The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-02-22

(CepSrighted 1914. by Frank @. car
penter)
Paita, Peru.
TAM $50 miles south of Panama. on
the northern edge Of the great
n South American desert. My last
letter was dated in the iungles of the
Ecuadoran tropics. This comes from
country as dry as any part of the Sa-
hara. The coast about me is all sand
and rock, and the Andes mountains
which lie close behind are as sterile
q the driest part of our great western
plateau The first port after leaving
Guayaquil Is Tumbez 1t belongs to
Peru, but it lies just over the Ecua-
doran line, and is an oasis of green.
Beyond Tumbez the desert begins.
and 1t extends from there southwark
down the western coast of the CONT
nent for a distance as long as that be-
tween the Atlantic ocean and the great
salt lake. Its length is 1000 miles. It
borders the whole Of Peru extending
almost to Valparaiso. In no place is
Il more than so miles wide. and yet it
Is 1000 miles long. AT its eastern edge
IL is lost in the Andes, which are with
out vegetation clear to their tops,
where the rocks are lost IN the snow.
] have seen something of the other
y
been on the edge of the Kalahari des-
ert. In South Africa, and have Travelled
through the Sahara, in Morocco, Trip
oil, Algeria and Egypt l have sailed
along the coast of Arabia and know
something of the desert of Gobo, on
the edge of Mongolia. None of them is
like the Peruvian desert, and none of
them seems to be so fated to be
desert for all time to come.
This desert is shut in between the
pecan and the great wall OF the Andes
Those mountains rise almost precipi-
Mously from the long coastal plain and
.4hoy are among the highest on the
earth. They are so high and so cold
1hat they squeeze the rain out of the
winds from the east that bring all the
snoisture. and 1t flows down their east
tern slopes. The winds here all come
from over the mountains, hut the water
has been squeezed out of them on their
way. and when they flow down the
western slopes of the Andes they are as
dry as a bone. Their load has al
ready been dropped 1t has covered
IHastern South America with tropical
.verdure. 1t has filled the valleys of
dhe Amazon and the Parana with the
greatest water supply known to man.
sand has made the larger part of this
continent bloom Hike a garden
On the side of the Andes. in this
strip of 1000 miles, about the only
A~ater comes from the melting SHOWS
ION the tops of the mountains. 1t sell
dom rains. Paita has not had to use
AN umbrella for the past % Years, and
waterproof coats and rubber boots
would be a drug in the market any
where from below Tumbez to far be-
yord Antofagasta. Indeed, the only
Fertile regions of the desert are where
the snowfed rivers from the mountains
md flo t1nnc
arc 90 of such streams along the coast
of Peru; and the cultiva table territory
watered by them has an area of 1,5O0.-
600 acres. Two-ffths of this Is irri-
gated and already in use and it pro-
duces some of the finest crops of the
world. 1t is at present the most i'm
Iortsnt part of Peru; it feeds most u
the people and supplies a vast deal of
this region by the extension of the ir-
rigation system, and it has had Ameri-
can engineers here going over the
ground
One of the richest of these desert val
leys is that of Piura, which Is not far
from Paita. Here the lands are irri-
sated by the Piura river and they
grow great quantities of cotton, sugar
cane and grain well as every kind
of fruit that we have in California.
There are GASES along every stream be-
tween here and Callao, an Lima is the
product of the Rimac, which gathers
the SHOWS of the Andes and spreads
them in the shape of water out over
the plains.
I am writing this letter at Paita, the
port for the Piura oasis. It is a desert
city with streets of sand and one and
two story houses made of framework
of wood poles and bamboo canes, over
which Is spread a mixture of sand and
mud that da2zles ones eyes Indeed
most of the houses are of mud and fish
Ing poles smoothed down with stucco.
Their walls are painted all the colors
where I stopped when / came to the
wharf, is bright green, and when l
passed through the plaza behind I faced
n big church of sky blue surrounded
by buildings some of which were as
yellow as epld. This church looks out
upon the plbza, which contains about
the only vegetation In the whole town.
This is a garden as big as a bed quilt.
filled with stunted palm trees and
thirsty-looking tropical plants. There
"a no water to be seen in the town out
SIR that of the ocean. and much of the
drinking supply is peddled about upon
donkeys, in 10gallon kegs, from house
to house.
The most of the traffic of Paita is