402 The Andes ajsjd the Amazons. 



ed; then succeeded rugged rocks of trachytic porphyry. 

 Here the landscape was purgatorial, presenting the confu- 

 sion of the " grab-box " of a geologist ; volcanic piles, ma- 

 rine and river deposits, fiercely contorted granite dikes, 

 etc., are huddled together as if l^ature had been in a hur- 

 ry. Finally, as I neared the ocean, there was a fine exhi- 

 bition of the ceaseless conflict between sea and land ; the 

 barren, rocky mountains, upon which even the lichen re- 

 fused to grow, stubbornly yielded to the supremacy of the 

 older ocean ; and as the great Andes died away along the 

 shore, the southerly wind covered them with a winding- 

 sheet of sand. 



Two days from Cajamarca, my party shouted for joy at 

 the sight and sound of a locomotive. It was the sign of 

 civilization : the signal that our hardships were at an end. 

 The Pacasmayo Railway, now completed from the coast, is 

 a model of American enterprise and American skill. It 

 is the creation of Mr. Meiggs, the Vanderbilt of Peru, and 

 will cost $7,000,000. The money comes from the sale of 

 guano ; the laborers from China ; the ties from Oregon 

 and Chile ; the rails from England ; and the rolling stock 

 from the United States. The buildings are of corrugated 

 galvanized iron. The track has a total length of seventy- 

 eight miles. Starting from an iron pier, which is to reach 

 half a mile into the sea, the road winds over the arid pam- 

 pa, and among the sand-dunes, and beside the Rio Jequeti- 

 peque, and through a region of intensest interest to the ar- 

 chseologist — crowded with the relics of Incarial cities and 

 cemeteries — and ends near the silver-mines of Chil^te, at 

 an altitude of 4000 feet. Pacasmayo appears to stand on 

 the edge of a useless desert ; but it really commands one 

 of the most fertile tracts in the republic. It is the port of 

 numerous busy villages, of which San Pedro and Guada- 

 lupe (numbering 5000 souls each) are the chief, the cen- 



