A PASSAGE OF POLITENESS.
A PERUVIAN CAVALIER.
Horseback riding is a fashionable amusement in Lima, to judge by the number of mounted men that are seen in the streets and in the surrounding country. Our friends learned, somewhat to their disappointment, that it has declined a good deal in the past twenty years, and the gentlemen of Lima are now less renowned than formerly for their equestrianism. Still, there are many excellent riders in Lima, and occasionally one can be seen dressed in the costume that was once universally worn by the Peruvian cavaliers. The fashions of Paris have been adopted by society people in Lima, and the picturesqueness of the old style of dress is fast disappearing.
Lima contains many professional horse-breakers, and they are among the best of their class. Peruvian horses are easily instructed, and many of them perform surprising tricks; one of their feats is to turn around rapidly on the hind-legs when going at full gallop, and another is to jump over a wall, and immediately back again, with their riders on their backs. It is said that an English circus company once came to Lima, but the proprietor and performers were disgusted, and made haste to leave the country, when they found there were many horsemen in the city whocould fully equal all the equestrian feats of the ring.
HORSE-BREAKERS AT WORK.
One of the performances of the horse-breakers is to make a horse jump to the top of a broad wall, and describe a segment of a circle while standing on his hind-feet, and holding his fore-feet over the edge of the wall. He will do this repeatedly, and thus convince the spectator that it was not accidental.
Fred made the following note of the costume of the Peruvian cavalier, uncontaminated by foreign influences:
"He wears aponcho, smaller than that of the country muleteer, and more gaudy in its appearance; it is a fringed shawl reaching to the hips when the wearer is standing upright, and just covering the knees when he is in the saddle. A hole in the centre admits the head, and the shawl hangs gracefully over the shoulders of its wearer; it is more convenient than a jacket, or any other riding-garment, as it leaves the arms perfectly free to move in any direction, and there are no buttons to get loose.
"The colors of the poncho are as varied as the tastes of the owners. Sometimes they are pure white, without any ornamentation, but much oftener they are richly embroidered, or made in varieties of stripes, embracing all the colors of the rainbow. The trousers are close-fitting;they have a stripe on the outside of the leg, and are held by a strap beneath the foot. No horseman would consider himself properly equipped without a pair of enormous spurs, the rowels standing out three or four inches from the heel, and the spurs containing altogether fully a pound of silver. A broad-brimmed hat and a riding-whip complete the cavalier's costume, and he is rarely without a cigar between his lips. In mounting, he generally scorns to put his feet in the stirrups, but springs on the horse without their aid. The stirrups are huge blocks of wood, shielded with fully a square foot of leather. The saddle and other trappings of the horse are richly ornamented with silver, and sometimes with gold, and occasionally the bridle, head-gear, and crupper are made of silver rings linked closely together."
The decline of Peruvian horsemanship was shown in the late war between Chili and Peru. The Chilian cavalry was admirably managed, and in several battles it performed a large share of the work; the cavalrymen were well mounted, and understood their business thoroughly, while the Peruvians were inefficiently drilled, and their horses were far inferior to those of the Chilians. One of the mounted detachments of the Peruvian army was surprised and captured during the advance upon Lima, and the whole available force of cavalry for the defence of the capital did not exceed six hundred men.
NATIVE WOMEN OF LIMA.
Frank and Fred were quick to remark the difference between the feminine part of the population descended from the Spanish conquerors, and those whose ancestry were the native possessors of the land. The complexion was as distinctive as the dress; the Spanish race is fair in feature, while the women of Peruvian descent have a tinge of copper or bronze in their faces. The latter wear short skirts, and leave the hair uncovered by a veil; sometimes the hair is braided in long tresses, and it is frequently topped with a hat of almost gigantic proportions. Many of these native women are excellent riders; they use the ordinary saddle of the cavalier instead of the side-saddle of more northern lands, and wear the Peruvian spur.
Our friends passed a fortnight in Lima very pleasantly, making excursions in the neighborhood, and trying the baths at Chorillos, where the fashionable population goes for its seaside sports. Two days were devoted to a visit to Pachacamac, which is in the valley of the Lurin River, about twenty miles south of Lima, and overlooking the sea. What they saw and did is best told in Fred's account of the journey.
"We went from Chorillos," said Fred, "and had a ride that was not particularly pleasant, over the dusty road leading to the seaport ofPisco, farther down the coast. Between Chorillos and the valley of the Lurin is a stretch of desert, and the sun beat pitilessly on our heads as we toiled along. Reaching the valley, we turned up the banks of the stream, and a short ride near its welcome waters brought us to the place we sought.
RUINS OF PACHACAMAC.
"Pachacamac is a famous spot in Peru, or, rather, it was so in ancient times. Its ruins cover a considerable space along a line of hills on the edge of the desert. The sand has drifted over some of the buildings andcompletely buried them, and we were forcibly reminded of the ruins at Thebes, and other places in Egypt, not forgetting the grand temples that stood near the pyramids of Gizeh.
HEAD OF PERUVIAN STATUE.
"Pachacamac was the sacred city of the inhabitants of this part of the coast before they were conquered by the Incas; their chief divinity, whose name is preserved in the city, had his shrine here, and when the Incas conquered the place they built a Temple of the Sun, and a House of the Virgins of the Sun, quite near the shrine of Pachacamac. It was their object to destroy the worship of the old divinity by building a grander temple to the new, but they were not altogether successful. There was an enormous amount of gold and silver used in the construction and adornment of the temples; the Spaniards took away twenty-sevencargasof gold (a carga weighs sixty-two and a half pounds), and sixteen thousand ounces of silver, but they were unable to discover the place where four hundred cargas of these metals had been concealed just previous to their arrival.
"We had quite a scramble among the ruins, as the walls are considerably broken, and the footing is often very insecure. We visited the shrine of Pachacamac, or, rather, the temple which contained it, and then went to the temple near it, erected by the Incas. The first is called 'El Castillo,' or The Temple, and the other is known as Mamacuna. The temple is on a hill, or headland, five hundred feet above the ocean, and thefront of it extends down to the shore. It has been considerably shaken by the earthquakes, of which there must have been many since the time of its erection, and the wonder is that it is so well preserved.
TERRACED SPACE ON A HILL-TOP.
"There was evidently a wall around the base of the hill; the slope of the hill was formed into terraces, and its upper part is supported by a terrace thirty-two feet high. In the centre of this upper part was the shrine of the deity, enclosed in a sanctuary which had a door of gold set with precious stones. But if the outside was beautiful, the inside was the reverse, as the Spaniards found only an idol of wood there, together with a flat stone where the priests performed their sacrifices. The old historians say that only the priests were allowed to go inside the sanctuary; when the Spaniards arrived there was no objection to their entering, as it was believed the deity would strike them dead for their sacrilege. The fact that they were not harmed, but proceeded without hesitation to plunder the place of its wealth, was a serious shock to the faith of these confiding natives.
"Mr. Squier's book contains an excellent description of the place, and we sat down on the top of the hill and read his account of his visit to Pachacamac. He says that in ancient times it was the Mecca of South America, and pilgrims came here from all parts of the country to worship at the shrine of the divinity who was called 'The Creator of theWorld.' So great was the reverence in which it was held, that these pilgrims were allowed to pass unharmed through tribes and people with whom their own might be at war; the sacredness of their mission was an ample protection.
PERUVIAN MUMMIES.
"The natural result of this pilgrimage was that there was a large town around the temple, and in course of time many thousands of people died here, and were buried on the consecrated spot. The whole ground, for many acres around the temple, seems to have been one vast cemetery; the soil is dry, and contains a good deal of nitre, which possesses excellent preservative qualities. There are thousands and thousands of what are generally called mummies now lying in this soil, where they have lain for centuries; they were not submitted to any mummifying process, like the bodies of the ancient Egyptians, but are preserved by the action of the salts of the earth and the aridity of the atmosphere.
"Some men who came with us from a sugar plantation in the valley offered to find a grave, and reveal its contents. We assented, and they selected a spot, and began to dig.
"We had a suspicion that they had dug in the same place before, and the grave they discovered had been opened many times previously for the benefit of visitors like ourselves. We remember that the same trick is practised in Egypt, especially at the temple in the neighborhood of the Great Pyramids, and saw no reason why it should not be adopted here. With this belief we had less compunction at disturbing the resting-place of the dead than we might have had otherwise.
SEPULCHRAL TOWER.
"The men dug four or five feet through the dry soil, and then came to a flat stone which they uncovered with great pretence of not knowing how large it was. It was about three feet square, and, perhaps, four inches thick, so that two of them had no difficulty in turning it over. Under the stone was a cavity measuring a trifle over a yard each way, and containing two bundles that had little resemblance to the human form. These were lifted out so that we might examine them; the outside wrappings were removed from one of them, and we then found that they covered a human figure, doubled so that the hands were clasped around the knees, and the head rested upon them. Our guide said this is invariably the position in which the mummies are found, and they are generally contained in a wrapping of coarse matting made of rushes, and bound with ropes or cords of the same material.
GOLDEN VASE FOUND IN A TOMB.
"It was the custom of the ancient Peruvians to bury with their dead the implements to which they were accustomed in life, and this may be taken to indicate their belief in a resurrection. Household utensils, combs, needles, wallets, spindles for spinning, knives, fishing-hooks and lines, spools of thread, knitting-needles, toilet articles, spoons, pottery, and many other things are found here, and the same is the case in excavations in other parts of Peru. We discovered only a few pieces of pottery and two knives of copper, and then we left the grave to be re-filled, or treated according to the taste of the inhabitants of the place.
"The character of the wrappings, and the articles found in the graves, indicate the condition in life of the occupants of this Peruvian cemetery. Mr. Squier says the burial-place at Pachacamac contains three series of graves one above the other, indicating that the spot was for a very long while dedicated to sepulture. He opened one of the second series of tombs, which evidently belonged to a family in middle circumstances, neither rich nor poor.
"The bodies were all wrapped as I have described, but underneath thecovering of coarse rushes were many yards of fine cloth, similar to that which the Egyptians placed around their mummies. The tomb contained the bodies of a man, his wife, and two children; the play-things of the children were buried with them, and between the feet of the girl was a dried parrot, which was doubtless her pet. Near the bodies were several pieces of pottery, and every pot contained something. One was filled with maize or corn, another with ground-nuts, and the rest with edibles of different kinds. The collection of pots and pans was quite interesting, and revealed some of the domestic ways of the people.
SILVER VASE.
"You will naturally ask how long these bodies have been lying here where we find them.
"The question is easier asked than answered. Unfortunately for us, the Peruvians had no system of writing, like the ancient Egyptians, and therefore there are no records by which we can learn their history. To get at the antiquity of the people we must judge by the traditions that have come down to us and by the effect of time upon the monuments they have left. This enables us to guess at the date of the construction of their temples, and it is proper to remark that the guesses of archæologists who have studied the subject have been very far apart.
PERUVIAN IDOL.
"The government of the Incas, which the Spaniards found and destroyed, is supposed to have existed not less than five hundred years, though some writers give it twice or three times that duration. When the Spaniards came here they found nearly all of what is now Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and a part of Chili united under one form of government, under three great tribes or families: theAymaraes, theChinchas, and theHuancas. The first of these, the Aymaraes, was the ruling race, andfrom it came the Incas or emperors. They occupied the high lands of Peru and Bolivia, and were said to have been more advanced in civilization than either of the others; the Chinchas dwelt mostly along the coast, while the Huancas were scattered through the mountain region between the Aymaraes and the Chinchas.
PERUVIAN COPPER KNIVES.
"Gradually the Aymaraes conquered the other great tribes, and their system of conquest and colonization is an interesting study.
"The tradition is that the tutelary divinity, the sun, sent his own children to instruct and govern the people, who were at war with each other, and had sunk into a condition of barbarism. These children of the sun were Manco Capac and his sister and wife, Mama Oello; they appeared first on an island in Lake Titicaca, and the island was ever afterwards regarded as holy. There are many temples around the lake and on the island to which they descended from heaven; we shall have more to say about these temples at another time.
RUINS ON TITICACA ISLAND.
"From Lake Titicaca, Manco Capac travelled northward, carrying a golden staff; during his travels his staff sank into the ground at a certain spot, and there he founded the city of Cuzco. Manco Capac was the first of a long line of powerful kings, who gradually subdued the surrounding people and replaced the old religions with the worship of the sun. They built magnificent temples, forts, and palaces, and the ruins of these works, as they are seen to-day, excite the admiration of every traveller.
PART OF TEMPLE OF THE SUN, CUZCO.
"To appreciate the wisdom of the Incas, let us consider their manner of ruling a conquered province.
"From Cuzco, the capital, there were roads leading to the four cardinal points, and the city was divided into four quarters, which were respectively named, 'North,' 'South,' 'East,' and 'West.' When their armies had reduced a nation or a province, they brought the idols of the conquered people to Cuzco, and treated them with every mark of respect. Then they summoned the chiefs and their families to the capital, wherethey showed them every kindness and distinction. When these chiefs had been thoroughly instructed concerning the power of the Inca and the spirit of his government, they were sent to their homes, and very often they were restored to their official positions as representatives of the government of Cuzco.
OUTER WALL OF FORTRESS OF CUZCO.
"In the conquered region the taxes were reduced, the poor were cared for, and the language of the empire was taught to the children. They were instructed in the religion of the Incas in place of their own, but always with the greatest respect for the old form of worship.
STONES IN THE WALL OF CUZCO.
"To make sure that there would be no rebellion of the conquered people a colony of eight or ten thousand Aymaraes was sent there to live, while a similar number of the subjugated nation was brought to the towns whencethese colonists were taken. Both of the transferred colonies were given great advantages; they had many privileges of exemption from taxation, received large grants of land, and were made to feel in every way that the transfer had been for their benefit. But while the Inca government was liberal it was severe; it was the iron hand under the velvet glove, and when its kindness was refused or the conquered people rebelled they were made to understand, in the most practical manner, that disobedience and rebellion were useless.
PART OF WALL OF FORTRESS.
"The four great divisions of the empire were each governed by a viceroy, appointed by the central power at Cuzco; the inhabitants were divided into groups of ten thousand, under a native chief and an Inca governor, acting together, and these were again subdivided into groups of one thousand, one hundred, and ten, each having an official who was responsible to the one above him. Every man received an allotment of land for the support of himself and family, children were obliged to follow the occupations of their fathers, no one could change his residence without permission, idleness was severely punished, robbers were put to death, those who sinned against religion or the majesty of the Inca were burned or buried alive with their families, while their houses were destroyed and their fields devastated. When a province rebelled all the men and boys in it were put to death, and the remainderof the population was scattered.
PERUVIAN VASES.
"There; I've given you quite a lecture on the ancient Peruvians, and hope you've not found it dull. Of course I realize that a large part of our enthusiasm on the subject comes from our having seen the monuments of this wonderful people, and read and heard of the way they built their nation and extended its power."
"'History repeats itself,'" said Dr. Bronson, as our young friend read the account we have just quoted. "In the descent of the children of the sun we have a repetition of the story of divine origin which has existed in many countries and lands since the beginning of governments. Manco Capac bears an exceedingly close resemblance to the Egyptian Osiris, the Chinese Fohi, the Hindoo Buddha, and the Scandinavian Odin. The same idea is preserved to-day in the 'divine right of kings,' which is so often quoted, and in which millions of people have implicit faith."
"History is repeated, too, in another way," said Frank. "The system ofcolonization and government under the Incas reminds me of what we saw in Java, the most successful European colony in the eastern hemisphere. The government of the people by their own chiefs, supervised by an official of the ruling power, the punishment of idleness, and the distribution of land so that everybody can earn a living for himself and family, might almost have been borrowed from the ancient Peruvians by the Dutch possessors of Java and the islands of the Malay Archipelago."
"It is not very likely the Dutch troubled themselves about ancient Peru," replied the Doctor; "they probably formed their system to suit the character of the people they were to govern; and when we remember the natural shrewdness with which their nation is credited we need not wonder that they established such an excellent government. It has its features of severity, like that of the Incas, but it has been decidedly beneficial to the subject race."
"Is the tradition correct that the people were sunk in barbarism when Manco Capac came on earth?" Frank inquired.
ORNAMENTS OF PERUVIAN WALLS.
"It is a pleasant fiction," replied the Doctor, "invented by the Incas as an excuse for their subjugation of the neighboring provinces and kingdoms. The evidences are that some of the finest monuments of Peru are older than the Inca empire, and several of the conquered nations were well advanced in civilization, and understood many useful arts and occupations. Manco Capac began with Cuzco, and then with the country a few leagues around it; his rule and that of his descendants was gradually extended until, at the coming of the Spaniards, it embraced forty degrees of latitude and a population of ten millions of people. Since the Spanish conquest the native population has diminished, and there are now little over four millions of inhabitants in the old dominions of the Incas."
ANCIENT PALACE AT HUANCO.
Our friends passed the night at a sugar plantation about two miles from the ruins of Pachacamac, and returned the next day to Lima. There is now only a small village where once was a large city; the inhabitants areemployed on the sugar plantations and in the cultivation of their gardens, which are watered by careful irrigation from the Lurin River. The village was burned by the Chilians during the late war, and the traces of their devastations will long remain. The inhabitants fled for safety, and some of them never found their way back again to their birth-places.
DOORWAY CUT THROUGH A SINGLE STONE.
Pachacamac does not contain the only ruins in the neighborhood of Lima. At Magdalena, not far from the railway between Callao and the capital, is an extensive ruin which was in good condition at the time of the Spanish conquest; the material has been taken for building purposes, so that the spot is hardly worth visiting at present. The temple contained an idol known as Rimac, whose name is preserved in the river. The idol used to speak, after the manner of the oracles of the Egyptian and Greektemples, and in exactly the same way; a priest was concealed in the statue, which was hollow, and thus the confiding populace was deceived. The deceptions of paganism were as well known in the New World as in the Old.
CENTRAL FIGURE OVER DOORWAY.
There are ruins near Chorillos which have also undergone demolition for the sake of their brick and stone, and in the valley of the River Chillon, ten miles northwest of Lima, is a fortification enclosing a hill about five hundred feet high. There is a wall at the base of the hill, another about half-way up, and a third around a level space at the top, where there is a watch-tower, with several ruined buildings. The upper wall is fourteen feet high and made of stones set in tough mortar. As the ancient Peruvians had no knowledge of gunpowder, a fortress of this sort was an excellent protection for a garrison.
Following up the valley of the Rimac, twelve or fifteen miles from Lima we come to a side valley which contains the ruins of Cajamarquilla. It was a city about three miles square, laid out into streets and blocks and containing many massive walls which the earthquakes have not been able to destroy. The history of this city is not even known in tradition, and the natives shake their heads when inquiry is made concerning it. The ruins were there when the Spaniards came to Peru.
The buildings of this American Baalbec were extensive and connected by narrow passages and subterranean vaults, that seem to have been used for storage purposes. The doorways were low and curiously shaped, and there are no signs of windows in the houses.
Frank and Fred desired to visit the place, but as it was said to be the haunt of robbers, and not particularly safe, the idea of an excursion was abandoned. Mr. Squier had an encounter with a noted robber while inspecting these ruins, but a display of his commission from the government of the United States secured the good-will of the brigand,and the stranger was saved from harm.
Within the last twenty years Peru has made earnest efforts to connect her inland cities with the Pacific Ocean by means of railways. There are several private lines, the oldest being the short one connecting Lima with Callao; it was completed in 1851, and has paid handsomely to its projectors. Of the lines built by government there are seven in all;five of them are finished and the remainder are in course of construction (or suspension), with considerable uncertainty as to the date of their completion.
One of the unfinished lines, the Oroya Railway, starts from Callao, and is intended to connect that seaport with the silver mines of Cerro de Pasco, by a branch from Oroya, and to extend to Fort San Ramon, or Mairo, where it will connect with steamboats on the Amazon. It was undertaken by an American contractor under government guarantee; it has cost many millions of dollars, and many other millions will be required before the locomotive can make the journey from Callao to Mairo and Cerro de Pasco.
At the time our friends were in Lima the work was suspended, and Dr.Bronson learned, in answer to his inquiries, that the terminus was at an insignificant town among the mountains. Trains did not run regularly, as there was no business to pay the expenses of running them; the government was waiting for the country to recover from the effects of the war before proceeding with the work.
One day there was an opportunity to make an excursion to the terminus, about ninety miles from Lima, and the Doctor at once arranged for the trip. They were to leave the capital about nine in the morning, spend the night at the terminus, and return early the next day. The programme was carried out to the satisfaction of the wandering trio, as we shall see by referring to Fred's note-book.
DEEP CUTTING ON A RAILWAY.
"We ascended the valley of the Rimac," said Fred, "and in the first forty-six miles gained an elevation of five thousand feet. We had only two carriages in the train, but the locomotive puffed and tugged as though it was drawing three or four times that number. At every mile of our advance the route became more and more intricate; we passed through narrow gorges and along the brink of fearful precipices, and time and time again we seemed to be in danger of toppling over and falling into the abysses below. We were reminded of the passage of the Sierra Nevadas by the Central Pacific Railway, in our own country, and of the line between Colombo and Kandy, in Ceylon.
"The engineering difficulties here are greater than on either of the routes I have mentioned, and greater than anything we have seen in the European Alps. The Oroya line is certainly one of the railway wonders of the world, and every visitor to Lima should make a point of seeing this enormous work. It is doubtful if the government will ever find it profitable, owing to the great cost of construction and the expense of running the trains.
"Here are a few figures about this railway. I take some of them from Professor Orton's book,'The Andes and Amazon,' and others have been given me by the conductor who accompanies us.
"Eighty-seven miles of the road had been finished when the war between Chili and Peru caused a suspension of work. There are sixty-three tunnels, with an aggregate length of twenty-one thousand feet, and there are thirty bridges of iron or stone. Some of the bridges are of French or English manufacture, and others, considered the best, were made in America. The Verrugas bridge spans a chasm five hundred and eighty feet wide, and rests on three piers of hollow columns of wrought iron. It was made at Phenixville, Pennsylvania, at a cost of $63,000; the middle pier is two hundred and fifty-two feet high and fifty feet square at itsbase, and the deflection of the bridge is five-eighths of an inch.
"The sharpest curve of the road is 395 feet radius, and the maximum grade is four per cent. While the work was going on they used two hundred and fifty tons of powder every month for blasting the rock! The tunnel to carry the line through the Andes is at an elevation of 15,645 feet above the sea, the highest railway tunnel in the world, and some say the highest point where a piston-rod is moved by steam.
AMONG THE FOOT-HILLS.
"To describe our ride would be to give a long succession of exclamations of wonder, admiration, and enthusiasm, with an occasional sigh of relief when dangerous points were passed without accident. It is quite possible that our cheeks may have paled at times and flushed at others, but of course we could not admit anything of the sort. We were glad when the terminus was reached, and the sensation of the journey was over.
"We crawled slowly upward on our eastward way and found it exciting enough; what shall I say of the return ride, when we had the downward grade to take us along, and the only use of the steam in the locomotive was to hold us back? The brakes were screwed tightly down, and so great is the pressure upon them that their shoes must be renewed at the end of every second round trip from Callao and back again. In four hours from the terminus we were on the shores of the Pacific, and at the end of a journey we shall long remember."
Two weeks from the time our friends landed at Callao they embarked on the southern-bound steamer from that port, having taken their tickets for Mollendo.
GUANO ISLANDS.
The first landing was at Pisco, about one hundred miles south of Callao, and connected by a short line of railway with the cotton regions of Iça. As they approached the port they passed the Chincha Islands, which have become famous as the place whence millions of tons of guano have been brought to Europe and America. Frank and Fred wished to know something about the guano trade, and the Doctor kindly informed them.
SEA-BIRDS AT HOME.
"The guano was deposited here," said Dr. Bronson, "by the sea-birds, and the accumulations have been going on for thousands of years. No rain falls here, and consequently there was no water to wash the substance away. Mixed with the deposits of the birds were their decomposed bodies and eggs, and the bodies of seals; the seals climb to the highest places on the rocks when they are about to die, and as they were very abundant here, it is safe to say that millions of them have died on the Chincha Islands. Guano is of great value as a manure; the ancient Peruvians werewell aware of its qualities, and by the laws of the Incas everybody was forbidden, under pain of death, to land on the islands during the breeding season, and the same penalty was affixed to killing the birds at any time.
"The guano deposits were first made known to Europe in 1804," the Doctor continued, "through a description by Baron von Humboldt. He said the islands were covered to a depth of fifty or sixty feet with pure guano; the long ages that had been consumed in the accumulation may be understood when he says that during the three centuries since the coming of the Spaniards the growth had been only a small fraction of an inch!"
"Was it brought to Europe in Humboldt's time?" one of the youths inquired.
"No," was the reply; "the first shipment was made in 1840, and consisted of twenty barrels, which were taken to Liverpool. It was tried on a farm near that city, and resulted so favorably that large orders were immediately sent for more. In the following year several cargoes were sent from the islands, and from that time the trade increased rapidly. Farmers in Europe and America learned the value of guano in making a wonderful increase of the producing power of their fields, and the demand for it became general.
"From 1851 to 1860 nearly three million tons were shipped from the Chincha Islands, and between 1853 and 1872 it is estimated that eight millions tons were sent away. In that year the Chincha Islands were practically exhausted. The Peruvians had acted as though they were to last forever as a source of revenue, and the discovery of the great value of the deposits may be considered the cause of the present bankruptcy of the country. They had abolished the taxes and relied upon the Chincha Islands for all money needed by government, including the immense sums expended in the construction of railways. They appointed agents in London and New York for the sale of the guano, and as long as the business was prosperous, a great many men grew rich out of the transactions.
"As the Chincha Islands gave out other deposits were worked, some on the Lobos Islands, others on the Guanape Islands, and others in Tarapaca, but none of them are as rich or extensive as was the original source ofsupply."
The youths looked carefully at the islands with their glasses as the steamer proceeded on her course. Dr. Bronson called their attention to a solitary ship that was lying close to the cliff of one of the islands, and said that in the days of the prosperity of the guano trade there were sometimes a hundred ships receiving cargoes or waiting their turns to be laden.
"You observe," said he, "that the sides of the islands are quite bold, and in some places precipitous; ships used to lie close to the shore and receive their cargoes through long chutes or spouts through which the guano was poured from the top of the cliff. The air was full of guano dust, and the men engaged in the work suffered greatly from the dust entering the throat and lungs. Ammonia (hartshorn) is an important ingredient of guano; imagine yourselves breathing an atmosphere heavily charged with ammonia, and you can realize the disagreeable features of working on a guano island.
SCENE ON A COOLIE SHIP.
"Convicts were employed here, and also coolies from China; the horrors of the coolie trade with Peru have never been fully told, and thenarration would be most sickening. Thousands of the coolies threw themselves into the sea to escape the terrible life on these islands; other thousands died here as a result of their toil, and the number was only kept up by frequent arrivals of ships from Macao, the seat of the coolie trade in China."
"There are three islands," said Fred, "but they do not seem to be large ones. I should judge that the most northerly is the largest, and it is not more than half a mile long by a third in width."
"You have estimated very well," was the reply. "The northern island is called Chincha, and gives the name to the group, and it is about the length and width you mention. The other two are smaller, but are of the same formation as Chincha, a bright red granite composed of red feldspar, white quartz, and a little mica. The group is evidently of volcanic origin, and perhaps it may one day disappear beneath the waves as other volcanic islands have done.
"Guano can only accumulate where there is no rain," continued their mentor, "and there is another source of wealth here that comes from the rainless district."
"What is that?"
"It is the nitrate of soda," answered the Doctor, "which comes from several desert regions in the southern part of Peru, chiefly in the province of Tarapaca, which has been annexed to Chili since the war, and is Peruvian territory no longer. It has many uses in industrial arts, and is largely employed as a fertilizer; the deposits have been worked since 1830, and the chief points of export are Iquique and Pisagua. In twenty years from 1830 the exports were 240,000 tons, and in 1875 no less than 326,000 tons were exported. In 1877 there were 253 ships that cleared from Iquique alone with cargoes of nitrates. Several of the railways constructed by the Peruvian government, or on private account, were built partly or wholly for the transportation of this article."
The steamer stopped very briefly at Pisco, and there was not time to go on shore. From Pisco to Mollendo they were almost constantly in sight of the coast, and sometimes hugging it closely; the mountains of the western cordillera of the Andes filled the eastern horizon, and occasionally the snowy peaks of the great central chain were visible. The principal chain of mountains in South America is called the Andes, and sometimes theNevadas(white), to distinguish it from the cordillera (cor-de-yer-ra), by which the lateral and lower chains, generally parallel to the Andes, are designated.Sierra(from the Spanish word for saw) is a spur, or irregular line, of mountains stretching from the Andes to the cordillera, or pushing out from thelatter into the flatParama, or desert.
ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT.
Mollendo is the ocean terminus of the railway to Arequipa and Lake Titicaca, the present destination of the boy travellers and their elder companion. The town is on the edge of the desert, and the harbor is an open roadstead, like most of the ports of the western coast. An old captain sarcastically remarked, "the harbor of Mollendo is entered as soon as the ship turns Cape Horn." The town is supplied with water by an iron pipe eighty-five miles long, which starts from near Arequipa, and is capable of discharging 430,000 gallons of water every twenty-four hours. Enormous tanks have been constructed, to maintain a supply for several days, in case of accident to the aqueduct, and these tanks are the principal sights of the place.
The surf was breaking on the rocky shore, and our friends had a narrow escape from a drenching in going from the ship to the land. Fortunately they arrived in the morning, about an hour before the time for the departure of the train for Arequipa, and had not long to wait.
The railway followed the coast for a short distance, and then turned northeastwardly, and began climbing the hills which formed the outwardbarrier of the lofty Andes. Up and onward zigzagged the train, through the barren hills that lead to the desert of Islay, and then out upon the dusty stretch of the desert, which it crossed in a line whose directness was in marked contrast to its tortuous course among the hills. At regular intervals there were tanks which supply the locomotives with water; they are fed from the aqueduct already mentioned, and wherever they have leaked, and moistened the dust, the grass grows luxuriantly. It is sixty miles across the desert; before the railway was constructed the journey was made on the backs of donkeys, and it was customary to cross it in the night, in consequence of the great heat and glare when the sun is shining.
Frank copied into his note-book the following account of a traveller who crossed the desert from the coast to Arequipa, which he failed to reach before sunrise:
"About five o'clock a clear whiteness appeared in the sky, the stars paled their lustre, and the day began to break. Soon a ruddy orange tint spread over the soil of the pampa, now become firm and compact. In a few minutes the disk of the sun appeared above the horizon; and as wemarched full in the front of the god of day, we found ourselves in the midst of a luminous torrent, which so dazzled and incommoded us that to escape from this new torture we doubled ourselves up like hedgehogs. This anomalous and inconvenient posture rendered us unjust to the claimsof the rising sun. Instead of welcoming his appearance we were inclined to wish he had remained out of sight, and it was not till eight o'clock that the sun, now high above the horizon, permitted us to raise our heads."