The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-13

The valley of Arequipa, or rather the oasis, is berely ten miles long by five miles wide, environed on every side by desert sands and barren mountains. The rapid river, named Chile, which runs through the middle of the town, does not furnish sufficient water for bOuntiful irrigation. but whenever it can be turned on the land is rendered wonderfully productive and is worth thousand dollars per acre and upwards The tltitude of Arequipa is not quite eight thousand feet, just high enough ill this latitude to insure perfect wealth CT from year to year. No words can do justice to the beauty of the climate, never excessively hot, and never cool
 enough for fires, with scarcely any
 change between midsummer and mid
 winter, a light blanket being necessary
 every night in the year and open win
 dows whatever the season. There is a
 wet and a dry time. but rains seldom
 fall during the day and never to excess.
 Frost and snow are unknown. except
 away up in the mountains, and the
 most beautiful roses one can imagine
 DIOSSOAA bNA PN%A~AAS A+A tAASAOAAApASN pAN
 fusion. The present population of Are quipa is about forty thousand, not near
 ly so great as in times long past.
 Yet it is still one of the principal cit
 ies in Peru, second only to Lima; and
 being the capital of a rich department
 and the place of residence of biship,
 has always exercised great influence on
 the politics of the country The Indian
 population of the higher attitudes are
 much more courageous and turbulent
 than. those living nearer the sea, and
 are fully alive to the pleasures of rev
 olution or an election riot; while the
 higher classes are opulent proud, inde-
 pendent and prone to resist the govern mental flats sent forth from Lima. h.
 deed the people seem to be Gs uncertain, politically and socially, as the ground
 upon which their city stands, if one may judge by the frequency of reyolu- tions and insurrections. During the last three centuries there have been as many as twelve severe earthquake shocks and innumerabie lighter ones; and in the same length of time scarcely season has, gone by without one or
 more political revolts, while plots and l counterplots against the powers that be are constantly going on. In 1867 the city was bombarded for three days by the president of the republic, who failed
 to capture it; and doubt if there has yet been peaceable election.
 In earlier days there was no town in | the interior of all South America so
 well built as Arequipa, but numerous earthquakes have taught the people the | wisdom of sticking religiously to cer- l tain not pretentious style of architec- 1 ture. There is a great scarcity of tim 1 ber in these parts, or it would be popu- | lar in the construction of houses, be- cause those made of wood can hold out | against quaking and heaving founda-
 tions better than others made of more
 solid material. The safest are those of I the poorer classes-a network of frail bamboo plastered with mud outside and l in, to fill the chinks between the poles | and intervening Withes; but these, of ! course, would never do for the aristo- | crats. The latter prefer massive struc | tures though seldom more than one l story in height built of white, volcanic l stone from the nearby mountain, their 1 vaulted roofs and ceilings being of l the same material, Thus their great 1 strength and solidarity prevents them 1 from falling before the ordinary tarre- mote, or trembling of the earth, which l is of almost daily and nightly occur
 renee, but have not prevented many
 and many a catastrophe. The worst
 one in the memory of citizens now liv-
 ing. occurred in 1868 when hundreds of
 people were killed outright, thousands
 seriously wounded, twenty-five church. es-including the splendid cathedral i destroyed, and between four and five
 thousand buildings leveled to the
 ground. Happily, it did not occur
 when people were asleep in their beds,
 and, thanks to the warning given eby
 premonitory shocks, and the prevailing
 low height of the buildings, so that the
 falling walls did not in most places cov-
 CT the whole of the streets, the loss of
 life was less than it would otherwise
 have been. r. have heard the story of 1 that terrible time from the lips of seve-
 ral who lost home and loved ones. The l first shock was felt about five D: m. and
 slight tremor of the ground, which in- ! creased in violence at intervals of fit cen or twenty seconds, until presently | the buildings began to topple. The in- stant a terremote is felt the people rush pell-mell out of doors, at whatever hour
 of day or night, regardless of clother or | any other consideration but self-pres- ervation; and immediately afterward, --.-------=