Deseret Weekly | 1898-07-02 | Page 3 | Steam Boating Above the Clouds

ABOVE THIS CLOUDS IMS 1898 by frank 0 car fw penter e bolivia may 31 1898 mb tang above the clouds float calmly over the highest navigable waters e of the globe sailing under the glacial al snows of the loftiest loft iest peaks of e andes so near the sky that heaven ida earth meet close aroun around d you and etke e you think you are on the vex deiy y qt f of the world this is what I 1 have n doing for the last day and night m like lake Titi caca As you read this jr r you will be sweltering under tho sun ion of an american summer it is 9 winter upon lake Titi caca a I 1 wet winter during half the year t A cold dry winter during the re at some times the winds a the andes sweep over the waters ra blizzard and at others it is as to its as the dead sea in midsummer air Is now as fresh as a sea breeze i is in cold and bracing but so rare that cannot walk fast without my heart ingup into my throat some of nl d win will soon be going to mount hington to avoid the heat beat of the ty this great lake Is more than rae ats aft high up in the air as the top to 1 mount washington and it is abod mid scenery which is infinitely grand some of you will spend spena upon our great lakee this lake is almost as big as lake erie it has a greater average depth than lake superior and its scenery is a combination of that of lakes lucerne and geneva in switzerland and of our own beautiful lake champlain our great lakes freeze over during the winter Titi caca never freezes I 1 have written of the skies of the andes those of Titi caca have all of the beauties of the andean heavens combined with others peculiarly their own I 1 cannot give you ane sense of loftiness one feels here the clouds rise up about the shores of like walls upon which a canvas of heavenly blue fits closely down so that you feel that beyond those walls there I 1 are mighty depths and that if you should sail through them you would drop into space the air is so cleaf that you can see tor for miles leaving puno peru I 1 was shown the sacred blue island of Titi caca fifty miles milea away and soon other islands came into view which seemed to float upon the waters as though they were balloons or balls and not the of the highest mountain chain of our hemisphere one island I 1 remember rose out of the waters in the shape of a gigantic mushroom of soft blue velvet another looked like a mammoth whale whose head and tall tail stood out high above the water these were optical illusions due to the peculiarity of the atmosphere but they were phenomena which I 1 have never seen upon other waters you know of lake Titi caca from your 1 ge geographies they tell you it lies in the andes about half way between the esth isthmus mug of panama and cape horn feet above the ses sea they represent the lake as oval in shape and state that it is miles long fifty seven miles wide and that it has an area of square miles some of these statements are true others are all conjecture the lake has in reality never been carefully surveyed it has great bays which have never been sounded and it winds in and out in places like a river giving a succession of beautiful scenes of islands mountains and coast in crossing from peru to bolivia we sailed a distance of miles over water which was in many places the captain said more than 1000 feet deep lake superior has I 1 believe an average depth of something like feet 8 some ome parts of the bottom of have never been reached and the captain told me that if he should land upon a certain parts of Titi caca island he would have to cast his anchor high upon the rocky shores as the waters which wash them are so deep that the grappling hooks could not reach the bottom think of a body of water like this at an altitude of more than two miles above the sea let it be more than miles from the ocean in a basin which next to thabet is the loftiest loft iest inhabited plateau of the world remember that you must cross a mighty desert and climb on the railroad over a pass which to is nearly three miles above the sea to get to it and I 1 you have a slight idea of the wonders of lake Titi caca you must add however that while it is fed by the i snows and glaciers of the And Andes esit lt has itself no visible outlet to either ocean nine rivers flow into it but only one carries oft off any part of its waters this is the desaguadero which connects it with its little sister lake known as lake loopo which lies hes about miles further south in this same bolivian 1 plateau the desaguadero has in ups this distance a fall of feet it is a rush ing turbulent stream large enough to be navigated by steamers for a part of its length it carries off a large vol ume of water but lake loopo has no outlet to the sea and notwithstanding this drain lake Titi caca remains at the same level whether the season be wet or dry year in and year out the steamboats which sail upon lake Tit kitlaca laca might be called the steamers of the heavens they sall sail at times in and out of the clouds and they are nearest the sky of any cratt craft on earth think of lifting an tran iron ship of tons over a pass higher than the top of peak this is what was done with the steamer choya upon which I 1 am now writing the ship was made in scotland and brought to mollendo Mol lendo in pieces here it was loaded upon the cars and carried over the andes to puno it was there put together and it now sails as well and furnish its passengers with as comfortable accommodations as any steamer of its size on american waters it is as beautiful as a gent lemans yacht and it oan can make twelve knots an hour without trouble it is propelled by a screw and its fuel is australian str st ralian allan coal which is brought over more than miles of water and lifted on the railroad over the andes to puno at the edge of the lake by the time it reaches the ship the coal costs costa about 25 in gold per ton but the traffic on the lake is so great that the steamers I 1 am told pay for themselves wany many times over A large part of the freight of bolivia goes to the markets of the world via ChUl laya and puno over lake Titi caca and the railroad iral to the seaport of mollendo Mol lendo cargo is brought for hundreds of miles to this point upon mules and on steamer days it is not uncommon to see a thousand mules being loaded and unloaded here in 1895 more than worth of 0 imports came into bolivia by way of at lake Titi caca and more than worth of bolivian goods were shipped out there are now steamers once a week from puno to Chil ilaya and return fe and nearly all passengers ana freight to and from la paz which to 16 you know the biggest city and the commercial capital af f bolivia go over aver this route I 1 am now on M my wa way y to la paz the city Is about forty five miles or almost a days ride by stage from here and all baggage freight and passengers are carried there by horses or mules the united statte mail all for bolivia is brought across lake Titi caca and carried with other foreign mail on a wagon to la I 1 tried to bribe the mall mail carrier carmer to take me with him today but the weight ot the mall bags was 1600 pounds and he be said that this was wag all his hie eight horse team could haul on the gallop and that I 1 must wait for the stage of tomorrow the ship in which I 1 crossed lake Titi caca is the largest and finest of thet the fleet there are three other steamers belonging to the peruvian corpora corporation llop or english syndicate which has the monopoly of the traffic and in addition they have little ite steamers amers which bring copper silver and tin up the besag badero river from the rich mining region of oruro the Titi caca steamer line was founded by the peruvian gov ren anent as a part of its transportation system which as I 1 have said before was the most expensive ever planned or built the first steamers cost more than their weight in silver they were made in england and shipped to the peruvian coast and thence mence carried on the backs of men and mules over the andes it was ten years after the ships were landed on the coast before they got to the lakes and the english engineers drew salaries during the delay while bossing the job one ona of the larger ships was afterward cut in two and a section of shun hull fifty feet long inserted this work was done by tw the ra railroad shops at arequipa and this the ship so lengthened is used on the lake today the smaller steamers ate amero ply to aad from from the lesser ports parts they visit most of the towns upon the coast rd and carry freight and passengers to the numerous islands lake a has many beautiful islands the most of them are rocky ragged mountain peaks which have their bodies under the water and a thin coating of soil on the rocks above it eight of the islands are inhabited and these are cultivated to the very tops of the mountains it if the states could be as carefully tilled as the parts of peru through which I 1 have trae traveled led where every available bit of land is used it would I 1 believe furnish enough food for all of the people of the world and leave enough grain left to ighut the chicago markets during a corner on wheat patches of soil as big as a bed quilt are surrounded with stones and carefully tilled bits of land between the rocks are green with scanty crops of potatoes barley and quinoa which are about the only things that will grow at this altitude and you see people working on the sides of hills where they almost have to hold on with one hand while they rude little hoes of this part of the world with the other this grubbing for a bare existence goeson over the greater part of the plateau in which lawe Titi caca lies it is the plateau which formed the chief center of the inca civilization which prevailed here when the spaniards came lake Titi caca was the center of civilization generations older than that of the incas and upon its shores still stand ruins so old that the incas could not tell the spaniards anything about them and only said that the mighty monuments were made by a race of giants who lived about this lake before the sun appeared in the heavens these ruins are those which lie near the little town they cover an area of about three miles grilles and con alst of the remains of massive walls terraced mounds and the ruins of a great edifice which is sometimes called the temple this building covered about four acres and it was made of e blocks of black stone each t thirty hirty inches thick the stones like those of the famed buildings oi of cuzco were fitted together without mortar and were so carefully laid that it was im possible to insert a knife blade between them from these ruins some of the most curious archaeological relies relics have been taken many of the most valuable having been secured by prof adolfe bandolier bandoleer Ban dolier who is spending his life in this region as the collector tor for the new york museum professor bandolier bandoleer Ban dolier has made many new discoveries and investigations about lake Titi caca and he to is inclined to believe that the most of what has jeen been published bout about some parts of this region is almost pure fiction he had ha spent months upon wand island which some authorities claim was the garden of E bided ded of the inca mythology the spot upon which their adam and eve first lived upon earth and from which they started out to found cuzco and build up the race A cording according to this theory our first parents were the children of the sun there were two of if them manoo capac and mime mama oello chis sister wife on zi this account so 80 says squier who to ie one of the authorities on lake the incas considered this lake and especially Titi caca island holy they built their temples here had wonderful palaces and even brought soil to the island from the mainland in order that corn might be grown upon the island this corn so says flays one jone of the old chroniclers who professor bandolier bandoleer Ban dolier thinks bad a very lively imagination alon was considered so sacred that when a grain of in was put in oab of the public Waxe warehouses houses it sanctified I 1 i and preserved all other grains and it wim was also said that a man M who could have as much as an one grain of Titi caca island corn in his storehouse would not lack for food during his lifetime there are today nany many ruins on Titi caca island and the wry bwy rock on which manco capac and his sister gister wife stepped when they first I landed from the sun is shown this i rock says the same chronicler was once plated with gold and kept covered with a veil the inhabitants of indians who are said to be descendants of the tribes who were so 90 numerous about lake Titi caca years ago they live in little huts of mud or ar stone I 1 thatched with straw and show no signs of having had gorgeous temples or the more extensive civilization which they possessed when the incas were their masters they are catholics and axe are superstitious in the extreme how would you like to sail over lake erie in a boat made of straw I 1 can see a dozen straw boats from where I 1 am writing some of them are filled with people and one has a mule a L donkey and a lama in it in addition to its human freight the captain of each boat is an indian who stands up az as he poles the boat along there is a boat over there which has a straw sail and which is skimming along over the waves those boats are of the curious craft known as balsas they have been in use upon this lake for more than four hundred years and were found here when the spaniards came until the steamers were brought in they carried all the freight on the lake and they do a large business today I 1 can hardly imagine anything which looks more insecure I 1 tried to ride on one of them yesterday and was surprised to find that I 1 was not turned out into the water these balsas are made of reeds which grow in great quantities on the banks of the lake and they are in fact rafts formed of rolls of reeds reeda so BO tied and woven together that they keep out the water only a roll of reeds about ahe he top of the belsa balsa keeps the pass passengers engert in and they must sit flat on the floor these reeds are also used for making bridges hopeb and baskets the people roof their houses with them and they are almost al as important I 1 m plants to them as the bamboo is to th the e chinese much of the freight that Is brought to lake Titi caca is on llamas the word is pronounced yah mah these animals are to a great extent the freight wagons of the andes you see them by the hundreds everywhere on the Titi caca plateau I 1 f found them loaded with silver ore at the mines in the mountains of central peru and saw thousands of them feeding upon the pampas over which I 1 crossed on my way here herb they axe are the most graceful beasts I 1 have ever seen they walk along the road with their little heads high up in the air and seemed to tread as though they owned the earth they have heads like a eamel bodies like a sheep and feet and legs much like a deer they are not sulky looking like the camel and are far more aristocratic in their actions when you load a camel he be cries like a baby the tears roll down his cheeks and as he marches off he pouts and groans and groans the llama carries his burden with a proud air and pricks up his ears dars for all the world like a skye terrier at every new thing he sees he will carry only so much and the usual load f for or a llama Is pounds if you put on more he does not cry or groan but calmly kneels down and will not move until the load Is lightened if you make him angry he does not bite you as does the camels camel he merely shows his contempt by spitting upon you I 1 would rather be kicked by a government mule than be spat upon by a llama he chews his cud like a cow cow and nag has a special reservoir vai somewhere in his anatomy well stored for such an occasion A llamas llama 0 spittle smells smalls worse than the weapon of the polecat if