South America Observations and Impressions. Viscount James Bryce

Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу South America Observations and Impressions - Viscount James Bryce страница 15

South America Observations and Impressions - Viscount James Bryce

Скачать книгу

Peru is altogether a mountain land, and is accordingly called by the people "the Sierra." It is traversed by two (more or less parallel) ranges of the Andes, the eastern and the western Cordilleras, which with their spurs and their branching ridges cover a large part of its area. It includes what is called the Puno, a comparatively level plateau, some seventy to one hundred miles wide and enclosed by these two main lines of the Cordilleras. Between the main ranges and their branches, there lie deep valleys formed by the courses of the four or five great rivers which, flowing in a northwesterly or northeasterly direction and ultimately turning eastward, unite to form the mighty Amazon. This Sierra region is, roughly speaking, about three hundred miles long (from northwest to southeast) and one to two hundred miles wide; but of this area only a small part is fit for settled human habitation. The average height of the plateau is from ten thousand to thirteen thousand feet above sea level, and that of the region fit for pasture on the slopes and tops of the ridges from ten thousand to fourteen thousand feet – the snow line varying from fifteen to nineteen thousand. As these slopes give pasture to llamas and alpacas and sheep, and in some favoured places to cattle, so in the less arid and less sandy tracts of the plateau there is some tillage. But the parts best suited for agriculture are to be found in the valleys, especially in so much of them as lies between ten thousand and four thousand feet above sea-level, for below five thousand feet their conditions become tropical and resemble those of the Amazonian forests. In these valleys the soil, especially where it is volcanic, is extremely fertile, but many of them are so narrow and their declivities so steep that cultivation is scarcely possible. No one accordingly who has studied the physical features of this country need be surprised to find that while the total area of Peru is about seven hundred thousand square miles, its population is estimated at only four million six hundred thousand. He may indeed be more surprised at the accounts which Spanish historians almost contemporary with the Conquest give of the far larger population, perhaps ten millions, that existed in the days of the Incas. The great falling off, if those accounts be correct, is explicable partly by the slaughter perpetrated by the first Spaniards and the oppressions practised by their successors during nearly three centuries, partly by the fact that districts near the coast which the remains of irrigation works shew to have been formerly cultivated are now sterile for want of water.

      It was in the central highlands, at an altitude of from eight thousand feet and upwards that there arose such civilization as the ancient Peruvians developed: and its origin here rather than elsewhere in South America may be mainly due to favourable climatic conditions. There was enough rain to provide grass for animals and make tillage possible, and enough warmth to enable men to live in health, yet not enough either of rain or of heat to make nature too strong for man and to enfeeble man's capacities for work.

      Temperature and rainfall resembled generally those of the plateau of Mexico, a region somewhat lower, but farther from the Equator: and it was under similarly fortunate conditions of climate and agricultural possibilities that the races inhabiting those highlands had made, when Europeans arrived, some considerable advances in the arts of life. This central Peruvian area is to-day, with the exception of the irrigated banks of a few streams reaching the Pacific, the only part of the country where either an agricultural or a pastoral population can support itself. The rest of Peru depends upon its mines, chiefly of silver and copper, – a source of wealth uncertain at best. It is only in a few valleys, the most productive of which I am going to describe, that the agricultural population occupies any large continuous area. As a rule each community is confined to its own valley and cut off from the others either by mountains or by high, bare ridges on which only sheep can be kept, most of them too high and bleak even for pasture.15

      There is no better way of conveying some notion of the character of this central region, the true Peru, than by describing the country through which I passed by railway from Arequipa eastward to Lake Titicaca and thence northward to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital. This railroad follows the line of the most important through route which war and commerce took in pre-Conquest times. It is the Southern Railroad of Peru, the main highway of the country. The section from Mollendo to the plateau at Juliaca was built many years ago, but the extension to Cuzco had been completed and opened less than a year before our visit. Both sections have been constructed by engineers from the United States, and the way in which the difficulties of extremely steep ascents and cuttings along precipitous slopes have been overcome reflects great credit on their skill. The gauge is the normal one. The line is owned by the Peruvian Corporation, a company registered in London, and under the energetic management of North American engineers it is doing a great deal to open up regions in which till some ten years ago there was not even a road fit for wheels. The passenger traffic is of course very small, and passenger trains run only once a day to Arequipa and thrice a week to Juliaca and Cuzco.

      Quitting Arequipa on the southwestern side, the line winds up to the north and then to the east across a rugged and dreary region of rocky hill slopes, pierced by deep gorges through some of which brooks come down, fed by snow beds far above. It follows the line of a canyon, and wherever there is level ground at the bottom, some bright green strips of cultivation appear on the margin of the stream, with a few Indian huts; so even these upper regions, cold and desolate as they are, are not so wholly desolate as the Pampa below. The view looking back over the city lying in its green oasis, with a stony desert all round, is superb. As we climb higher, the mass of Ampato and other giants of the western Cordillera deep with snow, rise in the northwest, while westward one sees beyond the reddish grey mountains through which we had mounted to Arequipa from the desert Pampa, the gleaming sands of that desert, and behind them again, just on the horizon, the long, low bank of clouds that covers the Coast Range. Here at nine or ten thousand feet, one looks over the white upper surface of these clouds. Resting on the western edge of the Pampa, they stretch far out over the Pacific and veil it from sight. Thus steadily mounting, and seeing below in a ravine the hamlet of Yura, where is a mineral spring whose pleasantly effervescent water is drunk all over Peru, the train winds round the northern flank of Chachani under its huge black precipices. Behind it and behind El Misti, which shews as a symmetrical cone on this side as well as on that turned towards Arequipa, we entered at a height of about eleven thousand feet a region typical of the Peruvian uplands. There was plenty of coarse grass, studded with alpine flowers, a few belonging to European genera. Llamas and alpacas were grazing on the slopes, herded by Indians: there were sheep, and a few cattle, and in one place we thought we caught sight among low bushes of a group of vicuñas. This is a creature like the llama, but smaller, and useless as a beast of burden, because untameable. It roams over the hills between eleven thousand and fifteen thousand feet, and produces the finest of all the South American wools, of a delicate light brown tint, silky and soft as the fur of a chinchilla.

      The scenery was strange and wild, not without a certain sombre grandeur. Below was the Chile River, the same which passes Arequipa, and to which we had returned after our circuit round Chachani. It was flowing in a deep channel which it had cut out for itself between walls of black lava: and the wide bare hollows beyond were filled with old lava streams and scattered ridges and piles of rock. To the southwest El Misti and his two mighty neighbours shut in the valley, and away to the south huge mountains, among them one conspicuous volcanic cone, were dimly seen, snowy summits mingled with the gathering clouds, for at this height rain and snow showers are frequent. The cone was probably Ubinas, the only active volcano in this neighbourhood, about sixteen thousand feet high.

      Still mounting to the eastward, the line rose over gentler slopes to a broad, bleak, and wind-swept ridge where tiny rivulets welling up out of pools in the yellowish grass were flowing west to the Pacific and eastward to the inland basin of Lake Titicaca. Large white birds like wild geese were fluttering over us. Here were a few huts of the Indian shepherds near the buildings of the station; and here a cross marked the Cumbre or top of the pass, which is called the Crucero Alto, 14,666 feet above sea level. Higher ground cut off the view to the north and clouds obscured the view to the east, but to the south we could discern some of the lofty summits of the western Cordillera on the watershed of which we stood. Thunderstorms were growling on both sides, and out of black clouds far in the northwest towards Coropuna came bright flashes of chain lightning. At this height the country is comparatively

Скачать книгу


<p>15</p>

Paramo is the name applied to these bleak regions between the valleys.