Tropical America . in the air. At SanMateo there are magnificent mountain prospects at anelevation of 10,530 feet. In fourteen and one-half milesthere is a descent of 2742 feet by a series of long curvesand zigzags. Below Matucana there are two completespirals by which the car successively reaches pointsdirectly below each other. Here was the object lessonby which railway engineers profited in constructing theSt. Gothard and other Alpine lines. At Verrugas the hand-car was switched off on asiding and abandoned. The brook at the bottom of theravine is ordinarily a thin, silvery stream; but when
Tropical America . in the air. At SanMateo there are magnificent mountain prospects at anelevation of 10,530 feet. In fourteen and one-half milesthere is a descent of 2742 feet by a series of long curvesand zigzags. Below Matucana there are two completespirals by which the car successively reaches pointsdirectly below each other. Here was the object lessonby which railway engineers profited in constructing theSt. Gothard and other Alpine lines. At Verrugas the hand-car was switched off on asiding and abandoned. The brook at the bottom of theravine is ordinarily a thin, silvery stream; but whena cloudburst occurred a year before, the gorge, with itsprecipitous walls, was suddenly converted into a highflood, which swept down upon the bridge, the mostconspicuous work of engineering on the line so far asit is completed. The bridge had three iron piers, thecentral one being 252 feet high, with the span of thechasm, 580 feet in width. The torrent carried awaythe middle pier and with it a mass of wreckage. For. THE EAINLESS COAST 185 several months traffic was suspended beyond Verrugas,and mules were put on the road to Chicla. Then Yan-kee ingenuity devised a method of surmounting theobstacle of the broken bridge. Cables were swungacross the chasm, and a small car working on pulleyswas attached to them. As our party of seven approachedthe side pier a hanging platform, with two braceshooked to the pulleys, was in use for transferringfreight from one bank to the other. There was notime for substituting the regular passenger box for thisrough contrivance. We scrambled up, and were swungacross the chasm, the hanging platform tilting with theload. The most serious traveller of the party couldnot help smiling over the drollery of this swinging rideover a dangerous gorge, and every one breathed moreeasily when the wheels ceased to move and the opencage could be emj^tied. A second hand-car was thentaken, and the journey down the mountains was con-tinued to San Bartholom^, and then
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