Through Five Republics on Horseback Part 6

Perhaps no country of the world has been, and is, so rich in precious metals as Bolivia. "The mines of Potosi alone have furnished the world over $1,500,000,000 worth of silver since the Spaniards first took possession of them." [Footnote: "Protestant Missions in South America."]

Bolivia can lay claim to the most wonderful body of water in the world--Lake t.i.ticaca. This lake, nearly two and a half miles high in the air, is literally in the clouds. "Its lonely waters have no outlet to the sea, but are guarded on their southern sh.o.r.es by gigantic ruins of a prehistoric empire--palaces, temples, and fortresses--silent, mysterious monuments of a long-lost golden age." Some of the largest and most remarkable ruins of the world are found on the sh.o.r.es of Lake t.i.ticaca, and as this was the centre of the great Incan Dynasty, that remarkable people have also left wonderful remains, to build which stones thirty-eight feet long, eighteen feet wide, and six feet thick, were quarried, carried and elevated. The Temple of the Sun. the most sacred edifice of the Incas, was one of the richest buildings the sun has ever shone upon, and it was itself a mine of wealth. From this one temple, Pizarro, the Spanish conqueror, took 24,000 pounds of gold and 82,000 pounds of silver. "Ninety million dollars' worth of precious metals was torn from Inca temples alone." The old monarch of the country, Atahuallpa, gave Pizarro twenty-two million dollars in gold to buy back his country and his liberty from the Spaniards, but their first act on receiving the vast ransom was to march him after a crucifix at the head of a procession, and, because he refused to become a Roman Catholic, put him to death. Perhaps never in the world's history was there a baser act of perfidy, but this was urged by the soldier-priest of the conquerors, Father Valverde, who himself signed the King's death-warrant. This priest was afterwards made Bishop of Atahuallpa's capital.

Surely no country of the world has had a darker or a sadder history than this land of the Incas. The Spaniards arrived when the "Children of the Sun" were at the height of their prosperity. "The affair of reducing the country was committed to the hands of irresponsible individuals, soldiers of fortune, desperate adventurers who entered on conquest as a game which they had to play in the most unscrupulous manner, with little care but to win it. The lands, and the persons as well, of the conquered races were parcelled out and appropriated by the victors as the legitimate spoils of victory. Every day outrages were perpetrated, at the contemplation of which humanity shudders. They suffered the provident arrangements of the Incas to fall into decay.

The poor Indian, without food, now wandered half-starved and naked over the plateau. Even those who aided the Spaniards fared no better, and many an Inca n.o.ble roamed a mendicant over the fields where he once held rule; and if driven, perchance, by his necessities to purloin something from the superfluity of his conquerors, he expiated it by a miserable death." [Footnote: Prescott's "Conquest of Peru."]

Charles Kingsley says there were "cruelties and miseries unexampled in the history of Christendom, or perhaps on earth, save in the conquests of Sennacherib and Zinghis-Khan." Millions perished at the forced labor of the mines, The Incan Empire had, it is calculated, a population of twenty millions at the arrival of the Spaniards, In two centuries the population fell to four millions.

When the groans of these beasts of burden reached the ears of the good (?) Queen Isabel of Spain, she enacted a law that throughout her new dominions no Indian, man or woman, should be compelled to carry more than three hundred pounds' weight at one load! Is it cause for wonder that the poor, down-trodden natives, seeing the flaunting flag of Spain, with its stripe of yellow between stripes of red, should regard it as representing a river of gold between two rivers of blood?

"Not infrequently," said a reliable witness, "I have seen the Spaniards, long after the Conquest, amuse themselves by hunting down the natives with blood hounds, for mere sport, or in order to train their dogs to the game. The most unbounded scope was given to licentiousness. The young maiden was torn remorselessly from the arms of her family to gratify the pa.s.sion of her brutal conqueror. The sacred houses of the Virgins of the Sun were broken open and violated, and the cavalier swelled his harem with a troop of Indian girls, making it seem that the crescent would have been a more fitting emblem for his banner than the immaculate cross."

With the inexorable conqueror came the more inexorable priest.

"Attendance at Roman Catholic worship was made compulsory. Men and women with small children were compelled to journey as much as thirty-six miles to attend ma.s.s. Absentees were punished, therefore the Indian feared to disobey." [Footnote: Neely, "Spanish America."]

As is well known, the ancient inhabitants worshipped the sun and the moon. The Spanish priest, in order to gain proselytes with greater facility, did not forbid this worship, but placed the crucifix between the two. Where the Inca suns and moons were of solid gold and silver, they were soon replaced by painted wooden ones. The crucifix, with sun and moon images on each side, is common all over Bolivia to-day.

Now, four hundred years later, see the Indian under priestly rule. The following is taken from an official report of the Governor of Chimborazo: "The religious festivals that the Indians celebrate--not of their own will, but by the inexorable will of the priest--are, through the manner in which they are kept, worse than those described to us of the times of Paganism, and of monstrous consequences to morality and the national welfare ... they may be reckoned as a barbarous mixture of idolatry and superst.i.tion, sustained by infamous avarice. The Indian who is chosen to make a feast either has to use up in it his little savings, leaving his family submerged in misery, or he has to rob in order to invest the products of his crime in paying the fees to the priest and for church ceremonies. These are simply brutal orgies that last many days, with a numerous attendance, and in which all manner of crimes and vices have free license."

"For the idols of the aborigines were subst.i.tuted the images of the Virgin Mary and the Roman saints. The Indians gave up their old idols, but they went on with their image-worship. Image-worship is idolatry, whether in India, Africa, or anywhere else, and the worship of Roman images is essentially idolatry as much as the worship of any other kind of images. Romanism subst.i.tuted for one set of idols another set. So the Indians who were idolaters continued to be idolaters, only the new idols had other names and, possibly, were a little better-looking."

[Footnote: Neely, "South America."]

What has Romanism done for the Indians of Bolivia in its four hundred years of rule? Compare the people of that peaceful, law-keeping dynasty which the Spaniards found with the Bolivian Indian of to-day! Now the traveller can report: "The Indians are killing the whites wherever they find them, and practising great cruelties, having bored holes in the heads of their victims and sucked the brains out while they were yet alive. Sixteen whites are said to have been killed in this way! These same Indians are those who have been Christianized by the Roman priests for the past three centuries, but such cruelties as they have been practising show that as yet not a ray of Christ's love has entered their darkened minds." How can the priest teach what he is himself ignorant of?

Where the Indian has been civilized, as well as Romanized, Mr. Milne, of the American Bible Society, could write:

"Since the Spanish conquest the progress of the Indians has been in the line of deterioration and moral degradation. They are oppressed by the Romish clergy, who can never drain contributions enough out of them, and who make the children render service to pay for ma.s.ses for deceased parents and relatives. Tears came to our eyes as Mr. Penzotti and I watched them practising their heathen rites in the streets of La Paz, the chief city of Bolivia. They differ from the other Indians in that they are domesticated, but _they know no more of the Gospel than they did under the rule of the Incas."_

What is to be the future of these natives? Shall they disappear from the stage of the world's history like so many other aborigines, victims of civilization, or will a hand yet be stretched out to help them?

Civilization, after all, is not entirely made up of greed and l.u.s.t, but in it there is righteousness and truth. May the day soon dawn when some of the latter may be extended to them ere they take the long, dark trail after their fathers, and have hurled the last malediction at their cursed white oppressors!

"We suffer yet a little s.p.a.ce Until we pa.s.s away, The relics of an ancient race That ne'er has had its day."

For four hundred years Bolivia has thus been held in chains by Romish priestcraft. Since its Incan rulers were ma.s.sacred, its civilization has been of the lowest. Buildings, irrigation dams, etc., were suffered to fall into disrepair, and the country went back to pre-Incan days.

The first Christian missionaries to enter the country were imprisoned and murdered. Now "the morning light is breaking." A law has been pa.s.sed granting liberty of worship.

Bolivia, with its vast natural riches, must come to the forefront, and already strides are being taken forward. She can export over five million dollars' worth of rubber in one year, and is now spending more than fifty million dollars on railways. So Bolivia is a country of the past and the future.

CHAPTER V.

JOURNEY TO "THE UNEXPLORED LAKE."

Since the days when Pizarro's adventurers discovered the hitherto undreamed-of splendor of the Inca Dynasty, Bolivia has been a land of surprises and romantic discovery. Strange to say, even yet much of the eastern portion of this great republic remains practically unexplored.

The following account of exploration in those regions, left for men of the twentieth century, may not, I am persuaded, be without interest to the general reader. Bolivia has for many years been seriously handicapped through having no adequate water outlet to the sea, and the immense resources of wealth she undoubtedly possesses have, for this reason, been suffered to go, in a measure, unworked. Now, however, in the onward progress of nations, Bolivia has stepped forward. In the year 1900, the Government of that country despatched an expedition to locate and explore Lake Gaiba, a large sheet of water said to exist in the far interior of Bolivia and Brazil, on the line dividing the two republics. The expedition staff consisted of Captain Bolland, an Englishman; M. Barbiere, a Frenchman; Dr. Perez, Bolivian; M. Gerard D'Avezsac, French artist and hunter, and the writer of these pages. The crew of ten men was made up of Paraguayans and Argentines, white men and colored, one Bolivian, one Italian, and one Brazilian. Strange to relate, there was no Scotchman, even the ship's engineer being French.

Perhaps the missing Scotch engineer was on his way to the Pole, in order to be found sitting there on its discovery by----(?)

The object of this costly journey was to ascend the rivers La Plata, Paraguay and Alto Paraguay, and see if it were possible to establish a port and town in Bolivian territory on the sh.o.r.es of the lake. After some months of untiring energy and perseverance, there was discovered for Bolivia a fine port, with depth of water for any ordinary river steamer, which will now be known to the world as _Puerto Quijarro_. A direct fluvial route, therefore, exists between the Atlantic and this far inland point.

The expedition left Buenos Ayres, the capital of the Argentine Republic. Sailing up the western bank of the River of Silver, we entered the Parana River, and after an uneventful voyage of six days, pa.s.sed the mouth of the River of Gold, and turned into the Paraguay.

Three hundred miles up the Higher Parana, a mighty stream flowing from the northeast, which we here left to our right, are the Falls of Yguasu. These falls have been seen by few white men. The land on each side of the river is infested by the Bugres Indians, a tribe of cannibals, of excessively ferocious nature. The Falls of Big Water must be the largest in the world--and the writer is well acquainted with Niagara.

The river, over two and a half miles wide, containing almost as much water as all the rivers of Europe together, rushes between perpendicular cliffs. With a current of forty miles an hour, and a volume of water that cannot be less than a million tons a minute, the mighty torrent rushes with indescribable fury against a rocky island, which separates it into two branches, so that the total width is about two miles and a half. The Brazilian arm of the river forms a tremendous horseshoe here, and plunges with a deafening roar into the abyss two hundred and thirteen feet below. The Argentine branch spreads out in a sort of amphitheatre form, and finishes with one grand leap into the jagged rocks, more than two hundred and twenty-nine feet below, making the very earth vibrate, while spray, rising in columns, is visible several miles distant.

"Below the island the two arms unite and flow on into the Parana River.

From the Brazilian bank the spectator, at a height of two hundred and eighty feet, gazes out over two and a half miles of some of the wildest and most fantastic water scenery he can ever hope to see. Waters stream, seethe, leap, bound, froth and foam, 'throwing the sweat of their agony high in the air, and, writhing, twisting, screaming and moaning, bear off to the Parana.' Under the blue vault of the sky, this sea of foam, of pearls, of iridescent dust, bathes the great background in a shower of beauty that all the more adds to the riot of tropical hues already there. When a high wind is blowing, the roar of the cataract can be heard nearly twenty miles away. A rough estimate of the horse-power represented by the falls is fourteen million."

Proceeding up the Paraguay River, we arrived at Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, and anch.o.r.ed in a beautiful bay of the river, opposite the city. As many necessary preparations had still to be made, the expedition was detained in Asuncion for fifteen days, after which we boarded the S.S. _Leda_, for the second stage of our journey.

Steaming up the Alto Paraguay, we pa.s.sed the orange groves of that sunny land on the right bank of the river, and on the left saw the encampments of the Tobas Indians, The dwellings of these people are only a few branches of trees stuck in the ground. Further on, we saw the Chamococos Indians, a fine muscular race of men and women, who cover their bronze-colored bodies with the oil of the alligator, and think a covering half the size of a pocket-handkerchief quite sufficient to hide their nakedness. As we stayed to take in wood, I tried to photograph some of these, our brothers and sisters, but the camera was nothing but an object of dread to them. One old woman, with her long, black, oily hair streaming in the breeze, almost withered me with her flashing eyes and barbarous language, until I blushed as does a schoolboy when caught in the act of stealing apples. Nevertheless, I got her photo.

The Pilcomayo, which empties its waters into the Paraguay, is one of the most mysterious of rivers. Rising in Bolivia, its course can be traced down for some considerable distance, when it loses itself in the arid wastes, or, as some maintain, flows underground. Its source and mouth are known, but for many miles of its pa.s.sage it is invisible.

Numerous attempts to solve its secrets have been made. They have almost invariably ended disastrously. The Spanish traveller, Ibarete, set out with high hopes to travel along its banks, but he and seventeen men perished in the attempt. Two half-famished, prematurely-old, broken men were all that returned from the unknown wilds. The Pilcomayo, which has proved itself the river of death to so many brave men, remains to this day unexplored. The Indians inhabiting these regions are savage in the extreme, and the French explorer, Creveaux, found them inhuman enough to leave him and most of his party to die of hunger. The Tobas and the Angaitaes tribes are personally known to me, and I speak from experience when I say that more cruel men I have never met. The Argentine Government, after twenty years of warfare with them, was compelled, in 1900, to withdraw the troops from their outposts and leave the savages in undisputed possession. If the following was the type of civilization offered them, then they are better left to themselves: "Two hundred Indians who have been made prisoners are _compelled to be baptized_. The ceremony takes place in the presence of the Governor and officials of the district, and a great crowd of spectators. The Indians kneel between two rows of soldiers, an officer with drawn sword compels each in turn to open his mouth, into which a second officer throws a handful of salt, amid general laughter at the wry faces of the Indians. Then a Franciscan padre comes with a pail of water and besprinkles the prisoners. They are then commanded to rise, and each receives a piece of paper inscribed with his new name, a scapulary, and--_a gla.s.s of rum_" [Footnote: Report of British and Foreign Bible Society, 1900.] What countries these for missionary enterprise!

After sailing for eighteen days up the river, we transhipped into a smaller steamer going to Bolivia. Sailing up the bay, you pa.s.s, on the south sh.o.r.e, a small Brazilian customs house, which consists of a square roof of zinc, without walls, supported on four posts, standing about two meters from the ground. A Brazilian, clothed only in his black skin, came down the house ladder and stared at us as we pa.s.sed.

The compliment was returned, although we had become somewhat accustomed to that style of dress--or undress. A little farther up the bay, a white stone shone out in the sunlight, marking the Bolivian boundary, and giving the name of Piedra Blanca to the village. This landmark is shaded by a giant tamarind tree, and numerous barrel trees, or _palo boracho_, grow in the vicinity. In my many wanderings in tropical America, I have seen numerous strange trees, but these are extraordinarily so. The trunk comes out of the ground with a small circ.u.mference, then gradually widens out to the proportions of an enormous barrel, and at the top closes up to the two-foot circ.u.mference again. Two branches, like giant arms spread themselves out in a most weird-looking manner on the top of all. About five leaves grow on each bough, and, instinctively, you consider them the fingers of the arms.

It was only three leagues to the Bolivian town of Piedra Blanca, but the "Bahia do Marengo" took three hours to steam the short distance, for five times we had to stop on the way, owing to the bearings becoming heated. These the Brazilian engineer cooled with pails of water.

In the beautiful Bay of Caceres, much of which was grown over with lotus and Victoria Regia, we finally anch.o.r.ed. This Bolivian village is about eighteen days' sail up the river from Montevideo on the seacoast.

Chartering the "General Pando," a steamer of 25 h.p. and 70 ft. long, we there completed our preparations, and finally steamed away up the Alto Paraguay, proudly flying the Bolivian flag of red, yellow, and green. As a correct plan of the river had to be drawn, the steamer only travelled by day, when we were able to admire the grandeur of the scenery, which daily grew wilder as the mountains vied with each other in lifting their rugged peaks toward heaven. From time to time we pa.s.sed one of the numerous islands the Paraguay is noted for. These are clothed with such luxuriant vegetation that nothing less than an army of men with axes could penetrate them. The land is one great, wild, untidy, luxuriant hot-house, "built by nature for herself." The puma, jaguar and wildcat are here at home, besides the anaconda and boa constrictor, which grow to enormous lengths. The Yaci Reta, or Island of the Moon, is the ideal haunt of the jaguar, and as we pa.s.sed it a pair of those royal beasts were playing on the sh.o.r.e like two enormous cats. As they caught sight of us, one leapt into the mangrove swamp, out of sight, and the other took a plunge into the river, only to rise a few yards distant and receive an explosive bullet in his head. The mangrove tree, with its twisting limbs and bright green foliage, grows in the warm water and f?tid mud of tropical countries. It is a type of death, for pestilence hangs round it like a cloud. At early morning this cloud is a very visible one. The peculiarity of the tree is that its hanging branches themselves take root, and, nourished by such putrid exhalations, it quickly spreads.

There were also many floating islands of fantastic shape, on which birds rested in graceful pose. We saw the _garza blanca_, the aigrets of which are esteemed by royalty and commoner alike, along with other birds new and strange. To several on board who had looked for years on nothing but the flat Argentine pampas, this change of scenery was most exhilarating, and when one morning the sun rose behind the "Golden Mountains," and illuminated peak after peak, the effect was glorious.

So startlingly grand were some of the colors that our artist more than once said he dare not paint them, as the world would think that his coloring was not true to nature.

Many were the strange sights we saw on the sh.o.r.e. Once we were amused at the ludicrous spectacle of a large bird of the stork family, which had built its nest in a tree almost overhanging the river. The nest was a collection of reeds and feathers, having two holes in the bottom, through which the legs of the bird were hanging. The feet, suspended quite a yard below the nest, made one wonder how the bird could rise from its sitting position.

Every sight the traveller sees, however, is not so amusing. As darkness creeps over earth and sky, and the pale moonbeams shed a fitful light, it is most pathetic to see on the sh.o.r.e the dead trunk and limbs of a tree, in the branches of which has been constructed a rude platform, on which some dark-minded Indian has reverently lifted the dead body of his comrade. The night wind, stirring the dry bones and whistling through the empty skull, makes weird music!

The banks of the stream had gradually come nearer and nearer to us, and the great river, stretching one hundred and fifty miles in width where it pours its volume of millions of tons of water into the sea at Montevideo, was here a silver ribbon, not half a mile across.

Far be it from me to convey the idea that life in those lat.i.tudes is Eden. The mosquitos and other insects almost drive one mad. The country may truly be called a naturalists' paradise, for b.u.t.terflies, beetles, and creeping things are mult.i.tudinous, but the climate, with its damp, sickly heat, is wholly unsuited to the Anglo-Saxon. Day after day the sun in all his remorseless strength blazes upon the earth, is if desirous of setting the whole world on fire. The thermometer in the shade registered 110, 112 and 114 degrees Fahrenheit, and on one or two memorable days 118 degrees. The heat in our little saloon at times rose as high as 130 degrees, and the perspiration poured down in streams on our almost naked bodies. We seemed to be running right into the brazen sun itself.

One morning the man on the look-out descried deer on the starboard bow, and arms were quickly brought out, ready for use. Our French hunter was just taking aim when it struck me that the deer moved in a strange way.

I immediately asked him to desist. Those dark forms in the long gra.s.s seemed, to my somewhat trained eyes, naked Indians, and as we drew nearer to them so it proved, and the man was thankful he had withheld his fire.

After steaming for some distance up the river several dug-outs, filled with Guatos Indians, paddled alongside us. An early traveller in those head-waters wrotes of these: "Some of the smaller tribes were but a little removed from the wild brutes of their own jungles. The lowest in the scale, perhaps, were the Guatos, who dwell to the north of the Rio Apa. This tribe consisted of less than one hundred persons, and they were as unapproachable as wild beasts. No other person, Indian or foreigner, could ever come near but they would fly and hide in impenetrable jungles. They had no written language of their own, and lived like unreasoning animals, without laws or religion."

The Guato Indian seems now to be a tame and inoffensive creature, but well able to strike a bargain in the sale of his dug-out canoes, home-made guitars and other curios. In the wrobbling canoe they are very dexterous, as also in the use of their long bows and arrows; the latter have points of sharpened bone. When hungry, they hunt or fish.

When thirsty, they drink from the river; and if they wish clothing, wild cotton grows in abundance.

These Indians, living, as they do, along the banks of the river and streams, have recently been frequently visited by the white man on his pa.s.sage along those natural highways. It is, therefore superfluous for me to add that they are now correspondingly demoralized. It is a most humiliating fact that just in proportion as the paleface advances into lands. .h.i.therto given up to the Indian so those races sink. This degeneration showed itself strikingly among the Guatos in their inordinate desire for _cachaca_, or "firewater." Although extremely cautious and wary in their exchanges to us, refusing to barter a bow and arrows for a shirt, yet, for a bottle of cachaca, they would gladly have given even one of their canoes. These _ketchiveyos_, twenty or twenty-five feet long by about twenty inches wide, they hollow from the trunk of the cedar, or _lapacho_ tree. This is done with great labor and skill; yet, as I have said, they were boisterously eager to exchange this week's work for that which they knew would lead them to fight and kill one another.