At Mollendo, the last Peruvian port, there is a railway that runs to La Paz, the capital of the inland republic of Bolivia. It is a surf-lashed port where vessels are sometimes unable to land their passengers and freight. In fact the landing is through a “sort of Niagara Gorge gateway of rock, which gives to the mere landing some of the noise and a good deal of the excitement of a rescue at sea.” It takes three days’ travel to reach La Paz from Mollendo, as the train only runs by day. The first stage of the trip, as far as Arequipa, is over an almost trackless desert, where the wind piles the sand up in movable half-moon heaps. The sand-storms of the centuries have covered everything with these whitish particles, and the dusted peaks and hillocks stand out without relief of any kind. The second day brings the traveller to Lake Titicaca, the sacred lake of the Incas, which is crossed by boat, and a side trip will take the traveller to Cuzco, the capital of the Inca confederacy. Lake Titicaca is the highest and one of the most wonderful lakes in the world. It is larger than all the lakes of Switzerland together, and lies in a hollow two and one-half miles above the waters of the ocean. Lying in a peaceful valley, in a scene of desolate grandeur, where the trees are stunted and only a few of the hardiest plants survive, lies La Paz. The City of Peace, its name indicates, but this city has been the scene of turmoil and strife entirely foreign to its name ever since the Spaniards invaded these solitudes. Bolivia is another Tibet—one of the highest inhabited plateaus in the world, as well as one of the richest mineral sections. In no part of the world, perhaps, is there such an abundance of life in sea and air as along the coast of Peru. Soon after leaving Callao the tedium of the voyage is relieved by the flight of millions upon millions of birds. There are gulls, ducks, cormorants, divers of all kinds and great pelicans with huge pouches under their bills. The sea is as animated as the air, and schools of fish, innumerable in numbers, may be seen darting through the water with their fins showing above its surface. Danger besets them from above and from beneath. The divers poise on wing every few minutes and then drop suddenly into the sea like a flash. For a few seconds they disappear beneath the surface, and then reappear with a fish in their bills. The lumbering and stately pelicans drop with a mighty splash that sends up a dash of spray. These greedy birds continue this foraging process until their pouches are so filled with fish that they are unable to rise out of the water until the load is digested or they disgorge themselves. The seals and sea lions keep themselves as busy as the birds, and constantly display their sinuous and shiny bodies above the surface, as they pursue the fish or come up to breathe.