Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/75

Rh one of the harbor towns which are the termini of the railways leading into the ever-delightful Sierra.

For Peru may be divided into three great parallel bands of country. First the Costa, or coast district, which rises gradually from the sea-board to an altitude of from 1,500 to 2,000 meters on the western slopes of the Andes. Then the Sierra, half mountain and half plateau, with altitudes varying between 2,000 and 4,000 meters. Finally the Montaña, with its forests, which sweeps down to the east of the Cordilleras, stretching toward the Amazon in long slopes which, from 2,000 meters, gradually drop to only 500. Landscape, climate and products are all different in these three zones. The Costa is rich; the Sierra has smiling valleys and a relatively warm climate; the Montana is a veritable ocean of verdure.

Perhaps the most curious thing in this curious country is the variety of its landscape in a relatively small region, for to reach the Sierra one is obliged to scale some of the highest mountains in the world, and that in an equatorial country. In a few hours, one travels through districts where trees of all latitudes and plants of all climates grow and are cultivated side by side. Walnut-trees neighbor with waving palms; beetroot and sugar-cane grow in