The Andes and the Amazon Part 4

Ecuador.--Extent.--Government.--Religion.--A Protestant Cemetery in Quito.--Climate.--Regularity of Tropical Nature.--Diseases on the Highlands.

The republic of Ecuador looks like a wedge driven into the continent between the Maranon and the Putumayo. It has 1200 miles of Pacific coast, and an area of about two hundred thousand square miles, including the Galapagos Islands. Peru, however, claims the oriental half, drawing her northern boundary from Tumbez through Canelos and Archidona; and she is ent.i.tled to much of it, for she has established a regular line of steamers on the Maranon, while the Quito government has not developed an acre east of the Andes. Ecuador is hung between and upon two cordilleras, which naturally divide it into three parts: the western slope, the Quitonian valley, and the Napo region. The fluvial system is mainly made up of the Napo, Pasta.s.sa, and Santiago, tributaries of the Maranon, and the Mira, Esmeraldas, and Guayaquil, flowing westward into the Pacific. There are no lakes proper, but the natives enumerate fifty-five lagunes, the largest of which, Capucuy, is not over five miles long.

Villavicencio tells the world that his country has a total population of 1,308,042. But Dr. Jameson believes it does not exceed 700,000. The government is based on the Const.i.tution of 1845, amended in 1853. The president is chosen by a plurality of votes, holds his office for four years, and has a salary of $12,000. He can not be re-elected,[30] nor can he exercise his functions more than twenty-five miles from the capital. But the law is often set aside by those in power. During the administration of Garcia Moreno, prominent citizens were shot or banished by his order, without trial by jury. To every plea for mercy the stern president replied, that as he could not save the country according to the Const.i.tution, he should govern it according to his own views of public necessity.

[Footnote 30: Since this was written, Garcia Moreno has been re-elected to the presidency and the Const.i.tution revised.]

Congress a.s.sembles on the 15th of September every other year, and consists of eighteen senators and thirty representatives. The chambers are small, and literally barren of ornament. The members sit in two rows facing each other, have no desks, and give an affirmative vote by a silent bow. Politics has less to do with principles and parties than with personalities. Often it has a financial aspect; and the natural expression on learning of a revolution is, "Somebody is out of money."

The party in feathers its nest as fast as possible; there is scarcely a public officer who is not open to bribery. The party out plots a premature resurrection to power by the ladders of corruption, slander, and revolution.[31] Revolution has so rapidly followed revolution that history has ceased to count them; and it may be said of them what Milton wrote of the wars of the Saxon Heptarchy, "that they are not more worthy of being recorded than the skirmishes of crows and kites." The Grand Plaza, the heart where all the great arteries of circulation meet and diverge, is where the high tides of Quito affairs ebb and flow.

[Footnote 31: Government has more than once paid its debts by repudiation. Congress lately voted to pay only seven per cent. of the claims against the state which are dated prior to a certain year. Among the sufferers is the venerable Dr. Jameson, a distinguished foreigner, who has served this country faithfully for forty years, first as a.s.sayer, then as director of the mint, and always by his scientific position.]

The Supreme Court consists of five judges. Criminal cases only are tried by jury; and an attorney is not permitted to question a witness. There are no penitentiaries: second-cla.s.s criminals are made to work for the public, while political offenders are banished to the banks of the Napo, or to Peru. Here, as in no other country, every man's house is his castle. No search-warrants are allowed; a policeman can be shot dead on the threshold. The person and property of a foreigner are safe; and no native in the employ of a foreigner can be taken by the government for military purposes. All, except pure Indians, can vote if over twenty-one, and can read and write. A man's signature is without value if it lacks his flourish--a custom of Spanish origin.

The permanent army consists of two regiments. The soldiers are mostly half-breeds, and are generally followed by their wives. They are poorly paid; and as they are impressed into the service, they carry out the principle by helping themselves wherever they go. In marching, they have a quicker step than Northern soldiers. The chief expenditure of the republic is for the army, about $500,000; the next is for the payment of the national debt, $360,000. The foreign debt is 1,470,374. Ecuadorians claim a revenue of a million and a half, of which one half is from the custom-house, and one fiftieth from the post-office.

One would suppose that the people who breathe this high atmosphere, and enjoy this delightful climate, and are surrounded by all that is truly grand and beautiful, would have some corresponding virtues. But we find that Nature, here as every where, has mingled base and n.o.ble elements.

The lofty mountains, bearing in their steadfastness the seal of their appointed symbol--"G.o.d's righteousness is like the great mountains"--look down upon one of the lowest and most corrupt forms of republican government on earth;[32] their snowy summits preach sermons on purity to Quitonian society, but in vain; and the great thoughts of G.o.d written all over the Andes are unable to lift this proud capital out of the mud and mire of mediaeval ignorance and superst.i.tion. The established religion is the narrowest and most intolerant form of Romanism. Mountains usually have a more elevating, religious influence than monotonous plains. The Olympian mythology of the Greek was far superior to the beastly wors.h.i.+p on the banks of the Nile. And yet at the very feet of glorious Chimborazo and Pichincha we see a nation bowing down to little images of the rudest sculpture with a devotion that reminds us of the Middle Ages.

[Footnote 32: Asking the late Chilian minister for his view of the rank of the different South American states, he gave us this order: Chile, Brazil, Argentine Republic, Venezuela, New Granada, Central America, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ecclesiastics.]

The belief is called _La Fe_, or the only true one. The oath of a Protestant is not regarded in courts of law. One fourth of Quito is covered by convents and churches. The convents alone number fifty-seven, and are very extensive, sometimes spreading over eight or nine acres.

The Church revenue amounts to $800,000. There are more than four hundred priests, monks, and nuns in the capital. The native ecclesiastics are notorious for their ignorance and immorality. "It is a very common thing (says Dr. Terry) for a curate to have a whole flock of orphan nephews and nieces, the children of an imaginary brother." There is one ex-president who has the reputation of tying a spur on the leg of a game-c.o.c.k better even than a curate. The imported Jesuits are the most intelligent and influential clergy. They control the universities and colleges, and education generally. Active and intellectual, though not learned, they have infused new life into the fat indolence of the Spanish system. Men of this world rather than the next, they have adopted a purely mundane policy, abjured the gloomy cowl, raised gorgeous temples, and say, "He that cometh unto us shall in no wise lose heaven." Their chief merit, however, is the discovery of the turkey and quinine.

The Protestant in Quito is annoyed by an everlasting jingling of bells and blowing of bugles night and day. The latter are blown every third hour. The bells are struck by boys, not rung. A bishop, returning from a visit to London, was asked if there were any good bells in England.

"Very fine," he replied, "but there is not a man there who knows how to ring them." Foreign machinery is sprinkled with holy water to neutralize the inherent heresy; but a miller, for example, will charge more for his flour after the baptism.

Lotteries are countenanced by both Church and State, and in turn help support them; we saw one "grand scheme" carried out on the cathedral terrace and defended by bayonets.

At half past nine in the morning all Quito is on its knees, as the great bell of the cathedral announces the elevation of the Host. The effect is astonis.h.i.+ng. Riders stop their horses; foot-pa.s.sengers drop down on the pavement; the cook lets go her dishes and the writer his pen; the merchant lays aside his measure and the artisan his tool; the half-uttered oath (_carajo_!) dies on the lips of the Cholo; the arm of the cruel Zambo, unmercifully beating his donkey, is paralyzed; and the smart repartee of the lively donna is cut short. The solemn stillness lasts for a minute, when the bell tolls again, and all rise to work or play. Holidays are frequent. Processions led by a crucifix or wooden image are attractive sights in this dull city, simply because little else is going on. Occasionally a girl richly dressed to represent the humble mother of G.o.d is drawn about in a carriage, and once a year the figures of the Virgin belonging to different churches are borne with much pomp to the Plaza, where they bow to each other like automatons.

"This is a bad country to live in, and a worse one to die in," said Dr.

Jameson. But times have changed, even in fossil Quito. Through the efforts of our late minister, Hon. W.T. Coggeshall, the bigoted government has at last consented to inclose a quarter of an acre outside the city for the subterranean burial of heretics. The cemetery is on the edge of the beautiful plain of Inaquito, and on the right of the road leading to Guapolo. "What a shame," said a Quitonian lady of position, "that there should be a place to throw Protestant dogs!"

On St. Nathaniel's day died Colonel Phineas Staunton, Vice-Chancellor of Ingham University, New York. An artist by profession, and one of very high order, Colonel Staunton joined our expedition to sketch the glories of the Andes, but he fell a victim to the scourge of the lowlands one week after his arrival in Quito. We buried him at noon-day[33] in the new cemetery, "wherein was never man laid," and by the act consecrated the ground. Peace to his ashes; honor to his memory. That 8th of September, 1867, was a new day in the annals of Quito. On that day the imperial city beheld, for the first time in three centuries, the decent burial of a Protestant in a Protestant cemetery. Somewhere, mingled with the ashes of Pichincha, is the dust of Atahuallpa, who was buried in his beloved Quito at his own request after his murder in Caxamarca. But dearer to us is that solitary grave; the earth is yet fresh that covers the remains of one of nature's n.o.blemen.

[Footnote 33: This was a new thing under the sun. Quitonians "bury at dead of night, with lanterns dimly burning." The dirges sung as the procession winds through the streets are extremely plaintive, and are the most touching specimens of Ecuadorian music. The corpse, especially of a child, is often carried in a chair in a sitting posture. The wealthy cla.s.s wall up their dead in niches on the side of Pichincha, hypothetically till the resurrection, but really for two years, when, unless an additional payment is made, the bones are thrown into a common pit and the coffin burnt. To prevent this, a few who can afford it embalm the deceased. One of the most distinguished citizens of Quito keeps his mummified father at his hacienda, and annually dresses him up in a new suit of clothes!]

Turn we now to a more delightful topic than the politics and religion of Quito. The climate is perfect. Fair Italy, with her cla.s.sic prestige and ready access, will long be the land of promise to travelers expatriated in search of health. But if ever the ancients had reached this Andean valley, they would have located here the Elysian Fields, or the seat of "the blessed, the happy, and long-lived" of Anacreon.[34] No torrid heat enervates the inhabitant of this favored spot; no icy breezes send him s.h.i.+vering to the fire. n.o.body is sun-struck; n.o.body's buds are nipped by the frost. Stoves and chimneys, starvation and epidemics, are unknown.

It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day is a combination of all three. The mean annual temperature of Quito is 58.8, the same as Madrid, or as the month of May in Paris. The average range in twenty-four hours is about 10. The coldest hour is 6 A.M.; the warmest between 2 and 3 P.M. The extremes in a year are 45 and 70; those of Moscow are-38 and 89. It is a prevalent opinion that since the great earthquake of 1797 the temperature has been lower. "It was suddenly reduced (says the _Encycl. Metropolitana_) from 66 or 68 to 40 or 45"--a manifest error. The natives say that since the _terremote_ of 1859 the seasons have not commenced so regularly, nor are they so well defined; there are more rainy days in summer than before.

It remains to be seen whether the late convulsion has affected the climate.

[Footnote 34: In the mountain-town of Caxamarca, farther south, there were living in 1792 seven persons aged 114, 117, 121, 131, 132, 141, and 147. One of them, when he died, left behind him eight hundred living descendants to mourn his loss. We confess, however, that we saw very few old persons in Quito. Foreigners outlive the natives, because they live a more regular and temperate life.]

The mean diurnal variation of the barometer is only .084. So regular is the oscillation, as likewise the variations of the magnetic needle, that the hour may be known within fifteen minutes by the barometer or compa.s.s. Such is the clock-like order of Nature under the equator, that even the rains, the most irregular of all meteorological phenomena in temperate zones, tell approximately the hour of the day. The winds, too, have an orderly march--the ebb and flow of an aerial ocean. No wonder watch-tinkers can not live where all the forces in nature keep time.

n.o.body talks about the weather; conversation begins with benedictions or compliments.

The greatest variations of the thermometer occur in autumn, and the greatest quant.i.ty of rain falls in April.[35] While on the western side of the Andes, south of the equator, the dry season extends from June to January, on the eastern side of the Cordillera the seasons are reversed, the rain lasting from March to November. The climate of the central valley is modified by this opposition of seasons on either side of it, as also by the proximity of snowy peaks. Nine such peaks stand around Quito within a circle of thirty miles. The prevailing winds in summer are from the northeast; in the winter the southwest predominate.

[Footnote 35:

The mean annual fall of rain at Quito is 70 inches.

" " " " Charleston is 45.9 inches.

" " " " New York is 42.23 "

" " " " Albany is 40.93 "

" " " " Montreal is 36 "

" " " " Madrid is 10. "

There are only three small drug-stores in the great city of Quito. The serpent is used as the badge of apothecary art. Physicians have no offices, nor do they, as a general rule, call upon their patients. When an invalid is not able to go to the doctor, he is expected to die.

Yellow fever, cholera, and consumption are unknown; while intermittent fevers, dysentery, and liver complaints, so prevalent on the coast, are uncommon. The ordinary diseases are catarrhal affections and typhoid fever. Cases of inflammation of the lungs are rare; more coughing may be heard during a Sunday service in a New England meeting-house than in six months in Quito. The diseases to which the monks of St. Bernard are liable are pulmonary, and the greater number become asthmatic. Asthma is also common in Quito, while phthisis increases as we descend to the sea.

Individuals are often seen with a handkerchief about the jaws, or bits of plaster on the temples; these are afflicted with headache or toothache, resulting from a gratified pa.s.sion for sweetmeats, common to all ages and cla.s.ses. Digestive disorders are somewhat frequent (contrary to the theory in Europe), but they spring from improper food and sedentary habits. The _cuisine_ of the country does not tempt the stomach to repletion, and the climate is decidedly peptic. So the typhoid fever of Quito is due to filth, poor diet, and want of ventilation. Corpulency, especially among the men, is astonis.h.i.+ngly rare.

According to Dr. Lombard, mountain districts favor the development of diseases of the heart; and contagious diseases are not arrested by the atmosphere of lofty regions. This is true in Quito. But while nervous diseases are rare in the inhabited highlands of Europe, in Quito they are common. Sleep is said to be more tranquil and refres.h.i.+ng, and the circulation more regular at high alt.i.tudes; but our experience does not sustain this. Goitre is quite common among the mountains. It is a sign of const.i.tutional weakness, for the children of goitred parents are usually deaf and dumb, and the succeeding generation idiots.

Boussingault thinks it is owing to the lack of atmospheric air in the water; but why is it nearly confined to the women? In the southern provinces about Cuenca, cutaneous affections are quite frequent. In the highlands generally, scrofulous diseases are more common than in the plains. There are three hospitals for lepers; one at Cuenca with two hundred patients, one at Quito with one hundred and twelve patients, and one at Ambato. Near Riobamba is a community of dwarfs.

D'Orbigny made a _post-mortem_ examination of some Indians from the highest regions, and found the lungs of extraordinary dimensions, the cells larger and more in number. Hence the unnatural proportion of the trunk, which is plainly out of harmony with the extremities. The expanded chest of the mountaineers is evidently the result of larger inspirations to secure the requisite amount of oxygen, which is much less in a given s.p.a.ce at Quito than on the coast. This is an instance, observes Prichard, of long-continued habit, and the result of external agencies modifying the structure of the body, and with it the state of the most important functions of life. We tried the experiment of burning a candle one hour at Guayaquil, and another part of the same candle for the same period at Quito. Temperature at Guayaquil, 80; at Quito, 62.

The loss at Guayaquil was 140 grains; at Quito, 114, or 26 grains less at the elevation of 9500 feet. Acoustics will also ill.u.s.trate the thinness of the air. M. G.o.din found (1745) that a nine-pounder could not be heard at the distance of 121,537 feet; and that an eight-pounder at Paris, at the distance of 102,664 feet, was louder than a nine-pounder at Quito at the distance of 67,240 feet.

According to Dr. Archibald Smith, the power of muscular exertion in a native of the coast is greatly increased by living at the height of 10,000 feet. But it is also a.s.serted by observing travelers that dogs and bulls lose their combativeness at 12,000 feet, and that hence there can never be a good bull-fight or dog-fight on the Sierras. This is literally true: the dogs seem to partake of the tameness of their masters. Cats do not flourish at all in high alt.i.tudes; and probably the lion, transplanted from the low jungle to the table-lands, would lose much of his ferocity. Still, c.o.c.k-fights seem to prosper; and the battle of Pichincha was fought on an elevation of nearly 11,000 feet. Bolivar and the Spaniards, also, fought like tigers on the high plain of Junin.[36]

[Footnote 36: Gibbon states that the temperature of the blood of a young bull in Cuzco was 100; air, 57. At the base of the Andes a similar experiment resulted in 101 for the blood, air 78. The lieutenant jocosely adds: "The Spaniards have forced the hog so high up on the Andes that he suffers every time he raises his bristles, and dies out of place."--Puna has been attributed to the presence of a.r.s.enical vapor.]

The sickness felt by some travelers at great elevations--violent headache and disposition to vomit--is called _veta_; and the difficulty of breathing from the rarity of the air is termed _puna_. Gerard complained of severe headache and depression of spirits at the height of 15,000 feet on the Himalayas; Dr. Barry, in ascending Mont Blanc (15,700 feet), speaks of great thirst, great dryness and constriction of skin, loss of appet.i.te, difficult breathing, tendency to syncope, and utter indifference. Baron Muller, in his ascent of Orizava (17,800 feet), found great difficulty in breathing, and experienced the sensation of a red-hot iron searing his lungs, and agonizing pains in the chest, followed by fainting-fits and torrents of blood from his mouth; Humboldt, in scaling Chimborazo, suffered from nausea akin to sea-sickness, and a flow of blood from the nose and lips; while Herndon, on the slope of Puy-puy (15,700 feet), said he thought his heart would break from his breast with its violent agitation. Though ascending the Andes to the height of 16,000 feet, and running up the last few rods, we experienced nothing of this except a temporary difficulty in respiration. We were exhilarated rather than depressed. The experience of Darwin on the Portillo ridge (14,000 feet) was only "a slight tightness across the head and chest." "There was some imagination even in this (he adds); for, upon finding fossil sh.e.l.ls on the highest ridge, I entirely forgot the puna in my delight." De Saussure says truly: "The strength is repaired as speedily as it has been exhausted. Merely a cessation of movement for three or four minutes, without even seating one's self, seems to restore the strength so perfectly that, on resuming progress, one feels able to climb at a single stretch to the very peak of the mountain."

CHAPTER VI.

Astronomic Virtues of Quito.--Flora and Fauna of the Valley of Quito.--Primeval Inhabitants of the Andes.--Quichua Indians.

Quito, with a position unparalleled for astronomical purposes, has no observatory. The largest telescope in the city is about five feet long, but the astute professor of natural philosophy in the Jesuit College who has charge of it had not the most distant idea that an eclipse of the sun would occur on the 29th of August, and an eclipse of the moon fifteen days later. In ancient days this "holy city" had within it the Pillar of the Sun, which cast no shadow at noon, and a temple was built for the G.o.d of light. The t.i.tle of the sovereign Inca was the Child of the Sun; but there was very little knowledge of astronomy, for, being the national religion, it was beyond the reach of scientific speculation.

The atmosphere of Quito is of transparent clearness. Humboldt saw the poncho of a horseman with the naked eye at a horizontal distance of ninety thousand feet. The sky is of a dark indigo color; the azure is less blended with white because of the extreme dryness of the air. The stars stand out with uncommon brilliancy, and the dark openings between them the great German compared to "tubes through which we look into the remotest depths of s.p.a.ce." It is true at Quito, as Humboldt noticed at c.u.mana, that the stars do not twinkle when they are more than fifteen degrees high; "the soft planetary light" of the stars overhead is not mere rhetoric.

Living under the equatorial line, Quitonians enjoy the peculiar privilege of beholding the stars of both hemispheres, the guiding stars of Ursa Major as well as the Magellanic Clouds and Southern Cross, not omitting that black spot near the latter, "the unappropriated region in the skies reserved by Manager Bingham for deposed American presidents."

The zodiacal light here appears in all its glory. This strange phenomenon has long puzzled philosophers, and they are still divided. It is generally considered to be produced by a continuous zone of infinitesimal asteroids. The majority place this zone beyond the orbit of the earth, and concentric with the sun. But Rev. George Jones, of Philadelphia, who has spent several years in observing this light, including eight months in Quito, considers it geocentric, and possibly situated between the earth and its satellite. At New York only a short pyramidal light, and this only at certain seasons, is to be seen; but here, an arch twenty degrees wide, and of considerable intensity, shoots up to the zenith, and Mr. Jones affirms that a complete arch is visible at midnight when the ecliptic is at right angles to the spectator's horizon. We have not been so fortunate as to see it pa.s.s the zenith; and Professor Barnard contends that it never does pa.s.s. We may remark that the main part of the zodiacal light s.h.i.+fts to the south side of the celestial equator as we cross the line. To us the most magnificent sight in the tropical heavens is the "Milky Way," especially near Sobieski's s.h.i.+eld, where it is very luminous. We observed that this starry tract divided at [Greek: a] Centauri, as Herschel says, and not at [Greek: b], as many maps and globes have it. The brightest stars in the southern hemisphere follow the direction of a great circle pa.s.sing through [Greek: e] Orionis and [Greek: a] Crucis.

Another thing which arrests the attention of the traveler is the comparatively well-defined boundary-line between day and night. The twilight at Quito lasts only an hour and a half; on the coast it is still shorter. Nor is there any "harvest moon," the satellite rising with nearly equal intervals of forty-eight minutes.

From the stars we step down to the floral kingdom on the Andes, using as our ladder of descent the following sentence from Humboldt, at the age of seventy-five: "If I might be allowed to abandon myself to the recollections of my own distant travels, I would instance among the most striking scenes of nature the calm sublimity of a tropical night, when the stars--not sparkling, as in our Northern skies--shed their soft and planetary light over the gently heaving ocean; or I would recall the deep valleys of the Cordilleras, where the tall and slender palms pierce the leafy veil around them, and wave on high their feathery and arrow-like branches."