THE FIRST TRANSANDINE RAILROAD 



405 



boarded the train, is now an experience 

 of the past. 



Of the past, too, are those unsung 

 heroes, the mail-carriers of the moun- 

 tains, laden with letters and packages 

 marked "Via Cordillera," who braved the 

 bitter cold and the savage snows of the 

 Andean winter. It was about the middle 

 of May, under the old regime, when the 

 stage-coach companies suspended traffic, 

 employees and stock making their way to 

 the lowlands. 



Rain and blizzard, sleet and snow, now 

 were masters of the uplands, and ava- 

 lanches "rushed madly down the moun- 

 tain sides." No pen picture can describe 

 the hardships and privations endured by 

 the men then entrusted with the mails. 

 The precious burden was carried in 

 leather bags strapped to the back, and a 

 curious foot-gear called the ''toinango" 

 was worn. It consisted of a sheepskin 

 wrapped around the foot, with the fur 

 next to the skin, this unwieldy hose 

 being bound to the leg by thongs of 

 leather which supported an immense 

 leather sole. A poncho, woolen trousers, 

 a long stick with a steel spike, and a 

 small bag containing rations (dried meat, 

 biscuit, and onions) completed the outfit. 



The government has built small stone 

 refuge huts {"casnchas") along the trail, 

 and into one of these cheerless shelters 

 the exhausted postman of the snows 

 crept at nightfall, shivering through the 

 dark hours, for there was seldom wood 

 obtainable for fuel. Nature resents 

 man's intrusion into her ice-bound do- 

 main, and frost-bites are her usual pun- 

 ishment in the Andes. Only too fre- 

 quently men lost their way in the newly 

 fallen snow — and the mail never reached 

 its destination. 



An American now living in Chile made 

 a winter journey across the Andes last 

 season, and he pays a glowing tribute to 

 these "big children of the mountains," 

 the mail-carriers, who were his com- 

 panions. 



"They are the bravest and sturdiest 

 creatures on the face of the earth and 

 have hearts of gold," he writes. "Their 

 wrinkled, leather-like faces bear the 



marks of the terrible adventures which 

 they related to me, as we huddled to- 

 gether for warmth under the life-saving 

 oven-shaped shelter during the long, bit- 

 ter night." 



THE PARIS OF the; x\EW WORI.l) 



When it is autumn here in .Xorth 

 America and we are beginning to think 

 of furs, it is Primavera (first-view j, or 

 spring-time, and the peach trees are blos- 

 soming in Argentina and in Chile. It is 

 then that the traveler bound across the 

 mountains has a comparatively comfort- 

 able journey. We will start from P.uenos 

 Aires, traverse the width of Argentina, 

 and cross the Andes into Chile in the old 

 way. 



There is hardly a capital in Latin 

 America that has not at some time been 

 labeled "the Paris of the New World." 

 I have visited them all, from Mexico 

 City to Santiago de Chile, from Havana 

 to Panama, and, in my oj)inion, the title 

 belongs alone to Ruenos Aires. 



Well built and progressive, artificially 

 beautiful and of cosmopolitan air, the 

 metropolis of Spanish America is a city 

 of which the Argeniinos may well be 

 proud. It ranks among the great capitals 

 of the world. The traveler is loath to 

 leave its. four miles of splendidly con- 

 structed docks, where the flags of every 

 nation wave (save that of the United 

 States of America) ; its brilliantly il- 

 luminated avenues and dazzling cafes ; its 

 beautiful Park of Palermo, where the 

 best-gowned women of the South, the 

 pride of the Paris modiste, fascinate the 

 beholder as they drive by in their per- 

 fectly appointed victorias. .\lthough 

 founded nearly four centuries ago. 

 Buenos Aires seems as modern as Chi- 

 cago. 



The people who live in this city near 

 the mouth of the Silver River are termed 

 locally Pucrtciios, or "Keepers of the 

 Gate." while those outside the glittering 

 capital, on the vast almost treeless pampa 

 stretching awav to the foothills of the 

 Andes, are dubbed Camponcros, of EI 

 Campo (the country), or "The Camp." 



Buenos Aires is the gorgeous outer 



