The Volcanoes of Ecuador.— Western Cordillera.— Chimborazo.— Iliniza.— Corazon.— Pichincha.— Descent into its Crater.
Coming up from Peru through the cinchona forests of Loja, and over the barren hills of Assuay, the traveler reaches Riobamba, seated on the threshold of magnificence—like Damascus, an oasis in a sandy plain, but, unlike the Queen of the East, surrounded with a splendid retinue of snowy peaks that look like icebergs floating in a sea of clouds.
On our left is the most sublime spectacle in the New World. It is a majestic pile of snow, its clear outline on the deep blue sky describing the profile of a lion in repose. At noon the vertical sun, and the profusion of light reflected from the glittering surface, will not allow a shadow to be cast on any part, so that you can easily fancy the figure is cut out of a mountain of spotless marble. This is Chimborazo—yet not the whole of it—you see but a third of the great giant. His feet are as eternally green as his head is everlastingly white; but they are far away beneath the bananas and cocoa-palms of the Pacific coast.
Rousseau was disappointed when he first saw the sea; and the first glimpse of Niagara often fails to meet one's expectations. But Chimborazo is sure of a worshiper the moment its overwhelming grandeur breaks upon the traveler. You feel that you are in the presence-chamber of the monarch of the Andes. There is sublimity in his kingly look, of which the ocean might be proud.
"All that expands the spirit, yet appals,Gathers around this summit, as if to showHow earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below."
"All that expands the spirit, yet appals,Gathers around this summit, as if to showHow earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below."
Well do we remember our disappointment as we stood before that wonder of the world—St. Peter's. We mounted the pyramid of steps and looked up, but were not overcome by the magnificence. We read in our guide-book that the edifice covers eight acres, and to the tip-top of the cross is almost five hundred feet; that it took three hundred and fifty years and twelve successive artists to finish it, and an expenditure of $50,000,000, and now costs $30,000 per annum to keep it in repair; still we did not appreciate its greatness. We pushed aside the curtain and walked in—walked a day's journey across the transept and up and down the everlasting nave, and yet continued heterodox. We tried hard to believe it was very vast and sublime, and knew we ought to feel its grandeur, but somehow we did not. Then we sat down by the Holy of Holies, and there we were startled into a better judgment by the astounding fact that the Cathedral of St. Paul—the largest edifice in Great Britain—could stand upright, spire, dome, body, and all, inside of St. Peter's! that the letters of the inscription which run around thebaseof the dome, though apparently but an inch, are in reality six feet high! Then, for the first time, the scales fell from our eyes; the giant building began to grow; higher and higher still it rose, longer and deeper it expanded, yet in perfect proportions; the colossal structure, now a living temple, put on its beautiful garments and the robe of majesty. And that dome! the longer we looked at it the vaster it grew, till finally it seemed to be a temple not made with hands; the spacious canopy became the firmament; the mosaic figures of cherubim and seraphim were endowed with life; and as we fixed our eyes on the zenith where the Almighty is represented in glory, we thought we had the vision of Stephen. Long we gazed upward into this heaven of man's creation, and gazed again till we were lost in wonder.
But the traveler needs no such steps to lift him up to the grand conception of the divine Architect as he beholds the great white dome of Chimborazo. It looks lofty from the very first. Now and then an expanse of thin, sky-like vapor would cut the mountain in twain, and the dome, islanded in the deep blue of the upper regions, seemed to belong more to heaven than to earth. We knew that Chimborazo was more than twice the altitude of Etna. We could almost see the great Humboldt struggling up the mountain's side till he looked like a black speck moving over the mighty white, but giving up in despair four thousand feet below the summit. We see the intrepid Bolivar mounting still higher; but the hero of Spanish-American independence returns a defeated man. Last of all comes the philosophic Boussingault, and attains the prodigious elevation of nineteen thousand six hundred feet—the highest point reached by man without the aid of a balloon; but the dome remains unsullied by his foot. Yet none of these facts increase our admiration. The mountain has a tongue which speaks louder than all mathematical calculations.
There must be something singularly sublime about Chimborazo, for the spectator at Riobamba is already nine thousand feet high, and the mountain is not so elevated above him as Mont Blanc above the vale of Chamounî, when, in reality, that culminating point of Europe would not reach up even to the snow-limit of Chimborazo by two thousand feet.[69]It is only while sailing on the Pacific that one sees Chimborazo in its complete proportions. Its verymagnitude diminishes the impression of awe and wonder, for the Andes on which it rests are heaved to such a vast altitude above the sea, that the relative elevation of its summit becomes reduced by comparison with the surrounding mountains. Its altitude is 21,420 feet, or forty-five times the height of Strasburg Cathedral; or, to state it otherwise, the fall of one pound from the top of Chimborazo would raise the temperature of water 30°. One fourth of this is perpetually covered with snow, so that its ancient name, Chimpurazu—the mountain of snow—is very appropriate.[70]It is a stirring thought that this mountain, now mantled with snow, once gleamed with volcanic fires. There is a hot spring on the north side, and an immense amount of débris covers the slope below the snow-limit, consisting chiefly of fine-grained, iron-stained trachyte and coarse porphyroid gray trachyte; very rarely a dark vitreous trachyte. Chimborazo is very likely not a solid mountain: trachytic volcanoes are supposed to be full of cavities. Bouguer found it made the plumb-line deviate 7" or 8".
The valleys which furrow the flank of Chimborazo are in keeping with its colossal size. Narrower, but deeper than those of the Alps, the mind swoons and sinks in the effort to comprehend their grim majesty. The mountain appears to have been broken to pieces like so much thin crust, and the strata thrown on their vertical edges, revealing deep, dark chasms, that seem to lead to the confines of the lower world. The deepest valley in Europe, that of the Ordesa in the Pyrenees, is 3200 feet deep; but here are rents in the side of Chimborazo in which Vesuvius could be put away out of sight. As you look down into the fathomless fissure, you see a white fleck rising out of the gulf,and expanding as it mounts, till the wings of the condor, fifteen feet in spread, glitter in the sun as the proud bird fearlessly wheels over the dizzy chasm, and then, ascending above your head, sails over the dome of Chimborazo.[71]Could the condor speak, what a glowing description could he give of the landscape beneath him when his horizon is a thousand miles in diameter. If
"Twelve fair counties saw the blaze from Malvern's lonely height,"
what must be the panorama from a height fifteen times higher!
Chimborazo was long supposed to be the tallest mountain on the globe, but its supremacy has been supplanted by Mount Everest in Asia, and Aconcagua in Chile.[72]In mountain gloom and glory, however, it still stands unrivaled. The Alps have the avalanche, "the thunderbolt of snow," and the glaciers, those icy Niagaras so beautiful and grand. Here they are wanting.[73]The monarch of the Andes sits motionless in calm serenity and unbroken silence. The silence is absolute and actually oppressive. The road from Guayaquil to Quito crosses Chimborazo at the elevation of fourteen thousand feet. Save the rushof the trade wind in the afternoon, as it sweeps over the Andes, not a sound is audible; not the hum of an insect, nor the chirp of a bird, nor the roar of the puma, nor the music of running waters. Mid-ocean is never so silent. You can almost hear the globe turning on its axis. There was a time when the monarch deigned to speak, and spoke with a voice of thunder, for the lava on its sides is an evidence of volcanic activity. But ever since the morning stars sang together over man's creation, Chimbo has sat in sullen silence, satisfied to look "from his throne of clouds o'er half the world." There is something very suggestive in this silence of Chimborazo. It was once full of noise and fury; it is now acompletedmountain, and thunders no more. How silent was Jesus, a completed character! The reason we are so noisy is that we are so full of wants; we areunfinishedcharacters. Had we perfect fullness of all things, the beatitude of being without a want, we should lapse into the eternal silence of God.
Chimborazo is a leader of a long train of ambitious crags and peaks; but as he who comes after the king must not expect to be noticed, we will only take a glimpse of these lesser lights as we pass up the Western Cordillera, and then down the Eastern.
The first after leaving the monarch is Caraguairazo. The Indians call it "the wife of Chimborazo." They are separated only by a very narrow valley. One hundred and seventy years ago the top of this mountain fell in, and torrents of mud flowed out containing multitudes of fishes. It is now over seventeen thousand feet high, and is one of the most Alpine of the Quitonian volcanoes, having sharp pinnacles instead of the smooth trachytic domes—usually double domes—so characteristic of the Andean summits. And now we pass in rapid succession numerous picturesque mountains, some of them extinct volcanoes, as Iliniza,presenting two pyramidal peaks, the highest seventeen thousand feet above the sea, and Corazon, so named from its heart-shaped summit, till we reach Pichincha, whose smoking crater is only five miles distant in a straight line from the city of Quito, or eleven by the traveled route.
The crown of this mountain presents three groups of rocky peaks. The most westerly one is called Rucu-Pichincha, and alone manifests activity. To the northeast of Rucu is Guagua-Pichincha, a ruined flue of the same fiery furnace; and between the two is Cundur-guachana.[74]Pichincha is the only volcano in Ecuador which has not a true cone-crater. Some violent eruption beyond the reach of history or tradition has formed an enormous funnel-shaped basin 2500 feet deep,[75]1500 in diameter at the bottom, and expanding upward to a width of three fourths of a mile. It is thedeepestcrater on the globe. That of Kilauea is 600 feet; Orizaba, 500; Etna, 300; Hecla, 100. Vesuvius is a portable furnace in comparison. The abyss is girt with a ragged wall of dark trachyte, which rises on the inside at various angles between 45° and perpendicularity. As we know of but one American besides the members of our expedition (Mr. Farrand, a photographer) who has succeeded in entering the crater of this interesting volcano, we will give a brief sketch of our visit.
Crater of Pichincha.Crater of Pichincha.
Leaving Quito in the afternoon by the old arched gateway at the foot of Panecillo, and crossing a spur of the mountain, we stopped for the night at the Jesuit hacienda, situated in the beautiful valley of Lloa, but nearly ruined by the earthquake of 1859. On the damp walls of this monastery, perched 10,268 feet above the ocean, we found several old paintings, among them a copy of theVisitationby Rubens. The sunset views in this heart of the Andes were surpassingly beautiful. Mounting our horses at break of day, and taking an Indian guide, we ascended rapidly, by a narrow and difficult path, through the forest that belts the volcano, up to the height of 12,000 feet, emerging gradually into a thicket of stunted bushes, and then entered the dreary paramo. Splendid was the view of the Eastern Cordillera. At least six dazzling white volcanoes were in sight just across the Valley of Quito, among them table-topped Cayambi, majestic Antisana, and princely Cotopaxi, whose tapering summit is a mile above the clouds. Toiling upward, we reached the base of the cone, where vegetation ceased entirely; and, tying our horses to some huge rocks that had fallen from the mural cliff above, started off on hands and feet for the crater. The cone is deeply covered with sand and cinders for about two hundred feet, and the sides are inclined at an angle of about 35°. At ten o'clock we reached the brim of the crater, and the great gulf burst suddenly into view. We can never forget the impression made upon us by the sight. We speak of many things here below as awful, but that word has its full meaning when carried to the top of Pichincha. There you see a frightful opening in the earth's crust nearly a mile in width and half a mile deep, and from the dark abyss comes rolling up a cloud of sulphurous vapors. Monte Somma in the time of Strabo was a miniature; but this crater is on the top of a mountain four times the height of the Italian volcano. Imagination finds it difficult to conceive a spectacle of more fearful grandeur or such solemn magnificence. It well accords with Milton's picture of thebottomless pit. The united effect of the silence and solitude of theplace, the great depth of the cavity, the dark precipitous sides, and the column of smoke standing over an unseen crevice, was to us more impressive than thundering Cotopaxi or fieryVesuvius. Humboldt, after standing on this same brink, exclaimed, "I have never beheld a grander or more remarkable picture than that presented by this volcano;" and La Condamine compared it to "the Chaos of the poets." Below us are the smouldering fires which may any moment spring forth into a conflagration; around us are black, ragged cliffs—fit boundary for this gateway to the infernal regions. They look as if they had just been dragged up from the central furnace of the earth. Life seems to have fled in terror from the vicinity; even lichens, the children of the bare rocks, refuse to clothe the scathed and beetling crags. For some moments, made mute by the dreadful sight, we stood like statues on the rim of the mighty caldron, with our eyes riveted on the abyss below, lost in contemplating that which can not be described. The panorama from this lofty summit is more pleasing, but equally sublime. Toward the rising sun is the long range of the Eastern Cordillera, hiding from our view the great valley of the Amazon. To right and left are the peaks of another procession of august mountains from Cotocachí to Chimborazo. We are surrounded by the great patriarchs of the Andes, and their speaker, Cotopaxi, ever and anon sends his muttering voice over the land. The view westward is like looking down from a balloon. Those parallel ridges of the mountain chain, dropping one behind the other, are the gigantic staircase by which the ice-crowned Chimborazo steps down to the sea. A white sea of clouds covers the peaceful Pacific and the lower parts of the coast. But the vapory ocean, curling into the ravines, beautifully represents little coves and bays, leaving islands and promontories like a true ocean on a broken shore. We seem raised above the earth, which lies like an opened map below us; we can look down on the upper surface of the clouds, and, were it night, down too upon the lightnings.
The crater of Pichincha has a sharp, serrated edge, which, happily for Quito, is broken down on the west side, so that in the next eruption the volcano will doubtless pour its contents into the wilds of Esmeraldas. The highest pinnacle is 15,827 feet; so that the mountain just enters the region of perpetual winter. Water boils at 185°. The summit is generally bare, though snow is always found in the clefts of the rocks. It is not compact or crystalline, but resembles a conglomerate of little hailstones.[76]Out of the mingled snow and pumice-dust rise a few delicate flowers, particularly the violetSida Pichinchensis, the same which we had observed on the side of Chimborazo. Think of gay flowers a thousand feet higher than the top of Mont Blanc!
The first to reach the brink of the crater were the French Academicians in 1742. Sixty years after, Humboldt stood on the summit. But it was not till 1844 that any one dared to enter the crater. This was accomplished by Garcia Moreno, now President of Ecuador, and Sebastian Wisse, a French engineer. Humboldt pronounced the bottom of the crater "inaccessible, from its great depth and precipitous descent." We found it accessible, but exceedingly perilous. The moment we prepared to descendour guide ran away. We went on without him, but when halfway down were stopped by a precipice.
On the 22d of October, 1867, we returned to Pichincha with another guide, and entered the crater by a different route. Manuel, our Indian, led us to the south side, and over the brink we went. We were not long in realizing the danger of the undertaking. Here the snow concealed an ugly fissure or covered a treacherous rock (for nearly all the rocks are crumbling); there we must cross a mass of loose sand moving like a glacier down the almost vertical side of the crater; and on every hand rocks were giving way, and, gathering momentum at each revolution, went thundering down, leaping over precipices, and jostling other rocks, which joined in the race, till they all struck the bottom with a deep rumbling sound, shivered like so many bombshells into a thousand pieces, and telling us what would be our fate it we made a single misstep. We followed our Indian in single file, keeping close together, that the stones set free by those in the rear might not dash those below from their feet; feeling our way with the greatest caution, clinging with our hands to snow, sand, rock, tufts of grass, or any thing that would hold for a moment; now leaping over a chasm, now letting ourselves down from rock to rock; at times paralyzed with fear, and always with death staring us in the face; thus we scrambled for two hours and a half, till we reached the bottom of the crater.
Here we found a deeply-furrowed plain, strewn with ragged rocks, and containing a few patches of vegetation, with half a dozen species of flowers. In the centre is an irregular heap of stones, two hundred and sixty feet high by eight hundred in diameter. This is the cone of eruption—its sides and summit covered with an imposing group of vents, seventy in number, all lined with sulphur andexhaling steam, black smoke, and sulphurous gas. The temperature of the vapor just within the fumarole is 184°, water boiling beside it at 189°. The central vent, or chimney, gives forth a sound like the violent bubbling of boiling water. As we sat on this fiery mount, surrounded by a circular rampart of rocks, and looked up at the immense towers of dark dolerite which ran up almost vertically to the height of twenty-five hundred feet above us, musing over the tremendous force which fashioned this awful amphitheatre—spacious enough for all the gods of Tartarus to hold high carnival—the clouds which hung in the thin air around the crest of the crater pealed forth thunder after thunder, which, reverberating from precipice to precipice, were answered by the crash of rocks let loose by the storm, till the whole mountain seemed to tremble like a leaf. Such acoustics, mingled with the flash of lightning and the smell of brimstone, made us believe that we had fairly got into the realm of Pluto. It is the spot where Dante'sInfernoought to be read.
Finishing our observations, and warming our dinner over the steaming crevices, we prepared to ascend. The escape from this horrid hole was more perilous than the entrance, and on reaching the top we sang, with grateful hearts, to the tune of "Old Hundred,"
"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow."
We doubt whether that famous tune and glorious doxology were ever sung so near to heaven.
The second line,
"Praise him all creatures here below,"
had a strange meaning fifteen thousand feet high.
There have been five eruptions of Pichincha since the Conquest. The last was in 1660; that of 1566 coveredQuito three feet deep with ashes and stones, while boiling water and bitumen descended in torrents. In 1867 the column of smoke did not rise above the crest of the crater, but the volcano has lately been showing signs of activity, such as it has not exhibited since the last grand eruption two centuries ago. On the 19th of March, 1868, detonations were audible at Quito, and three days after there were more thunderings, with a great column of vapor visible from Chillo, twelve miles to the east. These phenomena were accompanied by an unusual fall of rain. Since the great earthquake of August 16th, Pichincha has continued to send forth dense columns of black smoke, and so much fine sand that it is not possible to reach the crater. The solid products of Pichincha since the Conquest have been chiefly pumice, coarse-grained and granular trachyte, and reddish porphyroid trachyte. The roads leading to Quito cut through hills of pumice-dust. On the plain of Iñaquito and in the valley of Esmeraldas are vast erratic blocks of trachyte, some containing twenty-five cubic yards, having sharp angles, and in some cases a polished, unstriated surface. M. Wisse does not consider them to have been thrown out of Pichincha, as La Condamine and others have judged. It is true, as he says, that they could not have come out of the present cone at a less angle than 45°, for they would have hit the sides of the high rocky rampart and rolled back again; and at a higher angle they would not have reached their present location. But we see no reason why they could not be the upper portion of the solid trachyte cone blown into the air at the great eruption which cleared out this enormous crater. There is arumipamba, or "field of stones," around each of the Quitonian volcanoes.
Leaving Pichincha, we travel northward along the battlemented Andes, passing by the conical mountains ofYana-urcu and Cotocachí. Yana-urcu, or "black mountain," is a mass of calcined rocks. Cotocachí (fromcota? andcachí, salt) is always snow-clad. On its side is Cuycocha, one of the highest lakes in the world (10,200 feet), and formed by the subsidence of a part of the volcano.
The Volcanoes of Ecuador.— Eastern Cordillera.— Imbabura.— Cayambi.— Antisana.— Cotopaxi.— Llanganati.— Tunguragua.— Altar.— Sangai.
Near the once busy city of Otovalo, utterly destroyed in the late earthquake, the two Cordilleras join, and, turning to the right, we go down the eastern range. The first in order is Imbabura,[77]which poured forth a large quantity of mud, with thousands of fishes, seven years before the similar eruption of Caraguairazo. At its feet is the beautiful lake of San Pablo, five miles in circumference, and very deep. It contains the little black fish (Pimelodes cyclopum) already referred to as the only species in the valley, and the same that was cast out by Imbabura and Caraguairazo. Next comes the square-topped Cayambi—the loftiest mountain in this Cordillera, being nineteen thousand five hundred feet. It stands exactly on the equator, a colossal monument placed by the hand of Nature to mark the grand division of the globe. It is the only snowy spot, says Humboldt, which is crossed by the equator. Beautiful is the view of Cayambi from Quito, as its enormous mass of snow and ice glows with crimson splendor in the farewell rays of the setting sun. No painter's brush could do justice to the prismatic tints which hover around the higher peaks. But this flood of glory is soon followed by the pure whiteness of death. "Like a gigantic ghost shrouded in sepulchral sheets, the mountain now hovers in the background of the landscape, towering ghastly through the twilight until darkness closes upon the scene."
Ten miles farther south is the bare-headed Guamani range, over which passes the road to the wild Napo country.[78]The view from the crest is magnificent; but, like every grand panorama, eludes description. As we look eastward over the beginnings of the mighty forest which stretches unbroken to the Atlantic, the vast ridges, trending north and south, and decreasing in height as they increase in distance, seem like the waves of a great ocean rolling toward the mountains.
Near by stands Antisana in his snowy robe. This volcano ranks next to Chimborazo in dignity. It has a double dome, and an elevation of 19,000 feet. Snow of Dian purity covers it for over 3000 feet; but, judging from the enormous streams of lava on its sides, it must have been a fierce volcano in ages past. The lava streams are worthy of the great mountain from which they flowed. One of them (called "Volcan d'Ansango") is ten miles long and five hundred feet deep, with an average slope of 15°. It is a magnificent sight, as seen from the surrounding paramo—a stream of dark, ragged rocks coming down out of the clouds and snows which cover the summit. The representative products of Antisana are a black, cellular, vitreous trachyte, a fine-grained, tough porphyroid trachyte, and a coarse reddish porphyroid trachyte. An eruption, as late as 1590, is recorded inJohnston's Phys. Atlas. Humboldt saw smoke issuing from several openings in March, 1802.
We ascended this volcano to the height of sixteen thousand feet. On its side is the celebrated hacienda of Antisana, which, more than sixty years ago, sheltered the great Humboldt from the sleet and rain and blast of this lofty region. It was a welcome refuge to us, for we had well nigh perished with cold on the dreary paramo. It is one ofthe highest human habitations in the world, being thirteen thousand three hundred feet above the sea, or a thousand feet higher than the Peak of Teneriffe.[79]The mean temperature is the same as that of Quebec, so that thirteen thousand feet in elevation at the equator is equal to 47° in latitude.[80]Here is an extensive corral, inclosing thousands of cattle, owned by a rheumatic old gentleman, Señor Valdevieso, who supplies the beef-market of Quito.[81]A desire for beef has alone brought man and his beast to this chilly altitude. It is difficult to get a quart of milk, and impossible to find a pound of butter at this hacienda. The predominant colors of the cattle are red and black. They feed on the wild paramo grass, and the beef is not only remarkably cheap, but superior in quality. The lasso is used in catching the animals, but not so skillfully as by the Gauchos of Rio Plata. It is a singular fact that cattle have followed men over the whole earth, from the coast of Africa to the highlands of Antisana. The same species is attacked by crocodiles and condors.
The atmospheric pressure is here so small that they frequently bleed at the nose and mouth when hunted. We have already given our experience in ascending high altitudes. We may add that while the pulse of Boussingault beat 106 pulsations at the height of 18,600 feet on Chimborazo, ours was 87 at 16,000 feet on Antisana. De Saussure says that a draught of liquor which would inebriatein the lowlands no longer has that effect on Mont Blanc. This appears to be true on the Andes; indeed, there is very little drunkenness in Quito. So the higher we perch our inebriate asylums, the better for the patients.
Near the hacienda is a little lake called Mica, on which we found a species of grebe, with wings so short it could not fly. Its legs, also, seem fitted only for paddling, and it goes ashore only to lay its eggs. It peeps like a gosling. Associated with them were penguins (in appearance); they were so shy we could not secure one. The query is, How came they there? Was this a centre of creation, or were the fowls upheaved with the Andes? They could not have flown or walked to this lofty lake, and there are no water-courses leading to it; it is surrounded with a dry, rolling waste, where only the condor lives. We turn to Darwin for an answer.[82]
The ragged Sincholagua[83]and romantic Rumiñagui follow Antisana, and then we find ourselves looking up at the most beautiful and most terrible of volcanoes. This is the far-famed Cotopaxi, or more properly Cutu-pacsi, meaning "a brilliant mass." Humboldt calls it the most regular and most picturesque of volcanic cones. It looks like a huge truncated cone rising out of the Valley of Quito, its sides deeply furrowed by the rivers of mud and water which have so often flowed out. The cone itself is aboutsix thousand feet high. The east side is covered with snow, but the west is nearly bare, owing to the trade winds, which, sweeping across the continent, carry the ashes westward. Cotopaxi is the loftiest of active volcanoes, though its grand eruptions are a century apart, according to the general rule that the higher a volcano the less frequent its eruptions, but all the more terrible when they do occur. Imagine Vesuvius on the summit of Mont Blanc, and you have the altitude of Cotopaxi.
The top just reaches the middle point of density in the atmosphere, for at the height of three miles and a half the air below will balance that above. The crater has never been seen by man; the steepness of the sides and the depth of the ashes covering them render it inaccessible. The valiant Col. Hall tried it with scaling ladders, only to fail. The telescope reveals a parapet of scoria on the brim, as on Teneriffe. Humboldt's sketch of the volcano, so universally copied, is overdrawn. It makes the slope about 50°, while in truth it is nearer 30°. The apical angle is 122° 30'.[84]
Cotopaxi is slumbering now; or, as Mr. Coan says of Hilo, it is "in a state of solemn and thoughtful suspense." The only signs of life are the deep rumbling thunders and a cloud of smoke lazily issuing from the crater.[85]Sometimes at night the smoke looks like a pillar of fire, and fine ashes and sand often fall around the base, to the great annoyance of the farmers. On the south side is a huge rock of porphyry, called the Inca's Head. Tradition has it that this was the original summit of the volcano, torn off andhurled down by an eruption on the very day Atahuallpa was murdered by Pizarro. The last great eruption occurred in 1803, though so late as 1855 it tossed out stones, water, and sand. Heaps of ruins, piled up during the lapse of ages, are scattered for miles around the mountain, among them great boulders twenty feet square. In one place (Quinchevar) the accumulation is 600 feet deep. Between Cotopaxi and Sincholagua are numerous conical hills covering the paramo, reminding one of the mud volcanoes of Jorullo.
Pumice and trachyte are the most common rocks around this mountain, and these are augitic or porphyroid. Obsidian also occurs, though not on the immediate flank, but farther down near Chillo. In plowing, thousands of pieces as large as "flints" are turned up. The natives know nothing about their origin or use; the large specimens were anciently polished and used for mirror. But Cotopaxi is the great pumice-producing volcano. The new road up the valley cuts through a lofty hill formed by the successive eruptions; the section, presenting alternate layers of mud, ashes, and pumice, is a written history of the volcano.[86]The cone itself is evidently composed of similar beds super-imposed, and holding fragments of porphyry and trachyte. What is Vesuvius, four thousand feet high, to Cotopaxi, belching forth fire from a crater fifteen thousand feet higher, and shooting its contents three thousand feetabove its snow-bound summit, with a voice of thunder heard six hundred miles!
Leaving this terrible "safety-valve" to the imprisoned fires under our feet, we travel along the wooded flanks and savage valleys of the Llanganati Mountains, whose lofty blue ridge is here and there pointed with snow.[87]It is universally believed that the Incas buried an immense quantity of gold in an artificial lake on the sides of this mountain during the Spanish invasion, and many an adventurous expedition has been made for it. The inhabitants will tell you of one Valverde, a Spaniard, who, from being very poor, had suddenly become very rich, which was attributed to his having married an Indian girl whose father showed him where the treasure was hidden, and accompanied him on various occasions to bring away portions of it; and that Valverde returned to Spain, and on his death-bed bequeathed the secret of his riches to the king. But since Padre Longo suddenly disappeared while leading an expedition, the timid Ecuadorians have been content with their poverty.[88]
And now we have reached the perfect cone of Tunguragua, the rival of Cotopaxi in symmetry and beauty.[89]It stands 16,500 feet above the Pacific, its upper part covered with a splendid robe of snow, while the sugar-cane grows in the romantic town of Baños, 10,000 feet below the summit. A cataract, 1500 feet high, comes down at three bounds from the edge of the snow to the warm valley beneath; and at Baños a hot ferruginous spring and a streamof ice-water flow out of the volcano side by side. Here, too, the fierce youth of the Pastassa, born on the pumice slopes of Cotopaxi, dashes through a deep tortuous chasm and down a precipice in hot haste, as if conscious of the long distance before it ere it reaches the Amazon and the ocean. Tunguragua was once a formidable mountain, for we discovered a great stream of lava reaching from the clouds around the summit to the orange-groves in the valley, and blocking up the rivers which tumble over it in beautiful cascades. It has been silent since 1780; but it can afford to rest, for then its activity lasted seven years.[90]
Close by rises beautiful Altar, a thousand feet higher. The Indians call it Capac-urcu, or the "Chief." They say it once overtopped Chimborazo; but, after a violent eruption, which continued eight years, the walls fell in. Its craggy crest is still more Alpine than Caraguairazo; eight snowy peaks shoot up like needles into the sky, and surround an altar to whose elevated purity no mortal offering will ever attain. The trachyte which once formed the summit of this mountain is now spread in fragments over the plain of Riobamba.
Leaving this broken-down volcano, but still the most picturesque in the Andes, we travel over the rough and rugged range of Cubillin, till our attention is arrested by terrific explosions like a naval broadside, and a column of smoke that seems to come from the furnace of the Cyclops. It is Sangai, the most active volcano on the globe. From its unapproachable crater, three miles high, it sends forth a constant stream of fire, water, mud, and ashes.[91]
No intermission has been noticed since the Spaniards first saw it three hundred years ago. Stromboli is the only volcano that will compare with it. Its ashes are almost always falling on the city of Guayaquil, one hundred miles distant, and its explosions, generally occurring every hour or two, are sometimes heard in that city. Wisse, in 1849, counted 267 explosions in one hour.
We have now completed the series. What an array of snow-clad peaks wall in the narrow Valley of Quito—Nature's Gothic spires to this her glorious temple! If ever there was a time when all these volcanoes were active in concert, this secluded vale must have witnessed the most splendid pyrotechnics conceivable. Imagine fifty mountains as high as Etna, three of them with smoking craters, standing along the road between New York and Washington, and you will have some idea of the ride down this gigantic colonnade from Quito to Riobamba. If, as Ruskin says, the elements of beauty are in proportion to the increase of mountainous character, Ecuador is artistically beautiful to a high degree.
Here, amid these Plutonic peaks, are the energies of volcanic action best studied. The constancy of the volcanic fires is a striking fact. First we have the deluges of submarine lavas, which were poured out long before the Andes lifted their heads above the waters; then alternate porphyritic strata, feldspathic streams, and gypseous exhalations; then, at a later day, floods of basaltic lava; next the old tertiary eruptions; and, lastly, the vast accumulations of boulders, gravel, ashes, pumice, and mud of the present day, spread over the Valley of Quito and the west slope of the Cordilleras to an unknown depth beneath the sea. The incessant eruptions of Sangai, and the frequent earthquakes, show that the subterranean energy which heaved the Andes is not yet expended.
The Valley of Quito.— Riobamba.— A Bed of "Fossil Giants."— Chillo Hacienda.— Otovalo and Ibarra.— The Great Earthquake of 1868.
The Valley of Quito has about the same size and shape as the basin of Salt Lake, but it is five thousand feet higher.[92]The two cordilleras inclosing it are tied by the mountain-knots of Assuay and Chisinchi, so that the valley is subdivided into three basins, those of Cuenca, Ambato, and Quito proper, which increase in beauty and altitude as we travel north. There are several subordinate transversal dikes and some longitudinal ridges, but all the basins lie parallel to the axes of the cordilleras—a characteristic feature of the Andes. The deep valleys on the outside flanks are evidently valleys of erosion, but the basins between the cordilleras were created with them.
The first is fifty miles long. It contains the cities of Loja and Cuenca,[93]the former distinguished for its cinchona forests, the latter for Inca graves and mines of precious metals. The middle basin (130 miles in length) is covered with vast quantities of volcanic débris, the outpourings of Cotopaxi, Tunguragua, and Altar, on one side, and of Chimborazo and Caraguairazo on the other. Nothing relievesthe barrenness of the landscape but hedges of century plant, cactus, and wild heliotrope, which border the roads. Whirlwinds of sand are often seen moving over the plain. The mean temperature is 61°.5. Here exist, we can not say thrive, the cities of Riobamba, Ambato, and Tacunga, already noticed. Riobamba,[94]properly Rayobamba, the plain of lightning, was founded at the beginning of this century, or shortly after the destruction of the old city. Excepting the ecclesiastical buildings, the houses are of one story, built of stone plastered with mud, sometimes of adobe or bamboo, and the windows are grated like those of a prison. As in all Spanish-American towns, the main church fronts the great Plaza where the weekly fairs are held. Save on fair-day, the city is lifeless. Nothing is exported to the coast except a few eggs and fowls, lard and potatoes. Such is the power of habit, an Indian will take a hen to Bodegas and sell it for four reals (50 cents) when he could get three for it in Riobamba, and six on the road. Another instance of this dogged adherence to custom was related to us by Dr. Taylor: The Indians were accustomed to bring the curate of a certain village a bundle of alfalfa every day. A new curate, having no use for so much, ordered them not to bring any more. He was besieged by five hundred of his wild parishioners, and had he not been a powerful man, they would have killed him. They told him they were accustomed to bring the curate that much of alfalfa, and should continue.
Old Riobamba (Cajabamba) is situated twelve miles to the west. This has been the scene of some of the most terrible paroxysms that over shook the Andes. In 1797 a part of Mount Cicalfa was thrown down, crushing the city at its foot; hills arose where valleys existed; riversdisappeared, and others took their places; and the very site of the city was rent asunder. The surviving inhabitants could not tell where their houses had stood, and property was so mingled that litigation followed the earthquake. Judging from the numerous sculptured columns lying broken and prostrate throughout the valley, the city must have had a magnificence now unknown in Ecuador. Around a coat of arms (evidently Spanish) we read these words:Malo mori quam fedari, "I would rather die than be disgraced." In the spring of 1868 another convulsion caused a lake to disappear and a mountain to take its place.
Near Punín, seven miles southwest of Riobamba, we discovered in a deep ravine numerous fossil bones, belonging chiefly to the mastodon, and extinct species of the horse, deer, and llama. They were imbedded in the middle of an unstratified cliff, four hundred feet high, of very compact silt or trachytic clay, free from stones, and resting on a hard quartzoze sandstone. In the bed of the stream which runs through the ravine (charged with nitrate of soda) are some igneous rocks. The bones were drifted to this spot and deposited (many of them in a broken state) in horizontal layers along with recent shells. We have, then, this remarkable fact, that this high valley was tenanted by elephantine quadrupeds, all of which passed away before the arrival of the human species, and yet while the land, and probably the sea also, were peopled with their present molluscan inhabitants. This confirms the statement of Mr. Lyell, that the longevity of mammalian species is much inferior to that of the testacea. It is interesting to speculate on the probable climate and the character of the vegetation in this high valley when these extinct mammifers lived. The great pachyderm would have no difficulty in thriving at the present day at Quito, on the score of temperature or altitude. The mammoth onceflourished in Siberia; and Gibbon met an elephant on the high table-lands of Bolivia that had walked over the Cordillera at the pass of Antarangua, sixteen thousand feet above the sea. Darwin thinks that the climate of the Cordilleras has changed since the pleistocene period. "It is a marvelous fact in the history of mammalia (says this naturalist) that in South America a native horse should have lived and disappeared, to be succeeded in after ages by the countless herds descended from the few introduced with the Spanish colonists."
The high ridge of Chisinchi, stretching across the great plateau from Cotopaxi to Iliniza, separates the evergreen Valley of Quito from the arid and melancholy valleys of Cuenca and Ambato. It rolls out like a rich carpet of emerald verdure between the towering mountains of Pichincha and Antisana, Cotacachi and Cayambi. This was the centre of the most ancient native civilization after that of Titicaca. Here, while the darkness of the Middle Ages was settling over Europe, dwelt the Quitus, whose origin is lost in the mists of fable. Then, while Peter the Hermit was leading his fanatic host against the Saracens, the Cara nation waged a more successful crusade, and supplanted the Quitus. Here, too, in the bloody days of Pizarro, reigned, and was buried, the last of the Incas, ill-fated Atahuallpa. To him, indeed, it was a more delightful spot than the vale of Vilcamayu—the paradise of Peru.
The Puengasi Hills, running through the valley from north to south, partially divide the capital and its vicinity from the charming Valley of Chillo, spread out at the foot of Antisana. Here is the venerable hacienda of Chillo, where Humboldt and Bonpland resided for some time. It is owned by the Aguirres, who are grand-nephews of Don Carlos Montufar, the companion of the famous travelers. The hacienda contains two valuable paintings—an original"Crucifixion" by Titian, and a portrait of the great German from life, as he appeared in 1803. This latter relic interested us exceedingly, and, through the kindness of Sr. Aguirre, we were allowed to photograph it. It represents Humboldt in his prime, a traveler on the Andes, dressed after the court-fashion of Berlin; very different from theusual portrait—an old man in his library, his head, thinly covered with gray hair, resting on his bosom.
Humboldt in 1802.Humboldt in 1802.
Thirty miles north of Quito, near the volcanic Imbabura, is the ruined city of Otovalo, a thousand feet lower than the capital. It was well built, and contained 7000 inhabitants. Quichua was the prevailing language. Its chief trade was in saddles, ponchos, straw hats, and fruit. Here was the cotton factory, orquinta, of Sr. Pareja. Three miles from Otovalo was the enterprising Indian village of Cotocachí, at the mountain of the same name. It was noted for its hand-loom products. A heap of ruins now marks the locality. It is a doomed spot, suffering more than any other town in 1859.
Four miles northwest of Otovalo was the city of Ibarra, picturesquely seated on a plain 2000 feet lower than Quito, and surrounded with orchards and gardens. It numbered nearly 10,000 souls. It was not a commercial place, but the residence of landed proprietors. The neighborhood produced cotton, sugar, and fruit. A league distant was Carranqui, the birthplace of Atahuallpa. And, finally, the great valley fitly terminates in the plain of Atuntaqui,[95]where the decisive battle was fought which ushered in the reign of the Incas.
Ibarra.Ibarra.
This northern province of Imbabura was the focus of the late terrible earthquake. At half past one on Sunday morning, August 16, 1868, with scarcely a premonitory sign (save a slight trembling at 3P.M.the previous day), there was an upheaving of the ground, and then one tremendous shock and rocking of the earth, lasting one minute. In that brief moment the rich and flourishing province became a wilderness, and "Misericordia!" went up, like tho sound of many waters, from ten villages and cities. Otovalo, Ibarra,Cotocachí, and Atantaqui are heaps of ruins. At Otovalo 6000 perished. After the first shock, not a wall a yard high remained. Houses, in some instances, seemed to have been cut from their foundation, and thrown ten feet distant. The large stone fountain in the Plaza was thrown many yards. The cotton factory, which was built on the edge of a ravine, was by one stroke reduced to fragments. Such was the force of the concussion, the looms smashed eachother, the carding-machines were thrown on their sides, and the roof, with part of the machinery, was found in the river below. The proprietor was killed. Throughout this whole region roads were broken up, and vast chasms created crossing the country in all directions. One is 2000 yards long, 500 yards broad, and 80 yards deep. Large fissures were opened on the sides of Cotocachí and Imbabura, from which issued immense torrents of water, mud, and bituminous substances, carrying away and drowning hundreds of cattle. A caravan of mules going to Chillo with cotton-bales was found four days after grazing on a narrow strip of land, on each side of which was a fearful chasm, while the muleteers were killed.
At Quito comparatively little damage was done. Fifteen lives were lost, and the churches, convents, and many private houses are in a state of dilapidation. Domes and arches, which are much used because of the scarcity of timber, were first to fall.
In the fierceness of the shock, and the extent of the territory shaken, the earthquake of August, 1868, is without a parallel in the New World. The destruction of life (50,000 officially reported in Ecuador alone) has not been equaled in any other earthquake during this century. The tremor was felt over four republics, and from the Andes to the Sandwich Islands. The water-wave was felt on the coast of New Zealand sixteen hours after it had set a United States gunboat, on the sand-hills of Arica. In some respects it is surpassed only by the Lisbon earthquake, which reached from Sweden to the West Indies, and from Barbary to Scotland. The loss of property seems to have been greatest in Peru, and the loss of life greatest in Ecuador. The commotion seemed to be most violent along the Western Cordillera, though it was felt even on the Napo.
There are few places where the crust of our planet islong at rest. Brazil, Egypt, Russia, and Greenland are comparatively free from earthquakes. But had we delicate instruments scattered throughout the world, upheaval and subsidence would doubtless be detected in every part of the so-calledterra firma. The sea, and not the land, is the true image of stability.