VIEW OF LAKE TITICACA.
After their day in this famous city our friends started by railway for Punno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, two hundred and eighteen miles away. Crossing an iron bridge as it left the city, the train soon began to ascend among the desert hills, and through masses of volcanic rock and cinders which gave plain proof that the mighty Chichani had not always been as quiet as at present. Dr. Bronson called the attention of the youths to the magnificent engineering, and the conductor informed them that on this one division of the road the excavations and fillings amounted to ten millions of cubic yards. "They are said to be the deepest cuttings and fillings in the world," said he, "and I certainly have never heard any one say they were not. The deepest cutting is one hundred and twenty-seven feet, and the deepest filling one hundred and forty-one."
"And bear in mind," said the Doctor, "that this work was performed far up in the mountains, where exertion is very fatiguing, and water boils before it is much more than scalding hot. Beans and other articles of food can only be cooked in closed cans to increase the pressure, and consequently the temperature."
On and up they went among the mountains, and over the dreary pampas stretching between them, crossing deep ravines, winding around precipices, threading the valleys, darting through tunnels, now on a level with the banks of snow on the sides of the giant mountains, or looking down upon the clouds that rolled at their feet. Ten, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen thousand feet of elevation were reached, and at length they halted at Vincamayo, 14,443 feet above the level of the sea. It is the creation of the railway, with an American hotel, and all the adjuncts of a relay and repairing station. It is the highest village in the world, higher than famous Potosi, and higher, too, than Cerro de Pasco. Place another Mount Washington on the top of the present one, and its summit would be nearly two thousand feet lower than Vincamayo.
Professor Orton passed a night at Vincamayo; he says he did not sleep, but spent the time in panting for breath. Our friends had the same experience with the rarefied air; the least movement caused them to breathe with difficulty, and they wisely refrained from stirring from their places. In a little while the train reached Alto del Crucero, the highest point of the line, and 14,660 feet above the Pacific at Mollendo. The surrounding land was simply a bog covered with short grass, and sprinkled in places with snow. It affords pasture for alpacas and vicunas, and as they looked from the windows of the carriage and shivered in the chilly atmosphere they saw numerous herds of these animals feeding on the plain.
THE NEVADA DE SORATA, CROWN OF THE ANDES.