THE THE CORDILLERAS AND THE ANDES. HE city of Cusco, with the Andes in | Incas. The ornaments and carving are sight, is the most ancient curiosity of the New World. It has a population of twenty thousand, with more Creoles than any place between it and Lima. Peru has nearly two millions of inhabitants, more than half of whom are aborigines. The people complain of the revolutionary spirit always existing, and that there is no advancement of the arts and sciences among them. It is said, when a Creole mother is playing with her infant boy she addresses him as her "dear little bishop," or "my president." The proportion of females is large, and the birth of a son is a cause of congratulation and rejoicing. This is the stronghold of Romanism in the Andes, and there are many churches and convents at Cusco, some of which are very large, and built of the hewn stone from the frozen and mined city of the VOL. XII.-28 rich and costly; with many oil paintings, which were obtained for inducing the Indians to change their religious worship into that of the Roman Catholic. In the convent of San Francisco one picture represents a graveyard-the dead rising, and angels carrying off the pious, while the devil grasps the bad and casts them over a precipice into fires far below. This pictured scene produces an evident effect upon the minds of the poor natives. A major in the Peruvian army remarked, that " he saw no soldiers in the fire," when a fat padre laughed, as if he did not consider the subject in a very serious light. Soon after the conquest of Peru the fishermen of Callao picked up a box, which, when opened, was found to contain Neustra Senora de Belen, and her child, with a letter, stating that the holy lady was sent to the "City of the Kings," Pizarro's name for Lima. That place claimed the wandering saint, but as Cusco was the aboriginal city of the kings a dispute arose. The Cusconans insisted, as she came in a box, it was intended for a journey across the Andes, on the back of an ass, and this convincing argument secured the residence of the holy visitor beyond the mountains. Indians and Creoles pray to the Lady Belen whenever they have too much or too little rain, and for relief from prevailing diseases. The natives injure their health by the large quantities of cocoa they chew. Those living in the cities are thin and miserable looking, much neglected, especially when sick. They cannot employ a physician, as the charges of medical men are so high. Influenza and rheumatic affections are very common, and the poor suffer from the small-pox, for the want of vaccination. Although Cusco lies within the tropics, and the dry or warm season extends from May to September, still the people dress in winter clothing. The changes of the temperature are sudden, and strangers not watching them, and dressing accordingly, are apt to suffer. Cusco abounds with tailors and shopkeepers, who pass their days in the sun. As twilight advances doors are closed, and the city presents a dark, doleful appearance. Here and there a lamp is hung out in front of eating, gambling, or government houses; billiards is the favorite game with the young men. Ladies are seldom seen walking in the streets, except on Saturday evenings, when they repair to the plaza to purchase shoes. On these occasions the priests make their appearance with small silver images, standing on the side of a large silver plate. When the ladies pay the Indians for the shoes, the padre presents his images to be kissed, while the plate receives a donation, or rather church-tax imposed upon the leather. But few kiss the image who do not pay, unless the priest offer it the second time on the same Saturday, when they bashfully decline the new tax. There is but little wealth in the city, and the people are as poor as indolent. lished here, an official El Triumpho del Pueblo; and there is a college, where mathematics, philosophy, drawing, and Latin grammar are the principal studies. Our Fennimore Cooper is a very favorite author with Peruvian libraries and readers. During the reign of the Incas the Indians of these regions were brought under their control, until their territory extended from the Pacific to the eastern slope of the Andes, and from Quito, near the equator, into Chili, near forty degrees south latitude. The empire eventually became so large that the twelfth Inca gave to his eldest son the southern portion of the kingdom, and the northern portion to another son. These royal brothers quarreled, when Pizarro took the conqueror a prisoner and hung him, which event completed the downfall of the Peruvian empire. Since then the country has been in possession of the Spanish, with their Spanish or Romish religion. With missionaries that nation always sent her captains, to introduce an intolerant, persecuting Christianity; a religion that clips the wings of knowledge, stifles the struggling spirit and demands of liberty, degrading man's intellect and gagging his conscience! See the striking proof in the Protestants of our own happy land, who have left infinitely behind them the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The fortunes of every land, we are bold to affirm, are indissolubly bound up with the fortunes of that Protestantism which is our proudest boast and richest heritage! Some thirty or forty miles from Cusco are the head waters of the Madre de Dios, here (in latitude 12° 32′ south, longitude 70° 26' west) a beautiful stream, some seventy yards wide, but not navigable. The river is one thousand three hundred and seventy-seven feet above the Pacific Ocean, and cuts its way through the rolling mountains toward the Atlantic. A great river pours from four mouths a large body of water into the Amazon at latitude 40 south, and longitude 61° west, where it is called the Punus, which is probably the same as the Madre de Dios. Should this be the fact, the stream has an immense Every Sunday evening there is a cock-value, as it is the natural highway to South fight in Cusco, at fifty cents entrance, and much money is betted upon these occasions. Ladies are not admitted; still they wager on their favorite fowls as they are carried into the pit. But one newspaper is pub Peru; and all the silver and gold of her rich mines could not be compared with the undeveloped commercial resources which this river would open to the civilized world. By this stream and the Amazon the distance is estimated at one thousand five hundred and forty-one miles, which a steamer could run in six days. A vessel, loaded with woolen and cotton goods, farming utensils, corn, rice, tobacco, Yankee notions, etc., from the United States, would require twenty-five days to reach the Amazon, eighteen to the head of the Madre de Dios, and ten to Cusco; in all fifty-three. On the present route, by Cape Horn, the trip consumes one hundred and twenty days; namely, to Yslay, the nearest port to Cusco on the Pacific, one hundred and five, and fifteen thence to that city. This is the region of the India-rubber, the most important export of the great Amazon, and so valuable an article to the manufacturing interests of our own land. There are many silver mines in the Andes, and among the principal those near the town of Puna. In one, at Monto, the vein runs horizontally through a mountain. After the miners had entered some distance water flowed out, which, dammed in, formed a navigable stream for iron boats to bring out the rich cargoes of silver ore. Pushing farther into the bowels of the Andes the workmen built an iron railroad from the artificial canal to the head of the mine, lengthening it as they progressed. When the train descends, loaded with ore, it is transferred to the boats, and, with lights at the bow and stern, they carry it along this subterranean stream, winding and narrow, and only broad enough for them to pass between the dark rocks. A steam-engine outside grinds the ore, and its quicksilver is separated by fire made of the droppings of the llamas, the only fuel to be found here. The machinery was imported from England, and brought over the lofty mountains, from the Pacific, on mules' backs, at great expense. Thick clothing is necessary in this climate, and the tailor seems to follow the best business. The annual yield of silver in the southern department of Peru is said to have been on the decrease for some time, and the custom is to abandon the mine as soon as the miner's chisel strikes below the water line. Immense riches must consequently still be under water, which may be extracted by proper machinery and industry. The Creoles shrink from all kinds of labor, and sit at the mouths of the mines to receive the silver, while the poor Indian has to perform the hard work inside. This Puna country is thickly populated, and its inhabitants confine themselves to the mountain valleys, generally narrow, and cultivated by irrigation. Its higher regions are better adapted to wool growing, and some places are so elevated that people cannot live there with comfort, nor cultivate any crops. The ant will here die where the llama lives and roams, and lower down the everlasting ridge, where the busy little insect builds its nest, this animal of the lofty mountains perishes. Near the base of the Andes stretches Lake Titicaca, a wonderful body of water, containing three thousand square miles, and elevated more than twelve thousand feet above the ocean. Many streams flow into its wide basin, and this great cistern of nature seems to have been placed here by an Almighty hand for the daily use of the sun, as he passes in his mysterious and brilliant round. The evaporation is great, and as the brilliant orb of light travels south he draws the rain-belt after him. Completing his annual tour to the north of the equator, he returns the following year to find Titicaca Lake full again, and it is evaporated before the rains once more commence. Near its center is the island of Titicaca, which is inhabited by a tribe of Indians. Many birds and animals frequent the shores of this lake for food-the cattle, horses, sheep, and swine; the bluewinged teal, black diver, and gulls feed in the water. Snipe skim along its gray, sand beach, while the tall white crane, with its beautiful pink legs, proudly wanders through the water. The rush grows thick upon the shoals and the banks, and the Indians suck its juice, and also make salad of it. In There are several towns along the lake, all beautifully situated on knolls, with perpendicular banks, rough, rocky, and standing out into the water. Lake Titicaca, its waters and shores, lie within the dominions of both Peru and Bolivia. our day of enlightened knowledge, enterprise, and commerce, this important internal sea of South America should be connected with the head waters of the Amazon by navigable channels. Peru and Bolivia ought to proclaim the freedom of the seas for Lake Titicaca, as they have done in regard to the water courses of their monarch river. The nations of the earth should have the same right of VIEW OF NEVADA DE SORATA, FROM THE WEST SHORE OF LAKE TITICACA. passage for their citizens and vessels through the Amazon in Brazil to Titicaca of Peru, that they have now to the Sound and the Dardanelles. This is a question of navigation as broad as the sea, a question of commerce, human progress, and Christian civilization. Brazil has no right to keep these important inland national waters shut up against man's free use of them. We might as well close the Mississippi, the Hudson, or Lake Erie. The lofty and magnificent Nevada de Sorata, twenty-five thousand two hundred feet elevated above the Pacific Ocean, is in full view, and our sketch of it was taken by Lieutenant Gibbon on the spot. This monarch of the Andes was measured by the learned traveler, Pentland, in the year 1827, and is twelve hundred feet higher than Illimani, and both greatly exceed Chimborazo, which is only twentyone thousand four hundred and twenty-one feet. This is nearly equal to the elevation of the Jawahir, the loftiest in the Himalaya that has been accurately measured. Mont Blanc is five thousand six hundred and forty-six feet below Chimborazo, and Chimborazo is three thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine feet below Sorata, so that this famous colossus of the Andes, although twice as lofty as Mount Etna, does not rear his snowy peak as far in the skies as some of his neighbors. More than twenty different streams flow from the mountain sides into the lake and only a single one, the Desagnedero, flows out. The Indians believe that its waters find their way to the Pacific by a subterranean passage under the Cordilleras. The Desaguedero is the dividing line between Peru and Bolivia, and this stream, after a course of some eighty miles toward the south, spreads over a flat, which is called Lake Pampas Aullagas, and from which there is no outlet to the Pacific or Atlantic. The wind from the Atlantic runs rapidly through the gorges and ravines of the great mountain range, and after meeting the easterly currents from the hills and valleys on the table-lands of Bolivia they form whirlwinds of dust, and immensely high. Hundreds of water - spouts appear in the same way, standing upon the lake like columns supporting the weight of the clouds. Beyond Lake Titicaca are the dry table-lands of Bolivia, and still farther on the traveler, reaching the edge of a deep ravine, sees the tile roofs of La Pas, near the base of the snow-capped Illimani. Descending by a steep, narrow road, he reaches the commercial metropolis of Bolivia, having a population of nearly fifty thousand. The little stream flowing through the place may be stepped across; but, dashing down the Andes toward the east, it is afterward called the Beni, and passes over the territory of Bolivia in a northeast direction, ultimately mingling with the mighty Amazon, by the Madeira River. From this part of the Andes a knot or hump seems to be raised, from which the waters flow toward different directions. The loftiest peaks are near by, the large lakes a collection of won ders and striking objects, from hot springs to the frozen heights of the Sorata. Here meet the extremes of heat and cold; immense mountains, with small streams; lakes of water and dry winds, all in the richest gold region of South America! La Pas is a very busy inland city, with an active population. Strawberries, beans, onions, barley, and lucamas are produced in the ravines, which are very narrow. In midday, when there is but little or no wind, the people wear their thin clothing, but as soon as the cold air comes from the Illimani, with showers of drizzling rain, they change to thick clothes. The ILLIMANI SNOW PEAK: VIGUNAS PASTURING WITH THE SHEEP ON THE PUNA OF BOLIVIA. tailors seat themselves along the pavements in great numbers, and he who obtains the contract for clothing the Bolivian standing army gets a fat job. Next to the Cinchona bark trade, this is the most important business of the place. The department of La Pas is mostly situated on the table-lands, which supply a scanty growth of potatoes, maize, barley, beans, etc. Cattle and sheep are scarce and small, and mules are more used than llamas. But few flowers, trees, or birds are seen. That section, however, of the department upon the eastern slope of the Andes, the Yungas Province, surpasses other spots in South America for its natural wealth. The Bolivian, up to his waist in the everlasting snows of the Illimani, and amid its hail, thunders, and lightning, as he descends to the east plunges amid the drifting banks. Soon he passes over the sheets of ice, formed at the lower edge of the lofty mountain by the melting snows, and slipping and sliding down at last he reaches the green sod of grass, and melts the snowy mantle from his clothes in the rays of the tropical sun. Behind him, and far above, the wintery storm still rages; below is a land of perpetual flowers, while far |