Scene on the Oroya Railway, San Bartholomew Switchback and Grade
The tunnel and bridge, or viaduct it might be called, like a cobweb reaching from the gorge up to the sky, which generally is most sought after for experiences, is Infiernillo, or Little Hell, also called the Devil’s Bridge. The elevation here is 10,920 feet. The road plunges out of one tunnel and across the great cobweb of steel and iron into another tunnel.
The principal station is Casapalca. It is here that the biggest smelting-works are located. Both silver and copper are treated. Black Mountain Peak is the dominating spur in this neighborhood. Its height is 17,600 feet. San Bartolomew and Verrugas are the places that have a sad fame for the peculiar malady known as verrugas, or bleeding warts. It is a deadly and malignant disease of the blood, is of native origin and confined to a limited area. Its ravages were frightful among the laborers who built the road, but it rarely is heard of now.
The most glorious views of the valleys shut in by the colossal precipices are at San Mateo and Yauli. On the up trip, until Chosica is reached, the valley of the Rimac is broad and regular, a panorama of green and yellow and white,—alfalfa, corn, sugar-cane, and cotton. Here, too, the ruined terraces on the steep mountain-sides, vestiges of the Inca system of aqueducts and irrigation, are numerous.
Mt. Meiggs, 17,575 feet high, is the marker for the Galera tunnel. The mountain is snow-clad. Ordinarily the flagstaff on the peak is visible. The tunnel is three-quarters of a mile long. On the down trip I noticed that we were four minutes in passing through it. The time, it might be supposed, would seem longer than it is, yet my guess was three minutes, and I was surprised when the watch showed a minute more. The cold air draughts were invigorating, like tempered blasts from an ice furnace, and there were to me no disagreeable sensations. I merely wondered when and how we would get out.
Many persons who take this journey complain of the siroche, or mountain sickness, the nausea and headache destroying their pleasure. For those who suffer from this distemper a good plan is to allow two days for the trip and stop over night at one of the stations half-way up, Matucana being the most convenient.
Night trains never have been run on the line, but this innovation may be made. Practical railroad men say that there is no more danger in the night than in the day, for in the daytime, with so many abrupt curves and tunnels, it never is possible to see very far ahead, and the locomotive headlight might really be an advantage. The chief trouble of the railway management is in preventing landslides, but the greatest damage has been wrought by cloudbursts.
The Central Railway was built in order to cheapen the transportation of the ores and the minerals to the seaboard. The bulk of the traffic always will be in one direction, though with the development of the Andine region a considerable increase in agricultural products and general merchandise in both directions may be expected. The management has not always been alive to its own opportunities as a freight carrier. Various companies formed to exploit the coal deposits were discouraged by the railway officials on the ground that the railroad would be put to too much trouble in hauling the output if the mines proved successful!
Oroya is snuggled in among four cañons, which branch off almost at the points of the compass. There are gigantic granite and limestone wedges which split the town into triangles and have resulted in two distinct villages on the bends of the river. The elevation of Oroya is 12,179 feet, but the peaks around are easily a thousand feet higher, and a climb up one of them gives the most splendid view of mountain grandeur that I have seen in any quarter of the world. I have pleasing memories of several days spent in this neighborhood in amateur explorations.
Oroya is a good place in which to observe the native life, both that of the cholos, or mixed race, and the pure Indians. All that is characteristic of civilization or partial civilization in the heart of the Andes may be seen here. The Quichua, or aboriginal Indian race, seems to have preserved its identity side by side with the tincture of Spanish or Caucasian blood which has produced the cholo. They appeared to me a reasonably industrious people, especially the women.