The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 6, 1896, Page 18

18 -THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1896. THE WONDERFUL MYSTERIOUS RUINS OF ANCIENT BOLIVIA The exploration of the mysterious ruins } “topos,” and a great pile of flat silver tive people, oceurs in several notable speci- of Lake Titicaca. in Bolivia, bas been the | plates, some round and some square, no | mens—one a tube made from t'x:e tibiaota doubt intended to ornument some royak|llama, intended, no deubt, for'the purprse object of one of the expediuons sent out | by the Pennsylvania Museum, and the collections representing the first year's- work, from February, 1895, are now dis played in American Hall, says Stew- art Culin in the Philadeiphia Times. This undertaking, planned by Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson, supported by a small commit- tee, of which Dr. William Pepper has acted as chairman, and executed by Dr. Max Uble, a trained and skillful explorer of the most distinguished reputation, has yielded the most valuable results. Lake Titicaca, or Chuquito, occupies a valley or plateau, which forms the most elevated tableland in the globe, with the exception of that of Thibet. The lake is actually 12,600 feet above the level of the sea. It has an extent of 3220 -quare miles | and within it lie several islands, from one of which, called Titicaca, Manco Capac and his consort, the great founders of the | empire of the Incas, are fabled to have issued to spread civilization, industry and government among the surrounding na- tions. Its irregular shores are lined with ruins, and near the southern shore, at Tiahuanaco, are cyclopean remains of vast edifices, apparently never completed. In this basin of Lake Titicaca lived a race known as the Aymara, differing from the natives southward. Their language | . survives, still spoken by the Indiansof the | lake, where also are found remnants of a! savage tribe called Urus, who live among the reed beds and islan s. Few spots in .the world offer more tempting opportuci- ties to both the archsoliogist and ethnolo- * gist, or even the general traveler. The scenery is wild and beautiful beyond de- scription. The inhabitants—a mixture of | various races, chiefly Spaniards with tne Indian natives —preserve many traditions of the past. The ruins areamong the most stupendous on the American continent, and the soil is so rich in remains of prehis- toric antiguity that implements, armsand | pottery are yielded by every touch of the | spade. But explcration in this remarka- | * bleland is not without its drawbacks. | Transportation is difficult, theinhabitants | suspicious of exp orers, and the most seli- denying effort has been necessary to ac- | cumulate the rich scientific treasures that are now snown at the university. Above the long rows of flat cases con- taining the objects are a series of photo- grapbs illustrating the lake, its ruins and the ex‘sting Indians. The first picture | represents the construction of a balsa or | straw boat on the island of Paco. These | are the boats with which the ancient| Indians used to navigate the dangerous waters of the lake. In the case beneath are numbers of rounded stones, grooved for a straw rope, ti.e anchors of the balsas used in the early time. This boat of siraw is nearly identical with a boat constructed by the African natives, to which it fur- nishes a curious and interesting parallel. | Among the many arts possessed by the | people of Titicaca was that of working in } metal. Gold, silver, copper, bronze, and | even lead were wrought by casting and | hammering into many useful and orna- mental form: as are attested by the specimens siown. Most numerous area kind of needle or hairpin called a *“‘topo,” usually with a flattened head, sometimes made to represent the head of allama or bird. One of gold Las a beaten head three inches in diameter, with an embossed hu- man face. These same ornaments are still made and worn by the Indians in Bolivia and Peru. | Gold is found very plentifully in the mountains of Bolivia, but the mines are not extensively worked through the ex- pense of reducing the ore. There is shown in the Royal Museum at Madrid a mass of native gold found by an Inaian near | La Paz that was soid for $11,269, and it was doubtless from native goid that the specimens shown were manufactured. | Silver, however, is the staple product of the country, and from Potosi alone, from the middle of the sixteenth century down to the vear 1800, no less than $823,950,509 were coined, while the total product of | the Bolivian mines down to that timeis | estimated ai $1,617,901,018 in 255 years, | The silver specimens comprise many or priestly robe. Copper and bronze are wrought in knives, in bells and bgll-hka ornaments, in miniature human figures, pierced for suspension, and among many other objects into spoons with circular bowls and long narrow handles, bearing at the top effigies of birds, dogs and the inevitable llama. Bone, that useful material to all primi- of inbaling snuff, a custom that exists to-day among the tribes of the Amazon. Butthe two arts for which the ancient CIGANTIC STONE STATUE QUALASASAYD ,‘7‘ £ 'HL i BT own northwest coast. With infinite care the chips from the prehistoric workshops have been collected, showing the extent of the manufacture and the identity of the process with that the world over. Their precious stones were turquoise and -, \%\"\\ G = 1Aymnns were specially distinguished | were their skill in working stone and in Nmakinz pottery. Their arrow-heads, of | obsidian, jasper and chalcedoay, are only | comparable to those of the Indians of | Oregon and the Columbia River, of our —SRCADE OF CHURCH AT TIAHUANACD especially that peculiar and beautiful | South American stone called sodalite, for, as in Mexico, green and blue stones ap- pear to have been especially prized. A string of green beads of silicate of coprer | represents what may have been one of the | great tribal treasures. The commonest of all the stone specimens are grooved balls, many of hematite, which were used for the bolas, a weapon with which the Peruvian Indians are still wonderfully expert. Another weapon was the club with per- foratec stone head, sometimes occurring in the form of a star. Two specimens from the coast are exhibited with the orig- inal baiting, one with the staff still Their use is shown by a modern example | wrapped With human hair cord and ter- from San Andreas. Three of these balls, enveloped in hide, are attached to twisted leatber ropes, fastened in the middle. The bolas is grasped by their place of juncture, whirled about the head and thrown so as to entangle the feet of the flying vicuna. minating in a tassel or plume of human hair. Stone mortars also abound, with pestles and rubbery stone of hard materi- als, among which are several of nephite used in the art of metal working and won- derfully well adapted for smoothing the 4 bones thin plates of gold and silver used asor’ naments. Most marvelous of all are sev- eral small rectangular tablets of black slate, bearing in relief delicate patterns that seem to be copied from ancient tapes- try. One has a rim with projecting rays in the center with eyes formed of inset copper beads. The pottery of Tiahuanaco is of a distinct and peculiar type, far more elegant than that of Ancon and the coast, and painted with conventional designs once represent- ing men and animals. A common form is a tall, beaker-like vesse!, almost identical with the familiar druggists’ mortar. Jugs and bottles with handles and small plates with curious patterns formed by little llamas or birds pawnted in black upon & red ground abound. The handles of these plates are artistically wrought to repre- sent the heads of various animals, Heads of the llama and its congeners, the alpaca and vicuna, birds like the duck, water hen, condor and curacoa, and the domestit dog, of which two varieties were known to the old Peruvians, are frequent. The puma (Felis concolor) constantly ap- pears, both modeled and painted on the vases. As elsewhere in America, he must have occupied an 1mportant place in the myths of these ancient people, for his head, with projecting teeth, is omnipres. ent. It is interesting to trace the process by which the pictured animalson the vases have become conventionalized, disappear- ing at last in geometrical lines of red, white and black, which when arranged in sequence can be connected with the orig- inal picture. But these relics are trifing when com- pared with the ruins which must always remain tntil earthquakes and the ages work their final destruction. Casts, measurements and photographs are all we can hope for, and these have been ob- tained in abundance by the university's explorer. Most famous of all are the great monolithic stone gateways at Tia- huanaco, carved with the emblems of the old religion, the object of fruitless spec- ulation and research since the tirae of the Spanish conquest, Their age yet remains a matter of conjecture, but they have been assigned to 2 lost and prehistoric empire, preceding by centuries that of the Incas, whose last great sovereign, Huayna Capac, died in 1527, the year Pizarro first appeared on the coast. The picture shows ihe easiern front of the greatest of the gateways, cracked by an earthquake, yet still grand and impressive beyond descrip- tion. What unlimjted command of labor this monument represents! Its sculp- tured designs have been carefully repro- duced, so that in the new museum which is soon to be built upon the land given by the city a copy of this extraordinary relic, restored, it may be, to its original p-rfec- tion, may enable us to form some better conception of the original structure. Another branch of archzological in« vestigation too often neglected by the ex- plorer is that of humar remains, not only with reference to the mode of burial, but the collection of the bones themselves. And this forms for many the most inter- esting part of the recent work of the de- partment of archaeology. The interments near the lake were in circular stone struc- tures, called chulpas, from which were obtainea a number of skeletons wrapped in coarse bags, wholly unlike the carefully prepared mummies from the coast. -Dr. Charles Lester Leonard, of the Pepper Clinical Laboratory, has made radiographs of some of these specimens, disclosing without the removal of the wrappings the and ornaments contained within them. 5 One of his pictures is that of a desic- cated foot of a mummy fron the ancient stone chulpa at Campalachi. The leather sandal, which still remains attached, is faintly shadowed behind the bones, which are covered on the original by their dried integument. The present collection is arranged somewhat differently from most archzological collections, being displayed with the photographs to show the results of each special exploration. Pictures of the Indians, illustrating their dances and festivals, give life and Interest to the ex- hibit, which is one of more than ordinary importance. POMP AND PAGEANTRY A First we scrambled up to the top of the the blue ana gold and red and gold of the | Had Charles Hoyt used him asa charac- omnibas in hot haste. something hot on such a morning. instant the great lumbering vehicle came | pounding down the street the waiting | crowd attacked it and men and women | burst inside and sat down suddenly and peared, iike a medieval pageant. The American eagle fapped its wings and screeched, Jike the pleasant and patriotic bird it is, A white-haired gene- 1t was well to have | banners were particularly gorgeous, and | ter a delicate blue fire would have sur- The | made the procession, when it finally ap- | rounded his fine old fresh-colored head, | with eyes that had so much sparkle and grim humor that no sixty-four yearscould dim them. “I've been on this — con- tinent fifteen months,” said the general; firmly, panting and breathless but shel- | ral, retired at 64, to his own great resent- } “I've been up the Alps and down into the tered on the warm velvet seats. Those who had too little presence of mind and | too much absence of body to ‘‘get there” | climbed on top and choked back violent | language into the depths of their| inadequate coat collars. | And yet the sun shone throngh the mist, a faint blur of pinkish yellow, the air was | as sharp as a knife and as fresh as—well, it was extremely fresh. Comparisons are especially odious when you cannot think of a suitable one. And the sky was actu- ally blue—a pale, washed-out, irresolute biue. Two boys in the seat behind the driver | were discussing with that fat functionary the possibility of climbing the Nelson monument in order to see the Lord Mayor's show. Two women in the oppo- site seat declared nervously that they did hope Alfred could secure a window; they never coula stand on the street. | The man in the next row expressed his scorn of such things in stentorian tones, addressing the world at large and calling it monkey play and an old woman’s tricks just fit for children and women and idiots | and strangers. He growled like distant thunder, puiling at his moist beard ana spitting every now and then with great emphasis into the street. He glared at us | so that we felt that our desiination was written in drops of ice upon our guilty brows. We tried to look as though we were not goinug to the Lord Mayor's show, as though we had not been impatient of every delay and consumed with the fear of missing one gorgeous red soldierman or the vigorous blare of a single brass band. We belonged to almost all the con- | demned classes; we were confused into trying 1o hide our identity—to look as little as possible like children and women, | and idiots and strangers. The strain upon our nerves was awful; it was a relief when he stumbled over an artless um- brella and went down the steps like the funny man in a regular old-fashioned melodrama. Only he seemed to be lacking in any sense of humor. His descent and disappearance cheered our spirits; everythin; chattered more openly—our teeth, the windows, and the women in the iront seat. The city was alive with people, and the flags and banners of the corporations and great guilds almost met overhead in the narrower streets. Around Guild hall, where the ceremonies were to take place, ment, occupied the other half of the win- | toe of Italy; I've seen th- biggest moun- THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON. dow-ledge to which it was our privilege to be hoisted. The general's comments, de- livered in a tone as though he were ad- dressing a battery at the distance of several miles, were interlarded by strong. terse, rich oaths, as afruit cake is thick- ened with raisins. Never has language been used with such force and variety. tains and their bigeer cities, and their casties and their galleries, and I'll be — if 1 don’t think America knocks them into ——" We all saw stars for a moment or two. *‘What is the finest moment yon've had in Europe, general?”’ demanded a laugh- ing voice. ! | daily papers that for mary years no civic | display had met with such uaiversal en- THE MAYOR OF “That moment,” he said, from the region of his boots, ‘“when I heard the band play ‘The Washington Post’ in Moscow, at the coronation of the Czar. But the finest moment of all I've ex- perienced in Europe is going to be that moment when I put my foot on the deck of the steamer bound for America.” His fierce blue eyes, that had seen the horrors of Gettysburg and Antietam, were suddenly suffused with an emotion that he ¢loried in even while he quickly cailed attention to the fact that the mounted vo- lice were making frantic attempts to clear a passage from the Strand into Northum- berland avenus. The crowd at this time was something 'almost inhuman. The mighty square and the surrounding streets showed an unbroken black mass of people; the great stone steps of St. Mar- tin’s in the Fields had been turned intoa living pyramid, and the sounds that rose into the crisp, chill air resembled nothing more than those that may be heard around a circus tent when the animals are about to be fed. The Lora Mayor, hitberto Alderman Faulet-Phiiips, is the first Lord Mayor of London who has succeeded his father in office. He enjoys an unusual popular- ity; and it was remarked upon by the thusiasm. The procession itself was a curions and not uninteresting spectacle, the modern and the ancient splendors being mingled in a rather bewildering con- fusion. Patriotic as was the window of the New York Life Insurance Company, we were not convinced that a home parade was not more di:nified. We missed, without yearming for the substi- tute, all advertisements for soap, the best meats or canned fruits which are such distinguishing features of our Fourth of July proce-sions. There were floats, of course, “England and Her Heroes,” three in numver, Waterloo, Trafalgar and a general symbolic ear of Victory. Old guns, manned by men in the uniiorms of the early part of the century, were fol- lowed by the latest inventions of those messengers of death. In the regular troops tiere was that magnificent precision that makes a great body of men moving as one so form.da- ble an engine of destructipn. The volun- teers, however, were far more to the front, and they straggled alongin brand. new uniforms, with occasional jeers from the crowd, which threatened at one point of the game to result in a hand-to-hand squabble not in the programme. The “regiment” suddenly broke into the crowd and punched the heads of those nearest to them with great vigor. The belligerent soldier-boys were forced back into the ranks, and “the band played.” The bands were frequent, so frequent that the martial strains of the first, playinga solemn march, were inextricably en- tangled in the Scotch bagpipes or the fifes and drums of the next. It was a most unholy din. The “Washington Post’’ was heard at a distance, and an impromptu chorus was contributed from the windows o B - TRAFALGAR SQUARE of the New York Life, where the General waved his hands and hat and nearly threw imself out of the window in his joy and excitement, The sailor boys from the Warspite in their blue jackets and the little laddies irom the Arethusa, both training-ships, were greeted with roars of delight, the boys contributing their own music by singing at the top of their lungs. The Gordon Orphanage, forty kilted LONDON pipers, with a drum and fife band, and the quaint little figures of the Cripplezate Boys' School in the costumes of the year of its foundation (1698) were not the least picturesque features. Tre city guil s, represented by the spectacle-makers and shipwrights, added their magnificent ban- ners, The servants of the Lord Mayor, in liveries that made them look like flamin- goes, walked before the great state car- BEFORE THE SHOW. v!lgau in haughty pride. The state car- Tiages carry us back a century, with their Painted panels and their decorations of red and goid. It was impossible not to contrast the procession, winding like a snake between the depse masses, a vivid ribbon of crim- son, gold and blue, with the crowd itself, black as a pall, almost unrelieved by the rare gayety of a spot of color in a child’s irock or a woman’'s bonnet. The proces . S SHOW sions of old must have been a problem to combat with, how to outshine the actual . every-day Picturesqueness of ordinary cos- tumes. What a sea of color must have surrounded a similar sixteenth century pageant. The crowd was interested chiefly in the old stagecoach, one which actunally car- ried her Majesty’s mails between London and York and which bad for its guard a man who had been on the road twenty- eight years, The passengers were lively, indeed, butterflies of the fashion of 1790, and were making merry as though they had a long journey before them and had to beguile the time. In singular con- trast to this relic of old-time gayety came the motor-car, the horseless car- riage, which is to take the placs of the “growler,” the much-abused “four- wheeler,” in the streets of London, It is even uglier than the *“‘growler,” in spite of being very shiny and new. If there aro 1o be no horses, the shape is incomplete and almost absurd. The crowd hooted at it and derisive re- marks were distinctly audible. “Wot about the poor ’osses! You've done us hout of job,” they shouted. “Made in Germany,” yelled a flower-girl, “Hooray for de motto cari” The ‘“motto car” seemed to restrain a desire torun ahead, it panted like a thirsty dog, and once when there was a clear space of some thirty feet it shot ahead. ‘‘Grease, grease!” howled the multitude. At Gnuildhall the ceremonies were shorter than the speeches. Minister Bay- ard could hardly be heard for the cheers that greeted him. American popularity abroad has increased tenfold since the election. It isregarded as the triumph of law and order—a triumph in which Eu. rope was not only a “disinterested ob- server.” The end of the display was the most in« teresting from the picturesque point of view. The whole procession formed its entire length, filing from east to west past Guildhall Yard. The great gold coach behind eight beautiful horses came lum- bering in at the last, and with a loud fan- fare of trumpets the Lord Mayor issued forth and entered the great hall, passing { between two rows ol members of this committee, among Whom he could dis. tin uish his two sons, wand in hand, un« covering as he passed. There were dinners galore and dances and charity feasts ia the East End. The Lord Mayor evidently acts upon his favorite quotation, given laughingly at the close of his speech: He who happiness would wia must share it, Mappiness was born & twin. Vax Dyck Broww. London, Nov. 22, 1896, k