Notwithstanding its comfortable beds, wash-stands, and billiard-table, we were glad enough to leave the hotel at Challapata and take the train for Oruro. Our only regret was that we had to say good-by to old Fermin whose faithfulness in his care not only of the mules but of ourselves, had made us grow very fond of him. We gave him a little gratuity which he almost immediately offered to Mr. Smith in exchange for a cheap silver watch the latter had purchased in Jujuy!

On our way northward to Oruro we got distant glimpses of the saline waters of Lake Poopo that receives the overflow from Lake Titicaca by means of the Desaguadero River but has no outlet of its own. On our right were the low summits of the Cordillera de los Frailes and on the intervening plain was an occasional town with brown huts and a conspicuous church. Once in a while we saw chulpas, so-called “Inca tombs,” really AymarÁ, in which interesting remains are often found. The Ferrocarril Antofagasta-Bolivia, a very narrow-gauge road constructed and managed by Englishmen, was built to reach the important silver mines of Huanchaca which, in the early ’90’s, exported annually eight million ounces of silver. Once on the plateau, it was an easy matter to connect the railroad with Oruro whose output of silver at that time was about a million and a half ounces. Furthermore, Colquechaca, with an equal output, was only two days away and pack trains could bring the silver readily to the railway.

The road has proved to be a splendid investment, yet Great Britain has never favored Bolivia with much capital. Apart from this line and a small bit of railroad near La Paz, there are almost no British enterprises in the country. It is said that even Ecuador, backward as it is, has twenty times as much British capital as Bolivia, while Argentina has two hundred times as much.

The ride to Oruro was devoid of interest except for a conversation which I had with a distinguished Bolivian physician who had recently come from the eastern provinces where he assured me lay the real wealth of his country. He was most enthusiastic about the possibilities of the Gran Chaco as a region likely some day to be well populated. Although a native of this part of Bolivia, he told me that every time he came back to this altitude, he suffered from soroche or mountain sickness. I was told by several other Bolivianos that they too suffered from soroche whenever they came up from the lower elevation, notwithstanding the fact that the author of a recent book on South America says that the Bolivianos themselves never suffer from this infirmity.

We reached Oruro shortly after dark and were met by a pleasant-faced Austrian hotel proprietor who obligingly put us on board of a mule-drawn tram-car. A few minutes later we stopped in front of the Grand Hotel de Francia y Inglaterra and were back in the civilized world again.

There are two comfortable hotels in Oruro and an excellent Union Club where all nationalities come to enjoy themselves. Besides this, a German club has recently been started. Another feature of Oruro, which we might not have noticed had we approached it from the civilized instead of the uncivilized side of the world, was a rather palatial public billiard-hall or casino where a dozen or fifteen good tables, and an elaborate bar, attracted every evening a crowd of foreign engineers, clerks, and bookkeepers.

The climate of Oruro is cold and forbidding, the thermometer in the shade usually being 50° F. The rainy season commences in November and lasts until March; January and February being the rainiest months. During our summer the weather here is intensely cold and snow-storms are not infrequent. To the west and south of the city are barren hills and the general lack of foliage makes the place rather melancholy, muy triste.

The next morning we crossed the plaza to the fine large government building where the Prefect lives and has his offices. The present incumbent, Dr. Moises Ascarrunz, was most kind and attentive. He received us in state, opened champagne, drank our health and then drove us out in the state carriage to a rifle range where, as it was a holiday, the local sporting club was holding a match.

The Prefect has taken great interest in the club and it has thriven under his patronage. The facilities for rifle practice are excellent, and we saw some

capital shooting. After a light lunch of beer and sandwiches at the pleasant little club house, the Prefect showed us the sights of the town.

In his annual report which was just off the press at the time of our visit, he calls special attention to the bad condition of the postes on the road from Sucre to Challapata! We were not inclined to dispute his criticism.

One day during our stay, a government proclamation was heralded about town in the usual fashion. The local regiment of infantry paraded through the principal streets, stopping at the important corners while the colonel read the proclamation in a loud voice. The colonel seemed so strong and healthy that I was greatly surprised to learn on my return to Oruro a few weeks later that he had been taken down with one of the sudden pulmonary fevers of this altitude and died in less than twenty-four hours.

A pleasant German-American, in charge of the local agency of a large New York commercial house, told us that it was not at all uncommon for a man to get a chill on his way home from an evening party and die the next day of galloping pneumonia. The explanation seems to be that at this altitude (13,000 feet) one needs all the lung capacity one has, as the air is so rare. A congestive chill is followed by such a dangerous loss in the capacity to receive oxygen, that the patient soon succumbs and dies.

The shops of Oruro, as might be expected of a mining city that has been for several years in communication by rail and steam with the outside world, contain a great variety of imported merchandise. One, owned by Spaniards, is devoted almost exclusively to the manufactured products of Spain. Another, owned by a German, contains an indefinite variety of goods “made in Germany.” Two or three book shops contain several thousand volumes of Spanish and French literature, law and medicine. There is also a small public library and reading-room and the city hopes to have a large accession to the number of its books in the near future.

I called on one of the local physicians, not professionally, but because I had heard of a remarkable collection of Bolivian pamphlets and manuscripts that he possessed. One gets so accustomed to shiftlessness and uncleanliness in South America that I could scarcely believe my eyes when I found myself in an office whose spotless white furniture and aseptic glass cases of modern surgical instruments would not have been considered out of place on Madison Avenue. The surgeon had been educated at the Chilean Medical School in Santiago although he was a Bolivian by birth. His collection of manuscripts and prints was an extraordinary one, but I must confess that his up-to-date professional methods interested and surprised me more than his extensive bibliographical learning. After having witnessed unspeakable conditions in the leading hospital of Venezuela at Caracas where, as readers of my “Journal” will recollect, surgeons educated in Paris and New York worked in an operating theatre that had for its motto, “Those who spit are requested not to stand near the table during operations,” I am afraid my views of South American surgery, outside of such cities as Buenos Aires and Santiago, had hitherto been decidedly uncomplimentary.

Oruro owes its importance to valuable silver and tin mines in its vicinity. There are several large smelters on the outskirts of the town, and the offices of a number of important mining companies are to be found here. Certain parts of Oruro are not pleasant places in which to take a walk. In fact, I never felt more uncomfortable in my life than I did on a solitary expedition in which I found myself among a lot of half-drunken miners of all nationalities who were hanging about the doors of a choice collection of grog-shops. The fearless, impudent stare of the AymarÁs was no less unpleasant than the menacing looks of three or four burly Anglo-Saxon miners who had spent their last cent for drinks and were looking for more.

The silver mines have largely been abandoned and the principal industry is connected with the tin deposits. No mines were discovered here until some years after those of PotosÍ and they never produced as much silver, although, during the colonial epoch, they ranked easily second.

Oruro was founded about the time that the Dutch landed on Manhattan Island. In the latter part of the seventeenth century there was already a population of 76,000. In the eighteenth century, the city stood next to PotosÍ in wealth and importance.

Some of the churches still show the marks of that elegance with which they were ornamented during the period of Oruro’s palmy days. There are, however, few remains of any fine edifices. Indeed, we are told by “El Lazarillo” in 1773 that “in this great city one will not encounter a single building that corresponds at all to the immense fortunes which have been spent here, during the past two hundred years, in an excess of parades, shows, games, and banquets.”

When the price of tin went up, a few years ago, Oruro enjoyed a boom. Old buildings were torn down and pretentious new ones begun. Some of them were only partly completed when tin fell and the boom collapsed. The population now is about sixteen thousand, although during the boom it rose to over twenty thousand, of whom more than five thousand were foreigners. A good percentage were Chileans.

Apart from its importance as a mining centre, Oruro has for some time been distinguished as a railroad terminal. A line from here to PotosÍ is planned. A line from Oruro to Cochabamba, on whose fertile valleys Oruro depends for its food-supply, is in course of construction. The Bolivia Railway’s line to La Paz has recently been completed. The road to Antofagasta has been running since 1892.

Oruro is nearly six hundred miles from Antofagasta and the journey used formerly to take three days, for trains were only run by daylight and at slow speed. We found, however, that the roadbed had been improved, although the track was not widened, and a vestibuled train with two compartment sleeping-cars and a restaurant-car can now make the journey from Oruro to Antofagasta in two nights and a day. Three times a week a Bolivia

railway train leaves La Paz in the morning and arrives at Oruro late in the afternoon. Once a week, as soon after the arrival of this train as possible, the new vestibuled train starts for Antofagasta. There is no chance for a through service, for the Bolivia Railway has a meter gauge, while the Antofagasta line is only three-quarters of a meter wide. Furthermore owing to some unfortunate squabble between the railroad companies, the stations are located at some distance from one another, and the traveller must get across the town as best he may.

When the Antofagasta line was completed, Oruro increased in population by leaps and bounds, and the admiring Bolivians called their city the “Chicago of Bolivia.” The only resemblance, however, that I was able to discover was this forced transfer across the city. The streets of Oruro which one has to cross in going from one terminal station to the other are not paved, and the traveller who happens to take the journey in the rainy reason, when the roads are two feet deep in mud, will wish this were Chicago!

The departure of the weekly train for Antofagasta is just as much of an event for Oruro as that of the weekly steamer is for a port in the Hawaiian Islands or the West Indies. Every one who can comes down to the station, and those who can afford it crowd into the restaurant car, order drinks and enjoy the iced luxuries just as the residents of the Caribbean ports do when a mail-steamer calls.

We had been advised by friends in New York not to attempt to use this railway as it was only intended to carry ore and no one cared how many passengers were killed. It did give one a creepy feeling to see a heavy sleeping-car balanced on rails that were only twenty-eight inches apart. It seemed like riding on a monorail and I could not help wondering whether, if the berths on one side of the sleeping-car should happen to be filled first, the car would not capsize. Evidently this thought had occurred to the builders of the car, for by an ingenious arrangement the berths are all in the centre of the car, directly over the rails!

We left Oruro at dusk and during the night passed through Challapata, the end of our mule trip, and Uyuni, where Don Santiago’s stages start for PotosÍ, Tupiza, and La Quiaca via Cotagaita.

The scenery early next morning was not impressive. Before long, however, gigantic volcanic peaks twenty thousand feet high rose into view, one of them, the volcano of Ollawe, emitting a tiny cloud of sulphurous steam that gives a yellow stain to its snow-capped peak. We soon left behind the great sandy tableland of Bolivia, that veritable Thibetan Sahara, and began climbing out of the great plateau through the western Cordillera.

At one of the stations an Indian came aboard the train with a young vicuÑa that he had raised as a pet and which he was taking to be sold to a gentleman in Chile.

About noon we crossed the frontier. Our train was boarded by two officials. One of them was a Bolivian, seeing to it that departing passengers did not take any gold out of the country and violate the law which prevents any exportation of the yellow metal. The other was a polite Chilean customs officer. Their inspection of the luggage was very superficial. In the afternoon, at Ascotan, after crossing a pass thirteen thousand feet high, we commenced the descent and soon reached the banks of that wonderful white sea of borax, glistening like snow in the sun, which has made this region famous.

The mountains were grand and inspiring but we were so tired of seeing barren brown hillsides that we longed for something green, and yet the further we went, the more desolate became the country. We had entered the nitrate region which is part of that magnificent desert that extends for two thousand miles up and down the west coast of South America.

In the evening we stopped for a few minutes at CalamÁ, a small town but important as a nitrate centre. It has a moderately good water-supply which enables it to present an attractive greenness in contrast to the absolute aridity of the surrounding desert. In this region are several mines of silver, gold, and copper.

CalamÁ was the scene of some skirmishing during the revolution against Balmaceda in 1891, but its chief claim to fame rests on a battle that was fought here in the war between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru in 1879, when Bolivia lost her seaport and Chile made a large increase to her territory at the expense of her two northern neighbors. The first thing that Chile did after war was declared was to attack the unprotected Bolivian seaport of Antofagasta. The majority of the population of Antofagasta were Chileans and the small garrison was quite unable to offer any adequate resistance to the Chilean invaders, so the Bolivian authorities retreated at once to CalamÁ. Thither the Chileans sent six hundred men to attack one hundred and forty. Although the Bolivian forces took up a strong position the Chileans had the advantage of superior numbers and won an overwhelming victory. The affair was insignificant except that it destroyed all the hold that Bolivia had on her seacoast.

During the night, we passed through a large number of little stations in the nitrate country. Early the next morning, as the last half hour of the railway journey, came an exciting ride down a steep grade in full view of the beautiful blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. After weeks of everlasting browns, it was a tremendous relief to our eyes to see such an expanse of blue. Of course no green was to be expected in this vicinity. But blue did just as well.

The railroad runs for some distance parallel to the shore back of the town until it enters the terminal station. We had left Oruro Thursday at 6:30 P.M., were in CalamÁ by nine o’clock Friday evening, and reached Antofagasta soon after seven o’clock Saturday morning.

Hardly were we established in a hotel when we learned that the steamer Mexico, of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, was to sail that morning for Valparaiso. We had had no chance to explore the sandy streets and well-stocked shops of Antofagasta, but this was the first steamer to sail for six or seven days and it might be a week before there would be another. Furthermore, there was little to tempt us in this modern seaport with its ugly, galvanized-iron workshops and warehouses. So we decided to board the Mexico as fast as possible.

The harbor was crowded with boats and barges. A few steamers and sailing-vessels were lying at anchor waiting for cargoes of minerals of one sort or another, mostly nitrates and copper.

Antofagasta is a seaport of considerable importance, being the port of entry for a large part of Bolivia and northern Chile. Yet it shares with Mollendo the reputation of being the worst harbor on the west coast of South America. There is little protection against westerly and southerly winds. Even in calm weather there is a considerable swell at the boat-landing.

Once in the boat, however, we were charmed by the gambols of inquisitive sea-lions who thrust their snouts out of the water, a biscuit-toss away from the boat. As a counter attraction great flocks of birds flew in circles overhead looking for schools of fish that swim in this bay. As soon as a school was located, the entire flock of birds would pause an instant and then dive with the rapidity of lightning from the airy height straight into the billows, leaving only a splash of white water to show where they had gone. Another moment and they came to the surface, shook themselves, flapped their wings, and were away again to enjoy another magnificent dive a little later.

I had heard much of the terrors of steamship travel on the West Coast. Passengers who had recently experienced it assured me that it was simply horrible. We must have been very lucky, for we found the Mexico most comfortable and quite as good as one could expect in this part of the world. Of course she was neither so large nor so luxurious as the average trans-Atlantic liner. On the other hand she was not intended to carry luxury-loving travellers three thousand miles over a rough ocean and keep them amused, contented, and well-fed for a week. Her task consists in stopping every afternoon, anchoring in a badly-sheltered bay or an open roadstead, landing passengers, merchandise, and cattle into row-boats and barges, taking on cargoes of hides, coffee, or provisions; and meanwhile acting as a home for itinerant greengrocers whose business it is to provide this two thousand mile desert with fresh vegetables. Furthermore she was built to sail over the comparatively smooth waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean and provide for passengers who are travelling in a climate of perpetual spring and summer. All of this she does admirably.

The staterooms opened onto the promenade deck. There was a well-stocked library of fiction with books in four languages. The Chilean stewards were polite and obliging. Altogether we had little to find fault with. The food might have been a little better, but when one looked toward the land and saw that bleak desert coast continuing for hour after hour and day after day and realized that in the mountains behind it there were even greater desert solitudes, it did not seem surprising that the food was not up to our ideas of what it should be on board an ocean steamer.

Most of the passengers were natives of the West Coast. To them the diet seemed quite luxurious. To us who had come from the postes of southern Bolivia the table fairly groaned with abundance. I can readily believe that a traveller, who, while on his way south from Panama to Lima, has his first South American meals on board of one of these West Coast steamers would find the fare distressingly bad and the boats not very clean. Perhaps the discipline would seem lax and the service execrable. It all depends on one’s point of view.

If one is going to travel in South America at all, it is necessary to make up one’s mind to put up with a lot of this sort of thing. It need only be remembered that these boats are as safe and comfortable as those in other parts of the world, and that they have better accommodations than will be found anywhere in South America outside of half a dozen cities.

The first day after leaving Antofagasta brought us to Caldera. On the second day we reached Coquimbo which seems to be a flourishing seaport. Of course there are no wharves, but the bay is fairly well protected and steamers are able to anchor within three quarters of a mile of the landing-stage. New villas in course of construction on the heights at the south end of the bay testify to the prosperity of two of the leading business men of the place.

Devoted as Coquimbo has been to commercial pursuits, very little attention has been given to making the buildings attractive, and only recently has an effort been made to improve the appearance of the plaza. I visited two book shops in the hopes of getting some local prints and found a recently published anthology of the poets of Coquimbo! The books for the most part were those such as are found in the usual South American book store: French novels, French text-books, a few Spanish novels, and the local legal commentaries and law books.

It is a night’s journey by steamer from Coquimbo to Valparaiso. The temperature was much cooler than we had expected, and grew more so as we neared Valparaiso. To be sure, Valparaiso is as far south of the equator as San Francisco is north and the same general climatic conditions prevail.

The beautiful bay and harbor of Valparaiso have been repeatedly described by enthusiastic visitors for many years. Since the terrible earthquake of 1906, the city has lost much of its beauty, although many of the buildings have been restored and business is going on quite briskly. In the harbor were fifteen or twenty ocean steamers lying at anchor, two or three Chilean men-of-war and two large floating dry docks capable of taking care of the West Coast merchant steamers.

The naval dry dock is at Talcahuano. Although Valparaiso is the principal seaport on the West Coast, there are no wharves. The business section is built on the old beach and on a terrace. The hills rise abruptly from this narrow shelf and the residential district is on the hills. Elevators and trolley-lines connect the upper and the lower city. The railroad station is very near the boat-landing.

The railway fares were very moderate and the officials of the road seemed to us quite courteous and obliging although, during our stay in Santiago, we read in one of the local newspapers a letter from a lady globe-trotter who declared the Chilean railway officials were the rudest and most disobliging that she had found anywhere in the world. Chilean railways have grown tremendously during the past fourteen years. At the time of the revolution against Balmaceda, in 1892, there were barely seven hundred miles; while, at the time of the Scientific Congress, the trackage had increased to three thousand miles of which half is owned and operated by the government. More lines are in course of construction.

Valparaiso is the commercial capital of Chile and her Stock Exchange determines the rate of exchange. The shops of Valparaiso are filled with things that appeal to Anglo-Saxons, for there is a large British colony here.

Perhaps it was natural that we welcomed most eagerly of all the presence of an attractive English book shop where we purchased files of English newspapers and all the recent pictorial weeklies and magazines that we could find. Partly for this reason and partly because we had grown tired of looking at scenery, the four hours’ railroad journey between Valparaiso and Santiago passed without making much impression on us so far as our immediate surroundings were concerned, and almost before we knew it, we had entered the political and social capital of Chile.