But nowhere along the coast did we see "in the mighty ranges of the Andes" those "stupendous surges of ice, like some vast ocean that had been suddenly arrested and frozen up in the midst of its wild and tumultuous career," that Prescott describes, and still less did we see them at the point where the distinguished historian locates them-near Piura-for in this part of the Cordillera, as we have seen, is the lowest depression in the entire Andean chain between northern Colombia and southern Chile. As the line of perpetual snow in the western Cordillera of Peru is never below fifteen thousand feet, and is usually considerably higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, the voyager along the coast never sees snow on the mountains except where

"Old Andes thrusts a craggy spear
Through the gray clouds,"

and such peaks are so rare that one might travel from the northern to the southern boundaries of the republic without seeing more than three or four of them. Prescott's Andes, "whose frosty sides far above the clouds, spread out like a curtain of burnished silver, that seemed to connect the heavens with the earth," is a striking picture, but it was never seen by Pizarro and his followers from the coast land, nor by any one else since their time. Only on the lofty tableland of the interior may the traveler occasionally be favored with such a view, but never, as the brilliant author of The Conquest of Peru imagined, from the lowlands of the Pacific.

CHAPTER VII

WONDERS OF SEA AND MOUNTAIN

One evening, as the sun was about to dip into the ocean, the passengers were aroused by a shrill cry of "Whales! Whales!" raised on our starboard quarter by the bevy of star-gazing girls who had attracted so much attention in the harbor of Guayaquil. As usual, the young lady from Boston was the most enthusiastic in her demonstrations of interest. Sure enough, only a few hundred feet distant was a large school of spermaceti whales, old and young, disporting themselves in the deep, and spouting columns of vapor and water to a height of from ten to twenty feet. Nearest to us was a colossal male-an "old bull," as whalers would call it-fully eighty feet in length, with a mouth large enough for a jolly-boat and her crew to float in, and a perfect type of Milton's leviathan,

"Happily slumbering on the Norway foam."

He quite ignored the excited spectators, who at once brought their cameras and field-glasses to bear on him, and leisurely continued his course, while his "spoutings," which were of such violence as to be distinctly audible from where we stood, were vivid reminders of the vigorous geyser displays of New Zealand or of the Yellowstone Park.

"Perfectly grand! Simply stupendous!" ejaculated the Boston girl, who was visibly excited by the novel spectacle. "Yes," chorused her Peruvian friends, "maravilloso! Estupendo!"

Shortly after these monsters of the deep had passed from our view we were favored with another exhibition of a different character, one that is never visible in all its

splendor except in the regions of the equator. Scarcely had the brief, tropical twilight terminated its existence when there shot up from the ocean a beautiful semi-elliptical figure that the Boston maiden told her companions was the Milky Way. They were of the same opinion. But it was not the Milky Way and it did not resemble it either in form or color or position in the firmament. The Italian engineer, who was present, suggested that it might be one of the great nebulæ of the southern hemisphere. But his statement was wider from the truth than that of the fair Bostonian. Being in doubt about the matter the question was referred to the professor, who had, by consent, been accepted as the arbiter of all disputes. He, too, was as much interested in this splendid phenomenon as any one aboard.

When interrogated as to the nature of the apparition, he replied without hesitation: "It is the zodiacal light, but to-night it is of unusual magnitude and brilliancy."

And so it was. Rising from the western horizon, where the sun had dropped below the ocean's edge, it rose majestically on both sides of the ecliptic until it reached the zenith. In the center was an effulgent cone surrounded by two other cones of gradually decreasing brightness. The middle portion was much brighter than is the galaxy in our northern latitudes,-bright enough, indeed, to eclipse the stars of the lower magnitudes. And unlike the cold, white color of the galaxy, the zodiacal light, as we then saw it, was characterized by a warm, orange-red glow, that resembled somewhat the delicate crimson tints of the aurora borealis. Presently, to the east of it, we saw the rare, mysterious gegenschein, or counter-glow, that seemed to be a faint reflex of the zodiacal light itself. Rising towards the zenith the two luminous bodies seemed to be united by a narrow nebulous band of light.

I had frequently admired the zodiacal light during clear moonless nights, while traveling in the Andean highlands, but I had never witnessed a display comparable in extent

and gorgeousness with that which delighted our astonished gaze during that memorable hour on the South Pacific. It forcibly reminded me of Donati's wonderful comet which, a half century before, had so fascinated my youthful mind, that I was wont to contemplate it for hours with everincreasing interest and delight. One may occasionally see the zodiacal light in our northern climes, after twilight in winter and spring, and before dawn in summer and autumn, but one is never favored by such a magnificent display of light and color as greets the fortunate traveler under the serene heavens of equinoctial zones.

"What a pity our Harvard astronomers cannot behold such a glorious spectacle!" exclaimed the patriotic Boston girl. “It is grandiose, magnificent"-"Yes," echoed the Peruvian señoritas, "grandioso, magnifico."

After stopping at various ports along the coast to take on freight-chiefly cattle, sugar and rice and passengers, we finally arrived at Callao, the port of Lima, five days after leaving Guayaquil. I disembarked here, as I wished to spend a few days in Lima before continuing my journey southwards, my purpose being to visit Bolivia and southern Peru before devoting attention to Lima and the central and eastern parts of the republic.

But, although my first visit to the City of the Kings was of brief duration, it was long enough to permit me to take a trip over the famous Oroya railroad-the most remarkable piece of railway engineering in the world. Its construction is due chiefly to the initiation and tireless energy of that remarkable American railway builder, Henry Meiggs, who seemed to possess the astuteness of a Jay Gould, the foresight and breadth of view of a James J. Hill, and the munificence of a Monte Christo. It is decidedly one of the most interesting achievements of Peru, and one of the first things that the visitor to Lima makes an effort to see.

Thanks to the courtesy of the manager of the Peruvian Corporation, which controls most of the railroads of the

republic, we—a party of four Americans—were able to make the trip over the road in a special train. We were thus able to inspect at our leisure the chief points of interest along the road, and to enjoy the unrivaled scenery in a way that would otherwise have been impossible.

One of the members of the party was a prominent official of Yale University, who has since been appointed to a responsible position under the federal government in Washington. There was also a young married couple from Philadelphia, who were going to take up their residence in a small town in the Cordillera, where there was a large smelter, in which the young husband, who was an electric and mining engineer, was to be superintendent. He had been a noted football player when at college, while the young bride had won high honors at Bryn Mawr, in language and literature. She was a typical American girl, alert, self-reliant, courageous and cultured-fully equipped for any position to which she might be called.

Our train left Lima shortly after six o'clock in the morning, and we were soon in the midst of the sugar and cotton plantations of the Rimac valley, along which the road is built on its way up the steep slope of the mountain barrier which separates the littoral from the lofty plateau in the region of the clouds. While in the lowlands a heavy mizzle-the garua of Peru-precluded a view of the towering barrier before us; but, no sooner had we attained a certain elevation on the foothills, when we suddenly emerged from impenetrable mist into brightest sunshine. Above us was

the lofty Cordillera standing out in bold relief under the full effulgence of the morning sun, while below us, the garua, which resembled an undulating sea, concealed from our view the verdant plantations through which we had just passed. The garua, which covers the coast land like a mantle-rarely rises higher than twelve hundred feet, while its upper surface is usually several hundred feet below this altitude. For this reason it is seen only along the sea coast. Where it prevails, there is a slight drizzle