Birdseye Views of Far Lands Part 13

The cultivation of the coca plant is one of the important industries of eastern Bolivia. The plant grows as a shrub and must not be confused with the cocoa tree from the beans of which our chocolate and cocoa are made. The Bolivians produce eight to ten million pounds of coca leaves annually. The telegraph system of portions of this region is made up of fleet-footed Indians and it is said that with a supply of coca leaves and parched corn they can run fifty miles a day.

Here too grows the quinna which is not only a subst.i.tute for wheat but more nutritious and easier raised if reports are true. Cotton and sugar are produced in Bolivia as are the nutmeg and castor bean. Oranges and all such fruit are also grown in some parts of this country. But the supply and variety of medicinal plants is remarkable. The list includes aconite, arnica, absinthe, belladonna, camphor, cocaine, ginger, ipecac, opium, sarsaparilla and a lot of others.

But this great inland country is noted the world around for its rich mines. Mount Potosi is often spoken of as a mountain of silver. It is said that not only millions but billions of dollars worth of silver have been taken from this one mountain. There are said to be six thousand abandoned mines on its slopes to say nothing of the hundreds that are being worked today. The city of Potosi used to be the largest city in the western hemisphere and was ten times its present size when the early settlements of the United States were but small villages.

While the silver in this mountain is not nearly exhausted by any means, yet it was discovered that deeper down is a mountain of tin. Bolivia has been furnis.h.i.+ng more than one-fourth of the world's supply of tin for many years.

On the hills back of the city of Potosi can still be seen the thirty-two lakes or reservoirs that used to furnish water for the city and mines.

It took half a century to complete this great ancient water system. The largest of these lakes is three miles in circ.u.mference and thirty feet deep. Each lake is surrounded by five sets of walls and two of these reservoirs are sixteen thousand feet above sea level. All this mighty work was done before railroads were ever dreamed of. Only recently a railroad was built into this mining city and many of these abandoned mines are being opened again.

The capital of Bolivia used to be Sucre. In fact, it is still the nominal capital of the republic. Here live many of the wealthy mine owners of the region. The Supreme Court is held here and the new government palace is a stately building. The richest cathedral in Bolivia is here and the image of the Virgin in it is made of solid gold adorned with jewels and is worth a million dollars.

There are nine public parks or plazas in the city of Sucre and through one of these flows two streams of pure water. The one on the north side runs north and finally reaches the Atlantic Ocean through the great Amazon river while the other flows southward reaching the sea through the Rio de la Plata river.

The capital of Bolivia as we know it is La Paz, but only the legislative and executive departments are in this city. Although La Paz is more than twelve thousand feet above sea level it is located in the bottom of a deep canyon. Back of the city is the giant peak of Mount Illimani which pierces the sky at the height of twenty-one thousand feet. While the weather is always warm in the day time it gets very cool at night, sometimes freezing cold. As they have no heating stoves it is very uncomfortable to sit quiet.

The farmers of Bolivia live in little villages as a rule and know but little of the comforts of life. Their houses are built of mud and both people and animals often live in the same room. Their farms have to be irrigated and the people are skilled in this work. The plows used are wooden sticks and generally pulled by oxen. As in other South American countries the land is mostly owned by wealthy men who let it out on shares to common farmers who are generally kept in debt and have but little independence.

The question of fuel for cooking purposes is one of their great problems. As our early settlers on the western plains had to use buffalo chips for fuel, these people use a great deal of donkey and llama dung for the same purpose. They bake their bread in small community ovens that are built something like a large barrel with a dome shaped top. On bread baking day they build a fire of moss, bushes and dry dung and heat the stove oven. Then they remove the coals, put their bread in and when it is baked you may be sure that it does not smell very good.

The great beast of burden in Bolivia is the llama, which looks something like a cross between a camel and a sheep. Like the camel it can go for days without food or drink. It can be turned out and will make its living browsing on coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, moss and shrubs that grow on the mountains. It is an intelligent animal and if loaded a little too heavily will lie down and refuse to budge until the load is lightened.

The women of these Indian farmers and herders dress rather queerly. They put on many bright colored skirts all of a different hue. As the day grows warmer they remove a skirt showing one of a different hue. They are proud of their skirts and take much pride in showing each other their fine clothing.

These women too are nearly always at work. If they are walking along driving llamas they are working as they walk winding wool into yarn or knitting some garment. With juices from plants the yarn is colored and by means of a loom which any woman among them can make they weave this yarn into a kind of cloth.

In Bolivian cities there are large markets to which these Indian women especially resort. On the ground are little piles of fruit, coca leaves and other products. They have no scales and sell by the pile. The gardeners will sell their products of onions, beans, parched corn and all such stuff in this way.

Thus the people of this great inland empire live above the clouds. One of their railroads is a half mile higher than Pike's Peak in places and one of their cities, Aullagus, lacks but a hundred feet of being as high as this. They have four cities more than fourteen thousand feet above sea level, twenty-six above the thirteen thousand foot line, and seventy-three cities above the twelve thousand foot line. Of the one hundred and fifty-one cities in Bolivia most every one is above the eleven thousand foot line. Truly this land is the "Switzerland of South America."

CHAPTER XXV

THE LAND OF MYSTERY--PERU

When we reach the backbone of Peru we are not only above the clouds as in Bolivia, but we are surrounded by mystery. Here can be seen today the ruins of temples that were richer perhaps than any of those of the countries with which we are all so familiar. This article, however, will largely have to do with the Peruvian country as it is today. You could take a map of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma, place them all on the map of Peru and have territory left.

The country runs largely north and south, having some fourteen hundred miles of sea coast. In the north is a great desert plain, but in this almost lifeless desert there is a great valley in which is a most interesting city. The name of this city is Piura and it is on a small river bearing the same name. This river is more like the Nile in Egypt than any other river known. Up and down this river are farms and plantations with irrigation ditches leading to fields of rice and grain, sugar cane and cotton as well as other valuable farm products.

But upon the rise of the water in the river depends the life and prosperity of the people. Like the people of Egypt and the Nile, these people look upon this river with feelings of reverence. They have a great feast day for the river. In their spring time when the snows melt the river gradually rises, spreading over the valley bottom and filling all the low places and irrigation ditches with water.

As the time for this rise approaches every traveler from upstream is questioned and on the day the big rise is due the great feast day is proclaimed and the people, generally five thousand or more, march toward the coming tide to meet the water. If there is an abundance of water they are sure of a great harvest. With fife and drum they meet the oncoming flood and go back with it; if it is a great flood they are happy and merry, but if the tide is low they are sad and gloomy for they know that many will be hungry.

It rains here about once in seven years and these are called the seven year rains. Following the showers there is a wonderful burst of life everywhere. Quick growing gra.s.ses cover the land with a carpet of green and fragrant blossoms fill the air with sweetness; but in a short time, except where the irrigation ditches reach the land, the entire region once more becomes a yellow, parched desert.

In this valley grows the best cotton that is produced anywhere. It is a well known fact among cotton growers that Piura cotton has a peculiar strength of fiber that makes it sell for nearly double the price of that grown in our southern states. As goats can live where other animals will starve, this valley is also noted for its great goat herds which make their living on the dry mountain sides.

The greatest seaport of Peru is Callao. If the sea were rough this would be a dangerous harbor for all ocean liners must anchor far from the docks as only very small s.h.i.+ps can approach them. I counted forty-two ocean liners in the harbor so you can imagine that it is a busy place.

These liners represented nearly every sea-faring country on the globe.

The city of Callao has had its ups and downs. Some one has said that the chief product of Peru is revolutions and Callao has had its share of them. Also, nearly every earthquake along the coast gives this city a shaking up. At one time many years ago when the city had a population of some six thousand people there came an earthquake followed by a mighty tidal wave that only left two persons alive. The very site of the city sunk beneath the waves of the ocean and never came up, the present city being built upon a new site entirely.

The short ride from Callao to Lima, the capital city, is interesting.

Here one is introduced to the famous "mud fence," as the fences are all made of mud. Little patches of ground are tilled and bananas, pears, oranges, and all kinds of fruit and vegetables as well as corn and other grain grow in abundance. Everything looks ancient. The ground is plowed by oxen hitched to a wooden stick. The mud huts and houses of the farmers are almost as bare of furniture as a hen coop and almost as dirty. It hardly seems possible that people so near the port as well as the capital city could be so far behind the times.

The railroad runs along the Rimac river, but this is nearly dry much of the time, the water being used for irrigating purposes. Everything smells bad and the people are even dirtier than in Chile. Of course, there are some beautiful spots in the country and plazas in the cities, but all this gush about the beauty and loveliness of things in general makes one tired.

I saw more turkey buzzards and vultures in ten minutes in the city of Lima than I ever saw before all put together. At the slaughter house one can see a stream of blood running in the open soil and I suppose the offals are dumped out for the vultures to devour. The Rockefeller Foundation has set apart twenty-five million dollars, so I understand, to be spent in twenty-five Peruvian cities for the purpose of cleaning them up and providing sanitary systems for them. The leaders of this foundation have certainly found an appropriate place to spend money. I have seen four or five of the cities that are to benefit by this appropriation and they all sure do need cleaning up.

In Lima, of course, I went to the great cathedral. Everybody does this for it is about the most outstanding thing to be seen. It is said to be the largest cathedral in South America. The corner stone was laid by the great Pizarro himself in 1535. His bones are in the cathedral now. I saw them. They are in a coffin the side of which is made of gla.s.s. The very holes that were made in the bones when they tortured him can be seen.

The guide declared that such is the case and of course he would not yarn to a stranger in a sacred church.

The houses in Lima are, as a rule, only one story high. The tops are flat and many of them are almost covered with chicken coops. They say that many a rooster is hatched, grows up to old age and enters the ministry without ever having set foot upon the ground.

The small plaza in front of the cathedral is really beautiful and there are some good substantial buildings around it. The large depot is a modern, well built stately building. The streets are narrow and the shop doors are open to the street. The doors of these shops are corrugated iron and are raised up like the cover of a roll-top desk. Above the shops are the residences of the more well-to-do cla.s.s. Little balconies are built out over the sidewalk and here the "idle rich" ladies sit and watch the crowds below.

To me a very interesting place was a building that used to be a sort of a place of refuge something like the cities of refuge we read about in the Bible. In the wide door, so they say, there used to be a chain stretched across and any man who could reach this was safe regardless of the crime he had committed. No officers or law could touch him. Of course, he was in the power of the keepers of the refuge. They could enslave him for life or kill him and no law could touch them. At least this is the story told me by a resident of the city.

But the briefest article about Peru should not leave out at least a mention of the wonderful mountain railways of the country. The Central Peruvian railway tracks reach the dizzy height of 15,865 feet above sea level, which is almost a mile higher than the famous Marshall Pa.s.s in the Rockies. This railroad too is a standard gauge. To reach this alt.i.tude the train pa.s.ses over forty-one bridges, one of which is two hundred and fifty feet high. It pa.s.ses through sixty tunnels, the highest one of which is the Galeria tunnel, which is 15,665 feet above the sea.

This railroad, perhaps the most wonderful ever constructed, was built by Henry Meiggs, an American contractor from New York. Some eight thousand men were employed in the construction and in some places in order to gain a foothold to begin their work they had to be swung down from dizzy heights above and held while they cut a safe place in the rocks.

As might be expected many men were killed during the building of this railway. Once a runaway engine crashed into a derrick car on the top of a bridge and the debris can be seen in the valley below to this day.

Several Americans lost their lives in this one accident. It is quite remarkable, however, that there has not been a single accident where a life was lost since the construction was completed years ago. This line is two hundred and fifty miles in length and every mile cost a snug fortune. It takes a train almost ten hours to reach the summit and the average rise the entire distance is twenty-seven feet per minute.

Near Callao are some islands which are very interesting to tillers of the soil especially. In pa.s.sing them I noticed millions and millions of birds. For many centuries these islands have been the nesting places for these sea fowl. Not only have these birds lived and died here but multiplied thousands of seal have come here to breed. The droppings of these millions of birds and animals and the acc.u.mulating bodies of the dead have decayed and made a kind of grayish powder. This substance is called guano and it is hundreds of feet thick.

Hundreds of years ago it was discovered that this substance is the best fertilizer known. In the early days the Incas took every precaution to distribute this guano to agriculturists in the country. Districts of this deposit were allotted to certain territories and the boundaries of each district were clearly defined and all encroachments upon the rights of others were severely punished. No one was allowed to go about these islands during the breeding season under pain of death and the same penalty was meted out to any man who killed either birds or animals here.

Of late years millions of dollars worth of this guano have been s.h.i.+pped to all parts of the world. While the islands are closed to s.h.i.+pping during the breeding season and it is thought that many of the birds especially have been frightened away, yet they come in such numbers at times that it is said that the sky is darkened as they fly over.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE WORLD'S GREAT CROSSROAD--PANAMA Ca.n.a.l

Perhaps the greatest achievement of history, both in length of time of construction and in service to humanity, stands to the credit of the United States. The Panama Ca.n.a.l was dug in less time than it took to build the causeway in Egypt to get the stone from the quarries to where it was wanted for the big pyramid. This ca.n.a.l, too, is wholly an American achievement. It was planned by American brains, constructed by American engineers and with American machinery, and paid for with American gold, and every American has great reason to be proud of it.

We paid the Republic of Panama ten million dollars for the lease on the zone through which the ca.n.a.l pa.s.ses, and are now paying the same government two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year to keep them in a good humor. We bought the ground again from individual owners and have agreed to pay Colombia twenty-five million dollars to keep her from raising a racket. We paid the French forty million dollars for the work they did and the machinery they left so the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel, ought to be ours without any question.

It was published on supposedly good authority that some of the machinery we used was purchased from Belgium, that we could not make it in America. While visiting Mr. P. B. Banton, the chief office engineer, some time ago I asked him about this and he said the only machinery Belgium furnished was to the French. We tried to repair and use part of this but it had to be discarded entirely.

We purchased two gigantic cranes to use in the work from Germany, but one of them collapsed and both had to be rebuilt by American machinists before they would do the work they were guaranteed to do. The only parts used in the ca.n.a.l that were not made in America, according to Mr.