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Title: Through Five Republics on Horseback

Author: G. Whitfield Ray

Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7499]
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[This file was first posted on May 11, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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[Illustration: THE AUTHOR AND HIS GUIDES THREE FAITHFUL MEN]




THROUGH FIVE REPUBLICS ON HORSEBACK

BEING AN ACCOUNT OF MANY WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA


BY


G. WHITFIELD RAY, F. R. G. S.
Pioneer Missionary and Government Explorer


With an Introduction by the Rev. J. G. Brown, D. D.
Secretary for the Foreign Missions of the Canadian Baptist Church


TWELFTH EDITION--REVISED

EVANGELICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE
C. HAUSER, Agent
CLEVELAND, OHIO, U. S. A.
1915




[Illustration: SOUTH AMERICA]




PREFACE

The _Missionary Review of the World_ has described South America as
THE DARKEST LAND. That I have been able to penetrate into part of its
unexplored interior, and visit tribes of people hitherto untouched
and unknown, was urged as sufficient reason for the publishing of
this work. In perils oft, through hunger and thirst and fever,
consequent on the many wanderings in unhealthy climes herein
recorded, the writer wishes publicly to record his deep thankfulness
to Almighty God for His unfailing help. If the accounts are used to
stimulate missionary enterprise, and if they give the reader a
clearer conception of and fuller sympathy with the conditions and
needs of those South American countries, those years of travel will
not have been in vain.

"Of the making of books there is no end," so when one is acceptably
received, and commands a ready sale, the author is satisfied that his
labor is well repaid. The 4th edition was scarcely dry when the
Consul-General of the Argentine Republic at Ottawa ordered a large
number of copies to send to the members of his Government. Much of it
has been translated into German, and I know not what other languages.
Even the _Catholic Register_ of Toronto has boosted its sale by
printing much in abuse of it, at the same time telling its readers
that the book "sold like hot cakes." A wiser editor would have been
discreet enough not to refer to "Through Five Republics on
Horseback." His readers bought it, and--had their eyes opened, for
the statements made in this work, and the authorities quoted, are
unanswerable.

Seeing that there is such an alarming ignorance regarding Latin
America, I have, for this edition, written an Introductory Chapter on
South America, and also a short Foreword especially relating to each
of the Five Republics here treated. As my portrayal of Romanism there
has caused some discussion, I have, in those pages, sought to
incorporate the words of other authorities on South American life and
religion.

That the following narratives, now again revised, and sent forth in
new garb, may be increasingly helpful in promoting knowledge, is the
earnest wish of the author.

G. W. R.

Toronto, Ont.




INTRODUCTION

"Through Five Republics on Horseback" has all the elements of a great
missionary book. It is written by an author who is an eye-witness of
practically all that he records, and one who by his explorations and
travels has won for himself the title of the "Livingstone of South
America." The scenes depicted by the writer and the glimpses into the
social, political and religious conditions prevailing in the
Republics in the great Southern continent are of thrilling interest
to all lovers of mankind. We doubt if there is another book in print
that within the compass of three hundred pages begins to give as much
valuable information as is contained in Mr. Ray's volume. The writer
wields a facile pen, and every page glows with the passion of a man
on fire with zeal for the evangelization of the great "Neglected
Continent." We are sure that no one can read this book and be
indifferent to the claims of South America upon the Christian Church
of this generation.

To those who desire to learn just what the fruits of Romanism as a
system are, when left to itself and uninfluenced by Protestantism,
this book will prove a real eye-opener. We doubt if any Christian
man, after reading "Through Five Republics on Horseback," will any
longer conclude that Romanism is good enough for Romanists and that
Missions to Roman Catholic countries are an impertinence. We trust
the book will awaken a great interest in the evangelization of the
Latin Republics of South America.

Of course, this volume will have interest for others besides
missionary enthusiasts. Apart from the religious and missionary
purpose of the book, it contains very much in the way of
geographical, historical and scientific information, and that, too,
in regard to a field of which as yet comparatively little is known.
The writer has kept an open mind in his extensive travels, and his
record abounds in facts of great scientific value.

We have known Mr. Ray for several years and delight to bear testimony
to his ability and faithfulness as a preacher and pastor. As a
lecturer on his experiences in South America he is unexcelled. We
commend "Through Five Republics on Horseback" especially to parents
who are anxious to put into the hands of their children inspiring and
character-forming reading. A copy of the book ought to be in every
Sunday School Library.

J. G. Brown.

626 Confederation Life Building, Toronto.




A PRELIMINARY WORD ON SOUTH AMERICA

The Continent of South America was discovered by Spanish navigators
towards the end of the fifteenth century. When the tidings of a new
world beyond the seas reached Europe, Spanish and Portuguese
expeditions vied with each other in exploring its coasts and sailing
up its mighty rivers.

In 1494 the Pope decided that these new lands, which were nearly
twice the size of Europe, should become the possession of the
monarchs of Spain and Portugal. Thus by right of conquest and gift
South America with its seven and a half million miles of territory
and its millions of Indian inhabitants was divided between Spain and
Portugal. The eastern northern half, now called Brazil, became the
possession of the Portuguese crown and the rest of the continent went
to the crown of Spain. South America is 4,600 miles from north to
south, and its greatest breadth from east to west is 3,500 miles. It
is a country of plains and mountains and rivers. The Andean range of
mountains is 4,400 miles long. Twelve peaks tower three miles or more
above ocean level, and some reach into the sky for more than four
miles. Many of these are burning mountains; the volcano of Cotopaxi
is three miles higher than Vesuvius. Its rivers are among the longest
in the world. The Amazon, Orinoco and La Plata systems drain an area
of 3,686,400 square miles. Its plains are almost boundless and its
forests limitless. There are deserts where no rain ever falls, and
there are stretches of coast line where no day ever passes without
rain. It is a country where all climates can be found. As the
northern part of the continent is equatorial the greatest degree of
heat is there experienced, while the south stretches its length
toward the Pole Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is on the equator, and
Punta Arenas, in Chile, is the southernmost town in the world.

For hundreds of years Spain and Portugal exploited and ruled with an
iron hand their new and vast possessions. Their coffers were enriched
by fabulous sums of gold and treasure, for the wildest dream of
riches indulged in by its discoverers fell infinitely short of the
actual reality. Large numbers of colonists left the Iberian peninsula
for the newer and richer lands. Priests, monks and nuns went in every
vessel, and the Roman Catholicism of the Dark Ages was soon firmly
established as the only religion. The aborigines were compelled to
bow before the crucifix and worship Mary until, in a peculiar sense,
South America became the Pope's favorite parish. For the benefit of
any, native or colonist, who thought that a purer religion should be,
at any rate, permitted, the Inquisition was established at Lima, and
later on at Cartagena, where, Colombian history informs us, 400,000
were condemned to death. Free thought was soon stamped out when
death became the penalty.

Such was the wild state of the country and the power vested in the
priests that abuses were tolerated which, even in Rome, had not been
dreamed of. The priests, as anxious for spiritual conquest as the
rest were for physical, joined hands with the heathenism of the
Indians, accepted their gods of wood and stone as saints, set up the
crucifix side by side with the images of the sun and moon, formerly
worshipped; and while in Europe the sun of the Reformation arose and
dispelled the terrible night of religious error and superstition,
South America sank from bad to worse. Thus the anomaly presented
itself of the old, effete lands throwing off the yoke of religious
domination while the younger ones were for centuries to be content
with sinking lower and lower. [Footnote: History is repeating itself,
for here in Canada we see Quebec more Catholic and intolerant than
Italy. The Mayor of Rome dared to criticize the Pope in 1910, but in
the same year at the Eucharistic Congress at Montreal his emissaries
receive reverent "homage" from those in authority. No wonder,
therefore, that, while the Romans are being more enlightened every
year, a Quebec young man, who is now a theological student in
McMaster University, Toronto, declared, while staying in the writer's
home, that, as a child he was always taught that Protestants grew
horns on their heads, and that he attained the age of 15 before ever
he discovered that such was not the case. Even backward Portugal has
had its eyes opened to see that Rome and progress cannot walk
together, but the President of Brazil is so "faithful" that the Pope,
in 1910, made him a "Knight of the Golden Spur."]

If the religious emancipation of the old world did not find its echo
in South America, ideas of freedom from kingly oppression began to
take root in the hearts of the people, and before the year 1825 the
Spanish colonies had risen against the mother country and had formed
themselves into several independent republics, while three years
before that the independence of Brazil from Portugal had been
declared. At the present day no part of the vast continent is ruled
by either Spain or Portugal, but ten independent republics have their
different flags and governments.

Since its early discovery South America has been pre-eminently a
country of bloodshed. Revolution has succeeded revolution and
hundreds of thousands of the bravest have been slain, but, phoenix-
like, the country rises from its ashes.

Fifty millions of people now dwell beneath the Southern Cross and
speak the Portuguese and Spanish languages, and it is estimated that,
with the present rate of increase, 180 millions of people will speak
these languages by 1920.

South America is, pre-eminently, the coming continent. It is more
thinly settled than any other part of the world. At least six million
miles of its territory are suitable for immigrants--double the
available territory of the United States. "No other tract of good
land exists that is so large and so unoccupied as South America."
[Footnote: Dr. Wood, Lima, Peru, in "Protestant Missions in South
America."] "One of the most marvellous of activities in the
development of virgin lands is in progress. It is greater than that
of Siberia, of Australia, or the Canadian North-West." [Footnote:
The Outlook, March, 1908.] Emigrants are pouring into the continent
from crowded Europe, the old order of things is quickly passing away,
and docks and railroads are being built. Bolivia is spending more
than fifty million dollars in new work. Argentina and Chile are
pushing lines in all directions. Brazil is preparing to penetrate her
vast jungles, and all this means enormous expense, for the highest
points and most difficult construction that have ever been
encountered are found in Peru, and between Chile and Argentina there
has been constructed the longest tunnel in the world. [Footnote: One
railway ascends to the height of 12,800 feet.]

Most important of all, the old medieval Romanism of the Dark Ages is
losing its grip upon the masses, and slowly, but surely, the leaven
is working which will, before another decade, bring South America to
the forefront of the nations.

The economic possibilities of South America cannot be overestimated.
It is a continent of vast and varied possibilities. There are still
districts as large as the German Empire entirely unexplored, and
tribes of Indians who do not yet know that America has been
"discovered."

This is a continent of spiritual need. The Roman Catholic Church has
been a miserable failure. "Nearly 7,000,000 of people in South
America still adhere, more or less openly, to the fetishisms of their
ancestors, while perhaps double that number live altogether beyond
the reach of Christian influence, even if we take the word Christian
in its widest meaning." [Footnote: Report of Senor F. de Castello]
The Rev. W. B. Grubb, a missionary in Paraguay, says: "The greatest
unexplored region at present known on earth is there. It contains, as
far as we know, 300 distinct Indian nations, speaking 300 distinct
languages, and numbering some millions, all in the darkest
heathenism." H. W. Brown, in "Latin America," says, "There is a pagan
population of four to five millions." Then, with respect to the Roman
Catholic population, Rev. T. B. Wood, LL.D., in "Protestant Missions
in South America," says, "South America is a pagan field, properly
speaking. Its image-worship is idolatry. Abominations are grosser and
more universal than among Roman Catholics in Europe and the United
States, where Protestantism has greatly modified Catholicism. But it
is _worse_ off than any other great _pagan_ field in that it is
dominated by a single mighty hierarchy--the mightiest known in
history. For centuries priestcraft has had everything its own way all
over the continent, and is now at last yielding to outside pressure,
but with desperate resistance."

"South America has been for nearly four hundred years part of the
parish of the Pope. In contrast with it the north of the New World--
Puritan, prosperous, powerful, progressive--presents probably the
most remarkable evidence earth affords of the blessings of
Protestantism, while the results of Roman Catholicism _left to
itself_ are writ large in letters of gloom across the priest-ridden,
lax and superstitious South. Her cities, among the gayest and
grossest in the world, her ecclesiastics enormously wealthy and
strenuously opposed to progress and liberty, South America groans
under the tyranny of a priesthood which, in its highest forms, is
unillumined by, and incompetent to preach, the gospel of God's free
gift; and in its lowest is proverbially and habitually drunken,
extortionate and ignorant. The fires of her unspeakable Inquisition
still burn in the hearts of her ruling clerics, and although the
spirit of the age has in our nineteenth century transformed all her
monarchies into free Republics, religious intolerance all but
universally prevails." [Footnote: Guiness's "Romanism and
Reformation."]

Prelates and priests, monks and nuns exert an influence that is all-
pervading. William E. Curtis, United States Commissioner to South
America, wrote: "One-fourth of all the property belongs to the
bishop. There is a Catholic church for every 150 inhabitants. Ten per
cent. of the population are priests, monks or nuns, and 272 out of
the 365 days of the year are observed as fast or feast days. The
priests control the government and rule the country as absolutely as
if the Pope were its king. As a result, 75 per cent. of the children
born are illegitimate, and the social and political condition
presents a picture of the dark ages." It is said that, in one town,
every fourth person you meet is a priest or a nun, or an ecclesiastic
of some sort.

Yet, with all this to battle against, the Christian missionary is
making his influence felt.

_La Razon_, an important newspaper of Trujillo, in a recent issue
says: "In homage to truth, we make known with pleasure that the
ministers of Protestantism have benefited this town more in one year
than all the priests and friars of the Papal sect have done in three
centuries."

"Last year," writes Mr. Milne, of the American Bible Society, "one of
our colporteurs in Ayacucho had to make his escape by the roof of a
house where he was staying, from a mob of half-castes, led on by a
friar. Finding their prey had escaped, they took his clothes and
several boxes of Bibles to the plaza of the city and burnt them."

It was not such a going-back as the outside world thought, but, oh,
it was a deeply significant one, when recently the leading men of the
Republic of Guatemala met together and solemnly threw over the
religion of their fathers, which, during 400 years of practice, had
failed to uplift, and re-established the old paganism of cultured
Rome. So serious was this step that the _Palace of Minerva_, the
goddess of trade, is engraved on the latest issue of Guatemalan
postage stamps. Believing that the few Protestants in the Republic
are responsible for the reaction, the Archbishop of Guatemala has
promised to grant one hundred days' indulgence to those who will pray
for the overthrow of Protestantism in that country.

"Romanism is not Christianity," so the few Christian workers are
fighting against tremendous odds. What shall the harvest be?




PART I.

THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

The country to which the author first went as a self-supporting
missionary in the year 1889.

     And Nature, the old nurse, took
     The child upon her knee,
     Saying, "Here is a story book
     Thy Father hath written for thee."

     "Come, wander with me," she said,
     "Into regions yet untrod,
     And read what is still unread
     In the manuscripts of God."

     And he wandered away and away
     With Nature, the dear old nurse,
     Who sung to him night and day
     The rhymes of the universe.

          --_Longfellow._


THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

The Argentine Republic has an area of one and a quarter million
square miles. It is 2,600 miles from north to south, and 500 miles at
its widest part. It is twelve times the size of Great Britain.
Although the population of the country is about seven millions, only
one per cent, of its cultivable area is now occupied, yet Argentina
has an incomparable climate.

It is essentially a cattle country. She is said to surpass any other
nation in her numbers of live stock. The Bovril Co. alone kills
100,000 a year. On its broad plains there are _estandas_, or cattle
ranches, of fifty and one hundred thousand acres in extent, and on
these cattle, horses and sheep are herded in millions. Argentina has
over twenty-nine million cattle, seventy-seven million sheep, seven
and a half million horses, five and a half million mules, a quarter-
million of donkeys, and nearly three million swine and three million
goats. Four billion dollars of British capital are invested in the
country.

Argentina has sixteen thousand miles of railway. This has been
comparatively cheap to build. On the flat prairie lands the rails are
laid, and there is a length of one hundred and seventy-five miles
without a single curve.

Three hundred and fifty thousand square miles of this prairie is
specially adapted to the growing of grain. In 1908-9 the yield of
wheat was 4,920,000 tons. Argentina has exported over three million
tons of wheat, over three million tons of corn, and one million tons
of linseed, in one year, while "her flour mills can turn out 700,000
tons of flour a year." [Footnote: Hirst's Argentina, 1910.]

"It is a delight often met with there to look on a field of twenty
square miles, with the golden ears standing even and close together,
and not a weed nor a stump of a tree nor a stone as big as a man's
fist to be seen or found in the whole area."

"To plant and harvest this immense yield the tillers of the ground
bought nine million dollars of farm implements in 1908. Argentina's
record in material progress rivals Japan's. Argentina astonished the
world by conducting, in 1906, a trade valued at five hundred and
sixty million dollars, buying and selling more in the markets of
foreign nations than Japan, with a population of forty millions, and
China, with three hundred millions." [Footnote: John Barrett, in
Munsey's Magazine]

To this Land of Promise there is a large immigration. Nearly three
hundred thousand have entered in one single year. About two hundred
thousand have been going to Buenos Ayres, the capital, alone, but in
1908 nearly five hundred thousand landed there. [Footnote: "Despite
the Government's efforts, emigration from Spain to South America
takes alarming proportions. In some districts the men of the working
classes have departed in a body. In certain villages in the
neighborhood of Cadiz there arc whole streets of deserted houses."-
Spanish Press.] In Belgium 220 people are crowded into the territory
occupied by one person in Argentina, so yet there is room. Albert
Hale says: "It is undeniable that Argentina can give lodgment to
100,000,000 people, and can furnish nourishment, at a remarkably
cheap rate, for as many more, when her whole area is utilized."

Argentina's schools and universities are the best in the Spanish-
speaking world. In Buenos Ayres you will find some of the finest
school buildings in the world, while 4,000 students attend one
university.

Buenos Ayres, founded in 1580, is to-day the largest city in the
world south of the equator, and is "one of the richest and most
beautiful places of the world." The broad prairies around the city
have made the people "the richest on earth."

Kev. John F. Thompson, for forty-five years a resident of that
country, summarizes its characteristics in the following paragraph:
"Argentina is a _land of plenty_; plenty of room and plenty of food.
If the actual population were divided into families of ten persons,
each would have a farm of eight square miles, with ten horses, fifty-
four cows, and one hundred and eighty-six sheep, and after they had
eaten their fill of bread they would have half a ton of wheat and
corn to sell or send to the hungry nations."




CHAPTER I.

BUENOS AYRES IN 1889.


In the year 1889, after five weeks of ocean tossing, the steamer on
which I was a passenger anchored in the River Plate, off Buenos
Ayres. Nothing but water and sky was to be seen, for the coast was
yet twenty miles away, but the river was too shallow for the steamer
to get nearer. Large tugboats came out to us, and passengers and
baggage were transhipped into them, and we steamed ten miles nearer
the still invisible city. There smaller tugs awaited us and we were
again transhipped. Sailing once more toward the land, we soon caught
sight of the Argentine capital, but before we could sail nearer the
tugs grounded. There we were crowded into flat-bottomed, lug-sailed
boats for a third stage of our landward journey. These boats conveyed
us to within a mile of the city, when carts, drawn by five horses,
met us in the surf and drew us on to the wet, shingly beach. There
about twenty men stood, ready to carry the females on their backs on
to the dry, sandy shore, where was the customs house. The population
of the city we then entered was about six hundred thousand souls.

After changing the little gold I carried for the greasy paper
currency of the country, I started out in search of something to eat.
Eventually I found myself before a substantial meal. At a table in
front of me sat a Scotsman from the same vessel. He had arrived
before me (Scotsmen say they are always before the Englishmen) and
was devouring part of a leg of mutton. This, he told me, he had
procured, to the great amusement of Boniface, by going down on all
fours and _baa-ing_ like the sheep of his native hills. Had he waited
until I arrived he might have feasted on lamb, for my voice was not
so gruff as his. He had unconsciously asked for an old sheep. I think
the Highlander in that instance regretted that he had preceded the
Englishman.

How shall I describe the metropolis of the Argentine, with its one-
storied, flat-roofed houses, each with grated windows and centre
_patio_? Some of the poorer inhabitants raise fowls on the roof,
which gives the house a barnyard appearance, while the iron-barred
windows below strongly suggest a prison. Strange yet attractive
dwellings they are, lime-washed in various colors, the favorite
shades seeming to be pink and bottle green. Fires are not used except
for cooking purposes, and the little smoke they give out is quickly
dispersed by the breezes from the sixty-mile-wide river on which the
city stands.

The Buenos Ayres of 1889 was a strange place, with its long, narrow
streets, its peculiar stores and many-tongued inhabitants. There is
the dark-skinned policeman at the corner of each block sitting
silently on his horse, or galloping down the cobbled street at the
sound of some revolver, which generally tells of a life gone out.
Arriving on the scene he often finds the culprit flown. If he
succeeds in riding him down (an action he scruples not to do), he,
with great show, and at the sword's point, conducts him to the
nearest police station. Unfortunately he often chooses the quiet side
streets, where his prisoner may have a chance to buy his freedom. If
he pays a few dollars, the poor _vigilante_ is perfectly willing to
lose him, after making sometimes the pretence of a struggle to blind
the lookers-on, if there be any curious enough to interest
themselves. This man in khaki is often "the terror of the innocent,
the laughing-stock of the guilty." The poor man or the foreign
sailor, if he stagger ever so little, is sure to be "run in." The
Argentine law-keeper (?) is provided with both sword and revolver,
but receives small remuneration, and as his salary is often tardily
paid him, he augments it in this way when he cannot see a good
opportunity of turning burglar or something worse on his own account.
When he is low in funds he will accost the stranger, begging a
 cigarette, or inviting himself at your expense to the nearest
_cafe_, as "the day is so unusually hot." After all, we must not
blame him too much--his superiors are far from guiltless, and he
knows it. When Minister Toso took charge of the Provincial portfolio
of Finance, he exclaimed, "_C-o! Todos van robando menos yo!_"
("Everybody is robbing here except I.") It is public news that
President Celman carried away to his private residence in the country
a most beautiful and expensive bronze fountain presented by the
inhabitants of the city to adorn the principal _plaza_. [Footnote:
Public square.] The president is elected by the people for a term of
three years, and invariably retires a rich man, however poor he may
have been when entering on his office. The laws of the country may be
described as model and Christian, but the carrying out of them is a
very different matter.

Some of the laws are excellent and worthy of our imitation, such as,
for example, the one which decrees that _bachelors shall be taxed_.
Civil elections are held on Sundays, the voting places being Roman
Catholic churches.

Both postmen and telegraph boys deliver on horseback, but such is the
lax custom that everything will do to-morrow. That fatal word is the
first the stranger learns--_mañana_.

Comparatively few people walk the streets. "No city in the world of
equal size and population can compare with Buenos Ayres for the
number and extent of its tramways." [Footnote: Turner's "Argentina."]
A writer in the _Financial News_ says: "The proportion of the
population who daily use street-cars is _sixty-six times greater in
Buenos Ayres than in the United Kingdom_."

This _Modern Athens_, as the Argentines love to term their city, has
a beautiful climate. For perhaps three hundred days out of every year
there is a sky above as blue as was ever seen in Naples.

The natives eat only twice a day--at 10.30 a.m., and at 7 p.m.--the
common edibles costing but little. I could write much of Buenos
Ayres, with its _carnicerias_, where a leg of mutton may be bought
for 20 cts., or a brace of turkeys for 40 cts.; its _almacenes_,
where one may buy a pound of sugar or a yard of cotton, a measure of
charcoal (coal is there unknown) or a large _sombrero_, a package of
tobacco (leaves over two feet long) or a pair of white hemp-soled
shoes for your feet--all at the same counter. The customer may
further obtain a bottle of wine or a bottle of beer (the latter
costing four times the price of the former) from the same assistant,
who sells at different prices to different customers.

There the value of money is constantly changing, and almost every day
prices vary. What to-day costs $20 to-morrow may be $15, or, more
likely, $30. Although one hundred and seventy tons of sugar are
annually grown in the country, that luxury is decidedly expensive. I
have paid from 12 cts. to 30 cts. a pound. Oatmeal, the Scotsman's
dish, has cost me up to 50 cts. a pound.

Coming again on to the street you hear the deafening noises of the
cow horns blown by the streetcar drivers, or the _pescador_ shrilly
inviting housekeepers to buy the repulsive-looking red fish, carried
over his shoulder, slung on a thick bamboo. Perhaps you meet a beggar
on horseback (for there wishes _are_ horses, and beggars _do_ ride),
who piteously whines for help. This steed-riding fraternity all use
invariably the same words: _"Por el amor de Dios dame un centavo!"_
("For the love of God give me a cent.") If you bestow it, he will
call on his patron saint to bless you. If you fail to assist him, the
curses of all the saints in heaven will fall on your impious head.
This often causes such a shudder in the recipient that I have known
him to turn back to appease the wrath of the mendicant, and receive
instead--a blessing.

It is not an uncommon sight to see a black-robed priest with his hand
on a boy's head giving him a benediction that he may be enabled to
sell his newspapers or lottery tickets with more celerity.

The National Lottery is a great institution, and hundreds keep
themselves poor buying tickets. In one year the lottery has realized
the sum of $3,409,143.57. The Government takes forty per cent. of
this, and divides the rest between a number of charitable and
religious organizations, all, needless to say, being Roman Catholic.
Amongst the names appear the following: Poor Sisters of St. Joseph,
Workshop of Our Lady, Sisters of St. Anthony, etc.

Little booths for the sale of lottery tickets are erected in the
vestibules of some of the churches, and the Government, in this way,
repays the church.

The gambling passion is one of Argentina's greatest curses. Tickets
are bought by all, from the Senator down to the newsboy who ventures
his only dollar.

You meet the water-seller passing down the street with his barrel
cart, drawn by three or four horses with tinkling bells, dispensing
water to customers at five cents a pail. The poorer classes have no
other means of procuring this precious liquid. The water is kept in a
corner of the house in large sun-baked jars. A peculiarity of these
pots is that they are not made to stand alone, but have to be held up
by something.

At early morning and evening the milkman goes his rounds on
horseback. The milk he carries in six long, narrow cans, like
inverted sugar-loaves, three on each side of his raw-hide saddle, he
himself being perched between them on a sheepskin. In some cans he
carries pure cream, which the jolting of his horse soon converts into
butter. This he lifts out with his hands to any who care to buy.
After the addition of a little salt, and the subtraction of a little
buttermilk, this _manteca_ is excellent. After serving you he will
again mount his horse, but not until his hands have been well wiped
on its tail, which almost touches the ground. The other cans of the
_lechero_ contain a mixture known to him alone. I never analyzed it,
but have remarked a chalky substance in the bottom of my glass. He
does not profess to sell pure milk; that you can buy, but, of course,
at a higher price, from the pure milk seller. In the cool of the
afternoon he will bring round his cows, with bells on their necks and
calves dragging behind. The calves are tied to the mothers' tails,
and wear a muzzle. At a _sh-h_ from the sidewalk he stops them, and,
stooping down, fills your pitcher according to your money. The cows,
through being born and bred to a life in the streets, are generally
miserable-looking beasts. Strange to add, the one milkman shoes his
cows and the other leaves his horse unshod. It is not customary in
this country for man's noble friend to wear more than his own natural
hoof. A visit to the blacksmith is entertaining. The smith, by means
of a short lasso, deftly trips up the animal, and, with its legs
securely lashed, the cow must lie on its back while he shoes its
upturned hoofs.

Many and varied are the scenes. One is struck by the number of
horses, seven and eight often being yoked to one cart, which even
then they sometimes find difficult to draw. Some of the streets are
very bad, worse than our country lanes, and filled with deep ruts and
drains, into which the horses often fall. There the driver will
sometimes cruelly leave them, when, after his arm aches in using the
whip, he finds the animal cannot rise. For the veriest trifle I have
known men to smash the poor dumb brute's eyes out with the stock of
the whip, and I have been very near the Police Station more than once
when my righteous blood compelled me to interfere. Where, oh, where
is the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Surely no
suffering creatures under the sun cry out louder for mercy than those
in Argentina?

As I have said, horses are left to die in the public streets. It has
been my painful duty to pass moaning creatures lying helplessly in
the road, with broken limbs, under a burning sun, suffering hunger
and thirst, for three consecutive days, before kind death, the
sufferer's friend, released them. Looking on such sights, seeing
every street urchin with coarse laugh and brutal jest jump on such an
animal's quivering body, stuff its parched mouth with mud, or poke
sticks into its staring eyes, I have cried aloud at the injustice.
The policeman and the passers-by have only laughed at me for my
pains.

In my experiences in South America I found cruelty to be a marked
feature of the people. If the father thrusts his dagger into his
enemy, and the mother, in her fits of rage, sticks her hairpin into
her maid's body, can it be wondered at if the children inherit cruel
natures? How often have I seen a poor horse fall between the shafts
of some loaded cart of bricks or sand! Never once have I seen his
harness undone and willing hands help him up, as in other civilized
lands. No, the lashing of the cruel whip or the knife's point is his
only help. If, as some religious writers have said, the horse will be
a sharer of Paradise along with man, his master, then those from
Buenos Ayres will feed in stalls of silver and have their wounds
healed by the clover of eternal kindness. "God is Love."

I have said the streets are full of holes. In justice to the
authorities I must mention the fact that sometimes, especially at the
crossings, these are filled up. To carry truthfulness still further,
however, I must state that more than once I have known them bridged
over with the putrefying remains of a horse in the last stages of
decomposition. I have seen delicate ladies, attired in Parisian
furbelows, lift their dainty skirts, attempt the crossing--and sink
in a mass of corruption, full of maggots.

In my description of Buenos Ayres I must not omit to mention the
large square, black, open hearses so often seen rapidly drawn through
the streets, the driver seeming to travel as quickly as he can. In
the centre of the coach is the coffin, made of white wood and covered
with black material, fastened on with brass nails. Around this
gruesome object sit the relatives and friends of the departed one on
their journey to the _chacarita_, or cemetery, some six miles out
from the centre of the city. Cemeteries in Spanish America are
divided into three enclosures. There is the "cemetery of heaven,"
"the cemetery of purgatory," and "the cemetery of hell." The location
of the soul in the future is thus seen to be dependent on its
location by the priests here. The dead are buried on the day of their
death, when possible, or, if not, then early on the following
morning; but never, I believe, on feast days. Those periods are set
apart for pleasure, and on important saint days banners and flags of
all nations are hung across the streets, or adorn the roofs of the
flat-topped houses, where the washing is at other times dried.

After attending mass in the early morning on these days, the people
give themselves up to revelry and sin at home, or crowd the street-
cars running to the parks and suburbs. Many with departed relatives
(and who has none?) go to the _chacarita_, and for a few _pesos_
bargain with the black-robed priest waiting there, to deliver their
precious dead out of Purgatory. If he sings the prayer the cost is
double, but supposed to be also doubly efficacious. Mothers do not
always inspire filial respect in their offspring, for one young man
declared that he "wanted to get his mother out of Purgatory before he
went in."

A Buenos Ayres missionary writes "There are two large cemeteries
here. From early morn until late at night the people crowd into them,
and I am told there were 100,000 at one time in one of them. November
1 is a special day for releasing thousands of souls out of Purgatory.
We printed thousands of tracts and the workers started out to
distribute them. By ten o'clock six of them were in jail, having been
given into custody by a 'holy father.' They were detained until six
in the evening without food, and then were released through the
efforts of a Methodist minister."

The catechisn reads: "Attend mass all Sundays and Feast days. Confess
at least once a year, or oftener, if there is any fear of death. Take
Sacrament at Easter time. Pay a tenth of first-fruits to God's
Church." The fourth commandment is condensed into the words:
"Sanctify the Feast days." From this it will be seen that there is
great need for mission work. Of course Romanism in this and other
cities is losing its old grip upon the people, and because of this
the priest is putting forth superhuman effort to retain what he has.
_La Voz de la Iglesia_ ("The Voice of the Church"), the organ of the
Bishop of Buenos Ayres, has lately published some of the strongest
articles we have ever read. A late article concludes: "One thing
only, one thing: OBEY; OBEY BLINDLY. Comply with her (the Church's)
commands with faithful loyalty. If we do this, it is impossible for
Protestantism to invade the flowery camp of the Church, Holy,
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman."

Articles such as this, however, and the circulation of a tract by one
of the leading church presses, are not calculated to help forward a
losing cause. The tract referred to is entitled, "Letter of Jesus
about the Drops of Blood which He shed whilst He went to Calvary."
"You know that the soldiers numbered 150, twenty-five of whom
conducted me bound. I received fifty blows on the head and 108 on the
breast. I was pulled by the hair 23 times, and 30 persons spat in my
face. Those who struck me on the upper part of the body were 6,666,
and 100 Jews struck me on the head. I sighed 125 times. The wounds on
the head numbered 20; from the crown of thorns, 72; points of thorns
on the forehead, 100. The wounds on the body were 100. There came out
of my body 28,430 drops of blood." This letter, the tract states, was
found in the Holy Sepulchre and is preserved by his holiness the
Pope. Intelligent, thinking men can only smile at such an utter
absurdity.

An "Echoes from Argentina" extract reads: "Not many months ago,
Argentina was blessed by the Pope. Note what has happened since:--The
Archbishop, who was the bearer of the blessing and brought it from
Rome, has since died very suddenly; we have had a terrible visitation
of heat suffocation, hundreds being attacked and very many dying; we
have had the bubonic pest in our midst; a bloody provincial
revolution in Entre Rios; and now at the time of writing there is an
outbreak of a serious cattle disease, and England has closed her
ports against Argentine live stock. Of course, we do not say that
these calamities are the _result_ of the Pope's blessing, but we
would that Catholics would open their eyes and see that it is a fact
that whereas Protestant countries, _anathematized_ by the Pope,
prosper, Catholic countries which have been blessed by him are in a
lamentable condition."

BUENOS AYRES AT THE PRESENT TIME.

Perhaps no city of the world has grown and progressed more during
this last decade than the city of Buenos Ayres. To-day passengers
land in the centre of the city and step on "the most expensive system
of artificial docks in all America, representing an expenditure of
seventy million dollars."

To this city there is a large emigration. It has grown at the rate of
4,000 adults a week, with a birthrate of 1,000 a week added. The
population is now fast climbing up to 1 1-2 millions of inhabitants.
There are 300,000 Italians, 100,000 Spaniards, a colony of 20,000
Britishers, and, of course, Jews and other foreigners in proportion.
"Buenos Ayres is one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the world.
There are 189 newspapers, printed in almost every language of the
globe. Probably the only Syrian newspaper in America, _The Assudk_,
is issued in this city." To keep pace with the rush of newcomers has
necessitated the building of 30,000 houses every year. There is here
"the finest and costliest structure ever built, used exclusively by
one newspaper, the home of _La Prensa_; the most magnificent opera
house of the western hemisphere, erected by the government at the
cost of ten million dollars; one of the largest banks in the world,
and the handsomest and largest clubhouse in the world." [Footnote:
John Barrett, In Munsey's Magazine.] The entrance fee to this club is
$1,500. The Y.M.C.A. is now erecting a commodious building, for which
$200,000 has already been raised, and there is a Y.W.C.A., with a
membership of five hundred. Dr. Clark, in "The Continent of
Opportunity," says, "More millionaires live in Buenos Ayres than in
any other city of the world of its size. The proportion of well-
clothed, well-fed people is greater than in American cities, the
slums are smaller, and the submerged classes less in proportion. The
constant movement of carriages and automobiles here quite surpasses
that of Fifth Avenue." The street cars are of the latest and most
improved electric types, equal to any seen in New York or London, and
seat one hundred people, inside and out. Besides these there is an
excellent service of motor cabs, and _tubes_ are being commenced.
Level crossings for the steam roads are not permitted in the city
limits, so all trains run over or under the streets.

"The Post Office handles 40,000,000 pieces of mail and 125,000 parcel
post packages a month. The city has 1,209 automobiles, 27 theatres
and 50 moving picture shows. Five thousand vessels enter the port of
Buenos Ayres every year, and the export of meat in 1910 was valued at
$31,000,000. No other section of the world shows such growth."
[Footnote: C. H. Furlong, in The World's Work.]

The city, once so unhealthy, is now, through proper drainage, "the
second healthiest large city of the world." The streets, as I first
saw them, were roughly cobbled, now they are asphalt paved, and made
into beautiful avenues, such as would grace any capital of the world.
Avenida de Mayo, cut right through the old city, is famed as being
one of the most costly and beautiful avenues of the world.

On those streets the equestrian milkman is no longer seen. Beautiful
sanitary white-tiled _tambos_, where pure milk and butter are sold,
have taken his place. The old has been transformed and PROGRESS is
written everywhere.




CHAPTER II.

_REVOLUTION._


South America, of all lands, has been most torn asunder by war.
Revolutions may be numbered by hundreds, and the slaughter has been
incredible. Even since the opening of the year 1900, thirty thousand
Colombians have been slain and there have been dozens of revolutions.
Darwin relates the fact that in 1832 Argentina underwent fifteen
changes of government in nine months, owing to internal strife, and
since then Argentina has had its full share.

During my residence in Buenos Ayres there occurred one of those
disastrous revolutions which have from time to time shaken the whole
Republic. The President, Don Juarez Celman, had long been unpopular,
and, the mass of the people being against him, as well as nearly half
of the standing army, and all the fleet then anchored in the river,
the time was considered ripe to strike a blow.

On the morning of July 26, 1890, the sun rose upon thousands of
stern-looking men bivouacking in the streets and public squares of
the city. The revolution had commenced, and was led by one of the
most distinguished Argentine citizens, General Joseph Mary Campos.
The battle-cry of these men was "_Sangre! Sangre!_" [Footnote:
"Blood! Blood!"] The war fiend stalked forth. Trenches were dug in
the streets. Guns were placed at every point of vantage. Men mounted
their steeds with a careless laugh, while the rising sun shone on
their burnished arms, so soon to be stained with blood. Battalions of
men marched up and down the streets to the sound of martial music,
and the low, flat-roofed housetops were quickly filled with
sharpshooters.

The Government House and residence of the President was guarded in
all directions by the 2nd Battalion of the Line, the firemen and a
detachment of police, but on the river side were four gunboats of the
revolutionary party.

The average South American is a man of quick impulses and little
thought. The first shot fired by the Government troops was the signal
for a fusilade that literally shook the city. Rifle shots cracked,
big guns roared, and shells screaming overhead descended in all
directions, carrying death and destruction. Street-cars, wagons and
cabs were overturned to form barricades. In the narrow, straight
streets the carnage was fearful, and blood soon trickled down the
watercourses and dyed the pavements. That morning the sun had risen
for the last time upon six hundred strong men; it set upon their
mangled remains. Six hundred souls! The Argentine soldier knows
little of the science of "hide and seek" warfare. When he goes forth
to battle, it is to fight--or die. Of the future life he
unfortunately thinks little, and of Christ, the world's Redeemer, he
seldom or never hears. The Roman Catholic chaplain mumbles a few
Latin prayers to them at times, but as the knowledge of these _resos_
does not seem to improve the priest's life, the men prefer to remain
in ignorance.

The average Argentine soldier is a man of little intelligence. The
regiments are composed of Patagonian Indians or semi-civilized
Guaranis, mixed with all classes of criminals from the state prisons.
Nature has imprinted upon them the unmistakable marks of the savage--
sullen, stupid ferocity, indifference to pain, bestial instincts. As
for his fighting qualities, they more resemble those of the tiger
than of the cool, brave and trained soldier. When his blood is
roused, fighting is with him a matter of blind and indiscriminate
carnage of friend or foe. A more villainous-looking horde it would be
difficult to find in any army. The splendid accoutrements of the
generals and superior officers, and the glittering equipments of
their chargers, offer a vivid contrast to the mean and dirty uniforms
of the troops.

During the day the whole territory of the Republic was declared to be
in a state of siege. Business was at a complete standstill. The
stores were all closed, and many of them fortified with the first
means that came to hand. Mattresses, doors, furniture, everything was
requisitioned, and the greatest excitement prevailed in commercial
circles generally. All the gun-makers' shops had soon been cleared of
their contents, which were in the hands of the adherents of the
revolution.

That evening the news of the insurrection was flashed by "Reuter's"
to all parts of the civilized world. The following appeared in one of
the largest British dailies:

"BUENOS AYRES, July 27, 5.40 p.m.

"The fighting in the streets between the Government troops and the
insurgents has been of the most desperate character.

"The forces of the Government have been defeated.

"The losses in killed and wounded are estimated at 1,000.

"The fleet is in favor of the Revolutionists.

"Government house and the barracks occupied by the Government troops
have been bombarded by the insurgent artillery."

That night as I went in and out of the squads of men on the
revolutionary side, seeking to do some acts of mercy, I saw many
strange and awful sights. There were wounded men who refused to leave
the field, although the rain poured. Others were employed in cooking
or ravenously eating the dead horses which strewed the streets. Some
were lying down to drink the water flowing in the gutters, which
water was often tinged with human blood, for the rain was by this
time washing away many of the dark spots in the streets. Others lay
coiled up in heaps under their soaking _ponchos_, trying to sleep a
little, their arms stacked close at hand. There were men to all
appearances fast asleep, standing with their arms in the reins of the
horses which had borne them safely through the leaden hail of that
day of terror. Numerous were the jokes and loud was the coarse
laughter of many who next day would be lying stiff in death, but
little thought seemed to be expended on that possibility.

Men looted the stores and feasted, or wantonly destroyed valuables
they had no use for. None stopped this havoc, for the officers were
quartered in the adjacent houses, themselves holding high revelry.
Lawless hordes visited the police offices, threw their furniture into
the streets, tore to shreds all the books, papers and records found,
and created general havoc. They gorged and cursed, using swords for
knives, and lay down in the soaking streets or leaned against the
guns to smoke the inevitable _cigarillo_. A few looked up at the
gilded keys of St. Peter adorning the front of the cathedral, perhaps
wondering if they would be used to admit them to a better world.

Next day, as I sallied forth to the dismal duty of caring for the
dead and dying, the guns of the Argentine fleet [Footnote: British-
built vessels of the latest and most approved types.] in the river
opposite the city blazed forth upon the quarter held by the
Government's loyal troops. One hundred and fifty-four shots were
fired, two of the largest gunboats firing three-hundred and six-
hundred pounders. Soon every square was a shambles, and the mud oozed
with blood. The Buenos Ayres _Standard_, describing that day of
fierce warfare, stated:

"At dawn, the National troops, quartered in the Plaza Libertad, made
another desperate attack on the Revolutionary positions in the Plaza
Lavalle. The Krupp guns, mitrailleuses and gatlings went off at a
terrible rate, and volleys succeeded each other, second for second,
from five in the morning till half-past nine. The work of death was
fearful, and hundreds of spectators were shot down as they watched
from their balconies or housetops. Cannon balls riddled all the
houses near the Cinco Esquinas. In the attack on the Plaza Lavalle,
three hundred men must have fallen."

[Illustration]

"At ten a.m. the white flag of truce was hoisted on both sides, and
the dismal work of collecting the dead and wounded began. The
ambulances of the Asistencia Publica, the cars of the tram companies
and the wagons of the Red Cross were busily engaged all day in
carrying away the dead. It is estimated that in the Plaza Lavalle
above 600 men were wounded and 300 killed. Considering that the
Revolutionists defended an entrenched position, whilst the National
troops attacked, we may imagine that the losses of the latter were
enormous."

"General Lavalle, commander-in-chief of the National forces, gave
orders for a large number of coffins, which were not delivered, as
the undertaker wished to be paid cash. It is to be supposed that
these coffins were for the dead officers."

"When the white flags were run up, Dr. Del Valle, Senator of the
Nation, sent, in the name of the Revolutionary Committee, an
ultimatum to the National Government, demanding the immediate
dismissal of the President of the Republic and dissolution of
Congress. Later on it was known that both parties had agreed on an
armistice, to last till mid-day on Monday."

Of the third day's sanguinary fighting, the _Standard_ wrote:

"The Plaza Libertad was taken by General Lavalle at the head of the
National troops under the most terrible fire, but the regiments held
well together and carried the position in a most gallant manner,
confirming the reputation of indomitable valor that the Argentine
troops won at the trenches of Curupayti. Our readers may imagine the
fire they suffered in the straight streets swept by Krupp guns,
gatlings and mitrailleuses, while every housetop was a fortress
whence a deadly fire was poured on the heads of the soldiers. Let
anybody take the trouble to visit the Calles [Footnote: Streets]
Cerrito, Libertad and Talcahuano, the vicinity of the Plazas Parque
and Lavalle, and he will be staggered to see how all the houses have
been riddled by mitrailleuses and rifle bullets. The passage of
cannon balls is marked on the iron frames of windows, smashed frames
and demolished balconies of the houses.

"The Miro Palace, in the Plaza Parque, is a sorry picture of
wreckage: the 'mirador' is knocked to pieces by balls and shells; the
walls are riddled on every side, and nearly all the beautiful Italian
balconies and buttresses have been demolished. The firing around the
palace must have been fearful, to judge by the utter ruin about, and
all the telephone wires dangling over the street in meshes from every
house. Ruin and wreckage everywhere.

"By this time the hospitals of the city, the churches and public
buildings were filled with the wounded and dying, borne there on
stretchers made often of splintered and shattered doors. Nearly a
hundred men were taken into the San Francisco convent alone." Yet
with all this the lust for blood was not quenched. It could still be
written of the fourth day:

"At about half-past two, a sharp attack was made by the Government
troops on the Plaza Parque, and a fearful fire was kept up. Hundreds
and hundreds fell on both sides, but the Government troops were
finally repulsed. People standing at the corners of the streets
cheering for the Revolutionists were fired on and many were killed.
Bodies of Government troops were stationed at the corners of the
streets leading to the Plaza, Large bales of hay had been heaped up
to protect them from the deadly fire of the Revolutionists.

"It was at times difficult to remember that heavy slaughter was going
on around. In many parts of the city people were chatting, joking and
laughing at their doors. The attitude of the foreign population was
more serious; they seemed to foresee the heavy responsibilities of
the position and to accurately forecast the result of the
insurrection.

"The bulletins of the various newspapers during the revolution were
purchased by the thousand and perused with the utmost avidity; fancy
prices were often paid for them. The Sunday edition of _The Standard_
was sold by enterprising newsboys in the suburbs as high as $3.00 per
copy, whilst fifty cents was the regulation price for a momentary
peep at our first column."

Towards the close of that memorable 29th of July the hail of bullets
ceased, but the insurgent fleet still kept up its destructive
bombardment of the Government houses for four hours.

The Revolutionists were defeated, or, as was seriously affirmed, had
been sold for the sum of one million Argentine dollars.

_"Estamos vendidos!" "Estamos vendidos!"_ (We are sold! We are sold!)
was heard on every hand. Because of this surrender officers broke
their swords and men threw away their rifles as they wept with rage.
A sergeant exclaimed: "And for this they called us out--to surrender
without a struggle! Cowards! Poltroons!" And then with a stern glance
around he placed his rifle to his breast and shot himself through the
heart. After the cessation of hostilities both sides collected their
dead, and the wounded were placed under the care of surgeons, civil
as well as military.

Notwithstanding the fact that the insurgents were said to be
defeated, the President, Dr. Celman, fled from the city, and the
amusing spectacle was seen of men and youths patrolling the streets
wearing cards in their hats which read: _"Ya se fue el burro"_ (At
last the donkey has gone). A more serious sight, however, was when
the effigy of the fleeing President was crucified.

Thus ended the insurrection of 1890, a rising which sent three
thousand brave men into eternity.

What changes had taken place in four short days! At the Plaza
Libertad the wreckage was most complete. The beautiful partierres
were trodden down by horses; the trees had been partially cut down
for fuel; pools of blood, remnants of slaughtered animals, offal,
refuse everywhere.

Since the glorious days of the British invasion--glorious from an
Argentine point of view--Buenos Ayres had never seen its streets
turned into barricades and its housetops into fortresses. In times of
electoral excitement we had seen electors attack each other in bands
many years, but never was organized warfare carried on as during this
revolution. The Plaza Parque was occupied by four or five thousand
Revolutionary troops; all access to the Plaza was defended by armed
groups on the house-tops and barricades in the streets, Krupp guns
and that most infernal of modern inventions, the mitrailleuse, swept
all the streets, north, south, east and west. The deadly grape swept
the streets down to the very river, and not twenty thousand men could
have taken the Revolutionary position by storm, except by gutting the
houses and piercing the blocks, as Colonel Garmendia proposed, to
avoid the awful loss of life suffered in the taking of the Plaza
Libertad on Saturday morning.

At the close of the revolution the great city found itself suffering
from a quasi-famine. High prices were asked for everything. In some
districts provisions could not be obtained even at famine prices. The
writer for the first time in his life had to go here and there to beg
a loaf of bread for his family's needs.

A reporter of the _Argentine News_, July 31st of that same year,
wrote:

"There is a revolution going on in Rosario. It began on Saturday,
when the Revolutionists surprised the Government party, and by one on
Sunday most of the Government buildings were in their hands. It is
now eight in the morning and the firing is terrible. Volunteers are
coming into the town from all parts, so the rebels are bound to win
the stronghold shortly. News has just come that the Government troops
have surrendered. Four p.m.--I have been out to see the dead and
wounded gathered up by the ambulance wagons. I should think the dead
are less than a hundred, and the wounded about four times that
number. The surprise was so sudden that the victory has been easy and
with little loss of life. The Revolutionists are behaving well and
not destroying property as they might have done. The whole town is
rejoicing; flags of all nations are flying everywhere. The saddest
thing about the affair is that some fifty murderers have escaped from
the prison. I saw many of them running away when I got upon the spot.
The order has been given to recapture them. I trust they may be
caught, for we have too many of that class at liberty already. * * *
* It is estimated that over 100,000 rounds of ammunition were fired
in the two days. * * * The insurgents fed on horse-meat and beef, the
former being obtained by killing the horses belonging to the police,
the latter from the various dairies, from which the cows were
seized."

In 1911 the two largest Dreadnoughts of the world, the _Rivadavia_
and the _Moreno_, were launched for the Argentine Government. These
two battleships are _half as powerful again_ as the largest British
Dreadnought.




CHAPTER III.

_THE CRIOLLO VILLAGE_.


The different centres of trade and commerce in the Argentine can
easily be reached by train or river steamer. Rosario, with its
140,000 inhabitants, in the north; Bahia Blanca, where there is the
largest wheat elevator in the world, in the south, and Mendoza, at
the foot of the Andes, several times destroyed by earthquake, five
hundred miles west--all these are more or less like the capital.

To arrive at an isolated village of the interior the traveller must
be content to ride, as I did, on horseback, or be willing to jolt
along for weeks in a wagon without springs. These carts are drawn by
eight, ten, or more bullocks, as the weight warrants, and are
provided with two very strong wheels, without tires, and often
standing eight and ten feet high. The patient animals, by means of a
yoke fastened to their horns with raw-hide, draw these carts through
long prairie grass or sinking morass, through swollen rivers or
oozing mud, over which malaria hangs in visible forms.

The _voyager_ must be prepared to suffer a little hunger and thirst
on the way. He must sleep amongst the baggage in the cart, or on the
broader bed of the ground, where snakes and tarantulas creep and the
heavy dew saturates one through and through.

As is well known, the bullock is a slow animal, and these never
travel more than two or three miles an hour.

Time with the native is no object. The words, "With patience we win
heaven," are ever on his lips.

The Argentine countryman is decidedly lazy.

Darwin relates that he asked two men the question: "Why don't you
work?" One said: "The days are too long!" Another answered: "I am too
poor."

With these people nothing can succeed unless it is begun when the
moon is on the increase. The result is that little is accomplished.

You cannot make the driver understand your haste, and the bullocks
understand and care still less.

The mosquitoes do their best to eat you up alive, unless your body
has already had all the blood sucked out of it, a humiliating,
painful and disfiguring process. You must carry with you sufficient
food for the journey, or it may happen that, like me, you are only
able to shoot a small ring dove, and with its entrails fish out of
the muddy stream a monster turtle for the evening meal.

If, on the other hand, you pass a solitary house, they will with
pleasure give you a sheep. If you killed one without permission your
punishment would perhaps be greater than if you had killed a man.

If a bullock becomes ill on the road, the driver will, with his
knife, cut all around the sod where the animal has left its
footprint. Lifting this out, he will cut a cross on it and replace it
the other side uppermost. This cure is most implicitly believed in
and practised.

[Illustration]

The making of the cross is supposed to do great wonders, which your
guide is never tired of recounting while he drinks his _máte_ in the
unbroken stillness of the evening. Alas! the many bleaching bones on
the road testify that this, and a hundred other such remedies, are
not always effectual, but the mind of the native is so full of
superstitious faith that the testimony of his own eyes will not
convince him of the absurdity of his belief. As he stoops over the
fire you will notice on his breast some trinket or relic--anything
will do if blessed by the priest--and that, he assures you, will save
him from every unknown and unseen danger in his land voyage. The
priest has said it, and he rests satisfied that no lightning stroke
will fell him, no lurking panther pounce upon him, nor will he die of
thirst or any other evil. I have remarked men of the most cruel,
cutthroat description wearing these treasures with zealous care,
especially one, of whom it was said that he had killed two wives.

When your driver is young and amorously inclined you will notice that
he never starts for the regions beyond without first providing
himself with an owl's skin. This tied on his breast, he tells you,
will ensure him favor in the eyes of the females he may meet on the
road, and on arrival at his destination.

I once witnessed what at first sight appeared to be a heavy fall of
snow coming up with the wind from the south. Strange to relate, this
phenomenon turned out to be millions of white butterflies of large
size. Some of these, when measured, I found to be four and five
inches across the wings. Darwin relates his having, in 1832, seen the
same sight, when his men exclaimed that it was "snowing butterflies."

The inhabitants of these trackless wilds are very, very few, but in
all directions I saw numbers of ostriches, which run at the least
sign of man, their enemy. The fastest horse could not outstrip this
bird as with wings outstretched he speeds before the hunter. As Job,
perhaps the oldest historian of the world, truly says: "What time she
lifteth herself up on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider."
The male bird joins his spouse in hatching the eggs, sitting on them
perhaps longer turns than the female, but the weather is so hot that
little brooding is required. I have had them on the shelf of my
cupboard for a week, when the little ones have forced their way out
Forty days is the time of incubation, so, naturally, those must have
been already sat on for thirty-three days. With open wings these
giant birds often manage to cover from twenty-five to forty-five
eggs, although, I think, they seldom bring out more than twenty. The
rest they roll out of the nest, where, soon rotting, they breed
innumerable insects, and provide tender food for the coming young.
The latter, on arrival, are always reared by the male ostrich, who,
not being a model husband, ignominiously drives away the partner of
his joys. It might seem that he has some reason for doing this, for
the old historian before referred to says: "She is hardened against
her young ones as though they were not hers."

As the longest road leads somewhere, the glare of the whitewashed
church at last meets your longing gaze on the far horizon. The
village churches are always whitewashed, and an old man is frequently
employed to strike the hours on the tower bell by guess.

I was much struck by the sameness of the many different interior
towns and villages I visited. Each wore the same aspect of indolent
repose, and each was built in exact imitation of the other. Each town
possesses its plaza, where palms and other semi-tropical plants wave
their leaves and send out their perfume.

From the principal city to the meanest village, the streets all bear
the same names. In every town you may find a _Holy Faith street_, a
_St. John street_ and a _Holy Ghost street_, and these streets are
shaded by orange, lemon, pomegranate, fig and other trees, the fruit
of which is free to all who choose to gather. All streets are in all
parts in a most disgraceful condition, and at night beneath the heavy
foliage of the trees Egyptian darkness reigns. Except in daylight, it
is difficult to walk those wretched roads, where a goat often finds
progress a difficulty. Rotten fruit, branches of trees, ashes, etc.,
all go on the streets. A hole is often bridged over by a putrefying
animal, over which run half-naked urchins, pelting each other with
oranges or lemons--common as stones. When the highways are left in
such a state, is it to be wondered at that, while standing on my own
door-step, I have been able to count eleven houses where smallpox was
doing its deadly work, all within a radius of one hundred yards?

Even in the city of La Plata, the second of importance in Argentina,
I once had the misfortune to fall into an open drain while passing
down one of the principal streets. The night was intensely dark, and
yet there was no light left there to warn either pedestrian or
vehicle-driver, and _this sewer was seven feet deep_.

Simple rusticity and ignorance are the chief characteristics of the
country people. They used to follow and stare at me as though I were
a visitor from Mars or some other planet. When I spoke to them in
their language they were delighted, and respectfully hung on my words
with bared heads. When, however, I told them of electric cars and
underground railways, they turned away in incredulity, thinking that
such marvels as these could not possibly be.

Old World towns they seem to be. The houses are built of sun-baked
mud bricks, kneaded by mares that splash and trample through the oozy
substance for hours to mix it well. The poorer people build ranches
of long, slender canes or Indian cornstalks tied together by grass
and coated with mud. These are all erected around and about the most
imposing edifice in the place--the whitewashed adobe church.

All houses are hollow squares. The _patio_, with its well, is inside
this enclosure. Each house is lime-washed in various colors, and all
are flat-roofed and provided with grated windows, giving them a
prison-like appearance. The window-panes are sometimes made of mica.
Over the front doors of some of the better houses are pictures of the
Virgin. The nurse's house is designated by having over the doorway a
signboard, on which is painted a full-blooming rose, out of the
petals of which is peeping a little babe.

If you wish to enter a house, you do not knock at the door (an act
that would be considered great rudeness), but clap your hands, and
you are most courteously invited to enter. The good woman at once
sets to work to serve you with _máté_, and quickly rolls a cigar,
which she hands to you from her mouth, where she has already lighted
it by a live ember of charcoal taken from the fire with a spoon.
Matches can be bought, but they cost about ten cents a hundred. If
you tell the housewife you do not smoke she will stare at you in
gaping wonder. Their children use the weed, and I have seen a mother
urge her three-year-old boy to whiff at a cigarette.

Bound each dwelling is a _ramada_, where grapes in their season hang
in luxuriant clusters; and each has its own garden, where palms,
peaches, figs, oranges, limes, sweet potatoes, tobacco, nuts, garlic,
etc., grow luxuriantly. The garden is surrounded by a hedge of cacti
or other kindred plants. The prickly pear tree of that family is one
of the strangest I have seen. On the leaves, which are an inch or
more in thickness, grows the fruit, and I have counted as many as
thirteen pears growing on a single leaf. When ripe they are a deep
red color, and very sweet to the taste. The skin is thick, and
covered with innumerable minute prickles. It is, I believe, a most
refreshing and healthful food.

Meat is very cheap. A fine leg of mutton may be bought for the
equivalent of twelve cents, and good beef at four cents a pound.
Their favorite wine, _Lagrimas de San Juan_ (Tears of Holy John), can
be bought for ten cents a quart.

All cooking is done on braziers--a species of three-legged iron
bucket in which the charcoal fire is kindled. On this the little
kettle, filled from the well in the _patio_, is boiled for the
inevitable _máté_. About this herb I picked up, from various sources,
some interesting information. The _máté_ plant grows chiefly In
Paraguay, and is sent down the river in bags made of hides. From the
village of Tacurti Pucu in that country comes a strange account of
the origin of the _yerba máté_ plant, which runs thus: "God,
accompanied by St. John and St. Peter, came down to the earth and
commenced to journey. One day, after most difficult travel, they
arrived at the house of an old man, father to a virgin young and
beautiful. The old man cared so much for this girl, and was so
anxious to keep her ever pure and innocent, that they had gone to
live in the depths of a forest. The man was very, very poor, but
willingly gave his heavenly visitors the best he could, killing in
their honor the only hen he possessed, which served for supper.
Noting this action, God asked St. Peter and St. John, when they were
alone, what they would do if they were Him. They both answered Him
that they would largely reward such an unselfish host. Bringing him
to their presence, God addressed him in these words: 'Thou who art
poor hast been generous, and I will reward thee for it. Thou hast a
daughter who is pure and innocent, and whom thou greatly lovest. I
will make her immortal, and she shall never disappear from earth.'
Then God transformed her into the plant of the yerba máté. Since then
the herb exists, and although it is cut down it springs up again."
Other stories run that the maiden still lives; for God, instead of
turning her into the máté plant, made her mistress of it, and she
lives to help all those who make a compact with her, Many men during
"Holy week," if near a town, visit the churches of Paraguay and
formally promise to dedicate themselves to her worship, to live in
the woods and have no other woman. After this vow they go to the
forest, taking a paper on which the priest has written their name.
This they pin with a thorn on the máté plant, and leave it for her to
read. Thus she secures her devotees.

Roman Catholicism is not "_Semper Idem_," but adapts itself to its
surroundings.

Máté is drunk by all, from the babe to the centenarian; by the rich
cattle-owner, who drinks it from a chased silver cup through a golden
_bombilla_, to his servant, who is content with a small gourd, which
everywhere grows wild, and a tin tube. Tea, as we know it, is only to
be bought at the chemist's as a remedy for _nerves_. In other
countries it is said to be bad for nerves.

Each house possesses its private altar, where the saints are kept.
That sacred spot is veiled off when possible--if only by hanging in
front of it a cow's hide--from the rest of the dwelling. It consists,
according to the wealth or piety of the housewife, in expensive
crosses, beads, and pictures of saints decked out with costly care;
or, it may be, but one soiled lithograph surrounded by paper flowers
or cheap baubles of the poorer classes; but all are alike sacred.
Everything of value or beauty is collected and put as an offering to
these deities--pieces of colored paper, birds' eggs, a rosy tomato or
pomegranate, or any colored picture or bright tin. Descending from
the ridiculous to the gruesome, I have known a mother scrape and
clean the bones of her dead daughter in order that _they_ might be
given a place on the altar. Round this venerated spot the goodwife,
with her palm-leaf broom, sweeps with assiduous care, and afterwards
carefully dusts her crucifix and other devotional objects with her
brush of ostrich feathers. Here she kneels in prayer to the different
saints. God Himself is never invoked. Saint Anthony interests himself
in finding her lost ring, and Saint Roque is a wonderful physician in
case of sickness. If she be a maiden Saint Carmen will find her a
suitable husband; if a widow, Saint John will be a husband to her;
and if an orphan, the sacred heart of the Virgin of Carmen gives
balsam to the forlorn one. Saint Joseph protects the artisan, and if
a candle is burnt in front of Saint Ramon, he will most obligingly
turn away the tempest or the lightning stroke. In all cases one
candle at least must be promised these mysterious benefactors, and
rash indeed would be the man or woman who failed to burn the candle;
some most terrible vengeance would surely overtake him or his family.

God, as I have said, is never invoked. Perhaps He is supposed to sit
in solitary grandeur while the saints administer His affairs? These
latter are innumerable, and whatever may be their position in the
minds of Romanists in other lands, in South America they are distinct
and separate gods, and their graven image, picture or carving is
worshipped as such.

When religious questions have not arisen, life in those remote
villages has passed very pleasantly. The people live in great
simplicity, knowing scarcely anything of the outside world and its
progress.

At the Feast of St. John the women take sheep and lambs, gaily
decorated with colored ribbons, to church with them. That is an act
of worship, for the priest puts his hand on each lamb and blesses it.
A _velorio_ for the dead, or a dance at a child's death, are
generally the only meetings beside the church; but, as the poet says:

    "'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout
     All countries of the Catholic persuasion,
    Some weeks before Shrove Tuiesiday comes about,
     The people take their fill of recreation,
    And buy repentance ere they grow devout,
     However high their rank or low their station,
    With fiddlling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masking,
    And other things which may be had for asking."

Carnival is a joyous time, and if for only once in the year the quiet
town then resounds with mirth. Pails of water are carried up to the
flat roofs of the houses, and each unwary pedestrian is in turn
deluged. At other times flour is substituted, and on the last day of
the feast ashes are thrown on all sides. At other seasons of the year
the streets are quiet, and after the rural pursuits of the day are
over, the guitar is brought out, and the evening breeze wafts waves
of music to each listening ear. The guitar is in all South America
what the bag-pipes are to Scotland-the national musical instrument of
the people. The Criollo plays mostly plaintive, broken airs--now so
low as to be almost inaudible, then high and shrill. Here and there
he accompanies the music with snatches of song, telling of an exploit
or describing the dark eyes of some lovely maiden. The airs strike
one as being very strange, and decidedly unlike the rolling songs of
British music.

In those interior towns a very quiet life may be passed, far away
from the whistle of the railway engine. Everything is simplicity
itself, and it might almost be said of some that _time itself seems
at a standstill_. During the heat of the day the streets are entirely
deserted; shops are closed, and all the world is asleep, for that is
the _siesta_ time. "They eat their dinners and go to sleep--and could
they do better?"

After this the barber draws his chair out to the causeway and shaves
or cuts his customer's hair. Women and children sit at their doors
drinking máté and watching the slowly drawn bullock-carts go up and
down the uneven, unmade roads, bordered, not by the familiar maple,
but with huge dust-covered cactus plants, The bullocks all draw with
their horns, and the indolent driver sits on the yoke, urging forward
his sleepy animals with a poke of his cane, on the end of which he
has fastened a sharp nail. The _buey_ is very thick-skinned and would
not heed a whip. The wheels of the cart are often cut from a solid
piece of wood, and are fastened on with great hardwood pins in a most
primitive style. Soon after sunset all retire to their trestle beds.

In early morning the women hurry to mass. The Criollo does not break
his fast until nearly mid-day, so they have no early meal to prepare.
Even before it is quite light it is difficult to pass along the
streets owing to the custom they have of carrying their praying-
chairs with them to mass. The rich lady will be followed by her dark-
skinned maid bearing a sumptuously upholstered chair on her head. The
middle classes carry their own, and the very poor take with them a
palm-leaf mat of their own manufacture. When mass is over religion is
over for the day. After service they make their way down to the river
or pond, carrying on their heads the soiled linen. Standing waist-
high in the water, they wash out the stains with black soap of their
own manufacture, beating each article with hardwood boards made
somewhat like a cricketer's bat. The cloths are then laid on the sand
or stones of the shore. The women gossip and smoke until these are
dry and ready to carry home again ere the heat becomes too intense.

In a description of Argentine village life, I could not possibly omit
the priest, the "all in all" to the native, the temporal and
spiritual king, who bears in his hands the destinies of the living
and the dead. These men are the potentates of the people, who refer
everything to them, from the most trivial matter to the weightier one
of the saving of their souls after death. Bigotry and superstition
are extreme.

Renous, the naturalist, tells us that he visited one of these towns
and left some caterpillars with a girl. These she was to feed until
his return, that they might change to butterflies. When this was
rumored through the village, priest and governor consulted together
and agreed that it must be black heresy. When poor Renous returned
some time afterwards he was arrested.

The Argentine village priest is a dangerous enemy to the Protestant.
Many is the time he has insulted me to my face, or, more cowardly,
charged the school-boys to pelt and annoy me. In the larger towns the
priest has defamed me through the press, and when I have answered him
also by that means, he has heaped insult upon injury, excluded me
from society, and made me a pariah and a byword to the superstitious
people. I have been stoned and spat upon, hurled to the ground, had
half-wild dogs set on me, and my horse frightened that he might throw
me. I have been refused police help, or been called to the office to
give an account of myself, all because I was a Protestant, or
infidel, as they prefer to term it. At those times great patience was
needed, for at the least sign of resistance on my part I should have
been attacked by the whole village in one mass. The policeman on the
street has looked expectantly on, eager to see me do this, and on one
occasion he escorted me to the station for snatching a bottle from
the hand of a boy who was in the act of throwing it at my head.
Arriving there I was most severely reprimanded, although,
fortunately, not imprisoned.

Women have crossed themselves and run from me in terror to seek the
holy water bottle blessed by the father. Doors have been shut in my
face, and angry voices bade me begone, at the instigation of this
black-robed believer in the Virgin. Congregations of worshippers in
the dark-aisled church have listened to a fabulous description of my
mission and character, until the barber would not cut my hair or the
butcher sell me his meat! Many a mother has hurriedly called her
children in and precipitately shut the door, that my shadow in
passing might not enter and pollute her home. Perhaps a senorita,
more venturesome, with her black hair hanging in two long plaits
behind each shoulder, has run to her iron-barred window to smile at
me, and then penitently fallen before her patron saint imploring
forgiveness, or hurried to confess her sin to the wily _padre_. If
the confession was accompanied by a gift, she has been absolved by
him; if she were poor, her tear-stained face, perhaps resembling that
of the suffering Madonna over the confessional, has moved his heart
to tenderness, for well he knows that

     "Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,
     And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair."

The punishment imposed has only been that she repeat fifty or a
hundred _Ave Marias_ or _Paternosters_. Poor deluded creature! Her
sin only consisted in permitting her black eyes to gaze on me as I
passed down the street.

"These poor creatures often go to confession, not to be forgiven the
wretched past, but to get a new license to commit sin. One woman, to
whom we offered a tract, refused it, and, showing us an indulgence of
three hundred days, said: 'These are the papers I like.'"

A young university man in the capital confessed that he had never
read the New Testament and never would read it, because he knew it
was against the Church of Rome. The mass of the people have not the
slightest notion of goodness, as we count piety, and lying is not
considered wrong. A native will often entreat the help of his
favorite saint to commit a theft.

"To the Protestant the idea of religion without morals is
inconceivable; but in South America Romanism divorces morals and
religion. It is quite possible to break every command of the
Decalogue and yet be a devoted, faithful Romanist." [Footnote: Rev.
J. H. La Fetra, in "Protestant Missions in South America"]

I can only describe Roman Catholicism on the South American continent
as a species of heathenism. The Church, to gain proselytes, accepted
the old gods of the Indians as saints, and we find idolatrous
superstition and Catholic display blended together. The most ignorant
are invariably the most pious. The more civilized the Criollo
becomes, the less he believes in the Church, and the priest in return
condemns him to eternal perdition.

"It is not necessary to detail the multitude of pagan superstitions
with which the religion of South America is encumbered. It is enough
to point out that it does not preach Christ crucified and risen
again. It preaches Mary, whom it proclaims from the lips of thousands
of lecherous priests to be of perpetual virginity. And it is by its
deliberate falsehood and deceit, as well as by its misrepresentation,
that the Roman Catholic Church in South America has not only not
taught Christianity, but has directly fostered deception and untruth
of character." [Footnote: Missions in South America. Robert E.
Speer.]

When I desired respectfully to enter a church with bared head and
deferential mien, they have followed me to see that I did not steal
the trinkets from the saints or desecrate the altar. If I have
touched the font of holy water, instead of it purifying me, I have
defiled it for their use; and when I have looked at the images of the
saints the people have seen them frown at me. After my exit the
priest would sprinkle holy water on the spots where I had stood, to
drive away "the evil influence."

In those churches one may see an image, with inscription beneath,
stating that those who kiss it receive an indulgence for sin and a
promise of heaven. When preaching in Parana I inadvertently dropped a
word in disparagement of the worship of the Virgin, when, quick as
thought, a man dashed towards me with gleaming steel. The Criollo's
knife never errs, and one sharp lunge too well completes his task;
but an old Paraguayan friend then with me sprang upon him and dashed
the knife to the ground, thus leaving my heart's blood warm within
me, and not on the pavement. I admired my antagonist for the strength
of his convictions--true loyalty he displayed for his goddess, who,
however, does not, I am sure, teach her devotees to assassinate those
who prefer to put their faith rather in her Divine Son. Had I been
killed the priest would on no account have buried me, and would most
willingly have absolved the assassin and kept him from the "arm of
justice." That arm in those places is very short indeed, for I have
myself met dozens of murderers rejoicing in their freedom. Hell is
only for Protestants.

On the door of my lodging I found one morning a written paper, well
pasted on, which read:

MUERA! VIVA LA VIRGEN CON TODOS LOS SANTOS!

"_Die! Live the Virgin and all the Saints!_" That paper I took from
the door and keep as a souvenir of fanaticism.

The Bible is an utterly unknown book, except to the priests, who
forbid its entrance to the houses. It, however, could do little good
or harm, for the masses of the people are utterly unlettered. All
Protestant literature stolen into the town is invariably gathered and
burned by the priest, who would not hesitate also to burn the bringer
if he could without fear of some after-enquiry into the matter.


[Illustration: THE WORLD'S LARGFST ROCKING STONE, TANDIL, ARGENTINA.
This immense stone is so evenly poised that the wind or the slightest
touch of the hand sets it in motion but the storms of the centuries
have failed to dislodge it.]


Rome is to-day just what she always was. Her own claim and motto is:
_Semper idem_ (Always the same). But for this age of enlightenment
her inquisitorial fires would still burn. "Rome's contention is, not
that she does not persecute, but only that she does not persecute
_saints_. She punishes heretics--a very different thing. In the
Rhemish New Testament there is a note on the words, 'drunken with the
blood of saints,' which runs as follows: 'Protestants foolishly
expound this of Rome _because heretics are there put to death_. But
_their_ blood is not called _the blood of saints_, any more than the
blood of thieves or man-killers, or other malefactors; and for the
shedding of it no commonwealth shall give account.'"

During my residence in Argentina a Jesuit priest in Cordoba publicly
stated that if he had his way he would burn to death every Protestant
in the country.

The following statements are from authorized documents, laws and
decrees of the Papacy:

"The papacy teaches all her adherents that it is a sacred duty to
exterminate heresy.

"Urban II. issued a decree that the murder of heretics was excusable.
'We do not count them murderers who, burning with the zeal of their
Catholic mother against the excommunicate, may happen to have slain
some of them.'" [Footnote: "Romanism and Reformation."]

In Argentine life the almanac plays an important part; in that each
day is dedicated to the commemoration of some saint, and the child
born must of necessity be named after the saint on whose day he or
she arrives into the world. The first question is, "What name does it
bring?" The baby may have chosen to come at a time when the calendar
shows an undesirable name, still the parents grumble not, for a saint
is a saint, and whatever names they bear must be good. The child is,
therefore, christened "Caraciollo," or "John Baptist," when, instead
of growing up to be a forerunner of Christ, he or she may, with more
likelihood, be a forerunner of the devil. Whatever name a child
brings, however, has Mary tacked on to it.

All names serve equally well for male or female children, as a
concluding "o" or "a" serves to distinguish the sex. Many men bear
the name of Joseph Mary. Numbers, also, both male and female, have
been baptized by the name of "Jesus," "Saviour," or "Redeemer." If I
were asked the old question, "What's in a name?" I should answer,
"Very little," for in South America the most insolent thief will
often boast in the appellation of _Don Justice_, and the lowest girl
in the village may be _Señorita Celestial_. _Don Jesus_ may be found
incarcerated for riotous conduct, and I have known _Don Saviour_
throw his unfortunate wife and children down a well; _Don Destroyer_
would have been a more appropriate name for him. _Mrs. Angel_ her
husband sometimes finds not such an angel after all, when she puts
poison into his máté cup, a not infrequent occurrence. Let none be
deceived in thinking that the appellation is any index to a man's
character.

Dark, needy people--Rome's true children!

The school-books read: Which is the greatest country? _Ans._, Spain.
Who is the greatest man? _Ans._, The Pope. Why? Because he is
infallible.

It is his wish, and the priest's duty, to keep them in this darkness.
Yet,--One came from God, "a light to lighten the Gentiles," and He
said, "I am the Light of the world." Some day they may hear of Him
and themselves see the Light.

Already the day is breaking, and superstition must prepare to hide
itself. The uneducated native no longer pursues the railway train at
thundering pace to lasso it because the priest raved against its
being built. He even in some cases doubts if it is "an invention of
hell," as he was taught.

The educated native, Alberdi, a publicist and an advocate of freedom,
in the discussion over religious rights of foreigners in the
Argentine, wrote: "Spanish America reduced to Catholicism, with the
exclusion of any other cult, represents a solitary and silent convent
of monks. The dilemma is fatal,--either Catholics and unpopulated, or
populated and prosperous and tolerant in the matter of religion."




CHAPTER IV.

TEE PRAIRIE AND ITS INHABITANTS.


The Pampas, or prairie lands of the Argentine, stretch to the south
and west of Buenos Ayres, and cover some 800,000 square miles. On
this vast level plain, watered by sluggish streams or shallow lakes,
boundless as the ocean, seemingly limitless in extent, there is an
exhilarating air and a rich herbage on which browse countless herds
of cattle, horses, and flocks of sheep. The grass grows tall, and
miles upon miles of rich scarlet, white, or yellow flowers mingle
with or overtop it. Beds of thistles, in which the cattle completely
hide themselves, stretch away for leagues and leagues, and present an
almost unbroken sheet of purple flowers. So vast are these thistle-
beds that a day's ride through them only leaves the traveller with
the same purple forest stretching away to the horizon. The florist
would be enchanted to see whole tracts of land covered by the
_Verbena Melindres_, which appears, even long before you reach it, to
be of a bright scarlet. There are also acres and acres of the many-
flowered camomile and numberless other plants; while large tracts of
low-lying land are covered with coarse pampa grass, affording shelter
for numberless deer, and many varieties of ducks, cranes, flamingoes,
swans and turkeys. Wood there is none, with the exception of a
solitary tree here and there at great distances, generally marking
the site of some cattle establishment OP _estancia_. An _ombú_, or
cluster of blue gums, is certain to be planted there.

On this prairie, man, notwithstanding the fact that he is the "lord
of creation," is decidedly in the minority. Millions of four-footed
animals roam the plains, but he may be counted by hundreds. Let us
turn to him, however, in his isolated home, for the _Gaucho_ has been
described as one of the most interesting races on the face of the
earth. A descendant of the old conquerors, who, leaving their fair
ones in the Spanish peninsula, took unto them as wives the unclothed
women of the new world, he inherits the color and habits of the one
with the vices and dignity of the other. Living the wild, free life
of the Indian, and retaining the language of Spain; the finest
horseman of the world, and perhaps the worst assassin; the most open-
handed and hospitable, yet the accomplished purloiner of his
neighbor's cattle; imitating the Spaniard in the beautifully-chased
silver trappings of his horse, and the untutored Indian in his
miserable adobe hovel; spending his whole wealth in heavy gold or
silver bell-shaped stirrups, bridle, or spurs (the rowel of the
latter sometimes having a diameter of six inches), and leaving his
home destitute of the veriest necessities of life--such is the
Gaucho. A horn or shell from the river's bed makes his spoon, gourds
provide him with his plates and dishes; but his knife, with gold or
silver handle and sheath, is almost a little fortune in itself.
Content in his dwelling to sit on a bullock's skull, on horseback his
saddle must be mounted in silver. His own beard and hair he seldom
trims, but his horse's mane and tail must be assiduously tended. The
baked-mud floor of his abode is littered with filth and dirt, while
he raves at a speck of mud on his embroidered silk saddle-cloth.

The Gaucho is a strange contradiction. He has blushed at my good but
plain-looking saddle, yet courteously asked me to take a skull seat.
He may possess five hundred horses, but you search his kitchen in
vain for a plate. If you please him he will present you with his best
horse, waving away your thanks. If you displease him, his long knife
will just as readily find its way to your heart, for he kills his
enemies with as little compunction as he kills the ostrich. "The
Gaucho, with his proud and dissolute air, is the most unique of all
South American characters. He is courageous and cruel, active and
tireless. Never more at ease than when on the wildest horse; on the
ground, out of his element. His politeness is excessive, his nature
fierce." The children do not, like ours, play with toys, but delight
the parents' hearts by teasing a cat or dog. These they will stick
with a thorn or pointed bone to hear them yell, or, later on, lasso
and half choke them. "They will put out their eyes, and such like
childish games, innocent little darlings that they are." Cold-blooded
torture is their delight, and they will cheer at the sight of blood.

To describe the dress of this descendant of Adam I feel myself
incapable. A shirt and a big slouch hat seem to be the only articles
of attire like ours. Coat, trousers or shoes he does not wear.
Instead of the first mentioned, he uses the _poncho_, a long, broad
blanket, with a slit in the centre to admit his head. For trousers he
wears very wide white drawers, richly embroidered with broad
needlework and stiffly starched. Over these he puts a black
_chiripá_, which really I cannot describe other than as similar to
the napkins the mother provides for her child. Below this black and
white leg covering come the long boots, made from one piece of
seamless hide. These boots are nothing more than the skin from the
hind legs of an animal--generally a full-grown horse. The bend of the
horse's leg makes the boot's heel. Naturally the toes protrude, and
this is not sewn up, for the Gaucho never puts more than his big toe
in the stirrup, which, like the bit in his horse's mouth, must be of
solid silver. A dandy will beautifully scallop these rawhide boots
around the tops and toes, and keep them soft with an occasional
application of grease. No heel is ever attached. Around the man's
waist, holding up his drawers and chiripa, is wound a long colored
belt, with tasseled ends left hanging over his boot, down the right
side; and over that he invariably wears a broad skin belt, clasped at
the front with silver and adorned all around with gold or silver
coins. In this the long knife is carried.

What shall I say of the domestic life of these people? Unfortunately,
marriage is practically unknown among them. The father gives his son
a few cattle, and the young man, after building himself a house,
conducts thither his chosen one. Unhappily, constancy in either man
or woman is a rare virtue.

Of the superstitious side of the Gancho race I might speak much. In
the saints the female especially implicitly believes. These, her
deities, are all-powerful, and to them she appeals for the
satisfaction of her every desire. Saint Clementina's help is sought
by the girl when her lover betrays her. Another saint will aid her in
poisoning him. If the wife thinks her husband long in bringing the
evening meal, she has informed me, a word with Saint Anthony is
sufficient, and she hears the sound of his horse's hoofs. Saint
Anthony seems to be useful on many occasions of distress. One evening
I called at a _rancho_ made of dry thistle-stalks bound together with
hide and thatched with reeds, Finding the inmates very hospitable, I
stayed there two or three hours to rest. Coming out of the house
again, I found to my dismay that during our animated gossip my horse
had broken loose and left me. Now the loss of a horse is too trivial
a matter to interest Anthony the saint, but a horse having saddle and
bridle attached to him makes it quite a different matter, for these
often cost ten times the price of the horse. One of the saint's
especial duties is to find a lost saddled horse, if the owner or
interested one only promises to burn a candle in his honor. The night
was very dark, and no sign of the animal was to be seen. Mine host
laid his ear to the ground and listened, then, leaping on his horse,
he galloped into the darkness, from whence he brought my lost animal.
I did not learn until afterwards that Mrs. Jesus, for such was the
woman's name, had sought the help of Saint Anthony on my behalf. I am
sure she lost her previous good opinion of me when I thanked her
husband but did not offer a special colored candle to her saint.

Among these strange people I commenced a school, and had the joy of
teaching numbers of them to read the Spanish Bible. Boys and girls
came long distances on horseback, and, although some of them had
perhaps never seen a book before, I found them exceedingly quick to
learn. In four or five months the older ones were able to read any
ordinary chapter. In arithmetic they were inconceivably dull, and
after three months' tuition some of them could not count ten.

I have said the saints are greatly honored among these people. My
Christmas cards generally found their way to adorn their altars.
Every house has its favorite, and some of these are regarded as
especially clever in curing sickness. It being a very unhealthful,
low-lying district where my school was, I contracted malarial fever,
and went to bed very sick. Every day some of the children would come
to enquire after me, but Celestino, one of the larger boys, came one
morning with a very special message from his mother. This
communication was to the effect that they did not wish the school-
teacher to die, he being "rather a nice kind of a man and well
liked." Because of this she would be pleased to let me have her
favorite saint. This image I could stand at the head of my bed, and
its very presence would cure me. When I refused this offer and smiled
at its absurdity, the boy thought me very strange. To be so wise in
some respects, and yet so ignorant as to refuse such a chance, was to
him incomprehensible. The saints, I found, are there often lent out
to friends that they may exercise their healing powers, or rented out
to strangers at so much a day, When they are not thus on duty, but in
a quiet corner of the hut, they get lonely. The woman will then go
for a visit, taking her saint with her, either in her arms or tied to
the saddle. This image she will place with the saint her host owns,
and _they will talk together and teach one another_. A saint is
supposed to know only its own particular work, although one named
Santa Rita is said to be a worker of impossibilities. Some of them
are only very rudely carved images, dressed in tawdry finery. I have
sometimes thought that a Parisian doll of modern make, able to open
and close its eyes, etc., would in their esteem be even competent to
raise the dead! [Footnote: Writing of Spanish American Romanism,
Everybody's Magazine says: "To the student of human nature, which
means the study of evil as well as good, this religious body is of
absorbing interest. One would look to find these enthusiasts
righteous and virtuous in their daily life; but, apart from the
annual week of penance, their religion influences them not at all,
and on the whole the members of the Brotherhood constitute a
desperate class, dangerous to society."]

In cases of sickness very simple remedies are used, and not a few
utterly nonsensical. To cure pains in the stomach they tie around
them the skin of the _comadreka_, a small, vile-smelling animal. This
they told me was a sovereign remedy. If the sufferer be a babe, a
cross made on its stomach is sufficient to perfectly cure it. I have
seen seven pieces of the root of the white lily, which there grows
wild, tied around the neck of an infant in order that its teeth might
come with greater promptitude and less pain. A string of dog's teeth
serves the same purpose. To cure a bad wound, the priest will be
called in that he may write around the sore some Latin prayer
backwards. Headache is easily cured by tying around the head the
cast-off skin of a snake. Two puppies are killed and bound one on
each side of a broken limb. If a charm is worn around the neck no
poison can be harmful. For a sore throat it is sufficient to
expectorate in the fire three times, making a cross. Lockjaw is
effectually stopped by tying around the sufferer's jaws the strings
from a virgin's skirt; and they say also that powdered excrement of a
dog, taken in a glass of water, cures the smallpox patient,

As Mrs. Jesus sent her boy to my school, so Mrs. Flower sent her
girl. The latter was perhaps the most deluded woman I have met. Her
every act was bad in itself or characterized by superstitious
devotion. She was one of the Church's favorite worshippers, and while
I was in the neighborhood she sold her cows and horses and presented
the priest at the nearest town with a large and expensive silver
cross--the emblem of suffering purity. Near her lived a person for
whom she had an especial aversion, but that enemy she got rid of in
surely the strangest of ways, which she described to me. Catching a
snake, and holding it so that its poison might not reach her, she
passed a threaded needle through both its eyes. When this was done
she let it go again, alive, and, carefully guarding the needle,
approached the person from behind and made a cross with the thread.
The undesired one disappeared, having probably heard of the
enchantment, and being equally superstitious, or--the charm worked!

Mrs. Flower was a most repulsive-looking creature. Her skin was
exactly the color of an old copper coin. She did not resemble any
_flower_ I have seen in either hemisphere. Far was she from being a
rose, but she certainly possessed the thorn. Her love for the saints
was most marked, and I have known her promise St. Roque that she
would walk six miles carrying his image if he would only grant her a
certain prayer. This petition he granted, and off she trudged with
her divine (?) load. Those acquainted with dwellers on the prairie
know that this was indeed a great task, horses being so cheap and
riding so universal. Mrs. Flower was unaccustomed to walk even the
shortest distance. I myself can bear witness to the fact that even
strong men find it hard to walk a mile after spending years in
equestrian travel. The native tells you that God formed your legs so
that you might be able to sit on a horse rather than to walk with
them. A favorite expression with them is, "I was born on horseback."

Stone not being found on the pampas, these people generally build
their houses of square sods, with a roof of plaited grasses--
sometimes I have observed these beautifully woven together. Two or
more holes, according to the size of the house, are left to serve for
door and window. Wood cannot be obtained, glass has not been
introduced, so the holes are left as open spaces, across which, when
the pampa wind blows, a hide is stretched. No hole is left in the
roof for the smoke of the fire to escape, for this to the native is
no inconvenience whatever. When I have been compelled to fly with
racking cough and splitting head, he has calmly asked the reason.
Never could I bear the blinding smoke that issues from his fire of
sheep or cow dung burning on the earthen floor, though he heeds it
not as, sitting on a bullock's skull, he ravenously eats his evening
meal.

If entertaining a stranger, he will press uncut joint after joint of
his _asado_ upon him. This asado is meat roasted over the fire on a
spit; if beef, with the skin and hair still attached. Meat cooked in
this way is a real delicacy. A favorite dish with them (I held a
different opinion) is a half-formed calf, taken before its proper
time of birth. The meat is often dipped in the ashes in lieu of salt.
I have said the Gaucho has no chair. I might add that neither has he
a table, for with his fingers and knife he eats the meat off the
fire. Forks he is without, and a horn or shell spoon conveys the soup
to his mouth direct from the copper pan. So universal is the use of
the shell for this service that the native does not speak of it as
_caracol_, the real word for shell, but calls it _cuchara del agua_,
or water spoon. Of knives he possesses more than enough, and heavy,
long, sharp-pointed ones they are. When his hunger is appeased the
knife goes, not to the kitchen, but to his belt, where, when not in
his hand, you may always see it. With that weapon he kills a sheep,
cuts off the head of a serpent--seemingly, however, not doing it much
harm, for it still wriggles--sticks his horse when in anger, and,
alas, as I have said, sometimes stabs his fellow-man. Being so far
isolated from the coast, he is necessarily entirely uneducated. The
forward march of the outer world concerns him not; indeed he imagines
that his native prairie stretches away to the end of the world. He
will gaze with wonder on your watch, for his only mode of
ascertaining the time is by the shadow the sun casts. As that
luminary rises and sets, so he sleeps and wakes. His only bed is the
sheepskin, which when riding he fastens over his saddle, and the
latter article forms his pillow. His coverlet is the firmament of
heaven, the Southern Cross and other constellations, unseen by
dwellers in the Northern Hemisphere, seeming to keep watch over him;
or in the colder season his poncho, which I have already described.
Around his couch flit the fireflies, resembling so many stars of
earth with their strangely radiant lights. The brightness of one,
when held near the face of my watch, made light enough to enable me
to ascertain the hour, even on the darkest night.

The Gaucho with his horse is at home anywhere. When on a journey he
will stop for the evening meal beside the dry bones of some dead
animal. With these and grass he will make a fire and cook the meat he
carries hanging behind him on the saddle. I have known an animal
killed and the meat cooked with its own bones, but this is not usual.
Dry bones burn better, and thistle-stalks better still. He will then
lie down on mother earth with the horse-cloth under him and the
saddle for a pillow. When travelling with these men I have known
them, without any comment, stretch themselves on the ground, even
though the rain was falling, and soon be in dreamland. After having
passed a wretched night myself, I have asked them, "How did you
sleep?" _"Muy Bien, Senor"_ (Very good, sir), has been the invariable
answer. They would often growl much, however, over the wet saddle-
cloths, for these soon cause a horse's back to become sore.

Here and there, but sometimes at long distances apart, there is a
_pulperia_ on the road. This is always designated by having a white
flag flying on the end of a long bamboo. At these places cheap
spirits of wine and very bad rum can be bought, along with tobacco,
hard ship-biscuits (very often full of maggots, as I know only too
well), and a few other more necessary things. I have observed in some
of these wayside inns counters made of turf, built in blocks as
bricks would be. Here the natives stop to drink long and deep, and
stew their meagre brains in bad spirits. These draughts result in
quarrels and sometimes in murder.

The Gaucho, like the Indian, cannot drink liquor without becoming
maddened by it. He will then do things which in his sober moments he
would not dream of. I was acquainted with a man who owned a horse of
which he was very fond This animal bore him one evening to a pulperia
some miles distant, and was left tied outside while he imbibed his
fill inside. Coming out at length beastly intoxicated, he mounted his
horse and proceeded homeward. Arriving at a fork in the path, the
faithful horse took the one leading home, but the rider, thinking in
his stupor that the other way was the right one, turned the horse's
head. As the poor creature wanted to get home and have the saddle
taken off, it turned again. This affront was too much for the Gaucho,
who is a man of volcanic passions, so drawing his knife, he stabbed
it in the neck, and they dropped to the ground together. When he
realized that he had killed his favorite horse he cried like a child.
I passed this dead animal several times afterwards and saw the
vultures clean its bones. It served me as a witness to the results of
ungoverned passion.

The Gaucho does not, and would not under any consideration, ride a
mare; consequently, for work she is practically valueless. Strain,
who rode across the pampas, says: "In a single year ten million hides
were exported." For one or two dollars each the buyer may purchase
any number; indeed, of such little worth are the mares that they are
very often killed for their hide, or to serve as food for swine. At
one estancia I visited I was informed that one was killed each day
for pig feed. The mare can be driven long distances, even a hundred
miles a day, for several successive days, The Argentine army must
surely be the most mobile of any in the world, for its soldiers, when
on the march, get nothing but mare's flesh and the custom gives them
great facility of movement. The horse has, more or less, its standard
value, and costs four or five times the price of the mare.


[Illustration: THE AUTHOR IN GAUCHO DRESS.]


Sometimes it happens that the native finds a colt which is positively
untamable. On the cheek of such an animal the Gaucho will burn a
cross and then allow it to go free, like the scape-goat mentioned in
the book of Leviticus.

The native horse is rather small, but very wiry and wild. I was once
compelled, through sickness, to make a journey of ninety-seven miles,
being in the saddle for seventeen consecutive hours, and yet my poor
horse was unable to get one mouthful of food on the journey, and the
saddle was not taken off his back for a moment. He was very wild, yet
one evening between five and eight o'clock, he bore me safely a
distance of thirty-six miles, and returned the same distance with me
on the following morning. He had not eaten or drunk anything during
the night, for the locusts had devoured all pasturage and no rain had
fallen for a space of five months.

The horse is not indigenous to America, although Darwin tells us that
South America had a native horse, which lived and disappeared ages
ago. Spanish history informs us that they were first landed in Buenos
Ayres in 1537. We are further told that the Indians flew away in
terror at the sight of a man on horseback, which they took to be one
animal of a strange, two-headed shape. When the colony was for a time
deserted these horses were suffered to run wild. Those animals so
multiplied and spread over such a vast area that they were found,
forty-three years later, even down to the Straits of Magellan, a
distance of eleven hundred miles. With good pasture and a limitless
expanse to roam over, they soon turned from the dozens to thousands,
and may now be counted by millions. The Patagonian "foot" Indians
quickly turned into "horse" Indians, for on those wide prairie lands
a man without a horse is almost comparable to a man without legs. In
former years, thousands of wild horses roamed over these extensive
plains, but the struggle of mankind in the battle of life turned
men's attention to them, and they were captured and branded by
whomsoever had the power and cared to take the trouble. In the more
isolated districts, there may still be found numbers which are born
and die without ever feeling the touch of saddle or bridle. Far away
from the crowded busses and perpetually moving hansoms of the city,
they feel not the driver's whip nor the strain of the wagon, as, with
tail trailing on the ground and head erect, they gallop in freedom of
life. Happy they!

In all directions on the prairie ostriches are found. The natives
catch them with _boliadoras_, an old Indian weapon, which is simply
three round stones, incased in bags of hide, tied together by twisted
ropes, also of hide. When the hunters have, by galloping from
different directions, baffled the bird in his flight, they thunder
down upon him, and, throwing the _boliadoras_ round his legs, where
they entangle, effectually stop his flight. I have seen this weapon
thrown a distance of about eighty yards.

The ostrich is a bird with wonderful digestive powers, which I often
have envied him; he eats grass or pebbles, insects or bones, as suits
his varying fancy. If you drop your knife or any other article, he
will stop to examine it, being most inquisitive, and, if possible, he
will swallow it. The flesh of the ostrich is dry and tough, and its
feathers are not to be compared in beauty with those of the African
specimen. Generally a very harmless bird, he is truly formidable
during breeding time. If one of the eggs is so much as touched he
will break the whole number to shivers. Woe to the man whom he
savagely attacks at such times; one kick of his great foot, with its
sharp claws, is sufficient to open the body of man or horse. The
Gaucho uses the skin from the neck of this bird as a tobacco pouch,
and the eggs are considered a great delicacy. One is equal to about
sixteen hen's eggs.

As all creation has its enemy, the ostrich finds his in the _iguana_,
or lizard--an unsightly, scaly, long-tailed species of land
crocodile. This animal, when full-grown, attains the length of five
feet, and is of a dark green color. He, when he can procure them,
feeds on the ostrich eggs, which I believe must be a very
strengthening diet. The lizard, after fattening himself upon them
during the six hotter months of the year, is enabled to retire to the
recesses of his cave, where he tranquilly sleeps through the
remaining six. The shell of the ostrich's egg is about the thickness
of an antique china cup, but the iguana finds no difficulty in
breaking it open with a slash of his tail This wily animal is more
astute than the bird, which lays its eggs in the open spaces, for the
lizard, with her claws, digs a hole in the ground, in which hers are
dropped to the number of dozens. The lizard does not provide shells
for her eggs, but only covers them with a thick, soft skin, and they,
buried in the soil, eventually hatch themselves.

When the Gaucho cannot obtain a better meal, the tail of the lizard
is not considered such a despicable dish by him, for he is no
epicure. When he has nothing he is also contented. His philosophy is:
_"Nunca tenga hambre cuando no hay que comer"_ (Never be hungry when
no food is to be had).

The estancia, or catile ranch, is a feature of the Argentine prairie.
Some of these establishments are very large, even up to one hundred
square miles in extent. On them hundreds of thousands of cattle,
sheep and horses are herded. "It is not improbable that there are
more cattle in the pampas and llanos of South America than in all the
rest of the world." [Footnote: Dr. Hartwig in "Argentina," 1910] An
estancia is almost invariably called by the name of some saint, as
are the different fields belonging to it. "Holy Mary field" and
"Saint Joseph field" are common names. Notwithstanding the fact that
there may be thousands of cows on a ranch, the visitor may be unable
to get a drop of milk to drink. "Cows are not made to milk, but to
eat," they say. Life on these establishments is rough and the fare
generally very coarse. Even among the wealthy people I have visited
you may sit down to dinner with nothing but meat put before you,
without a bite of bread or any vegetables. All drink water out of an
earthenware pitcher of peculiar shape, which is the centrepiece of
the table.

Around the ranches of the people are many mice, which must be of a
ferocious nature, for if one is caught in a trap it will be found
next morning half, if not almost wholly, eaten by its own comrades.
Well is it called "the cannibal mouse."

In times of drought the heat of the sun dries up all vegetation. The
least spark of fire then suffices to create a mighty blaze,
especially if accompanied by the _pampero_ wind, which blows with
irresistible force in its sweep over hundreds of miles of level
ground. The fire, gathering strength as it goes, drives all before
it, or wraps everything in its devouring flames. Casting a lurid
light in the heavens, towards which rise volumes of smoke, it
attracts the attention of the native, who lifts his starting eyes
towards heaven in a speechless prayer to the Holy Virgin. Madly
leaping on his fleetest horse, without saddle, and often without
bridle, he wildly gallops down the wind, as the roaring, crackling
fire gains upon him. In this mad race for life, men, horses,
ostriches, deer, bullocks, etc., join, striving to excel each other
in speed. Strange to say, the horse the native rides, cheered on by
the touch of his master, is often the first to gain the lake or
river, where, beneath its waters at least, refuge may be found. In
their wild stampede, vast herds of cattle trample and fall on one
another and are drowned. A more complete destruction could not
overtake the unfortunate traveller than to be caught by this
remorseless foe, for not even his ashes could be found by mourning
friends. The ground thus burnt retains its heat for days. I have had
occasion to cross blackened wastes a week after this most destructive
force in nature had done its work, and my horse has frequently reared
in the air at the touch of the hot soil on his hoofs.

The Gaucho has a strange method of fighting these fires. Several
mares are killed and opened, and they, by means of lassos, are
dragged over the burning grass.

The immensity of the pampas is so great that one may travel many
miles without sighting a single tree or human habitation. The weary
traveller finds his only shade from the sun's pitiless rays under the
broad brim of his sombrero. At times, with ears forward and extended
nostrils, the horse gazes intently at the rippling blue waters of the
_mirage_, that most tantalizingly deceptive phenomenon of nature. May
it never be the lot of my reader to be misled by the illusive mirage
as I have been. How could I mistake vapor for clear, gurgling water?
Yet, how many times was I here deceived! Visions of great lakes and
broad rivers rose up before me, lapping emerald green shores, where I
could cool my parched tongue and lave in their crystal depths; yet
to-day those waters are as far off as ever, and exist only in my
hopes of Paradise. Not until I stand by the "River of Life" shall I
behold the reality.

The inhabitant of these treeless, trackless solitudes, which, with
their waving grass, remind one of the bosom of the ocean, develops a
keen sight Where the stranger, after intently gazing, descries
nothing, he will not only inform him that animals are in sight, but
will, moreover, tell him what they are. I am blest with a very clear
vision, but even when, after standing on my horse's back, I have made
out nothing, the Gaucho could tell me that over there was a drove of
cattle, a herd of deer, a troop of horses, or a house.

It is estimated that there are two hundred and forty millions of
acres of wheat land in the Argentine, and of late years the prairie
has developed into one of the largest wheat-producing countries in
the world, and yet only one per cent, of its cultivable area is so
far occupied.

The Gaucho is no farmer, and all his land is given up to cattle
grazing, so _chacras_ are worked generally by foreign settlers. The
province of Entre Rios has been settled largely by Swiss and Italian
farmers from the Piedmont Hills. Baron Hirsch has also planted a
colony of Russian Jews there, and provided them with farm implements.
Wheat, corn, and linseed are the principal crops, but sweet potatoes,
tobacco, and fruit trees do well in this virgin ground, fertilized by
the dead animals of centuries. The soil is rich, and two or three
crops can often be harvested in a year.

No other part of the world has in recent years suffered from such a
plague of locusts as the agricultural districts of Argentina. They
come from the north in clouds that sometimes darken the sun. Some of
the swarms have been estimated to be sixty miles long and from twelve
to fifteen miles wide. Fields which in the morning stand high with
waving corn, are by evening only comparable to ploughed or burnt
lands. Even the roots are eaten up.

In 1907 the Argentine Government organized a bureau for the
destruction of locusts, and in 1908 $4,500,000 was placed by Congress
at the disposal of this commission. An organized service, embracing
thousands of men, is in readiness at any moment to send a force to
any place where danger is reported. Railway trains have been
repeatedly stopped, and literally many tons of them have had to be
taken off the track. A fine of $100 is imposed upon any settler
failing to report the presence of locust swarms or hopper eggs on his
land. Various means are adopted by the land-owner to save what he can
from the voracious insects. Men, women and children mount their
horses and drive flocks of sheep to and fro over the ground to kill
them. A squatter with whom I stayed got his laborers to gallop a
troop of mares furiously around his garden to keep them from settling
there. All, however, seemed useless. About midsummer the locust lays
its eggs under an inch or two of soil. Each female will drop from
thirty to fifty eggs, all at the same time, in a mass resembling a
head of wheat. As many as 50,000 eggs have been counted in a space
less than three and a half feet square.

During my sojourn in Entre Rios, the province where this insect seems
to come in greatest numbers, a law was passed that every man over the
age of fourteen years, whether native or foreigner, rich or poor, was
compelled to dig out and carry to Government depots, four pounds
weight of locusts' eggs. It was supposed that this energetic measure
would lessen their numbers. Many tons were collected and burnt, but,
I assure the reader, no appreciable difference whatever was made in
their legions. The young _jumpers_ came, eating all before them, and
their numbers seemed infinite. Men dug trenches, kindled fires, and
burned millions of them. Ditches two yards wide and deep and two
hundred feet long were completely filled up by these living waves.
But all efforts were unavailing--the earth remained covered. A
Waldensian acquaintance suffered for several years from this fearful
plague. Some seasons he was not even able to get back so much as the
seed he planted. If the locusts passed him, it so happened that the
_pampero_ wind blew with such terrific force that we have looked in
vain even for the straw. The latter was actually torn up by the roots
and whirled away, none knew whither. At other times large hailstones,
for which the country is noted, have destroyed everything, or tens of
thousands of green paroquets have done their destructive work. When a
five-months' drought was parching everything, I have heard him
reverently pray that God would spare him wheat sufficient to feed his
family. This food God gave him, and he thankfully invited me to share
it. I rejoice in being able to say that he afterwards became rich,
and had his favorite saying, _"Dios no me olvidaé"_ (God will not
forget me), abundantly verified.

Notwithstanding natural drawbacks, which every country has, Argentina
can claim to have gone forward as no other country has during the
last ten years. There are many estates worth more than a million
dollars. Dr. W. A. Hirot, in "Argentina," says: "Argentina has more
live stock than any other country of the world. Ten million hides
have been exported in one year, and it is not improbable that there
are more cattle in South America than there are in all the rest of
the world combined." Belgium has 220 people occupying the space one
person has in Argentina, so who can prophesy as to its future?




PART II.

BOLIVIA


[Illustration]

   Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing
    else to gaze on,
   Set pieces and drop curtain scenes galore,
   Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets
    blazon,
   Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?

          --_Robert W. Service._




BOLIVIA

Bolivia, having no sea-coast, has been termed the Hermit Republic of
South America. Its territory is over 600,000 square miles in extent,
and within its bounds Nature displays almost every possible panorama,
and all climates. There are burning plains, the home of the emu,
armadillos, and ants; sandy deserts, where the wind drifts the sand
like snow, piling it up in ever-shifting hills about thirty feet in
height. Bolivia, shut in geographically and politically, is a world
in itself--a world of variety, in scenery, climate, products and
people. Its capital city, La Paz, has a population of 70,000, but the
vast interior is almost uninhabited. In the number of inhabitants to
the square mile, Bolivia ranks the lowest of all the nations of the
earth.

Perhaps no country of the world has been, and is, so rich in precious
metals as Bolivia. "The mines of Potosi alone have furnished the
world over $1,500,000,000 worth of silver since the Spaniards first
took possession of them." [Footnote: "Protestant Missions in South
America."]

Bolivia can lay claim to the most wonderful body of water in the
world--Lake Titicaca. This lake, nearly two and a half miles high in
the air, is literally in the clouds. "Its lonely waters have no
outlet to the sea, but are guarded on their southern shores by
gigantic ruins of a prehistoric empire--palaces, temples, and
fortresses--silent, mysterious monuments of a long-lost golden age."
Some of the largest and most remarkable ruins of the world are found
on the shores of Lake Titicaca, and as this was the centre of the
great Incan Dynasty, that remarkable people have also left wonderful
remains, to build which stones thirty-eight feet long, eighteen feet
wide, and six feet thick, were quarried, carried and elevated. The
Temple of the Sun. the most sacred edifice of the Incas, was one of
the richest buildings the sun has ever shone upon, and it was itself
a mine of wealth. From this one temple, Pizarro, the Spanish
conqueror, took 24,000 pounds of gold and 82,000 pounds of silver.
"Ninety million dollars' worth of precious metals was torn from Inca
temples alone." The old monarch of the country, Atahuallpa, gave
Pizarro twenty-two million dollars in gold to buy back his country
and his liberty from the Spaniards, but their first act on receiving
the vast ransom was to march him after a crucifix at the head of a
procession, and, because he refused to become a Roman Catholic, put
him to death. Perhaps never in the world's history was there a baser
act of perfidy, but this was urged by the soldier-priest of the
conquerors, Father Valverde, who himself signed the King's death-
warrant. This priest was afterwards made Bishop of Atahuallpa's
capital.

Surely no country of the world has had a darker or a sadder history
than this land of the Incas. The Spaniards arrived when the "Children
of the Sun" were at the height of their prosperity. "The affair of
reducing the country was committed to the hands of irresponsible
individuals, soldiers of fortune, desperate adventurers who entered
on conquest as a game which they had to play in the most unscrupulous
manner, with little care but to win it. The lands, and the persons as
well, of the conquered races were parcelled out and appropriated by
the victors as the legitimate spoils of victory. Every day outrages
were perpetrated, at the contemplation of which humanity shudders.
They suffered the provident arrangements of the Incas to fall into
decay. The poor Indian, without food, now wandered half-starved and
naked over the plateau. Even those who aided the Spaniards fared no
better, and many an Inca noble roamed a mendicant over the fields
where he once held rule; and if driven, perchance, by his necessities
to purloin something from the superfluity of his conquerors, he
expiated it by a miserable death."  [Footnote: Prescott's "Conquest
of Peru."]

Charles Kingsley says there were "cruelties and miseries unexampled
in the history of Christendom, or perhaps on earth, save in the
conquests of Sennacherib and Zinghis-Khan." Millions perished at the
forced labor of the mines, The Incan Empire had, it is calculated, a
population of twenty millions at the arrival of the Spaniards, In two
centuries the population fell to four millions.

When the groans of these beasts of burden reached the ears of the
good (?) Queen Isabel of Spain, she enacted a law that throughout her
new dominions no Indian, man or woman, should be compelled to carry
more than three hundred pounds' weight at one load! Is it cause for
wonder that the poor, down-trodden natives, seeing the flaunting flag
of Spain, with its stripe of yellow between stripes of red, should
regard it as representing a river of gold between two rivers of
blood?

"Not infrequently," said a reliable witness, "I have seen the
Spaniards, long after the Conquest, amuse themselves by hunting down
the natives with blood hounds, for mere sport, or in order to train
their dogs to the game. The most unbounded scope was given to
licentiousness. The young maiden was torn remorselessly from the arms
of her family to gratify the passion of her brutal conqueror. The
sacred houses of the Virgins of the Sun were broken open and
violated, and the cavalier swelled his harem with a troop of Indian
girls, making it seem that the crescent would have been a more
fitting emblem for his banner than the immaculate cross."

With the inexorable conqueror came the more inexorable priest.
"Attendance at Roman Catholic worship was made compulsory. Men and
women with small children were compelled to journey as much as
thirty-six miles to attend mass. Absentees were punished, therefore
the Indian feared to disobey." [Footnote: Neely, "Spanish America."]

As is well known, the ancient inhabitants worshipped the sun and the
moon. The Spanish priest, in order to gain proselytes with greater
facility, did not forbid this worship, but placed the crucifix
between the two. Where the Inca suns and moons were of solid gold and
silver, they were soon replaced by painted wooden ones. The crucifix,
with sun and moon images on each side, is common all over Bolivia
to-day.

Now, four hundred years later, see the Indian under priestly rule.
The following is taken from an official report of the Governor of
Chimborazo: "The religious festivals that the Indians celebrate--not
of their own will, but by the inexorable will of the priest--are,
through the manner in which they are kept, worse than those described
to us of the times of Paganism, and of monstrous consequences to
morality and the national welfare ... they may be reckoned as a
barbarous mixture of idolatry and superstition, sustained by infamous
avarice. The Indian who is chosen to make a feast either has to use
up in it his little savings, leaving his family submerged in misery,
or he has to rob in order to invest the products of his crime in
paying the fees to the priest and for church ceremonies. These are
simply brutal orgies that last many days, with a numerous attendance,
and in which all manner of crimes and vices have free license."

"For the idols of the aborigines were substituted the images of the
Virgin Mary and the Roman saints. The Indians gave up their old
idols, but they went on with their image-worship. Image-worship is
idolatry, whether in India, Africa, or anywhere else, and the worship
of Roman images is essentially idolatry as much as the worship of any
other kind of images. Romanism substituted for one set of idols
another set. So the Indians who were idolaters continued to be
idolaters, only the new idols had other names and, possibly, were a
little better-looking." [Footnote: Neely, "South America."]

What has Romanism done for the Indians of Bolivia in its four hundred
years of rule? Compare the people of that peaceful, law-keeping
dynasty which the Spaniards found with the Bolivian Indian of to-day!
Now the traveller can report: "The Indians are killing the whites
wherever they find them, and practising great cruelties, having bored
holes in the heads of their victims and sucked the brains out while
they were yet alive. Sixteen whites are said to have been killed in
this way! These same Indians are those who have been Christianized by
the Roman priests for the past three centuries, but such cruelties as
they have been practising show that as yet not a ray of Christ's love
has entered their darkened minds." How can the priest teach what he
is himself ignorant of?

Where the Indian has been civilized, as well as Romanized, Mr. Milne,
of the American Bible Society, could write:

"Since the Spanish conquest the progress of the Indians has been in
the line of deterioration and moral degradation. They are oppressed
by the Romish clergy, who can never drain contributions enough out of
them, and who make the children render service to pay for masses for
deceased parents and relatives. Tears came to our eyes as Mr.
Penzotti and I watched them practising their heathen rites in the
streets of La Paz, the chief city of Bolivia. They differ from the
other Indians in that they are domesticated, but _they know no more
of the Gospel than they did under the rule of the Incas."_

What is to be the future of these natives? Shall they disappear from
the stage of the world's history like so many other aborigines,
victims of civilization, or will a hand yet be stretched out to help
them? Civilization, after all, is not entirely made up of greed and
lust, but in it there is righteousness and truth. May the day soon
dawn when some of the latter may be extended to them ere they take
the long, dark trail after their fathers, and have hurled the last
malediction at their cursed white oppressors!

  "We suffer yet a little space
   Until we pass away,
  The relics of an ancient race
   That ne'er has had its day."

For four hundred years Bolivia has thus been held in chains by Romish
priestcraft. Since its Incan rulers were massacred, its civilization
has been of the lowest. Buildings, irrigation dams, etc., were
suffered to fall into disrepair, and the country went back to
pre-Incan days.

The first Christian missionaries to enter the country were imprisoned
and murdered. Now "the morning light is breaking." A law has been
passed granting liberty of worship.

Bolivia, with its vast natural riches, must come to the forefront,
and already strides are being taken forward. She can export over five
million dollars' worth of rubber in one year, and is now spending
more than fifty million dollars on railways. So Bolivia is a country
of the past and the future.




CHAPTER V.

JOURNEY TO "THE UNEXPLORED LAKE."


Since the days when Pizarro's adventurers discovered the hitherto
undreamed-of splendor of the Inca Dynasty, Bolivia has been a land of
surprises and romantic discovery. Strange to say, even yet much of
the eastern portion of this great republic remains practically
unexplored. The following account of exploration in those regions,
left for men of the twentieth century, may not, I am persuaded, be
without interest to the general reader. Bolivia has for many years
been seriously handicapped through having no adequate water outlet to
the sea, and the immense resources of wealth she undoubtedly
possesses have, for this reason, been suffered to go, in a measure,
unworked. Now, however, in the onward progress of nations, Bolivia
has stepped forward. In the year 1900, the Government of that country
despatched an expedition to locate and explore Lake Gaiba, a large
sheet of water said to exist in the far interior of Bolivia and
Brazil, on the line dividing the two republics. The expedition staff
consisted of Captain Bolland, an Englishman; M. Barbiere, a
Frenchman; Dr. Perez, Bolivian; M. Gerard D'Avezsac, French artist
and hunter, and the writer of these pages. The crew of ten men was
made up of Paraguayans and Argentines, white men and colored, one
Bolivian, one Italian, and one Brazilian. Strange to relate, there
was no Scotchman, even the ship's engineer being French. Perhaps the
missing Scotch engineer was on his way to the Pole, in order to be
found sitting there on its discovery by----(?)

The object of this costly journey was to ascend the rivers La Plata,
Paraguay and Alto Paraguay, and see if it were possible to establish
a port and town in Bolivian territory on the shores of the lake.
After some months of untiring energy and perseverance, there was
discovered for Bolivia a fine port, with depth of water for any
ordinary river steamer, which will now be known to the world as
_Puerto Quijarro_. A direct fluvial route, therefore, exists between
the Atlantic and this far inland point.

The expedition left Buenos Ayres, the capital of the Argentine
Republic. Sailing up the western bank of the River of Silver, we
entered the Parana River, and after an uneventful voyage of six days,
passed the mouth of the River of Gold, and turned into the Paraguay.

Three hundred miles up the Higher Parana, a mighty stream flowing
from the northeast, which we here left to our right, are the Falls of
Yguasú. These falls have been seen by few white men. The land on each
side of the river is infested by the Bugres Indians, a tribe of
cannibals, of excessively ferocious nature. The Falls of Big Water
must be the largest in the world--and the writer is well acquainted
with Niagara.

The river, over two and a half miles wide, containing almost as much
water as all the rivers of Europe together, rushes between
perpendicular cliffs. With a current of forty miles an hour, and a
volume of water that cannot be less than a million tons a minute, the
mighty torrent rushes with indescribable fury against a rocky island,
which separates it into two branches, so that the total width is
about two miles and a half. The Brazilian arm of the river forms a
tremendous horseshoe here, and plunges with a deafening roar into the
abyss two hundred and thirteen feet below. The Argentine branch
spreads out in a sort of amphitheatre form, and finishes with one
grand leap into the jagged rocks, more than two hundred and twenty-
nine feet below, making the very earth vibrate, while spray, rising
in columns, is visible several miles distant.

"Below the island the two arms unite and flow on into the Parana
River. From the Brazilian bank the spectator, at a height of two
hundred and eighty feet, gazes out over two and a half miles of some
of the wildest and most fantastic water scenery he can ever hope to
see. Waters stream, seethe, leap, bound, froth and foam, 'throwing
the sweat of their agony high in the air, and, writhing, twisting,
screaming and moaning, bear off to the Parana.' Under the blue vault
of the sky, this sea of foam, of pearls, of iridescent dust, bathes
the great background in a shower of beauty that all the more adds to
the riot of tropical hues already there. When a high wind is blowing,
the roar of the cataract can be heard nearly twenty miles away. A
rough estimate of the horse-power represented by the falls is
fourteen million."

Proceeding up the Paraguay River, we arrived at Asuncion, the capital
of Paraguay, and anchored in a beautiful bay of the river, opposite
the city. As many necessary preparations had still to be made, the
expedition was detained in Asuncion for fifteen days, after which we
boarded the S.S. _Leda_, for the second stage of our journey.

Steaming up the Alto Paraguay, we passed the orange groves of that
sunny land on the right bank of the river, and on the left saw the
encampments of the Tobas Indians, The dwellings of these people are
only a few branches of trees stuck in the ground. Further on, we saw
the Chamococos Indians, a fine muscular race of men and women, who
cover their bronze-colored bodies with the oil of the alligator, and
think a covering half the size of a pocket-handkerchief quite
sufficient to hide their nakedness. As we stayed to take in wood, I
tried to photograph some of these, our brothers and sisters, but the
camera was nothing but an object of dread to them. One old woman,
with her long, black, oily hair streaming in the breeze, almost
withered me with her flashing eyes and barbarous language, until I
blushed as does a schoolboy when caught in the act of stealing
apples. Nevertheless, I got her photo.

The Pilcomayo, which empties its waters into the Paraguay, is one of
the most mysterious of rivers. Rising in Bolivia, its course can be
traced down for some considerable distance, when it loses itself in
the arid wastes, or, as some maintain, flows underground. Its source
and mouth are known, but for many miles of its passage it is
invisible. Numerous attempts to solve its secrets have been made.
They have almost invariably ended disastrously. The Spanish
traveller, Ibarete, set out with high hopes to travel along its
banks, but he and seventeen men perished in the attempt. Two half-
famished, prematurely-old, broken men were all that returned from the
unknown wilds. The Pilcomayo, which has proved itself the river of
death to so many brave men, remains to this day unexplored. The
Indians inhabiting these regions are savage in the extreme, and the
French explorer, Creveaux, found them inhuman enough to leave him and
most of his party to die of hunger. The Tobas and the Angaitaes
tribes are personally known to me, and I speak from experience when I
say that more cruel men I have never met. The Argentine Government,
after twenty years of warfare with them, was compelled, in 1900, to
withdraw the troops from their outposts and leave the savages in
undisputed possession. If the following was the type of civilization
offered them, then they are better left to themselves: "Two hundred
Indians who have been made prisoners are _compelled to be baptized_.
The ceremony takes place in the presence of the Governor and
officials of the district, and a great crowd of spectators. The
Indians kneel between two rows of soldiers, an officer with drawn
sword compels each in turn to open his mouth, into which a second
officer throws a handful of salt, amid general laughter at the wry
faces of the Indians. Then a Franciscan padre comes with a pail of
water and besprinkles the prisoners. They are then commanded to rise,
and each receives a piece of paper inscribed with his new name, a
scapulary, and--_a glass of rum_" [Footnote: Report of British and
Foreign Bible Society, 1900.] What countries these for missionary
enterprise!

After sailing for eighteen days up the river, we transhipped into a
smaller steamer going to Bolivia. Sailing up the bay, you pass, on
the south shore, a small Brazilian customs house, which consists of a
square roof of zinc, without walls, supported on four posts, standing
about two meters from the ground. A Brazilian, clothed only in his
black skin, came down the house ladder and stared at us as we passed.
The compliment was returned, although we had become somewhat
accustomed to that style of dress--or undress. A little farther up
the bay, a white stone shone out in the sunlight, marking the
Bolivian boundary, and giving the name of Piedra Blanca to the
village. This landmark is shaded by a giant tamarind tree, and
numerous barrel trees, or _palo boracho_, grow in the vicinity. In my
many wanderings in tropical America, I have seen numerous strange
trees, but these are extraordinarily so. The trunk comes out of the
ground with a small circumference, then gradually widens out to the
proportions of an enormous barrel, and at the top closes up to the
two-foot circumference again. Two branches, like giant arms spread
themselves out in a most weird-looking manner on the top of all.
About five leaves grow on each bough, and, instinctively, you
consider them the fingers of the arms.

It was only three leagues to the Bolivian town of Piedra Blanca, but
the "Bahia do Marengo" took three hours to steam the short distance,
for five times we had to stop on the way, owing to the bearings
becoming heated. These the Brazilian engineer cooled with pails of
water.

In the beautiful Bay of Caceres, much of which was grown over with
lotus and Victoria Regia, we finally anchored. This Bolivian village
is about eighteen days' sail up the river from Montevideo on the
seacoast.

Chartering the "General Pando," a steamer of 25 h.p. and 70 ft. long,
we there completed our preparations, and finally steamed away up the
Alto Paraguay, proudly flying the Bolivian flag of red, yellow, and
green. As a correct plan of the river had to be drawn, the steamer
only travelled by day, when we were able to admire the grandeur of
the scenery, which daily grew wilder as the mountains vied with each
other in lifting their rugged peaks toward heaven. From time to time
we passed one of the numerous islands the Paraguay is noted for.
These are clothed with such luxuriant vegetation that nothing less
than an army of men with axes could penetrate them. The land is one
great, wild, untidy, luxuriant hot-house, "built by nature for
herself." The puma, jaguar and wildcat are here at home, besides the
anaconda and boa constrictor, which grow to enormous lengths. The
Yaci Retá, or Island of the Moon, is the ideal haunt of the jaguar,
and as we passed it a pair of those royal beasts were playing on the
shore like two enormous cats. As they caught sight of us, one leapt
into the mangrove swamp, out of sight, and the other took a plunge
into the river, only to rise a few yards distant and receive an
explosive bullet in his head. The mangrove tree, with its twisting
limbs and bright green foliage, grows in the warm water and fœtid mud
of tropical countries. It is a type of death, for pestilence hangs
round it like a cloud. At early morning this cloud is a very visible
one. The peculiarity of the tree is that its hanging branches
themselves take root, and, nourished by such putrid exhalations, it
quickly spreads.

There were also many floating islands of fantastic shape, on which
birds rested in graceful pose. We saw the _garza blanca_, the aigrets
of which are esteemed by royalty and commoner alike, along with other
birds new and strange. To several on board who had looked for years
on nothing but the flat Argentine pampas, this change of scenery was
most exhilarating, and when one morning the sun rose behind the
"Golden Mountains," and illuminated peak after peak, the effect was
glorious. So startlingly grand were some of the colors that our
artist more than once said he dare not paint them, as the world would
think that his coloring was not true to nature.

Many were the strange sights we saw on the shore. Once we were amused
at the ludicrous spectacle of a large bird of the stork family, which
had built its nest in a tree almost overhanging the river. The nest
was a collection of reeds and feathers, having two holes in the
bottom, through which the legs of the bird were hanging. The feet,
suspended quite a yard below the nest, made one wonder how the bird
could rise from its sitting position.

Every sight the traveller sees, however, is not so amusing. As
darkness creeps over earth and sky, and the pale moonbeams shed a
fitful light, it is most pathetic to see on the shore the dead trunk
and limbs of a tree, in the branches of which has been constructed a
rude platform, on which some dark-minded Indian has reverently lifted
the dead body of his comrade. The night wind, stirring the dry bones
and whistling through the empty skull, makes weird music!

The banks of the stream had gradually come nearer and nearer to us,
and the great river, stretching one hundred and fifty miles in width
where it pours its volume of millions of tons of water into the sea
at Montevideo, was here a silver ribbon, not half a mile across.

Far be it from me to convey the idea that life in those latitudes is
Eden. The mosquitos and other insects almost drive one mad. The
country may truly be called a naturalists' paradise, for butterflies,
beetles, and creeping things are multitudinous, but the climate, with
its damp, sickly heat, is wholly unsuited to the Anglo-Saxon. Day
after day the sun in all his remorseless strength blazes upon the
earth, is if desirous of setting the whole world on fire. The
thermometer in the shade registered 110, 112 and 114 degrees
Fahrenheit, and on one or two memorable days 118 degrees. The heat in
our little saloon at times rose as high as 130 degrees, and the
perspiration poured down in streams on our almost naked bodies. We
seemed to be running right into the brazen sun itself.

One morning the man on the look-out descried deer on the starboard
bow, and arms were quickly brought out, ready for use. Our French
hunter was just taking aim when it struck me that the deer moved in a
strange way. I immediately asked him to desist. Those dark forms in
the long grass seemed, to my somewhat trained eyes, naked Indians,
and as we drew nearer to them so it proved, and the man was thankful
he had withheld his fire.

After steaming for some distance up the river several dug-outs,
filled with Guatos Indians, paddled alongside us. An early traveller
in those head-waters wrotes of these: "Some of the smaller tribes
were but a little removed from the wild brutes of their own jungles.
The lowest in the scale, perhaps, were the Guatos, who dwell to the
north of the Rio Apa. This tribe consisted of less than one hundred
persons, and they were as unapproachable as wild beasts. No other
person, Indian or foreigner, could ever come near but they would fly
and hide in impenetrable jungles. They had no written language of
their own, and lived like unreasoning animals, without laws or
religion."

The Guato Indian seems now to be a tame and inoffensive creature, but
well able to strike a bargain in the sale of his dug-out canoes,
home-made guitars and other curios. In the wrobbling canoe they are
very dexterous, as also in the use of their long bows and arrows; the
latter have points of sharpened bone. When hungry, they hunt or fish.
When thirsty, they drink from the river; and if they wish clothing,
wild cotton grows in abundance.

These Indians, living, as they do, along the banks of the river and
streams, have recently been frequently visited by the white man on
his passage along those natural highways. It is, therefore
superfluous for me to add that they are now correspondingly
demoralized. It is a most humiliating fact that just in proportion as
the paleface advances into lands hitherto given up to the Indian so
those races sink. This degeneration showed itself strikingly among
the Guatos in their inordinate desire for _cachaca_, or "firewater."
Although extremely cautious and wary in their exchanges to us,
refusing to barter a bow and arrows for a shirt, yet, for a bottle of
cachaca, they would gladly have given even one of their canoes. These
_ketchiveyos_, twenty or twenty-five feet long by about twenty inches
wide, they hollow from the trunk of the cedar, or _lapacho_ tree.
This is done with great labor and skill; yet, as I have said, they
were boisterously eager to exchange this week's work for that which
they knew would lead them to fight and kill one another.

As a mark of special favor, the chief invited me to their little
village, a few miles distant. Stepping into one of their canoes--a
large, very narrow boat, made of one tree-trunk hollowed out by fire--
I was quickly paddled by three naked Indians up a narrow creek,
which was almost covered with lotus. The savages, standing in the
canoe, worked the paddles with a grace and elegance which the
civilized man would fail to acquire, and the narrow craft shot
through the water at great speed. The chief sat in silence at the
stern. I occupied a palm-fibre mat spread for me amidships. The very
few words of Portuguese my companions spoke or understood rendered
conversation difficult, so the stillness was broken only by the
gentle splash of the paddles. On each side the dense forest seemed
absolutely impenetrable, but we at last arrived at an opening. As we
drew ashore I noticed that an Indian path led directly inland.

Leaving our dug-out moored with a fibre rope to a large mangrove
tree, we started to thread our way through the forest, and finally
reached a clearing. Here we came upon a crowd of almost naked and
extremely dejected-looking women. Many of these, catching sight of
me, sped into the jungle like frightened deer. The chief's wife,
however, at a word from him, received me kindly, and after accepting
a brass necklace with evident pleasure, showed herself very affable.
Poor lost Guatos! Their dejected countenances, miserable grass huts,
alive with vermin, and their extreme poverty, were most touching.
Inhabiting, as they do, one of the hottest and dampest places on the
earth's surface, where mosquitos are numberless, the wonder is that
they exist at all. Truly, man is a strange being, who can adapt
himself to equatorial heat or polar frigidity. The Guatos' chief
business in life seemed to consist in sitting on fibre mats spread on
the ground, and driving away the bloodthirsty mosquitos from their
bare backs. For this they use a fan of their own manufacture, made
from wild cotton, which there seems to abound. Writing of mosquitos,
let me say these Indian specimens were a terror to us all. What
numbers we killed! I could write this account in their blood. It was
_my_ blood, though--before they got it! Men who hunt the tiger in
cool bravery boiled with indignation before these awful pests, which
stabbed and stung with marvellous persistency, and disturbed
 the solitude of nature with their incessant humming. I write the
word _incessant_ advisedly, for I learned that there are several
kinds of mosquitos. Some work by day and others by night. Naturalists
tell us that only the female mosquito bites. Did they take a
particular liking to us because we were all males?

Some of the Indians paint their naked bodies in squares, generally
with red and black pigment. Their huts were in some cases large, but
very poorly constructed. When any members of the tribe are taken sick
they are supposed to be "possessed" by a stronger evil power, and the
sickness is "starved out." When the malady flies away the life
generally accompanies it. The dead are buried under the earth inside
the huts, and in some of the dwellings graves are quite numerous.
This custom of interior burial has probably been adopted because the
wild animals of the forest would otherwise eat the corpse. Horrible
to relate, their own half-wild dogs sometimes devour the dead, though
an older member of the tribe is generally left home to mount guard.

Seeing by the numerous gourds scattered around that they were
drinking _chicha_, I solicited some, being anxious to taste the
beverage which had been used so many centuries before by the old
Incas. The wife of the chief immediately tore off a branch of the
feather palm growing beside her, and, certainly within a minute, made
a basket, into which she placed a small gourd. Going to the other
side of the clearing, she commenced, with the agility of a monkey, to
ascend a long sapling which had been laid in a slanting position
against a tall palm tree. The long, graceful leaves of this cabbage
palm had been torn open, and the heart thus left to ferment. From the
hollow cabbage the woman filled the gourd, and lowered it to me by a
fibre rope. The liquid I found to be thick and milky, and the taste
not unlike cider.

Prescott tells us that Atahuallpa, the Peruvian monarch, came to see
the conqueror, Pizarro, "quaffing chicha from golden goblets borne by
his attendants." [Footnote: Este Embajador traia servicio de Senor, i
cinco o seis Vasos de Oro fino, con que bebia, i con ellos daba a
beber a los Espanoles de la chicha que traia."--Xerez.] Golden
goblets did not mean much to King Atahuallpa, however, for his palace
of five hundred different apartments is said to have been tiled with
beaten gold.

In these Guato Indians I observed a marked difference to any others I
had visited, in that they permitted the hair to grow on their faces.
The chief was of quite patriarchal aspect, with full beard and mild,
intelligent-looking eyes. The savages inhabiting the Chaco consider
this custom extremely "dirty."

Before leaving these people I procured some of their bows and arrows,
and also several cleverly woven palm mats and cotton fans.

Some liquor our cook gave away had been taken out by the braves to
their women in another encampment. These spirits had so inflamed the
otherwise retiring, modest females that they, with the men, returned
to the steamer, clamoring for more. All the stores, along with some
liquors we carried, were under my care, and I kept them securely
locked up, but in my absence at the Indian camp the store-room had
been broken open, and our men and the Indians--men and women--had
drunk long and deep. A scene like Bedlam, or Dante's "Inferno," was
taking place when I returned. Willing as they were to listen to my
counsel and admit that I was certainly a great white teacher, with
superior wisdom, on this love for liquor and its debasing
consequences they would hear no words. The women and girls, like the
men, would clamor for the raw alcohol, and gulp it down in long
draughts. When ardent spirits are more sought after by women and
girls than are beads and looking-glasses it surely shows a terribly
depraved taste. Even the chattering monkeys in the trees overhead
would spurn the poison and eagerly clutch the bright trinket. Perhaps
the looking-glasses I gave the poor females would, after the orgies
were over, serve to show them that their beauty was not increased by
this beastly carousal, and thus be a means of blessing. It may be
asked, Can the savage be possessed of pride and of self-esteem? I
unhesitatingly answer yes, as I have had abundant opportunity of
seeing. They will strut with peacock pride when wearing a specially
gaudy-colored headdress, although that may be their only article of
attire.

Having on board far more salt than we ourselves needed, I was enabled
to generously distribute much of that invaluable commodity among
them. That also, working in a different way, might be a means of
restoring them to a normal soundness of mind after we left.

Poor lost creatures! For this draught of the white man's poison, far
more terrible to them than the deadly nightshade of their forests,
more dangerous than the venom of the loathsome serpent gliding across
their path, they are willing to sell body or soul. Soul, did I say?
They have never heard of that. To them, so far as I could ascertain,
a future life is unknown. The explorer has penetrated some little way
into their dark forests in search of rubber, or anything else which
it would pay to exploit, but the missionary of the Cross has never
sought to illumine their darker minds. They live their little day and
go out into the unknown unconscious of the fact that One called
Jesus, who was the Incarnate God, died to redeem them. As a
traveller, I have often wondered why men should be willing to pay me
hundreds of dollars to explore those regions for ultimate worldly
gain, and none should ever offer to employ me in proclaiming the
greatest wonder of all the ages--the story of Calvary--for eternal
gain. After all, are the Indians more blind to the future than we
are? Yet, strange to say, we profess to believe in the teachings of
that One who inculcated the practice of laying up treasure in heaven,
while they have not even heard His name. For love of gain men have
been willing to accompany me through the most deadly fever-breeding
morass, or to brave the poisoned arrows of the lynx-eyed Indian, but
few have ever offered to go and tell of Him whom they profess to
serve.

The suffocating atmosphere quite precluded the idea of writing, for a
pen, dipped in ink, would dry before reaching the paper, and the
latter be saturated with perspiration in a few seconds; so these
observations were penned later. So far as I could ascertain, the
Romish Church has never touched the Guatos, and, notwithstanding all
I have said about them, I unhesitatingly affirm that it is better so.
Geo. R. Witte, missionary to Brazil, says: "With one exception, all
the priests with whom I came in contact (when on a journey through
Northern Brazil) were immoral, drunken, and ignorant. The tribes who
have come under priestly care are decidedly inferior in morals,
industry, and order to the tribes who refuse to have anything to do
with the whites. The Charentes and Apinages have been, for years,
under the care of Catholic friars--this is the way I found them: both
men and women walk about naked."

"We heard not one contradiction of the general testimony that the
people who were not under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church
as it is in S. America were better morally than those who were."
[Footnote: Robert E. Speer, "Missions in South America."]

In Christendom organs peal out the anthems of Divine love, and well-
dressed worshippers chant in harmonious unison, "Lord, incline our
hearts to keep Thy law." That law says: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself." To the question: "Who is my neighbor?" the Divine voice
answers: "A certain man." May he not be one of these neglected
Indians?




CHAPTER VI.

ARRIVAL AT THE LAKE.

  "It sleeps among a hundred hills
   Where no man ever trod,
  And only Nature's music fills
   The silences of God."


After going about two thousand three hundred miles up this serpentine
river, we discovered the entrance to the lake. Many had been the
conjectures and counsels of would-be advisers when we started. Some
said that there was no entrance to the lake from the river; others,
that there was not sufficient depth of water for the steamer to pass
through. On our port bow rose frowning rocks of forbidding aspect.
Drawing nearer, we noticed, with mingled feelings of curiosity and
wonder, that the face of these rocks was rudely carved by unmistakably
Indian art. There were portrayed a rising sun, tigers' feet, birds'
feet, etc. Why were they thus carved? Are those rocks the everlasting
recorders of some old history--some deed of Indian daring in days of
old? What these hieroglyphics signify we may never know; the workman
is gone, and his stone hammer is buried with him. To twentieth century
civilization his carving tells nothing. No Indians inhabit the shores
of the lake now, perhaps because of this "writing on the wall."

With the leadsman in his place we slowly and cautiously entered the
unexplored lake, and thus for the first time in the world's history
its waters were ploughed by a steamer's keel.

Soon after our arrival the different guards were told off for the
silent watches. Night shut in upon the lake, and all nature slept.
The only lights on shore were those of the fire-flies as they danced
through the myrtle boughs. The stars in the heavens twinkled above
us. Now and again an alligator thrust his huge, ugly nose out of the
water and yawned, thus disturbing for the moment its placid surface,
which the pale moon illuminated with an ethereal light; otherwise
stillness reigned, or, rather, a calm mysterious peace which was deep
and profound. Somehow, the feeling crept upon us that we had become
detached from the world, though yet we lived. Afterwards, when the
tigers [Footnote: Jaguars are invariably called tigers in South
America.] on shore had scented our presence, sleep was often broken
by angry roars coming from the beach, near which we lay at anchor;
but before dawn our noisy visitors always departed, leaving only
their footprints. Early next morning, while the green moon was still
shining (the color of this heavenly orb perplexed us, it was a pure
bottle green), each one arose to his work. This was no pleasure
excursion, and duties, many and arduous, lay before the explorers.
The hunter sallied forth with his gun, and returned laden with
pheasant and mountain hen, and over his shoulder a fine duck, which,
unfortunately, however, had already begun to smell--the heat was so
intense. In his wanderings he had come upon a huge tapir, half eaten
by a tiger, and saw footprints of that lord of the forest in all
directions.

Let me here say, that to our hunter we were indebted for many a good
dish, and when not after game he lured from the depths of the lake
many a fine perch or turbot. Fishing is an art in which I am not very
skilled, but one evening I borrowed his line. After a few moments'
waiting I had a "bite," and commenced to haul in my catch, which
struggled, kicked, and pulled until I shouted for help. My fish was
one of our Paraguayan sailors, who for sport had slipped down into
the water on the other side of the steamer, and, diving to my cord,
had grasped it with both hands. Not every fisher catches a man!

Lake Gaiba is a stretch of water ten miles long, with a narrow mouth
opening into the River Paraguay. The lake is surrounded by mountains,
clad in luxuriant verdure on the Bolivian side, and standing out in
bare, rugged lines on the Brazilian side. The boundary of the two
countries cuts the water into two unequal halves. The most prominent
of the mountains are now marked upon the exhaustive chart drawn out.
Their christening has been a tardy one, for who can tell what ages
have passed since they first came into being? Looking at Mount Ray,
the highest of these peaks, at sunset, the eye is startled by the
strange hues and rich tints there reflected. Frequently we asked
ourselves: "Is that the sun's radiance, or are those rocks the fabled
'Cliffs of Opal' men have searched for in vain?" We often sat in a
wonder of delight gazing at the scene, until the sun sank out of
sight, taking the "opal cliffs" with it, and leaving us only with the
dream.

On the shores of the lake the beach is covered with golden sand and
studded with innumerable little stones, clear as crystal, which
scintillate with all the colors of the rainbow. Among these pebbles I
found several arrowheads of jasper. In other parts the primeval
forest creeps down to the very margin, and the tree-roots bathe in
the warm waters. Looking across the quivering heat-haze, the eye
rests upon palms of many varieties, and giant trees covered with
orchids and parasites, the sight of which would completely intoxicate
the horticulturist. Butterflies, gorgeous in all the colors of the
rainbow, flit from flower to flower; and monkeys, with curiously
human faces, stare at the stranger from the tree-tops. White cotton
trees, tamarinds, and strangely shaped fruits grow everywhere, and
round about all are entwined festoons of trailing creepers, or the
loveliest of _scarlet_ mistletoe, in which humming-birds build their
nests. Blue macaws, parrots, and a thousand other birds fly to and
fro, and the black fire-bird darts across the sky, making lightning
with every flutter of his wings, which, underneath, are painted a
bright, vivid red. Serpents of all colors and sizes creep silently in
the undergrowth, or hang from the branches of the trees, their
emerald eyes ever on the alert; and the broad-winged eagle soars
above all, conscious of his majesty.

Here and there the coast is broken by silent streams flowing into the
lake from the unexplored regions beyond. These _riachos_ are covered
with lotus leaves and flowers, and also the Victoria Regia in all its
gorgeous beauty. Papyrusa, reeds and aquatic plants of all
descriptions grow on the banks of the streams, making a home for the
white stork or whiter _garza_. Looking into the clear warm waters you
see little golden and red fishes, and on the bed of the stream shells
of pearl.

On the south side of the Gaiba, at the foot of the mountains, the
beach slopes gently down, and is covered with golden sand, in which
crystals sparkle as though set in fine gold by some cunning workman.
A Workman, yes--but not of earth, for nature is here untouched,
unspoilt as yet by man, and the traveller can look right away from it
to its Creator.

During our stay in these regions the courses of several of the larger
streams were traced for some distance. On the Brazilian side there
was a river up which we steamed. Not being acquainted with the
channel, we had the misfortune to stick for two days on a tosca reef,
which extended a distance of sixty-five feet. [Footnote: The finding
of tosca at this point confirms the extent inland of the ancient
Pampean sea.--Colonel Church, in "Proceedings of the Royal
Geographical Society," January, 1902.] During this time, a curious
phenomenon presented itself to our notice. In one day we clearly saw
the river flow for six hours to the north-west, and for another six
hours to the south-east. This, of course, proved to us that the
river's course depends on the wind.

On the bank, right in front of where we lay, was a gnarled old tree,
which seemed to be the home, or parliament house, of all the
paroquets in the neighborhood. Scores of them kept up an incessant
chatter the whole time. In the tree were two or three hanging nests,
looking like large sacks suspended from the boughs. Ten or twenty
birds lay in the same nest, and you might find in them, at the one
time, eggs just laid, birds recently hatched, and others ready to
fly. Sitting and rearing go on concurrently. I procured a tame pair
of this lovely breed of paroquets from the Guatos. Their prevailing
color was emerald green, while the wings and tail were made up of
tints of orange, scarlet, and blue, and around the back of the bird
was a golden sheen rarely found even in equatorial specimens. Whether
the bird is known to ornithologists or not I cannot tell. One night
our camp was pitched near an anthill, inhabited by innumerable
millions of those insects. None of us slept well, for, although our
hammocks were slung, as we thought, away from them, they troubled us
much. What was my horror next morning when the sun, instead of
lighting up the rainbow tints of my birds, showed only a black moving
mass of ants! My parrots had literally been eaten alive by them!

But I am wandering on and the ship is still aground on the reef!
After much hauling and pulling and breaking of cables, she at last
was got off into deep water. We had not proceeded far, however, when
another shock made the vessel quiver. Were we aground again? No, the
steamer had simply pushed a lazy alligator out of its way, and he
resented the insult by a diabolical scowl at us.

Continuing on our way, we entered another body of hitherto unexplored
water, a fairy spot, covered with floating islands of lotus, anchored
with aquatic cables and surrounded by palm groves. On the shallow,
pebbly shore might be seen, here and there, scarlet flamingoes. These
beautiful birds stood on one leg, knee deep, dreaming of their
enchanted home. Truly it is a perfect paradise, but it is almost as
inaccessible as the Paradise which we all seek. What long-lost
civilizations have ruled these now deserted solitudes? Penetrate into
the dark, dank forest, as I have done, and ask the question. The only
answer is the howling of the monkeys and the screaming of the
cockatoos. You may start when you distinctly hear a bell tolling, but
it is no call to worship in some stately old Inca temple with its
golden sun and silver moon as deities. It is the wonderful bell-bird,
which can make itself heard three miles away, but it is found only
where man is not. Ruins of the old Incan and older pre-Incan
civilizations are come across, covered now with dense jungle, but
their builders have disappeared. To have left behind them until this
day ruins which rank with the pyramids for extent, and Karnak for
grandeur, proves their intelligence.

The peculiar rasping noise you now hear in the undergrowth has
nothing to do with busy civilization--'tis only the rattlesnake
drawing his slimy length among the dead leaves or tangled reeds. No,
all that is past, and this is an old new world indeed, and romance
must not rob you of self possession, for the rattle means that in the
encounter either he dies--or you.

Meanwhile the work on shore progressed. Paths were cut in different
directions and the wonders of nature laid bare. The ring of the axe
and the sound of falling trees marked the commencement of
civilization in those far-off regions. Ever and anon a loud report
rang out from the woods, for it might almost be said that the men
worked with the axe in one hand and a rifle in the other. Once they
started a giant tapir taking his afternoon snooze. The beast lazily
got up and made off, but not before he had turned his piercing eyes
on the intruders, as though wondering what new animals they were.
Surely this was his first sight of the "lords of creation," and
probably his last, for a bullet quickly whizzed after him. Another
day the men shot a puma searching for its prey, and numerous were the
birds, beasts and reptiles that fell before our arms. The very
venomous _jaracucú_, a snake eight to twelve feet long, having a
double row of teeth in each jaw, is quite common here.

The forests are full of birds and beasts in infinite variety, as also
of those creatures which seem neither bird nor beast. There are large
black howling monkeys, and little black-faced ones with prehensile
tails, by means of which they swing in mid-air or jump from tree to
tree in sheer lightness of heart. There is also the sloth, which, as
its name implies, is painfully deliberate in its motions. Were I a
Scotchman I should say that "I dinna think that in a' nature there is
a mair curiouser cratur." Sidney Smith's summary of this strange
animal is that it moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps suspended,
and passes its whole life in suspense. This latter state may also
aptly describe the condition of the traveller in those regions; for
man, brave though he may be, does not relish a _vis-á-vis_ with the
enormous anaconda, also to be seen there at most inconvenient times.
I was able to procure the skins of two of these giant serpents.

The leader of the "forest gang," a Paraguayan, wore round his neck a
cotton scapular bought from the priest before he started on the
expedition. This was supposed to save him from all dangers, seen and
unseen. Poor man, he was a good Roman Catholic, and often counted his
beads, but he was an inveterate liar and thief.

Taking into consideration the wild country, and the adventurous
mission which had brought us together, our men were not at all a bad
class. One of them, however, a black Brazilian, used to boast at
times that _he had killed his father while he slept._ In the quiet of
the evening hour he would relate the story with unnatural gusto.

We generally slept on the deck of the steamer, each under a thin
netting, while the millions of mosquitos buzzed outside--and inside
when they could steal a march. Mosquitos? Why _"mosquitos á la
Paris"_ was one of the items on our menu one day. The course was not
altogether an imaginary one either. Having the good fortune to
possess candles, I used sometimes to read under my gauzy canopy. This
would soon become so black with insects of all descriptions as to
shut out from my sight the outside world.

After carefully surveying the Bolivian shore, we fixed upon a site
for the future port and town. [Footnote: The latitude of Port
Quijarro is 17° 47' 35", and the longitude, west of Greenwich, 57°
44' 38". Height above the sea, 558 feet.] Planting a hugh palm in the
ground, with a long bamboo nailed to the crown, we then solemnly
unfurled the Bolivian flag. This had been made expressly for the
expedition by the hands of Señora Quijarro, wife of the Bolivian
minister residing in Buenos Ayres. As the sun for the first time
shone upon the brilliant colors of the flag, nature's stillness was
broken by a good old English hurrah, while the hunter and several
others discharged their arms in the air, until the parrots and
monkeys in the neighborhood must have wondered (or is wondering only
reserved for civilized man?) what new thing had come to pass. There
we, a small company of men in nature's solitudes, each signed his
name to the _Act of Foundation_ of a town, which in all probability
will mean a new era for Bolivia. We fully demonstrated the fact that
Puerto Quijarro will be an ideal port, through which the whole
commerce of south-eastern Bolivia can to advantage pass.

Next day the Secretary drew out four copies of this _Act_. One was
for His Excellency General Pando, President of the Bolivian Republic;
another for the Mayor of Holy Cross, the nearest Bolivian town, 350
miles distant; a third for Señor Quijarro; while the fourth was
enclosed in a stone bottle and buried at the foot of the flagstaff,
there to await the erection of the first building. Thus a
commencement has been made; the lake and shores are now explored. The
work has been thoroughly done, and the sweat of the brow was not
stinted, for the birds of the air hovered around the theodolite, even
on the top of the highest adjacent mountain. [Footnote: The opening
of the country must, from its geographical situation, be productive
of political consequences of the first magnitude to South America.--
Report of the Royal Geographical Society, January, 1902.]

At last, this work over and an exhaustive chart of the lake drawn up,
tools and tents collected, specimens of soil, stones, iron, etc.,
packed and labelled, we prepared for departure.

The weather had been exceptionally warm and we had all suffered much
from the sun's vertical rays, but towards the end of our stay the
heat was sweltering--killing! The sun was not confined to one spot in
the heavens, as in more temperate climes; here he filled all the sky,
and he scorched us pitilessly! Only at early morning, when the
eastern sky blushed with warm gold and rose tints, or at even, when
the great liquid ball of fire dropped behind the distant violet-
colored hills, could you locate him. Does the Indian worship this
awful majesty out of fear, as the Chinaman worships the devil?

Next morning dawned still and portentous. Not a zephyr breeze stirred
the leaves of the trees. The sweltering heat turned to a suffocating
one. As the morning dragged on we found it more and more difficult to
breathe; there seemed to be nothing to inflate our lungs. By
afternoon we stared helplessly at each other and gasped as we lay
simmering on the deck. Were we to be asphyxiated there after all? I
had known as many as two hundred a day to die in one South American
city from this cause. Surely mortal men never went through such
awful, airless heat as this and lived. We had been permitted to
discover the lake, and if the world heard of our death, would that
flippant remark be used again, as with previous explorers, "To make
omelettes eggs must be broken"?

However, we were not to _melt_. Towards evening the barometer, which
had been falling all day, went lower and lower. All creation was
still. Not a sound broke the awful quiet; only in our ears there
seemed to be an unnatural singing which was painful, and we closed
our eyes in weariness, for the sun seemed to have blistered the very
eyeballs. When we mustered up sufficient energy to turn our aching
eyes to the heavens, we saw black storm-clouds piling themselves one
above another, and hope, which "springs eternal in the human breast,"
saw in them our hope, our salvation.

The fall of the barometer, and the howling of the monkeys on shore
also, warned us of the approaching tempest, so we prepared for
emergencies by securing the vessel fore and aft under the lee of a
rugged _sierra_ before the storm broke--and break it did in all its
might.

Suddenly the wind swept down upon us with irresistible fury, and we
breathed--we lived again. So terrific was the sweep that giant trees,
which had braved a century's storms, fell to the earth with a crash.
The hurricane was truly fearful. Soon the waters of the lake were
lashed into foam. Great drops of rain fell in blinding torrents, and
every fresh roll of thunder seemed to make the mountains tremble,
while the lightning cleft asunder giant trees at one mighty stroke.


[Illustration: VICTORIA REGIA, THE WORLD'S LARGEST FLOWER]


In the old legends of the Inca, read on the "Quipus," we find that
Pachacamac and Viracocha, the highest gods, placed in the heavens
"Nusta," a royal princess, armed with a pitcher of water, which she
was to pour over the earth whenever it was needed. When the rain was
accompanied by thunder, lightning, and wind, the Indians believed
that the maiden's royal brother was teasing her, and trying to wrest
the pitcher from her hand. Nusta must indeed have been fearfully
teased that night, for the lightning of her eyes shot athwart the
heavens and the sky was rent in flame.

Often in those latitudes no rain falls for long months, but when once
the clouds open the earth is deluged! Weeks pass, and the zephyr
breezes scarcely move the leaves of the trees, but in those days of
calm the wind stores up his forces for a mighty storm. On this dark,
fearful night he blew his fiercest blasts. The wild beast was
affrighted from his lair and rushed down with a moan, or the mountain
eagle screamed out a wail, indistinctly heard through the moaning
sounds. During the whole night, which was black as wickedness, the
wind howled in mournful cadence, or went sobbing along the sand. As
the hours wore on we seemed to hear, in every shriek of the blast,
the strange tongue of some long-departed Indian brave, wailing for
his happy hunting-grounds, now invaded by the paleface. Coats and
rugs, that had not for many months been unpacked, were brought out,
only in some cases to be blown from us, for the wind seemed to try
his hardest to impede our departure. The rain soaked us through and
through. Mists rose from the earth, and mists came down from above.
Next morning the whole face of nature was changed.

After the violence of the tempest abated we cast off the ropes and
turned the prow of our little vessel civilizationward. When we
entered the lake the great golden sun gave us a warm welcome, now, at
our farewell, he refused to shine. The rainy season had commenced,
but, fortunately for us, after the work of exploration was done. This
weather continued--day after day clouds and rain. Down the rugged,
time-worn face of the mountains foaming streams rushed and poured,
and this was our last view--a good-bye of copious tears! Thus we saw
the lake in sunshine and storm, in light and darkness. It had been
our aim and ambition to reach it, and we rejoiced in its discovery.
Remembering that "we were the first who ever burst into that silent
sea," we seemed to form part of it, and its varying moods only
endeared it to us the more. In mining parlance, we had staked out our
claims there, for--

  "O'er no sweeter lake shall morning break,
   Or noon cloud sail;
  No fairer face than this shall take
   The sunset's golden veil."




CHAPTER VII.

_PIEDRA BLANCA_.


In due time we again reached Piedra Blanca, and, notwithstanding our
ragged, thorn-torn garments, felt we were once more joined on to the
world.

The bubonic plague had broken out farther down the country,
steamboats were at a standstill, so we had to wait a passage down the
river. Piedra Blanca is an interesting little spot. One evening a
tired mule brought in the postman from the next town, Holy Joseph. He
had been eight days on the journey. Another evening a string of dusty
mules arrived, bringing loads of rubber and cocoa. They had been five
months on the way.

When the Chiquitana women go down to the bay for water, with their
pitchers poised on their heads, the sight is very picturesque.
Sometimes a little boy will step into one of the giant, traylike
leaves of the Victoria Regia, which, thus transformed into a fairy
boat, he will paddle about the quiet bay.

The village is built on the edge of the virgin forest, where the red
man, with his stone hatchet, wanders in wild freedom. It contains,
perhaps, a hundred inhabitants, chiefly civilized Chiquitanos
Indians. There is here a customs house, and a regular trade in
rubber, which is brought in from the interior on mule-back, a journey
which often takes from three to four months.

One evening during our stay two men were forcibly brought into the
village, having been caught in the act of killing a cow which they
had stolen. These men were immediately thrown into the prison, a
small, dark, palm-built hut. Next morning, ere the sun arose, their
feet were thrust into the stocks, and a man armed with a long hide
whip thrashed them until the blood flowed in streamlets down their
bare backs! What struck us as being delicately thoughtful was that
while the whipping proceeded another official tried his best to drown
their piercing shrieks by blowing an old trumpet at its highest
pitch!

The women, although boasting only one loose white garment, walk with
the air and grace of queens, or as though pure Inca blood ran in
their veins. Their only adornment is a necklace of red corals and a
few inches of red or blue ribbon entwined in their long raven-black
hair, which hangs down to the waist in two plaits. Their houses are
palm-walled, with a roof of palm-leaves, through which the rain pours
and the sun shines. Their chairs are logs of wood, and their beds are
string hammocks. Their wants are few, as there are no electric-
lighted store windows to tempt them. Let us leave them in their
primitive simplicity. Their little, delicately-shaped feet are
prettier without shoes and stockings, and their plaited hair without
Parisian hats and European tinsel. They neither read nor write, and
therefore cannot discuss politics. Women's rights they have never
heard of. Their bright-eyed, naked little children play in the mud or
dust round the house, and the sun turns their already bronze-colored
bodies into a darker tint; but the Chiquitana woman has never seen a
white baby, and knows nothing of its beauty, so is more than
satisfied with her own. The Indian child does not suffer from
teething, for all have a small wooden image tied round the neck, and
the little one, because of this, is supposed to be saved from all
baby ailments! Their husbands and sons leave them for months while
they go into the interior for rubber or cocoa, and when one comes
back, riding on his bullock or mule, he is affectionately but
silently received. The Chiquitano seldom speaks, and in this respect
he is utterly unlike the Brazilian. The women differ from our mothers
and sisters and wives, for they (the Chiquitanas) have nothing to
say. After all, ours are best, and a headache is often preferable to
companioning with the dumb. I unhesitatingly say, give me the music,
even if I have to suffer the consequences.

The waiting-time was employed by our hunter in his favorite sport.
One day he shot a huge alligator which was disporting itself in the
water some five hundred yards from the shore. Taking a strong rope,
we went out in an Indian dug-out to tow it to land. As my friend was
the more dexterous in the use of the paddle, he managed the canoe,
and I, with much difficulty, fixed the rope by a noose to the
monster's tail. When the towing, however, commenced, the beast seemed
to regain his life. He dived and struggled for freedom until the
water was lashed into foam. He thrust his mighty head out of the
water and opened his jaws as though warning us he could crush the
frail dug-out with one snap. Being anxious to obtain his hide, and
momentarily expecting his death, for he was mortally wounded, I held
on to the rope with grim persistency. He dived under the boat and
lifted it high, but as his ugly nose came out on the other side the
canoe regained its position in the water. He then commenced to tow
us, but, refusing to obey the helm, took us to all points of the
compass. After an exciting cruise the alligator gave a deep dive and
the rope broke, giving him his liberty again. On leaving us he gave
what Waterton describes as "a long-suppressed, shuddering sigh, so
loud and so peculiar that it can be heard a mile." The bullet had
entered the alligator's head, but next morning we saw he was still
alive and able to "paddle his own canoe." The reader may be surprised
to learn that these repulsive reptiles lay an egg with a pure white
shell, fair to look upon, and that the egg is no larger than a hen's.

One day I was called to see a dead man for whom a kind of wake was
being held. He was lying in state in a grass-built hovel, and raised
up from the mud floor on two packing-cases of suspiciously British
origin. His hard Indian face was softened in death, but the observant
eye could trace a stoical resignation in the features. Several men
and women were sitting around the corpse counting their beads and
drinking native spirits, with a dim, hazy belief that that was the
right thing to do. They had given up their own heathen customs, and,
being civilized, must, of course, be Roman Catholics. They were
"reduced," as Holy Mother Church calls it, long ago, and, of course,
believe that civilization and Roman Catholicism are synonymous terms.
Poor souls! How they stared and wondered when they that morning heard
for the first time the story of Jesus, who tasted death for us that
we might live. To those in the home lands this is an old story, but
do they who preach it or listen to it realize that to millions it is
still the newest thing under the sun?

Next day the man was quietly carried away to the little forest
clearing reserved for the departed, where a few wooden crosses lift
their heads among the tangled growth. Some of these crosses have four
rudely carved letters on them, which you decipher as I. N. R. I. The
Indian cannot tell you their meaning, but he knows they have
something to do with his new religion.

As far as I could ascertain, the departed had no relatives. One after
another had been taken from him, and now he had gone, for "when he is
forsaken, withered and shaken, what can an old man do but die?"--it
is the end of all flesh. Poor man! Had he been able to retain even a
spark of life until Holy Week, he might then have been saved from
purgatory. Rome teaches that on two days in the year--Holy Thursday
and Corpus Christi--the gates of heaven are unguarded, because, they
say, _God is dead_. All people who die on those days go straight to
heaven, however bad they may have been! At no other time is that gate
open, and every soul must pass through the torments of purgatory.

A missionary in Oruru wrote: "The Thursday and Friday of so-called
Holy Week, when Christ's image lay in a coffin and was carried
through the streets, _God being dead_, was the time for robberies,
and some one came to steal from us, but only got about fifty dollars'
worth of building material. Holy Week terminates with the 'Saturday
of Glory,' when spirits are drunk till there is not a dram left in
the drink-shops, which frequently bear such names as 'The Saviour of
the World,' 'The Grace of God,' 'The Fountain of Our Lady,' etc. The
poor deluded Romanists have a holiday on that day over the tragic end
of Judas. A life-size representation of the betrayer is suspended
high in the air in front of the cafés. At ten a.m. the church bells
begin to ring, and this is the signal for lighting the fuse. Then,
with a flash and a bang, every vestige of the effigy has disappeared!
At night, if the town is large enough to afford a theatre, the crowds
wend their way thither. This place of very questionable amusement
will often bear the high-sounding name, _Theatre of the Holy Ghost!_"

There is no church or priest in the village of Piedra Blanca. Down on
the beach there is a church bell, which the visitor concludes is a
start in that direction, but he is told that it is destined for the
town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, three hundred miles inland. The bell
was a present to the church by some pious devotee, but the money
donated did not provide for its removal inland. This cost the priests
refuse to pay, and the Chiquitanos equally refuse to transport it
free. There is no resident priest to make them, so there it stays. In
the meantime the bell is slung up on three poles. It was solemnly
beaten with a stick on Christmas Eve to commemorate the time when the
"Mother of Heaven" gave birth to her child Jesus. In one of the
principal houses of the village the scene was most vividly
reproduced. A small arbor was screened off by palm leaves, in which
were hung little colored candles. Angels of paper were suspended from
the roof, that they might appear to be bending over the Virgin, which
was a highly-colored fashion-plate cut from a Parisian journal that
somehow had found its way there. The child Jesus appeared to be a
Mellin's Food-fed infant. Round this fairy scene the youth and beauty
of the place danced and drank liberal potations of chicha, the
Bolivian spirits, until far on into morning, when all retired to
their hammocks to dream of their goddess and her lovely babe.

After this paper Virgin the next most prominent object of worship I
saw in Piedra Blanca was a saint with a dress of vegetable fibre,
long hair that had once adorned a horse's tail, and eyes of pieces of
clamshell.

Poor, dark Bolivia! It would be almost an impossible thing to
exaggerate the low state of religion there. A communication from
Sucre reads: "The owners of images of Jesus as a child have been
getting masses said for their figures. A band of music is employed,
and from the church to the house a procession is formed. A scene of
intoxication follows, which only ends when a good number lie drunk
before the image--the greater the number the greater the honor to the
image?" The peddler of chicha carries around a large stone jar, about
a yard in depth. The payment for every drink sold is dropped into the
jar of liquor, so the last customers get the most "tasty" decoction.

Naturally the masses like a religion of license, and are as eager as
the priests to uphold it. Read a tale of the persecution of a
nineteenth century missionary there. Mr. Payne in graphic language
tells the story:

"Excommunication was issued. To attend a meeting was special sin, and
only pardoned by going on the knees to the bishop. Sermons against us
were preached in all the churches. I was accused before the Criminal
Court. It was said I carried with me the 'special presence' of the
devil, and had blasphemed the Blessed Virgin, and everyone passing
should say: 'Maria, Joseph.' One day a crowd collected, and
sacristans mixed with the multitude, urging them on to 'vengeance on
the Protestants.' About two p.m. we heard the roar of furious
thousands, and like a river let loose they rushed down on our house.
Paving-stones were quickly torn up, and before the police arrived
windows and doors were smashed, and about a thousand voices were
crying for blood. We cried to the Lord, not expecting to live much
longer. The Chief of Police and his men were swept away before the
mob, and now the door burst in before the huge stones and force used.
There were two parties, one for murder and one for robbery. I was
beaten and dragged about, while the cry went up, 'Death to the
Protestant!' The fire was blazing outside, as they had lots of
kerosene, and with all the forms, chairs, texts, clothes and books
the street was a veritable bonfire. Everything they could lay hands
on was taken. At this moment the cry arose that the soldiers were
coming, and a cavalry regiment charged down the street, carrying fear
into the hearts of the people. A second charge cleared the street,
and several soldiers rode into the _patio_ slashing with their
swords."

In this riot the missionary had goods to the value of one thousand
dollars burnt, and was himself hauled before the magistrates and,
after a lengthy trial, condemned to _die_ for heresy!

Baronius, a Roman Catholic writer, says: "The ministry of Peter is
twofold--to feed and to kill; for the Lord said, 'Feed My sheep,' and
he also heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Kill and eat.'" Bellarmine
argues for the necessity of _burning_ heretics. He says: "Experience
teaches that there is no other remedy, for the Church has proceeded
by slow steps, and tried all remedies. First, she only
excommunicated. Then she added a fine of money, and afterwards exile.
Lastly she was compelled to come to the punishment of death. If you
threaten a fine of money, they neither fear God nor regard men,
knowing that fools will not be wanting to believe in them, and by
whom they may be sustained. If you shut them in prison, or send them
into exile, they corrupt those near to them with their words, and
those at a distance with their books. Therefore, the only remedy is
to send them betimes into their own place."

As this mediaeval sentence against Mr. Payne could hardly be carried
out in the nineteenth century, he was liberated, but had to leave the
country. He settled in another part of the Republic. In a letter from
him now before me as I write he says: "The priests are circulating
all manner of lies, telling the people that we keep images of the
Virgin in order to scourge them every night. At Colquechaca we were
threatened with burning, as it was rumored that our object was to do
away with the Roman Catholic religion, which would mean a falling off
in the opportunities for drunkenness." So we see he is still
persecuted.

The Rev. A. G. Baker, of the Canadian Baptist Mission, wrote: "The
Bishop of La Paz has sent a letter to the Minister of Public Worship
of which the following is the substance: 'It is necessary for me to
call attention to the Protestant meetings being held in this city,
which cause scandal and alarm throughout the whole district, and
which are contrary to the law of Bolivia. Moreover, it is
indispensable that we prevent the sad results which must follow such
teachings, so contrary to the true religion. On the other hand, if
this is not stopped, _we shall see a repetition of the scenes that
recently took place in Cochabamba_.'" [Footnote: Referring to the
sacking and burning of Mr. Payne's possessions previously referred
to.]

Bolivia was one of the last of the Republics to hold out against
"liberty of worship," but in 1907 this was at last declared. Great
efforts were made that this law should not be passed.

In my lectures on this continent I have invariably stated that in
South America the priest is the real ruler of the country. I append a
recent despatch from Washington, which is an account of a massacre of
revolutionary soldiers, under most revolting circumstances, committed
at the instigation of the ecclesiastical authorities: "The Department
of State has been informed by the United States Minister at La Paz,
Bolivia, that Col. Pando sent 120 men to Ayopaya. On arriving at the
town of Mohoza, the commander demanded a loan of two hundred dollars
from the priest of the town, and one hundred dollars from the mayor.
These demands being refused, the priest and the mayor were
imprisoned. Meanwhile, however, the priest had despatched couriers to
the Indian village, asking that the natives attack Pando's men. A
large crowd of Indians came, and, in spite of all measures taken to
pacify them, the arms of the soldiers were taken away, the men
subjected to revolting treatment, and finally locked inside the
church for the night. In the morning the priest, after celebrating
the so-called 'mass of agony,' allowed the Indians to take out the
unfortunate victims, two by two, and 103 were deliberately murdered,
each pair by different tortures. Seventeen escaped death by having
departed the day previous on another mission."

After Gen. Pando was elected President of the Republic of Bolivia,
priestly rule remained as strong as ever. To enter on and retain his
office he must perforce submit to Church authority. When in his
employ, however, I openly declared myself a Protestant missionary;
and, because of exploration work, was made a Bolivian citizen.

In 1897 it was my great joy to preach the gospel in Ensenada. Many
and attentive were the listeners as for the first time in their lives
they were told of the Man of Calvary who died that they might live.
With exclamations of wonder they sometimes said: "What fortunate
people we are to have heard such words!" Four men and five women were
born again. Ensenada, built on a malarial swamp, was reeking with
miasma, and the houses were raised on posts about a yard above the
slime. I was in consequence stricken with malarial fever. One day a
man who had attended the meetings came into my room, and, kneeling
down, asked the Lord not to let me suffer, but to take me quickly.
After long weeks of illness, God, however, raised me up again, and
the meetings were resumed, when the reason of the priest's non-
interference was made known to me. He had been away on a long
vacation, and, on his return, hearing of my services, he ordered the
church bells rung furiously. On my making enquiries why the bells
clanged so, I was informed that a special service was called in the
church. At that service a special text was certainly taken, for I was
the text. During the course of the sermon, the preacher in his fervid
eloquence even forbade the people to look at me. After that my
residence in the town was most difficult. The barber would not cut my
hair, nor would the butcher sell me his meat, and I have gone into
stores with the money ostentatiously showing in my hand only to hear
the word, "_Afuera_!" (Get out!) When I appeared on the street I was
pelted with stones by the men, while the women ran away from me with
covered faces! It was now a sin to look at me!

I reopened the little hall, however, for public services. It had been
badly used and was splashed with mud and filth. The first night men
came to the meetings in crowds just to disturb, and one of these shot
at me, but the bullet only pierced the wall behind. A policeman
marched in and bade me accompany him to the police station, and on
the way thither I was severely hurt by missiles which were thrown at
me. An official there severely reprimanded me for thus disturbing the
quiet town, and I was ushered in before the judge. That dignified
gentleman questioned me as to the object of my meetings. Respectfully
answering, I said: "To tell the people how they can be saved from
sin." Then, as briefly as possible, I unfolded my mission. The man's
countenance changed. Surely my words were to him an idle tale--he
knew them not. After cautioning me not to repeat the offence, he gave
me my liberty, but requested me to leave the town. Rev. F. Penzotti,
of the B. & F. B. Society, was imprisoned in a dungeon for eight long
months, so I was grateful for deliverance.

An acquaintance who was eye-witness to the scene, though himself not
a Christian, tells the following sad story:

"Away near the foot of the great Andes, nestling quietly in a fertile
valley, shut away, one would think, from all the world beyond, lay
the village of E---. The inhabitants were a quiet, home-loving
people, who took life as they found it, and as long as they had food
for their mouths and clothes for their backs, cared little for
anything else. One matter, however, had for some little time been
troubling them, viz., the confession of their sins to a priest. After
due consideration, it was decided to ask Father A., living some
seventeen leagues distant, to state the lowest sum for which he would
come to receive their confessions. 'One hundred dollars,' he replied,
'is the lowest I can accept, and as soon as you send it I will come.'

"After a great effort, for they were very poor, forty dollars was
raised amongst them, and word was sent to Father A. that they could
not possibly collect any more. Would he take pity on them and accept
that sum? 'What! only forty dollars in the whole of E---,' was his
reply, 'and you dare to offer me that! No! I will not come, and,
furthermore, from this day I pronounce a curse on your village, and
every living person and thing there. Your children will all sicken
and die, your cattle all become covered with disease, and you will
know no comfort nor happiness henceforth. I, Father A., have said it,
and it will come to pass.'

"Where was the quiet, peaceful scene of a few weeks before? Gone, and
in its place all terror and confusion. These ignorant people,
believing the words of the priest, gathered together their belongings
and fled. As I saw those poor, simple people leaving the homes which
had sheltered them for years, as well as their ancestors before them,
and with feverish haste hurrying down the valley--every few minutes
looking back, with intense sorrow and regret stamped on their faces--
I thought surely these people need some one to tell them of Jesus,
for, little as I know about Him, I am convinced that He does not wish
them to be treated thus."

The priest is satisfied with nothing less than the most complete
submission of the mind and body of his flock. A woman must often give
her last money for masses, and a man toil for months on the well-
stocked land of the divine father to save his soul. If he fail to do
this, or any other sentence the priest may impose, he is condemned to
eternal perdition.

Mr. Patrick, of the R. B. M. U., has described to me how, soon after
he landed in Trujilla, he attended service at a Jesuit church. He had
introduced some gospels into the city, and a special sermon was
preached against the Bible. During the service the priest produced
one of the gospels, and, holding it by the covers, solemnly put the
leaves into the burning candle by his side, and then stamped on the
ashes on the pulpit floor. The same priest, however, Ricardo Gonzales
by name, thought it no wrong to have seventeen children to various
mothers, and his daughters were leaders in society. "Men love
darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." In
Trujilla, right opposite my friend's house, there lived, at the same
time, a highly respected priest, who had, with his own hands, lit the
fire that burnt alive a young woman who had embraced Christianity
through missionary preaching. Bear in mind, reader, I am not writing
of the dark ages, but of what occurred just outside Trujilla during
my residence in the country. Even in 1910, Missionary Chapman writes
of a convert having his feet put in the stocks for daring to
distribute God's Word. [Footnote: I never saw greater darkness
excepting in Central Africa. I visited 70 of the largest cathedrals,
and, after diligent enquiry, found only one Bible, and that a
Protestant Bible about to be burned--Dr. Robert E. Speer, in
"Missionary Review of the World," August, 1911.]

Up to four years ago, the statute was in force that "Every one who
directly or through any act conspires to establish in Bolivia any
other religion than that which the republic professes, namely, that
of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, is a traitor, and shall
suffer the penalty of death."

After a week's stay in Piedra Blanca, during which I had ample time
for such comparisons as these I have penned, quarantine lifted, and
the expedition staff separated. I departed on horseback to inspect a
tract of land on another frontier of Bolivia 1,300 miles distant.




PART III.

PARAGUAY

[Illustration: AN INDIAN AND HIS GOD NANDEYARA]


  "I need not follow the beaten path;
  I do not hunt for any path;
  I will go where there is no path,
  And leave a trail."




PARAGUAY

Paraguay, though one of the most isolated republics of South America,
is one of the oldest. A hundred years before the "Mayflower" sailed
from old Plymouth there was a permanent settlement of Spaniards near
the present capital. The country has 98,000 square miles of
territory, but a population of only 800,000. Paraguay may almost be
called an Indian republic, for the traveller hears nothing but the
soft Guarani language spoken all over the country. It is in this
republic that the yerba máté grows. That is the chief article of
commerce, for at least fifteen millions of South Americans drink this
tea, already frequently referred to. Thousands of tons of the best
oranges are grown, and its orange groves are world-famed.

The old capital, founded in 1537, was built without regularity of
plan, but the present city, owing to the despotic sway of Francia, is
most symmetrical. That South American Nero issued orders for all
houses that were out of his lines to be demolished by their owners.
"One poor man applied to know what remuneration he was to have, and
the dictator's answer was: 'A lodgment gratis in the public prison.'
Another asked where he was to go, and the answer was, 'To a state
dungeon.' Both culprits were forthwith lodged in their respective new
residences, and their houses were levelled to the ground."

"Such was the terror inspired by the man that the news that he was
out would clear the streets. A white Paraguayan dared not utter his
name. During his lifetime he was 'El Supremo,' and after he was dead
for generations he was referred to simply as 'El Difunto.'"
[Footnote: Robertson's "Reign of Terror."]

Paraguay, of all countries, has been most under the teaching of the
Jesuit priest, and the people in consequence are found to be the most
superstitious. Being an inland republic, its nearest point a thousand
miles from the sea-coast, it has been held in undisputed possession.

Here was waged between 1862 and 1870 what history describes as the
most annihilating war since Carthage fell. The little republic,
standing out for five and a half years against five other republics,
fought with true Indian bravery and recklessness, until for every man
in the country there could be numbered nine women (some authorities
say eleven); and this notwithstanding the fact that the women in
thousands carried arms and fought side by side with the men. The
dictator Lopez, who had with such determination of purpose held out
so long, was finally killed, and his last words, "_Muero con la
patria_" (I die with the country) were truly prophetic, for the
country has never risen since.

Travellers agree in affirming that of all South Americans the
Paraguayans are the most mild-mannered and lethargic; yet when these
people are once aroused they fight with tigerish pertinacity. The
pages of history may be searched in vain for examples of warfare
waged at such odds; but the result is invariably the same, the weaker
nation, whether right or wrong, goes under. Although the national
mottoes vary with the different flags, yet the Chilian is the most
universally followed in South America, as elsewhere: "_Por la razon ó
la fuerza_" (By right or by might). The Paraguayans contended
heroically for what they considered their rights, and such bloody
battles were fought that at Curupaitá alone 5,000 dead and dying were
left on the field! Added to the carnage of battle was disease on
every hand. The worst epidemic of smallpox ever known in the annals
of history was when the Brazilians lost 43,000 men, while this war
was being waged against Paraguay. One hundred thousand bodies were
left unburied, and on them the wild animals and vultures gorged
themselves. The saying now is a household word, that the jaguar of
those lands is the most to be dreaded, through having tasted so much
human blood.

"Lopez, the cause of all this sacrifice and misery, has gone to his
final account, his soul stained with the blood of seven hundred
thousand of his people, the victims of his ambition and cruelty."

Towns which flourished before the outbreak of hostilities were sacked
by the emboldened Indians from the Chaco and wiped off the map, San
Salvador (Holy Saviour) being a striking example. I visited the ruins
of this town, where formerly dwelt about 8,000 souls. Now the streets
are grass-grown, and the forest is creeping around church and
barracks, threatening to bury them. I rode my horse through the high
portal of the cannon-battered church, while the stillness of the
scene reminded me of a city of the dead. City of the dead, truly--men
and women and children who have passed on! My horse nibbled the grass
growing among the broken tiles of the floor, while I, in imagination,
listened to the "passing bell" in the tower above me, and under whose
shade I sought repose. A traveller, describing this site, says: "It
is a place of which the atmosphere is one great mass of malaria, and
the heat suffocating--where the surrounding country is an
uninterrupted marsh--where venomous insects and reptiles abound." San
Salvador as a busy mart has ceased to exist, and the nearest approach
to "the human form divine," found occasionally within its walls, is
the howling monkey. Such are the consequences of war! During the last
ten years Paraguay has been slowly recovering from the terrible
effects of this war, but a republic composed mostly of women is
severely handicapped. [Footnote: Would the suffragettes disagree with
the writer here?]

Paraguay is a poor land; the value of its paper currency, like that
of most South American countries, fluctuates almost daily. In 1899
the dollar was worth only twelve cents, and for five gold dollars I
have received in exchange as many as forty-six of theirs. Yet there
is a great future for Paraguay. It has been called the Paradise of
South America, and although the writer has visited sixteen different
countries of the world, he thinks of Paraguay with tender longing. It
is perhaps the richest land on earth naturally, and produces so much
máte that one year's production would make a cup of tea for every
man, woman and child on the globe. Oranges and bananas can be bought
at six cents a hundred, two millions of cattle fatten on its rich
pasture lands; but, of all the countries the writer has travelled in,
Mexico comes first as a land of beggars, and poor Paraguay comes
second.




CHAPTER VIII.

ASUNCION.


Being in England in 1900 for change and rest, I was introduced to an
eccentric old gentleman of miserly tendencies, but possessed of
$5,000,000. Hearing of my wanderings in South America, he told me
that he owned a tract of land thirteen miles square in Paraguay, and
would like to know something of its value. The outcome of this visit
was that I was commissioned by him to go to that country and explore
his possession, so I proceeded once more to my old field of labor.
Arriving at the mouth of the River Plate, after five weeks of sea-
tossing, I was, with the rest, looking forward to our arrival in
Buenos Ayres, when a steam tug came puffing alongside, and we were
informed that as the ship had touched at the infected port of Bahia,
all passengers must be fumigated, and that we must submit to three
weeks' quarantine on Flores Island. The Port doctor has sent a whole
ship-load to the island for so trifling a cause as that a sailor had
a broken collar-bone, so we knew that for us there was nothing but
submission. Disembarking from the ocean steamer on to lighters, we
gave a last look at the coveted land, "so near and yet so far," and
were towed away to three small islands in the centre of the river,
about fifty miles distant. One island is set apart as a burial
ground, one is for infected patients, and the other, at which we were
landed, is for suspects. On that desert island, with no other land in
sight than the sister isles, we were given time to chew the cud of
bitter reflection. They gave us little else to chew! The food served
up to us consisted of strings of dried beef, called _charqui_, which
was brought from the mainland in dirty canvas bags. This was often
supplemented by boiled seaweed. Being accustomed to self-
preservation, I was able to augment this diet with fish caught while
sitting on the barren rocks of our sea-girt prison. Prison it
certainly was, for sentries, armed with Remingtons, herded us like
sheep.

The three weeks' detention came to an end, as everything earthly
does, and then an open barge, towed by a steam-launch, conveyed us to
Montevideo. Quite a fresh breeze was blowing, and during our eleven
hours' journey we were repeatedly drenched with spray. Delicate
ladies lay down in the bottom of the boat in the throes of
seasickness, and were literally washed to and fro, and saturated, as
they said, to the heart. We landed, however, and I took passage up to
Asuncion in the "Olympo."

The "Olympo" is a palatial steamer, fitted up like the best Atlantic
liners with every luxury and convenience. On the ship there were
perhaps one hundred cabin passengers, and in the steerage were six
hundred Russian emigrants bound for Corrientes, three days' sail
north. Two of these women were very sick, so the chief steward, to
whom I was known, hurried me to them, and I was thankful to be able
to help the poor females.

The majestic river is broad, and in some parts so thickly studded
with islands that it appears more like a chain of lakes than a
flowing stream. As we proceeded up the river the weather grew warmer,
and the native clothing of sheepskins the Russians had used was cast
aside. The men, rough and bearded, soon had only their under garments
on, and the women wore simply that three-quarter length loose garment
well known to all females, yet they sweltered in the unaccustomed
heat.

At midnight of the third day we landed them at Corrientes, and the
women, in their white (?) garments, with their babies and ikons, and
bundles--and husbands--trod on terra firma for the first time in
seven weeks.

After about twelve days' sail we came to Bella Vista, at which point
the river is eighteen miles wide. Sixteen days after leaving the
mouth of the river, we sighted the red-tiled roofs of the houses at
Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, built on the bank of the river,
which is there only a mile wide, but thirty feet deep. The river
boats land their passengers at a rickety wooden wharf, and Indians
carry the baggage on their heads into the dingy customs house. After
this has been inspected by the cigarette-smoking officials, the dark-
skinned porters are clamorously eager to again bend themselves under
the burden and take your trunks to an hotel, where you follow,
walking over the exceedingly rough cobbled streets. There is not a
cab for hire in the whole city. The two or three hotels are fifth-
rate, but charge only about thirty cents a day.

Asuncion is a city of some 30,000 inhabitants Owing to its isolated
position, a thousand miles from the sea-coast, it is perhaps the most
backward of all the South American capitals. Although under Spanish
rule for three hundred years, the natives still retain the old Indian
language and the Guarani idiom is spoken by all.

The city is lit up at night with small lamps burning oil, and these
lights shed fitful gleams here and there. The oil burned bears the
high-sounding trade-mark, "Light of the World," and that is the only
"light of the world" the native knows of. The lamps are of so little
use that females never dream of going out at night without carrying
with them a little tin farol, with a tallow dip burning inside.

I have said the street lamps give little light. I must make exception
of one week of the year, when there is great improvement. That week
they are carefully cleaned and trimmed, for it is given up as a feast
to the Virgin, and the lights are to shed radiance on gaudy little
images of that august lady which are inside of each lamp. The Pal, or
father priest, sees that these images are properly honored by the
people. He is here as elsewhere, the moving spirit.

San Bias is the patron saint of the country, It is said he won for
the Paraguayans a great victory in an early war. St. Cristobel
receives much homage also because he helped the Virgin Mary to carry
the infant Jesus across a river on the way to Egypt.

Asuncion was for many years the recluse headquarters of the Jesuits,
so of all enslaved Spanish-Americans probably the Guaranis are the
worst. During Lent they will inflict stripes on their bodies, or
almost starve themselves to death; and their abject humility to the
Paî is sad to witness. On special church celebrations large
processions will walk the streets, headed by the priests, chanting in
Latin. The people sometimes fall over one another in their eager
endeavors to kiss the priest's garments, They prostrate themselves,
count their beads, confess their sins, and seek the coveted blessing
of this demi-god, "who shuts the kingdom of heaven, and keeps the key
in his own pocket."

A noticeable feature of the place is that all the inhabitants go
barefooted. Ladies (?) will pass you with their stiffly-starched
white dresses, and raven-black hair neatly done up with colored
ribbons, but with feet innocent of shoes. Soldiers and policemen
tramp the streets, but neither are provided with footwear, and their
clothes are often in tatters. The Jesuits taught the Indians to
_make_ shoes, but they alone _wore_ them, exporting the surplus.
Shoes are not for common people, and when one of them dares to cover
his feet he is considered presumptuous. Hats they never wear, but
they have the beautiful custom of weaving flowers in their hair. When
flowers are not worn the head is covered by a white sheet called the
_tupoî_, and in some cases this garment is richly embroidered. These
females are devoted Romanists, as will be seen from the following
description of a feast held to St. John:

"Doña Juana's first care was to decorate with uncommon splendor a
large image of St. John, which, in a costly crystal box, she
preserved as the chief ornament of her principal drawing-room. He was
painted anew and re-gilded. He had a black velvet robe purchased for
him, and trimmed with deep gold lace. Hovering over him was a cherub.
Every friend of Doña Juana had lent some part of her jewellery for
the decoration of the holy man. Rings sparkled on his fingers;
collars hung around his neck; a tiara graced his venerable brow. The
lacings of his sandals were studded with pearls; a precious girdle
bound his slender waist, and six large wax candles were lighted up at
the shrine. There, embosomed in fragrant evergreens--the orange, the
lime, the acacia--stood the favorite saint, destined to receive the
first homage of every guest that should arrive. These all solemnly
took off their hats to the image."

Such religious mummery as this is painful to witness, and to see the
saint borne round in procession, with men carrying candles, and
white-clad girls with large birds' wings fastened to their shoulders,
dispels the idea of its being Christianity at all.

The people are gentle and mild-spoken. White-robed women lead strings
of donkeys along the streets, bearing huge panniers full of
vegetables, among which frequently play the women's babies. The
panniers are about a yard deep, and may often be seen full to the
brim with live fowls pinioned by the legs. Other women go around with
large wicker trays on their heads, selling _chipá_, the native bread,
made from Indian corn, or _mandioca_ root, the staple food of the
country. Wheat is not grown in Paraguay, and any flour used is
imported. These daughters of Eve often wear nothing more than a robe-
de-chambre, and invariably smoke cigars six or eight inches long.
Their figure is erect and stately, and the laughing eyes full of
mischief and merriment; but they fade into old age at forty. Until
then they seem proud as children of their brass jewellery and red
coral beads. The Paraguayans are the happiest race of people I have
met; care seems undreamed of by them.

In the post-office of the capital I have sometimes been unable to
procure stamps, and "_Dypore_" (We have none) has been the civil
answer of the clerk. When they _had_ stamps they were not provided
with mucilage, but a brush and pot of paste were handed the buyer. If
you ask for a one cent stamp the clerk will cut a two cent stamp and
give you a half. They have, however, stamps the tenth part of a cent
in value, and a bank note in circulation whose face value is less
than a cent. There are only four numerals in the Guarani language: 1,
_petei_; 2,_moncoi_; 3,_bohapy_; 4,_irundú_. It is not possible to
express five or six. No wonder, therefore, that when I bought five
40-cent stamps, I found the clerk was unable to count the sum, and I
had to come to the rescue and tell him it was $2.00. At least eighty
per cent. of the people are unable to read. When they do, it is of
course in Spanish, A young man to whom I gave the Gospel of John
carefully looked at it, and then, turning to me, said: "Is this a
history of that wonderful lawyer we have been hearing about?" To
those interested in the dissemination of Scriptures, let me state
that no single Gospel has as yet been translated into Guarani.

A tentative edition of the "Sermon on the Mount" has recently been
issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society, a copy of which I
had the honor to be the first to present to the head executive.

Gentle simplicity is the chief characteristic of the people. If the
traveller relates the most ordinary events that pass in the outside
world, they will join in the exclamation of surprise-"_Bá-eh-picó!
Bá-eh-picó!_"

Information that tends to their lowering is not always accepted thus,
however, for a colonel in the army, when told that Asuncion could be
put into a large city graveyard, hastily got up from the dinner table
and went away in wounded pride and incredulity. The one who is
supposed to "know a little" likes to keep his position, and the
Spanish proverb is exemplified: _"En tierra de los ciegos, el tuerto
es rey"_ (In the blind country the one-eyed are kings). The native is
most guileless and ignorant, as can well be understood when his
language is an unwritten one.

Paraguay is essentially a land of fruit, 200 oranges may be bought
for the equivalent of six cents. Small mountains of oranges may
always be seen piled up on the banks ready to be shipped down the
river. Women are employed to load the vessels with this fruit, which
they carry in baskets on their heads. Everything is carried on their
heads, even to a glass bottle. My laundress, Cuñacarai [Footnote: The
Guarani idiom can boast of but few words, and Mr., Mrs. and Miss are
simply rendered "carai" (man), "cuna-carai" (woman) and "cunatai"
(young woman); "mita cuna" is girl, "mita cuimbai" is boy, and "mita
mishi"--baby.] Jesus, although an old woman, could bear almost
incredible weights on her hard skull.

As the climate is hot, a favorite occupation for men and women is to
sit half-submerged in the river, smoking vigorously "The Paraguayans
are an amphibious race, neither wholly seamen nor wholly landsmen,
but partaking of both." All sleep in cotton hammocks,--beds are
almost unknown. The hammocks are slung on the verandah of the house
in the hotter season and all sleep outside, taking off their garments
with real _sang froid_. In the cooler season the visitor is invited
to hang his hammock along with the rest inside the house, and in the
early morning naked little children bring máté to each one. If the
family is wealthy this will be served in a heavy silver cup and
_bombilla_, or sucking tube, of the same metal. After this drink and
a bite of _chipá_, a strangely shaped, thin-necked bottle, made of
sun-baked clay, is brought, and from it water is poured on the hands.
The towels are spotlessly white and of the finest texture. They are
hand-made, and are so delicately woven and embroidered that I found
it difficult to accustom myself to use them. The beautifully fine
lace called _nandutî_ (literally spider's web) is also here made by
the Indian women, who have long been civilized. Some of the
handkerchiefs they make are worth $50 each in the fashionable cities
of America and Europe. A month's work may easily be expended on such
a dainty fabric.

The women seem exceptionally fond of pets. Monkeys and birds are
common in a house, and the housewife will show you her parrot and
say, "In this bird dwells the spirit of my departed mother." An
enemy, somehow, has always turned into an alligator--a reptile much
loathed by them.

In even the poorest houses there is a shrine and a "Saint." These
deities can answer all prayers if they choose to. Sometimes, however,
they are not "in the humor," and at one house the saint had refused,
so he was laid flat on the floor, face downwards. The woman swore
that until he answered her petition she would not lift him up again.
He laid thus all night; whether longer or not I do not know.

Having heard much concerning the _moralité_ of the people, I asked
the maid at a respectable private house where I was staying: "Have
you a father?" "No, sir," she answered, "we Paraguayans are not
accustomed to have a father." Children of five or six, when asked
about that parent, will often answer, "Father died in the war." The
war ended thirty-nine years ago, but they have been taught to say
this by the mother.

As in Argentina the first word the stranger learns is _mañana_ (to-
morrow), so here the first is _dy-qui_ (I don't know). Whatever
question you ask the Guarani, he will almost invariably answer, "_Dy-
qui_." Ask him his age, he answers "_Dy-qui_" To your question: "Are
you twenty or one hundred and twenty?" he will reply "_Dy-qui_."
Through the long rule of the Jesuits the natives stopped thinking;
they had it all done for them. "At the same time that they enslaved
them, they tortured them into the profession of the religion they had
imported; and as they had seen that in the old land the love of this
world and the deceitfulness of riches were ever in the way of
conversion to the true faith, they piously relieved the Indians of
these snares of the soul, even going so far in the discharge of this
painful duty as to relieve them of life at the same time, if
necessary to get their possessions into their own hands," [Footnote:
Robertson's "Letters on Paraguay."]

"The stories of their hardness, and perfidy, and immorality beggar
description. The children of the priests have become so numerous that
the shame is no longer considered." [Footnote: Service.]

As the Mahometans have their Mecca, so the Paraguayans have Caacupé;
and the image of the Virgin in that village is the great wonder-
worker. Prayers are directed to her that she will raise the sick,
etc., and promises are made her if she will do this. One morning I
had business with a storekeeper, and went to his office. "Is the
caraî in?" I asked. "No," I was answered, "he has gone to Caacupé to
pay a promise." That promise was to burn so many candles before the
Virgin, and further adorn her bejewelled robes. She had, as he
believed, healed him of a sickness.

The village of Caacupé is about forty miles from Asuncion. "The
Bishop of Paraguay formally inaugurated the worship of the Virgin of
Caacupé, sending forth an episcopal letter accrediting the practice,
and promising indulgences to the pilgrims who should visit the
shrine. Thus the worship became legal and orthodox. Multitudes of
people visit her, carrying offerings of valuable jewels. There are
several _well-authenticated_ cases of persons, whose offerings were
of inferior quality, being overtaken with some terrible calamity."
[Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]

Funds must be secured somehow, for the present Bishop's sons, to whom
I was introduced as among the aristocrats of the capital, certainly
need a large income from the lavish manner I noticed them "treat" all
and sundry in the hotel. "It is admitted by all, that in South
America the church is decadent and corrupt. The immorality of the
priests is taken for granted. Priests' sons and daughters, of course
not born in wedlock, abound everywhere, and no stigma attaches to
them or to their fathers and mothers." [Footnote: "The Continent of
Opportunity." Dr. Clark.] Hon. S. H. Blake, in the _Neglected
Continent_, writes: "I was especially struck by the statement of a
Roman Catholic--a Consular agent with a large amount of information
as to the land and its inhabitants. He stopped me in speaking of the
priests by saying, 'I know all that. You cannot exaggerate their
immorality. Everybody knows it--but the Latin race is a degenerate
race. Nothing can be done with it. The Roman Church has had four
centuries of trial and has made a failure of it.'"

When a person is dying, the Paî is hurriedly sent for. To this call
he will readily respond. A procession will be formed, and, preceded
by a boy ringing a bell, the _Host_, or, to use an everyday
expression, _God_, will be carried from the church down the street to
the sick one. All passers-by must kneel as this goes along, and the
police will arrest you if you do not at least take off your hat.
"Liberty of conscience is a most diabolical thing, to be stamped out
at any cost," is the maxim of Rome, and the Guarani has learned his
lesson well. "In Inquisition Square men were burned for daring to
think, therefore men stopped thinking when death was the penalty."

Wakes for the dead are always held, and in the case of a child the
little one lies in state adorned with gilded wings and tinselled
finery. All in the neighborhood are invited to the dance which takes
place that evening around the corpse. At a funeral the Paî walks
first, followed by a crowd of men, women and children bearing
candles, some of which are four and five feet long. The dead are
carried through the streets in a very shallow coffin, and the head is
much elevated. An old woman generally walks by the side, bearing the
coffin lid on her head. The dead are always buried respectfully, for
an old law reads: "No person shall ride in the dead cart except the
corpse that is carried, and, therefore, nobody shall get up and ride
behind. It is against Christian piety to bury people with irreverent
actions, or drag them in hides, or throw them into the grave without
consideration, or in a position contrary to the practice of the
Church."

All Saints Day is a special time for releasing departed ones out of
purgatory. Hundreds of people visit the cemeteries then, and pay the
waiting priests so much a prayer, If that "liberator of souls" sings
the prayer the price is doubled, but it is considered doubly
efficacious.

A good feature of Romanism in Paraguay is that the people have been
taught something of Christ, but there seems to be an utter want of
reverence toward His person, for one may see a red flag on the public
streets announcing that there are the "Auction Rooms of the child
God." In his "Letters on Paraguay," Robertson relates the following
graphic account of the celebration of His death: "I found great
preparations making at the cathedral for the sermon of 'the agony on
the cross.' A wooden figure of our Saviour crucified was affixed
against the wall, opposite the pulpit; a large bier was placed in the
centre of the cathedral, and the great altar at the eastern extremity
was hung with black; while around were disposed lighted candles and
other insignia of a great funeral. When the sermon commenced, the
cathedral was crowded to suffocation, a great proportion of the
audience being females. The discourse was interrupted alternately by
the low moans and sobbings of the congregation. These became more
audible as the preacher warmed with his discourse, which was partly
addressed to his auditory and partly to the figure before him; and
when at length he exclaimed, 'Behold! Behold! He gives up the ghost!'
the head of the figure was slowly depressed by a spring towards the
breast, and one simultaneous shriek--loud, piercing, almost
appalling--was uttered by the whole congregation. The women now all
struggled for a superiority in giving unbounded vent to apparently
the most distracting grief. Some raved like maniacs, others beat
their breasts and tore their hair. Exclamations, cries, sobs and
shrieks mingled, and united in forming one mighty tide of clamor,
uproar, noise and confusion. In the midst of the raging tempest could
be heard, ever and anon, the stentorian voice of the preacher,
reproaching in terms of indignation and wrath the apathy of his
hearers! 'Can you, oh, insensate crowd!' he would cry, 'Can you sit
in silence?'--but here his voice was drowned in an overwhelming cry
of loudest woe, from every part of the church; and for five minutes
all further effort to make himself heard was unavailing. This
singular scene continued for nearly half an hour; then, by degrees,
the vehement grief of the congregation abated, and when I left the
cathedral it had subsided once more into low sobs and silent tears.

"I now took my way, with many others, to the Church of San Francisco,
where, in an open space in front of the church, I found that the duty
of the day had advanced to the funeral service, which was about being
celebrated. There a scaffolding was erected, and the crucifixion
exactly represented by wooden figures, not only of our Lord, but of
the two thieves. A pulpit was erected in front of the scaffold; and
the whole square was covered by the devout inhabitants of the city.
The same kind of scene was being enacted here as at the cathedral,
with the difference, however, of the circumstantial funeral in place
of the death. The orator's discourse when I arrived was only here and
there interrupted by a suppressed moan, or a struggling sigh, to be
heard in the crowd. But when he commenced giving directions for the
taking down of the body from the cross, the impatience of grief began
to manifest itself on all sides, 'Mount up,' he cried, 'ye holy
ministers, mount up, and prepare for the sad duty which ye have to
perform!' Here six or eight persons, covered from head to foot with
ample black cloaks, ascended the scaffold. Now the groans of the
people became more audible; and when at length directions were given
to strike out the first nail, the cathedral scene of confusion, which
I have just described, began, and all the rest of the preacher's
oratory was dumb show. The body was at length deposited in the
coffin, and the groaning and shrieking of the assembled multitude
ceased. A solemn funeral ceremony took place: every respectable
person received a great wax taper to carry in the procession: the
coffin after being carried all round was deposited in the church: the
people dispersed; and the great day of Passion Week was brought to a
close."




CHAPTER IX.

EXPEDITION TO THE SUN-WORSHIPPERS. [Footnote: An account of this
expedition was requested by and sent to the Royal Geographical
Society of London, Eng.]


I took passage on the "Urano," a steamer of 1,500 tons, for
Concepcion, 200 miles north of Asuncion.

On the second day of our journey the people on board celebrated a
church feast, and the pilot, in his anxiety to do it well, got
helplessly drunk. The result was that during that night I was thrown
out of the top berth I occupied by a terrific thud. The steamer had
run on the sandbank of an uninhabited island, and there she stuck
fast--immovable. We were landed on the shore, and there had further
time for reflection on the mutability of things. In the white sand
there were distinct footprints of a large jaguar and cub, probably
come to prey on the lazy alligators that were lying on the beach; and
I caught sight of a large spotted serpent, which glided into the low
jungle where the tiger also doubtless was in hiding.

After three days' detention here, a Brazilian packet took us off. On
stepping aboard, I saw what I thought to be two black pigs lying on
the deck. I assure the reader that it was some seconds before I
discovered that one was not a pig, but a man!

At sunset it is the custom on these river boats for all to have a
bath. The females go to one side of the ship, and the males to the
other; buckets are lowered, and in turn they throw water over each
other. After supper, in the stillness of the evening, dancing is the
order, and bare feet keep time to the twang of the guitar.

We occasionally caught sight of savages on the west bank of the
river, and the captain informed me that he had once brought up a bag
of beans to give them. The beans had been _poisoned_, in order that
the miserable creatures might be _swept off the earth!_

We landed at Concepcion, and I walked ashore. I found the only
British subject living there was a university graduate, but--a
prodigal son Owing to his habit of constant drinking, the authorities
of the town compelled him to work. As I passed up the street I saw
him mending a road of the "far country" There I procured five horses,
a stock of beads, knives, etc, for barter, and made ready for my land
journey into the far interior. The storekeeper, hearing of my plans,
strongly urged me not to attempt the journey, and soon all the
village talked. Vague rumors of the unknown savages of the interior
had been heard, and it was said the expedition could only end in
disaster, especially as I was not even going to get the blessing of
the Paî before starting. I was fortunate, however, in securing the
companionship of an excellent man who bore the suggestive name of
"Old Stabbed Arm"; and Doña Dolores (Mrs. Sorrows), true to her name,
whom I engaged to make me about twenty pounds of chipá, said she
would intercede with her saint for me. Loading the pack-horse with
chipá, beads, looking-glasses, knives, etc., Old Stabbed Arm and I
mounted our horses, and, each taking a spare one by the halter, drove
the pack-saddle mare in front, leaving the tenderhearted Mrs. Sorrows
weeping behind. The roads are simply paths through deep red sand,
into which the horses sank up to their knees; and they are so uneven
that one side is frequently two feet higher than the other, so we
could travel only very slowly. From time to time we had to push our
way into the dense forest on either side, in order to give space for
a string of bullock carts to go past. These vehicles are eighteen or
twenty feet long, but have only two wheels. They are drawn by ten or
twelve oxen, which are urged on by goads fastened to a bamboo, twenty
feet long, suspended from the roof of the cart, which is thatched
with reeds. The goads are artistically trimmed with feathers of
parrots and macaws, or with bright ribbons. These are of all colors,
but those around the sharp nail at the end are further painted with
red blood every time the goad is used.

The carts, rolling and straining like ships in foul weather, can be
heard a mile off, owing to the humming screech of the wheels, which
are never greased, but on the contrary have powdered charcoal put in
them to _increase_ the noise. Without this music (?) the bullocks do
not work so well. How the poor animals could manage to draw the load
was often a mystery to me, Sections of the road were partly destroyed
by landslides and heavy rains, but down the slippery banks of rivers,
through the beds of torrents or up the steep inclines they somehow
managed to haul the unwieldy vehicle. Strings of loaded donkeys or
mules, with jingling bells, also crawled past, and I noticed with a
smile that even the animals in this idolatrous land cannot get on
without the Virgin, for they have tiny statuettes of her standing
between their ears to keep them from danger. Near the town the rivers
and streams are bridged over with tree trunks placed longitudinally,
and the crevices are filled in with boughs and sods. Some of them are
so unsafe and have such gaping holes that I frequently dismounted and
led my horse over.

The tropical scenery was superb. Thousands of orange trees growing by
the roadside, filled with luscious fruit on the lower branches, and
on the top with the incomparable orange blossoms, afforded delight to
the eye, and notwithstanding the heat, kept us cool, for as we rode
we could pluck and eat. Tree ferns twenty and thirty feet high waved
their feathery fronds in the gentle breeze, and wild pineapples
growing at our feet loaded the air with fragrance.

There was the graceful pepper tree, luxuriant hanging lichens, or
bamboos forty feet high, which riveted the attention and made one
think what a beautiful world God has made. Many of the shrubs and
plants afford dyes of the richest hues, Azara found four hundred new
species of the feathered tribe in the gorgeous woods and coppices of
Paraguay, and all, with the melancholy _caw_, _caw_ of the toucans
overhead, spoke of a tropical land. Parrots chattered in the trees,
and sometimes a serpent glided across the red sand road.
Unfortunately, flies were so numerous and so tormenting that, even
with the help of a green branch, we could not keep off the swarms,
and around the horses' eyes were dozens of them. Several menacing
hornets also troubled us. They are there so fierce that they can
easily sting a man or a horse to death!

As night fell we came to an open glade, and there beside a clear,
gurgling brook staked out our horses and camped for the night.
Building a large fire of brushwood, we ate our supper, and then lay
down on our saddlecloths, the firmament of God with its galaxy of
stars as our covering overhead.

By next evening we reached the village of Pegwaomi. On the way we had
passed a house here and there, and had seen children ten or twelve
years of age sucking sticks of sugar-cane, but content with no other
clothing than their rosary, or an image of the Virgin round their
necks, like those the mules wear. Pegwaomi, I saw, was quite a
village, its pretty houses nestling among orange and lime trees, with
luscious bananas in the background. There was no Paî in Pegwaomi, so
I was able to hold a service in an open shed, with a roof but no
walls. The chief man of the village gave me permission to use this
novel building, and twenty-three people came to hear the stranger
speak. After the service a poor woman was very desirous of confessing
her sins to me, and she thought I was a strange preacher when I told
her of One in heaven to whom she should confess.

"Paraguay, from its first settlement, never departed from 'the age of
faith' Neither doubt nor free-thinking in regard to spiritual affairs
ever perplexed the people, but in all religious matters they accepted
the words of the fathers as the unquestionable truth. Unfortunately,
the priests were, with scarcely an exception, lazy and profligate;
yet the people were so superstitious and credulous that they feared
to disobey them, or reserve anything which they might be required to
confess." [Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]

In the front gardens of many of the rustic houses I noticed a wooden
cross draped with broad white lace. The dead are always interred in
the family garden, and these marked the site of the graves. When the
people can afford it, a priest is brought to perform the sad rite of
burial, but the Paraguayan Paî is proverbially drunken and lazy. Once
after a church feast, which was largely given up to drinking, the
priest fell over on the floor in a state of intoxication. "While he
thus lay drunk, a boy crawled through the door to ask his blessing,
whereupon the priest swore horribly and waved him off, 'Not to-day,
not to-day those farces! I am drunk, very drunk!'" Such an one has
been described by Pollock: "He was a man who stole the livery of the
court of heaven to serve the devil in; in holy guise transacted
villainies that ordinary mortals durst not meddle with."

Lest it might be thought that I am strongly prejudiced, I give this
extract from a responsible historian of that unhappy land: "The
simple-minded and superstitious Paraguayans reverenced a Paî, or
father, as the immediate representative of God. They blindly and
implicitly followed the instructions given to them, and did whatever
was required at his hands. Many of the licentious brotherhood took
advantage of this superstitious confidence placed in them by the
people to an extent which, in a moral country, would not only shock
every feeling of our nature to relate, but would, in the individual
instances, appear to be incredible, and, in the aggregate, be counted
as slanderous on humanity."

During my stay in Pagwaomi, a dance was held on the sward outside one
of the houses, and the national whirl, the _sarandiy_, gave pleasure
to all. The females wove flowers in their hair, and made garlands of
them to adorn their waists. Others had caught fire-flies, which
nestled in the wavy tresses and lit up the semi-darkness with a soft
light, like so many green stars. Love whisperings, in the musical
Guarani, were heard by willing ears, and eyelight was thus added to
starlight. As the dancers flitted here and there in their white
garments, or came out from the shade of the orange trees, they looked
ethereal, like the inhabitants of another world one sees at times in
romantic dreams, for this village is surely a hundred years behind
the moon.

From this scene of innocent happiness I was taken to more than one
sick-bed, for it soon became known that I carried medicines.

Will the reader accompany me? Enter then--a windowless mud hut See,
lying on sheepskins and burning with fever, a young woman-almost a
girl-wailing "_Ché raciy!>_" (I am sick!) Notice the intense
eagerness of her eyes as she gazes into mine when I commence to
minister to her. Watch her submit to my necessarily painful treatment
with child-like faith. Then, before we quietly steal out again,
listen to her low-breathed "_Acuerame_" (Already I feel better).

In a larger house, a hundred yards away, an earthenware lamp, with
cotton wick dipping in raw castor oil, sheds fitful gleams on a dying
woman. The trail of sin is only too evident, even in thoughtless
Pegwaomi. The tinselled saints are on the altar at the foot of the
bed, and on the woman's breast, tightly clutched, is a crucifix, but
Mrs. Encarnacion has never heard of the Incarnate One whom she is
soon to meet. Perhaps, if Christians are awake by that time, her
grandchildren may hear the "story."

In that rustic cottage, half covered with jasmine, and shaded by a
royal palm, a child lies very sick. Listen to its low, weak moaning
as we cross the threshold. The mother has procured a piece of tape,
the length of which, she says, is the exact measure of the head of
Saint Blas. This she has repeatedly put around her babe's head as an
unfailing cure. Somehow the charm does not work and the woman is
sorely perplexed. While we helplessly look on the infant dies!
Outside, the moon soared high, throwing a silver veil over the grim
pathos of it all; but in the breast of the writer was a surging
dissatisfaction and--anger, at his fellow--Christians in the
homeland, who in their thoughtless selfishness will not reach out a
helping hand to the perishing of other lands.

Would the ever-present Spirit, who wrote "Be ye angry" not
understand? Would the Master of patience and forbearance, who Himself
showed righteous anger, enter into it? Is the Great God, who sees
these sheep left without a shepherd, Himself angry? Surely it is well
to ask?

"Oh, heavy lies the weight of ill on many hearts, And comforters are
needed sore of Christlike touch."

In this village I made inquiries for another servant and guide, and
was directed to "Timoteo, the very man." Liking his looks, and being
able to come to satisfactory terms, I engaged him as my second
helper. Timoteo had a sister called Salvadora (Saviour). She pounded
corn in a mortar with a hardwood pestle, and made me another baking
of chipá, with which we further burdened the pack-horse, and away we
started again, with affectionate farewells and tears, towards the
unknown.

Next day we were joined by a traveller who was escaping to the
interior. He plainly declared himself as a murderer, and told us he
had shot one of the doctors in Asuncion. Through being well
connected, he had, after three weeks' detention in prison, been
liberated, as he boasted to us, _con todo buen nombre y fama (with
good name and report). The relatives of the murdered man, however,
did not agree with this verdict, and sought his life. During the day
we shot an iguana, and after a meal from its fat tail our new
acquaintance, finding the pace too slow for his hasty flight, left
us, and I was not sorry. We met a string of bullock carts, each drawn
by six animals and having a spare one behind. The lumbering wagons
were on their way from the Paraguayan máté fields, and had a load of
over two thousand pounds each. Jolting over huge tree-trunks, or anon
sinking in a swamp, followed by swarms of gad-flies, the patient
animals wended their way.

Here and there one may see by the roadside a large wooden cross, with
a rudely carved wooden rooster on the top, while below it are the
nails, scourge, hammer, pincers and spear of gruesome crucifixion
memory. At other places there are smaller shrines with a statuette of
the Virgin inside, and candles invariably burning, provided by the
generous wayfarers. It is interesting to note that the old Indians
had, at the advent of the Spaniards, cairns of stones along their
paths, and the pious Indian would contribute a stone when he passed
as an offering to Pachacamac, who would keep away the evil spirits.
That custom is still kept up by the Christian (?) Paraguayan, with
the difference that _now_ it is given to the Virgin. My guide would
get down from his horse when we arrived at these altars, and
contribute a stone to the ever-growing heap. If a specially bright
one is offered, he told me it was more gratifying to the goddess.
Feeling that we were very likely to meet with many _evil spirits_,
Timoteo carefully sought for bright stones. The people are _very_
religious, yet with it all are terribly depraved! The truth is seldom
spoken, and my guide was, unfortunately, no exception to the rule. As
we left the haunts of men, and difficulties thickened, he would often
entreat the help of Holy Mary, but in the same breath would lie and
curse!

Sighting a miserable hut, we called to inquire for meat. The master
of the house, I discovered, was a leper, and I further learned, on
asking if I might water my horses, that the nearest water was three
miles away. The man and wife and their large family certainly looked
as though water was a luxury too costly to use on the skin. The leper
was most hospitable, however; he killed a sheep for us, and we sat
down to a feast of mutton. After this we pushed on to water the
horses. By sunset we arrived at a cattle ranch near the river Ipané,
and there we stayed for the night. At supper all dipped in the same
stew-pan, and afterwards rinsed out the mouth with large draughts of
water, which they squirted back on the brick floor of the dining-
room. The men then smoked cigarettes of tobacco rolled in corn
leaves, and the women smoked their six-inch-long cigars. Finding that
two of the men understood Spanish, I read some simple parts of
scripture to them by the light of a dripping grease lamp. They
listened in silence, and wondered at the strange new story. The
mosquitoes were so troublesome that a large platform, twenty feet
high, had been erected, and after reading all the inmates of the
house, with us, ascended the ladder leading to the top. There the
mosquitoes did not disturb us, so we slept peacefully on our aerial
roost between the fire-flies of the earth and the stars of heaven.

Next day we came to a solitary house, where I noticed strings of meat
hung in the sun to dry. This is left, like so many stockings and
handkerchiefs, hanging there until it is hard as wood; it will then
keep for an indefinite time. There we got a good dinner of fresh
beef, and about ten pounds of the dried meat (_charqui_) to take away
with us. At this place I bought two more horses, and we each got a
large bullock's horn in which to carry water, swinging from the
saddle-tree. I was not sorry to leave this house, for, tearing up the
offal around the building, I counted as many as sixty black vultures.
Their king, a dirty white bird with crimson neck covered with gore
and filth, had already gorged himself with all the blood he could
get. "All his sooty subjects stand apart at a respectful distance,
whetting their appetites and regaling their nostrils, but never
dreaming of an approach to the carcass till their master has sunk
into a state of repletion. When the kingly bird, by falling on his
side, closing his eyes, and stretching on the ground his unclenched
talons, gives notice to his surrounding and expectant subjects that
their lord and master has gone to rest, up they hop to the carcass,
which in a few minutes is stripped of everything eatable." Here we
left the high-road, which is cut through to Punta Pona on the
Brazilian frontier, and struck off to the west. Over the grassy
plains we made good progress, and by evening were thirty miles
farther on our journey. But when we had to cut the path before us
through the forest, ten or twelve miles was a good day's work. When
the growth was very dense, the morning and evening camps were perhaps
only separated by a league. Anon we struggled through a swamp, or the
horses stuck fast in a bog, and the _carapatas_ feasted on our blood.
"What are carapatas?" you ask. They are leeches, bugs, mosquitos,
gad-flies, etc., all compounded into one venomous insect! These
voracious green ticks, the size of a bug, are indeed a terrible
scourge. They fasten on the body in scores, and when pulled away,
either the piece of flesh comes with them or the head of the carapata
is torn off. _It was easy to pick a hundred of these bugs off the
body at night_, but it was _not_ easy to sleep after the ordeal! The
poor horses, brushing through the branches on which the ticks wait
for their prey, were sometimes _half covered with them!_

As we continued our journey, a house was a rare sight, and soon we
came to "the end of Christianity," as Timoteo said, and all
civilization was left behind. The sandy road became a track, and then
we could no longer follow the path, for there was none to follow.
Timoteo had traversed those regions before in search of the mate
plant, however, and with my compass I kept the general direction.

After about ten days' travel, during which time we had many reminders
that the flesh-pots had been left behind, _"Che cane o"_ (I am tired)
was frequently heard. Game was exceedingly scarce, and it was
possible to travel for days without sighting any animal or ostrich.
We passed no houses, and saw no human beings. For two days we
subsisted on hard Indian corn. Water was scarce, and for a week we
were unable to wash. Jiggers got into our feet when sleeping on the
ground, and these caused great pain and annoyance. Someone has
described a jigger as "a cross between Satan and a woodtick." The
little insects lay their eggs between the skin and flesh. When the
young hatch out, they begin feeding on the blood, and quickly grow
half an inch long and cause an intense itching. My feet were swollen
so much that I could not get on my riding-boots, and, consequently,
my lower limbs were more exposed than ever. If not soon cut out, the
flesh around them begins to rot, and mortification sometimes ensues.

On some of the savannas we were able to kill deer and ostrich, but
they generally were very scarce. Our fare was varied; sometimes we
feaisted on parrot pie or vultures eggs; again we lay down on the
hard, stony ground supperless. At such times I would be compelled to
rise from time to time and tighten up my belt, until I must have
resembled one of the ladies of fashion, so far as the waist was
concerned. Again we came to marshy ground, filled with royal duck,
teal, water-hens, snipe, etc, and forgot the pangs of past hunger. At
such places we would fill our horns and drink the putrid water, or
take off our shirts and wash them and our bodies. Mud had to serve
for soap. Our washing, spread out on the reeds, would soon dry, and
off we would start for another stage.

The unpeopled state of the country was a constant wonder to me;
generations have disappeared without leaving a trace of their
existence. Sometimes I stopped to admire the pure white water-lilies
growing on stagnant black water, or the lovely Victoria Regia, the
leaf of which is at times so large as to weigh ten pounds. The
flowers have white petals, tinted with rose, and the centre is a deep
violet. Their weight is between two and three pounds.

Wherever we camped we lit immense fires of brushwood, and generally
slept peacefully, but with loaded rifle at arm's length.

A portion of land which I rode over while in that district must have
been just a thin crust covering a mighty cave. The horses' footfalls
made hollow sounds, and when the thin roof shook I half expected to
be precipitated into unknown depths.

After many weeks of varied experiences we arrived at or near the land
I was seeking. There, on the banks of a river, we struck camp, and
from there I made short excursions in all directions in order to
ascertain the approximate value of the old gentleman's estate. On the
land we came upon an encampment of poor, half or wholly naked Caingwa
Indians. By them we were kindly received, and found that,
notwithstanding their extremely sunken condition and abject poverty,
they seemed to have mandioca and bananas in abundance. In return for
a few knives and beads, I was able to purchase quite a stock. Seeing
that all the dishes, plates, and bottles they have grow in the form
of gourds, they imagine all such things we use also grow. It was
amusing to hear them ask for _seeds of the glass medicine bottles_ I
carried with me.

A drum, ingeniously made by stretching a serpent's skin over a large
calabash, was monotonously beaten as our good-night lullaby when we
stretched ourselves out on the grass.

The Caingwa men all had their lower lip pierced, and hanging down
over the breast was a thin stick about ten inches long. Their faces
were also painted in strange patterns.

Learning from their chief that the royal tribe to which they
originally belonged lived away in the depths of the forest to the
east, some moons distant, I became curious. After repeated enquiries
I was told that a king ruled the people there, and that they daily
worshipped the sun. Hearing of these sun-worshippers, I determined,
if possible, to push on thither. The old chief himself offered to
direct us if, in return, I would give him a shirt, a knife, and a
number of white beads. The bargain was struck, and arrangements were
made to start off at sunrise next day, My commission was not only to
see the old gentleman's land, but to visit the surrounding Indians,
with a view to missionary work being commenced among them.

The morning dawned clear and propitious, but the chief had decided
not to go. On enquiring the reason for the change of mind, I
discovered that his people had been telling him that I only wanted to
get him into the forest in order to kill him, and that I would not
give him the promised shirt and beads. I thought that it was much
more likely for him to kill me than I him, and I set his mind at rest
about the reward, for on the spot I gave him the coveted articles. On
receipt of those luxuries his doubts of me fled, and I soon assured
him that I had no intention whatever of taking his life. Towards noon
we started off, and, winding our way through the Indian paths in
single file, we again soon left behind us all signs of man, and saw
nothing to mark that any had passed that way before.

That night, as we sat under a large silk-cotton tree silently eating
supper off plates of palm leaves, the old chief suddenly threw down
his meat, and, with a startled expression, said, "I hear spirits!"
Never having heard such ethereal visitors myself, I smiled
incredulously, whereupon the old savage glared at me, and, leaving
his food upon the ground went away out of the firelight into the
darkness. Afraid that he might take one of the horses and return to
his people, I followed to soothe him, but his offended mood did not
pass until, as he said, the _spirits_ had gone.

On the third day scarcity of water began to be felt. We had been
slowly ascending the rugged steeps of a mountain, and as the day wore
on the thirst grew painful. That night both we and the horses had to
be content with the dew-drops we sucked from the grass, and our dumb
companions showed signs of great exhaustion. The Indian assured me
that if we could push on we would, by next evening, come to a
beautiful lake in the mountains: so, ere the sun rose next morning,
we were in the saddle on our journey to the coveted water.

All that day we plodded along painfully, silently. Our lips were
dried together, and our tongues swollen. Thirst hurts! The horses
hung their heads and ears, and we were compelled to dismount and go
afoot. The poor creatures were getting so thin that our weight seemed
to crush them to the earth. The sun again set, darkness fell, and the
lake was, for all I could see, a dream of the chief, our guide. At
night, after repeating the sucking of the dew, we ate a little, drank
the blood of an animal, and tried to sleep. The patient horses stood
beside us with closed eyes and bowed heads, until the sight was more
than I could bear. Fortunately, a very heavy dew fell, which greatly
helped us, and two hours before sunrise next morning the loads were
equally distributed on the backs of the seven horses and we started
off once again through the mist for water! water! When the sun
illuminated the heavens and lit up the rugged peaks of the strangely
shaped mountains ahead of us, hope was revived. We sucked the fruit
of the date palm, and in imagination bathed and wallowed in the
water--beautiful water--we so soon expected to behold. The poor
horses, however, not buoyed up with sweet hopes as we were, gave out,
one after the other, and we were compelled to cruelly urge them on up
the steep. With it all, I had to leave two of the weaker ones behind,
purposing, if God should in kindness permit us to reach water, to
return and save them.

That afternoon the Indian chief, who, though an old man, had shown
wonderful fortitude and endurance, and still led the way, shouted:
"_Eyoape! Eyoape!_" (Come! Come!) We were near the lake. With new-
born strength I left all and ran, broke through the brushwood of the
shore, jumped into the lake, and found--nothing but hard earth! The
lake was dried up! I dug my heel into the ground to see if below the
surface there might be soft mud, but failing to find even that, I
dropped over with the world dancing in distorted visions before my
eyes. More I cannot relate.

How long I lay there I never knew. The Indian, I learned later,
exploring a deep gully at the other side, found a putrid pool of
slime, full of poisonous frogs and alive with insects. Some of this
liquid he brought to me in his hands, and, after putting it in my
mouth, had the satisfaction of seeing me revive. I dimly remember
that my next act was to crawl towards the water-hole he guided me to.
In this I lay and drank. I suppose it soaked into my system as rain
in the earth after a drought. That stagnant pool was our salvation.
The horses were brought up, and we drank, and drank again. Not until
our thirst was slaked did we fully realize how the water stank! When
the men were sufficiently refreshed they returned for the abandoned
horses, which were found still alive. Had they scented water
somewhere and drank? At the foot of the mountains, on the other side,
we later discovered much better water, and there we camped, our
horses revelling in the abundant pasturage.

After this rest we continued our journey, and next day came to the
edge of a virgin forest. Through that, the chief said, we must cut
our way, for the royal tribe never came out, and were never visited.
Close to the edge of the forest was a deep precipice, at the bottom
of which we could discern a silvery streak of clear water. From there
we must procure the precious fluid for ourselves and horses. Taking
our kettle and horns, we sought the best point to descend, and after
considerable difficulty, clinging to the branches of the overhanging
trees and the dense undergrowth, we reached the bottom. After slaking
our thirst we ascended with filled horns and kettle to water the
horses. As may be supposed, this was a tedious task, and the descent
had to be made many times before the horses were satisfied. My hat
served for watering pail.

Next morning the same process was repeated, and then the men, each
with long _machetes_ I had provided, set to work to cut a path
through the forest, and Old Stabbed Arm went off in search of game.
After a two hours' hunt, a fat ostrich fell before his rifle, and he
returned to camp. We still had a little chipá, which had by this time
become as hard as stone, but which I jealously guarded to use only in
case of the greatest emergency. At times we had been very hungry, but
my order was that it should not be touched.

Only the reader who has seen the virgin forest, with its interlacing
_lianas_, thick as a man's leg--the thorns six inches long and sharp
as needles--can form an idea of the task before us. As we penetrated
farther and farther in the _selva_, the darkness became deeper and
deeper. Giant trees reared their heads one hundred and fifty feet
into the heavens, and beautiful palms, with slender trunks and
delicate, feathery leaves, waved over us. The medicinal plants were
represented by sarsaparilla and many others equally valuable. There
was the cocoa palm, the date palm, and the cabbage palm, the latter
of which furnished us good food, while the wine tree afforded an
excellent and cooling drink. In parts all was covered with beautiful
pendant air-flowers, gorgeous with all the colors of the rainbow.
Monkeys chattered and parrots screamed, but otherwise there was a
sombre stillness. The exhalations from the depth of rotting leaves
and the decaying fallen wood rendered the steamy atmosphere most
poisonous. Truly, the flora was magnificent, and the fauna,
represented by the spotted jaguar, whose roar at times broke the
awful quiet of the night, was equally grand.

As the chief, ignorant of hours and miles, could not tell me the
extent of the forest, I determined to let him and Timoteo make their
way through as best they could, crawling through the branches, to the
Sun-Worshippers, and secure their help in cutting a way for the
horses. After dividing the food I had, we separated. Timoteo and the
Indian crept into the forest and were soon lost sight of, while Old
Stabbed Arm and I, with the horses, retraced our steps, and reached
the open land again. After an earnest conversation my companion
shouldered his rifle and went off to hunt, and I was left with only
the companionship of the grazing horses. I remained behind to water
the animals, and protect our goods from any prowling savage who might
chance to be in the neighborhood. My saddle-bed was spread under a
large _burning bush_, or incense tree, and my self-imposed duty was
to keep a fire burning in the open, that its smoke might be seen by
day and its light by night.

Going exploring a little, I discovered a much better descent down the
precipice, and water was more easily brought up. Indeed, I decided
that, if a certain deep chasm were bridged over, it might be possible
to get the horses themselves to descend by a winding way. With this
object in view I felled saplings near the place, and in a few hours
constructed a rough bridge, strong enough to bear a horse's weight.
Whether the animals could smell the water flowing at the bottom, or
were more agile than I had thought, I cannot tell, but they descended
the almost perpendicular path most wonderfully, and soon were taking
draughts of the precious liquid with great gusto. Leaving the horses
to enjoy their drink, I ascended the stream for some distance, in
order to discover, if possible, where the flow came from. Judge of my
surprise when I found that the water ran out of a grotto, or cavern,
in the face of the cliff-out of the unknown darkness into the
sunlight! Walking up the bed of the stream, I entered the cave, and,
striking a few matches, found it to be inhabited by hundreds of
vampire bats, which were hanging from the sides and stalactites of
the roof, like so many damp, black rags. On my entrance the unearthly
creatures were disturbed, and many came flying in my face, so I made
a quick exit. Several which I killed came floating down the stream
with me; one that I measured proved to be twenty-two inches across
the wings. My exploration had discovered the secret of the clots of
blood we had been finding on the horses' necks every morning. The
vampire-bats, in their nightly flights, had been sucking the life-
blood of our poor, already starving animals! It is said these
loathsome creatures--half beast, half bird--fan their victim to sleep
while they drain out the red blood. Provided with palm torches, I
again entered the cavern, but could not penetrate its depths; it
seemed to go right into the bowels of the mountain. Exploring down
stream was more successful, for large flamingoes and wild ducks and
geese were found in plenty.

That night I carefully staked out the horses all around the camp-fire
and lay down to think and sleep and dream. Old Stabbed Arm had not
returned, and I was alone with nature. Several times I rose to see if
the horses were securely tied, and to kill any bats I might find
disturbing them. Rising in the grey dawn, I watered the horses,
cooked a piece of ostrich meat, and started off on foot for a short
distance to explore the country to the north, where I saw many
indications that tapirs were numerous. My first sight of this
peculiar animal of Paraguay I shall never forget. It resembles no
other beast I have ever seen, but seems half elephant, with its
muzzle like a short trunk. In size it is about six feet long and
three and a half feet high. There were also ant-bears, peculiar
animals, without teeth, but provided with a rough tongue to lick up
the ants. The length of this animal is about four feet, but the thick
tail is longer than the body. Whereas the tapir has a hog-like skin,
the ant-bear has long, bristly hairs.

Returning to camp, judge of my surprise when I found it in possession
of two savages of strange appearance. My first thought was that I had
lost all, but, drawing nearer, I discovered that Timoteo and the
chief were also there, squatting on the ground, devouring the remains
of my breakfast. They had returned from the royal tribe, who had
offered to cut a way from their side, and these two strangers were to
assist us.

With this additional help we again penetrated the forest. The men cut
with a will, and I drove the horses after them. Black, howling
monkeys, with long beards and grave countenances, leapt among the
trees. Red and blue macaws screeched overhead, and many a large
serpent received its death-blow from our machetes. Sometimes we were
fortunate enough to secure a bees' nest full of honey, or find
luscious fruit. At times I stopped to admire a giant tree, eight or
ten feet in diameter, or orchids of the most delicate hues, but the
passage was hard and trying, and the stagnant air most difficult to
breathe. The fallen tree-trunks, over which we had to step, or go
around or under, were very numerous, and sometimes we landed in a
bed, not of roses, but of thorns. Sloths and strange birds' nests
hung from the trees, while the mosquitos and insects made life almost
unendurable. We were covered with carapatas, bruised and torn, and
almost eaten up alive with insects.


[Illustration: PARAGUAYAN FOREST INDIAN. These dwarf men use a very
long bow, while the Patagonian uses a short one]


Under the spreading branches of one of the largest trees we came upon
an abandoned Indian camp. This, I was told, had belonged to the
"little men of the woods," hairy dwarfs, a few of whom inhabit the
depths of the forest, and kill their game with blow-pipes. Of course
we saw none of the poor creatures. Their scent is as keen as an
animal's; they are agile as monkeys, and make off to hide in the
hollow trunks of trees, or bury themselves in the decaying vegetation
until danger is past. Poor pigmy! What place will he occupy in the
life that is to be?




CHAPTER X.

WE REACH THE SUN-WORSHIPPERS.


After some days' journey we heard shouts, and knew that, like
entombed miners, we were being dug out on the other side! The
Caingwas soon met us, and I looked into their faces and gravely
saluted. They stared at me in speechless astonishment, and I as
curiously regarded them. Each man had his lower lip pierced and wore
the _barbote_ I have described, with the difference that these were
made of gum.

With a clear path before us we now made better progress, and before
long emerged from the living tomb, but the memory of it will ever
remain a nightmare.

We found a crowd of excited Indians, young and old, awaiting us. Many
of the females ran like frightened deer on catching sight of me, but
an old man, whom I afterwards learned was the _High Priest_ of the
tribe, came and asked my business. Assuring him, through Timoteo,
that my mission was peaceable, and that I had presents for them, he
gave me permission to enter into the glade, where I was told
_Nandeyara_ [Footnote: "Our Owner," the most beautiful word for God I
have ever heard.] had placed them at the beginning of the world. Had
I discovered the _Garden of Eden_, the place from which man had been
wandering for 6,000 years? I was conducted by Rocanandivá (the high
priest) down a steep path to the valley, where we came in view of
several large peculiarly shaped houses, built of bamboo. Near these
dwellings were perhaps a hundred men, women and children, remnants of
a vanishing nation. Some had a mat around their loins, but many were
naked. All the males had the _barbote_ in the lip, and had
exceptionally thick hair, matted with grease and mud. Most of them
had a repellant look on their pigment-painted faces, and I could very
distinctly see that I was not a welcome visitor. No, I had not
reached Eden! Only "beyond the clouds and beyond the tomb" would the
bowers of Eden be discovered to me. Hearing domestic hens cackling
around the houses, I bade Timoteo tell the priest that we were very
hungry, and that if he killed two chickens for us I would give him a
beautiful gift later on. The priest distinctly informed me, however,
that I must give first, or no fowl would be killed. From that
decision I tried to move him, urging that I was tired, the pack was
hard to undo, and to-morrow, when I was rested, I would well repay
them the kindness. My words were thrown away; not a bite should we
eat until the promised knife was given. I was faint with hunger, but
from the load on the packhorse I procured the knife, which I handed
to my unwilling host with the promise of other gifts later. On
receipt of this treasure he gave orders to the boys standing off at a
distance to catch two chickens. The birds were knocked over by the
stones thrown at them. Two women now came forward with clay pots on
their heads and fire-sticks in their hands, and they superintended
the cooking. Without cutting off either heads or legs, or pulling out
the birds' feathers, the chickens were placed in the pots with water.
Lying down near the fire, I, manlike, impatiently waited for supper.
Perhaps a minute had dragged its weary length along when I picked up
a stick from the ground and poked one of the fowls out of the water,
which was not yet warm. Holding the bird in one hand, and pulling
feathers out of my mouth with the other, I ate as my forefathers did
ages ago. Years before this I had learned that a hungry man can eat
what an epicure despises. After this feast I lay down on the ground
behind one of the tepees, and, with my head resting on my most valued
possessions, went to sleep.

Having promised to give the priest and his wife another present, I
was awakened very early next morning. They had come for their gifts.
Rising from my hard bed, I stretched myself and awoke my servant,
under whose head were the looking-glasses. I presented one of these
to the woman, who looked in it with satisfaction and evident
pleasure. Whether she was pleased with her reflection or with the
glass I cannot tell, but I feel sure it must have been the latter! A
necklace to the daughter and a further gift to the old man gained
their friendship, and food was brought to us. After partaking of this
I was informed that the king desired to see me, and that I must
proceed at once to his hut.

His majesty (?) lived on the other side of the river, close at hand.
This water was of course unbridged, so, in order to cross, I was
compelled to divest myself of my clothing and walk through it in
nature's garb. The water came up to my breast, and once I thought the
clothes I carried on my head would get wet. Dressing on the other
side, I presented myself at the king's abode. There I was kindly
received, being invited to take up my quarters with him and his royal
family. The king was a tall man of somewhat commanding appearance,
but, save for the loin cloth, he was naked, like the rest. The queen,
a little woman, was as scantily dressed as her husband. She was very
shy, and I noticed the rest of the inmates of the hut peeping through
the crevices of the corn-stalk partition of an inner room. After
placing around the shapely neck of the queen a specially fine
necklace I had brought, and giving the king a large hunting-knife, I
was regaled with roasted yams, and later on with a whole watermelon.

Timoteo, my servant, whose native language was Guarani, could
understand most of the idiom of the Sun Worshippers, which we found
to be similar to that spoken by the civilized inhabitants of the
country. There must therefore have been some connection between the
two peoples at one time. The questions, "Where have you come from?"
"Why have you come?" were asked and answered, and I, in return,
learned much of this strange tribe. Máté was served, but whereas in
the outside world a rusty tin tube to suck it through is in
possession of even the poorest, here they used only a reed. I was
astonished to find the máté sweetened. Knowing that they could not
possibly have any of the luxuries of civilization, I made enquiries
regarding this, and was told that they used a herb which grew in the
valley, to which they gave the name of _cá-ha hé-hé_ (sweet herb).
This plant, which is not unlike clover, is sweet as sugar, whether
eaten green or in a dried state.

There was not a seat of any description in the hut, but the king
said, "_Eguapú_" ("Sit down"), so I squatted on the earthen floor. A
broom is not to be found in the kingdom, and the house had never been
swept!

A curiosity I noticed was the calabash which the king carried
attached to his belt. This relic was regarded with great reverence,
and at first His Majesty declined to reveal its character; but after
I had won his confidence by gifts of beads and mirrors, he became
more communicative. One day, in a burst of pride, he told me that the
gourd contained the ashes of his ancestors, who were the ancient
kings. Though the Spaniards sought to carefully rout out and destroy
all direct descendants of the royal family of the Incas, their
historians tell us that some remote connections escaped. The Indians
of Peru have legends to the effect that at the time of the Spanish
invasion an Inca chieftain led an emigration of his people down the
mountains. Humboldt, writing in the 18th century, said: "It is
interesting to inquire whether any other princes of the family of
Manco Capac have remained in the forests; and if there still exist
any of the Incas of Peru in other places." Had I discovered some
descendants of this vanished race? The Montreal _Journal_, commenting
on my discovery, said: "The question is of extreme interest to the
scientific enquirer, even if they are not what Mr. Ray thinks them."

The royal family consisted of the parents, a son and his wife, a
daughter and her husband, and two younger girls. I was invited to
sleep in the inner room, which the parents occupied, and the two
married couples remained in the common room. All slept in fibre
hammocks, made greasy and black by the smoke from the fire burning on
the floor in the centre of the room. No chimney, window, door, or
article of furniture graced the house.

"The court of the Incas rivalled that of Rome, Jerusalem, or any of
the old Oriental countries, in riches and show, the palaces being
decorated with a great profusion of gold, silver, fine cloth and
precious stones." [Footnote: Rev. Thomas Wood, LL.D., Lima, Peru, In
"Protestant Missions in South America."]

An ancient Spanish writer who measured some of the stones of the
Incan palace at Cuzco tells us there were stones so nicely adjusted
that it was impossible to introduce even the blade of a knife between
them, and that some of those stones were thirty-eight feet long, by
eighteen feet broad, and six feet thick. What a descent for the
"Children of the Sun"! "How are the mighty fallen!" Thoughts of the
past and the mean present passed through my mind as I lay down in the
dust of the earthen floor that first night of my stay with the king.

Owing to the thousands of fleas in the dust of the room it was hard
for me to rest much, and that night a storm brewing made sleep almost
impossible. As the thunder pealed forth all the Indians of the houses
hastily got out of their hammocks and grasped gourd rattles and
beautifully woven cotton banners. The rattles were shaken
 and the banners waved, while a droning chant was struck up by the
high priest, and the louder the thunder rolled the louder their
voices rose and the more lustily they shook the seeds in their
calabashes. They were trying to appease the dread deity of Thunder,
as did their Inca ancestors. The voice of the old priest led the
worship, and for _four hours_ there was no cessation of the
monotonous song, except when he performed some mystic ceremony which
I understood not.

Just as the old priest had awakened me the first morning to ask for
his present, so the king came tapping me gently the second. In his
hand he had a large sweet potato, and in my half-dreamy state I heard
him saying, "Give me your coat. Eat a potato?" The change I thought
was greatly to his advantage, but I was anxious to please him. I
possessed two coats, while he was, as he said, a poor old man, and
had no coat. The barter was concluded; I ate the potato, and he, with
strange grimaces, donned a coat for the first time in his life. Think
of this for an alleged descendant of the great Atahuallpa, whose
robes and jewels were priceless!

I offered to give the queen a feminine garment of white cotton if she
would wear it, but this I could not prevail upon her to do; it was
"ugly." As a loin-cloth, she would use it, but put it on--no! In the
latter savage style the shaped garment was thereafter worn. Women
have _fashions_ all over the globe.

The few inches of clothing worn by the Caingwa women are never
washed, and the only attempt at cleansing the body I saw when among
them was that of a woman who filled her mouth with water and squirted
it back on her hands, which she then wiped on her loin-cloth!

Prescott, writing of the Incas, says: "They loved to indulge in the
luxury of their baths, replenished by streams of crystal water which
were conducted through subterraneous silver channels into basins of
gold."

The shapely little mouth of the queen was spoilt by the habit she had
of smoking a _heavy_ pipe made of red clay. I was struck with the
weight and shape of this, for it exactly resembled those made by the
old cliff-dwellers, unknown centuries ago. One will weigh at least a
quarter of a pound. For a mouth-piece they use a bird's quill. The
tobacco they grow themselves.

Near the royal abode were the kitchen gardens. A tract of forest had
been fired, and this clearing planted with bananas, mandioca, sweet
potatoes, etc. The blackened trunks of the trees rose up like so many
evil spirits above the green foliage. The garden implements used were
of the most primitive description; a crooked stick served for hoe,
and long, heavy, sharpened iron-wood clubs were used instead of the
steel plough of civilization.

As I have already remarked, I found the people were sun-worshippers.
Each morning, just as the rising sun lit up the eastern sky, young
and old came out of their houses, the older ones carrying empty
gourds with the dry seeds inside. At a signal from the high priest, a
solemn droning chant was struck up, to the monotonous time kept by
the numerous gourd rattles. As the sun rose higher and higher, the
chanting grew louder and louder, and the echoes of _"He! he! he! ha!
ha! ha! laima! laima!"_ were repeated by the distant hills. When the
altar of incense (described later) was illuminated by the sun-god,
the chanting ceased.

After this solemn worship of the Orb of Day, the women, with quiet
demeanor and in single file, went off to their work in the gardens.
On returning, each carried a basket made of light canes, slung on the
back and held up by plaited fibres forming a band which came across
their foreheads. The baskets contained the day's vegetables. Meat was
seldom eaten by them, but this was probably because of its scarcity,
for when we killed an ostrich they clamored for a share. Reptiles of
all kinds, and even caterpillars, are devoured by them when hungry.

The Caingwas are under the average height, but use the longest bows
and arrows I have ever seen. Some I brought away measure nearly seven
feet in length. The points are made of sharpened iron-wood, notched
like the back of a fish-hook, and they are poisoned with serpent
venom. Besides these weapons, it was certainly strange to find them
living in the _stone age_, for in the hands of the older members of
the tribe were to be seen stone axes. The handles of these primitive
weapons are scraped into shape by flints, as probably our savage
forefathers in Britain did theirs two thousand years ago.

Entering the low, narrow doorway of one of the bamboo frame houses, I
saw that it was divided into ten-foot squares by corn-stalk
partitions a yard high. These places, like so many stalls for horses,
run down each side of the _hogá_. One family occupies a division,
sleeping in net hammocks made of long, coarse grass. A "family man"
usually has bands of human hair twisted around his legs below the
knees, and also around the wrists. This hair is torn from his wife's
head. Down the centre are numerous fires for cooking purposes, but
the house was destitute of chimney. Wood is burned, and the place was
at times so full of smoke that I could not distinguish one Indian
from another. Fortunately, the walls of the house, as was also the
roof, were in bad repair, and some of the smoke escaped through the
chinks. Sixty people lived in the largest hogá, and I judged the
number of the whole tribe to be about three hundred.

The doorways of all the houses faced towards the east, as did those
of the Inca. In the principal one, where the high priest lived, a
square altar of red clay was erected. I quickly noticed that on this
elevation, which was about a yard high, there burned a very carefully
tended fire of holy wood. Enquiring the meaning of this, I was
informed that, very many moons ago, Nande-yara had come in person to
visit the tribe, and when with them had lit the fire, which, he said,
they must not under any circumstances suffer to die out. Ever since
then the smoke of the incense had ascended to their "Owner" in his
far-off dwelling.

How forcibly was I reminded of the scripture referring to the Jewish
altar of long ago, "There the fire shall ever be burning upon the
altar; it shall never go out." If I had not discovered Eden, I had at
least found the altar and fire of Edenic origin.

Behind the altar, occupying the stall directly opposite the doorway,
stood the tribal god. As the Caingwas are sun-worshippers, I was
surprised to see this, but Rocanandivia, with grave demeanor, told me
that when Nandeyara departed from them he left behind him his
representative. In the chapter on Mariolatry, I have traced the
natural tendency of man to sink from spiritual to image worship, and
I found that the Caingwas, like all pagans, had reverted to a
something they could see and feel. Remembering that they had never
heard the second commandment, written by God because of this failing
in man, we can excuse them, but what shall be said of the enlightened
Romanists?

Being exceedingly anxious to procure their "Copy of God," I tried to
bargain with the priest. I offered him one thing and another, but to
all my proposals he turned a deaf ear, and finally, glaring at me,
said that _nothing_ would ever induce him to part with it. The people
would never allow the image to be taken away, as the life of the
tribe was bound up with it Seeing that he was not to be moved, I
desisted, though a covetous look in his eye when I offered a
beautiful colored rug in exchange gave me hope, Rocanandiva was, like
most idolatrous priests, very fanatical. When he learned that I
professed and taught a different religion, his jealousy was most
marked, and he often told me to go from them, I was not wanted.
Living with the king, however, saved me from ejection.

One day the priest, ever on the beg, was anxious to obtain some
article from me, and I determined to give it only on one condition.
Being anxious to tell the people the story of Jesus, I had repeatedly
asked permission of him, but had been as often repulsed. They did not
want _me_, or any new "words," he would reply. Turning to him now, I
said, "Rocanandiva, if you will allow me to tell 'words' to the
people you shall have the present." The priest turned on his heel and
left me. Knowing his cupidity, I was not surprised when, later, he
came to me and said that I could tell them _words_, and held out his
hand for the gift.

After sun-worship next morning the king announced that I had
something new to tell them. When all were seated on the ground in
wondering silence, I began in simple language to tell "the old, old
story." My address was somewhat similar to the following: "Many moons
ago, Nandeyara, looking down from his abode, saw that all the men and
women and children in the world were bad; that is, they had done
wrong things, such as . . . Now God has a Son, and to Him He said,
Look down and see. All are doing wicked things! He looked and saw.
The Father said that for their sin they should have to die, but that
Jesus, His Son, could come down and die in their place. The Son came,
and lived on earth many moons; but was hated, and at last caught, and
large pieces of iron (like the priest's knife) were put into His
hands and feet, and He was fastened to a tree. After this a man came,
and, with a very long knife, brought the blood out of the side of
Jesus, and He died." Purposing to further explain my story, I was not
pleased when the priest stopped me, and, stepping forth, told the
people that my account was not true. He then in eloquent tones
related to them what he called the _real story_, to which I listened
in amazed wonder.

"Many moons ago," he began, "we were dying of hunger! One day the
Sun, our god, changed into a man, and he walked down _that_ road."
(Here he pointed to the east.) "The chief met him. 'All your people
are dying of hunger,' said god. 'Yes, they are,' the chief replied.
'Will you die instead of all the people?' Nandeyara said. 'Yes, I
will,' the chief answered. He immediately dropped down dead, and god
came to the village where we all are now. 'Your chief is lying dead
up the road,' he said, 'go and bury him, and after three days are
passed visit the grave, when you will find a plant growing out of
 his mouth; that will be corn, and it will save you!'" Then, turning
to me, the priest said: "This we did, and behold us alive! That is
the story!" A strange legend, surely, and yet the reader will be
struck with the grains of truth intermingled--life, resulting from
the sacrificial death of another; the substitution of the one for the
many; the life-giving seed germinating after _three days' burial_,
reminding one of John 12:24: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit." Strange that so many aboriginal people have legends so
near the truth.

Some days later the chiefs son and I were alone, and I saw that
something troubled him. He tried to tell me, but I was somewhat
ignorant of his language, so, after looking in all directions to see
that we were really alone, he led the way into a dark corner of the
hogá, where we were. There, from under a pile of garden baskets,
calabashes, etc., he brought out a peculiarly-shaped gourd, full of
some red, powdery substance. This, with trembling haste, he put into
my hand, and seemed greatly relieved when I had it securely. Going
then to the corner where I kept my goods, he took up a box of matches
and made signs for me to exchange, which I did. When Timoteo returned
I learned that the young man was custodian of the devil--the only and
original one--and that he had palmed him off on me for a box of
matches! How the superstition of the visible presence of the devil
originated I have no idea, but there might be some meaning in the
man's earnest desire to exchange it for matches, or lights, the
emblem of their fire or sun-worship. Was this simple deal fallen
man's feeble effort to rid himself of the _Usurper_ and get back the
_Father_, for it is very significant that the Caingwa word, _ta-ta_
(light), signifies also father. Do they need light, or are they
sufficiently illumined for time and eternity? Will the reader
reverently stand with me, in imagination, beside an Indian grave? A
girl has died through snake poisoning. A shallow grave has been dug
for her remains. Into this hole her body has been dropped,
uncoffined, in a sitting position. Beside the body is placed some
food and a few paltry trinkets, and the people stand around with that
disconsolate look which is only seen upon the faces of those who know
not the Father. As they thus linger, the witch-doctor asks, "Is the
dog killed?" Someone replies, "Yes, the dog is killed." "Is the head
cut off?" is then asked. "Yes, the head is off," is the reply. "Put
it in the grave, then," says the medicine man; and then the dog's
head is dropped at the girl's feet.

Why do they do this? you ask. Question their _wise man_, and he will
say: "A dog is a very clever animal. He can always find his way. A
girl gets lost when alone. For that reason we place a dog's head with
her, that it may guide her in the spirit life." I ask again, "Do they
need missionaries?"

My stay with the sun-worshippers, though interesting, was painful.
Excepting when we cooked our own food, I almost starved. Their habits
are extremely filthy, indeed more loathsome and disgusting than I
dare relate.

My horses were by now refreshed with their rest, and appeared able
for the return journey, so I determined to start back to
civilization. The priest heard of my decision with unfeigned joy, but
the king and queen were sorrowful. These pressed me to return again
some time, but said I must bring with me a _boca_ (gun) like my own
for the king, with some more strings of white beads for the queen's
wrists.

While saddling our horses in the grey dawn, the wily priest came to
me with a bundle, and, quietly drawing me aside, said that Nandeyara
was inside, and in exchange for the bright rug I could take him away.
The exchange was made, and I tied their god, along with bows and
arrows, etc., on the back of a horse, and we said farewell. I had
strict orders to cover up the idol from the eyes of the people until
we got away. Even when miles distant, I kept looking back, fearing
that the duped Indians were following in enraged numbers. Of course,
the priest would give out that I had _stolen_ the image.

Ah, Rocanandiva, you are not the first who has been willing to sell
his god for worldly gain! The hand of Judas burned with "thirty
pieces of silver," the earthly value of the Divine One. Pilate, for
personal profit, said: "Let Him be crucified." And millions to-day
sell Him for "a mess of pottage."

The same horse bore away the _devil_ and _god_, so perhaps without
the one there would be no need of the other.

So prolific is the vegetation that during our few weeks' stay with
the Indians the creeping thorns and briars had almost covered up the
path we had cut through the forest, and it was again necessary to use
our machetes. The larger growth, however, being down, this was not
difficult, and we entered its sombre stillness once more. What
strange creatures people its tangled recesses we knew not.

     "For beasts and birds have seen and heard
     That which man knoweth not."

I hurried through with little wish to penetrate its secret. Mere
existence was hard enough in its steaming semi-darkness. Our clothes
were now almost torn to shreds (I had sought to mend mine with horse-
hair thread, with poor results), and we duly emerged into daylight on
the other side, ragged, torn and dirty.

Our journey back to civilization was similar to the outward way. We
selected a slightly different route, but left the old chief safe and
well with his people.

One night our horses were startled by a bounding jaguar, and were so
terrified that they broke away and scattered in all directions.
Searching for them detained us a whole day, but fortunately we were
able to round them all up again. Two were found in a wood of
strangely-shaped bushes, whose large, tough leaves rustled like
parchment.

One afternoon a heavy rain came on, and we stopped to construct a
shelter of green branches, into which we crept. The downpour became
so heavy that it dripped through our hastily-constructed arbor, and
we were soon soaking wet. Owing to the dampness of the fuel, it was
only after much patient work that we were able to light a fire and
dry our clothes. There we remained for three days, Timoteo sighing
for Pegwaomi, and the wind sighing still louder, to our discomfort.
Everything we had was saturated. Sleeping on the soaking ground, the
poisonous tarantula spiders crept over us. These loathsome creatures,
second only to the serpent, are frequently so large as to spread
their thick, hairy legs over a six-inch diameter.

The storm passed, and we started off towards the river Ipane, which
was now considerably swollen. Three times on the expedition we had
halted to build rough bridges over chasms or mountain streams with
perpendicular banks, but this was broad and had to be crossed through
the water. As I rode the largest and strongest horse, it was my place
to venture first into the rushing stream. The animal bravely stemmed
the current, as did the rest, but Old Stabbed Arm, riding a weaker
horse, nearly lost his life. The animal was washed down by the strong
current, and but for the man's previous long experience in swimming
rivers he would never have reached the bank. The pony also somehow
struggled through to the side, landing half-drowned, and Old Stabbed
Arm received a few hearty pats on the back. The load on the mare was
further soaked, but most of our possessions had been ruined long ago.
My cartridges I had slung around my neck, and I held the photographic
plates in my teeth, while the left hand carried my gun, so these were
preserved. To my care on that occasion the reader is indebted for
some of the illustrations in this volume. Nandeyara got another wash,
but he had been wet before, and never complained!

On the farther side of the river was a deserted house, and we could
distinctly trace the heavy footprints of a tapir leading up the path
and through the open doorway. We entered with caution. Was the beast
in then? No. He had gone out by a back way, probably made by himself,
through the wattled wall. We could see the place was frequented very
often by wild pigs, which had left hundreds of footprints in the
three-inch depth of dust on the floor. There we lit a fire to again
dry our clothes, and prepared to pass the night, expecting a visit
from the hogs. Had they appeared when we were ready for them, the
visit would not have been unwelcome. Food was hard to procure, and
animals did not come very often to be shot. Had they found us asleep,
however, the waking would have been terrible indeed, for they will
eat human flesh just as ravenously as roots. After spreading our
saddle-cloths on the dust and filth, Old Stabbed Arm and I were
chatting about the Caingwas and their dirty habits, when Timoteo,
heaving a sigh of relief, said: "Thank God, we are clean at last!" He
was satisfied with the pigpen as he recalled the _hogá_ of the Sun-
Worshippers.

 At last the village of Pegwaomi was reached, and, oh, we were not
sorry, for the havoc of the jiggers in our feet was getting terrible!
The keen-eyed inhabitants caught sight of us while we were still
distant, and when we reined up, Timoteo's aged mother tremblingly
said, "_Yoape_" ("Come here") to him, and she wept as she embraced
her boy. Truly, there was no sight so sweet to "mother" as that of
her ragged, travel-stained son; and Timoteo, the strong man, wept.
The fatted calf was then killed a few yards from the doorstep, by
having its throat cut. Offal littered up the doorway, and the
children in their glee danced in the red blood. The dogs' tails and
the women's tongues wagged merrily, making us feel that we were
joined on to the world again. I was surprised to find that we were
days out of reckoning; I had been keeping Sunday on Thursday!

During this stay at Pegwaomi I nearly lost Old Stabbed Arm. The day
after we returned our hostess very seriously asked me if he might
marry her daughter. Thinking he had sent her to ask, I consented. It
was a surprise to learn afterwards that he knew nothing at all of the
matter.

Although Pegwaomi gained no new inhabitant, I secured what proved to
be one of the truest and most faithful friends of my life--a little
monkey. His name was Mr. Pancho. With him it was love at first sight,
and from that time onward, I believe, he had only two things in his
mind--his food and his master. He would cry when I left him, and hug
and kiss me on my return. Pancho rode the pack-mare into the village
of Concepcion, and busied himself on the way catching butterflies and
trying to grasp the multi-colored humming-birds hovering over the
equally beautiful passion-flowers growing in the bushes on each side
of the path.

Surely a stranger sight was never seen on the streets of Concepcion
than that of a tired, dusty pack-horse bearing a live monkey, a dead
god, and an equally dead devil on his back! Mrs. Sorrows was
overjoyed to see me return, and earnestly told me that my first duty
was to hurry down to the store and buy two colored candles to burn
before her saint, who had brought me back, even though I was a
heretic, which fact she greatly lamented. We had been given up as
lost months before, for word came down that I had been killed by
Indians. Here I was, however, safe and fairly well, saving that the
ends of two of my toes had rotted off with jiggers, and fever burned
in my veins! Mrs. Dolores doctored my feet with tobacco ashes as I
reclined in a hammock under the lime trees surrounding her hut. I did
not buy the candles, but she did; and while I silently thanked a
Higher Power, and the _ta-tas_ burned to _her_ deity, she informed me
that my countryman, the prodigal, had been carried to the "potters'
field." Not all prodigals reach home again; some are buried by the
swine-troughs.

For some time I was unable to put my feet to the ground; but Pancho,
ever active, tied in a fig tree, helped himself to ripe fruit, and
took life merrily. Pancho and I were eventually able to bid good-bye
to Mrs. Sorrows, and, thousands of miles down life's pathway, this
little friend and I journeyed together, he ever loving and true. I
took him across the ocean, away from his tropical home, and--he died.
I am not sentimental--nay, I have been accused of hardness--but I
make this reference to Pancho in loving memory. Unlike some friends
of my life, _he_ was constant and true. [Footnote: From letters
awaiting me at the post-office, I learned, with intense sorrow and
regret, that my strange patron had gone "the way of all flesh" The
land I had been to explore, along-with a bequest of $250,000, passed
into the hands of the Baptist Missionary Society, to the Secretary of
which Society all my reports were given.]




CHAPTER XI.

CHACO SAVAGES.


The Gran Chaco, an immense region in the interior of the continent,
said to be 2,500,000 square miles in extent, is, without doubt, the
darkest part of "The Darkest Land." From time immemorial this has
been given up to the Indians; or, rather, they have proved so warlike
that the white man has not dared to enter the vast plain. The Chaco
contains a population of perhaps 3,000,000 of aborigines. These are
divided into many tribes, and speak numerous languages. From the
military outposts of Argentina at the south, to the Fort of Olimpo,
450 miles north, the country is left entirely to the savage. The
former are built to keep back the Tobas from venturing south, and the
latter is a Paraguayan fort on the Brazilian frontier. Here about one
hundred soldiers are quartered and some fifty women banished, for the
Paraguayan Government sends its female convicts there. [Footnote: The
women are not provided with even the barest necessities of life. Here
they are landed and, perforce, fasten themselves like leeches on the
licentious soldiery. I speak from personal knowledge, for I have
visited the "hell" of Paraguay.] Between these forts and Bolivia, on
the west, I have been privileged to visit eight different tribes of
Indians, all of them alike degraded and sunken in the extreme; savage
and wild as man, though originally made in the image of God, can be.

The Chaco is a great unknown land. The north, described by Mr.
Minchin, Bolivian Government Explorer, as "a barren zone--an almost
uninterrupted extent of low, thorny scrub, with great scarcity of
water," and the centre and south, as I have seen in exploring
journeys, great plains covered with millions of palm trees, through
which the astonished traveller can ride for weeks without seeing any
limit. In the dry season the land is baked by the intense heat of the
tropical sun, and cracked into deep fissures. In the rainy season it
is an endless marsh--a veritable dead man's land. During a 200-mile
ride, 180 lay through water with the sun almost vertical. All this
country in past ages must have been the bed of a great salt sea.

As I have said, the Chaco is peculiarly Indian territory, into which
the white man steps at his peril. I accepted a commission, however,
to examine and report on certain parts of it, so I left the civilized
haunts of men and set foot on the forbidden ground.

My first introduction to the savages in Chaco territory was at their
village of Teepmuckthlawhykethy (The Place Where the Cows Arrived).
They were busy devouring a dead cow and a newly-born calf, and I saw
their naked bodies through such dense clouds of mosquitos that in one
clap of the hands I could kill twenty or thirty. This Indian _toldo_
consists of three large wigwams, in which live about eighty of the
most degraded aborigines to be found on earth. When they learned I
was not one of the _Christians_ from across the river, and that I
came well introduced, they asked: Did I come across the _big water_
in a dug-out? Was it a day's journey? Would I give them some of "the
stuff that resembles the eggs of the ant?" (their name for rice).

I was permitted to occupy a palm hut without a roof, but I slept
under a tiger's skin, and that kept off dew and rain. They reserved
the right to come and go in it as they pleased. The women, with naked
babies astride their hips, the usual way of carrying them, were
particularly annoying. A little girl, however, perhaps ten years old,
named Supupnik (Sawdust), made friends with me, and that friendship
lasted during all my stay with them. Her face was always grotesquely
painted, but she was a sweet child.

These Indians are of normal stature, and are always erect and
stately, perhaps because all burdens are borne by straps on the
forehead. The expression of the savage is peculiar, for he pulls out
all the hair on his face, even the eyelashes and eyebrows, and seems
to think the omission of that act would be a terrible breach of
cleanliness. These same individuals will, however, frequently be seen
with their whole body so coated with dirt that it could easily be
scraped off with a knife in cakes, as the housewife would scrape a
burnt loaf! The first use to which the women put the little round tin
looking-glasses, which I used for barter, was to admire their pretty
(?) faces; but the men, with a sober look, would search for the
detested hair on lip or chin. That I was so lost to decency as to
suffer a moustache to cover my lip was to them a constant puzzle and
wonder, for in every other respect the universal opinion was that I
was a civilized kind of "thing." I write _thing_ advisedly, for the
white man is to them an inferior creation--not a _person_.

In place of a beard or moustache, the inhabitant of the Chaco prefers
to paint his face, and sometimes he makes quite an artistic design.

These wild inhabitants of Central South America generally wear a skin
around the loins, or a string of ostrich feathers. Some tribes, as,
for example, the Chamacocos, dispense with either. The height of
fashion is to wear strings of tigers' teeth, deer's hoofs, birds'
bills, etc., around the neck. Strings of feathers or wool are twisted
around ankles and wrists, while the thickly matted hair is adorned
with plumes, standing upright.

The men insert round pieces of wood in the lobe of the ear. Boys of
tender age have a sharp thorn pushed through the ear, where more
civilized nations wear earrings. This hole is gradually enlarged
until manhood, when a round piece, two inches in diameter and one and
a half inches thick, can be worn, not depending from the ear, but in
the gristle of it. The cartilage is thus so distended that only a
narrow rim remains around the ornament, and this may often be seen
broken out. Sometimes three or four rattles from the tail of the
rattlesnake also hang from the ear on to the shoulder.

These tribes of the Chaco were all vassals of the Inca at the advent
of the Spaniards. They had been by them reclaimed from savagery, and
taught many useful arts, one or two of which, such as the making of
blankets and string, they still retain. The Inca used the ear
ornaments of solid gold, but made in the form of a wheel. The nearest
approach to this old custom is when the wooden ear-plug is painted
thus, as are some in the author's possession.

I was fortunate in gaining the favor of the tribe living near the
river, and because of certain favors conferred upon them, was adopted
into the family. My face was painted, my head adorned with ostrich
plumes, and I was given the name of Wanampangapthling ithma (Big
Cactus Red Mouth). Because of this formal initiation, I was
privileged to travel where I chose, but to the native Paraguayan or
Argentine the Chaco is a forbidden land. The Indian describes himself
as a _man_; monkeys are _little men_; I was a _thing_; but the
Paraguayans are _Christians_, and that is the lowest degree of all.
The priests they see on the other side of the river are _Yankilwana_
(neither man nor woman); and a _Yankilwana_, in his distinctive garb,
could never tread this Indian soil. So abhorrent to them is the name
of Christian, that the missionaries have been compelled to use
another word to describe their converts, and they are called
"Followers of Jesus." All the members of some large expeditions have
been massacred just because they were _Christians_. Surely this is
convincing corroboration of my remarks regarding the state of Roman
Catholicism in those dark lands.

A few miserable-looking, diminutive sheep are kept by some tribes,
and the blankets referred to are made from the wool, which is torn
off the sheep with a sharp shell, or, if near the coast, with a
knife. The blankets are woven by hand across two straight branches of
tree, and they are sometimes colored in various shades. A bulbous
root they know of dyes brown, the cochineal insect red, and the bark
of a tree yellow. String is made from the fibre of the _caraguataî_
plant, and snail shells are used to extract the fibre. This work is,
of course, done by the women, as is also the making of the clay pots
they use for cooking. The men only hunt.

All sleep on the ground, men, women, children and dogs,
promiscuously. The wigwams are nothing more than a few branches stuck
in the ground and tied at the top. The sides are left open. Very
often even this most primitive of dwellings is dispensed with, and
the degraded beings crawl under the shelter of the bushes. Furniture
of any kind they are, of course, wit-out, and their destitution is
only equalled by the African pigmy or the Australian black.

The Chaco is essentially a barren land, and the Indians' time seems
almost fully taken up in procuring food. The men, with bows and
arrows, hunt the deer, ostrich, fox, or wolf, while the women forage
for roots and wild fruit.

One tribe in the north of the Chaco are cannibals, and they
occasionally make war on their neighbors just to obtain food.

A good vegetable diet is the cabbage, which grows in the heart of
certain palms, and weighs three or four pounds. To secure this the
tree has perforce to be cut down. To the Indian without an axe this
is no light task. The palm, as is well known, differs from other
trees by its having the seat of life in the head, and not in the
roots; so when the cabbage is taken out the tree dies.

Anything, everything, is eaten for food, and a roasted serpent or
boiled fox is equally relished. During my stay among them I ceased to
ask of what the mess was composed; each dish was worse than the
former. Among the first dishes I had were mandioca root, a black
carrion bird, goat's meat, and fox's head. The puma, otter, ant-bear,
deer, armadillo, and ostrich are alike eaten, as is also the jaguar,
a ferocious beast of immense size. I brought away from those regions
some beautiful skins of this animal, the largest of which measures
nearly nine feet from nose to tail.

In the sluggish, almost salt, streams, fish are numerous, and these
are shot by the Indian with arrows, to which is attached a string of
gut. Lakes and rivers are also filled with hideous-looking alligators
of all sizes. These grow to the length of twelve or fifteen feet in
these warm waters, and the tail is considered quite a delicacy.
Besides these varied dishes, there is the electric eel; and, sunk in
a yard depth of mud, is the _lollock_, of such interest to
naturalists The lollock is a fish peculiar to the Chaco. Though
growing to the length of three and four feet, it has only rudimentary
eyes, and is, in consequence, quite blind; it is also unable to swim.
The savage prods in the mud with a long notched lance, sometimes for
hours, until he sticks the appetizing fish.

The steamy waters are so covered with aquatic plants that in some
places I have been able to walk across a living bridge. Once, when
out hunting, I came upon a beautiful forest glade, covered with a
carpet of green. Thinking it a likely place for deer, I entered, when
lo, I sank in a fœtid lake of slime. Throwing my gun on to the bank,
I had quite a difficulty to regain dry land.

In my journeyings here and there I employed one or another of the
braves to accompany me. All they could eat and some little present
was the pay. No sooner was the gift in their hand, however, after
supper, than they would put it back in mine and say, "Give me some
more food?" I was at first accompanied by Yantiwau (The Wolf Rider).
Armed with a bow and arrows, he was a good hunter for me, and a
faithful servant, but his custom of spitting on my knife and spoon to
clean them I did not like. When my supplies were getting low, and I
went to the river for a wash, he would say: "There's no
_kiltanithliacack_ (soap)--only _clupup_ (sand)." Yantiwau was
interested in pictures; he would gaze with wondering eyes at photos,
or views of other lands, but he looked at them _the wrong side up_,
as they all invariably do. While possessed of a profound respect for
me in some ways, he thought me very lacking in common knowledge.
While I was unable to procure game, through not seeing any, he could
call the bird to him in a "ducky, ducky, come and be killed" kind of
way; and my tongue was parched when he would scent water. This was
sometimes very easy to smell, however, for it was almost impossible
to drink out of a waterhole without holding the nose and straining
the liquid through my closed teeth. Chaco water at best is very
brackish, and on drying off the ground a white coat of salt is left.

My Indian's first and last thought was of his stomach. While capable
of passing two or three days without eating, and feeling no pangs of
hunger, yet, when food was to hand, he gorged himself, and could put
away an incredible amount. Truly, his make-up was a constant wonder
to me. Riding through the "hungry belt" I would be famishing, but to
my question: "Are you hungry?" he would answer, "No." After a
toilsome journey, and no supper at the end: "Would you like to eat?"
"No." But let an ostrich or a deer come in sight, and he could not
live another minute without food! Another proof to Yantiwau of my
incapacity was the fact that when my matches were all used I could
not light the fire. He, by rubbing a blunt-pointed hard stick in a
groove of soft wood, could cause such a friction that the dust would
speedily ignite, and set fire to the dry twigs which he was so clever
in collecting. Although such a simple process to the Indian, I never
met a white man who could use the firesticks with effect.

Sitting by the camp-fire in the stillness of evening, my guide would
draw attention to a shooting star. "Look! That is a bad witch
doctor," he would say. "Did you notice he went to the west? Well, the
Toothlis live there. He has gone for vengeance!"

The wide palm plains are almost uninhabited; I have journeyed eighty
miles without sighting human being or wigwam. In the rainy season the
trees stand out of a sea-like expanse of steaming water, and one may
wade through this for twenty miles without finding a dry place for
bivouac. Ant hills, ten and fifteen feet high, with dome-shaped
roofs, dot the wild waste like pigmy houses, and sometimes they are
the only dry land found to rest on. The horses flounder through the
mire, or sink up to the belly in slime, while clouds of flies make
the life of man and beast a living death. Keys rust in the pocket,
and boots mildew in a day. At other seasons, as I know by painful
experience, the hard-baked ground is cracked up into fissures, and
not a drop of water is to be found in a three days' journey. The
miserable savages either sit in utter dejection on logs of wood or
tree roots, viewing the watery expanse, or roam the country in search
of _yingmin_ (water).

Whereas the Caingwas may be described as inoffensive Indians, the
inhabitants of the Chaco are _savages_, hostile to the white man, who
only here and there, with their permission, has settled on the river
bank. Generally a people of fine physique and iron constitution, free
from disease of any kind, they are swept into eternity in an
incredibly short space of time if _civilized_ diseases are
introduced. Even the milder ones, such as measles, decimate a whole
tribe; and I have known communities swept away as autumn leaves in a
strong breeze with the _grippe_. I was informed that the hospital
authorities at Asuncion gave them the cast-off fever clothing of
their patients during an epidemic to sweep them off the face of the
earth!

The Indians have been ill-treated from the beginning. Darwin relates
that, in their eagerness to exterminate the red men, the Argentine
troops have pursued them for three days without food. On the frontier
they are killed in hundreds; by submitting to the white man they die
in thousands. Latin civilization is more terrible to them than war.
Sad to state, their only hope is to fight, and this the savage
affirms he will do for ever and ever.

Francia, the Dictator of Paraguay, ordered every Indian found--man,
woman or child--to be put to death! Lopez, a later ruler, took sport
in hunting Indians like deer. We are told that on one occasion he was
so successful as to kill forty-eight! The children he captured and
sold into slavery at fifteen and twenty dollars each. The white
settler considers himself very brave if he kills the savage with a
rifle sighted at five hundred yards, while well out of range of the
Indians' arrows, and I have known them shot just "for fun"! The
Indians retaliate by _cutting off the heels_ of their white captives,
or leaving them, _in statu naturae_, bound with thongs on an
anthill; and a more terrible death could not be devised by even the
inquisitor, Torquemada, of everlasting execration. The Indian is hard
and cruel, indifferent to pain in himself or others. A serpent may
sting a comrade, and he takes no notice; but let one find food and
there is a general scamper to the spot. The Chaco savage is barbarous
in the extreme. The slain enemies are often eaten, and the bones
burnt and scattered over their food. The children of enemies are
traded off to other tribes for more food.

The Chaco Indian is a born warrior. Sad to say, his only hope is to
fight against the Latin paleface.

Most of us have at times been able to detect a peculiar aroma in the
negro. The keen-scented savage detects that something in us, and we
"smell" to them. Even I, _Big Cactus Red Mouth_, was not declared
free from a subtle odor, although I washed so often that they
wondered my skin did not come off. _They never wash_, and in damp
weather the dirt peels from them in cakes. Of course they _don't_
smell!

When a man or woman is, through age, no longer capable of looking
after the needs of the body, a shallow grave is dug, the aged one
doubled up until the knees are pressed into the hollow cheeks, and
the back is broken. This terrible work done, the undesired one is
dragged by one leg to the open tomb. Sometimes the face and whole
body is so mangled, by being pulled through thorns and over uneven
ground, that it is not recognizable, and the nose has at times been
actually torn off. While sometimes still alive, the body is covered
up with mother earth. Frequently the grave is so shallow that the
matted hair may be seen coming out at the top. The burial is
generally made near a wood, and, if passible, under the _holy wood
tree_, which, in their judgment, has great influence with evil
spirits. Wild beasts, attracted by the odor of the corpse, soon dig
up the remains, and before next day it is frequently devoured.

An _ordinary_ burial service may be thus described: A deep cut is
first made in the stomach of the departed one. Into this incision a
stone, some bone ash, and a bird's claw are introduced. The body is
then placed over the grave on two sticks, a muttering incantation is
said by the witch doctor, and the sticks are roughly knocked from
under the body, so as to permit it to fall in a sitting posture. A
bow and arrows, and some food and cooking utensils, are dropped into
the grave. All shooting stars, according to the Indian belief, are
flying stones; hence the custom of placing a stone in the stomach of
the dead. It is supposed to be able to mount heavenward, and,
assuming its true character, become the avenging adversary, and
destroy the one who caused the death--always a bad witch doctor. The
bird's claw scratches out the enemy's heart, and the ashes annihilate
the spirit. One of the missionaries in the Lengua tribe stated that
he assisted at the burial of a woman where the corpse fell head
foremost into the grave, the feet remaining up. Four times the
attempt to drop her in right was made, with similar results, and
finally the husband deliberately broke his dead wife's neck, and bent
the head on to the back; then he broke her limbs across his knee, and
so the ghastly burial was at last completed! Truly, "the dark places
of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." Let the one
whose idea is to "leave the pagan in his innocency" visit these
savages, and, if he lives to tell it, his ideas will have undergone a
great change. They are _lost!_ and millions have not yet heard of the
"Son of Man," who "came to seek and to save that which was lost."

At the death of any member, the _toldo_ in which he lived is burnt,
all his possessions are destroyed, and the people go into mourning.
The hair of both sexes is cut short or pulled out, and each one has
the face blackened with a vegetable dye, which, from experience, I
know hardly ever wears off again. As I have said, everything the man
owned in life is burnt and the village is deserted; all move right
away to get out of the presence of the death-giving spirit. To me the
_toldo_ would not only seem abandoned, but the people gone without
leaving a trace of their path; but not so to Wolf Rider, my guide. By
the position of the half-burnt wood of the fire, he could tell the
direction they had taken, and the number gone--although each steps in
the other's footprints--whether they were stopping to hunt on the
way, and much more he would never tell me. Some of the missionaries
have spent ten years in the Chaco, but cannot get the savage to teach
them this lesson of signs.

In some tribes the aged ones are just _"left to die"_ sitting under a
palm-leaf mat. All the members of the tribe move away and leave them
thus. Many are the terrible things my eyes have witnessed, but surely
the most pathetic was the sight of an old woman sitting under the
mat. I was one day riding alone, but had with me two horses, when I
caught sight of the palm-leaf erection and the solitary figure
sitting under it. Getting down from my horse, I approached the woman
and offered to take her to a place of safety, promising to feed her
and permit her to live as long as she chose. Would she come with me?
I begged and entreated, but the poor woman would not so much as lift
her eyes to mine. The law of her tribe had said she must die, and the
laws are to them unalterable. Most reluctantly, I left her to be
eaten later on by the wild beasts.

Terrible as this custom is, other tribes kill and eat their aged
parents "as a mark of respect." Another tribe will not permit one
member to go into the spirit world alone, so they hang another one,
in order that there may be two to enter together.

Whereas the Caingwas are a religious people, even attributing their
custom of piercing the lip to divine commandment, the Chaco
aborigines have no god and no religion. Missionaries in the solitary
station I have referred to, after ten years' probing, have been
unable to find any approach to worship in their darkened minda. "The
miserable wretches who inhabit that vast wilderness are so low in the
scale of reasoning beings that one might doubt whether or not they
have human souls." [Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]
These "lost sheep" have no word to express God, and have no idols.
"The poverty of the Indian dialects of the Chaco is scarcely
surpassed by that of the dumb brutes."

These wretched tribes have perfect community of goods; what is
secured by one belongs equally to all. A piece of cloth is either
torn up and distributed, or worn in turns by each one. The shirt
which I gave my guide, Yantiwau, for much arduous toil, was worn by
one and another alternately. Much as the savage at first desires to
possess some garment, it does not take long for him to tire of it.
All agree with Mark Twain, that "the human skin is the most
comfortable of all costumes," and, clothed in the sunlight, the human
form divine is not unlovely.

Sometimes the Indians of the interior take skins, etc., to the
Paraguayan towns across the river. Not knowing the use of money,
their little trading is done by barter. Their knowledge of value is
so crude that on one occasion they refused a two-dollar axe for an
article, but gladly accepted a ten-cent knife. The Chaco Indian,
however, is seldom seen in civilization. His home is in the interior
of an unknown country, which he wanders over in wild freedom. While
the Caingwas are homekeeping, these savages are nomadic, and could
not settle down. The land is either burnt up or inundated, so they do
not plant, but live only by the chase. So bold and daring are they
that a man, armed only with a lance, will attack a savage jaguar; or,
diving under an alligator, he will stab it with a sharpened bone. The
same man will run in abject terror if he thinks he hears _spirits_.

Though not religious, the savages are exceedingly superstitious,
afraid of ghosts and evil spirits, and the fear of these spectral
visitants pursues them through life. During a storm they vigorously
shake their blankets and mutter incantations to keep away
supernatural visitors.

All diseases are caused by evil spirits, or the moon; and a comet
brings the measles. The help of the witch doctor has to be sought on
all occasions, for his special work is to drive away the evil spirit
that has taken possession of a sick one. This he does by rattling a
hollow calabash containing stones. That important person will perform
his mystic _hocus pocus_ over the sick or dying, and charm away the
spirits from a neighborhood. I have known an Indian, when in great
pain through having eaten too much, send for the old fakir, who,
after examination of the patient and great show of learning, declared
that the suffering one _had two tigers in his stomach_. A very common
remedy is the somewhat scientific operation of bleeding a patient,
but the manner is certainly uncommon--the witch doctor sucks out the
blood. One I was acquainted with, among the Lengua tribe, professed
to suck three cats out of a man's stomach. His professional name was
thereafter "Father of Kittens." The doctor's position is not one to
be envied, however, for if three consecutive patients die, he must
follow them _down the dark trail!_

These medicine-men are experts in poisons, and their enemies have a
way of dying suddenly. It cannot be denied that the Indians have a
very real knowledge of the healing virtues of many plants. The writer
has marvelled at the cures he has seen, and was not slow to add some
of their methods to his medical knowledge. Not a few who have been
healed, since the writer's return to civilization, owe their new life
to the knowledge there learned.

Infanticide is practised in every tribe, and in my extensive
wanderings among eight _toldos_, I never met a family with more than
two children. The rest are killed! A child is born, and the mother
immediately knocks it on the head with a club! After covering the
baby with a layer of earth, the woman goes about as if nothing had
occurred. One chief of the Lengua tribe, that I met, had himself
killed nineteen children. An ironwood club is kept in each _toldo_
for this gruesome work. Frequently a live child is buried with a dead
parent; but I had better leave much of their doings in the inkpot.

When a girl enters the matrimonial market, at about the age of twelve
or thirteen, her face is specially colored with a yellow paint, made
from the flower of the date palm, and the aspirant to her hand brings
a bundle of firewood, neatly tied up, which he places beside her
earthen bed at early morning. As the rising sun gilds the eastern
sky, the girl awakes out of her sleep, rubs her eyes,--and sees the
sticks. Well does she know the meaning of it, and a glad light
flashes in her dark eyes as she cries out, "Who brought the sticks?"
All men, women and children, take up the cry, and soon the whole
encampment resounds with, "Who brought the sticks?" The medicine-man,
who sleeps apart from the "common herd" under an incense-tree, hears
the din, and, quickly donning his head-dress, hurries down to the
scene. With an authoritative voice, which even the chief himself does
not use, he demands, "Who brought the sticks?" until a young brave
steps forward in front of him and replies, "Father of Kittens, I
brought the sticks." This young man is then commanded to stand apart,
the girl is hunted out, and together they wait while the witch-doctor
X-rays them through and through. After this close scrutiny, they are
asked: "Do you want this man?" "Do you want this girl?" To which they
reply, "Yes, Father of Kittens, I do." Then, with great show of
power, the medicine-man says, "Go!" and off the newly-married pair
start, to live together until death (in the form of burial) does them
part.

It may be a great surprise to the reader to learn that these savages
are exceedingly moral. Infidelity between man and wife is punished
with death, but in all my travels I only heard of one such case. A
man marries only one wife, and although any expression of love
between them is never seen, they yet seem to think of one another in
a tender way, and it is especially noticeable that the parents are
kind to their children.

One evening I rode into an encampment of savages who were celebrating
a feast. About fifty specially-decked-out Indians were standing in a
circle, and one of the number had a large and very noisy rattle, with
which he kept time to the chant of Há há há há há! ú ú ú ú ú! ó ó ó
óó! aú aú aú aú aú! The lurid lights of the fires burning all around
lit up this truly savage scene. The witch-doctor, the old fakir named
"Father of Kittens," came to me and looked me through and through
with his piercing eyes. I was given the rattle, and, although very
tired, had to keep up a constant din, while my wild companions bent
their bodies in strange contortions. In the centre of the ring was a
woman with a lighted pipe in her hand. She passed this from one to
another and pushed it into the mouth of each one, who had "a draw."
My turn came, and lo! the pipe was thrust between my teeth, and the
din went on: Há há! ú ú! ó ó! aú aú! This feast lasted three nights
and two days, but the music was not varied, and neither man nor woman
seemed to sleep or rest. Food was cooking at the different fires,
attended by the women, but my share was only a _roasted fox's head!_
The animal was laid on the wood, with skin, head and legs still
attached, and the whole was burnt black. I was very hungry, and ate
my portion thankfully. Christopher North said: "There's a deal of
fine confused feeding about a sheep's head," and so I found with the
fox's. Truly, as the Indian says, "hunger is a very big man."

At these feasts a drum, made by stretching a serpent's skin over one
of their clay pots, is loudly beaten, and the thigh-bone of an
ostrich, with key-holes burned in, is a common musical instrument.
From the _algarroba_ bean an intoxicating drink is made, called _ang-
min_, and then yells, hellish sounds and murderous blows inspire
terror in the paleface guest. "It is impossible to conceive anything
more wild and savage than the scene of their bivouac. Some drink till
they are intoxicated, others swallow the steaming blood of
slaughtered animals for their supper, and then, sick from
drunkenness, they cast it up again, and are besmeared with gore and
filth."

After the feast was over I held a service, and told how sin was
_injected_ into us by the evil spirit, but that all are invited to
the heavenly feast. My address was listened to in perfect silence,
and the nodding heads showed that some, at least, understood it. When
I finished speaking, a poor woman, thinking she must offer something,
gave me her baby--a naked little creature that had never been washed
in its life. I took it up and kissed it, and the poor woman smiled.
Yes, a savage woman can smile.

As already stated, many different tribes of Indians dwell in the
Chaco, and each have their different customs. In the Suhin tribe the
rite of burial may be thus described. "The digger of the grave and
the performer of the ceremony was the chief, who is also a witch-
doctor, and I was told that he was about to destroy the witch-doctor
who had caused the man's death. A fire was lit, and whilst the
digging was in progress a stone and two pieces of iron were being
heated. Two bones of a horse, a large bird's nest built of sticks,
and various twigs were collected. The skin of a jaguar's head, a
tooth, and the pads of the same animal were laid out. A piece of wax
and a stone were also heated; and in a heap lay a hide, some skins
for bedding, and a quantity of sheep's wool. The grave being
finished, the ceremony began by a wooden arrow being notched in the
middle and waxed, then plunged into the right breast of the corpse,
when it was snapped in two at the notch, and the remaining half was
flung into the air, accompanied with a vengeful cry, in the direction
of the Toothli tribe, one of whose doctors, it was supposed, had
caused the man's death. Short pointed sticks, apparently to represent
arrows, were also daubed with wax, two being plunged into the throat
and one into the left breast, the cry again accompanying each
insertion. One of the jaguar's pads was next taken, and the head of
the corpse torn by the claws, the growl of the animal being imitated
during the process. An incision was next made in the cheek, and the
tooth inserted; then the head and face were daubed with the heated
wax. The use of the wax is evidently to signify the desire that both
arrows and animal may stick to the man if he be attacked by either.
The arrows were plunged, one into the right breast downwards, and
another below the ribs, on the same side, but in an upward direction,
a third being driven into the right thigh. They also spoke about
breaking one of the arms, but did not do so. An incision being made
in the abdomen, the heated stone was then placed within the body.
They place most reliance upon the work of the stone. The ceremony is
known by the name of 'Mátaimáng' stone, and all the other things are
said to assist it. Meteorites, when seen to pass along the sky, are
regarded with awe; they are believed to be these stones in passage.
The body was placed in the grave with the head to the west, the
jaguar's head and pads being first placed under it. A bunch of grass,
tied together, was placed upon the body; then the bird's nest was
burned upon it. The bones were next thrown in, and over all the
various articles before mentioned were placed. These were to
accompany the soul in its passage to the west. In this act the idea
of a future state is more distinctly seen than ever it has been seen
amongst the Lenguas, who burn all a man's possessions at his death.
The ceremony finished, the grave was covered in, logs and twigs being
carelessly thrown on the top, apparently simply to indicate the
existence of a grave. The thing which struck me most was the intense
spirit of vengeance shown."

Notwithstanding such terrible savagery, however, the Indian has ideas
of right and wrong that put Christian civilization to shame. The
people are perfectly _honest_ and _truthful_. I believe they _cannot
lie_, and stealing is entirely unknown among them.

Many are the experiences I have had in the Chaco. Some of them haunt
me still like ghostly shadows. The evening camp-fire, the glare of
 which lit up and made more hideous still my savage followers,
gorging themselves until covered with filth and gore. The times when,
from sheer hunger, I have, like them, torn up bird or beast and eaten
it raw. The draughts of water from the Indian hole containing the
putrefying remains of some dead animal; my shirt dropping off in rags
and no wash for three weeks. The journeys through miles of malarial
swamps and pathless wilderness. The revolting food, and the want of
food. Ah! the memory is a bad dream from which I must awake.

The other side, you say? Yes, there is another. A cloudless blue sky
overhead. The gorgeous air-flowers, delicate and fragrant. Trees
covered with a drapery of orchidaceae. The loveliest of flowers and
shrubs. Birds of rainbow beauty, painted by the hand of God, as only
He can. Flamingoes, parrots, humming-birds, butterflies of every size
and hue. Arborescent ferns; cacti, thirty feet high, like huge
candelabra. Creeping plants growing a hundred feet, and then passing
from the top of one ever-vernal tree to another, forming a canopy for
one from the sun's rays. Chattering monkeys. Deer, with more
beautiful eyes than ever woman had since Eve fell. The balmy air
wafting incense from the burning bush; and last, but oh, not least,
the joy in seeing the degraded aborigine learning to love the "Light
of the World"! Yes, there are delights; but "life is real, life is
earnest," and a meal of _algarroba_ beans (the husks of the prodigal
son of Luke XV.) is not any more tempting if eaten under the shade of
a waving palm of surpassing beauty.

The mission station previously referred to lies one hundred miles in
from the river bank, three hundred miles north of Asuncion, among the
Lengua Indians. As far as I am aware, no Paraguayan has ever visited
there. The missionaries wish their influence to be the only one in
training the Indian mind. The village bears the strange name of
Waikthlatemialwa (The Place Where the Toads Arrived). At the
invitation of the missionaries, I was privileged to go there and see
their work. A trail leads in from the river bank, but it is so bad
that bullock carts taking in provisions occupy ten and twelve days on
the journey. Tamaswa (The Locust Eater), my guide, led me all during
the first day out through a palm forest, and at night we slept on the
hard ground. The Indian was a convert of the mission, and although
painted, feathered and almost naked, seemed really an exemplary
Christian. The missionaries labored for eleven years without gaining
a single convert, but Tamaswa is not the only "follower of Jesus"
now. During the day we shot a deer, and that evening, being very
hungry, I ate perhaps two pounds of meat. Tamaswa finished the rest!
True, it was only a small deer, but as I wish to retain my character
for veracity, I dare not say how much it weighed. This meal
concluded, we knelt on the ground. I read out of the old Book: "I go
to prepare a place for you," and Locust Eater offered a simple prayer
for protection, help and safety to the God who understands all
languages.

My blanket was wet through and through with the green slime through
which we had waded and splashed for hours, but we curled ourselves up
under a beer barrel tree and tried to sleep. The howling jaguars and
other beasts of prey in the jungle made this almost impossible.
Several times I was awakened by my guide rising, and, by the light of
a palm torch, searching for wood to replenish the dying fire, in the
smoke of which we slept, as a help against the millions of mosquitos
buzzing around. Towards morning a large beast of some kind leaped
right over me, and I rose to rekindle the fire, which my guide had
suffered to die out, and then I watched until day dawned. As all the
deer was consumed, we started off without breakfast, but were
fortunate later on in being able to shoot two wild turkeys.

That day we rode on through the endless forest of palms, and waded
through a quagmire at least eight miles in extent, where the green
slime reached up to the saddle-flaps. On that day we came to a
sluggish stream, bearing the name of
"Aptikpangmakthlaingwainkyapaimpangkya" (The Place Where the Pots
Were Struck When They Were About to Feast). There a punt was moored,
into which we placed our saddles, etc., and paddled across, while the
horses swam the almost stagnant water. Saddling up on the other side,
we had a journey of thirty miles to make before arriving at a
waterhole, where we camped for the second night. I don't know what
real nectar is, but that water was nectar to me, although the horses
sniffed and at first refused to drink it.

At sunset on the third day we emerged from the palm forest and
endless marshes, and by the evening of the fourth day the church,
built of palm logs, loomed up on the horizon. Many of the Indians
came out to meet us, and my arrival was the talk of the village. The
people seemed happy, and the missionaries made me at home in their
roughly-built log shanties. Next morning I found a gift had been
brought me by the Indians. It was a beautiful feather headdress, but
it had just been left on the step, the usual way they have of making
presents. The Indian expects no thanks, and he gives none. The women
received any present I handed them courteously but silently. The men
would accept a looking-glass from me and immediately commence to
search their face for any trace of "dirty hairs," probably brought to
their mind by the sight of mine, but not even a grunt of satisfaction
would be given. No Chaco language has a word for "thanks."


[Illustration: TAMASWA (THE LOCUST EATER) PROCURING FOOD. This young
man could put the point of his arrow into a deer's eye a hundred
yards distant]

[Illustration: FASHIONS OF THE CHACO.]


There is, among the Lenguas, an old tradition to the effect that for
generations they have been expecting the arrival of some strangers
who would live among them and teach them about the spirit-world.
These long-looked-for teachers were called _The Imlah_. The tradition
says that when the Imlah arrive, all the Indians must obey their
teaching, and take care that the said Imlah do not again leave their
country, for if so they, the Indians, would disappear from the land.
When Mr. Grubb and his helpers first landed, they were immediately
asked, "Are you the Imlah?" and to this question they, of course,
answered yes. Was it not because of this tradition that the Indian
who later shot Mr. Grubb with a poisoned arrow was himself put to
death by the tribe?

About twenty boys attend the school established at Waikthlatemialwa,
and strange names some of them bear; let Haikuk (Little Dead One)
serve as an example. It is truly a cheering sight to see this sign of
a brighter day. When these boys return to their distant _toldos_ to
tell "the news" to their dark-minded parents, the most wonderful of
all to relate is "Liklamo ithnik ñata abwathwuk enthlit God;
hingyahamok hikñata apkyapasa apkyitka abwanthlabanko.
Aptakmilkischik sat ankuk appaiwa ingyitsipe sata netin thlamokthloho
abyiam." [Footnote: John 3:16]

Well might the wondering mother of "Dark Cloud" call her next-born
"Samai" (The Dawn of Day).

The Indian counts by his hands and feet. Five would be one hand, two
hands ten, two hands and a foot fifteen, and a specially clever
savage could even count "my two hands and my two feet." Now Mr. Hunt
is changing that: five is _thalmemik_, ten _sohok-emek_, fifteen
_sohokthlama-eminik_, and twenty _sohok-emankuk_.

When a boy in school desires to say eighteen, he must first of all
take a good deep breath, for _sohok-emek-wakthla-mok-eminick-
antanthlama_ is no short word. This literally means: "finished my
hands--pass to my other foot three."

At the school I saw the skin of a water-snake twenty-six feet nine
inches long, but a book of pictures I had interested the boys far
more.

The mission workers have each a name given to them by the Indians,
and some of them are more than strange. Apkilwankakme (The Man Who
Forgot His Face) used to be called Nason when he moved in high
English circles; now he is ragged and torn-looking; but the old Book
my mother used to read says: "He that loseth his life for My sake
shall find it." Some of us have yet to learn that if we would
remember _His face_ it is necessary for us to forget our own. If the
unbeliever in mission work were to go to Waik-thlatemialwa, he would
come away a converted man. The former witch-doctor, who for long made
"havoc," but has since been born again, would tell him that during a
recent famine he talked to the Unseen Spirit, and said: "Give us
food, God!" and that, when only away a very short while, his arrows
killed three ostriches and a deer. He would see Mrs. Mopilinkilana
walking about, clothed and in her right mind. Who is she? The
murderess of her four children--the woman who could see the skull of
her own boy kicking about the _toldo_ for days, and watch it finally
cracked up and eaten by the dogs. Can such as she be changed? The
Scripture says: "Every one that believeth."

The Lengua language contains no word for God, worship, praise,
sacrifice, sin, holiness, reward, punishment or duty, but their
meanings are now being made clear.

The church at Waikthlatemialwa has no colored glass windows--old
canvas bags take their place. The reverent worshippers assemble
morning and evening, in all the pride of their paint and feathers,
but there is no hideous idol inside; nay! they worship the invisible
One, whom they can see even with closely shut eyes. To watch the men
and women, with erect bearing, and each walking in the other's
footsteps, enter the church, is a sight well worth the seeing. They
bow themselves, not before some fetish, as one might suppose, but to
the One whom, having not seen, some of them are learning to love.

One of the missionaries translated my simple address to the dusky
congregation, who listened with wondering awe to the ever-new story
of Jesus. As the Lengua language contains no word for God, the
Indians have adopted our English word, and both that name and Jesus
came out in striking distinctness during the service, and in the
fervent prayer of the old ex-witch-doctor which followed. With the
familiar hymn, "There is a green hill far away," the meeting
concluded. The women with nervous air silently retired, but the men
saluted me, and some even went so far as to shake hands--with the
left hand. Would that similar stations were established all over this
neglected land! While churches and mission buildings crowd each other
in the home lands, the Chaco, with an estimated population of three
millions, must be content with this one ray of light in the dense
night.

On that far-off "green hill" we shall meet some even from the Lengua
tribe. Christ said: "I am the door; by Me if _any_ man enter in, he
shall be saved." But oh, "Painted Face," you spoke truth; the white
"thing" _is_ selfish, and keeps this wondrous knowledge to himself.




PART IV.

BRAZIL


[Illustration]


"There can be no more fascinating field of labor than Brazil,
notwithstanding the difficulty of the soil and the immense tracts of
country which have to be traversed. It covers half a continent, and
is _three times the size of British India_. Far away in the interior
there exist numerous Indian tribes with, as yet, no written language,
and consequently no Bible. Thrust back by the white man from their
original homes, these children of the forest and the river are,
perhaps, the most needy of the tribes of the earth. For all that
these millions know, the Gospel is non-existent and Jesus Christ has
never visited and redeemed the world." [Footnote: The Neglected
Continent]


BRAZIL

The Republic of Brazil has an area of 3,350,000 square miles. From
north to south the country measures 2,600 miles, and from east to
west 2,500 miles. While the Republic of Bolivia has no sea coast,
Brazil has 3,700 miles washed by ocean waves. The population of this
great empire is twenty-two millions. Out of this perhaps twenty
millions speak the Portuguese language.

"If Brazil was populated in the same proportion as Belgium is per
square mile, Brazil would have a population of 1,939,571,699. That is
to say, Brazil, a single country in South America, could hold and
support the entire population of the world, and hundreds of millions
more, the estimate of the earth's population at the beginning of the
twentieth century being 1,600,000,000." [Footnote: Bishop Neely's
"South America."]

Besides the millions of mules, horses and other animals, there are,
in the republic, twenty-five millions of cattle.

Brazil is rich in having 50,000 miles of navigable waterways. Three
of the largest rivers of the world flow through its territory. The
Orinoco attains a width of four miles, and is navigable for 1,400
miles. The Amazon alone drains a basin of 2,500,000 square miles.

Out of this mighty stream there flows every day three times the
volume of water that flows from the Mississippi. Many a sea-captain
has thought himself in the ocean while riding its stormy bosom. That
most majestic of all rivers, with its estuary 180 miles wide, is the
great highway of Brazil. Steamboats frequently leave the sea and sail
up its winding channels into the far interior of Ecuador--a distance
of nearly 4,000 miles. All the world knows that both British and
American men-of-war have visited the city of Iquitos in Peru, 2,400
miles up the Amazon River. The sailor on taking soundings has found a
depth of 170 feet of water at 2,000 miles from the mouth. Stretches
of water and impenetrable forest as far as the eye can reach are all
the traveller sees.

Prof. Orton says: "The valley of the Amazon is probably the most
sparsely populated region on the globe," and yet Agassiz predicted
that "the future centre of civilization of the world will be in the
Amazon Valley." I doubt if there are now 500 acres of tilled land in
the millions of square miles the mighty river drains. Where
cultivated, coffee, tobacco, rubber, sugar, cocoa, rice, beans, etc.,
freely grow, and the farmer gets from 500 to 800-fold for every
bushel of corn he plants. Humboldt estimated that 4,000 pounds of
bananas can be produced in the same area as 33 pounds of wheat or 99
pounds of potatoes.

The natural wealth of the country is almost fabulous. Its mountain
chains contain coal, gold, silver, tin, zinc, mercury and whole
mountains of the very best iron ore, while in forty years five
million carats of diamonds have been sent to Europe. In 1907 Brazil
exported ten million dollars' worth of cocoa, seventy million
dollars' worth of rubber; and from the splendid stone docks of
Santos, which put to shame anything seen on this northern continent,
either in New York or Boston, there was shipped one hundred and
forty-two million dollars' worth of coffee. Around Rio Janeiro alone
there are a hundred million coffee trees, and the grower gets two
crops a year.

Yet this great republic has only had its borders touched. It is
estimated that there are over a million Indians in the interior, who
hold undisputed possession of four-fifths of the country. Three and a
quarter million square miles of the republic thus remains to a great
extent an unknown, unexplored wilderness. In this area there are over
a million square miles of virgin forest, "the largest and densest on
earth." The forest region of the Amazon is twelve hundred miles east
to west, and eight hundred miles north to south, and this sombre,
primeval woodland has not yet been crossed. [Footnote: Just as this
goes to press the newspapers announce that the Brazilian Government
has appropriated $10,000 towards the expenses of an expedition into
the interior, under the leadership of Henry Savage Landor, the English
explorer.]

Brazil's federal capital, Rio de Janeiro, stands on the finest harbor
of the world, in which float ships from all nations. Proudest among
these crafts are the large Brazilian gunboats. "It is a curious
anomaly," says the _Scientific American_, "that the most powerful
Dreadnought afloat should belong to a South American republic, but it
cannot be denied that the _Minas Geraes_ is entitled to that
distinction." This is one of the vessels that mutinied in 1910.

Brazil is a strange republic. Fanatical, where the Bible is burned in
the public plaza whenever introduced, yet, where the most obscene
prints are publicly offered for sale in the stores. Where it is a
"mortal sin" to listen to the Protestant missionary, and _not_ a sin
to break the whole Decalogue. Backward--where the villagers are tied
to a post and whipped by the priest when they do not please him.
Progressive--in the cities where religion has been relegated to women
and children and priests.

Did I write the word religion? Senhor Ruy Barbosa, the most
conspicuous representative of South America at the last Hague
Conference, and a candidate for the Presidency of Brazil, wrote of
it: "_Romanism is not a religion, but a political organization, the
most vicious, the most unscrupulous, and the most destructive of all
political systems. The monks are the propagators of fanaticism, the
debasers of Christian morals. The history of papal influence has been
nothing more nor less than the story of the dissemination of a new
paganism, as full of superstition and of all unrighteousness as the
mythology of the ancients--a new paganism organized at the expense of
evangelical traditions, shamelessly falsified and travestied by the
Romanists. The Romish Church in all ages has been a power, religious
scarcely in name, but always inherently, essentially and untiringly a
political power_." As Bishop Neely of the M. E. Church was leaving
Rio, Dr. Alexander, one of Brazil's most influential gentlemen, said
to him: "_It is sad to see my people so miserable when they might be
so happy. Their ills, physical and moral, spring from lack of
religion. They call themselves Catholics, but the heathen are
scarcely less Christian_!" Is it surprising that the Italian paper
_L'Asino_ (The Ass), which exists only to ridicule Romanism, has
recently been publishing much in praise of what it calls authentic
Christianity?

"Rio Janeiro, the beautiful," is an imperial city of imposing
grandeur. It is the largest Portuguese city of the world--greater
than Lisbon and Oporto together. It has been called "the finest city
on the continents of America,--perhaps in the world, with
unqualifiedly the most beautiful street in all the world, the Avenida
Central." [Footnote: Clark. "Continent of Opportunity."] That
magnificent avenue, over a mile long and one hundred and ten feet
wide, asphalt paved and superbly illuminated, is lined with costly
modern buildings, some of them truly imposing. Ten people can walk
abreast on its beautiful black and white mosaic sidewalks. The
buildings which had to be demolished in order to build this superb
avenue cost the government seven and a half millions of dollars, and
they were bought at their _taxed_ value, which, it was estimated, was
only a third of the actual. [Footnote: "But as a wonderful city, the
crowning glory of Brazil--yes of the world, I believe--is Rio de
Janeiro."--C. W. Furlong, in "The World's Work."]

Some years ago I knew a thousand people a day to die in Rio Janeiro
of yellow fever. It is now one of the healthiest of cities, with a
death-rate far less than that of New York.

Rio Janeiro, as I first knew it, was far behind. Oil lamps shed
fitful gleams here and there on half-naked people. Electric lights
now dispel the darkness of the streets, and electric streetcars
thread in and out of the "Ruas." There is progress everywhere and in
everything.

To-day the native of Rio truthfully boasts that his city has "the
finest street-car system of any city of the world."

A man is not permitted to ride in these cars unless he wears a tie,
which seems to be the badge of respectability. To a visitor these
exactions are amusing. A friend of mine visited the city, and we rode
together on the cars until it was discovered that he wore no tie. The
day was hot, and my friend (a gentleman of private means) had thought
that a white silk shirt with turn-down collar was enough. We felt
somewhat humiliated when he was ignominiously turned off the car,
while the black ex-slaves on board smiled aristocratically. If you
visit Rio Janeiro, by all means wear a tie. If you forget your shirt,
or coat, or boots, it will matter little, but the absence of a tie
will give the negro cause to insult you.

Some large, box-like cars have the words "_Descalcos é Bagagem_"
(literally, "For the Shoeless and Baggage") printed across them. In
these the poorer classes and the tieless can ride for half-price. And
to make room for the constantly inflowing people from Europe, two
great hills are being removed and "cast into the sea."


Rio Janeiro may be earth's coming city. It somewhat disturbs our
self-complacency to learn that they have spent more for public
improvements than has any city of the United States, with the
exception of New York. Municipal works, involving an expenditure of
$40,000,000, have contributed to this.

Rio Janeiro, however, is not the only large and growing city Brazil
can boast of. Sao Paulo, with its population of 300,000 and its two-
million-dollar opera house, which fills the space of three New York
blocks, is worthy of mention. Bahia, founded in 1549, has 270,000
inhabitants, and is the centre of the diamond market of Brazil. Pará,
with its population of 200,000, who export one hundred million
dollars' worth of rubber yearly and keep up a theatre better than
anything of the kind in New York, is no mean city. Pernambuco, also,
has 200,000 inhabitants, large buildings, and as much as eight
million dollars have recently been devoted to harbor improvements
there.

Outside of these cities there are estates, quite a few of which are
worth more than a million dollars; one coffee plantation has five
million trees and employs five thousand people.

With its Amazon River, six hundred miles longer than the journey from
New York to Liverpool, England, with its eight branches, each of
which is navigable for more than a thousand miles, Brazil's future
must be very great.




CHAPTER XII.

_A JOURNEY FROM RIO JANEIRO TO THE INLAND TOWN OF CORUMBA_.


Brazil has over 10,000 miles of railway, but as it is a country
larger than the whole of Europe, the reader can easily understand
that many parts must be still remote from the iron road and almost
inaccessible. The town of Cuyabá, as the crow flies, is not one
thousand miles from Rio, but, in the absence of any kind of roads,
the traveller from Rio must sail down the one thousand miles of sea-
coast, and, entering the River Plate, proceed up the Paraná,
Paraguay, and San Lorenzo rivers to reach it, making it a journey of
3,600 miles.

"In the time demanded for a Brazilian to reach points in the
interior, setting out from the national capital and going either by
way of the Amazon or Rio de la Plata systems of waterways, he might
journey to Europe and back two or three times over." [Footnote:
Sylvester Baxter, in The Outlook, March, 1908.]

The writer on one occasion was in Rio when a certain mission called
him to the town of Corumbá, distant perhaps 1,300 miles from the
capital. Does the reader wish to journey to that inland town with
him?

Boarding an ocean steamer at Rio, we sail down the stormy sea-coast
for one thousand miles to Montevideo. There we tranship into the
Buenos Ayres boat, and proceed one hundred and fifty miles up the
river to that city. Almost every day steamers leave that great centre
for far interior points. The "Rapido" was ready to sail for Asuncion,
so we breasted the stream one thousand miles more, when that city was
reached. There another steamer waited to carry us to Corumbá, another
thousand miles further north.

The climate and scenery of the upper reaches of the Paraguay are
superb, but our spirits were damped one morning when we discovered
that a man of our party had mysteriously disappeared during the
night. We had all sat down to dinner the previous evening in health
and spirits, and now one was missing. The All-seeing One only knows
his fate. To us he disappeared forever.

Higher up the country--or lower, I cannot tell which, for the river
winds in all directions, and the compass, from pointing our course as
due north, glides over to northwest, west, southwest, and on one or
two occasions, I believe, pointed due south--we came to the first
Brazilian town, Puerto Martinho, where we were obliged to stay a
short time. A boat put off from the shore, in which were some well-
dressed natives. Before she reached us and made fast, a loud report
of a Winchester rang out from the midst of those assembled on the
deck of our steamer, and a man in the boat threw up his arms and
dropped; the spark of life had gone out. So quickly did this happen
that before we had time to look around the unfortunate man was
weltering in his own blood in the bottom of the boat! The assassin,
an elderly Brazilian, who had eaten at our table and scarcely spoken
to anyone, stepped forward quietly, confessing that he had shot one
of his old enemies. He was then taken ashore in the ship's boat,
there to await Brazilian justice, and later on, to appear before a
higher tribunal, where the accounts of all men will be balanced.

Such rottenness obtains in Brazilian law that not long since a judge
sued in court a man who had bribed him and sought to evade paying the
bribe. Knowing this laxity, we did not anticipate that our murderous
fellow-traveller would have to suffer much for his crime. The _News_,
of Rio Janeiro, recently said: "The punishment of a criminal who has
any influence whatever is becoming one of the forgotten things."

After leaving Puerto Martinho, the uniform flatness of the river
banks changes to wild, mountainous country. On either hand rise high
mountains, whose blue tops at times almost frowned over our heads,
and the luxuriant tropical vegetation, with creeping lianas,
threatened to bar our progress. Huge alligators sunned themselves on
the banks, and birds of brilliant plumage flew from branch to branch.
_Carpinchos_, with heavy, pig-like tread, walked among the rushes of
the shore, and made more than one good dish for our table. This
water-hog, the largest gnawing animal in the world, is here very
common. Their length, from end of snout to tail, is between three and
four feet, while they frequently weigh up to one hundred pounds. The
girth of their body will often exceed the length by a foot. For food,
they eat the many aquatic plants of the river banks, and the puma, in
turn, finds them as delicious a morsel as we did. The head of this
amphibious hog presents quite a ludicrous aspect, owing to the great
depth of the jaw, and to see them sitting on their haunches, like
huge rabbits, is an amusing sight. The young cling on to the mother's
back when she swims.

Farther on we stopped to take in wood at a large Brazilian cattle
establishment, and a man there assured us that "there were no
venomous insects except tigers," but these killed at least fifteen
per cent. of his animals. Not long previously a tiger had, in one
night, killed five men and a dog. The heat every day grew more
oppressive. On the eighth day we passed the Brazilian fort and
arsenal of Cuimbre, with its brass cannon shining in a sun of brass,
and its sleepy inhabitants lolling in the shade.

Five weeks after leaving Rio Janeiro we finally anchored in Corumbá,
an intensely sultry spot. Corumbá is a town of 5,000 inhabitants, and
often said to be one of the hottest in the world. It is an unhealthy
place, as are most towns without drainage and water supply. In the
hotter season of the year the ratio on a six months' average may be
two deaths to one birth. It is a place where dogs at times seem more
numerous than people, a town where justice is administered in ways
new and strange. Does the reader wish an instance? An assassin of the
deepest dye was given over by the judge to the tender mercies of the
crowd. The man was thereupon attacked by the whole population in one
mass. He was shot and stabbed, stoned and beaten until he became
almost a shapeless heap, and was then hurried away in a mule cart,
and, without coffin, priest or mourners, was buried like a dog.

Perhaps the populace felt they had to take the law into their own
hands, for I was told that the Governor had taken upon himself the
responsibility of leaving the prison gates open to thirty-two men,
who had quietly walked out. These men had been incarcerated for
various reasons, murder, etc., for even in this state of Matto Grosso
an assassin who cannot pay or escape suffers a little imprisonment.
The excuse was, "We cannot afford to keep so many idle men--we are
poor." What a confession for a Brazilian! I do not vouch for the
story, for I was not an eye-witness to the act, but it is quite in
the range of Brazilian possibilities. The only discrepancy may be the
strange way of Portuguese counting. A man buys three horses, but his
account is that he has bought twelve feet of horses. He embarks a
hundred cows, but the manifest describes the transaction as four
hundred feet. The Brazilian is in this respect almost a Yankee--
little sums do not content him. Why should they, when he can
truthfully boast that his territory is larger than that of the United
States? His mile is longer than that of any other nation, and the
_bocadinho_, or extra "mouthful," which generally accompanies it, is
endless. Instead of having one hundred cents to the dollar, he has
two thousand, and each cent is called a "king." The sound is big, but
alas, the value of his money is insignificantly small!

The child is not content with being called John Smith. "José Maria
Jesus Joáo dois Sanctos Sylva da Costa da Cunha" is his name; and he
recites it, as I, in my boyhood's days, used to "say a piece" while
standing on a chair. There is no school in the town. In Brazil, 84
per cent. of the entire population are illiterate.

Corumbá contains a few stores of all descriptions, but it would seem
that the stock in trade of the chemist is very low, for I overheard a
conversation between two women one day, who said they could not get
this or that--in fact, "he only keeps cures for stabs and such like
things." In the _armazems_ liquors are sold, and rice, salt and beans
despatched to the customer by the pint. Why wine and milk are not
sold by the pound I did not enquire.

One is not to ask too much in Brazil, or offence is given. When
seated at table one day with a comrade, who had the misfortune to
swallow a bone, I quietly "swallowed" the remedy a Brazilian told us
of. He said their custom was for all to turn away their heads, while
the unfortunate one revolved his plate around three times to the
left, and presto! the bone disappeared. My friend did not believe in
the cure; consequently, he suffered for several days.

I have said that dogs are numerous. These animals roam the streets by
day and night in packs and fight and tear at anyone or anything. Some
days before we arrived there were even more, but a few pounds of
poison had been scattered about the streets--which, by the way, are
the worst of any town I have ever entered--and the dog population of
the world decreased nine hundred. This is the Corumbá version.
Perhaps the truth is, nine hundred feet, or, as we count, two hundred
and twenty-five dogs. In the interests of humanity, I hope the number
was nine hundred heads. Five carts then patrolled the streets and
carried away to the outskirts those dead dogs, which were there
burnt. I, the writer, find the latter part of the story hardest to
believe. Why should a freeborn Brazilian lift dogs out of the street?
In what better place could they be? They would fill up the holes and
ruts, and, in such intense heat, why do needless work?

Corumbá is a typical Brazilian town. Little carts, drawn by a string
of goats or rams, thread their way through the streets. Any animal
but the human must do the work. As the majority of the people go
barefooted, the patriarchal custom prevails of having water offered
on entering a house to wash the feet. At all hours of the day men,
women and children seek to cool themselves in the river, which is
here a mile wide, and with a depth of 20 feet in the channel. While
on the subject of bathing, I might mention that a wooden image of the
patron saint of the town is, with great pomp, brought down at the
head of a long procession, once every year, to receive his annual
"duck" in the water. This is supposed to benefit him much. After his
immersion, all the inhabitants, men, women and children, make a rush
to be the first to dip in the "blessed water," for, by doing this,
all their sins are forgiven them for a year to come. The sick are
careful to see that they are not left in the position of the
unfortunate one mentioned in the Gospel by John, who "had no one to
put him into the pool."

I have also known the Virgin solemnly carried down to the water's
edge, that she might command it to rise or fall, as suited the
convenience of the people. While she exercised her power the natives
knelt around her on the shingly beach in rapturous devotion. At such
times the "Mother of Heaven" is clothed in her best, and the jewels
in her costume sparkle in the tropical sun.

What the Nile is to Egypt, the Paraguay River is to these interior
lands, and what Isis was to the Egyptians, so is the Virgin to these
people. Once, when the waters were low, it is related the Virgin came
down from heaven and stood upon some rocks in the river bed. To this
day the pilot tells you how her footprints are to be clearly seen,
impressed in the stone, when the water is shallow. Strange that
Mahomet does not rise from his tomb and protest, for that miracle we
must concede to him, because his footprints have been on the sacred
rocks at Mecca for a thousand years. Does he pass it over, believing,
with many, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Whatever Roman Catholicism is in other parts of the world, in South
America it is pure Mariolatry. The creed, as we have seen, reads:
"Mary must be our first object of worship, Saint Joseph the second."
Along with these, saints, living and dead, are numberless.

A traveller in South Brazil thus writes of a famous monk: "There, in
a shed at the back of a small farm, half sitting, half reclining on a
mat and a skin of some wild animal, was a man of about seventy years
of age, in a state of nudity. A small piece of red blanket was thrown
over his shoulders, barely covering them. His whole body was
encrusted with filth, and his nails had grown like claws. His vacant
look showed him to be a poor, helpless idiot. Beside him a large wood
fire was kept burning. The ashes of this fire, strewn around him for
the sake of cleanliness, are carried away for medicinal purposes by
the thousands of pilgrims who visit him. Men and women come from long
distances to see him, in the full persuasion that he is a holy man
and has miraculous powers." [Footnote: "The Neglected Continent"]
Romanism is thus seen to be in a double sense "a moral pestilence."

The church is, of course, very much in evidence in Corumbá, for it is
a very religious place. A _missa cantata_ is often held there, when a
noisy brass band will render dance music, often at the moat solemn
parts. The drums frequently beat until the worshippers are almost
deafened.

In the town of Bom Fim, a little further north, the priest runs a
"show" opposite his church, and over it are printed the words,
"Theatre of the Holy Ghost."

Think, O intelligent reader, how dense must be the darkness of Papal
America when a church notice, which anyone may see affixed to the
door, reads:

RAFFLE FOB SOULS.

A raffle for souls will be held at this Church on January 1st, at
which four bleeding and tortured souls will be released from
purgatory to heaven, according to the four highest tickets in this
most holy lottery. Tickets, $1.00. To be had of the father in charge.
Will you, for the poor sum of one dollar, leave your loved ones to
burn in purgatory for ages?

At the last raffle for souls, the following numbers obtained the
prize, and the lucky holders may be assured that their loved ones are
forever released from the flames of purgatory: Ticket 4l.--The soul
of Madame Coldern is made happy for ever. Ticket 762.--The soul of
the aged widow, Francesca de Parson, is forever released from the
flames of purgatory. Ticket 84l.--The soul of Lawyer Vasquez is
released from purgatory and ushered into heavenly joys. [Footnote:
"Gospel Message."]

But, my reader asks, "Do the people implicitly believe all the priest
says?" No, sometimes they say, "Show us a sign." This was especially
true of the people living on the Chili-Bolivian border. The wily, yet
progressive, priest there made a number of little balloons, which on
a certain day of the year were sent up into the sky, bearing away the
sins of the people. Of course, when the villagers saw their sins
float away before their own eyes, enclosed in little crystal spheres,
such as _could not be earthly_, they believed and rejoiced. Yes,
reader, the South American priest is alive to his position after all,
and even "patents" are requisitioned. In some of the larger churches
there is the "slot" machine, which, when a coin is inserted, gives
out _"The Pope's blessing."_ This is simply a picture representing
his Holiness with uplifted hands.

The following is a literal translation, from the Portuguese, of a
"notice" in a Rio Janeiro newspaper:

FESTIVAL IN HONOR OF THE LADY OF NAZARETH.

"The day will be ushered in with majestic and deafening fireworks,
and the 'Hail Mary' rendered by the beautiful band of the----Infantry
regiment. There will be an intentional mass, grand vocal and
instrumental music, solemn vespers, the Gospel preached, and ribbons,
which have been placed round the neck of the image of St. Broz,
distributed.

"The square, tastefully decorated and pompously illuminated, will
afford the devotees, after their supplications to the Lord of the
Universe, the following means of amusement,-----the Chinese Pavilion,
etc.,-----. Evening service concluded, there will be danced in the
Flora Pavilion the _fandango à pandereta_. In the same pavilion a
comic company will act several pieces. On Sunday, upon the conclusion
of the Te Deum, the comic company will perform," etc.

The spiritual darkness is appalling. If the following can be written
of Pernambuco, a large city of 180,000 inhabitants, on the sea coast,
the reader can, in a measure, understand the priestly thraldom of
these isolated towns. A Pernambuco newspaper, in its issue of March
1st, 1903, contains an article headed, "Burning of Bibles," which
says:

"As has been announced, there was realized in the square of the
Church of Penha, on the 22nd ult., at nine o'clock in the morning, in
the presence of more than two thousand people, the burning of two
hundred and fourteen volumes of the Protestant Bible, amidst
enthusiastic cheers for the Catholic religion, the immaculate Virgin
Mary, and the High Priest Leo XIII.--cheers raised spontaneously by
the Catholic people." [Footnote: Literal translation from the
Portuguese.]

A colporteur, known to me, when engaged selling Bibles in a Brazilian
town, reports that the fanatical populace got his books and carried
them, fastened and burning, at the end of blazing torches, while they
tramped the streets, yelling: "Away with all false books!" "Away with
the religion of the devils!" A recent Papal bull reads: "Bible
burnings are most Catholic demonstrations."

Is it cause for wonder that the Spanish-American Republics have been
so backward?

I have seen a notice headed "SAVIOUR OF SOULS," making known the fact
that at a certain address a _Most Holy Reverend Father_ would be in
attendance during certain hours, willing to save the soul of any and
every applicant on payment of so much. That revelation which tells of
a Saviour without money or price is denied them.

Corumbá is a strange, lawless place, where the ragged, barefooted
night policeman inspires more terror in the law-abiding than the
professional prowler. The former has a sharp sword, which glitters as
he threatens, and the latter has often a kind heart, and only asks
"mil reis" (about thirty cents).

How can a town be governed properly when its capital is three
thousand miles distant, and the only open route thither is, by river
and sea, a month's journey? Perhaps the day is not far distant when
Cuyabá, the most central city of South America, and larger than
Corumbá, lying hundreds of miles further up the river, will set up a
head of its own to rule, or misrule, the province. Brazil is too big,
much too big, or the Government is too little, much too little.

The large states are subdivided into districts, or parishes, each
under an ecclesiastical head, as may be inferred from the peculiar
names many of them bear. There are the parishes of:

"Our Lady, Mother of God of Porridge."

"The Three Hearts of Jesus."

"Our Lady of the Rosary of the Pepper Tree."

"The Souls of the Sand Bank of the River of Old Women."

"The Holy Ghost of the Cocoanut Tree."

"Our Lady Mother of the Men of Mud."

"The Sand Bank of the Holy Ghost."

"The Holy Spirit of the Pitchfork."

The Brazilian army, very materially aided by the saints, is able to
keep this great country, with its many districts, in tolerable
quietness. Saint Anthony, who, when young, was _privileged to carry
the toys of the child Jesus_, is, in this respect, of great service
to the Brazilians. The military standing of Saint Anthony in the
Brazilian army is one of considerable importance and diversified
service. According to a statement of Deputy Spinola, made on the 13th
of June, the eminent saint's feast day, his career in the military
service of Brazil has been the following: By a royal letter of the
7th of April, 1707, the commission of captain was conferred upon the
image of Saint Anthony, of Bahia. This image was promoted to be a
major of infantry by a decree of September 13th, 1819. In July, 1859,
his pay was placed upon the regular pay-roll of the Department of
War.

The image of St. Anthony in Rio de Janeiro, however, outranks his
counterpart of Bahia, and seems to have had a more brilliant military
record. His commission as captain dates from a royal letter of March
21st, 1711. He was promoted to be major of infantry in July, 1810,
and to be lieutenant-colonel in 1814. He was decorated with the Grand
Cross of the Order of Christ also, in 1814, and his pay as
lieutenant-colonel was made a permanent charge on the military list
in 1833.

The image of St. Anthony of Ouro Preto attained the rank and pay of
captain in 1799. His career has been an uneventful one, and has been
confined principally to the not unpleasant task of drawing $480 a
month from the public treasury. The salaries of all these soldiery
images are drawn by duly constituted attorneys. [Footnote: Rio News]

Owing to bubonic plague, my stay in Corumbá was prolonged. I have
been in the city of Bahia when an average of 200 died every day from
this terrible disease, so Brazil is beginning to be more careful.

Though steamers were not running, perspiration was. Oh, the heat! In
my excursions in and around the town I found that even the mule I had
hired, acclimatized as it was to heat and thirst and hunger, began to
show signs of fatigue. Can man or beast be expected to work when the
temperature stands at 130 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade?

As the natives find bullocks bear the heat better than mules, I
procured one of these saddle animals, but it could only travel at a
snail's pace. I was indeed thankful to quit the oven of a town when
at last quarantine was raised and a Brazilian steamboat called.

Rats were so exceedingly numerous on this packet that they would
scamper over our bodies at night. So bold were they that we were
compelled to take a cudgel into our berths! A Brazilian passenger
declared one morning that he had counted three hundred rats on the
cabin floor at one time! I have already referred to Brazilian
numbering; perhaps he meant three hundred feet, or seventy-five rats.

With the heat and the rats, supplemented by millions of mosquitos, my
Corumbá journey was not exactly a picnic.

In due time we arrived again at Puerto Martinio, only to hear that
our former fellow-passenger, the assassin, had regained his freedom
and could be seen walking about the town. But then--well, he was
rich, and money does all in Brazil--yea, the priest will even tell
you it purchases an entrance into heaven! In worldly matters the
people _see_ its power, and in spiritual matters they _believe_ it.
If the priest has heard of Peter's answer to Simon--"Thy money perish
with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be
purchased with money"--he keeps it to himself. How can he live if he
deceives not? Strange indeed is the thought that, three hundred years
before the caravels of Portuguese conquerors ever sailed these
waters, the law of the Indian ruler of that very part of the country
read: "Judges who receive bribes from their clients are to be considered
as thieves meriting death." And a clause in the Sacred Book read:
"He who kills another condemns his own self." Has the interior of
South America gone forward or backward since then? Was the adoration
of the Sun more civilizing than the worship of the Virgin?

When we got down into Argentine waters I began to feel cold, and
donned an overcoat. Thinking it strange that I should feel thus in
the latitude which had in former times been so agreeable, I
investigated, and found the thermometer 85 degrees Fah. in the shade.
After Corumbá that was _cold_.




PART V.

URUGUAY


[Illustration]


THE LONE TRAIL.


  And sometimes it leads to the desert and the tongue swells
    out of the mouth,
  And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking
    drouth.
  And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the
    lone camp-fire,
  And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of the hunger-goaded
    desire.

          --_Robert W. Service._



The Republic of Uruguay has 72,210 square miles of territory, and is
the smallest of the ten countries of South America. Its population is
only 1,103,000, but the Liebig Company, "which manufactures beef tea
for the world, owns nearly a million acres of land in Uruguay. On its
enormous ranches over 6,000,000 head of cattle have passed through
its hands in the fifty years of its existence." [Footnote: Clark.
"Continent of Opportunity."]

The republic seems well governed, but, as in all Spanish-American
countries, the ideas of right and wrong are strange. While taking
part in a religious procession, President Borda was assassinated in
1897. A man was seen to deliberately walk up and shoot him. The Chief
Executive fell mortally wounded. This cool murderer was condemned to
two years' imprisonment for _insulting_ the President.

In 1900, President Arredondo was assassinated, but the murderer was
acquitted on the ground that "he was interpreting the feelings of the
people."

Uruguay is a progressive republic, with more than a thousand miles of
railway. On these lines the coaches are very palatial. The larger
part of the coach, made to seat fifty-two passengers, is for smokers,
the smaller compartment, accommodating sixteen, is for non-smokers,
thus reversing our own practice. Outside the harbor of the capital a
great sea-wall is being erected, at tremendous cost, to facilitate
shipping, and Uruguay is certainly a country with a great future.

The capital city occupies a commanding position at the mouth of the
great estuary of the Rio de la Plata; its docks are large and modern,
and palatial steamers of the very finest types bring it in daily
communication with Buenos Ayres. The Legislative Palace is one of the
finest government buildings in the world. The great Solis Theatre,
where Patti and Bernhardt have both appeared, covers nearly two acres
of ground, seats three thousand people and cost three million dollars
to build. The sanitary conditions and water supply are so perfect
that fewer people die in this city, in proportion to its size, than
in any other large city of the world.

The Parliament of Uruguay has recently voted that all privileges
hitherto granted to particular religious bodies shall be abrogated,
that the army shall not take part in religious ceremonies, that army
chaplains shall be dismissed, that the national flag shall not be
lowered before any priest or religious symbol. So another state cuts
loose from Rome!

The climate of the country is such that grapes, apricots, peaches,
and many other fruits grow to perfection. Its currency is on a more
stable basis than that of any other Spanish republic, and its dollar
is actually worth 102 cents. The immigrants pouring into Uruguay have
run up to over 20,000 a year; the population has increased more than
100 per cent in 12 years; so we shall hear from Uruguay in coming
years more than we have done in the past.




CHAPTER XIII.

SKETCHES OF A HORSEBACK RIDE THROUGH THE REPUBLIC.


I CROSS THE SILVER RIVER.

I left Buenos Ayres for Uruguay in an Italian _polacca_. We weighed
anchor one Sunday afternoon, and as the breeze was favorable, the
white sails, held up by strong ropes of rawhide, soon wafted us away
from the land. We sailed through a fleet of ships from all parts of
the world, anchored in the stream, discharging and loading cargoes.
There, just arrived, was an Italian emigrant ship with a thousand
people on board, who had come to start life afresh. There was the
large British steamer, with her clattering windlass, hoisting on
board live bullocks from barges moored alongside. The animals are
raised up by means of a strong rope tied around their horns, and as
the ship rocks on the swell they dangle in mid-air. When a favorable
moment arrives they are quickly dropped on to the deck, completely
stupefied by their aerial flight.

As darkness fell, the wind dropped, and we lay rocking on the bosom
of the river, with only the twinkling lights of the Argentine coast
to remind us of the solid world. The shoreless river was, however,
populous with craft of all rigs, for this is the highway to the great
interior, and some of them were bound to Cuyabá, 2,600 miles in the
heart of the continent. During the night a ship on fire in the offing
lit up with great vividness the silent waste of waters, and as the
flames leaped up the rigging, the sight was very grand. Owing to
calms and light winds, our passage was a slow one, and I was not
sorry when at last I could say good-bye to the Italians and their
oily food. Three nights and two days is a long time to spend in
crossing a river.

MONTEVIDEO.

Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, is "one of the handsomest cities
in all America, north or south." Its population is over 350,000. It
is one of the cleanest and best laid-out cities on the continent; it
has broad, airy streets and a general look of prosperity. What
impresses the newcomer most is the military display everywhere seen.
Sentry boxes, in front of which dark-skinned soldiers strut, seem to
be at almost every corner. Although Uruguay has a standing army of
under 3,500 men, yet gold-braided officers are to be met with on
every street. There are twenty-one generals on active service, and
many more living on pension. More important personages than these men
assume to be could not be met with in any part of the world.

The armies of most of these republics are divided into sections
bearing such blasphemous titles as "Division of the Son of God,"
"Division of the Good Shepherd," "Division of the Holy Lancers of
Death" and "Soldiers of the Blessed Heart of Mary." These are often
placed under the sceptre of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the national
emblem.

Boys of seven and old men of seventy stand on the sidewalks selling
lottery tickets; and the priest, with black beaver hat, the brim of
which has a diameter of two feet, is always to be seen. One of these
priests met a late devotee, but now a follower of Christ through
missionary effort, and said: "Good morning, _Daughter of the Evil
One_!" "Good morning, _Father_," she replied.

The cemetery is one of the finest on the continent, and is well worth
a visit. Very few of Montevideo's dead are _buried_. The coffins of
the rich are zinc-lined, and provided with a glass in the lid. All
caskets are placed in niches in the high wall which surrounds the
cemetery. These mural niches are six or eight feet deep in the wall,
and each one has a marble tablet for the name of the deposited one.
By means of a large portable ladder and elevator combined, the
coffins are raised from the ground. At anniversaries of the death the
tomb is filled with flowers, and candles are lit inside, while a
wreath is hung on the door. A favorite custom is to attend mass on
Sunday morning, then visit the cemetery, and spend the afternoon at
the bull-fights.

NATIVE HOUSES AND HABITS.

Uruguay is essentially a pastoral country, and the finest animals of
South America are there raised. It is said that "Uruguay's pasture
lands could feed all the cattle of the world, and sheep grow fat at
50 to the acre." In 1889, when I first went there, there were thirty-
two millions of horned cattle grazing on a thousand hills. Liebig's
famous establishments at Fray Bentos, two hundred miles north of
Montevideo, employs six hundred men, and kills one thousand bullocks
a day.

Uruguay has some good roads, and the land is wire-fenced in all
directions. The rivers are crossed on large flat-bottomed boats
called _balsas_. These are warped across by a chain, and carry as
many as ten men and horses in one trip. The roads are in many places
thickly strewn with bones of dead animals, dropped by the way, and
these are picked clean by the vultures. No sooner does an animal lie
down to die than, streaming out of the infinite space, which a moment
before has been a lifeless world of blue ether, there come lines of
vultures, and soon white bones are all that are left.

On the fence-posts one sees many nests of the _casera_ (housebuilder)
bird, made of mud. These have a dome-shaped roof, and are divided by
a partition inside into chamber and ante-chamber. By the roadside are
hovels of the natives not a twentieth part so well-built or rain-
tight. Fleas are so numerous in these huts that sometimes, after
spending a night in one, it would have been impossible to place a
five-cent piece on any part of my body that had not been bitten by
them. Scorpions come out of the wood they burn on the earthen floor,
and monster cockroaches nibble your toes at night. The thick, hot
grass roofs of the ranches harbor centipedes, which drop on your face
as you sleep, and bite alarmingly. These many-legged creatures grow
to the length of eight or nine inches, and run to and fro with great
speed. Well might the little girl, on seeing a centipede for the
first time, ask: "What is that queer-looking thing, with about a
million legs?" Johnny wisely replied: "That's a millennium. It's
something like a centennial, only its has more legs."

After vain attempts to sleep, you rise, and may see the good wife
cleaning her only plate for you by rubbing it on her greasy hair and
wiping it with the bottom of her chemise. Ugh! Proceeding on the
journey, it is a common sight to see three or four little birds
sitting on the backs of the horned cattle getting their breakfast,
which I hope they relish better than I often did.

A WAKE, AND HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN.

During my journey I was asked: Would I like to go to the wake held
that night at the next house, three miles away? After supper, horses
were saddled up and away we galloped. Quite a number had already
gathered there. We found the dead man lying on a couple of
sheepskins, in the centre of a mud-walled and mud-floored room. "No
useless coffin enclosed his breast," nor was he wound in either sheet
or shroud. There he lay, fully attired, even to his shoes. Four
tallow candles lighted up the gloom, and these were placed at his
head and feet. His clammy hands were reverently folded over his
breast, whilst entwined in his fingers was a bronze cross and rosary,
that St. Peter, seeing his devotion, might, without questioning,
admit him to a better world. The scene was weird beyond description.
Outside, the wind moaned a sad dirge; great bats and black moths, the
size of birds, flitted about in the midnight darkness. These, ever
and anon, made their way inside and extinguished the candles, which
flickered and dripped as they fitfully shone on the shrunken features
of the corpse. He had been a reprobate and an assassin, but, luckily
for him, a pious woman, not wishing to see him die "in his sins," had
sprinkled _Holy Water_ on him. The said "Elixir of Life" had been
brought eighty miles, and was kept in her house to use only in
extreme cases. The poor woman had paid the price of a cow for the
bottle of water, but the priest had declared that it was an effectual
soul-saver, and they never doubted its efficacy. Around the corpse
was a throng of women, and they all chattered as women are apt to do.
The men, standing around the door, talked of their horse-races,
fights or anything else. For some hours I heard no allusion to the
dead, but as the night wore on the prophetess of the people came
forth.

If my advent among them had caused a stir, the entrance of this old
woman caused a bustle; even the dead man seemed to salute her, or was
it only my imagination--for I was in a strangely sensitive mood--that
pictured it? As she slowly approached, leaning heavily on a rough,
thick staff, all the females present bent their knees. Now prayers
were going to be offered up for the dead, and the visible woman was
to act as interceder with the invisible one in heaven. After being
assisted to her knees, the old woman, in a cracked, yet loud, voice,
began. "_Santa Maria, ruega por nosotros, ahora, y en la hora de
nuestra muerte!_" (Holy Mary pray for us now, and in the hour of our
death!) This was responded to with many gesticulations and making of
crosses by the numerous females around her. The prayers were many and
long, and must have lasted perhaps an hour; then all arose, and máté
and cigars were served. Men and women, even boys and girls, smoked
the whole night through, until around the Departed was nothing but
bluish clouds.

The natives are so fond of wakes that when deaths do not occur with
great frequency, the bones of "grandma" are dug up, and she is prayed
and smoked over once more. The digging up of the dead is often a
simple matter, for the corpse is frequently just carried into the
bush, and there covered with prickly branches.

THE SNAKE'S HISTORY.

I met with a snake, of a whitish color, that appeared to have two
heads. Never being able to closely examine this strange reptile, I
cannot positively affirm that it possesses the two heads, but the
natives repeatedly affirmed to me that it does, and certainly both
ends are, or seem to be, exactly alike. In the Book of Genesis the
serpent is described as "a beast," but for its temptation of Eve it
was condemned to crawl on its belly and become a reptile. A strange
belief obtains among the people that all serpents must not only be
killed, but _put into a fire_. If there is none lit, they will kindle
one on purpose, for it must be burned. As the outer skin comes off,
it is declared, the four legs, now under it, can be distinctly seen.

A GIRL'S NEW BIRTH AND TRANSLATION.

At Rincon I held a series of meetings in a mud hut. Men and women,
with numerous children, used to gather on horseback an hour before
the time for opening. A little girl always brought her three-legged
stool and squatted in front of me. The rest appropriated tree-trunks
and bullocks' skulls. The girl referred to listened to the Gospel
story as though her life depended upon it, as indeed it did! When at
Rincon only a short time, the child desired me to teach her how to
pray, and she clasped her hands reverently. "Would Jesus save _me_?"
she asked. "Did He die for me--_me_? Will He save me now?" The girl
_believed_, and entered at once into the family of God.

One day a man on horseback, tears streaming down his cheeks, galloped
up to my hut. It was her father. His girl was dead. She had gone into
the forest, and, feeling hungry, had eaten some berries; they were
poisonous, and she had come home to die. Would I bury her? Shortly
afterwards I rode over to the hovel where she had lived. Awaiting me
were the broken-hearted parents. A grocery box had been secured, and
this rude coffin was covered with pink cotton. Four horses were yoked
in a two-wheeled cart, the parents sat on the casket, and I followed
on horseback to the nearest cemetery, sixteen miles away. There, in a
little enclosure, we lowered the girl into her last earthly resting-
place, in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection. She
had lived in a house where a cow's hide served for a door, but she
had now entered the "pearly gates." The floor of her late home was
mother earth; what a change to be walking the "streets of gold!" Some
day, "after life's fitful fever," I shall meet her again, not a poor,
ragged half-breed girl, but glorified, and clothed in His
righteousness.

HOW I DID NOT LOSE MY EYES.

One day I was crossing a river, kneeling on my horse's back, when he
gave a lurch and threw me into the water. Gaining the bank, and being
quite alone, I stripped off my wet clothes and waited for the sun to
dry them. The day was hot and sultry, and, feeling tired, I covered
myself up with the long grass and went to sleep. How long I lay I
cannot tell, but suddenly waking up, I found to my alarm that several
large vultures, having thought me dead, were contemplating me as
their next meal! Had my sleep continued a few moments longer, the
rapacious birds would have picked my eyes out, as they invariably do
before tearing up their victim. All over the country these birds
abound, and I have counted thirty and forty tearing up a living,
quivering animal. Sometimes, for mercy's sake, I have alighted and
put the suffering beast out of further pain. Before I got away they
have been fighting over it again in their haste to suck the heart's
blood.

A BACHELOR RABBIT.

The pest of Australia is the rabbit, but, strange to say, I never
found one in South America. In their place is the equally destructive
_viscacha_ or prairie dog--a much larger animal, probably three or
four times the size, having very low, broad head, little ears, and
thick, bristling whiskers. His coat is gray and white, with a mixture
of black. To all appearance this is a ferocious beast, with his two
front tusk-like teeth, about four inches long, but he is perfectly
harmless. The viscacha makes his home, like the rabbit, by burrowing
in the ground, where he remains during daylight. The faculty of
acquisition in these animals must be large, for in their nightly
trips they gather and bring to the mouth of their burrow anything and
everything they can possibly move. Bones, manure, stones and feathers
are here collected, and if the traveller accidentally dropped his
watch, knife or handkerchief, it would be found and carried to adorn
the viscacha's doorway, if those animals were anywhere near.

The lady reader will be shocked to learn that the head of the
viscacha family, probably copying a bad example from the ostrich, his
neighbor, is also very unamiable with his "better half," and inhabits
bachelor's quarters, which he keeps all to himself, away from his
family. The food of this strange dog-rabbit is roots, and his
powerful teeth are well fitted to root them up. At the mouth of their
burrows may often be seen little owls, which have ejected the
original owners and themselves taken possession. They have a
strikingly saucy look, and possess the advantage of being able to
turn their heads right around while the body remains immovable. Being
of an inquisitive nature, they stare at every passer-by, and if the
traveller quietly walks around them he will smile at the grotesque
power they have of turning their head. When a young horse is
especially slow in learning the use of the reins, I have known the
cowboy smear the bridle with the brains of this clever bird, that the
owl's facility in turning might thus be imparted to it.

Another peculiar animal is the _comadreka_, which resembles the
kangaroo in that it is provided with a bag or pouch in which to carry
its young ones. I have surprised these little animals (for they are
only of rabbit size) with their young playing around them, and have
seen the mother gather them into her pouch and scamper away.

DRINKING WATER, SAINTS AND THE VIRGIN.

In Uruguay it is the custom for all, on approaching a house, to call
out, "Holy Mary the Pure!" and until the inmate answers: "Conceived
without sin!" not a step farther must be made by the visitor. At a
hut where I called there was a baby hanging from the wattle roof in a
cow's hide, and flies covered the little one's eyes. On going to the
well for a drink I saw that there was a cat and a rat in the water,
but the people were drinking it! When smallpox breaks out because of
such unsanitary conditions, I have known them to carry around the
image of St. Sebastian, that its divine presence might chase away the
sickness. The dress of the Virgin is often borrowed from the church,
and worn by the women, that they may profit by its healing virtues. A
crucifix hung in the house keeps away evil spirits.

The people were very _religious_, and no rain having fallen for five
months, had concluded to carry around a large image of the Virgin
they had, and show her the dry crops. I rode on, but did not get wet!

NO NEED OF THE DOCTOR OR VET.

"A poor girl got very severely burnt, and the remedy applied was a
poultice of mashed ears of _viscacha_. The burn did not heal, and so
a poultice of pig's dung was put on. When we went to visit the girl,
the people said it was because they had come to our meetings that the
girl did not get better. A liberal cleansing, followed by the use of
boracic acid, has healed the wound. Another case came under our
notice of a woman who suffered from a gathering in the ear, and the
remedy applied was a negro's curl fried in fat."

To cure animals of disease there are many ways. Mrs. Nieve boasted
that, by just saying a few cabalistic words over a sick cow, she
could heal it. A charm put on the top of the enclosure where the
animals are herded will keep away sickness. To cure a bucking horse
all that is necessary is to pull out its eyebrows and spit in its
face. Let a lame horse step on a sheepskin, cut out the piece, and
carry it in your pocket; if this can't be done, make a cross with
tufts of grass, and the leg will heal. For ordinary sickness tie a
dog's head around the horse's neck. If a horse has pains in the
stomach, let him smell your shirt.

A RACE FOR INFORMATION.

Uruguay is said to have averaged a revolution every two years for
nearly a century, so in times of revolutionary disturbance the
younger children are often set to watch the roads and give timely
warning, that the father or elder brother may effect an escape. The
said persons may then mount their fleetest horse and be out of sight
ere the recruiting sergeant arrives. Being one day perplexed, and in
doubt whether I was on my right road, I made towards a boy I had
descried some distance away, to ask him. No sooner did the youth
catch sight of me than he set off at a long gallop away from me; why,
I could not tell, as they are generally so interested at the sight of
a stranger. Determined not to be outdone, and feeling sure that
without directions I could not safely continue the journey, I put
spurs to my horse and tried to overtake him. As I quickened my pace
he looked back, and, seeing me gain upon him, urged his horse to its
utmost speed. Down hill and up hill, through grass and mud and water,
the race continued. A sheepskin fell from his saddle, but he heeded
it not as he went plunging forward. Human beings in those latitudes
were very few, and if I did not catch him I might be totally lost for
days; so I went clattering on over his sheepskin, and then over his
wooden saddle, the fall of which only made his horse give a fresh
plunge forward as he lay on its neck. Thus we raced for at least
three miles, until, tired out and breathless, I gave up in despair.

Concluding that my fleet-footed but unamiable young friend had
undoubtedly some place in view, I continued in the same direction,
but at a more respectable pace. Shortly afterwards I arrived at a
very small hut, built of woven grass and reeds, which I presumed was
his home. Making for the open door, I clapped my hands, but received
no answer. The hut was certainly inhabited--of that I saw abundant
signs--but where were the people? I dare not get down from my horse;
that is an insult no native would forgive; so I slowly walked around
the house, clapping my hands and shouting at the top of my voice.
Just as I was making the circuit for the third time, I descried
another and a larger house, hidden in the trees some distance away,
and thither I forthwith bent my steps. There I learned that I had
been taken for a recruiting sergeant, and the inhabitants had hidden
themselves when the boy galloped up with the message of my approach.

I FIND DIAMONDS.

  "For one shall grasp and one resign.
  One drink life's rue, and one its wine;
  And God shall make the balance good."

Encamped on the banks of the Black River, idly turning up the soil
with the stock of my riding-whip, I was startled to find what I
believed to be real diamonds! Beautifully white, transparent stones
they were, and, rising to examine them closely in the sunlight, I was
more than ever convinced of the richness of my find. Was it possible
that I had unwittingly discovered a diamond field? Could it be true
that, after years of hardship, I had found a fortune? I was a rich
man--oh, the enchanting thought! No need now to toil through
scorching suns. I could live at ease. As I sat with the stones
glistening in the light before my eyes, my brain grew fevered.
Leaving my hat and coat on the ground, I ran towards my horse, and,
vaulting on his bare back, wildly galloped to and fro, that the
breezes might cool my fevered head. Rich? Oh, how I had worked and
striven! Life had hitherto been a hard fight. When I had gathered
together a few dollars, I had been prostrated with malarial or some
other fever, and they had flown. After two or three months of
enforced idleness I had had to start the battle of life afresh with
diminished funds. Now the past was dead; I could rest from strife.
Rest! How sweet it sounded as I repeated aloud the precious word, and
the distant echoes brought back the word, Rest!

I was awakened from my day dreams by being thrown from my horse! Hope
for the future had so taken possession of me that the present was
forgotten. I had not seen the caves of the prairie dog, but my horse
had given a sudden start aside to avoid them, and I found myself
licking the dust. Bather a humiliating position for a man to be in
who had just found unlimited wealth; Somewhat subdued, I made my way
back to my solitary encampment.

Well, how shall I conclude this short but pregnant chapter of my
life? Suffice it to say that my idol was shattered! The stones were
found to be of little worth.

  "The flower that smiles to-day,
   To-morrow dies;
  All that we wish to stay
   Tempts, and then flies."

A MAN WITH TWO NOSES AND TWO MOUTHS.

I was lost one day, and had been sitting in the grass for an hour or
more wondering what I should do, when the sound of galloping hoofs
broke the silence. On looking around, to my horror, I saw a
_something_ seated on a fiery horse tearing towards me! What could it
be? Was it human? Could the strange-looking being who suddenly reined
up his horse before me be a man? A man surely, but possessing two
noses, two mouths, and two hare-lips. A hideous sight! I shuddered as
I looked at him. His left eye was in the temple, and he turned it
full upon me, while with the other he seemed to glance toward the
knife in his belt. When he rode up I had saluted him, but he did not
return the recognition. Feeling sure that the country must be well
known to him, I offered to reward him if he would act as my guide.
The man kept his gleaming eye fixed upon me, but answered not a word.
Beginning to look at the matter in rather a serious light, I mounted
my horse, when he grunted at me in an unintelligible way, which
showed me plainly that he was without the power of speech. He turned
in the direction I had asked him to take, and we started off at a
breakneck speed, which his fiery horse kept up. I cannot say he
followed his nose, or the reader might ask me which nose, but he led
me in a straight line to an eminence, from whence he pointed out the
estancia I was seeking. The house was still distant, yet I was not
sorry to part with my strange guide, who seemed disinclined to
conduct me further. I gave him his fee, and he grunted his thanks and
left me to pursue my journey more leisurely. A hut I came to had been
struck by lightning, and a woman and her child had been buried in the
debris. Inquiring the particulars, I was informed that the woman was
herself to blame for the disaster. The saints, they told me, have a
particular aversion to the _ombu_ tree, and this daring Eve had built
her house near one. The saints had taken _spite_ at this act of
bravado, and destroyed both mother and daughter. Moral: Heed the
saints.

A FLEET-FOOTED DEER.

One day an old man seriously informed me that in those parts there
was a deer which neither he nor any other one had been able to catch.
Like the Siamese twins, it was two live specimens in one. When I
asked why it was impossible to catch the animal, he informed me that
it had eight legs with which to run. Four of the legs came out of the
back, and, when tired with using the four lower ones, it just turned
over and ran with the upper set. I did not see this freak, so add the
salt to your taste, O reader.

I SLEEP WITH THE RATS.

Hospitality is a marked and beautiful feature of the Uruguayan
people. At whatever time I arrived at a house, although a stranger
and a foreigner, I was most heartily received by the inmates. On only
one occasion, which I will here relate, was I grudgingly
accommodated, and that was by a Brazilian living on the frontier. The
hot sun had ruthlessly shone on me all day as I waded through the
long arrow grass that reached up to my saddle. The scorching rays,
pitiless in their intensity, seemed to take the energy from
everything living. All animate creation was paralyzed. The relentless
ball of fire in the heavens, pouring down like molten brass, appeared
to be trying to set the world on fire; and I lay utterly exhausted on
my horse's neck, half expecting to see all kindled in one mighty
blaze! I had drunk the hot, putrid water of the hollows, which did
not seem to quench my thirst any, but perhaps did help to keep me
from drying up and blowing away. My tongue was parched and my lips
dried together. Fortunately, I had a very quiet horse, and when I
could no longer bear the sun's burning rays I got down for a few
moments and crept under him.

Shelter there was none. The copious draughts of evil-smelling water I
had drunk in my raging thirst brought on nausea, and it was only by
force of will that I kept myself from falling, when on an eminence I
joyfully sighted the Brazilian estancia. Hope then revived in me. My
knowing horse had seen the house before me, and without any guidance
made straight towards it at a quicker pace. Well he knew that houses
in those desolate wastes were too far apart to be passed unheeded by,
and I thoroughly concurred in his wisdom. As I drew up before the
lonely place my tongue refused to shout "Ave Maria," but I clapped my
perspiring hands, and soon had the satisfaction of hearing footsteps
within. Visions of shade and of meat and drink and rest floated
before my eyes when I saw the door opened. A coal-black face peeped
out, which, in a cracked, broken voice, I addressed, asking the
privilege to dismount. Horror of horrors, I had not even been
answered ere the door was shut again in my face! Get down without
permission I dare not. The house was a large edifice, built of rough,
undressed stones, and had a thick, high wall of the same material all
around.

Were the inmates fiends that they let me sit there, knowing well that
there was no other habitation within miles? As the minutes slowly
lengthened out, and the door remained closed, my spirits sank lower
and lower. After a silence of thirty-five minutes, the man again made
his appearance, and, coming right out this time, stared me through
and through. After this close scrutiny, which seemed to satisfy him,
but elicited no response to a further appeal from me, he went to an
outlying building, and, bringing a strong hide lasso, tied it around
my horse's neck. Not until that was securely fastened did he invite
me to dismount. Presuming the lasso was lent me to tie out my horse,
I led him to the back of the house. When I returned, my strange,
unwilling host was again gone, so I lay down on a pile of hides in
the shade of the wall, and, utterly tired out, with visions of
banquets floating before my eyes, I dropped off to sleep.

Perhaps an hour afterwards, I awoke to find a woman, black as night,
bending over me. Not seeing a visitor once in three months, her
feminine curiosity had impelled her to come and examine me. Seemingly
more amiable than her husband, she spoke to me, but in a strange,
unmusical language, which I could not understand; and then she, too,
left me. As evening approached, another inmate of the house made his
appearance. He was, I could see, of a different race, and, to my joy,
I found that he spoke fluently in Spanish. Conducting me to the
aforementioned outhouse, a place built of canes and mud, he told me
that later on a piece of meat would be given me, and that I could
sleep on the sheepskins. I got the meat, and I slept on the skins.
Fatigued as I was, I passed a wretched night, for dozens of huge rats
ran over my body, bit my hands, and scratched my face, the whole
night long. Morning at last dawned, and, with the first streaks of
coming day, I saddled my horse, and, shaking the dust of the
Brazilian estancia off my feet, resumed my journey.

THE BURSTING OF A MAN.

A friend of mine came upon an ostrich's nest. The bird was not near,
so, dismounting, he picked up an egg and placed it in an inside
pocket of his coat. Continuing the journey, the egg was forgotten,
and the horse, galloping along, suddenly tripped and fell. The rider
was thrown to the ground, where he lay stunned. Three hours
afterwards consciousness returned. As his weary eyes wandered, he
noticed, with horror, that his chest and side were thickly besmeared.
With a cry of despair, he lay back, groaning, "I have burst!" The
presence of the egg he had put in his pocket had quite passed from
his mind!

I FIND A LONE SCOTSMAN.

One evening after a long day's journey, I reached a house, away near
the Brazilian frontier, and was surprised indeed to see that the
owner was a real live Scotsman. Great was my astonishment and
pleasure at receiving such a warm Scotch welcome. He was eighty miles
away from any village--alone in the mountains--and at the sight of me
he wept like a child. Never can I forget his anguish as he told me
that his beloved wife had died just a few days before, and that he
had buried her--"there in the glen." At the sight of a British face
he had completely broken down; but, pulling himself together, he
conducted me through into the courtyard, and the difficulty of my
journey was forgotten as we sat down to the evening meal.
 Being anxious to hear the story of her who had presided at his
board, I bade him recount to me the sad circumstances.

She was a "bonnie lassie," and he had "lo'ed her muckle." There they
had lived for twelve years, shut out from the rest of the world, yet
content. Hand in hand they had toiled in joy and sorrow, when no rain
fell for eight long months, and their cattle died; or when increase
was good, and flocks and herds fat. Side by side they had stood alone
in the wild tangle of the wilderness. And now, when riches had been
gathered and comfort could be had, his "lassie" had left him, and
"Oh! he grudged her sair to the land o' the leal!" Being so far
removed from his fellows, he had been compelled to perform the sacred
offices of burial himself. Surrounded by kind hearts and loving
sympathizers, it is sad indeed to lose our loved ones. But how
inexpressibly more sad it is when, away in loneliness, a man digs the
cold clay tomb for all that is left of his only joy! When our dear
ones sleep in "God's acre" surrounded by others it is sad. But how
much more heartbreaking is it to bury the darling wife in the depths
of the mountains alone, where a strong stone wall must be built
around the grave to keey the wild beasts from tearing out the
remains! Only those who have been so situated can picture the
solemnity of such a scene.

At his urgent request, I promised I would accompany him to the spot--
sanctified by his sorrow and watered by his tears--where he had laid
his dear one. Early the following morning a native servant saddled
two horses, and we rode in silence towards the hallowed ground. In
about thirty minutes we came in view of the quiet tomb. Encircling
the grave he had built a high stone wall. When he silently opened the
gate, I saw that, although all the pasture outside was dry and
withered, that on the mound was beautifully green and fresh. Had he
brought water from his house, for there was none nearer, or was it
watered by his tears? His greatest longing was, as he had explained
to me the previous night, that she should have a Christian burial,
and if I would read some chapter over her grave he would feel more
content, he said. As with bared heads we reverently knelt on the
mound, I now complied with his request. Then, for the first time in
the world's history, the trees that surrounded us listened to the
Christian doctrine of a resurrection from the dead. "It is sown in
corruption, it is raised in incorruption." And the leaves whispered
to the mountains beyond, which gave back the words: "It is sown a
natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."

Never have I seen a man so broken with grief as was that lone
Scotsman. There were no paid mourners or idle sightseers. There was
no show of sorrow while the heart remained indifferent and untouched.
It was the spectacle of a lone man who had buried his all and was
left--

  "To linger when the sun of life,
   The beam that gilds its path, is gone--
  To feel the aching bosom's strife,
   When Hope is dead and Love lives on."

As we knelt there, I spoke to the man about salvation from sin, and
unfolded God's plan of inheritance and reunions in the future life.
The Lord gave His blessing, and I left him next day rejoicing in the
Christ who said: "I am the resurrection and the life; he that
believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

As the world moves forward, and man pushes his way into the waste
places of the earth, that lonely grave will be forgotten. Populous
cities will be built; but the doctrine the mountains then heard shall
live when the gloomy youth of Uruguay is forgotten.

THE WORD OF GOD CONTRASTED WITH THAT OF THE R. C. CHURCH.

"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve."--The Christ.

"Mary must be the first object of our worship, St. Joseph the
second."--Roman Catholic Catechism.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of
anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."

"I most firmly assert that the images of Christ and of the mother of
God, ever virgin, and also of the other saints, are to be had and
retained, and that due honor and veneration are to be given to
them."--Creed of Pope Pius IV.

"My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven
images."--Jehovah.

"The saints reigning together with Christ are to be honored and
invocated; ... they offer prayers to God for us... their relics are
to be venerated."--Creed of Pope Pius IV.

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men--the man
Christ Jesus."--Paul.

"Mary is everything in heaven and earth, and we should adore her."--
The South American Priest.

"Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served
the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever."--Paul

"All power was given to her."--Peter Damian, Cardinal of Rome.

"Search the Scriptures."--The Christ.

"All who read the Bible should be stoned to death."--Pope Innocent
III.




PART VI.

MARIOLATRY AND IMAGE WORSHIP.


[Illustration: OUR LADY OF GUADALOUPE. Many legacies are left to this
image.]




CHAPTER XIV.

MARIOLATRY AND IMAGE WORSHIP.


Before the light of Christianity dawned on ancient Rome, the Pantheon
contained goddesses many and gods many. Chief of these deities to
receive the worship of the people seems to have been Diana of the
Ephesians, a goddess whose image fell down from Jupiter; the
celestial Venus of Corinth, and Isis, sister to Osiris, the god of
Egypt. These popular images, so universally worshipped, were
naturally the aversion of the early followers of Christ. "The
primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable repugnance
to the use and abuse of images. The Jewish disciples were especially
bitter against any but the triune God receiving homage, but, by a
slow, though inevitable, progression, the honors of the original were
transferred to the copy, the devout Christian prayed before the image
of a saint, and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and
incense stole into the Christian Church." [Footnote: Gibbons'
"Rome."]

Having Paul's masterly epistle to the Romans, in the first chapter of
which he so distinctly portrays man's tendency to change "the glory
of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,"
and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, who is
blessed forever, they were careful to remember that "God is a
spirit," and to be worshipped only in spirit. Peter, in his epistle
to them, also wrote of the One "whom having not seen ye love." As
time wore on, however, the original inclination of man to worship a
god he could see and feel (a trait seen all down the pages of
history) asserted itself, and Mary, the mother of Christ, took the
place in the eye and the heart previously occupied by her
predecessors. [Footnote: Just as this work goes to press, the dally
papers of the world announce that the oldest idol ever discovered has
just been unearthed. The idol is a goddess, who is holding an infant
in her arms.] Being in possession of the Acts of the Apostles, which
plainly declares that Mary herself met with the rest of the disciples
"for prayer and supplication," and, knowing from the four Gospels
that no worship had been at first given to her, the innovation was
slow to find favor; but, in the year 431, the Council of Ephesus
decided that Mary was equal with God.

"After the ruin of paganism they were no longer restrained by the
apprehension of an odious parallel" in the idol worship. Symptoms of
degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which
adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation. "The worship of
images had stolen into the Church by insensible degrees, and each
petty step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as productive of
comfort and innocent of sin. But, in the beginning of the eighth
century, in the full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks
were awakened by an apprehension that, under the mask of
Christianity, they had restored the religion of their fathers. They
heard with grief and impatience the name of 'idolaters,' the
incessant charge of the Jews and Mahometans, who derived from the Law
and the Koran an immortal hatred to graven images and all the
relative worship." [Footnote: Gibbons' "Rome."]

It should be a most humiliating fact to the Romanists to have it
recorded as authentic history that "the great miracle-working Madonna
of Rome, worshipped in the Church of St. Augustina, is only a pagan
statue of the wicked Agrippina with her infant Nero in her arms.
Covered with jewels and votive offerings, her foot encased in gold,
because the constant kissing has worn away the stone, this haughty
and evil-minded Roman matron bears no possible resemblance to the
pure Virgin Mary; yet crowds are always at her feet, worshipping her.
The celebrated bronze statue of St. Peter, which is adored in the
great Church, and whose feet are entirely kissed away by the lips of
devotees, is but an antique statue of Jupiter, an idol of paganism.
All that was necessary to make the pagan god a Christian saint was to
turn the thunderbolt in his uplifted right hand to two keys, and put
a gilded halo around his head. Yet, on any Church holiday, you will
see thousands passing solemnly before this image (arrayed in gorgeous
robes, with the Pope's mitre on its head), and after bowing before
it, rise on their toes and repeatedly kiss its feet." [Footnote:
Vickers' "Rome"]

This method of receiving heathen deities as saints has been common
all over South America, and many Indian idols may be seen in the
churches, now adored as Roman Catholic saints, while the worship of
Mary has grown to an alarming extent. In Lima's largest church,
printed right over the chancel, is the motto, "Glory to Mary."

In Cordoba, the Argentine seat of learning--a city so old that
university degrees were being given there when the Pilgrim Fathers
landed on the shores of New England--charms, amulets and miniature
images of the Virgin are manufactured in large numbers. These are
worn around the neck, and are supposed to work great wonders. As may
be understood, the workers in these crafts stand up for Romanism, and
are willing to cry themselves hoarse for Mary, just as the people of
old cried for Diana of the Ephesians.

It is often told of the Protestant worker that he keeps behind his
door an image of the Blessed Virgin, and, when entering or leaving
the house, he spits in her face. No pains are spared to stamp out any
dissenting work, and the missionary is made a by-word of opprobrium.
I have repeatedly had the doors and windows of my preaching places
broken and wrecked. The priests have incited the vulgar crowd to hoot
and yell at me, and on these occasions I have been both shot at and
stoned.

In Cordoba, there is a very costly image of Mary. Once every year it
is brought out into the public square, while all the criminals from
the state prison stand in line. By a move of her head she is supposed
to point out the one whom she thinks should be given his liberty.

From Goldsmith's "Rome" we learn that the _vestal virgins_ possessed
the power to pardon any criminal whom they met on the road to
execution. Thus does Romanism follow paganism. With the Virgin is
often the image of St. Peter. The followers of this saint affirm that
they are always warned, three days before they die, to prepare for
death. St. Peter comes in person and knocks on the wall beside their
bed.

As the virgin, Diana, was the guardian of Ephesus, so the Virgin Mary
protects Argentina.

The Bishop of Tucuman, in a recent speech, said: "Argentina is now
safe against possible invasion. The newly-crowned _Lady of the
Miracles_ defends the north, and the _Lady of Lujan_ guards the
south."

A writer in _The Times of Argentina_ naively asks: "If these can
safely defy and defeat all comers, is there any further necessity for
public expenditure in military matters?"

South America groans under the weight of a mediaeval religion which
has little to do with spiritual life. In Spain and Portugal, perhaps
the two most deluded of European lands, I have seen great darkness,
but even there the priest is often good, and at least puts on a
veneer of piety. In South America this is not generally considered
necessary. Frequently he is found to be the worst man in the village.
If you speak to him of his dissolute life, he may tell you that he,
being a priest, may do things you, a layman, must not. In Spain,
Portugal and Italy, next door to highly enlightened countries, the
priest cannot, for very shame, act as he is free to do in South
America. That great continent has been ruled and governed only by
Roman Catholics, without outside interference, and Romanists in other
lands do not, and would not, believe the practices there sanctioned.

_"You ask about this nation and the Roman Catholic Church," said the
American Minister in one South American capital. "Well, the nation is
rotten, thanks to the Church and to Spain. The Church has taught lies
and uncleanness, and been the bulwark of injustice and wrong for 300
years. How could you expect anything else?" "Lies," said a priest to
a friend, who told the remark to us, "what do lies have to do with
religion." [Footnote: "Missions In South America," Robt. E. Speer.]

A missionary writes: "Recently the Roman bishop and several other
priests visited the various towns. It was a business trip, for they
charged a good price for baptisms, confirmations, etc., and carried
away thousands of dollars. In Santa Cruz a disgraceful scene was
publicly enacted in the church by the resident priest and one of the
visitors. Both saw a woman drop a twenty-five cent piece into the
pan; each grabbed for it, and then they fought before the people! The
village priest wanted me to take his photo, but he was so drunk I had
to help him put on his official robes. He was taken standing in the
doorway of the church beside an image of the Virgin."

"There wan a feast in honor of the image of the Holy Spirit in the
church. This is a figure of a man with a beard; beside it sits a
figure of Christ, and between them a dove. Great crowds of people
attend these feasts to buy, sell and drink. On a common in the town a
large altar was erected, and another image of the Holy Spirit placed,
and before it danced Indians fantastically dressed to represent
monkeys, tigers, lions and deer. Saturday, Sunday and Monday were
days of debauchery. Men, women and children were intoxicated; the
jails were full, and extravagances of all kinds were practised by
masked Indians. The vessels in the church are of gold and silver, and
the images each have a man to care for them. The patron saint is a
large image of the Virgin, dressed in clothing that cost $2,500."

Since returning to more civilized lands, I have been asked: But do
they really worship the Virgin, or God, through her? I answer that in
enlightened countries where Roman Catholicism prevails, the latter
may be true, but that in South America, discovered and governed by
Romanists from the earliest times, millions of people worship the
Virgin without any reference to God. She is the great goddess of the
people, and while one may see her image in every church, it is seldom
indeed that God is honored with a place--then He may be seen as an
old man with a long white beard. What kind of God they think He is
may be seen from the words of Missionary F. Glass: "I found a 'festa'
in full swing, called the 'Feast of the Divine Eternal Father,' and a
drunken crowd were marching round, with trumpets, drums and a sacred
banner, collecting alms professedly on His behalf." [Footnote:
"Through the Heart of Brazil"]

Mary is the one to whom the vast majority of people pray. They have
been taught to address supplications to her, and, being a woman, her
heart is considered more tender than a man's could be. During a
drought their earnest prayer for rain was answered in an unexpected
way, for not only did she send it, but with such accompanying
violence that it washed away the church!

In some churches the mail-box stands in a corner, and _"Letters to
the Virgin"_ is printed over it. There are always many young women to
be seen before the image of St. Anthony, for he is the patron of
marriages, and many a timid confession of love is dropped into the
letter-box, and it often happens that a marriage is arranged as a
result. The superstitious maiden believes that her letter goes
directly to the Virgin or to the saint in his heavenly mansion, and
she has no suspicion that it is read by the parish priest.

Saints are innumerable and their powers extraordinary. When
travelling in Entre Rios, I learned that St. Ramon was an adept in
guiding the path of the thunderbolt. A terrific storm swept across
the country, and a woman, afraid for her house, placed his image
leaning against the outside wall, that he might be able to see and
direct the elements. The tempest raged, and as though to show the
saint's utter helplessness, the end of the house was struck by
lightning and set on fire. Little damage was done, but I smiled when
the indignant woman, after the storm ceased, soundly thrashed the
image for not attending to its duty.

While preaching in the town of Quilmes, a poor deluded worshipper of
Rome "turned from idols to serve the living and true God." He had
been a sincere believer in St. Nicolas, and implicitly believed the
absurd account of that saint having raised to life three children who
had been brutally murdered by their father and secreted in a barrel.
He brought me a picture of this wonder-worker tapping the barrel, and
the little ones in the act of coming out alive and well.

One familiar with Romanism in South America has said: "It is amazing
to hear men who have access to the Word of God and the facts of
history and of the actual state of the Romish world attempt to
apologize for or even defend Romanism. Romanism is not Christianity."

_The Church deliberately lies about the Ten Commandments, entirely
omitting the second and dividing the tenth in order to make the
requisite number. Can a Church which deceives the people teach them
true religion? Is the preaching of Mary the preaching of Christ?_
[Footnote: "Mission In South America," Robert B. Speer.]

_"There is not an essential truth which is not distorted, covered up,
neutralized, poisoned,_ and completely nullified by the doctrines of
the Romish system." [Footnote: Bishop Neely's "South America."]

A missionary in Cartago writes: "I must tell you about the annual
procession of the wonderful miracle-working image called 'Our Lady
Queen of the Angels,' through the principal streets of the town.
Picture to yourselves, if you can, hundreds of people praying,
worshipping, and doing homage to this little stone idol, for which a
special church has been built. To this image many people come with
their diseases, for she is supposed to have power to cure all. On a
special day of the procession, people receive pardon for particular
sins if they only carry out the bidding of 'Our Lady,' She seems to
order some extraordinary things, such as crawling in the streets with
big rocks on the head after the procession, or painting one's self
all the colors of the rainbow. One man was painted black, while
others wore wigs and beards of a long parasitic grass which grows
from the trees. Some were dressed in sackcloth, and all were doing
penance for some sin or crime. This little image was carried by
priests, incense was burned before her, and at intervals in the
journey she was put on lovely altars, on which sat little girls
dressed in blue and green, with wings of white, representing angels.
Some weeks ago 'Our Lady' was carried through the streets to collect
money for the bull-fights got up in her honor. She is said to be very
fond of these fights, which are immoral and full of bloody cruelty.
This year the bulls were to kill the men, or the men the bulls, and
the awful drunkenness I cannot describe. After this collection the
bishop came over here, and is said to have taken away some of the
money. Soon after he died, and the people here say that 'Our Lady'
was angry with him."

From a recent list of prayers used in the Church of Rome I select the
following expressions:

 "Queen of heaven and earth, Mother of God,
  my Sovereign Mistress, I present myself before
  you as a poor mendicant before a mighty Queen.

 "All is subject to Mary's empire, even God
  Himself. Jesus has rendered Mary omnipotent:
  the one is omnipotent by nature, the other
  omnipotent by grace.

 "You, O Holy Virgin, have over God the authority
  of a mother.

 "It is impossible that a true servant of Mary
  should be damned.

 "My soul is in the hands of Mary, so that if
  the Judge wishes to condemn me the sentence
  must pass through this clement Queen, and she
  knows how to prevent its execution.

 "We, Holy Virgin, hope for grace and salvation
  from you.

 "Dispensatrix of Divine Grace."

How history repeats itself! How hard paganism is to kill! The ancient
Egyptians worshipped the "Queen of Heaven." Jeremiah, as far back as
587 B.C., prophesied desolation to Judah for having "burned incense
to the Queen of Heaven," and poured out "drink offerings" unto her,
and "made cakes to worship her."--Jer. xliv. 17-19.

Of the _wise_ men (Matthew ii.) we read: "And when they were come
into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, His mother, and
fell down and worshipped _Him_."

The South American version of Matthew 11:28, as may be seen carved on
a stone of the Jesuit Church in Cuzco, is: "Come to MARY, all you who
are laden with works, and weary beneath the weight of your sins, and
_she_ will alleviate you," A literal translation of one of the
prayers offered to her reads: "Yes, beloved Mother! of thee I
supplicate all that is necessary for the salvation of my soul. Of
whom should I ask this grace but of Thee? To whom should a loving son
go but to his beloved Mother? To whom the weak sheep cry but to its
divine shepherdess? Whom seek the sick, but the celestial doctor?
Whom invoke those in affliction but the mother of consolation? Hear
me then, Holy Queen!"

The statues of the "Queen of Heaven" are often of great magnificence,
the dress of one which I know having cost $2,000. In the poor Indian
churches a bag of maize leaves, tied near the top to make a neck, and
above that an Indian physiognomy, painted with some vegetable dye,
serves the same purpose. The Bishop of La Serena, in Chili, has
received as much as $40,000 a year for keeping up the revered image
in that church, and these images _are worshipped_. Bequests are often
left to them, and a popular one will receive many legacies annually.

To be just, I must mention that in the arms of this "Mother of God"
there is, almost invariably, the child Jesus, but I must also state
that to tens of thousands this baby never grew to manhood, but went
up to heaven in His mother's arms. What a caricature of Christianity!
Paul said: "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and
your faith is also vain." "Make Jesus a perpetual child, and
Mariolatry becomes lower than Chinese ancestral worship." If He, as a
child, was translated to heaven, then He never died and rose again.
Mary is, to them, the Saviour. The child Jesus happened to be her
son, and, as she was the great divine one, He, through her, partook
of divinity. _La Cruz_, a weekly paper, published in Tucuman,
Argentina, in its issue of September 3rd, 1899, had the following
article:

THE BIRTH OF MARY.

"Chroniclers say that such was the fury that possessed the devils in
hell, at the moment of the birth of the Most Blessed Virgin, that
they nearly broke loose.

"There was sounded in heaven the first cannon shot in salutation of
such a happy event. Lucifer gave such a jump that he got his horns
caught in the moon, and there, it is said, he remained hanging all
the day, like the insignificant fellow he is, to the great amusement
of the blessed ones above, who laughed to see such an uncommon sight.

"The other devils, who could not jump so high, remained below
screaming and kicking!, and tearing their apology for beards, when
not otherwise occupied in scratching and biting and burning the
unfortunate condemned ones.

"And all this because... it had been foretold that... a woman, yes, a
woman, should one day bruise their heads... and, according to all
appearances, this was the woman... and that she was that bright and
morning star that announces the appearance of the Sun.

"Why should we not therefore rejoice, as the angels in heaven
rejoiced, over that moat happy event--the birth of Mary."

From this it is clear that in Tucuman, at any rate--and this, by the
way, is an important city, of at least 75,000 inhabitants--they
believe that Mary, not Christ, came to bruise the serpent's head. The
Roman Catholic translation of Gen. 3:15 is: "_She_ shall bruise the
serpent's head." Thus, the reader sees, at the very commencement of
God's Word, and in the very first promise of a Saviour for fallen
men, the eyes of seeking souls are turned by Romanists from the
Creator to the creature.

How these words are understood by Romanists is plainly seen by the
pictures of Mary trampling on the serpent, which are found everywhere
in Romish lands.

Under pictures of the Virgin, circulated everywhere, are the words:
"We have seen the star and are come to adore her." The prayers of
adoration run, "To the holiest birth of Mary, that in death it may
bring about our birth to eternal glory. Ave Maria!" "To the anguish
of Mary, that we may be made predestined children of her sorrows. Ave
Maria!"

The veneration with which the Virgin Mary is regarded, and the power
with which she is invested, are thus told by many a priest: "Once God
was so angry with the world that He determined to destroy it, and was
about to execute His design when Mary said to Him: 'Give me back
first the milk with which I fed you, and then you can do so!' In this
way she averted the impending destruction."

"Millions in Brazil look upon the Virgin Mary as their Saviour. A
book widely circulated throughout northern Brazil says that Mary,
when still a mere child, went bodily to heaven and begged God to send
Christ, through her, into the world. Further on it says that Mary
went again to heaven to plead for sinners; and at the close Mary's
will is given, disposing of the whole world, and God the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit--the Trinity--act as the three witnesses to the will.
How many good Christians at home think Brazil is a Christian
country?" [Footnote: W. C. Porter.]

If the Bible were in circulation throughout South America, the
populace would be enabled to see that Christ is not the remorseless
Judge but the loving Saviour, and that it was He who purchased
redemption for us. Mary, according to Luke 1:47, was herself in need
of a Saviour, and her only recorded command was to do as He, the
Christ, enjoined (See John 2:5). Not only Protestants, but not even
Roman Catholics born in Protestant countries, can understand what
Romanism is in South America.

Christ said: "Search the Scriptures." Rome has done her best to
destroy the sacred volume. Papal bulls, said to have been _dictated
by the Holy Ghost_, have been issued by several Popes. Rome sometimes
burned the martyrs with a Bible hanging around their necks. Romanists
showed their hatred against Wycliffe, the first translator of the New
Testament into English, by unearthing his crumbling remains and
burning them to ashes. I have often seen the same spirit shown in
South America.

A colporteur, writing of Scripture circulation in the Argentine,
says: "Many of the people are trying to get us ejected from the city.
One, to whom a Bible was offered, became so infuriated that he said:
'If it were not such a public place? I would drown you in the
river.'" A missionary writes: "A young fellow called out after me, 'I
renounce you, Satan,' but as that is not my name, I did not turn
back. During the meeting on Sunday evening, the priest came riding up
to the window, and shouted that he would soon put a stop to us.
Today he has had a number of bills printed, warning his parishioners
to have nothing to do with us. To-night one of the bills was pasted on
the door. Br. Arena took it off, and no sooner had he the door shut
than two shots were fired, but they did no more harm than to pierce
the door--thank God! I have been informed that a number of young men
will either beat or shoot me, and that as I am the only one left they
are going to make me leave, too, by foul or by fair means. The
following is a translation of the priest's warning:

  "To the faithful of Candelaria. Beware.
  This parish has been invaded by one of the
  wicked sects of Protestantism, and, having the
  sacred duty of warning my parishioners, I give
  them to understand that should any one of
  them attend, even from mere curiosity, to hear
  the false and pernicious propaganda, or accept
  tracts or books that come from the propagators
  of Protestantism, he will be excommunicated
  from the true and only Church of Jesus Christ,
  Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman, wherein resides
  the infallible authority. Beware, then, oh, ye
  faithful, and listen to your parish priest, who
  advises you of the danger of your souls."

Yet with all this darkness and error, the majority are well
contented, and quite willing to obey "warnings" like this and the
following, published in _Los Principios_, of Cordoba:

  "It has come to our knowledge that there are
  amongst us various Protestant ministers, that
  distribute with profusion leaflets containing their
  erroneous doctrines and calumnies against the
  Catholic Church. Some of these leaflets and booklets
  have fallen into our hands, and in them we
  have found confirmation of what we say above.
  In one of these leaflets, for example, they treat
  as idolatry the worship that we Catholics tribute
  to the Mother of God. They treat as superstition
  the veneration they have in Rome for the holy
  staircase by which our Lord Jesus Christ went
  up to the judgment hall of Pilate. They combat
  the worship of images, relics, and things of that
  description.

  "Catholics ought to know that it is not lawful
  for them to read these leaflets, nor the Sacred
  Bible distributed by the Protestants, because it
  has been falsified by them, accommodating its
  texts to their errors. The Church has prohibited
  its children many times these pernicious readings.
  Let us reject, according to the counsel
  of St. Paul, these ravenous wolves that come in
  sheep's clothing, for they come to kill and to
  destroy souls, thrusting them into the ways of
  error, being separated from the true Church of
  Jesus Christ, from which Luther, Calvin,
  Zuinglio, Henry VIII, and others separated
  themselves, of whom Cobbell, the Protestant
  historian, himself has said: 'Never has the
  world seem gathered into one century so many
  perverse men as Luther, Zuiniglio, Calvin,' etc."


One acquainted with Spanish-American Romanism will smile at the
reference in the above article to the Bible having been falsified by
us. If the text of any version extant is compared with those which
are painted on the walls of the church in Celaya, there surely will
be found a great discrepancy. The following are translations:

"MARY, my mother, in thee I hope; save me from those that persecute
me."--Psalm vii. 1.

"Be thou exalted, O MARY, above the heavens, and thy glory above all
the earth."--Psalm lvii. 5.

'I will sing to MARY while I live."--Psalm civ. 33.

"Serve MARY with love, and rejoice in her with trembling."--Psalm ii.
11.

"Offer sacrifices of righteousness and trust in MARY."--Psalm iv. 5.

"Let everything that hath breath praise OUR LADY," etc., etc.

Protestant Christians pay almost all the entire cost of circulating
Roman Catholic translations of the Scriptures over the world. In the
versions of De Saci (French), Martini (Italian), Scio (Spanish),
Pereira (Portuguese), and Wuyka (Polish), we find in Matthew 3: 2,
and thirty-four other places, instead of "repent ye" the words, "do
penance," while in Matthew 3: 8, and some twenty other places, the
word that should be translated "repentance," is rendered _penance._
In the following light way "penance" can be done, while "repentance"
is not thought of.

For sins against the Church the priest will often condemn the culprit
to wear a hideous garment for hours, or days, according to the
gravity of the offence, but this punishment can be worn by proxy.
There are always those who, for a consideration, will don the badge
of disgrace.

What is called "Holy Week" gives proofs of the shallowness of Rome's
piety. Priests and people alike can weep, fast and faint, because
their God is suffering and dying; all traffic can stop because, they
say, "God has died"; but as soon as the death of Judas is announced,
at noon on Saturday, the noise of guns, pistols, squibs, etc., takes
the place of the death-like quiet that had reigned. After an hour or
two silence again prevails till Sunday morning, when all restraint is
removed, and people seem to make up for lost time. Drinking and
kindred evils run riot, and it is no uncommon thing on the Sunday
night to see the people drinking and dancing by the light of the
candles they were burning to their favorite virgin or saint.

In the large city of Lima, for centuries a very stronghold of image
worship, the interest in the Church has of late years been waning.
Perhaps one reason for this is the changing nature of the native
population of the city, for the deaths there exceed the births.
Seeing this falling away from the Church, the priests announced that
they had decided to send for the _Sacred Heart of the Virgin_, and
trusted that the presence of this holy relic would promote the more
faithful attendance of the flock. The _heart_ arrived and was with
great solemnity hung from the roof of the cathedral as the incentive
to piety. Thousands flocked into the sacred building with reverent
awe. The women gazed upon the heart with tearful eyes, and as they
thought of Mary's sufferings and goodness they were emulated to
deeper acts of love and piety. One day the wind blew very strongly
through the open doorway, and the _Sacred Heart_ began to sway to and
fro. Getting more and more momentum with every oscillation, the heart
finally struck against a sharp cornice, when lo--_all the sawdust
fell out_ of the canvas bag they had worshipped as the heart of flesh
of their goddess. How they reconciled the existence of the heart of
the Virgin with their belief that she ascended to heaven in a bodily
form I do not pretend to imagine. It may be remarked that this is
surely Romanism corrupted. Nay, it is rather Romanism developed.

"Andacilli is a hamlet, at which there is an image of the Virgin.
Every year pilgrims resort thither, and a great feast to the Virgin
is celebrated, the most important day being December 26th. During the
last few years there has been a falling off in the number of
pilgrims, especially those of the better class, but this last year
the clerical authorities have left no stone unturned in order to get
together more people than ever. Six bishops were advertised to come,
and they were to crown the Virgin with a crown which cost thousands
of dollars. These proceedings rouse an incredible enthusiasm in the
people." [Footnote: "Regions Beyond."]

Sometimes Mary's image is baptized in the river, while men and women
line the bank, ready to leap into the _holy water_ when she is lifted
out. Afterwards the water in which she was immersed is sold as a cure
for bodily ills. Sometimes the earth from under the building where
she is kept is also sold for the same purpose.

Imagine a church like that in Tucuru! "It consists of a palm-leaf
hut, with a bare floor and no furniture whatever. Round the sides
stand twelve life-size figures, made of canvas and stuffed with husks
of corn, which some one of the Indian worshippers has painted with
the features and dress of his own race. When I went in two women lay
prostrate on the floor, and one of them screamed in agonizing tones,
'My Lords, send the rod of your power to heal him!'--evidently
praying to these apostles on behalf of some sick relative. Here, once
a year, a priest celebrates mass, and when he last came he stuck a
paper over the entrance, which read: _Hoec est Domus Del et Porta
Coeli_ (' This is the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.') In San
José we have the four walls of a new church, consecrated to the
'Virgin,' where, recently, a raffle was held on behalf of the
projected edifice. As we enter, the first thing seen is an
inscription, professing to be a message to each visitor from the
Virgin, which says, 'My son, behold me without a temple. Come, help
in building it, and I shall reward thee with Eternal Life."
[Footnote: Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society.]

Christ said: "I give unto My sheep eternal life"; but the record of
that saying is jealously kept from them.

When the early colonists left Spain for the New World, they took with
them the Creed of Pius IV. That creed expressly states that the Bible
is not for the people. "Whoever will be saved must _renounce_ it. It
is a forbidden book."

"In 1850, when the Christian world was first being roused to the
darkness of South America, and philanthropic men were desirous of
sending Bibles there, Pope Pius IX. wrote an Encyclical letter in
which he spoke of Bible study as 'poisonous reading,' and urged all
his venerable brethren with vigilance and solicitude to put a stop to
it. Thus has South America been denied the revelation of God. The
priest has, because of this ignorance, been able to 'lord it over
God's heritage.'" [Footnote: Guiness's "Romanism and the
Reformation."]

With an open Bible, Spanish America would have progressed as North
America has done. Without the enlightening influences of that Word,
behold the darkness! Could anything be more eloquent than the
prosperity of the land of the Pilgrim Fathers in proclaiming the
value of the open Bible?

Mr. Hudson Taylor, of the China Inland Mission, speaking on a recent
occasion, said: "I always pray for South America. It is a most needy
part of the world, and wants your prayers as well as mine. The
workers there have great difficulties to contend with, and of the
same sort as we have in China, from Roman Catholicism--the most God-
dishonoring system in the world. The heathen need your prayers, but
the Roman Catholic needs them ten times more. He is ten times as much
in the dark as the heathen themselves are."

The _Missionary Review of the World_ describes South America as
"Earth's darkest land." Do you not think, O reader, the words are
most truly applied?

"There are in South America eight hundred missionaries, men and
women, from Great Britain, the Continent of Europe, Canada and the
United States. In Canada and the United States there is on an average
one Protestant minister for every 514 persons. In South America each
missionary has a constituency of about fifty thousand, indicating a
need in proportion of population one hundred times as great as in the
Protestant countries of North America." [Footnote: Bishop Neely's
"South America."]

Yet, One called Jesus, whom we say we love, said: "Go ye into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature."





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