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FOLLOWING THE CONQUISTADORES UP THE ORINOCO AND DOWN THE MAGDALENA

BY H. J. MOZANS, A.M., Ph.D.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1910

TO MY GENIAL COMPAGNON DE VOYAGE BRAVE LOYAL C.

Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare; novis auctoritatem; absoletis, nitorem; obscuris, lucem; fastiditis, gratiam; dubiis, fidem; omnibus vero naturam, et naturae sua omnia. Itaque etiam non assecutis, voluisse abunde pulchrum atque magnificum est. That is to say: It is a dyfficulte thynge to gyue newenes to owlde thynges, autoritie to newe thynges, bewtie to thynges owt of vse, fame to the obscure, fauoure to the hatefull, credite to the doubtefull, nature to all and all to nature. To such neuerthelesse as can not atayne to all these, it is greately commendable and magnificall to haue attempted the fame.

From the preface, addressed to the Emperor Vespasian, of Pliny's Natural History.

FOREWORD

The following pages contain the record of a journey made to islands and lands that border the Caribbean and to the less frequented parts of Venezuela and Colombia. Thanks to our trade relations with the Antilles, and the number of meritorious books that have been written about them during the last few decades, our knowledge of the West Indies is fairly complete and satisfactory. The same, however, cannot be said of the two extensive republics just south of us. Outside of their capitals and a few of their coast towns, they are rarely visited, and as a consequence, the most erroneous ideas prevail regarding them. Vast regions in both republics are now less known than they were three centuries ago, while there are certain sections about which our knowledge is as limited as it is regarding the least explored portions of darkest Africa.

This is not the place to account for the prevailing ignorance regarding the parts of the New Hemisphere that first claimed the attention of discoverers and explorers. Suffice it to state that, paradoxical as it may seem, it is, nevertheless, a fact.

When we recollect that the lands in question were not only the first discovered but that they were also witnesses of the marvelous achievements of some of the most renowned of the conquistadores, our surprise becomes doubly great that our information respecting them is so meager and confined almost exclusively to those who make a special study of things South American.

Never, perhaps, in the history of our race was the spirit of adventure so generally diffused as it was at the dawn of the sixteenth century--just after the epoch-making discoveries of Columbus and his hardy followers. It was like the spirit that animated the Crusaders when they started on their long march to recover the Holy Sepulchre from the possession of the Moslem. It was, indeed, in many of its aspects, a revival of the age of chivalry. The Sea of Darkness had at last been successfully crossed. That ocean of legend and mystery with its enchanted islands inhabited by witches and gnomes and griffins had been explored. And that strange island of Satanaxio, "the island of the hand of Satan," where the Evil One was "supposed once a day to thrust forth a gigantic hand from the ocean to grasp a number of the inhabitants" was consigned to the limbo of mediaeval superstitions. A new world was revealed to the astonished Spaniards. Every animal, tree, plant seemed new to them and often entirely different from anything the Old World could show. There was, too, a new race of men, with strange manners and customs--men who told them of a Fountain of Youth, of regions of pearls and precious stones, of cities and palaces of gold in the lofty plateau and in the heart of the wilderness.

Those who first came to the New World acted as if they were in a land of enchantment and were prepared to believe any tale, however preposterous, that appealed to their lust of gold or love of adventure. No enterprise was too difficult for them, no hardship too great. Neither trackless forests, nor miasmatic climates, nor ruthless savages could deter them from their quest of treasure, or quench their thirst for glory and emolument. Hence those extraordinary expeditions in search of El Dorado,--that El Dorado which Quesada hoped to find in Cundinamarca, his brother in Casanare, Orsua among the Omaguas on the Amazon, Philipp von Hutten in the regions of the Meta and the Guaviare, and Cesar and Belalcazar in the territories drained by the Cauca and the Magdalena,--in which were combined the extravagant performances of a Don Quixote with the feats of prowess of a Rodrigo Diaz. The spirit of knight-errantry seemed to revive and to bring with it an age of romance that for hardihood of enterprise and variety of incident surpassed any period that had preceded it. The feats of individual prowess were as brilliant as the success of Spanish arms was pronounced and far-reaching. It was an age of epics, of poetry in action.

Lord Macaulay, in his essay on Lord Clive, writes, "We have always thought it strange that, while the history of the Spanish empire in America is familiarly known to all the nations of Europe, the great actions of our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves, excite little interest."

One reason for the difference noted was the absence, in the English conquest of India, of those romantic and picturesque elements that so distinguished the achievements of the conquistadores in the New World, and which so fascinated Leo X, that he sat up all night to read the Decades of Peter Martyr. "The picturesque descriptions," declares Theodore Irving, in his Conquest of Florida, "of steel-clad cavaliers with lance and helmet and prancing steed, glittering through the wildernesses of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and the prairies of the Far West, would seem to us fictions of romance, did they not come to us recorded in matter-of-fact narratives of contemporaries, and corroborated by minute and daily memoranda of eye-witnesses."

The same can be said with even more truth of the conquistadores of the Spanish Main and of the daring adventurers who first penetrated the trackless forests and scaled the lofty mountains of Venezuela and New Granada. "Their minds," as Fiske well observes, "were in a state like that of the heroes of the Arabian Nights who, if they only wander far enough through the dark forest or across the burning desert, are sure at length to come upon some enchanted palace whereof they may fairly hope, with the aid of some gracious Jinni, to become masters." Thus it was that Cortes, unaided, however, by a gracious Jinni, became the master of the capital of the Aztecs, as Quesada and Pizarro became the masters of the lands and the treasures of the Muiscas and the Incas.

It is impossible for the student of early American history to cruise along the Spanish Main, or sail on the broad waters of the Orinoco, the Meta and the Magdalena, without harking back at every turn to the achievements of some of the early discoverers or conquistadores. Every island, every promontory, every river has been visited by them and, if endowed with speech, they could tell thrilling stories of daring adventure and brilliant exploit unsurpassed in the annals of chivalry and crusading valor. Every place he goes, he will find that he has been preceded by the Spaniard by three or four centuries, for everywhere he will find traces or traditions of his passage.

It matters not that the Spaniards were lured on by such ever-receding chimeras as Manoa, El Dorado and Lake Parime, that many other objects of their quest were as mythical as that of the Argonauts or as unattainable as the golden apples of the Hesperides. Their expeditions were not for these reasons wholly fruitless. Every one of them, whether for the purpose of exploration or conquest or colonization, contributed to our knowledge of the lands visited and of the tribes inhabiting them, many of whom have long since disappeared. And everywhere one finds towns founded by them, or places, mountains and rivers that still bear the names that were given them at the time of their discovery.

It was always our pleasure, during our wanderings in the tropics, to recall what the first explorers thought of the new lands visited by them while they were still under the spell of the novel and marvelous things that were ever claiming their rapt attention whithersoever they went. We loved to look upon the countries we visited as their first explorers had looked upon them. This we were able to do, for thanks to the old chroniclers, the wonderment of the discovery of the New World has been preserved, as in amber, in all its freshness, and that, too, for all time to come.

Comparatively few people realize how extensive is the literature, especially in Spanish, that relates to the period of the conquest and that immediately following it. And still fewer are aware of its intense interest and importance. In addition to the well-known classic works of Peter Martyr, Las Casas, Herrera, Oviedo, Garcilaso de la Vega, Cieza de Leon, Gomara, Acosta, and others scarcely less valuable, there are scores of similar annals that have for centuries lain in the archives of Spain and of the various countries of Latin-America which have but recently been published. Many of these--beyond price for the historian--were absolutely unknown until a few years ago, and are still awaiting the artistic pen of a Prescott or an Irving to transmute their contents in masterpieces of literature. It is safe to say that nowhere else will the man of letters find a more fertile and a less cultivated field to engage his talent.

Then there are the works, equally precious, of the early missionaries. Many of them are veritable mines of information respecting the manners and customs of the native inhabitants of the tropics, while not a few of them are the only sources extant of knowledge respecting many interesting Indian tribes that have long since become extinct. Among these deserving of special notice are the works of Simon, Gilli, Caulin, Rivero, Cassani, Gumilla and Piedrahita--not to mention others of lesser note--that treat specially of Venezuela and New Granada, and afford us the truest picture of the condition of these countries during their existence under Spanish domination. Humboldt frequently quotes them in his instructive Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, and usually with the generous approval and commendation which they so well deserve. To the humble and intelligent and often erudite missionaries of the tropics the illustrious German savant was indebted for much of the success that attended his explorations in the basin of the Orinoco and along the plateau of the Cordilleras.

Worthy of mention, too, in traversing countries where the traveler has not the benefit of a Murray or a Baedeker, are the numerous works of those explorers--German, English, French, American--who have followed in the footsteps of Humboldt and his compagnon de voyage, Bonpland, and who have cast a flood of light upon the fauna and flora of the countries visited, and supplemented the works of the early historians and missionaries by describing the condition of their inhabitants as it obtains to-day.

In the following pages the author has endeavored to give not only his own impressions of the lands he has visited but also, when the narrative permitted or required it, the impressions of others--conquistadores, missionaries and men of science--who have gone over the same grounds or discussed the same topics as constitute the subject-matter of this volume. The rapidly increasing interest of our people in all matters pertaining to South America, and the eagerness now manifested to see closer trade-relations established between the United States and the various republics of Latin America, seemed to justify this course. For the student, as well as for the general reader, it seemed to be desirable, if not necessary, to indicate, at least cursorily, by citations and footnotes, the character and extent of that large class of works, historical and scientific, that occupy so important a position in the annals of discovery and of material and intellectual progress.

In the words of Pliny, quoted on the title page, it has been the aim of the author "to give newness to old things, authority to new things, beauty to things out onida de Mayo . Buenos Aires, Argentine 30

Jim Fish Was the Swiftest Puller that Ever Wore a Brace of Horns. Durban, South Africa. 60

Zulus "Scoffing" Mealy Meal. Zululand, South Africa 78

Native Huts and Kafir Corn ; African Transport . South Africa 96

Victoria Falls, Rhodesia. 122

Parliament House, Melbourne , and Victoria Markets, Sydney, Australia 162

Maori Women Cooking by Boiling Springs . Maori Women's Salute--Rubbing Noses and Shaking Hands . New Zealand. 194

Interior of Samoan Home, Built of Breadfruit Tree, Secured by Coir; No Nails Used. Samoa. 212

Vigil on the Veld , British East Africa; "Trolley" Pushers , Beira, Portuguese East Africa. 248

Parsi , Bombay, India. Bhisti . India. 270

Types of Indian Soldiers. The Goorkha . The Sikh . 290

Mount Kinchinjanga . Center Peak in Circle, Mount Everest. Darjeeling, India. 312

Small Colony of Half a Million Sampan Dwellers of Pearl River; These Water Homes Save House Rent. Canton, China. 352

Panorama of Honolulu, Hawaii 398

LEG ONE

SEVEN LEGS ACROSS THE SEAS

A puzzling phase of ocean travel soon becomes apparent during a passenger ship's journey to one making his first voyage--sometimes when a vessel has been at sea not more than a few hours. He is apt to find himself at a loss to account for the absence of the many persons who crowded the deck rails of the steamship--chatting, saying good-by to friends and some bidding a final farewell to their country--before and immediately after the vessel pulled away from her dock into the harbor. After a few days, however, the mystery gradually unfolds. Vacant chairs in the dining saloon become occupied from time to time as the journey advances; more passengers are taking part in deck amusements; new faces are seen in the social hall and smoking saloon--the ship's "family" surely grows. On voyages of from two to four weeks' duration this feature becomes even more interesting. Frequently, when the ship has reached the end of the journey, before which every one would seem to have become used to the sea, "strangers" will be observed leaving the vessel. One cannot help thinking the ship has stopped during the night hours and taken on passengers from the main. This is explained by some voyagers keeping to their cabins from the time of sailing.

Seasickness is largely responsible for this perplexing phase of water travel. Women are more affected than men, and the man who will discover a remedy for seasickness will find his name immortalized. Many women will travel for weeks on the water so sick they cannot raise their heads, yet not a complaining word will be uttered by most of them. This form of bravery seems to be the only comforting thing that accompanies the sea wreaking out its vengeance on womankind.

Six days after leaving Sandy Hook found us in Liverpool, England. Passengers disembarked early in the forenoon, who, having heard so much of England's dull atmosphere, were all surprised to find the sun shining. The orb was of a vapory appearance, though, which suggested that perhaps it had been on a sea voyage also, as there was a marked resemblance between the appearance of the sun and some of the passengers who had undergone a sick trip across. Most of us boarded a train for London.

Railway train service in England is fast, the speed on main lines being from 45 to 50 miles an hour. The passenger coaches are of compartment design, which are comfortable to ride in when only half filled, or four persons to a compartment; but when from six to eight passengers--the latter number being the full seating capacity--occupy one compartment, travel proves very uncomfortable, as there is no room to stretch one's legs in any direction, since the passengers sitting on one side face those seated on the other side. It is a case of knees to knees. Railroad fare is two and three cents a mile; a higher rate is charged for hauling freight in England than that prevailing in America. Food, however, is cheaper than on American trains.

The locomotives are small--some of them not half the tonnage of the American engine--but the driving wheels reach to the top of the boiler, which accounts for the high speed schedules of the English railroads. One misses the ringing of the locomotive bell, as there are no bells on English engines. Another feature of the English railroads that seems odd to an American is the small freight cars, which in some instances are not one-third as large as some of the American cars and trucks. Trains in England have not the solid appearance of the American train, for the reason that their wheels are not like the American wheel, but have spokes, like those of a wheelbarrow. The convenience a union railway station affords the traveling public, found in many cities of America, is much missed when visiting the metropolis of England. Naturally, numerous railways center in London, and the terminus of each seems to have been located as widely apart from each other as the boundaries of the city will allow. None of the stations seen here can favorably compare with those found in the larger cities of the United States.

The cleanliness of London's streets is the first impression one has of the premier city of Europe. And how obliging the public conveyance employees are; and the policemen, also. It is a pleasure to go about in London, as every one seems willing to answer questions, to point out to a stranger places of interest, and to make one comfortable in every sense of the word.

"London traffic," a feature of this city one often hears mentioned, is accounted for, to a large degree, by the absence of surface car lines or elevated railroads coursing the streets of London City proper, and also to the narrowness of many of the main thoroughfares. With such an immense population, one can infer the great demand placed upon 'buses, public hacks, taxicabs and private vehicles, which at once suggests light-tire traffic. Heavy trucks, loaded with all sorts of merchandise, are not seen in corresponding sections of London as one finds them in populous American centers. In the subways, or tubes, are but two tracks, which prohibit, of course, fast travel. On the other hand, sixteen underground railways intersect the city and suburbs. The atmosphere of a subway is perhaps a more cosmopolitan phase than any other of our industrial factors. Were a blind person--one familiar with our underground railway odors--to sail from New York for Europe, being ignorant of the presence of subways there, and later, in London or Paris, find himself at the entrance of a "tube," he would at once know he was at the approach of a subway by the presence of the smell, as a similar atmosphere emanates from all of them.

Street car fare is higher for long distances than in most American cities. Though short distance rides are cheaper, some of the five cent rides in America would cost fifteen cents in London. Motor 'buses, which are numerous, go a certain distance for two cents, but the next "stage" is another two-cent charge, and by the time eight or ten miles are traveled one will have paid from 10 to 15 cents. Most public conveyances are double decked. Electric trolley cars are operated outside of London City proper, and the fare on these is similar to that charged by the 'buses. One can ride a long distance in a cab for 25 cents, however.

Newspapers here generally have not the attractive nor the prosperous appearance of those in the United States. Until recently most of the London dailies sold for two cents, and even more. Periodicals and books also are more expensive in Great Britain, although the average wages paid artisans in this industry is about half those paid in America. Mechanics engaged in other trades received from to weekly, and consequently the British mechanic in America doubles the salary of his own country, plus other advantages. House rent, generally paid weekly, runs from .50 to . Most of the working people of London live in the suburbs, and are charged but half price--about 8 cents--for return railway tickets if bought for trains reaching the city before 8 o'clock in the morning. The government collects an income tax on all yearly salaries of 0 and over.

It looks strange to American visitors in London to see only boys engaged in keeping the streets clean. One may not quite agree with the practice of boys doing that sort of work--for the reason it looks as if men should be engaged at such employment--but the fact remains the streets are very clean. The sweepings are not put in cans, as is customary in some American cities, where they might be tipped over by mischievous boys, but iron bins are placed in the sidewalk close to the curb, into which the refuse is emptied. This custom seems much better than the American system.

Seen drawn about the streets here, close to the curb, is what one would call a street sprinkler. It is a sprinkler, but the liquid running from the pipes is a disinfectant, a carbolic acid odor being noticeable.

The sale of matches by persons who seem to be in needy circumstances, seen at almost every corner of the business sections of the city, leads one to think that they must be used even for stove fuel. The proportion of poorly dressed people is much larger than in American cities. Any of the homeless who apply for shelter are provided with sleeping accommodation by the authorities.

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