Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-04-26


No sooner had we landed in the midst of
this Babel than the din Of voices swelled
to roar, and we were beset by porterS,
donkey-boys, coche1os, beggars and produce
vendors, male and female. each clamorous
for money in return for some commodity,
or service real or imaginary One made a
umbrella, and third actually ran off with
the only child of the party Thanks TO
the siedge-hammer arms of the stalwart
Sambo We were not divided pieeemeal
among the populace, but the latter were
speedily dispersed and our belongings re-
collected.
A narrow-gauge tramria or horse-car line
runs from the landing to the outskirts of
the town, distance OF nearly three miles;
ard upon its cars all the products of the
adjacent plantations that are not brought
down in boats for the city's daily use are
conveyed to the dock and thence by
lighters to ships in the harbor The pas
senger cars (of United States make have
queer little winding stairway leading
from the rear platform to the top, where
two seats, placed back to back, extend
from end to end. The outside fare IS sec
ond-class in price, and no Ecuadorian with
any pretensions to social standing could be
induced to avail himself of it. Those
outer seats, however, are infinitely prefer
able both for observation and fresh air to
the stuffy interior; and at the peril OF
losing caste entirely we clambered to the
summit and made our debut in the dusty
streets of Guayaquil among
los PoBREs."
By the way, the name of the town and
gulf is pronounced as if spelled Y-ah-keel,
and of the river as Vas. the former ac-
cented on the final syllable, the latter on
| the first. The ancient name of the CITY
was Culenta; and it was rechristened BY
the Spaniards Santiago de Guayaquil, first
because the conquest of the province was
finished on the 18th day of July (the day
of St. James, or in Spanish Santiago)-
secondly after the Inco Guayas, feuda-
tory cacique of the great Atahuallpa
Culenta was captured by one of Pizarro's
Lieutenants, in the year 1885, and re-
ceived its charter under the new name
from Carlos V.
The city has a present population of
10000 or Whereabouts. The streets are
comparatively straight, most of them cross
| Ing SaSll OtlicA az ~ lew are
crooked and narrow, lined with the most
squallid of novels, and Astounding in vile
smells beside which far-famed cologne is
| like "Araby the blest." There is not the
slightest attempt at sewerage Guayaquil,
and enough filth lies loose about its streets
every day to breed pestilence that would
] depopulate the largest of our Northern
cities. But though only two degrees re-
moved from the equator and On level
with the sea, Guayaquil is reckoned
among the most salubrious of South Amer
lean cities-barring occasional brief cpl
denies of cholera yellow fever and small
pox, indigenous to these localities, conf
IDENTIFY expected as flies in midsummer
and almost as little feared.
That there is any degree of healthfulness
is largely due to the buzzards, those useful
| and industrious scavenger-blrds that
blacken every roof and refuse-heap. whose
lives are protected by law, heavy fine
being the penalty for killing one OF them
and to the fact that the adjacent gulf has
Ia tide of twenty feet, the great flow Of
water in and out every day preventing i'm
purities from collecting The temperature
hereabouts seldom rises above go, and
always after o'clock P. NJ. it grows pleas.
ant as New England morning in. June,
owing to landward breeze called chandler
which blows directly over the iee-capped
Andes, bringing health and cooling to the
coast that would otherwise be almost unin
habitable
Though full century behind the times
Guayaquil is the only place in Ecuador
in which any degree of modern civilization
exists, yet its limited march of progress i,
not at all due to Ecuadorians. Its street
car line was projected and built by
CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES,
As were also its gas works, factories ant
most other improvements. An American
company owns and controls a line of pad
; dle-wheel steamers on the Rio Guayas
which were constructed in Baltimore; anC
the only gunboat in possession of the Gov
eminent is worn-out merchandising nov
covered with corrugated iron, which year
ago piled between New York and Norfolk
Even the custom-house, by all odds tn,
largest and handsomest structure in tn,
section, was built by New Yorker, O
pine from the forests of Maine and CORFU
gated iron from Pennsylvania
Though the old town has been the on,
| mdIhcl tOt IiOIc tIldu I'VE nile
of sea coast for three centuries and hall
it is to-day nearly destitute of native CAPT
tai, post of its merchants being foreign
ers. Its commerce would doubtless b,
much greater were it not for the alarming
frequency of earthquakes. Though tn,
sea coast is somewhat removed from tn.
great center of disturbance, and Ecuador
: has perhaps suffered fewer shakings-ul
than Peru and Chile, yet all this Andea1
country is the paradise of earthquakes
and Guayaquil has been several times de
stroyed by them.
The most princely mansions in Guaya
quill, even the grand Cathedral, the Gov
ernors palace and the City Hail. are hol
low squares of wood and adobe plasterec
inside and out, and rooted with red tiles
while by far the greater number are straw
matched skeletons Of bamboo and driec
mud, with no windows and often withou
doors, the bare earth serving for flooring
Very properly in this climate the edifce
are constructed not only with view II
{ Withstand earthquake shocks, but to adj
nit air, instead of excluding it. Some o
the best houses have face Of unplaneC
boards, sawed by hand and placed upright
giving them all the dignity of brown
, stone fronts on Murray Hill. Others arr
made by planting tree-trunks, previously
hewn square, FIVE feet deep in the claye,,
soil, with horizontal timbers framed be
tween for the support Of the floors, ant
, split bamboo nailed on for siding, as W
, pat on iath. The sides are then daubet
with mud; and when it is thoroughly
dried, the fronts are deliberately succeed
and afterwards repeated coats of whit
paint add the marble-like appearance thai
f misled US from distance.
THE POORER cAsAs
Are like King Solomons temple, in on
particular only, that in them the sound O
the hammer was never heard. for not
nail do they contain, their bamboo frame