Considering the magnitude of this scheme, its completion for about £3,000,000 ($15,000,000), or approximately £3000 ($15,000) per mile, is strikingly cheap. This low cost, however, is explicable from the fact that the Turkish military played a very important part in its construction, as many as 5000 soldiers being concentrated on the task at one time. The masonry work, steel bridges and general earthworks were undertaken by labour recruited from all parts, only one bridge and one heavy cutting being built by the troops, who for the most part were occupied in applying the finishing touches to the permanent way and platelaying. CHAPTER X THE HIGHEST LINE IN THE WORLD While Europe offers the most graphic illustrations of the engineer’s skill and ingenuity in overcoming rugged mountains by tunnelling through their bases, one must go to South America to discover the extraordinary methods he has adopted to negotiate similar obstructions by traversing their lofty crests. It seems somewhat strange, at first sight, that the “land of to-morrow” should have been the scene of such demonstrations of genius, but when the incalculable mineral wealth buried in the Andes is recalled, much of this surprise disappears. The majority of the great mountain chains of the world appear puny in comparison with the mighty serrated backbone of the southern half of the American continent, which runs from the equator southwards to tumble abruptly into the sea at Cape Horn. Mont Blanc and other famous hoary European monarchs are insignificant beside Aconcagua and many other snow-clad peaks beetling to the skies in its vicinity. The Cordilleras present a compressed phalanx of pinnacles running in a fairly straight, even, and narrow line. As the equator is approached the needle points taper to bluntly rounded and rolling heads, but the general conformation is the same. The result is that the slopes are very steep, and to carry a railway through the mass entails tortuous winding among the cones, with steep gradients and tunnels through massive obstructions of rock. The cliffs of the Andes are probably unequalled in mountain topography for steepness and height, the flanks in places dropping down plumb for several thousand feet. There is another peculiar characteristic which severely taxes the skill of the engineer. The range thrusts itself skywards very closely to the Pacific seaboard, so that the climb commences directly the coast is left, and the maximum heights have to be gained within comparatively short distances. For instance, in the case of the Oroya line, which is the railway wonder of the world, the traveller landing at Callao, in order to reach Oroya, 138 miles inland, has to toil 15,865 feet towards the clouds in the course of 107 miles--one of the highest points at which the piston of a railway engine throbs.