Across the Andes

by Charles Johnson Post

Back of the town a trail wades through the sand to the crest of the long bluffs; the feet of countless pack trains have worn a driveway through the ridge until, stepping through, there are suddenly spread before the view the endless stretches of a dried and dusty desert that has been an ocean’s prehistoric bed. The hot airs quiver and boil from the twisting valleys or ridges of blistering sand and rock and through the pulsing heat the occasional pack train in the distance turns to a wavering, shimmering thread. To the imagination a desert rises as a dull, gray expanse endless in its colorless monotony; here there was a riot of color, every hue, raw and gorgeous—except green—from the soft purples and cool sapphire of the shadows to the blazing yellows and reds and white of the open spaces. And in the garish stretch of a dead ocean there slowly rises like a parching thirst a longing for a sweep of tender green.

CLOSE RESEMBLANCE TO AN ARMY OF DRUNKEN BUGS.

The little governmental touch from Lima had cleared the path of quarantine and we began a dot-and-carry-one course down the coast from Payta; every day our winches whirred and clattered off some dusty, sand-blown port. Before our anchor had touched bottom in the open road-stead a fleet of lanchas, heavy, double-ended, open lighters of from ten to twenty-five tons capacity were crawling over the water; the dozen long oars that were their means of locomotion—and that were manipulated on an independent competitive basis—spraddled on each side gave the fleet a close resemblance to an army of drunken bugs struggling forward on uncertain legs. There was always a race to the Mapocho’s side and the first to get there caught the heaving line.

Once a lancha defeated in a close finish came on and cut the heaving line so that its rival was left with the useless section while it hurriedly hauled in on the hawser. Instantly a fine naval engagement was in progress as the lanchas locked like a couple of old Carthaginian galleys. By the aid of force peace was established and the rightful and original award of the hawser sustained; had it not been, as the first officer explained, they would need a new heaving line at every port.

The bluffs of the coast gave way to hills and these in turn to higher ones; the Andes were closing in on the Pacific. At times the great mountain chain towered from the very water’s edge in a succession of steep cliffs, each receding tier softening in the distance and rising through the slowly shifting strata of clouds until only the gashes of white snow picked out the towering peaks. Here and there steep, rocky islets fringed the coast line and we stood far out to save the chances, and yet there was no appreciable change in the proportions of the tremendous mountain range. The sense of proportion and distance was lost in the comparison of these vast reaches. A rocky islet, a steep sugar-loaf affair, rose from the ocean perhaps five feet—not much as an island or a mountain peak. Through the binoculars a tiny unknown speck at the base developed into a full-rigged bark with tapering masts above which the sugar-loaf rock rose for thousands of feet in the clear air, and on it was a wretched colony of guano workers.

Then the coast opened out into level reaches again with occasional lines of irrigation ditches showing a thread of green. Occasionally—twice I think—there was actually a landlocked harbor. It was one of these, Chimbote, that James G. Blaine proposed to use or secure as a naval base and coaling station. It is perfectly sheltered with a narrow, bottle-neck entrance guarded by a rocky island in the middle which is covered with a wriggling film of seals that are perfectly indifferent to the close passage of ships or men.

Every Day our Winches Whirred and Clattered off some Dusty, Sand-blown Port

In this harbor rode the queerest of sea-going craft. In Mexico I had once seen a Chinaman fit himself up a home from about eight feet of one end of a hopelessly wrecked dugout, take in a partner, and then the two of them paddle off up the river in the fishing business, sleeping and eating aboard the flat-iron shaped thing. Here in this case was a bow and stern bolted together without a midship section. And both the bow and stern were those of a fairly full size tramp freighter. The bow was the ram bow of a war ship and back of it there was barely room to squeeze in a capstan and a tiny hatch; the foremast shared the bridge, a funnel and whistle jammed themselves up against the bridge, while the short distance to the stern rail gave room for a squat cabin out of which rose the mainmast. A score of Chimbote lanchas were as big—bigger—and where this telescoped liner would find room for cargo or coal after providing for engines and a galley is a mystery. Yet it does carry cargo and ambles along from port to port a tragic marvel of compression.