The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-15


tons of sugar per acre, and after once start
ed will keep on producing for as long as six
years. We notice that all of the land is
used. The water is taken from the Rimac
and nothing grows without irrigation,
Now we are in the foot hills of the Andes.
How bleak and bare and gray they look in
the early morning. There is not a green
spot anywhere to be seen on these vast
walls, which here face the sea- We shall
find it different as we rise to the mountains
behind. Here they are of soft silver gray
velvet where the sun casts dts shadows
and of dazzling white where it strikes full
in their faces. The only green is the little
strip along the Rimac. Further on we no
tice thin fuz of green cropping out of
the gray. 1t is as though the velvet was
sprinkled with a dust of ground emeralds
Here there is a little cactus and there a
small bunch of weeds. AS we rise higher the
mountains grow greener until at the level
of Mount Washington we find them COW
cred with a thin coat of vegetation. AS we
near the altitude of Leadville there is plenty
of grass and at one point we count forty
different kinds of flowers at a stopping of
our engine. There are buttercups with
out number, silver gray MOSES and flow
ers of all colors the names of which / do
not know. AS I remark upon the vegeta-
ton, saying that it is still very scanty, Mr..
Sherman tells me that the fact that there
is any green at all to be seen is due to
the rainy season, and that at other times
of the year this whole western side Of the
Andes is bleak, dry and almost absolute
ly sterile. The foot hills which. in fact are
mountains in themselves, looked as though
they were of dirt and gravel.
Further up you come into region of
rocks, where only bits of soil are to be seen
here and there. In such places every inch
of ground is cultivated. The mountains are
terraced clear to their tops, and some of
them are covered with steps of green built
up with rocks, and so graduated that a man
can stand on one of the lower steps or lodges
and plant the seed or weed the crops of the
next ledge without STOPPING over. Some of
the fields are not as big as a bed spread.
and some on the opposite side of the noun
tain do not look as big as pocket handker-
| chief. Some patches of corn seem almost
| inaccessible and remind me of the farmers
| Of West Virginia, who are said to have to
plant their crops with a rifle, as the hills
| are so steep that they are unable to stand
| long enough on the sides to drop the corn
! in the rows We see Indians planting and
working in the fields and pass numerous
| little villages of one-story houses made OF
! sun-dried bricks. and rooted with thatch or
| sheets of corrugated iron. In most cases
| the iron plates are not nailed to the huts
| They are merely laid on the rafters and
| kept there by covering them with stones
! Many of the houses are not larger than dog
! kennels and quite as squalid as an American
| pig sty and their inhabitants, who gather
| around US at the stations, are of the peon
variety, dark-faced Indian men, women and
| L, 1a1.sI 49,.
very much by posing them for my camera
| They had evidently never heard of photo
| graphs. and one little fellow howled like a
Cherokee Indian when 1 pointed the in
| strument at him.
| CATHEDRALS OF THE ANDES.
| 1 have been over every scenic route in
the United States. / have travelled over the
| railroads of Mexico, and have visited those
| parts of Europe which the world calls
| grand. 1 have climbed the Himalayas and
| have watched the sun set on the mountains
| of north China, but nowhere have I seen
| anything like the scenery of the Andes. 1
| will not say that it is more beautiful or
more impressive than the Alps, the Rockies
| or the Himalayas, but it surpasses them in
| some respects, and it's wonders it's own.
| Here the mountains rise almost abruptly
| upward. You ride for miles between walls
| of rock, which kiss the sky thousands of
| feet above you Some of the rocks take the
| shapes of gigantic spires hidden in the
| clouds. Others look like vast Notifications,
walls of rock to shut the nations Of the
west away fcom the riches Of this great
! continent. There are no pretty bits of seem
| cry such as you see in other mountains.
Here all is on the gradest and most terrible
scale. In our ride we climb along the sides
of these walls. Now we pierce them by a
tunnel high up in the air, and higher still
see another tunnel which we shall reach
| later on. We cross gorges in going from one
tunnel into another over an iron network
| of bridge which looks awfuly frail as the
| Favorita passes over it. We pierce wall
| of rock, where river has been turned aside
that it may not interfere with the road,
| and by winding tunnel dash out into what
| is called 1.-THE Infernillo" or hell. 1t is a
| slender iron bridge two miles above the
sea, high up between walls of rock Far
| down below you see waters rushing, and out
! of the wall we have left a great torrent
J of foaming water plunges. Before us, at the
| other end of the bridge, there is another
wall of rock, in which there is a black hole
| pierced by the track and as we look up
ward between these walls we see as
through a narrow slit the blue sky of heaven
| above this Andean hell.
There are a number of these hanging
| bridges on the route. We stopped at the
| Veruguas bridge, which spans a chasm $50
! feet long hanging to tunnels three hundred
| feet above the Veruguas river. This bridge
was swept away some time ago and for
months both passengers and freight were
carried across on a cable, the little car
hanging to the rope stretched from wall to
wall across this frightful chasm. At times
we saw tunnels above and below us. The
track goes up it's steepest places in a zig
gag route, so that at one time we counted
five tracks running almost parallel below
u.s. Almost the whole line was blasted out
Of the mountain rocks. On many places
along the line the hills are so steep that
men had to be lowered in ropes over the
edges of the precipices to drill holes for the
powder which blasted away the lodges for
the track. Failing rocks killed some, land
slides swallowed up others and many died
of fever.
ON THE HAND CAR.
You can imagine something Of the sensa-
ton of going down such a road on a hand
car The reality is wilder and more excit-
ing than anything you can conceive. The
hand car on which / rode was of the rud-
est order. 1t was merely a platform five
feet long and a little wider than the track
upon four ordinary car wheels On the
e wIo+f r;v@ 20.