Railway up the Mountains. 413 



by the wear and tear of the surf ; and it is something of a 

 feat to get ashore without getting a ducking. Leaving tlie 

 elegant station, which stands within sight and sound of 

 the sea, the train, carrying about a hundred passengers, 

 rolled down the coast, strewed with the ruins of extinct 

 volcanoes and the relics of the great tidal wave of 1868, 

 and then turned northeasterly to climb the barren hills in 

 zigzag fashion. The heaviest grade is four per cent. ; and 

 the brakes are so essential in descending that they are shod 

 with new shoes after every round trip between Mollendo 

 and Arequipa. The hard work on this division is indi- 

 cated by the fact that 3,000,000 pounds of powder were 

 used for excavation, although there is no tunnel.* Here, 

 too, one can see another triumph of engineering : for par- 

 allel to the track lies the longest iron aqueduct in the 

 world — an eight-inch pipe eighty -five miles in length, 

 winding down the mountains, to supply Mollendo with 

 fresh water from an altitude of 7000 feet. 



Still ascending, clinging to the sides of the mountains, 

 and tacking on almost parallel tracks, we caught occasion- 

 al glimpses of the magnificent sea, but of only one green 

 thing in all the landscape — the cultivated valley of Tambo. 

 Signs of the old and eternal conflict between fire and wa- 

 ter, and of the ultimate triumph of the former, are written 

 on the whole slope of the cordillera, dipping sharply down 

 to the Pacific. The train stopped for breakfast at Ca- 

 chendo. This station consists of three houses and a wa- 

 ter-tank, apparently the centre of a boundless sandy waste; 

 but it is really on the western edge of the Great Desert of 

 Islay. Across this hot and level pampa, the train took a 

 straight line with great speed, raising a cloud of dust that 

 followed like the tail of a comet. This lifeless and, be- 

 fore the railway, trackless desert is sprinkled with fine 



* Yet the first survey necessitated nineteen tunnels. 



