Chapter I: Foreword

Though it stands by itself as a single entity, the present volume is a continuation and the conclusion of a four-year journey through Latin-America, and a companion-piece to my “Vagabonding Down the Andes.” The entrance of the United States into the World War made it impossible until the present time to continue that narrative from the point where the story above mentioned left it; but though several years have elapsed since the journey herein chronicled was made, the conditions encountered are, with minor exceptions, those which still prevail. South American society moves with far more inertia than our own, and while the war brought a certain new prosperity to parts of that continent and a tendency to become, by force of necessity, somewhat more self-supporting in industry and less dependent upon the outside world for most manufactured necessities, the countries herein visited remain for the most part what they were when the journey was made.

Readers of books of travel have been known to question the wisdom of including foreign words in the text. A certain number of these, however, are almost indispensable; without them not only would there be a considerable loss in atmosphere, but often only laborious circumlocutions could take their place. Every foreign word in this volume has been included for one of three reasons, because there is no English equivalent; because the nearest English word would be at best a poor translation; or because the foreign word is of intrinsic interest, for its origin, its musical cadence, picturesqueness, conciseness, or for some similar cause. In every case its meaning has been given at least the first time it is introduced; the pronunciation requires little more than giving the Latin value to vowels and enunciating every letter; and the slight trouble of articulating such terms correctly instead of slurring over them cannot but add to the rhythm, as well as to the understanding, of those sentences in which they occur.

HARRY A. FRANCK.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I THE SOUTH AMERICAN METROPOLIS 3
II ON THE STREETS OF BUENOS AIRES 24
III FAR AND WIDE ON THE ARGENTINE PAMPAS 38
IV OVER THE ANDES TO CHILE 64
V CHILEAN LANDSCAPES 82
VI HEALTHY LITTLE URUGUAY 111
VII BUMPING UP TO RIO 138
VIII AT LARGE IN RIO DE JANEIRO 173
IX BRAZIL PAST AND PRESENT 193
X MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CARIOCAS 215
XI STRANDED IN RIO 242
XII A SHOWMAN IN BRAZIL 270
XIII ADVENTURES OF AN ADVANCE AGENT 295
XIV WANDERING IN MINAS GERAES 315
XV NORTHWARD TO BAHIA 342
XVI EASTERNMOST AMERICA 372
XVII THIRSTY NORTH BRAZIL 399
XVIII TAKING EDISON TO THE AMAZON 430
XIX UP THE AMAZON TO BRITISH GUIANA 456
XX STRUGGLING DOWN TO GEORGETOWN 502
XXI ROAMING THE THREE GUIANAS 554
XXII THE TRACKLESS LLANOS OF VENEZUELA 610

ILLUSTRATIONS

Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

In Buenos Aires I became “office-boy” to the American
consul general 32

The new Argentine capitol building in Buenos Aires 32

A Patagonian landscape 33

The government ferry to Choele Choel Island, in the Rio
Negro of southern Argentine 33

A rural policeman of the Argentine 48

My travels in Patagonia were by rail and in what the
_Argentino_ calls a “soolky” 48

A typical “boliche” town of the Argentine pampa, and
some of its inhabitants 49

A family of Santiago del Estero 49

A woman of Córdoba, _mate_ bowl in hand 64

Even a lady would not look unladylike in the _bombachas_
of southeastern South America 64

The highway over the Andes into Chile was filled with
snow 65

A bit of the transandean highway in the wintry month of
May 65

At last I came out high above the famous “Christ of the
Andes” in a bleak and arid setting 80

The “Lake of the Inca” just over the crest in Chile 80

On the way down I passed many little dwellings tucked in
among the boulders 81

The stream that had trickled from under the snows at the
summit had grown to a considerable river, watering a
fertile valley 81

The street cars of Chile are of two stories and have
women conductors 96

Talcahuano, the second harbor of Chile, is only a bit
less picturesque than Valparaiso 96

The central plaza of Concepción, third city of Chile 97

Valdivia, in far southern Chile, is one of the few South
American cities built of wood, even the streets being
paved with planks 97

Countrymen of southern Chile in May to September garb 112

A woman of the Araucanians, the aborigines of southern
Chile 112

A monument in the cemetery of Montevideo 113

A gentleman of Montevideo depicts in stone his grief at
the loss of his life’s companion 113

A rural railway station in Uruguay 128

The fertile Uruguayan plains in the Cerro Chato (Flat
Hills) district 128

“Pirirín” and his cowboys at an _estancia_ round-up in
northern Uruguay 129

Freighting across the gentle rolling plains of the
“Purple Land” 129

A _gaucho_ of Uruguay 132

A rural Uruguayan in full Sunday regalia 133

An ox-driver of southern Brazil, smeared with the
blood-red mud of his native heath 133

The parasol pine-trees of southern Brazil 140

Dinner time at a railway construction camp in Rio Grande
do Sul 140

A horse ran for seven miles along the track in front of
us and made our train half an hour late 141

A cowboy of southern Brazil 141

The admirable Municipal Theater of São Paulo 160

Santos, the Brazilian coffee port 160

A glimpse of the Rio sky-line from across the bay in
Nictheroy 161

The slums of Rio de Janeiro are on the tops of her rock
hills 161

An employee of the “Snake Farm” of São Paulo 176

Residents of Rio’s hilltop slums, in a chosen pose 176

The heart of Rio, with its Municipal Theater, the
National Library, the old Portuguese aqueduct, and, on
the left, a shack-built hilltop 177

A news-stand on the mosaic sidewalk of the Avenida Rio
Branco 224

A hawker of Rio, with his license and his distinctive
noise-producer 224

The brush-and-broom man on his daily round through the
Brazilian capital 225

The sweetmeat seller announces himself with a
distinctive whistle 240

The opening of the “Kinetophone” in Brazil 240

The ruins of an old plantation house on the way to
Petropolis, backed by the pilgrimage church of Penha 241

At a suburban cinema of São Paulo the colored youth
charged with the advertising painted his own portrait
of Edison. He may be made out leaning affectionately
on the right shoulder of his masterpiece 288

The central praça of Campinas 288

Catalão and the plains of Goyaz, from the ruined church
above the town 289

Amparo, like many another town of São Paulo, is
surrounded on all sides by coffee plantations 289

Itajubá, state of Minas Geraes, the home of a former
Brazilian president 304

Ouro Preto, former capital of Minas Geraes 305

The walls of many a residence in the new capital, Bello
Horizonte, are decorated with paintings 305

Diamantina spills down into the stream in which are
found some of its gold and diamonds 320

A hydraulic diamond-cutting establishment of Diamantina 320

In the diamond fields of Brazil 321

Diamond diggers do not resemble those who wear them 321

Victoria, capital of the state of Espiritu Sancto, is a
tiny edition of picturesque Rio 352

Bahia from the top of the old “Theatro São João” 352

Beggars of Bahia, backed by some of our advertisements 353

A family of Bahia, and a familiar domestic chore 353

The site on which Bahia was founded 368

Not much is left of the clothes that have gone through a
steam laundry of Bahia 368

Taking a jack-fruit to market 369

The favorite Sunday diversion of rural northern Brazil 372

The waterworks of a Brazilian city of some 15,000
inhabitants 372

A Brazilian laundry 373

Brazilian milkmen announcing their arrival 373

The mailboat leaves Aracajú for the towns across the bay 380

Another Brazilian milkman 380

Carnival costumes representing “A Crise,” or hard times 381

A Brazilian piano van needs neither axle-grease nor
gasoline 381

Ladies of Pernambuco 384

A minstrel of Pernambuco—and a Portuguese shopkeeper 384

Advertising the Kinetophone in Pernambuco, with a monk
and a dancing girl. “Tut” on the extreme left, Carlos
behind the drummer 385

The pungent odor of crude sugar is characteristic of
downtown Recife 400

In the dry states north of Pernambuco cotton is the most
important crop 400

Walking up a cocoanut palm to get a cool drink 401

Wherever a train halts long enough in Brazil the
passengers rush out to have a cup of coffee 401

The houses of northeastern Brazil are often made
entirely of palm leaves 416

Transportation in the interior of Brazil is
primitive—and noisy 416

Our advertising matter parading the streets of a
Brazilian town off the main trail of travel 417

The _carnauba_ palm of Ceará, celebrated for its utility
as well as its beauty 417

Rural policemen of Ceará, in the heavy leather hats of
the region 432

From town to port in São Luis de Maranhão—and a street
car 433

A street of São Luis de Maranhão 433

My baggage on its way to the hotel in Natal. At every
station of northern Brazil may be seen happy-go-lucky
negroes with nothing on their minds but a couple of
trunks 448

Dolce far niente between shows in Pará 448

The cathedral of Pará 449

Pará has been called the “City of beautiful Trees” 449

Ice on the equator. It is sent out from the factory in
Pará to the neighboring towns in schooners of
varicolored sails, a veritable fog rising from it
under the equatorial sun 464

Two Indians of the Island of Marajó, the one a native,
the other imported from India to improve the native
stock 464

A family dispute on the Amazon 465

The captain and mate of our _gaiola_ were both
Brazilians of the north 465

An Amazonian landscape 480

A boatload of “Brazil nuts.” The Amazonian paddle is
round 480

An inter-state customhouse at the boundary of Pará and
Manaos, and the Brazilian flag 481

A lace maker on the Amazon 496

The Municipal Theater of Manaos 496

Here and there our _batelão_ stopped to pick up a few
balls of rubber 497

Now and then we halted to land something at one of the
isolated huts along the Rio Branco 497

Our _batelão_ loaded cattle at sunrise from the corrals
on the banks 500

The captain of my last Brazilian _batelão_, and his wife 500

Though families are rare, there is no race suicide along
the Rio Branco 501

Dom Antonito and one of the ant-hills that dot the open
campo of the upper Rio Branco 508

I crossed the boundary between Brazil and British Guiana
in a leaky craft belonging to Ben Hart, who lived on
the further bank of the Mahú 508

Hart had built himself a native house on the extreme
edge of British Guiana 509

Hart and his Macuxy Indian helpers 509

Fortunately Hart was a generous six feet or my baggage
might not have got across what had been trickling
streams a few days before 512

We impressed an Indian father and son into service as
carriers 512

Macuxy Indians with teeth filed or chipped to points 513

An Indian village along the Rupununi 513

The father and son turned boatmen, against their wills,
and paddled us down the Rupununi 528

Two of my second crew of paddlers 528

One of my Indians shooting fish from our dugout 529

“Harris,” my “certified steersman” on the Essequibo 529

We set off down the Essequibo in the same worm-eaten old
dugout 532

“Harris” and his wife at one of their evening campfires 533

Battling with the Essequibo 533

More trouble on the Essequibo 540

High Street, Georgetown, capital of British Guiana 540

Cayenne, capital of French Guiana, from the sea 541

The “trusties” among the French prisoners of Cayenne
have soft jobs and often wear shoes 541

A former Paris lawyer digging sewers in Cayenne, under a
negro boss 560

Schoelcher, author of the act of emancipation of the
negroes of the French possessions in America 560

The human scavengers of Cayenne are ably assisted by the
vultures 561

In the market-place of Cayenne. The chief stock is
cassava bread wrapped in banana leaves 561

A market woman of Cayenne, and a stack of cassava bread 576

Homeward bound from market 576

French officers in charge of the prisoners of Cayenne 577

White French convicts who would like to go to France,
rowing out to our ship black French conscripts who
would rather stay at home 577

Along the road in Dutch Guiana 580

A Mohammedan Hindu of Dutch Guiana 580

A Chinese woman of Surinam who has adopted the native
headdress 581

A lady of Paramaribo 581

Javanese women tapping rubber trees after the fashion of
the Far East 588

Javanese and East Indian women clearing up a _cacao_
plantation in Dutch Guiana 588

Javanese celebrating the week-end holiday with their
native musical instruments 589

Wash-day in Dutch Guiana 589

An East Indian woman of Surinam 592

A Javanese woman of the Surinam plantations 592

A gold mining camp in the interior of Dutch Guiana 593

Pouring out the sap of the bullet-tree into the pans in
which it hardens into “balata,” an inferior kind of
rubber 593

A ferry across the Surinam River, joining two sections
of the railroad to the interior 596

A Bush negro family on its travels. Less than half the
dugout is shown 596

A Bush negro watching me photograph our engine 597

A “gran man,” or chieftain of the Bush negroes,
returning from his yearly visit to the Dutch governor
of Surinam, with his “commission” from Queen
Wilhelmina, and followed by his obsequious and
footsore valet 597

The main street of Paramaribo, capital of Dutch Guiana,
with its row of often mortgaged mahogany trees in the
background 604

An East Indian and an escaped Madagascar prisoner from
Cayenne cutting down a “back dam” on a Surinam
plantation in order to kill the ants that would
destroy it 604

Javanese workmen opening pods of _cacao_ that will
eventually appear in our markets as chocolate and
cocoa 605

A landscape in Hindu-inhabited British Guiana 608

Indentured East Indians enjoying a Saturday half-holiday
before one of their barrack villages 608

Prisoners at work on a leaking dam in Ciudad Bolívar on
the Orinoco 609

The trackless _llanos_ of Venezuela 609

An Indian family of eastern Venezuela 612

Lopez, the hammock-buyer, and the charm he always wears
on his travels 612

A Venezuelan landscape 613

Hammock-makers at home 620

The palm-leaf threads of the hammocks are made pliable
by rubbing them on a bare leg in the early morning
before the dew has dried 620

Lopez buying hammocks 621

We were delighted to find a rare water-hole in which to
quench our raging thirst 621

Lopez uncovers as he passes the last resting-place of a
fellow-traveler 624

Dinner time in rural Venezuela 624

Lopez enters his native village in style 625

The hammock-buyer in the bosom of his family 628

Policemen of Barcelona, and a part of the city
waterworks 628

A glimpse of the Venezuelan capital 629

The statue of Simón Bolívar in the central plaza of
Caracas 629

A bread-seller of Caracas 636

The birthplace of Simón Bolívar of Caracas, the
“Washington of South America” 636

A street in Caracas 637

The Municipal Theater of Caracas 637

WORKING NORTH FROM PATAGONIA