The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-13
A PLACE OF REST.
AREOUIPA--PERFECT CLIMATE
 4 HISTORICAL TOWN.
EarthquaAes-A Wonderful Railroad From the Pacific to Lake TItieaea. Especial Correspondence of the Jaurnal
 and Courier.)

From the Pacific to Lake TItieaea.
 Especial Correspondence of the Jaurnal
 and Courier.)
 Arequipa, Peru. May s, 1903.
 From MOllendo, the one seaport of southern Peru, to Arequipa-the second city in size of this republic, the distance is one hundred and seven miles as the railway runs. Most of the route lies across the hot and lifeless desert of Is- lay. Along one side Of the track, for more fhan eighty-hve miles runs an eight-inch iron pipe which brings water to Mollendo and the intervening sta- tions, there being. no fresh water near the coast. Coming from springs in the mountains near Arequipa, nearly eight thousand feet above the sea and eX- tending to the Pacific, 1t is the longest acqueduct in the world, and is capable of discharging four hundred and thirty thousand gallons of water during every twenty-four hours. After descending the shoreward range of the Andes, the train zigzags rapidly down the barren foothills to the great desert, which it crosses with a directness in marked contrast to its torturous course among the heights. In it's narrOWest place the Islay desert is about sixty miles across, and before the day of the railroad the journey had to be made on donkey back. Then it was customary to cross it in the night, to avaid the heat and glare of the sun. which must have been in tolerable, judging from the accounts of travellers. Modern travellers in the cars suffer comparatively few discomforts, although nearly suffocated by the dust. I can never forget the aspect of the country with the glare of the sun upon it-one vast waste oS sand and stones. hills bare of all but cactus, measureless stretches of sand that look like the shore of the sea from which the waves have receded; in truth the entire sec- tion was once part of the ocean floor, ago. All the tints of the landscape are pale in tone-sea-green, silver gray, amethyst and faintest blue.
 There are no trees nor bushes, except in those infrequent spots where fertili- ty has been produced by irrigation: and wherever the tanks that are placed at regular intervals to supply the locomo- tives with water, fed from the long &C., queduct, have leaked or dripped" into the knee-deep dust, grass grows luxu- riantly, indicating what the result might be. even in this desert. under a judicious system of irrigation. There are many peculiar mounds of sand, white as snow, all blown into seni-cir- rular shapes, like huge crescent moons, showing the direction and force of the prevailing winds. But for most of the distance not living thing is to be seen, except at the few stations, where be- draggled women. dusty as their sur roundings, come on board the train with peaches, to sell-tolerably fair looking fruit, but hard as the rocky hills and tasteless as the sands in which they grew.
 More than four hundred years ago Arequipa was halfway halting-place for travellers between the loftier Andes and. the sea. and hence came by it's name, Arequipa in the aboriginal tongue signifying Place of Rest.' As early as the days of Rocca, the sixth Inca, who conquered all of this part of Peru, it was military colony. In 154O Pizarro transformed it into Spanish stronghold, and with better taste than characterized most of his nomencla ture, did not change its ancient name. Just back of the town towers the lofty vol cano Misti, quiescent now, but ready to burst forth again perhaps as the &C., compartment of another thathquake like that which shook the whole city down some thirty years ago. Misty is nearly eighteen thousand feet in height, perfect cone, topped with eternal snow, and with perpetual summer at the base. On one side of it stands the lesser mountain Pichupichu, with foot hills stretching oway in the distance; and on the other side snow-crowned Charchani; then comes Coropuna, and then the elevated Pampa (plain) Arrie- ros, reaching to the volcano Uflnas dimly seen toward the Bolivian from tier. Many travellers have likened Ar eauipa to Damascus, not only because like the Oriental city, it stands upon a river flowing through the arid waste