South America (World Digital Library). Observations and Impressions

649 Pages·1904·6.258 MB·English

by  James Bryce

south america
south americ a
Observations and Impressions
James Bryce
With Maps
Barnes & Noble World Digital Library
New York
First Published 1912
All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copy right Conventions.
Published in the United States by Barnes & Noble
World Digital Library, New York.
Barnes & Noble World Digital Library and colophon are
trademarks of Barnes & Noble.com.
Barnes & Noble.com, 76Ninth Avenue, New York, NY 10011.
Cover Design by Red Canoe, Deer Lodge, TN
ISBN 0-594-10106-9
To my friends of
The English Alpine Club
contents
preface vii
i. the isthmus of panama 1
ii. the coast of peru 39
iii. cuzco and the land of the incas 79
iv. lake titicaca and the central andes 127
v. la paz and the bolivian desert 178
vi. chile 220
vii. across the andes 267
viii. the straits of magellan 304
contents
ix. argentina 340
x. uruguay 376
xi. brazil 395
xii. the rise of sew nations 454
xiii. the relations of races
in south america 487
xiv. the two americas and the relation
of south america to europe 522
xv. the conditions of political life in
spanish-american republics 564
xvi. some reflections and forecasts 596
notes 633
vi
preface
THIS book records observations made and impres-
sions formed during a journey through western and
southern South America from Panama to Argentina
and Brazil via the Straits of Magellan. The nature of
its contents is briefly outlined in the Introduction
which follows, so all that I have to do here is to
acknowledge gratefully the many kindnesses I
received in every part of South America which I vis-
ited, and in particular from the following persons:
Colonel Goethals, Chief Engineer of the Panama
Canal, and other officers of the United States engi-
neers stationed there, and Colonel Gorgas, head of
the medical staff; the officials of the Peruvian
Corporation in Lima and of the Peruvian Southern
Railways in Mollendo, Arequipa, and La Paz; the offi-
cials of the Antofagasta and Bolivia Railroad
Company; those of the Transandine Railway
Company in Chile and those of the Buenos Aires and
Pacific and Argentine Great Western Railways
vii
preface
Companies in Mendoza and Buenos Aires, and also
those of the Leopoldina Railway in Brazil. Nor must I
fail to express my obligations to the heads in New
York of the firm of Messrs. W. R. Grace Co., who
advised me regarding my journey, and to my friend
Professor Bingham of Yale University, who, familiar
with South America from his own travels and studies,
has given me valuable help in many ways.
I have also to return my respectful thanks to the
Governments of Chile and Brazil, who were good
enough to extend to me facilities for travel on their
railways, and to the Governments of Peru, Bolivia,
Argentina, and Uruguay for other courtesies. To many
statesmen and scholars in these six republics, too
numerous to mention by name, as also to not a few of
my own fellow-countrymen from Britain and Canada
who are there settled, I am indebted for hospitality, for
private acts of kindness, and for valuable information.
JAMES BRYCE.
JUNE 27, 1912.
viii
chapter i
the isthmus of panama
SOUTH AMERICA is bounded at its northern end by an
isthmus and at its southern by a strait. They are the
two gateways by which the western side of the
Continent, cut off from the western and central por-
tions by a long and lofty mountain range, can be
approached from the Atlantic. It was by crossing the
Isthmus that Vasco Nuñez de Balboa discovered the
South Sea. It was by penetrating the Strait that
Magellan, seven years later, discovered that this South
Sea was a vast ocean stretching all the way to the
coasts of Asia. In old Spanish days all the commerce
of the west coast passed over the Isthmus, but when
the days of steam navigation arrived, that commerce
passed through Magellan’s Strait. Now the Isthmus
itself is to be turned into a strait and will be a channel
for sea-borne trade, the main gateway to the West.
An isthmus and a strait are, to the historical geog-
rapher and to the geographical historian, the most
interesting things with which geographical science
1