The Andes and the Amazon Part 8

CHAPTER IX.

The Volcanoes of Ecuador.--Eastern Cordillera.--Imbabura.--Cayambi.--Antisana.--Cotopaxi.--Llanganati.

--Tunguragua.--Altar.--Sangai.

Near the once busy city of Otovalo, utterly destroyed in the late earthquake, the two Cordilleras join, and, turning to the right, we go down the eastern range. The first in order is Imbabura,[77] which poured forth a large quant.i.ty of mud, with thousands of fishes, seven years before the similar eruption of Caraguairazo. At its feet is the beautiful lake of San Pablo, five miles in circ.u.mference, and very deep.

It contains the little black fish (_Pimelodes cyclopum_) already referred to as the only species in the valley, and the same that was cast out by Imbabura and Caraguairazo. Next comes the square-topped Cayambi--the loftiest mountain in this Cordillera, being nineteen thousand five hundred feet. It stands exactly on the equator, a colossal monument placed by the hand of Nature to mark the grand division of the globe. It is the only snowy spot, says Humboldt, which is crossed by the equator. Beautiful is the view of Cayambi from Quito, as its enormous ma.s.s of snow and ice glows with crimson splendor in the farewell rays of the setting sun. No painter's brush could do justice to the prismatic tints which hover around the higher peaks. But this flood of glory is soon followed by the pure whiteness of death. "Like a gigantic ghost shrouded in sepulchral sheets, the mountain now hovers in the background of the landscape, towering ghastly through the twilight until darkness closes upon the scene."

[Footnote 77: From _imba_ (fish), and _bura_, to produce. Its name can not be older than 1691, unless the mountain made similar eruptions before. It has frequently ejected water.]

Ten miles farther south is the bare-headed Guamani range, over which pa.s.ses the road to the wild Napo country.[78] The view from the crest is magnificent; but, like every grand panorama, eludes description. As we look eastward over the beginnings of the mighty forest which stretches unbroken to the Atlantic, the vast ridges, trending north and south, and decreasing in height as they increase in distance, seem like the waves of a great ocean rolling toward the mountains.

[Footnote 78: The culminating point of Guamani is _Sara-urcu_, a volcano which threw out a vast quant.i.ty of ashes in 1843 and 1856.]

Near by stands Antisana in his snowy robe. This volcano ranks next to Chimborazo in dignity. It has a double dome, and an elevation of 19,000 feet. Snow of Dian purity covers it for over 3000 feet; but, judging from the enormous streams of lava on its sides, it must have been a fierce volcano in ages past. The lava streams are worthy of the great mountain from which they flowed. One of them (called "Volcan d'Ansango") is ten miles long and five hundred feet deep, with an average slope of 15. It is a magnificent sight, as seen from the surrounding paramo--a stream of dark, ragged rocks coming down out of the clouds and snows which cover the summit. The representative products of Antisana are a black, cellular, vitreous trachyte, a fine-grained, tough porphyroid trachyte, and a coa.r.s.e reddish porphyroid trachyte. An eruption, as late as 1590, is recorded in _Johnston's Phys. Atlas_. Humboldt saw smoke issuing from several openings in March, 1802.

We ascended this volcano to the height of sixteen thousand feet. On its side is the celebrated hacienda of Antisana, which, more than sixty years ago, sheltered the great Humboldt from the sleet and rain and blast of this lofty region. It was a welcome refuge to us, for we had well nigh perished with cold on the dreary paramo. It is one of the highest human habitations in the world, being thirteen thousand three hundred feet above the sea, or a thousand feet higher than the Peak of Teneriffe.[79] The mean temperature is the same as that of Quebec, so that thirteen thousand feet in elevation at the equator is equal to 47 in lat.i.tude.[80] Here is an extensive corral, inclosing thousands of cattle, owned by a rheumatic old gentleman, Senor Valdevieso, who supplies the beef-market of Quito.[81] A desire for beef has alone brought man and his beast to this chilly alt.i.tude. It is difficult to get a quart of milk, and impossible to find a pound of b.u.t.ter at this hacienda. The predominant colors of the cattle are red and black. They feed on the wild paramo gra.s.s, and the beef is not only remarkably cheap, but superior in quality. The la.s.so is used in catching the animals, but not so skillfully as by the Gauchos of Rio Plata. It is a singular fact that cattle have followed men over the whole earth, from the coast of Africa to the highlands of Antisana. The same species is attacked by crocodiles and condors.

[Footnote 79: M. d'Abbadie professes to have visited a village in Abyssinia (Arquiage) which is 12,450 feet above the sea. Potosi stands 13,500 feet.]

[Footnote 80: This agrees with Humboldt's calculation that a difference of elevation of 278 feet produces the same effect on the annual temperature as a change of one degree of lat.i.tude. According to the experiments of Captain Pullen, the minimum temperature of the great depths of the ocean 35, and it commences soon after pa.s.sing 12,000 feet.]

[Footnote 81: The great depots of cattle in Ecuador are at the two extremes of elevation, the lowlands of St. Elena and the highlands of Antisana. On the slope of Cayambi is another extensive cattle estate.]

The atmospheric pressure is here so small that they frequently bleed at the nose and mouth when hunted. We have already given our experience in ascending high alt.i.tudes. We may add that while the pulse of Boussingault beat 106 pulsations at the height of 18,600 feet on Chimborazo, ours was 87 at 16,000 feet on Antisana. De Saussure says that a draught of liquor which would inebriate in the lowlands no longer has that effect on Mont Blanc. This appears to be true on the Andes; indeed, there is very little drunkenness in Quito. So the higher we perch our inebriate asylums, the better for the patients.

Near the hacienda is a little lake called Mica, on which we found a species of grebe, with wings so short it could not fly. Its legs, also, seem fitted only for paddling, and it goes ash.o.r.e only to lay its eggs.

It peeps like a gosling. a.s.sociated with them were penguins (in appearance); they were so shy we could not secure one. The query is, How came they there? Was this a centre of creation, or were the fowls upheaved with the Andes? They could not have flown or walked to this lofty lake, and there are no water-courses leading to it; it is surrounded with a dry, rolling waste, where only the condor lives. We turn to Darwin for an answer.[82]

[Footnote 82: The grebe is considered by Messrs. Ca.s.sin and Lawrence to be the _Podiceps occipitalis_, Lisson (_P. calipareus et Chilensis_ of Garnot), which occurs in large flocks on the coast of Chile and in the Straits of Magellan. It is quite different from the _P. micropterus_ of Lake t.i.ticaca. At Morococha, Peru, 15,600 feet above the sea, Herndon found snipes and ducks.]

The ragged Sincholagua[83] and romantic Ruminagui follow Antisana, and then we find ourselves looking up at the most beautiful and most terrible of volcanoes. This is the far-famed Cotopaxi, or more properly Cutu-pacsi, meaning "a brilliant ma.s.s." Humboldt calls it the most regular and most picturesque of volcanic cones. It looks like a huge truncated cone rising out of the Valley of Quito, its sides deeply furrowed by the rivers of mud and water which have so often flowed out.

The cone itself is about six thousand feet high. The east side is covered with snow, but the west is nearly bare, owing to the trade winds, which, sweeping across the continent, carry the ashes westward.

Cotopaxi is the loftiest of active volcanoes, though its grand eruptions are a century apart, according to the general rule that the higher a volcano the less frequent its eruptions, but all the more terrible when they do occur. Imagine Vesuvius on the summit of Mont Blanc, and you have the alt.i.tude of Cotopaxi.

[Footnote 83: In Brigham's _Notes on the Volcanic Phenomena of the Hawaiian Islands_, this volcano is put down as active, but there has been no eruption in the memory of man. Its lithology is represented in our collection by porous, gray, granular trachyte, fine-grained, compact trachyte, and dark porphyroid trachyte. The derivation of Sincholagua is unknown, Ruminagui means the face of a rock, Cotopaxi, Sincholagua, and Ruminagui, and Cotopaxi, Pichincha, and Guamani, form equilateral triangles.]

The top just reaches the middle point of density in the atmosphere, for at the height of three miles and a half the air below will balance that above. The crater has never been seen by man; the steepness of the sides and the depth of the ashes covering them render it inaccessible. The valiant Col. Hall tried it with scaling ladders, only to fail. The telescope reveals a parapet of scoria on the brim, as on Teneriffe.

Humboldt's sketch of the volcano, so universally copied, is overdrawn.

It makes the slope about 50, while in truth it is nearer 30. The apical angle is 122 30'.[84]

[Footnote 84: MM. Zurcher and Margalli make the slope 55! and Guzman, 69 30'!! The slope of Mauna Loa is 6 30'; of Etna, 9; of Teneriffe, 12 30'; of Vesuvius, 35. While cinder-cones may have an angle of 40, lava-cones seldom exceed 10.]

Cotopaxi is slumbering now; or, as Mr. Coan says of Hilo, it is "in a state of solemn and thoughtful suspense." The only signs of life are the deep rumbling thunders and a cloud of smoke lazily issuing from the crater.[85] Sometimes at night the smoke looks like a pillar of fire, and fine ashes and sand often fall around the base, to the great annoyance of the farmers. On the south side is a huge rock of porphyry, called the Inca's Head. Tradition has it that this was the original summit of the volcano, torn off and hurled down by an eruption on the very day Atahuallpa was murdered by Pizarro. The last great eruption occurred in 1803, though so late as 1855 it tossed out stones, water, and sand. Heaps of ruins, piled up during the lapse of ages, are scattered for miles around the mountain, among them great boulders twenty feet square. In one place (Quinchevar) the acc.u.mulation is 600 feet deep. Between Cotopaxi and Sincholagua are numerous conical hills covering the paramo, reminding one of the mud volcanoes of Jorullo.

[Footnote 85: Even this has now (August, 1869) ceased, save an occasional grumble, and the Tacungans are trembling with fear of another eruption.]

Pumice and trachyte are the most common rocks around this mountain, and these are augitic or porphyroid. Obsidian also occurs, though not on the immediate flank, but farther down near Chillo. In plowing, thousands of pieces as large as "flints" are turned up. The natives know nothing about their origin or use; the large specimens were anciently polished and used for mirror. But Cotopaxi is the great pumice-producing volcano.

The new road up the valley cuts through a lofty hill formed by the successive eruptions; the section, presenting alternate layers of mud, ashes, and pumice, is a written history of the volcano.[86] The cone itself is evidently composed of similar beds super-imposed, and holding fragments of porphyry and trachyte. What is Vesuvius, four thousand feet high, to Cotopaxi, belching forth fire from a crater fifteen thousand feet higher, and shooting its contents three thousand feet above its snow-bound summit, with a voice of thunder heard six hundred miles!

[Footnote 86: Compare the following sections:

COTOPAXI (near Tiupullo).

Soil 1 ft. 0 in.

Fine yellow pumice 5 " 0 "

Compact black ashes, with seams of pumice 10 " 0 "

Fine yellow pumice 1 " 6 "

Compact black ashes 12 " 0 "

Fine yellow pumice 2 " 0 "

Compact black ashes, with seams of pumice.

VESUVIUS (at Pompeii).

Soil 3 ft. 0 in.

Brown incoherent tuff 1 " 6 "

Small scoriae and white lapilli 0 " 3 "

Brown earthy tuff 4 " 9 "

Whitish lapilli 0 " 1 "

Gray solid tuff 0 " 3 "

Pumice and white lapilli 0 " 3 "

Leaving this terrible "safety-valve" to the imprisoned fires under our feet, we travel along the wooded flanks and savage valleys of the Llanganati Mountains, whose lofty blue ridge is here and there pointed with snow.[87] It is universally believed that the Incas buried an immense quant.i.ty of gold in an artificial lake on the sides of this mountain during the Spanish invasion, and many an adventurous expedition has been made for it. The inhabitants will tell you of one Valverde, a Spaniard, who, from being very poor, had suddenly become very rich, which was attributed to his having married an Indian girl whose father showed him where the treasure was hidden, and accompanied him on various occasions to bring away portions of it; and that Valverde returned to Spain, and on his death-bed bequeathed the secret of his riches to the king. But since Padre Longo suddenly disappeared while leading an expedition, the timid Ecuadorians have been content with their poverty.[88]

[Footnote 87: Immediately south of Cotopaxi, the Cordillera consists of paramos sown with lakes and mora.s.ses, and is rarely covered with snow.

Llanganati is probably from _llanga_, to touch: they touch the sources of nearly all the Ecuadorian rivers.]

[Footnote 88: The story is doubtless due to the fact that the eastern streams, which issue from the foot of this cordillera, are auriferous.]

And now we have reached the perfect cone of Tunguragua, the rival of Cotopaxi in symmetry and beauty.[89] It stands 16,500 feet above the Pacific, its upper part covered with a splendid robe of snow, while the sugar-cane grows in the romantic town of Banos, 10,000 feet below the summit. A cataract, 1500 feet high, comes down at three bounds from the edge of the snow to the warm valley beneath; and at Banos a hot ferruginous spring and a stream of ice-water flow out of the volcano side by side. Here, too, the fierce youth of the Pasta.s.sa, born on the pumice slopes of Cotopaxi, dashes through a deep tortuous chasm and down a precipice in hot haste, as if conscious of the long distance before it ere it reaches the Amazon and the ocean. Tunguragua was once a formidable mountain, for we discovered a great stream of lava reaching from the clouds around the summit to the orange-groves in the valley, and blocking up the rivers which tumble over it in beautiful cascades.

It has been silent since 1780; but it can afford to rest, for then its activity lasted seven years.[90]

[Footnote 89: From Tunguri, the ankle-joint, alluding to its apical angle. It is a little steeper than Cotopaxi, having a slope of 38.]

[Footnote 90: Spruce a.s.serts that he saw smoke issuing from the western edge in 1857; and Dr. Terry says that in 1832 smoke ascended almost always from the summit. Dr. Taylor, of Riobamba, informs the writer that smoke is now almost constantly visible. The characteristic rock is a black vitreous trachyte resembling pitchstone, but anhydrous.]

Close by rises beautiful Altar, a thousand feet higher. The Indians call it Capac-urcu, or the "Chief." They say it once overtopped Chimborazo; but, after a violent eruption, which continued eight years, the walls fell in. Its craggy crest is still more Alpine than Caraguairazo; eight snowy peaks shoot up like needles into the sky, and surround an altar to whose elevated purity no mortal offering will ever attain. The trachyte which once formed the summit of this mountain is now spread in fragments over the plain of Riobamba.

Leaving this broken-down volcano, but still the most picturesque in the Andes, we travel over the rough and rugged range of Cubillin, till our attention is arrested by terrific explosions like a naval broadside, and a column of smoke that seems to come from the furnace of the Cyclops. It is Sangai, the most active volcano on the globe. From its unapproachable crater, three miles high, it sends forth a constant stream of fire, water, mud, and ashes.[91]

[Footnote 91: La Condamine (1742) adds "sulphur and bitumen."]

No intermission has been noticed since the Spaniards first saw it three hundred years ago. Stromboli is the only volcano that will compare with it. Its ashes are almost always falling on the city of Guayaquil, one hundred miles distant, and its explosions, generally occurring every hour or two, are sometimes heard in that city. Wisse, in 1849, counted 267 explosions in one hour.

We have now completed the series. What an array of snow-clad peaks wall in the narrow Valley of Quito--Nature's Gothic spires to this her glorious temple! If ever there was a time when all these volcanoes were active in concert, this secluded vale must have witnessed the most splendid pyrotechnics conceivable. Imagine fifty mountains as high as Etna, three of them with smoking craters, standing along the road between New York and Washington, and you will have some idea of the ride down this gigantic colonnade from Quito to Riobamba. If, as Ruskin says, the elements of beauty are in proportion to the increase of mountainous character, Ecuador is artistically beautiful to a high degree.

Here, amid these Plutonic peaks, are the energies of volcanic action best studied. The constancy of the volcanic fires is a striking fact.