Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' Part 28

s.h.i.+PBOARD TO LIMA

The train ride to Valpariso, first down the valley, then over and through mountains took something over three hours. We arrived shortly after 11 a.m. Grace Line representatives at Santiago had a.s.sured us our s.h.i.+p, the Santa Cecilia, would not sail until 2 p.m. or later. On arrival . . . at the accommodation ladder, three coated officers said the s.h.i.+p sails at noon. We sailed almost immediately, headed for Callao, port city of Lima. We were first going south to San Antonio to pick up some copper, 44 tons (not gallons) of whiskey and 8 tons of brandy.

I knew we were to spend New Year's day on s.h.i.+pboard, but didn't think it would take that much.

This s.h.i.+p accommodates only 50 pa.s.sengers approximately, and is more of a cargo s.h.i.+p than a pa.s.senger. Her length is just about 450 feet. The accommodations are excellent.

That evening at dinner found us again safely ensconced at the captain's table, only this time it is a table for four, whereas the Del Mar accommodates six. Capt. Tierney of San Francisco and New York presides.

We headed back north. Our first stop was Antof.a.gasta, Chile, north of Valpariso. We arrived in the early morning. We were to take on 1,900 tons of Anaconda 99+ percent copper for New York.

It would take all day. We were to sail at 6 p.m. New Year's eve.

We were free for the day.

TOO MUCH MONEY

By miscalculation of some sort we were hundreds of pesos too much. Here was our last chance to get rid of them. Sugar Foot and I footed it around to the main part of town to buy most anything worthwhile, small and light, and to mail some letters.

The mailing of letters, with reasonable a.s.surance of their arrival at destination, is a real ch.o.r.e. You must go to the post office. So far as I know, post offices are always crowded down here. In the confusion of a foreign language you must first select the correct windows in the correct order, especially if you want to register and air mail your letters. If you send by regular mail, the addressees will be confined to wheel chairs ere the arrival of such mail.

We looked and looked to spend all those extra pesos. She saw nothing whatsoever. We did buy the Dec. 26th Latin-American edition of Time in English for 35 pesos, but that didn't make a dent in our sheaves of Chilean money.

Then she had a brilliant idea. "Tonight is New Year's Eve. Let's buy some Chilean champagne and burgundy for the table tonight. We still have three more nights on s.h.i.+pboard to use any surplus."

Two fairly heavy packages and two boys to carry them about solved our peso problem.

Well, about 9 p.m. it was announced--just like that--the captain was giving a dance and New Year's party.

New Year's Day, 1950, our first and only stop was Ilo, Peru, where we took on 47 tons of canned tuna fish. Some five miles out, going to Ilo, I saw drove after drove of . . . guano birds.

I had seen the snowlike tops of the rocks on sh.o.r.e in the distance. Guano is a fertilizer and big business down here. If it hadn't been for the guano birds there would have been no Grace Lines, now 100 years old.

Most of the west coast of South America is a desolate place.

Mountains of brown bare earth and rock rise and stretch inland, parallel to the coast. It just never rains. The cold Humboldt stream sees to that. The sun s.h.i.+nes hot, but the air is cold, even in mid-day. The towns and cities look dusty and worn, like the dry sections of the U.S. Lots of adobe-looking buildings. The whole country is drier than a rambo apple.

WHERE INQUISITION 'RELIEVED' THE RICH

We docked at Callao about 6 a.m. Jan 2 for a week's stay in Lima.

The Tagle Torre must have been a sort of Foreign Ministry. It was built about 1735, as it had tile of that date in the walls. There is a lot of brown spindled wood in its make-up, both inside and outside. All about are tremendously large heavy gold leaf mirrors. A big oil painting of Pizarro, conqueror of Peru, hangs on the wall. Just inside the patio is a monster reared-up lion's head with a beam at the top. From this beam scales were suspended to weigh gold and silver they took from the Indians, or the subjects, or both, to send to Spain. Anyway, every thing of value that was loose or could be pried loose, went to Spain.

The next stop was the Palacio de la Inquisicion. Here is where they held the inquisitions. The idea was to "inquisite" rich men, the richer the better, and the more the "take" would be. They never let facts or the truth interfere in the least. Not in the slightest degree. And so they fabricated charges out of thin air and without element of truth whatsoever, against any man, provided he was rich. . . Cut off his head, confiscate his lands, sell off the Herefords and the old mule team, take their 10 percent "cut" and send the balance to Spain. They never fooled with poor people. They were like Robin Hood, only far more so.

A VISIT TO THE INCA RUINS

The city has a museum of Inca civilization and it is a honey.

Many original big long pointed stones with their carvings have been removed from in front of the temples, brought down and set up here. Big and little stones of very hard structure were worked into human heads, dogs, cats and so forth. Mummies, burial sacks, elaborate and fine fabrics of wearing apparel are everywhere.

There are thousands of square feet of pottery of every shape, and still showing the original delicate colors. It would take weeks to even take a rather hurried look at the things that museum contains. Incas were a great and cultured people.

The closest ruins to Lima are the Pachacamac ruins, 32 kilometers away. We drove there one afternoon. High up was what was left of the Temple to the Sun. They are always on the highest ground as the sun cut more of a figure with the Incas than anything else. .

. We drove through the narrow streets of the town, with the stone walls of the stores or houses rising high above us on either side as far as cars were permitted, or could go, almost to the walls.

There was our temple in a pretty bad condition of decay. These ruins had long been sacked. Part of the findings was in the museum I told you about. The crumbling walls and stairways and moats(?) were of stone carefully and symmetrically made and laid.

The main stairway would allow five or six to go abreast. It had sharp angles every so often, and high walls, the better to protect and defend in case of attack, probably. Higher up it had no walls, just steps after steps and paths always leading higher.

We got to the top-acres of it. Sand and ruins.

Over toward "town," and to one side and much lower were the ruins of the Temple to the Moon. It is being restored. . .You can see the original round wooden poles in perfect preservation. It never rains. But there is so much restoration there is little original left. Inside the temple is the original square bath(?) made good and tight of shaped stone. It holds muddy water with fish flopping now and then.

I suggested driving to the big Inca ruins--about like I'd suggest driving to Shawnee Mound near Wingate--but it is considerably over 1,000 kilometers from here, eight or nine thousand feet up in the mountains toward Bolivia. You either take a train, which is a very hard ride, or go by plane. In any event, it takes about a week if you want to see any considerable part of the ruins-- there is something about plane schedules that interferes. And so, I shall never get to see the great big Inca ruins.

We were introduced to a young lady who was born right at the big Inca ruins. This young lady, who has lived here since she was seven, has a father who manufactures some kind of the finest of all fine wools, I think up there at the ruins. Anyway, he goes back and forth about every 15 days. Our young lady herself has found some minor pieces of Inca stuff. Her father has found many.

And her grandpa got pretty well off finding and peddling Inca stuff, like Mutiny's Grandpa Wells did making and peddling wheat fans at black market prices.

STREET NOISES AND GAMES

Our "fleet" of rooms is the noisiest place in town. And that is saying something. One night long after midnight I sat at one of these windows in my sleeping outfit looking at the crowd (yes, a crowd), thinking and trying to count the different noises. I was also thinking about my creditors, and how I was now getting closer and closer to them, and sooner or later, I'd have to face them. Well, what I have remaining in money value is getting pretty low. As to the noises, I got up to 14 but there are lots more than that. The honks, street cars and newsboys drown out the culls and low grade noises.

As Aura May has disappeared more and more from her father's side, he has ventured more and more in the marts of trade and commerce.

About the first venture here was into the banana situation. I had seen push carts of fruit everywhere. Close observation, at a discreet distance, disclosed customers bought, peeled and ate the fruit and then dropped the peels in a receptacle on the cart. I could do that. I did.

Lightning calculation disclosed I was paying about two cents American each for the biggest ones. A young Indian had preceded me. I offered him one. He accepted. Word got over the grape vine.

My clientele increased, and there we stood blithely peeling and eating and aiming at the waste basket. Aura May would have been ashamed for me. When a client missed, I cut him off the list.

They caught onto that easily although no English was spoken except by me. The adventure cost me a full 90 cents. Try having fun buying 90 cents worth of bananas back home.

FALSE CROSSES ABOUND

The Grace Line decided to sail the Santa Margarita a day early (Jan. 9). That can be accounted for in that these s.h.i.+ps are for cargo first, and secondarily for pa.s.sengers. We sailed at 8 p.m.

promptly. No, my friends. We are not at the captain's table, but we are doing our level best.

In my opinion to date, the Southern Cross is among the most overestimated sights down this way. Counting all three s.h.i.+ps, I have been shown four or five Southern Crosses, all different, and at least a pair of False Crosses. From our patio outside the French doors of the hotel in Buenos Aires, I had picked out what I thought was the real thing, and was pretty well satisfied. Now I'm not so sure.

Last night, for instance, I was out alone and had selected my Southern Cross for the evening. . . Along came one of the seamen and I asked him to show me the Southern Cross. He said, "It is below the horizon now. It might be visible just before daylight."

Today the sea was calm and it is that way tonight. Today, by Act of Providence I won a shuffleboard game from the steward. That is about the first since the man with heart trouble who voted for Garfield defaulted to me off Brazil somewhere.

We arrived at Paita, Peru, Jan. 11, and anch.o.r.ed off sh.o.r.e about a half mile in 160 feet of water. We began loading from a sizable s.h.i.+p bearing the U.S. flag, named Was.h.i.+ngton Star, 40 tons of decapitated frozen tuna, weighing 20 to 60 pounds each, and cotton from the interior. Around us are row boats peddling bananas, mangos, alligator pears, wool blankets, silverware, leather boots, and "authentic Inca relics made down the coast,"

the owner of the Was.h.i.+ngton Star tells me. Some of the "art"

figures are not to be found in D.A.R. collections. Two New Jersey doctors bought out the entire stock.

s.h.i.+P'S WHISTLE MARKS CROSSING OF EQUATOR

At Sea January 13, 1950