The first port of importance on the coast south of Callao is the town of Mollendo (pronounced _Molyendo_), the western terminus of the railway that furnishes means of communication for Bolivia and the interior of Peru to the sea. It was built in 1876 by Henry Meiggs for the Peruvian Government, at a cost of forty-four million dollars--an enormous average of one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars per mile; for it is only three hundred and twenty-five miles long. Its western terminus is the highest point now reached by steam, being something over fourteen thousand five hundred feet above the sea, although the Oroya road will be higher when it reaches the Cerro del Pasco mines. No other railway in the world can show an equal amount of excavation or such massive embankments, but the Oroya road has more tunnels. The line is now under the management of a Boston man, Mr. Thorndike, and everything is conducted upon the United States plan. Along the side of the track, for a distance of eighty-five miles, is an eight-inch iron pipe, for the purpose of supplying the stations with water, as there is none on the coast; and it is the longest aqueduct in the world, coming from springs in the mountains, seven thousand feet above the sea, to the port of Mollendo. [Illustration: THE OLD TRAIL.] Across a hot, lifeless, desolate desert the railway runs one hundred and seven miles to the city of Arequipa--the name appropriately signifying “a place of rest;” and it is one of the oldest, most celebrated, and beautiful towns in Peru, situated in a small oasis in the desert, rich in its agricultural resources, and surrounded by valuable mines. Just behind the city is as magnificent and imposing a mountain as can be found anywhere in the world--the volcano Misti, 18,538 feet high, and covered with eternal snow. The city was founded by Pizarro in 1540, and has always been second to Lima in size and importance, being the political as well as the commercial capital of the Southern provinces, and the seat of a university which for nearly three hundred years has been the most famous upon the west coast in South America, and has [Illustration: AREQUIPA.] graduated the most eminent scholars and statesmen in the history of Peru.