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.
