The American Y. M. C. A. is doing some good work in Valparaiso, as in all other South American cities. The rooms are well patronized and it was homelike to see the leading magazines of the United States upon the reading table. The Sunday afternoon program that I attended was well gotten up and very interesting.
While in Chile you see more to remind you of the United States than in any other South American country but I was not favorably impressed with the people. They will not compare in looks or actions with the people east of the Andes. Lack of education, culture and refinement are noticeable everywhere. Religion and morality are conspicuous by their absence and one cannot but pity those who live among them although one sees some good traits in many of them.
CHAPTER XXIV
The Switzerland of South America—Bolivia
In the very heart of the South American continent there is a vast table-land nearly as large as the great Mississippi valley, that some titanic convulsion has boosted up nearly three miles in the air. This great plateau is hemmed in by mountains, the coast range on the west and the main range on the east.
These mountain peaks rise as high as twenty-two thousand feet. In these heights, two and one-half miles above sea level is Lake Titicaca, which is one hundred and sixty miles long and thirty miles wide. This lake, which is the highest body of water in the western hemisphere, is fed by streams of water from the Andes and is so cold that ice is formed along the edge every night in the year although the lake itself is never frozen over. The lake has no outlet and the color of the water is a steely blue.
This lake forms the northwestern border of Bolivia. Situated as it is, including both mountains and table-land, Bolivia has been called the Switzerland of South America. It is more than twelve times as large as the state of Iowa and is the cradle of the ancient civilization that made up the world-famous Inca empire which existed many centuries ago.
The people of Bolivia today have the blood of this ancient race in their veins and they are an industrious people. Visiting a mission school in Buenos Aires I was much impressed by one young man who seemed to be the peer of the two hundred students in the school.