From Pole to Pole

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* * * * *

The train continues on its noisy course through the mountains. Dark,
wild glens open on either side. The monotonous rumble of the wheels on
the rails has a soothing effect, and the German, following the example
of many other travellers, goes to sleep in his corner.

But when the tireless locomotive draws its row of heavy carriages out on
to a giddy bridge and the waves of sound sing in brighter tones than in
the enclosed valleys, the compartment wakes to life again. People look
out of the windows and gaze at the yawning depth beneath them. The
train seems to be rolling out into space on the way to heaven.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV. CANONS ON THE COLORADO RIVER.]

The German lights a cigar and begins another lecture to his
fellow-traveller.

"Here we are passing over one of the source streams of the Colorado
River. You seem disinclined to admit that everything is grand in
America, but I maintain that nothing in the world can compare with the
great canon of the Colorado. You may believe me or not. You may talk of
fire-vomiting mountains and coral reefs, of the peak of Mount Everest
and the great abysses of the ocean, of our light blue Alps in Europe and
of the dark forests of Africa, nay, you may take me where you will in
the world, but I shall still maintain that there is no stupendous
overpowering beauty comparable to the canons of the Colorado River
(Plate XXXIV.).

"Listen! This river which discharges its waters into the Gulf of
California is fed by numerous streams in the rainy, elevated regions of
the Rocky Mountains. But where the united river leaves Utah and passes
into Arizona, it traverses a dry plateau country with little rain, where
its waters have cut their way down through mountain limestone to a depth
of 6000 feet. The strata are horizontal, and the whole series has been
cleared away by the continued erosive power of water, aided by gravel
and boulders. This work has been going on from the commencement of the
period in the world's history known as the Pliocene Age, and it is
reckoned that the interval which must have elapsed since then must have
amounted to millions of years. And yet this space of time, from the
Pliocene Age to our own, must, geologically speaking, be extremely
insignificant compared to the length of the great geological periods.
The six thousand years which we call the historical period is but the
beat of a second on the clock of eternity, and what the historian calls
primeval times is the latest and most recent period in the last of all
the geologist's ages. For while the historian deals with revolutions of
the sun of only 365 days, the geologist is only satisfied with thousands
and millions of years. The Colorado River has presented him with one of
the standards by which he is able to calculate lapse of time. You will
acknowledge that it is no small feat for running water to cut its way
down through solid rock to a depth of 6500 feet; and these canons are
more than 180 miles long and four to eleven miles broad.

"By its work here the river has sculptured in the face of the earth a
landscape which awes and astonishes the spectator. It is like nothing
he has ever seen before. When he stood at the foot of the Alps he gazed
up at the snow-clad wastes of the mighty mountain masses. When he stands
at the edge of the canons of the Colorado he looks down and sees a
yawning chasm, and on the other side of the giddy ravine the walls rise
perpendicular or sloping. He seems to stand before the artistically
decorated facade of a gigantic house or palace in an immense town. He
sees in the walls of the valley, niches and excavations like a Roman
theatre, with benches rising in tiers. At their sides stand gables and
projections of rock, like turrets and buttresses. Under huge cornices
rise columns standing out or attached at the back, all planned on the
same gigantic scale. The precipitous cliffs are dark, and the whole
country is coloured in pink, yellow, red, and warm brown tones. The sun
pours its gold over the majestic desolation. No grassy sward, no
vegetation carpets the horizontal or vertical surfaces with green. Here
and there a pine leans its crown over the chasm, and when the cones fall
they go right down to the bottom.

"In the early morning, when the air is still pure and clear after the
coolness of the night, and when the sun is low, the canon lies in deep
gloom, and behind the brightly lighted tops of the columns the shadows
lie as black as soot. Then the bold sculpturing stands out in all its
glory. On a quiet night, when the moon holds its crescent above the
earth, an oppressive silence prevails over this region. The roar of the
river is not heard, for the distance is too great. A feeling of romance
takes hold of the visitor. He fancies himself in a fairy world. Only a
step over the edge and he would soar on invisible wings to a bright
wonderland."

At Salt Lake City the German leaves the train to begin his
investigations round the Great Salt Lake and the Mormon capital. Gunnar
travels on through the mountainous districts of Nevada and California,
and when the train at last pulls up at San Francisco he has reached the
goal of his hopes.

Here is one of the finest cities in the world, situated on a peninsula
in a deep and spacious inlet surrounded by mountains. Almost all traces
of the terrible earthquake which a few years ago destroyed the city have
disappeared, and splendid new buildings of iron and stone have sprung up
from the rubbish heaps, for as a commercial emporium San Francisco has
the same importance with relation to the great routes across the Pacific
as New York has on the Atlantic side.

IV

SOUTH AMERICA

THE INCA EMPIRE

A terrestrial globe naturally presents a better image of the earth than
any map, for it shows plainly the continents and the configuration of
the oceans, and exhibits clearly their position and relative size. If
you examine such a globe, you notice that the North Pole lies in the
midst of a sea, surrounded by great masses of land, whereas the South
Pole is in an extensive land surrounded by a wide sea. Perhaps you
wonder why all the continents send out peninsulas southwards? Just look
at the Scandinavian Peninsula, and look at Spain, Italy, and Greece. Do
not Kamtchatka and Korea, Arabia and the Indian Peninsula all point
south? South America, Africa, and Australia are drawn out into wedges
narrowing southwards. They are like stalactites in a grotto. But however
much you may puzzle over the globe, and however much you may question
learned men, you will never know why the earth's surface has assumed
exactly the form it has and no other.

On another occasion you may remark that Europe, Asia, Africa, and
Australia lie in an almost continuous curve in the eastern hemisphere,
while America has the western hemisphere all to itself. There it lies as
a huge dividing wall between two oceans. You wonder why the New World
has such a peculiar form stretching from pole to pole.

Perhaps you think that the Creator must have changed His mind at the
last moment, and decided to make two distinct continents of America. You
seem to see the marks of His omnipotent hands. With the left He held
North America, and in the right South America. Where Hudson Bay runs
into the land lay His forefinger, and the Gulf of Mexico is the
impression of His thumb. South America He gripped with the whole hand,
and there is only a slight mark of the thumb just on the boundary
between Peru and Chile. It almost looks as if He grasped the continent
so tightly that its western border was crumpled into great wrinkles and
folds which we men call the Rocky Mountains and the Andes. If we did not
know that it is the ocean winds that feed the rivers with rain, we
should be tempted to believe that the Mississippi, Amazons, Rio de la
Plata, and other rivers were moisture still running out of the mountains
under the pressure of the Creator's hands.

And so He has divided America into two. In one place the connection
broke, but the fragments still remain, and we call them the West Indies
or Antilles. In other places the material was too tough. Mexico thins
out southwards as though it were going to end in the sea, and Central
America is stretched like a wrung-out cloth. Between Guatemala and
Honduras it is almost torn through, and the large lake of Nicaragua is
another weak point. But where Costa Rica passes into the Isthmus of
Panama the connection between the two halves of the New World has been
almost broken and hangs only by a hair. The peninsula, however, resisted
the pull, and has held, though reduced to a breadth of forty miles.

Then, of course, man must come and help the Creator to finish the work
which He Himself found very good. It was long before men ventured on so
gigantic an undertaking, but as they had succeeded in separating Africa
from Asia, it was no doubt feasible to blast a canal through the hills
of the Isthmus of Panama, 300 feet high. It has cost many years and many
millions, but the great cutting will soon be ready which will sever
South America from the northern half of the New World. It is surely a
splendid undertaking to make it possible for a vessel to sail from
Liverpool direct to San Francisco without rounding the whole of South
America, and at a single blow to shorten the distance by near 6000
miles.

The bridge still stands unbroken, however, and we come dryshod over to
South America just where the Andes begin their mighty march along all
the west coast. Their ranges rise, here in double and there in many
folds, like ramparts against the Pacific Ocean, and between the ranges
lie plains at a height of 12,000 feet. Here also lift themselves on high
the loftiest summits of the New World--Aconcagua in Argentina, the
highest of all, an extinct volcano covered with eternal snow and
glistening glaciers; Sorata in Bolivia; the extinct volcano Chimborazo
in Ecuador, like a marble dome; and lastly, one of the earth's most
noted mountains, Cotopaxi, the highest of all still active volcanoes
(Plate XXXV.). Stand for a moment in the valley above the tree limit,
where only scattered plants can find hold in the hard ground. You see a
cone as regular as the peak of Fujiyama. The crater is 2500 feet in
diameter, and from its edge, 19,600 feet high, the snow-cap falls down
the mountain sides like the rays of a gigantic starfish. When the
Spanish conquerors, nearly four hundred years ago, took possession of
these formerly free countries, Cotopaxi had one of its fearful
eruptions; and even in more recent times European travellers have seen
the mantle of snow melt away as from a lighted furnace, while a
brownish-red reflection from the glowing crater lighted up the
devastation caused in the villages and valleys at the foot of the
mountain by the flood of melted snow and streams of lava.

[Illustration: SOUTH AMERICA.]

Even under the burning sun of the equator, then, these giants stand with
mantles of eternal snow and glittering blue fields of ice in the
bitterly cold atmosphere. Up there you would think that you were near
the pole. There are no trees on the high crests, which seem to rise up
from the depths of the Pacific Ocean; but the climate is good, and
agriculture yields sustenance to men. On the eastern flanks, which are
watered by abundant rains, the vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant, and
here the traveller enters the primeval forests of the tropics. Here is
the home of the cinchona tree, here orchids bloom among the tall trunks,
and here whole woods are entangled in a network of lianas. Immense areas
of Brazil and Bolivia are covered with impenetrable primeval forests,
which even still present an obstacle to the advance of the explorer.

Thus we find in the Andes all zones from the hot to the cold, from
tropical forests to barren heights, from the equator to high southern
latitudes.

Among these mountains dwelled in former times a remarkable and
law-abiding people, who under judicious and cautious kings attained a
high standard of power and development. To the leading tribe several
adjacent peoples allied themselves, and in time the mightiest and most
highly-cultured kingdom of South America flourished among them.
According to tradition, the ruling royal family took its rise where the
icefields of some of the loftiest summits of the Andes are reflected in
the mirror of Lake Titicaca. The king was called Inca, and when we speak
of the Inca Kingdom we mean old Peru, whose people were crushed and
annihilated by the Spaniards.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXV. COTOPAXI.]

The Inca Empire extended from Colombia and Ecuador in the north far down
to the present Chile. The Inca's power was unlimited, and after death he
was honoured with divine rites. He was surrounded with wealth and
grandeur. A red headband with white and black feathers was the sign of
his royal dignity. By his side stood the High Priest, who had to inquire
into and proclaim the will of the gods.

In Cuzco, the holy city of the Indians, north-west of the Titicaca lake,
the Inca people had erected a splendid temple to the sun and moon. The
halls of the sun temple were overlaid with plates of the ruddiest gold,
and the friezes and doors were of the same precious metal. In the
principal hall was worshipped an image of the sun with a human face in
the centre, surrounded by rays of precious stones. In another hall the
image of the moon goddess glittered in silver.

The sun and moon were, then, the objects of the deepest reverence. But
the Inca people also prayed to the rainbow and to the god of thunder,
and believed that certain inferior deities protected their herds,
dwellings, fields, and canals. They wore on the neck amulets which
shielded them from danger and sudden death, and were eventually buried
with them.

The dead were sewed up in hides or matting and interred under the
dwelling-house, or, in the case of important men, in special funereal
towers. On the coast the body was placed among boulders, in sand-banks,
or in large vessels of earthenware. With a dead man were laid his
weapons and implements, with women their utensils and handiwork, with
children their playthings. To the dead, flowers and fruit were offered,
and llamas were sacrificed. Dead Incas were deposited in the temple of
the sun, and their wives in the hall of the moon.

The Festival of the Sun was held at the winter solstice, and on this
occasion the Inca himself officiated as High Priest in his capacity as
the "son of the sun." Then was lighted a fire on the altar of the sun,
which was kept in all the year by the virgins of the sun. These had a
convent near the temple, the royal palace and the house of nobles. It
was also their duty to make costly robes for the priests and princes, to
brew maize beer for the festivals of the gods, and after victories or a
change of Incas to offer themselves to the gods.

The earlier history of the Inca people is lost in tradition and the mist
of legends. We know more of their administration and social condition,
for the Spanish conquerors saw all with their own eyes. The constitution
was communistic. All the land, fields, and pastures was divided into
three parts, of which two belonged to the Inca and the priesthood, and
the third to the people. The cultivation of the land was supervised by a
commissioner of the government, who had to see that the produce was
equitably distributed, and that the ground was properly manured with
guano from the islands on the west coast. Clothes and domestic animals
were also distributed by the State to the people. All labour was
executed in common for the good of the State; roads and bridges were
made, mines worked, weapons forged, and all the men capable of bearing
arms had to join the ranks when the kingdom was threatened by hostile
tribes. The harvest was stored in government warehouses in the various
provinces. An extremely accurate account was kept of all goods belonging
to the State, such as provisions, clothes, and weapons. A register was
kept of births and deaths. No one might change his place of abode
without permission, and no one might engage in any other occupation than
that of his father. Military order was maintained everywhere, and
therefore the Inca people were able to subdue their neighbours.
Everything was noted down, and yet this remarkable people had no written
characters, but used cords instead, with knots and loops of various
colours having different meanings. If the Inca wished to send an order
to a distant province, he despatched a running messenger with a bundle
of knotted strings. The recipient had only to look at the strings to
find out the business on hand.

To facilitate the movement of troops, the Incas constructed two
excellent roads which met at Cuzco--one in the mountainous country, the
other along the coast. Europeans have justly admired these grand
constructions. The military roads were paved with stone, and had walls
and avenues of trees. At certain intervals were inns where the
swift-footed couriers could pass the night. The principal highway ran
from Cuzco to Quito. When the Inca himself was on a journey, he sat on a
golden throne carried on a litter by the great nobles of the empire.

European explorers still discover grand relics of the Inca period. The
people did not know the arch, and did not use bricks and mortar, yet
their temples and fortresses, their gates, towers, and walls are real
gems of architecture. The joins between the blocks are often scarcely
visible, and some portals are hewn out of a single block with artistic
and original chiselled figures and images of the sun god on the facades.

Their skill in pottery was of equal excellence, and as workers in metal
there was none to match them in the South American continent. They made
clubs and axes of bronze, and vessels and ornaments of gold and silver.
In their graves modern explorers have found many striking proofs of
their proficiency in the art of weaving. They used the wool of llamas,
alpacas, vicunas, and guanacos. These species of animal, allied to the
camel, still render great services to the Indians. The llama is
distributed over the greater part of the Andes, and the male only is
used as a transport animal. The llama is shy, stupid, and quiet, and his
head is somewhat like a sheep's. The alpaca does not carry loads, but is
kept as a domestic animal for the sake of its meat and wool. The vicuna
and guanaco also do not work in the service of man. The latter is found
chiefly on the steppes of Patagonia, where he meets the fate of the
South American ostrich and falls to the arrows of the Indians.

The Inca people wove clothes of the wool of these animals as well as of
cotton. The chief garment of the men was a short shirt without sleeves,
of the women a longer shirt with a belt round the waist. The men wore
short hair with a black bandage round the head; and outside the bandage
they wound a noose or lasso. The women wore their hair long. Sandals
covered the feet, and in the ear-lobes were inserted round pegs. The
people reared and grazed cattle, as we have seen, and were hunters and
fishermen. They grew potatoes and many other root crops, bananas,
tobacco, and cotton, and sowed extensive fields of maize. They had all
the characteristics of the American race--a short skull, sharply cut
features, and a powerfully built body.

* * * * *

For centuries the Inca people had lived in undisturbed repose in their
beautiful valleys and on their sunlit tablelands between the mountain
ranges--or _cordilleras_, as they are called--which compose the Andes.
If their peace was occasionally disturbed by neighbouring tribes,
messages in knotted signs flew through the country, and the roads were
full of armed men; but the Inca kings dreamed of no serious danger. For
several hundred years their power had passed from father to son, and no
neighbour was strong enough to wrest the sceptre from the Inca king's
hand. Not a whisper of such names as Chimborazo and Cotopaxi had
reached Europe.

A great Inca had recently died and bequeathed his power to his two sons,
Huascar and Atahualpa. Just as always in the Old World, such a partition
produced friction and disputes, and at length civil war broke out. After
four hundred years, we read with sorrow the account of the suicidal
strife which harried old Peru, divided the Inca people into two hostile
factions, and thus made them an easy prey to the conquerors.

Scarcely had the clash of arms died out after the brave and chivalrous
Cortez had burned his ships on the coast of Mexico, subdued the kingdom
of Montezuma, and placed it under the crown of Castille, before another
Spanish conqueror, the rough, cruel, and treacherous Pizarro, cast his
eyes southwards, covetous of new gold countries. With a handful of
adventurers, he made his way down to Peru, but soon perceived that he
could not succeed without help from the home country. The Emperor
Charles V. listened to his tale of gold and green forests, and in the
year 1531 Pizarro set out again, this time with a company of 180
well-armed cavaliers. By degrees he gathered fresh reinforcements,
landed on the coast of Peru, and marched into the Inca kingdom.

Pizarro was clever and courageous, but, unlike Cortez, he was a base man
and a scoundrel. He had no education or proper feeling, and could not
even write his name, but he was cunning and knew how to take advantage
of favourable circumstances. By means of scouts and ambassadors he soon
made himself fully acquainted with the situation. He lulled the fears of
Atahualpa by offers of peace, with the result that the Inca king
requested his assistance to crush his brother Huascar. If the brothers
had held together, they could have driven the Spanish pestilence out of
the country. Now the fate of both was sealed.

It was agreed that Atahualpa should come in person to Pizarro's camp,
and he arrived in pomp and state, escorted by an army of 30,000 men. He
naturally wished to impress his ally with his power. He sat raised on a
litter of gold, and was surrounded by all his generals.

Then Pizarro's military chaplain stepped forth, a Catholic priest. In
one hand he held a crucifix, in the other a breviary. Raising his
crucifix, he exhorted the Inca king in the name of Jesus to accept
Christianity and to acknowledge the King of Castille as his master.
Atahualpa retained his composure, and simply answered that no one could
deprive him of the rights inherited from his fathers. He would not
forswear his fathers' faith and did not understand what the priest said.
"It is written here in this book," cried the priest, and handed the
breviary to the king. Atahualpa held the book to his ear, listened, and
said as he threw the breviary on the ground, "Your book does not speak."

Without warning, a massacre was commenced. The cannon and muskets of the
Spaniards ploughed red furrows in the ranks of the Peruvians. Protected
by their helmets and harness of steel, and with halberts and lances
lowered, the cavaliers swept irresistibly through the ranks of
half-naked natives and spread terror and confusion around them. All that
could be reached with sword, spear, or bullet were mercilessly
slaughtered. Four thousand dead bodies lay scattered over the ground,
among thousands wounded and bleeding. The rest of the army was
completely scattered and took to flight. The Inca king himself had been
early taken captive to be kept as a hostage. Enormous plunder fell into
the hands of the victors. The report of a land of gold in the south had
not been an empty tale; here was gold in heaps. The loot was generously
divided between the officers and men, and, with the crucifix raised to
heaven, the priest read mass while the other villains thanked God for
victory.

The captive Inca king begged and prayed to be set at liberty. But
Pizarro promised to release him only after he had bound himself to fill
a moderate-sized room with gold from the floor up to as high as he could
reach with his hand. Then messages in knotted cords were carried through
all the country which remained faithful to Atahualpa, and vessels,
bowls, ornaments, and ingots of gold poured in from temples and palaces.
In a short time the room was filled and the ransom paid, but the Inca
king was still kept a prisoner. He reminded Pizarro of his promised
word. The unscrupulous adventurer laughed in his black beard. Instead of
keeping his promise, he accused Atahualpa of conspiracy, condemned him
to death, and the innocent and pious Indian king was strangled in
prison. By this abominable deed the whole Spanish conquest was covered
with shame and disgrace.

One of Pizarro's comrades in arms, Almagro, now arrived with
reinforcements, and with an army of 500 men Pizarro marched on through
the high lands to the capital, Cuzco, which he captured. Then he fell
out with Almagro, and the latter determined to seek out other gold
countries in the south on his own account. With a small party he marched
up into the mountains of Bolivia, and then followed the coast southwards
to the neighbourhood of Aconcagua. He certainly found no gold, but he
achieved a great exploit, for he led his troop through the dreaded
Atacama desert.

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