El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1914-03-14


! all the way up.
! Goes Through Many Tunnels
! In coming up the mountains you pass
I through tunnel after tunnel ana over
! bridges of steel which span mighty
! gorges. There are altogether 90 tun -
/ nels and 81 bridges in this 1Og Inl emp Tip;
/ and there are 10 .sWlLchpachs IoCILS
/ on the sides Of the mountains WneIe
/ the road could Gimp in no oLheT way
The great wonder Of the construction
] is that the steepness of the mountains
! grade. The Denver & Rio Grande mar
row gage in Colorado reaches It's IV,oVV
/ foot level at Marshall Pass, but IN 40
1 ing so it starts at mile ABOVE the sea
at the foothills of the ROCKIES ano
! when it has gone for hundreds OF miles
/ through the gOrges it has attained an
altitude which is still a mile lower tnan
/ the highest rail on the Central.
Mountain Sickness Attacks Many
| The soroche is the great thorn IN tne
rose of this wonderful journey. II IS
! the mountain sickness that aTrhcts al
most all when they take TINS mig
! leap Of three mile sstraight up into the
! air It brings on faintness, terrible
{ headaches and often bleeding at the
, eyes and nose. 1t IS worse lhah sea-
sickness, for the vomiting is accompa-
MED by diarrheas and terrible reIchlngs.
/ Some have the disease in a less degree
and some cannot stand it at all,
AS I came here today could feel the
air growing rarer. and my machinery
moving with more and more friction.
At 1000 feet my voice was so weak l
could not have Whistled dog and much
of my dictation at 5000 eet mas been
, done in whisper. After we passed the
two mile level I found myself weighing
each sentence to see whether 1t was
worth the breath to utter it At the
stations walked very slowly, and when
the train started unexpectedly at Casa
! palca and had to run to get on, was
painting for five minutes before re-
! covered. Just now my ears are thump-
7 e hen
though it was being pried up with
crOWbar.
Hearts Grow Weak.
In the cars behind me there are men
and women holding smelling bottles to
their noses to revive their faint hearts,
and there is one Peruvian who has
bottle to his nose and a gun in his bag.
Before he came out of the train he told
Said he: zone is this smelling bottle"
and he thereupOn asked me to try it.
But will this do the business2" said
/. Il don't know" he replied, but if
not, I have a sure cure here" and he
thereupOn opened his bag and showed
me the revolver.
This last. I am told. is about the only
safe cure for sOroche. The doctors can
do nothing to help you. and every one is
sure to get it if he stays long on the
tops of the Andes One may have it
again and again and any indiscretiOn
may bring on an attack
Long Chain of the Andes.
The long chain Of the Andes walls the
whole side Of this continent 1t begins
at Cape Horn and the .fiords of the
strait OF Magellan and goes north
crawling close to the coast in a great
winding rampant for a distance of 45OJ
miles, when it drops down inIo our cut
of Culebra on the Isthmus Of Panama.
Throughout the whole length, except
at the top and the bottom, this chain
has peaks which are three or four miles
In height Its average elevation is more
no a Eaa h11~r he
of FuJiyama, Japan. Mount AcOncaQua-
in Chile is about $4,000; Mount ALiSti
in southern Peru, is over 10000 and
there is a peak within sight of nv
eyes, that is $1,000 and more. North OF
here, in Ecuador, are many volcanoes,
including ChimbOrazO, more than four
miles in height; and south of me, in
BOLIVIA Is plateau which mas an aver
age altitude of 1900 feet, with no
drainage to either the Atlantic or the
Pacific.
Right here in Peru are some Of the
highest elevations, and I shall have to
go over a pass of $4,000 feet on my way
to the Inca city of CuZCO, and / shall
cross Lake Titicaca, which, itself, is
almost two and one-half miles above
the sea
These striking attitudes are the more
impressive on account of the steepness
Of the range which runs along the
coast It begins right at the sea only
a narrow strip Of sand separating 1t
from the ocean, and it Jumps, as it
were, into the clouds. rode this morn
ing through Lima, a city OF perhaps
10000. It is situated on the banks OF
the Rimac, close to the gorge into
which we started as We came up the
mountains.
During the first part of our journey
we passed through an irrigated valley.
There are fields of alfalfa, sugar cane
and other green crops on both sides of
the railroad, but the mountains over
the valley were as arid as the Sahara.
I remember I thought Of the difference
between the two sides Of the Andes,
and that if could bore a hole right
through the desert wall / might come
out into the region of the Amazon,
where the water swarms with turtles
and alligatOrs, and where the vegeta-
ton is a dense jungle with palms, rub
Der trees and all sorts OF tropical
fruits. On this side of the mountain
there is no rain and everything is
dry. On the other side it rains all
the time. The Rimac river here is not
fed by the rain. It comes from the
SHOWS. which the winds from the east
have left on the tops of the Andes.
Vegetation Is Remarkable.
The vegetation of the arid Andes is
remarkable I sat on the rear plat
form Of the car and dictated my notes
as we wound our way up the cliffs.
Near the ocean there was no green at
all The mighty rocks seemed per-
fectly bare and there was no soil or
any green thing. By looking closely
however, I found gray cacu c1nginS
to the rocks and silver gray moss
which in places covered the stones like
q mantle. These plants were probably
fed by the deWs.
It was not until we reached Tam !
boraque. at an altitude Of almost two
miles that we found our first sprinll-
ling of green. There the rocks seemed I
busted with emeralds, and the green
grew fresher and more abundant from
there to the tops of the mountains. At
two miles and q half I found the Andes /
covered with a thin grass and where
1 am now, at the beginning of the
great plateau that is upheld by two of
the ranges which run through Peru ]
there is plenty of feed for llamas ana
sheep. Within the last three or four
hours we have passed many wild flow
ers. At one place L encountered 40
varieties and from where I am sitting
L can see buttercups without numbers
and great yellow dandeliOns are look
ing at me through their yellow eyes
out of the rocks.
The greater part of the way up the
mountains we were near to or high
above the Rimac river. The valley mar .
rows and widens In some places you
could jump from one side of it to the
other, and again it is so wide that it
would take half an hour to cross it. (
All along through the valley there are