THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON: OR, ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF SOUTH AMERICA. By JAMES ORTON, M.A. PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN VASSAR COLLEGE, POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA. WITH A NEW MAP OF EQUATORIAL AMERICA AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1870. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. TO CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., WHOSE PROFOUND RESEARCHES HAVE THROWN SO MUCH LIGHT UPON EVERY DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE, AND WHOSE CHARMING "VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE" HAS SO PLEASANTLY ASSOCIATED HIS NAME WITH OUR SOUTHERN CONTINENT, THESE SKETCHES OF THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON ARE, BY PERMISSION, MOST RESPECTFULLY Dedicated. "Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Terra del Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature: no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body."—DARWIN'S Journal, p. 503. Preface Introduction Table of Contents Table of Appendices Table of Illustrations THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON. Addenda Index Footnotes PREFACE. This volume is one result of a scientific expedition to the equatorial Andes and the river Amazon. The expedition was made under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, and consisted of the following gentlemen besides the writer: Colonel Staunton, of Ingham University, Leroy, N.Y.; F.S. Williams, Esq., of Albany, N.Y.; and Messrs. P.V. Myers and A. Bushnell, of Williams College. We sailed from New York July 1, 1867; and, after crossing the Isthmus of Panama and touching at Paita, Peru, our general route was from Guayaquil to Quito, over the Eastern Cordillera; thence over the Western Cordillera, and through the forest on foot to Napo; down the Rio Napo by canoe to Pebas, on the Marañon; and thence by steamer to Pará. [1] Nearly the entire region traversed by the expedition is strangely misrepresented by the most recent geographical works. On the Andes of Ecuador we have little besides the travels of Humboldt; on the Napo, nothing; while the Marañon is less known to North Americans than the Nile. Many of the following pages first appeared in the New York Evening Post. The author has also published "Physical Observations on the Andes and the Amazon" and "Geological Notes on the Ecuadorian Andes" in the American Journal of Science, an article on the great earthquake of 1868 in the Rochester Democrat, and a paper On the Valley of the Amazon read before the American Association at Salem. These papers have been revised and extended, though the popular form has been retained. It has been the effort of the writer to present a condensed but faithful picture of the physical aspect, the resources, and the inhabitants of this vast country, which is destined to become an important field for commercial enterprise. For detailed descriptions of the collections in natural history, the scientific reader is referred to the various reports of the following gentlemen, to whom the specimens were committed by the Smithsonian Institution: Volcanic Rocks Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, F.R.S., Montreal. Plants Dr. Asa Gray, Cambridge. Land and Fresh-water Shells. M. Crosse, Paris, and Thomas Bland, Esq., New York. Marine Shells Rev. Dr. E.R. Beadle, Philadelphia. Fossil Shells W.M. Gabb, Esq., Philadelphia. Hemiptera Prof. P.R. Uhler, Baltimore. Orthoptera S.H. Scudder, Esq., Boston. Hymenoptera and Nocturnal Lepidoptera Dr. A.S. Packard, Jr., Salem. Diurnal Lepidoptera Tryon Reakirt, Esq., Philadelphia. Coleoptera George D. Smith, Esq., Boston. Phalangia and Pedipalpi Dr. H.C. Wood, Jr., Philadelphia. Fishes Dr. Theodore Gill, Washington. Birds John Cassin, Esq., [2] Philadelphia. Bats Dr. H. Allen, Philadelphia. Mammalian Fossils Dr. Joseph Leidy, Philadelphia. Many of the type specimens are deposited in the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science, the Boston Society of Natural History, the Peabody Academy of Science, and Vassar College; but the bulk of the collection was purchased by Ingham University, Leroy, New York. The Map of Equatorial America was drawn with great care after original observations and the surveys of Humboldt and Wisse on the Andes, and of Azevedo, Castlenau, and Bates on the Amazon. [3] The names of Indian tribes are in small capitals. Most of the illustrations are after photographs or drawings made on the ground, and can be relied upon. The portrait of Humboldt, which is for the first time presented to the public, was photographed from the original painting in the possession of Sr. Aguirre, Quito. Unlike the usual portrait—an old man, in Berlin—this presents him as a young man in Prussian uniform, traveling on the Andes. We desire to express our grateful acknowledgments to the Smithsonian Institution, Hon. William H. Seward, and Hon. James A. Garfield, of Washington; to Cyrus W. Field, Esq., and William Pitt Palmer, Esq., of New York; to C.P. Williams, Esq., of Albany; to Rev. J.C. Fletcher, now United States Consul at Oporto; to Chaplain Jones, of Philadelphia; to Dr. William Jameson, of the University of Quito; to J.F. Reeve, Esq., and Captain Lee, of Guayaquil; to the Pacific Mail Steamship, Panama Railroad, and South Pacific Steam Navigation companies; to the officers of the Peruvian and Brazilian steamers on the Amazon; and to the eminent naturalists who have examined the results of the expedition. NOTE.—Osculati has alone preceded us, so far as we can learn, in obtaining a vocabulary of Záparo words; but, as his work is not to be found in this country, we have not had the pleasure of making a comparison. INTRODUCTION BY REV. J.C. FLETCHER, AUTHOR OF "BRAZIL AND BRAZILIANS." In this day of many voyages, in the Old World and the New, it is refreshing to find an untrodden path. Central Africa has been more fully explored than that region of Equatorial America which lies in the midst of the Western Andes and upon the slopes of these mountain monarchs which look toward the Atlantic. In this century one can almost count upon his hand the travelers who have written of their journeys in this unknown region. Our own Herndon and Gibbon descended—the one the Peruvian and the other the Bolivian waters—the affluents of the Amazon, beginning their voyage where the streams were mere channels for canoes, and finishing it where the great river appears a fresh-water ocean. Mr. Church, the artist, made the sketches for his famous "Heart of the Andes" where the headwaters of the Amazon are rivulets. But no one whose language is the English has journeyed down and described the voyage from theplateaux of Ecuador to the Atlantic Ocean until Professor Orton and his party accomplished this feat in 1868. Yet it was over this very route that the King of Waters (as the Amazon is called by the aborigines) was originally discovered. The auri sacra fames, which in 1541 urged the adventurous Gonzalo Pizarro to hunt for the fabled city of El Dorado in the depths of the South American forests, led to the descent of the great river by Orellana, a knight of Truxillo. The fabled women-warriors were said to have been seen in this notable voyage, and hence the name of the river Amazon, a name which in Spanish and Portuguese is in the plural. It was not until nearly one hundred years after Orellana was in his grave that a voyage of discovery ascended the river. In 1637 Pedro Teixeira started from Pará with an expedition of nearly two thousand (all but seventy of whom were natives), and with varied experiences, by water and by land, the explorer in eight months reached the city of Quito, where he was received with distinguished honor. Two hundred years ago the result of this expedition was published. The Amazon was from that time, at rare intervals, the highway of Spanish and Portuguese priests and friars, who thus went to their distant charges among the Indians. In 1745 the French academician De la Condamine descended from Quito to Pará, and gave the most accurate idea of the great valley which we had until the first quarter of this century. The narrow policy of Spain and Portugal was most unfruitful in its results to South America. A jealous eye guarded that great region, of which it can be so well said there are "Realms unknown and blooming wilds, And fruitful deserts, worlds of solitude, Where the sun smiles and seasons teem in vain." Now, the making known to the world of any portion of these "fruitful deserts" is performing a service for the world. This Professor Orton has done. His interesting and valuable volume hardly needs any introduction or commendation, for its intrinsic merit will exact the approbation of every reader. Scientific men, and tourists who seek for new routes of travel, will appreciate it at once; and I trust that the time is near at hand when our mercantile men, by the perusal of such a work, will see how wide a field lies before them for future commercial enterprise. This portion of the tropics abounds in natural resources which only need the stimulus of capital to draw them forth to the light; to create among the natives a desire for articles of civilization in exchange for the crude productions of the forest; and to stimulate emigration to a healthy region of perpetual summer. It seems as if Providence were opening the way for a great change in the Valley of the Amazon. That immense region drained by the great river is as large as all the United States east of the States of California and Oregon and the Territory of Washington, and yet it has been so secluded, mainly by the old monopolistic policy of Portugal, that that vast space has not a population equal to the single city of Rio de Janeiro or of Brooklyn. Two million five hundred thousand square miles are drained by the Amazon. Three fourths of Brazil, one half of Bolivia, two thirds of Peru, three fourths of Ecuador, and a portion of Venezuela are watered by this river. Riches, mineral and vegetable, of inexhaustible supply have been here locked up for centuries. Brazil held the key, but it was not until under the rule of their present constitutional monarch, Don Pedro II., that the Brazilians awoke to the necessity of opening this glorious region. Steamers were introduced in 1853, subsidized by the government. But it is to a young Brazilian statesman, Sr. A.C. Tavares Bastos, that belongs the credit of having agitated, in the press and in the national parliament, the opening of the Amazon, until public opinion, thus acted upon, produced the desired result. On another occasion, in May, 1868, I gave several indices of a more enlightened policy in Brazil, and stated that the opening of the Amazon, which occurred on the 7th of September, 1867, and by which the great river is free to the flags of all nations, from the Atlantic to Peru, and the abrogation of the monopoly of the coast-trade from the Amazon to the Rio Grande do Sul, whereby 4000 miles of Brazilian sea-coast are open to the vessels of every country, can not fail not only to develop the resources of Brazil, but will prove of great benefit to the bordering Hispano-American republics and to the maritime nations of the earth. The opening of the Amazon is the most significant indication that the leaven of the narrow monopolistic Portuguese conservatism has at last worked out. Portugal would not allow Humboldt to enter the Amazon Valley in Brazil. The result of the new policy is beyond the most sanguine expectation. The exports and imports for Pará for October and November, 1867, were double those of 1866. This is but the beginning. Soon it will be found that it is cheaper for Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and New Granada, east of the Andes, to receive their goods from, and to export their India-rubber, cinchona, etc., to the United States and Europe, via the great water highway which discharges into the Atlantic, than by the long, circuitous route of Cape Horn or the trans-Isthmian route of Panama. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Guayaquil.— First and Last Impressions.— Climate.— Commerce.— The Malecon.— Glimpse of the Andes.— Scenes on the Guayas.— Bodegas.— Mounted for Quito.— La Mena.— A Tropical Forest Page 25 CHAPTER II. Our Tambo.— Ascending the Andes.— Camino Real.— Magnificent Views.— Guaranda.— Cinchona.— The Summit.— Chimborazo.— Over the Andes.— Chuquipoyo the Wretched.— Ambato.— A Stupid City.— Cotopaxi.— The Vale of Machachi.— Arrival at Quito 40 CHAPTER III. Early History of Quito.— Its Splendor under the Incas.— Crushed by Spain.— Dying now.— Situation.— Altitude.— Streets.— Buildings 56 CHAPTER IV. Population of Quito.— Dress.— Manners.— Character.— Commerce.— Agriculture.— Manufactures.— Arts.— Education.— Amusements.— Quito Ladies 68 CHAPTER V. Ecuador.— Extent.— Government.— Religion.— A Protestant Cemetery in Quito.— Climate.— Regularity of Tropical Nature.— Diseases on the Highlands 85 CHAPTER VI. Astronomic Virtues of Quito.— Flora and Fauna of the Valley of Quito.— Primeval Inhabitants of the Andes.— Quichua Indians 97 CHAPTER VII. Geological History of South America.— Rise of the Andes.— Creation of the Amazon.— Characteristic Features of the Continent.— Andean Chain.— The Equatorial Volcanoes 114 CHAPTER VIII. The Volcanoes of Ecuador.— Western Cordillera.— Chimborazo.— Iliniza.— Corazon.— Pichincha.— Descent into its Crater. Page 127 CHAPTER IX. The Volcanoes of Ecuador.— Eastern Cordillera.— Imbabura.— Cayambi.— Antisana.— Cotopaxi.— Llanganati.— Tunguragua.— Altar.— Saugai 143 CHAPTER X. The Valley of Quito.— Riobamba.— A Bed of "Fossil Giants."— Chillo Hacienda.— Otovalo and Ibarra.— The Great Earthquake of 1868 152 CHAPTER XI. "The Province of the Orient," or the Wild Napo Country.— The Napos, Zaparos, and Jívaros Indians.— Preparations to cross the Continent 164 CHAPTER XII. Departure from Quito.— Itulcachi.— A Night in a Bread-tray.— Crossing the Cordillera.— Guamani.— Papallacta.— Domiciled at the Governor's.— An Indian Aristides.— Our Peon Train.— In the Wilderness 177 CHAPTER XIII. Baeza.— The Forest.— Crossing the Cosanga.— Curi-urcu.— Archidona.— Appearance, Customs, and Belief of the Natives.— Napo and Napo River 187 CHAPTER XIV. Afloat on the Napo.— Down the Rapids.— Santa Rosa and its mulish Alcalde.— Pratt on Discipline.— Forest Music.— Coca.— Our Craft and Crew.— Storm on the Napo 200 CHAPTER XV. Sea-Cows and Turtles' Eggs.— The Forest.— Peccaries.— Indian Tribes on the Lower Napo.— Anacondas and Howling Monkeys.— Insect Pests.— Battle with Ants.— Barometric Anomaly.— First View of the Amazon.— Pebas 215 CHAPTER XVI. Down the Amazon.— Steam on the Great River.— Loreto.— San Antonio.— Tabatinga.— Brazilian Steamers.— Scenery on the Amazon.— Tocantíns.— Fonte Boa.— Ega.— Rio Negro.— Manáos 230 CHAPTER XVII. Down the Amazon.— Serpa.— Villa Nova.— Obidos.— Santarem.— A Colony of Southerners.— Monte Alégre.— Porto do Moz.— Leaving the Amazon.— Breves.— Pará River.— The City of Pará.— Legislation and Currency.— Religion and Education.— Nonpareil Climate. Page 247 CHAPTER XVIII. The River Amazon.— Its Source and Magnitude.— Tributaries and Tints.— Volume and Current.— Rise and Fall.— Navigation.— Expeditions on the Great River 264 CHAPTER XIX. The Valley of the Amazon.— Its Physical Geography.— Geology.— Climate.— Vegetation 280 CHAPTER XX. [...]... zones by the change of vegetation from Bodegas to this lofty spot The laws of the decrease of heat are plainly written on the rapid slopes of the Cordilleras On the hot, steaming lowlands of the coast reign bananas and palms As these thin out, tree-ferns take their place Losing these, we found the cinchona bedewed by the cool clouds of Guaranda; and last of all, among the trees, the polylepis The twisted,... great revolution of the earth's crust, as a geologist would say, but, in the language of history, the lofty home of the Incas, made illustrious by the sword of Pizarro and the pen of Prescott On the right a sea of hills rose higher and higher, till they culminated in the purple mountains of Assuay Far to the left, one hundred miles northeasterly, the peerless Chimborazo lifted its untrodden and unapproachable... swamps of the lowlands,[Pg 45] and, though under the equator, out of the tropics too The fresh mountain breeze and the chilly mists announced a change of climate.[12]Fevers and dysenteries, snakes and musquitoes, the plantain and the palm, we had left behind Camino Real is a huddle of eight or ten dwellings perched on the summit of a sierra a thousand feet higher than the top of Mount Washington The views... Though the most western city in South America, it is only two degrees west of the longitude of Washington, and it is the same distance below the equator—Orion sailing directly overhead, and the Southern Cross taking the place of the Great Dipper The mean annual temperature, according to our observations, is 83° There are two seasons, the wet, or invierno, and the dry, or verano The verano is called the. .. We left Guaranda at 5 A.M by the light of Venus and Orion, having exchanged our horses for the sure-footed mule It was a romantic ride From a neighboring standpoint Church took one of his celebrated views of "The Heart of the Andes. " But the road, as aforetime, was a mere furrow, made and kept by the tread of beasts For a long distance the track runs over the projecting and jagged edges of steeply-inclined... mountains clothed with the long, dreary-looking paramo grass called paja But we are face to face with "the monarch of the Andes, " and we shall have its company the rest of the day The snowy dome is flooded with the golden light of heaven; delicate clouds of softest hues float around its breast; while, far below, its feet are wrapped in the baser mists of earth We attained the summit of the pass at 11... Commerce.— The Malecon.— Glimpse of the Andes. — Scenes on the Guayas.— Bodegas.— Mounted for Quito.— La Mona.— A Tropical Forest Late in the evening of the 19th of July, 1867, the steamer "Favorita" dropped anchor in front of the city of Guayaquil The first view awakened visions of Oriental splendor Before us was the Malecon, stretching along the river, two miles in length— at once the most beautiful and the. .. Tiupullo, eleven thousand five hundred feet above the sea This high ridge,[17] stretching across the valley from Cotopaxi to Iliniza, is a part of the great water-shed of the continent the waters on the southern slope flowing through the Pastassa and Amazon to the Atlantic, those on the north finding their way to the Pacific by the Rio Esmeraldas At this bleak place we breakfasted on punch and guinea-pig... or modern, in the Old World." Founded, nobody knows when, by the kings of the Quitus, it was conquered about the year 1000 by a more civilized race, the Cara nation, who added to it by conquest and alliance The fame of the region excited the cupidity of the Incas of Peru, and during the reign of Cacha (1475), Huayna-Capac the Great moved his army from Cuzco, and by the celebrated battle of Hatuntaqui,... appears so easy of access; and yet many a valiant philosopher, from Humboldt down, has panted for the glory and failed The depth of the snow and numerous precipices are the chief obstacles; but the excessively rarefied air is another hinderance Even in crossing the Arenal, a native of the lowlands complains of violent headache, a propensity to vomit, and a difficulty of breathing The Arenal is often swept . THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON: OR, ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF SOUTH AMERICA. By JAMES ORTON, M.A. PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN VASSAR COLLEGE, POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF. History of South America. — Rise of the Andes. — Creation of the Amazon.— Characteristic Features of the Continent. — Andean Chain.— The Equatorial Volcanoes 114 CHAPTER VIII. The Volcanoes of Ecuador.—. observations and the surveys of Humboldt and Wisse on the Andes, and of Azevedo, Castlenau, and Bates on the Amazon. [3] The names of Indian tribes are in small capitals. Most of the illustrations