The Indianapolis journal., 1899-01-29

Wharves, and are taken in carriage to a
fine two-story stone station. There are
waiting rooms for first and second-class
passengers, and we find crowd in both
places. We ask for our tickets, but are
told that it is yet a half hour before the
train starts and that no tickets will be sold
until fifteen minutes later. AT precisely
quarter of an hour before leaving time the
agent opens the window and gives us our
tickets. We try to check our baggage, but
are told that we must pay express rates on
every pound, and that nothing is free. We
get a receipt, however, and then cross over
the track to reach the cars. We step down
to do this, for the tracks are sunken and
the platforms are level with the floor of
the cars.
While we wait for the train let us make
note of the passengers. Beside me stands
a young English girl, with school books
under her arm, and there are English and
German merchants who are waiting for
the train for Santiago There are Chilenos,
with big hats and ponchos, who have come
in from the country, and Chilean women,
who have their faces coated with powder.
They look the more CHASTITY from the black
shawls on their heads. There are young
priests in black hats and black gowns
which reach to their feet. There are Chilean
military officers, in gay uniforms. and
black-eyed boys who are going to school
from their homes in the interior
COUNTRY SCENES IN THE ANDES.
A bell rings at the station before the
train starts. We skirt the harbor, pass
through the swell suburb of Vina del Mar
and then come almost at once to the foot
hills of the Andes. We pass oxen plowing
in the fields, dragging wooden plows
through the burrows by pole fastened to
a yoke on their heads. We go by great
vineyards, lemon orchards and orange
groves, and now and then stop at village
or city of fiat one-story houses. We pass
over one low ridge after another, rising
higher each time, until we come to the
great valley in which Santiago the capital
of Chile, lies We ride through this all
day and then strike the second range of
the Andes, with the highest peak on our
hemisphere rising above u.s.. That peak is
Aconcagua. 1t is almost 24,0O0 feet high,
and it touches the sky farther above the
sea than any peak outside the Hamalayas.
It's top is covered with perpetual snow. The
ice we see upon it's sides never melts, and
the winds which blow over it in their ever
lasting march from ocean to ocean howl at
time like the shreks of the damned.
We stop over night at Los Andes town
in the valley of the Aconcagua river. 1t
has about 5000 people and is surrounded
by orchards Of apple and peach trees, with
rich irrigated gardens lying high up in the
mountains. From here we go on to the sta
ton, where we take mules or stages to go
over the mountain The end of the road is
about as high as the top of Mount Wash
ington, and from there on the way is exceed
ingy steep.
The country is wild in the extreme. Much
of the mountains are nothing but desert
of rocks and snow, inhabited only by con-
doris, with here and there a guanaco, a sort
of a species of wild llama. You cross the
Puenta del Inca, wonderful natural
bridge, near which there are hot springs of
crystalline water, and go out into the Valley
of Desolation, or Cuevas valley, where there
are skeletons. of mules and oxen which have
dropped out of the droves which to the
number Of thousands are annually driven
across the mountains AS you rise higher
still you are fortunate if you do not have
soroche, or mountain sickness, and you are
glad when you have passed the Cumbre
or summit, and are on the railway which
takes you down to Mendoza, in the Argen-
tine.
ACROSS THE PAMPAS.
From Mendoza to Buenos Ayres is about
as far as from New York to Cleveland. The
cars are not uncomfortable. They are built
somewhat after the Mann boudoir order,
with a lot of little apartments running
through the car reached by an aisle out
side. Each apartment has four berths, two
upper and two lower. The upper berths are
put up during the daytime and you sit fac
ing your fellow-passengers on the lower
benches. At night the bedding is brought
IL.
pose, and your beds are made
Most of the sleepers have travelling bars
on them. All kinds of liquors are kept in
the baggage car, and you can get anything
from champagne to cognac and from apolli-
naris to beer by ordering it. There is lit
tie stove in this car upon which the porter
makes coffee and brings it to you in the
morning before you are out of bed. He
charges you about eight cents of our money
for cup of coffee, a little butter and bis
cult, which is cheap enough for the service.
The most of the meals are taken at the
stations, about thirty minutes being allowed
for breakfast or lunch and violent ringing
of a bell announcing the starting of the
train. The sleeping cars are more plainly
furnished than ours and the bedding is not
so good.
In commenting on the lack Of fine furni-
ture one day an English railroad manager
told me that the companies found that it
did not pay to make eXtravagant cars, for
it was so difficult to keep them in order.
Said he:
"You would be surprised at the wanton
damage that is done by passengers. Many
of these Argentines are born iconoclasts.
They will write on the mirrors with their
diamonds and scratch theH names the
plate glass windows. Some of the rich fell
lows from the country think nothing of
getting into bed with their muddy boots on,
and some are filthy in the extreme. We
have to watch things very closely, for they
| are stolen or destroyed. Why, we have had
passengers throw blankets out of the win
dows just for fun. and we have to make
careful tally of our stock at the close of
every run
RAILROADS OF THE ARGENTINE.
And still the Argentine is one of the best
railroad countries in South America. 1t
has more railroads than any other country
and it is now building many new lines
There are 11,0O0 miles of railroad in op-
Grafton. Three years ago there were not
more than 1900. The roads are growing
| better every year They are chiefly in the
hands of private parties, and the govern