frequently observed, at one or two o'clock in the afternoon, three planets, "shining with all their brilliance the same as at midnight"_"brilliant de tout leur éclat, comme au milieu de la nuit." 1

Mount Misti, "whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky," is to Arequipa what Etna is to Catania-what Popocatepetl is to the City of Mexico, and what Fujiyama is to Yokohama-the most conspicuous and the most interesting object in the landscape. It is also to many an ever present menace, and to the Indians in the neighborhood an object of superstitious dread. From the time of the conquest, it was regarded as a dormant volcano, although it was frequently the center of violent earthquakes that wrought great devastation in Arequipa, and in the neighboring villages. In 1868, however, there was a terrific eruption, accompanied by an earthquake of such violence that the work of three hundred years in Arequipa was laid in ruins in a few minutes.2

Misti is about eighteen thousand five hundred feet high, and during the greater part of the year its summit is mantled with snow. On each side of it, at some miles distant, is a lofty peak also usually snow-capped. Misti is regarded as the high-priest, and the other two are considered his acolytes. Miguel del Carpio, a poet of Arequipa, has well described it in the following verses:

"Immensa mole, que del Dios eterno

Ostentas el poder, volcan terrible,

Que abrigas en tu seno al mismo Infierno;

1 Géographie du Peru, p. 279, Paris, 1863.

2 Perez de Torres, who traveled in Peru the latter part of the sixteenth century, informs us that it was the custom of the Indians living near Arequipa to propitiate El Zopay-the spirit of the volcano-by casting ten or twelve young maidens into the crater every year. This custom they were compelled to abandon after the arrival of the Spaniards, but, whenever there was an eruption of a volcano after that, the Indians declared it was in consequence of the anger of the Zopay at not receiving his annual tribute of youthful victims. Historiadores Primitivos de Indias, por Andres Gonzales Barcia, Tom. III, p. 12, Madrid, 1749.

Y que el dedo invisible

Del miedo y del terror siempre mostrando,

Al pueblo de las Gracias y de las Risas

En tus calladas iras tiranizas! 1

1 "Immense mountain, that of the eternal God dost show forth the power, terrible volcano, that holds within thy bosom Hell itself, and which, ever pointing the invisible finger of fear and terror at the people of Graces and Laughter, dost tyrannize them in thy silent wrath!"

CHAPTER IX

THE CRADLE OF THE INCAS

After a delightful visit to Arequipa we started for the far-famed lake of Titicaca, the traditional cradle of the Incas. Although the distance between the two points is little more than two hundred miles, it took the train more than twelve hours to make the run. This was caused by the heavy grades and the numerous sharp curves along the greater part of the road.

A few hours after leaving Arequipa I noticed that a number of the passengers were preparing for a siege of soroche-mountain sickness. Some of them were taking all the precautions adopted by people inclined to sea-sickness, when they cross the English Channel. They wrapped themselves in cloaks and lap-robes to keep warm, and assumed a reclining posture, in order to be as comfortable as possible while crossing the crest of the western Cordillera. Many sucked oranges and sweet lemons, as they contended that the juice of these fruits is a prevention of soroche. Others, in imitation of the Indians, chewed coca leaves, which they claimed to be a specific against the dread malady. In spite, however, of all precautions, many were quite ill before they reached Crucero Alto, the highest point on the line. The road here attains an altitude of more than fourteen thousand five hundred feet, which, next to the Morococha, is the highest elevation attained by any railway in Peru.

Personally, I felt no ill effects whatever in consequence of the diminished pressure, and had I not constantly consulted my barometer, I should not have realized that I was traveling in such great altitudes. The air was dry

and crisp, but I was scarcely conscious of its increased rarity. And, although the temperature was considerably reduced near the summit of the range, I never suffered from the cold as I did at much lower altitudes in Ecuador, a thousand miles nearer the equator. One reason for this was the almost total absence of wind in the Peruvian sierras, at the time of our passage, which was in marked contrast with the boreal blasts we had to endure in the open cars on the chilly tablelands circling the base of Chimborazo.

The country through which the railroad passes is but sparsely inhabited and is desolate in the extreme. There are a few small villages here and there, occupied chiefly by hardy Indians who manage to eke out a precarious existence-it is difficult to see how-but who seem to be as much attached to their ichu-thatched adobe huts as are the Swiss mountaineers to their Alpine cottages.

This elevated and inhospitable region of the Cordillera is known in Peru as the puna and corresponds to the paramo of Colombia and Venezuela. It is barren and frigid and unpeopled, except along a few water courses and around the shore of certain lakes. Here one will find an occasional shepherd tending his flock of hardy alpacas or seeking pasture for a few half-famished llamas. In the lakes one may sometimes see small flocks of water-fowlusually certain species of wild ducks and geese-but, outside of these, the only animals that seem at home in these bleak and dismal regions are the mountain-loving condor and the fine-fleeced, liquid-eyed vicuña-the graceful cameloid mammal, whose delicate wool was so highly prized by the Incas of old, that the use of its fleece by those not of the blood royal, was forbidden under penalty of death.

We reached Puno, a small town on the west shore of Lake Titicaca, about an hour after sunset, and immediately boarded the steamer that was to take us to Guaqui in Bolivia. Instead, however, of starting at once, according

to schedule, we did not get under way until early the next morning.

The remarkable thing about our steamer was the fact that it had been put on the lake before the railway was built. The material and the machinery employed in its construction were actually brought from the Pacific on the backs of men and animals, and, so great was the labor and expense involved that, it is said, the craft, when completed, cost its weight in silver. The cost of the vessel before she was launched must, indeed, have been enormous. Since the completion of the railroad from Mollendo, several other larger steamers have been put on the lake and they transport all the freight and passengers between Puno and Guaqui, as well as most of the traffic that is destined for the larger towns on the shores of the lake.1

In many respects, Lake Titicaca is the most remarkable body of water in the world. There are smaller lakes that have a greater altitude, but for a large, nåvigable body of water, it is quite unique. Its average width is thirty-five miles and its length one hundred and ten. Its area, consequently, is about fifteen times as great as that of Lake Geneva and nearly equal to that of Lake Erie. But this is only a small fraction of what it was during recent geologic times. Then it covered more territory than is now occupied by Lake Nyanza or Superior, and was, when its waters drained into the Amazon, the largest reservoir of the largest river in the world. It was then, too, much deeper than it is at present, although it still has, according to

1 The two largest steamers on the lake are of one hundred and fifty tons burden, with fifty-horse-power engines. Including their transportation on the backs of mules from the Pacific, they are said to have cost the Peruvian government a million soles, an immense sum for such small craft. Although the projectors of steam navigation on Lake Titicaca had great difficulty in getting their vessels on its waters they did not encounter therein those large masses of loadstone which Padre Blas Valera, a contemporary of Garcilaso, said existed there and which, he averred, would, like the magnetic mountain of the Calender in the Arabian story, render navigation impossible. 2 The picturesque lakes, called Lagunillas, near Crucero Alto, are a third of a mile higher than Lake Titicaca.