Que ven las tempestades a su planta

Brillar, rugir, romperse, disiparse." 1

But our contemplation of the sublime spectacle before us was suddenly interrupted by the sharp, shrill whistle of the steamer, and the discordant clanking of the anchor-chain passing through the hawse-pipe. We had happily completed the first stadium of our trans-equatorial voyage and were now safely moored in the placid waters of the broad harbor of Guayaquil.

1 "The Andes—the enormous, stupendous masses, set on foundations of gold,

Which behold the tempests at their feet gleam, roar, disperse, vanish.”

CHAPTER III

FROM SULTRY COASTLAND TO CHILLY PARAMO

Our first view of Guayaquil was, in its way, almost as impressive as our first view of the Andes from the island of Puna. As seen under the subdued rays of the rising sun, it was a vision of oriental splendor, not unlike a distant view of Cairo or Damascus. The large, white structures along the Guayas and the imposing churches, also white, whose towers, by a peculiar optical illusion, appeared much loftier than they really were, seemed to be like modern Athens, wrought of Pentelican marble. The city, as thus seen, was a fit companion picture to that of the cloudpiercing Cordilleras at whose foot it so gracefully reposed, and we were quite disposed to exclaim with the Guayaquil poet, Padre Aguirre:

In the harbor were several steamers and sailing vessels from many parts of the world, but the most picturesque features were the peculiar craft, everywhere visible, of the Indians and mestizos. These were balsas, of the same type as those that so surprised Pizarro's pilot, Ruiz, and his companions on their first arrival in these parts, and certain kinds of rafts that serve the same purpose as a Chinese house-boat.2 All these were loaded with fruits

1 "Guayaquil, city beautiful, America's garland, beauteous emerald of earth, precious pearl of the sea."

2 The historian Zarate thus described these balsas: "They are made of

and other products of the rich lands bordering the Guayas and its affluents. And so great was the abundance of these products offered for sale that it was difficult to imagine where purchasers could be found for half of them. There were bananas of many varieties, juicy pineapples of rarest fragrance, papayas resembling muskmelons in size and appearance, and countless other fruits grateful to the palate, that are found only in the tropics.

The vision beautiful vanishes as soon as one disembarks. The marble palaces prove to be merely whitewashed structures of plastered bamboo, and the edifices that seemed so majestic from a distance dwindle into rude shops and unpretentious shacks. Outside of the Malecon that parallels the course of the river, there are few streets to claim the visitor's attention, and still fewer where he will care to promenade a second time. The Cathedral, some of the churches, and the hospital will repay a visit, as will some of the larger business houses along the MaleIn most respects Guayaquil is like all other SpanishAmerican cities. It is laid out in the same gridiron fashion, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants are essentially the same as those of the inhabitants of other parts of Latin America.

con.

The peculiar bamboo houses are admirably adapted to the soft low ground-only a few feet above the water at high tide-on which the city is built, and are as nearly earthquake-proof as are our steel structures of the north. Some of them are highly ornate in appearance, and all of them are specially designed for the comfort of those who live where summer never dies.

long light poles fastened across two other poles. Those on the top are always an odd number, generally five and sometimes seven or nine, where the rower sits, the center poles being longer than the others. The shape of the balsa is like that of a hand stretched out, with the length of the fingers diminishing from the center. On the top some boards are fixed to prevent the men from getting wet. There are balsas which will hold fifty men and three horses. They are navigated with a sail and oars." Historia del Descubrimiento y Conquista del Peru, Lib. I, Cap. VI.

Some months before going to Guayaquil, I had met in Venezuela a commercial agent from New York who had spent twenty years traveling through the various countries of South America, and he said to me on parting: "Whatever you do, keep away from Guayaquil. It is the worst pest-hole in creation. A foreigner takes his life in his hands by going there and a sojourn of only a few days in it is sure to be followed by an attack of yellow fever or bubonic plague. If you should be fortunate enough to escape these, you are sure to encounter a revolution or an earthquake."

This was a gloomy forecast, but we had become quite accustomed to such prophets of evil and determined to continue our journey, as it had been planned, despite all that might be said to dissuade us from our purpose.

We had, too, become quite accustomed to revolutions, as we had passed through three of them during the preceding three months and had suffered nothing in person or property by such experiences. In fact, we came to regard them like unto the wars of the Saxon Heptarchy of which Milton writes, "They are not more worthy of being recorded than the skirmishes of crows and kites."

As to earthquakes, those of a destructive character, even in the regions of greatest seismic disturbances in South America, are few in number, and are no more to be apprehended by the traveler than are those of Sicily or Calabria. And no one, I think, would be deterred from visiting these interesting countries through fear of a possible earthquake during his sojourn there. I had frequently visited various parts of the world where earth tremors are most violent and had never been even remotely exposed to danger from instability of the earth's surface. Indeed, I had often wished to experience the sensation caused by a severe shock, and to have an opportunity of observing the effects due to vibration of the earth's crust. In such a frame of mind I should then have

welcomed a genuine earthquake, rather than have tried to escape it.

As our good fortune would have it, we landed in Guayaquil in July, the coolest and most salubrious month of the year. At no time did we suffer from the heat, even when under the rays of the midday sun. And more surprising still, after all we had been told, we were never annoyed by mosquitoes or other insects. We never once had occasion to use a mosquito bar in our bedrooms, and our hotel was as clean and comfortable as one could desire. Of course, we were in Guayaquil during the most favorable part of the year. There is no doubt that during most of the year, as conditions were at the time of our visit, the traveler was more or less exposed to yellow fever. For generations it had been practically endemic and had been specially malignant in the case of foreigners, who were not immune. As to the native inhabitants, they seemed to have little fear of the disease, and ordinarily but few victims were claimed from their ranks. Most of them being immune, they were slow to awake to the necessity of doing anything to stamp out the plague, even after they had learned of the signal success of Colonel Gorgas in the work of sanitation in Panama.

But what the citizens as a whole had so long been indifferent about, the merchants were at last forced to take into account. The quarantine regulations along the Pacific coast-especially at Panama-were becoming so strict, that the municipal authorities of Guayaquil, as well as the federal government at Quito, were compelled to adopt the same sanitary measures that had eliminated all infectious diseases from the Canal Zone, and had made this strip of land as salubrious as it had before been pestiferous.

Guayaquil counts about forty thousand inhabitants, and is practically the only port of Ecuador, for Esmeraldas, San Lorenzo and Rio Verde are almost negligible as ports of call for foreign commerce. It is through the port of