The Andes and the Amazon Part 5

Father Velasco praises Ecuador as "the n.o.blest portion of the New World." Nature has doubtless gifted it with capabilities unsurpa.s.sed by those of any other country. Situated on the equinoctial line, and embracing within its limits some of the highest as well as lowest dry land on the globe, it presents every grade of climate, from the perpetual summer on the coast and in the Orient to the everlasting winter of the Andean summits, while the high plateau between the Cordilleras enjoys an eternal spring. The vegetable productions are consequently most varied and prolific. Tropical, temperate, and arctic fruits and flowers are here found in profusion, or could be successfully cultivated. As the Ecuadorian sees all the constellations of the firmament, so Nature surrounds him with representatives of every family of plants. There are places where the eye may embrace an entire zone, for it may look up to a barley-field and potato-patch, and down to the sugar-cane and pine-apple.

Confining our attention to the Quito Valley, we remark that the whole region from Pichincha to Chimborazo is as treeless as Palestine. The densest forest is near Banos. The most common tree is the "Aliso"

(_Betula ac.u.minata_). Walnut is the best timber. There are no pines or oaks.[37] The slopes of the mountains, between twelve and fifteen thousand feet, are clothed with a shrub peculiar to the high alt.i.tudes of the Andes, called _Chuquiragua_. This is a very valuable shrub; the twigs are used for fuel, and the yellow buds as a febrifuge. The castor-oil-tree grows naturally by the road side, sometimes to the height of twelve feet.

[Footnote 37: On the Himalayas are oaks, birches, pines, chestnuts, maples, junipers, and willows; no tree-ferns, bamboos, or palms.]

A very useful as well as the most ordinary plant in the valley is the American aloe, or "Century Plant."[38] It is the largest of all herbs.

Not naturally social, it imparts a melancholy character to the landscape as it rises solitary out of the arid plain. Most of the roads are fenced with aloe hedges. While the majority of tropical trees have naked stems with a crown of leaves on the top, the aloe reverses this, and looks like a great chandelier as its tall peduncle, bearing greenish-yellow flowers, rises out of a graceful cl.u.s.ter of long, thick, fleshy leaves.

When cultivated, the aloe flowers in much less time than a century; but, exhausted by the efflorescence, it soon dies. Nearly every part serves some purpose; the broad leaves are used by the poorer cla.s.s instead of paper in writing, or for thatching their huts; sirup flows out of the leaves when tapped, and, as they contain much alkali, a soap (which lathers with salt water as well as fresh) is also manufactured from them; the flowers make excellent pickles; the flower-stalk is used in building; the pith of the stem is used by barbers for sharpening razors; the fibres of the leaves and the roots are woven into sandals and sacks; and the sharp spines are used as needles. A species of yucca, resembling the aloe, but with more slender leaves and of a lighter green, yields the hemp of Ecuador.

[Footnote 38: The _Agava Americana_ of botanists, _cabulla_ of Ecuadorians, _maguey_ of Venezuelans, and _metl_ of Mexicans. It is an interesting fact, brought to light by the researches of Carl Neuman, that the Chinese in the fifth century pa.s.sed over to America by way of the Aleutian Islands, and penetrated as far south as Mexico, which they called the land of _fusung_, that being the celestial name of the aloe.

Terzozomoc, the high-priest of the ancient Mexicans, gave aloe leaves, inscribed with sacred characters, to persons who had to journey among the volcanoes, to protect them from injury.]

The "crack fruit" of Quito, and, in fact, of South America, is the chirimoya.[39] Its taste is a happy mixture of sweetness and acidity.

Hanke calls it "a masterwork of Nature," and Markham p.r.o.nounces it "a spiritualized strawberry." It grows on a tree about fifteen feet high, having a broad, flat top, and very fragrant flowers. The ripe fruit, often attaining in Peru the weight of sixteen pounds, has a thick green skin, and a snow-white pulp containing about seventy black seeds. Other pomological productions are alligator pears, guavas, guayavas, granadillas, cherries (a small black variety), peaches (very poor), pears (equally bad), plums, quinces, lemons, oranges (not native), blackberries, and strawberries (large, but flavorless).[40] The cultivation of the grape has just commenced. Of vegetables there are onions (in cookery, "the first, and last, and midst, and without end"), beets, carrots, asparagus, lettuce, cabbages, turnips, tomatoes (indigenous, but inferior to ours), potatoes (also indigenous, but much smaller than their descendants),[41] red peppers, peas (always picked ripe, while green ones are imported from France!), beans, melons, squashes, and mushrooms. The last are eaten to a limited extent; Terra del Fuego, says Darwin, is the only country in the world where a cryptogamic plant affords a staple article of food.

[Footnote 39: Bollaert derives the name from _chiri_ (cold) and _muhu_ (seed).]

[Footnote 40: Dr. Jameson has found the following species of _Rubus_ in the valley of Quito: _macrocarpus_, _stipularis_, _glabratus_, _compactus_, _glaucus_, _rosaeflorus_, _loxensis_, _urticaefolius_, _floribundus_, and _nubigenus_. The common strawberry, _Fragaria vesca_, grows in the valley, as also the _Chilensis_.]

[Footnote 41: Lieutenant Gilliss praises the potatoes of Peru, but we saw no specimens in Ecuador worthy of note. The "Irish potato" is a native of the Andes. It was unknown to the early Mexicans. It grows as far south on this continent as lat. 50. The Spaniards carried the potato to Europe from Quito early in the sixteenth century. From Spain it traveled to Italy, Belgium, and Germany. Sir Walter Raleigh imported some from Virginia in 1586, and planted them on his estate near Cork, Ireland. It is raised in Asiatic countries only where Europeans have settled, and for their consumption. It is successfully grown in Australia and New Zealand, where there is no native esculent farinaceous root. Von Tschudi says there is no word in Quichua for potato. It is called _papa_ by the Napos.]

The most important grains are barley, red wheat, and corn, with short ears, and elongated kernels of divers colors. Near the coast three crops of corn a year are obtained; at Quito it is of slower growth, but fuller. The sugar-cane is grown sparingly in the valley, but chiefly on the Pacific coast. Its home is Polynesia. Quito consumes about one hundred and fifty barrels of flour daily. The best sells for four dollars a quintal. The common fodder for cattle is alfalfa, an imported lucerne. There is no clover except a wild, worthless, three-leaved species (_Trifolium amabile_). Nearly all in the above list are cultivated for home consumption only, and many valuable fruits and vegetables which would grow well are unknown to Quitonians. As Bates says of the Brazilians, the incorrigible nonchalance and laziness of the people alone prevent them from surrounding themselves with all the luxuries of a temperate as well as tropical country.

It would be an endless task to speak of the flowers. It must suffice to state that a _Synopsis Plantarum aequatoriensium_, the life-work of the venerable Professor Jameson, of the University of Quito, has just been published by the tardy government. Botanists will find in these two small volumes many new species unknown to American science, and others more correctly described by one who has dwelt forty years among the Andes. The last zone of vegetation nearest the snow-line consists chiefly of yellow-flowering _Compositae_. In fact, this family includes one fourth of the plants in the immediate vicinity of Quito. The next most numerous family is the _l.a.b.i.atae_, and then follow _Leguminosae_ and _Gentians_. Although the _Rosaceae_ is represented, there is not one species of the genus _Rosa_ not even in the whole southern hemisphere.

The magnificent _Befaria_, found in the lower part of the valley, is called "the Rose of the Andes." Fuchsias may be considered characteristic of South America, since they are so numerous; only one or two kinds occur in any other part of the world. Flowers are found in Quito all the year round, but the most favorable months are December and May. Yellow is the predominating color. The higher the alt.i.tude, the brighter the hues of any given species. Thus the _Gentiana sedifolia_ is a small, light blue flower in the lowlands, but on the a.s.suay it has bright blue petals three times as large and sensitive. This accords with Herschel's statement: "The chemical rays of the spectrum are powerfully absorbed in pa.s.sing through the atmosphere, and the effect of their greater abundance aloft is shown in the superior brilliancy of color in the flowers of Alpine regions."

America is plainly the continent of vegetation; and wherever the vegetable element predominates, the animal is subordinated. We must not look, therefore, for a large amount or variety of animal life in the Ecuadorian forests. Time was when colossal megatheroids, mastodons, and glyptodons browsed on the foliage of the Andes and the Amazon; but now the terrestrial mammals of this tropical region are few and diminutive.

They are likewise old-fashioned, inferior in type as well as bulk to those of the eastern hemisphere, for America was a finished continent long before Europe. "It seems most probable (says Darwin) that the North American elephants, mastodons, horse, and hollow-horned ruminants migrated, on land since submerged near Behring's Straits, from Siberia into North America, and thence, on land since submerged in the West Indies, into South America, where for a time they mingled with the forms characteristic of that southern continent, and have since become extinct."[42] The rise of the Mexican table-land split up the New World into two well-defined zoological provinces. A few species, as the puma, peccari, and opossum, have crossed the barrier; but South America is characterized by possessing a family of monkeys, the llama, tapir, many peculiar rodents, and several genera of edentates.

[Footnote 42: _Journal of Researches_, p. 132.]

The tapir, the largest native quadruped, is sometimes found on the mountains, but never descends into the Quito Valley. A link between the elephant and hog, its true home is in the lowlands. The tapir and peccari (also found on the Andean slopes) are the only indigenous pachyderms in South America, while the llama[43] and deer (both abounding in the valley) are the only native ruminants; there is not one native hollow-horned ruminant on the continent. The llama is the only native domesticated animal; indeed, South America never furnished any other animal serviceable to man: the horse, ox, hog, and sheep (two, four, and six-horned), are importations. Of these animals, which rendered such important aid in the early civilization of Asia and Europe, the genera even were unknown in South America four centuries ago; and to-day pure Indians with difficulty acquire a taste for beef, mutton, and pork. The llama is still used as a beast of burden; but it seldom carries a quintal more than twelve miles a day. The black bear of the Andes ascends as high as Mont Blanc, and is rarely found below three thousand five hundred feet. The puma, or maneless American lion, has an immense range, both in lat.i.tude and alt.i.tude, being found from Oregon to the Straits of Magellan, and nearly up to the limit of eternal snow. It is as cowardly as the jaguar of the lowlands is ferocious. It is a very silent animal, uttering no cry even when wounded. Its flesh, which is very white, and remarkably like veal in taste, is eaten in Patagonia.

Squirrels, hares, bats (a small species), opossums, and a large guinea-pig (_Cuye del Monte_), are found in the neighborhood of Quito.

[Footnote 43: The llama, or "mountain-camel" is a beautiful animal, with long, slender neck and fine legs, a graceful carriage, pointed ears, soft, restless eyes, and quivering lips. It has a gentle disposition; but when angry it will spit, and when hurt will shed tears. We have seen specimens entirely white; but it is generally dark brown, with patches of white. It requires very little food and drink. Since the introduction of horses, a.s.ses, and mules, the rearing of llamas has decreased. They are more common in Peru. The llama, guanaco, alpaca, and vicuna were "the four sheep of the Incas:" the first clothing the common people, the second the n.o.bles, the third the royal governors, the fourth the Incas.

The price of sheep's wool in Quito was formerly four cents a pound; it is now twelve.]

As only about sixty species of birds are common to North and South America, the traveler from the United States recognizes few ornithic forms in the Valley of Quito. Save the hummers, beautiful plumage is rare, as well as fine songsters. But the moment we descend the Eastern Cordillera into the interior of the continent, we find the feathered race in robes of richest colors. The exact cause of this brilliant coloring in the tropics is still a problem. It can not be owing to greater light and heat, for the birds of the Galapagos Islands, directly under the equator, are dull.[44]

[Footnote 44: Mr. Gould, however, holds that the difference of coloration is due to the different degrees of exposure to the sun's rays, the brilliantly-colored species being inhabitants of the edges of the forest. Birds from Ucayali, in the centre of the continent, are far more splendid than those which represent them in countries nearer the sea, owing to the clearer atmosphere inland. But it is a fact, at least exceptional to this theory, that the "c.o.c.k of the Rock" (Rupicola) on the western side of the Andes (Esmeraldas) is of a richer, deeper color than the same species on the eastern slope (Napo). In keeping with Mr.

Gould's theory is the statement by Mr. Bates, that the most gaudy b.u.t.terflies (the males) flutter in the sunshine.]

The males, both of birds and b.u.t.terflies, are the most gaudily dressed.

In the highlands the most prominent birds are the condor and the humming-bird. These two extremes in size are found side by side on the summit of Pichincha. The condor appears in its glory among the mountains of Quito. Its ordinary haunt is at the height of Etna. No other living creature can remove at pleasure to so great a distance from the earth; and it seems to fly and respire as easily under the low barometric pressure of thirteen inches as at the sea-sh.o.r.e. It can dart in an instant from the dome of Chimborazo to the sultry coast of the Pacific.

It has not the kingly port of the eagle, and is a cowardly robber: a true vulture, it prefers the relish of putrescence and the flavor of death. It makes no nest, but lays two eggs on a jutting ledge of some precipice, and fiercely defends them. The usual spread of wings is nine feet. It does not live in pairs like the eagle, but feeds in flocks like its loathsome relative, the buzzard. It is said to live forty days without food in captivity, but at liberty it is very voracious. The usual method of capture is to kill an old mare (better than horse, the natives say), and allow the bird to gorge himself, when he becomes so sluggish as to be easily la.s.soed. It is such a heavy sleeper, it is possible to take it from its roost. The evidences in favor of and against its acute smelling powers are singularly balanced. For reasons unknown, the condor does not range north of Darien, though it extends its empire through clouds and storms to the Straits of Magellan. In the Inca language it was called _c.u.n.tur_, and was anciently an object of worship. The condor, gallinazo, turkey-buzzard, and caracara eagle (says Darwin) "in their habits well supply the place of our carrion crows, magpies, and ravens--a tribe of birds widely distributed over the rest of the world, but entirely absent in South America." The condor appears on the gold coins of New Granada and Chile. Of _Trochilidae_ there are hosts. The valley swarms with these "winged jewels" of varied hues, from the emerald green of Pichincha to the white of Chimborazo. They build long, purse-like nests by weaving together fine vegetable fibres and lichens, and thickly lining them with silk-cotton. In this delicate cradle, suspended from a branch, the female lays two eggs, which are hatched in about twelve days. The eggs are invariably white, with one exception, those of a species on the Upper Amazon, which are spotted.

The young have much shorter bills than their parents. The humming-bird is exclusively American: the nearest form in the Old World is the nectarinia, or sunbird. Other birds most commonly seen in the valley are: _Cyanocitta turcosa_ (Jay), _Poecilothraupis atrierissa_, _Pheuticus chrysogaster_, _Chlorospingus superciliaris_, _Buthraupis chloronata_, _Tanagra Darwini_, _Dubusia selysia_, _Buarremon latinuchus_, and _B. a.s.similis_. The only geese in the valley are a few imported from Europe by Senor Aguirre, of Chillo, and these refuse to propagate.

Reptiles are so rare in the highlands the cla.s.s can hardly be said to be represented. During a residence of nearly three months in the Quito Valley we saw but one snake.[45] Nevertheless, we find the following sentence in such a respectable book as Bohn's Hand-book of Modern Geography: "The inhabitants of Quito are dreadfully tormented by reptiles, which it is scarcely possible to keep out of the beds!" Of frogs there are not enough to get up a choir, and of fishes there is but one solitary species, about a finger long.[46] The entomology of Quito is also brief, much to the satisfaction of travelers from the insectiferous coast. Musquitoes and bedbugs do not seem to enjoy life at such an alt.i.tude, and jiggers[47] and flies are rare. Fleas, however, have the hardihood to exist and bite in the summer months, and if you attend an Indian fair you will be likely to feel something "gently o'er you creeping." But fleas and lice are the only blood-thirsty animals, so that the great Valley of Quito is an almost painless paradise. Of beetles and b.u.t.terflies there are a few species, the latter belonging for the most part to the familiar North American genera _Pyrameis_ and _Colias_. At Vinces, on the coast, we found the pretty brown b.u.t.terfly, _Anartia Jatrophae_, which ranges from Texas to Brazil. A light-colored coleopter is eaten roasted by the inhabitants. The cochineal is raised in the southern part of the valley, particularly in Guananda, at the foot of Tunguragua, where the small, flat-leaved cactus (_Opuntia tuna_), on which, the insect feeds, is extensively cultivated. The male is winged, but the female is stationary, fixed to the cactus, and is of a dark brown color. It takes seventy thousand to make a pound, which is sold in the valley for from sixty cents to $3. The best cochineal comes from Teneriffe, where it was introduced from Honduras in 1835. The silk-worm is destined to work a revolution in the finances of Ecuador; Quito silk gained a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition. No bees are hived in the republic; the people seem to be content with treacle. The Italian species would undoubtedly thrive here. The bees of Ecuador, like all the bees of the New World, are inferior to those of the Old World.

Their cells are not perfectly hexagonal, and their stings are undeveloped. They are seldom seen feeding on flowers. Mollusca in the Quito Valley are not great in number or variety. They belong princ.i.p.ally to the genera _Bulimus_, _Cyclostoma_, and _Helix_. The first is as characteristic of the Southern Continent as _Helix_ of the North and _Achatina_ of Africa.

[Footnote 45: _Herpetodryas carinatus_, which we observed also at Guayaquil and on the Maranon. We procured two or three species from the natives, and several new forms from Pallatanga, on the west slope.]

[Footnote 46: _Antelopus laevis_ at Ambato, and _A. longirostris_, a new species from Antisana Hacienda, were the only frogs noticed. The little fish is _Pimelodes cyclopum_ (prenadilla of the Spaniards, _imba_ of the Indians), the same that was thrown out in the eruptions of Imbabura and Caraguairazo.]

[Footnote 47: The jigger, chigoe, or nigua (_Pulex penetrans_ of science) is a microscopic flea, that buries itself under the skin and lays a myriad eggs; the result is a painful tumor. Jiggers are almost confined to sandy places.]

From the animal creation we mount by a short step to the imbruted Indian. When and by whom the Andes were first peopled is a period of darkness that lies beyond the domain of history. But geology and archaeology are combining to prove that Sorata and Chimborazo have looked down upon a civilization far more ancient than that of the Incas, and perhaps coeval with the flint-flakes of Cornwall, and the sh.e.l.l-mounds of Denmark. On the sh.o.r.es of Lake t.i.ticaca are extensive ruins which antedate the advent of Manco Capac, and may be as venerable as the lake-dwellings of Geneva. Wilson has traced six terraces in going up from the sea through the province of Esmeraldas toward Quito; and underneath the living forest, which is older than the Spanish invasion, many gold, copper, and stone vestiges of a lost population were found.

In all cases these relics are situated below high-tide mark, in a bed of marine sediment, from which he infers that this part of the country formerly stood higher above the sea. If this be true, vast must be the antiquity of these remains, for the upheaval and subsidence of the coast is exceedingly slow.

Philology can aid us little in determining the relations of the primeval Quitonians, for their language is nearly obscured by changes introduced by the Caras, and afterward by the Incas, who decreed that the Quichua, the language of elegance and fashion three hundred years ago, should be the universal tongue throughout the empire.[48] Quichua is to-day spoken from the equator to 28 S. (except by the Aymara people), or by nearly a million and a half. We found it used, corrupted, however, by Spanish, at the month of the Napo. There are five dialects, of which the purest is spoken in Cuzco, and the most impure in Quito. The Indians of the northern valley are descendants of the ancient Quitus, modified by Cara and Peruvian blood. They have changed little since the invasion of Pizarro. They remember their glory under the Incas, and when they steal any thing from a white man, they say they are not guilty of theft, as they are only taking what originally belonged to them. Some see in their sacred care of Incarial relics a lingering hope to regain their political life. We noticed that the pure mountaineers, without a trace of Spanish adulteration, wore a black poncho underneath, and we were informed by one well acquainted with their customs that this was in mourning for the Inca. We attended an Indian masquerade dance at Machachi, which seemed to have an historical meaning. It was performed in full view of that romantic mountain which bears the name of the last captain of Atahuallpa. There is a tradition that after the death of his chief, Ruminagui burned the capital, and, retiring with his followers to this cordillera, threw himself from the precipice. The masquerade at Machachi was evidently intended to keep alive the memory of the Incas.

Three Indians, fantastically adorned with embroidered garments, plumed head-dresses, and gold and silver tinsel, representing Atahuallpa and his generals, danced to music of the rudest kind, one individual pounding on a drum and blowing on a pipe at the same time. Before them went three clowns, or _diablos_, with masks, fit caricatures of the Spaniards. Like all other Indian feasts, this ended in getting gradually and completely drunk. During the ceremony a troop of hors.e.m.e.n, gayly dressed, and headed by one in regimentals with a c.o.c.ked hat, galloped twice around the Plaza, throwing oranges at the people; after which there was a bull-bait.

[Footnote 48: "History (says Prescott) furnishes few examples of more absolute authority than such a revolution in the language of an empire at the bidding of a master." The p.r.o.nunciation of Quichua requires a harsh, explosive utterance. Gibbon says the sound of it to him resembled Welsh or Irish; that of Aymara, English. The letters _b_, _d_, _f_, _g_, and _o_ are wanting in the ancient tongue of Quito; _p_ was afterward changed to _b_, _t_ to _d_, _v_ to _f_, _c_ to _g_, and _u_ to _o_: thus Chim-pu-razu is now Chimborazo. A few words bear a striking a.n.a.logy to corresponding Sanscrit words; as _Ynti_, the Inca for sun, and _Indra_, the Hindoo G.o.d of the heavens.]

The features of the Quichuans have a peculiar cast, which resembles, in D'Orbigny's opinion, no other American but the Mexican, and some ethnologists trace a striking similarity to the natives of Van Diemen's Land. They have an oblong head (longitudinally), somewhat compressed at the sides and occiput; short and very slightly arched forehead; prominent, long, aquiline nose, with large nostrils; large mouth, but not thick lips; beautiful enduring teeth; short chin, but not receding; cheek-bones not prominent; eyes horizontal, and never large; eyebrows long; thick, straight, coa.r.s.e, yet soft jet black hair; little or no beard; a long, broad, deep, highly-arched chest; small hands and feet; short stature, seldom reaching five feet, and the women still shorter; a mulatto color (olive-brown says D'Orbigny, bronze says Humboldt), and a sad, serious expression. Their broad chests and square shoulders remind one of the gorilla; but we find that, unlike the anthropoid ape, they have very weak arms; their strength lies in their backs and legs. They have shrewdness and penetration, but lack independence and force. We never heard one sing.[49] Always submissive to your face, taking off his hat as he pa.s.ses, and muttering, "Blessed be the altar of G.o.d," he is nevertheless very slow to perform. Soured by long ill treatment, he will hardly do any thing unless he is compelled. And he will do nothing well unless he is treated as a slave. Treat him kindly, and you make him a thief; whip him, and he will rise up to thank you and he your humble servant. A certain curate could never trust his Indian to carry important letters until he had given him twenty-five lashes. Servile and timid, superst.i.tious and indolent, the Quichuans have not half the spirit of our North American Indians. It has pa.s.sed into a proverb that "the Indian lives without shame, eats without repugnance, and dies without fear." Abject as they are, however, they are not wholly without wit. By a secret telegraph system, they will communicate between Quito and Riobamba in one hour. When there was a battle in Pasto, the Indians of Riobamba knew of it two hours after, though eighty leagues distant.

[Footnote 49: Their favorite musical instrument is the _rondador_, a number of reeds of different lengths tied in a row. The "plaintive national songs" which Markham heard at Cuzco are not sung in Ecuador.]

The civilization of South America three centuries ago was nearly confined to this Andean family, though they had attained only to the bronze period. In the milder character of their ancient religion and gentleness of disposition they are strongly distinguished from the nations that encircled the vale of Anahuac, the centre of civilization on the northern continent. But little of this former glory is now apparent. The Incas reached an astronomical knowledge which astonished the Spaniards, but the Quichuans of to-day count vaguely by moons and rains. Great is the contrast between the architecture of this century and that in the days of Huayna-Capac. There are few Incarial relics, however, in the Valley of Quito, for the Incas ruled there only half a century. The chief monuments are the tolas or mounds (mostly at Cuenca), containing earthen vessels and bronze hatchets and earrings; the _Inga-pirrca_, or oval fortress, and the _Intihuaicu_, or temple of the sun, near Canar; the _Inga-chungana_, a ma.s.sive stone resembling a sofa, where the Inca reposed to enjoy the delightful prospect over the Valley of Gulan; and remnants of causeways and roads.

CHAPTER VII.

Geological History of South America.--Rise of the Andes.--Creation of the Amazon.--Characteristic Features of the Continent.--Andean Chain.--The Equatorial Volcanoes.

Three cycles ago an island rose from the sea where now expands the vast continent of South America. It was the culminating point of the highlands of Guiana. For ages this granite peak was the solo representative of dry land in our hemisphere south of the Canada hills.

In process of time, a cl.u.s.ter of islands rose above the thermal waters.

They were the small beginnings of the future mountains of Brazil, holding in their laps the diamonds which now sparkle in the crown of Dom Pedro II. Long protracted eons elapsed without adding a page to the geology of South America. The Creator seems to have been busy elsewhere.

Decorating the north with the gorgeous flora of the carboniferous period, till, in the language of Hugh Miller, "to distant planets our earth must have shone with a green and delicate ray," he rubbed the picture out, and ushered in the hideous reptilian age, when monstrous saurians, footed, paddled, and winged, were the lords of this lower world. All the great mountain chains were at this time slumbering beneath the ocean. The city of New York was sure of its site; but huge dinotheria wallowed in the mire where now stand the palaces of Paris, London, and Vienna.

At length the morning breaks upon the last day of creation, and the fiat goes forth that the proud waves of the Pacific, which have so long washed the table-lands of Guiana and Brazil, shall be stayed. Far away toward the setting sun the white surf beats in long lines of foam against a low, winding archipelago--the western outline of the coming continent. Fierce is the fight for the mastery between sea and land, between the denuding power of the waves and the volcanic forces underneath. But slowly--very slowly, yet surely--rises the long chain of islands by a double process; the submarine crust of the earth is cooling, and the rocks are folded up as it shrivels, while the molten material within, pressed out through the crevices, overflows and helps to build up the sea-defiant wall. A man's life would be too short to count even the centuries consumed in this operation. The coast of Peru has risen eighty feet since it felt the tread of Pizarro: supposing the Andes to have risen at this rate uniformly and without interruption, seventy thousand years must have elapsed before they reached their present alt.i.tude. But when we consider that, in fact, it was an intermittent movement--alternate upheaval and subsidence--we must add an unknown number of millennia.

Three times the Andes sank hundreds of feet beneath the ocean level, and again were slowly brought up to their present height. The suns of uncounted ages have risen and set upon these sculptured forms, though geologically recent, casting the same line of shadows century after century. A long succession of brute races roamed over the mountains and plains of South America, and died out ages ere man was created. In those pre-Adamite times, long before the Incas ruled, the mastodon and megatherium, the horse and the tapir, dwelt in the high valley of Quito; yet all these pa.s.sed away before the arrival of the aborigines: the wild horses now feeding on the pampas of Buenos Ayres were imported from Europe three hundred and thirty-three years ago.[50]

[Footnote 50: At Paita, the most western point of South America, there is a raised beach three hundred feet high. The basal slate and sandstone rocks, dipping S. of E., are covered by conglomerate, sand, and a gypseous formation, containing sh.e.l.ls of living species. Additional to those described by D'Orbigny we found here _Cerithium laeviuscula_, _Ostrea gallus_, and _Ampullina Ortoni_, as determined by W.M. Gabb, Esq., of Philadelphia. Darwin found sh.e.l.ls in Chile 1300 feet above the sea, covered with marine mud. President Loomis, of Lewisburg University, Pa., informs the writer, that in 1853, after nearly a day's ride from Iquique, he came to a former sea-beach. "It furnished abundant specimens of _Patellae_ and other sh.e.l.ls, still perfect, and identical with others that I had that morning obtained at Iquique with the living animal inhabiting them." This beach is elevated 2500 feet above the Pacific.

The same observer says that near Potosi there is one uninterrupted ma.s.s of lava, having a columnar structure, not less than one hundred miles in length, fifty miles wide, and eight hundred feet thick. It overlies a bed of saliferous sandstone which has been worked for salt. Fifty feet within a mine, and in the undisturbed rock which forms its roof, the doctor found fragments of dicotyledonous trees with the bark on, undecomposed, uncharred, and fibrous.]

And now the Andes[51] stand complete in their present gigantic proportions, one of the grandest and most symmetrical mountain chains in the world. Starting from the Land of Fire, it stretches northward and mounts upward until it enters the Isthmus of Panama, where it bows gracefully to either ocean, but soon resumes, under another name, its former majesty, and loses its magnificence only where the trappers chase the fur-bearing animals over the Arctic plains. Nowhere else does Nature present such a continuous and lofty chain of mountains, unbroken for eight thousand miles, save where it is rent asunder by the Magellanic Straits, and proudly tossing up a thousand pinnacles into the region of eternal snow. Nowhere in the Old World do we see a single well-defined mountain chain, only a broad belt of mountainous country traversing the heart of the continent.

[Footnote 51: The name Andes is often derived from _anta_, an old Peruvian word signifying metal. But Humboldt says: "There are no means of interpreting it by connecting it with any signification or idea; if such connection exist, it is buried in the obscurity of the past."

According to Col. Tod, the northern Hindoos apply the name Andes to the Himalayan Mountains.]

The moment the Andes arose, the great continental valley of the Amazon was sketched out and moulded in its lap. The tidal waves of the Atlantic were dashing against the Cordilleras, and a legion of rivulets were busily plowing up the sides into deep ravines; the sediment produced by this incessant wear and tear was carried eastward, and spread out stratum by stratum, till the shallow sea between the Andes and the islands of Guiana and Brazil was filled up with sand and clay. Huge glaciers (thinks Aga.s.siz), afterward descending, moved over the inclined plane, and ground the loose rock to powder.[52] Eddies and currents, throwing up sand-banks as they do now, gradually defined the limits of the tributary streams, and directed them into one main trunk, which worked for itself a wide, deep bed, capable of containing its acc.u.mulated flood. Then and thus was created the Amazon.