CHAPTER X.

RAILWAYS OVER THE ANDES.--FROM LIMA TO MOLLENDO, AREQUIPA, AND LAKE TITICACA.--THE CHINCHA ISLANDS AND THE SODA DESERTS.--UP THE ANDES BY STEAM.--IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE FOURTEEN THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE SEA.

Within the last twenty years Peru has made earnest efforts to connect her inland cities with the Pacific Ocean by means of railways. There are several private lines, the oldest being the short one connecting Lima with Callao; it was completed in 1851, and has paid handsomely to its projectors. Of the lines built by government there are seven in all; five of them are finished and the remainder are in course of construction (or suspension), with considerable uncertainty as to the date of their completion.

One of the unfinished lines, the Oroya Railway, starts from Callao, and is intended to connect that seaport with the silver mines of Cerro de Pasco, by a branch from Oroya, and to extend to Fort San Ramon, or Mairo, where it will connect with steamboats on the Amazon. It was undertaken by an American contractor under government guarantee; it has cost many millions of dollars, and many other millions will be required before the locomotive can make the journey from Callao to Mairo and Cerro de Pasco.

At the time our friends were in Lima the work was suspended, and Dr. Bronson learned, in answer to his inquiries, that the terminus was at an insignificant town among the mountains. Trains did not run regularly, as there was no business to pay the expenses of running them; the government was waiting for the country to recover from the effects of the war before proceeding with the work.

One day there was an opportunity to make an excursion to the terminus, about ninety miles from Lima, and the Doctor at once arranged for the trip. They were to leave the capital about nine in the morning, spend the night at the terminus, and return early the next day. The programme was carried out to the satisfaction of the wandering trio, as we shall see by referring to Fred's note-book.

"We ascended the valley of the Rimac," said Fred, "and in the first forty-six miles gained an elevation of five thousand feet. We had only two carriages in the train, but the locomotive puffed and tugged as though it was drawing three or four times that number. At every mile of our advance the route became more and more intricate; we passed through narrow gorges and along the brink of fearful precipices, and time and time again we seemed to be in danger of toppling over and falling into the abysses below. We were reminded of the passage of the Sierra Nevadas by the Central Pacific Railway, in our own country, and of the line between Colombo and Kandy, in Ceylon.

"The engineering difficulties here are greater than on either of the routes I have mentioned, and greater than anything we have seen in the European Alps. The Oroya line is certainly one of the railway wonders of the world, and every visitor to Lima should make a point of seeing this enormous work. It is doubtful if the government will ever find it profitable, owing to the great cost of construction and the expense of running the trains.

"Here are a few figures about this railway. I take some of them from Professor Orton's book,'The Andes and Amazon,' and others have been given me by the conductor who accompanies us.

"Eighty-seven miles of the road had been finished when the war between Chili and Peru caused a suspension of work. There are sixty-three tunnels, with an aggregate length of twenty-one thousand feet, and there are thirty bridges of iron or stone. Some of the bridges are of French or English manufacture, and others, considered the best, were made in America. The Verrugas bridge spans a chasm five hundred and eighty feet wide, and rests on three piers of hollow columns of wrought iron. It was made at Phenixville, Pennsylvania, at a cost of $63,000; the middle pier is two hundred and fifty-two feet high and fifty feet square at its base, and the deflection of the bridge is five-eighths of an inch.

"The sharpest curve of the road is 395 feet radius, and the maximum grade is four per cent. While the work was going on they used two hundred and fifty tons of powder every month for blasting the rock! The tunnel to carry the line through the Andes is at an elevation of 15,645 feet above the sea, the highest railway tunnel in the world, and some say the highest point where a piston-rod is moved by steam.

"To describe our ride would be to give a long succession of exclamations of wonder, admiration, and enthusiasm, with an occasional sigh of relief when dangerous points were passed without accident. It is quite possible that our cheeks may have paled at times and flushed at others, but of course we could not admit anything of the sort. We were glad when the terminus was reached, and the sensation of the journey was over.

"We crawled slowly upward on our eastward way and found it exciting enough; what shall I say of the return ride, when we had the downward grade to take us along, and the only use of the steam in the locomotive was to hold us back? The brakes were screwed tightly down, and so great is the pressure upon them that their shoes must be renewed at the end of every second round trip from Callao and back again. In four hours from the terminus we were on the shores of the Pacific, and at the end of a journey we shall long remember."

Two weeks from the time our friends landed at Callao they embarked on the southern-bound steamer from that port, having taken their tickets for Mollendo.

The first landing was at Pisco, about one hundred miles south of Callao, and connected by a short line of railway with the cotton regions of Ica. As they approached the port they passed the Chincha Islands, which have become famous as the place whence millions of tons of guano have been brought to Europe and America. Frank and Fred wished to know something about the guano trade, and the Doctor kindly informed them.

"The guano was deposited here," said Dr. Bronson, "by the sea-birds, and the accumulations have been going on for thousands of years. No rain falls here, and consequently there was no water to wash the substance away. Mixed with the deposits of the birds were their decomposed bodies and eggs, and the bodies of seals; the seals climb to the highest places on the rocks when they are about to die, and as they were very abundant here, it is safe to say that millions of them have died on the Chincha Islands. Guano is of great value as a manure; the ancient Peruvians were well aware of its qualities, and by the laws of the Incas everybody was forbidden, under pain of death, to land on the islands during the breeding season, and the same penalty was affixed to killing the birds at any time.

"The guano deposits were first made known to Europe in 1804," the Doctor continued, "through a description by Baron von Humboldt. He said the islands were covered to a depth of fifty or sixty feet with pure guano; the long ages that had been consumed in the accumulation may be understood when he says that during the three centuries since the coming of the Spaniards the growth had been only a small fraction of an inch!"

"Was it brought to Europe in Humboldt's time?" one of the youths inquired.

"No," was the reply; "the first shipment was made in 1840, and consisted of twenty barrels, which were taken to Liverpool. It was tried on a farm near that city, and resulted so favorably that large orders were immediately sent for more. In the following year several cargoes were sent from the islands, and from that time the trade increased rapidly. Farmers in Europe and America learned the value of guano in making a wonderful increase of the producing power of their fields, and the demand for it became general.

"From 1851 to 1860 nearly three million tons were shipped from the Chincha Islands, and between 1853 and 1872 it is estimated that eight millions tons were sent away. In that year the Chincha Islands were practically exhausted. The Peruvians had acted as though they were to last forever as a source of revenue, and the discovery of the great value of the deposits may be considered the cause of the present bankruptcy of the country. They had abolished the taxes and relied upon the Chincha Islands for all money needed by government, including the immense sums expended in the construction of railways. They appointed agents in London and New York for the sale of the guano, and as long as the business was prosperous, a great many men grew rich out of the transactions.

"As the Chincha Islands gave out other deposits were worked, some on the Lobos Islands, others on the Guanape Islands, and others in Tarapaca, but none of them are as rich or extensive as was the original source of supply."

The youths looked carefully at the islands with their glasses as the steamer proceeded on her course. Dr. Bronson called their attention to a solitary ship that was lying close to the cliff of one of the islands, and said that in the days of the prosperity of the guano trade there were sometimes a hundred ships receiving cargoes or waiting their turns to be laden.

"You observe," said he, "that the sides of the islands are quite bold, and in some places precipitous; ships used to lie close to the shore and receive their cargoes through long chutes or spouts through which the guano was poured from the top of the cliff. The air was full of guano dust, and the men engaged in the work suffered greatly from the dust entering the throat and lungs. Ammonia (hartshorn) is an important ingredient of guano; imagine yourselves breathing an atmosphere heavily charged with ammonia, and you can realize the disagreeable features of working on a guano island.

"Convicts were employed here, and also coolies from China; the horrors of the coolie trade with Peru have never been fully told, and the narration would be most sickening. Thousands of the coolies threw themselves into the sea to escape the terrible life on these islands; other thousands died here as a result of their toil, and the number was only kept up by frequent arrivals of ships from Macao, the seat of the coolie trade in China."

"There are three islands," said Fred, "but they do not seem to be large ones. I should judge that the most northerly is the largest, and it is not more than half a mile long by a third in width."

"You have estimated very well," was the reply. "The northern island is called Chincha, and gives the name to the group, and it is about the length and width you mention. The other two are smaller, but are of the same formation as Chincha, a bright red granite composed of red feldspar, white quartz, and a little mica. The group is evidently of volcanic origin, and perhaps it may one day disappear beneath the waves as other volcanic islands have done.

"Guano can only accumulate where there is no rain," continued their mentor, "and there is another source of wealth here that comes from the rainless district."

"What is that?"

"It is the nitrate of soda," answered the Doctor, "which comes from several desert regions in the southern part of Peru, chiefly in the province of Tarapaca, which has been annexed to Chili since the war, and is Peruvian territory no longer. It has many uses in industrial arts, and is largely employed as a fertilizer; the deposits have been worked since 1830, and the chief points of export are Iquique and Pisagua. In twenty years from 1830 the exports were 240,000 tons, and in 1875 no less than 326,000 tons were exported. In 1877 there were 253 ships that cleared from Iquique alone with cargoes of nitrates. Several of the railways constructed by the Peruvian government, or on private account, were built partly or wholly for the transportation of this article."

The steamer stopped very briefly at Pisco, and there was not time to go on shore. From Pisco to Mollendo they were almost constantly in sight of the coast, and sometimes hugging it closely; the mountains of the western cordillera of the Andes filled the eastern horizon, and occasionally the snowy peaks of the great central chain were visible. The principal chain of mountains in South America is called the Andes, and sometimes the _Nevadas_ (white), to distinguish it from the cordillera (cor-de-_yer_-ra), by which the lateral and lower chains, generally parallel to the Andes, are designated. _Sierra_ (from the Spanish word for saw) is a spur, or irregular line, of mountains stretching from the Andes to the cordillera, or pushing out from the latter into the flat _Parama_, or desert.

Mollendo is the ocean terminus of the railway to Arequipa and Lake Titicaca, the present destination of the boy travellers and their elder companion. The town is on the edge of the desert, and the harbor is an open roadstead, like most of the ports of the western coast. An old captain sarcastically remarked, "the harbor of Mollendo is entered as soon as the ship turns Cape Horn." The town is supplied with water by an iron pipe eighty-five miles long, which starts from near Arequipa, and is capable of discharging 430,000 gallons of water every twenty-four hours. Enormous tanks have been constructed, to maintain a supply for several days, in case of accident to the aqueduct, and these tanks are the principal sights of the place.

The surf was breaking on the rocky shore, and our friends had a narrow escape from a drenching in going from the ship to the land. Fortunately they arrived in the morning, about an hour before the time for the departure of the train for Arequipa, and had not long to wait.

The railway followed the coast for a short distance, and then turned northeastwardly, and began climbing the hills which formed the outward barrier of the lofty Andes. Up and onward zigzagged the train, through the barren hills that lead to the desert of Islay, and then out upon the dusty stretch of the desert, which it crossed in a line whose directness was in marked contrast to its tortuous course among the hills. At regular intervals there were tanks which supply the locomotives with water; they are fed from the aqueduct already mentioned, and wherever they have leaked, and moistened the dust, the grass grows luxuriantly. It is sixty miles across the desert; before the railway was constructed the journey was made on the backs of donkeys, and it was customary to cross it in the night, in consequence of the great heat and glare when the sun is shining.

Frank copied into his note-book the following account of a traveller who crossed the desert from the coast to Arequipa, which he failed to reach before sunrise:

"About five o'clock a clear whiteness appeared in the sky, the stars paled their lustre, and the day began to break. Soon a ruddy orange tint spread over the soil of the pampa, now become firm and compact. In a few minutes the disk of the sun appeared above the horizon; and as we marched full in the front of the god of day, we found ourselves in the midst of a luminous torrent, which so dazzled and incommoded us that to escape from this new torture we doubled ourselves up like hedgehogs. This anomalous and inconvenient posture rendered us unjust to the claims of the rising sun. Instead of welcoming his appearance we were inclined to wish he had remained out of sight, and it was not till eight o'clock that the sun, now high above the horizon, permitted us to raise our heads."

"We did not suffer any of this inconvenience," said Frank, in his description of the journey, "as we were protected by the carriages, and could take any position we liked. When the sun passed the meridian we could look ahead without receiving the glare in our eyes; it was a great relief when we saw the peaks of the snow-clad mountains, and in a little while the eastern horizon was filled with them. Back of Arequipa was the lofty summit of Misti, one of the grandest of the South American volcanoes, then came Chichani, with its precipitous sides, and beyond it, farther to the north, was Coropuno.

"As we entered Arequipa ('Place of Rest') we thought of Damascus, to which it has been compared by more than one traveller. Like Damascus, it stands on the edge of the desert, and, also like that Oriental city, it is watered by a river which nourishes its gardens, and creates a spot of living green in the midst of an arid waste. It stands in a valley ten miles long by five in width, but all around the valley is a desert. There is not sufficient water for purposes of irrigation; land that is well irrigated is worth a thousand dollars an acre, as it is wonderfully fertile and produces abundantly.

"We spent a day in Arequipa, which was a station under the Inca government before the city was founded by Pizarro, in 1540. At every step we saw traces of the terrible havoc wrought by the earthquake of 1868; there was not a block without its pile of ruins, and some of the streets reminded us of Pompeii, or of Old Delhi. Churches were reduced to a mass of rubbish, the towers of the cathedral were demolished, the university was a heap of ruins, and hundreds of the houses were still unoccupied.

"According to the accounts written at the time, the first shock of the earthquake was felt about five o'clock in the afternoon. There was a slight tremor of the ground, which increased at intervals of fifteen or twenty seconds; it was not until fully a minute after the first shock that the buildings began to fall, and consequently the inhabitants had time to escape to the streets. Compared with Ibarra and other cities, the loss of life was small. The sick in the hospital and prisoners in the _carcel_ were unable to flee, and were buried in the falling ruins, and it was estimated that about three hundred others were killed. Before the earthquake the city had a population of not far from fifty thousand; it is now estimated at forty thousand, with the probability of an increase to the old figure in consequence of the revival of commerce by the opening of the railway.

"Our attention was drawn to the use of galvanized iron for the domes of the buildings in place of stone, which was the material formerly employed. It is thought the next earthquake will have less effect than former ones, since iron can withstand what stone cannot. There is a great scarcity of wood here, or it would be popular in the construction of houses. Wooden houses can hold out against earthquakes better than those of more solid materials, as they can be twisted a great deal before falling. The best material I have ever seen for this purpose is a network of bamboo, plastered on both sides to fill the chinks between the poles and withes.

"We asked for the manufactures of Arequipa, but we asked in vain. There was formerly a considerable commerce with the interior, but at present there are no industries beyond the trade in alpaca wool which is the support of the city. There are only a few mercantile houses, and these are mostly German or English, and the chief occupation of the inhabitants is to do nothing. We saw only two men displaying anything like activity; they had quarrelled, and one was pursuing the other with a knife in his hand, but though he ran fast he did not overtake his intended victim.

"The altitude of Arequipa is 7650 feet above the sea; the summit of Misti, a most picturesque volcano, rises behind the city to a height of 18,500 feet, very much as Etna rises behind Catania. It is now silent, but it was fearfully active in 1868, and is liable again to burst forth as the accompaniment of another earthquake.

"The population is as uncertain, politically and socially, as the ground on which their city stands, if we may judge by the frequency with which they indulge in revolutions and insurrections. In three hundred years there have been ten or twelve severe earthquakes and innumerable smaller shocks; in the same time there have been at least a dozen revolts, while plots against the peace and dignity of the state are said to be constantly going on. In 1867 the city was bombarded for three days by the president of the republic, who failed to capture it, and it has several times been shaken by war as well as by earthquakes."

After their day in this famous city our friends started by railway for Punno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, two hundred and eighteen miles away. Crossing an iron bridge as it left the city, the train soon began to ascend among the desert hills, and through masses of volcanic rock and cinders which gave plain proof that the mighty Chichani had not always been as quiet as at present. Dr. Bronson called the attention of the youths to the magnificent engineering, and the conductor informed them that on this one division of the road the excavations and fillings amounted to ten millions of cubic yards. "They are said to be the deepest cuttings and fillings in the world," said he, "and I certainly have never heard any one say they were not. The deepest cutting is one hundred and twenty-seven feet, and the deepest filling one hundred and forty-one."

"And bear in mind," said the Doctor, "that this work was performed far up in the mountains, where exertion is very fatiguing, and water boils before it is much more than scalding hot. Beans and other articles of food can only be cooked in closed cans to increase the pressure, and consequently the temperature."

On and up they went among the mountains, and over the dreary pampas stretching between them, crossing deep ravines, winding around precipices, threading the valleys, darting through tunnels, now on a level with the banks of snow on the sides of the giant mountains, or looking down upon the clouds that rolled at their feet. Ten, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen thousand feet of elevation were reached, and at length they halted at Vincamayo, 14,443 feet above the level of the sea. It is the creation of the railway, with an American hotel, and all the adjuncts of a relay and repairing station. It is the highest village in the world, higher than famous Potosi, and higher, too, than Cerro de Pasco. Place another Mount Washington on the top of the present one, and its summit would be nearly two thousand feet lower than Vincamayo.

Professor Orton passed a night at Vincamayo; he says he did not sleep, but spent the time in panting for breath. Our friends had the same experience with the rarefied air; the least movement caused them to breathe with difficulty, and they wisely refrained from stirring from their places. In a little while the train reached Alto del Crucero, the highest point of the line, and 14,660 feet above the Pacific at Mollendo. The surrounding land was simply a bog covered with short grass, and sprinkled in places with snow. It affords pasture for alpacas and vicunas, and as they looked from the windows of the carriage and shivered in the chilly atmosphere they saw numerous herds of these animals feeding on the plain.

From the summit the descent was gradual, among hills and over desert plains, passing between two lakes of brackish water, and along the banks of a river that had its source among the clouds. By and by the waters of Lake Titicaca were in sight, and beyond them rose the grand old peak of the Nevada de Sorata, sometimes called "the crown of the Andes."

The train ended its journey at Puno, on the shore of the lake, and the three travellers stepped again to the earth, with more than twelve thousand feet of perpendicular distance below them to the level of the sea!