Harry Weston Van Dyke

“ Like a queen in the giant castle that nature has given her, with walls of the imperishable granites of the Cordilleras and towers reaching to the skies, she seems created for the homage of those who gaze upon her. Her face is toward the sunset, as if in expectation of the high destiny that awaits this land of promise in the golden west of South America; and, from the snowy peaks behind her, marked clear against the blue sky, to the farthest limit westward, bordered by the boundless Pacific, there is no alien territory to limit the prospect of her fair domain. ”

“ To-day these fortifications—the citadel within the landlocked harbor, the two castles dominating the narrow entrance, the tremendous walls and ramparts—stand without question as the most picturesque and characteristic survival of Spain’s colonial splendor. Not even the perfectly preserved walls of Manila are more impressive. The visitor who walks to-day through the narrow, Moorish streets comes with memories of the fabulous wealth and the violent scenes of siege and bloodshed culled from romances of the days of the buccaneers that “sailed the Spanish Main.” ”

“ 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—vast, silent, and awe-inspiring in the majesty of its enormous extent and productiveness—the calm, inexhaustible bosom which suckles the prodigious infant on the Plata. ”

“ Gonzalo’s administration lasted three years. They were golden ones to the Spanish adventurers. The marvelous silver mines of Potosí and the gold washings of southern Ecuador were discovered. Encomiendas were lavishly granted; the Indians were sent back to their fields; the mining industry began that marvelous development which soon made Peru the treasure box of the world and Potosí the synonym for limitless wealth. But the dazzling sunlight of prosperity was dimmed by the shadow of Pizarro’s scaffold slowly creeping across the Atlantic and down the coast. ”

“ The grand old renaissance cathedral, which, with its massive stone walls and pillars and vaulted roof, cost so much to build that one of the viceroys said it would have been cheaper to build it of silver, is one of the most imposing specimens of church architecture in America; the pulpit in San Blas is famed as one of the most beautiful in the world, and many of the interiors and cloisters, particularly of La Merced, where the remains of Almagro and two of Pizarro’s brothers lie, and the patio of the university, are perfectly superb. ”

“ The wild beauty of the foliage, the tropical luxuriance, the clear, fresh-water streams, the soft climate and perfume-laden breezes, more than ever delightful to men who had given themselves up for lost, and the natives themselves, bedecked with gold ornaments and dusky-skinned as those of Cathay were said to be—all seemed what might have been expected in the outlying spice islands of the east. ”

“ HISTORICAL SKETCH 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 lived that is regarded as elementary by the school children of our day. ”

“ Until this turn is made the traveler is rarely ever shut off from the gorgeous blue of the Caribbean. So superb is the constantly changing view, that he will feel more than repaid for the sensations of giddiness that may assail him as the train swings around the many curves on the route, and the yawning chasms overlooked from the car windows are but added beauties to the scene, instead of death traps, for so excellent is the construction and so efficient the management that there has never been an accident along the entire length. ”

“ Until recent years the Spanish house in town and country was bare and unlovely on the outside; its beauty and richness were confined to the interior surroundings of the patio; where, in feudal privacy, the family secluded itself. To-day, in the new era of civic pride and the freer association of society in the modern boulevard and café life, the adornment is extended to the outside, and the effort made, by the addition of pinnacles and towers and much delicate tinting, to add to the attractiveness of the “city beautiful.” ”

“ They are justly famous. To the far-famed grace and natural Spanish stateliness of her sisters throughout South America, the Uruguayan señorita adds a freshness of complexion and sprightliness of temperament that go to make a most bewitching consummation of feminine charm. Her praises are sung by all visitors; not less appreciative, her own kith and kin liken her, in their poetic way, to all pleasant things from a dove to the moon.
It is with genuine regret that the traveler leaves the hospitable capital for a trip through the country ”

“ No description has ever done justice to the beauties of Venezuela’s landscape of mountain and valley and mighty rivers, of warm green pastures and blue skies, and the mystic shimmering white of an occasional snow-capped peak. The country that so appeals to the traveler’s interest is nearly six hundred thousand square miles in area, and could include within its confines the States of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. Its mountainous coast saw the beginning of the European invasion of the new world. Columbus, Vespucci, and Ojeda touched here. ”

“ The Indians strove desperately to drag the Spaniards from the horses with their naked hands and interposed a living wall of human flesh between the murderers and their beloved sovereign. At length Pizarro’s own hands snatched Atahualpa from the litter. The Indian soldiers outside, hearing the firearms and the noise of the struggle, tried to force their way into the square, but the Spanish musketry and cannon mowed them down by hundreds and they fled before the charges of the cavalry, dispersing in the twilight. ”

“ Even to-day it is well-nigh impossible to reach the heart of the region—the great cataract of Guayra, which, hundreds of miles from the habitations of man, isolated by jagged mountains, fiercely swirling waters and the wild tangle of underbrush that make headway through the awesome tropical forest very difficult, constitutes one of the most majestic of nature’s wonder-works in South America. Situated about a hundred miles up the Paraná River from the better known Iguazú Falls, the Guayra cataract lies on the frontier with Brazil. ”

“ Inclosing it like a wall, and on beyond as far as the eye can reach, stretch the serried peaks of the Coast Range.
Everywhere, bathed in the intense golden sunlight, are the same gradations of green, the same riot of brilliantly colored flowers, that we saw on the Amazon—only here the water is not muddy but deep blue, and the beaches are lined with almost snow-white sand. ”

“ The same arid strip of low-lying coast land, dotted with rocky promontories, fringed here and there with cliffs and crossed with occasional stretches of green where the rivers flow through to the sea, continues day after day—the same background of mountains rising tier on tier for thousands and thousands of feet, in the morning partly obscured by heavy banks of clouds that later melt away and leave the rugged contour sharply silhouetted against the bright blue, are bathed in the evening, as the sun sinks toward the horizon, in the purple haze that becomes them best. ”

“ On leaving the docks and driving up into the city, the visitor is at once impressed with the fact that Buenos Aires is not so wholly wrapped up in the purely material as is our commercial center on Lake Michigan. It has broadened along more æsthetic lines and is cultivating the graces, not alone the sordid features, of cosmopolitanism. In the newer parts, particularly in the fashionable suburb of Belgrano, the buildings and shaded boulevards and beautifully landscaped parks resemble rather those of Paris; although it is not behind our own big cities in public utilities. ”

“ Here palm-bordered Sarmiento Avenue is crowded with carriages and motor cars six, often eight, rows deep, two stationary in the center and two moving on either side, in which ride as smartly gowned women as may be seen anywhere in America. In the same throng glimpses may be caught of reigning music-hall favorites, at whose sides are usually to be found care-free horsemen just in from the Camp, mounted on superb stallions heavy with silver trappings, and generally with an air of somewhat less sophisticated enjoyment of the event. ”

“ One of these, the Oroya road, which ascends from Lima up into the plateau country, is altogether the most impressive piece of railroad engineering in the world; it is not only the highest, but there is no other that lifts its wondering passengers to any such altitude in such an appallingly short space of time. For an hour or more the train winds through a wide, irrigated valley, green and prosperous-looking with plantations of sugar cane. ”

“ It is one hundred and fifty feet wide and connects the Plazas Bolognesi and Exposición. Through the center runs a garden bordered with superb trees and artistically laid out flower-beds and flowering bushes, and interspersed at intervals with monuments, pillars, and fountains. The present day parade of the gente decente gives the visitor a picture of beautiful women and well-groomed equipages that measures up to the best traditions of Peru’s social eminence. In the heart of the city is the great bull ring, where once society gathered for other purposes than merely to take the air. ”

“ The Montevidean is conscious that his sturdy, vigorous, and even bellicose race has built up a nation unique in South America in its promise of material prosperity; that his country is among the richest in the quality and varied productiveness of its soil of any on the continent, and that his city, housing a third of the country’s population, is the pivot of the nation’s astonishing commercial activity and one of the most healthful and delightful residence cities in the world. ”

“ The first glimpse we catch is of a street, called El Malecon, that extends along the water front for two miles or more from a shipyard to a hill crowned by a fortress. This is at once the principal shopping, café, and amusement place, the favorite promenade, the warehouse district, and the quay where the lighters that ply between it and the vessels anchored out in the river take on and unload their cargoes. It is faced with what from the deck appear to be long rows of white stone and marble buildings of beautiful and graceful architectural design, for the most part of the usual Moorish type. ”

“ For nearly three hundred years this city, which is now called Lima, but which he christened the City of the Kings, enjoyed the distinction of being the “second metropolis” of the great Spanish Empire on two continents and the center of a viceregal court, the splendor of which rivaled that of royalty itself. Stately palaces and churches were soon erected; wide avenues and beautiful plazas were laid out and substantial walls constructed for defense, and here came in the viceroy’s train the proudest nobility of Spain. ”

“ The site of the present city, some twelve miles southeast of the ancient Chibcha capital, was the location of the little Indian village of Tensaquilla, the pleasure resort of the Zipas, nestling, like the Spanish city of Granada, at the foot of two mountains—Monserrate and Guadelupe. Down these mountains tumble the little streams that make up the near-by Funza River, which spreads out over the plain and then plunges down into the upper waters of the Magdalena. ”

“ 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, repellent, and awe-inspiring in their cold majesty. ”

“ They stare at those who pass—some in mantos, some in French dresses with Paris hats—and in Spanish murmur, half audibly, such observations as, ‘I like the blonde best,’ or ‘Give me the little one.’ And, as they still retain some of that simplicity which in the interior causes a stranger to be watched as though he were a camel or a calliope, they will stare even at the gringo, comment on the cut of his clothes or facetiously compare his blunt walking boots with their long, thin ones. ”

“ The New Peru, which is heralded by all recent visitors to the west coast republics, is building an industrial and commercial nation on the long smoldering ruins of Spain’s golden empire, and it will be a worthier and more lasting structure than that with which Pizarro remorselessly smothered the unique civilization of the Incas. The war with Chile seemed to awaken her to the necessity of keeping pace with the times, not only in military but in commercial affairs. ”