between mine and seaport. Pica is the largest town along the mountain front, and a branch line but 14 miles long would put it in touch with the port of Iquique via the Lagunas-— Iquique nitrate railroad. Yet that short line has not been built and probably will never be built. Only exceptionally rich ores can make possible the costly transportation by carts and mule packs to the coast. The latter means are not found generally successful today with competing mines more favor- ably located with respect to railroads. ‘The mines back of ‘Taltal, for a long time exporting their ores by cart to the sea- board, had to be abandoned when the mountain railroad from Antofagasta to Oruro was completed. Before any railroads had been built, or at least only a few completed, competition between pack train and railroad could be sustained; but with the active extension of the railroads in South America only those mines that are on or near a railroad can survive. The remote, isolated, self-dependent, desert village is therefore a permanent feature. Vhe traveler of a century hence will still find certain groups unaffected, in the main, by the industrial development of the mines and the nitrate deposits of the desert of Tarapacd. The bells in the churches of Caspana, San Pedro de Atacama, and Chiuchiu bear dates of the seven- teenth and cighteenth centuries and have served a line of people whose life has come down from earlier centuries almost as unchanged as the peals of the bells that have ushered out the successive generations.[1]
In spite of the disagreeable odors and filthy sights one sees about these desert towns, one's first and last impression of them is enduringly pleasant. From the desert trail, long, hot, and deep in dust, their inviting gardens are seen many leagues away, and at night a tower light on a commanding hilltop guides the traveler to their hospitable gates. Rows of re- freshing orchard trees, neat squares of vegetable gardens, and a life-giving stream with clustering houses—that is the picture. In the twilight of morning and evening the strong
- ↑ Alejandro Bertrand: Memoria sobre la esploracién 4 las Cordilleras del Desicrto de Atacama, Anuario Hidrogr. de la Marina de Chile, Vol. to, 1885, pp. 1-299; reference on pp. 288-289.
