The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-06-19
in THE HEART OF The ANDES
Strange Pictures of Earth and Sky on the
South American Continent

| peak of Japan. 1t has a branch line
| of 122 miles going over the plateau to
within two days of Cuzco, the famed
| capital Of the Incas. This railroad was
] built when Peru was rich and when
| she was squandering fortunes on such
| things. 1t Is the work of the Amer
lean engineer, Meiggs, and Is one of the
great engineering feats of the world.
There Is talk of extending 1t into Bo-
| livia, and 1t may sometime be part
of transcontinental line reaching to
| Paraguay and the Argentine. At pres
ent 1t belongs to the Peruvian corpora
| ton, the English syndicate which took
Peru's railroads in consideration of re-
lieving the country of Its foreign debt,
| but 1t Is managed by an American,
Mr.. Victor H. McCord, who keeps 1t In
almost as good condition as any road
you will find in the United States.
All of the rolling stock Is American
in pattern, though of late the cars and
engines have been made by Peruvians
in the eompany's shops at AreQuipa.
Arequipa is the halfway station on the
road to Lake Titicaca, and it Is there
| that the general offices of the road are
situated. l visited the railroad shops
| and found 400 Peruvians engaged in all
kinds of car construction. They make
engines as good as any used in our
country, and have some which are
|
of the Andes. The shops are in charge
| of an American, Mr.. Beaumont, of
| New Jersey, but all of the men are
! PeruvianS. Mr.. Beaumont told me that
of the 1000 hands employed in one ca
pacity or another on the road there
were not more than ten foreigners. 1t
| may interest our railroad men to know
the wages which their kind receive
! down here.
l give them in American gold values
| and not in the silver in which they
are paid. Trackmen receive~ rs cents a
! day, and brakemen a similar amount
! Engineers get 800 a month, and con-
ductors are paid from $50 to $65 a
| month, according to position and
| length of service. Men employed in the
| shops get from rs cents and upward a
| day. There are 10 trades unions and
the men never strike. They work nine
hours day, ard with those who are
out on the road the day lasts without
extra pay until the cars come in.
CITY OF VAULTS AND BARS.
Arequipa is the second city of Peru
1t has about 35.000 and is still lighted
by coal oil, though an electric lighting
plant is now being put in. The town
in the little valley of the Chile river,
which makes an oasis of green in the
midst Of the desert, and gives Arequipa
about fifty odd square miles of irriga BILE
land. Arequipa is the commercial capt.
tai of the southern part of the country
and q great part of the trade of Bolivia
passes cthrough it. Most of the bust
ness is done by the Germans and Eng
lish, and there is not an American
house in the city. 1t is the neatest,
prettiest and brightest town I have yet
seen in South America. It is 400 odd
years old, and is battered and knocked
up by the earthquakes of the past, but
as you go through 1t you get the i'm
preston that the town is almost brand
new. 1t looks as though it had come
from band box. The houses are
mostly one-story stone boxes, but their
walls are painted in the most delicate
tints Of blue pink, cream, green and
gold. I posted my letters in a post
office tinted in ashes of roses
I bought the fruit l ate for break
fast in a sky-blue fruit store, and
| cashed a draft on London in bank
I which had outer walls the color Of gold
Another popularity of Arequipa is that
most of its rooms are made in the
shape Of vaults The stores are vaults
ten to fifteen feet wide and from ten
to thirty feet deep, with doors looking
out upon the streets. In many cases
there is no way out at the back, and
the only light, except that from. the
dcor.- comes in through holes in the
| roof. I ate my dinner at the hotel in
Arequipa in a vault, I was shaved in
vault and my sleeping room had a
vaulted roof. / went out on the roof
once or twice to look over the city.
These vaulted roofs give it the appear
ance of a Chinese graveyard rather
than that of an American town. The
streets are narrow and paved with cob
bles. Down one side of each street
there cf 90 ,4<;,o
water, which carries off the sewerage,
and which, as 1t gurgles through the
streets at night, makes you dream of
rain and go to the window as soon as
you awake to see If it really is clear
Or not. 1t rains only part of the year
in Arequipa, but when it does rain it
sometimes pours. At such times the
streets are flooded, and the water from
the roofs is carried out by little tin
| pipes, as big around as a broomstick,
| to just over the middle Of the sidewalk.
where 1T goes down the backs of the
| necks Of the unwary passers-by
In walking through Arequipa you
| might get the idea that the city was
full OF burglars. Every house faces the
with iron bars. The houses themselves
icok like fortresses and the locks on the
| doors are Of ma mme tn size TIE barre !
| windows and locked doors are not for
the burglars. They are not to keep
thieves out, but to cage the girls in.
Inc windows have seats behind the
| bars, but no Peruvian beau stops to
chat at these with his lady love. The
| bars of iron are as thick as your fin
| ger and so close together that the most
| ardent lips could not meet between
them. This seclusion Of the women by
the Spanish people is probably a relic
Of their admixture with the Moors CEN
tur1es ago The wrapping up Of the
heads in black clothes was originally
so done that only one eye showed out.
| 1t was worse than the wells of Egypt
| or Constantinople. Now the whole
race is displayed and many of the bet
ter class girls wear hats. Peruvian
parent, however, never let's his girls go
out alone upon the street. There are
| no moonlight drives and walks with
lovers here and when you call upon
your sweetheart you have to entertain
the whole family, and If you 20 with
your girl to the bull fight you take
| mamma, papa, auntie and old maid
| sissy with you.
WATCHING THE STARS IN PERU
The most interesting thing In Are
quipa, however, is the Harvard college
observatory. Just about twenty years
ago Uriah H. Borden died and left
100000 to Harvard college with the
understanding that the money was tic
be used to establish an observatory
at the very best place that could be
found in the whole world for study
of the stars and meteorological condi.
lions. The college authorities first tried
| points in Colorado and California and
then sent an expedition to South Amer.
| lea. This expedition first established
a station $500 feet above the sea in the
Andes back of Lima on what is now