336 SOUTH AMEEICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. 



The Central Peruvian Railway, at present terminating at Oroya, is one of the 

 most remarkable structures of the kind in the whole world. Starting from Callao 

 at sea-level, it rises 500, 1,300, 2,800 and 6,000 feet at the respective distances of 

 7, 18, 33 and 50 miles ; the ascent continues steady and rapid to the culminating 

 point, 15,665 feet, at the 106th mile, beyond which it descends at the rate of 

 120 feet per mile along the last section of 30 miles to Oroya, a total distance of 

 136 miles from the coast. The British Consul at Callao, who supplies these details, 

 adds that Oroya is likely to become a place of great commercial importance, and is 

 already the centre of an active mining industry, smelting- works having been 

 established at convenient points near the terminus, where ores from the neigh- 

 bouring districts are reduced to a form suitable for conveyance to the coast for 

 exportation. 



The Oroya line is to be continued eastwards in the direction of Tarma and 

 Chanchnmaijo, and thence to the head of the navigation of the Maraûon. It is 

 expected that Peru will enter on a career of great prosperity on the completion 

 of this section, which will afford rapid and easy communication from the Pacific 

 through the Amazonian regions to the Atlantic Ocean. Tarma, which is separated 

 from Oroya by one of the inter- Andean chains, stands at an altitude of 10,000 

 feet, on a verdant plain where formerly stood the Peruvian city of Tannatamho. 

 The ruins of this place, with its *' palace of the Incas," stand on a terrace still 

 dominated by crumbling fortifications. 



Farther east the Chanchamayo valley has already attracted several groups 

 of settlers, who supply the inhabitants of the plateau with most of their coffee, 

 sugar and rum. French and German colonists own most of the plantations 

 between Tarma and the fortified station of San Ramon, which stands, at a height 

 of 2,590 feet, at the confluence of the Chanchamayo and the Tulumayo, forming 

 the Oczabamba, main branch of the Ptio Perene. Beyond this district the 

 most -frequented route at present runs through the Amazonian forests to Puerto 

 Tucker, on the navigable Rio Pichis, leading to the Rio Pachitea and the lower 

 Ucayali. 



JaUJA HUANCAVELTCA. 



Following the course of the Jauja below Oroya, the traveller reaches the 

 town of Jaiija (11,160 feet), which gives its name to the river, and which at the 

 time of the Conquest was described as " a very large city, built like those of Spain, 

 where over 100,000 people daily gathered on the public square." Lower down 

 near the Huancayo route stands the convent of Ocopn, mother-house of the 

 Barefoot Friars, who founded numerous stations in the forests traversed by the 

 Ucayali and its affluents. 



Huancayo also lies in the valley of the Jauja, which in this section of its course 

 takes the name of Mantaro, and which continues to descend through deep gorges 

 south-eastwards in the direction of Lake Titicaca. But at the confluence of the 

 Huerpa (Ayacucho), whose valley was formerly flooded by the waters of the lake, 

 the Mantaro escapes through a breach in the mountains round to the north-east 



