Omaha daily bee., 1914-09-06

in a comfortable car, and the trip to An
tofagasta took only two days. Our train
had Bolivian millionaires, English. Aus
trian and American commercial travel
ers, miners OF half dozen different ma
tionalities. and a number of tourists. We
stopped for six hours at Oruro and there
got sleeping compartments for the rest
of the journey. We had dining cars on
the trains and we travelled in compare
tive ease.
AT the same time the fares were much
cheaper. Our sleeping berths cost us 50 a
night and the first-class passenger fare
was about $24 with a charge for our bag
gage Of about 2 cents per pound. I have
a number of trunks and my extra bag
gage cost half as much as the fare. The
price for meals on the diner was $50
gold, with an extra charge for mineral
water, which was about twice what the
same water would cost in the United
States.
Semi-Desert Country.
The first part of this trip was over the
high plateau of Bolivia. This is a semi
desert country about 500 miles long and
of varying width. It's only vegetation is
hslf-starved grass and dry bushes, but Il
feeds thousands of sheep, alpacas and
llamas, and we had animal life in sight
almost all of the way down to Oruro.
! Now and then we passed a village OF In
| dams and always there were the scat
| tered huts of the Aymaras spotting the
plain. The latter were round in shape
| and many of them had roofs made of
mud bricks, symmetrically Joined. A
single family often had several Of these
round huts and in addition corrals for
| its stock.
At one OF the stations where we stopped
to get our dining car we saw a great
drove OF llamas. They had brought fuel
to the railway for shipment TO La Paz
and were about to start back with mer-
! chandise for their return trip to a town
in the hills. The fuel was what I might
| call Bolivian cord wood. II consisted OF
the limbs OF stunted evergreens each as
| big around as your finger. They had
| been grubbed from the mountains and
packed up I'm bundles about three feet
square and two feet in thickness
Further down the road we saw great
! piles of peat-rnoss. another fuel that
grows in the Andes. The moss is of a
woody resinous nature, and when lighted
| gives out a great heat II grows on the
| top OF the ground in disks ranging in size
| from the diameter OF tin wash basin TO
| that OF a tube.
! All along the railroad we could see
| also the piles of English or Australian
| coal used by the engines. This Is in the
| shape OF briquettes. laid up in regular
order. At Uyuni. where the new road for
| the Argentine is to join the la Paz-
Antofagasta line. I saw thousands Of these
bricks. They were corded up as II were,
/ and around the edges OF the pile noticed
that a white band had been painted. I
asked the reason, and was told that II
was TO prevent the Indians from stealing
/ the coal. Such fuel in the high Andes Is
/ worth $50 a ton.
PIateu smooth as Floor.
Our ride over the Bolivian plateau was
through a country as smooth as a floor.
/ The Plateau is covered with stones. It is
supposed to have been at one time a vast
inland sea. and sea shells are often found
upon IT, Prof. Agassiz said that the water
/ level OF the ancient Andean sea was 800
or 400 feet higher than the present level
OF the plateau. II 80. 1t has all disap-
peared, as today the Only large bodies Of
water found there are In the lakes TIT
/ caca and Poopo. The latter is a brack-
ish lake toined to Lake Titicaca by the
4 River Desaguadero. II Is only about one
third as large as Lake Titcaca. Lake
/ PoOpO is the home OF many wild fowl
and the region about II is filled with
birds Of many kinds, including wild ducks
and flamingoes. The lake has no visible