ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
Quiada to Tarija. That system of railways will greatly 
develop the entire southern portion of Bolivia. A small 
railway is also proposed in the most northern part of the 
Republic, between Riberalta on the river Madre de Dios 
and Guajara Merim on the Madeira-Mamori Railway, 
a district of immense wealth for the production of rubber. 
The exact elevation of La Paz by hypsometrical ap¬ 
paratus was 12,129 feet. 
I left La Paz on February twenty-first, and travelled 
through flat, alluvial, uninteresting country — only a huge 
flock of llamas or vicunas enlivening the landscape here 
and there, or a group of Indians in their picturesque 
costumes. The women, with their green, violet, or red 
shawls and much-pleated short skirts, generally blue, 
afforded particularly gay patches of colour. 
I saw a beautiful effect of mirage near the lake in 
the vicinity of Oruro, as I was on the railway to Anto¬ 
fagasta. We were going through flat country most of 
the time. It had all the appearance of having once been 
a lake bottom. Perhaps that great Titicaca Lake for¬ 
merly extended as far south as Lake Poopo, which is 
connected with Lake Titicaca by the river Desaguadero. 
In fact, if I am not far wrong, the two lakes formed 
part, in days gone by, of one single immense lake. The 
mountains on our right as we went southwards towards 
Oruro showed evidence that the level of the then united 
lakes must have reached, in days gone by, some 150 feet 
higher than the plain on which we were travelling. The 
low undulations on our left had evidently been formed 
under water in the lake bottom. 
The junction of Oruro, from which the Cochabamba 
Railway branches, was quite a large place, of 8,000 in¬ 
habitants, but with no particularly striking buildings. 
Tin and silver mining was carried on in the surrounding 
mountains. 
From Oruro I continued the journey to Antofagasta 
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