ACROSS THE EQUATOR WITH THE AMERICAN NAVY 



613 



Official Photograph, U. S. Navy 



MEN OF THE AMERICAN FLEET IN THE STREETS OF PERU'S CAPITAL 



It was a cordial welcome which Lima extended to the representatives of the northern 

 republic ; even the motion-picture theaters were specializing in American films ; but the 

 great show staged for the benefit of the visitors was the bull-fight, held in the largest bull- 

 ring in the world. 



cessors, which had but to be cleared of 

 the accumulated sand to function again 

 as perfectly as in the Incan days. 



He paused long enough to buy a large 

 tract from the Peruvian Government, and 

 then cleared out the old ditches and 

 turned into them the water that had been 

 flowing down from the hither slopes of 

 the Andes to lose themselves in the desert 

 sands. Today he has one of the greatest 

 sugar estates in the world, and every 

 main-line ditch is just as it was first sur- 

 veyed and excavated thousands of years 

 ago by a people we are apt to think of as 

 savage. 



The Peruvian Government was not 

 slow to take the hint. It has been slow 

 to act because of financial conditions, but 

 today an American engineer is in the em- 

 ploy of the government tracing out the 

 lines of the ancient Inca systems. They 

 are complete and practicable, and need 



only to be cleared of sand to restore to 

 fertility the thousands upon thousands of 

 acres which were once cultivated here. 



As one ascends the Andes the rainfall 

 increases, until on the other side of the 

 triple summit a typical tropical jungle is 

 to be found. But on this arid plain, for 

 years dismissed as a useless desert, are to 

 be founded the great farming projects of 

 the immediate future in Peru. 



A CORDIAL WELCOME FROM PERI' 



The Atlantic fleet entered the harbor of 



Callao. which is the principal Peruvian 

 port, on January 31, and a week of good 

 fellowship followed. One soon ceased to 

 be cynical about the Peruvian welcome, 

 or to look behind it for any motive of 

 self-interest. 



Every Peruvian one met said and 

 seemed to feel that the United States is 

 the great and eood friend of his own 



