The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-02-25

structure, which hangs suspended like ease from either direction in a parlor car close to the base of the Andes, and even some distance up their sides, and change cars'' for the Atlantic or the Pacific by trip in the saddle of from three to six days duration, according to ones power of endurance and the state cf the weather. On the Argentine side. the distance between Mendoza and Buenos Ayres is about the same as be- tween New York and St. Louis. It takes little less than four days to tra- verse it by rail, and being in familiar Pullman. one might easily imagine one self in the United States were it not for the slowness of travel, the strange vil- l lages en route, droves of wild horses and glimpses of long-legged ostriches scudding across the plains. The rail-
 way is a government affair, completed some twenty years ago and christened | by grand celebration in which both Chili and Argentina participated. The Chilian government line is being gradu- ally extended to meet it, and by. and by, if revolutions permit, the two roads will meet somewhere in the heart of the An
 des and furnish uninterrupted passage straight across the continent from
 ocean to ocean. The proposition is to
 run a line through the Uspallata Pass
 between Santa Rosa and Mendoza and Ito this end surveys have been made and
 work actually carried to a considerable
 extent The estimated cost is ten mill lion dollars, and when completed the road will bring Buenos Ayres within
 thirty hours of Valparaiso-snow and I storms in the upper heights permitting. It will require an army of men to keep
 the track clear in some places and ac- cidents must necessarily be of frequent
 occurrence. The engineering work, though very great, will not be nearly so difficult as that upon either the Aroya
 or Arequipa- Puno roads of Peru. for the ] highest point of this will be only10,56O feet above sea-level, crossing the sum-
 init of the Cordilleras through tunnel
 about two miles long. By this route the total distance between Valparaiso and Buenos Ayres is reduced to eight hun dred and seventy miles, and telegraph lines already connect the two cities. It l is an iron pole line, in connection with forty miles of cable laid under the eter- nal snows of the Andes, and which in-
 sures communication between Buenos
 Ayres and London via Galveston in lit tie more than an hour.
 I Though the grim and terrible Andes
 are more than half the time totally im- passable to ordinary mortals, the native
 couriers cross them on snow-shoes eve ry month in the year. Besides the ] heaviest winter clothing, they wear trousers of vicuna skin, the hair side < turned inward, and each takes along a
 brace of dogs as sleeping partners, to
 keep himself from freezing on cold
 nights. The dogs are also provided
 with kind of snow shoes to prevent
 them from sinking out of sight in the
 drifts, and they help to drag burdens
 as well as to relieve the loneliness of
 solitary heights where no living thing
 exists except the great Andean condor. Those ugly birds seem to know the
 most dangerous places and hover about the precipices as if expecting to feast
 on some unlucky animal, or his master,
 who may go tumbling over the cliffs. During the terrible wind storms of June,
 July and August it is not uncommon for mules and their burdens, and sometimes for men and horses, to be swept from
 the narrow trails into fathomless
 chasms, and hardly has the carcass I time to strike bottom before it's bones are picked clean by those huge birds of
 prey, or carried limb by limb to their hungry broods in distant eyries.
 There are "scIacks," or mud huts,
 where the couriers spend the nights,
 and there are many carefully marked
 hollows in the rocks where they fiid re- fuge when overtaken by storm be- tween stations. Not infrequently they
 are thus imprisoned for days together, and many perish of exposure or starva- ton, or are buried under avalanches \ Along the Uspallata Pass there are ex- cellent post-houses, as post-houses go, and to some of them shops of general merchandise are attached in which may be found all necessaries for the l journey The stschacks" are also freely l distributed at dangerous points, as snow-sheds are placed in certain ex- posed localities along the western lines in the United tates. These houses of
 refuge for storm bound travellers were CG11L Ny t1AC 6ONNliAiiiCtlt tSnd tie% ' v saved a great many lives They are of
 uniform structure, of logs and adobe
 each hut about fifteen feet square and the same in height, with no windows l and the lowest and narrowest aperture that can possibly serve for a door. There is no chimney for snews to sift through and shrieking winds to use as
 a trumpet, but the fire for cooking and
 heating purposes must be built on the ground in the middle of the room. Many poor traveller, with eyes weak
 ened and painful from the glare of the
 sun upon the lirnitless snow-fields, has been rendered sightless by the smoke of
 his torment. ascending in binding | clouds from the indispensable fire in his unventilated schack, where he is liable
 to be confined for several days.
 The post-houses and government
 schacks, as a rule, furnish nothing but shelter, and the traveller must bring
 along his own food and bedding. That is not so difficult matter as the unini- tiated may suppose, for one mule, or leven one guide, will carry a great deal iy, LI,o a,,y7