The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1910-09-09
legislature making tie law more spe-
ciic as to expense accounts.
INTERIOR OF SOUTH AMERICA.
Scenes of Rare Beauty and Grandeur
Argentina and Peru.
Saturday Review.

Saturday Review.
! There are scenes in South America
which are worth sacrificing something
to see. The world-famous Bay of Rio
Janeiro is hardly less wonderful than
the hills back of it, where streamlets
of blue water tumble over banks which
seem to be a solid mass of every gor-
geous-colored flower known to botany,
with every gorgeous-plumaged bird oil
earth flying about among them. In the
towns of the Amazon district the vege-
tation is regarded as a first-class nuis~
ance; no house or square yard of
ground can be neglected for a short
time without becoming smothered with
flowers and creepers of every descrip-
ton. In the forests quite close to
Para, Manaos, Santerem, S. Paelo,
Iquitos and other large towns and vii
lagos are such ferneries, orchid groups
and birds as would take a month of a
collectors life to catalogue. And per-
haps there is no other part of the
world where one can plunge sooner in
to the curious gloom and silence Of
tropical forest life, where it is difficult
sometimes to see ones way even at
midday, where no breath of wind ever
stirs the vast boughs of centuries-old
trees, and only the occasional shrek
of some animal, as boa constructor
hanging from one of these boughs
drops on it and winds it in it's folds,
breaks the unearthly stiffness. Be-
yond Iquitos, where one takes to the
native canoe, with its large not I'M
comfortable cabin and dozen or so ma
tive rowers, the heat becomes damp
and sometimes almost intolerable; but
it is worth going up as far as Nauta, a
point at which, miles away in the west,
like line Of rain clouds in the hot
tropical sky, the chain of the Andes
appears on the horizon.
Though Argentina would probably
claim to be the most business-like pOr-
ton of South America, most people
would, I fancy, say that Peru is the
most civilized, as it is incomparably
the most agreeable country in the con-
tinen5. Here the courtly SpNnish-
American is found at his best, the Old
Inca civilization seeming still to DOM
mate English, Spanish and even Yam
kee society, much as royalist tradi-
ton still dominates the Faubourg
Saint German in Paris. Some of the
Peruvian railways are engineering
feats of the finest, one of them, which
goes up into the Andes, being, I be-
lieve, the highest in the world. am
told on good authority that on this
line are one or two villages which
would make ideal consumptive sana-
toria; they are at a height of about
ten thousand feet, with marvellous
mixture Of clear mountain and sea
air, and at no very great distance
from the civilization and amusements
of Lima. So much English money is
being poured into Peru just now that
we may expect to hear soon of the
more accessible of these places being
turned to such a purpose, though as
prominent Peruvian parsonage re-
marked grim1y the other day: "The
stopping places on this railway can
rot exactly be described as health re-
sorts at pre- ent." Peru will. Of course
t;e one of the first countries to benefit
by the opening of the Panama Canal,
and it seems almost a pity that Eng
lish fnanciers, engineers and others
do not unite more cordially and vigor-
cusly to make the country ready for a
'shoom." ...;-, Il .>.5sp