Show LAND OF I 1 copyright 1898 by frank G carpenter guayaquil Gu ayaquil ecuador march 19 10 1898 1891 the city of 0 guayaquil Gu ayaquil how shall I 1 describe it its it Is one of the strangest mixtures in the world of cities it lies liea sixty miles up the wide guyas river almost under the shadow of the equator frowned upon by the snowy pep peaks of the chimborazo Chim borazo and cotopaxa cotopaxi wooded hills surround it the guyas river wider here than the mississippi at st louis flows rapidly by it and the moist miasmatic air of the tropics lulls it to sleep in the river before it you are reminded of venice from the grand canal upon its wharves the scenes make you think of naples and back in its business sections you are in a maze of bazaars much like those of cairo calcutta or bombay not only its looks but its smells smack of the orient it has streets more slimy than those of seoul in winter and some of its lt customs are as vile as those of pekin it is one of the best business points on the west coast of south america and is the only commercial port of a country at least four times the size of the state of ohio having a population about as great as that of the city of philadelphia and in natural resources one of the rich countries of the globe it is the new york of ecuador the center of trade and the place through which all of exports and imports must pass in the neighborhood of worth woith of goods are brought here every year from the united states and europe and some millions of dollars worth of coffee cocoa hides and rubber are sent from here to i all parts of the civilized world guayaquil ayaquil Gu is what the ecuadorians Ecuador ians call a progressive city it has inhabitants it covers the banks of the river guyas for two miles and at a distance is very imposing it has fine buildings of the spanish style with balconies out of which dark eyed beauties look from under half closed shutters down upon you as you go through its streets it has a maze of I 1 great stores which are open at the he front so go that you look within as an in an I 1 egyptian bazaar stores with stocks stock of goods worth hundreds of thousands thousand of dollars and wide open warehouses filled with bags of cocoa coffee and sugar awaiting shipment its streets are lined with workmen who labor at their trades on the sidewalks with indian women who comb the insects from their own and their childrens children hair shair and lunch upon them in the intervals of their sales with fierce looking men carrying caming great bags and bales upon their backs and with beautiful women of the I 1 petter better classes who go 90 along in couples dressed in black with black shawls picturesquely draped about their olive brown faces it has baa hundreds of donkeys who carry pierr all sorts I 1 0 of things through the streets were here goes one loaded on ded with boards and there is one with two pa pann n T I 1 lerr lere filled ith bread upon its ba back e t that at to Is the bakers I 1 wagon of Gua guayule guayaquil Gu ayaquil the city has also a large number of active business men the richest of whom are italians english french chinese or S spaniards an lards and two banks bankc one of w which mch at times pays dividends of at 88 13 12 1 3 2 per cent a year it has bas a tramway way the bails cars of 01 which were made lit in america anden and an the river there are little 1 steamers ate amers which were imported in pl pieces 00 from th abe united states guayaquil ayaquil Gu has an excellent rau lub b at af ahlen you yon may inay meet as good fellows as a n vill find anywhere in the word word ft it has 0 bojc priests and a big chouteh a ifft a gift piu k where the band ak pys after fter worship on sundays it in ia how 1 ever more a city of trade than of pleasure the cable connects it with the markets of new york and europe and when the wires are up it is also connected with quito and abe the other towns of the interior it is at guay aquil that col perry de leon one of the most efficient of our consuls general is stationed and here also M odward pavia has charge of the branch house of flint eddy company the great south american Amer icam importing firm of new york these are some of the bright spots of the picture Gu ayaquil has its dark spots as well its taxes on real estate are lower than those of any city of our country but in the altitude of its death rate it tops the world the streets of guayaquil Gu ayaquil are unpaved during the summer se season M they are filled with dust and the donkeys and mules wear pantalets to keep the gadflies gad flies files and mosquitoes from eating them up in the winter season 1 which is now on the town is flooded whenever it pours with stagnant water to such an extent that it is against the law to drive a cart or carriage through the streets without a special permit from the police this is the unhealthy season of guayaquil ayaquil Gu the season of the yellow fever the season of malaria when death hovers over the town and the doctors make enough to give them summer vacations in europe the water now lies all about me in pools upon each of which a rich green coat of slime sullenly floats ready to be turned into poisonous steam by the equatorial sun the town lies between two rivers it could be easily drained with a ditch plow so that the tide which is here very high would flush it twice a day but its people let it remain as it is the result Is that every now and then th theace ft I 1 is a a g the ae leq me AR f last year carried away thou u and a nd lastoW dim 11 th winter season some kind of fever f e er r Is almost always present guayaquil ayaquil Gu has no sewers ewers its water works are pit holes unk sunk in the streets into which pumps are inserted at the time of a fire alre the result is that the city has been burned again and again there was a fire last year which consumed half of the houses causing a low loss of more than this also makes fire insurance especially high the current guay aquil rate here today being 7 per cent per annum on all city property the Amer american icam consulate has its offices in a three story building which pays a yearly insurance of and I 1 am told there are many other buildings which cannot get insurance even at the above rate for the reason that the various companies have already written up all the risks asks they care to take in guayaquil ayaquil Gu at the same time the tax on real estate is only 3 10 of one per cent and the natives would have a revolution straightway it if you offered to tax them enough to pave the streets and establish a good fire department guayaquil ayaquil Gu has a wideawake wide awake police force I 1 know this for during my first few nights here I 1 heard the policemen every fifteen minutes all night long out that they were awake it selling a police regulation that every man on batth shall cry out or whistle every quarter of an hour the cry Is el sentinel sent inet es ablerto and the whistle is a combination more wonderful than anything except the cry of the guay aquil frog whose hl hi hi hl hi is screamed out gut all night long the ecuadorian police are soldiers they carry swords and guns and both look and act in the fiercest manner one of them almost dropped his gun on my foot the other day as I 1 attempted to pass him he sald aid atras which I 1 suppose means back at least I 1 backed and walked around the other way I 1 have since learned that no one may pass between the police and the wall but must xo outside the policeman I 1 suppose it if the policeman has to fight he prefers to have the wall at his back another regulation Is that all people out after 11 p m must give an account of themselves the cry is in who goes there and the answers must be such that will satisfy the police or they will take you to jail I 1 doubt in fact whether there is a place in the world where it to is so easy to break into jail as here people are imprisoned for debt and it to is a common thing for a planter who wants hands on his estate to go to the jails and pay tag th debts of such of the prisoners as win will agree to transfer their debts to him and work them out he then gives them small wages and takes out perhaps a dollar a week from each mans salary until the debt is paid in the jail at bodegas a town further up the guayaquil Gu ayaquil river I 1 talked with a jamaica negro who told me he had been in prison for months because he had failed to pay a millionaire planter 16 which he had borrowed said he if I 1 were free I 1 could work to get the money to pay my debt but they keep me here until some one buys me out and then I 1 must work tor for him or he can put me in again but before I 1 go further let me tell stil JOp enog jo noa means equator and ecuador is the land of the equator it lies sandwiched between colombia and brazil and peru on the west coast of south america in the shape of a great fan the handle of which extends into northern brazil and the scalloped rim of which is washed by the ocean it is one of the least known countries of the world parts of it have never been surveyed and today the different geographical estimates of its size range all the way from the bigness of california to that of texas the coast is low and a rich tropical vegetation extends from the ocean back for one hundred miles or less to the foothills of the andes the andes cross the country from north to couth in tow great parallel ridges upholding between them a series of beautiful valleys in which about nine tenths of the people live these valleys are from a mile and a half to two miles above the sea and give ilive the interior a healthy climate which is more like that of new york city than of the equator quito the capital is situated in one of the highest of these valleys it Is almost two miles above the altitude of washington city here the weather is that of may in ohio all the year around east of the andes the country Is a tropical wilderness A great branch of the amazon the maranon river flows along its southern boundaries and steamers go up the amazon enter the maranon and bring you within a comparatively short distance of quito in fact I 1 am told you can come to within four days mule travel of quito by water via these great rivers and the streams stream which flow into them ecuador thus has almost every climate known to man scores of its andean peaks are covered with snow and it has mighty glaciers chimborazo Chim borazo which on clear days is visible here is feet above the sea and the great valley of ecuador is guarded by twenty one peaks ranging in height from three to four miles while there are seventeen other peaks which are more than two miles in height today in guayaquil Gu ayaquil the air to is filled with ashes they come from one of ten active volcanoes and ewery week or so an earthquake makes the ground tremble the houses of ce Gu ayaquil are built to withstand the earthquakes they are of wooden timbers so joined and spliced that they can sway with the trembling of the earlb and not break the frame work to is then covered with bamboo laths baths made by splitting the cane upon these I 1 bamboos a a coating of plaster to is spread this makes the exterior of the houses house look as though the walls were backed with brick and stone when in tact they are actually made up of irloa sized fishing poles just now a ve deal of building is going on here anta the hammer of the carpenter nailing on these laths baths Is always to be heard muck mua of the lumber used comes from breg breeb and washington and some from run georgia the equatorial coast region where I 1 now aril am Is full of vegetable aono r this Is today the richest and moar productive part of ecuador in ner mcky sixty miles sail up the river gudaa to this city 3 fc passed vast haciendas covered with grass as green as the fields fielda of egypt in winter in which fat catulo cattle r horses and mules stood up to their bel 1 lies and ate without having to bend down to reach the grass I 1 passed raa plantations of sugar cane which here grows to the height of ten feet and which grows for twenty five without re planting I 1 saw vast chem orchards loaded down with the fruit from which our chocolate comes tan ta cocoanut coco anut palms bearing green balls balla or at fruit as big as your head swayed to and fro high above the houses of the planters and strange fruits of so many kinds that I 1 cannot give goutheir you their were offered to us again and the wharves of guayaquil Gu ayaquil are am ag eted with the ecuadorian natives who have hare brought fruit and other things to sell they have melons which comes from trees known as the this fruit is of the size of a large musk and when opened its rich yellow RUA seems much the same there are MOW trees here which bear fruits as big bi w your head of one kind or another ta buttons on your coat are probably made of vegetable ivory from colombia colomba or ecuador this ivory Is shipped artim Gu guayaquil ayaquil and panama in the shape ag nuts which look much like save that each nut is as big as the cut of a two year old baby and as hart hard as iron these nuts grow on a law IV palm tree in what looks like rouge chestnuts burrs as big as your he hexel each burr contains a dozen or mow nuts which when green are filled vj with a soft jellylike jelly like substance tasting im unlike cocoanut coco anut milk in company with a party on a recent trip to the 14 herfor I 1 ate some of them and rin found them not at all bad ecuador h haida aa considerable trade in them and h hr shipments of them last year brought in ecuador has trees which weave bed clothing I 1 slept last night in a blanket blesi bat made of the bark of a tree which g grow on the slopes of the andes the manket blanket is six feet long and over five rt feet wide and it is as soft and pliable an aa though it was made of flannel it to ta of at about the thickness of a good flannel flaade blanket and I 1 can easily roll it up and aad put it in my shawl strap without hurt ing it this blanket Is in merely a arte of bark cut from a section of the trunk of the de majagua tree the indiana made a cutting around the trunk to get it and they then prepared ared it by soak ing it in water until it was soft they then pounded it so that the rough out aut side could be stripped ct off and the to te side alone left the inside is of fine hab fibers so joined together by nature that it makes a beautiful blanket warm M enough to be used as a cover and oft enough for a mattress I 1 have had ha a photograph made of it my friend mr rook and myself holding it up to show you its size the pineapples here OA are delicious and the bananas and coffee are unsurpassed by those thase of any other part of south america the chief article of export from ecuador however is cacao or as we call it cocoa it is from this that the chocolate comes there are vast coma cocoa plantations along the guyas river and alq the other rivers river of the racine pacific coast and the planters have one of the liest paying businesses among the of the world there are few planta li which aich I 1 do not net 12 per cent and my ly b ring bring in five times this amount today it costs here I 1 am told about 3 to of our money to raise a pound of whereas it sells in guayaquil Gu ayaquil for about uj 14 cents making a clear profit to the farmer of 11 cents gold a pound and paying him a profit of about per cent this year ecuador will catoe about forty million pounds of cocoa beans which will he shipped to and the united states the crop Is not a difficult one to raise and when an orchard is once bearing it to is good for a hig big income for from twenty to thirty years until I 1 came here I 1 dmd no idea as to how cocoa was grown I 1 had heard of the cocoa bean and opposed it came from a vine or bush the truth is the beans which when ground up make our chocolate grow at an trees from twenty to thirty feet high the tree is much like an im r 10 reenee pane lilac bush it Is ragged and |