“Lives of men, my son. The line is not completed, yet seven thousand men have perished during its construction. They say that for every tie on the railroad across the Isthmus of Panama a man gave his life, but even that road has no such death list on the dark side of its ledger as has this.”
“That is more than double the number of the killed on both sides at the battle of Shiloh!” exclaimed Harvey.
“Yes; if I remember my history aright,” assented the conductor.
“What caused this frightful mortality?” asked Hope-Jones.
“There have been many causes, sir. Extremes of climate have affected those with weak constitutions and rendered them easy victims to disease, pestilences have raged in the camps, and there have been hundreds of fatal accidents, due to blasting and to the fall of boulders. I dare say that if one could find a passage along the Rimac below,” and he pointed to the chasm, “he would see whitened bones between every mile post.”
That evening they reached Chicla, 15,645 feet above sea level, and were entertained at the home of the railroad superintendent, who had charge of the upper division of the line. Chicla is a little town of huts nestling in a small valley and surrounded by mountain peaks. The nights are always cold, and for only a few hours during the day does the sun’s face escape from behind the towering peaks and shine upon the village.
At the supper table Harvey complained of a drumming in his ears, and a few minutes later he hastily left the table because of a severe nosebleed. Ferguson felt something damp on his cheek not long after, and using a handkerchief he noticed that it bore a crimson streak. Blood was flowing from his right ear.
The superintendent assured them that there was no cause for alarm, and that every one suffered from the effects of rarefied air when coming into a high altitude.
“The pressure is less on the body up here,” he explained, “but within your veins and cells is air at the pressure received at sea level. This overpressure air, in endeavoring to escape, forces the blood with it. In a few hours the symptoms will have passed away. None of you has heart trouble, I trust?”
“No,” they answered.