IN LATIN AMERICA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 107, 13 January 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

IN LATIN AMERICA

A NEW ZEALAOTR'S NOTES.

Mr. Gore Adams, formerly of Welling' ton, and now administrator of the Compania Estanifera de Llalagua, Bolivia, writes to Wellington friends most interestingly of his experiences in South America. Here is a note on travel , from Buenos Ayres to Santiago de Chile, through the Andes:— "We are travelling in the train over the pampas all day, from Buepos Ayres to Mendtea. And the train is like a a small boat in mid-ocean. The land stretches level and lonely to the horizon. What a wonderful country, this; Herds of trousands and l tens of thousands of cattle, and horses by the thousands, in droves.. The grass is brilliantly green, and it stretches faT, far away to where the earth dips down, down to the sun, rising or setting. They tell me that the soil is bottomless, and that anything will grow. Droughts? Oh, yes; they have droughts in the Argentine; but irrigation is changing all that, and the lie of the land makes irrigation easy, for there is a gentle fall from the Andes down to the mouth of the great River Plato. "'On the train we sleep and eat. The food is essentially Spanish, in other words, greasy, but it is good. Meals 'work out at '3s 6d per head, and one knife and fork has to do for all courses. In blissful ignorance 1 consult the timetable, and figure out that the journey from Buenos Ayres to Santiago is done in forty hours. So it could be; but then 'that would cut out the stay at Inca; so we take 69 hours. At Inca the hotel is owned' by the trans-Andine Railway Company, so for the good of the house, we have an unnecessary wait at Inca for at least 24 hours. The hotel charges are 17s 6d a head for each passenger, so that the company ought not to lose by it. English people, of course, always growl—and pay. But not only the English.' There were Spanish, Italians, Frenchmen, colonials and other nationality on the train, and I never heard such polyglot grumbling in my life. Instead of reaching Santiago at 1.15 on Monoay we arrived at 11.15 on Tuesday. "Santiago, the capital of Chili, lies ia one of the most beautiful and spaci«U« valleys in the world.' It is fruitful land. Grapes, cots and strawberries grow in the oj&n. All is green everywhere, and so cool and restful to the eye. "While there is so much room, and the city is so spread out, the streets axe very, narrow, and the footpaths even more so. Everyone walks in single file, like Chinamen. The streets are cobbled, as in the old Spanish days. Electric trams run in the city, nevertheless, and the fares are M any dis u tance first-class and' %d for secondclass. Vicinal horse trams connect it the terminal®. One I travelled on amuseil me much. It jogged along till it met another car; and then we all changed. The horses were turned round, and the cars were hauled hack whence they started. How the ricketty cars held together, so old were they, passed my understanding. When they are derailed, as they often are, in the course of the journey, the passengers get out and lend a hand to get them on the lines again. There is always some portion of the line under repair, and here again passengers all alight to give the car a chance.

"Santa Lucia is- the name given to a very beautiful wooded knoll. It was beautified by drunkards. In the old Spanish days there was a Governor who punished topers by making them build this ibeautiful memorial to their folly. Rich and poor alike who looked too long and lovingly on the cup were condemned to help the building up of Santa Lucia, and their posterity can how thoroughly enjoy the fruits of their forced labor. Every 'drunk' had' to'work a week on the mount. There were no fines. It ia a lovely spot to look upon. From one end of Santiago to the other runs the Alameda —an aVenue four miles long. Trees are planted down the centre, making a moM delightful promenade. On either side of the trees run broad roads, and the irrigation waters flow by the side of the trees. ■ "Earthquakes are for in Santiago' by hinging the station roof. It spreads over the station like an opened book, with a hinge in the middle and hinges at the edges. When the earth moves there is give and play in the vast roof.

"Old and new Chili jostle one another in the streets. The cumbersome ox dray—the beasts yoked by the hornsrumbles noisly over the cobbles with the silent pneumatic tyred automobile or dapper brougham alongside) 'Barefooted, swarthy peons rub sfcotilders with people dressed in the latest fashions that Paris dictates. Mud hotels are to be found' erected close to extremely beautiful buildings in stone. to bfi 'on the Alamedft. ' It is amazing to one where wealth is fairly evenly distributed, as in New Zealand, to see the affluence and poverty of Chili. But the poor peans are usually of a happy temperament. "The 'country is remarkable for its verdure. I went away into the Cordillera on mining business, and the journey was remarkable for the dust of the roads and the refreshing green of the vast plain. The poplar flourishes here as I have never seen it flourish elsewhere. The trees are used to divide up the land into great paddocks. As for the dust, it was the most insinuating sort I ever met with. One breathed dust. It enveloped the horses behind which we sat so that at times we could not see them. It deadened the sounds of their hoofs, and the wheels made no noise as we trundled along. Green and gold was the color scheme of the plain beneath us as we made our way up to the Cordil* "On the higher lands the vegetation was sparse, prickly and uncompromising. Giant cactus—flag flowered—abounded. Water, admirably distributed over the plain, made all the difference between its fertility and the barren face of the hill country." In Bolivia Mr. Adams is away up in the mountains. In parts of this hill country it is very barren and lonely. It is a region of silence, too. The temperature closely approximates that of the Antarctic. But there are precious metals there, for in ancient days the Indians mined there, and then came the Spaniards. One place Mr. Adams visited had the significant name of Sepulteras. _ A curious survival of Spanish ways is to be seen in the costumes of the peasantry, who unconsciously keep the hated memory of the Conquist green by wearing clothes that took their patterns from the Spanish of centuries ago. Saints' days and other days are strictly observed in Bolivia as legitimate reasons for not doing any more work than is necessary to keep body and soul to- , gether and with a, little over to save up fox the next holiday.