The Western World Part 14

In the north-east of Guatemala are the ruins of another city, the capital of the province of Quiche. It is surrounded by a deep ravine, which forms a natural foss, leaving only two very narrow roads as entrances, guarded by the castle of Resguado. The palace of the kings, which stood in the centre of the city, surpa.s.ses every other edifice, competing in magnificence with that of Montezuma in Mexico. It was constructed of hewn stones, of various colours. So large was the city, that it could send no less than seventy-two thousand fighting men to oppose the Spaniards. The whole palace is now, however, completely destroyed, and the materials have been carried away to build a village in the neighbourhood. The most conspicuous portion of the ruins remaining is called El Sacrificatorio. It is a quadrangular stone structure, rising in a pyramidal form to the height of thirty-three feet. At the corners are four b.u.t.tresses of cut stone. Steps lead up on the eastern side. On the top it is evident that an altar was once placed, for the sacrifice of human victims, which struck even the Spaniards with horror. The whole was in full view of the people who collected round the base. The ruins differ entirely from Copan and Palenque. Here no statues, carved figures, or hieroglyphics are seen.

It is therefore supposed that these cities are of a much older date, and built by another race.

UXMAL.

The most magnificent and perfect remains in the country are those of Uxmal, about fifty miles south of Merida, the princ.i.p.al city of Yucatan.

Here, amid the dense forest, are found walls of considerable elevation, with very extensive buildings,--the walls still standing to their full height, and even the roofs, in some places, perfect. The largest building--supposed to be the palace of the sovereign--stands on the uppermost of three terraces, each walled with cut stone. It is 322 feet in length, 39 broad, and 24 high. The front has thirteen doorways; the centre of which is 8 feet, 6 inches wide, and 8 feet, 10 inches high.

The upper part is ornamented with sculpture in great profusion, of rich and curious workmans.h.i.+p. The walls are covered with cement; and the floors are of square stones, smoothly polished, and laid with as much regularity as that of the best modern masonry. The roof forms a triangular arch, constructed with stones overlapping, and covered by a layer of flat stones. It is remarkable that the lintels of the doorways are of wood, known as Sapote wood. Many of them are still hard and sound, and in their places; but others have been perforated by wormholes, their decay causing the fall of the walls.

Two other large buildings, facing each other, are embellished with sculpture, the most remarkable features of which are two colossal serpents, which once extended the whole length of the walls. Further on are four great ranges of edifices, placed on the uppermost of three terraces. The plan of these buildings is quadrangular, with a courtyard in the centre. The walls are, like the others, ornamented with rich and intricate carving, presenting a scene of strange magnificence. One of the buildings is 170 feet long, and is remarkable for the two colossal entwined serpents which run round it, and encompa.s.s nearly all the ornaments throughout its whole length. These serpents are sculptured out of small blocks of stone, which are arranged in the wall with great skill and precision. One of the serpents has its monstrous jaws distended; and within them is a human head, the face of which is distinctly visible in the carving.

The most tastefully ornamented edifice is know as the "House of the Dwarf." It stands on the summit of a lofty mound, faced with stone, nearly ninety feet high, the building itself being seventeen feet high.

Its purpose it is difficult to divine.

Scattered throughout the ruins are a number of dome-shaped subterraneous chambers, from eight to ten feet deep, and from twelve to twenty in diameter. The floor is of hard matter, and the walls and ceilings of plaster. A circular hole at the summit of each, barely large enough to admit a man, is the only opening into them. It is not known whether they were used as cisterns, or for granaries, like those of Egypt.

OTHER RUINS.

The whole country to the south of Uxmal is covered with ruins. At a place called Labra, there is a tower richly ornamented, forty feet in height, which stands on the summit of an artificial elevation. In another place there is one forty-five feet high; along the top of which, standing out from the wall, is a row of deaths' heads--or perhaps monkeys' heads--and underneath are two lines of human figures, greatly mutilated.

At Kewick, a short distance from Labra, are numerous other ruins, mostly remarkable for the simplicity of their architecture and the grandeur of their proportions. It is still uncertain whether these cities were inhabited by the unhappy people conquered by the Spaniards, or whether they were built by a race which, from some unknown cause, had already pa.s.sed away. We see how completely the Mexicans and Peruvians, after the conquest, sunk from their comparatively high state of civilisation into barbarism; and such might have been the case with the inhabitants of these cities. Their origin will probably for ever afford matter for speculation.

The different cities vary in their style of architecture almost as much as as they do from those of a.s.syria or Egypt; but when we come to examine the sculptures, we may be able to trace a much stronger resemblance. The statues of the woman and child, the cruciform ornaments, the serpents and gigantic heads of apes, as well as those of the typical heads of savage animals surmounting the heads of the statues, are all to be found on the banks of the Nile, and were probably derived from the same central source. While the tribes who proceeded westward peopled Egypt, others, among whom a similar system of idolatry prevailed, may have migrated towards the east, and finally made their way across the Pacific to the sh.o.r.es of America.

PART THREE, CHAPTER ONE.

SOUTH AMERICA.

SCENES OF ANCIENT DAYS.

Time was when a rocky island, against which dashed the surges of the Atlantic on the east and of the Pacific on the west, rose in solitude from the wide-extending ocean where now the highlands of Guiana appear above the surrounding plains. Not another spot of dry land was to be found--so geologists affirm--between that point and the hills of Canada on the north, or for thousands of miles southward towards the pole, over that portion of the globe's surface now occupied by the vast continent of America. Then, by slow degrees, the mountains of Brazil, with their mines of glittering gems, appeared above the surface of the waters, amid which huge reptile-like whales, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and cetiosaurs buffeted the billows, and vast saurians, lizards, and alligators, rivalling the elephant in bulk, and twice his length--such as the megalosaurus, the iguanodon, and teleosaurus--crawled along the slimy sh.o.r.es; while giant birds, with wide-spreading feet, stalked across the newly-formed plains, or flew shrieking, with wings of prodigious expanse skimming the glittering sea,--the lords paramount of this lower world. At length the earth, convulsed by mighty throes in the far-away west from north to south, began to cast up a long line of rocky heights, now to sink, now to rise once more above the surface,-- till by degrees Pelion piled on Ossa--the vast chain of the Cordilleras rose towards the skies, forming a mighty barrier between the two great oceans.

On the eastern side, the waves of the Atlantic, beating continuously, brought down into the shallow sea the debris from the newly-formed rocks, gradually filling up the s.p.a.ces between the already created islands; and the streams, running down from the mountain heights, formed the plan of the three great river-systems of the continent--the Orinoco in the north, the Amazon in the centre, and La Plata in the south.

The Almighty Creator appears always to have worked by mechanical means in preparing the globe for the habitation of man. There came then a glacial period. Ponderous blocks of ice, resting not only on the mountainsides, but extending over the plains, and acting the part of mighty mill-stones, ground into impalpable powder the pieces of detached rock of which the lower surface was composed, till a soil was formed capable of producing a wondrous and varied vegetation to clothe that Amazonian valley.

[The continent, Professor Aga.s.siz supposes, extended at that time between 200 and 300 miles further east than it does at present; but the waters from the rapidly-melting ma.s.s of ice, forcing a pa.s.sage towards the ocean, carried a large portion away, leaving only certain tracts which now appear in the form of islands at the mouths of the Amazon and Orinoco.]

The work has been accomplished--the land prepared for its future inhabitants! Mighty torrents fall from the lofty mountains, meandering through the vast Amazonian plain. The age of winter has pa.s.sed away.

The earth, warmed by the fires beneath and the hot sun above, steams with vapour. Lofty trees rise from the alluvial soil. A dense ma.s.s of underwood springs up; creepers innumerable hang from the boughs; countless mult.i.tudes of insects have been called into existence-- termites, ants, and beetles--feeding on the leaves and herbage, and on the giant trunks themselves. It might seem, numerous and voracious as they are, that they must quickly destroy the clothing of verdure which covers the soil. But they are not destined thus to triumph over the wonderful work of the Creator's hand.

A law has been framed by which all things are beautifully and wonderfully balanced. Monstrous animals have been created to place bounds on their too great increase. Huge, awkward-looking beasts covered with s.h.a.ggy hair, with thick, short limbs, and powerful, sharp claws bent inwards on soft pads--compelling them to move on the edge of their paws--are busy with the clay-formed nests of the insects, das.h.i.+ng them asunder, and devouring their active builders--taking in whole armies at a mouthful.

See yonder huge creature, its body the size of a rhinoceros, covered with a coat of armour, a convex oval s.h.i.+eld, formed of hexagonal plates wonderfully fitted to each other! It is an armadillo, the precursor of a race still abounding in the land, though of diminutive form compared to its mighty predecessor. See how, with powerful jaws, it crunches up a fallen tree, perforated through and through by ants,--grinding the papery part.i.tions of the dry wood, licking in and chewing between its wonderful cylinder teeth the whole ma.s.s into a black pulp!

"But lo! here are mightier creatures yet. See the vast mylodon, the scelidothere, and the still more colossal megathere! Ponderous giants these. The very forests seem to tremble under their stately stride.

Their immense bulk preponderates behind, terminating in a tail of wonderful thickness and solidity. The head is mean, and awakens no terror. The eye lacks l.u.s.tre, and threatens no violence, though the whole form betokens vast power; and the stout limbs are terminated by the same thick, in-bent, sharp, hoofed claws. One of them approaches that wide-spreading locust-tree. He gazes up at the huge mud-brown structures that resemble hogsheads affixed to the forks of the branches, and he knows that the luscious termites are filling them to overflowing.

His lips water at the tempting sight. Have them he must; but how?

That heavy stern-post of his was never made for climbing. Yet, see! he rears himself up against the tree. Is he about to essay the scaling?

Not he. He knows his powers better. He gives it one embrace--one strong hug, as if to test its thickness and hold upon the earth. Now he is digging away below, scooping out the soft soil from between the roots; and it is marvellous to note how rapidly he lays them bare with those great shovel-like claws of his. Now he rears himself again; straddles wide on his hind-feet, fixing the mighty claws deep in the ground; plants himself firmly on his huge tail, as on the third foot of a tripod, and once more grasps the tree. The enormous hind-quarters, the limbs and the loins, the broad pelvis and thick spinal cord, supplying abundant nervous energy to the swelling muscles inserted in the ridged and keeled bones, all come into play as a _point d'appui_ for the Herculean effort." [Gosse's "Natural History."]

"And now conceive the ma.s.sive frame of the megathere convulsed with the mighty wrestling, every vibrating fibre reacting upon its bony attachments with the force of a hundred giants. Extraordinary must be the strength and proportions of the tree if, when rocked to and fro to right and left in such an embrace, it can long withstand the efforts of its a.s.sailant. It yields! The roots fly up. The earth is scattered wide upon the surrounding foliage. The tree comes down with a thundering crash, cracking and snapping the great boughs like gra.s.s.

The frightened insects swarm out at every orifice, but the huge beast is in upon them. With his sharp hoofs he tears apart the crusty walls of the earth-nests, and licks out their living contents--fat pupae, eggs, and all--rolling down the sweet morsels, half sucking, half chewing, with a delighted gusto that repays him for all his mighty toil. While this giant is absorbed in his juicy breakfast, see! there lounges along his neighbour the macrauchen--equally ma.s.sive, equally heavy, equally vast, equally peaceful. The stranger resembles the huge rhinoceros, elevated on much loftier limbs. But his most remarkable feature is the enormously long neck, like that of the camel, but carried to the alt.i.tude of that of the giraffe. Thus he thrusts his great muzzle into the very centre of the leafy trees, and gathering with his prehensile and flexible lip the succulent twigs and foliage, he too finds abundance of food for his immense body in the teeming vegetation without intruding on the supply of his fellows." [Owen on the "Mylodon."]

Emerging from the water appears a great head, with little piggish eyes set wide apart, with immense muzzle and lips, and broad cheeks armed with stiff projecting bristles--the sluggish toxodon. The creature opens its cavernous mouth to seize a floating gourd; and now it tears up the great fleshy arum roots from the clay bank, and grinding them to pulp, sinks below to masticate its meal. Numberless other curious creatures are roaming through the forest, or feeding on the banks; many others, having run their destined course, disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by a new creation of far less magnitude--the mild llama, the savage jaguar, the nimble monkey with prehensile tail, the ant-eater, arborial and terrestrial; the diminutive sloth, thick-skinned tapir, alligators, turtles, and manatees; lizards, serpents; the beautiful denizens of the air with superb plumage, numerous species of humming-birds, gorgeous b.u.t.terflies and beetles, vieing in their s.h.i.+ning hues with the rich gems hidden within the bowels of the earth.

It is of these, and of many others in wonderful variety; as well as of their master--man--in his savage state; and of the curious trees and shrubs, whose fruits afford him and the lower orders abundant nourishment, that some outline sketches will now be given.

PART THREE, CHAPTER TWO.

A GENERAL VIEW OF SOUTH AMERICA.

Three separate mountain-systems exist in South America:--that of the Andes on the west, Guiana and Venezuela on the north, and the serras of Brazil in the centre. The surface of the remainder of the continent is occupied by vast level, or undulating tracts of different elevations.

The chief portion of the region through which the Amazon flows, but slightly raised above its surface, is covered with the richest and most varied vegetation to be found on any part of the globe, extending on either side of its course, as also along the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic, north and south, for many hundreds of miles. Here enormous trees of many descriptions, of varied shapes and heights, grow in wonderful profusion. The candelabra, sumaumera, the manicaria, and raphia, with their enormous leaves, and other palms innumerable, tower towards the sky. To the south of the Orinoco is another thickly-wooded region, known as the Silvas; which, united to the woods of Guiana and those of Brazil, Eastern Peru and Bolivia, form one enormous forest. From the north bank of the last-named river, the ground gently rises towards the interior at the rate of five feet in a mile. At a distance of one hundred miles from its hanks, at a slightly increased elevation, appears a sandy terrace--the greater portion barren, though in some places bearing gra.s.ses, and supplying water to the wide-extending plains below.

This barren region, which occupies the most northern part of South America, is called the Llanos Altos. A far wider and more level country extends between the base of the Andes and the banks of the Orinoco, at a height of between two hundred and five hundred feet. Not a stone or rock, not even a pebble, is to be seen on these vast plains. So level are they, that the currents of the rivers crossing them are almost imperceptible, and are frequently sent back towards their sources when met by strong winds. They are covered with gra.s.s, which affords pasturage to large herds of wild cattle--the only other species of vegetation being a few bushes growing on the banks of the streams; while here and there, scattered at considerable distances apart, a few tall palm-trees are seen, reminding the traveller of the deserts of Arabia.

In the southern part of the continent are the treeless plains of the Pampas, extending from about 20 degrees south lat.i.tude for a distance of fully two thousand miles into Patagonia, and averaging in width five hundred miles. Stretching, as do these plains, across a large portion of the South Temperate Zone, they present great varieties of climate.

The northern portion is watered by the River La Plata and its tributaries. To the south of Buenos Ayres the rivers are fewer and of less extent. The north-western Pampas consist of slightly undulating and dry plains, though interspersed with vast tracts on which lofty thistles rear their heads--useful, however, as fuel to the inhabitants.

Further on, to the west, is a wide-extending pastoral district; and yet beyond, reaching to the foot of the Cordilleras, the soil is well-suited for agriculture. The pastoral region is almost a dead level, with large shallow salt-lakes,--one of them measuring fifty miles in length by twenty in width. Scarcely a tree is to be found throughout this region, and but few permanent water-courses. To the north extends a salt desert for upwards of one hundred miles, with a width of two hundred miles. It is crossed by the River Salado, which, rising in the Cordilleras, falls into the Plata, to the south of which rises a number of step-like terraces, sterile during the heats of summer, but covered with verdure after the rains of spring. Huge boulders, brown gra.s.s growing in tufts, and low spine-covered bushes, diversify the surface. In this inhospitable region transitions from heat to cold are very great. Now the traveller is panting under the intense heat of the sun's rays; and anon an icy blast rushes across the plain, compelling him to draw close around his body his thick poncho, for protection against its chilling influences.

Further to the south are found large swamps and lagoons, one of them having an area of one thousand square miles, its surface covered with aquatic plants. In the rainy season, the rivers, overflowing their banks, inundate the plains--leaving behind, however, a thick deposit of fertilising soil, from which, as elsewhere, rich crops are capable of being produced. Further on, to the south, the Pampas, over which the yet savage and untamed Patagonians roam, and hunt the huanacu and ostrich, is generally higher and drier.

The South American continent, it will thus be seen, consists of several distinctly different descriptions of country:--the long line of the Cordilleras, with their snow-capped peaks and their lofty punas or high table-lands, and the narrow strip of arid soil at their western base; the three separate mountain-systems of Venezuela, Guiana, and the Brazils; the mighty forests bordering the great rivers and their tributaries, to which must be added the wooded heights of the inter-tropical regions, where tall trees, including several palms, flourish at an elevation of many thousand feet above the level of the ocean; and lastly, the wide-extending regions of the Llanos and the Pampas. These, as might be supposed, present great varieties of animal life--though scarcely so great as might have been expected, when it is remembered that they extend from 10 degrees north to 50 degrees south lat.i.tude. Several species indeed are found far to the north of the equator, and also near the southern end of the continent. But to give an idea of these different regions, they must be described in detail.

PART THREE, CHAPTER THREE.

VALLEY OF THE AMAZON.

Standing on the eastern spur of the Andes, between 3 degrees and 4 degrees south of the equator, the eye of the traveller may see in imagination a vast valley, clothed with a dense forest, stretching towards the far-distant Atlantic. Behind him, on the west, tower the lofty peaks of the Cordilleras; on his left, in a northerly direction, appear the mountains and highlands of Venezuela and Guiana; while to the south rise the serras and table-lands of the Brazils. It is the Valley of the Amazon, in which more than half of Europe might be contained.

Down the centre flows a mighty stream, the tributaries of which alone contain a bulk of water greater than all the European rivers put together.

Upwards of five hundred miles away to the south of the spot where the traveller stands, is the little lake of Lauricocha, near the silver-mines of Cerro de Pasco in Peru, just below the limit of perpetual snow--14,000 feet above the level of the sea. This lake has the honour of giving birth to the mighty stream: its waters forming the River Tunguragua, which, roaring and foaming in a series of cataracts and rapids through rocky valleys, flows northerly till it reaches the frontier of Ecuador. It then turns suddenly to the east, which direction it maintains, with a slightly northerly inclination, for two thousand miles--its volume greatly increased by numerous large streams, each of which is by itself a mighty river--till, attaining a width which may vie with that of the Baltic, it rushes with such fierce force into the Atlantic as to turn aside on either hand the salt-waters of the ocean. Thus the seaman approaching the sh.o.r.e of South America, when still out of sight of land, may lower his bucket and draw up the fresh-water which, it may be, has issued forth weeks before from the sides of the Andes. The whole length of the river, following its main curves, is but little under three thousand miles, while the tributaries from north to south stretch over seventeen hundred miles.

The basin of the Amazon may be considered like a shallow trough lying parallel to the equator, the southern sides having double the inclination of the northern, the whole gently sloping eastward. The channel of the river lies rather to the north of the basin, some hills rising directly above its waters; while the falls of several rivers to the south are two hundred miles above their mouths. Two thousand miles from its mouth the depth of the river is never less than eighteen feet, while many of its tributaries at their embouchures are of equal depth; and at the junction of the great rivers the hollows of its bed attain a depth of twenty-four fathoms. At Tabalingua, two thousand miles from its mouth, it is a mile and a half broad; and lower down, at the entrance of one of its tributaries--the Madeira--it measures three miles across. Still further to the east its sea-like reaches extend to the north for ten miles, with still wider lake-like expanses, so that the eye of the voyager can scarcely reach the forest-covered banks on the opposite side; while if the River Para is properly considered one of its branches, its measurement from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, across a countless number of islands, is one hundred and eighty miles--equal to the breadth of the widest part of the Baltic.

After receiving the waters of numerous streams, many of which flow for considerable distances parallel with its sh.o.r.es, and are united by a network of channels, it is joined by its most considerable northern tributary--the Rio Negro. This stream, rising in the mountains of Venezuela, and pa.s.sing amidst the Llanos, robbing the Orinoco of part of its waters, has already, before it reaches the Amazon, flowed for a course of one thousand five hundred miles. It is called the Negro from its black colour. It is here not less than nineteen fathoms deep, and three thousand six hundred paces broad. The next great affluent is the Yapura, which, rising in the mountains of New Granada, takes a south-easterly course for one thousand miles, its princ.i.p.al mouth entering the Amazon opposite the town of Ega; but it has numberless small channels, the streams of which, two hundred miles apart, flow into the great river. The upper part of the Amazon is frequently called the Solimoens, which name it retains as far south as the mouth of the River Negro.

About sixty miles further east, its largest southern affluent--the gigantic Madeira--unites its milky waters with the turbid stream of the main river. One branch, the Beni, rises in the neighbourhood of the ancient Cuzco in Peru, near Lake t.i.ticaca, its whole extent from the centre of the province of Bolivia being nearly the length of the Amazon itself. At its mouth it is two miles wide and sixty-six feet deep; and five hundred miles up it is a mile wide. Numerous islands are found in its course: for nearly five hundred miles it is navigable for large vessels, when a cataract intervenes. Were it not for this, there would be a free navigation from the centre of the province of Bolivia to the ocean, embracing islands the size of many of the Old World provinces, and widening into broad lakes. The monarch of waters flows on between its low forest-clothed banks till, four hundred miles from its mouth, it reaches the Strait of Obydos, where it is narrowed to two thousand paces. Through this channel its waters rush with immense force, calculated at five hundred thousand cubic feet in one second--sufficient to fill all the streams in Europe, and swell them to overflowing. No plummet has. .h.i.therto sounded the depth of its bed at this point, the force of the stream probably rendering the operation almost impracticable.

Its last two great tributaries are the Tapajos, six times the length of the Thames, and the Xingu, twice that of the Rhine; while further east a narrow channel unites it with the River Para, into which flows the broad stream of the Tocantins. This river, rising in the Minas-Geraes, six hundred miles from Rio Janeiro, is one thousand six hundred miles long, and ten miles wide at its mouth. Opposite to Para is the large island of Marajo; and if Professor Aga.s.siz is right in supposing that the continent once extended much further to the east than it now does, this island may properly be considered in the centre of the mouth of the river, and the River Para might then properly be called one of its true embouchures. But only a few of the streams which feed the Amazon have been named. Numberless other rivers swell its waters, united to it by countless channels which form a wonderful network throughout the whole region, joining also many of the main rivers together, with the intricate navigation of which the natives alone are acquainted.

These curious water-paths, or igarapes, as they are called, are often so narrow that the branches of the lofty trees meet overhead, enabling the traveller in his canoe to proceed for miles together sheltered from the noonday sun. Here and there a glimpse of the sky can be discovered through the umbrageous foliage overhead, while birds of gay plumage flit to and fro, or sit perched on the branches uttering their strange and varied cries. In the intervals, or sometimes forming the termination of the water-path, numerous pools of various sizes exist--some a few yards across, others expanding into lakes--filled mostly by the overflowing of the main river during the rainy season. They are the habitations of a great variety of fishes. Here several species of turtles and alligators swarm in vast numbers; electric eels, too, abound in them, as well as many of the other curious water-creatures of that region. Water-fowl and various other aquatic birds dwell on their banks, while on the surface of their placid waters float the wide-spreading leaves and magnificent blossoms of the Victoria Regia, as also of other lilies and water-plants.