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Transcriber's note: The etext attempts to replicate the printed book as
closely as possible. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have
been corrected. The spellings of names, places and Spanish words used by
the author have not been corrected or modernized by the etext
transcriber. The footnotes have been moved to the end of the text body.
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                             [Illustration]




                         THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN
                                  PERU

                 GEOGRAPHICAL RECONNAISSANCE ALONG THE
                         SEVENTY-THIRD MERIDIAN

                                   BY

                             ISAIAH BOWMAN
             Director of the American Geographical Society

                        [Illustration: colophon]

                             PUBLISHED FOR
                   THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
                              OF NEW YORK

                                   BY

                         HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

                                  1916

                                 LATIN
                                AMERICA

                            COPYRIGHT, 1918

                                   BY

                         HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

                      THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS
                              RAHWAY, N.J.

                                   TO

                                C. G. B.




PREFACE


The geographic work of the Yale Peruvian Expedition of 1911 was
essentially a reconnaissance of the Peruvian Andes along the 73rd
meridian. The route led from the tropical plains of the lower Urubamba
southward over lofty snow-covered passes to the desert coast at Camaná.
The strong climatic and topographic contrasts and the varied human life
which the region contains are of geographic interest chiefly because
they present so many and such clear cases of environmental control
within short distances. Though we speak of “isolated” mountain
communities in the Andes, it is only in a relative sense. The extreme
isolation felt in some of the world’s great deserts is here unknown. It
is therefore all the more remarkable when we come upon differences of
customs and character in Peru to find them strongly developed in spite
of the small distances that separate unlike groups of people.

My division of the Expedition undertook to make a contour map of the
two-hundred-mile stretch of mountain country between Abancay and the
Pacific coast, and a great deal of detailed geographic and physiographic
work had to be sacrificed to insure the completion of the survey. Camp
sites, forage, water, and, above all, strong beasts for the
topographer’s difficult and excessively lofty stations brought daily
problems that were always serious and sometimes critical. I was so
deeply interested in the progress of the topographic map that whenever
it came to a choice of plans the map and not the geography was first
considered. The effect upon my work was to distribute it with little
regard to the demands of the problems, but I cannot regret this in view
of the great value of the maps. Mr. Kai Hendriksen did splendid work in
putting through two hundred miles of plane-tabling in two months under
conditions of extreme difficulty. Many of his triangulation stations
ranged in elevation from 14,000 to nearly 18,000 feet, and the cold and
storms--especially the hailstorms of mid-afternoon--were at times most
severe.

It is also a pleasure to say that Mr. Paul Baxter Lanius, my assistant
on the lower Urubamba journey, rendered an invaluable service in
securing continuous weather records at Yavero and elsewhere, and in
getting food and men to the river party at a critical time. Dr. W. G.
Erving, surgeon of the Expedition, accompanied me on a canoe journey
through the lower gorge of the Urubamba between Rosalina and the mouth
of the Timpia, and again by pack train from Santa Ana to Cotahuasi. For
a time he assisted the topographer. It is due to his prompt surgical
assistance to various members of the party that the field work was
uninterrupted. He was especially useful when two of our river Indians
from Pongo de Mainique were accidentally shot. I have since been
informed by their _patrón_ that they were at work within a few months.

It is difficult to express the gratitude I feel toward Professor Hiram
Bingham, Director of the Expedition, first for the executive care he
displayed in the organization of the expedition’s plans, which left the
various members largely care-free, and second, for generously supplying
the time of various assistants in the preparation of results. I have
enjoyed so many facilities for the completion of the work that at least
a year’s time has been saved thereby. Professor Bingham’s enthusiasm for
pioneer field work was in the highest degree stimulating to every member
of the party. Furthermore, it led to a determination to complete at all
hazards the original plans.

Finally, I wish gratefully to acknowledge the expert assistance of Miss
Gladys M. Wrigley, of the editorial staff of the American Geographical
Society, who prepared the climatic tables, many of the miscellaneous
data related thereto, and all of the curves in Chapter X. Miss Wrigley
also assisted in the revision of Chapters IX and X and in the correction
of the proof. Her eager and in the highest degree faithful assistance in
these tasks bespeaks a true scientific spirit.

ISAIAH BOWMAN.


SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 28. Photograph by H. L. Tucker, Engineer, Yale Peruvian Expedition
of 1911.

Fig. 43. Photograph by H. L. Tucker.

Fig. 44. Photograph by Professor Hiram Bingham.

Figs. 136, 139, 140. Data for hachured sketch maps, chiefly from
topographic sheets by A. H. Bumstead, Topographer to Professor Bingham’s
Peruvian Expeditions of 1912 and 1914.




CONTENTS


PART I

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

CHAPTER                                                             PAGE

I. THE REGIONS OF PERU                                                 1

II. THE RAPIDS AND CANYONS OF THE URUBAMBA                             8

III. THE RUBBER FORESTS                                               22

IV. THE FOREST INDIANS                                                36

V. THE COUNTRY OF THE SHEPHERDS                                       46

VI. THE BORDER VALLEYS OF THE EASTERN ANDES                           68

VII. THE GEOGRAPHIC BASIS OF REVOLUTIONS AND OF HUMAN
CHARACTER IN THE PERUVIAN ANDES                                       88

VIII. THE COASTAL DESERT                                             110

IX. CLIMATOLOGY OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES                                121

X. METEOROLOGICAL RECORDS FROM THE PERUVIAN ANDES                    157


PART II

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES

XI. THE PERUVIAN LANDSCAPE                                           183

XII. THE WESTERN ANDES: THE MARITIME CORDILLERA OR CORDILLERA
OCCIDENTAL                                                           199

XIII. THE EASTERN ANDES: THE CORDILLERA VILCAPAMPA                   204

XIV. THE COASTAL TERRACES                                            225

XV. PHYSIOGRAPHIC AND GEOLOGIC DEVELOPMENT                           233

XVI. GLACIAL FEATURES                                                274


APPENDIX A.   SURVEY METHODS EMPLOYED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF
THE SEVEN ACCOMPANYING TOPOGRAPHIC SHEETS                            315

APPENDIX B. FOSSIL DETERMINATIONS                                    321

APPENDIX C. KEY TO PLACE NAMES                                       324

INDEX                                                                327


TOPOGRAPHIC SHEETS

Camaná Quadrangle                                                    114

Aplao       "                                                        120

Coropuna    "                                                        188

Cotahuasi   "                                                        192

La Cumbre   "                                                        202

Antabamba   "                                                        282

Lambrama    "




PART I

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY




CHAPTER I

THE REGIONS OF PERU


Let four Peruvians begin this book by telling what manner of country
they live in. Their ideas are provincial and they have a fondness for
exaggerated description: but, for all that, they will reveal much that
is true because they will at least reveal themselves. Their opinions
reflect both the spirit of the toiler on the land and the outlook of the
merchant in the town in relation to geography and national problems.
Their names do not matter; let them stand for the four human regions of
Peru, for they are in many respects typical men.


THE FOREST DWELLER

One of them I met at a rubber station on the lower Urubamba River.[1] He
helped secure my canoe, escorted me hospitably to his hut, set food and
drink before me, and talked of the tropical forest, the rubber business,
the Indians, the rivers, and the trails. In his opinion Peru was a land
of great forest resources. Moreover, the fertile plains along the river
margins might become the sites of rich plantations. The rivers had many
fish and his garden needed only a little cultivation to produce an
abundance of food. Fruit trees grew on every hand. He had recently
married the daughter of an Indian chief.

Formerly he had been a missionary at a rubber station on the Madre de
Dios, where the life was hard and narrow, and he doubted if there were
any real converts. Himself the son of an Englishman and a Chilean woman,
he found, so he said, that a missionary’s life in the rubber forest was
intolerable for more than a few years. Yet he had no fault to find with
the religious system of which he had once formed a part; in fact he had
still a certain curious mixed loyalty to it. Before I left he gave me a
photograph of himself and said with little pride and more sadness that
perhaps I would remember him as a man that had done some good in the
world along with much that might have been better.

We shall understand our interpreter better if we know who his associates
were. He lived with a Frenchman who had spent several years in Africa as
a soldier in the “Foreign Legion.”  If you do not know what that means,
you have yet all