[A] To write an Introduction to this volume.

If my strength permits, it will give me great pleasure to act upon your suggestion,[A] but just now I am hardly equal to the demands of my private correspondence. With cordial regard,

Señor Sinibaldi, the Vice-president of the republic, called the Congress together, and a new election was ordered, at which Señor Barrillas, a man of excellent ability and wise discretion, was chosen President of the republic.

in conversation. Before Morazan was of age he was prominent in Honduras, and became the governor of the city in 1824, when he was but twenty-five. For fourteen years thereafter his career was one of singular activity and success, and the people of the entire continent followed him with feelings akin to idolatry. He was so far ahead of them in ideas and enterprise that his counsels were not followed, and he was overthrown by a combination of priests, who took up a cruel Indian of Guatemala named Rafael Carera, and succeeded in overthrowing the power of Morazan, not only in Honduras, but throughout the entire confederacy. The patriot and liberator was afterwards assassinated at Cartago, Costa Rica, by men whom he trusted as his friends.

Since the charter of the Interoceanic Canal Company by the Congress of the United States, and the actual commencement of work upon the long-projected enterprise, under the direction of Chief-engineer Menocal, the republic of Nicaragua assumes a position of more prominence among nations, and of greater interest to the public at large, than it has ever had before. The failure of the Panama Canal Company, and the apparent impossibility of piercing the Isthmus at its narrowest part, has also given the Nicaragua Company increased importance, but Mr. Menocal and the company of capitalists who stand behind him feel no doubt of ultimate success.

There is one railroad in San Salvador, extending from Acajutla to the city of Sonsonate, the centre of the sugar district, and it is being extended to Santa Ana, the chief town of the Northern Province. It is owned by a native capitalist, and operated under the management of an American engineer. The plan is to extend the track parallel with the sea through the entire republic, in the valley back of the mountain range, with branches through the passes to the principal cities. It now passes two-thirds of the distance around the base of the volcano Yzalco, and from the cars is furnished a most remarkable view of that sublime spectacle. The entire system when completed will not consist of more than two hundred and fifty miles of track, and the work of construction is neither difficult nor expensive.

The extreme ultramontanism of Dr. Nuñez awakened a series of revolutions, and resulted in his abdication of the Presidency; his successor being Dr. Holguin, one of the most prominent and learned leaders of the Clerical party, who has spent his life in Congress, in the executive departments of the Government, and in the diplomatic service.

South of Curaçoa is Maracaibo, with its curious lake, in which are towns built upon stilts, that give the name of Venezuela, or Little Venice, to this land. The explorers, like tourists of modern times, were given to tracing resemblances in America to what they were familiar with in Europe, and they imagined these huts rising on piles above the water looked like the city of canals and gondolas. But there is no more resemblance to Venice than to Chicago, and the name of Venezuela, like that of the continent, is a falsehood which the world has allowed to stand uncontradicted.

arrived upon the dock there was a group to illustrate the cosmopolitan character of the citizens. A Chinaman, an Arab, a negro, and a Frenchman were sitting upon a box, while around them were clustered Spaniards, Englishmen, Irishmen, Germans, and Italians. The city is irregular and shabby-looking, but has been a place of great wealth. Millions after millions of dollars’ worth of silver have been shipped from here by the Spaniards—silver stolen from the temples of the Incas, or dug from the mines which they operated before the Spaniards came. It was here that the old buccaneers used to rendezvous and waylay the galleons on their way to Spain. Of recent years the importance of Callao has very much decreased. A constant succession of wars and revolutions in Peru has destroyed its commerce; and although there is usually a great deal of shipping in the harbor, the present amount of trade is below that of the past. There are two lines of railroad to Lima, the capital of the republic, which lies six miles up in the foot-hills of the Andes.

The most curious things in Peru are the mummies’ eyes—petrified eyeballs—which are usually to be found in the graves, if one is careful in digging. The Incas had a way of preserving the eyes of the dead from decay, some process which modern science cannot comprehend, and the eyeballs make very pretty settings for pins. They are yellow, and hold light like an opal. It is an accepted theory among scientists, however, that before the burial of their mummies the Incas replaced the natural eye with that of the squid, or cuttle-fish, and that these beautiful things are shams.

No one ever goes to Juan Fernandez without bringing away rocks and sticks as relics of the place. There is a very fine sort of wood peculiar to the island which makes beautiful canes, as it has a rare grain and polishes well.

The journey on mule-back usually takes five days of travel, at the rate of twenty or thirty miles a day, but good riders, with relays of mules, often make it in three days. The whole route is historical, as it has been in use for centuries. There is scarcely a mile without some romantic association, not a rock without its incident; and tradition, incident, and romance line the path from end to end. The Incas used the path before the Spaniards conquered the country, and Don Diego de Almagro crossed it in 1535 as he passed southward to Chili after the conquest of Peru.

birds have the advantage of being “artful dodgers,” and as they carry so much less weight, can turn and reverse quite suddenly. The usual mode of hunting them is for a dozen or so Indians to surround a herd and charge upon it suddenly. In this way several are usually brought down before they can scatter, and those that get away are pursued. As they dodge from one hunter they usually run afoul of another, and before they are aware they are tripped by the entangling bolas. People who are passing through the strait often stop over and await another steamer at Punta Arenas to enjoy an ostrich chase. They can secure trained horses and guides at moderate rates. One who has never thrown the bolas will be amazed, the first time he tries it, to find how difficult it is to do a trick that looks so easy.

There is a curious story about an island in the River Plata which was a horse ranch in early Spanish times. The animals became so numerous that there was not grass enough to feed them, and no demand for their export. The owners decided to reduce their stock in a barbarous way, and when the grass was dry they set fire to it. Every horse on the island was burned to death except those that ran into the river and were drowned. The stench was so great that navigation was almost entirely suspended on the river. The result of this method of reducing stock was a little more complete than the owners anticipated, so when the grass grew up again they had to buy stallions and mares and start anew. Singularly enough, every animal placed on the island since that fire has died of a mysterious disease, and no colt has been foaled there for one hundred and fifty years. Various breeds of stock have been tried, but never a hoof has left the island alive. Three months there finishes them. The island was unoccupied for fifty or sixty years, but is now used as a cattle ranch, and horned stock do not appear to be subject to the mysterious malady.

It is not generally known that “Liebig’s Extract of Beef,” which, like quinine, is a standard tonic throughout the world, and is used by every physician, in every hospital, on every ship, and in every army, is a product of Uruguay. The cans in which it comes are labelled as if their contents were manufactured at Antwerp, where the original extract was invented by Professor Liebig, the famous German chemist, and the preparation was formerly made there; but in 1866, the patent having passed into the control of an English company, the works were removed to Uruguay, where cattle are cheaper than elsewhere, and the entire supply is now produced at a place called Fray Bentos, about one hundred and seventy miles above Montevideo, on the Uruguay River, whence it is shipped in bulk to London and Antwerp, where it is packed in small tins for the market. An attempt was made to do the packing in Uruguay, but the Government of that republic imposed so high a tariff upon the tins that the scheme was abandoned. The chemical process by which the juice of the beef is extracted and mixed with the blood of the animal is supposed to be a secret, but as the patent has long since expired, it could be easily discovered, and thus the manufacture of an almost necessary article would become general.

The number of horned cattle in Paraguay is now estimated at six hundred thousand, and there is said to be pasturage for several million within the limits of the republic, and an unlimited area in El Gran Chaco beyond the timber regions on a plain similar to New Mexico, rising in great terraces or steppes to the foot-hills of the Andes. The elevation of this area above the sea is from four to eight thousand feet, and although it borders upon the tropics, it is said to be an excellent range, and the ranchmen of the Argentine Republic are contemplating it with covetous eyes. No industry pays so well in Paraguay as cattle-raising. The severe frosts and droughts which at times annoy the ranchmen of the Argentine Republic are unknown there; the streams are numerous and perennial, the cattle fatten quicker, attain greater weight, and afford a better quality of beef, owing to the nutritious grass and abundance of water. Young cattle, as before stated, may be bought in the Argentine Republic and transported by river steamer to Paraguay for twelve or thirteen dollars per head, and land can be purchased at about twenty cents an acre from the Government.

There are a great many Germans going into the country, forming colonies in the interior, opening up sugar plantations, planting coffee, gathering rubber, and engaging in all sorts of agricultural employment; but the climate is so enervating that after an experience of two years the German colonist will be found by his Portuguese predecessor sitting in the shade of the fig-tree and hiring a negro to do his work. Everywhere in hot climates the people become enervated, and Brazil will scarcely form an exception to other countries in the same latitude. In the more southern provinces and on the higher levels white colonists may succeed if there is nothing but climatic differences to oppose them. There has been a small number of immigrants from the United States to the southern provinces of Brazil; and after the war a great many Confederates flooded in there for the purpose of establishing plantations and raising sugar and coffee, but their success has not been great. Most of the colonies have broken up, and the members have been scattered over different parts of the country. Some engage in one undertaking, some in another, but many have succumbed to the influences of the climate and died of fever.

The people are highly civilized in spots. Besides the most novel and recent product of modern science, one finds in use the crudest, rudest implement of antiquity. Types of four centuries can be seen in a single group in any of the plazas. Under the finest palaces, whose ceilings are frescoed by Italian artists, whose walls are covered with the rarest paintings, and shelter libraries selected with the choicest taste, one finds a common bodega, where the native drink is dealt out in gourds, and the peon stops to eat his tortilla. Women and men are seen carrying upon their heads enormous burdens through streets lighted by electricity, and stop to ask through a telephone where their load shall be delivered.

The correspondence of the Government is dictated to stenographers and transcribed upon type-writers; and every form of modern improvement for the purpose of economizing time and saving labor is given the opportunity of a test, even if it is not permanently adopted. There is no Government that gives greater encouragement to inventive genius than the administration of President Diaz, and it has been one of the highest aims of his official career to modernize Mexico. The twelve years from 1876, when he came into power, until 1889, when his third term commenced, may be reckoned the progressive age of our neighborly republic; but the common people are still prejudiced against innovations, and resist them. In all the public places, and at the entrance of the post-office, are men squatting upon the pavement, with an inkhorn and a pad of paper, whose business is to conduct the correspondence of those whose literary attainments are unequal to the task. Such odd things are still to be seen at the capital of a nation that subsidizes steamship lines and railways, and supports schools where all the modern languages and sciences are taught, and has a compulsory education law upon its statute-books. In the old Inquisition Building, where the bodies of Jews and heretics have been racked and roasted, is a medical college, sustained by the Government for the free education of all students whose attainments reach the standard of matriculation; and bones are now sawn asunder in the name of science instead of religion.

The political struggle in Mexico, since the independence of the Republic, has been, and will continue to be, between antiquated, bigoted, and despotic Romanism, allied with the ancient aristocracy, under whose encouragement Maximilian came, on the one hand, and the spirit of intellectual, industrial, commercial, and social progress on the other. The pendulum has swung backward and forward with irregularity for sixty years; every vibration has been registered in blood. All of the weight of Romish influence, intellectual, financial, and spiritual, has been employed to destroy the Republic and restore the Monarchy, while the Liberal party has strangled the Church and stripped it of every possession. Both factions have fought under a black flag, and the war has been as cruel and vindictive on one side as upon the other; but the result is apparent and permanent.

No priest dare wear a cassock in the streets of Mexico; the confessional is public, parish schools are prohibited, and although the clergy still exercise a powerful influence among the common people, whose superstitious ignorance has not yet been reached by the free schools and compulsory education law, in politics they are powerless. The old clerical party, the Spanish aristocracy, whose forefathers came over after the Conquest, and reluctantly surrendered to Indian domination when the Viceroys were driven out and the Republic established, have given up the struggle, and will probably never attempt to renew it. They were responsible for the tragic episode of Maximilian, and still regret the failure to restore the Monarchy. The Aztecs sit again upon the throne of Mexico, after an interval of three hundred and fifty years, and the men whose minds direct the affairs of the Republic have tawny skins and straight black hair.

The beautiful castle of Chapultepec, which was dismantled during the last revolution, but has been restored and fitted up as a beautiful suburban retreat for the Presidents of Mexico, was occupied by Maximilian and Carlotta in imitation of the Montezumas, whose palace stood upon the rocky eminence. Around the place is a grove of monstrous cypress-trees, whose age is numbered by the centuries, and whose girth measures from thirty to fifty feet. It is the finest assemblage of arborial monarchs on the continent, and sheltered imperial power hundreds of years before Columbus set his westward sails. Before the Hemisphere was known or thought of, here stood a gorgeous palace, and its foundations still endure. Here the rigid ceremonial etiquette of Aztec imperialism was enforced, and human sacrifice was made to invoke the favor of the Sun.

The acknowledged heir to the throne of Mexico is young

Augustin Yturbide, according to the feelings of the few and feeble remnants of the Monarchical party; but it may be said to the young man’s credit that he entirely repudiates their homage, although he is the heir to two brief and ill-starred dynasties. He is the grandson of the Emperor Augustin Yturbide, and the adopted heir of Maximilian and Carlotta. The Yturbide they call “Emperor” was an officer in the Spanish army when Mexico was a colony, and during the revolution headed by the priest Hidalgo, in 1810, he fought on the side of the King. But, being dismissed from the army in 1816, he retired to seclusion, to remain until the movement of 1820, when he placed himself at the head of an irregular force, and captured a large sum of money that was being conveyed to the sea-coast. With these resources he promulgated what is known in history as “the plan of Iguala,” which proposed the organization of Mexico into an independent empire, and the election of a ruler by the people. The revolution was bloodless, and in May, 1822, Yturbide proclaimed himself Emperor, declared the crown hereditary, and established a court. He was formally crowned in the July following, but in December Santa Anna proclaimed the Republic, and after a brief and ignominious reign Yturbide left Mexico on May 11, 1822, just a year, lacking a week, from the date he assumed power. The Congress gave him a pension of $25,000 yearly, and required that he should live in Italy; but impelled by an insane desire to regain his crown, in May, 1824, he returned to Mexico, and was shot in the following July.

He left a son, Angel de Yturbide, who came to the United States with his mother, and was educated at the Jesuit College at Georgetown, District of Columbia, the Government having given them a liberal pension. There he fell in love

It created a sensation in Mexico when the pretty peon girl, Dolores Testa, was suddenly raised from abject poverty to affluence. The Dictator ordered all to address his bride as “Your Highness,” ladies-in-waiting were appointed in order to teach the bewildered little Dolores how to play her rôle in the great world, and then the President organized for her a body-guard of twenty-five military men, who were uniformed in white and gold, and were styled “los Guardias de la Alteza” (her Highness’s Body-guard). When the President’s wife attended the theatre these guards rode in advance of and at the sides of the coach, each bearing a lighted torch. During the performance they remained in the patio or foyer of the theatre, and then escorted her Highness back to the palace in the same order. Such was the power of General Santa Anna in those days that even the clergy bent before him; and when

This Guadalupe shrine is the most sacred spot in Mexico, and to it come, on the 12th of each December, the anniversary of the appearance of the Virgin, thousands upon thousands of pilgrims, bringing their sick and lame and blind to drink of the miraculous waters of a spring which the Virgin opened on the mountain-side to convince the sceptical shepherd of her divine power. The waters have a very strong taste of sulphur, and are said to be a potent remedy for diseases of the blood. In testimony of this the walls of the chapel, which is built over the spring, are covered with quaint, rudely written certificates of people who claim to have been miraculously cured by its use. In the cathedral are multitudes of other testimonials from people who have been preserved from death in danger by having appealed for protection to the Virgin of Guadalupe; but nowadays, instead of sending jewels and other articles of value as they did when the Church was able to protect its property, they hang up gaudily painted inscriptions reciting specifically the blessings they have received. On the crest of the hill is a massive shaft of stone, representing the main-mast of a ship with the yards out and sails spread. This was erected many years ago by a sea-captain who was caught in a storm at sea, and who made a vow to the Virgin that if she would bring him safe to land he would carry his main-mast and sails to Guadalupe, and raise them there as an evidence of his gratitude for her mercy. He fulfilled his vow, and within the double tiers of stone are the masts and canvas.

In the cathedral is the original blanket, or serape, which

I witnessed the inauguration of President Diaz on the 1st of December, 1884. The ceremonies, which were simple enough to satisfy the most critical of Democrats, took place in the handsome theatre erected in 1854, and named in honor of the Emperor Yturbide. It is now called the Chamber of Deputies, and is occupied by the lower branch of the National Legislature, a body of some two hundred and twenty-seven men. The Senate, composed of fifty-six members, meets in a long, narrow room in the old National Palace which was formerly used as a chapel by the Viceroys. The viceregal throne, a massive chair of carved and gilded rosewood, still stands upon a platform opposite the entrance, under a canopy of crimson velvet, but upon its crest is carved the American eagle, with a snake in its mouth, the emblem of Republican Mexico. Maximilian hung a golden crown over the eagle; Juarez tore it down and placed the broken sword of the Emperor in the talons of the bird. The Aztecs say that the founders of their empire, whose origin is lost in the mists of fable, were told to march on until they found an eagle sitting upon a cactus with a snake in its mouth, and there they should rest and build a great city. The bird and the bush were discovered in the valley that is shadowed by the twin volcanoes, and there the imperishable walls were laid which are now bidding farewell to their seventh century.

The old Theatre Yturbide has not been remodelled since it became the shelter of legislative power, and all the natural light it gets is filtered through the opaque panels of the dome, so that during the day sessions the Deputies are always in a state of partial eclipse. It is about as badly off for light as our own Congress. The members occupy comfortable arm-chairs in the parquet, arranged in semicircular rows. The presiding officer and the secretaries sit upon the stage, and at either side is a sort of pulpit from which formal addresses are made, although conversational debates are conducted from the floor. The orchestra circle and galleries are divided into boxes, and are reserved for spectators, but are seldom occupied, as the proceedings of the Congress are not regarded with much public interest.

In appearance the members will compare favorably with those of our Congress, and they are far in advance of the average State Legislature in ability and learning. The first features that strike a visitor familiar with legislative bodies in the United States is the decorum with which proceedings are conducted, and the scrupulous care with which every one is clothed. On certain formal occasions it is usual for all of the members to appear in evening dress, which gives the body the appearance of a social gathering rather than a legislative assembly. Nine-tenths of the members are white, and the other tenth show little trace of Aztec blood. There is never anything like confusion, and the laws of propriety are never transgressed. One hears no bad syntax or incorrect pronunciation in the speeches; no coarse language is used, and no wrangles ever occur like those which so often disgrace our own Congress. The statesmen never tilt their chairs back, nor lounge about the chamber; their feet are never raised upon the railings or desks; there is no letter-writing going on; the floor is never littered with scraps of paper; no spittoons are to be seen, and no conversation is permitted. Extreme dignity and decorum mark the proceedings, which are always short and silent, and the solemnity which prevails gives a funereal aspect to the scene.

The last days of the term of Gonzales were stormy. His attempt to secure certain unpopular financial legislation created great excitement, and the students of the universities, who numbered six or seven thousand, made a protest which would have ended in violence and assassination but for the overpowering military guard that surrounded the palace. The students would have resisted any attempt of Gonzales to prevent the inauguration of his successor, and kept up a demonstration against the existing Government until that event occurred.

But the excitement was not abated. The oath had been taken, but the outgoing administration by its absence from the ceremonies had intensified the anxiety lest the admission of Diaz to the Palace might be denied. Accompanied by a committee of Senators and an escort of cavalry. President Diaz drove half a mile to the Government building, and to his gratification the column of soldiers which was drawn up before the entrance opened to let him pass. The plaza which the building fronts was crowded with thousands of people, who announced the arrival of the new President by a deafening cheer, and the chimes of the old cathedral rang a melodious welcome.

Among the upper classes of Mexico will be found as high a degree of social and intellectual refinement as exists in Paris, as quick a reception and as cordial a response to all the sentiments that elevate society, and a knowledge of the arts and literature that few people of the busy cities of the United States have acquired.

The oddities of Mexican life and customs strike the tourist in a most forcible manner. The first thing he observes among the common people is that the men wear extremely large hats, and the women no hats at all. The ordinary sombrero costs fifteen dollars, while those bearing the handsome ornaments so universally popular run in price all the way from twenty-five to two hundred and fifty dollars. The Mexican invests all his surplus in his hat. Men whose wages are not more than twelve dollars a month often wear sombreros which represent a whole quarter’s income. A servant at the house of a friend was paid off one day for the three months his employer had been absent. He got forty-two dollars, of which he paid thirty-five dollars for a hat and gave seven dollars to his family.

Horseback riding is the national amusement, and the streets are full of horsemen, particularly in the cooler hours of the morning and evening. The proper thing to wear is a wide sombrero, very tight trousers of leather or cassimere, with rows of silver buttons up and down the outer seam, a handsomely embroidered velvet jacket, a scarlet sash, a sword, and two revolvers, not to mention spurs of marvellous size and design, and a saddle of surpassing magnificence. A Mexican caballero often spends one thousand dollars for an equestrian outfit. His saddle costs from fifty dollars to five hundred dollars, his sword fifty dollars, his silver-mounted bridle twenty-five dollars, his silver spurs as much more, the solid silver buttons on his trousers one hundred dollars, his hat fifty dollars, and the rest of his rig in proportion. The Mexican small boy, if he has wealthy parents, is mounted after a similar fashion, even to the revolver and sword. An equestrian costume for a boy of ten years can be purchased for about fifty dollars, not including saddle and bridle.

Pulque (pronounced poolkee) is the national drink, and is

A band of music played lively airs, and played them well, to entertain the people until the Governor came, whose presence being recognized, the people gave a cordial cheer by way of welcome. Then the herald in the Governor’s box blew a signal which sounded like the “water call” of the United

States Cavalry, the doors of the pit were opened, and in marched a dozen or so of matadors, in the same sort of jackets and breeches which they wear in the pictures of Spanish life so familiar to all. Each wore a plumed hat, a scarlet sash, a poniard, and the gold lace upon the black velvet showed their lithe and supple forms to advantage. They looked as Don Juan looks in the opera, while the leader, Bernardo Cavino, “del decano de los toreros,” I was a veritable Figaro, in appearance at least. Each carried a scarlet cloak upon his arm, and in the other hand a pikestaff. Behind them came a troop of eight horsemen upon gayly caparisoned steeds, with the usual amount of silver and leather trappings in which the Mexicans delight. The procession tailed up with a team of four mules hitched abreast, dragging a whiffletree and a long rope. These, we are told, were for the purpose of dragging out the dead. The cavalcade made a circuit of the amphitheatre, like the grand entrée at a circus, and upon reaching the Governor’s box stopped, saluted him, and received a short address in Spanish, which probably was simply one of approval and congratulation at their fine appearance. There was a rack in front of the Governor’s box upon which hung several rows of darts, gayly decorated with paper rosettes and paper fringes of gold and other brilliant tints. Upon these racks the matadors hung their plumed hats, and stood a while to give the ladies and gentlemen of the audience an opportunity to see and admire.

The bull having given up all idea of escape, plunges at everything he sees, and the second horse is ridden up before him. No attempt is made to get the animal out of the way. He was brought there to be slaughtered, and took his turn. Both horses having been disposed of, and the bull being completely exhausted, the bugle gives the signal, the matadors enter the arena, and tease him with their scarlet cloaks. At frequent intervals around the ring are placed heavy planks, behind which the matadors run for protection when they were pursued. The bull had no chance at all; he was there simply to be teased and killed by slow degrees. One matador more agile than the rest baits the animal with his lance, and when the bull turns upon him, vaults over the down-turned horns by resting his lance upon the ground. Then they bring out the ornamented darts, and thrust them into the bull’s hide. The animal jumps and plunges with pain, and tries to shake them off, but the barbs cling to the hide, and the more he struggles the farther they penetrate the flesh. His shoulders are covered with them, and the crimson blood trickles down his sides. He stands panting with distress, his tongue hanging out, and is thoroughly exhausted.

On Easter-Sunday the strangest of all Mexican ceremonies takes place in the burning of the traitor. During all Holy-week men are continually perambulating the streets, holding high above the heads of the multitude long poles encircled by hoops, upon which are suspended the most grotesque figures, in every conceivable color, shape, and degree of deformity, and all with horns and crooked backs and twisted limbs. These are filled with fire-crackers, the mustache forming the fuse, and millions of them are annually exploded. Many are life-size, some having faces to represent politicians who are unpopular at the time. Some are hung by the neck to wires stretched across the streets, or to the balconies of houses. Every horse-car and railroad engine and donkey-cart is decked with one, and even every mule-driver has one or more tied on his breast. At ten o’clock on Easter-Sunday, when the cathedral bells peal forth in commemoration of Christ’s resurrection, they are all touched off at once, and the air is filled with flying traitors everywhere over the length and breadth of Mexico.

An American who is married in Mexico finds that he must be three times married: twice in Spanish and once more in Spanish or English, as he prefers, besides having a public notice of his intention of marriage placed on a bulletin-board for twenty days before the ceremony. This is the law. The public notice can be avoided by the payment of a sum of money, but a residence of one month is necessary. The three ceremonies are the contract of marriage, the civil marriage—the only marriage recognized by law since 1858—and the usual, but not obligatory, Church service. The first two must take place before a judge, and in the presence of at least four witnesses and the American consul. The contract of marriage is a statement of names, ages, lineage, business, and residence of contracting parties. The civil marriage is the legal form of marriage. These ceremonies are necessarily in Spanish. Most weddings are confirmed by a church-service.

One of the most singular, and, to the foreigner, most interesting of the institutions of Mexico is the Monte de Piedad. The phrase means “The Mountain of Mercy.” It is the name given to what is in reality a great national pawnshop, which has branches in all the cities of the country, is exclusively under Government control, and is not managed, as in the United States, by guileless Hebrew children. The central office of the Monte de Piedad occupies the building known as the Palace of Cortez, which stands on the site of the ancient Palace of Montezuma, on the Plaza Mayor. It was founded in 1775 by Conde de Regla, the owner of very rich

The Church of England has been established in Mexico for twelve or fifteen years, having been induced to hold services there by the large number of English residents in the city; but no missionary work has been done by that denomination. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions several years ago commenced to labor in the Republic under the patronage of Diaz, who was then President, and who gave them substantial

encouragement. Among other things, he presented the American Board with an old Catholic church, where the school is now held daily, and a printing-office, for the purpose of the publication of a weekly newspaper and religious literature, is carried on. There are now at work in Mexico six Protestant clergymen and two lady missionaries from the United States, twenty-four regularly ordained Mexican ministers, six native licentiates, and three native helpers. Seventy-five congregations have been organized, and meet for worship every Sunday, and the number of native members is about three thousand. There is also a Theological Seminary, with two professors from the United States and one native instructor, having a total attendance of twenty-seven young men preparing for the ministry. Fourteen of these are studying theology, and thirteen are in the preparatory department. There is also a school for girls, with two American and one native lady teacher, which has a large attendance. A missionary paper called El Faro (The Light-house) is conducted at the Theological Seminary. The work is rapidly increasing, seven churches having been organized in 1885 and as many more in 1886.

In July, 1885, the Romanists of a small town in the interior entered a Protestant church, carried off all of the valuables, smashed the organ into fragments, emptied kerosene oil upon the benches, and set the place on fire. The furniture of the interior was destroyed, but the walls of the building, being of adobe, and the roof of tiles, the house was not destroyed. For some weeks afterwards several shots were fired at people who were on their way to evening service, and a missionary was attacked in the dark by armed assassins who would have been murdered but for the courageous use of his revolver. Subsequently all the other churches in the neighborhood were similarly treated, and when appeals were made to the local authorities for protection, and for the punishment of those who had committed the outrages, it was decided that it was the work of highwaymen, and a reward was offered for the arrest of the perpetrators. This opinion was thought to be a subterfuge, and it is believed that the authorities were in sympathy with the acts.

Guatemala City is not favorably situated for commerce, as it is a considerable distance from both seas, and is shut out from the most productive portions of the country by walls of mountains. The city is laid out in quadrilateral form, and formerly was surrounded by a great wall through which it was entered by gates opening in various directions. It covers a vast area of territory for a place of its population, as the houses, like those of other Central American cities, are very

The first capital was founded by Alvarado, the Conqueror. The exploits of Cortez in Mexico had become known among

The tree under which tradition says Alvarado and his soldiers first camped, and where Padre Godinez sanctified the city by religious services, is still standing. When I visited it, the most noticeable things about the place were a wagon made by the Studebaker Brothers, of South Bend, Indiana, and several empty beer bottles, bearing the brand of a Chicago brewer.

The fountain of Almolonga, which first induced Alvarado to select this spot as the site of his capital, is a large natural basin of clear and beautiful water shaded by trees. It has been walled up and divided off into apartments for bathing purposes and laundry work; and here all the women of the town come to wash their clothing. The old church was dug out of the sand, and is still standing. In one corner is a chamber filled with the skulls and bones that were excavated from the ruins. The old priest who was responsible for the spiritual welfare of the people showed us over the ruins, and told us stories of Alvarado and his piety. He said that the pictures, hangings, and altar ornaments in the church were the same that were placed there in Alvarado’s time, and unlocking a great iron chest he showed us communion vessels, incense urns, crosses, and banners of solid gold and silver. Among other things was a magnificent crown of gold, which was presented to the church by one of the Philips of Spain. It was originally studded with diamonds, emeralds, and other jewels, but they have been removed, and the settings are now empty. Yankee-like, we tried to buy some of these treasures, for they were the richest I had seen at any place, but the old priest refused all pecuniary temptations, and crossed himself reverently as he put the sacred vessels away. The only people who patronize this church are the Indians, who, to the number of two or three thousand, live in the neighborhood, and the ancient vessels are never used in these days, but are kept as curiosities.

The second city of Guatemala was built about three miles

In the centre of the town is a great plaza, which, as usual in all of the Central American capitals, is surrounded by public buildings and the cathedral. In the centre stands a noble fountain, which is surrounded every morning by market-women selling the fruit and vegetables of the country. The old palace has been partially restored, and displays upon its front the armorial bearing granted by the Emperor Charles the Fifth to the loyal and noble capital in which the Viceroy of Central America lived. Upon the crest of the building is a statue of the Apostle St. James on horseback, clad in armor, and brandishing a sword. The majestic cathedral, 300 feet long, 120 feet broad, 110 feet high, and lighted by fifty windows, has been restored, and within it services are held every morning, the faithful being called to mass by a peon pounding upon a large and resonant gong.

Without warning, on a Sunday night in 1773, the disaster came, and the proudest city in the New World was forever humbled. The roof of the cathedral fell; all the other churches were shaken to pieces; the great monasteries, which had been standing for centuries, and were thought to be useful for many centuries more, crumbled in an instant. The dead were never counted, and the wounded died from lack of relief. Those who escaped fled to the mountains, and the earthquake continued so violent that few returned to the ruins for many days. The volcano, whose single shudder shook down the accumulated grandeur of two hundred and fifty years, has since been almost idle, but is smoking constantly, and emitting sulphurous vapors which tell of the furnace beneath. As if satisfied with its moment’s work, it stands at rest, tempting man to try again to build another magnificent city, as firm as he can make it, for another test of strength. The people, like the dwellers over the buried Herculaneum, seem to have no fear of ruin or disaster, because, as very respectable citizens will tell you, the volcano which did the damage has since been blessed by a priest.

In one of the old monasteries, established by the Franciscan Friars, is a tree from which four different kinds of fruit may be plucked at one time—the orange, lemon, lime, and a sweet fruit called by the Spanish the limone. It was a horticultural experiment of the Friars many hundred years ago, and still stands as a monument of their experimental industry. It was they who first introduced the cultivation of coffee from Arabia into these countries, and who discovered the use of that curious insect the cochineal. The latter used to be an extensive article of commerce, but the cheapness of the aniline dyes has driven it out of the market. Now it is cultivated only for local consumption, and is extensively used by the natives, whose cotton and woollen fabrics are gayly dyed in colors that will endure any amount of water or sunshine. Thirty years ago two million tons were exported annually, but now very little goes out of the country.

The prevailing opinion of President Barrios is that he was a brutal ruffian. He drove out of the country many political opponents who occupied themselves by telling stories of his cruelty, some of which were doubtless true. The methods which he habitually used to keep the people in order would not be tolerated in the more civilized lands. But in estimating his true character, the good he accomplished should be considered as well as the evil. Until the history of Central America shall be written years hence, when the mind can reflect calmly and impartially upon the scenes of this decade, when public benefits can be accurately measured with individual errors, and the strides of progress in material development can be justly estimated, the true character of General Barrios will not be understood or appreciated even by his own countrymen. Like all vigorous and progressive men, like all men of strong character and forcible measures, he had bitter, vindictive enemies, who would have assassinated him had they been able to do so, and repeatedly tried it. There was nothing too harsh for them to say of him, living or dead, no cruelties too barbarous for them to accuse him of, no revenge too severe for them to visit upon him or his memory. But, on the other hand, people who did not cherish a spirit of revenge, who had no political ambition, and no schemes to be disconcerted, who are interested in the development of Central America, and are enjoying the benefits of the progress Guatemala has made, regard Barrios as the best friend and ablest leader, the wisest ruler his country ever had, and would have been glad if his life could have been prolonged and his power extended over the entire continent. They are willing to concede to him not only honorable motives, but the worthy ambition of trying to lift his country to the level with the most advanced nations of the earth. Ten more years of the same progress that Guatemala made under Barrios would place her upon a par with any of the States of Europe, or those of the United States. While he did not furnish a government of the people, by the people, it was a government for the people, provided and administered by a man of remarkable ability, independence, ambition, and extraordinary pride. While his iron hand crushed all opposition, and held a power that yielded to nothing, he was, nevertheless, generous to the poor, lenient to those who would submit to him, and ready to do anything to improve the condition of the people or promote their welfare.

His ambition to reunite the five Central American republics in a confederacy was not successful; but it was inspired by a desire to do for the neighboring States what he had done for Guatemala. His ambition was for the advancement and development of Central America; and while the means he used cannot be entirely approved, his purpose should be applauded. His crusade was quite as important in the civilization of this continent as the bloody work England attempted to accomplish in Egypt and the Soudan. He was better than his race, was far in advance of his generation, and while he did not succeed in lifting his people entirely out of the ignorance and degradation in which they were kept by the priests, what he did do cannot but result in the permanent good, not only of Guatemala, but of the nations which surround that republic.

When Carera died there was no man to take his place, and the Church party began to decay. The Liberals gathered force and began a revolution. In their ranks was an obscure young man from the borders of Mexico, from a valley which produced Juarez, the liberator of Mexico, Diaz, the president of that republic, and other famous men. He began to show military skill and force of character, and when the Church party was overthrown and the Liberal leader was proclaimed President, Rufino Barrios became the general of the army. He soon resigned, however, and returned to his coffee plantation on the borders of Mexico. But the revival of the Church party shortly after caused him to return to military life, and when the Liberal president died, he was, in 1873, chosen his successor.

Under a compulsory education law free public-schools have

Having overthrown the religion in which the people had been reared, Barrios recognized the necessity of providing some better substitute. He therefore, through the British minister, invited the Established Church of England to send missionaries to Guatemala; but owing to the disturbed condition of the country it was not considered advisable to commence work at that time, and the opportunity was neglected. In 1883 President Barrios visited New York, where he had conferences with the officers of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, which resulted in diverting the Rev. John C. Hill, of Chicago, who was en route to China, into this field of labor. Mr. Hill returned with the President to Guatemala, receiving a cordial welcome, and the President not only paid the travelling expenses of himself and family from his own pocket, but the freight charges upon his furniture, and purchased the equipment necessary for the establishment of a mission and school.

Mrs. 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. Like a wise man who knows the perils which constantly surround him, and the uncertainty of the head which wears a crown in these countries, he had made ample provision for his family by purchasing for Mrs. Barrios a handsome residence in Fifth Avenue near Sixty-fifth Street, New York, and investing about a million dollars in her name in other New York real estate. His life was also insured for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in New York companies, which, it must be said, carried a hazardous risk, as there were hundreds of men who lived only to see Barrios buried. Very few of them were in Guatemala, however, during his lifetime. They did not find the atmosphere agreeable there. They were exiles in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, California, or elsewhere, waiting for a chance to give him a dose of dynamite or prick him with a dagger.

The prettiest and most picturesque of the native costumes to be found in Spanish America is worn by the women of Guatemala, who are of a dark complexion, nearly that of the mulatto type, but are famous for their beauty of form. A Guatemala girl in her native costume makes as pretty a picture as one can find anywhere. Her face is bright and pretty, her figure as perfect as nature unaided by art can be, and her movements show a supple grace and elasticity that cannot be imitated by those of her sex who are encumbered by modern articles of feminine apparel. Her head is usually bare, in-doors and out, and her thick black tresses hang in braids often reaching to her heels.

The natives are fond of bright colors, and have a remarkable deftness in their fingers, which hold the embroidery-needle as well as the hoe and machete. The guipils are embroidered in gay tints and artistic patterns, and a group of peons

When Barrios issued his decree that the peasants should wear clothing the country narrowly escaped a revolution; but policemen were stationed on all the roads leading into the city, and confiscated all the cargoes borne by those who did

In Guatemala, on the other hand, as in Peru, the pictures of the belles of the city, whether married or maidens, can be purchased by any one who wants them at the photographers’, and often at the shops, and the rank and popularity of the subject is usually estimated by the number of her portraits so disposed of. Codfish is a luxury. It is served at fashionable dinners in the form of a stew or patties, or a salad, and is considered a rare and dainty dish. They call it bacalao (pronounced “backalowoh”), and the shop-windows contain handsomely illuminated signs announcing that it is for sale within. It costs about forty cents a pound, and is therefore used exclusively by the aristocracy.

General Barrios was always dramatic. He was dramatic in the simplicity and frugality of his private life, as he was in the displays he was constantly making for the diversion of the people. In striking contrast with the customs of the country where the garments and the manners of men are the objects of the most fastidious attention, he was careless in his clothing, brusque in his manner, and frank in his declarations.

It is said that the Spanish language was framed to conceal thoughts, but Barrios used none of its honeyed phrases, and had the candor of an American frontiersman. He was incapable of duplicity, but naturally secretive. He had no confidants, made his own plans without consulting any one, and when he was ready to announce them he used language that could not be misunderstood. In disposition he was sympathetic and affectionate, and when he liked a man he showered favors upon him; when he distrusted, he was cold and repelling; and when he hated, his vengeance was swift and sure. To be detected in an intrigue against his life, or the stability of the Government, which was the same thing, was death or exile, and his natural powers of perception seemed almost miraculous. The last time his assassination was attempted he pardoned the men whose hands threw the bomb at him,

but those who hired them saved their lives by flight from the country. If caught, they would have been shot without trial. He was the most industrious man in Central America; slept little, ate little, and never indulged in the siesta that is as much a part of the daily life of the people as breakfast and dinner. He did everything with a nervous impetuosity, thought rapidly, and acted instantly. The ambition of his life was to reunite the republics of Central America in a confederacy such as existed a few years after independence. The benefits of such a union are apparent to all who understand the political, geographical, and commercial conditions of the continent, and are acknowledged by the thinking men of the five States, but the consummation of the plan is prevented by the selfish ambition of local leaders. Each is willing to join the union if he can be Dictator, but none will permit a union with any other man as chief.

The policy of Nicaragua was governed by the influence of a firm of British merchants in Leon with which President Cardenas has a pecuniary interest, and by whom his official acts are controlled. The policy of Costa Rica was governed by a conservative sentiment that has always prevailed in that country, while the influence of Mexico was felt throughout the entire group of nations. As soon as the proclamation of Barrios was announced at the capital of the latter republic, President Diaz ordered an army into the field, and telegraphed offers of assistance to Nicaragua, San Salvador, and Costa Rica, with threats of violence to Honduras if she yielded submission to Barrios. Mexico was always jealous of Guatemala. The boundary-line between the two nations is unsettled, and a rich tract of country is in dispute. Feeling a natural distrust of the power below her, strengthened by consolidation with the other States, Mexico was prepared to resist the plans of Barrios to the last degree, and sent him a declaration of war.

The effect in Guatemala was similar, although not so pronounced. There was a reversion of feeling against the Government. The moneyed men, who in their original enthusiasm tendered their funds to the President, withdrew their promises; the common people were nervous, and lost their confidence in their hero; while the Diplomatic Corps, representing every nation of importance on the globe, were in a state of panic because they received no instructions from home. The German and French ministers, like the minister from the United States, were favorable to the plans of Barrios; the Spanish minister was outspoken in opposition; the English and Italian ministers non-committal; but none of them knew what to say or how to act in the absence of instructions. They telegraphed to their home governments repeatedly, but could obtain no replies, and suspected that the troubles might be in San Salvador. Mr. Hall, the American minister, transmitted a full description of the situation every evening, and begged for instructions, but did not receive a word.

IN 1540 Cortez, the Conqueror of Mexico, directed Alonzo Caceres, one of his lieutenants, to proceed with an army of one thousand men to the Province of Honduras, which had been subdued by Alvarado a few years before, and select a suitable site for a city midway between the two oceans. Caceres was a pioneer of most excellent discretion, and so good a judge of distance was he that if a straight line were drawn from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the centre would be just three miles north of the plaza of Comayagua. A modern engineer, with all the scientific appliances at his disposal, could not have obeyed instructions more accurately; and as for location, there are few finer sites in the world than the elevated plain upon which the little capital of Honduras stands. A semicircle of mountains enclose it, with a wall of peaks six and seven thousand feet high upon one side, while upon the other a great plain stretches away nearly forty miles, gradually sloping to the eastward. The altitude of the city is about twenty-three hundred feet above the sea, and the climate is a perpetual June, the thermometer seldom varying more than twenty degrees during the entire year, and averaging about 75° Fahrenheit. The soil is deep, rich, and fertile, and the productions of the plain are tropical; but beyond the city, in the foothills of the mountains and upon their slopes, corn, wheat, and other staples of the temperate zones can be raised in enormous quantities with a minimum of labor. The pineapple and the palm tree are growing within two hours’ ride of waving wheat-fields, while orange and apple orchards stand within sight of each other.

Comayagua is said to have at one time contained nearly thirty thousand inhabitants, but at present it has no more than one-fifth of that number; for, like all of the Central American cities, its population has been reduced since the independence of the country, and, like the most of them, it is in a state of decay. Everything is dilapidated, and nothing is ever repaired. No sign of prosperity appears anywhere. Commercial stagnation has been its normal condition for sixty years, and the indolence and indifference of the people has not been disturbed for that period, except by political insurrections. No one seems to have anything to do. The aristocrats swing lazily in their hammocks, or discuss politics over the counters of the tiendas, or at the club, while the poor beg in the streets, and manage to sustain life upon the fruits which Nature has so profligately showered upon them. Nowhere upon the earth’s surface exist greater inducements to labor, nowhere can so much be produced with so little effort; and the vast resources of the country present the most tempting opportunity for capital and enterprise, for nearly every acre of the land is susceptible to some sort of profitable development.

The President is General Bogran, a man who came into power by a peaceful revolution in 1885, to succeed Marco A. Soto, who fled that year to San Francisco, and from there sent his resignation to Congress. Bogran is a man of brains and progressive ideas, possessing more of the modern spirit

and broader views than most of his contemporaries, and if he is permitted to carry out his plans Honduras will make rapid speed in the development of her great natural resources. He is offering tempting inducements to foreign capital and immigration, has given liberal concessions to Americans who desire to enter the country, and is wisely endeavoring to induce some one to construct the Interoceanic Railway, which was surveyed fifty years ago, and twenty-seven miles of which has already been built and at intervals operated. But the discontented element in the country, in league with his predecessor, who now lives in New York, are surrounding him with obstacles and harassing him with all sorts of embarrassments, so that his success is made doubtful. Bogran spends very little of his time at Comayagua, and the seat of government has been removed to Tegucigalpa, the largest town in the country, as well as its commercial metropolis. Here the Congress sits also, and the place is to all intents and purposes the capital.

The cathedral of Comayagua is by far the finest building in the country, being an excellent specimen of the semimoresque style, which was so popular among the Spanish provinces. Its walls and roof are of the most solid masonry, but are considerably marred by the revolutions through which the country has passed, for in nearly all of them the cathedral has been used as a fortress and subjected to a shower of lead. Near the cathedral stands a monument originally intended to honor one of the Spanish kings, but after the independence of the country was established the royal symbols were erased by the order of one of the Presidents, the inscription was chiselled off, and the obelisk now stands to commemorate independence. This monument is the place of public execution, and criminals sentenced to death are made to sit blindfolded at its base, where they are shot by the soldiers.

In November, 1886, General Delgrado, the leader of a revolution, with four of his comrades, was executed here. It was the desire of President Bogran to spare Delgrado’s life, and any pretext would have been adopted to save him if the honor of the country could have been vindicated, but he was convicted of treason, and sentenced by the courts to die. The President offered to pardon him if he would take the oath of allegiance and swear never to engage in revolutionary proceedings again; but the old soldier would not even accept life on these terms, and much to the regret of the President,

against whom he had conspired, and the better portion of the people, the sentence had to be executed. On the morning of the day fixed by the courts, the five men were led from the prison to the Church of La Merced, where the last rites were administered to them, and were then conducted to the Peace Monument, where a file of soldiers was drawn up with loaded rifles. The last word of Delgrado was a request that he might give the command to fire, and he did so as coolly as if he had been on dress parade.

Both cotton and silk grow upon trees, the vegetable silk being of very fine and soft fibre, and frequently used by the natives in the manufacture of robosas, serapas, and other articles of wear, while the product of the cotton-tree is utilized in a similar manner.

The interior of the country is beyond the reach of markets, because of the absence of transportation facilities. In this respect the people are no further advanced than they were two hundred years ago. The only wagon-roads in the country are one built by a party of Americans near San Pedro, in the west, and a few miles of a national highway that a century ago was begun for the purpose of connecting Amapala, the Pacific port, with Tegucigalpa.

Honduras has the finest fluvial system in Central America. There are few countries with such available water facilities, both for transportation and manufacturing powers, and it has the finest harbors on both coasts—all wasted because of the indolence of the people. The Government has given several liberal concessions in timber and agricultural lands to secure the opening of its rivers to navigation, and for the construction of railways from the coast to the interior. Some of these grants are in the hands of responsible and capable companies, and if the peace of the country is assured, and immigrants can be induced to settle there, a rapid development of its resources is promised.

Within the last eight years every town of importance has been connected with the capital by lines of telegraph. Before its construction information of the utmost importance could not reach the capital from the remote points in less than ten or twelve days. The Government saw the necessity of some better and quicker method for transmitting information, and constructed these lines. They are owned and operated entirely by the Government, and from them a considerable revenue is realized. For the purpose of sending a message, you must first purchase of the proper Government officer a stamped telegraphic blank, which varies in price from one real (twelve and a half cents) to one or two dollars, in proportion to the number of words which it is to contain. The distance the message is to travel makes no difference in the price, provided its destination is within any of the republics of Central America. When the message is written on the blank it is taken to the telegraph-office, and if the charge for the number of words contained in the message corresponds with the stamped blank it is forwarded.

Every department of Honduras possesses more or less mineral wealth, and within the limits of the country almost every metal known to man is found. The discoveries of gold and silver were made by the aborigines, who possessed much treasure when the Spaniards conquered them, and ever since the Conquest the mines have been worked with great profit; but their development was greater under the viceroys than since the independence of the republic, as this branch of industry has suffered more from civil wars than any other. As a consequence, mine after mine has been abandoned, and the districts where the best mineral deposits exist are marked with depopulated towns and villages.

The lack of roads renders it impossible to transport machinery to the mining districts. The mines are seldom worked to any depth, and the waste is enormous. But even under this system, rude and primitive as it is, much wealth has been acquired, and millions of dollars in silver and gold have been taken out annually for hundreds of years. Of late a good deal of attention has been given to the Honduras mines by American experts, and much capital has been invested in purchasing and prospecting them, but the hope of realizing upon the investment lies in the improvement of transportation facilities, for nothing that cannot be carried on the back of a mule can either reach the mines or come from them. And imported labor is quite as necessary, as the native of Honduras cannot be induced to do anything in other than the way to which he has been accustomed, and looks upon labor-saving machinery as the invention of the evil one.

The city of Tegucigalpa, the commercial metropolis and the actual capital of the country, stands upon both banks of the Rio Cholutica in an amphitheatre of mountains, and has twelve thousand inhabitants. The river is spanned and the two divisions of the town connected by an ancient bridge with some fine arches of stone. The suburb is called Comayaguaita (Little Comayagua). The streets are well paved, in the same manner as other Spanish American cities, with a gutter in the centre, to which they slope from both sides. This gutter is always full of weeds and dust and filth, but seldom of water; and although the hills which half surround the city are full of running streams, with a fall sufficient to force water to the tower of the cathedral, it has never occurred to the inhabitants to utilize them. Every drop of water used for any purpose in the city is carried, in an earthen jar on the top of some woman’s head, from the river at the bottom of a gorge a hundred feet deep.

The houses in Tegucigalpa show much more evidence of prosperity than those of Comayagua, and are kept more tidy and in better repair. They are usually painted either a dead white or pink, blue, yellow, green, or some other very pronounced color, while often a native amateur artist tries his hand at exterior decoration, and endeavors to make the walls of adobe look as if they were made of marble.

What will impress the traveller at once in Tegucigalpa is the entire absence of carriages. I do not believe there is one in the country, any more than there is a chimney or an overcoat, and for the same reason—the people do not need them. All roads, it was said, lead to Rome, but no roads lead to the capital of Honduras except a few short ones, narrow and stony, like the way of salvation, and hedged about with divers trials and pitfalls, from the neighboring plantations, and are used only by rude ox-carts. Everybody goes on horseback, and all the transportation is done on the backs of mules and men. Long caravans of pack animals are coming and going to and from the sea-coast daily over the mountain trails, and there is a class of Indians called Cargadors who carry a cargo of a hundred pounds or so upon their backs, and run at a jog-trot for hours at a time, making the same journey twice as rapidly as a mule. Their loads are strapped to their backs on a wicker frame, and by a broad band passing around the forehead.

At breakfast chocolate often takes the place of coffee, and it is prepared from the cocoa-bean in a manner different from that in use in other countries. A handful or two of cocoa-beans, with a few vanilla-beans or sticks of cinnamon, and a much larger amount of raw sugar, are ground up together by the matete—that is, by being rubbed between two stones—and moistened until it is reduced to paste; then it is rolled out in little balls as large as a chocolate cream, and allowed to harden. A plate of these is placed upon the table, each member of the family takes as many as he or she chooses, drops them in a cup, and pours boiling milk upon them. They soon dissolve, and are very palatable.

The ladies usually do their shopping in the morning before breakfast, which is served at eleven o’clock, for the afternoons are given up to siestas. Most of the business of the city is done before breakfast, and from eleven o’clock until four in the afternoon the streets are empty and most of the stores are closed. Activity is resumed at the latter hour, and continues until eight or nine o’clock in the evening.

The schools of the republic are nominally free, but there are few of them; education is compulsory, but the law is not enforced. The school funds have usually been stolen, or diverted to other purposes, and only in the cities, where public sentiment demands it, are schools sustained. There is a university at Tegucigalpa which is said to have been once an institution of some importance, but is such no longer. It has a few students and a small faculty, but those who can afford it, and who are anxious to secure an education, go to Guatemala or to Europe.

Tegucigalpa is famous for having been the birthplace of Morazan, the Washington of Central America, and his descendants still reside there. He was undoubtedly the greatest man any of these republics ever produced, and had the broadest vision as well as the broadest views as to the nature of a republic. The fires of liberty were enkindled by him, and he led the fight against Spain which resulted in the overthrow of the Viceroys and the establishment of the confederacy. He was born in 1799; his father was a native of Porto Rico and his mother a lady of Tegucigalpa. He prided himself on the fact that his ancestors came from the birthplace of Napoleon, and his descendants, to whom strangers are usually introduced, seldom fail to forget that circumstance

A STRANGER landing at the port of Corinto, Nicaragua, asked the men who were taking him ashore in a bongoe the name of the capital of the republic. There were three of them. The quickest of wit answered promptly, “Grenada;” both the others disputed it, one of them contending for the city of Managua, and the other for Leon. So animated did the controversy become that all three dropped their oars, and nearly upset the boat by their gesticulations. This question is, and always has been, a dangerous one, and thousands of lives and hundreds of thousands of money have been wasted in repeated attempts to determine it. If it were the only excuse for the blood that has been shed in the little republic during the last sixty-five years, its history would be a nobler and a prouder one; for bitter wars have been waged for less, and brother has fought brother to settle questions not only involving a preference for cities but for men. 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. It was seldom a question of principle or policy that brought the inhabitants to war, but usually the intrigue of some ambitious man. It is a land of volcanic disturbance, physical, moral, and political, and the mountains and men have between them contrived to almost compass its destruction.

Most of the people live in towns, and waste much time in going and coming between their homes and the plantations upon which they labor. This is owing to the frequency of revolutions and the milder forms of destruction and murder that are practised by highwaymen and other robbers. None but the very poor live along the roadside, and they have nothing to tempt assault.

There is only one road in the country suitable for carriages, and that is seldom used except by carts. It runs from Grenada, the easternmost city of importance on the shore of Lake Nicaragua, to Realjo, or Corinto, the principal seaport; and over this road, which was built three hundred years ago by the Spaniards, all the commerce of the country passes. There is now a railroad along this highway; the Government has several times made loans to construct it, but the money was wasted in revolutions, and the track was not completed till recently. The road belongs to the Government, and is managed by a citizen of the United States. The cart road passes through Managua, and thus unites the three principal cities of the land. Over it have passed hundreds of armies and no end of insurgent forces, and the whole distance has been washed with blood, shed in public and private quarrels. Wherever a man has been slain a rude cross is usually erected, and it is common to see wreaths of flowers hanging upon it, placed there by some interested or, mayhap, loving hand. At these places pious passengers breathe a prayer for the soul that has been released, and they are so numerous that it keeps them praying from one end of a journey to the other.

consider it a privilege, which they have inherited from their ancestors, to plunder along the road. Nothing is too hot or too heavy for them to carry away, and accordingly precautions are taken for the protection of whatever is likely to tempt them. They have an unorganized union to protect themselves, and permit no impositions to be practised upon any of their number, or underbidding or other irregularities among themselves. They charge so much a journey, no matter what their load is, and persons having small parcels to be carried have to club together to make up a cargo, or pay a high rate for transportation. Many of the carts and oxen are owned by those who drive them, but others are leased to the carreteros by capitalists who possess a large number. The cattle come from the savannas in the south-western portion of the republic, where there are immense and nutritious pastures extending over the line into Costa Rica.

The average North American supposes that the rubber is obtained like pitch, and comes from the exuded gums of the tree, but the process is altogether different, resembling our method of making maple sugar. When the sap begins to rise from the roots to the branches of the tree, expeditions of thirty or forty men are organized, who are furnished by the exporting merchants with an outfit of buckets, axes, machetes, pans, and provisions, and start into the woods. The uleros, as the rubbermen are called, from the term ule, which is the native name for the tree, are always paid a small sum in advance, ostensibly for the support of their families during their absence, but which is always exhausted in debauchery before they start. When they reach the forest of the ule-trees they build a shanty of palms and brush, if there is not one already standing, on the bank of some stream, as a great deal of water is required for the manufacture of the gum. There they distribute their large cans and buckets through the forest at convenient intervals and proceed to business. When the ulero selects his tree, he clears the trunk of vines and creepers and climbs it to the branches. Then he descends, cutting diagonal channels through the bark with a single blow of his machete, or knife, left and right, left and right, all meeting at the angle. At the bottom of the lowest cut an iron trough about six inches long and four inches wide is driven into the tree, which catches the milk as it flows from the wound, and conducts it into a bucket on the ground below. This is done with great speed and skill by an expert; and necessarily so, to prevent waste, as the sap springs out instantly, and by the time the spout is driven into the tree is flowing at the rate of four gallons an hour. A large tree will produce twenty gallons of sap, and will run dry in a single day. The ulero having tapped a dozen or eighteen trees has all the work he can attend to emptying the buckets into the ten-gallon cans that are provided for the purpose. In the evening the cans are carried to the camp, and the sap strained through sieves into barrels. In Brazil it is boiled, but in Nicaragua the natives have a peculiar system of reducing it. There is a plant or vine called the Achuna, whose sap when mixed with that of the rubber-tree has the singular property of coagulating it in a few minutes. By whom, or how, or where this process was discovered no one can tell. Undoubtedly it was an accident, for the vine hangs from all the trees in the ule forest, and probably a cutting dropped into a bucket of sap some time or another produced the result for which it is now used. Having their barrels full, the uleros cut short

pieces of this vine, soak it in water, and small bunches are thrown into pans upon which the sap is poured. In the morning the rubber has turned to gum—about two pounds to every gallon of sap. At the top of the pan is a quantity of dark brown liquid, like a weak solution of licorice. This is poured off, and then the gum is rolled under heavy weights of wood into long flat strips called tortillas, which are hung over poles under the shed to drip and dry. At first they are white, like the vulcanized rubber, but with exposure they turn black and become hard after a few days. Then the tortillas are stacked up under cover until the end of the season, and shipped to market.

There always has been a prejudice in Nicaragua against foreign immigration, inspired and stimulated by the priests, who inveterately oppose all progress and every innovation. A number of German families are settled throughout the country, engaged in mercantile pursuits. Most of the large commission houses and exporters are English, while the hotel or posada keepers are Frenchmen. England furnishes most of the money to move the crops, as the natives are impoverished by wars or their own extravagance. The country will never be prosperous until its peace is assured and its population increased by the introduction of foreign labor and capital.

The chief cities are pictures of desolation, and along the roads in the country are the ruins of estancias that were the abode of wealthy planters years ago. Much of the destruction was caused by earthquakes, but more by civil war. The population in 1846 was 257,000; in 1870 it had been reduced to less than 200,000, and since then there have been disturbances in which thousands of men were slaughtered or driven into exile by fear or force. The whites, or those of pure Spanish blood, number about 30,000; the negroes about half as many; the mixed races, Mestizos and Ladinos—the former of Spanish and Indian and the latter Negro and Indian blood—are probably 8,000; and there are supposed to be about as many pure-blooded Indians upon the Atlantic coast and scattered throughout the republic. The education of the common people is neglected and left to the priests, who teach them nothing but superstition and their obligations to the Church. In 1868 a decree was passed making education compulsory and free, and providing for the diversion of a liberal amount of the public revenue each year for the support of the schools; but the law is a dead letter, and in no year has the amount assigned to the Department of Education been appropriated. At present there are but sixty schools, with a normal attendance of twenty-five hundred, or an average of forty pupils to thirty thousand inhabitants. There is a university at Leon, with an average of fifty students, and another at Grenada, with a few more, at which law, medicine, and theology are taught, under the direction of the bishop; but most of the sons of wealthy families are sent to Europe to be educated.

The city of Leon is the commercial metropolis, and was the ancient capital. In 1854 the seat of government was removed to Grenada, during the great revolution, which lasted for five years, and in which our famous filibuster, Walker, figured; and the people of the latter city would not permit its return to the capital of the viceroys. After fighting over the question for several years, shedding much blood and destroying much property, a compromise was effected by locating the headquarters temporarily at Managua, a smaller place half way between the two, where, since 1863, the President has resided, and the Congress has assembled every year. The public buildings in Leon remain as they were at the time of the removal of the capital, and most of the archives are there, the expectations of the citizens being that they will be needed for the Government again in the near future; but Grenada keeps a threatening look in that direction, and any attempt to disturb the present situation would result in another war, so bitter is the rivalry.

Leon is one of the oldest cities in America, having been founded in 1523 by Fernandez Cordova. Two years before, Pedrarias Divilla, who was Governor at Panama, sent to Leon, on a tour of exploration, a lusty old buccaneer, named Gil Gonzalez, with a few hundred men. He landed at about the centre of the Pacific coast, and marched across to the present city of Rivas. Here he found on the borders of the lake a vast population of Indians under a cacique named Nicaro, and called the country in his reports Nicaro’s Agua, or waters; hence the name. The Indians regarded the Spaniards with awe and amazement. They had heard of their appearance at Panama and on the Atlantic coast, but believed that the stories of their presence, which came from their ancient enemies, the Carribs, were false and intended to frighten them. Seeing the chief surrounded by such a multitude of savages, Gonzalez approached with great caution, and having captured a native, sent him to Nicaro with this bombastic message:

“Tell your chief,” said Gonzalez, “that a valiant captain cometh, commissioned to these parts by the greatest king on earth, to inform all the lords of these lands that there is in the heavens, higher than the sun, one Lord, Maker of all

In 1823, during the first revolution after independence between the aristocrats and the Indians, there was a fire at Leon which destroyed more than a thousand of the finest buildings; and the flames were aided in the work of devastation by thousands of Indian soldiers, who plundered and murdered the inhabitants. This part of the city has never been restored, and long streets, whose pavements are overgrown with weeds and underbrush, are still lined with ruined walls that disclose rich marble columns and artistic carvings. In mockery of the former magnificence which their ancestors destroyed, the Indian peons are living in bamboo huts, enclosed by cactus hedges, on the sites where once lived the proudest hidalgos in Central America. There is a tradition that the town was once cursed by the Pope, because of the murder of an archbishop there, and this accounts for the succession of calamities from which it has suffered.

The ladies of the aristocracy are in youth usually pretty, and at whatever age are always proud. For some reason or other they consider their country far above and beyond criticism, and themselves superior to the rest of Adam’s race. Ancestral pride is so conspicuous as to be ofttimes offensive, and the fact that a person born out of Nicaragua seems to them to have been a misfortune for which no other circumstances can compensate. This is true among both sexes of the upper caste, but more especially among the ladies, whose exalted opinion of their own importance in the universe has never been tarnished by travel. This feeling has gone far to excite the existing prejudice against foreigners, and while the tourists are always most hospitably received, the fact that their stay is only temporary adds to the pleasure of entertaining them. The most rigid restrictions prevent the social intercourse of the sexes, and nowhere in the world is a woman’s honor protected with such great precaution; and for excellent reasons. No lady of caste would think of receiving a call from a gentleman alone, except a priest; and the clergy make the most of their privileges, according to common report.

The great annual holiday of the people is known as El Paseo al Mar, (the Excursion to the Sea), but is often alluded to as the festival of St. Venus, because of the excesses that are committed there by the people, who are most discreet when at home. But as nobody cares what occurs at the carnivals at Rome, so can a party of fashionable Nicaraguans be allowed liberties at their watering-places. In the latter part of March, when the dry season is far advanced and everything is buried in dust, after the harvests are gathered and the crops are sold and carried to Corinto, the seaport, everybody feels like taking a little relaxation. Preparations are made long in advance, but as soon as the March moon comes carts are packed with a little furniture and a good many trunks, and the exodus begins. It is only about fifteen miles to the beach, but the journey occasions as much planning and preparation, and is anticipated with as much pleasure, as a tour through Europe. Everybody goes, the peon as well as the hidalgo, and for two weeks during the full moon the city is deserted. There are no hotels, but each family takes a tent or builds a hut of bamboo, and lives à négligé under the shade of the forest trees, which extend almost to the ocean. The Government sends down a battalion of troops, ostensibly to keep order and do police duty, but really as an excuse for giving the officers and soldiers a holiday. Social laws are very much relaxed during the Paseo, and it is really the only time when lovers can do their billing and cooing without the interfering presence of a duenna. Flirtations are the order of the day, and Cupid is king.

Another peculiar Nicaraguan religious custom is the baptism of the volcanoes, a ceremony which is believed by the superstitious to be very effective in keeping them in subjection and making them observe the proprieties of life. This observance is said to be as old as the Conquest, having originated after the first eruption succeeding the invasion of Nicaragua by the Spaniards, and is repeated on the anniversary of the last disturbance caused by each particular volcano. The priests of the nearest city take the affair in charge, and, followed by a large company of the faithful, ascend to the crater, and with great ceremony sprinkle holy water into it. Each of the volcanic peaks in Nicaragua has been repeatedly sanctified in this way except Momotombo, the grandest but most unregenerate of them all, who has never permitted a human foot to reach his summit or a human eye to look into his crater. Two hundred years ago, after old Tombo, as the master is familiarly called, had been acting very badly, three brave monks determined to try the effect of holy water upon him, and started for the summit with a large cross which they proposed to erect there; but they were never heard of again, and the people look upon the mountain with greater reverence.

From the tower of St. Peter’s Cathedral in the city of Leon thirteen volcanoes can be seen, several of which are active. There are eighteen standing in a solemn procession around the lakes of Nicaragua and Managua. They are not so high as certain peaks in Guatemala or Costa Rica, but look higher from the fact that they rise immediately from the level of tide-water, and can be seen from the sea in their full grandeur, old Tombo looking to be about the height of Pike’s Peak as seen from Colorado Springs. This gigantic mountain rises boldly out of the waters of Lake Nicaragua, its bare and blackened summit, which has forbidden all attempts to scale its sides, being always crowned with a light wreath of smoke, attesting the perpetual existence of the internal fires which now and then break forth and cover its sides with burning floods. At its base are several hot sulphur springs, and at frequent intervals heavy rumbling sounds can be heard from within its walls. In the middle of the lake, only a few miles away, is an exact duplicate of the mountain; in miniature, however, being but one-fourth its size. This is called Momotombita, the three last letters expressing the diminutive. It forms an island, from which its peak rises a perfect cone. Its crater has been extinct for hundreds of years; but the island was a sacred place to the aborigines. In the forests which now cover it are the ruins of vast temples and gigantic idols hewn out of the solid rock. The last serious earthquake, in 1867, occurred without much damage to the city, whose walls have been several times shaken down in the three centuries and a half since it was founded.

The most fearful eruption on record in Nicaragua, and one of the most serious the world ever saw, was that of the volcano Cosequina, near Grenada, in 1835. It continued for four days, and covered the country for hundreds of miles around with ashes and lava, causing a panic from which the people did not recover for many years, and resulting in great destruction of life and property. The explosions were of such force that ashes fell in the city of Bogota, Colombia, fifteen hundred miles away in a direct line, and at an altitude eleven thousand feet above the sea. Ashes fell in the West India islands, also far in the interior of Mexico, and showers of them that obscured the sun caused great consternation in Guatemala and the neighboring republics, while the people in Nicaragua thought the end of the world had come. Vessels sailing in the Pacific had their decks covered with lava and ashes, and several sailors were injured by falling stones; while the ocean for a hundred and fifty miles was so strewn with floating ashes and pumice-stone that the surface of the water was concealed. The anniversary of this horrible catastrophe is always observed by the people as a great fast-day, business being suspended throughout the whole republic, and the people gathering in the churches to pray for deliverance from further eruptions. Since that date the volcano has continued active, but has caused no damage.

The actual capital of Nicaragua, the city of Managua, sits on the southern shore of the lake of the same name, about sixty miles from the Pacific Ocean, and is reached by an overland journey of three days from Leon, which is connected with Corinto, the chief seaport, by a railroad. The population of Managua is about eight or ten thousand, at a guess, for no census has been taken since 1870. It has increased since that date, when the inhabitants numbered six thousand seven hundred. The rich residents are mostly planters who have estancias in the neighborhood, and live in houses of one or two stories without any pretension to architectural beauty or elegance. They are more modern in construction than those of Leon and Grenada, for it is only since the seat of government was located at Managua that it has been of any commercial or political importance. A large portion of the standing army of the republic, consisting of two thousand men, is stationed at Managua, occupying an old monastery as a barracks, and the streets are always crowded with military men in resplendent uniforms. There are about three officers to every ten privates in the army, and positions in the military service are actively sought by the sons of the aristocratic families, who prefer them to professional or commercial careers. The privates are exclusively Indians or half-breed peons, who wear a uniform of dirty white cotton drilling with a blue cap. They are supposed to be voluntarily enlisted, but when troops are needed they are secured by sending squads of impressarios into the country, who seize as many peons as they want, bring them, bound with ropes, to the capital, and then compel them to sign the enlistment rolls.

The National Palace is a low, square edifice, with balconies of the ordinary Spanish styles, and was formerly the home of one of the religious orders. The only handsome rooms are the headquarters of the President and the chambers in which the two Houses of Congress meet annually. They are fitted up with fine imported furniture, and the walls are covered with portraits of men distinguished in the history of the republic.

An iron cage, capable of holding six persons, is lowered to the lighter, and you are invited to step in. As soon as it is full a boatman shuts the door and gives a signal to the engineer above. There is a sudden, startling jerk, you shut your eyes, cling to the bars of the cage, and feel your heart in your throat. The cage stops as suddenly as it started, whirls around swiftly for an instant or two, then swings over the pier, and drops with a thump. The door is opened, you step out,

San Salvador has always taken the lead in the political affairs of Central America. It was the first to throw off the yoke of Spain, and uttered the first cry of liberty, as Venezuela did among the nations of the southern continent. The patriots of San Salvador received the cordial co-operation of the liberal element in the cities of Grenada, Nicaragua, and San José of Costa Rica, but were suppressed by the Imperial power. Its provisional congress was driven from place to place, but remained intact; it had the sympathy and support of the people, and defied the invaders of the country. Finally, as a last resort, the congress, by a solemn act passed on the 2d of December, 1822, resolved to annex their little province to the United States, and provided for the appointment of commissioners to proceed to Washington and ask its incorporation in the body politic of “La Grande Republica.” Before the commissioners could leave the country the revolution in the other Central American States had become too formidable to suppress, as the example of San Salvador had spread like an epidemic among the people, and its demand for liberty had found an echo from every valley and from every hill, from the Rio Grande to the Chagres. The five States joined in a confederacy one year after the act of annexation to the United States was passed, and the resolution was never officially submitted to our government. This was before the days of the Monroe Doctrine, and if the rise of Liberalism in Central America had not been so rapid, the political divisions of the North American continent might have been different now, and the destiny of several nations changed.

The capital, San Salvador (“The City of our Saviour”), is

eighteen miles from the sea-coast, and has an elevation of 2800 feet. It is surrounded by a group of volcanoes, two of which are active, one, Yzalco, discharging immense volumes of smoke, ashes, and lava at regular intervals of seven minutes from one year’s end to the other. San Salvador is reached by coaches over a picturesque mountain-road, but the journey is not pleasant in the dry season on account of the dust, nor in the rainy season on account of the mud. The city was founded in 1528 by George Alvarado, a brother of the renowned lieutenant of Cortez, who was the discoverer, conqueror, and the first viceroy of Central America. The situation it occupies is one of the most beautiful that can be imagined, being in the midst of an elevated mesa, or tableland, which overlooks the sea to the southward, and is surrounded by mountains upon its three other sides. As the prevailing winds are from the ocean, the climate is always cool and healthful, and the mountain streams are so abundant that the foliage is fresh during the entire year. Through each street runs an asequia, or irrigating ditch, which is always filled with water. Pipes lead from it into the gardens of the people, and supply hydrants for their use.

There is a public theatre, subsidized by the Government, at which frequent entertainments are given, and nearly every season an opera company comes from Italy or France. The performances are liberally patronized, at high prices of

admission. But the most popular funcions, as they are called, are by local amateurs, the programmes being made up of vocal and instrumental music, recitations, and original poems and orations. The latter are always the popular features of the occasion, and the funcions are usually arranged to give some young orator an opportunity to show his talents before the foot-lights. There is a great deal of rivalry, too, among the local poets, each aspirant for honors having his clique of admirers, or faccions, who feel it their duty to applaud no one else, however meritorious, and to hiss all others down. When two of these popular idols appear upon the platform on the same evening, as they often do, there are scenes of sensational excitement and sometimes mob violence. The subjects of all the orations and poems are usually patriotic—the praise of San Salvador—for the love of country is a theme of which the people never tire. The programmes of all public entertainments are mostly composed of local compositions, national airs, and patriotic songs. The musicians prefer the scores of their own composers, and everything foreign is to a degree offensive, to be tolerated only as a matter of variety.

The Christmas festivities commence about midnight, and the explosions of cannon and fireworks always begin as soon as the clock in the cathedral tower strikes twelve. 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. In nearly every house preparations have been going on for weeks, not for the exhibition of Christmas-trees or the exchange of gifts, but for the representation of the naciamiento, or birth of Christ. The best room in the house is often fitted up to resemble a manger, asses being brought in from the stable to make the scene more realistic. Several incidents in the life of the Saviour are portrayed in a like manner. In other residences are different representations. Sometimes the parlor is arranged like a bower, filled with tropical plants and flowers, moss-covered stones and sea-shells, and draped with vines. Within the bower are figures of the Virgin and Child, surrounded by the kneeling Magi and the members of the Holy Family.

It is the ambition of the mistress of the house to surpass all her friends and neighbors in the realism of her representation and in the elegance with which the puppets are dressed. During the day there is a general interchange of calls to see the displays, to criticise them, and make comparisons. The grandest display is always made in the cathedral, the cost often amounting to many thousands of dollars, while the subordinate churches enter into an active and expensive rivalry, raising funds for the purpose by soliciting subscriptions in the parish. The ceremonies usually begin before daylight, and last for a couple of hours, high-mass being sung by the leading vocalists of the country, assisted by orchestras and military bands.

Yzalco is in many respects the most remarkable volcano on earth; first, because its discharges have continued so long and

First there were a series of terrific explosions, which lifted the crust of the earth several hundred feet, and out of the cracks issued flames and lava, and immense volumes of smoke. An hour or two afterwards there was another and a grander convulsion, which shook and startled the country for a hundred miles around. Rocks weighing thousands of tons were hurled into the air, and fell several leagues distant. The surface of the earth was elevated about three thousand feet, and the internal recesses were purged of masses of lava and blistered stone, which fell in a heap around the hole from which they issued. These discharges continued for several days

The forest is traversed only by foot-paths, so intricate as to baffle the stranger who attempts to enter it; and it is not safe to make such an attempt, as the Indians, peaceful enough when they come out to mingle with the other inhabitants of the country, violently resent any intrusion into their

strong-hold. They live as a community, all their earnings being intrusted to the care of ahuales—old men who exercise both civil and religious offices, and keep the common funds in a treasure-box, to be distributed among the families as their necessities require. There is a prevailing impression that the tribe has an enormous sum of money in its possession, as their earnings are large and their wants are few. The surplus existing at the end of each year is supposed to be buried in a sacred spot with religious ceremonies. Both men and women go entirely naked, except for a breech-clout, but when they come to town they assume the ordinary cotton garments worn by the peons. They are darker in color, larger in stature, more taciturn and morose, than the other Indians of the country, but are temperate, industrious, and adhere to their ancient rites with great tenacity. They are known to history as the Nahuatls, but are commonly spoken of as “Balsimos.”

Among other points visited for barter with the Indians was a little harbor in which were islands covered with limes, and Columbus marked the place upon his chart “Puerto de

But in the mornings and the evenings, when the air is cool, Limon is a busy place. Dwarfish engines with long trains of cars wind down from the interior, laden with coffee and bananas. Half-naked roustabouts file back and forth across the gangplanks, loading steamers for Liverpool, New York, and New Orleans. The coffee is allowed to accumulate in the warehouses until the vessels come, but the bananas must not be picked till the last moment, at telegraphic notice, the morning the steamer sails. Trains of cars are sent to the side-tracks of every plantation, and are loaded with the half-ripe fruit still glistening with the dew. There are often as many as fifty thousand bunches on a single steamer, representing six million bananas, but they are so perishable that more than half the cargo goes overboard before its destination is reached. The shipments of bananas from Costa Rica are something new in trade. Only a few years since all our supply came from Honduras and the West Indies, but the development of the plantations around Limon has given that port almost a monopoly. This is due to the construction of a railway seventy miles into the interior, intended to connect the capital of the country and its populous valley with the Atlantic Ocean. The road was begun by the Government, but before its completion passed into the hands of Minor C. Keith, of Brooklyn, who has a perpetual lease, and is attempting to extend it to San José, from and to which freight is transported in ox-carts, a distance of thirty miles.

It is the theory of the local scientists that there is a subterranean connection between the group of volcanoes, and that prodigious fires are constantly burning beneath. Therefore it is necessary for at least one of them to be always doing business, to permit the smoke and gases to escape through its crater, for if all should suspend operations the gases would gather in the vaults below, and when they reached the fires

The banker who had failed to get his spoon into the pudding called into the conspiracy a number of disappointed politicians and discontented adherents of the existing Government, and it was decided to send for Guardia to come to the capital and lead the revolution. By offering him pecuniary inducements and a promise of being made commander-in-chief of the Federal army if the revolution was a success, the services of the cow-boy were secured. He called together about one hundred men of his own class, made a rendezvous at a plantation just outside of the city limits, and one moonlight

All the necessary material and supplies to build and equip the road were purchased in England, sent by sailing-vessels around the Horn, and landed at Punta Arenas. But instead of commencing work there, the President, who had never seen a locomotive in his life, repudiated all advice, rejected all suggestions, and ordered the whole outfit to be carried seventy-five miles over the mountains on carts and mule-back, so as to begin at the other end. This undertaking was more difficult and expensive than the construction of the road. But

The women of the lower classes do not wear either shoes or sandals, but go barefooted from infancy to old age; yet their feet are always small and shapely, and look very pretty under the short skirts that reach just below the knees. The native girls are comely and coquettish in the national dress,

While passing over a dusty road upon a hot, sultry day I dismounted at a foaming brook, rolled up my sleeves, and commenced to bathe my head and face and arms. The guide who was with me cried “Caramba!” in astonishment, and tried to pull me away. When I demanded an explanation of his extraordinary behavior he begged me for the love of the Virgin not to wash my face, for I would certainly come down with the fever the next day. I smiled at this remonstrance, and gave myself a refreshing bath, while he looked on as solemnlv as if I intended to commit suicide. For an hour after, as we travelled on, he muttered prayers to the Virgin and his patron saint to protect me from the fever, and to-day no doubt believes that I was saved by the interposition of Divine power in answer to his petitions. He afterwards reproached me for not having made a vow because of my remarkable deliverance.

The successor of the famous cow-boy President, Guardia, was his brother-in-law, General Prospero Fernandez, one of his lieutenants in the revolution by which he came into power,

Excepting Aspinwall, which is a cosmopolitan place, the city of Barranquilla is the principal port of Colombia, and to it all merchandise and passengers bound for Bogota and the interior of the country must go. In the old Spanish colony times Carthagena was the greatest commercial metropolis of Colombia, or New Granada, as it was then called; and it is one of the quaintest, as it is one of the oldest, cities in South America. In the time of Philip the Second it was the most strongly fortified place on the continent, and the headquarters of the Spanish naval forces in the New World. It was the rendezvous of the Spanish galleons which came to South America for treasure. There are many rich mines in the mountains back of the city, which have produced millions in silver and gold. Here came the pirates to plunder. They committed so much damage that the King of Spain thought it worth his while to build a wall around the entire city, on the top of which forty horses can walk abreast, and which is said to have cost ninety million dollars.

Carthagena was the seat of the Inquisition, and in Charles Kingsley’s novel, “Westward Ho!” its readers will find a charming description of the place. It was here that Frank and the Rose of Devon were imprisoned by the priests, and the old Inquisition building in which they were tortured and burned is still standing. But it is no longer used for the confinement and crucifixion of heretics. For nearly sixty years after the overthrow of the Catholic Church it stood empty, but it is now occupied as a tobacco factory. There is an underground passage between the old Inquisition building and an ancient fortress upon a hill overlooking Carthagena, through which prisoners used to be conducted, and communication maintained in time of siege; but, like everything else about the place, it has long been in a state of decay. Some years ago a party of American naval officers attempted to explore the passage, but found it filled with obstructions, and were compelled to abandon the enterprise. The old castle is obsolete now, and in a state of ruin, being used only as a signal station. When a vessel enters the harbor a flag is run up by a man on guard to notify the Captain of the Port and the merchants of its arrival.

Near the miraculous pulpit, in the same church, is the preserved body of a famous saint. I forget what his name was, but he is in an excellent state of preservation—a skeleton with dried flesh and skin hanging to the bones. He did something hundreds of years ago which made him very sacred to the people of Carthagena, and by the special permission of the Pope his body was disinterred, placed in a glass case, and shipped from Rome to ornament the cathedral of the former city, along with the miraculous pulpit. The body is usually covered with a black pall, and is exposed only upon occasions of great ceremony, but any one can see the preserved saint by paying a fee to the priests. I purchased that privilege, and was shown the glass coffin standing upon a marble pedestal. The bones are bare, except where the brown skin, looking like jerked beef, covers them, and are a ghastly spectacle. During a revolution at Carthagena some impious soldiers upset the coffin and destroyed it. In the melée one of the saint’s legs was lost, or at least the lower half of it from the knee down; but the priests replaced it with a wax leg, plump and pink, which, lying beside the original, gives the saint a very comical appearance.

Sabanilla is a most desolate place, nothing but sand, filth, and poverty; and were it not for the sea-breeze that constantly sweeps across the barren peninsula upon which it stands, the inhabitants could not survive. No one lives there except a colony of cargadors, boatmen, and roustabouts, who swarm, like so many animals, in filthy huts built of palm-leaves, and a few saloon-keepers, who give them wine in exchange for the money they earn. The men and women are almost naked, and the children entirely so. Perhaps the reason for the nastiness of the place is because there is no fresh water; but the inhabitants ought not to be excused on this account, as the beach furnishes as fine bathing as can be found in the world, and is at their very doors. All the fresh water used has to be brought in canoes from a point eight miles up the river, and is sold by the dipperful: but only a moderate quantity is necessary for consumption. Most of the inhabitants are Canary Islanders, who monopolize the boating business along this coast; but sprinkled among them are many Italians, and nearly every nation on earth is represented, even China. The only laundry is run by a Chinaman, and another is cook at a place that is used as a substitute for a hotel. The boatmen are drunken, quarrelsome, desperate wretches; murder is frequent among them, and fighting the chief amusement.

The boats are similar to those used upon the Ohio and other rivers, with a paddle-wheel behind, and draw only a foot or two of water even when heavily laden, so that they can go over the bars. There are two steamboat companies, both with United States capital; one is managed by a Mr. Joy, and the other by a Mr. Cisneros, a naturalized Italian. During the revolution all the boats were seized by the insurgents. Their sides were covered with corrugated iron, so as to make them bullet-proof, a small cannon or two mounted upon the decks, and the cabins filled with sharp-shooters. So prepared, they were used as gun-boats, and were quite effective. Many of them were destroyed, so that transportation facilities upon the Magdalena are not so good as they were.

The river itself is a great natural curiosity. It flows almost directly northward, and drains an enormous area of mountains which are constantly covered with snow. The current is as swift as that of the Mississippi, which it resembles, and the water, always muddy, is so full of sediment that one can hear it striking the sides of the boat. The water will not mix with that of the sea, and for fifty miles into the ocean it can be distinguished. In some places it is seven or eight miles wide, at others it is scarcely more than a hundred yards, where it has cut its way through the rolling earth. The channel, which has never been cleared, is full of treacherous bars and snags, which are continually shifting, and make it necessary to tie up the steamer every night, except in times of high water during the rainy season. The mosquitoes are monumental in size, and at some seasons of the year, when the winds are strong and blow them from the jungles, it is almost impossible to endure them. The officers and deck hands of the boat all wear thick veils over their faces, and heavy buckskin gloves, awake or asleep; and the passengers, unless similarly protected, are subject to the most intense torment. Often the swarms are so thick that they obscure the sky, and the sound of humming is so loud that it resembles the murmur of an approaching storm.

From Honda to Bogota the journey must be made on mule-back, and it requires four days to cover the seventy miles. Recently there has been a line of stagecoaches established between Bogota and the town of Agrialarge, which shortens the time a day, and the distance by saddle thirty miles. In describing the journey Mr. Scruggs, recently United States Minister to Colombia, says:

“Up to this point our journey has been alternating between deep valleys and dizzy mountain-peaks. We cross one only to encounter another. Such is the Camino Real, or ‘Royal Highway,’ the only available route between the Colombian capital and the outside world. Within the past few years it has been much improved, it is true, and at great expense to the Government; but it is still little else than a mere mule trail, not wide enough in many places for two mules to walk abreast, and so tortuous and precipitous as to be impassable except on the backs of animals trained to the road. When we reflect that this is the overland highway of an immense commerce, and that it has been in constant use since the Spanish conquest, we naturally marvel that it is no better. It seems to have been constructed without any previous survey whatever, and without the least regard for

“This plain is the traditional elysium of the ancient Chibchas, and their imperial capital was near the site of the present capital of Colombia; and perhaps around no one spot on the American continent cluster so many legends of the aborigines, or quite so many improbable stories illustrative of the ancient civilization. Here one can almost imagine himself in the north temperate zone, and in a country inhabited by a race wholly different from the people heretofore seen in the republic. Agriculture and the useful arts seem at least a century ahead of those on the coast and in the torrid valleys of the great rivers. The ox-cart and plantation-wagon have supplanted the traditional pack-mule and ground-sled; the neat iron spade and patent plough have taken the place of wooden shovels and clumsy forked sticks; the enclosures are of substantial stone or adobe, and the spacious farmhouse, or quinta, has an air of palatial elegance compared with the mud and bamboo hut of the Magdalena. The people have a clear, ruddy complexion, at least compared with those heretofore seen in the country, and their dialect is a near approach to the rich and sonorous Castilian, once so liquid and harmonious in poetry and song, so majestic and persuasive on the forum. None of these agricultural implements, and none of these commodious coaches and omnibuses, were manufactured here nor elsewhere in Colombia. They have all been imported from the United States or England. They were brought to Honda by the river steamers, packed in small sections, and thence lugged over the mountains piece by piece.

“The altitude of the plain above the sea-level is 8750 feet, and its mean temperature is about 59° Fahrenheit. The atmosphere is thin, pure, and exhilarating, but it is perhaps not conducive either to longevity or great mental activity. A man, for instance, accustomed to eight hours’ daily mental labor in New York or Washington will here find it impossible to apply himself closely for more than five hours each day. If he exceeds that limit ominous symptoms of nervous prostration will be almost sure to follow.”

Bogota has a population of one hundred thousand, and is in some respects quite modern, but in others two centuries behind the times. It is built chiefly with adobe houses that have a very unprepossessing appearance on the exterior. But the interiors of many of the houses are elegantly furnished. It costs one thousand dollars to pay the freight on a piano to the city, yet nearly all the well-to-do people have them. From Honda to Bogota they have to be carried on the backs of mules. There are few carriages, because the roads will not allow of them; but there is an extensive system of street-car lines, every bit of material used in their construction being brought in the same manner over the mountains. The cars were shipped in sections not too heavy for a man to carry, and the rails were borne upon the shoulders of a dozen persons. Yet, notwithstanding this enormous expense, the roads, which are owned by New York capitalists, are very profitable investments, the fare charged being twelve and a half cents in Colombian coin, which is equivalent to ten cents in our currency. The street-car drivers carry horns, which they blow constantly, so as to notify the people in the houses of their approach. The streets are narrow, paved with stone, and in the centre of each is a gutter, through which a stream of water is constantly flowing.

The streets, as in other Spanish-American cities, are named after the saints, battle-fields, and famous generals; but the houses are not numbered, and it is difficult for a stranger to find one that he happens to want to visit.

Until the ratification of the “concordat” with the Pope, in 1888, education was free and compulsory, sectarian schools were prohibited, and all orders of religious seclusion suppressed; but under that document the ancient relations between the Church and State were restored, the school laws

were repealed, the education of the children was intrusted again to the priests, and the monks and nuns were permitted to return to the country and reoccupy the cloisters from which they were expelled by the Liberal party several years before. The monasteries, convents, and valuable productive estates which had been confiscated by the Government from time to time since 1825 were restored to the religious orders; and all the educational institutions, including the university, themedical, law, and other scientific schools, the learned societies, the observatory, the libraries, and museums, were removed from the charge of the civil minister of education, placed under the care of the archbishop, with a liberal subsidy from the public treasury for their maintenance, and by the terms of the “concordat” devoted forever “to the glorification and advancement of the Holy Catholic Church.” In one or two of the seaports Protestant missionaries are getting a foothold, but very slowly, as everything is against them. The unconquered Indian tribes retain their peculiar religious rites.

The non-producers are the gamblers and beggars. The people are given to games of chance. Lotteries and raffles find many devotees. Beggars are very plentiful, owing to the peculiar diseases that scourge the country. Saturday is their day; then every merchant places on his table a quantity of small change, and delivers it as the mendicants call. There are a number of hospitals, cared for by the Sisters of Charity.

The streams are full of fish, and the mountains are full of game; but nevertheless the people prefer bacon and codfish to the natural luxuries of their country, and even these cannot be found cooked in any palatable way. Indians will walk for three days—men and women together, and each woman usually carrying a child besides—having heavy loads of produce or long strings of fish upon their backs. The woman will sit all day in the marketplace peddling off her stuff to customers, while the man is patronizing the gambling booths; and at night, if there is any money left, they will both get drunk together, and then spend two or three more days on the road, walking home with empty pockets.

A half-century or more ago the erection of a very beautiful capitol of white marble, and of the pure Grecian order of architecture, was commenced, but the building still stands unfinished and unoccupied, a monument to procrastination. There have been several spasmodic attempts to complete it, but they have been interrupted by revolutions, and the money diverted or stolen. The President resides in a dilapidated structure, and the several executive departments of the Government occupy confiscated monasteries and convents, which, under the recent “concordat” with Rome, must be restored to the monks and nuns. There is a fine university, a museum containing many valuable and venerated historical relics, a national library which is composed mostly of ancient tomes, eighty or ninety thousand in number, an observatory, said to be nearer the stars than any other in the world, and a military academy, organized by Lieutenant Lemly, of the United States army, and considered the best on the Southern Continent.

Bogota was once a city famous for its learned societies and literary culture, but during the last decade the entire population have been devoting themselves to politics and war. The revolution of 1884-5 was prolonged and disastrous, and there has been little, if any, improvement in political or commercial conditions since. The Liberal party, representing the young and progressive element, elected as President in 1884 Dr. Rafael Nuñez, and then attempted to overthrow him because of his reactionary tendencies. Nuñez was sustained by the clerical, or Bourbon element; and having a well-organized army behind him, succeeded not only in maintaining his power, but in re-electing himself for a second term with a Congress unanimously in sympathy with his policy. The Constitution was so amended as to transform the Federation into an inseparable union of States like our own, the name was changed from “The United States of Colombia” to “The Republic of Colombia,” and the President was endowed with most extraordinary powers, little short of those exercised by the Shah of Persia or the Czar of Russia. Then a treaty, or “concordat,” was entered into with the Vatican, under which the civil as well as the ecclesiastical authority of the Pope is recognized, and all that the Liberal party had accomplished during its struggles for thirty years was wiped out by a single stroke of the pen.

The guide-books and geographies say that La Guayra is the hottest and most unhealthy place in the world; that it is hotter than Cairo, or Madras, or Abushar, or Aden, or Yuma; but the United States consul says that this is an absurd and inexcusable falsehood, and represents the city as being a most attractive summer resort. Humboldt says yellow-fever is born there, and that it is the chief distributing point for the plague; the consul says that there is only occasionally a case of fever of a mild type, which is often mistaken for genuine yellow-jack, and people ordinarily recover from it. Humboldt says, too, that in his time this was a famous place for tidal waves; that a lookout was always stationed at the fort, which sits in a crevice in the mountains above the town, to watch for them, and when one was seen coming a gun was fired to warn the vessels, which pulled in their anchors and put out to sea to escape being dashed against the mountains. He also says that it was the worst place for barnacles (teredo navalis) in the world, and that vessels were totally ruined by lying at anchor there; but Mr. Bird says these stories are all humbug, and while it might have been so in Humboldt’s time, the conditions are totally different now.

I have thus far neglected to give due credit to the tropical flea, to whose industry, enterprise, and assiduous solicitude all travellers in Spanish-America are indebted for a great deal of diversion. At first his attentions are somewhat annoying, and there is a general disposition to conceal acquaintance with him; but when every man, woman, and child in a company is constantly scratching, it becomes difficult to ignore conditions that are common and conspicuous, and everybody admits, first with blushes and then with brazen shamelessness, that he’s got ’em. There is no use of trying to conceal the fact. They are as common and as plenty as flies in the basement kitchen of a city boarding-house, and the Venezuela coat-of-arms would more truly represent the condition of the country if it showed a man vainly trying to scratch in seven places at once instead of a wild horse dashing over the pampas. They are little black insects, which will get into your clothing in the most unaccountable manner. You find them in your shoes and under your shirt-collar; you wake up in the night and think you have somehow wandered into a plantation of nettles; or, when you become a little more accustomed to it, dream regularly that you are lying on the prickly side of a cactus. To rub the flesh with brandy does some good, but the better way is to grin and bear it. The pests are bad enough in Mexico; they are worse in the West Indies; but in Venezuela—the less said the better.

Two hundred and fifty years ago that king of buccaneers, Sir Francis Drake, paid a visit to Caracas under circumstances worthy of notice. It was before the forts had been built around La Guayra; in fact, it was owing to the adventure of Sir Francis that the Spaniards put them there. This Mr. Drake, as all know who are familiar with the doings of Queen Elizabeth’s time, was a Britain bold, and had a little affair with the Spanish Armada. Having disposed of the enemies of the virgin Queen in the waters around home, he started

There was no printing-press in Venezuela until after the triumph of Bolivar, and the colonies were not encouraged in the arts or the sciences or any form of industry. The most profitable crops of sugar and coffee were kept a monopoly for the crown of Spain, and the people found it to their advantage to produce no more than they needed for their own sustenance, as every ounce of surplus was seized by the Government. Then, after independence was established, the rulers of the country imitated their former oppressors and kept the people down, robbing them in every possible way, until revolution after revolution was the result, and local wars followed each other so rapidly that the country was deluged with blood. Discontent was universal, and discontent always results in conspiracies and revolutions. Bolivar the Liberator (pronounced Bo-leè-var), the Washington of the country, was driven into exile, and died in poverty in a neighboring country. But Bolivar is honored there now, and the public

There is another, an equestrian statue to Bolivar, in the centre of the city, surrounded by a park called by his name, upon which fronts “The Yellow House,” as the residence of the President is called, and several of the Federal palaces. The standard coin of the country is called by his name, and is of a value equal to the franc of France. The coins and paper-money bear his portrait as well as his name, and a pathetic attempt is made by the people to show after his death the gratitude they should have paid to the starving exile.

The Palacio Federal is the Capitol of Venezuela. It covers an entire square of about two acres, built around a circular park in which are fountains, statuary, and beautiful flowers, and which is reached by grand archways on either side. Owing to an earthquake tendency in these parts the buildings in Caracas are never more than two stories high, and

The official residence of the President faces the central plaza, or Plaza Bolivar, and is known as the Yellow House, but is not at present occupied, being too small to contain the family of General Crespo, who has seven children. Guzman Blanco never occupied it, for the same reason, as he has nine children. The Yellow House is a gaudy affair of two stories, with only twelve rooms, including four official parlors, a magnificent state dining-room, servants’ quarters, and all that sort of thing. Official dinners are given there nowadays, and occasionally the President receives foreign ambassadors in the parlors.

This narrow little room which the Governor occupies is the same in which the Declaration of Venezuelan Independence was signed, and upon its walls hangs a picture commemorating the event. Strangely enough, beside this painting of the decree of Liberty hangs a heavy gilt frame containing the banner Pizarro carried in the conquest of Peru—the rarest and most interesting relic in all South America. It is about four feet square, of heavy pink silk, faded almost to white, embroidered with gold by the fair hands of Queen Isabella herself, the design being the combined escutcheons of Aragon and Castile, and it is still in an excellent state of preservation. It is with the keenest irony of contrast that this age-begrimed banner should hang in the room where the first voice was raised against the tyranny it represented; here, beside the voice, scarcely legible now to the eye, but to the mind speaking with mighty force the long story of Spanish oppression, and illustrating the first feeble and unsuccessful protest. This banner was the emblem of cruelty, avarice, and lust, and under its dainty folds more crimes were committed in the name of Christ and civilization than an eternity of perdition could adequately punish.

The burial of prominent men is attended with great pomp and ceremony, and it is customary to have those who are present at the funeral sign a testimonial to the worth of the dead, or pass a series of resolutions setting forth their merits and distinguished traits. These tributes are placed in the coffin, in order that in case the remains should ever be disinterred, posterity would know the character of him whose bones they handled. When a member of the family dies, it is customary to drape the furniture and pictures of the parlor in mourning, and to let it remain so for a full year.

Mrs. Guzman Blanco is the handsomest woman in the

But the people always put the locks upon the wrong door, and wrong side up. When they build a house, it seems as if they studied the most difficult mode of construction. They erect solid walls first, and then chisel out cavities for the timbers to rest in. There are no stoves or chimneys, and charcoal is the only fuel. Gas is produced at four dollars and a half per thousand feet, from American coal which costs twenty dollars a ton. There is no glass in the windows, but a grating of iron bars keeps out intruders, and heavy wooden shutters shut out the air and light. Such blinds as are common in North America would be the most admirable protection, but no one has ever introduced them, and the people will continue to swelter behind solid shutters until the end of time.

Guzman, when he was President, had a nephew of whom he was very fond, and who was made by him the commander-in-chief of the Venezuelan army. He was engaged to an American girl, whose parents lived in Caracas then, but now in Boston. For some reason the girl’s father and the President had a violent quarrel, and the former was notified that it would be to his welfare to leave the country. In these Spanish-American countries a man who values his life never awaits a second invitation of this sort, and the Boston gentleman, with his family, took the next steamer. They were accompanied to La Guayra by the young general, who made no secret of his sympathy with the father of his fiancée, and expressed his views of the President’s tyranny in a very emphatic manner. Guzman sent for the young man, and advised him to hold his tongue and let the girl go. The passionate lover gave his uncle some very plain words, which ended in his being offered a choice between his commission in the army and his North American sweetheart. He broke his sword over his knees, threw the severed blade at Guzman’s feet, and tore off his epaulettes. That night all the statues of Guzman fell down. It was discovered that the bronze had been sawed where the feet met the pedestals, and a rope used to tumble them over. Of course the young general was suspected, and he followed his girl to Boston to escape his uncle’s wrath. The romance ended in a marriage, as all good love stories do, and after residing in Boston the couple returned to Caracas, where they now live—she one of the most attractive and accomplished ladies in the city, and he an exporter of coffee and chocolate. Guzman has never forgiven him, and some of his friends think his life is not safe there, but he laughs at their timidity.

During the day everybody stays in-doors after the bathing-hour, which is about nine o’clock in the morning. The fashionable get up about eight o’clock, drink a cup of coffee, eat a roll, go to mass, saunter down to the bath, and return in time to dress for breakfast, the most elaborate meal of the day, which is served about eleven o’clock. The menu offers soup, fish, game, steaks, sweetmeats, and wine. Then the people loll around till dinner, which comes after five o’clock in the afternoon, and is a repetition of the breakfast, except that roasts are served instead of steaks. After dinner everybody goes to the grand promenade along the beach. The band plays, the ladies are gayly dressed, the gentlemen twirl their canes, admire their small feet in the moonlight, and chatter like a lot of magpies. The promenading and gossiping are kept up until midnight, except twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, when there is dancing at the hotel or at some one of the private residences. The season lasts from October, when the rainy period ends, until April, when it begins; but families from Caracas and other cities seldom remain at Macuto more than three or four weeks. The charge at the hotel is four dollars per day—about three dollars and a quarter in American money. If some one would build a first-class American hotel here, and provide the comforts that are found in the States, it would be a paying investment; and I would not wonder if a subsidy would be paid by the Government.

The coffee plantations, or quintas, as they are called, extend from the coast far up into the mountains, and are very prolific. The people here claim to raise the best coffee in the world; and it is a singular fact asserted by the exporters that only the poorer grades go to the United States, while all of the better quality is sent to France and Germany. Just why this is so no one explains, further than repeating the remark so often made that the Americans do not like good coffee.

Off the coast of Puerto Cabello lies the island of Curaçoa, the quaintest, most novel, and altogether most interesting place on the Spanish Main. It is a fragment of Amsterdam, set upon a coral rock in the middle of the sea. It has always been a colony of Holland, with all the picturesque quaintness, stupidity, and wooden-shoe-oddity of the fatherland. Leaving the tropic scenes of Spanish America at bedtime and waking up in Holland in the morning makes you feel like one of Plato’s troglodytes, who were raised in a cavern and then suddenly dropped into the world. You cannot quite allay the feeling that something has been done to you; the appearance of things has changed so suddenly and completely that you do not feel quite right about it.

Those which ply along the west coast from Panama southward are built for fair weather and tropical seas, with open decks and airy state-rooms, through which the breezes bring refreshing coolness. Such vessels would not live long in the Atlantic nor in the Caribbean Sea, but find no heavy weather

When we arrived there we were immediately surrounded by a crowd of boatmen, who clambered up the sides of the vessel, screaming with all the strength of their lungs the merits of their boats. Their vociferousness and persistency would make the Niagara Falls hackmen green with jealousy; and the fact that most of them were bare up to their thighs, and entirely shirtless, made the scene picturesque, although somewhat alarming to a timid person. The costume of the Ecuador boatmen is equivalent to a pair of cotton bathing-trunks, and they are as much at home in the water as in their canoes.

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; with pineapple-plants and banana-trees bending under the enormous loads of fruit they carry. The rickety old carriage passed along until our senses were almost bewildered by visions none of us had ever seen. Nowhere can one find a more beautiful scene of tropical vegetation in its full glory, and no artist ever mingled colors that could convey an adequate idea of nature’s gorgeousness here.

There is considerable business done in Guayaquil, and some of the merchants carry stocks of imported goods valued at half a million dollars, with an annual trade of double that amount. It is the only town in Ecuador worth speaking of in a commercial point of view, and its tradesmen do the entire wholesale business of that republic. The shipments of cocoa, rubber, hides, coffee, ivory, nuts, and cinchona (quinine) bark amount to about $6,000,000 a year, and the imports, the President of Ecuador told us, amount annually to $10,000,000. There is no way to ascertain the truth of his Excellency’s statements, as the Government keeps no statistics of its commerce, and he admitted that it was only an estimate based upon the amount of duties collected; but one may be allowed to doubt that a country like Ecuador, the most backward, ignorant, and impoverished in all America, can purchase for many years in succession twice as much as it sells.

Founded in 1535 by one of the lieutenants of Pizarro, Guayaquil has been the market for five hundred miles of coast ever since, but now it is almost destitute of native capital, nearly all the merchants being foreigners, mostly English and German, with one or two from the United States. It is the only place in Ecuador in which modern civilization exists; the rest of the country is a century behind the times. Since its foundation Guayaquil has been burned several times, and often plundered by pirates; now its commercial condition seems secure from all dangers except revolutions, which are epidemic in Ecuador. In fact, the country would feel queer without one. Earthquakes are frequent, but the elastic bamboo houses only shiver—they never fall. To the torch of the revolutionist, however, they are like tinder, and the blocks that have been burned over testify to its effectiveness as a weapon of destruction.

Bolivar freed Ecuador from the Spanish yoke, as he did Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Peru, and it was one of the five States which formed the United States of Colombia under his presidency; but the priests had such a hold upon the people that liberty could not live in an atmosphere they polluted, and the country lapsed into a state of anarchy which has continued ever since. The struggle has been between the progressive element and the priests, and the latter have usually triumphed. It is the only country in America in which the Romish Church survives as the Spaniards left it. In other countries popish influence has been destroyed, and the rule which prevails everywhere—that the less a people are under the control of that Church the greater their prosperity, enlightenment, and progress—is illustrated in Ecuador with striking force.

The priests control the Government in all its branches, dictate its laws and govern their enforcement, and rule the country as absolutely as if the Pope were its king. As a result seventy-five per cent. of the children born are illegitimate. There is not a penitentiary, house of correction, reformatory, or benevolent institution outside of Quito and Guayaquil; there is not a railroad or stage-coach in the entire country, and until recently there was not a telegraph wire. Laborers get from two to ten dollars a month, and men are paid two dollars and a quarter for carrying one hundred pounds of merchandise on their backs two hundred and eighty-five miles. There is not a wagon in the republic outside of Guayaquil, and not a road over which a wagon could pass. The people know nothing but what the priests tell them; they have no amusements but cock-fights and bullfights; no literature; no mail-routes, except from Guayaquil to the capital (Quito), and nothing is common among the masses that was not in use by them two hundred years ago. If one-tenth of the money that has been expended in building monasteries had been devoted to the construction of cartroads, Ecuador, which is naturally rich, would be one of the most wealthy nations, in proportion to its area, on the globe.

There once was a steam railroad in Ecuador. During the time when Henry Meiggs was creating such an excitement by the improvements he was making in the transportation facilities of Peru, the contagion spread to Ecuador, and some ambitious English capitalists attempted to lay a road from Guayaquil to the interior. A track seventeen miles long was built, which represents the railway system of Ecuador in all the geographies, gazetteers, and books of statistics; but no wheels ever passed over this track, and the tropical vegetation has grown so luxuriantly about the place where it lies that it would now be difficult to find it. Last year a telegraph line was built connecting Guayaquil with Quito, the highest city in the world; but there is only one wire, and this is practically useless, as not more than seven days out of the month can a message be sent over it. The people chop down the poles for firewood, and cut out pieces of the wire to repair broken harness whenever they feel so disposed. Then it often takes a week for the line-man to find the break, and another week to repair it. In the Government telegraph office I saw an operator with a ball and chain attached to his leg—a convict who had been sent back to his post because no one else could be found to work the instrument. A young lady took the message and the money. There is a cable belonging to a New York company connecting Guayaquil with the outside world, but rates are extremely high, the tariff to the United States being three dollars a word, and to other places in proportion.

During the rainy seasons the recent President, Don Jesus

Maria Caamaño, resided in Guayaquil, in a barracks guarded by soldiers, where he could watch the collection of customs and see to the suppression of revolutions. He was the representative of the Church party, and the people of the interior were loyal to him; but the liberal element, which mostly exists on the coast, where a knowledge of the world has come, was in a perpetual state of revolt, and required constant attention. A fortress overlooking the town of Guayaquil, and a gun-boat in the harbor, keep the people in subjection. We called upon the President at his headquarters, and found him swinging in a hammock and smoking a cigarette. He is a man of slight frame, with noticeably small hands and feet, which he appeared quite anxious should not escape our observation. He has a pleasant and intelligent face, but seemed to be bewildered when we drew him into conversation about the commerce of his country. He was educated in Europe, and has the reputation of being a man of culture, although the abject tool of the priests.

Notwithstanding the rest of the country is still in the middle ages, Guayaquil shows symptoms of becoming a modern town. It has gas, street-cars, ice-factories, and other improvements, all introduced by citizens of the United States. The custom-house is built of pine from Maine and corrugated iron from Pennsylvania, and a citizen of New York erected it. An American company has a line of paddle-wheel steamers, constructed in Baltimore, on the river, and the only gun-boat the Government owns is a discarded merchant-ship which plied between New York and Norfolk. Some of the houses, although built of split bamboo and plaster, are very elegantly furnished, and the stores show fine stocks of goods. But the rear portion of the city is so filthy that one has to hold his nose as he passes through it. The people live in miserable dirt hovels, and the buzzard is the only industrious biped to be seen.

There is no fresh water in town, but all that the people use is brought on rafts from twenty miles up the river, and is peddled about the place in casks carried upon the backs of donkeys or men. It looks very funny to see the donkeys all wearing pantalettes—not, however, from motives of modesty, as the native children go entirely naked, and the men and women nearly so, but to protect their legs and bellies from the gadfly, which bites fiercely here. Bread as well as water is peddled about the town in the same way, and vegetables are brought down the river on rafts and in dug-outs, which are hauled upon the beach in long rows, and present a busy and interesting scene. Guayaquil is famous for the finest pineapples in the world—great juicy fruits, as white as snow and as sweet as honey. It is also famous for its hats and hammocks made of the pita fibre from a sort of cactus. The well-known Panama hats are all made in Guayaquil and the towns along that coast, but get their name because Panama merchants formerly controlled the trade.

One afternoon, at Guayaquil, I witnessed a singular ceremony, which is, however, very common there. One of the churches had been destroyed by an earthquake, and funds were needed to repair it. So the priest took the image of the Virgin from the altar, and the holy sacrament, and carried them about the city under a canopy, clad in his sacerdotal vestments. He was preceded by a brass band, a number of boys carrying lighted candles and swinging incense urns, and followed by a long procession of men, women, and children. The assemblage passed up and down the principal street, stopping in front of each house. While the band played, priests with contribution plates entered the houses, soliciting subscriptions, and the people in the procession kneeled in the dust and prayed that the same might be given with liberality. Where money was obtained a blessing was bestowed; where none was offered a curse was pronounced, with a notice that a contribution was expected at once, or the curse would be daily repeated.

All imported goods are first brought to Guayaquil, and from that point distributed. Those destined for Quito are conveyed by steamboat up the rivers for a distance of sixty miles. From the termination of the steamboat route the distance to Quito is two hundred and sixty miles, making the

total distance from Guayaquil three hundred and twenty miles. Between the upper end of the steamboat route and Quito all packages of merchandise that do not weigh more than two hundred pounds are conveyed on the backs of horses, mules, or donkeys. The average cost in United States currency—in which all values are stated—is four dollars per one hundred pounds between Guayaquil and Quito. Pianos, organs, safes, carriage-bodies, large mirrors, and some other articles too heavy or too bulky to be carried on a single horse are placed on a frame of bamboo poles and carried on the shoulders of men the entire land portion of the journey. A piano weighing about six hundred pounds can be carried by twenty-four men in two divisions, one half serving as a relay to the other half. Although labor is very low-priced, the man-carriage is quite expensive. A cart-road, or railroad, both of which are feasible and practicable, would greatly reduce the expense of transportation, and would materially influence domestic manufactures, as well as the introduction of foreign manufactured products. It seems almost impossible that any American goods could, after undergoing such a tremendous carriage, compete with native manufactures, however crude, in Quito, and yet they do. Nearly all the furniture in use in that city is brought from the United States in separate parts and put together on arrival; and in that, the highest and oldest city in America, many people sleep on Grand Rapids beds. The twelve breweries running in Quito import their hops from the United States and Europe, and with railroad facilities American beer, as well as hops, could be liberally sold in Quito. American refined sugars are largely consumed, although the native products are very good.

Ecuador, with about one million inhabitants, has only forty-seven post-offices, but they are so widely distributed that it requires a mail carriage of 5389 miles to reach them all; seventy-two miles by canoes and 5317 by horses and mules. About five hundred miles of the seaboard service is also covered by foreign steamship mail service. Between Quito and Guayaquil there are two mails each way per week by couriers—the usual time one way, travelling day and night, being six days. Other sections of the country are less favored by mail service, the receipt and departure of mails ranging from once a week to once a month, as people happen to be going.

The social and political condition of Ecuador presents a picture of the dark ages. There is not a newspaper printed outside of the city of Guayaquil, and the only information the people have of what is going on in the world is gained from the strangers who now and then visit the country, and from a class of peddlers who make periodical trips, traversing the whole hemisphere from Guatemala to Patagonia. These peddlers are curious fellows, and there seems to be a regular organization of them. They are like the old minstrels that we read of in the novels of Sir Walter Scott. They practise medicine, sing songs, cure diseased cattle, mend clocks, carry letters and messages from place to place, and peddle such little articles as are used in the households of the natives. It often takes them three or four years to make a round trip, going invariably on foot, and carrying packs upon their backs. When their stock is exhausted they replenish it at the nearest source of supply, and are ever welcome visitors at the homes of the natives. This internal trade does not amount to much in dollars and cents, but supplies the lack of retail establishments and newspapers.

Although the journey from Guayaquil to Quito takes nine days, Garcia Moreno, a former President of Ecuador, once made it in thirty-six hours. He heard of a revolution, and springing upon his horse went to the capital, had twenty-two conspirators shot, and was back at Guayaquil in less than a week. Moreno was President for twelve years, and was one of the fiercest and most cruel rulers South America has ever seen. He shot men who would not take off their hats to him in the streets, and had a drunken priest impaled in the principal plaza of Quito, as a warning to the clergy to observe habits of sobriety or conceal their intemperance. There was nothing too brutal for this man to do, and nothing too sacred to escape his grasp. Yet he compelled Congress to pass an act declaring that the republic of Ecuador “existed wholly and alone devoted to the services of the Holy Church,” and forbidding the importation of books and periodicals which did not receive the sanction of the Jesuits. He divided his army into four divisions, called respectively “The Division of the Blessed Virgin,” “The Division of the Son of God,” “The Division of the Holy Ghost,” and “The Division of the Body and Blood of Christ.” He made the “Sacred Heart of Jesus” the national emblem, and called his bodyguard the “Holy Lancers of Santa Maria.” He died in 1875 by assassination, and the country has been in a state of political eruption ever since.

Cotopaxi is the loftiest of active volcanoes, but it is slumbering now. The only evidence of action is the frequent rumblings, which can be heard for a hundred miles, and the cloud of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, which constantly arises from a crater that is more than three thousand feet beyond the reach of man. Many have attempted to scale it, but the walls are so steep and the snow is so deep that ascent is impossible even with scaling-ladders. On the south side of Cotopaxi is a great rock, more than two

The city of Quito lies upon the breast of a very uncertain and treacherous mother, the volcano Pichincha, which rises to an altitude of sixteen thousand feet, or about four thousand five hundred feet above the plaza. Since the Conquest the volcano has had three notable eruptions—in 1575, 1587, and 1660, when the city was almost entirely destroyed. In 1859 there was a severe earthquake followed by an eruption, which, while it did not do much damage in the city itself, caused great destruction and loss of life in the surrounding towns and villages. In 1868 the great convulsion which extended along the entire South Pacific coast was severely felt in Ecuador, where, it is stated, seventy-two towns were destroyed and thirty thousand people killed.

There was a great scare in Ecuador in the summer of 1868 because of the violent eruption of the volcano Tunguragua, one of the largest in the group, rising nearly two thousand feet above the line of perpetual snow; but after a few days of agitation, in which immense masses of lava and ashes were thrown out of the crater, the eruption subsided without doing much damage.

No amount of persuasion, temptation, or torture could wring from the Indians the secret of the buried gold. Two men of modern times are supposed to have known its hidingplace. One of them, an Indian, became mysteriously rich, and built the Church of San Francisco, in Quito. On his deathbed he is said to have revealed to the priest who confessed him that his wealth came from the hidden Inca treasure, but he died without imparting the knowledge of its location.

While the Indians are under the despotic rule of the priests, and have accepted the Catholic religion, three hundred and fifty years of submission have not entirely divorced them from the ancient rites they practised under their original civilization. Several times a year they have feasts or celebrations to commemorate some event in the Inca history. They never laugh, and scarcely ever smile; they have no songs and no amusements; their only semblance to music is a mournful chant which they give in unison at the feasts which are intended to keep alive the memories of the Incas. They cling to the traditions and the customs of their ancestors. They remember the ancient glory of their race, and look to its restoration as the Aztecs of Mexico look for the coming of Montezuma. They have relics which they guard with the most sacred care, and two great secrets which no tortures at the hands of the Spaniards have been able to wring from them. These are the art of tempering copper so as to give it as keen and enduring an edge as steel, and the burial-place of the Incarial treasures.

In Ecuador there are no smaller coins than the quartillo, and change is therefore made by the use of bread. On his way to market the purchaser stops at the bakery and gets a dozen or twenty breakfast-rolls, which cost about one cent each, and the market-women receive them and give them as change for small purchases. 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.

At the entrance to many dwellings may be seen the figure of a saint with candles burning around it, and the people appear to be continually coming from or going to church. The bells are constantly clanging, and it seems to a stranger as if the entire city were given up to perpetual devotions. The next most noticeable thing is the filthiness. The streets are used as water-closets, in daylight as well as in the dark, and are never cleaned from one year’s end to another. There are no wagons or carriages, and only seldom can a cart be seen, the backs of mules, men, and women being the only vehicles of transportation. There is an unaccountable prejudice against water in every form, the natives believing that its frequent use will cause fevers and other diseases. When they have returned from a journey they never think of washing their faces for several days, for fear of taking a fever, but wipe off the flesh with a dry towel. I do not believe a Quito woman ever washes her face. She keeps it constantly covered with chalk, and looks as if some one had been trying to whitewash her. I do not know how she would look al fresco, but she has beautiful eyes, lips, and teeth, and a perfect figure till she reaches the age of thirty-five or thereabouts, after which she becomes either very fat or very lean.

As in Mexico, servants go in droves. Families seldom have less than four or five, and each adult brings along all his or her kin, who are expected to lodge and feed with the father’s or mother’s employer. But it does not cost much to keep them, and the wages of my lady’s maid in New York or Chicago would support a whole village. They want nothing but black beans, called frijoles, and tortillas. Meat and bread are unknown luxuries.

The Spaniards are famous for their politeness, and in Ecuador, as in all other parts of South America, courtesy is a part of their religion. The lowest, meanest man in Quito is politeness personified, but it is all on the surface. He will stab you or rob you as soon as your back is turned. The Ecuadorian gentleman will promise you the earth, but will not give you even a pebble. This hypocrisy results in mutual distrust. No one ever believes what is said to him; partnerships in business are seldom formed, and corporations are unknown. If a man gets a little cash he never invests it in public enterprises, but keeps it in a stocking for fear he may be swindled—and the fear is well founded. Only the Indians keep faith, and that exclusively among themselves. To steal from a Spaniard they consider not only proper but justifiable. The Spaniards stole all they have from them. They never rob, swindle, or betray one another. They are as faithful as death to their own race.

On the south-west side of Quito, within half a mile of the city’s centre, flows the Machangari River, a small, rapid, and never-failing stream. The rapid fall of the water provides mill-sites every few rods, which are utilized by six small flour-mills and a small manufactory of woollen blankets. The six flour-mills, having a total of eighteen run of stone, give employment to twenty-four men, whose daily wages range from twelve to twenty-five cents. In the whole woollen blanket manufactory forty persons are employed, at average daily wages of twelve cents. Aside from the water-motors mentioned, the only motor in use is a small steam-engine in a suburban village, used in a sugar refinery where twelve persons work for wages ranging from twelve to twenty cents per day. The manufacture of adobe, hard brick, and roofing-tile is carried on more or less in conjunction, and gives employment to about three hundred men and women, the women exercising the right of doing any kind of work

performed by the men. No machinery is used, the brick and tile being moulded by hand in a box. These workers receive each twelve cents a day. The making of pottery is carried on in a small way at about fifty places, furnishing work for about one hundred persons, who when hired earn twelve cents a day. There is one manufactory of silk and high hats at which twelve men are employed, at twenty-five cents a day. There are also about fifty places at which Indian felt hats are made, a total of one hundred persons being employed, with wages at twelve cents a day. Matting manufacturing is carried on at three places, at which hand-looms only are used. The material employed is the fibre of the cactus, which is very serviceable. Thirty persons at this pursuit earn from eighteen to twenty cents per day wages. There is no foundery in Quito, and all of the iron-working is restricted to what is done in a few blacksmith shops. There is one combined cart and blacksmith shop, at which carts are made and general repairing is done, employing ten men at twenty-five cents a day. The industries mentioned have long been established. There are also numerous tailor shops, shoe-shops, tin-shops, and carpenter shops. At the latter are made sofas, bureaus, tables, and all other articles of furniture difficult of transportation by pack-animals. Nearly all the chairs in use were brought from the United States, packed in parts, and were put together when sold. Coffins also are made at the carpenter shops. All of the work done at these shops is done by hand.

The only industry that has sprung up in recent years is that of beer-making, which has been inspired and promoted by the German element. There have been established twelve breweries, which employ a total of one hundred and twenty men, at average daily wages of twenty cents. The barley used is of native growth, and is bought at a low price. The hops are imported from the United States and Europe, and by reason of expensive transportation are very costly.

In no part of the world does nature assume more imposing forms. Deserts as repulsive as Sahara alternate with valleys as rich and luxuriant as those of Italy. Eternal summer smiles under the frown of eternal snow. The rainless region—this desert strip which lies between the Andes and the sea—is

At each of the little ports on the Peruvian coast the steamer stops and takes on produce for shipment to Liverpool or Germany. These towns are simply collections of mud huts, inhabited by fishermen or the employés of the steamship company, dreary, dusty, and dirty. Back in the country, along the streams which bring fertility and water down from the mountains, are places of commercial importance, the residences of rich hacienda owners, and the scenes of historic events as well as prehistoric civilization. The products of the country are sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton, while those of the town are “Panama” hats and fleas. In each one of the ports the natives are busy braiding hats from vegetable fibres, and the results of their labor find a market at Panama and in the cities of the coast, where, as in Mexico, a man’s character is judged by what he wears on his head. The hats are usually made of toquilla, or pita, an arborescent plant of the cactus family, the leaves of which are often several yards long. When cut, the leaf is dried, and then whipped into shreds almost as fine and tough as silk. Some of these hats are made of single fibres, with not a splice or an end from the centre of the crown to the rim. It often requires two or three months to make them, and the best ones are braided under water, so as to make the fibre more pliable. They sometimes cost as much as two hundred and fifty dollars, but last a lifetime, and can be packed away in a vest-pocket, turned inside out, and worn that way, the inside being as smooth and well finished as the other. The natives make beautiful cigar-cases too; but it is difficult for a stranger to purchase either them or their hats, because they have an idea that all strangers are rich, and will pay any price that is asked. One old lady offered me a cigar-case of straw, such as is sold in Japanese stores for one or two dollars, and politely agreed to sell it for twenty dollars. When I told her I could get a silver one for that price, she came down to eighteen dollars, then to twelve dollars, and finally to one dollar. They have no idea of the value of money, and are habitually imposed upon by local traders, who exchange food for their straw-work at merely nominal rates, and then sell the hats at enormous figures.

There are a great many more railroads in Peru than is generally supposed. Nearly all of the coast towns have a line connecting them with the plantations of the interior; and as there are no harbors, but only open roadsteads, expensive iron piers have been constructed through the surf from which merchandise is lifted into barges or lighters and taken to the ships, which anchor a mile or so from the shore. Where there are no piers the lighters are run through the surf when the tide is high, are loaded at low tide, and then floated off to buoys to await the arrival of vessels.

Some of these wives of the regiment have children with them, and there is scarcely a company without a dozen or so little youngsters, without any clew to their paternity, following their mothers’ heels. They are poor, miserable, degraded creatures, just one degree above the dogs with which

The soldiers are all “volunteers.” Conscription is forbidden by the constitution of most of the republics, and a “volunteer” is an Indian who is captured on the highway, or in a saloon, or at his home, and locked up until there are enough to send to headquarters, where he is taken before a recruiting-officer, and made to sign a statement setting forth that he “volunteered” to serve his country as long as his services are needed. Then his hands are tied behind him, and he is lashed to a dozen or more other “volunteers,” who are driven down to the garrison, where uniforms are put on them, muskets furnished, and they are turned over to a drill-sergeant, who puts them through the simple tactics until they know how to carry a gun and fire it. I saw a drove of about one hundred and fifty of these “volunteers” come into Lima one day, tied up like chickens or turkeys in bunches of ten each, with an escort of twenty men, who had probably gone through the same process of “volunteering” a year or so before, and rather enjoyed the remonstrances of the conscripts. Behind the column came seventy-five or so women, weeping and chattering, and some of them had children tugging at their hands and skirts. The women could stay with their husbands if they liked, and become rabonas, and probably most of them did. With such material composing its army did Peru attempt to defend its coast and cities, with their enormous wealth, against assault by Chili.

The island of San Lorenzo, which was once the seat of a powerful fortress, protects the harbor of Callao, the second port on the Pacific coast of South America in population and commercial importance. It is the headquarters of the steamship lines and of the great mercantile houses, and the population is about one-half of foreign birth. One can hear all the languages of the earth spoken at Callao, and when we

The population of Lima is about one hundred and twenty-five thousand. It has been much larger, for during the last twelve years war and decay have been the rule, and peace and growth the exception. Before that time there had been quite a “boom,” owing to the energy of Henry Meiggs, the California fugitive, and to the introduction of railroads; but the devastation of foreign invaders and the havoc of domestic revolutionists have made Lima only a pitiful shadow of its former greatness.

Lima did produce a saint, however—Santa Rosa, a woman who was famous for her wealth, her beauty, her self-abnegation, and her devotion to the Church, and was canonized by Pope Clement X. in 1671. Her remains lie in the Church of Santo Domingo, and an extensive convent has been erected in her honor. She was the only American ever canonized, and the fact that a Peruvian received this exclusive honor has made her not only the patron saint, but one of the great figures in the history of the Catholic Church on this continent. The anniversary of her birth is always celebrated throughout South America, and the third centennial, which occurred in April, 1886, was the occasion of one of the grandest demonstrations ever seen on the coast of the South Pacific.

Later, the marvellous products of the mines of Potosi and Cerro de Pasco added to the fabulous wealth of Peru. In 1661 La Palata, the viceroy, rode from the palace to the cathedral on a horse every hair of whose mane and tail was strung with pearls, whose hoofs were shod with shoes of solid gold, and whose path was paved with ingots of solid silver. It was during this time that the galleons from the East, “from far Cathay,” laden with gems and silks and spices, went to Callao to exchange them for the products of Potosi and Pasco; while, out of sight, on the verge of the horizon, Sir Francis Drake and the bold John Hawkins and other buccaneers lay-to in their swift-sailing cruisers to snatch the

House-owners who have leased their property for a term of years without specifying in what sort of money the rent shall be paid are compelled to accept this worthless paper at par. I met a lady whose income from rents ten years ago was more than a thousand dollars a week in gold, but now it is only the same amount in paper—scarcely enough to pay the servants—and she is selling her bric-à-brac to live. The haciendas and farms are no longer tilled, because for several years past all the laborers have been pressed into the army; and the sugar plantations are useless, for the machinery by which they were operated was destroyed by the Chilians during the recent war.

The evidence of a refined taste in art and music is everywhere apparent in Peru. There is scarcely a home without a piano, and the city of Lima once rivalled Madrid in its treasures of art. There remain but two notable statues—that of Columbus, in marble, representing him in the act of handing a crucifix to an Indian girl; and that of Bolivar the Liberator, upon a rearing horse, in bronze (like the statue of Jackson in Washington), which stands in front of the old Inquisition building, on the spot where heretics were burned two hundred years ago. The famous arch over the old bridge, which was erected in 1610, has been destroyed, and many other artistic ornaments of the city which have been written of again and again are gone.

Those who have travelled everywhere say that the women of Lima are the most beautiful in the world. There is something about the climate of the country, where rain never falls,

and where decay is almost unknown, that gives them a brilliancy of complexion that women of other lands do not possess. Perhaps their national costume does much to heighten their beauty, for any woman not positively ugly would look well in the embroidered manta that the ladies of Lima always wear. This manta is a shawl of black China crape, and the amount of silk embroidery upon it indicates the wealth of the wearer. Some of them are extremely beautiful and cost as much as five hundred dollars; but ordinary mantas, such as the majority wear, can be bought for fifteen or twenty dollars in Peruvian money, which is worth twenty-five per cent. less than American gold. A very common article of dyed cotton is imported from England at a cost of three or four dollars, for the use of the negro and Indian women. The manta is worn by every woman, regardless of her rank or wealth, whenever she appears on the street; but in their homes, at the opera, and when they go out to afternoon receptions or evening balls, the ladies adopt the Parisian styles, and dress with a great deal of taste.

described a Lima lady. The manta is usually drawn so closely about the figure as to show its outlines with the most conspicuous distinctness, and the young women of Lima are as famous for their beauty of form as for their beauty of face.

It is said that the custom of wearing the manta originated among the Incas, but that they wore colors until the assassination of Atahualpa, their king, by the Spaniards under Pizarro. Then every woman in the great empire, which stretched from the Isthmus of Panama to the Strait of Magellan, abandoned colors and put on a black manta, and it has since been worn as perpetual mourning for “the last of the Incas.” There is probably some truth in this story, for in the graves of the Incas that have been destroyed by scientific resurrectionists, have been found female mummies with mantas of brilliant colors wrapped around them, and fastened

It is the transplanted Spanish rose, the pure Castilian type, that blooms with the greatest beauty in the gardens of Peru. The climate has refined it, and has clarified the dark olive tint that is found in Castile. The greatest beauties in Lima are the descendants of the oldest families—those of the longest residence in the country—and their loveliness appears not only to have been transmitted from generation to generation, but to have been enhanced thereby. This is true not alone of the aristocrats, for some of the loveliest girls belong to the humbler families, and are found in the tenement-houses, clothed in the shabbiest garments, which serve only to heighten their loveliness, and to make them fair prey for the wolves that prowl around in Lima as they do everywhere else. The fate of these girls, if described, would make a chapter more horrible to contemplate than the disclosures recently made in London. Their beauty is a fatal gift, and their poverty and ignorance make them an easy prey to the tempter. Seldom are they allowed to remain at home after the age of fourteen or fifteen, when they become the mistresses of the haughty dons. But the social laws of Spanish America are so liberal that these women are treated much better than in lands of higher civilization, for it is not only expected that every

It is very difficult to secure admission to the aristocratic circles of Peru. They are as exclusive as any such circle in the world, and social laws are rigid. But an American who goes to Lima with good letters of introduction will be received with cordial hospitality, and be admitted to circles which the resident, however rich and respectable, can never enter. American naval officers are especially welcome, and the Peruvian belles are as strongly attracted by the glitter of brass buttons as are their sisters in the United States. Since the war there have been few public balls and few receptions, as the people are living from hand to mouth, with little hope to brighten the commercial horizon; but when you bring a letter to a Peruvian gentleman, his house and all his belongings “are at your disposition, señor,” and he is offended unless you accept his hospitality, although you may be aware that he has to pawn some heirloom to pay for the dinner he gives you.

The ancient social restrictions which make it a breach of decorum for a gentleman to meet a lady alone until after marriage, still exist in Peru. If you call at the residence of Señor Bustamente you must ask for him, and if he is not at home you may leave your compliments for the ladies of the family, but under no circumstances ask to see them. If he is

The señorita got her education at a convent, has learned to embroider, to play the piano, to dance, and has committed to memory the lives of the saints; and there her accomplishments end. 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. She clings a little closer than our girls would consider consistent with propriety, and dances with an abandon that would call out a remonstrance from a watchful mamma in the States. She gives her whole mind and soul to it, regardless of consequences, and sighs when the music ceases, as if there were nothing more in life to enjoy.

Another form of entertainment is what is called Buena Noche, or “Good Night.” Then the band plays in the principal plaza, fireworks are exploded at the expense of the shopkeepers and saloon-men, whose profits are increased,

The people of Peru entertain the most cordial sentiments towards the United States, which is the more remarkable because of the feeling prevalent in all classes that the administration of President Garfield was the cause of many of the losses and much of the misery which they suffered during the war with Chili. They cannot be convinced that they were not trifled with and betrayed at the most critical period of their history, and that Mr. Blaine was not responsible. Without entering into the controversy as to whether Mr. Blaine authorized General Hurlbut to interfere, or whether General Hurlbut’s action was voluntary, it is nevertheless true that the moment he stepped in Chili held back, and the moment he withdrew she renewed the devastation of her sister republic with a hundred-fold more energy than before. If our Government had taken the same stand in the war between Chili and Peru that she occupied regarding the troubles in the Central American States, thousands of lives, property worth millions of dollars, and the richest resources of Peru might have been saved. Mr. Blaine’s original attitude was that the

In the centre of Lima, as in all Spanish-American towns, is a plaza, or public square, with a fountain and statuary in the centre, and the palace, the cathedral, the archbishop’s residence, the municipal offices, and other public institutions facing it on the four sides. Into this plaza, the very heart of the city, in August, 1885, the Government troops permitted Caceres and his mountaineers to come; but they had

Another of the leading men of Peru is Don Nicolas Pierola, who has been a conspicuous figure in the political dramas and military tragedies that have been enacted during the last ten years, and will continue to be heard from in the future. He has had a most remarkable career, having been four times banished from the republic. Pierola is a son-in-law of the ill-starred Emperor Iturbide of Mexico, whose daughter he met while a student in Paris. His life has been a romantic one, and illustrates the ups and downs of South American politics. Pierola père was a famous scientist and littérateur, and was the intimate friend and co-worker of Humboldt, Sir Humphry Davy, Doctor Von Tschudi, the Austrian philosopher, and other men of that age. He was for a long time a professor of natural sciences at the University of Madrid, and returned to Peru, his native country, to pursue his inquiries into the traditions of the Incas, and to preside over the university at Arequipa, the second city in Peru. He had something to do with politics too, and was the Peruvian Minister of Finance for several years.

There was a mere gleam of hope left for Peru, and the people called on Pierola to become their leader. A junta or convention of leading men was quickly called, and the power of military and political chief, which is the polite way of describing a dictator, was conferred upon Pierola. He had no money, no ammunition, and only the frightened remnants of a demoralized army; but he made the best fight he could, and compelled the Chilian army to stop the carnival of devastation they had begun. When Peru was conquered the Chilian Government would not recognize Pierola as dictator, and in the absence of Prado, the constitutional President, set up a dummy administration of their own choice, with which terms of peace were made, forfeiting the strip of territory containing the deposits of guano and nitrate of soda. This was what

A quarter of a century ago an unknown man, a fugitive from justice, arrived at the port of Callao, and appeared among the Spaniards, as Manco Capac, at once the Adam and the Christ of the Incas, appeared to the Indians two thousand years before. As the mysterious and deified Manco Capac taught the Indians a knowledge of the agricultural and mechanical arts, this unknown man taught their successors to build railroads, and stands to-day as the ideal of Yankee enterprise and engineering genius. He plunged the Government of Peru into a debt that will never be paid, but laid the foundations for a system of internal development that would bring the republic great wealth if peace could be only secured.

The Oroya road, which Meiggs left incomplete, has been counted as the eighth wonder of the world, for there is nothing in the Rocky Mountains or the Alps which compares with it as an example of engineering science, or presents more sublime scenery. But neither scenic grandeur nor engineering genius can alone make a railroad pay, particularly if it goes nowhere. In this instance the money gave out, and Meiggs died when the road was only partially completed, there remaining fifty miles between the present terminus (Chicla) and the point which was aimed at—the mines of Cerro del Pasco, one of the richest and most extensive silver deposits in the world. Most of the grading and tunnelling between Chicla and the mines has been completed, and it only remains to lay the ties and rails and put in the bridges to send a locomotive over the Andes into the great valley which stretches north and south between the two Cordilleras. This Mr. Grace has agreed to do. The completion of the line to the mining regions will cost ten million dollars, but that portion already constructed and in operation, with all its rolling stock, station-houses, and equipments of every sort, he gets for practically nothing, as under the conditions of a ninety-nine years’ lease he has the use of the railroad and all that belongs with

it free for the first seven years, and pays but twenty-five thousand dollars per year rental for the property during the remainder of the term. In other words, Mr. Grace gets a property which cost twenty-seven million six hundred thousand dollars, eighty-six miles of railroad already equipped and in operation, fifty miles of the most expensive tunnelling and grading in the world for nothing, provided he will complete the line. And more than this, he gets the Cerro del Pasco silver mines, which were worked for centuries by the Jesuits, and have yielded hundreds of millions of dollars even under the primitive system of working which was applied to them by the monks and the native Indians. They were discovered by a native, who while watching sheep on the hills was overtaken by night. He piled together a few stones, under the lee of which he built a fire. In the morning he noticed that the heat had split some of the stones, and he was attracted by something shining from what had been the interior of one of them. He picked up the stone, and took it home to show to his friends. The bright substance was found to be silver, and the great mines of the Cerro del Pasco were discovered.

I will not repeat the fables and tradition about these mines, of which the air is full. The El Dorado for which the world was hunting two centuries ago was but a shadow of the substance said to have been found here. Away in the heart of the Andes, almost beyond the reach of men, involving an enormous cost for transportation, and an expense of operation which miners of modern times would consider unprofitable, the priests and monks in past centuries found untold tons of treasure. The one-fifth which was always set apart for the King of Spain, and of which a record was scrupulously kept by the viceroys, reached into the millions, and the tithes which were paid to the Church amounted to millions more. During the last few decades the mines have scarcely been worked, for as large a product of silver as Peru could consume was found in more convenient localities.

The railroad was begun by Mr. Meiggs in 1870. Starting from the sea, it ascends the narrow valley of the once sacred Rimac, rising five thousand feet in the first forty-six miles to a beautiful valley, where the people of Lima have found an attractive summer resort; then it follows a winding, giddy pathway along the edge of precipices and over bridges that seem suspended in the air, tunnels the Andes at an altitude of fifteen thousand six hundred and forty-five feet—the most elevated spot in the world where a piston-rod is moved by steam—and ends at Oroya, twelve thousand one hundred and seventy-eight feet above the sea. Between the coast and the summit there is not an inch of down grade, and the track has been forced through the mountains by a series of sixty-three tunnels, whose aggregate length is twenty-one thousand feet. The great tunnel of Galera, by which the pinnacle of the Andes is pierced, will be, when completed, three thousand eight hundred feet long, and will be the highest elevation on the earth’s surface where any such work has been undertaken. Besides boring the mountains of granite and blasting clefts along their sides to rest the track upon, deep cuttings and superb bridges, the system of reverse tangents had to be adopted in cañons that were too narrow for a curve. So the track zigzags up the mountain side on the switch and back-up principle, the trains taking one leap forward, and after being switched on to another track, another leap backward, until the summit is won; so that often there are four or five lines of track parallel to each other, one above another, on the mountain side. Almost the entire length of the road was made by blasting. There is no earth in sight except what was carted for use in ballasting, and the work of grading was done, not by the pick and shovel, but with the drill and hundreds of thousands of pounds of powder.

It is estimated that the construction of this road cost Peru seven thousand lives. Pestilence and accident, landslides, falling boulders, premature explosions, sirroche—a disease which attacks those who are not accustomed to the rare air of the high latitudes—fevers due to the deposits of rotten granite, and other causes resulted in a frightful mortality during the seven years the road was under construction; but the project was pushed on until the funds gave out. The cost in human life was no obstacle. At several points it was necessary to lower men by ropes over the edges of precipices to drill holes in rocks and put in charges of blasting-powder, and this reckless mode of construction was attended by frequent fatalities. A curious accident occurred at one point on the line, where a plumber was soldering a leak in a water-pipe. A train of mules, loaded with cans of powder, was being driven up the trail. One of them rubbed against the plumber, who struck at the animal with his red-hot soldering-iron, which in some way came in contact with the powder, and caused an explosion that blew the whole train of mules, the gang of workmen, the plumber, and everybody who was by, over the precipices, the sides and bottom of which were strewn with fragments of men and mules for a mile.

The scenic grandeur of the Andes is presented nowhere more impressively than along the cañon of the Rimac River, which this railroad follows. The mountains are entirely bare of vegetation, and are monster masses of rock, torn and twisted, rent and shattered by tremendous volcanic upheavals. At

the bottom of the cañon, and where it occasionally spreads out into a valley of minute dimensions, are the remains of towns and cities, whose origin is hidden in the mists of fable, and whose history is unknown. This region bears no resemblance to any other picture of nature—lifted above the rest of the world, as coldly and calmly silent, as impenetrable, as the arctic stars. Here was developed a civilization which left memorials of its advancement, genius, and industry carved in massive stone, and written upon the everlasting hills in symbols which even the earthquakes have been unable to erase. Here are the ruins of cities which were more populous than any that have existed in Peru since—evidences of industry which their destroyers were too indolent to imitate, and of a skill which could cope with everything but the destructive weapons of the invaders. A survey of their remains justifies the estimates given of their enormous population, which are that the people once herded in these narrow valleys were as numerous as those now spread over the United States. The struggle which they had to sustain themselves is shown in the traces of their industry and patience. They built their dwellings upon rocks, and buried their dead in caves, in order to utilize what soil there was for agriculture. They excavated great areas in the desert until they reached moisture enough for vegetation, and then brought guano from the islands of the sea to fill these sunken gardens. They terraced every hill and mountain side, and placed soil in the crevices of the rocks, until not an inch of surface that could grow a stalk of maize was left unproductive.

The irrigation system of the Incas was perfect, their ditches extending for hundreds of miles, and curving around the hills, here sustained by high walls of masonry, and there cut through the living rock. They were carried over narrow valleys upon enormous embankments, and show evidence of engineering skill as great as that which lifted the Meiggs railroad above

the clouds into the mountains. Massive dams and reservoirs were erected to collect the floods that came from the melting snows, and the water was taken to localities which were rainless. 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. Hence these two objects, the sun and the sea, were personified, and were seated upon the thrones in the magnificent pantheons of the Incas. The race which conquered them came with dripping swords and lust for plunder. Skilled in the arts of peace, but powerless in war, there was no adequate resistance, and the blood-and-gold-thirsty Pizarro rode up this valley on a mission of murder, rapine, and destruction. The towns stand as he left them, with not even an echo to break the silence. Occasionally the Spaniards built new places of residence to utilize the improvements of the Incas, but in 1882 the Chilian army came down the valley, and treated the Peruvians as Pizarro had treated the race which he found here.

A visit to the Incas’ cemeteries, where millions of bodies are buried in the drifting sand, gives a clew to the extent of the original population, as well as to their arts, religion, and customs. The dead were preserved after the custom of ancient Egypt, and a few moments’ toil with a shovel will disclose mummies whose features are perfectly preserved, whose eyes are petrified, whose fingers are clasped with rings, and who are surrounded with such implements and utensils as those who buried them thought they would need in the other world. As the soldier takes his blanket and the cooking-kit, his food and his portable treasures, so did the doctrine of future life cause the dead Incas to be equipped for their departure from one world to another. In this rainless region, protected by the magnetic sand, nothing can decay, and the contents of the Inca graves are as well preserved as if their age were counted by days instead of centuries. Wood, vegetable, and flesh petrify, fabrics and articles of stone and clay are preserved. There is no moisture to produce decay of the bodies, and there are no insects to consume them. The contents of the sand-hills are protected from every form of destruction, and their extent has never been measured.

“The Callao painter” is something that skippers dread. Its brush is the breeze, and its pigments are in the air. It comes and goes without premonition, and its work is usually done in the night. A vessel will enter the harbor of Callao with its timbers as white as the virgin snow, and its planking as clean as holy-stone and elbow-grease can make them. The disgusted sailors may awaken in the morning and find everything covered with a brown, nasty film, which penetrates the cabin, and even the battened hatchways of the vessel, filling the air with a repulsive odor, and clinging to the wood-work until it is scraped off. It looks like a chocolate-colored frost, but does not melt in the sun. When it is damp one can remove it easily, but if it once dries it sticks like paint, and its tenacity is not easily overcome. The origin and source of this mysterious and aggravating artist is unknown, but it is peculiar to that harbor. Nowhere else is the phenomenon noticed, or at least ship-masters who have sailed the world over say that Callao is the only place where a ship can be painted inside and outside in a single night. Of course there are theories about it which may or may not hold good, and over them scientific minds have argued, and will argue interminably. Some say that the guano is forced up by vapors into the atmosphere, while others assert that it is a species of volcanic dust driven through the water by subterranean forces. However, the only point on which all agree is that it is a repulsive phenomenon, and has been the cause of more profanity than anything else which seamen encounter on the west coast. It is never noticed on land, but only in the harbor, and for a few miles up and down the shore.

In the interior of Peru, upon a similar rock, is the imprint of a human foot as long as a pikestaff, which is supposed to mark where the Apostle alighted when he dropped down from heaven to aid in the subjugation of the heathen and the triumph of the Cross. At any rate, like the foot of St. James, this image of the Holy Candlestick, if made by human labor, must have cost months and months of toil at a time when such things were needed to impress the Indians with a reverence for the Church of Rome and the doctrines it taught. Sometimes, if the wind blows seaward, the carving is covered by the drifting sand, when the padre of the nearest village goes down with a lot of Indians to dig it out.

The first port of importance on the coast south of Callao is the town of Mollendo (pronounced Molyendo), the western terminus of the railway that furnishes means of communication for Bolivia and the interior of Peru to the sea. It was built in 1876 by Henry Meiggs for the Peruvian Government, at a cost of forty-four million dollars—an enormous average of one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars per mile; for it is only three hundred and twenty-five miles long. Its western terminus is the highest point now reached by steam, being something over fourteen thousand five hundred feet above the sea, although the Oroya road will be higher when it reaches the Cerro del Pasco mines. No other railway in the world can show an equal amount of excavation or such massive embankments, but the Oroya road has more tunnels. The line is now under the management of a Boston man, Mr. Thorndike, and everything is conducted upon the United States plan. Along the side of the track, for a distance of eighty-five miles, is an eight-inch iron pipe, for the purpose of supplying the stations with water, as there is none on the coast; and it is the longest aqueduct in the world, coming from springs in the mountains, seven thousand feet above the sea, to the port of Mollendo.

Across a hot, lifeless, desolate desert the railway runs one hundred and seven miles to the city of Arequipa—the name appropriately signifying “a place of rest;” and it is one of the oldest, most celebrated, and beautiful towns in Peru, situated in a small oasis in the desert, rich in its agricultural resources, and surrounded by valuable mines. Just behind the city is as magnificent and imposing a mountain as can be found anywhere in the world—the volcano Misti, 18,538 feet high, and covered with eternal snow. The city was founded by Pizarro in 1540, and has always been second to Lima in size and importance, being the political as well as the commercial capital of the Southern provinces, and the seat of a university which for nearly three hundred years has been the most famous upon the west coast in South America, and has

The vicuña, a sort of gazelle, a gentle, timid animal, is found in large numbers in the interior of the Andes, particularly in Bolivia. It is fawn-colored, has long, soft, silken hair, with a peculiar gloss that resembles what are known as “changeable

silks,” and changes color in different lights. In the old Inca days, before the Spanish invasion, centuries ago, the vicuña was the royal ermine of the Inca kings, and no one but the Imperial family and nobles of a certain rank was allowed to wear it. The animal was also protected by some sacred tradition, and was allowed to go unharmed in the forests, where it accumulated in great numbers; but the Spanish invaders, regardless of all rights, human and divine, hunted it down, and slaughtered it for food. The Indians expected that some severe penalty would be visited upon the invaders for destroying and eating the sacred animal, and lost faith when they escaped divine retribution. Now vicuña skins are very scarce and are expensive, and the natives attempt to

The alpaca is a sort of cross between the llama and the sheep. The llamas, alpacas, and guanacos have a peculiar way of defending themselves. If abused or made angry by teasing, they will turn upon their assailants, and squirt a pint or so of saliva, like a shower-bath, from between their teeth, being able to throw it with great force five or six feet. If this saliva gets into the mouth or eyes, or upon any place on the flesh where the skin is broken, it is poisonous, and inflammation sets in at once. It is said that men frequently die of blood-poisoning from this cause, and a native will keep clear of the nose of a vicious guanaco as a colored person will avoid the heels of an Irish mule.

Traversing the pass of Alto del Crucero, 14,660 feet above the level of the sea, and the highest altitude reached by any railway in the world, the road descends into the great basin of Titicaca, the heart of the Andes, stretching northward and southward between the two great chains of the Cordilleras for fifteen hundred miles, almost level, and twelve thousand feet above the ocean. Here in majestic splendor lies Lake Titicaca, one of whose islands was the Eden of the Incas, the birthplace of that prehistoric empire whose civilization has been the wonder and mystery of centuries. Here Manco

Capac (the Adam) and Mama Ocllo (the Eve) of Inca tradition, the Children of the Sun, arose like Aphrodite, and bearing a golden rod, marched down the valley until they reached the place where Cuzco now stands, and there commanded the Indians to erect a city, the seat of an Imperial dynasty which lasted a thousand years, and possessed a wealth and an industry that had no measure. Around the lake stand the mighty temples and palaces, erected of blocks of stone as large as those of the Pyramids, quarried and conveyed by means that still remain a mystery, and will never be known. These monuments of an extinct civilization, these evidences of art and industry that surpass any prehistoric architecture on the earth, are standing now in mute impressiveness, mocking decay, as they taunted the conquistadors who tried to overthrow them. But the Spaniards stripped them of their treasures, murdered their inmates, and destroyed everything that could not withstand their power.

The riches of Peru and Bolivia have been their curse from the time when Pizarro invaded the continent to the plunder of their nitrate deposits by Chili. It is true that few countries have suffered from such an evil, but it is nevertheless a fact that the wealth of these republics has been the cause of their disasters. For three hundred years the people sat with folded hands, and enjoyed the profits of the development of their natural resources by foreigners, and now, stripped of them, sit impoverished, mourning the departure of their prosperity.

The amount of money made by Peru from her guano deposits cannot be estimated any more accurately than by the plunder stolen from the Incas. The exports have continued from 1846 to the present day, and the annual shipments have amounted to millions of tons, valued between twenty and thirty million dollars, and this to the benefit of a State whose population has never reached two millions, and three-fourths of which were Indians who had no share in its profits. The exhausted lands of the Old World required this manure to revive them, and their owners paid high prices for what cost Peru nothing. The result of this revenue was the continuation of the extravagance among the people which was practised by their forefathers when the mountains poured out streams of silver. It was an epidemic of riches, and the Government of Peru, instead of wisely hoarding its source of wealth and protecting it, plunged into a system of reckless expenditure, until the end of the war found its revenues cut off and the country burdened with a debt of two hundred and fifty million dollars which it never can pay.

But even if Peru and Bolivia have been robbed of all their guano, the deposits of nitrate of soda in the deserts along their coasts would have made them rich again; but Chili has stolen these also. The whole coast, from the twenty-third to the twenty-fifth parallel of latitude, appears to be one solid mass of this valuable mineral, fit for a hundred different uses, and worth in the market from forty to sixty dollars a ton. It was discovered in 1833 by an accident, the hero of the discovery being a forlorn old Englishman by the name of George Smith. There is no telling how much lies in the mines, but it is the opinion of those who have explored the country that at the present rate of excavation it will take eight or ten centuries to dig it away.

After the independence of South America, when the several republics were being divided, Bolivia was given a little strip of land between Peru and Chili in order that she might have a pathway to the sea. It lay between the twenty-third and the twenty-fifth parallels, and was so recognized on all the maps of Chili, as well as those of other nations. It was a barren, waterless desert, worthless in every respect, as was originally supposed, but some years ago the rich deposits of silver and nitrate of soda were discovered. When their value became known, Chili suddenly ascertained that under some ancient right this strip of territory belonged to her, and kindly offered to divide it with Bolivia in such a way as to leave the silver and soda on the Chilian side. Bolivia of course resisted, and having a treaty of offence and defence with Peru, called upon the latter nation to assist in the defence of her rights. This was the real cause of the war. The ostensible excuse for it was that Bolivia charged an export duty of ten cents a hundred-weight on nitrate exported. This the Chilians deemed excessive, and sent a fleet to defend her citizens in refusing to pay it. Now that she has secured the territory and the mines, she charges one dollar and twenty-five cents a hundred-weight export duty on the same article at the same place, and thinks people impertinent when they complain. The results of the war are that Bolivia has not only lost her seaports and her nitrate, but Peru has lost all her guano and a large portion of her richest territory, while Chili is so much the richer.

If you ask a learned man why it never rains there, he will say that the clouds are deprived of all their moisture when they cross the mountains from the eastward, and when they come up from the westward ocean are at once sucked dry by the heat that radiates from the sun-baked sands. Occasionally along the coast are found immense cemeteries in which the Incas buried their dead; and the contents of the graves are as well preserved as if their age were counted by weeks instead of centuries. The most interesting and extensive of the burial grounds is at Pachacamac, south of Lima, in Peru, where millions of bodies lie, often in three stratas, and very generally in two. Near this place was the famous temple dedicated to Pachacamac, the chief divinity of the Incas, and whom they acknowledged as the creator of the world. It was the Mecca of that day, and each believer was expected to visit it at least once in his life. The pilgrims came from all parts of the empire, bringing votive-offerings, which made the temple very rich; and Pizarro is said to have obtained a vast quantity of plunder from it. Around the temple arose a large city of monasteries to accommodate the priests and devotees, and inns to shelter the pilgrims; but the place is in ruins now.

At one of these towns the whole army of Chili was concentrated—forty thousand men—preparing for the invasion of Peru. The Peruvian gun-boat Huascar (pronounced Wascar) came into the harbor, and with a few shots might have destroyed the reservoirs and the condensing establishments, and left these forty thousand men to die of thirst, for there was no fresh water within two hundred and fifty miles of them. But the commander of the Huascar had a heart. He was a noble, generous German—Admiral Grau—and he sent word to the Chillano commander that he presented his army with their lives. He said he would not attack defenceless men, and sailed off in pursuit of some Chillano gun-boats which had run away when they saw the Huascar coming.

Perhaps the most glorious monuments of the civilization of the Incas were the public or royal roads, extending from the capital to the remotest parts of the empire. Their remains are still most impressive, both from their extent and the amount of labor necessarily involved in their construction, and in contemplating them we know not which to admire most—the scope of their projectors, the power and constancy of the Incas who carried them to a completion, or the patience of the people who constructed them under all the obstacles resulting from the topography of the country and from imperfect means of execution. They built these roads in deserts, among moving sands reflecting the fierce rays of a tropical sun; they broke down rocks, graded precipices, levelled hills, and filled up valleys without the assistance of powder or of instruments of iron; they crossed lakes, marshes, and rivers, and without the aid of the compass followed direct courses in forests of eternal shade. They did, in short, what even now, with all of modern knowledge and means of action, would be worthy of the most powerful nations of the globe. One of the principal of these roads extended from Cuzco to the sea, and the other, which is followed to La Paz, ran along the crest of the Cordilleras from one end of the empire to the other, their aggregate lengths, with their branches, being about four thousand miles. Modern travellers compare them, in respect of structure, to the best works of the kind in any part of the world. In ascending mountains too steep to admit of grading, broad steps were cut in the solid rocks, while the ravines and hollows were filled with heavy embankments, flanked with parapets, and planted with shade-trees and fragrant shrubs. They were from eighteen to twenty-five Castilian feet broad, and were paved with immense blocks of

stone. At regular distances on these roads tambos—buildings for the accommodation of travellers—were erected. To these conveniences were added the establishment of a system of posts, by which messages could be transmitted from one extremity of the Incas’ dominions to the other in an incredibly short time. The service of the posts was performed by runners—for the Peruvians possessed no domestic animals swifter of foot than man—stationed in small buildings, likewise erected at easy distances from each other all along the principal roads. These messengers, or chasquis, as they were termed, wore a peculiar uniform, and were trained to their particular vocation. Each had his allotted station, between which and the next it was his duty to speed along at a certain pace with the message, dispatch, or parcel intrusted to his care. On drawing near to the station at which he had to transmit the message to the next courier, who was then to carry it farther, he was to give a signal of his approach, in order that the other might be in readiness to receive the missive and no time be lost; and thus it is said that messages were forwarded at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day.

The bridges constructed by the Peruvians were exceedingly simple, but were well adapted for crossing those rapid streams which rush down from the Andes and defy the skill of the modern engineer. They consisted of strong cables of the cabuya, or of twisted rawhide stretched from one bank to the other, something after the style of the suspension-bridges of our times. Poles were lashed across transversely, covered with branches, and these were again covered with earth and stones, so as to form a solid floor. Other cables extended along the sides, which were interwoven with limbs of trees, forming a kind of wicker balustrade. In some cases the mode of transit was in a species of basket or car, suspended on a single cable, and drawn from side to side with ropes. It would appear at first glance that bridges of this description could not be very lasting, yet a few still exist which are said to have been constructed by the Incas more than four hundred years ago. The modern inhabitants of some parts of Peru, Bolivia, and Chili still use the same means of crossing their torrent rivers.

The city of La Paz has about seventy thousand inhabitants, mostly Aymara Indians, poor, degraded, and ignorant. The full name of the place is La Paz de Ayacucho, and it means “the peace of Ayacucho,” being so christened in 1825, to commemorate the victory which established the independence of Bolivia from the hated crown of Spain. At that time the republic was a part of the old Province of Peru, and a separate State was founded by Bolivar, the Venezuelan Liberator of the Continent, who gave freedom to these people as he did

In the centre of the city runs the Alameda, a public promenade which is frequented by all classes of citizens, and during the twilight hours is quite gay. The cemetery is very extensive, and one of the finest in South America. There are few stores or shops, most of the trading being done in the market-places, where all things are sold, and by peddlers who go through the city with baskets of provisions and notions upon their heads, crying their wares. The way customers call street-venders is worth noticing and imitating. They step to the door or open a window, and give utterance to a short sound resembling shir-r-r-r-r—something between a hiss and the exclamation used to chase away fowls—and it is singular what a distance it can be heard. If the peddler is in sight, his attention is at once arrested; he turns, and comes direct to the caller, now guided by a signal addressed to his eyes—closing the fingers of the right hand two or three times, with the palm downward, as if grasping something—a sign in universal use, and signifying “Come.” There is here no bawling after people in the streets, for in this quiet and ingenious way all classes communicate with passing friends or others with whom they wish to speak. The practice dates, I believe, from classical times. A curious custom is the peddling of fuel through the streets. Llamas are loaded with their own excrement, which when dried in the sun is called taquia, and sold by the basketful. It is used by all classes for cooking.

The mineral wealth of Bolivia has been proverbial almost from time immemorial. The silver-mines of Potosi have long been celebrated as perhaps the richest deposit of silver ore in the world. From the year 1545, when they were discovered, to the year 1864, these mines, according to official data, produced the enormous sum of $2,904,902,690 of our money. Besides Potosi there are other rich silver-mines, and many large deposits of gold. The great want of these mines is skilled labor and improved modern machinery. In early days the Indians were forced to work them against their will, and were treated with great harshness and cruelty. The historical student will call to mind the efforts of philanthropists to mitigate their sufferings. When their labor could no longer be controlled, the mines fell into comparative decay. The Indians will not work them with energy and industry to-day. They doubtless hold in memory through their traditions the wrongs inflicted on their ancestors by merciless taskmasters. If worked by experienced miners, with all the improved modern machinery, the gold and silver deposits would yield as abundant returns, perhaps, as in the days of their early history. Recently a party of Californians have gone into the country and taken charge of a gold-mine. If a good many others would follow them, mining in Bolivia would experience a renaissance that would remind the Bolivians of the El Dorado of the olden time.

The most useful to mankind of all the natural products of South America was quinine, the drug made from the bark of the cinchona-tree, which was discovered in Bolivia by a Franciscan friar in the early days of the Conquest, and was called cinchona in honor of the Countess of Conchona, whose husband was the Viceroy of Peru. She introduced it into Spain as a remedy for fevers, and there is no drug in the catalogue that has been used in such quantities or with such success by suffering mankind. The entire supply formerly came from Peru and Bolivia, and it was known as Peruvian bark, but afterwards the forests along the entire chain of the Andes were found to contain it, and it furnished one of the chief articles of export from South America for three centuries. The supply has been greatly diminished by the destruction of the trees, as it was the habit formerly to cut down the trunk, and strip it as well as the branches of the bark. Nowadays the forests are protected by law, and the trees are allowed to stand, a portion of the bark being stripped off each year, which nature replaces again.

England, with that provident foresight which characterizes much of her political economy, several years ago sent agents into Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, under the direction of the celebrated botanist Mr. Spruce, and made a collection of cinchona plants, which were taken to Java, Ceylon, and India, and there have been transplanted and cultivated with great success and profit. It is found that under proper treatment the tree produces a very much greater amount of quinine, of a much superior quality, and at less cost than the bark can be gathered in the mountains of South America, so that shipments have almost entirely ceased, and the market receives its supply from the British possessions.

Another plant is coming into prominence, and its export has very largely increased within the last few years. This is the coca, from which cocoaine and other medicinal and nerve stimulants are made. In the valleys of the Andes there are, and have been from time immemorial, extensive plantations of the coca shrub. It is indigenous in these regions, but the natives of Peru and Bolivia cultivate the plant in terraces which are likened to the vineyards of Tuscany and the Holy Land. Erythroxylon coca is allied to the common flax, and forms, says Dr. Johnston, a shrub of six or eight feet, resembling our blackthorn, with small white flowers and bright green leaves. The leaves, of which there may be three or four crops in the year, are collected by the women and children, and dried in the sun, after which they are ready for use, and form the usual money exchange in some districts, the workmen being paid in coca-leaves. Among the Peruvians and Bolivians the coca-leaves are rolled with a little unslaked lime into a ball (acullico) and chewed in the mouth. Coca-chewing resembles in some respects the smoking of opium. Both must be taken apart, and with deliberation. The coca chewer, three or four times in the day, retires to a secluded spot, lays down his burden, and stretches himself perhaps beneath a tree. Slowly from the chuspa, or little pouch, which is ever at his girdle, the leaves and the lime are brought forth. The ball is formed and chewed for perhaps fifteen or thirty minutes, and then the toiler rises refreshed as quietly as he lay down, and returns to that monotonous round of labor in which the coca is his only and much-prized distraction. Some take it to excess, and to these the name of coquero is given. This is particularly common among white Peruvians of good family, and hence the name “Blanco Coquero” in that country is a term of reproach equivalent to our “habitual drunkard.” The Indians regard the coca with extreme reverence. Von Tschudi, the Austrian scientist, who made the most thorough study of the ancient customs of the Incas, says, “During divine worship the priests chewed coca-leaves, and unless they were supplied with them it was believed that the favor of the gods could not be propitiated. It was also deemed necessary that the supplicator for Divine grace should approach the priests with an acullico in his mouth. It is believed that any business undertaken without the benediction of coca-leaves could not prosper, and to the shrub itself worship was rendered. During an interval of more than three hundred years Christianity has not been able to subdue this deep-rooted idolatry, for everywhere we find traces of belief in the mysterious powers of this plant. The excavators in the mines of Cerro del Pasco throw chewed coca upon hard veins of metal, in the belief that it softens the ore and renders it more easy to work. The Indians even at the present time put coca-leaves into the mouths of dead persons, in order to secure them a favorable reception on their entrance into another world, and when a Peruvian on a journey falls in with a mummy, he, with timid reverence, presents to it some coca-leaves as his pious offering.”

The coca-plant resembles tea and hops in the nature of its active principles, although differing entirely from them in its effects. In the coqueros the latter are not inviting. “They are,” says Dr. Von Tschudi, “a bad breath, pale lips and gums, greenish and stumpy teeth, and an ugly black mark at the angles of the mouth. The inveterate coquero is known at the first glance; his unsteady gait, his yellow skin, his dim and sunken eyes encircled by a purple ring, his quivering lips, and his general apathy all bear evidence of the baneful effect of the coca-juice when taken in excess.” The general influence of moderate doses is gently soothing and stimulating; but coca has in addition a special and remarkable power in enabling those who consume it to endure sustained labor in the absence of other food.

The island is accurately described in the story, and the visitor who is familiar with “Robinson Crusoe” can find the cave, the mountain-paths, and other haunts of the hero without difficulty; but Defoe has located it in the wrong geographical position, having placed it on the other side of the continent, and mixed up Montevideo with Valparaiso. It is about twenty-three miles long and ten miles wide in the broadest part, and is covered with beautiful hills and lovely valleys, the highest peak reaching an elevation of nearly three thousand feet. A hundred years ago the Spaniards introduced blood-hounds to kill off the goats and rabbits, and to keep the pirates away, but the scheme did not work. Upon her independence, in 1821, Chili made Juan Fernandez a penal colony, but thirty years after the prisoners mutinied, slaughtered the guards, and escaped. Then it was leased to a cattle company, which has now thirty thousand head of horned cattle and as many sheep grazing upon the hills. There are fifty or sixty inhabitants, mostly ranchmen and their families, who tend the herds and raise vegetables for the Valparaiso market.

In Valparaiso, as everywhere else in Chili, there is an intense prejudice against the United States, growing out of the attitude assumed by our Government during the late war with Peru. The prejudice has been aggravated and stimulated by the English residents. This, with the natural arrogance of the Chillanos, who think they have the finest country on earth, and that the United States is their only rival, makes it rather disagreeable sometimes for Americans who go there to reside. For this and other reasons our commerce with Chili has fallen off from millions to hundreds of thousands, and it will be difficult to increase it as long as the prejudice of the people exists, and lines of English, French, German, and Italian vessels connect Valparaiso with the markets of Europe.

The oddest thing to be seen in Valparaiso is the female street-car conductors. The street-car managers of Chili have added another occupation to the list of those in which women may engage. The experiment was first tried during the war with Peru, when all the able-bodied men were sent to the army, and proved so successful that their employment has become permanent, to the advantage, it is said, of the companies, the women, and the public. The first impression one forms of a woman with a bell-punch taking up fares is not favorable, but the stranger soon becomes accustomed to this as to all other novelties, and concludes that it is not such a bad idea after all. The street-cars are double-deckers, with seats upon the roof as well as within, and the driver occupies a perch on the rear platform, taking the fare as the passenger enters. The Chillano is a rough individual; he is haughty, arrogant, impertinent, and abusive. There is more intemperance in Chili than in any other of the South American States, and consequently more quarrels and murders, but the female conductors are seldom disturbed in the discharge of their duties, and when they are, the rule is to call upon the policemen,

Fronting the Alameda are the finest palaces in the city, magnificent dwellings of carved sandstone often one or two hundred feet square, with the invariable patio and its fountains and flowers in the centre. Houses which cost half a million dollars to build and a quarter of a million to furnish

“Santa Lucia” is the most beautiful place I have seen in South America. It is a pile of rocks six hundred feet high, cast by some volcanic agency into the centre of the great plain on which the city stands. It was here that the United States Astronomical Expedition of 1852, under Lieutenant Gillis, made observations. Before that time, and as far back as the Spanish Invasion, it was a magnificent fortress, commanding the entire valley with its guns. Tradition has it that the King of the Araucanians had a stronghold here before the Spaniards came. After the departure of the United States expedition Vicunæ McCenna, a public-spirited man of wealth in Santiago, undertook the work of beautifying the place. By the aid of private subscriptions, and much of his own means, he sought all the resources that taste could suggest and money reach to improve on nature’s grandeur. His success was complete. Winding walks and stairways, parapets and balconies, grottoes and flower-beds, groves of trees and vine-hung arbors, follow one another from the base to the summit; while upon the west, at the edge of a precipice eight hundred feet high, are a miniature castle and a lovely little chapel, in whose crypt Vicunæ McCenna has asked that his bones be laid. Below the chapel, three or four hundred feet on the opposite side of the hill, is a level place on which a restaurant and an out-door theatre have been erected. Here, on summer nights, come the population of the city to eat ices, drink beer, and laugh at the farces played upon the stage, while bands of music and dancing make the people merry. This is the resort of the aristocracy. The poor people go to Cousino Park, at the other end of the Alameda, drink chicha, and dance the cuaca (pronounced quaker), the Chillano national dance.

The opera-house at Santiago is owned by the city, and is claimed to be the finest structure of the sort in all America. It certainly surpasses in size, arrangement, and gorgeousness any we have in the United States. It is built upon the European plan, with four balconies, three of which are divided off into boxes upholstered in the most luxurious manner. The balconies are supported by brackets, so that there are no pillars to obstruct the view. Under the direction of the mayor, each year, the boxes are sold at auction for the season, and the receipts given, in whole or in part, as a subsidy to the opera management.

On the beautiful Alameda of Santiago stands a marble monument erected several years ago, after the partition of Patagonia, to commemorate the generosity of the Argentine Republic. That statue will some day be pulled down by a mob. The people are already regretting the impulsive cordiality which suggested it, and are looking with jealous eyes at the progress and prosperity of their eastern neighbor. But Chili will find in the Argentines a more formidable foe than the nation has yet met, and her generals will have some of the conceit taken out of them if the armies of the two ever come into collision. Although the Argentine Republic is making more rapid strides towards national greatness, there is no

doubt that at present, in all the conditions of modern civilization, Chili leads the Southern Continent, and is the most powerful of all the republics in America except our own. Her statesmen are wise and able, her people are industrious and progressive, and have that strength of mind and muscle which is given only to the men of temperate zones. There is a strong similarity between the Chillanos and the Irish. Both have the same wit and reckless courage, the same love of country and patriotic pride; and wherever a Chillano goes he carries his opinion that there never was and never can be a better land than that in which he was born; and although he may be a refugee or an exile, he will fight in defence of Chili at the drop of the hat. There is something refreshing in his patriotism, even if it be the most arrogant vanity. Our people are becoming ashamed of their Fourth of July, and the Declaration of Independence is the butt of professional jokers. The Chillano will cut the throat of a man who will not celebrate with him the 18th of September, his Independence Day; and there is a law in the country requiring every house to have a flag-staff, and every flag-staff to bear the national colors—a banner by day and a lantern by night—on the anniversaries of the republic. All the schools must use text-books by native authors, all the bands play the compositions of native composers, and visiting opera and concert singers are compelled to vary their performances by introducing the songs of the country. It is said that a Frenchman can never be denationalized. The same is true of the Chillano. There has not been a successful revolution in Chili since 1839; and although there is nowhere a more unruly and discordant people, nowhere so much murder and other serious crimes, in their love of country the haughty don and the patient peon, the hunted bandit and the cruel soldier, are one.

The Chillano is not only vain but cruel—as cruel as death. He carries a long curved knife, called a curvo, as the Italian carries a stiletto and the negro a razor, and uses it to cut throats. He never fights with his fists, and knows not the use of the shillalah; he never carries a revolver, and is nothing of a thug; but as a robber or bandit, in a private quarrel or a public mob, he always uses this deadly knife, and springs at the throat of his enemy like a blood-hound. There is scarcely an issue of a daily paper without one or two throat-cutting incidents, and in the publications succeeding feast-days or carnivals their bloody annals fill columns.

The Chillanos are also careless of machinery. While they are quick to learn, and have much native mechanical ingenuity, they cannot be trusted as machinists. The magnificent cruiser Esmeralda, one of the finest ships-of-war afloat, was built in England for the Chillian Government at a cost of one and a half million dollars, but she had not been in the hands of native engineers six weeks before her engines needed repairs and her boilers were ruined. In 1885, during the troubles between England and Russia, she was chartered by the British Government, but afterwards returned to Chili. The Chillanos have a line of steamers running from Valparaiso up and down the coast. They are the finest ships on the Pacific, built on the Clyde, with all modern improvements, but the engineers and captains are Englishmen or Scotchmen. The Government owns and manages the railroads in the republic, but the locomotive drivers are foreigners. Every three or four years—usually before a Presidential election—these men are discharged and natives employed in their stead; but until election is over, and the old engineers are restored to their places, there is a carnival of accidents, and passenger travel is practically suspended. On all railroads are heavy grades and dangerous curves, requiring the greatest care on the part of locomotive drivers. The reckless Chillano thinks it great fun to run a train down a grade at full speed, and a collision is his delight. He enjoys seeing things smashed up, and knows nothing of the necessity of operating trains on schedule time.

The native Peruvian, the descendant of the ancient Incas, has learned nothing since the Conquest, and has forgotten most of the arts his fathers knew, among them being the process by which the ancient race rendered copper as hard as steel. Thousands of dollars have been offered for that secret by modern bidders, but it is lost forever, and the ingenuity and knowledge of modern chemists cannot discover the process. The modern Inca wears the same blanket, or poncho, made of vicuña hair, that his fathers did, and the same shoes made of raw hide. He has rougher roads to travel than has the native of Central America, hence his shoe is made to curl over on the sides and behind, so as to protect the toes and the heel from contact with the rocks. It is cut in a single piece from hide when green, and is made to curl by stretching it over a primitive sort of last and keeping it in position until dry. The shoe is attached to the foot by a thong, which passes along the entire top of the shoe, laced through holes cut in the hide, and ending at the heel in two strips, which are secured around the ankle. The evolution of the native shoe is found in Chili; and although it lacks the maturity and sanctity of age, which the Peruvian article enjoys, is a rather more nobby

Her ability as a manager is remarkable, and she directs every detail, receiving weekly reports from ten or twelve superintendents who have immediate charge of affairs. While she is generous to profligacy, she requires a strict account of every dollar earned or spent upon her vast estates, and is very sharp at driving a bargain. One of her Scotch superintendents told me that there was no use in trying to get ahead of the señora. “You cannot move a stone or a stick but she knows it,” he said. In addition to her landed property and her mines she owns much city real estate, from which her rentals amount to several hundred thousand dollars a year. She is also the principal stockholder in the largest bank in Santiago. Not long ago she presented the people of that city with a park of one hundred acres, and a race-course adjoining it.

A beautiful marble monument has been erected on the site of the church which was burned about twenty years ago on the Feast of the Virgins. As usual on that day, high mass was celebrated by the bishop, and at this particular church, which was that of the patron saint of maidens, there was a

The Chili saddle is even more queer and complicated than the bridle. First, six or seven sheepskins are placed upon the horse’s back, one on top of the other; a leather strap is passed around them and firmly secured; a skeleton saddle, or rather a piece of wood cut in the shape of a saddle-tree, with a cantle at each end, comes next, and on top of this any number of sheepskins; or, if the owner is rich, rare furs furnish a seat, which is called the montura. The four corners are fastened down by broad leather straps, ornamented with silver or brass buckles, to enable the rider to wedge himself in, and the whole is bound around the horse’s belly with a broad band of leather or canvas. Sometimes aristocratic and wealthy riders have a high pommel like that of the Mexican saddle, which is covered with silver, and stamped on the top with his family coat of arms. The amount of silver on a man’s riding equipment is understood to indicate his wealth and station in life, and there is a great deal of competition in this direction among the swell caballeros. The stirrups of the ordinary citizen are made of two huge pieces of wood, with a hole cut through for the foot, while those of the aristocrat are brass or silver slippers. The wooden affair, the poor man’s stirrup, is rudely cut out of oak, or other hard wood, by hand, and usually weighs as much as four or five pounds. The brass one is quite as heavy, but much more ornamental.

When the rider is seated in the saddle his legs are entirely concealed by the furs and sheepskins, which add to his warmth, and on his back he wears the poncho of the country, which is the most comfortable and convenient garment that human ingenuity has ever produced. It is about the size of the rubber poncho used in the United States, but is woven of vicuña hair or lamb’s-wool, and keeps the wearer cool by day, as the rays of the sun cannot penetrate it, and warm by night. It answers as well for an umbrella as for an overcoat, and sheds the rain better than rubber, for the oil is not extracted from the wool of which it is made. The vicuña is the mountain-goat of the Andes, but is becoming scarce, and nowadays a vicuña poncho is as rare and expensive as a camel’s-hair shawl, which it very much resembles, being worth from one hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars. A fully equipped saddle-horse of a caballero, or gentleman, with vicuña poncho and spurs of silver, with saddle and bridle mounted with the same metal, often represents an investment of four or five thousand dollars. Very often the stirrup is made of solid silver, beautifully chased, and those used by ladies are generally so. The English manufacturers are able to produce the ornaments and stirrups so much cheaper than the native workmen, who have no labor-saving machinery, that nearly all are now imported, and they have succeeded in imitating the poncho very well too. But among the aristocrats it is considered the height of vulgarity to use modern English saddlery or the imitation poncho, for these articles have been handed down from generation to generation, and the older they are the more valuable, no sort of usage wearing them out.

He who wishes to make the journey from the Chilian to the Argentine Republic and the east coast of South America has a choice of routes. He may go by sea, around through the Strait of Magellan, which will cost him fifteen days’ time and two hundred dollars in money, or he may climb over the Andes on the back of a mule, a journey of five days, three of which only are spent in the saddle amid some

This railroad was opened in May, 1885, with a grand celebration, in which the Presidents of Chili and the Argentine Republic, with retinues of officials, participated. The event was as important to the commercial development of Argentine as was the first Pacific Railway to the United States, as it opened to settlement millions of square miles of the best territory in the republic, and furnished a highway between the two seas.

The people of the United States have very little conception of what is going on down in that part of the world. They do not realize that there is in Argentine a republic which some day is to rival our own—a country with immense resources, similar to those of the United States, situated in a corresponding latitude, prepared to furnish the world with beef and mutton and bread, and stretching a net-work of railways over its area that will bring the products of the pampas to market. Geographers do not keep pace with the development of this part of South America, and to present accurate accounts of its condition should be rewritten every year. Who knows, for instance, except those who have been there, that a man can ride from Buenos Ayres across the pampas to the foot-hills of the Andes in a Pullman car?

The late war between Peru and Chili robbed Bolivia of all her sea-coast, and the ports from which her produce was shipped, and at which her imports were received, now belong to the Chillanos, who charge heavy export and import duties. The opening of this railroad has caused the trade of Bolivia to be diverted to the Atlantic, and the extension of the line to the northward, which is already in progress, will make Buenos Ayres and other cities on the river La Plata the entrepots for Bolivian commerce. It is not much farther now from the centre of Bolivia to the Argentine Railway than to the Pacific coast, and the feeling of resentment towards Chili

The road over the mountains is always dangerous, clinging as it does to the edge of mighty precipices and upon the sides of mountain cliffs, and only trained mules can be used on the journey. During the winter season the winds are often so strong as to blow the mules with their burdens over the precipices, and leave them as food for the condors that are always soaring around. These birds know the dangerous passes, and keep guard with the expectation of seeing some traveller or mule go tumbling over the cliffs. Cowhide bridges, the construction of which is not satisfactory to nervous men, stretch across the ravines after the manner of modern suspension-bridges, and a floor or path, made of the branches of trees lashed together with hides, and just wide enough for a mule to pass, is laid. Travellers usually dismount and lead their mules when they cross these fragile structures, for the hide ropes which are intended to keep people from stepping off do not look very secure. The oscillation of these bridges is very great, and a man who is accustomed to giddiness will want to lie down before he gets half-way over. It is remarkable that so few accidents happen, and when they do occur it is usually because a traveller is reckless or a mule is green. The foxes sometimes gnaw the hides, but no accidents have occurred from this cause for many years.

The water in the channel is deep and smooth, but the passage is avoided by navigators because of the powerful currents and the frequency of snow-storms, which prevail at all seasons of the year. Vessels that take this course are compelled to anchor at night, unless there is a very bright moon, and always lie up when the snow falls, because of the circuitous turns, and the danger of collisions with ships and icebergs. Smythe’s Channel is so narrow in places that two steamers cannot pass between the mighty rocks which rise on either side. Most of the steamships prefer to risk the storms which rage outside, where they can have plenty of sea-room, and shorten their voyages by sailing at night as well as by day. There is no more dangerous sailing in the world than off the west coast of Patagonia and around the Horn, and vessels bound southward from Valparaiso are very lucky if they enter the Strait of Magellan without catching a gale of wind.

The Terra del Fuego Indians, the ugliest mortals that ever breathed, are always on the lookout for passing vessels, and come out in canoes to beg and to trade skins for whiskey and tobacco. The Fuegians, or “Canoe Indians,” as they are commonly called, to distinguish them from the Patagonians, who dislike the water, and prefer to navigate on horseback, have no settled habitation. They have a dirty and bloated appearance, and faces that would scare a mule—broad features, low foreheads, over which the hair hangs in tangled lumps, high cheek-bones, flat noses, enormous chins and jaws, and mouths like crocodiles’, with teeth that add to their repulsiveness. Their skin is said to be of a copper color, but is seldom seen, as they consider it unhealthy to bathe. They are short in stature, round-shouldered, squatty, and swelled, a physical deformity said to be due to the fact that most of their lives is spent in canoes. The women are even more repulsive in their appearance than the men, and the children, who are uncommonly numerous, look like young baboons. Their intelligence seems to be confined to a knowledge of boating and fishing, and they exercise great skill in both pursuits. Scientists who have investigated them say that they are of the very lowest order of the human kind, many degrees below the Digger Indians.

No one has ever been able to ascertain whether these people possess any sort of religious belief or have religious ceremonies. Across the strait the Patagonians, or Horse Indians, are of a higher order of creation, and perform sacred rites to propitiate the evil and good spirits, in which, like the North

Every time a vessel passes through the strait the Fuegian Indians come out in their canoes to show their sociability,

He said that when he and his partner were left in charge of the vessel, it was with the understanding that they were to be relieved on the 21st of December, and they were given food enough to last until that time. After the captain and crew had gone, and the two men were alone on the ship, the Indians made their appearance nearly every day, and bits of food were thrown over the side of the vessel into their canoes. Taylor and his companion each carried two revolvers, and were not at all alarmed, as the vessel lay very high on the sand, and it did not seem possible that the Indians could climb up its iron sides. Although several canoes hovered around the place daily, the savages made no unfriendly demonstrations, and no notice was taken of them further than to exchange salutations, and give them meat and bread now and then. One day the Indians traded them a string of fresh fish for a plug of tobacco, and at other times gave them furs for the same consideration. About noon on the 15th of December, while the sailor was cooking dinner in the galley, Taylor, who was at work below, heard several shots fired from a revolver on deck, with shrieks and other sounds, which proved that a fight was going on there. He drew both of his pistols, and rushing up-stairs, saw the bleeding body of his companion lying upon the deck, and one of the savages hacking at it with the cook’s knife. About twenty or twenty-five others were performing a war-dance around one of their number who lay dead, and a single glance at the scene convinced Mr. Taylor that he could find no pleasure in attending the

It was a diplomatic stroke on the part of Chili to get control of the Strait of Magellan, that great international highway through which all steamers must go; and the archipelago along the western coast, comprising thousands of islands which have never been explored, and which are believed to be rich in what the world holds valuable, also fell to her share; but the Argentines got the best of the bargain in broad plains, rich in agricultural resources, rising in regular terraces from the Atlantic seaboard to the summits of the Cordilleras, whose snowy crests stand like an army of silent sentinels, marking the line upon which the two republics divide—plains as broad and useful as those which stretch between the Mississippi River and the ranges of Colorado, and as good for cattle as they are for corn.

This man Pigafetta, for example, says that the Patagonia Indians “were of that biggeness that our menne of meane stature could reach up to their waysts, and they had bigg voyces, so that their talk seemed lyke unto the roar of a beaste.” In order to secure credit for courage, the early navigators told astonishing yarns about the fierceness of these Indians, who still have a reputation for fighting which, no doubt, is well founded. Rum and disease have, however, made sad work among the race, which is in its decadence; and the ambition of the Patagonian now is only equal to that of the North American Indian—that is, to get enough to eat with the least possible labor. They hang around the ranches to pick up what is thrown to them in the way of food, stealing and begging, and occasionally they bring in skins to the settlements to exchange for fire-water.

Later explorers discovered that there were two distinct races among the aborigines: first, the canoe Indians of the coast; and, second, the hunters of the interior, who are expert horsemen, raise cattle, and resemble the Sioux of the United States or the Apaches of the Mexican border. The two nations spoke languages entirely different, and had no resemblance in their manner or habits of life. Those of the south, who extended over into the curious islands of Terra del Fuego, are uglier in appearance, fiercer in disposition, and are believed to be cannibals. In fact, there is a recent instance of man-eating in the Strait of Magellan which appears to be authentically reported. The canoe Indians are called Tehueiche, and the horsemen of the north—the plains or pampa Indians—are called Chenna. The latter appear to be closely allied to the Araucanians of Chili, a race which the Spaniards were never able to subdue, but with which they have intermarried extensively, and produced the present peon of Chili, who has all the vivacity and impulsiveness of the Spaniard united with the muscular development, the courage, and the endurance of the Indian. The frontier of the Argentine Republic, until a few years since, was constantly harassed by the Chennas—murder, arson, and pillage were the rule—and the development of the nation was seriously checked, until General Roca was sent out with an army to exterminate them.

The dividing line between the Argentine Republic and what was known as Patagonia was the river Negro, which flows along the forty-first parallel, about nine hundred miles north of the Strait of Magellan. The greater portion of this country is well-watered pampas, or prairies, that extend in plainly marked terraces, rising one after the other from the Atlantic to the Andes; but towards the south the land becomes more bleak and barren, the soil being a bed of shale, with thorny shrubs and tufts of coarse grass, upon which nothing but the ostrich can exist. The winters are very severe, fierce winds sweeping from the mountains to the sea, with nothing to obstruct their course. These winds are called pamperos, and are the dread of those who navigate the South Atlantic. During the winter months the Indians were in the habit of driving their cattle northward into the foot-hills of the Andes for protection; and, leaving them there, they made raids upon the settlements on the Argentine frontier, killing, burning, and stealing cattle and horses. Terror-stricken, the ranchmen fled to the cities for protection; so that year by year the frontier line receded towards Buenos Ayres, instead of extending farther upon the plains.

The plumes of the ostrich are plucked from the wings and tail while the bird is alive, but to make a rug the little ones are killed and skinned, and the soft fluffy breasts are sewed together until they reach the size of a blanket. Those of a brown color and those of the purest white are alternated, and the combination produces a very fine artistic effect. They are too dainty and beautiful to be spread upon the floor, but can be used as carriage robes, or to throw over the back of a couch or chair. Sometimes ladies use them as panels for the front of dress skirts, and thus they are more striking than any fabric a loom can produce. Opera cloaks have been made of them also, to the gratification of the æsthetic. They are too rare to be common, and too beautiful to ever tire the eye.

The bolas are handled very dexterously, and well trained Indians are said to be able to bring down an ostrich at a range of two or three hundred yards. But it is not often necessary to draw at that distance. Horses accustomed to the chase can overtake a bird on an unobstructed plain; but the

birds have the advantage of being “artful dodgers,” and as they carry so much less weight, can turn and reverse quite suddenly. The usual mode of hunting them is for a dozen or so Indians to surround a herd and charge upon it suddenly. In this way several are usually brought down before they can scatter, and those that get away are pursued. As they dodge from one hunter they usually run afoul of another, and before they are aware they are tripped by the entangling bolas. People who are passing through the strait often stop over and await another steamer at Punta Arenas to enjoy an ostrich chase. They can secure trained horses and guides at moderate rates. One who has never thrown the bolas will be amazed, the first time he tries it, to find how difficult it is to do a trick that looks so easy.

Through the Strait of Magellan and up the east coast of

There is no port of importance between Punta Arenas, in the Strait, and the river Plate except Bahia Blanca (White Bay), near where the United States astronomical expedition made its observations at the last transit of Venus. The entire coast for fifteen hundred miles is barren of civilization, except the cabin of some hardy frontiersman, who has set up a ranch and is waiting for the country to grow down to him.

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. The water is so shallow that they anchor seven, eight, and ten miles out, and are loaded and unloaded by means of flat-bottomed lighters, which are towed back and forth. Two or three times a week during the winter, when a pampero is blowing, the water is carried out to sea by force of the wind, and these lighters are left high and dry upon a beach over which they were floating a few hours before. Then they have to be unloaded by means of carts on wheels eight to ten feet in diameter, which are driven into the water until nothing can be seen of the mules that draw them but their indignant noses and nodding ears. It is amusing to see the heads of these mules sticking out of the water at an elevation which must be very uncomfortable, but one they are used to. Passengers who arrive on these occasions are transferred from the ship to a lighter, then to a mule-cart, and sometimes are carried ashore on the back of a stormy Italian, who never fails to swear by all the saints and the Virgin that the man on his back is the heaviest he has ever carried, and demands more than the regular fee for extra baggage, so to speak. Lacking confidence in the sincerity of the cargador, the passenger will promise him heaven and earth and the sea if he will not drop him into the water, and then fights it out when he gets safely ashore.

Twenty-three lines of steamships connect the Argentine Republic with the markets of Europe, and from forty to sixty vessels are sailing back and forth each month. In the harbor of Buenos Ayres, or in what they call the harbor, are dozens of steamships and scores of sailing-vessels, showing every flag but that of the United States; for an American steamer never goes there, and only occasionally a bark or brigantine, chartered at New York or Philadelphia, with a cargo of lumber or railway supplies. Nearly all the goods these people buy of us are sent by way of Europe, as mails and passengers usually go, and very little is bought in the United States that can be purchased elsewhere. The reason for this is very plain—we have no transportation facilities, while those afforded for trade in Europe are as regular and convenient as exist between Liverpool and New York.

There is not a country in all the world so deserving of attention as this, and particularly of our attention, for the time is drawing near when we must confront the results of its enterprise in the markets of the world. In its resources as well as in the character of its people it resembles the United States. Here are found pampas like our prairies, rich and fertile in the lowlands, and covered with fine ranges as they rise in mighty terraces from the Atlantic to the Andes; while in the foot-hills of the mountains are deposits of gold and silver similar to those of Colorado, whose wealth is yet untold. In the north is a soil that will produce cotton, rice, and sugar, like Louisiana and Texas; then come tobacco lands, like those of Virginia and Tennessee; then, as the temperature grows colder towards the south, are wheat and corn fields, as yet a tithe of them untilled, but suggesting Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. This vast area, as vast as that which lies between Indiana and the Rocky Mountains, is furnished with natural highways even more tempting to navigation than the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri rivers, and which find their sources in forests as extensive as those that shelter our great lakes.

In the old days Mr. Hale bought wool and hides and furs in the Argentine Republic and in Uruguay, and shipped them to Boston. The vessels returned loaded with cotton goods and Yankee notions of all sorts, which were exchanged for the produce; and this system of barter went on until the War of the Rebellion, when most of the vessels were withdrawn, and the tariff on wool made it unprofitable to ship the chief product of the republic to the United States. Then Mr. Hale turned his attention to the European trade, and did a very large business in exporting and importing until about 1880, when he sold out to Mr. C. S. Bowers, also a Boston man, and retired from the market. He still purchases large quantities

The cathedral is a very large and costly building, but it looks more like a bank or Government palace than a church. Within the walls is the mausoleum of General Saint-Martin,

There is a place called Washington and another called Lincoln in the Argentine Republic, but the newest thing in the way of towns is La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Ayres. Until within a few years that province, having more than half the population of the entire country, has considered itself entitled to rule the rest, as far as the Government was concerned, and the outlying provinces have had nothing to say about it, being regarded as insignificant dependencies of the city and State of Buenos Ayres. They tried to secede, but were whipped into the Union; but as immigration has come into the country the population of other provinces outnumbers Buenos Ayres, and often in Presidential campaigns the contest depends upon a geographical issue. Roca, the recent President, is an outside man, and the Buenos Ayrians determined to prevent his inauguration or overthrow his government; but to mollify them he announced a great scheme of building a new capital at Government expense. There was no time to lay out a town site and let it grow up in the ordinary way, so the President sent to the United States and had five hundred houses manufactured to order and shipped down here, like a box of toys, all ready to put up. A location was selected on the pampas, all the revolutionary leaders were let into the speculation, war was averted, and a brand-new city sprang up on the prairie, like a bed of mushrooms, almost in a single night. Two or three millions of dollars were spent by the Government, but the President considered that the cost of the town was much less than would have been the cost of the war that was averted; plenty of money was put into circulation, all the laboring men in the country got lucrative employment, and, as in the old-fashioned storybooks, everything came out happily in the end. These houses were made in Brooklyn and Chicago: a New York firm got the contract. There was so much haste and carelessness in their construction that they do not wear very well, and are no credit to their builders.

Rosas was a compound of the arrogance and stubborn superstition of the Spanish race and the cruelty and craft of the Guarani Indians, whose blood he inherited through his mother. He maintained his power by the loyalty of the gauchos, of whom the people of the towns lived in terror. With an inflexible will, with the cunning of a fox and the courage of a lion, with egregious vanity and arrogance, and a perpetual distrust of every living being except his daughter Mannileta—the only person to whose influence he ever

But the day of the gaucho is passing. Immigration and civilization have driven him to the extreme frontier, where nowadays he can only be found in his full glory. Like the North American Indian, he decays when domesticated, and a tame gaucho is always a drunkard, a loafer, and a thief. Civilization saps his vitality, quenches his spirit, and lowers his standard of morals. In his native element he will not steal nor do a mean act, but when he becomes a resident of a town he will rob a dog, and there is no end to his maliciousness. Few of the race have ever acquired land, and even at the present day he despises the estanciaro, who will not depend upon the public domain for pasturage. So the gaucho has to keep moving, faster and faster, to get out of the way of barbed wire fences and the restraints of civilization. A few years hence he will disappear or assume more of the character of the North American cow-boy. Even now, in the more settled portions of the country, the word gaucho has become a word of reproach, and is applied to worthless characters who live by cattle-stealing, and correspond to the rustlers of the United States.

The Argentine Republic will some day become a formidable rival of the United States. It has vast natural resources similar to ours, and is developing them rapidly. It has a magnificent fluvial system like that of the Mississippi, fertile plains like those of Illinois and Iowa, boundless pampas stretching for twelve hundred miles to the mountains, and affording pasturage for millions of cattle, horses, and sheep, like the prairies of Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico. Towards the north, into Paraguay, which, although an

Wheat and flour are not the only agricultural products exported by the Argentine Republic. In 1884 the exports of corn were 1,160,000 bushels; of barley, 70,000 bushels; of baled hay, 11,460,000 kilograms; of linseed, 23,061,000 kilograms; of peanuts, 2,617,292 kilograms; of potatoes, 100,000 bushels. The production of sugar is becoming a very important industry, and is now almost sufficient to supply the domestic demand, the yield last year amounting to nearly 50,000,000 pounds. The increased area under cultivation and the improved methods of reducing the cane will soon make sugar an article of export. There are a number of Cuban exiles in the northern provinces and in Paraguay cultivating sugar and tobacco on the Cuban system with marked success.

The Argentinians are beginning to ship large quantities of fresh beef to Europe in refrigerator ships, one or more leaving

There is a curious story about an island in the River Plata which was a horse ranch in early Spanish times. The animals became so numerous that there was not grass enough to feed them, and no demand for their export. The owners decided to reduce their stock in a barbarous way, and when the grass was dry they set fire to it. Every horse on the island was burned to death except those that ran into the river and were drowned. The stench was so great that navigation was almost entirely suspended on the river. The result of this method of reducing stock was a little more complete than the owners anticipated, so when the grass grew up again they had to buy stallions and mares and start anew. Singularly enough, every animal placed on the island since that fire has died of a mysterious disease, and no colt has been foaled there for one hundred and fifty years. Various breeds of stock have been tried, but never a hoof has left the island alive. Three months there finishes them. The island was unoccupied for fifty or sixty years, but is now used as a cattle ranch, and horned stock do not appear to be subject to the mysterious malady.

No country ever suffered more from war than Uruguay, as for almost a hundred years a struggle of arms, under one excuse or another, has been going on within her borders, and until the present despotism—which makes only a mask of the nominal democracy it pretends—came into power, there was a change of government, or an attempt to secure one, under almost every new moon. Although Uruguay is as much of an absolute monarchy to-day as exists on the face of the earth, her people have peace and prosperity, her development is being hastened by large works of internal improvement, her population is increasing rapidly, her commerce is assuming immense proportions, and she is making more rapid strides towards greatness than any other country in South America, except her neighbor across the River Plate. With a republican form of government guaranteed by the constitution, with civil and religious freedom as the foundation-stone of the nation, the will of the President has been usually as absolute as was that of the ex-King Thebaw.

Santos was what they call “a barrack dog.” That is, his father was a soldier, his mother a rabona—one of that class of homeless women who are encouraged by the Government to follow the army—and he was born in a barracks. From birth until he was able to bear arms he was kicked about without care or education, generally housed and fed in a military garrison or camp. He entered the army as a private when not more than fourteen or fifteen years of age, and within twenty years, by reason of his brains and force of character, became its commander-in-chief. It was a short step to a dictatorship, during one of the revolutions that were epidemic in Uruguay, and then after a form of an election

It is said that there is not an acre of unproductive land in all Uruguay, and that its area of seven thousand square leagues—a little more than that of England—is capable of sustaining as large a population as England, Scotland, and Wales together. The soil and climate are of such a character that any grain or fruit known in the list of the world’s product can be produced in abundance. Coffee will grow beside corn, and bananas and pineapples beside wheat; sugar and potatoes, apples and oranges, in fact all things that man requires for food or clothing, are capable of being raised within the boundaries of the republic at the minimum of

Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, lies upon a tongue of land which stretches out into the River Plate, nearly the shape of Manhattan Island, on which New York City stands, except that it has the Atlantic Ocean on one side and a river sixty-five miles wide on the other. This strip is of limestone formation, with very little soil on the surface, and rises in the centre to an apex like a whale’s back or the roof of a house, so that the streets running northward and southward are like a series of terraces rising one above the other, not only affording perfect natural drainage, but giving almost every house in town a vista of the river or the sea from the upper windows. As you approach Montevideo the city seems much larger than it really is, and Yankee Doodle could not complain of it as he did of Boston when he said he could not see the town because there were so many houses.

The ladies of Uruguay are considered to rank next to their sisters of Peru in beauty, and there is something about the atmosphere which gives their complexion a purity and clearness that is not found among ladies of any other country. But, like all Spanish ladies, when they reach maturity they lose their grace and symmetry of form, and usually become very stout. This is undoubtedly owing in a great degree to their lack of exercise; for they never walk, but spend their entire lives in a carriage or a rocking-chair. Native ladies who have married foreigners, and gone abroad to France or England, and there adopted the custom of those countries, preserve their beauty much longer than their sisters who live indolent lives at home.

His successor was Lopez I., a man who had all the bad qualities of Francia, but none of his good ones. Selfish, lustful, brutal, his only motive was to perpetuate his power, and enjoy the opportunities it gave for the gratification of his passions. He continued the policy of exclusion which Francia inaugurated, but for entirely different reasons, considering it necessary for his own safety that the people should be kept ignorant and isolated, lest they might learn that there were justice and liberty elsewhere in the world. He ruled twenty-two years, until death took the sceptre from him and gave it to his son.

If the father was bad, the son was worse, and Lopez II. seemed to be inspired with an ambition to excel his sire in every crime the latter had been guilty of. Filled with passion and lust, there was no form of cruelty he did not practise, and no act of brutality that he did not commit. He murdered his mother and brother, like King Thebaw, lest they might conspire against his authority. He had men pulled to pieces by horses, and invented a form of capital punishment before unknown to the catalogue of horrors. People who offended him were sewed up in green hides, which were hung up before a fire to dry. As the hides dried they shrunk, and the victim was slowly crushed to death by a pressure that human bones and flesh could not resist. The wives and daughters of his subjects were his playthings, and his agents were busy in all parts of the country collecting beautiful maidens to sacrifice to his lust. He resisted immigration, and, like his two predecessors, kept the foreign commerce of the country in his own hands. When steamers began to ascend the Parana River, he chained logs together and obstructed navigation, and when foreigners entered the country he drove them out.

The only outlet for the interior provinces of Southern Brazil is through Paraguay, and the people of Brazil resented the obstruction to their commerce. The Argentine Republic and Uruguay also had grievances, and in 1868 the three great nations, representing about half the population of South America, called the tyrant Lopez to account. Then began a war which has no parallel in history. For six long years the little State of Paraguay held at bay the three combined nations whose territory surrounded it. The war did not end until the population of Paraguay was wellnigh exterminated, the country laid waste, and the tyrant Lopez driven to the mountains, where he was finally killed in a cave in which he sought refuge. The war cost Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and Uruguay two hundred and fifty million dollars and twenty thousand lives, while it cost Paraguay everything. There were scarcely enough survivors to bury the dead. The entire country was practically destroyed and depopulated.

During the reign of the two Lopezes, father and son, the most intelligent and the best men in the country were banished. Exile was the penalty of all whose views differed from those of the tyrant, and who would not submit to his exactions. More were murdered than banished, and their families fled from the country. On the downfall of the despot the exiles returned with enlarged intelligence, broader views, and an education received in foreign lands which fitted them to restore their almost ruined country, and to establish something like a liberal and wise government. After the death of Lopez and the occupation of the country by the allied armies, a junta was formed, consisting of three citizens of Paraguay, two of whom had returned from banishment, and had taken part in the war against the tyrant. Their powers were provisional, and similar to those of the consuls of old Rome. These men called a constitutional convention, which organized a permanent government, based upon the plan of that of the United States. The constitution guarantees religious and civil liberty, security of person and property, prohibits the re-election of Presidents, endows the Congress with authority much more extended than that of ours, and in every possible manner provides against the repetition of the old dictatorships.

One of the first steps taken by Congress was to encourage immigration, and agents were sent to Europe to organize colonies and offer inducements to settlers. There was a strong effort made to secure German colonies, but it was difficult to divert them from the United States. In Italy and the Basque provinces of Spain the emigrant agents were more successful, and about twenty thousand people from these countries have settled in Paraguay during the last four years. Their prosperity and the treatment they have received have been so encouraging that a steady stream of immigration is now flowing from all the European States towards

Above the mouth of the Uruguay River, which forms the

Whoever obtains control of these natural lines of communication, and supplements them by railways, will hold the key to the treasures of the heart of South America, whose value has furnished food for three centuries of fable. A section of country as large as that which lies between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains lies there practically unexplored. On its borders are rich agricultural lands, fine ranges, unmeasured resources of timber, the diamond-fields of Brazil, and the gold and silver mines of Bolivia and Peru. What exists in the unknown region is a matter of speculation, but the farther man has gone the greater has been his wonder. The tales of explorers who have attempted to penetrate it sound like a recital of the old romances of Golconda and El Dorado; but the swamps and the mountains, the rivers that cannot be forded, and the jungles which forbid its search, the absence of food, and the difficulty of carrying supplies, with the other obstacles which now prevent exploration, will be overcome eventually, and the secret which has tantalized the world for three centuries will be disclosed by scientists. Almost every year expeditions are sent into the wilderness by the Government of the Argentine Republic, and each one goes farther than the last, so that the prospect of a thorough exploration is encouraging.

The commerce of Paraguay is small, although rapidly increasing, and at present is absorbed in that of Uruguay and the Argentine Republic. There is one railroad in the country, which was built by Lopez II. for the transportation of troops, and runs a distance of forty-five miles, from Asuncion to Paraguay, an interior town of some importance. In 1877 the railroad was sold to an English corporation for a million dollars, but has not been well maintained. A street-car line connects the railway-station with the steamboat landing at Asuncion. There are two lines of steamers to Asuncion, one from Buenos Ayres and one from Montevideo. It is a journey of 1700 miles, and usually requires about fifteen days, as the stops along the route are numerous, and a great deal of time is taken up in loading and unloading. The steamers on this route are as good as any that ever floated upon the Mississippi River, and are fitted up in the most elegant style. They compete actively for passengers and furnish excellent meals and accommodations. One line sails under the French flag, and the other belongs to an Argentine company.

The President of the republic is Dr. Caballaro, a man of education and broad intellect. He has travelled in Europe, and during the reign of Lopez II. was an exile, spending most of his time in the Argentine Republic. He has a Cabinet of three ministers, and his Secretary of State was educated in the Methodist Mission at Buenos Ayres. The latter gentleman is a Protestant, understands English well, and is a man of the most progressive ideas. It is largely owing to his efforts that Paraguay is making such rapid progress; and as he is the ruling spirit of the Government, he will probably be the next President.

The people are quiet, submissive, and industrious, having a mixture of Spanish blood and that of the Guarani Indians, who were the aboriginal settlers of the country. Their kinsmen across the Paraguay River, in the Argentine Republic, were a nomadic, savage tribe; but the tyranny of Lopez, father and son, took the spirit out of the Paraguay Indians, and they are now domesticated, and live in bamboo huts, cultivate the soil, and raise cattle. There is said to be less crime in Paraguay than in any other of the South American countries, and in 1883 there were but one hundred and twenty-five criminal trials in the entire republic, twenty-one of the defendants being foreigners. But for the tyranny of its rulers in past years Paraguay might have been an Arcadia, for the simple habits, the few wants, and the peaceable disposition of the people made them contented and well disposed towards each other. As nature has provided for all their wants, they have no great incentive to labor, and the enterprise and thrift of the country is generally found among the foreigners, from whom the people are, however, rapidly learning the ways of the world and the value of money. The men and women are of small stature, and the latter are usually very pretty when young, but lose their beauty of feature and figure after maternity. They are innocent, and childish in their amusements, are fond of dancing and singing, and have native dances that are as graceful, and native songs that are as melodious, as are the dances and music of the negroes of the United States.

Asuncion, the capital of the republic, is the oldest settlement in what is known as the valley of the River Plate. There were a considerable number of people there, and it was the seat of civil and religious authority, before the city of Buenos Ayres or the city of Rio de Janeiro was founded. There was a time when Asuncion was the greatest city in that part of the world, being the seat of the viceroys of Spain and the centre of a great commercial business. But after the independence of the republic, and during the reign of the despots Francia and Lopez, father and son, who for sixty years exercised despotic sway over the country, all immigration was shut out, and the people of the country were not permitted to leave it lest they should learn ideas of civilization and liberty that would excite them to revolution. At that time Asuncion was a city of seventy-five thousand inhabitants, but during the war it was almost depopulated, and three-fourths of the buildings are now in ruins.

The most conspicuous object in Asuncion is the immense palace of Lopez, which covered four acres, and was completed at an enormous cost of money and labor, wrung from an unwilling people shortly before the fall of the tyrant. It is now an empty, roofless shell, towering, like one of the ruined castles in Europe, over the river. With its long rows of dismantled windows and black, ragged holes, it is as ghastly as the eye-sockets in a decaying skull. Its shattered towers, shivering cornices, and broken parapets disclose the results of a three weeks’ bombardment, and the destruction that followed its capture. The Brazilian plunderers carried off all that was portable; what they could not take away was burned, and what fire would not consume was defaced. The palace is said to have cost two million dollars, and was built exclusively by native workmen. The men are very skilful in the use of tools, and in the manufacture of gold and silver ornaments, and the women make a very fine lace which is called nanduty. The lace-making art was taught the women by the Spanish nuns. They do not use cotton thread, but the very fine fibres of a native tree, which are as soft and lustrous as silk. Some of their designs are very beautiful, and the fabric is indestructible. Lopez had his chamber walls hung with this lace, on a background of crimson satin, and the pattern was an imitation of the finest cobweb. It is said to have required the work of two hundred women for several years to cover the walls, and that every one of those women was a discarded mistress of the despot. The lace is fastened to the wall by clamps of solid gold of the most unique workmanship. There are four hundred of these clamps, each worth from twelve to fifteen dollars.

Near by the palace are the roofless walls of a spacious unfinished theatre, an example of Lopez’s extravagance. The cathedral, and the Church of the Incarnacion, where Francia sought, but did not find, a final resting-place, are heavy, ungraceful constructions of Spanish times. Nor have the Government buildings—many of which sheltered the terrible Dictator, for he continually shifted from one to another, for fear, it is said, of assassination—any pretension to beauty. Neither are the remains of the old Jesuit college, now converted into a barrack, anyway remarkable. The streets, wide and regular, are ill paved and deep in sand, while the public squares are undecorated and bare. On the other hand, the dwelling-houses—at least such of them as are constructed on the old Spanish plan, so admirably adapted to the requirements of the climate—are solidly built and not devoid of beauty. They have cool courts, thick walls, deeply recessed doors and windows, projecting eaves, and heavy, protected roofs.

The furniture of the dwelling-houses is of native wood-work, solid, and tastefully carved. The pavement is generally of marble local or imported. The hard woods of the native forests are susceptible of high polish and delicate work, and the marbles, of various kinds and colors, are not inferior in beauty to any that Italy herself can boast of; and these will, when Paraguay is herself once more, take a high place on the list of her productions and merchandise.

The most cheerful, and almost the only active part of

Asuncion is the market-place, which is situated near the centre of the town. It is a large square block of open arcades and pillared roofs, to which the natives from the suburbs daily bring their produce, intermixed with other wares of cheap price and of every-day consumption, the vendors being almost exclusively women. Maize, watermelons, gourds, pumpkins, oranges, mandioca flour, sweet potatoes, half-baked bread, cakes, biscuits, and sweets—the chief articles of food—are here offered for sale, together with tobacco of dark color and strong flavor, and yerba, the dried and pulverized leaf of the Paraguayan tea. Alongside of these are displayed a medley of cheap articles, for use or ornament, mostly of European manufacture; and here may be found matches, combs, cigarette paper, pots and pans, water-jars, rope, knives, hatchets, small looking-glasses, handkerchiefs, ponchos, and native saddles much resembling Turkish ones, which are very comfortable for riding, and are loaded with coarse silver ornaments. But the chief interest of the scene is the study of the buyers and sellers themselves. The men, who mostly belong to the former class, are from the villages round about, and come mounted on small, rough-coated horses, which are unclipped of mane or tail. The rider’s dress consists of a pair of loose cotton drawers, coarsely embroidered or fringed with lace, and over them and around the waist are many-folded loin-cloths, generally of white; or it may consist of a pair of loose, baggy trousers, much like those worn by the Turkish peasants, and girt by a leather belt of generous width. These, with a white shirt often loaded with lace, and over all a striped or flowered poncho, complete the dress. Boots are rarely worn, and the bare feet are sometimes equipped with immense silver-plated spurs. The features and build of the riders present every variety of type, from the light-complexioned, brown-haired, red-bearded, honest manliness of the ancestral Basque, to the copper-hued, straight black-haired, narrow dark eyed, beardless chinned, flattened nosed, and small wiry framed aboriginal Guarani.

The women are scantily, and in more civilized countries would be considered immodestly, clad, wearing nothing but a white tunic of native cotton, tied around the waist with a girdle of some gay color, often handsomely embroidered. These tunics are usually fringed at the top and bottom with native lace, and are always scrupulously clean. Cleanliness is the rule in Paraguay, and it extends to everything—dwellings, furniture, clothes, and person. Each house in the country has behind it a garden, small or large, as the case may be, in which flowers are sedulously cultivated. Flowers are a decoration that a Paraguayan girl or woman is rarely without. The women are pretty and often handsome. Dark eyes, long, wavy, dark hair, and a brunette complexion most prevail; but the blond

type, with blue eyes and golden curls, indicative of Basque descent, is by no means rare. Their hands and feet are almost universally delicate and small, and their forms, at least till frequent maternity has sacrificed beauty to usefulness, are simply perfect. The people seem to be always good-natured, the women particularly, who laugh, chat, and joke among themselves and with their customers, and are courteous and generous. Unlike many of their South American neighbors, they are as honest as they are gentle. A brighter, kinder, truer, more affectionate, and more devotedly faithful person than the Paraguayan girl exists nowhere. The women are more regardful of their beauty than in other countries, and the Paraguayan girl is never without a bit of decoration, ear-rings, a necklace, a bunch of flowers, or something of that sort; but they all smoke, young and old.

Some of the native ceremonies are peculiar and beautiful. When a couple are married, the bridal bed is always covered with flowers, and each neighbor contributes something towards giving them an outfit, even if it is nothing but a wooden spoon or a gourd cup. Their funerals are conducted after the ordinary formula of the Roman Catholic Church, but it is customary to hold a sort of wake over the dead, as in Ireland. Their market-days occur twice a week, and on Sunday there is the largest gathering and the greatest display, the people coming together after mass in the morning, and remaining about the plaza all day, enjoying a sort of festival which invariably closes in the evening with a dance. The dances are usually of the European kind—quadrilles, waltzes, polkas, mazourkas, and lanciers, interspersed with Paraguayan figures—the cielo, the media caña (a great favorite, and very lively), the Montenero, and some variations which were inherited from the aboriginal races. Cigars, cigarettes, sweets, refreshments, drinks—among which last caña, the rum of the country, comes foremost—are freely distributed in the intervals of the dances, and the ball is kept up till morning light. The women, seated around the room, each waiting her turn to dance, while the men gossip in groups outside the door, are dressed in Paraguayan fashion, with the long white tupoi, or tunic, which is deeply embroidered around the borders, and is often fringed with the beautiful home-made lace of the country; sometimes with silk skirts or brightly colored petticoats, and a broad colored sash; some of them wearing slippers, others barefooted.

The mandioca is a root resembling the yam, from which is produced the tapioca of commerce. Life and death are blended in the plant, but every part of it is useful if properly treated, and is as essential to the domestic economy of Brazil and Paraguay as rice is to China, or as potatoes are to Ireland. It is served at every meal, from that taken from the dinner-pail of the laborer to the banquet of the grandees, just as bread is with us, and is made into as many forms of food as our flour. There are four species of mandioca, but they differ

only as one kind of apple differs from another, all serving the same general purpose. The plant grows about four feet in height, and resembles the tomato in its foliage. The stalk and leaves are excellent fodder for cattle, and are often dried and used for their medicinal properties by the old women of Paraguay. When eaten raw the root is a deadly poison. Thirty-five drops of the juice were once administered as an experiment to a negro who was under sentence of death, causing speedy dissolution after five minutes of horrible convulsions. This poison is mysteriously removed or neutralized by the application of heat, and the root can be boiled or baked like a yam or sweet-potato. When cooked it is almost pure starch, and contains ninety-five per cent. of nutritious properties, being in fact as well as in fancy the staff of life of the people. The roots are boiled, and are then ground in rude mills, producing a powder about the color of buckwheat flour. Tapioca is a refined mandioca, and is produced by a modern process, the flour being reduced to a paste by boiling, and then allowed to crystallize. Very little tapioca is manufactured in the country, but the raw product is shipped to other parts of the world where the tapioca of commerce is manufactured.

A drink called chicha is also made of mandioca by soaking the flour in water and letting it ferment. It has a taste very much like malt or yeast, and one glassful of it will last a lifetime for an American, although the native will drink it by the quart without injury. It is a rapid intoxicant, but leaves no deleterious effect, and the man who goes upon a chicha spree will not wake up with a headache the next morning. The chicha of Peru is made of the juice of the sugar-cane, and the chicha of Chili of the juice of the grape. All these drinks have a similar taste and a similar effect.

The yerbales, or mate fields, of Paraguay are said to cover three million acres in their present state, and to produce an annual crop of thirty thousand tons. During the reign of the tyrants Francia and Lopez the exportation of mate was monopolized by the Government, and every citizen was

compelled to pay as tribute-money a certain amount each year for the benefit of the despots, being driven to it by taskmasters, as were the children of Israel to the making of bricks in Egypt. But under the new regime the tea-forests have been leased to an Argentine firm, which pays a royalty of one dollar a ton to the Government. This concession was given when the Treasury was empty and the Government was greatly in need of money, so that what might have been a very productive source of income was sacrificed for a little cash in hand.

Paraguay tobacco is used all over South America. It is rank, black, and full of nicotine, but it makes a very good cigarette, being about as strong as the blackest Turkish tobacco, or “perique.” Everybody in Paraguay smokes—men, women, and children—and their cigarettes are made of the native tobacco and corn-husks. During the last few years several political refugees from Cuba have found a resting-place in Paraguay, and have experimented with native tobacco on the Cuban plan. These experiments have shown that, where properly cultivated and properly cured, this tobacco is as good as any raised in the West Indies; but the natives let it grow wild, and take no pains either in its cultivation or in the treatment of the leaves.

The timber of Paraguay is very fine, and includes almost every variety known to arboriculture, from the finest light woods that may replace those of China and Japan to the heavy and tough varieties that sink in water like iron, and are indestructible. For lack of energy and saw-mills, the forests, so far, are almost untouched. The dwellings and other buildings of the country are made of adobe, and the small quantity of dressed lumber used there comes from Canada or from the United States. Two American saw-mills have recently been introduced, and the water-power is sufficient to operate them at a small expense. The timber regions are full of streams, which can be utilized for floating logs and rafts, and nature seems to have provided every facility for the development of their extensive resources.

Along the western border of Paraguay lies an immense territory, in some parts reported to be arid and waste for want of water, but in others filled with a succession of rivers, and destined in time to be one of the most valuable portions of the Argentine Republic. It is called “El Gran

Chaco.” It extends from the Parana River to Bolivia, and is separated on the east from Paraguay by the river of the same name. It is divided by the river Vermijo into two almost equal parts, one called the “Chaco Austral” and the other “Chaco Boreal,” the latter extending to latitude 20° south, and bounded on the north by the Bolivian province of Chiquitos. The “Chaco Boreal” is an uninterrupted plain, elevated about four thousand feet above the level of the sea, and divided into the most beautiful forests, with intervening meadows, as if made purposely for the raising of cattle. The Austral or Southern Chaco lies between the Vermijo on the north, the Parana on the east, and the province of Santa Fé on the south. It is completely level, and is richly endowed by nature, not only with a deep soil, but with most magnificent forests. As yet these vast regions are almost exclusively occupied by wild Indians. A large portion has never been explored, and hence but little is yet known of the interior, or of its treasures of vegetable wealth. Only where it skirts along the Parana and Paraguay rivers, with here and there a small clearing and settlement, the nucleus of a number of agricultural colonies, has anything been scientifically determined in reference to its timber resources. The region possesses an immense advantage in great water-courses flowing along its eastern borders, and the smaller streams which penetrate its interior, and are navigable for many hundreds of miles. Thus all its vast wealth of precious woods and valuable timber is rendered accessible not only to Buenos Ayres, but as ocean ships can load along its banks, it is also accessible to the markets of the world, without the necessity of transshipment. The wood-choppers are at work, and the quantities of all kinds of precious woods shipped down the rivers are becoming greater and greater every year.

The bay around which the city lies is famous for its beauty, and rivals that of Naples or the Golden Horn. The panorama is ever changing with the shifting clouds, and in this country everything is intense. Nowhere is the contrast between sunshine and shadow so strong, and the outlines of the clouds lie distinctly upon the landscape where their shadows fall, changing the tint of the foliage and flowers. The mountains, which furnish a noble background for the picture, are so steep, so rugged, and so high as to exaggerate the peace of the water, and furnish another striking contrast in their dark and frowning lines to the white buildings of the city and its countless towers. These mountains seem to enclose the town and the bay like a wall, and leave no passage in or out except at the entrance to the harbor, which is scarcely wide enough for two vessels to pass. Along their base lies the city, like a lazy white monster, sleeping under the shade of imperial palms in a garden of never-failing colors and eternal loveliness.

Viewed from the deck of a ship in the harbor, the city of Rio looks like a fragment of fairy-land—a cluster of alabaster castles decorated with vines; but the illusion is instantly dispelled upon landing, for the streets are narrow, damp, dirty, reeking with repulsive odors, and filled with vermin-covered beggars and wolfish-looking dogs. 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. The palm is the peacock of trees. Nothing can degrade it, and the filth in which it often grows only serves to heighten its beauty. Behind some of the residences of the better classes are gardens in which grow flowers that baffle the painter’s skill, and foliage that is the ideal of luxuriance and gracefulness. They are little glimpses of green and gold in a desert of misery and dirt. A few years ago there was not even a sewer in Rio, and all the garbage and offal of the city was carried through the streets on the heads of men, and dumped into the sea. Now there are drains under the principal streets, but they seem to be of little use, as the main thoroughfares are abominable, and one wonders what the less pretentious ones may be. The pavements are of the roughest cobble-stone, the streets are so narrow that scarcely a breath of air can enter them, and the sunshine cannot reach the pools of filth that steam and fester in the gutters, breeding plagues.

The city is in the shape of a narrow crescent, lying between the mountains and the bay, nowhere more than half a mile wide, and stretching for a distance of nine or ten miles. It can never be any wider, but grows at either end. The chief residence street lies along the edge of the water, but the business houses are crowded into the lower portion of the town, damp, gloomy, and dismal, the streets being so narrow that carriages are forbidden to enter them during the busy hours of the day. A fire that would burn out the older portion of the city would be a blessing, and might redeem Rio from some of its filth and ugliness.

The principal street in Rio is the celebrated Rua do Ouvidor. It is a narrow little alley-way, in which two carriages could not pass each other. In fact I never saw a carriage in

the street, and doubt if a driver would be bold enough to venture there. Here are the shops of the principal merchants, and the gorgeous stores of the artificers of feather flowers, and the dealers in gold and silver and precious stones. The street, from one end to the other, is filled at night with people, not on the narrow sidewalks only, but completely filling the thoroughfare from wall to wall. Officers of the army and navy, and soldiers and sailors, all in uniform, mingle with the crowd, and flash their gold lace in the bright light that floods the street. Everywhere, too, are the elaborate mulatto gendarmes, the police of the city. From the cafés chantants come the sounds of music and the clinking of glasses. At little tables in the cafés the Brazilians sit, drinking strong coffee or other beverages, talking, gesticulating, and never for a moment completely at rest. Catching a weasel asleep is easy compared with that of catching a Brazilian when some portion of his body is not in motion. This is owing to the amount of strong black coffee they drink. A Brazilian proverb says that coffee, to be good, must be “black as night, as bitter as death, and hot as sheol.”

Rio is a succession of disappointments. The only really pretty place is the Botanical Garden, which serves to illustrate what the whole city might be with the exercise of a little taste and the expenditure of a trifling sum of money. Here are colonnades of palms which surpass anything on the globe, and which are worth a journey to Brazil to see. Here are all the plants and trees that the country produces, and no land is so rich in vegetation as Brazil. Flowers of the most gorgeous hues, orchids that are wonders of color, and a representation of the virgin forests of the Amazon, a tangled mass of wild, luxuriant vegetation, full of birds of the most brilliant plumage, bugs that look like animated gems, and flowers of scarlet, purple, and yellow, that make the forest appear as if it were ablaze. Every color is intense.

Humming-birds are plenty as flies about Rio, and the natives call them be aflores (kiss flowers). At night the air is full of myriads of fire-flies that look like a shower of stars. To one who makes a tour of South America before going to Brazil, it seems as if all of the homely women on the continent had emigrated there, for pretty ones are extremely scarce. Their complexions are sallow, and they all have a bilious look. Another oddity is that the women are invariably fat and the men are invariably lean. Their complexions are ruined by the climate, and the lives of indolence they lead give them a tendency to obesity, which is augmented by the excessive use of sweetmeats. The women are munching confectionery from morning till night, and scarcely eat anything else, and their time is divided between dozing in a

More attention is now paid to female education in Brazil than formerly. At one time it was only necessary for a señorita to know how to read her prayer-book and to embroider, but of late seminaries for females have been established, and the nuns compelled to enlarge the curriculum of convent study. The Brazilian woman is now beginning to receive the respect that modern civilization demands for her, and is no longer kept as a plaything for man. She is intelligent, learns readily, and has considerable wit, but never reads anything except the fashion papers and translations of French novels. A bookseller told me that the demand for the last named was increasing largely, and that where he sold only one ten years ago he sells a hundred nowadays. Education in music and the lighter arts is also becoming popular, as the increased sales in music and painting and drawing materials show. The Brazilian woman has always been famous for her embroidery, and her house is full of the most beautiful work, the doing of which she has learned from the nuns.

In Rio social restrictions are being removed, the two sexes are allowed to mingle with greater freedom than formerly, and society is beginning to assume a new phase. Occasionally grand balls are given, and within the last few years the natives have acquired the habit of occasionally visiting one another’s houses socially with their wives—something that was unknown a few years ago. The etiquette of modern society was reversed in Brazil not many years ago. If a man bowed to a female acquaintance, or addressed her, except in the presence of her husband, father, or brother, it was considered an insult, to be punished with a blow, but now it is considered entirely proper for ladies and gentlemen to converse together. There remains, however, the old system of formal calling or exchanging visits. Ladies never go out alone to call on their friends, and no gentleman will be received at a house when the husband or father is absent.

The theatres of Rio are numerous and well attended, but are neither handsome nor well arranged. There are French, Spanish, and Portuguese performances, and during the winter season an Italian opera two or three times a week, which is liberally patronized by the upper classes. The performances at the opera as well as at the theatres are considered only an adjunct to social conversation, however, and because of the talking going on around him during the play, one can scarcely hear what is said by the performers. Connected with every theatre is a garden and café, and between the acts the people repair to these places. Ice-cream and all sorts of beverages are served, and confectionery of course. They have recently built the great Theatre Dom Pedro Segundo, larger than La Scala or San Carlo, and said to have a seating capacity of eleven thousand. In building this theatre the matter of size has rather been overdone, for a large portion of the audience is unable to hear the opera. The Emperor has two boxes in the opera-house—one a small private box, and one a great and gorgeous box of state. When the venerable gentleman is out spending the evening somewhere, and wishes to visit the opera quietly for a moment, he goes into his private box, and sits there without causing unusual attention; but when he goes in state he occupies the large box. Then he dashes up to the theatre with his guards, equerries, and gentlemen-in-waiting. As he enters the box the orchestra strikes up the stirring imperial hymn, the people rise, and shout, “Viva Dom Pedro Segundo!” the Emperor bows, smiles, takes his seat, and the opera proceeds.

The native dishes are peculiar, and are not palatable to those who do not care for an unlimited amount of garlic. In fact, a stranger going into the interior cannot find anything to eat but boiled eggs, for these are the only articles the native Brazilian cook cannot spoil. Grease and garlic do not penetrate the shells; but even eggs are unreliable, for the natives seem to have no idea of any difference in them, and use them in all conditions of age, and often in the transition stage of being.

At all the public gatherings in Rio these people appear in uniforms or court dresses, decorated with stars and crosses so numerously and inappropriately bestowed as to border on the ridiculous. Many boys, apparently not more than fourteen or fifteen years of age, can be seen at these gatherings, wearing tawdry silk and velvet dresses, and stars which have been obtained by inheritance or by purchase. There used to be a custom under which patents of nobility, with stars and crosses, and “the insignia of the order of Christ,” which was the highest decoration, could be obtained by purchase, and the rage for these decorations attained a greater height in Brazil probably than in any other country. At one time almost every petty shopkeeper in the empire might be seen on the streets on holidays with a “habito de Christo” on his breast. These purchased honors were worn by the dignitaries of the Church as well as by civilians of all degrees, and being handed down from the generation that lived when such

There are several institutions for higher education, several schools of medicine, of law, civil engineering, and mining; a normal school for the education of teachers, a conservatory of music, a school of fine arts, an institute for the blind, and another for the deaf and dumb, several reformatory schools, and an Imperial Industrial School founded by Dom Pedro upon the plan of the Cooper Institute of New York, the suggestion for it having been derived from his visit to that place while in the United States. There is also a bureau of colonization and immigration in the Department of Agriculture, and as an inducement to settlers, the Government offers them free subsistence and shelter at the boarding-house in Rio de Janeiro during the time that it is necessary for them to wait, as well as free transportation for themselves and baggage from Rio to any part of the country. They can purchase land on credit, the first payment to be made at the end of the second year, and four payments during the succeeding four years, and for cash they receive a discount of twenty per cent. For the first season the Agricultural Department gives them a donation of necessary implements and seeds, and an allowance of twenty-five cents a day for each adult, and ten cents for each child, during the first six months after settlement, until the land they occupy can be made to produce. The cost of the land is now from eight to sixteen dollars an acre. There are under the care of the Department of Agriculture twelve colonies, comprising a population of sixty-two thousand people, mostly German. The number of immigrants arriving in the country amounts to from forty to fifty thousand a year.

Considerable progress has been made, and great interest taken, in railroad development. There are now about 2500 miles in operation, 800 of which are owned and operated by the Government, and 1700 by private corporations. In addition to this, about 1400 miles are under construction, and there are many prospective enterprises. The Government guarantees an annual income of seven per cent. upon the construction bonds of all railroads, and has so far paid this guarantee promptly. Recently a loan of thirty-four million dollars has been made in London for the construction of additional railways, and this is also secured by the Government. The rails are all imported from England, but a part of the rolling stock is brought from the United States. The roads are surveyed

and built by Brazilian engineers, but the principal machinists and locomotive drivers are Scotchmen. The principal railroad in Brazil is the one named in honor of the present Emperor, Dom Pedro II., and it is familiarly known as the “Pedro Segundo” road. This line runs from Rio Janeiro to the most important towns, and through a country which produces coffee, corn, and cattle. There are now about 500 miles of track in operation. It is a favorite route for tourists, and affords a view of the finest mountain scenery in the empire.

The prevailing opinion among the practical men of Brazil is that Dom Pedro II. is a lovable old humbug. Everybody regards the Emperor with a feeling of reverence, and his character and motives are universally respected; but he leaves the cares of State entirely to the direction of his ministers and his half-brother, the Baron de Capanema, who has more influence with the Cabinet than the Emperor himself. The old man is wrapped up in philanthropic movements, and is

The Empress is a woman of rare traits, being noted for her womanliness, her charity, and her lovely character; and those who became acquainted with her while she was in the United States will remember her with the greatest affection. There is nowhere in the world a couple more devoted to each other, or with a kindlier disposition towards their fellow-creatures, or having a more earnest desire to accomplish something for the good of mankind, than Dom Pedro and the Empress. She is much more practical in her charity than he, and it is said that she frequently chides the Emperor for being so easily humbugged. The Empress is a fine-looking old lady, with white hair and a kindly face. She has not the force

The Emperor spends most of his time at Petropolis, and the only thing that can induce him to visit the city of Rio is a debate in Congress on the slavery question. It is nearly four centuries since Brazil was discovered, and it has always been governed by the same family. This part of the continent was given to the Portuguese by the Pope. When they began to quarrel with the Spaniards over the possession of the discoveries in America, the Pope drew a line along the sixty-fifth parallel of longitude and decided that the Portuguese should have all that part of the world lying east, and the Spaniards all that part lying west of it. Therefore Brazil became a viceroyalty of Portugal, and remained so until 1807, when the two countries changed relations, Brazil becoming the seat of government and Portugal becoming a colony. Portugal temporized with Napoleon, and when he made a raid upon that nation the royal family of Briganza took a step which astonished all Europe. In order to save the nation from the bloodshed and devastation that followed Napoleon’s avarice, Dom Joao fled from Lisbon to Rio, and left Napoleon in peaceable possession of Portugal.

It may be said, however, that the general public takes very little interest in the dispute. There is no affection or respect felt for the monastic orders, which are in a condition of

The anniversary of Corpus Christi is always celebrated with great pomp in Rio, and with a procession which marches through the principal streets. At its head is usually carried an effigy of the Saviour, preceded by bands of singing priests and bearers of incense, and covered with a canopy carried by the Emperor and the Count D’Eu, his son-in-law, and the principal ministers of state. The participation of the

There is no wharfage at any of the Brazilian ports; vessels are compelled to anchor out in the harbors, which are usually good, and be loaded and unloaded by means of lighters. Passengers are carried to and fro in bongoes, managed by a noisy and naked boatman, who inspires alarm in the breast of the nervous passenger, who imagines this gang of savage-looking maniacs are cannibals howling for his blood. The wardrobe of a bongo usually consists of a dilapidated straw hat and a pair of cotton drawers amputated at the thighs. These drawers are a degree farther from decency than the bathing-trunks small boys wear at the sea-side. The bongoes are shrewd fellows, and make bargains easily, but are hard to settle with when the work is done. They agree to take you and your trunk ashore for a dollar, but when you reach the custom-house they demand twice as much, with an additional dollar for Pippo, who helped carry the trunk down the gangway. People who remain on the vessel amuse themselves by throwing small coins into the water for the boatmen to dive after. If you toss a silver quarter overboard, a dozen or more will plunge after it, and one of them will have it in his mouth before it reaches the bottom.

On every block is a policeman or watchman, whose business

The Brazilian rises early in the morning, to do the greater part of his work in the cool of the day. He drinks a cup of strong coffee, eats a roll, and perhaps an egg, and then goes to his store or office, from which he returns at twelve to his breakfast—the most elaborate meal of the day. It begins with soup and ends with cheese, dulces, and coffee, like the dinner of the temperate zone. He has a fish, a chop or steak, an omelette, and a salad, but no vegetables. Then he lies down for a nap, after which, about four o’clock, he returns to business, and remains often as late as eight or nine o’clock. His dinner is a repetition of his breakfast, except that he has vegetables and a roast or fowl. He takes a walk in the plaza with his family after dinner and retires early, if he does not go to the club or gaming-table. The people are inveterate gamblers. There is no more disgrace attached to attendance upon the faro-table or the roulette-board than attends stock gambling in New York. He calls upon the Holy Mother when he tosses his chips upon the cards, and says an “Ave Maria” when he wins a stake. At every religious festival the cathedrals and churches are surrounded by gambling-booths, and the priests always go to the cock-fights after high mass on Sunday. Some of them breed game chickens, and carry them to the pit under their priestly robes.

The great problem for Brazil to solve in the future is that of labor. With the gradual emancipation of the slave the labor system of the country is becoming disorganized and demoralized. It has been demonstrated beyond a doubt, even in the minds of the most radical abolitionists, that the emancipated negroes are neither disposed nor competent to take care of themselves. They are different in this respect from the freedmen of the United States because their ignorance is much greater. Their dependence is much more absolute, and they never received the kind treatment and instruction that was enjoyed by so many of the slaves in the United States. From one end of Brazil to the other there is scarcely a negro slave, or one who has ever been enslaved, that can read and write. Their ignorance is so dense that they scarcely know anything of the work outside of the cabin in which they live; and the policy of the slave-holders, aided by the priests, has been to keep them in this condition as far as possible. As long as they have attended mass, and said so many prayers a day, the priests have been satisfied with their condition, and their owners and masters have never thought of anything but to get as much work out of them as was consistent with their strength.

This law, however well intended, proved impracticable, and could not be generally enforced. Forgeries were committed upon the records of birth, both by the slaves and their masters. The latter refused, or fixed so high a valuation that very few were able to earn their freedom; they neglected to educate the children as required by law, so that even if a young man gained his freedom he was not fitted to enjoy it or exercise the right of citizenship. The old men and women were turned off the plantations to beg or find refuge in the public almshouses; and the planters, feeling no longer any interest in the health and welfare of their slaves, neglected their sanitary condition and ill-treated them. The result of the law was to demoralize the laboring element. It proved a disaster to the slaves as well as to their masters, and disturbed the political condition of the country.