Read Ebook: Historical and descriptive narrative of twenty years' residence in South America (Vol 2 of 3) Containing travels in Arauco Chile Peru and Colombia; with an account of the revolution its rise progress and results by Stevenson William Bennet Active

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S.W. AND BY W. 3/4 W. 225

THE WAY TO BE HAPPY 275

THE LEGEND OF THE BELL ROCK 282

MOONSHINE 293

A RENCONTRE 328

Prefatory Note

TO THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE.

TO THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

R. B. J.

Author's Preface to the First Edition

F. M.

THE MONK OF SEVILLE:

A PLAY, IN FIVE ACTS.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

DONNA SERAFINA.

Scene laid in Seville.

Olla Podrida

The Monk of Seville

How now, Sancho,--what have you discovered?

There's a nice girl! What a foot and ankle! Now had my master seen her, there had been a job for me to dog her home. We lacqueys are like sporting dogs; we follow up the game, and when they stop their running, make a dead point, until our masters bag them for themselves. She's coming back. This time I'll poach a little for myself. Fair lady, can I serve you?

"Turn not away, fair angel, for since last You bless'd my eyes, my thoughts have been on you; For weeks I've follow'd, not daring to address you. As I'm a bachelor, and free to wed, Might I your favour gain, a life of tenderness, To you, my love, I'd tender."

As my master says ,

"Lay bare my heart, my Nina, read each thought, And there your image, deeply graven, find."

After our saddles had been placed on our new steeds we mounted, and proceeded in regular procession, two indians, with silver trumpets, going before. At the distance of a league from the town we were met by the brawny vicar, mounted on the finest mule I ever beheld; indeed, such an animal was quite necessary, when it is considered what an unwieldy mass it had to carry: the circumstance made several of us smile, and we could scarcely refrain from laughter when the corregidor presented him to his excellency, saying, "the vicar of Huaranda, Don Juan Antonio Maria de la Magdalena Jaramillo, Pacheco, y Tavera." Heaven help us, said I, to an officer who stood near me, how I pity the parson's mule.

We had not proceeded far when a troop of militia cavalry met us; these tatterdemalions would certainly have borne away the prize had they been put in competition with the infantry of Sir John Falstaff; and could I have chosen for myself, hang me if I would have entered Huaranda in their company.

Huaranda is the residence of the Corregidor, or governor of the province of Chimbo, and may be considered the capital of that province. The town is large but poor, the inhabitants being chiefly occupied as carriers. Their wealth consists in their droves of mules, which during the summer, when the road is open, are employed in conveying merchandize between Quito and Guayaquil. The climate at this place is remarkably cold, owing to its elevation above the sea and the vicinity of Chimboraso, which is seen from the town, and has the appearance of a huge white cloud piercing the blue vault of heaven.

Having taken some refreshment at Huaranda, we proceeded on the following morning to the Pajonal, at the foot of the majestic Chimboraso, the giant of the Andes. The day was beautifully clear, and the view of this lofty mountain highly interesting; we had seen it at the mouth of the Guayaquil river, as well as at that city, a distance of forty leagues, where we were almost suffocated with heat; but now we felt almost perished with cold: the kingdom of lofty palms and shady plantains was in four days exchanged for a region where vegetation is reduced to its lowest ebb--the dwarf pined mosses.

These unfortunate beings, robbed of their country, are merely allowed to exist in it; because the plunderers would only possess a barren waste without their labour: the fertility of the soil would be useless without beings to harvest the crops and manufacture the produce; the gold and the silver must sleep in the mountains if no human beings were employed to extract it. Alas! these beings are the degraded original proprietors, on whom the curse of conquest has fallen with all its concomitant hardships and penury. A miserable pittance of fourteen dollars a year is the wages of a man who works in this cloth manufactory; and ten that of him who tends a flock of sheep; and for this miserable pay they are subject to the whip and to other corporal punishments: their home is a hut, composed of rude stones placed one upon another, and thatched with the long grass from the foot of Chimboraso: here, hunger, misery, and wretchedness seem to have fixed their abode, at the sight of which pity would wring tears from the heart of oppression; but pity has no part in the composition of the oppressors of the Children of the Sun!

Some of the cloth made at this obrage was the finest I had ever seen manufactured in America, but this was by a transgression of the colonial laws, which had established the precise quality of colonial manufactures. Happy at leaving behind that misery which I could only compassionate, we left San Juan in the morning, and arrived at two o'clock in the afternoon at Riobamba, where some very neatly painted triumphal arches had been erected.

Riobamba is the capital of the province of the same name; the old town was founded in 1533, by the Adelantado Sebastian Benalcasar; it contained twenty thousand inhabitants, two parish churches, four convents, two nunneries, and a hospital; but it was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1797, when with very few exceptions the whole population perished, besides a much larger number in different parts of the province, and perhaps no remains of these terrible convulsions of nature are more awful than those at Riobamba. Some of the ruins of the old town may be seen on the acclivities of the mountains on each side the valley, where the new town now stands, separated from each other at least a league and a half; and I was shewn some ruins on each side of the valley which the inhabitants assured me had formed part of one edifice, particularly the two steeples which had belonged to the Franciscan church; these were on one side, and a portion of the body of the church on the other.

The face of the country was entirely changed, so much so, that after the shock the surviving inhabitants, and those of the neighbouring provinces, could not tell where their houses formerly stood, or where their friends had formerly lived; mountains rose where cultivated valleys had existed; the rivers disappeared or changed their course, and plains usurped the situation of the mountains and ravines. The face of the country was so completely altered, that no one knows the site of the largest farm in the province, belonging to Zamora.

The province produces annually about four thousand quintals of sheep's wool, which is manufactured into different kinds of cloth; its other productions are wheat, maize, barley, potatoes, arracachas, and European culinary vegetables. The capital is so situated, that it is not likely ever to become a place of commercial notoriety.

The town of Ambato is very pleasantly situated on one side of a river; the churches and houses are generally neat and all new, for the old town was completely demolished by the earthquake in 1797. Ambato is the capital of the province of the same name, which for the greater part enjoys a very mild climate and a most fertile soil. The crops of wheat, maize, barley, quinua, and other pulse are extremely abundant, and of an excellent quality. Many exquisite fruits are grown here, such as apples, pears, peaches, apricots, and strawberries; these are produced in great abundance; indeed many of the plains are covered with the plants, and any person who wishes to purchase some, pays to the proprietor of the ground, medio real, one-sixteenth of a dollar, and either goes himself, or sends a person to gather them for him during a whole day. Sugar cane thrives extremely well here, although it is four years before it is ripe: remarkably fine sugar is made from it, superior to any other that can be procured in this neighbourhood; but the quantity is small.

In the year 1698 the town was destroyed by an eruption of Cotopaxi, accompanied by one of Carguairaso, which ejected torrents of a hot muddy matter in such quantities as to inundate several of the neighbouring valleys. On the south side of the present town there still remains a monument of this dreadful visitation; a large chasm is seen in the rock five feet wide, and more than a league in length.

On leaving Ambato, a short stage of five leagues brought us to Llactacunga, or as it is commonly called Tacunga. On our entrance we were shocked at the sight of heaps of ruins, caused by the earthquake in 1797; the churches and convents were quite demolished, and their remains exist in the condition in which that frightful convulsion left them. Tacunga is the capital of the province of the same name, and the residence of the Corregidor; the plain on which it stands is evidently of volcanic origin, or has been covered with volcanic productions thrown from the neighbouring mountains. The town contains about three thousand inhabitants; it has a parish church, and the remains of the convents of San Francisco, Santo Domingo, San Augustin, and la Merced; of a college of Jesuits, and a nunnery of barefooted Carmelite nuns; these after the earthquake were removed to Quito. The churches and houses are built of pumice stone, so light that it will float in water; it may be procured in almost any part of the neighbourhood. Tacunga was completely ruined by earthquakes, probably by shocks caused by the subterraneous operations of the volcano of Cotopaxi, which is very near to the town; these happened in 1698, when only one church out of nine, and four houses out of seven hundred, were left standing; in the years 1743 and 1757 it was entirely demolished.

In the earthquake of 1743, a Jesuit, Father Vallejo, was in the church when the roof fell in; he remained under the ruins till the third day, when he was taken out unhurt; but his mental faculties were so completely deranged, that he had forgotten his own name, nor did he recollect any of his most particular friends, and although a priest, when his breviary was presented to him he could not read it, but appeared quite childish; he afterwards resided in the college of Quito, but his memory had so entirely abandoned him, that he never could recollect any thing that had occurred to him before the earthquake, not even his studies, and he was afterwards taught to read and to celebrate a votive mass. This extraordinary instance of the effects produced by fright is so well authenticated in Quito, that the fact appears to be indubitable.

On the same plain on which Tacunga stands are the remains of an indian building, called the Inca's palace of Callo; but nothing except the foundation can be traced. It appears to have consisted of a large court and three extensive halls, forming three sides of an enclosure. It was built of hard black stones, unlike to any now found in the neighbourhood; owing to which, and to the similitude which the wrought stone bears to that used in Peru, little doubt exists of its having been built after the conquest of this country by Huaina Capac.

We left Tacunga on the morning after our arrival, and remained at a farm called Chisinchi, and the next day we arrived at a farm house, called la Ensillada, belonging to the Marquis of Villa Orellana, where all the authorities and persons of distinction of Quito were assembled to compliment their President and Captain-general on his arrival. I shall not give an account of the ceremonies observed on the following day, because they in a great measure resembled those practised in Lima, on the arrival of a Viceroy.

It will be observed, that the towns we passed through on our route from Guayaquil to Quito are generally the capitals of the provinces or districts; there are other roads, but the different Corregidors or Governors wished to honour their President by receiving him at their respective houses; indeed, care has been taken to establish the capitals on the road, for the accommodation both of travellers and of the Governors themselves.

The principal population of these provinces is composed of tributary indians and mestisos, some few Spaniards, and white creoles. The natives appear very industrious and hospitable; but I had not a good opportunity of judging; however, this is the character which I have heard of them from others.

Quito, Foundation and Situation....Plasa Mayor....President's Palace, Bishop's Palace and Cathedral....Parishes....Convents and Public Buildings....Jesuit's College....Convent of San Francisco ....San Diego....Santa Prisca....Santa Clara....University.... College of San Luis....of San Fernando....Houses....Government.... Nobility....Population....White Creoles....Occupation of and Education....Character of....Mestisos, Persons, Character, Employment....Indians....Persons, Character, Employment....Dress of Creoles....Of Mestisos....Of Indians....Diversions, Bull-fight and Masquerade....Dancing....Music....Religious Procession....Market, Meat, Fruit and Vegetables....Spirituous Liquors....Ices, Confectionary....Cheese....Trade and Commerce.

Among the conventual buildings worthy of notice is the ex-Jesuits' college. The front of the church is of stone, of most exquisite workmanship; the Corinthian pillars on each side the central door are entwined with wreaths of roses and lilies, so delicately executed, that a person can introduce his hand between the wreath and the pillar; and in many places pass it along the semi-circumference of the pillar before the wreath comes in contact with it; these six pillars are thirteen feet high, and each one is cut out of a single block of white freestone, of which material the whole of the front is built. In two small niches are placed the busts of St. Peter and St. Paul; underneath that of Peter are the emblems of what he was before he became an Apostle; a small bark and a net, the meshes and folds of which are detached from the principal stone, on which several fishes are cut, one of which is quite detached both from the net and the stone, is loose, and may be moved by introducing a finger between the meshes of the net. Above the bust in alto relievo there is a chair, mitre, crosier, and two keys. On the opposite side, under the bust of Paul, in alto relievo, there is a wolf, which having torn the skin from a lamb, except from the head, stands with his fore feet on the mangled body, and holds one part of the skin in his mouth, his head being raised and his ears pricked up, as if in the attitude of listening; the whole of this emblematic representation is most delicately touched, and evinces the chisel of a master. Above the bust is a vase, standing on several books. The front also contains in niches a statue of the Virgin Mary, and four of St. Ignacio Loyola, the founder of the order; St. Francisco de Borja, St. Juan Francisco Regis, and St. Francisco Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies; also two busts, one of St. Luis Gonzaga, the other of St. Stanislaus Kotska, all of whom belonged to the order. The whole of this beautifully delicate piece of architecture was executed by indians, under the direction of Father Sanches, a native of Quito; a work which will become more estimable as it becomes more known to the lovers of the fine arts.

The interior of the church is from a model of that of Jesus, at Rome; it has a grave solemn appearance; the pillars are square, supporting an unornamented groined roof, having a small cupola in the centre. The interior of this temple was richly ornamented before the expulsion of the order, but it has been despoiled of its most costly contents; among these was a custodium, which is at present in the royal chapel of the Escurial. One side of it was composed of diamonds set in highly polished silver, the other of emeralds set in gold; although the whole only measured two feet eight inches in height, it was valued at eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars; on the bottom was MS. London, 1721. Of this jewel there is a drawing and description in the sacristy of the church.

One of the entrances to the college is through a beautiful stone doorway of most exquisite workmanship, of the Doric order. The library contains upwards of twenty thousand volumes, among which are many very ancient works. The books are placed in different compartments, having emblematic designs over them, indicative of the science on which they treat; the whole appearance is that of an amphitheatre, the books being placed so as to form three ranges or stories. There is a gallery along the top of the first and second, with a balustrade in front of each, and on the tops of these there are desks to lay the books on, for the convenience of reading, and inkstands for the purpose of making any extracts. One great peculiarity respecting the room is, that although rats and mice abound in every other part of the building, they have not entered this; probably on account of some ingredient put into the mortar with which it is plastered. In the refectory there is a good painting of the Marriage at Canaan, but nearly all the most valuable pictures have been taken away; a list of them only being left in the library. All the walls of the building are of brick, of a very good quality; the door and window frames are of freestone, as well as all the pillars and arches in the cloisters.

Part of this building has been given, with the church, to the Agonisante Friars; part was converted into halls for the University, and the remainder into barracks for the soldiers. In these premises the first martyrs to South American Emancipation were sacrificed, on the 2d of August, 1811.

Adjoining the church are two chapels that open on the terrace, the one is dedicated to San Buenaventura, the other was built at the expence of an indian called Cantu?a, dedicated to Nuestra Se?ora de los Dolores; in this there is an image of the Virgin Mary, most exquisitely finished; the name of the sculptor is unknown, but it is believed to have been Caspicara, an indian of Quito.

Although the churches and convents of Santo Domingo, San Augustin, and la Merced, are elegantly built of stone and brickwork, and contain many things worthy of notice, I shall not enter into a minute description of them. The reclusion convent of San Diego, belonging to the Franciscans, is with regard to its situation nearly hidden among the trees and rocks, and most romantically retired; the strictest attention was paid to its building, and it resembles in every point a sequestered hermitage, which renders it worthy the notice of a stranger. It is perhaps the most perfect house for religious retirement and contemplation in the new world. The surrounding scenery of mountains traversing above the clouds; the pleasing verdure of their skirts, while everlasting snows crown their hoary heads; a meandering stream seen first to burst from the breast of its rocky parent, and then to glide down the ravine in search of its level, now and then interrupted in its course by abrupt turnings, clusters of trees, or heaps of stones; it seems to say, man, thy course is like mine, obstacles may intervene, and may appear for a while to retard thy pilgrimage to the grave; but thy stay on earth is short, thy life like my current, on the acclivity of this mountain, is continually rushing towards the last goal.

In this small convent the duties of a monastic life are strictly and most religiously observed; the pale friars clad in grey sackcloth, their sandals on their half bare feet, their habitual silence, all conspire to confirm an opinion of the sanctity of the place, where men seem but to live in preparation for another life. I have often paced these cloisters on an evening, listening to the distant notes of the organ in the church, and the solemn chaunt of the friars, with such reverential awe, as I never experienced in any other place, but which, to be known, must be practised--must be felt.

In one of the principal streets there is a beautiful stone arch, opposite to the Carmelite church, under which is an altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where mass is celebrated every Saturday. This building, which has the appearance of a triumphal arch, is called de la Reyna de los Angeles.

In the suburbs, on the north side of the city, is a small chapel, called de la Vera Crus, and here was interred the body of Blasco Nu?es Vela, a Knight of Santiago, who was the first person to whom the title of Viceroy was granted. His conduct in Lima was so rigorous and overbearing, that the royal audience deposed him, and embarked him at Callao for Panama; but he persuaded the captain of the vessel to land him at Tumbes, from whence he proceeded to Quito, and being pursued by Gonsalo Pizarro to the plain of A?aquito, adjoining the city, a battle was fought in 1546, in which the Viceroy was slain, and his body was conveyed to this chapel, where his remains were interred.

Quito is the residence of the provincial prelates of the four orders of San Francisco, Santo Domingo, San Augstin, and la Merced, all the convents in the Presidency being subject to them.

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