Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-09-07
THE HEARr or TEE 'ArpEs.


| publicanism like that newly born In France
and Spain, as spurious article. Bnt as
they begin to emerge from apparent chaos,
while we find ourselves face to face with
Cesarism and the identical struggles that
they have encountered, we may learn to re-
gard our southern neighbors with more
lenient eye. How different from our pres
emit spathy was the chivalry of the earlier
republic when the "Monroe doctrine" found
q responsive echo In every patriot heart.
Our sttentit N has been atlractedto graphic
letter from Peru, published in the New
York World, by its statement that "milita-
rism" in that country was broken down last
year by the defeat of President Cutter
rez, and the new President, Pardo, has
inaugurated two measures to pre-
vent its restoration, viz: the organization
of trne citizen soldiery, and the constitu-
ton of local municipalities clothed With the
powers and duties of selfgovernment. The
burthen of the letter however is q descrip.
ton of the new railroad, building across the
ADDE'S at an attitude of 1856 feet above the
tea, amid peaks that tower to the height of
$4,000. The contract price for this stupen-
dous undertaking, as finally agreed on be-
tween the American contractor, Mr.. Meiggs
and the Government, is $50, 500 600 in gold,
or at the rate of $4,000 mile, indicating
the immense engineering difficulties to be
overcome. 1t ia our national shame that
protective tariff has destroyed our ship
building and driven our commercial marine
from the seas. We are not sstonished,
therefore, when told that English vessels
and English merchants almost monopolize
the trade of the South American coast
Fortunately, it is difficult to assess "pro-.
tectiye'' tax on brains, and SO we find
American energy and skill in charge of this
great Andine railway. The road is already
finished 146 miles, and from the description
ofa isunt over it by the World correspond
ent we make the following ex cerpts:
Leaving Mollendo, port on the Paci fic
coast, the road seams to have been CARR ed
through the geological workshop of the
world, while nature was trying experiments
in petrifsction on the most colossal scale.
Qualifications the most unexpected and the
most incongruous succeed each other like
the combinations of q kaleidoscope
of upheaval and traces of explosion; ma
rine deposits and volcanic objections hud-
died together with an apparent sort Of dss.
peration and Of hurry quite indescribable.
At Uchumayo, 81 miles from Mollendo
and % from Arequipa, we came on the
head Of the aqueduct which supplies the
former place, and which was constructed at |
q cost Of s1,s00,O0O. Arequipa, town of
800 years standing, is no inconsiderable |
place. From the assessors books l learn |
that its tax paying inhabitants number near
ly 2 1000 figure which, according to the |
usual proportion of things here indicate to- |
taips many handsome private and pub |
lie buildings, and the ruins, more |
or less repaired, of many more |
blown down and shattered by the |
great earthquake Of 1868. The peo-
pie are well-dressed, and there is a lcok of |
prosperity about the place in spite of its re-
cent and terrible misfortunes. The rail- |
wav station is most extensive and WELL |
built pile of uildings on very charming
site. As write there lie before me copies |
of E9 CiudadGnO, q newspaper published at |
Puno, and FL HeTdtdo, q newspaper pub
lished at Cuzco, both Of them being we'll
printed and well-written sheets, and both |
of them being published more than 1900 |
feet above the level of the sea. At Cerro
de Paseo they issue a very clever gazette
devoted to mining and the muses.; sud Ger
70 de Pasco is 100 feet above side-Water.
Leaving Arequipa we encounter rocks
heaped upon rocks, mou taiDs tumbled |
upon mountains-everyWhere nSture's
sternest, most forbidding aspect-Alps
without glaciers or cstarGcts or meadows.
At one point you make out the floating,
grayish- black plume of the white crested
Juvinas, the only active volcano known to
exist in this region Of the Andes and to
the east of the summit range. The people
OF Arequipa tremble when news comes to
them that Juvipas has ceased TO wave his
plume of moke by day, of fire by night.
Then they look fesrfully for the earthquake.
There are miles upon miles, too, of the
most extraordinary clsys in the most ex-
trsordinary combinations and qualifications
yellow clays and red, white, brown, pur-
pie, dun color; low laid as with trowei in
regular horizontal layers, now tipped on
end in one way and now in another, now
interjected with porphyritic rocks and de-
iected, as it were, again upon them. In
some of the huge filings, 400, 500 or 600
feet in length, it seemed as if the workmen
had attempted to mimic In per-
pendiculsr layers these combinations of
nature, producing thus effects of color not
less brilliant than those which we make our
pilgrimsges to Almer Bay to behold. Be-
fore long we reached Vllcomayo, an altitude
of Il, 533 feet, the thermometer indicating
"a degrees. There amid the supreme desc
lation Of the Andes, at a height at which
man in Europe does not dream of living for
more than q night or two at a time, was
genuine railway village, not growing but
grown up! There was an "American no
tel" two stories high, with latticed
windows and a "piazzs," and some
forty or fifty rooms for the accom-
mediation of the railway people.
There were the cabins of the laborers en-
ployed on the works, many hundreds of
men, Chilians (the Yankees Of South
America), Bolivians, Peruvians, whites,
Iadinos, Indians-a motley multitude, but,
as all who have had to do with taem in this
way assure me, not inferior, nay rather in
some respects superior, both in respect to |
capacity and in respect 70 conduct, to the ]
average "navvies" of Europe and the
States. Descending towards the Atlantic,
the difference between the two slopes is
most astonishing, and makes itself felt al
most Immediately. The air to the eastward
grows balmier. The forms of the mountains
are more rounded and more pleasing Their
TANKS, even at this great height, are clothed
with close grassy vegetation. At Cschi- ,
p4scana, ID, 063 feet above the sea level on
the Atlantic side, we stopped to breakfast /
and to enjoy the view which there began to
unfold itself before us of the beau iful lake,, I
Or legunillss, of the same anne, while there
Is almost no water on the Pacific side.
The correspondent thinks this 'tmarvel in
Peru" will prove profitable enterprise, and
states that an English company have pro-
ected railroad from another port to the
same valley through pass 600 feet lower,
but involving detour of nearly double the
distance.
TALK THAT MEANS SOMETHING.
The Republicans in their conventions in