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 tervening plains are sandy, with steep descents toward the valleys; and horses and men were so parched with thirst that water had to be carried to the amount of 40,000 liters for each day spent in the desert.

In spite of the desperate natural difficulties the Chileans were nearly always successful, for their armies were almost uniformly larger than the armies of the allies, their guns were larger and more modern, and they fought with a fierceness and courage that cannot be overestimated. But the desert was no less difficult for the Peruvians than for the Chileans. Great efforts were made to send relief to the army at Tacna, but desert country intervened, and before relief came the Chileans had reached the place and invested it. Supplies of war were shipped with difficulty by both parties, and the superior mounts of the Chilean cavalry were in themselves a powerful factor in overcoming the desert sands.

It must also be recognized that defeat in the desert is a far different thing from defeat in a fertile country. Time and again when the allied forees (Peruvian and Bolivian) were overwhelmed, the men scattered to the four winds for safety. The desert fought them as fiercely as did the Chileans. In the battle of San Francisco, which secured Iquique to Chile, the success of the Chileans was not defeat to the allies but ruin. The allied army was without food, without stores of any kind, and without a base of supplies. The Bolivians retreated by way of the desert and mountain valleys to the interior; the surviving Peruvians began their retreat at midnight, dragging their guns laboriously over the trackless desert for a distance only to abandon them finally. The Chilean army was 10,000 strong. Against the antiquated guns of the Peruvians they opposed thirty-two long-range field guns and a large force of splendid cavalry. They were also connected with a railroad base, and supplies of water and food were regularly delivered. After three days of terrible heat, hunger, and fatigue, the men were finally brought to the ravinc of Tarapaca, practically