The South American Republics Volume II Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration: BALSAS ON LAKE t.i.tICACA.]

Late in the year 1814 the region north of Lake t.i.ticaca to and beyond Cuzco burst into insurrection under the lead of an Indian cacique and an indefatigable agitator of a priest named Munecas. The Indians rose _en ma.s.se_ and the Spanish army in southern Bolivia was cut off from Lima. Twenty thousand insurgents a.s.sembled near the north end of Lake t.i.ticaca, but they possessed neither arms, officers, nor organisation.

Not one in twenty had a musket, and though their invasion down the Maritime Cordillera to Arequipa was at first successful, a comparatively small force of Spanish regulars chased them back over the pa.s.ses to the region of the lake and there dispersed them at the battle of Humachiri.

Meanwhile the guerilla bands in southern Bolivia and the Argentines in Salta had been more successful. The Spaniards were compelled to retire from the Argentine border back beyond Potosi. The Argentines again invaded the plateau and advanced in force on the road to La Paz and Lima. Once again the Spanish forces which concentrated to meet them were victorious and the allied patriots were completely overthrown in the battle of Viluma, November, 1815, which marks the end of the first period of the war of independence. Thenceforward for seven years the Spanish generals were dominant on the plateau, and the Bolivian patriots made only a desultory and scattered resistance.

With admirable foresight the victorious Spanish general, Pezuela, went to work to subdue thoroughly the whole of Upper Peru. The viceroy, Abascal, backed him up in establis.h.i.+ng in this natural fortress a strong military state, whence money and soldiers could be drawn for offensive operations against the insurrection in any part of the continent. The mines supplied the funds of which the viceregal government stood in such desperate need, and the hardy, st.u.r.dy Indians of Bolivia afforded a stock of excellent recruits whose fidelity might be enforced by white officers and severe discipline. Pezuela remorselessly pursued the patriot chiefs; Camargo was finally run to earth, captured, and garrotted; Padilla fell in the midst of his little band and was brutally beheaded as he lay wounded on the ground. Garrisons occupied all the towns and important positions, the irregular excesses of the Spanish soldiery were sternly forbidden, a measure of order and security replaced the confusion of the previous years, and the whole resources of the people were carefully husbanded and devoted to the upbuilding of an army. Before the end of 1816 Pezuela had a well-equipped and efficient force of eight thousand men ready for an advance into the Argentine.

The year 1816 was the blackest for the patriot cause since the beginning of the revolution. Chile had been reduced to obedience; the Argentine was convulsed by civil war; Uruguay had fallen into the hands of the Portuguese king; the Spaniards were triumphant in Venezuela, and New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia were making no resistance. Pezuela had been promoted to be viceroy at Lima and La Serna in the beginning of 1817 led the Spanish army into the Argentine and advanced far beyond the frontier. But he made his campaign according to the rules of regular European warfare, and though the gauchos of Salta did not venture to give him battle they kept up a hara.s.sing series of night attacks, ambushes, and daring forays into his very lines. Mounted on their fleet and hardy plains horses, living on wild cattle, and needing no baggage or provision train, their mobility was phenomenal, and they rendered the advance of the Spanish army through the long stretches of desert and pampa almost impossible.

Meanwhile San Martin's great victory at Chacabuco in Chile completely changed the situation throughout the continent. It was necessary for the viceroy to drain the other provinces of troops to attempt Chile's recovery. Even if La Serna did succeed in pus.h.i.+ng toward Buenos Aires, San Martin could recross the Andes and strike him in flank with a victorious army. So the Spanish general withdrew from the northern Argentine and took up the old position near the Bolivian border. The Argentines never attacked him in force, although they kept up a war with incursions over the frontier, and the indomitable Bolivian patriots rose in one local revolt after another during the next four years. The country was never pacified, although the relentless vigilance of the Spanish commanders prevented the insurrection from becoming general.

In 1820 San Martin sailed from Valparaiso and landed his army of Argentines and Chileans on the Peruvian coast near Lima. His masterly dispositions soon compelled the Spaniards to evacuate the capital and thenceforth their power was confined to the Andean region which extends south-east from the Cerro de Pasco to the southern boundary of Bolivia.

The patriots had the advantage of being able to land troops at any point on the coast, and the Spanish generals, to meet these invasions, were compelled to move their armies over the tortuous mountain paths. Late in 1822 an expedition attempted to reach the Bolivian plateau by the pa.s.s which leads directly up to La Paz. Valdez, the Spanish general, managed to get to the threatened point before the patriots had pushed their way up the mountain. They attacked at a disadvantage, and their army was destroyed.

A year later a similar effort was made by an army of five thousand Peruvians under the command of Santa Cruz, a Bolivian half-breed of n.o.ble Inca lineage who had been engaged in the Spanish service until 1821, and then, deserting, had risen to supreme power in the patriot army after the retirement of San Martin. Northern Bolivia had been denuded of troops by the Spanish generals in the course of their operations near Lima. No army disputed the pa.s.s, and Santa Cruz penetrated to La Paz without opposition. Valdez hastened from Peru, and the Spanish army in southern Bolivia moved toward the threatened region.

Santa Cruz's position lay directly between them; his forces were superior to either of the Spanish armies and apparently it would not be difficult for him to whip them in detail. But he made the mistake of dividing his own forces, and Valdez came up with such unexpected speed that he failed to unite his two divisions before the Spaniards reached La Paz. He retreated to the south in order to join his other division, closely followed by the enemy, and scarcely had he effected the junction when Valdez skilfully outflanked him and united his forces to the army of southern Bolivia. By this manoeuvre the patriot army found itself hopelessly outnumbered and fled north in disorder. By the time it reached the coast it had been practically annihilated. One body of Spaniards resumed at its leisure a position threatening Lima, while the Bolivian division occupied itself with crus.h.i.+ng the insurgents who had risen at Cochabamba and other points during Santa Cruz's stay upon the plateau.

This disastrous campaign seemed to destroy all hope of Bolivian freedom for years to come. But Olaneta, the renegade Argentine who commanded the Spanish army in Bolivia, quarrelled with La Serna and the northern generals. They sent a force to fight him, and while the Spaniards were thus warring among themselves word was received that Bolivar had arrived on the Peruvian coast, accompanied by his great lieutenant, Sucre, and a large army of Colombian veterans. To meet this pressing danger the viceroy abandoned his efforts to reduce Olaneta to submission, recalled the troops he had sent into Bolivia, and sent north as large a force as he could muster. Bolivar climbed the coast range unopposed and met the Spanish army not far south of Cerro de Pasco. On the 24th of August, 1824, he won the cavalry action of Junin, and the Spaniards were compelled to retire to Cuzco. Bolivar went to Lima to consolidate his political position, leaving the command with Sucre. Four months later the viceroy suddenly broke out of Cuzco, outmanoeuvred Sucre, and marched toward Lima closely followed by the Colombian forces. The two armies finally met at Ayacucho, December 9, 1824, and though the royalist army fought on a field of its own choosing and had the advantage in numbers and artillery, it was annihilated.

The only Spanish troops which remained in the field were Olaneta's in southern Bolivia. He struggled desperately to hold his men together and make another stand, but the news of Ayacucho was the signal for an uprising of the patriots all around him. The royalist officers and troops had no heart for a hopeless fight, and as Sucre approached the detached garrisons deserted. In March Olaneta received word that one of his lieutenants, Medina Celi, who was in command at Tumusla near Potosi, had declared for the patriots. The Spanish general promptly marched with the few troops who remained faithful, and, on April 1, 1825, fought the last action of the war of independence. Olaneta was defeated and himself slain, probably by a ball fired by one of his own men.

CHAPTER IV

BOLIVIA INDEPENDENT

After his great victory at Ayacucho, Sucre advanced rapidly to Cuzco and thence into the t.i.ticaca basin. By February he had reached Oruro in what is now central Bolivia, and Upper Peru rose as one man to welcome the deliverer. The next step was to decide upon the future government. For thirty years before the beginning of the revolution this country had been part of the viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, and when the city on the Plate had expelled its Spanish rulers the patriots there had expected that Upper Peru would continue to be connected with the new nation.

Although in the early years of the war these provinces sent delegates to congresses which a.s.sembled in the Argentine cities, the Creoles of the plateau never showed any anxiety to incorporate their country with the Argentine, and the successes of the Spanish generals virtually renewed Bolivia's ancient connection with Lima. Now that the Spaniards were expelled, the Bolivian Creoles were no more willing to unite with Lower Peru than with Buenos Aires, and Bolivar encouraged this sentiment. The ambitious and lucky soldier had formed the Napoleonic conception of making himself supreme dictator of a confederation of small states, each of which was to be ruled by a subordinate dictator named from among his creatures. To organise Upper Peru into a separate country with Sucre at its head would be a long step in this direction. Bolivar himself was president of the confederation of Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador, as well as dictator of Lower Peru, and at the head of a victorious army of Colombians. Argentina's influence was nullified by civil war. Chile's strength was as yet unsuspected. For the moment Bolivar was supreme in South America. At his dictation Peru and Buenos Aires promulgated decrees leaving to the provinces of Upper Peru the right "to decide freely and spontaneously as to what form of government would be most conducive to their prosperity and good government."

When Bolivar himself reached the country he was received in a delirium of joy and grat.i.tude, and the enthusiastic Bolivians acclaimed him father of their country. In a literal sense he deserved the t.i.tle, for his intervention had conferred independence on Bolivia, and his decrees now fixed her boundaries. In general he followed the ancient limits of the audiencia of Charcas. Peru retained the seacoast directly to the west as well as all the t.i.ticacan basin north and west of the lake, compelling Bolivian commerce to pa.s.s through foreign territory in order to reach the ocean. Far to the south Bolivia was conceded a little ribbon of coast, but the route thither lay over the bleak and barren Puna and was too long to be of any practical service.

On the 11th of August, 1825, official proclamation was made that the new republic had begun its existence, taking the name "Bolivia," in honour of the liberator. Congress said in the act of independence that: "Upper Peru is the altar upon which the first blood was shed for liberty, and the land where the last tyrant perished. The barbarous burning of more than a hundred villages, the destruction of towns, the scaffolds raised everywhere for the partisans of liberty, the blood of thousands of victims that would make even Caribs shudder; the taxes and exactions, as arbitrary as inhuman; the insecurity of property, life, and of honour itself; an atrocious and merciless inquisitorial system; all have not been able to extinguish the sacred fire of liberty and the just hatred of Spanish power."

Early in the following year Bolivar presented a Const.i.tution all ready for the approval of congress. Written in his own hand, it stands a curious proof of his political ideas. After laying down the somewhat vague principle that liberty is a mere island which the waves of tyranny and anarchy alternately threaten to engulf, and establis.h.i.+ng a legislative system, too complicated to be workable, he shows the cloven hoof by providing for a president elected for life and possessing the right to nominate a successor. Sucre was made the president as a matter of course, but hardly had he begun his regular government when troubles broke out. His own character, the internal conditions of Bolivia, and the international jealousies felt against him as the friend and representative of Bolivar, combined to make his position untenable. A general of the first order, a statesman of enlightened ideas, and a single-minded and unselfish patriot, Sucre would not deign to impose himself by force of arms on a reluctant people, nor make undignified compromises with the turbulent caudillos. He had accepted the presidency only after it had been repeatedly pressed upon him by the Bolivian congress, and though he was probably influenced by his loyal wish to aid Bolivar in the latter's scheme of uniting all Spanish-America under a strong, semi-monarchical government, he was unselfishly anxious to restore peace and order. The heterogeneous population of about a million who lived upon the plateau was, however, demoralised by the terrible experiences through which it had pa.s.sed in the previous fifteen years.

Three-fourths were Indian, a stoical, docile race which would not make much trouble, but which was divided into two nations speaking different languages and possessing little capacity for organisation. The few whites and the more numerous people of mixed blood were the dominating elements, and these had been trained to lawlessness and ferocity by the long war.

Sucre vainly tried to replace anarchy by some semblance of orderly government. The revenues of the country had fallen from the two millions annually of colonial times to almost nothing. His attempt to subst.i.tute a rational system of direct taxation for the countless Spanish imposts failed. Money to pay the Colombian troops could not be raised and the mercenaries became mutinous. At the same time symptoms of rebellion appeared among the Bolivian caudillos. Troubles in Colombia and Venezuela had forced Bolivar to retire from Peru and the troops he left behind almost immediately mutinied, and Santa Cruz pushed himself to the head of affairs at Lima. The Bolivarian Const.i.tution of Peru was overthrown, and Santa Cruz and Gamarra advanced upon Bolivia to expel Sucre. The latter's Colombian troops mutinied and bands of insurrectionists rose in various parts of the country to aid the Peruvian invaders, while Argentina and Chile plainly showed their desire for Sucre's overthrow. On the 28th of July, 1828, a little more than three years after his triumphant entry into Bolivia, Sucre made a treaty with the leader of the Peruvian army agreeing to withdraw from Bolivia with all the natives of Colombia. General Santa Cruz was named president, and the Peruvians occupied many of the Bolivian provinces for several months, only to withdraw when it became evident that their continued presence would surely provoke a universal uprising. Santa Cruz soon triumphed over all opposition and established himself as master of the country.

The new president was a man whose general intelligence and ability and knowledge of diplomacy, law, and economics gave the country a successful and rational government. Though he abandoned Sucre's premature attempt to reform the taxing system, he energetically applied and improved the old imposts and soon brought some order out of the financial chaos. His army was the best organised, disciplined, and equipped in South America.

He also tried to attract European immigration and to improve agricultural, commercial, and social conditions and methods. The difficulties of communication and the conservative and industrially unenergetic character of the population, however, prevented any rapid development. Peru was distracted by civil commotions, and Santa Cruz pressed hard on the northern country. He probably could have forced the cession of adjacent seacoast to the inestimable and lasting benefit of Bolivia, but his ambition led him farther. Appealed to for help by one of the rival Peruvian factions, he gave it upon the condition that that country should be divided, the two parts uniting with Bolivia in a confederation of which he was to be the supreme head. In 1835 he invaded Peru and made himself master of the country.

The creation of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation was an especial menace to Chile and the Argentine. The latter country, still a prey to the most lamentable civil disorders, was in no position to undertake any effective intervention, but Chile's already strong and well-established government determined to restore the balance of power. Pretexts for war were soon found, and the more solid texture of Chile's social and political organisation, the energy of her people bred in cold regions, and her command of the sea, quickly made themselves felt. The first expedition sent to Arequipa in 1837 was compelled to retire by an army which Santa Cruz despatched down the Cordillera from La Paz. The factions in Peru, however, rose and in the following year Chile renewed the war. On the 20th of January, 1839, with the aid of the Peruvian auxiliaries, the Chileans overwhelmingly defeated an army of Bolivians and Peruvians under Santa Cruz at the battle of Yungay.

The fragility of the foundations upon which Santa Cruz had rested his system was now apparent. The "Peru-Bolivian Confederation" disappeared from the map. Peru re-established her independent existence with her old boundaries. Santa Cruz's enemies in Bolivia rose in rebellion and he fell without a struggle. As a matter of fact the ten years of his more or less orderly government had not changed the character of the Bolivian Creoles and mixed-bloods. His government had been military, reactionary, and a mere makes.h.i.+ft; the Indians still occupied their inferior position, the lower cla.s.ses regarded the ruling coteries as self-seeking aristocrats, a dull discontent fermented among the whole population, and the ambitious chieftains found little difficulty in seducing the soldiery. Bolivia, definitely cut off from the Pacific, helpless to defend her interests in the plains surrounding the plateau, unable to attract the fertilising and civilising currents of commerce and immigration, entered upon an epoch of civil war, p.r.o.nunciamentos, and dictators.h.i.+ps which lasted nearly half a century. A recital of the literally countless armed risings, and of the various individuals who exercised, or claimed to exercise, supreme power, would throw little light on the progress of the country. Foreign commerce and domestic industry were so small that the government was always poor and unable to meet its expenses. Peru's possession of the seaports held Bolivian commerce at her mercy, and the military and naval power of Chile was a continual menace. Either of Bolivia's larger neighbours could easily bring on a revolution by opportune aid to ambitious factions, and the turbulence of the Creole military cla.s.ses was not restrained by any powerful and intelligent commercial and industrial population.

In the midst of the fighting which followed the overthrow of Santa Cruz, a liberal Const.i.tution was proclaimed which attempted to take from the executive his preponderance in the government. Negro slavery was abolished and the movement was altogether in the direction of democracy and against the property-holding cla.s.ses. In 1840 General Ballivian overcame all his rivals and gained supreme power. In the following year the dictator of Peru, taking advantage of the continual disputes over questions of transit through Peruvian territory, and thinking that in Bolivia's enfeebled condition she would not be able to resist incorporation, led a large army over the border and occupied the province of La Paz. But the Bolivians rallied around Ballivian and defeated the Peruvians in the battle of Yngavi near the end of 1841, a victory which definitely a.s.sured the independence of Bolivia.

Ballivian had risen to power by brute military force and crushed out the feeble attempt at popular government made after the fall of Santa Cruz.

Despotic, irritable, and ambitious, he had not the wide knowledge or administrative capacity of Santa Cruz, and he gave the country a much worse government. The pride of the turbulent half-breeds was roused by the victory over the Peruvians, and conspiracies and insurrections occurred more frequently. Ballivian ordered the liberal Const.i.tution of 1839 to be repealed and the preponderance of the executive in the governmental system was restored by the Const.i.tution of 1843. He ruled until 1848, but the partisans of Santa Cruz grew bolder and bolder. In spite of the president's efforts to surround himself with officials of talent and intelligence, the power of the government decreased. The irrational and artificial boundaries given to Bolivia by Bolivar continued to involve her in disputes with Peru, and in 1847 the imposition of practically prohibitive duties nearly brought on war.

Ballivian a.s.sembled an army, but Castilla, the Peruvian president, found means to foment an insurrection, and the Bolivian president was soon engaged in a desperate conflict with the very men whom he had expected to lead against the foreign enemy. Successful at first in his operations, one mutiny was suppressed only to be followed by others more formidable, and he finally gave it up in disgust and retired to exile.

A year of confused struggling followed and at last General Belzu succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng himself as dictator. Of low origin and uneducated, pa.s.sionate and violent, the new ruler owed his elevation to his popularity with the common soldiery and the lowest cla.s.ses of the population. His so-called policy of conciliation amounted in fact to permitting the guerilla bands to do as they pleased. Rapine, robbery, and riot became almost the normal condition of the country, while the better elements never ceased their conspiracies. Doctor Linares, a man of probity and learning, though stubborn and uncompromising, persisted untiring in his efforts to rid the country of the dictator. For seven years, however, Belzu maintained himself, while Bolivia fell lower and lower into the pit of anarchy, disgraced abroad by the actions of an ignorant tyrant who broke treaties, refused to listen to the protests of foreign ministers, and finally bundled them all out of the country, secure that on his mountain-tops no army could reach him to avenge the insult. The British foreign office literally wiped Bolivia from the map, declaring that she could no longer be recognised as a civilised nation.

At last the dictator tired of his place and voluntarily resigned it, leaving as his successor a b.a.s.t.a.r.d son-in-law, named Cordova. The latter suppressed nine revolutionary movements in three years before he was at last overthrown by the indefatigable Linares.

The new dictator started in with the good wishes of the respectable elements, and earnestly tried to raise his country from the abyss into which she had fallen. But the nation had been so thoroughly demoralised that there was no foundation to build upon. The public offices were filled by political favourites, but when he threw them out and tried to put honest and competent men in their places he lost the good-will of the office-holding cla.s.s. He tried to reform the army and dismissed the useless swarm of officers without commands, but this gained him the enmity of the military. The very ministers whom he had selected to aid him in putting reforms into effect plotted against him, and it was a conspiracy led by Fernandez, the member of his cabinet in whom he placed his greatest confidence, that brought about his fall after he had ruled three stormy and anxious years.

A period of frightful confusion, known as the presidency of General Acha, ensued. The chiefs fought among themselves with such ferocity that in Chile and Peru the part.i.tion of Bolivia was seriously discussed.

Finally, at the end of 1864, a remarkable man came to the front out of the tangle. This was the celebrated dictator, Melgarejo, who frankly abandoned all pretence of governing by any sanction except that of brute force and terror. He kept up a great army of spies, and the conspiracies which they reported were ruthlessly crushed by the well-paid ruffians who composed his army and blindly obeyed his capricious commands. One day the dictator, drunk, as was his habit, called the guard and ordered them to jump out of the windows in order to show a visiting foreigner the superior discipline of the Bolivian soldier. Several had broken their arms or legs, but he did not even look to see, and continued his demonstration by ordering his aide-de-camp to "lie dead" like a poodle dog. Taxes were arbitrarily levied; peaceable citizens were exiled and shot; around him circulated a crowd of parasitic functionaries. But in spite of his extravagances and cruelties Melgarejo gave some solidity and consistence to the governmental structure. The production of silver had been declining until about 1850, but at the beginning of Melgarejo's administration had again reached ten millions annually, and thereafter rapidly increased with the encouragement given by him to the investment of foreign capital. Money was freely spent on public works, and the Mollendo railroad, extending to the head of Lake t.i.ticaca, dates from this time. It is the princ.i.p.al route for Bolivia's foreign commerce, though it does not touch Bolivian territory. The isolated desert region on the coast began to be exploited and the guano, nitrate, copper, and silver found there vastly increased the country's revenues, although a considerable foreign debt was incurred.

Melgarejo's enemies succeeded in overthrowing him in 1871, and their leader, General Morales, succeeded to the supreme power. There followed some relaxation of the system of personal tyranny, but in the main the form of the administration changed little, either under Morales or his immediate successors. The first named was able to negotiate a European loan to be employed in the building of railways, and in fact one was constructed--running from Antof.a.gasta on the nitrate coast over the Cordillera and across the Puna table-land to the centre of the country at Oruro. Heavy gradients, the unproductive character of the region along the line, and its length, have prevented its furnis.h.i.+ng the cheap and practical outlet to the sea which had been hoped for. Insurrections continued to break out from time to time, and in 1876 General Daza usurped supreme power. His rule lasted until the Chilean war of 1879, but the first decisive defeat was the signal for his fall.

Narciso Campero became president, and the Bolivian nation, hopeless of recovering its coast provinces by force of arms, began the task of re-adjusting itself to the new conditions. The Const.i.tution was re-written in its present form, and a succession of presidents have since ruled the country in a peace and security which forms a happy contrast with the anarchy that preceded Melgarejo's advent. The production of silver rapidly increased, reaching fifteen million dollars in 1885, when Pacheco was president, and growing to twenty millions in 1888 with Arce in the executive chair. Potosi still yields three million ounces per annum, and the great Huanchaca mines far surpa.s.s Potosi, making Bolivia the third silver-producing country in the world. But her great resources can never be profitably utilised until a practical outlet to the sea has been found. On the Pacific she has been absolutely shut in since the Chilean war--Peru controlling the northern fourth of the coast which separates her from that ocean and Chile the remainder.

Bolivia is without a seaport, though she retains a hope of receiving compensation for the loss of her nitrate territory in the cession of one such outlet, when Chile and Peru are able to come to an agreement about the province of Arica. But the explorations of Heath on the upper tributaries of the Madeira resulted in discoveries which may ultimately enable Bolivia to utilise the magnificent fertile plain lying just at the foot of the table-land, but so far well-nigh as inaccessible as the South Pole. Broad and navigable rivers meander through this vast region, needing only the construction of a railway around the Madeira rapids to communicate with the Amazon and the Atlantic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOADED LLAMAS.]

Since the days of the Jesuit missionaries the Mojos Indians in the prairies on the Mamore north of Santa Cruz have retained a measure of civilisation, breeding cattle and keeping up a connection with the Creoles at Santa Cruz. Lately the latter have pressed on into the rubber regions of the lower Mamore and even crossed into the valley of the Beni and founded the town of Riveralta where the Orton joins the Beni. From La Paz daring men painfully made their way down the roadless gorges of the great Cordillera and reached navigable water where the Beni emerges from the mountains. Thence to Riveralta the way was comparatively easy and little steamboats now ply those waters. This region is permanently inhabitable by civilised man, but to the north-east the country drops off into swampy plains drained by the Acre, a tributary of the sluggish Purus. Up the latter river the Brazilian rubber hunters had come from Manaos and found the banks of the Acre unprecedentedly rich in the finest gum. Thousands poured into the territory and by the early nineties it was furnis.h.i.+ng a large percentage of the world's supply.

Though the Bolivian boundary had long been believed to cross the Acre near the 9th degree, the Brazilian rubber gatherers did not hesitate to enter an entirely unoccupied territory and even penetrated as far south as the 12th degree in a region undisputably Bolivian. The authorities at La Paz attempted to a.s.sert their political control, but since it was well-nigh impossible to get troops into the country except by way of the Atlantic, the rubber gatherers defied them. The Brazilian government intervened to protect the interests of its citizens; President Pando headed an expedition in 1902 which was met at the borders of the Acre valley, and after some fighting with the insurgent Brazilians, which seemed likely to bring on a war between the two powers, a treaty was agreed upon by which Brazil takes the territory, paying a money indemnity, agreeing to build the railroad around the Madeira Falls, and ceding a port on the Paraguay.

Internally the condition of Bolivia has in the main been quiet since the Chilean war, and the contest between clericalism and radicalism has lost much of its bitterness. General Camacho led an unsuccessful insurrection in 1890 and afterwards fled to Valparaiso. Three years later he planned another insurrection and the government had great difficulty in obtaining arms and money for operations against him. Chileans finally furnished rifles and a loan, and shortly afterwards a treaty was negotiated by which Bolivia abandoned its alliance with Peru and came under Chilean influence. Peru resented this and the following year her restrictions on Bolivian commerce nearly brought the two countries to blows. The crisis, however, pa.s.sed, and Bolivia has returned to the policy of avoiding entangling alliances, while pressing Brazil, Chile, or Peru to give her outlets to the ocean. In 1896, Alonso, leader of the conservatives, and that energetic general and explorer, Jose Manuel Pando, chief of the liberals, contested the presidential election. In this contest the geographical jealousies which exist between northern and southern Bolivia played a considerable role. Alonso was successful and served as president during three years, but early in 1899 Pando began warlike operations and in April overthrew Alonso in a decisive battle. Under his vigorous administration the country has been quiet.

The plain of the Madeira has been opened up to settlement, and the international position of the government is now vastly improved.

ECUADOR

CHAPTER I

THE CARAS

The irrigated valleys of Chile lie open to the ocean or are easily accessible over the low coast range. The sea-board of Peru is likewise defenceless, and though the Andean pa.s.ses are high they are dry and practicable and offer a way of approach to the table-land behind. The want of rain from Valparaiso to Paita is explained by the Antarctic current whose waters cool the breezes so that the warmer land condenses no moisture. But at the northern boundary of Peru the coast bends abruptly to the east; the cold current follows its original north-east direction and lets the warm tropical waters wash the land. From the Gulf of Guayaquil to Panama the coast and mountainsides are covered with luxuriant vegetation and the ascent of the pa.s.ses becomes well-nigh impracticable. Therefore the Andean plateau in Ecuador is accessible from the Pacific only on the south and the Colombian plateaux are virtually cut off from communication with the western ocean.

Tradition relates that about the seventh century of the Christian era a nation of Indians, bearing the name of Caras, invaded the sea-board of central Ecuador. They were warlike, aggressive, conquerors by instinct, and their civilisation was superior to that of the barbarous tribes upon whom they descended. They came by way of the sea, most probably from the south, bringing a complicated religion to which they were fanatically devoted, and a military and tribal organisation which gave them an overwhelming advantage. In all probability the Caras were akin to those highly civilised nations who lived in the valleys of the northern Peruvian coast. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that the Caras were not long content with dominance along the coast, and succeeded in forcing their way up the slopes of the Cordillera through a zone uninhabitable on account of the perpetual rain, and only penetrable along defiles where the soaked clay of the steep mountainsides affords no footing and the tangle of vegetation leaves no path.

At six thousand feet above sea-level the roads became better, the vegetation ceased to be tropical, and when they emerged through the pa.s.ses to the comparatively level plains about Quito, some eight thousand feet above the sea, they found themselves in a country where the cereals and fruits of the temperate zone flourish and no forests interrupt communication. Two lines of great mountains stretched north and south and between them lay a plateau less than forty miles in width, and though much of it was bleak and arid, at least half lay below the elevation where the successful cultivation of the cereals and the potato becomes possible. At regular intervals transverse ranges of mountains, called "nudos," or knots, cut the plateau into separate divisions, each measurably protected from attack by its neighbours.

Andean Ecuador has been aptly compared to a great ladder four hundred miles long, with the "nudos" forming its gigantic rungs. Beginning at the northern boundary of modern Ecuador, Quito lies in the second of the eight sub-plateaux, which is one of the largest and most fertile. Into it descended the Caras and began to conquer and absorb the aborigines.

These inter-Andean valleys were inhabited by numerous tribes speaking distinct languages, who had developed considerable skill in agriculture.

The compact and efficient military organisation of the Caras gave them a great advantage over more loosely organised peoples, but for three hundred years they were occupied in extending their power over the valley of Quito and thence over Latacunga and Ibarra, which adjoin it north and south.

From the year 1300 the Cara traditions gather more clearness and precision. By a law handed down from immemorial times each s.h.i.+ri was succeeded by his son, or if he had no son by the son of a sister, daughters and other female descendants being absolutely excluded. The eleventh s.h.i.+ri, whose reign corresponded with the last years of the thirteenth century, had no male heir, and he asked the general council of the nation for permission to name as successor the husband he might choose for his daughter. Each one of the different chiefs, hoping to be selected, voted for the proposition, but the s.h.i.+ri diplomatically went outside of his own dominions and proposed to the monarch who ruled in Riobamba that his eldest son, Duchisela, marry the Princess Toa. The proposition was accepted and the Quito kingdom doubled its territory and power.