CHAPTER VII
AREQUIPA AND LAKE TITICACA
Capital of Southern Peru—Through the Desert to the Coast—Crescent Sand-hills—A Mirage—Down the Cañon—Quilca as a Haven of Unrest—Arequipa Again—Religious Institutions—Prevalence of Indian Race—Wool and Other Industries—Harvard Observatory—Railroading over Volcanic Ranges—Mountain Sickness at High Crossing—Branch Line toward Cuzco—Inambari Rubber Regions—Puno on the Lake Shore.
AREQUIPA is the commercial, ecclesiastical, and political capital of southern Peru. It has a university, several colleges, an Institute of Agriculture, and a School of Arts. A fairer city never bloomed in volcanic desert. The valley of the river Chili is so vividly green that it seems alive. The snow-cap of the extinct crater of El Misti is ever in sight, while the fleecy dome of Coropuna and the glistening pinnacle of Chachani stand out like sentinels in white robes, all of them above 19,000 feet. Their icy breath is seldom felt, for Arequipa enjoys the balmiest climate that mortal could long for. It banishes pulmonary diseases. Life is gentle in this soft atmosphere, yet some persons complain that the night air chills the marrow. The mean temperature is 57° Fahrenheit, but water freezes in June and July.
Arequipa, which is in south latitude 16° 24′, is 7,500 feet above sea-level, about the altitude of the City of Mexico. The railway from Mollendo winds along the shore and through the volcanic soil for 106 miles to reach the city, climbing almost spirally. This road was the first experience of Henry Meiggs as a railway builder in Peru. He took it as a subcontractor, and spent $500,000 in supplying fresh water to the laborers and the animals during the eighteen months which its construction required. The length of the entire main trunk from Mollendo to Lake Titicaca is 330 miles.
A better idea of the region which lies between Arequipa and the coast is had by the slower mode of travel with horse or mule. I made this journey in company with two others during one of those periods when the port of Mollendo was closed on account of the bubonic plague, and when in order to get out of the country it was necessary to reach the little port of Quilca forty miles north of Mollendo. Leaving the railway at Vitor, an hour’s run from Arequipa, we took the animals and started across the sand-hills to the ranch of Santa Rosa. It is the only habitation in fifteen miles, for there is no possibility of human dwelling amid those dunes. Stone heaps have been placed at various points to mark the route which is followed by the llamas and the burros and the occasional wayfarer, but the frequent wind-storms cover the mounds and they are not always to be discerned.
It is the region of the famous moving sands and travelling hills. An experienced desert traveller, if he should be without a pocket compass, might “sense” the direction for the first half of the distance from the contour of the mountain range on the horizon. After that his danger of losing himself would not be so great, for there is an ascent to the top of a ridge of hills, and the landmarks here are more stable. The descent is down the flank of the barranca, or ravine, into the river valley. This is diversified by several pretty fincas, or farms. The dwellings are of adobe or bamboo. Alfalfa is raised and is the common fodder. There are also vineyards, some of them quite extensive.
We put up for the night at the finca of the former prefect of the Department. The owner of the estate was away, but the Indian tenants in charge gave us the hospitality of their dwellings,—the privilege of spreading our blankets in one of the cabins while they prepared for us the always appetizing broth, or chupé.
We were up with the stars in the morning, for fifty miles had to be covered in order to reach the ocean, and there was no intervening shelter, no camping-place,—only billowy sand-plain, rugged ravine, and sombre cañon. One of the Indian lads acted as our guide till we had wound our way up through the steep ravine and again out on the open. Then he gave us some hints to keep from losing our way and bade us “adios.”
The pampa was spotted with many curious formations of white sand in half-moon and crescent form, geometrical figures, as the whims of the winds had willed it. Some of these had gaps or circular passes; others could be passed by circling around the foothills, while still others could be surmounted only by a straight-away ride ahead to the crest and down the slope. The sand was packed so tight that it withstood the animal’s heels as readily as a paved road. This vista of crystal crescent sand-hills impressed me as of a gigantic Turkish scymitar beginning in the limitless desert and stretching to the unbounded horizon.
There was no vegetation, not even a blade of tuft grass or of the common cactus, nothing for the sight except the half horns of sand and the unbroken level of the pampa stretching ahead to the sloping mountain wall which seemed to lie straight across the path. But though the plain was absolutely barren, experiments have shown that this sterile soil is capable of producing in infinite variety, if only it is given water. The rain, if it could fall, would bring the oasis in a single season. Provide artesian wells, bring the snow rivulets down from Coropuna by the methods of modern irrigation, and this desert becomes carpeted with the verdure of growing green grain and yellow ripening fruit.
In bargaining at Arequipa for the animals, we had been fortunate enough to secure cargo mules for our baggage and good horses for ourselves. At every level stretch the horses took the bridle and cantered off, racing for miles until checked by the riders. Then, after a few minutes of slower pace, again the canter and the exhilaration of the Arab on his Sahara steed. In this manner the snow-peaks of Coropuna and the crystal apex of Chachani were lost to sight before the mid-day rest, and the sheet of glistening water ahead ceased to fret us or puzzle us to determine how a lake came there. It was the mirage, the quavering effect of the hot and dry atmosphere on the white sands.
When the base of the mountain spur was reached, we found it an easy climb to the ridge, and then plunged down a long ravine and up again to another plain partly shut in by the hills. The woman member of our party claimed the privilege of her sex to question and doubt. She was sure we were getting lost. The glint of the sea far off did not reassure her. She insisted that we were going in the wrong direction. We should be headed southwest in order to reach the coast, and she had satisfied herself that we were going northeast. I took out my pocket compass to convince her. Our actual direction was north. We had made one turn, and the gorge through which we had to descend in order to reach the sea required another turn, but she maintained to the end that we might have got there by some other route.
The cañon had many crevasses, clefts, and gashes, but none of these was wide enough to turn us aside, and after a time we reached the willow marshes and forded the Vitor River. Then a very steep climb to the hill, which was crowned by the church, and we were in Quilca. The caleta, or cove, which constitutes the port, lies below, and it took a half-hour’s winding ride to get there.
The vessel for Callao which we had hoped would be waiting had put in and out four hours earlier. When another ship would be along, no one could tell. The last passengers who had come overland had waited for two weeks. Every day we climbed the outjutting cliff and scanned the sea, watched some vessels go by without heeding our signals, and said harsh things of them. Then we dug into some of the aboriginal huts. The work was hot and not interesting enough to be pursued. The villagers had some relics, but the most valuable ones and those which indicated the highest lost civilization had come from the interior. Mica deposits abounded in the vicinity, and a passing American miner had posted up the legal denunciation, or claim, to them. The copper and gold mines were a hundred miles back somewhere in the red volcanic hills.
The people were a kindly folk, and a vacant house was put at our disposal. They loaned us chairs, and our own sleeping-bags and blankets were all the rest of the furniture that was necessary. But the fleas! Neither Texas, Havana, nor San Francisco ever bred fleas equal to those in the sands of Quilca. Fortunately for us a big shipment of cattle was coming down from the interior, and the owner had more influence with the steamship company than we had. I had spent a small fortune in cables. Mr. Meier, our consul at Mollendo, had reënforced me, and our minister in Lima was enlisting the full influence of the government. But all this would have been without avail if the steamship managers had not decided to put in and take the cattle away and the waiting passengers with them. Consequently instead of a fortnight our stay was less than a week.
But back to Arequipa. It is a blending of old and new towns, a grouping of sandstone houses and eucalyptus or camphor trees surrounded by greenish-white hills. The streets are fairly wide, and have open drainage, which is facilitated by the slope. They are not kept too clean. Blue is the dominant color of the dwellings and other buildings. Ambitious and somewhat gaudy decoration is attempted in the way of painting the outside walls. The subject and the execution generally are more novel than artistic. The place has a peculiarity that I did not note elsewhere. The tiendas, or stores, the dwellings of the poorer classes and of some of the fairly well-to-do, are tent-shaped with whitewashed mortar roofs. These give to the section of the town lying along the river the look of a permanent camp. The public institutions, the Carmen Monastery, the hospitals, are shut in by mortar walls. The thermal springs of iron and sulphur are a few miles distant at Yura.
Arequipa is a city of churches. One side of the plaza of San Francisco is taken up by the Cathedral. It is a new structure, rebuilt after the earthquake of 1868, and was consecrated in 1893. It is roomy, but not notable as an example of ecclesiastical architecture. There are twin spires, and an arch at either end, the front being of smooth white lava rock. The Cathedral is not meant to be an earthquake tempter; that is the reason for its simplicity of construction. Other churches are much more mediæval and therefore much more picturesque. One of them has been partly wrecked by a seismic disturbance.
Arequipa has been noted for its religious intolerance. This has entered into political affairs and has made it the centre of reactionary influences. Sometimes this reactionism has been the basis of revolutions or attempted revolutions against governments of liberal tendencies. But this spirit is slowly yielding. Ex-President Edward Romaña, who, notwithstanding his education at a Jesuit college in England, antagonized the reactionary clerical influence, has an estate near Arequipa and makes it his home. His administration was of immense good in carrying Peru through a critical period.
Despite its inheritance of Spanish blood and customs, Arequipa still illustrates the predominance of the Indian type. Natives with their burros and llamas fill the streets, gossiping and sometimes working. The official and higher classes show their Spanish origin. In the morning the women on their way to church with their black shawls and mantillas wrapped around them are followed by the servants carrying chairs, but in the afternoon and evening the sombre mantillas are changed for Paris hats and smart gowns, and the brightness of Andalusia sparkles in those piercing black eyes.
Like Lima, Arequipa was founded by Pizarro; and, like Lima, it has its earthquake history. The record runs quite evenly.
The population is 35,000. There are a number of local industries, including a cotton factory and flour-mills, and it is the mining-centre for all the region that extends up to Lake Titicaca and beyond. It also is beginning to be a possible centre of the rubber export. The Inca Company, which controls the Santo Domingo gold-mines and which has valuable concessions for opening up the Inambari rubber region, has its headquarters in Arequipa. But the chief trade comes from the wool industry. All the alpaca and other wools are marketed here. The alpaca wools are divided into two grades, the production of the superior being about two and a half times as large as the inferior. Much of the wool is handled by American firms and is shipped to New York and Boston. The vicuña, or finer grade, is shipped to France, and some of it finds its way back to the United States in the form of expensive rugs.
The foreign colony of Arequipa includes a number of Americans engaged in mining, wool, railroading, and miscellaneous business. The Harvard Astronomical Observatory, half-way up the slope of El Misti, insures the presence of cultured Americans. During my visit Professor Bailey, the director, was off on a trip to the rubber country, and I did not have the privilege of meeting him.
The journey from Arequipa up to Lake Titicaca affords a day of varied mountain scenery. The valley of the Chili is like a green thread looped or knotted somewhere far down amid the volcanic mountains. Conical and domelike snow-peaks, cupolas, apexes, pagodas, and pinnacles are scaled, gorges entered, and cross-chasms passed. These do not have to be bridged. Since there is no rainfall and no snow-slides from the distant peaks, the abysses are filled in and ballasted for the roadbed. Besides the long viaduct at Arequipa and a bridge across the gorge at Sumbay, there are no bridges on this railroad, hardly any culverts, and no long tunnels. The earth’s surface is igneous soil, ridges of lava and plains of pumice stone. In some places the lava bowlders stand out in isolated, grotesque forms, the play of the fancy to name them. I amused myself for an hour in this manner. The sulphur deposits ought to have a distinct commercial value. There is brimstone enough for a continent.
The railroad, in the parlance of the South, “coons” the ridges at a maximum grade of 4 per cent. A gentle slope is reached, and we are on the edge of a plain intersected with clear streams over which hover many beautiful species of water-fowl. I have not seen elsewhere so great a variety. The pampa has some coarse grass and mosses, but no fir brush or even cactus. Patches of melting snow diversify it. Droves of llamas, alpacas, sheep, and even the rare vicuñas with their ruddy skins are seen; the latter seem to me more like red deer. The sun is bright, and though the air is sharp the cold is not penetrating; when the train pauses, one can step out on the platform without shivering.
A hill covered with brown bowlders in the background, rounded and sloping mountains a little farther away, an ordinary railway station house, some huts close by with groups of Indian women and children huddled in the doorways, and the sign-post says, “Crucero Alto—14,660 feet.” It is High Crossing, the summit of the Divide. From Vincocaya, at a height of 14,360 feet, to Crucero Alto, the distance is 20 miles, and the approach to the summit is so gentle that it scarcely is perceptible as an up-grade.
Several of the passengers have been complaining for an hour of headache and nausea, the unmistakable siroche, or mountain sickness. They tell those of us who are exempt that they always have it at this point. They are relieved when the descent has been begun. The railway follows through many turns and twists along the flanks of volcanic precipices until a chain of lakes lying in the basin breaks on the view,—a fine sight, the placid surfaces soothingly suggestive for irritated nerves and rebellious stomachs. No more siroche! These mountain mirrors are Lakes Saracocha and Cachipuscana, 13,600 feet above sea-level, 1,000 feet higher than Lake Titicaca. The smelter for the silver mines is located at Maravillas in this lake region.
At Juliaca the branch road runs off to Sicuani, 87 miles away, whence a cart-road, now traversed by a traction automobile, continues to Cuzco, the historic Inca capital and still the seat of all that is most interesting in Peru, both in ruins and in whatever relates to the descendants of the Incas. Ancient Cuzco’s future as a modern city will commence when it becomes a station between Buenos Ayres and Lima on the Intercontinental Trunk Line. An important step in this development was taken in 1905, when the government contracted with the Peruvian Corporation for the extension of the line from Sicuani and the first section, as far as Checcacupe, was finished. The route is along the river Vilcanota through a populous and well-cultivated valley, where the products of the temperate zone abound. There are rich tributary districts which will be benefited by the lowering of freight rates, and encouragement also will be given to immigration through the easier access to Puno and Mollendo.
The station of Tirapata is the starting-point for the Santo Domingo gold-mines in the Province of Carabaya, which have been developed by an American company, the Inca, composed of California miners and Pennsylvania oil-men. Some of the ore runs $4,000 to the ton. The journey to the mines occupies five days. The company, in opening up a through line of communication to the railway, has accomplished some daring engineering work in building cable suspension bridges across the chasms. They are narrow, and the newcomer who knows he is under observation and wants to show his nerve, rides his mule along the frail suspended framework and makes a pretence of looking with unconcern into the gaping abyss. But after one demonstration of his physical bravery he usually develops moral courage enough to get off and lead the animal.
The mining company has extended its operations and has acquired privileges of rubber exploitation from the Peruvian government. Under the contract it opens roads and mule trails into the forest region, and receives land grants and rubber concessions in compensation. Ultimately a route will be opened to the head-waters of the Inambari River, and this district will add to the output of crude rubber through the port of Mollendo.
The opening of the river basins of the Inambari and the Madre de Dios is essential to the future traffic of the Southern Railway. In a message to Congress in 1905 the President of Peru stated that the bridle-paths and cart-roads under construction, or contracted for, aggregated 1,300 miles. A grant of 2,000,000 acres of land was authorized with the chief purpose of securing 200 miles of wagon-road. Besides the American syndicate a Peruvian company has extensive rubber interests along the left bank of the San Gaban. There are extensive gold washings in Carabaya and Sandia. Heretofore the rubber product of this region has followed the river courses till the Amazon was reached and it could be exported to Europe by way of Para, the time occupied in getting it to market being from six to eight months. By the cart-roads to Tirapata, ten to twelve days are required, and three days more by railway to Mollendo, whence the transit to Europe after the completion of the Panama Canal may be made in thirty days or less.
From Juliaca, a distinctively Quichua Indian collection of adobe cabins, to Puno, the railway line is again straight up and down over the mountains, cooning the ridge once more, till the road begins to follow the more crooked courses of the waterways. It winds through a rich agricultural district, plain and valley where there are many pretty farms. The live-stock industry seems to be a flourishing one, for there are great herds of sheep, alpacas, llamas, and some cattle.
Puno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, is 12,540 feet above sea-level. It is a town of blue buildings lying in the concave side of the mountain. It is the head of the Department, has a population of 5,000, and is the customs port and the commercial centre. The vigilance of both Peruvian and Bolivian customs officials is constantly exercised to prevent contraband trade in alcohol, of which the people are inordinately fond. Indian life is seen in many phases, especially on Lake Titicaca, where the natives with their balsas, straw boats with square grass sails and grass hoods that open and shut like an umbrella, lead a half-shore, half-sea life, fishing and trading. They did not seem to me an idle class, but rather good-naturedly willing to work if the labor were not too strenuous.
Lake navigation begins at Puno, and since the place is the terminus of the railroad the shipping causes an unusual degree of activity for an inter-Andine town. Bolivian commerce comes up the Desaguadero into Lake Titicaca or directly across from the terminus of the Bolivian Railway line at Guaqui. The lake is interesting because it is the highest large body of fresh water on the globe that has steam navigation, but I saw no evidences of the peculiar properties attributed to its waters. The captains of these little steam-vessels are either Scotchmen or Scandinavians. I learned to my discomfort that when the winds were blowing Titicaca could become as unruly as Lake Michigan and could cause sea-sickness. A daring conception of engineering genius is to tap the waters of Lake Titicaca for the purpose of securing electric power and utilize them to supply motive force for the railways.
Puno formerly had a considerable trade in the highly prized vicuña rugs which are brought there by the Indians, but the industry has lagged in recent years due to the scarcity of the skins. A Chilean established a factory at Arica, and most of the pelts are carried across the Cordilleras to his market. The mineral deposits of the district include silver, mercury, copper, lead, and bituminous coal. The latter is lignite, but the existence of coal-oil or petroleum appears to be well established. The Americans who control the Santo Domingo mines had arranged to sink wells, but the failure to secure satisfactory transportation rates from the railroad company caused them to give up their project.