Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-10-04
CROSSING LAKE TITICACA.
THE HIGHEST NAvIGABLE WATER ON
THE GLOBE.
Dry Tortugas of Peru-A Visit to the
Island Grave of Professor Orion,
Late of vassar College.

PUNo, Peru, 1890.
Ahoat on Lake Titicacal How the very
name recalls schooldays and geography
lessons, though in that early time, when
we located unpronounceable names on the
map of country which to our young
imaginations did not exist anywhere but
on paper, we had no idea of proving their
reality by personal visit. 1t is amusing
to remember what incorrect pronunciation
of most of these South American names
the teachers laboriously drilled into us;
and the fact remains that many of them
are still called, in our best schools, by
names which the residents of the places
would hardly recognize.
However pleased the traveller may be to
find himself sailing the highest navigable
water on the globe, he must pay the price
of many discomforts for his rare expert
ence. Not only is there sirroche to con-
tend with, which makes nervous person
feel as if grim death were clutching his
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thousand pounds weight upon his chest,
while all the blood in the body seems to
fill the head to bursting, crimsoning the
face and leaving the lower extremities
cold as ice, but the most weather-beaten
voyager is bound to suffer all the pangs of
sea-sickness, though he may have circum-
navigated the globe without qualm of it.
Consulting a map of South America, you
will find Titicaca about midway down the
continent, but only 325 miles inland from
the Pacific. 1t lies at an altitude of 1850
feet above the level of the sea in an enor-
nous basin whose eastern border is bounded
by the Hottest cordillera of the Andes, an
unbroken, untrodden. snow-crowned wall,
several of whose peaks rival Chimborazo
in hight and sublimity. In shape the
lake is an irregular oval extending almost
due north and south, 120 miles long, its
greatest width being about 81 miles. 1t
has an average depth of 1000 feet, but in
many places line and plummet have failed
to find the bottom. Though many rivers,
fed by mountain SHOWS, flow into it, there
is no visible outlet except the Desaguadero
river, a broad, deep, swift but not turbulent
stream, 10 miles long, which itself has
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discharges into Lake Aullagas, away to
the southwark. OF the latter lake very
little is known except that it has no outlet
10 the sea unless it be subterranean, though
receiving the drainage of the great upper
basin and having several other powerful
feeders besides the Desaguadero. During
rainy seasons and dry its water always re-
mains at precisely the same depth, though
no fewer than nine considerable streams
flow into it.
Lake Titicaca never freezes over, what
ever the weather, though even in summer
time ice frequently forms near the shore
where the bays are shallow. This mysteri-
GUS body of water exercises a very marked
and important influence on the climate of
this cold region, being always from 100 to
100 Fahrenheit warmer than the surround
ing atmosphere. Its islands and peninsulas
feel this influence most perceptibly and
corn and barley ripen upon them, though
on the mainland hereabouts they never
reach maturity.
The great basin which contains Titicaca
has been estimated to be 600 miles long
and 200 miles wide, with total area of
perhaps 100000 miles, or three times that
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the basin is gently towards the south, Lake
Titicaca occupying its northern extremity
and Lake Aullagas the southern, con-
nected by the Desaguadero. Professor
Squier, who studied the locality long and
carefully, says: "The American hemis-
phere affords but three really notable ex-
amples of the interesting physical phe-
nomenon to which the basin of Titicaca
belongs. The first is the great Utah basin
with its salt lake the second is the smaller
basin of Lake liza, in Central America !;
and the third is the vaster, more elevated,
and in all respects more interesting basin
of Lake Titicaca. The latter possesses a
fuvial system of its own, having no outlet
to the sea"
The prevailing winds are from the north
east. Blowing continually, they often
come with prodigious force, rendering
navigation extremely hazardous by the
frail bdlSds of the natives, and very dis
agreeable, if not dangerous, by the steam
ers. Before the comparatively recent in
PRODUCTION of the latter, the balsas, or RATS
and canoes made of rushes woven together,
were the only boats on the lake. Very
pretty and picturesque are the curious
little craft, when seen at a distance, but
they are not inviting as means of transit
over ice-cold waters of measureless depth,
especially in storm. Each balsa is fur
nished with a square sail, also made of
woven reeds. which can be furled, raised
or lowered, at the will of the boatman.
The steamers, which by tight squeezing
will accommodate twenty-four passengers
each, are of one hundred tons burden.
Being never heavily loaded, they roll
and tremble and toss about on the stormy
waves in a way calculated to appal the
soutest heart and upset the strongest
stomach, while the winds howl, shrek and
moan among the rigging like legion OF
lost spirits, or as if the angry gods of Tit
caca Island, whose temples the Europeans
have destroyed were in revengeful pursuit.
Going straight across from Chililaya to
Puno, the trip is only one hundred and ten
miles, and is usually made in twelve or
fourteen hours but one can get quite
enough Of it in that length of time, | as
sure you. The little steamers, that re-
quired ten years in building, were brought
piecemeal over the mountains on the backs
of mules, before the day of the railroad,
much as Cortez carried his historic ships
from Vera Cruz to the lakes of Tenochtit-
Ian. Their state-rooms are the smallest
that can possibly be made to accommodate
human beings; and along the walls of the
salon, which serves both for dining and
smoking-room, are cushioned benches
which "let out" into two tiers of tolerably
comfortable berths.
Titicaca has several considerable bays
extending inland, notably those Of Puno
Achacache and Huancane. Puno bay is SC
shallow that the steamers could not come
near the shore until canal three miles
long had been excavated. This work was
accomplished when John Thorndyke, q
well-known American, connected the lake
with the sea by means of railroad across
Peru. Santiago James Beaumont, gen.
tleman from Paterson, n. j., who is still