William Eleroy Curtis

“ All the houses in Lima are built on the earthquake plan—either of great thick walls of adobe, or mere shacks of bamboo reeds, lashed together by thongs of rawhide, and plastered within and without with thick layers of mud. This style of architecture will answer in a country where it never rains, and where cyclones never come, but if a good pour should fall in Lima, much of the town would be washed into the river Rimac and carried out to sea. There is never more than one entrance to a house, and that is protected first by a great iron grating, and then by solid doors. ”

“ Macuto is the Newport of Venezuela—the summer, or rather the winter resort of the wealthy and aristocratic, who find the temperature of Caracas trying upon their constitutions, and seek sea-air, sea-bathing, and flirtations under the palms. It is six miles from La Guayra, and is reached by a tramway, over which a little dummy engine goes shrieking every half hour, and by a broad boulevard which would furnish as delightful a drive as that upon the beach at Long Branch were it not for the dust, which is almost hub-deep, and nearly suffocates one. ”

“ Half savage and half courtier, the gaucho is as polite as he is cruel, and will make a bow like a dancing-master or thrum an air on the native mandolin with the same ease and nonchalance as he will murder a fellow-being or slaughter a steer. He recognizes no law but his own will and the unwritten code of the cattle-range, and all violations of this code are punished by banishment or death. Whoever offends him must fight or fly, and his vengeance is as enduring as it is vigilant. ”

“ Everybody is up and dressed before daylight to attend early mass, and when the sun rises the streets are full of people saluting each other by exchanging the compliments of the day, and throwing egg-shells filled with perfumed water. From morning till night the air is full of the noise of fireworks, cannonades, the shouts of people, and the music of military bands, while processions are continually passing through the principal streets. ”

“ Under these conditions, in this great struggle for existence, the Incas established and sustained a Government—the first in which the equal rights of every human being were recognized—and worshipped a being whose attributes were similar to those of the Christian God. The great sea, breaking with ceaseless thunder upon the rocky coast, impressed the dweller in the desert with reverence and awe, and he recognized by an equally natural logic that the sun was the source of light and happiness. ”

“ A people naturally enthusiastic, and as inflammable as powder, to whom excitement was recreation and repose distress, suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with the greatest sensation of their lives, became almost insane, and turned the town into a bedlam. Although every one knew that Barrios aspired to restore the old Union of the Republic, no one seemed to be prepared for the coup-d’état, and the announcement fell with a force that made the whole country tremble. ”

“ Quaint dormer-windows stare at you from the most unexpected places; hideous yellow towers, like the legs of some petrified monster sticking up into the air, meet your view in all directions; and great prison-like fortresses, with port-holes like the eyes of needles, and ponderous doors lapping over like the covers of a banker’s ledger, appear with surprising frequency. The streets are narrow, crooked, and rough. They begin in the most unreasonable places and go nowhere. ”

“ The whole town seems to be in a continual perspiration, and the atmosphere is so enervating that the stranger feels an almost irresistible tendency to lie down. There is now and then a lovely little spot where Nature has displayed her beauties unhindered, and the environs of the city are filled with the luxury of tropical vegetation; but there are only a few fine residences, a few pleasant promenades, and a few clusters of regal palms, which look down upon the filth and squalor of the town with dainty indifference. ”

“ All at once the protest was withdrawn, without warning, without any premonition, and then, with a knife at her throat and a revolver at her heart, Peru consented to surrender the coveted provinces.
General Hurlbut had been condemned for acting imprudently, for getting our Government into a scrape without excuse, for committing it to a policy that was not tenable; but no one can visit Peru and see the results of the war without respecting the memory of General Hurlbut. He acted from the noblest impulses, in behalf of humanity, in defence of civilization. ”

“ As long as people are passing he stands at the corner, but when things quiet down he leaves his lantern in the road, retires to a neighboring door-way, wraps his blanket around him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. As all the windows in the city of Mexico have heavy prison-like gratings before them, and all the doors are great oaken affairs that could not be knocked in without a catapult; as there are never any fires, and everybody goes to bed early, the policeman’s lot is usually a happy one. ”

“ There is no spot of equal area upon the globe in which so much human blood has been wasted in civil war, or so much wanton destruction committed. Nature has blessed it with wonderful resources, and a few years of peace and industry would make the country prosperous beyond comparison; but so much attention has been paid to politics that little is left for anything else. Scarcely a year has passed without a revolution, and during its sixty-five years of independence the republic has known more than five times as many rulers as it had during the three centuries it was under the dominion of Spain. ”

“ How many members of the Senate or the House of Representatives at Washington, how many members of the Cabinet or Justices of the Supreme Court, know that the increase of population in the Argentine Republic during the last twenty-five years has been one hundred and fifty-four per cent., while in the United States it has been only seventy-nine per cent., and that Buenos Ayres is growing as fast as Denver or Minneapolis?
The people are right when they assert that their country is the United States of South America, and there is nothing else that they are so proud of. ”

“ The skill with which the gaucho handles the lasso is an everlasting source of wonder. While at full gallop he can throw a coil of raw-hide with as much accuracy as an expert rifleman can crack a glass ball, and will catch a running cow or sheep or hog, lassoing the horn or foot or head at will. Duels with the lasso are often fought, the contestants throwing nooses at the heads of each other, sparring and dodging like pugilists, until one or the other is caught and dragged out of the saddle. ”

“ The street railway only extends to the limits of the city, but a short walk beyond it gives one a glimpse of the rural tropics. At one end of the main street, which runs along the river front, is a fortress-crowned hill, from the summit of which a charming view of the surrounding country can be obtained, but the better plan is to take a carriage and drive out a few miles. The road is rough and dusty, but passes among cocoa-nut groves and sugar plantations, through forests fairly blazing with the wondrous passion-flower, so scarlet as to make the trees look like living fire ”

“ The gaucho woman is said to be beautiful when young, but at twenty-five or thirty she is a dirty, unkempt slattern, with bleared eyes and tangled hair, and wears nothing but a soiled and faded gown, and perhaps a pair of brass or silver ear-rings. When she is a maiden the gauchos will kill each other out of jealousy, but when she becomes a wife or a mistress she is kicked about the camp, beaten, and abandoned at her master’s will.
All the finery in the family goes on the husband’s back and saddle. ”

“ She is so beautiful that you are sorry you explored her mind; you feel guilty of having exposed her ignorance; you wish that you could simply sit and look at her, a picture of loveliness, forever; but when you ask her to dance, and she moves away with you in a waltz or mazourka, you discover that however empty her head may be, the education of her feet has not been neglected. No one who has ever waltzed with a Peruvian girl will wish for another partner. She is simply animated gracefulness, and her endurance is remarkable. ”

“ Nowhere can one find a more beautiful scene of tropical vegetation in its full glory, and no artist ever mingled{303} colors that could convey an adequate idea of nature’s gorgeousness here.
The most beautiful thing in the tropics is a young palm-tree. The old ones are more graceful than any of our foliage plants, but they all show signs of decay. The young ones, so supple as to bend before the winds, are the ideal of grace and loveliness, as picturesque in repose as they are in motion. ”

“ If you buy a cent’s worth of anything and offer a quartillo in payment, you get a breakfast-roll for the balance due you. The landlord at the hotel requires you to pay your board in advance, because he has no money to buy food and no credit with the market-men; the muleteers ask for their fees before starting, because their experience teaches them wisdom. There is scarcely a building in the whole republic in process of construction or even undergoing repairs. Death seems to have settled upon everything artificial, but Nature is in her grandest glory. ”

“ The days are always warm and delightful, and the nights cool and favorable to sweet rest. Winter is not so agreeable as summer, for when it is not raining the winds blow dust in your eyes, and you miss the foliage and fruits. There is not such a thing as an overcoat in the place—the storekeepers do not sell them—and the natives never heard of stoves. One can look over the roofs of the town from the tower of the cathedral and not see a chimney anywhere. The mercury seldom goes above eighty, and never below sixty, Fahrenheit. ”

“ Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, lies a few miles below Buenos Ayres, on the other side of the river, and vessels usually touch there, for it is a place of great commercial importance, more accessible to shipping and more favorably located in every respect than the latter city, which lies stretched along a low sandy bank seven or eight miles beyond the anchorage of ships. There is no harbor at Buenos Ayres—not even an excuse for one—and it is beyond the power of human genius to give vessels direct access to the city. ”

“ WITH the exception of Buenos Ayres and Santiago, Chili, the city of Mexico is the largest and the finest capital in Spanish America; but unfortunately the shadow of the sixteenth century still rests upon it. It wounds the pride of the Yankee tourist to discover that so little of our boasted influence has lapped over the border, and that the historic halls of the Montezumas are only spattered with the modern ideas we exemplify. The native traveller still prefers his donkey to the railroad train, and carries a burden upon his back instead of using a wagon. ”

“ To-day it is a collection of cheap wooden houses and bamboo huts, with wharves, warehouses, and railway shops, surrounded by the most luxurious tropical vegetation, alive with birds of gorgeous plumage, venomous reptiles, and beautiful tiger-cats. Here and there about the place are patches of sugar-cane and groups of cocoa-nut trees, with the wide-spreading bread-fruit that God gave to the tropical savage as He gave rice and maize to his Northern brother, and the slender, graceful rubber-tree, whose frosty-colored mottled trunk looks like the neck of a giraffe. It scarcely casts a shadow ”

“ On the bleak crests of the paramos he encounters neither tree nor shrub, where a few blades of sedge and the flitting of a few sparrows give the only evidences of vegetable or animal life; while in the deep valley just below, the dense groves of palm and cottonwood are alive with birds of rich and varied plumage, and the air seems loaded with floral perfumes until the senses fairly ache with their sweetness. ”

“ WHOEVER visits the little republic of San Salvador, and lands at La Libertad, its principal seaport, must expect to undergo a novel and alarming experience. There is no harbor in the country, although it has one hundred and fifty-seven miles of sea-coast. The shore of the Pacific is a line of bluffs, with a fringe of beach at the bottom, and upon the sand a mighty surf is always beating. Ships anchor several miles off the coast, to avoid being driven ashore by the winds that sometimes rise very suddenly, and no boat can survive the breakers. ”

“ Barrios was the loveliest woman in Guatemala; beautiful in character as well as person, socially brilliant and graceful, charitable beyond all precedent in a country where the poor are usually permitted to take care of themselves, generous and hospitable, a good mother to a fine family of children, and a devoted wife, loyal to all the President’s ambitions, and an enthusiastic supporter of all his schemes. ”

“ It is a pathetic custom of the race not to show upon their costumes the slightest hint of color. Over a short black skirt they wear a sort of mantle, which resembles in its appearance, as well as in its use, the manta that is worn by the ladies of Peru, and the mantilla of Spain. It is drawn over their foreheads and across their chins, and pinned between the shoulders. This sombre costume gives them a nun-like appearance, which is heightened by the stealthy, silent way in which they dart through the streets. ”

“ Such a costume in the United States would call for police interference; but one soon becomes accustomed to bare arms and necks and legs, and learns that these innocent creatures are quite as jealous of their chastity as their sisters in the land where the standard of civilization forbids the disclosure of personal charms outside the ball-room or the bathing beach. The ladies of the aristocracy imitate the Parisian fashions, except that hats and bonnets are almost unknown. They seldom leave their homes except to go to mass, and at the entrance of a church every head must be uncovered. ”