Then you come to where the river is hemmed in by mountain gorges, and you have to climb by means of switchbacks. Up you go, tilting this way and that, beyond two layers of clouds. The sides of the mountains become green. You are now in the land of the ancient Incas. Abandoned terraces that lose themselves in the clouds flank scores of mountain sides. The Incas raised their products there by some system of irrigation.
Fine specimens of trees appear, fruit orchards with chirimoyas, palta, nispero and pacay, and willow and pepper trees in abundance. The flowers begin to greet you, the heliotrope, solanaceas, spurge and cacti all around. Back and forth you seesaw with massive, towering mountains above you and several lines of tracks far below you. Now and then you come upon a little town thousands of feet in the air.
Then you reach a place where a smelter sends its blasts up in the skies, and you begin to see what supports this road. A footpath or trail climbs the ravines, and you see scores of llamas bearing their burdens and driven by the native Indians. A hundred cascades, some of them with the beauty of Yosemite's Bridal Veil leap with their spray down the sheer cliffs. The lights and shadows paint the bare rocks delicate hues, such as you cannot see even in a sunset glow.
You come to the famous Verrugas bridge, 575 feet long and 225 feet high, in its day the greatest feat of railroad engineering ever known. You are now in a belt twelve miles long where no tourist can live, for there the Verrugas fever rages. It is one of those strange local diseases found occasionally in the world peculiar to a small zone and baffling to medical science.
You see crucifixes all along the route. Still you climb and climb and you see ragged edges of mountains above you which you know you will surmount. You come to a dead stop against the face of a mountain thousands of feet high. You back away up its side, and little by little, twisting and turning you lift yourself above another cloud layer.
The air gets cold, a dash of rain comes as you pass through the clouds. At 10,000 feet high a sharp pain runs through your ears. You take several long gasps of breath and it passes away. A slight headache comes at 12,000 feet. It passes away and finally you reach the tunnel and emerge on the other side of the Andes with the snow all about you and you throw a few snowballs and start back. Your head begins to feel strange. At 13,000 feet it aches violently. The ache is as near like the morning-after headache as can be. In the official party not one person escaped it. Half a dozen strong men became sick at the stomach and had violent attacks of vomiting. The mountain sickness was on. Other men were laid out in the cars prostrate.
At this stage came a complication. Heavy rains had been falling below and word was telegraphed that there were four washouts and the party would have to stay in the mountains all night. The faces of the railroad officials became grave. To keep that party at the height of 13,000 feet all night might prove almost fatal to some. It was this trip which brought on the illness that ultimately killed the late Dr. Nicholas Senn.
Word was sent that by care the train might descend as far as 10,000 feet. A handcar was sent on as a pilot and in the darkness and snow that train was piloted down those mountain declivities, where the least slip of the earth would have sent it hurtling down cliffs thousands of feet. The pace was only five miles an hour.
The sickness did not diminish until at 11 o'clock at night Tamboraque was reached, where the unofficial party of officers which had not gone up the full height was stalled. There was one inn with four beds and ninety men to occupy them. The unofficial party was in full possession. They had organized the Society of the Llama, Landslide Chapter. They had a merry night. The official party, sick, worn out, turned in to sleep in car seats. The next morning by walking around landslides and meeting trains in the gaps the party was got down to Callao. Several did not get over the mountain illness for three days. It was a magnificent trip in the grandest scenery in the world, but mountain sickness, all concurred, was worse than seasickness.
By way of return entertainment by the fleet a dinner was given to President Pardo on the Connecticut, and then a fleet reception was held on the same ship the day before sailing. This morning President Pardo boarded the Peruvian cruiser Almirante Grau and the fleet thundered out twenty-one guns on each ship in unison. The Grau passed out to sea and orders were signalled from the flagship to get under way. Then the fleet passed by President Pardo in the best of style, each ship firing a salute as it went by. It made a fine spectacle. The honors were the same as paid to President Roosevelt in Hampton Roads, President Penna at Rio and President Montt at Valparaiso.