The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 13, 1903, Page 6

ountry are e goat trails res bequeathed . s of discussion, which o s of Bolivar the 1 ves the diplomatic A great historic ay opportunity un- hance t into the " st, but this ment of poetast- probably will Goverr again. M a ph »pher " once the mobs ects of his elevated d Marroquin will nvit 1 rh to a ty at the Falls of Tequen- > the water falls two s from the cold country of into the w: , luscious tierra caliente—where ange trees and blue butter- palm with parrots upon them, talking fluently, as though they were in the Con- y is msters tree gresc will be pleasant for the governmen- ets to dwell upon how much high- an Niagara, but quite replace ama. We e very gently with our brother this matter, because ographical s literary as well. ma, “the place of the Carib tongue, mart and work- cadaverous , all mention of itted from the Par- ten portly tomes, in which all the shrined. annot do business it is a cord that they can fight, are overconfident t has come so fre- ington that as long d States navy holds the sea s the embarkation of Co- ombian troops the people of Panama ed have no fear of a land attack. es have reached the isthmus before this, coming from the central provinces by land via Tumaco, and I think we shall shortly see them doing #o again. If we ignore the possibility such a step, nothing would be easier n for & small guerrilla force to cut the Panama Railway and cause untold damage. It would, it is true, be well-nigh im- possible for & civilized army to make this journey with all its paraphernalia of transportation, but it should be re- membered ghat the armies which Co- lombia puts in the ficld are not civil- ized, and that they can subsist wher- ever there is any animal or vegetable life. The Colombian states have been so0 constantly on a war footing for the jast twenty years that war has been the almost exclusive occupation of so many Colombians that there are un- doubtedly a number of plants in exist- ence for the repair of rifles and . the manufacture of munitions. It should be borne in mind that none of the revolutions that have raged each in its little day and generation has ever been bottled up and entirely cut off from those cunning cosmopolitan pur- veyors of contraband of war who infest the Caribbean. Of course, Colombia has never been blockaded by such an efficlent naval force as we would have at our disposal UPON HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD PANAMA PEACE OR WAR BETWEEN \COLOMBIA AND THE GEN. REYES AND HIS BROTHERS ON ~_ THEIR_NOTABLE, CANOF, TRIP RO COLOMBIA TO THE. ARGENTINE Rzmbflc CARIBBEAN ‘SEA por10 2 BOUNDARY OF PANAMA., should the necessity arise, but the per- fect knowledge of the lay of the land and the characteristics of the people which these smugglers of contraband possess would get past even the most efficient blockadse. Granting, however, that the whole Caribbean coast of Co- lombia, as well as the hundreds of miles of Pacific coast, were actually con- trolled, there are a dozen ways the Colombians ceuld obtaln arms. Of coursé, Colombian paper money 1s not worth much, but the war smug- glers of Curacao and Trinidad do not want money, or rather they have plen- ty of it.. What they want are conces- sions and mining patents, and no coun- try can give more of these than Co- lombia. Again, there is a branch of the Ori- noco, the Meta, which is just getting on the maps, that is navigable for large bungoes and even for small light draught steamers to a point within three days’ mule training of Bogota. This avenue of contraband we could not well shut off without holding the mouths of the Orinoco and, higher up, Ciudad Bolivar itself, and If we did this there would still be twenty chan- nels known to the smugglers through which the Bogota Government could be supplied. 1 think it may be accepted as a fact that it s incorrect to say, as has been said, and upon such high authority, in the last few days, that Colombia is in- capable of waging war. It seems to me there is no country better situated for carrying on a twenty or a thirty years' war, and, then, she has nothing else to do. It is perhaps an idle pur- suit to speculate as to whether Colom- bila will fight or not, but I must say that I have vet to meet any one at all conversant with conditions there who has any doubt that the upshot of the present affair will be a war in which we shall inevitably become in-+ volved. The following statement, however, written by Willlam L. Scrugss, formerly and for many years our dip- lomatic representative in Colombia, sums up the situation, and it should be remembered it was written before the question of the canal entered upon its present phase. It states valuable facts and explains many things which have not been made clear: ‘“The so-called state ot Panama is co-extensive with the isthmus of that name and comprises an area of about 80,000 square miles. Its present popu- lation is about four hundred thousand, including an Independent tribe of In- dians, who are sald to number about eight thousand. It is the most north- ern of the nine comstituent common- wealths of the present Colomblan un- fon and to most foreigners is better known than the republic itself. The re- sult is that one of the most beautiful and interesting countries on the con- tinent is habitually misjudged.by what little is here seen of it. “And yet, strange to say, this is pre- cisely the section of which Colombians seem to feel most proud. Like a. de- formed and useless member of a family, it is a sort of pet of the household, hu- mored and spoiled and habitually de- ferred to by all the others. It has al- ready cost the central government, in the way of reclamations growing out of local disorders, more than the entire state would bring if put up at auction, and yet, if you would touch the pride of the average Colombian at the most sensitive point, just intimate that his Government might be induced to part with the sovereignty of the isthmus. “He believes Panama to be ‘the navel of the world’ and that at some time or other, and in some mafiner not clear even to his own mind, it will be the source of fabulous wealth. Stranger still, he seems to have the impression that this particular spot is coveted by all the nations of the world, and that ‘the United States of the North,".as he persistently calls the title of our Gov- ernment, is merely awaiting some fa- vorable pretext to take forcible posses- sion of it. Nevertheless, every time the Federal Government of Bogota gets into serious trouble with its ‘revolu- tionists’ on the isthmus it importunes the Washington authorities to inter- vene for the preservation of order there.” There is at least one man on the side of_Colombia that it would be a pleasure to meet. Whetler in peace or war he will prove a worthy of our steel. And that is General Rafael Reyes, the Pre te designado who succeeds Marr: the Presidency. He is superf an accomplished boulevardier, but with a quick, feline step and now and again a glance of the eye which somehow or other always suggested the jaguar of his native jun~ gle. ‘Whatever may be the result of his present mission, whether his politfcal activity will prove a bane or a blessing, it Is certain that 2s an explorer Ratael Reyes has gathered imperishable lau« rels. He has laid bare the secrets of South America as did Marco Polo those of Asia and as Stanley In our own day and generation threw the first light upon the Dark Continent. His journeys led him from Panama teo Patagonia. In all he traveled twenty- five thousand miles, and every step he took was through regions hitherto une known to the pioneer of any race or civilization. If the story be true which I have often heard in South America that Reyes began his explorations by the merest chance—that, in fact, the first journey he undertook was to get out of Colombia by the back door—that is, down the Orinoco, because all the ports and main traveled roads were held by his enemies—then it must be recognized that the revolution which sent Reyes upon his scientific wander- ings was the most profitable revolue tion that South America has ever pro~ duced. What Alexander Humboldt 4id for the shell, that Reyes has done for the kernel and the heart of the great conti- nent to the south of us. In the twelve years that followed his hasty departure from Bogota Reyes never returned to the fickle capital from which, like the great Liberator, Bolivar himself, it is said, he escaped with but his life and & handful of faithful friends. When his work was accomplished and the veil of mystery that had hung so long over the interior of South America ‘was raised, there was much enthusiasm in Colombia, and the demand was made of the Government of the day, not by any party, but by the people of the country, that he who had so honored his native land be in turn given that recognition which was the least of his deserts. So Rafael Reyes, the refugee, was made Minister Plenipotentiary to France, and the Paris Geographical So- clety esteemed it an honor to have the privilege of publishing in its bulletins the record of his inland Odyssey. The journey which he began to save his life Reyes continued, to the inestim- able gain of science. The canoe trip down the Orinoco would have sufficed most men, but it only awakened in Reyes a hitherto unsuspected thirst for travel and scientific research. The de- talls of his explorations are too absorb- ingly interesting to be condensed, but a skeleton chart or outline drawing will give some idea of the caliber of the man. Starting on foot from the Pacifie Coast of Colombia and following the banks of the Yapura through entirely unknown regions, for the greater part uninhabited even by Indians, Reyes at last reached the great Amazon, and, building a cance, floated down to Para and the Atlantic. Within & few months after this journey was completed an enterprising firm of English shipown- ers availed themselves of Reyes’ dis- coveries and placed a line of steamers along the route he had traveled, and as & result an extremely profitable, and let us hope civilizing, trade has sprung up, But Reyes was an explorer, not a promoter, and while the merchants ‘were getting ready to exploit the fleld he had opened he disappeared in an- other direction. He had heard of a noble, although somewhat lonely, stream, the Tocantin, which runs through Brazil to Para, where It con- nects with the Amazon. Accompanied by brothers and his nephew, he fol- lowed the stream upward for uncounted miles. At last they came td the head waters of the great river and to a mountain ranges which under varifous names extends across the entire breadth of South America between the tenth and twelfth degrees of latitude. Undeterred by this great natural obe stacle, Reyes and his companions pushed on, and on the other side of the mountain they came upon the head waters of the Parana, down which they floated Into the River Plate, land~ ing at Buenos Ayres. In a word, they proved what had never been suspected before, that South America from 35 degrees south to 10 degrees north of the equator is supplied by nature with the most magnificent water system that can be imagined. There is but one cutting of less than fifteer miles to be made, and even that, it is suspected, may prove unnecessary on closer investigation. Indeed, with only the ramifications which are known at present, this perfect waterway ex- tends from the western point of Peru to the most eastérn point of Brazil and from Colombia on the north well into Argentina and Uruguay on the south. In the course of these journeys through virgin forests and up streams never before traversed by white men Reyes ran and survived many dangers. Like the few Colombians who are of pure Spinish descent, Reyes is very proud of his ancestry. After the Con- Juin gress closed he said, with reference to Panama: “I firmly belleve the United States will finish the ecanal within five years. I certainly trust she will. A river of gold will flow to the isthmus from the the first ship floats through. The United States will benefit, Colombia will benefit: the open- ing of the canal, too long delayed, will benefit the whole world.” All the news from Bogota goes to show that Reyes was not one of those obstructionists who are responsible for the present situation. But he is the last man to yield an fnch of his na- tional inheritance and just the man to lead an army on the long land trail from Bogota to the isthmus in its de- fense.