The Republican journal., 1904-02-25

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clothing. they wear trousers of vicuna skin,
the hair turned inward, and each takes
| along brace of dogs as sleeping partners
to keep himself from freezing on cold
nights. The dogs are also provided with a
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. These 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
gust, 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 time to strike bottom before its
bones are picked clean by those huge birds
of prey, or carried limb by limb to their
hungry broods in distant eyries.
There are ''shacks," or mud huts, where
the couriers spend the nights, and there are
many carefully mark ed hollows in the rocks
where they find refuge when overtaken by
a storm between stations. Not infreQuently
they are thus imprisoned for days together,
and many perish of exposure or starvation,
or are buried under avalanches. Along the
Uspallata Pass there are excellent post
houses, as post houses go, and to some of
them shops of general merchandise are at
tached, in which may be found all neces-
saries for the journey. The ''shacks' are
also freely distributed at dangerous points,
as snow-sheds are placed in certain exposed
localities along the western railway lines in
the United States. These houses of refuge
for storm-bOund travellers were built by the
government and have saved 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 and the lowest and narrOVest
aperture that can possibly serve for door
There is no chimney for SHOWS to sift
through and .shrieking winds to use as a
trumpet, but the fire for cooking and heat
ing purposes must be built on the ground
in the middle of the room. Many a poor
traveller, with eyes weakened and painful
from the glare of the sun upon the limitless
snow-fields, has been rendered sightless by
the smoke ascending in binding clouds
from the indispensable fire in his unventi-
lated shack, where he is liable to be confined
for several days.
The post houses and government shacks,
as rule, furnish nothing but shelter, and
the traveller must bring along his own food
and bedding. That is not so difficult a mat
ter as the uninitiated may suppose, for one
mule, or even one guide, will carry a great
deal in the way of mattresses, blankets and
canned supplies. Ladies often venture the
Ustalata Passage during December, Janu-
AIRY and February. and it is said that they
generally endure the fatigue and discOm-
fort better than men-until the dangers are
passed and the excitement over, when a
total collapse is liable to ensue, necessita-
ting a delay for recuperation at the base of
the mountains. Not long ago party of
thirteen Yankee school ma ans, who are
employed under contract with the Argen-
tine government to teach the young ideas
Vi llitl COUNTY,, llipluN6u tlleli NdCdllOu ny
crossing the Andes into Chilli.
Not least among the dangers of the Andes
are the skin bridges, stretched after the
manner of modern suspension bridges, over
yaWning abysses, and their swaying is so
great that most people are compelled to dis
mount and lead their mules across, and
even to lie down midway themselves when
overcome with dizziness. Each bridge has
a floor made by flashing the branches of
trees together with thongs of hides, just
wide enough for "a mule to pass, and along
the side a raw-hide rope is slung to serve as
handrail Imagine yourself away up iii
the blue, ten or twelve thousand feet higher
than the top of the Washington monument,
mounted or on foot, crossing such an un-
substantial structure, which hangs suspend
Ell like a certain historic coffin, with moth
ing between your feet and the neither air of
bottomless chasm but few poles loosely
tied with thongs! Yet accidents are rare
and most of those that have occurred were
due to the ''little foxes" that spoil bridges
as well as vines by their nibbling.
FANNIE b. WARD.