Evening star., 1898-05-14

Workmen are working under overseers on
horseDack. The cotton plants are in bios
som, and the fields look like vast gardens
OF pink and yellow roses The men weed
the plants and they are as clean as any
rose garden at home. There is a cotton
mill, and farther on we pass a sugar fac
tory which grindS out thousands of pounds
OF sugar day. There is no better sugar
iand anywhere than this, and We learn in
passing that it produces from two to six
tons OF sugar per acre, and after once
started will keep on producing for as long
as S!X years. We notice that all of the
lanG - used. The water is taken from the
Rimac and nothing grows without irriga-
ton.
In the Andes.
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
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 its
shadows and of dazzling white where it
strikes fall in their faces. The only green
Is the little strip alcng the Rimac. Fur
ther on We notice thin fuz of green
cropping out OF the gray. 1t is as
though the velvet was sprinkled with
dust Of ground emcralds. Here there is
little cactus and there small bunch of
weeds AS we higher the mountains
grow grecner until at the level of Mount
Washington We find them covered with
thin ccat of vegetation. AS we near the al
1tude of Lcadville there is plenty of grass
and at one point We count forty different
kinds Of flowers at a stopping of our en-
sine. There are buttercups without num-
Der, silver gray moSScS and flowers of ali
colors the names of which | do not know.
AS L remark upon the vegetation. saying
That ii 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 absolutely sterile.
The foot hills which, in fact, are noun
tains in themselves looked though they
were of dirt and gravel.
Further up you come into a region of
rocks, where only bits of soil are 10
be seen here and there. In such places
every inch of ground is cultivated. The
mountains are terraced clear to their
tops, ana 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 big as a bedspread, and
some on the opposite side of the mountain
do not look as big a 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 rifle as the hills
are SO steep that they unable to stand
lollS On the SldeS TO drop the corn
in the rows. We see Indians planting and
working in the fields and pass numerous
little villages of one-StoIy houses made of
sundried 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 the rafters and
Kept there by covering them with stones.
Many of the houses are not larger than
dog kennels and quite squalid as an
American pigsty, and their inhabitants,
who gather around us at the stations, are
of the Peon variety, dark-faced Indian men.
women and children. | frightened some of
the children very much by posing them for
my camera. They had evidently never
heard of photographs. and one little fellow
howled like a Cherokee Indian when l
pointed the instrument at him.
The Cathedrals of the Andes.
L have been over every scenic route in
the United States. / have travelled over
the railroads of Mexico, and have visited
these parts of Europe which the world
calls grand. | have climbed the Himala-
yas and have watched the sun set on the
mountains of north China, but nowhere
have l seen anything like the scenery of
the Andes. i will not say that it is more
beautiful or more impressive than the
Alps, the Rockies or the Himalayas but
1t surpasseS them in some respects, and its