Sir Clements R. Markham

“ At sunset the view of Waee from the opposite side of the river, with the temples reflected in the water, the thickets of trees behind, and the crowds of people in snow-white cotton dresses and red turbans, was enchanting. Waee derives its great sanctity partly from being on the banks of the sacred Krishna, and partly from the tradition that it was the residence of the five Pandus, the favourite mythical heroes of the Hindus, during part of the time of their exile. The people still have many tales respecting their deeds, especially those of Bhima, who was the biggest and strongest of the five. ”

“ The scenery is here remarkably beautiful. Lofty mountains, with their bright cascades, are clothed to their summits with rich grass, while their gullies are filled with flowering trees and shrubs. Half-way up, in many directions, the stone terraces of coca rise tier above tier, fringed with ferns and begonias, and filled with the delicate coloured green coca-branches, diversified occasionally by the darker hues of the coffee. The ravine is filled with masses of purple Melastomaceæ, and the river is fringed with tree-ferns, plantains, and bamboos. ”

“ We were all mustered and ready to start on the verge of Gironda's clearing, which is surrounded by tall forest trees, with the river rushing noisily past, and the opposite mountains covered to their summits with fine timber, when half a dozen pale-faced men emerged from the tangled thicket in our front. They looked wan and cadaverous like men risen from the dead, and worn out by long watching and fatigue. They turned out to be Collahuayas, collectors of drugs and incense, who penetrate far into the forests to obtain their wares, and come forth, as we then saw them, looking pale and haggard. ”

“ In the interval of sowing, the natives often sow the land with pulse or sesame, the stubble of which is used as manure for the next rice-crop.
At intervals scattered over the plain, there are groves of cocoanut and palmyra-palms, like islands in the vast sea of rice-fields, with small villages built under their shade. As the betel-nut palm is the most graceful in India, so the palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis) is undoubtedly the ugliest, with its black stem the same size all the way up, and coarse fan-shaped leaves. It is chiefly from this tree that the Shanars draw the toddy. ”

“ In this land of the Incas Nature has done her work on a truly gigantic scale.
The desert, from Guerreros to the entrance to the gorge leading through the rocky hills which divide it from the plain of Arequipa, is upwards of forty miles across, while its length from the transverse valley of Tambo to that of Vitor must be about sixty. During the greater part of the day we were threading our way through arid mountain gorges, and up and down zigzag rocky paths strewn with the bones and carcasses of mules, under a scorching sun. ”

“ In the morning of April 20th I rode down the beautiful gorge to the confluence of the rivers of Sandia and Huaccuyo. After this junction the stream becomes a roaring torrent, dashing over huge rocks, and descending rapidly down the ravine towards Sandia. On both sides vast masses of dark frowning mountains rear themselves up for thousands of feet, and end in fantastically shaped peaks, some of them veiled by thin fleecy clouds. The vegetation rapidly increased in luxuriance with the descent. ”

“ Every one who has travelled much, in different parts of the world, or who has reflected at all on the subject, well knows [Pg 477] that there is far more happiness than misery on this earth, that the good outweighs the evil, and that the wars and revolutions of history are but specks on the long periods of tranquillity which remain for ever unrecorded. The village system of the Deccan is a venerable monument, reminding us how little the turmoils and civil wars, invasions, and revolutions, of which history is composed, affect the mass of the people. ”

“ This purple Melastomacea (Lasiandra fontanesiana) , called in Quichua panti-panti, in the brilliancy and abundance of its flowers, bears the same relation to this part of the Peruvian Andes as the rhododendron does to the Himalayas. The effect in masses is much the same, but the Lasiandra appears to me to be a more graceful and delicate tree, with a more beautiful flower. In this ravine we have the shrub chinchonæ on the high grassy slopes, perhaps the finest coffee in the world near the banks of the river, and a little galium by the road-side—all chinchonaceous plants. ”

“ Outside the town there were thousands of mules from Tucuman waiting for Peruvian arrieros to buy them. In the plaza were booths full of every description of Manchester and Birmingham goods; in more retired places were gold-dust and coffee from Caravaya, silver from the mines, bark and chocolate from Bolivia, Germans with glass-ware and woollen knitted work, French modistes, Italians, Quichua and Aymara Indians in their various picturesque costumes—in fact, all nations and tongues. ”

“ Enjoying a delightful climate, well supplied with water, and with its gentle undulations of hill and dale in some places clothed with rich pasture, in others presenting woods of fine timber and beautiful flowering shrubs, the Neilgherry hills are eminently fitted for the abode of a thriving and civilized people. Yet for many centuries it would appear that their sole inhabitants were a strange race of cowherds, a people differing in all respects from their neighbours in the plains, and indeed from all the other natives of Hindostan. ”

“ America had, in those days, become the theatre of the most wide-spread tyranny; but the Indians of Peru were those on whose necks the yoke weighed heaviest. Mitas and repartos were, in Peru, the deadly plagues of Spanish invention, which devoured the human race. ”

“ At the heads of these valleys the streams are divided into two channels, and led down each side, the space between being sown with rice in terraced fields, gradually descending with the slope of the valley. These bright patches of cultivation are very pretty, with their light vivid green contrasting with the sombre hues of the forest. Near Mercara the jungle is a good deal cleared, and the slopes are covered with coffee-plants. The road is excellent. ”

“ McIvor also has a small branch-garden at Kalhutty, about half-way down the Seegoor ghaut, leading to the Mysore plains, for raising fruits which require a warmer climate. This garden is self-supporting. A magnificent waterfall descends into a rocky basin close beside it, and the garden contains oranges of many kinds, shaddocks, lemons, limes, citrons, nutmegs, loquats, and plantains. On this spot the delicious chirimoyas, the seeds of which we brought from Peru, will hereafter ripen, and enable the people of India to taste the "masterpiece of nature." ”

“ The vicuñas, a species of llama with the habits of an antelope, are very beautiful and graceful creatures. They have rich fawn-coloured coats, with patches of white across the shoulders and inside the legs, and long slender necks. They are constantly met with in the most desolate parts of the cordillera, browsing on the tender shoots of the tufts of ychu, or galloping along with their noses close to the ground, as if they were scenting out the best pasture. ”

“ On the leaves which formed the roof of the hut were the remains of this unfortunate man's clothes, a straw hat and some rags, with a knife, and an earthen pot containing the remains of his last meal, a little maize, and two or three chuñus. Such is the end to which their hazardous occupation exposes the bark-collectors—death in the midst of the forests, far from all friends—a death without help, and without consolation.
Dr. Weddell returned to La Paz by ascending the Coroico, and the results of his second visit to the chinchona forests appeared in an entertaining book of travels. ”

“ Brahmins and other traders were sitting in their shops, before piles of earthenware and copper chatties, cotton cloths, and numerous kinds of grains and pulses in baskets. The rock is a mass of granite, 400 feet high, crowned by a small Hindu temple; the ascent is cut in steps out of the solid rock, and from the summit there is a most extensive view, including the city, the fine bridges over the Coleroon and Cauvery, the gopurams of the great pagoda of Seringam on an island in the river, and a vast expanse of rice cultivation and palm-groves, with Tanjore on the distant horizon. ”

“ In giving an account of the present condition and future prospects of Peru, the invariable kindness and frank hospitality of its inhabitants impose an obligation to speak with as much leniency and forbearance as the interests of truth will admit. The South American Republics are peopled by races of mixed origin, who are doubtless inferior to Europeans, both mentally and physically; and the unsettled condition of those countries, which inevitably succeeded the struggles for an independence for which the people were unprepared, has continued longer than might justly have been expected. ”

“ We had to wade across many little streams falling into the Tambopata. The first, after leaving the Yana-mayu, was called Churu-bamba, because it empties itself just opposite an island (churu, in Quichua) . The next stream was Uma-yuyu, uma being water in Aymara, and yuyu a plant with a large cordate dock-like leaf, used in chupes. Thus every little stream and hill had received a name from the cascarilleros of former times, from some peculiarity of position or other similar circumstance, which would easily impress it on the memory. ”

“ Finally the Marquis of Cañete arrived in Peru, as viceroy, in 1554; and, by a mixture of severity and prudent conciliation, trod out the last sparks of revolt amongst the Spaniards.
In 1568 the viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo established the system under which the native population of Peru was professedly ruled for the two succeeding centuries. Toledo was a bigot, without pity, and inexorably cruel. Justice or humanity had no weight with him if they stood in the way of any policy which he deemed to be advisable, as was shown in the judicial murder of the young Inca Tupac Amaru. ”

“ Under any circumstances the South Americans, who owe to India the staple food of millions of their people, and to the Old World most of their valuable products—wheat, barley, apples, peaches, sugar-cane, the vine, rice, the olive, sheep, [Pg 339] cattle, and horses—have no right to desire to withhold from India a product which is so essentially necessary to her welfare. ”

“ In an angle of one of the corridors all the jewels of the temple were spread out on a table for our inspection, and we sat down before them, by the side of the old warden. It was a truly magnificent display of wealth; and it was impossible not to feel that there must be deep faith and conviction in a religion which induces men to go about naked and in ashes, and to devote tens of thousands of rupees to ornament the mystic emblems of their Gods. ”

“ On the day after sailing from Cannanore we put into Mangalore, where the town, like that of Calicut, is completely hidden from the sea, the lighthouse and a few bungalows being visible on a hill in the rear. This was the dry season, and the coast of Canara was not nearly so pretty as that of Malabar, looking parched and dried up. North of Mangalore is the port of Compta, with a lighthouse on a steep conical hill, but no town visible. Compta is now the port of shipment for the cotton of Dharwar, and there were several pattamars in the anchorage, with their decks piled up with bales of cotton. ”

“ The fatal mistake of several of the old Spanish colonies was in establishing a federal system of government, in imitation of the United States. This was the case in Mexico, Central America, New Granada, and the Argentine Confederation. No system can possibly be more entirely unsuited to a thinly-peopled mountainous region, without roads, and unprovided with a sufficient number of capable educated men in the distant provinces to undertake the local government. ”

“ The country to the north and east of Mercara is a plateau, about 4500 feet above the sea, intersected by ravines full of trees and underwood, amongst which I observed wild orange and lime-trees, Michelias, and tree-ferns, with an undergrowth of ferns, Lobelia, Ipomæa, and Solanum. The scenery is charming, with grassy slopes, wooded glades, and here and there a secluded hut in a grove of plantains, on the edge of a small patch of rice cultivation. I also examined some of the forests down the Mangalore ghaut. ”

“ Weir, who was recommended to me by Mr. Veitch, accompanied me to the chinchona forests of Caravaya.
In employing several agents in districts widely removed from each other, my chief object was to effect the introduction of as many valuable species as possible; but I also reflected on the extreme difficulty of the undertaking, and the overwhelming chances against success which confronted a single-handed attempt. In such wild unfrequented regions all is uncertainty. Along the dizzy paths of the Andes a single false step may dash the fairest hopes, disappoint the most careful calculations. ”

“ I at once determined to take measures for obtaining plants and seeds of all the valuable species of chinchonæ described in a former chapter; to arrange so that, if possible, they should be collected simultaneously in the different regions separated by many hundreds of miles from each other; and that, warned by the fatal error of the Dutch in Java, no species should be introduced into India which did not possess bark of well-established commercial value. ”

“ Such is the present form of government in Peru, perhaps as good a one as the country is fit for, and capable, in firm and honest hands, of meeting all the present requirements of the people; but it is of more importance to know in whose hands the government of the country is placed, and what manner of men are intrusted with the destinies of a country so rich in memories of the past, as well as in material resources ”