Government Railways. 445 



oldest road in Peru, having been opened in 1851, and the 

 best -paying; yet, like all the rest, it has but one track. 

 Lima and Chorillos — the fashionable Long Branch of 

 Peru, nine miles; finished. Eten and Lambayeque, 28 

 miles; finished, to start from an iron pier 4000 feet long. 

 Arica and Tacna, 40 miles ; finished. A continuation to 

 La Paz is projected, to cost $32,000,000, to i-ise 14,000 

 feet; this would be the nearest outlet for Bolivia, but 

 would have a rival in the Arequipa and Puno road. Iqui- 

 que and Pisagua, 160 miles, half finished ; designed solely 

 for the exportation of saliter. There are also short roads 

 constructing at Cerro de Pasco, Pimentel, Trujillo, Pati- 

 llos, from Pisco to Lima, and from Magdalena to Lima. 

 These lines represent $25,000,000. 



Peru has invested about $140,000,000 in railways— a 

 gigantic sum for three millions of people; but guano is 

 the exchequer. Of this amount she has paid nearly one 

 half ; and 650 miles of track have been laid, or one half 

 the projected amount. It costs fifty per cent, more to 

 build a railway in Peru than in the United States ; for 

 every thing must be imported, and labor costs double. 

 Among the minor roads owned by the government are the 

 Pisco and Iga, 45 miles, finished ; cost $1,500,000. An- 

 con, finished from Lima to Chancay, 45 miles ; cost about 

 $3,000,000. Payta and Piura, 60 miles; just begun; to 

 cost $1,950,000. 



But all the great iron roads of the republic are the 

 handiwork of Mr. Meiggs, the best representative of Amer- 

 ican enterprise below the equator. Mr. Meiggs has con- 

 tracts with the government amounting to $133,000,000,;;^ 

 for building seven railways, with an aggregate length of 

 about a thousand miles. Five of these are finished ; three 

 (the Puno, Oroya, and Pacasmayo), the longest and most 

 difficult, are in process of construction at the same time. 



