In the Sta.

Marta Valley, where there was already one line in existence, the people were tractable, and it was only a matter of price.
A commission had been nominated to fix the values, and the difficulty resolved itself into the judicious influencing of the Commissioners.
But in Sulaco--the Occidental Province for whose very development the railway was intended--there had been trouble.

It had been lying for ages ensconced behind its natural barriers, repelling modern enterprise by the precipices of its mountain range, by its shallow harbour opening into the everlasting calms of a gulf full of clouds, by the benighted state of mind of the owners of its fertile territory--all these aristocratic old Spanish families, all those Don Ambrosios this and Don Fernandos that, who seemed actually to dislike and distrust the coming of the railway over their lands.

It had happened that some of the surveying parties scattered all over the province had been warned off with threats of violence.

In other cases outrageous pretensions as to price had been raised.