Arizona republican., 1900-07-30

dor, arriving in August, where they entered the employ of the Guayaquil and Quito railroad company, at first in the engineering department. Later MT. Matthie was placed in charge of the hospital department. He did very well in a financial way and has no complaint to make though the salary was not suf- f1cient inducement to keep him longer in a country so lilly provided with mod ern comforts and society.
 MT. Aspinwall is there yet, and has a good position with the company, and is as well satisfied as one can be so far from home. and will probably remain for some time to come.
 Letters from General and Mrs. A. J. Sampson and from Mir. Aspinwall have been published from time to time in these columns and Republican readers therefore heard something Of this rail- road enterprise and the gigantic ob- stacles the company has to overcome but MT. Matthie's description is even more graphic.
 The proposed railroad from Guaya- quill to Quito will be about 200 miles long and the present company, on talk ing charge. were given ten years in which to complete it. Mir. Matthie says it will probably take the full time to do it, so many discoura gements are met with.
 Their first move was to buy from the company which formerly started the work the fffty-six miles of completed roadbed from Guayaquil to Chimbo and across the river from ChimbO start ed the little town of Victoria as com pany headquarters. They have got the route practically surveyed through to Quito and on March 13 last the secold anniversary of their taking charge they met with a disaster that would have discouraged less enterprising people. They had completed eight and one-half kilometers of new road from Chimboo toward Quito and on the date named almost at the close of the rainy season came the biggest storm of the year. followed by slight earthquakes, which caused eighteen landsiides with in the length of the eight and a half kilometers of roadbed. One and one half kilometers of track was buried so deep they never did find it. This ne cessitated the survey of d new route for that end of the line. and they are now building up the valley of the Rio Chan Chan.
 At the time mentioned above another land slide occurred at company head quarters a Victoria. It had rained hard all night and in the morning two work men went down the side hill to look out for the pack animals, and had hardly left the headquarters building when the slide occurred, covering the men and two mules so deep it took two days to dig them out, dead, of course, long before This slide reached within four feet of the hospital building, where MT. Matthie was, hence, he figures that he had narrow escape.
 He recounts with interest his experi- ence on a journey through the hills with a surveying party during the rainy season. They had but little over twenty miles to go, but it took them two days and half to make the jour ney. It was a case of fall down and get up again and then slide till they struck a hard place in the trail, where they could rest up bit.
 MT. Matthie says that neither he nor Mir. Aspinwall had met Minister Samp- son, but they had had frequent letters and papers from him and he under stands Mir. Sampson will return home in August.
 In June MT. Matthie left GuayaquiI to return to this country. going to Panama. where he crossed the isthmus to Colon. and from there sailed for New York. From there he went to San Francisco and back to Phoenix
 There are many things about the country he likes and ait is rich in re- sources. but needs capital and develop ment- Asked about the revolution in Columbia, he said the nearest he got to the scene of trouble was at Panama, and Colon, and there was little excite ment there owing to the fact of Am erican interests. The revolutionists dare not create much disturbance there and for that matter an American war ship is in the harbor of Colon most of the time.