bears comparison with that of any other line entering the capital. The Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway is becoming increasingly popular, for people desiring to see the world now travel from "B.A." across the pampas, over the Andes, and so down to Valparaiso in Chili, where steamers can be obtained to take them up to Peru, Panama, and San Francisco. Leaving "B.A.," the train runs for some twelve hours across an extensive plain which is far from indicating to the traveller the great mountain ranges which will surprise him later on. Across this plain the lines of the railway extend in an absolutely straight line from Vedia to Makenna, a distance of 175 miles, which is the world's record. Near the first-mentioned station the railway curves in the form of an S; without this, the stretch on the straight would have been 206 miles long. Although the pampas are occasionally marked by undulations and small green-covered slopes, the first notable elevations are not encountered until Mercedes is reached. These are the San Luis hills, the outposts of the Cordillera. Passing on the western side of this chain the picturesque city of San Luis is reached. As the traveller approaches the Cordillera of the Andes he finds himself in a district topographically distinct but always fertile, and watered by canals fed by the Tunuyan and Mendoza rivers. The view of the Cordillera in the early morning is a spectacle worthy of admiration. At a distance of one hundred miles before arrival at Mendoza the interminable chain of the Andes, with its snow-capped peaks mingling with the clouds, is distinguishable. As the train approaches their imposing grandeur becomes more and more evident. Another of the views which delights the tourist, and makes the business man think, is that of the smiling vineyards extending on both sides of the line in a delightful prospect until lost on the horizon.[B] [B] Subsequent chapters describe Mendoza and the author's personal experience during a trip into the Andes. From Mendoza the line runs across the Andes by the Uspallata Valley route, the only transcontinental line in South America. What the Suez Canal and the Trans-Siberian Railway have done for the Far Eastern trade, the Transandine Railway is achieving for transcontinental traffic in South America by giving rapid communication between the two South American Republics--reducing the journey between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso from thirteen and a half days to thirty-eight hours--and thereby cementing closer commercial relations and developing trade with the Far East.