Chapter IX: Part 9

We found at Chamaya rafts (balsas) in readiness to convey us to Tomependa, which we desired to visit for the purpose of determining the difference of longitude between Quito and the mouth of the Chinchipe (a determination of some importance to the geography of South America on account of an old observation of La Condamine).[50] We slept as usual under the open sky on the sandy shore (Playa de Guayanchi) at the confluence of the Rio de Chamaya with the Amazons. The next day we embarked on the latter river, and descended it to the Cataracts and Narrows (Pongo in the Quichua language, from puncu, door or gate) of Rentema, where rocks of coarse-grained sandstone (conglomerate) rise like towers, and form a rocky dam across the river. I measured a base line on the flat and sandy shore, and found that at Tomependa the afterwards mighty River of the Amazons is only a little above 1386 English feet across. In the celebrated River Narrow or Pongo of Manseritche, between Santiago and San Borja, in a mountain ravine where at some points the overhanging rocks and the canopy of foliage forbid more than a very feeble light to penetrate, and where all the drift wood, consisting of a countless number of trunks of trees, is broken and dashed in pieces, the breadth of the stream is under 160 English feet. The rocks by which all these Pongos or Narrows are formed undergo many changes in the course of centuries. Thus a part of the rocks forming the Pongo de Rentema, spoken of above, had been broken up by a high flood a year before my journey; and there has even been preserved among the inhabitants, by tradition, a lively recollection of the precipitous fall of the then towering masses of rock along the whole of the Pongo,--an event which took place in the early part of the eighteenth century. This fall, and the consequent blocking up of the channel, arrested the flow of the stream; and the inhabitants of the village of Puyaya, situated below the Pongo de Rentema, saw with alarm the wide river-bed entirely dry: but after a few hours the waters again forced their way. Earthquake movements are not supposed to have occasioned this remarkable occurrence. The powerful stream appears to be as it were incessantly engaged in improving its bed, and some idea of the force which it exerts may be formed from the circumstance, that notwithstanding its breadth it is sometimes so swollen as to rise more than 26 English feet in the course of twenty or thirty hours.

We remained for seventeen days in the hot valley of the Upper Marañon or Amazons. In order to pass from thence to the shores of the Pacific, the Andes have to be crossed at the point where, between Micuipampa and Caxamarca (in 6° 57´ S. lat. and 78° 34´ W. long. from Greenwich), they are intersected, according to my observations, by the magnetic equator. Ascending to a still higher elevation among the mountains, the celebrated silver mines of Chota are reached, and from thence with a few interruptions the route descends until the low grounds of Peru are gained; passing intermediately over the ancient Caxamarca, where 316 years ago the most sanguinary drama in the annals of the Spanish Conquista took place, and also over Aroma and Gangamarca. Here, as almost everywhere in the Chain of the Andes and in the Mexican Mountains, the most elevated parts are picturesquely marked by tower-like outbreaks of porphyry (often columnar), and trachyte. Masses of this kind give to the crest of the mountains sometimes a cliff-like and precipitous, and sometimes a dome-shaped character. They have here broken through calcareous rocks, which, both on this and on the northern side of the equator, are largely developed; and which, according to Leopold von Buch’s researches, belong to the cretaceous group. Between Guambos and Montan, 12000 French (12790 English) feet above the sea, we found marine fossils[51] (Ammonites nearly fifteen English inches in diameter, the large Pecten alatus, oyster shells, Echini, Isocardias, and Exogyra polygona). A species of Cidaris, which, according to Leopold von Buch, cannot be distinguished from that which Brongniart found in the lower part of the chalk series at the Perte du Rhone, was collected by us, both at Tomependa in the basin of the Amazons and at Micuipampa,--stations of which the elevations differ 9900 (10551 English) feet. In a similar manner, in the Amuich Chain of the Caucasian Daghestan, the cretaceous beds rise from the banks of the Sulak, which are hardly 530 English feet above the sea, to a height of fully 9000 (9592 English) feet on the Tschunum; while on the summit of the Schadagh Mountain, 13090 (13950 English) feet high, the Ostrea diluviana (Goldf.) and the same cretaceous beds are again found. Abich’s excellent observations in the Caucasus would thus appear to have confirmed in the most brilliant manner Leopold von Buch’s geological views on the mountain development of the cretaceous group.

From the lonely grazing farm of Montan surrounded by herds of lamas, we ascended more to the south the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras, and arrived as night was closing in at an elevated plain where the argentiferous mountain of Gualgayoc, the principal site of the celebrated silver mines of Chota, afforded us a remarkable spectacle. The Cerro de Gualgayoc, separated by a deep-cleft ravine or valley (Quebrada) from the limestone mountain of Cormolatsche, is an isolated mass of siliceous rock traversed by a multitude of veins of silver which often meet or intersect, and terminated to the north and west by a deep and almost perpendicular precipice. The highest workings are 1445 (1540 English) feet above the floor of the gallery, the Socabon de Espinachi. The outline of the mountain is broken by numerous tower-like and pyramidal points; the summit bears indeed the name of “Las Puntas,” and offers the most decided contrast to the “rounded outlines” which the miners are accustomed to attribute to metalliferous districts generally. “Our mountain,” said a rich possessor of mines with whom we had arrived, “stands there like an enchanted castle (como si fuese un castillo encantado).” The Gualgayoc reminds the beholder in some degree of a cone of dolomite, but still more of the serrated crest of the Monserrat Mountains in Catalonia, which I have also visited, and which were subsequently described in so pleasing a manner by my brother. The silver mountain Gualgayoc, besides being perforated to its summit by many hundred galleries driven in every direction, presents also natural openings in the mass of the siliceous rock, through which the intensely dark blue sky of these elevated regions is visible to a spectator standing at the foot of the mountain. These openings are popularly called “windows,” “las ventanillas de Gualgayoc.” Similar “windows” were pointed out to us in the trachytic walls of the volcano of Pichincha, and called by a similar name,--“ventanillas de Pichincha.” The strangeness of the view presented to us was still farther increased by the numerous small sheds and dwelling-houses, which nestled on the side of the fortress-like mountain wherever a flat surface permitted their erection. The miners carry down the ore in baskets by very steep and dangerous paths to the places where the process of amalgamation is performed.

The value of the silver furnished by the mines in the first thirty years (from 1771 to 1802) amounted probably to considerably above thirty-two millions of piastres. Notwithstanding the hardness of the quartzose rock, the Peruvians, before the arrival of the Spaniards (as ancient galleries and excavations testify), extracted rich argentiferous galena on the Cerro de la Lin and on the Chupiquiyacu, and gold in Curumayo (where native sulphur is also found in the quartz rock as well as in the Brazilian Itacolumite). We inhabited near the mines the small mountain town of Micuipampa, which is 11140 (11873 English) feet above the level of the sea, and where, though only 6° 43´ from the equator, water freezes in the house nightly throughout a large portion of the year. In this desert devoid of vegetation live three or four thousand persons, who are obliged to have all their means of subsistence brought from the warm valleys, as they themselves only rear some kinds of kale and excellent salad. In this wilderness, as in every town in the high mountains of Peru, ennui leads the richer class of persons, who are not on that account more cultivated or more civilised, to pass their time in deep gambling: thus wealth quickly won is still more quickly dissipated. There is much that reminds one of the soldier of Pizarro’s troop, who, after the pillage of the temple at Cuzco, complained that he had lost in one night at play “a great piece of the sun” (a gold plate). I observed the thermometer at Micuipampa at 8 in the morning 1°, and at noon 7° Reaumur (34°.2 and 47°.8 Fahrenheit). We found among the thin blades of Ichhu-grass (perhaps our Stipa eriostachya), a beautiful Calceolaria (C. sibthorpioides), which we should not have expected at such an elevation.

Not far from the town of Micuipampa, in a high plain called Llanos or Pampa de Navar, there have been found throughout an area of above an English geographical square mile, immediately under the turf, and as it were intertwined with the roots of the alpine grasses, enormous masses of rich red silver ore and threads of pure silver (in remolinos, clavos, and vetas manteadas). Another elevated plain west of the Purgatorio, near the Quebrada de Chiquera, is called “Choropampa” or the “Field of Shells” (_churu_, in the Quichua language, signifies shells, and particularly small eatable kinds, _hostion_, _mexillon_). The name refers to fossils which belong to the cretaceous group, and which are found there in such abundance that they early attracted the attention of the natives. This is the place where there was obtained near the surface a mass of pure gold spun round with threads of silver in the richest manner. Such an occurrence shows how independent many of the ores thrown up from the interior of the earth into fissures or veins, are of the nature of the adjacent rock and of the relative age of the formations broken through. The rock of the Cerro de Gualgayoc and of Fuentestiana has a great deal of water, but in the Purgatorio absolute dryness prevails. I found to my astonishment that notwithstanding the height of the strata above the level of the sea, the temperature of the last named mine was 15°.8 Reaumur (67°.4 Fahr.); while in the neighbouring Mina de Guadalupe the water in the mine showed about 9° Reaumur (52°.2 Fahr.) As in the open air the thermometer only rises to about 4° Reaumur (41° Fahr.), the miners, whose toil is severe, and who are almost without clothing, call the subterranean heat in the Purgatorio stifling.

The narrow path from Micuipampa to the ancient city of the Incas, Caxamarca, is difficult even for mules. The name of the town was originally Cassamarca or Kazamarca, _i. e._ the Frost town; (_marca_, as signifying a place or locality, belongs to the northern Chinchaysuyo or Chinchaysuyu dialect, while the word in the general Quichua language signifies the stories of houses, and also defences or forts). Our way lay for five or six hours over a succession of Paramos, where we were exposed almost incessantly to the fury of the wind and to the sharp-edged hail so peculiar to the ridges of the Andes. The height of the route above the level of the sea is generally between nine and ten thousand feet (about 9600 and 10660 Eng.) It afforded me, however, the opportunity of making a magnetic observation of general interest; _i. e._ the determination of the point where the North Inclination of the Needle passes into South Inclination, or where the traveller’s route crosses the Magnetic Equator.[52]

On reaching at length the last of these mountain wildernesses, the Paramo de Yanaguanga, the traveller looks down with increased pleasure on the fertile valley of Caxamarca. It affords a charming prospect: a small river winds through the elevated plain, which is of an oval form and about six or seven German geographical square miles in extent (96 or 112 English geographical square miles). The plain resembles that of Bogota: both are probably the bottoms of ancient lakes; but at Caxamarca there is wanting the myth of the wonder-working Botschica or Idacanzas, the high priest of Iraca, who opened for the waters a passage through the rock of Tequendama. Caxamarca is situated 600 (640 Eng.) feet higher than Santa Fé de Bogota, therefore almost as high as the city of Quito; but being sheltered by surrounding mountains it enjoys a far milder and more agreeable climate. The soil is extremely fertile, and the plain full of cultivated fields and gardens traversed by avenues of Willows, large flowered red, white, and yellow varieties of Datura, Mimosas, and the beautiful Quinuar-trees (our Polylepsis villosa, a Rosacea allied to Alchemilla and Sanguisorba). Wheat yields on an average in the Pampa de Caxamarca fifteen to twentyfold, but the hopes of a plentiful harvest are sometimes disappointed by night frosts, occasioned by the great radiation of heat towards the unclouded sky through the dry and rarefied mountain air: the frosts are not felt in the roofed houses.

In the northern part of the plain, small porphyritic domes break through the widely extended sandstone strata, and probably once formed islands in the ancient lake before its waters had flowed off. On the summit of one of these domes, the Cerro de Santa Polonia, we enjoyed a pleasing prospect. The ancient residence of Atuhuallpa is surrounded on this side by fruit gardens and by irrigated fields of lucerne (Medicago sativa, “campos de alfalfa”). Columns of smoke are seen at a distance rising from the warm baths of Pultamarca, which are still called Baños del Inca. I found the temperature of these sulphur-springs 55°.2 Reaumur (156°.2 Fahrenheit). Atahuallpa spent a part of the year at these baths, where some slight remains of his palace still survive the devastating rage of the Conquistadores. The large and deep basin or reservoir in which, according to tradition, one of the golden chairs in which the Inca was carried had been sunk and has ever since been sought in vain, appeared to me, from the regularity of its circular shape, to have been artificially excavated in the sandstone rock above one of the fissures through which the springs issue.

Of the fort and palace of Atahuallpa there are also only very slight remains in the town, which is now adorned with some fine churches. The destruction of the ancient buildings has been accelerated by the devouring thirst of gold which led men, before the close of the sixteenth century, in digging for supposed hidden treasures, to overturn walls and carelessly to undermine or weaken the foundations of all the houses. The palace of the Inca was situated on a hill of porphyry which had originally been hollowed at the surface, so that it surrounds the principal dwelling almost like a wall or rampart. A state prison and a municipal building (la Casa del Cabildo) have been erected on a part of the ruins. The most considerable ruins still visible, but which are only from 13 to 16 feet high, are opposite the convent of San Francisco; they consist, as may be observed in the house of the Cacique, of fine cut blocks of stone two or three feet long, and placed upon each other without cement, as in the Inca-Pilca or strong fortress of Cañar in the high land of Quito.

There is a shaft sunk in the porphyritic rock which once led into subterranean chambers, and a gallery said to extend to the other porphyritic dome before spoken of, that of Santa Polonia. Such arrangements shew an apprehension of the uncertainties of war, and the desire to secure the means of escape. The burying of treasures was an old and very generally prevailing Peruvian custom. There may still be found subterranean chambers below many of the private dwellings of Caxamarca.

We were shown steps cut in the rock, and also what is called the Inca’s foot-bath (el lavatorio de los pies). The washing of the monarch’s feet was accompanied by some inconvenient usages of court etiquette.[53] Minor buildings, designed according to tradition for the servants, are constructed partly like the others of cut stones, and provided with sloped roofs, and partly with well formed bricks alternating with siliceous cement (muros y obra de tapia). In the latter class of constructions there are vaulted recesses, the antiquity of which I long doubted, but, as I now believe, without sufficient grounds.

In the principal building the room is still shown in which the unhappy Atahuallpa was kept a prisoner for nine months[54] from November 1532, and there is pointed out to the traveller the wall on which the captive signified to what height he would fill the room with gold if set free. This height is given very variously, by Xerez in his “Conquista del Peru” which Barcia has preserved for us, by Hernando Pizarro in his letters, and by other writers of the period. The prince said that “gold in bars, plates, and vessels, should be heaped up as high as he could reach with his hand.” Xerez assigns to the room a length of 23, and a breadth of 18 English feet. Garcilaso de la Vega, who quitted Peru in his 20th year, in 1560, estimates the value of the treasure collected from the temples of the sun at Cuzco, Huaylas, Huamachuco, and Pachacamac, up to the fateful 29th of August 1553, on which day the Inca was put to death, at 3,838,000 Ducados de Oro[55].

In the chapel of the state prison, to which I have before alluded as built upon the ruins of the Inca’s palace, the stone still marked by the indelible stains of blood is shown to the credulous. It is a very thin slab, 13 feet long, placed in front of the altar, and has probably been taken from the porphyry or trachyte of the vicinity. One is not permitted to make any more precise examination by striking off a part of the stone, but the three or four supposed blood spots appear to be natural collections of hornblende or pyroxide in the rock. The Licentiate Fernando Montesinos, who visited Peru scarcely a hundred years after the taking of Caxamarca, even at that early period gave currency to the fable that Atahuallpa was beheaded in prison, and that stains of blood were still visible on the stone on which the execution had taken place. There is no reason to doubt the fact, confirmed by many eye-witnesses, that the Inca, in order to avoid being burnt alive, consented to be baptised under the name of Juan de Atahuallpa by his fanatic persecutor, the Dominican monk Vicente de Valverde. He was put to death by strangulation (el garrote) publicly, and in the open air. Another tradition relates that a chapel was raised over the spot where Atahuallpa was strangled, and that his body rests beneath the stone; in such case, however, the supposed spots of blood would remain unaccounted for. In reality, however, the corpse was never placed beneath the stone in question. After a mass for the dead, and solemn funereal rites, at which the brothers Pizarro were present in mourning habits (!), it was conveyed first to the churchyard of the convent of San Francisco, and afterwards to Quito, Atahuallpa’s birthplace. This last transfer was in compliance with the expressed wish of the dying Inca. His personal enemy, the astute Rumiñavi (“stone-eye,” a name given from the disfigurement of one eye by a wart; “rumi,” signifying “stone,” and “ñaui,” “eye,” in the Quichua language), from political motives caused the body to be buried at Quito with solemn obsequies.

We found descendants of the monarch, the family of the Indian Cacique Astorpilco, dwelling in Caxamarca, among the melancholy ruins of ancient departed splendour, and living in great poverty and privation; but patient and uncomplaining. Their descent from Atahuallpa through the female line has never been doubted in Caxamarca, but traces of beard may perhaps indicate some admixture of Spanish blood. Of the sons of the Great (but for a child of the sun somewhat free thinking),[56] Huayna Capac, neither of the two who swayed the sceptre before the arrival of the Spaniards, Huascar and Atahuallpa, left behind them acknowledged sons. Huascar became the prisoner of Atahuallpa in the plains of Quipaypan, and was soon afterwards secretly murdered by his order. Neither were there any surviving male descendants of the two remaining brothers of Atahuallpa, the insignificant youth Toparca, who Pizarro caused to be crowned as Inca in the autumn of 1553, and the enterprising Manco Capac, similarly crowned, but who afterwards rebelled again. Atahuallpa left indeed a son, whose christian name was Don Francisco, (but who died very young), and a daughter, Doña Angelina, by whom Francisco Pizarro (with whom she led a wild and warlike life), had a son whom he loved fondly, grandchild of the slaughtered monarch. Besides the family of the Cacique Astorpilco, with whom I was acquainted at Caxamarca, the Carguraicos and Titu Buscamayta were pointed out at the period of my visit as belonging to the Inca dynasty; but the Buscamayta family has since become extinct.

The son of the Cacique Astorpilco, a pleasing and friendly youth of seventeen, who accompanied me over the ruins of the palace of his ancestor, while living in extreme poverty, had filled his imagination with images of buried splendour and golden treasures hidden beneath the masses of rubbish upon which we trod. He related to me that one of his more immediate forefathers had bound his wife’s eyes, and then conducted her through many labyrinths cut in the rock into the subterranean garden of the Incas. There she saw, skilfully and elaborately imitated, and formed of the purest gold, artificial trees, with leaves and fruit, and birds sitting on the branches; and there too was the much sought for golden travelling chair (una de las andas) of Atahuallpa. The man commanded his wife not to touch any of these enchanted riches, because the long foretold period of the restoration of the empire had not yet arrived, and that whoever should attempt before that time to appropriate aught of them would die that very night. These golden dreams and fancies of the youth were founded on recollections and traditions of former days. These artificial “golden gardens” (Jardines o Huertas de oro) were often described by actual eye-witnesses, Cieza de Leon Sarmiento, Garcilaso, and other early historians of the Conquest. They were found beneath the temple of the sun at Cuzco, in Caxamarca, and in the pleasant valley of Yucay, a favourite residence of the monarch’s family. Where the golden Huertas were not below ground, living plants grew by the side of the artificial ones: among the latter, tall plants and ears of maize (mazorcas) are mentioned as particularly well executed.

The morbid confidence with which the young Astorpilco assured me that below our feet, a little to the right of the spot on which I stood at the moment, there was an artificial large-flowered Datura tree (Guanto), formed of gold wire and gold plates, which spread its branches over the Inca’s chair, impressed me deeply but painfully, for it seemed as if these illusive and baseless visions were cherished as consolations in present sufferings. I asked the lad--“Since you and your parents believe so firmly in the existence of this garden, are not you sometimes tempted in your necessities to dig in search of treasures so close at hand?” The boy’s answer was so simple, and expressed so fully the quiet resignation characteristic of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, that I noted it in Spanish in my journal. “Such a desire (tal antojo) does not come to us; father says it would be sinful (que fuese pecado). If we had the golden branches with all their golden fruits our white neighbours would hate and injure us. We have a small field and good wheat (buen trigo).” Few of my readers, I think, will blame me for recalling here the words of the young Astorpilco and his golden visions.

The belief, so widely current among the natives, that to take possession of buried treasures which belonged to the Incas would be wrong, and would incur punishment and bring misfortune on the entire race, is connected with another belief which prevailed, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, _i. e._ the future restoration of a kingdom of the Incas. Every suppressed nationality looks forward to a day of change, and to a renewal of the old government. The flight of Manco Inca, the brother of Atahuallpa, into the forests of Vilcapampa on the declivity of the eastern Cordillera, and the sojourn of Sayri Tupac and Inca Tupac Amaru in those wildernesses, have left permanent recollections. It was believed that the dethroned dynasty had settled between the rivers Apurimac and Beni, or still farther to the east in Guiana. The myth of el Dorado and the golden city of Manoa, travelling from the west to the east, increased these dreams, and Raleigh’s imagination was so inflamed by them, that he founded an expedition on the hope of “conquering ‘the imperial and golden city,’ placing in it a garrison of three or four thousand English, and levying from the ‘Emperor of Guiana,’ a descendant of Huayna Capac, and who holds his court with the same magnificence, an annual tribute of £300,000 sterling, as the price of his promised restoration to the throne in Cuzco and Caxamarca.” Wherever the Peruvian Quichua language has extended, some traces of such expectations of the return of the Inca’s sovereignty continue[57] to exist in the minds of many among those of the natives who are possessed of some knowledge of the history of their country.

We remained for five days in the town of the Inca Atahuallpa, which at that time scarcely reckoned seven or eight thousand inhabitants. Our departure was delayed by the number of mules which were required for the conveyance of our collections, and by the necessity of making a careful choice of the guides who were to conduct us across the chain of the Andes to the entrance of the long but narrow Peruvian sandy desert (Desierto de Sechura). The passage over the Cordillera is from north-east to south-west. Immediately after quitting the plain of Caxamarca, on ascending a height of scarcely 9600 (10230 English) feet, the traveller is struck with the sight of two grotesquely shaped porphyritic summits, Aroma and Cunturcaga (a favourite haunt of the powerful vulture which we commonly call Condor; _kacca_ in the Quichua language signifies “the rock.”) These summits consisted of five, six, or seven-sided columns, 37 to 42 English feet high, and some of them jointed. The Cerro Aroma is particularly picturesque. By the distribution of its often converging series of columns placed one above another, it resembles a two-storied building, which, moreover, is surmounted by a dome or cupola of non-columnar rock. Such outbursts of porphyry and trachyte are, as I have before remarked, characteristic of the high crests of the Cordilleras, to which they impart a physiognomy quite distinct from that presented by the Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Siberian Altai.

From Cunturcaga and Aroma we descended by a zig-zag course a steep rocky declivity of 6400 English feet into the deep cleft valley of the Magdalena, the bottom of which is still 4260 English feet above the level of the sea. A few wretched huts, surrounded by the same wool or cotton-trees (Bombax discolor) which we had first seen on the banks of the Amazons, were called an Indian village. The scanty vegetation of the valley bears some resemblance to that of the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, but we missed the red groves of Bougainvillæa. This valley is one of the deepest with which I am acquainted in the chain of the Andes: it is a true transverse valley directed from east to west, deeply cleft, and hemmed in on the two sides by the Altos de Aroma and Guangamarca. In this valley recommences the same quartz formation which we had observed in the Paramo de Yanaguanga, between Micuipampa and Caxamarca, at an elevation of 11720 English feet, and which, on the western declivity of the Cordillera, attains a thickness of several thousand feet, and was long an enigma to me. Since von Buch has shown us that the cretaceous group is also widely extended in the highest chains of the Andes, on either side of the Isthmus of Panama, the quartz formation which we are now considering, which has perhaps been altered in its texture by the action of volcanic forces, may be considered to belong to the Quadersandstein, intermediate between the upper part of the chalk series, and the Gault and Greensand. On quitting the mild temperature of the Magdalena valley we had to ascend again for three hours the mountain wall of 5120 English feet, opposite to the porphyritic group of the Alto de Aroma. The change of climate in so doing was the more sensible, as we were often enveloped in the course of the ascent in a cold fog.

The longing desire which we felt to enjoy once more the open view of the sea after eighteen months’ constant sojourn in the ever restricted range of the interior of the mountains, had been heightened by repeated disappointments. In looking from the summit of the volcano of Pichincha, over the dense forests of the Provincia de las Esmeraldas, no sea horizon can be clearly distinguished, by reason of the too great distance of the coast and height of the station: it is like looking down from an air-balloon into vacancy. One divines, but one does not distinguish. Subsequently, when between Loxa and Guancabamba we reached the Paramo de Guamini, where there are several ruined buildings of the times of the Incas, and from whence the mule-drivers had confidently assured us that we should see beyond the plain, beyond the low districts of Piura and Lambajeque, the sea itself which we so much desired to behold, a thick mist covered both the plain and the distant sea shore. We saw only variously shaped masses of rock alternately rise like islands above the waving sea of mist, and again disappear, as had been the case in our view from the Peak of Teneriffe. We were exposed to almost the same disappointment in our subsequent transit over the pass of Guangamarca, at the time of which I am now speaking. As we toiled up the mighty mountain side, with our expectations continually on the stretch, our guides, who were not perfectly acquainted with the road, repeatedly promised us that at the end of the hour’s march which was nearly concluded, our hopes would be realised. The stratum of mist which enveloped us appeared occasionally to be about to disperse, but at such moments our field of view was again restricted by intervening heights.

The desire which we feel to behold certain objects does not depend solely on their grandeur, their beauty, or their importance; it is interwoven in each individual with many accidental impressions of his youth, with early predilection for particular occupations, with an attachment to the remote and distant, and with the love of an active and varied life. The previous improbability of the fulfilment of a wish gives besides to its realisation a peculiar kind of charm. The traveller enjoys by anticipation the first sight of the constellation of the cross, and of the Magellanic clouds circling round the Southern Pole,--of the snow of the Chimborazo, and the column of smoke ascending from the volcano of Quito,--of the first grove of tree-ferns, and of the Pacific Ocean. The days on which such wishes are realised form epochs in life, and produce ineffaceable impressions; exciting feelings of which the vividness seeks not justification by processes of reasoning. With the longing which I felt for the first view of the Pacific from the crests of the Andes, there mingled the interest with which I had listened as a boy to the narrative of the adventurous expedition of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa,[58] the fortunate man who (followed by Francisco Pizarro) first among Europeans beheld from the heights of Quarequa, on the Isthmus of Panama, the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean,--the “South Sea.” The reedy shores of the Caspian, at the place where I first saw them, _i. e._ from the Delta formed by the mouths of the Volga, cannot certainly be called picturesque; yet I viewed them with a gratification heightened almost into delight by the particular interest and pleasure with which, in early childhood, I had looked at the shape of this Asiatic inland sea on maps. That which is thus excited in us[59] by childish impressions, or by accidental circumstances in life, takes at a later period a graver direction, and often becomes a motive for scientific labours and distant enterprises.

When after many undulations of the ground, on the summit of the steep mountain ridge, we finally reached the highest point, the Alto de Guangamarca, the heavens which had long been veiled became suddenly clear: a sharp west wind dispersed the mist, and the deep blue of the sky in the thin mountain air appeared between narrow lines of the highest cirrous clouds. The whole of the western declivity of the Cordillera by Chorillos and Cascas, covered with large blocks of quartz 13 to 15 English feet long, and the plains of Chala and Molinos as far as the sea shore near Truxillo, lay beneath our eyes in astonishing apparent proximity. We now saw for the first time the Pacific Ocean itself; and we saw it clearly: forming along the line of the shore a large mass from which the light shone reflected, and rising in its immensity to the well-defined, no longer merely conjectured horizon. The joy it inspired, and which was vividly shared by my companions Bonpland and Carlos Montufar, made us forget to open the barometer until we had quitted the Alto de Guangamarca. From our measurement taken soon after, but somewhat lower down, at an isolated cattle-farm called the Hato de Guangamarca, the point from which we first saw the sea would be only somewhere between 9380 and 9600 English feet above the level of the sea.

The view of the Pacific was peculiarly impressive to one who like myself owed a part of the formation of his mind and character, and many of the directions which his wishes had assumed, to intercourse with one of the companions of Cook. My schemes of travel were early made known, in their leading outlines at least, to George Forster, when I enjoyed the advantage of making my first visit to England under his guidance, more than half a century ago. Forster’s charming descriptions of Otaheite had awakened throughout Northern Europe a general interest (mixed, I might almost say, with romantic longings) for the Islands of the Pacific which had at that time been seen by very few Europeans. I too cherished at the time of which I am speaking the hope of soon landing on them; for the object of my visit to Lima was twofold,--to observe the transit of Mercury over the solar disk, and to fulfil an engagement made with Captain Baudin before I left Paris, to join him in a voyage of circumnavigation which was to take place as soon as the Government of the French Republic could furnish the requisite funds.

Whilst we were in the Antilles, North American newspapers announced that the two Corvettes, Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste, would sail round Cape Horn and touch at Callao de Lima. On receiving this intelligence at Havana, where I then was, after having completed my Orinoco journey, I relinquished my original plan of going through Mexico to the Philippines, and hastened to engage a vessel to convey me from the Island of Cuba to Cartagena de Indias. Baudin’s Expedition, however, took quite a different route from that which was announced and expected; instead of sailing round Cape Horn, as had been designed when it had been intended that Bonpland and myself should form part of it, it sailed round the Cape of Good Hope. One of the two objects of my Peruvian journey and of our last passage over the Chain of the Andes failed; but on the other hand I had, at the critical moment, the rare good fortune of a perfectly clear day, during a very unfavourable season of the year, on the misty coast of Low Peru. I observed the passage of Mercury over the Sun at Callao, an observation which has become of some importance towards the exact determination of the longitude of Lima[60], and of all the south-western part of the New Continent. Thus in the intricate relations and graver circumstances of life, there may often be found, associated with disappointment, a germ of compensation.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

[41] p. 267.--“_On the ridge of the Chain of the Andes or Antis._”

The Inca Garcilaso, who was well acquainted with the language of his country and was fond of dwelling on etymologies, always calls the Chain of the Andes las Montañas de los Antis. He says positively, that the great Mountain chain east of Cuzco derived its name from the tribe of the Antis, and the Province of Anti which is to the east of the Capital of the Incas. The Quaternary division of the Peruvian Empire according to the four quarters of the Heavens, reckoned from Cuzco, borrowed its terminology not from the very circumstantial words taken which signify East, West, North, and South in the Quichua language (intip lluscinanpata, intip yaucunanpata, intip chaututa chayananpata, intip chaupunchau chayananpata); but from the names of the Provinces and of the tribes or races, (Provincias llamadas Anti, Cunti, Chincha y Colla), which are east, west, north, and south of the Centre of the Empire (the city of Cuzco). The four parts of the Inca-theocracy are called accordingly Antisuyu, Cuntisuyu, Chinchasuyu, and Collasuyu. The word _suyu_ signifies “strip,” and also “part.” Notwithstanding the great distance, Quito belonged to Chinchasuyu; and in proportion as by their religious wars the Incas extended still more widely the prevalence of their faith, their language, and their absolute form of government, these Suyus also acquired larger and unequally increased dimensions. Thus the names of provinces came to be used to express the different quarters of the heavens; “Nombrar aquellos Partidos era lo mismo,” says Garcilaso, “que decir al Oriente, ó al Poniente.” The Snow Chain of the Antis was thus looked upon as an East chain. “La Provincia Anti da nombre á las Montañas de los Antis. Llamaron la parte á del Oriente Antisuyu, por la qual tambien llaman Anti á toda aquella gran Cordillera de Sierra Nevada que pasa al Oriente del Peru, por dar á entender, que está al Oriente.” (Commentarios Reales, P. I. p. 47 and 122.) Later writers have tried to deduce the name of the Chain of the Andes from “anta,” which signifies “copper” in the Quichua language. This metal was indeed of the greatest importance to a nation whose tools and cutting instruments were made not of iron but of copper mixed with tin; but the name of the “Copper Mountains” can hardly have been extended to so great a chain; and besides, as Professor Buschmann very justly remarks, the word anta retains its terminal _a_ when making part of a compound word: _anta_, cobre, y _antamarca_ Provincia de Cobre. Moreover, the form and composition of words in the ancient Peruvian language are so simple that there can be no question of the passage of an _a_ into an _i_; and thus “anta” (copper) and “Anti or Ante” (meaning as dictionaries of the country explain “la tierra de los Andes, el Indio hombre de los Andes, la Sierra de los Andes,” _i. e._ the country of the Andes, an inhabitant of the Andes, or the chain of mountains themselves), are and must continue two wholly different and distinct words. There are no means of interpreting the proper name (Anti) by connecting it with any signification or idea; if such connection exist it is buried in the obscurity of the past. Other Composites of Anti besides the above-mentioned Antisuyu are “Anteruna” (the native inhabitant of the Andes), and Anteunccuy or Antionccoy, (sickness of the Andes, mal de los Andes pestifero).

[42] p. 268.--“_The Countess of Chinchon._”

She was the wife of the Viceroy Don Geronimo Fernandez de Cabrera, Bobadilla y Mendoza, Conde de Chinchon, who administered the government of Peru from 1629 to 1639. The cure of the Vice-Queen falls in the year 1638. A tradition which has obtained currency in Spain, but which I have heard much combated at Loxa, names a Corregidor del Cabildo de Loxa, Juan Lopez de Cañizares, as the person by whom the Quina-bark was first brought to Lima and generally recommended as a remedy. I have heard it asserted in Loxa that the beneficial virtues of the tree were known long before in the mountains, though not generally. Immediately after my return to Europe I expressed the doubts I felt as to the discovery having been made by the natives of the country round Loxa, since even at the present day the Indians of the neighbouring valleys, where intermittent fevers are very prevalent, shun the use of bark. (Compare my memoir entitled “über die China-wälder” in the “Magazin der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde” zu Berlin, Jahrg. I. 1807, S. 59.) The story of the natives having learnt the virtues of the Cinchona from the lions who “cure themselves of intermittent fevers by gnawing the bark of the China (or Quina) trees,”--(Hist. de l’Acad. des Sciences, année 1738, Paris, 1740, p. 233),--appears to be entirely of European origin, and nothing but a monkish fable. Nothing is known in the New Continent of the “Lion’s fever,” for the large so-called American Lion (Felis concolor), and the small mountain Lion (Puma) whose foot-marks I have seen on the snow, are never tamed and made the subjects of observation; nor are the different species of Felinæ in either continent accustomed to gnaw the bark of trees. The name of Countess’s Powder (Pulvis Comitissæ), occasioned by the remedy having been distributed by the Countess of Chinchon, was afterwards changed to that of Cardinal’s or Jesuit’s powder, because Cardinal de Lugo, Procurator-General of the order of the Jesuits, spread the knowledge of this valuable remedy during a journey through France, and recommended it to Cardinal Mazarin the more urgently, as the brethren of the order were beginning to prosecute a lucrative trade in South American Quina-bark which they obtained through their missionaries. It is hardly necessary to remark, that in the long controversy which ensued respecting the good or bad effects of the fever bark, the protestant physicians sometimes permitted themselves to be influenced by religious intolerance and dislike of the Jesuits.

[43] p. 271.--“_Aposentos de Mulalos._”

Respecting these aposentos (dwellings, inns, in the Quichua language _tampu_, whence the Spanish form tambo), compare Cieça, Chronica del Peru, cap. 41, (ed. de 1554, p. 108) and my Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xxiv.

[44] p. 272.--“_The fortress of the Cañar._”

Is situated not far from Turche, at an elevation of 9984 (10640 English) feet. I have given a drawing of it in the Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xvii. (compare also Cieça, cap. 44, P. i. p. 120). Not far from the Fortaleza del Cañar, in the celebrated ravine of the Sun, Inti-Guaycu, (in the Quichua or Qquechhua language, _huaycco_), is the rock on which the natives think they see a representation of the sun and of an enigmatical sort of bank or bench which is called Inga-Chungana (Incachuncana), the Inca’s play. I have drawn both. See Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xviii. and xix.

[45] p. 272.--“_Artificial roads covered with cemented gravel._”

Compare Velasco, Historia de Quito, 1844, T. i. p. 126-128, and Prescott, Hist. of the Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 157.

[46] p. 273.--“_Where the road was interrupted by flights of steps._”

Compare Pedro Sancho in Ramusio, Vol. iii. fol. 404, and Extracts from Manuscript Letters of Hernando Pizarro, employed by the great historical writer now living at Boston; Prescott, Vol. i. p. 444. “El camino de las sierras es cosa de ver, porque en verdad en tierra tan fragosa en la cristiandad no se han visto tan hermosos caminos, toda la mayor parte de calzada.”

[47] p. 275.--“_Greeks and Romans shew these contrasts._”

“If,” says Strabo, (Lib. v. p. 235, Casaub) “the Greeks in building their cities sought for a happy result by aiming especially at beauty and solidity, the Romans on the other hand have regarded particularly, objects which the Greeks left unthought of;--stone pavements in the streets; aqueducts bringing to the city abundant supplies of water; and provisions for drainage so as to wash away and carry to the Tiber all uncleanliness. They also paved the roads through the country, so that waggons may transport with ease the goods brought by trading ships.”

[48] p. 276.--“_The messenger of the deity Nemterequeteba._”

The civilisation of ancient Mexico (the Aztec land of Anahuac), and that of the Peruvian theocracy or empire of the Incas, the children of the Sun, have so engrossed attention in Europe, that a third point of comparative light and of dawning civilisation, which existed among the nations inhabiting the mountains of New Granada, was long almost entirely overlooked. I have touched on this subject in some detail in the Vue des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique (ed. in 8vo.) T. ii. p. 220-267. The form of the government of the Muyscas of New Granada reminds us of the constitution of Japan and the relation of the Secular Ruler (Kubo or Seogun at Jeddo) to the sacred personage the Daïri at Miyako. When Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada advanced to the high table land of Bogota (Bacata, _i. e._ the extremity of the cultivated fields, probably from the proximity of the mountain wall), he found there three powers or authorities respecting whose reciprocal relations and subordination there remains some uncertainty. The spiritual chief, who was appointed by election, was the high priest of Iraca or Sogamoso (Sugamuxi, the place of the disappearance of Nemterequeteba): the secular rulers or princes were the Zake (Zaque of Hunsa or Tunja), and the Zipa of Funza. In the feudal constitution the last-named prince appears to have been originally subordinate to the Zake.

The Muyscas had a regular mode of computing time, with intercalation for amending the lunar year: they used small circular plates of gold, cast of equal diameter, as money (any traces of which among the highly civilised ancient Egyptians have been sought in vain), and they had temples of the Sun with stone columns, remains of which have very recently been discovered in the Valley of Leiva. (Joaquin Acosta, Compendio historico del Descubrimiento de la Nueva Granada, 1848, p. 188, 196, 206, and 208; Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris, 1847, p. 114.) The tribe or race of the Muyscas ought properly speaking to be always denoted by the name of Chibchas; as Muysca in the Chibcha language signifies merely “men,” “people.” The origin and elements of the civilisation introduced are attributed to two mystical forms, Bochica (Botschica) and Nemterequeteba which are often confounded together. The first of these is still more mythical than the second; for it was only Botschica who was regarded as divine, and made almost equal to the Sun itself. His fair companion Chia or Huythaca occasioned by her magical arts the overflowing of the valley of Bogota, and for so doing was banished by Botschica from the earth, and made to revolve round it for the first time, as the moon. Botschica struck the rock of Tequendama, and gave a passage for the waters to flow off near the field of the Giants (Campo de Gigantes) in which the bones of elephant-like mastodons lie buried at an elevation of 8250 (8792 Engl.) feet above the level of the sea. Captain Cochrane (Journal of a Residence in Colombia, 1825, Vol. ii. p. 390) and Mr. John Ranking (Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, 1827, p. 397), state that animals of this species are still living in the Andes, and shed their teeth! Nemterequeteba, also called Chinzapogua (enviado de Dios) is a human person, a bearded man, who came from the East, from Pasca, and disappeared at Sogamoso. The foundation of the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes ascribed to him and sometimes to Botschica, and as the latter is said to have borne also the name of Nemqueteba, the confusion between the two, on ground so unhistoric, is easily accounted for.

My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his instructive work entitled Compendio de la Hist. de la Nueva Granada, p. 185, endeavours to prove by means of the Chibcha language that “potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) bear at Usmè the native non-Peruvian name of Yomi, and were found by Quesada already cultivated in the province of Velez as early as 1537, a period when their introduction from Chili, Peru, and Quito, would seem improbable, and therefore that the plant may be regarded as a native of New Granada.” I would remark, however, that the Peruvian invasion and complete possession of Quito took place before 1525, the year of the death of the Inca Huayna Capac. The southern provinces of Quito even fell under the dominion of Tupac Inca Yupanqui at the conclusion of the 15th century (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 332.) In the unfortunately still very obscure history of the first introduction of the potato into Europe, the merit of its introduction is still very generally attributed to Sir John Hawkins, who is supposed to have received it from Santa Fé in 1563 or 1565. It appears more certain that Sir Walter Raleigh planted the first potatoes on his Irish estate near Youghal, from whence they were taken to Lancashire. Before the conquista, the plantain (Musa), which since the arrival of the Spaniards has been cultivated in all the warmer parts of New Granada, was only found, as Colonel Acosta believes, (p. 205) at Choco. On the name Cundinamarca,--applied by a false erudition to the young republic of New Granada in 1811, a name “full of golden dreams” (sueños dorados), more properly Cundirumarca (not Cunturmarca, Garcilaso, lib. viii. cap. 2),--see also Joaquin Acosta, p. 189. Luis Daza, who joined the small invading army of the Conquistador Sebastian de Belalcazar which came from the south, had heard of a distant country abounding in gold, called Cundirumarca, inhabited by the tribe of the Chicas, and whose prince had solicited Atahuallpa at Caxamarca for auxiliary troops. These Chicas have been confounded with the Chibchas or Muyscas of New Granada; and thus the name of the unknown more southern country has been unduly transferred to that territory.

[49] p. 278.--“_The fall of the Rio de Chamaya._”

Compare my Recueil d’Observ. Astron., vol. i. p. 304; Nivellement barométrique, No. 236-242. I have given in the Vues des Cordillères, Pl xxxi. a drawing of the “swimming post,” as he binds round his head the handkerchief containing the letters.

[50] p. 280.--“_Which, on account of an old observation of La Condamine, was of some importance to the geography of South America._”

I desired to connect chronometrically Tomependa, the point at which La Condamine began his voyage, and other places geographically determined by him on the Amazons river, with the town of Quito. La Condamine had been in June 1743, (59 years before me) at Tomependa, which place I found, by star observations taken for three nights, to be in south lat. 5° 81´ 24´´, and west longitude from Paris 80° 56´ 37´´ (from Greenwich 78° 84´ 55´´). Previous to my return to France the longitude of Quito was in error to the full amount of 50-1/2 minutes of arc, as Oltmanns has shown by my observations, and by a laborious recalculation of all those previously made. (Humboldt, Recueil d’Observations Astron., vol. ii. p. 309-359). Jupiter’s satellites, lunar distances, and occultations, give a satisfactory accordance, and all the elements of the calculation are placed before the public. The too easterly longitude of Quito was transferred by La Condamine to Cuenca and the Amazons river. “Je fis,” says La Condamine, “mon premier essai de navigation sur un radeau (balsa) en descendant la rivière de Chinchipe jusqu’à Tomependa. Il fallut me contenter d’en déterminer la latitude et de conclure la longitude par les routes. J’y fis mon testament politique en rédigeant l’extrait de mes observations le plus importantes.” (Journal du Voyage fait à l’Equateur, 1751, p. 186.)

[51] p. 282.--“_At upwards of twelve thousand feet above the sea we found fossil marine shells._”

See my Essai géognostique sur le Gisement des Roches, 1823, p. 236; and for the first zoological determination of the fossils contained in the cretaceous group in the chain of the Andes, see Léop. de Buch, Pétrifications recueillies en Amérique, par Alex. de. Humboldt et Charles Degenhardt, 1839 (in fol.), pp. 2-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 18-22. Pentland found fossil shells of the Silurian formation in Bolivia, on the Nevado de Antakäua, at the height of 16400 French (17480 English) feet, (Mary Somerville, Physical Geography, 1849, Vol. i. p. 185).

[52] p. 287.--“_Where the chain of the Andes is intersected by the magnetic equator._”