"We Suffer Yet A Little Space Until We Pass Away, The Relics Of An Ancient Race That Ne'er Has Had Its Day."

For four hundred years Bolivia has thus been held in chains by Romish priestcraft.

Since its Incan rulers were massacred, its civilization has been of the lowest. Buildings, irrigation dams, etc., were suffered to fall into disrepair, and the country went back to pre-Incan days.

The first Christian missionaries to enter the country were imprisoned and murdered. Now "the morning light is breaking." A law has been passed granting liberty of worship.

Bolivia, with its vast natural riches, must come to the forefront, and already strides are being taken forward. She can export over five million dollars' worth of rubber in one year, and is now spending more than fifty million dollars on railways. So Bolivia is a country of the past and the future.

CHAPTER V.

JOURNEY TO "THE UNEXPLORED LAKE."

Since the days when Pizarro's adventurers discovered the hitherto undreamed-of splendor of the Inca Dynasty, Bolivia has been a land of surprises and romantic discovery. Strange to say, even yet much of the eastern portion of this great republic remains practically unexplored. The following account of exploration in those regions, left for men of the twentieth century, may not, I am persuaded, be without interest to the general reader. Bolivia has for many years been seriously handicapped through having no adequate water outlet to the sea, and the immense resources of wealth she undoubtedly possesses have, for this reason, been suffered to go, in a measure, unworked. Now, however, in the onward progress of nations, Bolivia has stepped forward. In the year 1900, the Government of that country despatched an expedition to locate and explore Lake Gaiba, a large sheet of water said to exist in the far interior of Bolivia and Brazil, on the line dividing the two republics. The expedition staff consisted of Captain Bolland, an Englishman; M. Barbiere, a Frenchman; Dr. Perez, Bolivian; M. Gerard D'Avezsac, French artist and hunter, and the writer of these pages. The crew of ten men was made up of Paraguayans and Argentines, white men and colored, one Bolivian, one Italian, and one Brazilian. Strange to relate, there was no Scotchman, even the ship's engineer being French. Perhaps the missing Scotch engineer was on his way to the Pole, in order to be found sitting there on its discovery by - - (?)

The object of this costly journey was to ascend the rivers La Plata, Paraguay and Alto Paraguay, and see if it were possible to establish a port and town in Bolivian territory on the shores of the lake. After some months of untiring energy and perseverance, there was discovered for Bolivia a fine port, with depth of water for any ordinary river steamer, which will now be known to the world as Puerto Quijarro. A direct fluvial route, therefore, exists between the Atlantic and this far inland point.

The expedition left Buenos Ayres, the capital of the Argentine Republic.

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