This building was designed by the French architect Pitaud, when Tacna was Peruvian. The Chilean War came on, Pitaud died and the cathedral was never finished.
The streets of Tacna are paved, most of them with round polished stones, and many are bordered with trees planted along the curbs. There is much verdure and the city has several shady plazas with statues. There is a marble one to Columbus in the plaza of the same name. The Alameda Anibal Pinto is a garden spot. It is a well-kept-up lovely parkway. A peculiarity of Tacna is the architecture of many of its residences. These are gabled, but by far the most have "sawed off" gables. In these the sides slope upwards as if to form a gable, but about a yard or more below the imaginary peak, they terminate in a flat roof. This style is supposed to make them earthquake resisting.
STYLE OF TACNA ARCHITECTURE.
HOUSES WITH SAWED OFF GABLES, SUPPOSED TO BE EARTHQUAKE PROOF
Of the six Courts of Appeals in the republic, one is at Tacna. Both Antofagasta and Iquique for a long time have been trying to get it away for themselves, but so far have been unsuccessful. Of the five regiments stationed at Tacna, two are artillery, two are infantry, and one is cavalry. There was an engineer corps but it has been moved to Copiapó.
Tacna has a good hotel, the Raiteri, owned by an Italian of the same name. His business, which has somewhat fallen off since the Arica-La Paz railroad has been completed, is large enough, however, for him to keep two annexes running. His hotel is one of the best in rural Chile. The coffee is the best I have had served to me in South America. There is another hotel named the Tibios Baños (Warm Baths). It is of the free and easy sort where when you engage a room the landlord asks you, "With or without?" and governs the price accordingly. It has a cool grape arbor where it is pleasant to repair hot Sunday afternoons for a schuper of beer.
In an obscure corner of the province not far from the Peruvian line lies the high, broad mountain valley of the Ticalco River, hemmed in on all sides by snow-capped mountains, the lowest of which is higher than the highest mountains of North America save McKinley, St. Elias, and Popocatepetl. The Ticalco is joined by numerous freshets from the melting snow and like a silver thread flows through this valley and by great jumps cuts its way through a gorge before it finally joins with the Salado at Talapalco to form the Sama, the national boundary with Peru. Although very high, of all the valleys of the Province of Tacna, the Ticalco is the most fertile. It is cold; no fruit excepting the apple thrives, but as a recompense it is rich in oats and in alfalfa. In this valley and on a small stream about a mile above where it flows into the Ticalco River lies the town of Tarata, 9919 feet above sea level. Its population probably numbers five hundred souls. It is the third town in size in the Province of Tacna. It is the capital of a department, newly created, has a court house and a barracks.