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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
By Hon. John Barrett, Director-General of the Pan American Union and formerly United States Minister to Argentina, Panama, and Colombia I have real pleasure in complying with the suggestion that I should write an introduction to this interesting and instructive work by Mr. Harry Weston Van Dyke. As it was through me that he was led to make his studies and investigations which resulted in the preparing of this book, I naturally find much gratification in the success with which he has handled the
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I
I
A little more than four hundred years ago, when Europe was emerging from the darkness of the Middle Ages into the era of printed books, when the Field of the Cloth of Gold had impressed the official stamp of culture on her civilization, when gunpowder was changing the aspect of war—in an age that produced such intellects as those of Machiavelli, Copernicus, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Cardinal Wolsey, and John Werner—wise men were still groping blindly for knowledge about the world in which they li
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II
II
The significance of these early voyages of the Portuguese lies in the fact that thereby it was demonstrated that a shorter route was needed—that with the very small and badly equipped vessels of the period the trip around the Cape of Good Hope, at least for commercial purposes, was impracticable; also in the fact that with Dias had sailed the Genoese navigator Bartholomew Columbus, a brother of the discoverer of America. Years before that first great achievement, Christopher Columbus—who had stu
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III
III
Having, in the interval between the second Columbian expedition and the discovery of the African route by Vasco da Gama, induced Spain to agree to the extension of the Papal meridian 370 leagues farther west, the Portuguese continued their activities with renewed ardor. In March, 1500, on his way to the Cape of Good Hope, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese nobleman in command of an expedition intended to resume the work begun by Da Gama, was blown across the Atlantic to the coasts of Brazil, whe
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IV
IV
Until the great Dutch navigator, Willim Cornelis Schouten, found the way around Cape Horn nearly a hundred years later, however, no practical advantage over her rival resulted to Spain from Magellan’s discoveries—so far as trade with the East Indies was concerned, that is. The passage through the Strait was too perilous for sailing vessels, the distance across the Pacific too great. Yet only a year before Magellan set out on his famous voyage an era began in her new possessions that was to pour
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V
V
In the meanwhile in this region of the Caribbean much progress had been made. Towns had been built, not only in Española, but in Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico and in Darien and other places on the Isthmus, landed estates ( repartimientos ) had been apportioned, as rewards for services, among such as desired to cultivate them, mining rights had been allotted. These plantations and the mines were being worked by natives impressed into slavery, some of the communities had become large and thriving, in
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VI
VI
So great was the empire of the Incas. But from whom were these remarkable rulers descended who brought their people to a state of civilization relatively so superior to that of the savages east of the Andes? To what race did they belong? From whence did they originally come—Europe or Asia?—and, if so, how did they get to South America? How did they acquire the knowledge of the arts and sciences that they possessed? “Students of archæology have essayed in vain to answer these questions,” says Moz
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VII
VII
Fortunately for Pizarro, at the time he made his appearance on the scene, it happened that these people were either still engaged in or had only just terminated a civil war that had been brought on by an attempt of Huascar, the then reigning Inca, to impose his will on his half-brother, Atahualpa, a rebellious vassal. It appears that Huascar’s father, the Inca Huayna Capac, having completed the subjugation of the Caras and their brave allies in Ecuador, had found it necessary to remain in Quito
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VIII
VIII
But there was a sad awakening in store for the Inca on his return from that victorious campaign. He had permitted these allies of his—rapacious, recklessly daring as they were, and unscrupulous, cruel, and fanatical in their attitude toward infidels—to obtain a foothold in the very capital of the empire. And what manner of man was it of whom the great body of his subjects was made up? He was brave, yes—physically; he could fight, and conquer, too, when ably led, but also he was morally utterly i
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IX
IX
In 1525, at the foot of the great outlying mass of mountains on the peninsula that lies between the Gulfs of Maracaibo and Darien, and not far from where the Magdalena River empties into the Caribbean Sea, the town of Santa Marta had been founded—the first Spanish settlement in Colombia beyond the Isthmus. It was nothing more than a slave station for a time, from whence kidnaping parties made raids into the country round about and captured natives to sell to the gold miners in Española. Real att
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X
X
Very different was the experience of Pedro de Valdivia in Chile. Unlike these other adventurers, when he set out it was not in the expectation of finding any great store of gold, since Almagro had reported that the inhabitants were poor, but with the intention of conquering the country and converting it into a province of Peru. In accomplishing only a part of this purpose, he was to have a far more difficult task, had he but known it, and many more Spanish lives were to be sacrificed, than in al
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XI
XI
The system adopted by Spain for the government of her vast colonial possessions is set forth in the famous code known as the Compilation of Laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies, framed in the reign of Philip IV and published in 1680 in the reign of Charles II. The American possessions had originally been divided into two great political entities by the Emperor Charles V in 1542. These were known as New Spain and New Castile and were governed only by Real Audiencias , (royal audiences, or tribunals
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I
I
The United States of Brazil, next to our own United States, form the largest of the American republics. Brazil has an area fifteen times greater than Germany’s, sixteen times as great as that of France, 250,000 square miles greater than ours, excluding Alaska and our island possessions. At its greatest width, the country extends inland more than 2000 miles and its coast line on the Atlantic is more than 3700 miles long, twice the distance from Portland, Maine, to Key West; yet the population, al
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II
II
Because of peculiar economic conditions, the railroads of Brazil, as originally planned, were not intended, like ours, to facilitate commerce among the States, but only for the purpose of bringing the products of the various developed sections of the country to the nearest shipping points. Thus Recife, the seaport of the State of Pernambuco, is the focus of one system, São Salvador da Bahia of another, Rio de Janeiro of a third, Santos, the port of São Paulo, of a fourth, and Porto Alegre, the c
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III
III
As already said, from Rio one may go to São Paulo, the second largest—and, with the exception of Rio, the most important—city in the country, by railroad, and almost as comfortably, too, as one may travel from New York to Chicago. The city of São Paulo is the capital of the State of that name, the great land of coffee, the land in fact that produces more than half of all the coffee grown in Brazil, and Brazil as a whole produces more than three-fourths of all that the world consumes. The city ha
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I
I
No nation of the southern continent is better qualified than Argentina to rebuke the stupid jest that refers to the Latin-American countries as opera bouffe republics. It has a domain one-third the size of the United States, or as large as the territory lying east of the Mississippi, with Texas added, stretching from tropic heat to antarctic cold, and possessing a frontage on the Atlantic as extensive as our own coast line from Portland, Maine, to Key West, Florida. It has over 500,000,000 acres
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II
II
Leaving the capital for a general tour through Argentina, the visitor will soon come to appreciate the Porteño’s division of the republic into the two parts: Buenos Aires and El Campo . For the greater part, the Camp is a vast plain, covering five hundred million acres of flat, fertile soil, with scarcely a natural hillock higher than those thrown up by the ants, and no depression more marked than those which the cartwheels have plowed—stretching from horizon to horizon, north, west, and south—v
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III
III
To the east of the Cordilleras, and south of the river Negro, stretches the territory long known as Patagonia, first in swelling plateaux and then flattening out into a continuation of the upper level pampas. This is now the scene of Argentina’s advancing sheep industry. For Patagonia, east of the Andean summits, and the east half of Tierra del Fuego were awarded to Argentina by the boundary arbitrator, King Edward VII, following the report of Sir Thomas Holdich’s commission, and is now divided
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IV URUGUAY
IV URUGUAY
One of the first inquiries that engages the mind of the visitor to Uruguay and Argentina is why the great body of water that separates the two countries—apparently an arm of the sea—should not be called the Gulf of La Plata. After a brief stay in this region of great cities, great productiveness, and great opportunities, it will probably occur to him that dwellers among such great things could be satisfied with nothing less than an estuary of the broad Atlantic to serve as a river for their capi
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V PARAGUAY
V PARAGUAY
Paraguay is in the longitudinal center of South America, and, with the exception of Bolivia, is the only country on the continent that does not border on the sea. Next to Uruguay it is the smallest of the South American republics, possessing a territory of 196,000 square miles. Until the break with Spain, in 1813, it was, like Uruguay, part and parcel of La Plata colony, under the jurisdiction of the Viceroy of Buenos Aires, and was known as the Province of Paraguay. As will be observed from a g
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VI BOLIVIA
VI BOLIVIA
In the heart of the continent a vast table of land as large as all our Middle States has been crowded up into the air by some titanic convulsion to a height of more than two miles, or fourteen thousand feet. The surface in many places is deeply encrusted with salt, suggesting the upheaval of a great mediterranean sea and a spilling of its waters over the succession of terraced slopes that finally break off abruptly and merge in the summer valleys of Brazil and Paraguay; for from these heights in
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I
I
“Chile,” which, by a curious coincidence, had about the same significance in the Inca language that our word “chilly” has in English, is the name that was originally given by the Incas to that part of the Pacific slope of the Andes which lies beyond the river Maule, the southern boundary of their great empire. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the first Governor, Pedro de Valdivia, dubbed it “Nueva Estremadura,” after his native province in Spain, and so called it in his official communicatio
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II
II
As Antofagasta is not connected with Valparaiso by railroad, the only practicable way of getting there is by steamer. This is rather unfortunate for the tourist, because, although the accommodations are comfortable enough, the progress is slower and what is to be seen along the coast is nowhere near as interesting and attractive as in the central valley. Except at widely separated intervals, where the hills part at the mouths of the few shallow rivers or about the bays, the shore all the way dow
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III
III
The long series of groups of islands beginning with Chiloé, about two-thirds of the way down the coast, is said to be nothing more than a partly submerged section of the Western Cordillera. Above the surface of the water, for a distance of about eighty miles, they still have an average elevation of about two thousand feet. Embraced in the Chonos Archipelago, between Chiloé and the Taytao Peninsula, are more than a thousand small islands, rocks, and reefs, and then come the large islands of Welli
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II
II
A still more extensive railroad and one which gives the traveler a more varied view of the Andes, is that ascending from the port city of Mollendo, near the Chilean frontier. This line is the outlet for much of the commerce of Bolivia, and was built by the same gifted Yankee who fathered the Oroya road. Leaving Mollendo, the train speeds over the desert for a few miles and then begins its steady climb upward. All day it labors along the tortuous ascent through echoing walls of rock, bare, repell
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IX ECUADOR
IX ECUADOR
Ecuador, “the Switzerland of America,” is one of the smallest of our sister republics in the South, yet her area, of 116,000 square miles, is equal to that of our States of Missouri and Arkansas combined, and, if certain pending boundary disputes should be determined in her favor, her territory would be more than doubled. Her population is now about 1,500,000, an average of a little over twelve to the square mile. Politically, the republic is divided into sixteen provinces, not including the Gal
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X COLOMBIA
X COLOMBIA
Journeying overland into Colombia from Ecuador, there opens before the traveler the vast mountainous country that was once the ancient kingdom of the Chibchas—the contemporary of the Inca empire, and, later the pivotal state of Bolívar’s great confederation. Colombia occupies the extreme northwestern corner of the continent. With its 465,714 square miles of territory, it is as large as Texas, Kansas, Arkansas and Louisiana, and has a population of 4,320,000. In this corner of the continent the A
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XI VENEZUELA
XI VENEZUELA
At the end of his “swing around the circle” of South American countries (having begun with Brazil), the traveler comes to Venezuela—the huge republic that bulges out into the northernmost nub of the continent, where the terminal ranges of the Andes turn eastward to meet the great Guiana Highlands and form those high-flung ramparts that protect the fertile, low-lying Amazon plains from the Atlantic. This black, mountainous front runs along the Caribbean coast line for some fifteen hundred miles,
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XII THE GUIANAS
XII THE GUIANAS
On the northeastern shoulder of the continent lies a huge block of territory as large as France and Spain combined. It is in reality an island, since it is bounded on the north and east by the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Amazon River, and on the northwest and west by the continuous waterway formed by the Orinoco, the Casiquiare and the Negro rivers, the last named an affluent of the Amazon. Like the north Andean republics, the Guiana country is made up of mountains, hig
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