The sky was an unbroken vault of blue when we reached Guaqui. A battalion of infantry, out for manœuvres, was lounging upon the wharf, and their neat uniforms, on the German pattern, reminded

ler as Squier calls them the "most enigmatical upon the continent," what guess may a mere searcher for the picturesque dare hazard? Old they are certainly, of a date far preceding the Inca period but

us that we had left Peru and crossed the border to Bolivia. A handsome young Englishman came aboard to meet us, the superintendent of the railway.

The same mighty arm that had smoothed our journey thus far, had reached even across the lake, and, by its ministration, a special car was waiting to take us on to La Paz. It had further been kindly arranged that an engine should take this car immediately to Tiahuanaco, leaving it there until the late afternoon passenger picked it up.

The road lay across a bleak pampa of the Collao. At the end of half an hour or so we stopped at an isolated station.

Few traces of the famous ruins of Tiahuanaco appear at first sight, but upon walking about one is amazed at their great extent. Baffling indeed they remain. Even the most vivid effort of the imagination can do little toward reconstructing them. And if a learned man like Humboldt dare not venture to fathom their mysteries, and such a ripened travelVOL. LIV.-9

what they were, where and by whom quarried, and how transported to their present situation-one monolith is estimated to weigh seven hundred tons-all these are matters of pure conjecture.

Did a member of some Toltec band that wandered southward carve the curious figure that I have sketched, so strangely like those in Central America, or was the stone-cutter a native of these Andean table-lands, some artisan working out his own idea of art expression? An Aymara tradition declares that these sculptured images are the original inhabitants turned to stone for their wickedness by Tunupa, who was unable to reform them. The Aymaras, who, apparently, are oldest of the American peoples, have a curious account of the creation of the world. It asserts that, in the beginning, Khunu, archenemy of man and cause of all his troubles, froze the earth and by continued drought converted fertile plains into sterile deserts, depriving man of all that was necessary to his existence and reducing him to

the level of the lower animals. But Pachacamac, creator of the world, supreme spirit and regulator of the universe, took pity upon the unfortunate human beings, and restored all that Khunu had destroyed. Khunu's anger, however, was again unchained, and he sent a deluge and plunged the earth into utter darkness.

The prayers of the people were heeded and answered by Inti, the sun-god, who rose from Titicaca, his special shrine, to bathe the earth with warmth and light. His efforts were ably seconded by Ticcihuiracocha, who came among mankind to help them, performing miracles as he went, smoothing down the mountains, lifting up the deep abysses, causing crystal waters to gush from the rocks and, above all, instilling in the human heart sentiments of piety, order, and industry. Realizing that gold and silver were the fount of all corruption, he hid them in the depths of the most inaccessible regions or in the flanks of lofty mountains, and by his efforts and those of Tunupa, who followed him, mankind was restored to happiness and progress.

Such is the Aymara's crude account of the creation-a sort of geological allegory, Khunu representing the Glacial period, Pachacamac the restoring forces of nature, and Ticcihuiracocha the changes of the tertiary period.

seum.

We spent some hours wondering at the mighty stones fashioned by these Indians; at their well-cut angles, their hints of sculpture and ornament; the nicety of their joints; the size of their megaliths, and the strange crude carvings in the muOne quadrangular building would seem by its extent to have been a royal residence; there is a flight of monolithic steps, and there are underground passages, well-preserved doorways, and queer upright stones that resemble Alaskan totem poles. We enjoyed, too, a walk through the little modern town, some of whose houses are built of these same pre-Inca stones, and whose church portal is flanked by curious heads unearthed in the ruins.

The ride on to La Paz continues across a bleak level plateau. Half-wild cattle and groups of mules stampede at the train's approach. Indian women, dressed in crude colors, work in the fields of quinoa, the only grain that grows upon these

wind-swept punas. Aymaras in black or red ponchos, silent, aloof, wait at the stations.

If the Quichua Indian is sad, the Aymara is even sadder still, a look of concentrated melancholy resting ever upon his features. Unsocial, gloomy, whole families live together with scarcely, it would seem, a spoken word or a look of affection exchanged between them.

By many this habitual sadness is attributed to their excessive use of coca. And certainly no Aymara is ever seen without his chuspa or bag that contains this, his favorite drug, the delight, the support, and to some extent the necessity, of his life. I found it interesting to watch an Indian prepare to chew. First he makes himself as comfortable as possible, for it seems that, as in the case of opium, quiet and repose are essential to the full enjoyment of the drug. Then he takes his chuspa between his knees, and slowly, one by one, extracts the pale-green leaves, rolling them carefully to form a ball, which he chews until it ceases to emit its juice. Three or four times a day he repeats this operation, the only pleasure of his otherwise monotonous existence.

The effects of coca are varied. Taken to excess it is a terrible vice. Taken in moderation it imparts strange powers of endurance. For example, because of its anesthetic effect upon the mucous membrane of the stomach, it deadens the pangs of hunger to such an extent that Indians under its influence have been known to work for three days without food or other nourishment of any kind. It seems also to lessen the fatigue of their long journeys afoot and give them strength to combat the effects of high altitudes.

Though known to Europeans but recently, the properties of the coca leaf, from which we make cocaine, have long been appreciated by the Andean Indians. To the Incas coca was sacred, mystic. The priests chewed it during the religious ceremonies; it was burnt like incense before the shrines of the gods, and handfuls of it were thrown during sacrifice. Its leaves were put into the mouths of the dead to insure their favorable reception in the next world, a custom that persists even to-day. And in the mines the Indian workmen still throw it upon the veins of ore, believing it

The sun's intensity had gathered up the clouds once more, and off to the westward long curtains of rain obscured the distance. At Viacha, a village fête was in progress. A band was playing over by the public-house, the church was dressed with flags and green boughs, and about the station a large crowd was assembled. A

long dreary journey down to Antofagasta, at present the only other means of communication between La Paz and the coast, stood on the track next us. Two of its coaches were filled with soldiers in charge of German officers, whose Teuton faces and familiar gray uniforms and cloaks looked strangely out of place in these mountain solitudes.

As we left the station the great storm clouds that had been gathering about the mountains shifted a little, drifting just enough to disclose the icy summits and

and, to add the necessary touch to the foreground, at one point two cholos on light-brown mules with white feet came galloping along wrapped in magenta pon

snowy peaks of two of America's greatest mountains, Illimani and Huayna Potosí. So sudden was their apparition, so amazing the grandeur of their structure, so extensive their wilderness of snow, that our eyes never left them as we continued to approach them, appearing first on one side of the train, then upon the other. Their slopes below the snow-line were of an intense blackish blue that formed a dense, rich background to the landscape,

chos with yellow borders-a scheme of color daring yet stunning and worthy of Zuloaga's brush.

We knew that now we must be approaching La Paz, yet no hint of a city lay in the stony fields of this level plateau, stretching apparently unbroken to the Royal Cordillera upon the one hand and to an unlimited distance upon the other. Long trains of little donkeys, heavily laden, watched by their arrieros, and great

majadas of llamas, each carrying its hundred-pound load, were coming from every direction across the plains, and all were trending toward a certain focal point ahead of us. But where could the city be? The train whistled as it rounded a long curve, and suddenly, without warning, at the side of the track a great chasm opened, coming with such abruptness, so unexpectedly, that, breathless, we grasped some firm object for support.

At its far extremity Illimani, lightly

wreathed with clouds, raised its glorious summit, gleaming in all the splendor of its dazzling snow-fields. To the left Huayna Potosí spread its glittering peaks and, cut into the flanks of these two giants of the Andes, seamed and scarred by glacial torrents, deeply eroded, mined by cataracts and rivers, this profound valley has been excavated by the primeval forces of nature. At its bottom, far below us, fifteen hundred feet or more, lay the city of Our Lady of Peace, La Paz, from

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