CHAPTER XVII 



DOWN THE COAST OF PERU — LAKE TITICACA AND 



LA PAZ — THROUGH THE ANCIENT INCAN 



EMPIRE TO COCHABAMBA 



The coast of Peru looked decidedly uninviting as day 

 after day the S. S. Palena of the Chilean Line nosed her 

 way southward through the placid water of the Pacific. 

 The high, rocky shore stretched on interminably, it seemed; 

 no graceful palm or speck of green of any kind gladdened 

 the eye; there were only the barren cliffs, against which the 

 swell dashed itself into snowy spray and, above them, 

 slopes of hot brown sand. 



This was in sharp contrast with the low Ecuadorian 

 shore-line; that was bad enough, with its dense, dark jungles 

 growing to the water's very edge, its overhanging masses 

 of black clouds, and its breathless heat and silence that 

 seemed to exude all the fatal maladies of a tropical clime. 

 Nevertheless, there was a suggestion of life of some sort — 

 inhospitable though it might be. It was not as if an out- 

 raged divinity had seared the land with withering breaths 

 of hate, annihilating everything that possessed or gave 

 promise of life, and leaving only the scorched desert as a 

 fearsome reminder of celestial vengeance. But if the land 

 appeared forsaken, the ocean teemed with life. Flocks of 

 gulls always remained in the vicinity of the ship, and oc- 

 casionally we saw petrels, shearwaters, and albatrosses; 

 whales were not particularly plentiful, but porpoises ap- 

 peared practically eveiy day. Toward the end of the 

 voyage seals also grew abundant. 



There are numbers of ports along the Peruvian coast and 

 the Palena stopped at many of them. The enormous swell 

 coming from the south and scarcely felt at sea spends its 

 violence along the shore, making landing very difficult, and 



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