, we are far from adopting the maxims which the nations of Europe, who boast of their civilization, have regarded as incontrovertible; that, for instance, without slaves there could be no colonies. We declare, on the contrary, that without slaves, and even without blacks, colonies might have existed, and that the whole difference would have been comprised in more or less profit, by the more or less rapid increase of the products. But such being our firm persuasion, we ought also to remind your Majesty that a social organization into which slavery has been introduced as an element cannot be changed with inconsiderate precipitation. We are far from denying that it was an evil contrary to all moral principles to drag slaves from one continent to another; that it was a political error not to have listened to the remonstrances of Ovando, the governor of Hispaniola, who complained of the introduction and acc.u.mulation of so many slaves in proximity with a small number of free men; but, these evils being now inveterate, we ought to avoid rendering our position and that of our slaves worse, by the employment of violent means. What we ask of your Majesty is conformable to the wish proclaimed by one of the most ardent protectors of the rights of humanity, by the most determined enemy of slavery; we desire, like him, that the civil laws should deliver us at the same time from abuses and dangers."

On the solution of this problem depends, in the West India Islands only, and exclusive of the republic of Hayti, the security of 875,000 free men (whites and men of colour* (* Namely: 452,000 whites, of which 342,000 are in the two Spanish Islands (Cuba and Porto Rico), and 423,000 free men of colour, mulattoes, and blacks.)) and the mitigation of the sufferings of 1,150,000 slaves. It is evident that these objects can never be attained by peaceful means, without the concurrence of the local authorities, either colonial a.s.semblies, or meetings of proprietors designated by less dreaded names, by the old parent state. The direct influence of the authorities is indispensable; and it is a fatal error to believe that we may leave it to time to act. Time will act simultaneously on the slaves, on the relations between the islands and the inhabitants of the continent, and on events which cannot be controlled, when they have been waited for with the inaction of apathy. Wherever slavery is long established, the increase of civilization solely has less influence on the treatment of slaves than many are disposed to admit. The civilization of a nation seldom extends to a great number of individuals; and does not reach those who in the plantations are in immediate contact with the blacks. I have known very humane proprietors shrink from the difficulties that arise in the great plantations; they hesitate to disturb established order, to make innovations, which, if not simultaneous, not supported by the legislation, or (which would be more powerful) by public feeling, would fail in their end, and perhaps aggravate the wretchedness of those whose sufferings they were meant to alleviate. These considerations r.e.t.a.r.d the good that might be effected by men animated by the most benevolent intentions, and who deplore the barbarous inst.i.tutions which have devolved to them by inheritance. They well know that to produce an essential change in the state of the slaves, to lead them progressively to the enjoyment of liberty, requires a firm will on the part of the local authorities, the concurrence of wealthy and enlightened citizens, and a general plan in which all chances of disorder and means of repression are wisely calculated. Without this community of action and effort slavery, with its miseries and excesses, will survive as it did in ancient Rome,* along with elegance of manners, progressive intelligence, and all the charms of the civilization which its presence accuses, and which it threatens to destroy, whenever the hour of vengeance shall arrive. (* The argument deduced from the civilization of Rome and Greece in favour of slavery is much in vogue in the West Indies, where sometimes we find it adorned with all the graces of erudition. Thus, in speeches delivered in 1795, in the Legislative a.s.sembly of Jamaica, it was alleged that from the example of elephants having been employed in the wars of Pyrrhus and Hannibal, it could not be blamable to have brought a hundred dogs and forty hunters from the island of Cuba to hunt the maroon negroes. Bryan Edwards volume 1 page 570.) Civilization, or slow national demoralization, merely prepare the way for future events; but to produce great changes in the social state there must be a coincidence of certain events, the period of the occurrence of which cannot be calculated. Such is the complication of human destiny, that the same cruelties which tarnished the conquest of America have been re-enacted before our own eyes in times which we suppose to be characterized by vast progress, information and general refinement of manners. Within the interval embraced by the span of one life we have seen the reign of terror in France, the expedition to St. Domingo,* (* The North American Review for 1821 Number 30 contains the following pa.s.sage: Conflicts with slaves fighting for their freedom are not only dreadful on account of the atrocities to which they give rise on both sides; but even after freedom has been gained they help to confound every sentiment of justice and injustice. Some planters are condemning to death all the male negro population above six years of age. They affirm that those who have not borne arms will be contaminated by the example of those who have been fighting. This merciless act is the consequence of the result of the continued misfortunes of the colonies. Charault, Reflexions sur Saint Domingue.), the political re-action in Naples and Spain, I may also add, the ma.s.sacres of Chio, Ipsara and Missolonghi, the work of the barbarians of Eastern Europe, which the civilized nations of the north and west did not deem it their duty to prevent. In slave countries, where the effect of long habit tends to legitimize inst.i.tutions the most adverse to justice, it is vain to count on the influence of information, of intellectual culture, or refinement of manners, except in as much as all those benefits accelerate the impulse given by governments and facilitate the execution of measures once adopted. Without the directive action of governments and legislatures a peaceful revolution is a thing not to be hoped for. The danger becomes the more imminent when a general inquietude pervades the public mind; when amidst the political dissensions of neighbouring countries the faults and the duties of governments have been revealed: in such cases tranquillity can be restored only by a ruling authority which, in the n.o.ble consciousness of its power and right, sways events by entering itself on the career of improvement.

CHAPTER 3.32.

GEOGNOSTIC DESCRIPTION OF SOUTH AMERICA, NORTH OF THE RIVER AMAZON, AND EAST OF THE MERIDIAN OF THE SIERRA NEVADA DE MERIDA.

The object of this memoir is to concentrate the geological observations which I collected during my journeys among the mountains of New Andalusia and Venezuela, on the banks of the Orinoco and in the Llanos of Barcelona, Calabozo and the Apure; consequently, from the coast of the Caribbean Sea to the valley of the Amazon, between 2 and 10 1/2 degrees north lat.i.tude.

The extent of country which I traversed in different directions was more than 15,400 square leagues. It has already formed the subject of a geological sketch, traced hastily on the spot, after my return from the Orinoco, and published in 1801. At that period the direction of the Cordillera on the coast of Venezuela and the existence of the Cordillera of Parime were unknown in Europe. No measure of alt.i.tude had been attempted beyond the province of Quito; no rock of South America had been named; there existed no description of the superposition of rocks in any region of the tropics. Under these circ.u.mstances an essay tending to prove the ident.i.ty of the formations of the two hemispheres could not fail to excite interest. The study of the collections which I brought back with me, and four years of journeying in the Andes, have enabled me to rectify my first views, and to extend an investigation which, by reason of its novelty, had been favourably received. That the most remarkable geological relations may be the more easily seized, I shall treat aphoristically, in different sections, the configuration of the soil, the general division of the land, the direction and inclination of the beds and the nature of the primitive, intermediary, secondary and tertiary rocks.

SECTION 1.

Configuration of the Country.

Inequalities of the Soil.

Chains and Groups of Mountains.

Divisionary Ridges.

Plains or Llanos.

South America is one of those great triangular ma.s.ses which form the three continental parts of the southern hemisphere of the globe. In its exterior configuration it resembles Africa more than Australia.

The southern extremities of the three continents are so placed that, in sailing from the Cape of Good Hope (lat.i.tude 33 degrees 55 minutes) to Cape Horn (lat.i.tude 55 degrees 58 minutes), and doubling the southern point of Van Diemen's Land (lat.i.tude 43 degrees 38 minutes), we see those lands stretching out towards the south pole in proportion as we advance eastward. A fourth part of the 571,000 square sea leagues* (* Almost double the extent of Europe.) which South America comprises is covered with mountains distributed in chains or gathered together in groups. The other parts are plains forming long uninterrupted bands covered with forests or gramina, flatter than in Europe, and rising progressively, at the distance of 300 leagues from the coast, between 30 and 170 toises above the level of the sea. The most considerable mountainous chain in South America extends from south to north according to the greatest dimension of the continent; it is not central like the European chains, nor far removed from the sea-sh.o.r.e, like the Himalaya and the Hindoo-Koosh; but it is thrown towards the western extremity of the continent, almost on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Referring to the profile which I have given* of the configuration of South America (* Map of Columbia according to the astronomical observations of Humboldt by A.H. Brue 1823.), in the lat.i.tude of Chimborazo and Grand Para, across the plains of the Amazon, we find the land low towards the east, in an inclined plane, at an angle of less than 25 seconds on a length of 600 leagues; and if, in the ancient state of our planet, the Atlantic Ocean, by some extraordinary cause, ever rose to 1100 feet above its present level (a height one-third less than the table-lands of Spain and Bavaria), the waves must, in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, have broken upon the rocks that bound the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras of the Andes. The rising of this ridge is so inconsiderable compared to the whole continent that its breadth in the parallel of Cape Saint Roche is 1400 times greater than the average height of the Andes.

We distinguish in the mountainous part of South America a chain and three groups of mountains, namely, the Cordillera of the Andes, which the geologist may trace without interruption from Cape Pilares, in the western part of the Straits of Magellan, to the promontory of Paria opposite the island of Trinidad; the insulated group of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; the group of the mountains of the Orinoco, or of La Parime; and that of the mountains of Brazil. The Sierra de Santa Marta being nearly in the meridian of the Cordilleras of Peru and New Grenada, the snowy summits descried by navigators in pa.s.sing the mouth of the Rio Magdalena are commonly mistaken for the northern extremity of the Andes. I shall soon prove that the colossal group of the Sierra de Santa Marta is almost entirely separate from the mountains of Ocana and Pamplona which belong to the eastern Cordillera of New Grenada.

The hot plains through which runs the Rio Cesar, and which extend towards the valley of Upar, separate the Sierra Nevada from the Paramo de Cacota, south of Pamplona. The ridge which divides the waters between the gulf of Maracaibo and the Rio Magdalena is in the plain on the east of the Laguna Zapatoza. If, on the one hand, the Sierra de Santa Marta has been erroneously considered (on account of its eternal snow, and its longitude) to be a continuation of the Cordillera of the Andes, on the other hand, the connexion of that same Cordillera with the coast mountains of the provinces of c.u.mana and Caracas has not been recognized. The littoral chain of Venezuela, of which the different ranges form the Montana de Paria, the isthmus of Araya, the Silla of Caracas and the gneiss-granite mountains north and south of the lake of Valencia, is joined between Porto Cabello, San Felipe and Tocuyo to the Paramos de las Rosas and Niquitao, which form the north-east extremity of the Sierra de Merida, and the eastern Cordillera of the Andes of New Grenada. It is sufficient here to mention this connexion, so important in a geological point of view; for the denominations of Andes and Cordilleras being altogether in disuse as applied to the chains of mountains extending from the eastern gulf of Maracaibo to the promontory of Paria, we shall continue to designate those chains (stretching from west to east) by the names of littoral chain, or coast-chain of Venezuela.

Of the three insulated groups of mountains, that is to say, those which are not branches of the Cordillera of the Andes and its continuation towards the sh.o.r.e of Venezuela, one is on the north, and the other two on the west of the Andes: that on the north is the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; the two others are the Sierra de la Parime, between 4 and 8 degrees of north lat.i.tude, and the mountains of Brazil, between 15 and 28 degrees south lat.i.tude. This singular distribution of great inequalities of soil produces three plains or basins, comprising a surface of 420,600 square leagues, or four-fifths of all South America, east of the Andes. Between the coast-chain of Venezuela and the group of the Parime, the plains of the Apure and the Lower Orinoco extend; between the group of Parime and the Brazil mountains are the plains of the Amazon, of the Rio Negro and the Madeira, and between the groups of Brazil and the southern extremity of the continent are the plains of Rio de la Plata and of Patagonia.

As the group of the Parime in Spanish Guiana, and of the Brazil mountains (or of Minas Geraes and Goyaz), do not join the Cordillera of the Andes of New Grenada and Upper Peru towards the west, the three plains of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata, are connected by land-straits of considerable breadth. These straits are also plains stretching from north to south, and traversed by ridges imperceptible to the eye but forming divortia aquarum. These ridges (and this remarkable phenomenon has. .h.i.therto escaped the attention of geologists) are situated between 2 and 3 degrees north lat.i.tude, and 16 and 18 degrees south lat.i.tude. The first ridge forms the part.i.tion of the waters which fall into the Lower Orinoco on the north-east, and into the Rio Negro and the Amazon on the south and south-east; the second ridge divides the tributary streams of the right bank of the Amazon and the Rio de la Plata. These ridges, of which the existence is only manifested, as in Volhynia, by the course of the waters, are parallel with the coast-chain of Venezuela; they present, as it were, two systems of counter-slopes partially developed, in the direction from west to east, between the Guaviare and the Caqueta, and between the Mamori and the Pilcomayo. It is also worthy of remark that in the southern hemisphere the Cordillera of the Andes sends an immense counterpoise eastward in the promontory of the Sierra Nevada de Cochabamba, whence begins the ridge stretching between the tributary streams of the Madeira and the Paraguay to the lofty group of the mountains of Brazil or Minas Geraes. Three transversal chains (the coast-mountains of Venezuela, of the Orinoco or Parime, and the Brazil mountains) tend to join the longitudinal chain (the Andes) either by an intermediary group (between the lake of Valencia and Tocuyo), or by ridges formed by the intersection of counter-slopes in the plains. The two extremities of the three Llanos which communicate by land-straits, the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata or of Buenos Ayres, are steppes covered with gramina, while the intermediary Llano (that of the Amazon) is a thick forest. With respect to the two land-straits forming bands directed from north to south (from the Apure to Caqueta across the Provincia de los Llanos, and the sources of the Mamori to Rio Pilcomayo, across the province of Mocos and Chiquitos) they are bare and gra.s.sy steppes like the plains of Caracas and Buenos Ayres.

In the immense extent of land east of the Andes, comprehending more than 480,000 square sea leagues, of which 92,000 are a mountainous tract of country, no group rises to the region of perpetual snow; none even attains the height of 1400 toises. This lowering of the mountains in the eastern region of the New Continent extends as far as 60 degrees north lat.i.tude; while in the western part, on the prolongation of the Cordillera of the Andes, the highest Summits rise in Mexico (lat.i.tude 18 degrees 59 minutes) to 2770 toises, and in the Rocky Mountains (lat.i.tude 37 to 40 degrees) to 1900 toises. The insulated group of the Alleghenies, corresponding in its eastern position and direction with the Brazil group, does not exceed 1040 toises.* (* The culminant point of the Alleghenies is Mount Washington in New Hampshire, lat.i.tude 44 1/4 degrees. According to Captain Partridge its height is 6634 English feet.) The lofty summits, therefore, thrice exceeding the height of Mont Blanc, belong only to the longitudinal chain which bounds the basin of the Pacific Ocean, from 55 degrees south to 68 degrees north lat.i.tude, that is to say, the Cordillera of the Andes. The only insulated group that can be compared with the snowy summits of the equinoctial Andes, and which attains the height of nearly 3000 toises, is the Sierra de Santa Marta; it is not situated on the east of the Cordilleras, but between the prolongation of two of their branches, those of Merida and Veragua. The Cordilleras, where they bound the Caribbean Sea, in that part which we designate by the name of Coast Chain of Venezuela, do not attain the extraordinary height (2500 toises) which they reach in their prolongation towards Chita and Merida. Considering separately the groups of the east, those of the sh.o.r.e of Venezuela, of the Parime, and Brazil, we see their height diminish from north to south. The highest summits of each group are the Silla de Caracas (1350 toises), the peak of Duida (1300 toises), the Itacolumi and the Itambe* (900 toises). (* According to the measure of MM. Spix and Martius the Itambe de Villa de Principe is 5590 feet high.) But, as I have elsewhere observed, it would be erroneous to judge the height of a chain of mountains solely from that of the most lofty summits. The peak of the Himalayas, accurately measured, is 676 toises higher than Chimborazo (* The Peak Iewahir, lat.i.tude 30 degrees 22 minutes 19 seconds; longitude 77 degrees 35 minutes 7 seconds east of Paris, height 4026 toises, according to MM. Hodgson and Herbert.); Chimborazo is 900 toises higher than Mont Blanc; and Mont Blanc 653 toises higher than the peak of Nethou.* (* This peak, called also peak of Anethou or Malahita, or eastern peak of Maladetta, is the highest summit of the Pyrenees. It rises 1787 toises and consequently exceeds Mont Perdu by 40 toises.) These differences do not furnish the relative average heights of the Himalayas, the Andes, the Alps and the Pyrenees, that is, the height of the back of the mountains, on which arise the peaks, needles, pyramids, or rounded domes. It is that part of the back where pa.s.ses are made, which furnishes a precise measure of the minimum of the height of the great chains. In comparing the whole of my measures with those of Moorcroft, Webb, Hodgson, Saussure and Ramond, I estimate the average height of the top of the Himalayas, between the meridians of 75 and 77 degrees, at 2450 toises; the Andes* (at Peru, Quito and New Grenada), at 1850 toises (* In the pa.s.sage of Quindiu, between the valley of the Magdalena and that of the Rio Cauca, I found the culminant point (la Garita del Parama) to be 1798 toises; it is however, regarded as one of the least elevated. The pa.s.sages of the Andes of Guanacas, Guamani and Micuipampa, are respectively 2300, 1713, and 1817 toises above sea-level. Even in 33 degrees south lat.i.tude the road across the Andes between Mendoza and Valparaiso is 1987 toises high. I do not mention the Col de l'a.s.suay, where I pa.s.sed, near la Ladera de Cadlud, on a ridge 2428 toises high, because it is a pa.s.sage on a transverse ridge joining two parallel chains.); the summit of the Alps and Pyrenees at 1150 toises. The difference of the mean height of the Cordilleras (between 5 degrees north and 2 degrees south lat.i.tude) and the Swiss Alps, is consequently 200 toises less than the difference of their loftiest summits; and in comparing the pa.s.ses of the Alps, we see that their average height is nearly the same, although peak Nethou is 600 toises lower than Mont Blanc and Mont Rosa. Between the Himalaya* (* The pa.s.ses of the Himalaya that lead from Chinese Tartary into Hindostan (Nitee-Ghaut, Bamsaru, etc.) are from 2400 to 2700 toises high.) and the Andes, on the contrary, (considering those chains in the limits which I have just indicated), the difference between the mean height of the ridges and that of the loftiest summits presents nearly the same proportions.

Taking an a.n.a.logous view of the groups of mountains at the east of the Andes, we find the average height of the coast-chain of Venezuela to be 750 toises; of the Sierra Parime, 500 toises; of the Brazilian group, 400 toises; whence it follows that the mountains of the eastern region of South America between the tropics are, when compared to the medium elevation of the Andes, in the relation of one to three.

The following is the result of some numerical statements, the comparison of which affords more precise ideas on the structure of mountains in general.* (* The Cols or pa.s.ses indicate the minimum of the height to which the ridge of the mountains lowers in a particular country. Now, looking at the princ.i.p.al pa.s.ses of the Alps of Switzerland (Col Terret, 1191 toises, Mont Cenis, 1060 toises; Great Saint Bernard, 1246 toises; Simplon, 1029 toises; and on the neck of the Pyrenees, Benasque, 1231 toises; Pinede, 1291 toises; Gavarnic, 1197 toises; Cavarere, 1151 toises; it would be difficult to affirm that the Pyrenees are lower than the average height of the Swiss Alps.)

TABLE OF HEIGHTS OF VARIOUS RANGES.

COLUMN 1 : NAMES OF THE CHAINS OF MOUNTAINS.

COLUMN 2 : THE HIGHEST SUMMITS IN TOISES.

COLUMN 3 : MEAN HEIGHT OF THE RIDGE IN TOISES.

COLUMN 4 : PROPORTION OF THE MEAN HEIGHT OF THE RIDGES TO THAT A THE HIGHEST SUMMITS.

Himalayas (between north lat.i.tude : 4026 : 2450 : 1 : 1.6.

30 degrees 18 minutes and 31 degrees 53 minutes, and longitude 75 degrees 23 minutes and 77 degrees 38 minutes)

Cordillera of the Andes (between : 3350 : 1850 : 1 : 1.8.

lat.i.tude 5 and 2 degrees south)

Alps of Switzerland : 2450 : 1150 : 1 : 2.1.

Pyrenees : 1787 : 1150 : 1 : 1.5.

Littoral Chain of Venezuela : 1350 : 750 : 1 : 1.8.

Group of the Mountains of the Parime : 1300 : 500 : 1 : 2.6.

Group of the Mountains of Brazil : 900 : 500 : 1 : 2.3.

If we distinguish among the mountains those which rise sporadically, and form small insulated systems,* (* As the groups of the Canaries, the Azores, the Sandwich Islands, the Monts-Dores, and the Euganean mountains.) and those that make part of a continued chain,* (* The Himalayas, the Alps, and the Andes.) we find that, notwithstanding the immense height* of the summits of some insulated systems (* Among the insulated systems, or sporadic mountains, Mowna-Roa is generally regarded as the most elevated summit of the Sandwich Islands. Its height is computed at 2500 toises, and yet at some seasons it is entirely free from snow. An exact measure of this summit, situated in very frequented lat.i.tudes, has for 25 years been desired in vain by naturalists and geologists.), the culminant points of the whole globe belong to continuous chains--to the Cordilleras of Central Asia and South America.

In that part of the Andes with which I am best acquainted, between 8 degrees south lat.i.tude and 21 degrees north lat.i.tude, all the colossal summits are of trachyte. It may almost be admitted as a general rule that whenever the ma.s.s of mountains rises in that region of the tropics much above the limit of perpetual snow (2300 to 2470 toises), the rocks commonly called primitive (for instance, gneiss-granite or mica-slate) disappear, and the summits are of trachyte or trappean-porphyry. I know only a few rare exceptions to this law, and they occur in the Cordilleras of Quito where the Nevados of Conderasto and Cuvillan, situated opposite to the trachytic Chimborazo, are composed of mica-slate and contain veins of sulphuret of silver. Thus in the groups of detached mountains which rise abruptly from the plains the loftiest summits, such as Mowna-Roa, the Peak of Teneriffe, Etna and the Peak of the Azores, present only recent volcanic rocks.

It would, however, be an error to extend that law to every other continent, and to admit, as a general rule, that, in every zone, the greatest elevations have produced trachytic domes: gneiss-granite and mica-slate const.i.tute the summits of the ridge, in the almost insulated group of the Sierra Nevada of Grenada and the Peak of Malhacen,* (* This peak, according to the survey of M. Clemente Roxas, is 1826 toises above the level of the sea, consequently 39 toises higher than the loftiest summit of the Pyrenees (the granitic peak of Nethou) and 83 toises lower than the trachytic peak of Teneriffe. The Sierra Nevada of Grenada forms a system of mountains of mica-slate, pa.s.sing to gneiss and clay-slate, and containing shelves of euphotide and greenstone.), as they also do in the continuous chain of the Alps, the Pyrenees and probably the Himalayas.* (* If we may judge from the specimens of rocks collected in the gorges and pa.s.ses of the Himalayas or rolled down by the torrents.) These phenomena, discordant in appearance, are possibly all effects of the same cause: granite, gneiss, and all the so-styled primitive Neptunian mountains, may possibly owe their origin to volcanic forces, as well as the trachytes; but to forces of which the action resembles less the still-burning volcanoes of our days, ejecting lava, which at the moment of its eruption comes immediately into contact with the atmospheric air; but it is not here my purpose to discuss this great theoretic question.

After having examined the general structure of South America according to considerations of comparative geology, I shall proceed to notice separately the different systems of mountains and plains, the mutual connection of which has so powerful an influence on the state of industry and commerce in the nations of the New Continent. I shall give only a general view of the systems situated beyond the limits of the region which forms the special object of this memoir. Geology being essentially founded on the study of the relations of juxtaposition and place, I could not treat of the littoral chain and the chain of the Parime separately, without touching on the other systems south and west of Venezuela.

A. SYSTEMS OF MOUNTAINS.

A.1. CORDILLERAS OF THE ANDES.

This is the most continuous, the longest, the most uniform in its direction from south to north and north-north-west, of any chain of the globe. It approaches the north and south poles at unequal distances of from 22 to 33 degrees. Its development is from 2800 to 3000 leagues (20 to a degree), a length equal to the distance from Cape Finisterre in Galicia to the north-east cape (Tschuktschoi-Noss) of Asia. Somewhat less than one half of this chain belongs to South America, and runs along its western sh.o.r.es. North of the isthmus of Cupica and of Panama, after an immense lowering, it a.s.sumes the appearance of a nearly central ridge, forming a rocky d.y.k.e that joins the great continent of North America to the southern continent. The low lands on the east of the Andes of Guatimala and New Spain appear to have been overwhelmed by the ocean and now form the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. As the continent beyond the parallel of Florida again widens towards the east, the Cordilleras of Durango and New Mexico, as well as the Rocky Mountains, merely a continuation of those Cordilleras, appear to be thrown still further westward, that is, towards the coast of the Pacific Ocean; but they still remain eight or ten times more remote from it than in the southern hemisphere. We may consider as the two extremities of the Andes, the rock or granitic island of Diego Ramirez, south of Cape Horn, and the mountains lying at the mouth of Mackenzie River (lat.i.tude 69 degrees, longitude 130 1/2 degrees), more than twelve degrees west of the greenstone mountains, known by the name of the Copper Mountains, visited by Captain Franklin. The colossal peak of Saint Elias and that of Mount Fairweather, in New Norfolk, do not, properly speaking, belong to the northern prolongation of the Cordilleras of the Andes, but to a parallel chain (the maritime Alps of the north-west coast), stretching towards the peninsula of California, and connected by transversal ridges with a mountainous land, between 45 and 53 degrees of lat.i.tude, with the Andes of New Mexico (Rocky Mountains). In South America the mean breadth of the Cordillera of the Andes is from 18 to 22 leagues.*

(* The breadth of this immense chain is a phenomenon well worthy of attention. The Swiss Alps extend, in the Grisons and in the Tyrol, to a breadth of 36 and 40 leagues, both in the meridians of the lake at Como, the canton of Appenzell, and in the meridian of Ba.s.sano and Tegernsee.) It is only in the knots of the mountains, that is where the Cordillera is swelled by side-groups or divided into several chains nearly parallel, and reuniting at intervals, for instance, on the south of the lake of t.i.ticaca, that it is more than 100 to 120 leagues broad, in a direction perpendicular to its axis. The Andes of South America bound the plains of the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata, on the west, like a rocky wall raised across a crevice 1300 leagues long, and stretching from south to north. This upheaved part (if I may be permitted to use an expression founded on a geological hypothesis) comprises a surface of 58,900 square leagues, between the parallel of Cape Pilesar and the northern Choco. To form an idea of the variety of rocks which this s.p.a.ce may furnish for the observation of the traveller, we must recollect that the Pyrenees, according to the observations of M. Charpentier, occupy only 768 square sea leagues.

The name of Andes in the Quichua language (which wants the consonants d, f, and g) Antis, or Ante, appears to me to be derived from the Peruvian word anta, signifying copper or metal in general. Anta chacra signifies mine of copper; antacuri, copper mixed with gold; and puca anta, copper, or red metal. As the group of the Altai mountains* takes its name from the Turkish word altor or altyn (* Klaproth. Asia polyglotta page 211. It appears to me less probable that the tribe of the Antis gave its name to the mountains of Peru.), in the same manner the Cordilleras may have been termed "Copper-country," or Anti-suyu, on account of the abundance of that metal, which the Peruvians employed for their tools. The Inca Garcila.s.so, who was the son of a Peruvian princess, and who wrote the history of his native country in the first years of the conquest, gives no etymology of the name of the Andes. He only opposes Anti-suyu, or the region of summits covered with eternal snow (ritiseca), to the plains or Yuncas, that is, to the lower region of Peru. The etymology of the name of the largest mountain chain of the globe cannot be devoid of interest to the mineralogic geographer.

The structure of the Cordillera of the Andes, that is, its division into several chains nearly parallel, which are again joined by knots of mountains, is very remarkable. On our maps this structure is indicated but imperfectly; and what La Condamine and Bouguer merely guessed, during their long visit to the table-land of Quito, has been generalized and ill-interpreted by those who have described the whole chain according to the type of the equatorial Andes. The following is the most accurate information I could collect by my own researches and an active correspondence of twenty years with the inhabitants of Spanish America. The group of islands called Tierra del Fuego, in which the chain of the Andes begins, is a plain extending from Cape Espiritu Santo as far as the ca.n.a.l of San Sebastian. The country on the west of this ca.n.a.l, between Cape San Valentino and Cape Pilares, is bristled with granitic mountains covered (from the Morro de San Agueda to Cabo Redondo) with calcareous sh.e.l.ls. Navigators have greatly exaggerated the height of the mountains of Tierra del Fuego, among which there appears to be a volcano still burning. M. de Churruca found the height of the western peak of Cape Pilares (lat.i.tude 52 degrees 45 minutes south) only 218 toises; even Cape Horn is probably not more than 500 toises* high. (* It is very distinctly seen at the distance of 60 miles, which, without calculating the effects of terrestrial refraction, would give it a height of 498 toises.) The plain extends on the northern sh.o.r.e of the Straits of Magellan, from the Virgin's Cape to Cabo Negro; at the latter the Cordilleras rise abruptly, and fill the whole s.p.a.ce as far as Cape Victoria (lat.i.tude 52 degrees 22 minutes). The region between Cape Horn and the southern extremity of the continent somewhat resembles the origin of the Pyrenees between Cape Creux (near the gulf of Rosas) and the Col des Perdus. The height of the Patagonian chain is not known; it appears, however, that no summit south of the parallel of 48 degrees attains the elevation of the Canigou (1430 toises) which is near the eastern extremity of the Pyrenees. In that southern country, where the summers are so cold and short, the limit of eternal snow must lower at least as much as in the northern hemisphere, in Norway, in lat.i.tude 63 and 64 degrees; consequently below 800 toises. The great breadth, therefore, of the band of snow that envelopes these Patagonian summits, does not justify the idea which travellers form of their height in 40 degrees south lat.i.tude. As we advance towards the island of Chiloe, the Cordilleras draw near the coast; and the archipelago of Chonos or Huaytecas appears like the vestiges of an immense group of mountains overwhelmed by water. Narrow estuaries fill the lower valleys of the Andes, and remind us of the fjords of Norway and Greenland. We there find, running from south to north, the Nevados de Maca (lat.i.tude 45 degrees 19 minutes), of Cuptano (lat.i.tude 44 degrees 58 minutes), of Yanteles (lat.i.tude 43 degrees 52 minutes), of Corcovado, Chayapirca (lat.i.tude 42 degrees 52 minutes) and of Llebean (lat.i.tude 41 degrees 49 minutes). The peak of Cuptana rises like the peak of Teneriffe, from the bosom of the sea; but being scarcely visible at thirty-six or forty leagues distance, it cannot be more than 1500 toises high. Corcovado, situated on the coast of the continent, opposite the southern point of the island of Chiloe, appears to be more than 1950 toises high; it is perhaps the loftiest summit of the whole globe, south of the parallel of 42 degrees south lat.i.tude. On the north of San Carlos de Chiloe, in the whole length of Chile to the desert of Atacama, the low western regions not having been overwhelmed by floods, the Andes there appear farther from the coast. The Abbe Molina affirms that the Cordilleras of Chile form three parallel chains, of which the intermediary is the most elevated; but to prove that this division is far from general, it suffices to recollect the barometric survey made by MM. Bauza and Espinosa, in 1794, between Mendoza and Santiago de Chile. The road leading from one of those towns to the other, rises gradually from 700 to 1987 toises; and after pa.s.sing the Col des Andes (La c.u.mbre, between the houses of refuge called Las Calaveras and Las Cuevas), it descends continually as far as the temperate valley of Santiago de Chile, of which the bottom is only 409 toises above the level of the sea. The same survey has made known the minimum of height at Chile of the lower limit of snow, in 33 degrees south lat.i.tude. The limit does not lower in summer to 2000 toises.* (* On the southern declivity of the Himalayas snow begins (3 degrees nearer the equator) at 1970 toises.) I think we may conclude according to the a.n.a.logy of the Snowy Mountains of Mexico and southern Europe, and considering the difference of the summer temperature of the two hemispheres, that the real Nevadas at Chile, in the parallel of Valdivia (lat.i.tude 40 degrees), cannot be below 1300 toises; in Valparaiso (lat.i.tude 33 degrees) not lower than 2000 toises, and in that of Copiapo (lat.i.tude 27 degrees) not below 2200 toises of height. These are the limit-numbers, the minimum of elevation, which the ridge of the Andes of Chile must attain in different degrees of lat.i.tude, to enable their summits to rise above the line of perpetual snow. The numerical results which I have just marked and which are founded on the laws of distribution of heat, have still the same importance which they possessed at the time of my travels in America; for there does not exist in the immense extent of the Andes, from 8 degrees south lat.i.tude to the Straits of Magellan, one Nevada of which the height above the sea-level has been determined, either by a simple geometric measure, or by the combined means of barometric and geodesic measurements.

Between 33 and 18 degrees south lat.i.tude, between the parallels of Valparaiso and Arica, the Andes present towards the east three remarkable spurs, the Sierra de Cordova, the Sierra de Salta, and the Nevados de Cochabamba. Travellers partly cross and partly go along the side of the Sierra de Cordova (between 33 and 31 degrees of lat.i.tude) in their way from Buenos Ayres to Mendoza; it may be said to be the most southern promontory which advances, in the Pampas, towards the meridian of 65 degrees; it gives birth to the great river known by the name of Desaguadero de Mendoza and extends from San Juan de la Frontera and San Juan de la Punta to the town of Cordova. The second spur, called the Sierra de Salta and the Jujui, of which the greatest breadth is 25 degrees of lat.i.tude, widens from the valley of Catamarca and San Miguel del Tuc.u.man, in the direction of the Rio Vermejo (longitude 64 degrees). Finally, the third and most majestic spur, the Sierra Nevada de Cochabamba and Santa Cruz (from 22 to 17 1/2 degrees of lat.i.tude), is linked with the knot of the mountains of Porco. It forms the points of part.i.tion (divortia aquarum, between the basin of the Amazon and that of the Rio de la Plata. The Cachimayo and the Pilcomayo, which rise between Potosi, Talavera de la Puna, and La Plata or Chuquisaca, run in the direction of south-east, while the Parapiti and the Guapey (Guapaiz, or Rio de Mizque) pour their waters into the Mamori, to north-east. The ridge of part.i.tion being near Chayanta, south of Mizque, Tomina and Pomabamba, nearly on the southern declivity of the Sierra de Cochabamba in lat.i.tude 19 and 20 degrees, the Rio Guapey flows round the whole group, before it reaches the plains of the Amazon, as in Europe the Poprad, a tributary of the Vistula, makes a circuit in its course from the southern part of the Carpathians to the plains of Poland. I have already observed above, that where the mountains cease (west* of the meridian of 66 1/2 degrees (* I agree with Captain Basil Hall, in fixing the port of Valparaiso in 71 degrees 31 minutes west of Greenwich, and I place Cordova 8 degrees 40 minutes, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra 7 degrees 4 minutes east of Valparaiso. The longitudes mentioned in the text refer always to the meridian of the Observatory of Paris.)) the part.i.tion ridge of Cochabamba goes up towards the north-east, to 16 degrees of lat.i.tude, forming, by the intersection of two slightly inclined planes, only one ridge amidst the savannahs, and separating the waters of the Guapore, a tributary of the Madeira, from those of the Aguapehy and Jauru, tributaries of the Rio Paraguay. This vast country between Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Villabella, and Matogrosso, is one of the least known parts of South America. The two spurs of Cordova and Salta present only a mountainous territory of small elevation, and linked to the foot of the Andes of Chile. Cochabamba, on the contrary, attains the limit of perpetual snow (2300 toises) and forms in some sort a lateral branch of the Cordilleras, diverging even from their tops between La Paz and Oruro. The mountains composing this branch (the Cordillera de Chiriguanaes, de los Sauces and Yuracarees) extend regularly from west to east; their eastern declivity* is very rapid, and their loftiest summits are not in the centre, but in the northern part of the group. (* For much information concerning the Sierra de Cochabamba I am indebted to the ma.n.u.scripts of my countryman, the celebrated botanist Taddeus Haenke, which a monk of the congregation of the Escurial, Father Cisneros, kindly communicated to me at Lima.

Mr. Haenke, after having followed the expedition of Alexander Malaspina, settled at Cochabamba in 1798. A part of the immense herbal of this botanist is now at Prague.)

The princ.i.p.al Cordillera of Chile and Upper Peru is, for the first time, ramified very distinctly into two branches, in the group of Porco and Potosi, between lat.i.tude 19 and 20 degrees. These two branches comprehend the table-land extending from Carangas to Lamba (lat.i.tude 19 3/4 to 15 degrees) and in which is situated the small mountain lake of Paria, the Desaguadero, and the great Laguna of t.i.ticaca or Chucuito, of which the western part bears the name of Vinamarca. To afford an idea of the colossal dimensions of the Andes, I may here observe that the surface of the lake of t.i.ticaca alone (448 square sea leagues) is twenty times greater than that of the Lake of Geneva, and twice the average extent of a department of France. On the banks of this lake, near Tiahuanacu, and in the high plains of Callao, ruins are found which bear evidence of a state of civilization anterior to that which the Peruvians a.s.sign to the reign of the Inca Manco Capac. The eastern Cordillera, that of La Paz, Palca, Anc.u.ma, and Pelechuco, join, north-west of Apolobamba, the western Cordillera, which is the most extensive of the whole chain of the Andes, between the parallels 14 and 15 degrees. The imperial city of Cuzco is situated near the eastern extremity of this knot, which comprehends, in an area of 3000 square leagues, the mountains of Vilcanota, Carabaya, Abancai, Huando, Parinacochas, and Andahuaylas. Though here, as in general, in every considerable widening of the Cordillera, the grouped summits do not follow the princ.i.p.al axis in uniform and parallel directions, a phenomenon observable in the general disposition of the chain of the Andes, from lat.i.tude 18 degrees, is well worthy the attention of geologists. The whole ma.s.s of the Cordilleras of Chile and Upper Peru, from the Straits of Magellan to the parallel of the port of Arica (18 degrees 28 minutes 35 seconds), runs from south to north, in the direction of a meridian at most 5 degrees north-east; but from the parallel of Arica, the coast and the two Cordilleras east and west of the Alpine lake of t.i.ticaca, abruptly change their direction and incline to north-west. The Cordilleras of Anc.u.ma and Moquehua, and the longitudinal valley, or rather the basin of t.i.ticaca, which they inclose, take a direction north 42 degrees west. Further on, the two branches again unite in the group of the mountains of Cuzco, and thence their direction is north 80 degrees west. This group of which the table-land inclines to the north-east, forms a curve, nearly from east to west, so that the part of the Andes north of Castrovireyna is thrown back more than 242,000 toises westward. This singular geological phenomenon resembles the variation of dip of the veins, and especially of the two parts of the chain of the Pyrenees, parallel to each other, and linked by an almost rectangular elbow, 16,000 toises long, near the source of the Garonne;* (* Between the mountain of Tentenade and the Port d'Espot.); but in the Andes, the axes of the chain, south and north of the curve, do not preserve parallelism. On the north of Castrovireyna and Andahuaylas (lat.i.tude 14 degrees), the direction is north 22 degrees west, while south of 15 degrees, it is north 42 degrees west. The inflexions of the coast follow these changes. The sh.o.r.e separated from the Cordillera by a plain 15 leagues in breadth, stretches from Camapo to Arica, between 27 1/2 and 18 1/2 degrees lat.i.tude north 5 degrees east; from Arica to Pisco, between 18 1/2 and 14 degrees lat.i.tude at first north 42 degrees west, afterwards north 65 degrees west; and from Pisco to Truxillo, between 14 and 8 degrees of lat.i.tude north 27 degrees west. The parallelism between the coast and the Cordillera of the Andes is a phenomenon the more worthy of attention, as it occurs in several parts of the globe where the mountains do not in the same manner form the sh.o.r.e.

After the great knot of mountains of Cuzco and Parinacochas, in 14 degrees south lat.i.tude, the Andes present a second bifurcation, on the east and west of the Rio Jauja, which throws itself into the Mantaro, a tributary stream of the Apurimac. The eastern chain stretches on the east of Huanta, the convent of Ocopa and Tarma; the western chain, on the west of Castrovireyna, Huancavelica, Huarocheri, and Yauli. The basin, or rather the lofty table-land which is inclosed by these chains, is nearly half the length of the basin of Chucuito or t.i.ticaca. Two mountains covered with eternal snow, seen from the town of Lima, and which the inhabitants name Toldo de la Nieve, belong to the western chain, that of Huarocheri.

North-west of the valleys of Salcabamba, in the parallel of the ports of Huaura and Guarmey, between 11 and 10 degrees lat.i.tude, the two chains unite in the knot of the Huanuco and the Pasco, celebrated for the mines of Yauricocha or Santa Rosa. There rise two peaks of colossal height, the Nevados of Sasaguanca and of La Viuda. The table-land of this knot of mountains appears in the Pambas de Bombon to be more than 1800 toises above the level of the ocean. From this point, on the north of the parallel of Huanuco (lat.i.tude 11 degrees), the Andes are divided into three chains: the first, and most eastern, rises between Pozuzu and Muna, between the Rio Huallaga, and the Rio Pachitea, a tributary of the Ucayali; the second, or central, is between the Huallaga, and the Upper Maranon; the third, or western, between the Upper Maranon and the coast of Truxillo and Payta. The eastern chain is a small lateral branch which lowers into a range of hills: its direction is first north-north-east, bordering the Pampas del Sacramento, afterwards it turns west-north-west, where it is broken by the Rio Huallaga, in the Pongo, above the confluence of Chipurana, and then it loses itself in lat.i.tude 6 1/4 degrees, on the north-west of Lamas. A transversal ridge seems to connect it with the central chain, south of Paramo de Piscoguanuna (or Piscuaguna), west of Chachapoyas. The intermediary or central chain stretches from the knot of Pasco and Huanuco, towards north-north-west, between Xican and Chicoplaya, Huacurachuco and the sources of the Rio Monzan, between Pataz and Pajatan, Caxamarquilla and Moyobamba. It widens greatly in the parallel of Chachapoyas, and forms a mountainous territory, traversed by deep and extremely hot valleys. On the north of the Paramo de Piscoguanuna (lat.i.tude 6 degrees) the central chain throws two branches in the direction of La Vellaca and San Borja. We shall soon see that this latter branch forms, below the Rio Neva a tributary stream of the Amazon, the rocks that border the famous Pongo de Manseriche. In this zone, where North Peru approximates to the confines of New Grenada in lat.i.tude 10 and 5 degrees, no summit of the eastern and central chains rises as high as the region of perpetual snow; the only snowy summits are in the western chain. The central chain, that of the Paramos de Callacalla, and Piscoguanuna, scarcely attains 1800 toises, and lowers gently to 800 toises; so that the mountainous and temperate tract of country which extends on the north of Chachapoyas towards Pomacocha, La Vellaca and the source of the Rio Nieva is rich in fine cinchona trees. After having pa.s.sed the Rio Huallaga and the Pachitea, which with the Beni forms the Ucayali, we find, in advancing towards the east, only ranges of hills. The western chain of the Andes, which is the most elevated and nearest to the coast, runs almost parallel with the sh.o.r.e north 22 degrees west, between Caxatambo and Huary, Conchucos and Guamachuco, by Caxamarca, the Paramo de Yanaguanga, and Montan, towards the Rio de Guancabamba.