Carucate

“ If the republic in many of its features cannot compare for sheer interest with its neighbours, it has yet a commanding claim to the attention of antiquarians, for it possesses the city of Cartagena, which was the most ancient and strongest of the Spanish power in South America. The renown of the city’s prototype in Spain, itself inheriting the name of the still more ancient and famous colony, Carthage, was transplanted to the New World, and for two centuries it enjoyed the esteem of the whole maritime world. Its sun-bleached walls still endure, stern relics of the power of Spain. ”

“ THE province of Carrapa is twelve leagues from the city of Cartago, situated in a very rugged mountainous country, and the Cordillera of the Andes rises above it. The houses of the natives are small and very low, made of canes, and thatched with other small and delicate canes, of which there are many in these parts. Some of the houses of the chiefs are large, but others not. When the Christian Spaniards first entered the country there were five of these chiefs. ”

“ It is especially venerated by the merchants of Carácas; large sums are subscribed [Pg 179] by them each Easter time to dress it up, thousands of dollars and doubloons. Behind this image now they found themselves. Eight chanting priests, in mourning black and lilac, bore it on either side, but the image was gay with beaten gold, borne in a canopy of costly lace, a hundred tall wax candles giving light. The priests move very slowly, scarce a step a minute, making stations at each shrine, so that to bear these images from one church to another may take half a day. ”

“ All very square and very Spanish were these houses, very quaint to look upon; and if this is La Guayra, where is Caracas? Must we, too, clamber and climb away into those mountain heights, and, perchance, awaken the Great Mother, who sleeps so gently under the drowsy lullings of the deep sea? ”

“ We stand close together on the brink of a chasm and look tremulously into the depths of her great heart; down, down, a thousand feet and more of living, breathing green, into every hue of purple and blue, deepening into black near the far-off valley, and disappearing into azure among the clouds,—silence, shadow, tenderness, sublimity, overspread by the ineffable loveliness of morning.
We are moving again, and now it is down, gradually, for Caracas lies a thousand feet below the summit. We follow along a white highroad, the mountain trail from Caracas to the sea. ”

“ Far down below, crossed and recrossed by splashing torrents, sprinkled with the spray of a hundred cataracts, stands Carrara itself,—a little marble city of art, every house a studio, every citizen a sculptor. Hither are sent all the marvellous conceptions of genius,—the models which mighty imaginations have begotten,—to be converted into imperishable stone. ”

“ This fleet, under the command of Francisco Hernando de Cordoba, set sail, with one hundred and ten soldiers, about the beginning of February, from San Cristobal, on the north side of the island, and after a voyage of twenty-one days came in sight of the northeastern part of the peninsula of Yucatan, where an Indian town was seen, to which the Spaniards gave the name El Gran Cairo. Near this place three temples, built of stone and lime, were found, in which were many clay idols “some of them having terrible shapes, seemingly representing Indians committing horrible offences. ”

“ I would wish to track the course of a wicked design, but not of one utterly insane. While I was alive, and the rest of the army safe, with which in one day I took Carthage, with which I routed, put to flight, and expelled from Spain four generals and four armies of the Carthaginians; did you, I say, who were only eight thousand men, [2] all of course of less worth than Albius and Atrius, to whom you subjected yourselves, hope to wrest the province of Spain out of the hands of the Roman people? ”

“ The train shivers, quivers, gives a bump or so, squeaks out a funny foreign whistle, and we are moving out of Caracas. Ten of us instead of eleven. Ten much troubled wanderers, thinking and wondering a very great deal. We pass the curious little chapel upon the hill, with its five disjointed little steeples, looking as if one more quake of the grand old Mother would topple them all over for good; pass the low adobe huts on the outskirts of the city, and then catch a last glimpse of the Cathedral and its dear old bells, and the trees about the Square of Bolivar ”

“ Rivers.—There is no country in the world which possesses more numerous rivers than Caraccas, most of which rise in the Andes and its dependent branches; every valley is traversed by its river; the ridge which divides the provinces as it were into two distinct portions, furnishes abundance of sources on both its declivities. Those which arise on the northern side of this ridge, run from south to north, and fall into the bosom of the Spanish main. Of these the Manzanares, Tuy, [Pg 10] Guiges, Tocuyo, Aroa, Yaracuy, Unara and Neveri, are the largest. ”

“ Next, the Greeks swooped down and planted colonies, rivalry between the two races precipitating the fierce conflict between their respective allies, the Carthaginians and the Romans. New Carthage, or Cartagena, was founded by Hasdrubal; his son made it the starting-place of his famous march to Rome. The city made a brave resistance to Scipio, and its fall marked the downfall of the Carthaginian in Spain.
As an outpost of the Roman Empire this district was one of the first abandoned to the attacks of the barbarians. ”

“ In fine, we are distinctly told by Polybius that all the islands of the Western Mediterranean belonged to Carthage at the commencement of the Punic Wars. (Polyb. i. 10.)
(5.) Spain was long an object of peaceful commerce, rather than of conquest, to the Carthaginians. Phoenician settlements had existed on its shores from a time earlier than history records; and to these Carthage added colonies of her own; but her relations with the natives were peaceful, and she does not appear to have attempted the subjugation of the country till after the loss of Sardinia and Sicily. ”

“ Cartagena in Colombia was named after Cartagena in Spain, as the Spanish city, founded by Hasdrubal as an outpost to serve in future Punic campaigns, was named from the celebrated Tyrian emporium that was so long the rival of Rome. And when the sons of the Caribbean Carthage sailed up the Cauca to establish new colonies and extend the sphere of Spanish influence and enterprise, they commemorated their triumph, and exhibited their [382] loyalty to the land of their birth, by founding still another Carthage—the Cartago of the Upper Cauca. ”

“ They brought home tin from distant Cornwall, silver from Spain, iron from Elba, copper from Cyprus. Carthage itself was a magnificent city and the richest in the world. Its citizens lived in wealth and idleness on the labour of others. Trade supplied them with riches: the hardy tribes of Africa, Numidians and Libyans, were their slaves, manned their fleets and armies. Their navy ruled the seas. They had settlements in Spain; Corsica and Sardinia were owned by Carthage; all the west of Sicily was in their hands. ”

“ A fleet of two hundred ships of war accompanied the army, whose needs were supplied by a vast multitude of nearly a thousand transports. One important item in the war material was a number of chariots. The personal effects of the Carthaginian soldiers, many of whom belonged to the wealthiest families in the city, splendid tents and rich goblets and other plate for the table, were costly in the extreme. ”

“ In their Atlantic voyages along the African shores, the Carthaginians followed the double object of trade and colonization. The numerous settlements that were planted by them along the coast from Morocco to Senegal, provided for the needy members of the constantly-increasing population of a great commercial capital; and also strengthened the influence which Carthage exercised among the tribes of the African coast. ”

“ For in that year a great cloud hung for seventeen days over the African coast, a deep black cloud which was the dark shroud of the burning city. And when the seventeen days were over, Roman ploughs were driven from end to end of the charred ashes, and salt was scattered there as a sign that Carthage should be no more. And far off a huddle of naked, starving folk stood upon the distant mountains, and looked down upon the desolate plain which had once been the fairest and richest upon earth. ”

“ Nothing can be finer than the ride to Caracas by the old Spanish road, or more superb than its position in a magnificent valley, watered by four rivers, surrounded by a rampart of lofty mountains, and enjoying, by reason of its altitude, a climate of perpetual spring. ”

“ Every one sings and whistles in Carghese; and the songs of the young men, as, for two or three hours after dark, they marched, arm in arm, up and down the village street in front of our hotel, were far less dismal and more tuneful than elsewhere, and only towards midnight did they collapse into the national minor howl.
There is little to be seen in Carghese, except the Greek priest, who is certainly worth a glance, as, with long white beard almost to his waist, black cassock and square cap, the tall stout old man parades the streets with no little dignity. ”

“ Wealth and population of Carthage. Power of Carthage. As has been narrated, Carthage was founded upon a peninsula, or rocky promontory, sixty-five years before the foundation of Rome. The inhabitants of Carthage, descendants of Phœnicians, were therefore of Semitic [pg 432] origin. The African farmer was a Canaanite, and all the Canaanites lacked the instinct of political life. The Phœnicians thought of commerce and wealth, and not political aggrandizement. With half their power, the Hellenic cities achieved their independence. Carthage was a colony of Phœnicians, and had their ideas. ”

“ In the mean time, every one, who desired it, was admitted to see Carthage; Scipio being well pleased to have people view the sad ruins of a city, which had dared to contend for empire with the majesty of Rome. [180]
Commerce, strictly speaking, was the occupation of Carthage, the particular object of its industry, [Pg 232] and its peculiar and predominant characteristic. It formed the greatest strength and the chief support of that commonwealth. In a word, it may be affirmed, that the power, the conquests, the credit, and the glory of the Carthaginians, all flowed from trade. ”

“ The streets of Caraccas are straight, wide, and intersect each other at right angles; the houses very handsome and spacious; there are some fine squares, and a handsome cathedral, with eight churches and five convents. This city is the seat of the metropolitan, archbishop of Caraccas, and contains a royal audience, which governs the civil affairs of the captain-generalship, and of which court the officer holding the reins of government is always president, it being in fact a sort of legislative council, composed of the governor and great state officers. ”

“ X. AN AFRICAN SIROCCO. All the time that the events that we have been giving our attention to were occurring—that is to say, ever since the foundation of Rome, another city had been growing up on the opposite side of the Mediterranean Sea, in which a different kind of civilization had been developed. Carthage, of which we have already heard, was founded by citizens of Phoenicia. The early inhabitants were from Tyre, that old city of which we read in the Bible, which in the earliest times was famous for its rich commerce. ”

“ Carcagénte is a picturesque town, of considerable antiquity. Various Roman remains have been found in its neighbourhood. It is surrounded by groves of orange, palm and mulberry trees, and contains many Moorish houses, whose old-fashioned blue-tiled cupolas contrast with the chimneys of the silk mills and linen factories opened in modern times. An important local industry is the cultivation of rice, for which the moist and warm climate of the low-lying Júcar valley is well suited. ”

“ Farther on, after passing the beach of the Gloria, we turned to the left, and entered the new part of that town through the arches of the great aqueduct built in 1718 by the viceroy Albuquerque. This supplies four copious fountains. The largest is the Carioca [80] , near the convent of Sant Antonio; it has twelve mouths, and is most picturesque in itself: it is constantly surrounded by slaves, with their water-barrels, and by animals drinking. Just beyond are troughs of granite, where a crowd of washerwomen are constantly employed ”

“ All Carthage is hard at work on some ramparts of earth that are being made in the rear of the south wall, just where the ground dips a little. Men of all ranks are working at them, and even women and children. All are volunteers, no wages are given, and no questions are asked. ”

“ I am a Colombian, from Cartagena. Yes, my dear mother and father they died in Cartagena, and my uncle he lives there now.”
“Cartagena?” echoed Richard Cary, his pulse beating faster. “Did you really come from that old town? And you know it well?”
“Better than any other place, you bet,” cried Teresa Fernandez, her rounded shoulder touching Cary’s arm. “This Cartagena—poof! she is too old and dead, you understand. Plenty of big walls and forts and plazas for the tourists to see, but it is not up-to-date, not one little bit. Hot and stupid! Lots of people there, but they are too slow. ”

“ Carruca, Carrucha, or Carucha. A carriage of costly description, richly ornamented with bronze and ivory carvings and chased gold. It differed widely from the Essedo and the Rheda (q.v.) .
Carrus or Carrum (Celtic root) . A cart or chariot of Gaulish invention, on two wheels, used in the army as a commissariat waggon. A carrus occurs among the sculptures on the column of Trajan.
Cartamera (Gaulish word) . A Gaulish girdle made of metal, and used to support the braccæ, or trousers. ”