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+Project Gutenberg's Peru in the Guano Age, by Alexander James Duffield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Peru in the Guano Age
+       Being a Short Account of a Recent Visit to the Guano
+       Deposits With Some Reflections on the Money They Have
+       Produced and the Uses to Which it has Been Applied
+
+Author: Alexander James Duffield
+
+Release Date: June 16, 2014 [EBook #45998]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERU IN THE GUANO AGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rachael Schultz, Bryan Ness, Melissa McDaniel
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+PERU IN THE GUANO AGE.
+
+
+
+
+     OXFORD:
+     BY E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY,
+     PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
+
+
+
+
+     PERU IN THE GUANO AGE
+
+     BEING A SHORT
+
+     ACCOUNT OF A RECENT VISIT
+
+     TO THE
+
+     GUANO DEPOSITS
+
+     WITH SOME
+
+     REFLECTIONS ON THE MONEY THEY HAVE PRODUCED AND THE USES TO
+     WHICH IT HAS BEEN APPLIED
+
+     BY
+     A. J. DUFFIELD
+
+
+     LONDON
+     RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON
+     Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
+     1877
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATORY LETTER.
+
+
+                                   Á
+                Señor Don Juan Espinosa y de Maldonado,
+                  _Estimado y distinguido Amigo mio_:
+
+It would be most pleasant to continue this letter in the language in
+which it begins and which you taught me some five and twenty years ago,
+but I wish others to read it as well as yourself.
+
+I dedicate this little book to you for several reasons: not because
+of our common friendship, extending now over more than a quarter of a
+century, nor yet for the confidence which you have reposed in me under
+many trying circumstances during that long period, but rather because
+you are much interested in the country which the book describes, are
+intimately acquainted with all the questions it raises, and more than
+all because you have a thorough knowledge of Peru--its people and
+history;--because further, it was you who first taught me how to regard
+your countrymen, opened my eyes to their good and other qualities, and
+because also you know that here I have set down nought in malice, have
+said nothing that you do not know to be true, and drawn no inference
+from the facts of past times or the doings of living men which you
+would not sanction and endorse.
+
+With one exception.
+
+I am quite aware that you do not share in what I have said at page
+118, but this is not my own opinion--it is the candidly expressed view
+of the leading men of Lima. I know that you have always insisted upon
+Peru paying her debts, not merely because you well know that she can
+pay quite easily, but also because the effect on the moral life of
+the country, if she should prove a defaulter, will be most disastrous.
+It is pitiable beyond the power of human expression to find a single
+thoughtful Peruvian holding a contrary opinion.
+
+Since the following chapters were written several things have taken
+place which have corroborated some of my statements, and fulfilled
+more than one of my predictions. As you are aware a public meeting
+was held, a month after my departure from Lima, at the Treasurer's
+Office; at which were present the Minister of Finance and Commerce,
+the Chief Accountant, and many other officers of departments, for the
+purpose of receiving a communication from two Englishmen, setting forth
+the discovery of fresh guano deposits on the coast, in the province
+of Tarapaca. From all that could be gathered these new deposits may
+be fairly estimated as containing three million tons of guano. This
+confirms what I have said at page 101.
+
+And yet we have heard nothing new from Peru regarding the payment of
+her liabilities, nor has any official communication been made by the
+Government regarding this important discovery. If General Prado does
+not take care he will have his house pulled about his ears. One of
+the most interesting revolutions yet to be made in Peru is one in the
+interest of its honour and uprightness. If your friend General Montero
+appeals to the country in that cause he might immortalize his name and
+bring in the New Era. From the little I know of the General, however,
+I should say that such a task is too much for him. It requires a man
+broad of chest, of constant mind, of unimpeachable honour and absolute
+unselfishness to make a revolution of that sort. Still it is a good
+cry, and if Prado does not take it up himself he may come to grief when
+he least expects it.
+
+By the issue of Mr. Marsh's report from the British Consulate at Callao
+you will notice how the Consul confirms what I have said about the
+British sailor in Peru. Excessive drinking, licentious living, and
+exposure are set forth as the main causes of a deterioration in our
+merchant seamen which should attract the notice of Parliament. To send
+unseaworthy ships to sea is to bring disgrace on the national name. The
+national disgrace of sending unworthy seamen to sea appears to attract
+little notice.
+
+The chapter I read to you in MS. on 'Commercial Enterprise in Peru'
+I have purposely omitted, as also my report on the riches of its Sea.
+It will be time enough to talk of these things when the Chinese get a
+firmer footing in the country than they have at present, or when the
+Mormons have established themselves there.
+
+Let me ask you to treat with leniency any unintentional wrong thinking
+or wrong writing, but anything you discover here to be purposely
+vulgar, purposely bad, or unjust, treat it as you would treat the creed
+of a Jesuit, or a priest, or any other evil thing.
+
+          Believe me to be,
+              My dear Don Juan,
+                  Your faithful friend and servant,
+                      Q.B.S.M.
+                    A. J. Duffield.
+
+    Savile Club,
+      _February, 1877_.
+
+P. S. Let me publicly thank you for introducing to English readers
+the works of RICARDO PALMA, certainly the best writer Peru has
+produced, and eminently its first satirist. As you will see, I have
+translated one of his _Tradiciones_. Some readers at first sight might
+naturally feel inclined to suggest a transposition of the chapters
+in the 'Law-suit against God,' or to look upon the second chapter as
+altogether irrelevant to the story. But we who are in the secret know
+better, and that the official corruption which is there set forth
+is intimately connected with the catastrophe which follows, and is
+a faithful representation of public life and morals, not only in old
+Peru, but also in the Peru of the Guano Age.
+
+          _Hasta cada rata._
+
+
+
+
+PERU IN THE GUANO AGE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Although Peru may boast of its Age of Guano, it has had its Golden
+Age. This was before any Spaniard had put his foot in the country, and
+when as yet it was called by quite another name. The name of Peru,
+which signifies nothing, arose by accident or mistake. It was first
+of all spelled Piru, no doubt from Biru, the native name of one of its
+rivers. Time and use, which establish so many things, have established
+Peru; and it is too late to think of disestablishing it for anything
+else: and though it is nothing to boast of, let Peru stand. The country
+had its Stone Age, and I have brought for the Cambridge antiquaries a
+fair collection of implements of that period, consisting of lancets,
+spear-heads, and heads for arrows, exquisitely wrought in flint,
+jasper, opal, chalcedony, and other stones. They were all found in
+the neighbourhood of the Pisagua river. It is to be regretted that no
+material evidence of equal tangibility is forthcoming of the Age of
+Gold. This is generally the result of comparison founded on historical
+criticism.
+
+In the Golden Age Peru had--
+
+I. A significant name, a well-ordered, fixed, and firm government,
+with hereditary rulers. Only one rebellion occurred in twelve reigns,
+and only two revolutions are recorded in the whole history of the Inca
+Empire.
+
+II. The land was religiously cultivated.
+
+III. There was a perfect system of irrigation, and water was made the
+servant and slave of man.
+
+IV. The land was equally divided periodically between the Deity, the
+Inca, the nobles, and the people.
+
+V. Strong municipal laws enforced, and an intelligent and vigorous
+administration carried out these laws, which provided for cleanliness,
+health, and order.
+
+VI. Idleness was punished as a crime; work abounded for all; and no one
+could want, much less starve.
+
+VII. No lawsuit could last longer, or its decision be delayed more,
+than five days.
+
+VIII. Throughout the land the people everywhere were taught such
+industrial arts as were good and useful, and were also trained by a
+regular system of bodily exercises for purposes of health, and the
+defence of the nation.
+
+IX. Every male at a certain age married, and took upon himself the
+duties of citizenship and the responsibilities of a manly life: he
+owned his own house and lived in it, and a portion of land fell to him
+every year, which was enlarged as his family increased.
+
+X. Great public works were every year built which added to the strength
+and glory of the kingdom.
+
+XI. Deleterious occupations or such as were injurious to health were
+prohibited.
+
+XII. Gold was used for ornament, sacred vessels of the temple, and
+the service of the Inca in his palaces. There is a tradition that this
+precious metal signified in their tongue '_Tears of the Sun_.' Whether
+this be an ancient or a modern tradition no one can tell us. It may be
+not more than three and a half centuries old.
+
+XIII. A man ravishing a virgin was buried alive.
+
+XIV. A man ravishing a virgin of the Sun, that is, one of the vestal
+virgins of the Temple, was burnt alive.
+
+XV. It was accounted infamous for a man or woman to wear other people's
+clothes, or clothes that were in rags.
+
+XVI. Roads and bridges were among the foremost public works which bound
+the vast country together.
+
+XVII. Public granaries, for the storing of corn in case of emergency,
+were erected in all parts, and some very out-of-the-way parts of the
+kingdom.
+
+XVIII. Woollen and cotton manufactures were brought to great
+perfection. Examples of these remain to this day and will bear
+comparison with those of our own time.
+
+XIX. A thief suffered the loss of his eyes; and a creature committing
+the diabolical act of altering a water-course suffered death.
+
+And to sum up, here is the true confession of Mancio Sierra Lejesama,
+one of the first Spanish Conquistadores of Peru, which confession he
+attached to his will made in the city of Cuzco on the 15th day of
+September, 1589, before one Geronimo Sanches de Quesada, escribano
+publico, and which has been preserved to us by Espinosa in his
+'People's Dictionary,' art. 'Indio.'
+
+'First of all,' says the dying Lejesama, 'before commencing my will
+I declare that I have much desired in all submission to acquaint His
+Catholic Majesty, the King Don Philip our Lord, seeing how Catholic and
+Christian he is, and how jealous for the service of God our Saviour,
+of what touches the discharge of my soul for the great part I took in
+the discovery, conquest, and peopling of these kingdoms, when we took
+them from those who were their masters, the Incas, who owned and ruled
+them as their own kingdoms, and put them under the royal crown. And
+His Catholic Majesty shall understand that the said Incas governed
+these kingdoms on such wise that in them all there was no thief or
+vicious person, nor an idle man, nor a bad or an adulterous woman, [if
+such there had been, be sure the Spaniard would have been the first
+to find it out,] nor were there allowed among them people of evil
+lives: men had their honest and profitable occupations, in all that
+pertained to mountain or mine, to the field, the forest, or the home,
+as in everything of use all was governed and divided after such sort
+that each one knew and held to his own without another interfering
+therewith: nor were lawsuits known among them: the affairs of war,
+although not few, interfered not with those of traffic, nor yet did
+these conflict with those of seed-time and harvest, or with other
+matters whatsoever. All things from the greater to the less had their
+order, concert, and good management. The Incas were dreaded, obeyed,
+and respected by their subjects, for the greatness of their capacity
+and the excellence of their rule. It was the same with the captains
+and governors of provinces. And as we found command, and strength,
+and force to rest in these, so had we to deprive them of these by the
+force of arms to subject them to, and press them into, the service of
+God our Lord, taking from them not only all command but their means
+of life also. And by the permission of God our Lord we were able to
+subject this kingdom of many people, and riches, and lords, making
+servants of them as now we see. I trust that His Majesty understands
+the motive which moves me to this relation, that it is for the purging
+of my conscience by the confession of my guilt. We have destroyed
+with our evil example people so well governed as these, who were so
+far from being inclined to wrongdoing or excess of any sort--both men
+and women--that an Indian with a hundred thousand dollars in gold and
+silver in his house, would leave it open, or would place a broom, or
+small stick across the threshold to signify that the owner was not
+within, and with that, as was their custom, no one would enter, nor
+take thence a single thing. When they saw us put doors to our houses,
+and locks on our doors, they understood that we were afraid of them,
+not that they would kill us, but that perhaps they might steal our
+things. When they saw that we had thieves among ourselves, and men who
+incited their wives and daughters to sin, they held us in low esteem.
+So great is the dissoluteness now among these natives, and their
+offences against God, owing to the evil example we have set them in all
+things, that from doing nothing bad they have all--or nearly all--been
+converted in our day into those who can do nothing good. This touches
+also His Majesty, who will take care that his conscience has no part in
+allowing these things to continue. With this I implore God to pardon
+me, Who has moved me to declare these matters, because I am the last
+to die of all the discoverers and conquistadores; for it is notorious
+that now there exists not one other of their number, but I only either
+in this kingdom or out of it, and with that I rest, having done all I
+am able for the discharge of my conscience.'
+
+This might be called the epitaph of the Golden Age, written by one who
+knew it, and who helped to destroy it.
+
+XX. Hospitality was a passion in that time, and what had been enjoined
+and practised as a national duty became a private virtue, procuring
+intense happiness in its exercise. Instances of this are on record that
+are not equalled in the history of any other people.
+
+Lastly--and these characteristics of our Golden Age have been taken
+quite at random and as they have come to my recollection--the name by
+which the Incas most delighted themselves in being known was that of
+'Lovers of the Poor.' In this Golden Age gunpowder was unknown, and the
+people for the most part were vegetarians. Animal food was eaten by the
+soldiery and the labouring people only at the great religious feasts.
+Fish, and the flesh of alpacas, were confined to the Incas and the
+nobles. This will account for many things which subsequently occurred,
+notably their easy conquest by the fire- and meat-eating Spaniard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us now write down our comparisons of the Age of Guano with the Age
+of Gold.
+
+I. The name and form of Government, it is true, are reduced to writing,
+but the Government is, and has been from the commencement of its
+Republican history, as unstable as water. On the close of the Guano
+Age things would appear to be improving: President Pardo has completed
+the whole term of his presidential life, and this is only the second
+instance of a Peruvian Republican President having done so. It would be
+difficult to reckon up the number of revolutions which have taken place
+in the Age of Manure.
+
+II. The land is not cultivated: the things, for the most part, which
+are taken to market, are those which grow spontaneously, without art or
+industry. The people who supply the Lima market are chiefly Italians,
+while the greater part of the land is barren and unproductive. Potatoes
+and other vegetables, wheat and barley, flour, fruits, and beef, all
+come from Chile and Equador, but chiefly from the former.
+
+III. The great water-courses and system of irrigation which marked the
+Golden Age are all broken up, and the fructifying water, once stored
+for the use and service of man, first became his master, and then his
+relentless tyrant.
+
+IV. The land cannot be said to belong to any one. Certainly not to God.
+Even the Church, once a great proprietor and holder of slaves, is as
+lazy as the laziest drone in any known hive. Many of the large estates
+which flourished in the pre-Guano period have perished for lack of
+hands. The sugar plantations are exceptions for the present, but what
+will happen to them when the Chinese are all free is very uncertain. It
+may even be said to be a source of alarm to many thoughtful persons.
+
+V. Of the municipal laws, which provide for cleanliness, health, and
+public order, although great progress has been made in Central Lima,
+all that need be said is, that it is a wonder the inhabitants have
+survived, and that those who were not killed in last year's revolution
+have not been carried off by a plague.
+
+VI. Idleness among the upper classes, i.e. the whole white population,
+the descendants of Spain--those who supply the Army and Navy with
+officers, the Law with judges, the Church with bishops, and the rich
+daughters of sugar-boilers with husbands--idleness among these is the
+order of the day, and is punished by no one. Even the gods appear to
+take no notice of it, being itself a sort of god, so far as the number
+of his worshippers are concerned. To-morrow is the everlasting excuse
+for almost everybody, and yesterday has done nothing but light fools to
+dusty death; the to-morrow in which the useful and the good are to be
+done, never comes.
+
+VII. Going to law is not only an infamous passion in this Guano Age,
+it is a means of living. There must be few if any people of substance
+in Peru who have not known the bitter curse of the law's delay. I have
+known lawsuits of the most vexatious and cruel nature, and which, in
+any country where civilisation is not a mere name, could never have
+been instituted, last, not five days, but five years, and, alas!
+even fifteen years. I have myself tasted the bitterness of the law in
+this land, and been very near being lodged in a loathsome jail at the
+instance of a miscreant who had it in his power to demand my presence
+before a bribe-gorged judge. I only escaped paying heavy toll or
+hateful imprisonment by my friends obtaining the removal of the judge.
+The second was a gross attempt at extortion, from which I was saved by
+accident. Both these lawsuits, of the basest sort, had their origin
+in an injustice which is ingrained in the complexion of the people.
+The captain and crew of the _Talisman_ could bear testimony to the
+difference between the administration of law in the Golden Age and in
+the Age of Manure.
+
+VIII. The education of the people has never been seriously attempted,
+except in carrying a flimsy old musket. The Indians, who form the
+great bulk of the population, do not vote. This would involve a slight
+cultivation of the Indian's intellect, and he does not know what might
+happen to further embitter his lot if he were to discover to his rulers
+that he had a mind. He is perhaps the slyest of animals--more sly than
+a fox, more obstinate than an English mule, and as timid as a squirrel.
+
+IX. The marriage law is disgracefully abused and neglected for a
+country which boasts that its religion is that of the Holy Roman
+Apostolical. Civil marriage is illegal, and ecclesiastical marriage but
+little observed, except among the Estratocracia, the sugar-boilers,
+and such as mix in European society. The subject is one always
+difficult for a traveller to handle. To speak plainly and publicly of
+what has been acquired in private on this matter would justly provoke
+displeasure and disgust, and would not fail to be misrepresented or
+misunderstood. It may, however, be said, that if marriage be a public
+virtue, large numbers of the Peruvians of the Manure Age are not
+virtuous.
+
+X. Of the great public works in Peru, the chief during this time has
+been a penitentiary, and a railway to the moon not yet finished, all
+built by foreigners and with English money. Emigration was one of
+the most important transactions of the Golden Age. There has been no
+serious attempt at promoting either emigration or immigration: the
+migration of the native races is absolutely beyond the control of the
+government.
+
+XI. Of deleterious occupations and
+
+XII. The use of gold, all that need be said is that each man in Peru
+does what he likes in his own eyes, and what is allowed in the most
+enlightened land under the sun: and in this regard she sins in the
+universal company of the wide world; but the comparison with the Golden
+Age is not on that account the less painful.
+
+XIII. Incontinence is general, and the number of illegitimate children
+greater than those born in wedlock. The crime punishable by the
+terrible death awarded to it in the Golden Age has disappeared, for
+reasons which need not be further noticed.
+
+XIV. The scandals of the Temple or the Church have likewise changed in
+their character. I have known a bishop of the Peruvian State Church,
+sworn to celibacy, whose illegitimate children were more numerous than
+the years of his life. I have known a parish priest who had living in
+several houses more than thirty children by several women. All Peruvian
+ecclesiastics are supposed to live celibate lives, bishops, priests,
+monks and nuns; and if they do not, the irregularity is winked at, nor
+is public morality shocked, however grossly and notoriously immoral the
+lives of these persons may be.
+
+XV. The people for the most part are well dressed, but with the
+exception of the indigenous races, all wear ready-made clothing. The
+dresses of all classes are ill-made, costly, and vulgar. The coffin in
+which a Peruvian of the Guano Period is carried to his last home, is
+about the best made suit he ever wears, and the best fitting.
+
+XVI. Of roads and bridges of the present day, it would be amusing to
+write if the recollection of those I have passed over was not too
+painful. No man not born in an Age of Manure, who has travelled a
+thousand miles in the interior of Peru, or for that matter a hundred
+leagues, will ever wish to repeat the experiment. Many of these roads
+are but ruins of roads, and carry the usual aspect of roads which lead
+to ruin.
+
+XVII. There are no public granaries. People live from hand to mouth on
+what others grow for them and bring to them.
+
+XVIII. There are no woollen manufactories. All the wool of the alpaca,
+the llama, and vicuña is sent to England to be made into things which
+the growers of the staple never see, much less wear. No Peruvian of
+any social standing has had the pluck or the sense to do anything
+towards extending the cultivation of alpaca wool. It is well known
+that the produce of this beautiful and docile animal might easily
+have been increased, just as the yield of merino wool has increased
+in Australia, if only brains and industry had been brought to bear
+upon the enterprise; and instead of a yearly income of a few thousand
+dollars being derived from this source of national wealth, there might
+have been, within the limits of the Age of Guano, a net annual income
+of £20,000,000. This incredible statement is made by one who passed
+four years of his life in studying the subject.
+
+XIX. As for stealing--not that form of it which comes within the range
+of petty larceny, but the wider and more awful range of felony--it may
+be safely said, that nearly all public men have steeped themselves to
+the neck in this crime, and the common people take to it as easily and
+naturally as birds in a garden take to sweet berries. Nor is there
+sufficient justice in the country to stamp out the offence. If the
+punishment awarded to this crime in the Golden Age had been inflicted
+in the Age of Guano, there would be a very limited sale for spectacles
+in Lima or the cities of the Peruvian coast, or the towns and cities of
+the mountains.
+
+XX. It is delightful to turn to something in Peru that merits unlimited
+praise. The Golden Age was noted for its hospitality, not only as a
+social virtue practised by the people among themselves, but as extended
+to strangers. Pizarro had not been so successful in his conquest of
+Peru if he had not been so hospitably treated by the noble lady who
+entertained him on his first visit to Tumbez. The exhortation of
+Huayna Capac to his subjects to receive the bearded men--whose advent
+he announced--as superior beings, has been interpreted as the cause
+of the Spaniards' sudden success in a country that was well defended
+as well by soldiers as numerous fortresses--'Those words,' exclaimed
+an Inca noble some years afterwards, 'those last words of Inca Huayna
+Capac were our conquerors.' Among themselves it was the custom to eat
+their meals with open doors, and any passer by in need was welcomed
+in. Princesses and high-born ladies received visits from the mothers
+and daughters of the people, who provided the needle-work that was to
+occupy the time of the visit. Among English families of the better sort
+it is still a habit for a lady visitor to ask for some needle-work
+to do during her visit if it lasts more than a day--a custom that
+deserves to be enquired into. The prevalence of a similar custom in
+our Golden Age increases its importance. The traveller, especially if
+he be an Englishman, who has travelled through modern Peru, even in
+the Guano Age, who does not bear a lively recollection of kindness
+and open-hearted hospitality, is most certainly to be pitied, if
+not avoided. I am quite aware that such persons exist. I have myself
+travelled in the saddle more than two thousand miles on less than as
+many pence. The story of the impostor Arthur Orton at Melipilla is
+a case in point, and if the learned counsel who defended him is in
+need of a livelihood which cannot dispense with some of the elegances
+and charms of life, he cannot do better than follow the tracks of his
+client. I have lived in every kind of house, rancho, posta, cottage,
+quinta, and mansion, occupied by the various classes which make up the
+population of Peru. I have lived with archbishops and bishops, priests
+and monks, merchant princes, senators, judges, generals, miners,
+doctors, professional thieves, and widows, and I should be an ingrate
+indeed if I did not acknowledge with profound gratitude the kindness,
+oftentimes the affection, which I received, the liberality with which
+I was entertained, and the freedom I enjoyed. Here I am reminded of
+an incident which occurred to me in the south of Spain, and as it will
+suit a purpose it could not otherwise serve, let me relate it.
+
+I was employed to take the level of a railway that was to connect the
+Roblé with the shores of the Mediterranean. The proposed line passed
+through one of the great estates of the Marquis de Blanco, and the
+Marquis gave me a letter to his capitaz or overseer, who occupied a
+house, the sight of which would have charmed the soul of an artist, on
+one of the overhanging cliffs which rose above el Rio Verde. I arrived
+late and, after twelve hours hard work beneath an Andalusian sun. I
+was well received by the capitaz and his charming wife Doña Carmen,
+who with her own hands and in my presence prepared for my supper a
+partridge and other delightful things. If the day had been hot, the
+night on the highest point of the royal road to Ronda was cold. A
+glorious wood fire added to the universal beauty of everything. A
+table was spread for me with a snowy diaper cloth. I can see it now--a
+bottle of fine wine, most sweet bread, raisins and what not. Just as
+my partridge was ready, a clatter of twenty horses' hoofs was heard
+in the patio. The capitaz went out to see the new arrivals, who turned
+out to be farmers of the district on their way to the horse fair, which
+was to be held in Ronda the following day. In came the twenty pilgrims
+to Ronda, to whom I was formally introduced, and Doña Carmen set to
+work to prepare an enormous _Olla_ for the whole company. My partridge
+was not served until the _Olla_ was ready, when we all set to work
+and ate our supper in peace and good-will. An hour afterwards, whether
+from the effects of the delightful wine--only to be enjoyed in Spain,
+the fumes of my own pipe and the cigarettes of the twenty pilgrims,
+the labours of the day, or all combined, I fell a nodding: whereupon
+the good-natured capitaz enquired if I would not like to throw myself
+into bed. On which I rose, and declared with great solemnity that for
+my rudeness in having gone to sleep in such worshipful company, I was
+ready to throw myself not only into bed but into the river below.
+
+'Doña Carmen,' said the capitaz, 'shall take you to your room.'
+
+And with a general good-night to the pilgrims and a shake of the hand
+with the capitaz, away I went in the wake of Doña Carmen.
+
+It was a spacious room, filled with implements of sport, the walls
+adorned with heads of deer and other trophies of the gun, and there
+were also unmistakeable signs of its being a lady's room.
+
+'Doña Carmen,' I observed in an imperative tone, 'this is your own
+room. I am an old traveller, and can sleep in a hay-loft or on the
+floor, with my saddle for a pillow. At any rate, I will not sleep here.
+I will not turn you out of your own room.'
+
+'And,' she demanded, 'what would the Marquis say if he knew that you
+had slept here in the hay-loft or on the floor, with your saddle for a
+pillow?'
+
+Other expostulations followed, which were answered with great eloquence
+and stately determination, mixed with that grave humour which can no
+more be acquired than can be acquired the wearing of a cloak as it is
+worn by an ancient hidalgo, or the arrangement of a mantilla as it is
+arranged on the head and shoulders of a high-born lady of Granada.
+
+At last, as I caught up my satchel to leave the room, she caught me by
+the arm, and nudging me with her elbow, she said with much archness, 'I
+am coming back again,' and with that she swept out of the room, leaving
+me no longer with my eyes half closed in sleep.
+
+She never came back. Nor did I ever see her again. She never
+intended to come back. Those who think so are incapable of making or
+understanding a joke, and will never be able to appreciate the uncommon
+wit and humour of Spanish women. That there are shallow fools in the
+world who interpret everything they hear in a carnal and literal sense
+is the reason why we have so many childish, not to say unpleasant,
+stories from Spain and Peru regarding the questionable morals of the
+fair sex of those countries. What is meant for fun and drollery is
+mistaken for naughtiness, and much that is offered as a spontaneous
+natural hospitality has been wilfully or ignorantly misconstrued.
+I do not defend the method Doña Carmen took in putting her guest at
+his ease, and making him feel at home; I think it was a daring act
+of politeness, and it is not pretty to find so much knowledge of the
+world in the possession of a woman, however dexterous her use of it
+may be. There is, however, another kind of culture besides that which
+comes from reading expensive novels, dressing for church or dinner,
+and living in a climate somewhat cold, foggy, and changeable. The
+ladies of Peru are beautiful, natural, very intelligent, and fond of
+living an unconstrained life. Their climate is provocative of freedom,
+ease, and delightful idleness. Their fair speech and delightful wit
+partake of these characteristics. It is born of these. It can be
+misinterpreted--but only by those who know not their language, and do
+not respect their ways.
+
+A common source of error on the subject of Peruvian hospitality
+arises from the fact that in Lima, for example, a foreigner, even an
+Englishman, is rarely or never invited to dine with a native family.
+With us, if we meet a man in Bond Street, or anywhere on the wing, whom
+we have not seen for a year, we ask him to come and take pot-luck with
+us, and if he is a foreigner he generally does--and notwithstanding
+the detestable anxiety of our wives, our pot-luck dinners are the best
+dinners that we give. What is lacking in the mutton we can and often
+do make up with the bottle or the pipe. This is the kind of thing we
+expect in return when we visit Lima and pick up a man who has thus
+dined with us at home. But the thing is impossible. In Lima a married
+man dines with his grandmother, his wife's grandmother, his wife's
+father and mother, together with his wife and the children, whom the
+old people love to spoil with sugar-plums. The ladies are only half
+dressed, the service is somewhat slatternly, the dishes, although
+excellent in their way, are such as do not please the weak stomachs
+of benighted Englishmen, much less the French, who have not made the
+acquaintance of the puchero, the ajijaco, or the omnipresent dulces. In
+short, a stranger at a Peruvian family dinner, unexpected and without
+a formal preparation, would be as acceptable as a dog at Mass. And
+when an Englishman is invited to one of these houses he never forgets
+the things done in his honour--the loads of dishes--the floods of
+wine--the magnificent dresses of the ladies--the elaborate display of
+everything;--and oh! the stately coldness, the searching of dark eyes,
+and the awful sense of responsibility which rests on the being for
+whom all this has been done, and who is the solitary cause of it all.
+He never accepts another invitation. And yet the people have strained
+every nerve to please him; they have made themselves ill, have spent
+an awful sum of money, and less and less believe in dining a man as the
+most perfect form of showing him their respect or esteem.
+
+But out of Lima, in El Campo--the country--where everybody is free as
+the air, everything is changed, everybody is happy, nothing goes wrong.
+The abundance is glorious, the ease and liberty delightful; there is
+nothing to equal it in the riding, dancing, eating, drinking, laughing,
+sleeping, dreaming, card-playing, smoking, joking world.
+
+El Señor Paz Soldan, in his 'Historia del Peru Independiente,' says:
+'Peru, essentially hospitable, admitted into her bosom from the first
+days of her independence thousands of foreigners, to whom she extended
+not only the same fellowship she afforded her own children, but such
+was the goodness of the country that she considered these new comers
+as illustrious personages. Men who in their native country had never
+been anything but domestic servants, or waiters in a restaurant,
+among whom there might perhaps be numbered one or two who, by their
+superior ability, might, after the lapse of twenty years, come to be
+master tailors or shop-men, have gained fortunes in Peru all at once,
+have won the hand of ladies of fortune, birth, riches, and social
+distinction. Those who have entered the army or navy have quickly risen
+to the highest posts. If they devote themselves to business, at once
+they become capitalists; and in civil and political appointments the
+foreigner is hardly to be distinguished from the native. The first
+decrees ever issued gave every protection and preference to foreigners
+resident in the country. They have the same right to the protection of
+the laws as Peruvians, without exception of persons, becoming of course
+bound by the same laws, to bear the same burdens, and in proportion
+to their fortunes to share in contributing to the income of the
+State.... Such as have any knowledge of science, or special industry,
+or are desirous of establishing houses of business, can reside in
+perfect freedom, and have given to them letters of citizenship. He
+who establishes a new industry, or invents a useful machine hitherto
+unknown in Peru, is exempt for a whole year from paying any taxes. If
+necessary, the Government will supply him with funds to carry on his
+art; and it will give free land to agriculturists. And yet, strange
+to say, and more painful to confess, many of these foreigners have
+been the cause of serious difficulties to the country, plunging it
+into conflicts which more or less have taken the gilt off the national
+honour. They have wished for themselves certain distinct national
+laws. They have thought themselves entitled to break whatever laws they
+pleased, and when the penalty has been enforced they have applied to
+their Governments, who have always judged the question in an aspect the
+most unfavourable to the honour and interest of Peru.'
+
+As regards this hospitality given to English tailors and tailors' sons
+by Peru, it is quite true; true is it that they have married the rich
+daughters of ancient families, and made marvellous progress in all
+things that distinguished Dives from Lazarus. Men who would never have
+been anything but lackeys in their own country have become masters of
+lands and money in Peru. It is all true. Without wishing to disparage
+my own countrymen, and still less my countrywomen, I am bound to
+confess that the Peruvians have derived very little edification from
+their presence and example. Within the Guano Age a British minister has
+been shot at his own table in Lima while dining with his mistress. The
+captain of an English man-of-war lying in Callao was murdered in the
+outskirts of Lima while on a drunken spree: the murderers in both cases
+never being brought to justice.
+
+The English merchants were men noted for neither moral nor intellectual
+capacity, utterly innocent of any culture, or regard for it; of no
+manners or good customs that could reflect honour on the English name,
+and who gained fortunes after such fashion as only the practices of
+a corrupt government could sanction or connive at. Few English ladies
+have ever been permanently resident in Lima. It has been visited by one
+or two showy examples of the money-monger class; but the Lima people
+have not had the opportunity of knowing by actual contact in their
+own country the gentry of England. This has been a disadvantage to us
+and to them of the greatest magnitude: for while we have accepted the
+hospitality of Peru, we have not returned it in a manner worthy of the
+English name.
+
+Nor can it be said that English travellers who have written on Peru
+make any very great figure in the cause of truth and honesty; whilst
+the amount of literary pilfering has been almost as notorious as that
+of the pillage of the public treasury by native officers of state.
+
+The commanders and petty officers of the Steam Navigation Company in
+the Pacific come more in contact with the better class of Peruvians
+than any other portion of the English community. Among these numerous
+officers there are a few to be met with who can speak grammatical
+English. No doubt, grammar to a sailor is an irksome thing, at any rate
+it is a thing of minor importance, and we rather like our sailors to
+be free of everything except their courage, their gentleness, their
+love of truth, and, above all, their glorious self-abnegation. But it
+is a pitiable sight to see a British tar with lavender kid-gloves on
+his fists, Havannah cigars in his great mouth, widened by an early
+love for loud oaths, rings on his fingers, and other apings of the
+fine gentleman; and it is disgusting to see him dressed in an authority
+he knows not how to adorn, and placed in a position which he can only
+degrade. Yet these British tars are looked up to as English gentlemen,
+and, what is more, as English captains; and not a few Peruvians come
+to the natural conclusion that it is no great thing to be an English
+gentleman after all.
+
+It is very grievous to make these remarks; justice demands, however,
+that if we would criticise the Peruvians from an English standpoint,
+we should take into consideration the English example which has been
+placed before them during all the years of an Age of Guano.
+
+An English sailor in every part of the commercial world which he visits
+is too often a disgrace to himself and a dishonour to his country.
+But in Peru he is a standing disgrace to humanity. When on shore, if
+he is not drunk, he is kicking up a row. His language is foul, his
+manners brutal, his associates the off-scouring of the people, and
+his appearance that of a wild beast. We have of late been turning our
+attention to unseaworthy ships, and the amount of wise and unwise talk
+that this important subject has evoked has been great and surprising.
+It is a pity that no one has thought it necessary to take up the
+subject of the unworthy sailor, which should include not only the
+ignorant, drunken, and grossly depraved seaman, but the oftentimes
+illiterate, ill-conditioned, and brutal creature called a captain,
+who commands him. There are many considerations why the captain
+of a British ship should be a man of good character, and there are
+imperative reasons why he should be compelled to earn a certificate of
+good conduct, as well as a certificate of proficiency in the science of
+navigation. The ability to represent the country whose flag he carries,
+as a man well-instructed and of good manners, is not the least of those
+reasons.
+
+I recently had the opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with
+nearly five hundred captains of merchant ships in the Pacific. I am
+ashamed to confess that the French, the Italian, the North American,
+and the Swede were everyway superior men to the English captains.
+There were exceptions of course; the superiority was not in physical
+force, but in intelligence, in manners, in the cleanliness in which
+they lived, and the sobriety of their lives. If the Pabellon de Pica
+may be compared to a pig-stye, the British sailors who frequent its
+strand may be likened unto swine. Indeed, it is an insult to that
+filth-investigating but sober brute to compare him with a being who at
+certain times is at once a madman, a drunkard, and not infrequently a
+murderer. It is not easy to escape the conviction that captains such
+as these must be of use to their employers, and are needed for purposes
+for which ordinary criminals would be unfitted. At the Pabellon de Pica
+a choice selection of these British worthies may be seen daily getting
+drunk on smuggled beer, winding up with smuggled brandy, wallowing
+among the filthiest filth of that foul concourse of filthy inhuman
+beings, a detestable example to all who witness it; and a living
+ensample of what England now is to a guano-selling people.
+
+All this has come of our trying to do some justice to the Peruvians,
+and no doubt it will become us as quickly as possible to attend to the
+mote which is in our own eye.
+
+It should likewise be borne in mind that the Peruvians have
+suffered the greatest indignities at the hands of successive British
+Governments. Claims for money of the most vexatious, frivolous and
+irritating nature have been pressed upon Peru with an arrogance
+equal only to their ridiculous extravagance. When at last, with great
+difficulty, our Government has been induced to submit one of these
+claims to arbitration, judgment has invariably been given against
+us--as it only could, or ought to have been given.
+
+This chapter should not be closed without noticing the fact that
+for nearly fifty years the English have had their own burying-place
+at Bella Vista, which is midway between Lima and Callao, and their
+own church and officiating chaplain. The Jews likewise have their
+synagogue, the Freemasons their lodges, the Chinese their temples;
+and although liberty of worship is not the law of the land, the
+utmost toleration in religious matters exists. The women of Lima, who
+have retained the old religion with ten times more firmness than the
+men, are the sole opponents of all religious reforms in the Peruvian
+Constitution. And because it is the women who stand in front of their
+Church, guarding it with their lives, let us have some respect for
+them. They are a powerful and determined body, as courageous as they
+are beautiful, which is saying much. In times of great excitement
+they will take part in the parliamentary debates! Not, indeed, in
+a parliamentary and constitutional manner, but in a manner quite
+effectual. These fair champions of their Church, when liberty of
+worship, or liberty of teaching, or any question that touches the Roman
+Catholic faith is being debated in the assembly, proceed thither in the
+tapada attire, with only one eye visible, and from the Ladies' Gallery
+will throw handfuls of grass to a speaker--intimating thereby his
+relationship to one of our domestic quadrupeds--or garlands of tinsel,
+just as it pleases them, and as the words of the speaker are for or
+against their cause. Our own House of Commons should take knowledge of
+this, and pause before they remove the lattice work from before their
+Ladies' Gallery!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The Mormons are coming to Peru. Five hundred families of this
+formidable sect are formally announced as being on their way to the
+land of the Incas, and the Peruvian Government has been very liberal
+in its grant of free land: this may be called a revolution indeed.
+A Spanish law existed in Peru but little more than half a century
+ago, which ran as follows: 'Because the inconveniences increase from
+foreigners passing to the Indies, who take up their residence in
+seaport towns and other places, some of whom are not to be trusted
+in the things of our holy Catholic faith, and because it becomes us
+diligently to see that no error is sown among the Indians and ignorant
+people, we command the Viceroys, the Audiencias, and the Governors,
+and we charge the Archbishops and Bishops that they do all that in them
+lies to sweep the earth of this people, and that they cast them out of
+the Indies and compel them to put to sea on the first occasion and at
+their own cost[1].' We may also note that among these sublime laws one
+may be found which absolutely forbade the importation of printed books.
+
+Since then it cannot be denied that Peru has made great progress in the
+matter of toleration to foreigners. It has not perpetuated the insane
+and suicidal policy of the nation that expelled the Moors, the real
+bone and muscle of the country, from its soil. And it may truly be said
+that what the Moors were to Andalusia and Southern Spain, Europeans and
+Asiatics have been to Peru; supplying it not only with literature and
+science, but industry also. All the great estates of Peru are tilled by
+foreigners; so are its gardens. All the steam ships on its coast are
+driven by foreigners; foreigners surveyed and built their railways,
+their one pier, gave them gas, and would give them water if the
+Peruvian Government would only be wise. There is nothing of importance
+in the whole country that does not owe its existence to foreign capital
+and foreign thought, and it cannot be denied that Peru has done much in
+making her laws conform to such a state of things. It may yet do more.
+Ten more years of peace and tranquillity will work wonders in a land
+that at present may be said to be practically unacquainted with both.
+Ten years will close the accursed Age of Guano. Practically it may
+be said to be closed now. Peru is putting her house in order: she has
+learned much in the course of the last four years, and with economy,
+persisting in her present course of real hard, honest work, giving
+up playing at soldiers, and keeping an expensive navy which is of no
+earthly use to her, she may redeem herself from her past degradation,
+and become as great as she says she is.
+
+But Mormons!
+
+If there be a country in the teeming world which offers a field for
+Mormonism, it is Peru. If Mormonism be a belief that it is the chief
+end of man to multiply his species, to replenish the earth, and find
+the perfection of his being in subduing it, Peru is the very place for
+the Mormons. One might even go the length of saying that it was made on
+purpose for them.
+
+Peru, with the immensity of its territory and the riches that are
+enclosed in it, requires a people with a religious faith in the
+divinity of polygamy and agriculture to make the most of the truly
+wonderful land.
+
+Let the Mormons leave the country in which they are at present looked
+down upon, for one where they will be welcomed.
+
+Mormonism is not, with the exception of its name, new to Peru.
+The Incas were great breeders of men, they pushed their humanising
+conquests north and south; not so much by the power of the spear
+and the sling, as by building great storehouses of maize. They first
+reduced the people whom they would conquer to the verge of starvation,
+and then fed them on sweeter food than they had ever tasted before.
+Count von Moltke was not the first who reduced a great city by
+besieging it, and surrounding it with a vast army. This was done in the
+days before the tragedy of Ollanta had been rehearsed in Cuzco. What
+the Incas gained by giving corn, they maintained by teaching the people
+how to grow and cultivate it. Men had as many wives as they pleased,
+provided that they were able to maintain them, and they had no fawning
+immoral priests to make women barren and unfruitful; who preached
+godliness to the people, but practised devilry themselves.
+
+And here one may be allowed to notice by the way, that it is a
+thing altogether singular and inconsistent that these loud-tongued
+republicans and apostles of the rights of women, will allow and
+tolerate among them a body of men who believe that it is God's will
+they should burn and not marry, and cannot think of allowing among
+their mighty respectablenesses a people who believe that it is God's
+will they should have a plurality of wives. Perhaps when the great
+Americans are tired of the vanity of being a hundred years old, and
+can find time to look this matter in the face they may reconsider their
+Mormon policy, and give up persecuting a people who at least have many
+divine examples for their way of life. If Mormonism be good for South
+America, why should it not be good for the North? and what will be
+nothing less than the blessing of heaven on Lake Titicaca, why should
+it be esteemed a curse at the Lake of Salt? Happily the logic of great
+events in the lives of nations is more easy to comprehend than the
+logic of mere professors.
+
+The history of colonisation in Peru is not interesting reading; much
+less so are the personal reports of those who have been connected with
+carrying out the various schemes of the Government. There were the
+usual delays, the usual difficulty in obtaining the promised funds at
+the appointed times, followed by confusion and disaster.
+
+The first colony formed in Peru consisted of Germans, who established
+themselves at Pozuzo, a small district formed of mountains and valleys
+fifteen days journey north-east of Lima. The proposal was made in
+1853, and the first batch of the new comers arrived in 1857. In 1870
+they numbered 360 souls, 112 of whom were children. Their progress
+had not been very brilliant; among them were carpenters, coopers,
+cigar-makers, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, shoe-makers, tailors,
+saddlers, machinists, and tanners. A priest, a grave-digger or clerk, a
+schoolmaster and an architect were also among the number. Each colonist
+was expected to cultivate a plot of ground measuring 33,000 yards by
+13,000 yards, on which they grew tobacco, coca, maize, yuca (a most
+delicious farinaceous root), haricot beans, rice, coffee, and garden
+stuff. The people lived in wooden houses, and there were among them
+all three houses of wrought stone. An enthusiastic Peruvian deputy in
+giving a description of this little struggling colony, concluded his
+peroration thus: 'We have an eloquent example in the industrious colony
+established at Pozuzo, where in the midst of savage nature they have
+erected a city which perhaps is on a level with any city of Europe!' On
+which it might be remarked that there is a great deal of the perhaps,
+but very little of the city in this statement. It is in fact nothing
+but a city of the honourable deputy's brain.
+
+The next emigration was from the islands of the South-western
+Pacific--subjects of his Majesty the King of Hawaii, whose diplomatic
+representative in Lima demanded the return of these people, who did
+return in an unexpected manner, to the earth out of which they were
+taken. They all died like flies that had been poisoned. The Peruvian
+Government then prohibited any further immigration of Polynesians.
+
+It was afterwards discovered that these people had been kidnapped, or,
+as the official report says, 'seduced first, and stolen afterwards.'
+
+It had been eloquently preached by many ardent Peruvians, now that the
+subject of immigration for a moment or so seized hold of their warm
+brains, that all that was needed to fill Peru with happy colonists
+was to establish liberty of worship, toleration, a free press,
+dignity--moral and intellectual--security to persons and property,
+and when these great things were once placed on a firm basis in
+Peru the superfluous populations of the world would flock to the
+abundance it could offer, together with the warm and delightful sun,
+like doves to their windows. These things not having been done, the
+other has been left undone--albeit not for that specific reason. The
+immigrating class, for the most part, have their own way of procuring
+information regarding the country which courts their presence, and
+it is quite likely that the glad tidings from Peru still require to
+be authenticated. Neither the Irish labourer, nor the Scotch, nor yet
+the Welsh have bestowed themselves on Peru, and it is to be hoped they
+never will until they can be sure of quick returns. The Cornish miner
+is well known in various localities for his drunkenness, his obstinacy,
+his cunning, and above all for his untruthfulness.
+
+The Chinese immigration, if such it can be called, is the only
+considerable immigration that has ever taken place in Peru. It began
+as a commercial speculation; and there are many orthodox and highly
+respectable men in Lima who owe their wealth to the traffic in Chinese,
+in whose magnificent _salas_ a conversation on China is as welcome as
+the mention of the gallows in a family, one of whose members had been
+hanged.
+
+Of the 65,000 Chinese taken from their native land, 5,000 died on their
+way to Peru; they threw themselves overboard or smoked a little too
+much opium, or were shot, or all these causes were put together. It
+was once my lot to be seated in a very small room filled for the most
+part with guano men, where I was compelled to listen to the tale of an
+Italian who had served as chief mate on a ship freighted with Chinamen.
+He thought his life was once in danger.
+
+'And what did you under the circumstances?' enquired some one.
+
+'I shot two of them down, _sacramento_,' answered the
+villainous-looking wretch; on which there was a burst of laughter that
+did not seem to me very appropriate.
+
+'And what was done with _you_?' I enquired in no sympathising tone.
+
+'Senor,' replied the assassin, 'the Captain, Senor Venturini,
+accommodated me with a passage in his gig to the shore, where I
+remained to make an extended acquaintance with the Celestial Empire.'
+
+The cold insolence of this criminal suggested to me that I had just as
+well keep my troublesome tongue as still as possible.
+
+The Chinese question, as is natural that it should, has agitated the
+public mind in Lima not a little. At one time it assumed such alarming
+features that it was seriously proposed in Congress to expel the free
+Chinamen from Peru, or compel them to contract themselves anew[2]. It
+was known that the free Chinamen stirred up their enslaved brethren to
+revolt; explained to them--which was perfectly true--that according to
+Peruvian law they could not be held in bondage, and if they escaped
+they could not be recaptured. Many attempts at escape were made and
+many murders were the result.
+
+According to the Peruvian author quoted above, the Chinamen brought to
+the dung heaps of Peru, or its sugar plantations, are selected from the
+lowest of their race. 'The planters promote the natural degeneration
+of their Chinese labourers; they lodge them in filthy sheds without
+a single care being bestowed upon them, while they are condemned to a
+ceaseless unremitting toil, without a ray of hope that their condition
+will be ever bettered. For the enslaved Chinaman the day dawns with
+labour; labour pursues him through its weary hours, a labour which
+will bring no good fruit to him, and the shadows of night provide him
+with nothing but dreams of the tormenting routine which awaits him
+to-morrow. In his sickness he has no mother to attend him with her
+care; he has not even the melancholy comfort that he will be decently
+buried when he dies, much less that his grave will be watered with
+the sacred tears of those who loved him. Of the meanest Peruvian the
+authorities know where he lived, when he died, and for what cause, and
+where he is buried. But the Asiatics are disembarked and scattered
+among numerous private properties, their existence is forgotten,
+they do not live, rather they vegetate, and at last die like brutes
+beneath the scourge of their driver or the burden which was too heavy
+to bear. We only remember the Chinaman when, weary of being weary, and
+vexed with vexation, he arms himself with the dagger of desperation,
+wounds the air with the cry of rebellion, and covers our fields with
+desolation and blood.'
+
+The great distance, observes the same author, of the private estates
+from the centre of authority, is one of the securities of their owners
+that their abuse of their Chinese slaves will neither be corrected or
+chastised. On the contrary, his influence with the local authorities
+is oftentimes such as to make them instruments of his designs. Between
+the master and the slave respect for the law does not exist, and the
+consequence is, that the one becomes more and more a despot, and the
+other more and more insolent and vicious.
+
+Escape for the Chinaman is next to impossible; he can only free himself
+from the horrible condition in which he finds himself by using his
+braces or his silken scarf for a halter, or the more quiet way of an
+overdose of opium.
+
+Treat the Chinaman well, and he is a valuable servant, and happily
+many thousands of such are to be found along the coast, in several of
+the great haciendas, and in Lima. The wages of a Chinese slave are 4
+dols. a month, two suits of clothes in the year, and his keep. A free
+Chinaman as a labourer earns a dollar a day, and of course 'finds'
+himself. Now and then one hears strange phrases at the most unexpected
+time, and one's ears tingle with words that an Englishman knows how to
+meet when compelled to hear them.
+
+'How did you manage to do all that work?' was a question put at a
+dinner-table one night in Lima, when I was partaking of the awful
+hospitality of an English-speaking capitalist.
+
+'Well,' was the reply, 'I bought half-a-dozen Chinamen, taught them
+the use of the machine, which the devils learned much quicker than I
+did, and in less than three months I found that I could easily make ten
+thousand dollars a month,' etc.
+
+'I bought half-a-dozen Chinamen!' They might have been so many sacks
+of potatoes, or pieces of machinery, and the ease and familiarity with
+so repulsive a commerce which the speech denoted, proved too well the
+contempt which such familiarity always breeds.
+
+The Chinaman is not only very intelligent, he is even superior in
+his personal tastes to many of those who pride themselves on being
+his masters. If he has time and opportunity he will keep himself
+scrupulously clean in his person and dress. After his day's work, if he
+has been digging dung for example, he will change his clothes and have
+a bath before eating his supper. He is polite and courteous, humorous
+and ingenious. He is by no means a coward, but will sell his life to
+avenge his honour. It is always dangerous for a man twice his size
+to strike a Chinaman. The only stand-up fight I ever saw in Lima, was
+between a small Chinaman and a big Peruvian of the Yellow breed; and
+the yellow-skinned 'big 'un' must have very much regretted the insult
+which originated the blows he received in his face from the little one.
+The Chinamen of the better class, the Wing Fats; Kwong, Tung, Tays;
+the Wing Sings; the Pow Wos; the Wing Hing Lees, and Si, Tu, Pous,
+whose acquaintance I made, are all shrewd, courteous, gentlemanlike
+fellows, temperate in all things, good-humoured and kind, industrious,
+and exquisitely clean in their houses and attire. It was an infinitely
+greater pleasure to me to pass an evening with some of these, than with
+my own brandy-drinking, tobacco-smoking, and complaining countrymen,
+whose conversation is garnished with unclean oaths, whose Spanish is a
+disgrace to their own country, and their English to that in which they
+reside.
+
+My Chinese friends were greatly puzzled at the answer I gave to their
+questions why I had come to Peru, or for what purpose; they could not
+believe it, any more than they could believe that an English gentleman
+drank brandy for any other reason than that it was a religious
+observance.
+
+'And why came you to Peru?' I enquired in my turn.
+
+'To make money,' was the candid reply.
+
+'For nothing else?' I insisted.
+
+To give emphasis to his words Wing Hi rose from his seat, paced slowly
+up and down the room clapping his hands now behind his back, and
+now below his right knee: 'For nothing, nothing, nothing else,' he
+exclaimed, and laughed.
+
+'Do you like Lima pretty well?' I enquired with some care, for a
+Chinaman resents direct questions; and the answer invariably was--
+
+'No. Lima is no good, there is no money;' which many other shopkeepers
+not Chinamen can swear to, and their oaths in this instance are
+perfectly trustworthy.
+
+'You do not give credit I suppose?' and I kept as solemn a face as
+possible in putting the question. My solemnity was speedily knocked out
+of me by the burst of boisterous laughter which greeted my question.
+
+Wishing to cultivate these delightful heathens, I purchased from time
+to time a few things, all good, all very reasonable in price. These
+were chiefly fans, pictures, paper-knives, neckties, and boxes. Some
+of their ivory carving was a marvel of patience and keen sight. I
+was assured that one piece, for which they asked the price of 300
+dols., took one man two years to make. That one statement made it
+an unpleasant object to behold. The porcelain brought to Lima is of
+the gaudiest and most inferior kind. I insisted on this so much that
+at last they confessed it to be true. 'But then the price,' they
+suggested.--A pair of vases that would sell in Bond Street for £150,
+can be purchased in Lima for less than £20.
+
+One day I picked up a New Testament in Chinese, and after staying one
+evening with my celestial friends for an hour, I took it out of my
+pocket and asked them to be kind enough to read it for me, and tell me
+what it was about, for that in my youth my parents had not taught me
+that language and I was too old to learn it now. The next night our
+conversation was renewed, all being for the most part of the purest
+heathenism. They made no allusion to my New Testament; they evidently
+preferred to talk of other things, or to sell fans. At last in a
+tone of indifference I asked after my book, which one of their number
+produced out of a sweet-scented drawer.
+
+'We do not know,' they said, 'what the book is about'; and therefore
+they could not tell me. They had read it? 'O yes; it was not a cookery
+book, nor a song book, nor a book about women; but seemed to be a
+pot of many things not well boiled.' There was no laughter, all was
+as serious as melancholy itself. I was a little disappointed, and
+came away without buying anything. It must require great gifts to be
+a missionary to the heathen, and especially the heathen Chinese. I
+should be inclined to think it to be as easy to bring a rich Chinaman
+to repentance as a rich Jew. The failure of my New Testament to make
+itself understood was a great blow to me. They might probably have
+understood some portions of the Book of Genesis better; but to my
+regret I had not the means of putting that to the test.
+
+The mention of the Old Testament reminds me of a trivial incident
+which occurred one night in a magnificent sala in Lima, where were a
+good sprinkling of Spanish-speaking gentlemen and ladies, Italians
+and Germans, I being the only Englishman present. In course of the
+conversation it was demanded by some one, what were the two creatures
+first to leave the Ark: and it was at once answered by several voices
+'the dove and the deer.' This appeared rather unsound to me, and
+I questioned the statement. So hot did the debate become, that it
+ended in a willing bet of £20, when after some difficulty a Bible was
+procured, and the dove and the raven won. The consternation was great.
+One man was candid enough to confess that he was an ass of no small
+magnitude for not reflecting that under the circumstances it could not
+well be a deer; but he had heard that such was the case, and because it
+was in the Bible felt bound to believe it.
+
+Among all the classes of immigrants in Peru, or in Lima its capital,
+the English stand first and highest. They are certainly better
+represented than they were twenty years ago, but there is still much to
+improve. One great drawback to the English is the absence of a home, or
+the means of making one. The construction of the houses is one cause.
+There are no snug corners sacred to quiet and repose, and if the house
+be not a convent, it is something between a theatre and a furniture
+shop. Domestic servants are another fatal drawback, but the rent is
+the greatest of them all. The rents of some of the dingiest houses in
+the back streets are higher than those in Mayfair in the season, while
+the principal houses in the chief street are treble the amount. If I
+have elsewhere spoken sharply of my countrymen, it is because I think
+much of the land which gave them birth. It does not by any means follow
+that because a Peruvian child fifty years of age sells his soul to the
+devil, that an Englishman of four hundred should follow his example. It
+should be quite the other way.
+
+The hotels are not, under the circumstances, unreasonable; a bachelor
+can live very well for thirty shillings a day, including fleas. Washing
+is a serious item in a city where there is much sun, much dust, little
+water, and the _lavendera_ is the companion of 'gentlemen.'
+
+New books are not remarkably dear, but the assortment is limited to
+theology and medicine. There are half-a-dozen daily newspapers, which
+cost half-a-crown a day if you buy them all. Their joint circulation
+will not reach more than fifteen thousand copies, while of their
+number only two may be said to pay their expenses; only one to make any
+profit. This is not to be wondered at. I tried my best to get into a
+controversy with them, by rousing them to jealousy. I publicly stated
+that if the guano deposits had been in Australia, or even in Canada,
+at a time when so much doubt was thrown on the quantity of guano
+they might contain, some newspaper would have sent off its special
+correspondent to make a report. The _Comercio_, the chief of the press,
+replied, with charming _naivete_: 'Why should we go to the expense of
+making a special report for ourselves when the Government will supply
+us with as many reports as we like?' The supply of English literature
+is very poor. Harper's Magazine appears to be in greatest demand, and
+certainly for the price of forty cents it is a marvel of cheapness.
+It is well printed, profusely and often well illustrated, and the
+numbers for the present year contain lengthy instalments of _Daniel
+Deronda_, and one or two original novels by American writers. There
+was not a single decent edition of the Don Quixote in any language to
+be found in all the shops of the city. There is evidently a brisk sale
+for very indecent photographs, and cheap editions of the Paul de Kock
+school. The number of new books printed in Lima is miserably small. The
+last, which has been very well received, is 'Tradiciones del Peru,'
+por Ricardo Palma, third series. It is exceedingly well written, and
+consists of a series of short stories illustrating the manners and
+customs of the early days. Here is one which for many reasons is worth
+doing into English. It is called 'A Law-suit against God,' and exhibits
+much of the old Spanish meal, and not a little of the new Peruvian
+leaven. It purports to be a chronicle of the time of the Viceroy, the
+Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius.
+
+In the archives of what was once the Real Audiencia de Lima, will be
+found the copy of a lawsuit once demanded by the King of Spain, which
+covers more than four hundred folios of stamped paper, from which with
+great patience we have been able to gather the following--
+
+
+I.
+
+God made the good man: but it would seem that His Divine Majesty threw
+aces when He created mankind.
+
+Man instinctively inclines to good, but deceit poisons his soul and
+makes him an egotist, that is to say, perverse.
+
+Whosoever would aspire to a large harvest of evils, let him begin by
+sowing benefactions.
+
+Such is humanity, and very right was the King Don Alonso the Wise, when
+he said--'If this world was not badly made, at least it appeared to be
+so.'
+
+Don Pedro Campos de Ayala was, somewhere about the year 1695, a
+rich Spanish merchant, living in the neighbourhood of Lima, on whom
+misfortunes poured like hail on a heath.
+
+Generous to a fault, there was no wretchedness he did not alleviate
+with his money, no unfortunate he did not run to console. And this
+without fatuity, and solely for the pleasure he had in doing good.
+
+But the loss of a ship on its way from Cadiz with a valuable cargo,
+and the failure of some scoundrels for whom Don Pedro had been bound,
+reduced him to great straits. Our honourable Spaniard sold off all he
+possessed, at great loss, paid his creditors, and remained without a
+farthing.
+
+With the last copper fled his last friend. He wished to go to work
+again, and applied to many whom, in the days of his opulence, he had
+helped, and solely to whom they were indebted for what they had, to
+give him some employment.
+
+Then it was he discovered how much truth is contained in the proverb
+which says '_There are no friends but God, and a crown in the pocket_.'
+
+Even by the woman whom he had loved, and in whose love he believed like
+a child, it was very clearly revealed to him that now times had indeed
+changed.
+
+Then did Don Pedro swear an oath, that he would again become rich, even
+though to make his fortune he should have recourse to crime.
+
+The chicanery of others had slain in his soul all that was great,
+noble, and generous; and there was awakened within him a profound
+disgust for human nature. Like the Roman tyrant, he could have wished
+that humanity had a head that he might get it on to a block; there
+would then be a little chopping.
+
+He disappeared from Lima, and went to settle in Potosi.
+
+A few days before his disappearance, there was found dead in his
+bed a Biscayan usurer. Some said that he had died of congestion, and
+others declared that he had been violently strangled with a pocket
+handkerchief.
+
+Had there been a robbery or the taking of revenge? The public voice
+decided for the latter.
+
+But no one conceived the lie that this event coincided with the sudden
+flight of our Protagonist.
+
+And the years ran on, and there came that of 1706, when Don Pedro
+returned to Lima with half a million gained in Potosi.
+
+But he was no longer the same man, self-denying and generous, as all
+had once known him.
+
+Enclosed in his egotism, like the turtle in his shell, he rejoiced that
+all Lima knew that he was again rich; but they likewise knew that he
+refused to give even a grain of rice to St. Peter's cock.
+
+As for the rest, Don Pedro, so merry and communicative before, became
+changed into a misanthrope. He walked alone, he never returned a
+salutation, he visited no one save a well-known Jesuit, with whom he
+would remain hours together in secret converse.
+
+All at once it became rumoured that Campos de Ayala had called a
+notary, made his will, and left all his immense fortune to the College
+of St. Paul.
+
+But did he repent him of this, or was it that some new matter weighed
+heavily on his soul? At any rate, a month later he revoked his former
+will and made another, in which he distributed his fortune in equal
+proportions among the various convents and monasteries of Lima; setting
+apart a whole capital for masses for his soul, making a few handsome
+legacies, and among them one in favour of a nephew of the Biscayan of
+long ago.
+
+Those were the times when, as a contemporary writer very graphically
+says, 'the Jesuit and the Friar scratched under the pillows of the
+dying to get possession of a will.'
+
+Not many days passed after that revocation, when one night the Viceroy,
+the Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, received a long anonymous letter which,
+after reading and re-reading, made his excellency cogitate, and the
+result of his cogitation was to send for a magistrate whom he charged
+without loss of time with the apprehension of Don Pedro Campos de
+Ayala, whom he was to lodge in the prison of the court.
+
+
+II.
+
+Don Manuel Omms de Santa Pau Olim de Sentmanat y de Lanuza, Grandee
+of Spain and Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, was ambassador in Paris when
+happened the death of Charles II, and which involved the monarchy in a
+bloody war of succession. The Marquis not only presented to Louis XIV
+the will in which the Bewitched one carried the crown to the Duke of
+Anjou, but openly declared himself a partisan of the Bourbon, and also
+procured that his relatives commenced hostilities against the Archduke
+of Austria. In one of the battles, the firstborn of the Marquis de
+Castil-dos-Rius died.
+
+It is well known that the American Colonies accepted the will of
+Charles II acknowledging Philip V as their legitimate sovereign. He,
+after the termination of the civil war, hastened to reward the services
+of Castil-dos-Rius, and he named him Viceroy of Peru.
+
+Señor de Sentmanat y de Lanuza arrived in Lima in 1706, and it could
+not be said that he governed well when he began to raise his loans
+and impose taxes on private fortunes, religious houses, and capitular
+bodies: but by this means he was able to replenish the exhausted
+treasury of his king with a million and a half of crowns.
+
+Among the most notable events of the time in which he governed may be
+reckoned the victory which the pirate Wagner gained over the squadron
+of the Count de Casa-Alegre, thereby doing the English out of five
+millions of silver travellers from Peru. This animated the other
+corsairs of that nation, Dampier and Rogers, who took possession
+of Guayaquil, and squeezed out of that municipality a pretty fat
+contribution. In trying to restrain these marauders, the Viceroy
+spent a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in fitting out various
+ships, which sailed from Callao under the command of Admiral Don Pablo
+Alzamora. Everybody was anxious for the fray, even to the students of
+the colleges, all burning to chastise the heretics. Fortunately, the
+fight was never begun, and when our fleet went in search of the pirates
+as far as the Galapagos islands, they had abandoned already the waters
+of the Pacific.
+
+The earthquake which ruined many towns in the province of Paruro was
+also among the great events of the same period.
+
+Among the religious occurrences worthy of mention were the translation
+of the nuns of Santa Rosa to their own convent, and the fierce meeting
+in the Augustine chapter-room between the two Fathers, Zavala the
+Biscayan, and Paz the Sevillian. The Royal Audiencia was compelled
+to imprison the whole chapter, thereby suppressing the greatest of
+disorders, and after a session of eighteen hours and a good deal of
+scrutiny Zavala triumphed by a majority of two votes.
+
+The venerable Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius was an enthusiastic cultivator
+of the muses; but as these ladies are almost always shy with old men,
+a very poor inspiration animates the few verses of his excellency with
+which we happen to have any knowledge.
+
+Every Monday the Viceroy had a reunion of the poets of Lima in the
+palace; and in the library of the chief cosmographer, Don Eduardo
+Carrasco, there existed until within a few years a bulky manuscript,
+_The Flower of the Academies of Lima_, in which were guarded the acts
+of the sessions and the verses of the bards. We have made the most
+searching investigations for the hiding place of this very curious
+book, fatally without any result, which we suppose to be in possession
+of some avaricious bookworm, who can make no use of it himself, nor
+will allow others to explore so rich a treasure.
+
+The little Parnassus of the palace, which after the manner of Apollo
+was presided over by the Viceroy, was formed of Don Pedro de Peralta,
+then quite a youth; the Jesuit José Buendia, a Limeño of great talent,
+and prodigious science; Don Luis Oviedo y Herrera, also a Limeño, and
+son of the poet Count de la Granja (author of a pretty poem on Santa
+Rosa); and other geniuses whose names are not worth the trouble of
+recording.
+
+It was during the festivities held in honour of the birth of the
+Infanta Don Luis Fernando, that the little Parnassus was in the height
+of its glory, and the Viceroy, the Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, gave
+a representation at the palace of the tragedy of Perseus, written
+in unhappy hendecasyllables, to judge by a fragment which we once
+read. The principal of the clergy and aristocracy assisted at the
+representation.
+
+Speaking of the performance, our compatriot Peralta, in one of the
+notes to his _Lima fundada_, says, that it was given with harmonious
+music, splendid dresses, and beautiful decorations; and that in it the
+Viceroy not only manifested the elegance of his poetic genius, but also
+the greatness of his soul and the jealousy of his love.
+
+It appears to us that there is a good deal of the courtier in that
+criticism.
+
+Castil-dos-Rius had hardly been two years in his government before
+they accused him to Philip V of having used his high office for
+improper purposes, and defrauded the royal treasury in connivance
+with the _contrabandistas_. The Royal Audiencia and the Tribunal of
+Commerce supported the accusation, and the Monarch resolved upon at
+once dismissing the Governor of Peru from his office; but the order
+was revoked, because a daughter of the Marquis, one of the Queen's
+maids of honour, threw herself at the feet of Philip V, and brought
+to his recollection the great services of her father during the war of
+succession.
+
+But although the King appeased the Marquis in a way by revoking
+the first order, the pride of Señor de Olim de Sentmanat was deeply
+wounded; so much so that it carried him to his tomb, April 22nd, 1710,
+after having governed Peru three years and a half.
+
+The funeral was celebrated with slight pomp, but with abundance of good
+and bad verses, the Little Parnassus fulfilled a duty towards their
+brother in Apollo.
+
+
+III.
+
+The anonymous letter accused Don Pedro Campos de Ayala of assassinating
+the Biscayan, and stealing a thousand ounces, which served for the
+basis of the great fortune he acquired in Potosi.
+
+What proofs did the informer supply? We are unable to say.
+
+Don Pedro being duly installed in the Stone Jug, the Mayor appeared to
+take his declaration; and the accused replied as follows:
+
+'Mr. Mayor, I plead not guilty when he who accuses me is God himself.
+Only to Him under the seal of confession did I reveal my crime. Your
+worship will of course represent human justice in the case against me,
+but I shall institute a suit against GOD.'
+
+As will be seen, the distinctions of the culprit were somewhat
+casuistical, but he found an advocate (the marvel would have been had
+he not) prepared to undertake the case against God. Forensic resource
+is mighty prolific.
+
+For the reason that the Royal Council sought to wrap the case in the
+deepest mystery, all its details were devoured with avidity, and it
+became the greatest scandal of the time.
+
+The Inquisition, which was hand and glove with the Jesuits, sought
+diligently for opportunities, and resolved to have a finger in the pie.
+
+The Archbishop, the Viceroy, and the most ingrained aristocrat of Lima
+society took the side of the Company of Jesus. Although the accused
+sustained his integrity, he presented no other proof than his own word,
+that a Jesuit was the author of the anonymous denunciation and the
+revealer of the secret of the confessional, instigated thereto by the
+revocation of the will.
+
+On his part the nephew of the Biscayan claimed the fortune of the
+murderer of his uncle, while the trustees of the various hospitals and
+convents defended the validity of the second will.
+
+All the sucking lawyers spent their Latin in the case, and the air was
+filled with strange notions and extravagant opinions.
+
+Meanwhile the scandal spread; nor will we venture to say to what
+lengths it might have gone, had not His Majesty Don Philip V declared
+that it would be for the public convenience, and the decorum of the
+Church as well as for the morality of his dominions, that the case
+should be heard before his great Council of the Indies in Spain.
+
+The consequence was that Don Pedro Campos de Ayala marched to Spain
+under orders, in company with the voluminous case.
+
+And as was natural, there followed with him not a few of those who were
+favourably mentioned in the will, and who went to Court to look after
+their rights.
+
+Peace was re-established in our City of Kings, and the Inquisition had
+its attention and time distracted by making preparation to burn Madam
+Castro, and the statue and bones of the Jesuit Ulloa.
+
+What was the sentence, or the turn which the sagacious Philip V gave
+to the case? We do not know; but we are allowed to suppose that the
+King hit upon some conciliatory expedient which brought peace to all
+the litigants, and it is possible that the culprit ate a little blessed
+bread, or shared in some royal indulgence.
+
+Does the original case still exist in Spain? It is very likely that it
+has been eaten of moths, and hence the pretext and origin of a phrase
+which with us has become so popular.
+
+It is said of a certain notary who much troubled the Royal Council in
+the matter of a will and its codicils, that when the custodian of such
+things at last produced something which looked like the original, he
+said, 'Here it is, but the moths have sadly eaten it.'
+
+'Just our luck, my dear sir,' said an interested one, who was none
+other than the Marquis of Castelfuerte. And ever since, when a thing
+has disappeared we say 'No doubt the moths have eaten it.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So much for the lawsuit against GOD, which only a Spaniard could have
+conceived and a Peruvian satirist report.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a commercial father sees his eldest son, on whom he has lavished
+much care and money that he might learn mathematics and such an amount
+of classics as will stand him in good stead at the fashionable training
+grounds of the world's gladiators, and the boy is seen to forsake
+figures and take to poetry, to prefer the gay science to that which
+would enable him to master the money article of the _Times_, that
+father will feel as great a pang as when a giant dies.
+
+The same feeling may actuate many a Peruvian bondholder when he is told
+that the Peruvians are beginning to cultivate literature. Many city
+men will disregard the thing altogether, or disdain to take notice of
+it. Many will treat it with resentment and contempt. What right have
+people who are in debt to busy themselves in writing books, in amusing
+themselves when they should be at work, and in writing poetry when
+they should be making money. And yet the cultivation of literature for
+its own sake by any people ought not only to be viewed with favour,
+it should be carefully watched, to see if it be a real national growth
+or only a momentary effort which cannot last. If it be the former, we
+shall see it in an improvement of public morals and manners; in the
+quickening of the national conscience and chastening the public taste,
+in an elevation of character and in fresh dignity being imparted to the
+common things and duties of everyday life.
+
+Peru possesses a history as well as a country. The one remains to be
+written, and the other to be described by a Peruvian genius who shall
+do for Peru and Peruvian history what Sir Walter Scott did for his
+native land and its records.
+
+It is now high time that Peru produced her popular historian. One who
+can fire the intellect of his countrymen while he provides them with an
+elevating pastime, who can point out the way they should or should not
+go by showing them the ways they have hitherto travelled. If the work
+has been delayed, it is because the people have too long retained the
+spirit of the former times to make it possible for them to profit by
+any explanation of the past. Monarchists yet, because they have never
+known better, they have not been taught to hate the hateful kings who
+ruled them in selfishness and kept them in ignorance, while they have
+not learned to love with devotion and intelligence the freedom they
+possess but know not how to use.
+
+When books are found in hands till then only accustomed to carry
+muskets, and the pen is handled by those who have hitherto only
+believed in the power of the sword, we may rest assured that an
+important change has set in, a silent revolution has begun, which will
+make all other revolutions very difficult if not impossible.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [1] As early as 1614 we find Cervantes writing of these
+     countries as the 'refugio y amparo de los desesperados
+     de España, Yglesia de los alçados, salvoconducto de los
+     homicidas, pala y cubierta de los jugadores (á quien llaman
+     ciertos los peritos en el arte) añagaza general de mugeres
+     libres, engaño comun de muchos, y remedio particular de
+     pocos'--or, in plain English, the Indies are the 'refuge and
+     shield of the hopeless ones of Spain, the sanctuary of the
+     fraudulent, the protection of the murderer, the occasion
+     and pretext of gamesters (as certain experts in the art
+     are called), the common snare of free women, the universal
+     imposture of the many and the specific reparation of the
+     few.'--_El Zeloso Estremeño_. In _La Española Inglesa_ he
+     calls the Indies 'el comun refugio de los pobres generosos,'
+     he had himself sought service in the colonies, but anything
+     in the form of favour from the Spanish court never fell to
+     the lot of Cervantes. And all men of brave hearts and high
+     courage may thank God that royal people were as powerless to
+     spoil or to help men of genius then as they are still.
+
+     [2] See a useful work 'La Condicion Juridica de los
+     Estrangeros en el Peru,' per Felix Cipriano C. Zegarra.
+     Santiago, 1872. p. 136.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Whether it be true, or only a poetical way of putting it, that Yarmouth
+was built on red herrings, Manchester on cotton, Birmingham on brass,
+Middlesborough on pigs of iron, and the holy Roman Catholic Church in
+China on Peruvian bark, it is true that the Government of Peru has
+for more than a generation subsisted on guano, and the foundations
+of its greatness have been foundations of the same[3];--the ordure of
+birds--pelicans, penguins, boobies, and gulls of many kinds, and many
+kinds of ducks, all of marine habits, and deriving their living solely
+from the sea and the sky which is stretched above it.
+
+This precious Guano, or Huano, according to the orthography of the
+sixteenth century, had long been in use in Peru before Peru was
+discovered by the Spaniards. It was well enough known to those famous
+agriculturists, the Incas, who five centuries ago used it as a servant.
+With the change which changed the Incas from off the face of the earth,
+came the strangest change of all,--Guano ceased to be the servant
+or helper of the native soil; it became the master of the people
+who occupy it, the Peruvian people, the Spanish Peruvians who call
+themselves Republicans.
+
+No disgrace or ignominy need have come upon Peru for selling its guano
+and getting drunk on the proceeds, if it had not trampled its own
+soil into sand, and killed not only the corn, the trees, and flowers
+which grow upon it, but also the men who cultivate those beautiful and
+necessary things[4].
+
+During the time that Peru has been a vendor of guano, it has sold
+twenty million tons of it, and as the price has ranged from £12 to
+£12 10_s._ and £13 the ton, Peru may be said to have turned a pretty
+penny by the transaction. What she has done with the money is a very
+pertinent question, which will be answered in its right place.
+
+The amount of guano still remaining in the country amounts to between
+seven and eight million tons. There are men of intelligence even in
+Peru who affirm that the quantity does not reach five million tons.
+One of my informants, a man intimately connected with the export and
+sale of this guano, assured me that there are not at this hour more
+than two million tons in the whole of the Republic, and he had the best
+possible means at his disposal for ascertaining its truth. I have since
+discovered, however, that men who deal in guano do not always speak
+with a strict regard for the truth.
+
+As this is one of the vexed questions of the hour to some of my
+countrymen, the violent lenders of money, Jews, Greeks, infidels and
+others; although I have no sympathy with them, yet on condition that
+they buy this book I will give them a fair account of the guano which
+I have actually seen, and where it exists.
+
+I was sent to Peru for the express purpose of making this examination.
+I may therefore expect that my statements will be received with some
+consideration. They have certainly been prepared with much care, and,
+I may add, under very favourable circumstances.
+
+My visits to the existing guano deposits were made after they had
+been uncovered of the stones which had been rolled upon them by the
+turbulent action of a century of earthquakes, the sand which the
+unresisted winds of heaven for the same period had heaped upon them
+from the mainland, and the slower but no less degrading influences of
+a tropical sun, attended with the ever humid air, dense mists, fogs
+and exhalations, and now and then copious showers of rain. Moreover, my
+visits were made after a certain ascertained quantity of guano had been
+removed, and my measurements of the quantity remaining were therefore
+easily checked.
+
+Last year the Pabellon de Pica was reported to contain eight million
+tons of guano. At that time it was covered from head to foot with
+more than fifty feet of sand and stones. The principal slopes are
+now uncovered. Before this painful and expensive process had been
+completed, various other courageous guesses had been made, and
+the Government engineers were divided among themselves in their
+estimates. One enthusiastic group of these loyal measurers contended
+for five million tons, another for three million five hundred and
+twenty thousand six hundred and forty, and another, unofficial and
+disinterested, placed it at less than a million tons.
+
+My own measurements corroborate this latter calculation. There may be
+one million tons of guano on the Pabellon de Pica. The exact quantity
+will only be known after all the guano has been entirely removed and
+weighed.
+
+The Pabellon de Pica is in form like a pavilion, or tent, or better
+still, a sugar-loaf rising a little more than 1000 feet above the
+sea which washes its base. It is connected by a short saddle with the
+mountain range, which runs north and south along the whole Peruvian
+coast, attaining a height here of more than 5000 feet in isolated
+cones, but maintaining an average altitude of 3000 feet.
+
+When a strong north wind rages on these sandy pampas, the dust, finer
+than Irish blackguard, obscures the sky, disfigures the earth, and
+makes mad the unhappy traveller who happens to be caught in its fury.
+A mind not troubled by the low price of Peruvian bonds, or whether even
+the next coupon will be paid, might imagine that the gods, in mercy to
+the idleness of man, were determined to cover up those dunghills from
+human sight; and hence the floods, and cataracts of sand and dust which
+have been poured upon them from above.
+
+If it could be conceived that an almighty hand, consisting of nineteen
+fingers, each finger six hundred feet long, with a generous palm
+fifteen hundred feet wide, had thrust itself up from below, through
+this loaf of sugar, or dry dung, to where the dung reaches on the
+Pabellon, some idea might be formed of the frame in which, and on which
+the guano rests.
+
+The man who reckoned the Pabellon to contain eight million tons of
+guano, took no notice of the Cyclopean fingers which hold it together,
+or the winstone palm in which it rests. There are eighteen large and
+small gorges formed by the nineteen stone fingers. Each gorge was
+filled with a motionless torrent of stones and sand, and these had to
+be removed before the guano could be touched.
+
+So hard and compact had the guano become, that neither the stones nor
+the sand had mixed with it; when these were put in motion and conducted
+down into the sea below, the guano was found hard and intact, and it
+had to be blasted with gunpowder to convey it by the wooden shoots
+to the ships' launches that were dancing to receive it underneath.
+The process was as dangerous as mining, and quite as expensive, to
+the Peruvian Government; for, although the loading of the guano is
+let out by contract, the contractors--a limited company of native
+capitalists--will, as a matter of course, claim a considerable sum for
+removing stones and sand, and equally as a matter of course they will
+be paid: and they deserve to be paid. No hell has ever been conceived
+by the Hebrew, the Irish, the Italian, or even the Scotch mind for
+appeasing the anger and satisfying the vengeance of their awful gods,
+that can be equalled in the fierceness of its heat, the horror of
+its stink, and the damnation of those compelled to labour there, to a
+deposit of Peruvian guano when being shovelled into ships. The Chinese
+who have gone through it, and had the delightful opportunity of helping
+themselves to a sufficiency of opium to carry them back to their homes,
+as some believed, or to heaven, as fondly hoped others, must have had
+a superior idea of the Almighty, than have any of the money-making
+nations mentioned above, who still cling to an immortality of fire and
+brimstone.
+
+Years ago the Pabellon de Pica was resorted to for its guano by a
+people, whoever they were, who had some fear of God before their eyes.
+Their little houses built of boulders and mortar, still stand, and so
+does their little church, built after the same fashion, but better,
+and raised from the earth on three tiers, each tier set back a foot's
+length from the other. It is now used as a store for barley and other
+valuable necessaries for the mules and horses of the loading company.
+
+If the bondholders of Peru, or others, have any desire to know
+something of public life on this now celebrated dunghill, they may turn
+to another page of this history, and Mr. Plimsoll, or other shipping
+reformer, may learn something likewise of the lives of English seamen
+passed during a period of eight months in the neighbourhood of a
+Peruvian guano heap. In the meantime we are dealing with the grave
+subject of measurable quantities of stuff, which fetches £12 or so a
+ton in the various markets of the cultivated world.
+
+The next deposit--of much greater dimensions, although not so well
+known--is about eight miles south of the Pabellon, called Punta
+de Lobos. This also is on the mainland, but juts out to the west
+considerably, into the sea. I find it mentioned in Dampier--'At Lobos
+de la Mar,' he says, vol. i. 146, 'we found abundance of penguins, and
+boobies, and seal in great abundance.' Also in vol. iv. 178 he says,
+'from Tucames to Yancque is twelve leagues, from which place they carry
+clay to lay in the valleys of Arica and Sama. And here live some few
+Indian people, who are continually digging this clayey ground for the
+use aforesaid, for the Spaniards reckon that it fattens the ground.'
+The fishing no doubt was better here than at the Pabellon, which
+would be the principal attraction to the Indians. The Indians have
+disappeared with the lobos, the penguins and the boobies.
+
+One million six hundred thousand tons of guano were reported from Lobos
+last year by the Government engineers. The place is much more easy of
+access than the Pabellon, and no obstacle was in the way of a thorough
+measurement, and yet the utmost carelessness has been observed with
+regard to it. It may safely be taken that there are two millions and
+a half of tons at this deposit, or series of deposits, ten in number,
+all overlooking the sea. The guano is good. If the method of shipping
+it were equally good the Government might save the large amount
+which they at present lose. I have no hesitation in saying, that for
+every 900 tons shipped, 200 tons of guano are lost in the sea by bad
+management, added to the dangers of the heavy surf which rolls in under
+the shoots. As at the Pabellon de Pica, so here the principal labourers
+are Chinamen, and Chilenos, the former doing much more work than the
+latter, and receiving inferior pay. Many of the Chinamen are still
+apprentices, or 'slaves' as they are in reality called and treated by
+their owners.
+
+At Punta de Lobos I discovered two small caves built of boulders,
+and roofed in with rafters of whales' ribs. The effect of the white
+concentric circles in the sombre light of these alcoves had an oriental
+expression. The number of whales on this coast must at one time have
+been very great. They are still to be met with several hundred miles
+west, in the latitude of Payta. No doubt for the same reason that the
+lobos and the boobies have gone, no one knows where, so the whales have
+gone in search of grounds and waters remote from the haunts of man and
+steamers.
+
+A singular effect of light upon the bright slopes of dazzling sand
+which run down from the northern sides of the Point, was observed from
+the heights: when the shadows of the clouds in the zenith passed over
+the shining surface they appeared to be not shadows, but last night's
+clouds which had fallen from the sky, so dense were they, dark, and
+sharply defined. [It frequently happens in Peru, that what appears to
+be substantial, is nothing better than a morning cloud which passes
+away.]
+
+Huanillos is another deposit still further south, where the guano
+is good but the facilities for shipping it are few. Here are five
+different gorges, in which the dung has been stored as if by careful
+hands. The earthquake however has played sad havoc with the storing.
+From a great height above, enormous pieces of rock of more than a
+thousand tons each have been hurled down, and in one place another
+motionless cataract of heavy boulders covers up a large amount of
+guano.
+
+The quantity found here may be fairly estimated at eight hundred
+thousand tons.
+
+It was easy to count ninety-five ships resting below on what, at
+the distance of three miles, appeared to be a sea without motion or
+ripple. At the Pabellon de Pica there were ninety-one ships, and at
+Lobos one hundred and fourteen ships, all waiting for guano: three
+hundred ships in all, some of which had been waiting for more than
+eight months; and it is not unlikely that the whole of them may have
+to wait for the same length of time. An impression has got abroad
+that the reason of this delay is the absence of guano. It is a natural
+inference for the captain of a ship to draw, and it is just the kind
+of information an ignorant man would send home to his employers. It
+is however absolutely erroneous; the delays in loading are vexatious
+in the extreme, but being in Peru they can hardly be avoided. Their
+cause may be set down to the sea and its dangers, the precipitous rocky
+shore, the ill-constructed launches and shoots, and now and then to the
+ignorance, stupidity, and obstinacy of a Peruvian official, called an
+_administrador_.
+
+Chipana, six miles further south of Huanillos, is another considerable
+deposit. But as this had not been uncovered, and the place is
+absolutely uninhabited and without any of the common necessaries of
+life, which in Peru may be said to be not very few, I did not visit it,
+and am content to take the measurement of a gentleman whom I have every
+reason to trust, and on whose accuracy and ability I can rely as I have
+had to rely before.
+
+The amount of guano at Chipana may be taken at about the same as
+Huanillos. If to this be added the deposits of Chomache, very small,
+Islotas de Pajaros, Quebrada de Pica, Patache, and all other points
+further north, up to la Bahia de la Independencia, we may safely
+declare that among them all will be found not less than five million
+tons of good guano.
+
+Before proceeding to give an account of the deposits in the north, it
+may be well to allude to a question of considerable importance to some
+one, be it the Government of Peru, or the house of Messrs. Dreyfus
+Brothers, the present financial agents of Peru. The only interest which
+the question can have for the public, or the holders of Peruvian bonds,
+arises from the fact of this question involving no less a sum than
+£1,500,000 or even more; and if the Government of Peru has to pay it,
+so much the worse will it be for its already alarmed and disappointed
+creditors. Many of the three hundred ships lying off the three
+principal deposits of the South, have been there for very long periods
+of time, and a considerable bill for demurrage has been contracted.
+The question is who is to pay the shipowners' claim, and probably the
+law courts will have to answer the question. It would appear at first
+sight that this charge should be paid by Dreyfus. According to the
+first article of the contract between that firm and the Government of
+Peru, Dreyfus was to purchase two million tons of guano, and to pay
+for the same two million four hundred thousand pounds sterling. Here is
+a distinct act of purchase. The guano is the property of Dreyfus. The
+second article of the contract would appear to provide especially for
+the case in point: 'Los compradores enviarán por su cuenta y riesgo, á
+los depositos huaneros de la Republica, los buques necesarios para el
+transporte del huano' [the purchasers shall send, _at their own cost
+and risk_, the necessary ships to the guano deposits of the Republic
+for the purpose of transporting the guano].
+
+This would seem to be plain enough: but these ships, or the greater
+part of them, came chartered by Dreyfus, not to any deposit of guano,
+in the first instance, but to Callao, where they collected in that
+bay, notorious now for many reported acts of singular heroism, and
+other acts of a very different nature. The ships were finally detained
+by command of the President of the Republic, who, acting on certain
+subterranean knowledge, refused to despatch the ships, or to allow
+them to proceed to the deposits. Dreyfus, the President insisted, had
+already taken away all the guano that belonged to them, and therefore
+the ships which they had chartered for carrying away still more should
+not be allowed to go and load. At last the President appears to have
+discovered his mistake, and the ships, to the amazement of the Lima
+press, were allowed to depart; some to the Pabellon de Pica, where they
+still are; others to Lobos, and the rest to Huanillos. In the meantime
+the following circular appeared.
+
+     'The Lima press has commented in various articles on the
+     conduct of our house with respect to the export of guano,
+     and we have been charged with endeavouring to appropriate
+     a larger quantity than that which is stipulated in our
+     contracts as sufficient to cover the amounts due to us by the
+     Supreme Government.
+
+     These false and malevolent assertions render it necessary for
+     us to satisfy the public and inform the country of the state
+     of our affairs with the Supreme Government.
+
+     We trust that dispassionate people who do not allow their
+     opinions to be based on partial evidence, will do our
+     house the justice to which we are entitled by these few
+     particulars, the truth of which is proved by facts and
+     figures that can be authenticated by application to the
+     offices of the Public Treasury.
+
+    Balance in favour of our house on June
+      30, 1875, as per account delivered,
+      embracing 1,377,150 tons of guano                     $.24,068,156
+
+    Expenses since that date for monthly
+      instalments, loading, salaries in Europe,
+      etc.                                                   $.2,390,000
+                                                           -------------
+    Balance in favour of our house                          $.26,459,156
+                                                           -------------
+
+    From this sum there is to be deducted
+      the value of cargoes despatched up to
+      June, 300,092 tons at 30 soles            9,002,760
+
+    Vessels now loading, 394,966 tons at
+      30 soles                                  4,849,000
+
+    [A]Vessels detained in Callao 110,657 tons
+      at 30 soles                               3,319,710
+                                              -----------   $.24,181,470
+                                                           -------------
+    Which shews a balance in our favour of                   $.2,286,686
+
+    Adding to this sum interest in account
+      current since June                        1,500,000
+
+    [B]Cost of loading ships at the deposits
+      and in Callao                             1,500,000
+                                              -----------      3,000,000
+                                                           -------------
+
+    Shewing a clear balance in our favour of                 $.5,286,686
+                                                           -------------
+
+     We have taken thirty soles as the average value of guano of
+     different qualities.
+
+     These figures prove that our house not only has not received
+     more than it is entitled to, even if all the vessels had left
+     which are at the deposits as well as those in Callao, but
+     that there is still a heavy balance due to us.
+
+     With respect to questions now pending, no one possesses the
+     right to consider his opinions of more value than those of
+     the tribunals of justice before which they now are, without
+     the least opposition on our part.
+
+                        DREYFUS, HERMANOS, & CO.
+
+     _Lima, Dec. 31, 1875._
+
+It appears from this statement [A], that Dreyfus had already put in
+their claim for the detention of the ships. What is meant by the last
+item marked with a [B] is uncertain; no ships are loaded in Callao. If
+the Government can sustain its suit against Dreyfus on that part of the
+second article of the contract mentioned above, instead of its owing
+Dreyfus the 'clear balance of 5,286,686 dols.' Dreyfus is in debt to
+the Government.
+
+But there is another item in the second article which appears to
+override the first: viz. 'y este (guano) será colocado por cuenta y
+riesgo del gobierno abordo de las lanchas destinadas a la carga de
+dichos buques' [or, in plain English, 'this guano shall be placed
+on board such launches as are appointed to carry it to the ships, on
+account and at the risk of the Government'].
+
+Well, it is absolutely certain that the guano was not _colocado_, or
+placed on board the appointed launches; not because the launches were
+not there; not because there was no guano at the deposits;--but simply
+because the Government had not, for some reason or other, fulfilled its
+own part of the contract.
+
+No answer was made by the Government to Dreyfus' circular, and the
+obsequious Lima newspapers were as silent upon it as dumb dogs. I have
+since heard, on high authority, that the reply of the Government is
+prepared, and that it disputes Dreyfus' claims and will contest them in
+a court of law.
+
+I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the islands of the
+north; glad to leave behind me the filthiness, foulness, and weariness
+of the mainland in the neighbourhood of the Pabellon de Pica. Had it
+not been for the true British kindness of one or two of my countrymen
+and several Americans in command of guano ships, Her Majesty's Consular
+agent, and the agent of the house of Dreyfus, who did all they could to
+provide me with wholesome food, German beer, and clean beds, I should
+have fled away from that much-talked-of dunghill without estimating its
+contents; or like a philosophical Chinaman sought out a quiet nook in
+the warm rocks, and with an opium reed in my lips smoked myself away to
+everlasting bliss.
+
+On my return from the south we passed close to the Chincha islands.
+When I first saw them twenty years ago, they were bold, brown heads,
+tall, and erect, standing out of the sea like living things, reflecting
+the light of heaven, or forming soft and tender shadows of the tropical
+sun on a blue sea. Now these same islands looked like creatures whose
+heads had been cut off, or like vast sarcophagi, like anything in short
+that reminds one of death and the grave.
+
+In ages which have no record these islands were the home of millions
+of happy birds, the resort of a hundred times more millions of fishes,
+of sea lions, and other creatures whose names are not so common; the
+marine residence, in fact, of innumerable creatures predestined from
+the creation of the world to lay up a store of wealth for the British
+farmer, and a store of quite another sort for an immaculate Republican
+government. One passage of the Hebrew Scriptures, and this the only
+passage in the whole range of sacred or profane literature, supplies
+an adequate epitaph for the Chincha islands. But it is too indecent,
+however amusing it may be, to quote.
+
+On Sunday morning, March 26th, of the last year of grace, I first
+caught sight of the beautiful pearl-gray islands of Lobos de Afuera,
+undulating in latitude S. 6.57.20, longitude 80.41.50, beneath a blue
+sky, and apparently rolling out of an equally blue sea. Here is the
+only large deposit that has remained untouched; here you may walk about
+among great birds busy hatching eggs, look a great sea-lion in the face
+without making him afraid, and dip your hat in the sea and bring up
+more little fishes than you can eat for breakfast.
+
+There are eight distinct deposits in an island rather more than a mile
+in length and half a mile in width. The amount of guano will be not
+less than 650,000 tons.
+
+It is not all of the same good quality, for considerable rain has at
+one time fallen on these islands. Wide and deep beds of sand mark in
+a well defined manner the courses of several once strong and rapid
+streams. But if the poor guano, that namely which does not yield
+more than two per cent. of ammonia be reckoned, the deposits on these
+islands will reach a million tons.
+
+The wiseacres who believe guano to be a mineral substance, and not the
+excreta of birds, will do well to pay a visit to Lobos de Afuera. There
+they will see the whole process of guano making and storing carried
+on with the greatest activity, regularity, and despatch. The birds
+make their nests quite close together: as close and regular, in fact,
+as wash-hand basins laid out in a row for sale in a market-place; are
+about the same size, and stand as high from the ground. These nests are
+made by the joint efforts of the male and female birds; for there is
+no moss, or lichen, or grass, or twig, or weed, available, or within a
+hundred miles and more: even the sea does not yield a leaf. As a rule,
+about one hundred and fifty nests form a farm. It has been computed
+by a close observer that the heguiro will contribute from 4 oz. to 6
+oz. per day of nesty material, the pelican twice as much. When there
+are millions of these active beings living in undisturbed retirement,
+with abundance of appropriate food within reach, it does not require a
+very vivid imagination to realise in how, comparatively, short a time
+a great deposit of guano can be stored.
+
+Will the Government of Peru occupy itself in preserving and cultivating
+these busy birds? That Government has lived now on their produce for
+more than thirty years; why should it not take a benign and intelligent
+interest in the creatures who have continued its existence and
+contributed to its fame?
+
+The heguiro is a large bird of the gull and booby species, but twice
+the size of these, with blue stockings and also blue shoes. It does
+not appear to possess much natural intelligence, and its education
+has evidently been left uncared for. It will defend its young with
+real courage, but will fly from its nest and its one or two eggs
+on the least alarm. This, however, is not always the case. But in a
+most insane manner if it spies a white umbrella approaching, it sets
+up a painful shriek. Had it kept its mouth shut, the umbrella had
+travelled in another direction. As the noise came from a peculiar
+cave-like aperture in the high rocks, I sat down in front, watched the
+movements of the bird, who kept up a dismal noise, evidently resenting
+my intrusion on her private affairs. After a brief space I marched
+slowly up to the bird, who, when she saw me determined to come on,
+deliberately rose from her nest, and became engaged in some frantic
+effort, the meaning of which I could not guess. When I approached
+within ten yards of her, she sprang into the sky and began sailing
+above my head, trying by every means in her power to scare me away.
+When I reached the nest, I found the beautiful pale blue egg covered
+with little fishes! The anxious mother had emptied her stomach in order
+to protect the fruit of her body from discovery or outrage, or to keep
+it warm while she paid a visit to her mansion in the skies.
+
+Birds have ever been a source of joy to me from the time that I first
+remember walking in a field of buttercups in Mid Staffordshire, some
+fifty years ago, and hearing for the first time the rapturous music of
+a lark. Since then I have watched the movements of the great condor on
+the Andes, the eagle on the Hurons, the ibis on the Nile, the native
+companion in its quiet nooks on the Murray, the laughing jackass in
+the Bush of Australia, the curaçoa of Central America, the tapa culo
+of the South American desert, the albatross of the South Pacific. I
+can see them all still, or their ghosts, whenever I choose to shut my
+eyes, a process which the poets assure us is necessary if we would see
+bright colours. And now I no longer care for birds. I have seen them in
+double millions at a time, swarming in the sky, like insects on a leaf,
+or vermin in a Spanish bed. They are as common as man, and can be as
+useful, and become as great a commercial speculation as he.
+
+We visited the island of Macabi, lat. 7.49.30 S., long. 79.28.30, for
+the purpose of seeing what good thing remained there that was worth
+removing in the way of houses, tanks and tools for use on the virgin
+deposits of Lobos de Afuera. Although there is not more than one
+shipload of guano left, I was glad to see the place for many reasons.
+It will be recollected that it was on the guano said to exist on this
+and the Guañapi islands that the Peruvian Loan of 1872 was raised, and
+it will be the duty of all who invested their money in that transaction
+to enquire into the truth of the statements on which the loan was made.
+
+Macabi is an island split in two, spanned by a very well constructed
+iron suspension bridge a hundred feet long. The birds which had been
+frightened away by the operations of the guano-loading company have
+returned. The lobos probably never left the place, the precipitous
+rocks and the great caverns which the sea has scooped out affording
+them sufficient protection from the 'fun'-pursuing Peruvian, who
+delights in killing, where there is no danger, an animal twice his
+own size, and whose existence is quite as important as his own. Or if
+the lobos did leave, they also have returned. This would go to prove
+the statements that the birds have begun to return to the Chinchas.
+When this is proved beyond any doubt, we may expect to hear of Messrs.
+Schweiser and Gnat applying for another loan on the strength of the
+pelicans, ducks and boobies having returned to their ancient labours on
+those celebrated islands.
+
+The spectacle presented at Macabi was humiliating. The ground was
+everywhere strewn with Government property, which had all gone to
+destruction. The shovels and picks were scattered about as if they had
+been thrown down with curses which had blasted them. I went to pick
+up a shovel, but it fell to pieces like Rip Van Winkle's gun on the
+Catskills; the wheelbarrows collapsed with a touch. Suddenly I came
+on a little coffin, exquisitely made, not quite eighteen inches long.
+There it lay in the midst of the burning glaring rocks, as solitary and
+striking as the print of a foot in the sand was to Robinson Crusoe. The
+coffin was empty, and the presence of certain filthy-fat gallinazos
+high up on the rocks explained the reason. A little further on were
+the graves of some fifty full-grown persons, 'Asiatics,' probably,
+who had purposely fallen asleep. Walking down the steady slope of
+the island till I came to the edge of the sea, which rolled below me
+some hundred and twenty feet, I came suddenly in front of a thousand
+lobos, all basking in the sun after their morning's bath. It was a
+sight certainly new, entertaining, and instructive. The young lobos
+are silly little things, and look as if it had not taken much trouble
+to make them; a child could carve a baby lobo out of a log, that would
+be quite as good to look at as one of these. But the old fathers,
+patriarchs, kings, or presidents of the herd, are as impressive as some
+of Layard's Assyrian lions. Suddenly one of these caught me in his eye,
+and no doubt imagining me to be a Peruvian, signalled to the rest, who,
+following his lead, all rushed violently down the steep place into the
+sea, and began tumbling about and rolling over in the surf like a mob
+of happy children gambolling among a lot of hay-cocks in a green field.
+They live on fish, and the number of fishes is as great at Macabi as
+elsewhere. As I remained watching these swarthy creatures, a great
+sea-lion appeared above the surface of the rolling deep looking about
+him, his mouth full of fishes, just as you have seen a high-bred horse
+with his mouth full of straggling hay, turn his head to look as you
+entered his stable door.
+
+My next and longer visit was to Lobos de Tierra, lat. S. 6.27.30, the
+largest guano island in the world, being some seven miles long, or
+more. Here are great deposits of guano, the extent and value of which
+are not yet known. It is certain that there are more than eight hundred
+thousand tons of good quality in the numerous deposits which have been
+hitherto examined.
+
+On January 31st, being in lat. S. 7.50.0, and some 15 miles from the
+Peruvian coast, when on my way to the South from Panama, we ran into
+a heavy shower of rain. Now it is much more likely to rain in lat. S.
+6.27.30 and 120 miles from the shore, and this explains the reason why
+the guano deposits of Lobos de Tierra were not worked before. Still
+the quantity of rich material found there is great, and it is the only
+place where I came on sal ammoniac _in situ_; the crystals were large
+and beautifully formed, but somewhat opaque. During the ten days I
+remained there, more than 500 tons of good guano were shipped in one
+day, and there were some 40 ships waiting to receive more.
+
+Like all the other guano deposits, Lobos de Tierra has to be supplied
+at great expense from the mainland with everything for the support of
+human life. It is true that the sea supplies very good fish, but man
+cannot live on fish alone, at least for any length of time, especially
+if he is engaged in loading ships with guano. The Changos, however, a
+race of fishermen on the Peruvian coast, do live on uncooked fish, and
+a finer race to look at may not be found; the colour of their skin is
+simply beautiful, but they are very little children in understanding.
+It is only fair to say that with their raw fish they consume a
+plentiful amount of chicha, a fermented liquor made from maize, the
+ancient beer of Peru: and very good liquor it is, very sustaining,
+and, taken in excess, as intoxicating as that of the immortal Bass.
+These hardy fishers visit all these islands in their balsas, great
+rafts formed of three tiers of large trees of light wood, stripped and
+prepared for the purpose in Guayaquil. They are precisely the same as
+those first met with by Pizarro's expedition when on his way to conquer
+Peru, three centuries and a half ago. The people are probably the same,
+except that they now speak Spanish, and are never found with gold;
+but now and then they do traffic in fine cottons, spun by hand, now as
+then, by natives of the country.
+
+I cannot forget that it was at Lobos de Tierra I had the great pleasure
+of forming the acquaintance of one who represents young Peru: the new
+generation that, if time and opportunity be given it, may transform
+that land of corruption into a new nation. Here on this barren island,
+I found a son of one of the oldest Peruvian families, thoroughly
+educated, well acquainted with England and its literature, proud of his
+country, jealous for its honour, and keenly alive to the disgrace into
+which she has been dragged by the wicked men who have gone to their
+doom. Should this generation, represented by one whom I am allowed to
+call my friend--who, though born in the Guano Age is not of it,--rise
+into power, the rising generation in England may see what many have had
+too great reason to despair of, namely, a South American Republic, that
+shall prefer death to dishonour, and if needs must, will live on bread
+and onions in order to be free of debt. There is so much pleasure in
+hoping the best of all men, that it surely must be a duty the neglect
+of which, when there are substantial evidences to support it, must be
+a crime.
+
+I left Lobos de Tierra with profound regret, but it was necessary to
+do so in order to see what remained to be seen of the precious dung
+in other parts of Peru. The following will be found to be a fair
+approximation of the quantities existing along the northern coast.
+
+     +-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
+     |       Islands.        |  Latitude. | Longitude. | Quantities.|
+     |                       |            |            |    Tons.   |
+     +-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
+     | Malabrigo             |   7.43.20  |  79.26.20  |      400   |
+     | Macabi                |   7.49.30  |  79.28.20  |    1,000   |
+     | Guañapi               |   7.49.30  |  78.56.0   |    3,500   |
+     | Chao                  |   8.46.50  |  78.46.0   |      800   |
+     | Coreobado             |   8.57.0   |  78.40.30  |    3,000   |
+     | Santa                 |   9.03.0   |  78.39.30  |      100   |
+     | Bay of Ferrol         |   9.10.0   |  78.36.0   |   22,000   |
+     | El Dorado             |   9.12.0   |  78.34.0   |    6,000   |
+     | Small Island Pajaros  |   9.12.0   |  78.30.10  |      250   |
+     | Tortuga               |   9.21.30  |  78.27.0   |      700   |
+     | Mongon                |   9.39.40  |  78.25.0   |   23,000   |
+     | Mongon 2nd            |   9.40.0   |  78.20.0   |   30,000   |
+     | Mongoncillo           |   9.45.30  |  78.16.40  |    6,000   |
+     | Cornejos              |   9.53.0   |  78.15.0   |      500   |
+     | Erizos                |   9.54.40  |  78.14.0   |    5,000   |
+     | Huarmey               |  10.00.20  |  78.12.0   |      500   |
+     | 2nd ditto             |  10.02.0   |  78.11.0   |    3,000   |
+     | Bay of Gramadal       |  10.25.0   |  78.00.30  |   10,000   |
+     | Pescadores            |  11.48.0   |  77.15.30  |      200   |
+     +-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
+
+I have not visited all these small deposits, and have been content to
+take the report of Captain Black, the chief of the Peruvian expedition
+lately appointed to examine them. I have found him so faithful and
+trustworthy in those cases--the more important of them all--where I
+have had the opportunity of comparing his calculations with my own,
+that I have not hesitated to adopt his estimates of the least important
+deposits. I have considered them of value if for no other reason
+than to guard the public against any fresh discovery being made by
+interested parties.
+
+If then we add these northern deposits to those of the south, Peru has
+at present in her possession, in round numbers, 7,500,000 tons of guano
+of 2240 lbs. to the ton.
+
+It is not my business to suggest the possible existence of guano
+remaining to be discovered. I may however be allowed to say that there
+are certain unmistakable indications of even large deposits which may
+lie buried a hundred feet below the sand on the slopes of the southern
+shore. As those indications are the result of my own observation, I may
+be allowed to keep them to myself for a more convenient season.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [3] Since writing the above I have come on the following
+     passage from the report of the Peruvian Minister of Finance
+     for 1858.
+
+     'HUANO
+
+     Tan grande es el valor de este ramo de la riqueza
+     nacional, que sin exajeracion puede asegurarse, que en
+     su estimacion y buen manejo estriba la subsistencia del
+     Estado, el mantenimiento de su credito, el porvenir de su
+     engrandecimiento, y la conservacion del órden publico.' Which
+     may be done into the vulgar tongue faithfully and well as
+     follows--So great is the value of this branch of the national
+     riches, that without exaggeration it may be affirmed that
+     on its estimation and good handling depend the subsistence
+     of the State, the maintenance of its credit, the future of
+     its increase, and the preservation of public order.--Signed,
+     Manuel Ortiz de Zerallos.
+
+     [4] It is hard to believe that the present dead silent sands,
+     which form the coast of Peru from the Province of Chincha in
+     the south as far as Trujillo in the north, was in the early
+     days so populous that Padre Melendez, quoted by Unanue,
+     compared one of the small valleys to an ant hill; and now
+     'not more than half a dozen natives can be found among its
+     ruins.'--See Documentos Literarios del Peru Colectados por
+     Manuel de Odriozola, vol. vi, p. 179.
+
+     The rapid and continued decrease of the Peruvian population
+     has been ascribed to civil war. This is not true. Where the
+     sword has carried off its thousands, the infernal stuff known
+     as brandy, the small pox, and other epidemics, have slain
+     their tens of thousands. The liberation of the slaves also
+     caused great mortality amongst the negroes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+'However long the guano deposits may last, Peru always possesses
+the nitrate deposits of Tarapaca to replace them. Foreseeing the
+possibility of the former becoming exhausted, the Government has
+adopted measures by which it may secure a new source of income, in
+order that on the termination of the guano the Republic may be able to
+continue to meet the obligations it is under to its foreign creditors.'
+
+These words form part of an assuring despatch from Don Juan Ignacio
+Elguera, the Peruvian Minister of Finance, to the Minister of Foreign
+Affairs, and was made public as early as possible after it was found
+that the January coupon could not be paid. The assurance came too late
+for any practical purposes, and it merely demonstrated the fact that
+the Peruvian Government shared in the panic which had been designedly
+brought to pass by its enemies as well as its intimate friends in Lima,
+and their emissaries in London and Paris.
+
+The despatch demonstrates two or three other matters of importance.
+We are made to infer from its terms, and the eagerness with which it
+insists on the undoubted source of wealth the Government possesses
+in the deposits of nitrate, that it was unaware of the actual amount
+of guano still remaining in the deposits of the north and the south.
+We may also safely believe that the Peruvian Government did not
+at the time of the publication of the despatch, dream of asking
+the bondholders to sacrifice any of their rights; and further, in
+its anxiety to save its credit with England, it was hurried into a
+confession which it now regrets.
+
+What spirit of evil suggested to President Pardo the idea of appealing
+to the charity of his creditors, immediately after allowing his finance
+minister to announce to all the world that the Republic was able to
+continue meeting its obligations to its foreign creditors even though
+the guano should give out, it does not much concern us to enquire. The
+effect of such an appeal cannot fail to be prejudicial to the credit of
+Peru; and men or dealers in other people's money will not be wanting
+who will call in question the good faith of the finance minister
+when he declared that the deposits of nitrate could continue what the
+deposits of guano had begun but failed to carry on.
+
+Other considerations press themselves upon us. In the midst of the
+crisis, the President published a decree, announcing that he would
+avail himself of the resolution of Congress which enabled him to
+acquire the nitrate works in the province of Tarapaca. A commission
+of lawyers was at once despatched to the province to examine titles,
+and to fix upon the price to be paid to each manufacturer for his
+plant and his nitrate lands. In an incredibly short time no less than
+fifty-one nitrate makers had given in their consent to sell their works
+to the Government, and the price was fixed upon each, and each was
+measured, inventoried, and closed. The total sum to be paid for these
+establishments was 18,000,000 dols. But they remained to be conveyed.
+The civil power had displayed considerable activity; now that the
+law had to be applied things became as dull as lead, and as heavy as
+if they had all been made of that well-known metal. Negotiations had
+also to be entered into with the Lima Banks, which is an operation as
+delicate and as dangerous as negotiating with so many volcanoes, or any
+other uncertain and baseless institutions of which either nature or a
+civilisation supported by bits of paper can boast.
+
+Still the world was comforted by the promise that next week all would
+be well, or the week after, or say the end of the month, in order
+to be sure. In the midst of this, General Prado, the possible future
+President of Peru, is despatched to Europe on a mission, the nature of
+which was kept a profound secret for three weeks.
+
+Simple men, who believed in the despatch of the finance minister, knew
+for certain that General Prado had gone to England to raise more money
+on nitrate, in order that the Oroya Railway might be finished, and a
+station-house built somewhere in the Milky Way, which it is destined
+probably this marvellous line shall ultimately reach. And if London
+would only lend Peru, say another £10,000,000, then Lima would rejoice,
+and the whole earth be glad; the mountains would break out into psalms,
+and the valleys would laugh and sing, for would not Don Enrique Meiggs,
+the Messiah[5] of the Andes, once more return to reign?
+
+At any rate it is quite certain that General Prado was announced to
+sail on the 14th of March, when the last stroke of the pen was to be
+put to the conveyance of the nitrate properties. Alas! the law's delay
+continued, and General Prado did not sail. It is natural to suppose at
+all events that Prado never meant to go to London without the nitrate
+contracts in his pocket--which will supply a larger income to Peru
+than the guano in all its glory ever did,--for the purpose of asking
+the bondholders to be merciful. The General finally left Callao for
+Europe on the 21st, amidst the forebodings of his friends, and the
+ill-concealed joy of his foes, but without the nitrate documents being
+signed. Still, before he could reach London the thing would be done,
+and the result could be telegraphed. In the meantime the new minister
+to Paris and London, Rivaguero, telegraphed to Lima some favourable
+news, the precise terms of which, of course, were not allowed to
+transpire, to the effect that an arrangement had been made satisfactory
+to all parties.
+
+On this, further delay takes place in the important nitrate
+negotiations, and that in the face of a semi-official communication to
+the effect that next week merchants might rely upon it that all would
+be well and truly finished. In the stead of this, President Pardo
+'reminds the Banks of an item which up to that period had never been
+dreamed or thought of, except by the President himself, namely, that
+they, the Banks, on the security of the nitrate bonds, would have to
+supply to the Government so many hundred thousand dollars per month!
+
+All at once the whole fabric of the nitrate business fell down.
+
+Two things may be inferred from this: President Pardo hoped, believed,
+perhaps knew, that the bondholders would give way, and he had become
+convinced that he had made a mistake in buying the nitrate properties;
+it is also likely that he knew for certain at this time that there
+was guano enough for all purposes, without meddling with the important
+nitrate matters, and thereby destroying a great and important national
+industry. He may also have been desirous to bury, in an oblivion of his
+own making, the honest compromise contained in the despatch of Don Juan
+Ignacio Elguera. A further light may have dawned on the Presidential
+mind, namely, that it will be perfectly easy for the Government to
+treble the export duty on nitrate, without in the least damaging
+the trade or dangerously interfering with the profits of the makers,
+by which means the Peruvian Government would reap an annual income
+without trouble, or any of the thousand vexations to which it has been
+subjected in the export and sale of its guano.
+
+That it was the original intention of the Government to raise a loan
+on the 'purchase' of the nitrate properties, is evident from the terms
+of the tenth article of President Pardo's decree, which may be thus
+translated:--
+
+'The establishments sold to the State shall be paid for within two
+years, or as soon after as possible, that funds for the purpose have
+been raised in Europe; payment shall be by bills on London, at not more
+than ninety days, and at the rate of exchange of forty-four pence to
+the _sol_,' etc.
+
+Whatever value these particulars may possess or have given to them
+by future events[6], they will serve to show some of the peculiar
+features of the Peruvian Government, and to what shifts it can resort,
+or is compelled to make under adverse circumstances, or circumstances
+into which it may be brought by its enemies, or its own weakness, its
+inherent lack of stout-hearted honesty, and its inaptitude for what is
+known as business.
+
+The nitrate deposits are well enough known. It is absolutely certain
+that in the year 1863 there were sold 1,508,000 cwts.; and in 1873
+5,830,000 cwts. In that year the Government acknowledged to have
+received from the export of this article the sum of 2,250,000 dols.
+Should the permanent sale of nitrate reach 5,000,000 quintals per
+annum, there is no reason why the Government should not realise from
+this source at least 10,000,000 dols. a year: should it only double its
+present duties the amount would reach 12,000,000 dols.
+
+The annual amount of nitrate which the fifty-one establishments
+proposed to be bought by the Government are capable of producing, may
+be set down at 14,000,000 cwts.
+
+These establishments do not exhaust the whole of the nitrate deposits.
+There are several large 'Oficinas,' as they are called, which have, for
+their own reasons, refused to sell their properties to the State.
+
+The region of these deposits is a wild, barren pampa, 3000 feet above
+the level of the sea, and contains not less than 150 square miles of
+land, which will yield on the safest calculation more than 70,000,000
+tons of nitrate.
+
+Why these establishments for the manufacture of this important
+substance are called 'oficinas' it may not be difficult to say: it
+is doubtless for the same reason that a cottage _orné_ at Chorrillos,
+the Brighton of Lima, is called a rancho. Twenty years ago Chorrillos
+was to Lima what the Clyde and its neighbouring waters were to the
+manufacturing capital of Scotland. What Dunoon and its competitors on
+the Scotch coast now are, such has Chorrillos become,--the fashionable
+resort of rich people who have robbed nature of her simplicity and
+beauty by embellishing her, as they call it, with art. All that remains
+of the straw-thatched rancho of Chorrillos, with its unglazed windows,
+its mud floors, its hammocks, and its freedom, is its name. An oficina
+twenty or thirty years ago, was no doubt a mere office made of wood,
+hammered together hastily, as an extemporary protection from the sun by
+day, and the cold dews and airs of the night: in appearance resembling
+nothing else but an Australian outhouse. An oficina of to-day is a very
+different thing. Its appearance, and all that pertains to it, is as
+difficult to describe as a great ironworks, or chemical works, or any
+other works where the ramifications are not only numerous, but novel.
+The first oficina whose acquaintance I had the honour and trouble
+to make, was that of the Tarapaca Nitrate Company, situated near the
+terminus of the Iquique and La Noria Railway, in the midst of a windy
+plain 3000 feet above the sea, and beneath a far hotter sun than that
+which beats on the pyramids of Egypt.
+
+If you take a seat in the wide balcony of the house, where the manager
+and the clerks of the establishment reside, and live not uncomfortably,
+you look down almost at your feet on what appears to be an uncountable
+number of vast iron tanks containing coloured liquids, a tall chimney,
+a chemical laboratory, an iodine extracting house, a steam-pump,
+innumerable connecting pipes, stretching and twisting about the vast
+premises as if they were the bowels of some scientifically formed
+stomach of vast proportions for the purpose of digesting poisons and
+producing the elements of gunpowder, a blacksmith's forge, an iron
+foundry, a lathe shop, complicated scaffolding, tramways, men making
+boilers, men attending on waggons, bending iron plates, stoking fires,
+breaking up _caliche_, wheeling out refuse, putting nitrate into
+sacks, and other miscellaneous labour, requiring great intelligence
+to direct and great endurance to carry on; and all beneath the fierce
+heat of a sun, unscreened by trees or clouds, the glare of which on
+the white substance which is in process of being turned over, broken,
+and carried from one point to another, is as painful as looking
+into a blast furnace. Beyond the great and busy area where all these
+varied operations are carried on the eye stretches across a desert of
+brown earth, which is terminated by soft rolling hills of the same
+fast colour. The appearance of this desert is that of a vast number
+of ant-hills in shape; and in size of the heaps of refuse which give
+character to the Black Country in Mid Staffordshire. Perhaps the first
+impression which this repulsive desert makes on the mind of a man
+who has seen and observed much is that of a battlefield of barbarian
+armies, where the slain still lie in the heaps in which they were
+clubbed down by their foes; or it may be likened to an illimitable
+number of dust-hills jumbled together by an earthquake. All this is the
+result of digging for _caliche_, and blasting it out of the sandy bed
+in which it has lain God only knows how long.
+
+As the breeze springs up, and clouds of fine white dust follow the mule
+carts and rise under the hoofs of galloping horses, the idea of the
+battlefield with the use of gunpowder comes back on the memory, and is
+perhaps the nearest simile that can be used. And this is an oficina!
+one of the silliest and most inadequate of words ever used to denote
+what is one of the newest, and may be the largest, as it is certainly
+the most novel, of all modern industrial establishments.
+
+The manufacture of caliche into nitrate of soda is not without its
+dangers to human life, though these are fewer than they were when men
+frequently fell into vats of boiling liquors, or broke their limbs
+in falling from high scaffolding: the latter form of danger still
+exists, and is almost impossible to guard against. I am free to say,
+however, that if the guard were possible I do not believe it would be
+used. There are some trades and processes which not only brutalise the
+labourers on whom rests the toil of carrying them on, but which no less
+degrade the mind of those who direct them; and the nitrate manufacture
+is one of these. 'Joe,' one of the house dogs, fell into one of the
+heated tanks of the oficina where I was staying, and his quick but
+dreadful death made more impression on some than did the untimely death
+of a man who was killed the day before at the same place. Another item
+in the agitated landscape which stretches from the balcony where I
+sat is a spacious burying-ground, walled in as a protection from dogs
+and carts; but these are not its only or its chief desecrators. The
+sky furnishes many more. This great oficina contains 1682 estacas;
+can produce 900,000 quintals of nitrate a year, and was 'sold' to the
+Government for 1,250,000 dols.
+
+An estaca is a certain amount of ground 'staked out,' as we might say,
+and contains about one hundred square yards of available land.
+
+There are other oficinas of still greater value than the one mentioned
+above; as, for instance, those of Gildemeister and Co., and which the
+Government acquired on the same terms for the same sum.
+
+The markets for this new substance are England, Germany, the United
+States, California, Chile, and other countries. It is as a cultivator
+a formidable competitor of the guano, and is esteemed by scientific
+men to be much more valuable. Its price is set down at £19 the
+ton, although £12 and £12 10_s._ is its present market value. The
+acquisition by the Peruvian Government of this industry was patriotic,
+even if it were not wise. It was done with the intention of paying the
+foreign creditors of the Republic. Since then Peruvian patriotism has
+assumed another form and complexion, and what was done in an honest
+enthusiasm of haste is already being repented of in a leisure largely
+occupied with the contemplation of a patriotic repudiation of national
+duty and debt.
+
+The arguments by which 'prominent' Peruvians are fortifying themselves
+for a step which at any moment may be taken, are neither moral nor
+convincing, except to themselves. 'Peru must live,' they say, which
+does not mean a noble form of poverty, but an altogether ignoble form
+of extravagance, and even wasteful magnificence. We must have our army,
+our navy, our President, his ministers, our judges, our priests, our
+ambassadors, our newspapers, stationery, bunting, gas for the plaza
+on feast days, wax candles for our churches by night and by day, a
+national police, gunpowder, jails for foreign delinquents, and railways
+to the Milky Way, to show to neighbouring republics and all the world
+that Peru is a fine nation.
+
+There is not one of all these splendid items which, so far as the
+people are concerned, could not be dispensed with.
+
+But to live, they reiterate, is the primary object and purpose of all
+nations, and especially republican nations, forgetting, or, what is
+much more likely, never having known, that death is preferable to a
+shamed life, and that there are times when it is clearly a duty to die.
+
+The next argument now rapidly gaining ground in Lima is that although
+the guano has been hypothecated, this was contrary to Peruvian law,
+which distinctly lays down that nothing movable _can_ be hypothecated;
+and as guano is clearly movable stuff, which can be proved to the
+meanest capacity--the capacity, namely, of a holder of Peruvian
+bonds--the Government has been breaking its own laws for a generation
+past, and it is now time that this illegal conduct should cease. This
+is backed up by reminding all men, and especially Peruvians, who
+will derive great comfort from it, that England having recognised
+the primary fact that it is the first duty of a man to live, has
+abolished imprisonment for debt in her own dominions, and therefore
+she could not exert her power to make Peru pay what she owes, if Peru
+officially declares that she is unable to do so. These and other like
+arguments are being openly discussed in the Peruvian capital. Another,
+and perhaps the most formidable of all these specious pleas is, that
+England has recently let off Turkey, and therefore there is no reason
+why she should not let off Peru.
+
+It is only fair to say that there are a few thoughtful men in the
+City of Kings who, ambitious for their country's honour, would fain
+see some arrangement made that will enable Peru to pursue her present
+policy of internal improvement, and help these men, who for the most
+part are very wealthy, to remain peaceably in office for say ten years
+longer--or say six--but at least, for God's sake as well as your own,
+they appealingly persist, let it not be less than four years (in the
+which there shall be no hearing or harvest for bondholders and dupes of
+that stamp).
+
+There is no doubt that, in the words of 'a Daniel say I,' if the
+bondholders would not lose all, 'then must the Jew be merciful,' let
+them insist on their pound of flesh, and everything denominated in
+their bond, they will share the fate of Shylock. The only part of that
+cruel rascal's fate which they need have no apprehension of sharing is,
+being made into Christians.
+
+It is unquestionably to be feared that if the present Government,
+and the one that succeeded it in August last under the presidency of
+General Prado, cannot defend the country from revolt, great disaster
+will follow not only to the republic, but most certainly to the
+bondholders.
+
+Revolt is not only possible, it is expected. An armed force led by
+determined men from without, aided by traitors within, and backed by
+unscrupulous persons who would be willing to risk one million pounds
+sterling on the chance of making two millions, might easily--or if
+not easily, yet with pains--bring back the corrupt days of Balta and
+Castilla, and, with shame be it said, such people can find a precedent
+for their proposed scheme in houses of high standing, the heads
+of which are doubtless looked upon as irreproachable ensamples of
+cultivated respectability.
+
+[Since writing the above, General Prado has once more assumed supreme
+power in peace, but there have followed two attempts at revolution
+within the space of three little months.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [5] 'Haber aparecido en el Peru el hombre que sin
+     profanacion de la palabra se puede llamar el _Mesias_ de los
+     ferrocarriles para la salvacion de la Republica Peruana.'--El
+     Ferrocarril de Arequipa, Historia, &c., Lima, 1871, p. lxxxi.
+
+     [6] Written off Alta Villa, April 25, 1876.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Having set forth two principal sources of Peruvian income, let us
+now proceed to a third. When los Señores Althaus and Rosas appeared
+in Paris last autumn as the representatives of the Government of
+Peru, among other national securities which those gentlemen offered
+for a further loan of money, were the railways of Peru. They are six
+in number, only one of which is finished according to the original
+contracts. The amount of mileage however is considerable, so also may
+be said to be their cost, for the Government has paid to one contractor
+alone no less a sum than one hundred and thirty millions of dollars.
+There are other railways whose united lengths amount to about 150
+miles; with one exception they cost little, and without an exception
+they all bring in much.
+
+These do not belong to the Government. The Government railways cost
+enormous sums and bring in nothing; and it may safely be said that
+they will never figure, honestly, in the national accounts, except
+as items of expenditure. The Government of the day would only be too
+glad to become cheap carriers of the national produce, if there were
+any produce ready to carry. But the Government built their railways
+without considering what are the primary and elementary use of
+railways. It is incredible, but none the less true, that the Peruvians
+believing the mercantile 'progress' of the United States to spring
+from railways, thought that nothing more was needed to raise their
+country to the pinnacle of commercial magnificence than to build a
+few of these iron ways, and have magic horses fed with fire to caper
+along them; especially if they could get an American--a real go-a-head
+American--for their builder. And they did so.
+
+The railway fever has had its virulent type in all parts of the
+world where railways have appeared. In Peru from 1868 to 1871-2
+this fever was perhaps more active and deadly than anywhere; than
+in Canada, even, which is saying much, for there it took the form of
+a religious delirium. The Peruvians believed that if they offered a
+great and wonderful railway to the deities of industry, great and happy
+commercial times would follow. Just as they believe that give a priest
+a pyx, a spoon, some wine, and wheaten bread, he can make the body and
+blood of God; so they believed that give a great American the required
+elements, he could by some equally mysterious power make Peru one of
+the great nations of the earth.
+
+Mr. Henry Meiggs[7], of Catskill 'city' in New York State, was on
+this occasion selected as the great high-priest who was to perform
+the required wonders. Give this magician a few thousand miles of iron
+rails to form two parallel lines, and a steam engine to run along them,
+and the vile body of the Peruvian Republic should be changed into a
+glorious body[8] with a mighty palpitating soul inside of it; the body
+to be of the true John Bull type for fatness, and the Yankee breed for
+speed.
+
+This new meaning of the doctrine of transubstantiation was preached
+to willing and enchanted ears. Ten thousand labourers of all colours
+and kinds were introduced into the country. 'By God, Sir, there was
+not a steamboat on the broad waters of the Pacific that did not pour
+into Peru as many peones as potatoes from Chile.' These ten thousand
+men all went up the Andes bearing shovels in their hands, and singing
+the name of Meiggs as they went. Millions of nails, and hammers
+innumerable, rails and barrows, sleepers and picks, chains, and double
+patent layers, wheels and pistons, with many thousand kegs of blasting
+powder 'let in duty free,' with all the other infernal implements and
+apparatus for making the most notable railway of this age[9], poured
+into Peru marked with the name of Meiggs. You could no more breathe
+without Meiggs, than you could eat your dinner without swallowing dust,
+sleep without the sting of fleas or the soothing trumpet of musquitoes.
+Meiggs everywhere; in sunshine and in storm, on the sea and on the
+heights of the world, now called Mount Meiggs; in the earthquake[10],
+and in the peaceful atmosphere of the most elegant society in the
+world. The wonderful activity on the Mollendo and Arequipa railway,
+carried on without ceasing, produced an ecstasy of hope, and also an
+eruption of blasphemy. Every valley was to be exalted; every Peruvian
+mountain, hitherto sacred to snow and the traditions of the Incas,
+should be laid low by the wand of Meiggs; the desert of course should
+blossom as the rose: no more iron should be sharpened into swords;
+ploughshares and pruning-hooks should be in such demand, that every
+blade and dagger or weapon of war in the old world would be required to
+make them. And a highway should be there, in which should be no lion,
+even a highway for our GOD. All this mixture of trumpery metaphors were
+poured into the ears of the enchanted Peruvians for the space of three
+years and more. The railway as far as Arequipa was at length finished,
+the Oroya railway was begun.
+
+It will probably never be finished.
+
+Robert Stephenson is reported to have said once before a Railway
+Committee: 'My Lords and Gentlemen, you can carry a railway to the
+Antipodes if you wish; it is only a matter of expense.' The Peruvians,
+aided by the archpriest Meiggs, 'the Messiah of railways, who was to
+bring salvation to the Peruvian Republic,' and steadfastly believing in
+the Meiggs' method of transubstantiation, commenced building a railway,
+not to Calcutta, but to the moon[11].
+
+As early as 1859 the Oroya Railway began to be thought of seriously,
+and the late President of Peru, with two other gentlemen of character,
+were appointed a commission to collect data and make calculations for a
+railway between Lima and Jauja. Nothing, however, was done until 1864,
+when Congress authorised the Government, Castilla then being President,
+to construct a railway to Caxamarca, with an annual guarantee of 7 per
+cent. for twenty-five years.
+
+The railway fever now began to increase in force and virulence, and
+in 1868 the President of the Republic was authorised to construct
+railways from Mollendo to Arequipa, Puno and Cuzco; from Chimbote to
+Santa or Huaraz; from Trujillo to Pacasmayo and to Caxamarca; from Lima
+to Jauja; and others which the Republic might need--a very respectable
+order to be given in one day. The Oroya Railway was to be 145 miles
+in length, and to cost 27,600,000 dols. To Puno the length was to be
+232 miles from Arequipa, and the cost 35,000,000 dols. From Mollendo
+to Arequipa, 12,000,000 dols., the length being 107 miles[12]. Ilo
+to Moquiqua, 63 miles, 6,700,000 dols. Pacasmayo to Caxamarca, or
+Guadalupe, or Magdalena, 83 miles, 7,700,000 dols. Payto to Piura, 63
+miles. Chimbote to Huaraz, 172 miles, 40,000,000 dols.
+
+Immediately after this small order was given, and Meiggs began to
+fill the world with the sound of his name, the Lima editors commenced
+their fulsome and disgusting eloquence, which day by day held all
+people in suspense. 'As puissant as colossal are the labours of the
+administration of Col. Don José Balta, who, without offence be it said,
+has a monomania for the construction of railways and public works--the
+infirmity of a divine inspiration in a head of the State.'
+
+What the infirmity of a divine inspiration may be we will not stay to
+enquire. Goldsmith was called an inspired idiot: and perhaps this was
+what the learned editor meant to say of Col. Balta.
+
+He goes on: 'The administration of Balta has converted the nation into
+a workshop. We say it in his honour that he has constructed rather than
+governed; but he has constructed well and firmly. He has done more
+than this, he has created and conserved the habit of work in all the
+nation, demonstrating by the argument of deeds that revolutions spring
+principally from idleness.' 'Balta has cast a net of railways over
+the country which has taken anarchy captive. Without any difficulty
+might it be argued that the time of Balta will be the Octavian Era of
+Peru[13].'
+
+Enough of this. Suffice it to say that among all these oratorical
+colonels, generals, lawyers, ministers of state, and accomplished
+editors, there was not one who had the honesty or the pluck to stand
+up and declare that it was all false which had so eloquently been said
+of the Oroya and the Arequipa Railways. They are neither the railways
+of the age nor of the day. There is one short railway in South America,
+the construction of which called forth more skill, pluck, and endurance
+than all the Meiggs railways put together, and this one railway has
+already earned in the first quarter of the century of its existence
+more money than all the government railways will ever earn during the
+next age. Hundreds of these inflated colonels and generals, judges,
+ministers of state, and accomplished editors, must have passed over the
+railway, which, running through a tropical forest, connects the Pacific
+with the Atlantic Ocean. Meiggs himself must have known it well; but
+neither he nor any of the inspired idiots who drowned him in butter had
+the valour to make mention of it by one poor word. The bridge over the
+Chagres river is of more utility, as it will win more enduring fame,
+than all the bridges on the Oroya, including those which 'are sixteen
+thousand feet above the level of the sea.' The Oroya bridges bear the
+same relation to those on the Panama Railway as the feat of the man who
+walked across the Falls of Niagara bears to the economy of walking. As
+Blondin was the only man who made any profit out of that performance,
+so Meiggs, the Messiah of railways, will be the only person who will
+for some time to come profit by the building of the Oroya and Lima line
+of railway. It is surely impossible that all the reports one has been
+compelled to give ear to of great silver mines and mines of copper
+existing on this line can be false. Yet mining, especially in Peru,
+is not free from danger; it is also not a little mixed up with lying
+and cheating, and it has a historical reputation for exaggeration. The
+copper mines on the Chimbote line, however, are quite another matter.
+If those on the Oroya can be demonstrated to be equally good, and the
+silver mines only half as good and as great, Peru may yet lift up her
+head. But he will be a bold man that shall apply to English capitalists
+for the first loan to Peruvian miners or to be invested in Peruvian
+mines, and the days of faith and trust will not have passed away when
+the money shall have been subscribed.
+
+Although it was a poet who said that
+
+     'Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,'
+
+yet it is as true as if it had emanated from the Stock Exchange, the
+_Times_ monetary article, or any other recognised fountain of practical
+knowledge; and as for the native edge of Peruvian industry, it is about
+as dull as that of a razor not made to shave but to sell--as dull, in
+fact, as the edge of a hatchet made of lead.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [7] For the biography of this estimable gentleman see 'El
+     Ferrocarril de Arequipa Historia, documentada de su origen
+     construcion é inauguracion.'--Lima, p. 96. 'Ese hombre
+     era ENRIQUE MEIGGS, cuyo nombre va unido inseparable é
+     imperecederamente á los trabajos mas colosales de las
+     republicas del mar Pacifico.'
+
+     [8] For these and similar ebullitions of profanity I am
+     indebted to the Lima newspapers of the period, and one or two
+     anonymous pamphlets.
+
+     [9] Paz-Soldan.
+
+     [10] With a liberality on a scale equal to all his
+     achievements, Mr. Meiggs subscribed $50,000 for the sufferers
+     in the terrible earthquake which desolated Arequipa and
+     destroyed Arica in 1868.
+
+     [11] It is difficult to be original in this age of metaphor.
+     Only this morning, April 26, and quite by accident, I came
+     on a little print which is published, I believe, in Callao,
+     where I found the following:
+
+                       'RAILROADS IN THE CLOUDS.
+
+     'Looking over our exchanges we found the following. It is
+     from the New York _Sun_ of January 16, and gives an account
+     of Mr. John G. Meiggs being "interviewed" in that city.
+
+     'Mr. John Meiggs, brother of Henry Meiggs, the "King of
+     Peru," as the millionaire contractor is called in South
+     America, is lodging in the Clarendon Hotel. He is a tall,
+     large man, past middle age, and with a clear penetrating
+     hazel eye. He has an important share in the management of
+     his brother's affairs. "Peru," he said, "is richer in the
+     precious metals than any other country in the world. Our
+     engineers in building the railroad from the coast to Puno
+     have come across a hundred silver mines, any one of which
+     might be profitably worked, if in the United States. If
+     these mines are worked, the railroads we have built will be
+     a blessing to the country."
+
+     'Reporter--"I understand that there are marvels of
+     engineering on some of your railroads?"
+
+     'Mr. Meiggs--"Yes. One of our roads crosses the mountains at
+     16,000 feet above the level of the sea. Some of the bridges,
+     too, are very lofty, and built with a skill that would do
+     credit to any part of the world."
+
+     'Reporter--"Your brother is said to be worth several millions
+     of dollars?"
+
+     'Mr. Meiggs--"Whatever he obtained in Peru he has fully
+     earned, and whatever he owed there or elsewhere he has paid.
+     He has not been a seeker of contracts. On the contrary, he
+     has rejected contracts that the Government wished him to
+     take."'
+
+     [12] To which may be added $2,000,000 more for the conveyance
+     of water along the line nearly from Arequipa to Mollendo.
+
+     [13] Ferrocarril de Arequipa, pp. lxxxi-ii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Guano, Nitrate, and Railways being recognised as the prime sources
+of Peruvian greatness, and these having been noticed with no scant
+justice, another matter remains for examination, which may be said
+to surpass all the others in importance, albeit it is not so easy to
+estimate or understand.
+
+Granted that Peru has all the physical elements of a great
+nation,--such as gold and silver, copper and iron, and coal, oil and
+wine, a vast line of sea-coast with numerous safe bays and ports,
+rivers for internal navigation, as well as railroads,--has she the
+moral qualities to develop these riches and make the best use of them?
+In plain words, has Peru ceased to be a hotbed of revolution? is there
+any hope that the ruling classes of the Peruvian people will become
+sober, industrious, thrifty, honest, just and right in all their
+dealings, and cease to be a source of anxiety and disgust to their
+present and future creditors?
+
+These may be said to be momentous questions, and not to be lightly
+answered. Any answer not founded on well-ascertained facts and
+indisputable knowledge should be set aside as vexatious and frivolous.
+A hasty answer, or one founded on aught else, could only be conceived
+in malice or prompted by motives of self-interest. It has, for example,
+during the past few months been comparatively easy to a portion of
+the London press to defame the character of Peru; to find reasons why
+its bonds should be held only as waste paper, and even to prove to the
+satisfaction of its fond and eager readers that she is in an utterly
+bankrupt state. The same accomplished writers, if it suited their
+purpose, could as easily prove, with their eloquent persuasiveness,
+that Peru after all is, in commercial phraseology, sound; she had
+never yet failed in keeping faith with her English friends, and is too
+enlightened to think of doing so now. True, she is in debt; but she
+can pay handsomely, and, in the powerful rhetoric of Bassanio, would
+encourage money-lenders and her private friends thus:--
+
+     'In my school days, when I had lost one shaft,
+     I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
+     The self-same way with more advised watch,
+     To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
+     I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
+     Because what follows is pure innocence.
+     I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
+     That which I owe is lost; but if you please
+     To shoot another arrow that self way
+     Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt
+     As I will watch the aim, or to find both
+     Or bring your latter hazard back again
+     And thankfully rest debtor for the first.'
+
+But not thus will our serious questions meet with satisfactory answers.
+
+The first thing to be noted in the enquiry, perhaps, is that it is
+altogether a misnomer to call Peru a Republic. Whatever else it be,
+a Republic it certainly is not, and never has been a Republic. Its
+political constitution and its laws have nothing whatever to do with
+the people, nor have the people aught to do with them; and they care
+for them as they care for the theory of gravitation, or any other
+portion of demonstrable knowledge, from which they may indeed derive
+some animal comfort in its application, but the application of which
+will probably never enlighten their souls. The people of Peru know as
+much of liberty as they know of the Virgin Mary. The priests once or
+twice a year dress the image of the Jewish maiden in tawdry attire,
+put a tinsel crown on her head, and call her the Mother of God and the
+Queen of Heaven, and the people fall down and worship; which they are
+perfectly at liberty to do, as the impostors who lead them to do so may
+get their living in that way, as all other impostors obtain theirs who
+possess the people's grace. In like fashion, all that the people know
+of liberty they know thus. They know as much of it as an aristocrat
+cares to teach them--as a quack can tell his patient of medicine,
+or the showy proprietress of a showy school can teach an intelligent
+girl the use of the globes. All native-born Peruvians of full age have
+votes, at least all such as can read and write, or possess a certain
+amount of real property. But reading and writing are not by any means
+universal accomplishments in the Peruvian Republic, and there are fewer
+holders of real estate among the working classes than maybe found in
+Barbados among the coloured labourers of that beautiful but misgoverned
+island.
+
+Don Juan Espinosa, an old Peruvian soldier, and one of the few South
+American writers whose literary works have been translated into
+French, if not also into English, wrote some twenty years ago a
+republican, democratic, moral, political, and philosophical dictionary
+for the people. Strange to say, he has given us no definition of a
+Republic in his highly-entertaining and instructive book. Two of his
+longest articles, however, are devoted, the first to the subject of
+'Independence,' and the second to 'Revolution.' The manner in which the
+author concludes the first is suggestive: 'On one day,' he says, 'we
+were all brothers and countrymen; brothers by blood, and countrymen of
+a land which we had just irrigated with our blood. O day immortal for
+humanity! On this day the Saviour of the world beheld the consummation
+of his work; he saw the spectacle which years before had led the way
+for 1824. He without doubt designed the camp of AYACUCHO as the first
+embrace of all the races, and the signal also for the suppression of
+all human rivalries. Afterwards'
+     ______________________________________________________
+
+A long, broad black line stretches across the page as if to put it in
+mourning.
+
+'A revolution in substance,' he says, 'is nothing more than the
+organisation of a people's discontent.'
+
+If that be so, there has never been a revolution in Peru; a statement
+which will be doubted by nearly all who hear it for the first time. We
+may perhaps make an exception in the revolution which made Col. Prado
+dictator of Peru in November, 1865. No doubt the enthusiasm of the
+Peruvian people for going to war with Spain was genuine, and Prado,
+not at all a man of revolutionary tastes, easily overthrew Canseco,
+because of his Spanish tendencies. Prado was subsequently elected
+President in 1867, but was overthrown by Balta and Canseco the year
+following, and Colonel (now General) Prado fled to Chile for his life.
+Still, let us be thankful that we can find one authentic instance of
+Peruvian patriotism in the course of fifty years, and that out of the
+hundreds of revolutions which have occurred, one was for the good of
+the country--and most certainly to its honour.
+
+The anniversary of the 2nd of May, 1866, is kept with pride by every
+loyal Peruvian in all parts of the world, wherever one may find
+himself. Had there been among the Peruvian soldiers on that day as much
+knowledge of gunnery as there was of personal valour, not more than one
+or two ships of the Spanish fleet which bombarded Callao had escaped
+destruction.
+
+It has been contended by a few anxious Peruvians that the revolution
+made by General Castilla, in 1854, against General Echenique was also
+a popular revolution. Perhaps it was. Echenique was notoriously very
+fond of money, and it is said that so freely did he help himself to
+the proceeds of the public guano that the people rose against him,
+flocked to the standard of Castilla, whom they kept in power for twelve
+years, and sent Echenique into ignoble exile. If that could be proved
+in favour of the Peruvian people, it should be done at once. But no one
+from sheer laughter can discuss the question. Castilla was as fond of
+money as Echenique; Castilla, however, did one or two liberal things;
+he liberated the slaves, and abolished the poll-tax, and in that sense
+the revolution of 1854 may be said to have been a popular one.
+
+No Peruvian who supported those two famous acts of General Castilla's
+Government looks back upon them with anything but bitter regret. The
+negro slaves were well off--they were, moreover, a people with much
+affection for their masters, and slavery existed only in name. When
+the blacks, however, were 'liberated,' they became like a mob of mules
+without burdens, without guide or master, and they wandered about the
+earth and died miserably. Those who survived were certainly very little
+credit to their friends, for many of them became the terror of the
+highways which converge on the capital of the Republic.
+
+The Indians who paid the poll-tax did then do some work, and they were
+made to feel some of the responsibilities of being republicans--they
+were kept under rule--they could be induced to labour in 'some of the
+richest silver mines in the world.' Now they will do nothing of the
+kind, and the Government has not only lost an income of 2,000,000
+dols. a year, they have lost the services of the entire indigenous
+population, which may be called, in classical language, a pretty kettle
+of fish, especially for a country whose riches depend upon the industry
+of a free and happy people.
+
+One immediate consequence of Castilla's emancipation policy was that it
+speedily became a profitable business for a few adventurous persons in
+Lima to proceed to China, where they kidnapped some of the superfluous
+Chinese population. This traffic prospered for a while, but as it is
+the property of murder to make itself known--somehow or anyhow--the
+profits fell off, owing to the interference of one or two civilised
+Governments. When the Celestial Empire no longer offered a safe field
+for the Peruvian men-snatchers, attempts were made on the inoffensive
+people of the diocese of modern evangelisation, and in the course of
+time the rich people of Lima had the opportunity of buying a few men,
+women, and girls, who had been stolen from some of the islands of the
+Pacific. But these for some mysterious reasons died off, after having
+cost the Peruvian Government a serious sum of money, and some people
+their reputation. It was, however, imperatively necessary, owing to
+the demands of the British farmer for guano, and the exigences of the
+Government of Peru to obtain men from China somehow for the important
+work of shovelling Peruvian dung into European ships; and there may
+be reckoned to-day among the motley population of the Republic not
+less than 60,000 men who cultivate sugar and pig-tails, and indulge in
+opium. This, therefore, might be called a popular revolution, and the
+friends of General Castilla can claim for him the honour and glory of
+having brought it about.
+
+General Castilla deserves to be better known; but this is not the
+place to speak of him at any length. He introduced a new era into
+Peruvian politics--he was the first native Peruvian with no Spanish
+blood in his veins who assumed supreme power. If there had been no
+guano to demoralise everybody, himself included, Castilla might have
+become a great man, and the Peruvian people been lifted up by him in
+the scale of humanity. As it is, Castilla and everybody else fulfilled
+the prediction of the Hebrew prophet in a manner that might be stated
+in Spanish, but which no gentleman can write in English. It should
+be stated that although Castilla had nothing of Spanish blood in his
+veins, yet his father was an Italian, and his mother one of the pure
+Indian women of Moquegua.
+
+All this, however, does not help us to answer the momentous questions
+with which this chapter opens.--If Peru is not a Republic, and there
+have not been more than two revolutions in the whole of its wild and
+chequered history, what is it?
+
+Peru is a Republic in name, 'governed' or rather farmed by groups or
+families of despots, who frequently quarrel among themselves, cut each
+other's throats, and alternately embrace and kiss each other, in a
+manner that is sickening to any one who is not a moral eunuch[14]. Only
+those who are rich enough to escape to Chile are saved from the above
+gentle process. General Prado is one of these favoured Peruvians. Had
+not Don Manuel Pardo, the late President, fled from Lima during the
+revolting days of the Gutierrez terror, he too would have gone the way
+of all flesh and Peruvian political farmers.
+
+The people of Peru, those who are to be distinguished from the
+families who farm them, are hard-working, industrious, sober, ignorant,
+excitable and superstitious. They are fond of serving their masters,
+they like to be called 'children' by the great Colonels, the great
+sugar-boilers, and all who ride on horses and live, even though it be
+at other people's expense, in great houses.
+
+The Peruvian dictionary already quoted from, though it does not contain
+the word Republic, does contain the history of Peru. Let us turn to the
+article 'Liberty.'
+
+'LA LIBERTAD,' says our brave soldier author, 'does not consist,
+civilly or socially speaking, in each one doing what he likes. By thus
+understanding liberty some governments have fallen, and some people
+have lost what they had gained.
+
+'Liberty consists in each one having the power to do, at all events,
+that which the law has not forbidden, in not damaging another in his
+rights, or property, or in his moral and material well-being.
+
+'That society is not free while any of its members are unable to
+express their thoughts without hinderance.
+
+'That society is not free when one or more of its industries are
+prohibited under the pretext of monopoly or privilege.
+
+'It is not free when it cares not, or is unable to arraign a lying
+magistrate.
+
+'That society is not free which does not possess political morality.
+This consists in--
+
+'I. Keeping the treaties and covenants made with other nations.
+
+'II. In submitting to the law without its ever supposing itself
+entitled to falsify it by cunning arts, or paltry subterfuge.
+
+'III. In holding up to scorn whatever crime affects the national
+honour.
+
+'IV. In not corrupting its institutions for personal considerations.
+A people will find it very difficult to maintain its freedom, which is
+without sufficient spirit to provide itself with good institutions, and
+afterwards ready to put so much faith in them, that it will become a
+religious duty rigorously to support them.
+
+'By what right does Spanish-America call itself republican, if it has
+not renounced the custom of a despotic monarchical absolutism?
+
+'These unhappy people have given themselves very liberal laws, and
+have afterwards abandoned them at the caprice of men without having the
+least faith in their own institutions.
+
+'How can they thus hope to be free?
+
+'It costs nothing, nor is it of any value to shout LIBERTY, LIBERTY.
+But that which is of great price, and can never be too costly, is to
+acquire liberty by means of good manners, by the custom of respecting
+the law and making it respected, by respecting the rights of others,
+and making them respected by all; to be just with all the world, and
+ashamed of every evil act. Behold, how liberty is to be acquired. In
+fine, liberty is the health of the soul, and he cannot be free who has
+not a healthy conscience.'
+
+'The greater number of our liberals,' he adds in another place, with
+one of his happiest flashes of poetic truth, of which the book is full,
+'the greater number of our liberals are like musical instruments which
+do not retain the sound they give when played upon,' i. e. they are
+cracked.
+
+Let it be added, that this soldier of the sword and of the pen who
+fought and bled on the field of battle for Peruvian civil liberty,
+and sighed, and cried in peaceful days for a freedom still greater
+and better, died poor and neglected. The present Peruvian Government
+sought all over Lima for complete copies of his works to send to
+Philadelphia, but it allows those whom he has left behind him, and who
+bear his name, to languish in obscurity and in want; and Don Manuel
+Pardo and his ministers, good in many things though they may be, are in
+others nothing better than cracked musical instruments. Peru is only
+a Republic in name, liberty does not exist, its people are not free,
+and the country remains at the mercy of men who at any moment, and in
+the most unexpected manner, can turn it into a hotbed of what is called
+revolution.
+
+A revolution is expected now. The man whose administration designed and
+carried through one of the 'railways of the age,' the personal friend
+of Meiggs, who had taken anarchy captive in an iron net, was shortly
+afterwards in the most cowardly, brutal, and unexpected way first made
+prisoner, while he was yet President, and then murdered in his jail.
+
+Great as is the love of the common people for their superiors, they are
+not to be relied upon in days of great excitement, and when there is
+abundance of loose change flying about. How could it be otherwise?
+
+How often do ministers and public men meet the people in common? Never,
+except in a religious procession carrying an enormous wax candle a yard
+long, and as thick as a rolling-pin, or at the Theatre on el dos de
+Mayo, and not then unless there has been some pleasant news announced
+the day before.
+
+How often are the people enlightened by a clear and straightforward
+statement of the public accounts? Never. Does not the free press of
+Lima support the Government, or now and then criticise its acts in the
+interest of the people? The answer is that there is no free press in
+Lima.
+
+No plan of the Government is ever made known until it has been
+accomplished. Everything is done in secret and underground. Rumour
+is the great agent of the Government and mystery its chief force.
+So mysterious are the ways of the Executive that itself is not
+unfrequently a mystery to itself. No Peruvian Government has ever had
+the courage to take the people into its confidence, and the people
+are too busy with their own personal affairs to think of, much less to
+resent, the slight.
+
+In other matters the press is busy enough. Some of the most biting
+criticisms on priests, on auricular confession, on the infallibility
+of the Pope and the Immaculate Conception have appeared in the Lima
+press. Their teachers, in brief, have ridiculed the gods of the people
+and given them none to adore. No intellectual society in Lima associate
+with priests. No priest is ever seen in the houses of the rich, or the
+respectable poor.
+
+Freemasonry is the fashionable religion of men, and men who never go
+to mass will frequent a lodge twice a week. Only the other day one of
+these lodges published an advertisement in the leading journal to the
+effect that a gold medal would be conferred on any brother mason who
+would adopt the orphan child of any who had died fighting against any
+form of tyranny, and the medal is to be worn as a badge of honour on
+the person of the owner. Freemasonry in Peru is an open menace of the
+Church, which with all deference to the craft, may be called a gross
+mistake. But Peruvian Freemasonry is like Peruvian Republicanism,
+chiefly a thing of show, and something to talk about by men who can
+talk of nothing else.
+
+After all this it should not be difficult to answer the questions with
+which this chapter opens.
+
+But lest it should be thought that the greater part of these statements
+is pure rhetoric, or mere private opinion, and not stubborn facts, let
+us now ask two questions more.
+
+What use has Peru made of the great income it has derived during the
+past generation, from the national guano? What is there to show for the
+many million pounds sterling it has derived from this source, and from
+money lent by English bondholders?
+
+Let us hasten at once to acknowledge that it has spent 150,000,000
+dols. in railways. But let us also add that the greatest authority in
+Peru has stigmatised these railways as _locuras_, or follies. This is
+not an encouraging beginning. But alas it is not only the beginning, it
+is also the end of the account.
+
+There is nothing else to be seen. There is not a single lighthouse or
+light on any dangerous rock, or at any port difficult to make along the
+whole of its coast. All the fructifying rivers of the hills still steal
+into the sea. Had half the money which has been spent on the Oroya
+railway been expended on works of irrigation, the Government of Peru
+would now be in the possession of a respectable revenue.
+
+A morning visit to the market-place in Lima on any day of the week, is
+enough to convince even a Peruvian President who knows something else
+besides how to play rocambor, of the truth of this statement.
+
+Internal roads, excepting these 'railways of the age,' there are none;
+but there are several ironclads and men-of-war in the Bay of Callao,
+for what use or of what service the First Lord of the Admiralty himself
+could not tell explicitly.
+
+It might be thought by some ordinary people, of business habits and a
+little reflection, that a country like Peru, which can boast of as many
+seaports as it can of first-class towns and cities, would provide those
+ports with convenient landing-places, moles, or piers.
+
+There is one good pier on the whole coast, which in its useless
+grandeur stretches out nearly a mile into the sea; as the Oroya
+railway, like a mighty python, creeps up the precipitous slopes of the
+Andes 'sixteen thousand feet above the level of the sea.'
+
+As every one knows, the Pacific is a peaceful sea, as quiet as a saucer
+of milk. But like almost all the things that every one knows, this
+piece of knowledge will hardly bear the test of experience. Twenty
+miles or less from its shore, the Pacific on the Peruvian coast, may
+be said to be as calm and placid as a man's unresisted vices. Put a
+restraint upon, or raise a barrier against the most modest of the man's
+wishes, and these suddenly show their strength, even the strength, as
+some have found to their cost, of resistless passion. It is thus with
+this Pacific sea. When it comes against a rocky shore, or the miserable
+wooden barriers which the Peruvian Government have put up for the
+convenience and comfort of passengers, and the despatch of business,
+it becomes more like a wild beast, or a watery volcano, or any other
+fierce and angry force which cannot by ordinary means be restrained. It
+is not unlikely that a Government fond of providing cheap distraction
+for the people has purposely neglected this useful work of building
+piers, with the benevolent design of providing a cheap amusement to
+those inhabitants of the ports who do not travel by sea.
+
+It is such fun to see a lady dressed in pink satin and blue silk
+boots get a sudden ducking in salt water, or to watch in safety from
+the shore a boat full of anxious and highly dressed colonels and
+sugar-boilers, editors and lawyers, get drenched to the skin, and
+almost robbed of their breath, in trying to effect a landing at Islay,
+or Mollendo, Iquique, or Chala, or even Callao.
+
+If any of the readers of this brief but eventful history would desire
+to see the Peruvian Republic as in a microcosm, let them arrive at
+the latter chief port of the nation in a steamer, or a cattle ship,
+as a passenger steamer may now be called. They will see an exhibition
+of confusion, extortion, bullying, insolence, cruelty, and official
+imbecility, which cannot be equalled in any other part of the civilised
+or uncivilised world, including New Guinea or Eragomanga. And as it
+is now, so it was twenty years ago. A steamer, the European mail for
+example, drops its anchor about two miles from the shore. It is then
+surrounded by a hundred small boats, each containing two, sometimes
+more, coloured men. The screaming, gesticulating, and brutal language
+of these creatures defy description. The authorities have no control
+over them, the captain of the steamer is powerless against the invasion
+of his ship, and all passengers who have no friends, who know nothing
+of the country and cannot speak Spanish, are placed at the mercy of
+this swarm of harpies.
+
+Here you have an epitome of Peru. Gentlemen and rogues jostling one
+another in painful contiguity. Gentlewomen and their opposite, men who
+work and scoundrels who prey upon other people's labour, priests and
+colonels, knowledge and ignorance, in some form or other brought in
+violent collision: the utmost freedom of opinion and nobody to keep the
+peace!
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+     [14] _Estratocracia_ I find is the technical term by
+     which Espinosa would designate the Government of Peru or
+     a government by the military. This would seem to be true,
+     seeing that since Peru became a Republic all its Presidents
+     with only one exception have been Colonels, Generals, and
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Peru in the Guano Age, by Alexander James Duffield
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Peru in the Guano Age, by Alexander James Duffield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Peru in the Guano Age
+       Being a Short Account of a Recent Visit to the Guano
+              Deposits With Some Reflections on the Money They Have
+              Produced and the Uses to Which it has Been Applied
+
+Author: Alexander James Duffield
+
+Release Date: June 16, 2014 [EBook #45998]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERU IN THE GUANO AGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rachael Schultz, Bryan Ness, Melissa McDaniel
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tnbox">
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p>
+<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original
+document have been preserved.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h1>
+PERU IN THE GUANO AGE.
+</h1>
+
+<p class="center p6">
+OXFORD:
+<br />
+BY E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY,
+<br />
+PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.</p>
+
+<p class="center p6 title">
+<span class="b20">PERU IN THE GUANO AGE</span>
+<br />
+<span class="s08">BEING A SHORT</span>
+<br />
+<span class="b13">ACCOUNT OF A RECENT VISIT</span>
+<br />
+<span class="s08">TO THE</span>
+<br />
+<span class="b13">GUANO DEPOSITS</span>
+<br />
+<span class="s08">WITH SOME</span>
+<br />
+<span class="s08 no-space">REFLECTIONS ON THE MONEY THEY HAVE PRODUCED AND
+THE USES TO WHICH IT HAS BEEN APPLIED</span>
+<br />
+<span class="s08">BY</span>
+<br />
+<span class="b12">A. J. DUFFIELD</span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="./images/logo20.jpg" width="92" height="107" alt="" />
+
+</div>
+<p class="center p2">
+<span class="b12">LONDON</span>
+<br />
+<span class="b12">RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON</span>
+<br />
+Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
+<br />
+1877
+</p>
+
+<h2 class="p6">
+DEDICATORY LETTER.
+</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span lang="es_ES">Ã</span><br />
+<span lang="es_ES" class='smcap'>SeÃ±or Don Juan Espinosa y de Maldonado</span>,<br />
+<span lang="es_ES"><i>Estimado y distinguido Amigo mio</i></span>:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would be most pleasant to continue this letter in
+the language in which it begins and which you taught
+me some five and twenty years ago, but I wish others
+to read it as well as yourself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I dedicate this little book to you for several reasons:
+not because of our common friendship, extending now
+over more than a quarter of a century, nor yet for the
+confidence which you have reposed in me under many
+trying circumstances during that long period, but rather
+because you are much interested in the country which
+the book describes, are intimately acquainted with all
+the questions it raises, and more than all because you
+have a thorough knowledge of Peru&mdash;its people and
+history;&mdash;because further, it was you who first taught
+me how to regard your countrymen, opened my eyes to
+their good and other qualities, and because also you
+know that here I have set down nought in malice,
+have said nothing that you do not know to be true,
+and drawn no inference from the facts of past times or
+the doings of living men which you would not sanction
+and endorse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With one exception.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am quite aware that you do not share in what I
+have said at page 118, but this is not my own opinion&mdash;it
+is the candidly expressed view of the leading men
+of Lima. I know that you have always insisted upon
+Peru paying her debts, not merely because you well
+know that she can pay quite easily, but also because
+the effect on the moral life of the country, if she should
+prove a defaulter, will be most disastrous. It is pitiable
+beyond the power of human expression to find a
+single thoughtful Peruvian holding a contrary opinion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since the following chapters were written several
+things have taken place which have corroborated some
+of my statements, and fulfilled more than one of my
+predictions. As you are aware a public meeting was
+held, a month after my departure from Lima, at the
+Treasurer's Office; at which were present the Minister of
+Finance and Commerce, the Chief Accountant, and many
+other officers of departments, for the purpose of receiving
+a communication from two Englishmen, setting forth
+the discovery of fresh guano deposits on the coast, in
+the province of Tarapaca. From all that could be
+gathered these new deposits may be fairly estimated as
+containing three million tons of guano. This confirms
+what I have said at page 101.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And yet we have heard nothing new from Peru regarding
+the payment of her liabilities, nor has any
+official communication been made by the Government
+regarding this important discovery. If General Prado
+does not take care he will have his house pulled about
+his ears. One of the most interesting revolutions yet to
+be made in Peru is one in the interest of its honour and
+uprightness. If your friend General Montero appeals
+to the country in that cause he might immortalize his
+name and bring in the New Era. From the little I
+know of the General, however, I should say that such
+a task is too much for him. It requires a man broad of
+chest, of constant mind, of unimpeachable honour and
+absolute unselfishness to make a revolution of that sort.
+Still it is a good cry, and if Prado does not take it up
+himself he may come to grief when he least expects it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the issue of Mr. Marsh's report from the British
+Consulate at Callao you will notice how the Consul
+confirms what I have said about the British sailor in
+Peru. Excessive drinking, licentious living, and exposure
+are set forth as the main causes of a deterioration
+in our merchant seamen which should attract the notice
+of Parliament. To send unseaworthy ships to sea is to
+bring disgrace on the national name. The national
+disgrace of sending unworthy seamen to sea appears to
+attract little notice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chapter I read to you in MS. on 'Commercial
+Enterprise in Peru' I have purposely omitted, as also
+my report on the riches of its Sea. It will be time
+enough to talk of these things when the Chinese get a
+firmer footing in the country than they have at present,
+or when the Mormons have established themselves
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let me ask you to treat with leniency any unintentional
+wrong thinking or wrong writing, but anything
+you discover here to be purposely vulgar, purposely
+bad, or unjust, treat it as you would treat the creed of
+a Jesuit, or a priest, or any other evil thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="i10">Believe me to be,</span><br />
+<span class="i11">My dear Don Juan,</span><br />
+<span class="i12">Your faithful friend and servant,</span><br />
+<span class="i14"><span class="s08">Q.B.S.M.</span></span><br />
+<span class='i13 smcap'>A. J. Duffield</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class='smcap'>Savile Club</span>,<br />
+<span class="i2"><i>February, 1877</i>.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+P. S. Let me publicly thank you for introducing
+to English readers the works of <span class='smcap'>Ricardo Palma</span>, certainly
+the best writer Peru has produced, and eminently
+its first satirist. As you will see, I have translated
+one of his <i><span lang="es_ES">Tradiciones</span></i>. Some readers at first sight
+might naturally feel inclined to suggest a transposition
+of the chapters in the 'Law-suit against God,' or to
+look upon the second chapter as altogether irrelevant
+to the story. But we who are in the secret know
+better, and that the official corruption which is there
+set forth is intimately connected with the catastrophe
+which follows, and is a faithful representation of public
+life and morals, not only in old Peru, but also in the
+Peru of the Guano Age.
+</p>
+
+<p class="left65">
+<i><span lang="es_ES">Hasta cada rata.</span></i>
+</p>
+
+<div  class="chapter">
+<p class="center b15 p6">
+PERU IN THE GUANO AGE.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/dec_p001_alt.jpg" width="139" height="15" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER I.
+</h2>
+</div>
+<p>
+Although Peru may boast of its Age of
+Guano, it has had its Golden Age. This was
+before any Spaniard had put his foot in the
+country, and when as yet it was called by quite
+another name. The name of Peru, which signifies
+nothing, arose by accident or mistake.
+It was first of all spelled Piru, no doubt from
+Biru, the native name of one of its rivers.
+Time and use, which establish so many things,
+have established Peru; and it is too late to
+think of disestablishing it for anything else:
+and though it is nothing to boast of, let Peru
+stand. The country had its Stone Age, and I
+have brought for the Cambridge antiquaries
+a fair collection of implements of that period,
+consisting of lancets, spear-heads, and heads for
+arrows, exquisitely wrought in flint, jasper, opal,
+chalcedony, and other stones. They were all
+found in the neighbourhood of the Pisagua
+river. It is to be regretted that no material
+evidence of equal tangibility is forthcoming
+of the Age of Gold. This is generally the
+result of comparison founded on historical
+criticism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Golden Age Peru had&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I. A significant name, a well-ordered, fixed,
+and firm government, with hereditary rulers.
+Only one rebellion occurred in twelve reigns,
+and only two revolutions are recorded in the
+whole history of the Inca Empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+II. The land was religiously cultivated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+III. There was a perfect system of irrigation,
+and water was made the servant and slave of
+man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+IV. The land was equally divided periodically
+between the Deity, the Inca, the nobles, and
+the people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+V. Strong municipal laws enforced, and an
+intelligent and vigorous administration carried
+out these laws, which provided for cleanliness,
+health, and order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VI. Idleness was punished as a crime; work
+abounded for all; and no one could want, much
+less starve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VII. No lawsuit could last longer, or its
+decision be delayed more, than five days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VIII. Throughout the land the people everywhere
+were taught such industrial arts as
+were good and useful, and were also trained
+by a regular system of bodily exercises for
+purposes of health, and the defence of the
+nation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+IX. Every male at a certain age married,
+and took upon himself the duties of citizenship
+and the responsibilities of a manly life: he owned
+his own house and lived in it, and a portion
+of land fell to him every year, which was
+enlarged as his family increased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. Great public works were every year built
+which added to the strength and glory of the
+kingdom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XI. Deleterious occupations or such as were
+injurious to health were prohibited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XII. Gold was used for ornament, sacred
+vessels of the temple, and the service of the
+Inca in his palaces. There is a tradition that
+this precious metal signified in their tongue
+'<i>Tears of the Sun</i>.' Whether this be an ancient
+or a modern tradition no one can tell us. It
+may be not more than three and a half centuries
+old.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XIII. A man ravishing a virgin was buried
+alive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XIV. A man ravishing a virgin of the Sun,
+that is, one of the vestal virgins of the Temple,
+was burnt alive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XV. It was accounted infamous for a man
+or woman to wear other people's clothes, or
+clothes that were in rags.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XVI. Roads and bridges were among the
+foremost public works which bound the vast
+country together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XVII. Public granaries, for the storing of
+corn in case of emergency, were erected in all
+parts, and some very out-of-the-way parts of
+the kingdom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XVIII. Woollen and cotton manufactures
+were brought to great perfection. Examples of
+these remain to this day and will bear comparison
+with those of our own time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XIX. A thief suffered the loss of his eyes;
+and a creature committing the diabolical act
+of altering a water-course suffered death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And to sum up, here is the true confession
+of Mancio Sierra Lejesama, one of the first
+Spanish Conquistadores of Peru, which confession
+he attached to his will made in the
+city of Cuzco on the 15th day of September,
+1589, before one Geronimo Sanches de Quesada,
+<span lang="es_ES">escribano publico</span>, and which has been preserved
+to us by Espinosa in his 'People's Dictionary,'
+art. 'Indio.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'First of all,' says the dying Lejesama, 'before
+commencing my will I declare that I have much
+desired in all submission to acquaint His Catholic
+Majesty, the King Don Philip our Lord,
+seeing how Catholic and Christian he is, and
+how jealous for the service of God our Saviour,
+of what touches the discharge of my soul for
+the great part I took in the discovery, conquest,
+and peopling of these kingdoms, when we
+took them from those who were their masters,
+the Incas, who owned and ruled them as their
+own kingdoms, and put them under the royal
+crown. And His Catholic Majesty shall understand
+that the said Incas governed these kingdoms
+on such wise that in them all there was
+no thief or vicious person, nor an idle man,
+nor a bad or an adulterous woman, [if such
+there had been, be sure the Spaniard would
+have been the first to find it out,] nor were
+there allowed among them people of evil lives:
+men had their honest and profitable occupations,
+in all that pertained to mountain or mine, to
+the field, the forest, or the home, as in everything
+of use all was governed and divided after
+such sort that each one knew and held to his
+own without another interfering therewith:
+nor were lawsuits known among them: the
+affairs of war, although not few, interfered not
+with those of traffic, nor yet did these conflict
+with those of seed-time and harvest, or with
+other matters whatsoever. All things from the
+greater to the less had their order, concert,
+and good management. The Incas were dreaded,
+obeyed, and respected by their subjects, for the
+greatness of their capacity and the excellence of
+their rule. It was the same with the captains
+and governors of provinces. And as we found
+command, and strength, and force to rest in
+these, so had we to deprive them of these by the
+force of arms to subject them to, and press them
+into, the service of God our Lord, taking from
+them not only all command but their means of
+life also. And by the permission of God our Lord
+we were able to subject this kingdom of many
+people, and riches, and lords, making servants of
+them as now we see. I trust that His Majesty
+understands the motive which moves me to
+this relation, that it is for the purging of my
+conscience by the confession of my guilt. We
+have destroyed with our evil example people
+so well governed as these, who were so far from
+being inclined to wrongdoing or excess of any
+sort&mdash;both men and women&mdash;that an Indian with
+a hundred thousand dollars in gold and silver
+in his house, would leave it open, or would place
+a broom, or small stick across the threshold to
+signify that the owner was not within, and with
+that, as was their custom, no one would enter,
+nor take thence a single thing. When they
+saw us put doors to our houses, and locks on
+our doors, they understood that we were afraid
+of them, not that they would kill us, but that
+perhaps they might steal our things. When
+they saw that we had thieves among ourselves,
+and men who incited their wives and daughters
+to sin, they held us in low esteem. So great
+is the dissoluteness now among these natives,
+and their offences against God, owing to the
+evil example we have set them in all things,
+that from doing nothing bad they have all&mdash;or
+nearly all&mdash;been converted in our day into those
+who can do nothing good. This touches also
+His Majesty, who will take care that his conscience
+has no part in allowing these things
+to continue. With this I implore God to pardon
+me, Who has moved me to declare these matters,
+because I am the last to die of all the discoverers
+and conquistadores; for it is notorious that now
+there exists not one other of their number,
+but I only either in this kingdom or out of it,
+and with that I rest, having done all I am able
+for the discharge of my conscience.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This might be called the epitaph of the
+Golden Age, written by one who knew it, and
+who helped to destroy it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XX. Hospitality was a passion in that time,
+and what had been enjoined and practised as a
+national duty became a private virtue, procuring
+intense happiness in its exercise. Instances of
+this are on record that are not equalled in the
+history of any other people.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Lastly&mdash;and these characteristics of our
+Golden Age have been taken quite at random
+and as they have come to my recollection&mdash;the
+name by which the Incas most delighted themselves
+in being known was that of 'Lovers of
+the Poor.' In this Golden Age gunpowder was
+unknown, and the people for the most part were
+vegetarians. Animal food was eaten by the
+soldiery and the labouring people only at the
+great religious feasts. Fish, and the flesh of
+alpacas, were confined to the Incas and the
+nobles. This will account for many things
+which subsequently occurred, notably their
+easy conquest by the fire- and meat-eating
+Spaniard.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Let us now write down our comparisons of
+the Age of Guano with the Age of Gold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I. The name and form of Government, it is
+true, are reduced to writing, but the Government
+is, and has been from the commencement
+of its Republican history, as unstable as water.
+On the close of the Guano Age things would
+appear to be improving: President Pardo has
+completed the whole term of his presidential
+life, and this is only the second instance of a
+Peruvian Republican President having done so.
+It would be difficult to reckon up the number
+of revolutions which have taken place in the
+Age of Manure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+II. The land is not cultivated: the things, for
+the most part, which are taken to market, are
+those which grow spontaneously, without art or
+industry. The people who supply the Lima
+market are chiefly Italians, while the greater
+part of the land is barren and unproductive.
+Potatoes and other vegetables, wheat and barley,
+flour, fruits, and beef, all come from Chile and
+Equador, but chiefly from the former.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+III. The great water-courses and system of
+irrigation which marked the Golden Age are
+all broken up, and the fructifying water, once
+stored for the use and service of man, first
+became his master, and then his relentless
+tyrant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+IV. The land cannot be said to belong to any
+one. Certainly not to God. Even the Church,
+once a great proprietor and holder of slaves, is
+as lazy as the laziest drone in any known hive.
+Many of the large estates which flourished in
+the pre-Guano period have perished for lack of
+hands. The sugar plantations are exceptions for
+the present, but what will happen to them when
+the Chinese are all free is very uncertain. It
+may even be said to be a source of alarm to
+many thoughtful persons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+V. Of the municipal laws, which provide for
+cleanliness, health, and public order, although
+great progress has been made in Central Lima,
+all that need be said is, that it is a wonder the
+inhabitants have survived, and that those who
+were not killed in last year's revolution have not
+been carried off by a plague.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VI. Idleness among the upper classes, i.e.
+the whole white population, the descendants of
+Spain&mdash;those who supply the Army and Navy
+with officers, the Law with judges, the Church
+with bishops, and the rich daughters of sugar-boilers
+with husbands&mdash;idleness among these is
+the order of the day, and is punished by no one.
+Even the gods appear to take no notice of it,
+being itself a sort of god, so far as the number
+of his worshippers are concerned. To-morrow is
+the everlasting excuse for almost everybody, and
+yesterday has done nothing but light fools to
+dusty death; the to-morrow in which the useful
+and the good are to be done, never comes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VII. Going to law is not only an infamous
+passion in this Guano Age, it is a means of
+living. There must be few if any people of
+substance in Peru who have not known the
+bitter curse of the law's delay. I have known
+lawsuits of the most vexatious and cruel nature,
+and which, in any country where civilisation is
+not a mere name, could never have been instituted,
+last, not five days, but five years, and,
+alas! even fifteen years. I have myself tasted
+the bitterness of the law in this land, and been
+very near being lodged in a loathsome jail at
+the instance of a miscreant who had it in his
+power to demand my presence before a bribe-gorged
+judge. I only escaped paying heavy
+toll or hateful imprisonment by my friends obtaining
+the removal of the judge. The second
+was a gross attempt at extortion, from which I
+was saved by accident. Both these lawsuits, of
+the basest sort, had their origin in an injustice
+which is ingrained in the complexion of the
+people. The captain and crew of the <i>Talisman</i>
+could bear testimony to the difference between
+the administration of law in the Golden Age
+and in the Age of Manure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VIII. The education of the people has never
+been seriously attempted, except in carrying a
+flimsy old musket. The Indians, who form the
+great bulk of the population, do not vote. This
+would involve a slight cultivation of the Indian's
+intellect, and he does not know what
+might happen to further embitter his lot if he
+were to discover to his rulers that he had a
+mind. He is perhaps the slyest of animals&mdash;more
+sly than a fox, more obstinate than an
+English mule, and as timid as a squirrel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+IX. The marriage law is disgracefully abused
+and neglected for a country which boasts that
+its religion is that of the Holy Roman Apostolical.
+Civil marriage is illegal, and ecclesiastical
+marriage but little observed, except among
+the Estratocracia, the sugar-boilers, and such
+as mix in European society. The subject is
+one always difficult for a traveller to handle.
+To speak plainly and publicly of what has
+been acquired in private on this matter would
+justly provoke displeasure and disgust, and
+would not fail to be misrepresented or misunderstood.
+It may, however, be said, that if
+marriage be a public virtue, large numbers
+of the Peruvians of the Manure Age are not
+virtuous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. Of the great public works in Peru, the
+chief during this time has been a penitentiary,
+and a railway to the moon not yet finished,
+all built by foreigners and with English money.
+Emigration was one of the most important
+transactions of the Golden Age. There has
+been no serious attempt at promoting either
+emigration or immigration: the migration of
+the native races is absolutely beyond the control
+of the government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XI. Of deleterious occupations and
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XII. The use of gold, all that need be said
+is that each man in Peru does what he likes in
+his own eyes, and what is allowed in the most
+enlightened land under the sun: and in this
+regard she sins in the universal company of
+the wide world; but the comparison with the
+Golden Age is not on that account the less
+painful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XIII. Incontinence is general, and the number
+of illegitimate children greater than those born
+in wedlock. The crime punishable by the terrible
+death awarded to it in the Golden Age has
+disappeared, for reasons which need not be
+further noticed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XIV. The scandals of the Temple or the
+Church have likewise changed in their character.
+I have known a bishop of the Peruvian State
+Church, sworn to celibacy, whose illegitimate
+children were more numerous than the years
+of his life. I have known a parish priest who
+had living in several houses more than thirty
+children by several women. All Peruvian
+ecclesiastics are supposed to live celibate lives,
+bishops, priests, monks and nuns; and if they
+do not, the irregularity is winked at, nor is
+public morality shocked, however grossly and
+notoriously immoral the lives of these persons
+may be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XV. The people for the most part are well
+dressed, but with the exception of the indigenous
+races, all wear ready-made clothing.
+The dresses of all classes are ill-made, costly,
+and vulgar. The coffin in which a Peruvian
+of the Guano Period is carried to his last home,
+is about the best made suit he ever wears, and
+the best fitting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XVI. Of roads and bridges of the present day,
+it would be amusing to write if the recollection
+of those I have passed over was not too painful.
+No man not born in an Age of Manure, who has
+travelled a thousand miles in the interior of
+Peru, or for that matter a hundred leagues,
+will ever wish to repeat the experiment. Many
+of these roads are but ruins of roads, and carry
+the usual aspect of roads which lead to ruin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XVII. There are no public granaries. People
+live from hand to mouth on what others grow
+for them and bring to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XVIII. There are no woollen manufactories.
+All the wool of the alpaca, the llama, and vicuÃ±a
+is sent to England to be made into things which
+the growers of the staple never see, much less
+wear. No Peruvian of any social standing has
+had the pluck or the sense to do anything towards
+extending the cultivation of alpaca wool.
+It is well known that the produce of this
+beautiful and docile animal might easily have
+been increased, just as the yield of merino wool
+has increased in Australia, if only brains and
+industry had been brought to bear upon the
+enterprise; and instead of a yearly income of
+a few thousand dollars being derived from this
+source of national wealth, there might have been,
+within the limits of the Age of Guano, a net
+annual income of Â£20,000,000. This incredible
+statement is made by one who passed four years
+of his life in studying the subject.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XIX. As for stealing&mdash;not that form of it
+which comes within the range of petty larceny,
+but the wider and more awful range of felony&mdash;it
+may be safely said, that nearly all public
+men have steeped themselves to the neck in
+this crime, and the common people take to it
+as easily and naturally as birds in a garden
+take to sweet berries. Nor is there sufficient
+justice in the country to stamp out the offence.
+If the punishment awarded to this crime in
+the Golden Age had been inflicted in the Age
+of Guano, there would be a very limited sale
+for spectacles in Lima or the cities of the Peruvian
+coast, or the towns and cities of the
+mountains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+XX. It is delightful to turn to something in
+Peru that merits unlimited praise. The Golden
+Age was noted for its hospitality, not only as
+a social virtue practised by the people among
+themselves, but as extended to strangers.
+Pizarro had not been so successful in his conquest
+of Peru if he had not been so hospitably
+treated by the noble lady who entertained him
+on his first visit to Tumbez. The exhortation
+of Huayna Capac to his subjects to receive the
+bearded men&mdash;whose advent he announced&mdash;as
+superior beings, has been interpreted as the
+cause of the Spaniards' sudden success in a
+country that was well defended as well by
+soldiers as numerous fortresses&mdash;'Those words,'
+exclaimed an Inca noble some years afterwards,
+'those last words of Inca Huayna Capac were
+our conquerors.' Among themselves it was
+the custom to eat their meals with open doors,
+and any passer by in need was welcomed in.
+Princesses and high-born ladies received visits
+from the mothers and daughters of the people,
+who provided the needle-work that was to
+occupy the time of the visit. Among English
+families of the better sort it is still a habit for
+a lady visitor to ask for some needle-work to
+do during her visit if it lasts more than a day&mdash;a
+custom that deserves to be enquired into. The
+prevalence of a similar custom in our Golden
+Age increases its importance. The traveller,
+especially if he be an Englishman, who has
+travelled through modern Peru, even in the
+Guano Age, who does not bear a lively recollection
+of kindness and open-hearted hospitality, is
+most certainly to be pitied, if not avoided. I
+am quite aware that such persons exist. I have
+myself travelled in the saddle more than two
+thousand miles on less than as many pence.
+The story of the impostor Arthur Orton at
+Melipilla is a case in point, and if the learned
+counsel who defended him is in need of a livelihood
+which cannot dispense with some of the
+elegances and charms of life, he cannot do better
+than follow the tracks of his client. I have
+lived in every kind of house, rancho, posta,
+cottage, quinta, and mansion, occupied by the
+various classes which make up the population
+of Peru. I have lived with archbishops and
+bishops, priests and monks, merchant princes,
+senators, judges, generals, miners, doctors, professional
+thieves, and widows, and I should be
+an ingrate indeed if I did not acknowledge
+with profound gratitude the kindness, oftentimes
+the affection, which I received, the liberality
+with which I was entertained, and the
+freedom I enjoyed. Here I am reminded of
+an incident which occurred to me in the south
+of Spain, and as it will suit a purpose it could
+not otherwise serve, let me relate it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was employed to take the level of a railway
+that was to connect the RoblÃ© with the
+shores of the Mediterranean. The proposed
+line passed through one of the great estates
+of the Marquis de Blanco, and the Marquis
+gave me a letter to his capitaz or overseer,
+who occupied a house, the sight of which
+would have charmed the soul of an artist, on
+one of the overhanging cliffs which rose above
+el Rio Verde. I arrived late and, after twelve
+hours hard work beneath an Andalusian sun.
+I was well received by the capitaz and his
+charming wife DoÃ±a Carmen, who with her own
+hands and in my presence prepared for my supper
+a partridge and other delightful things. If the
+day had been hot, the night on the highest
+point of the royal road to Ronda was cold. A
+glorious wood fire added to the universal beauty
+of everything. A table was spread for me with
+a snowy diaper cloth. I can see it now&mdash;a
+bottle of fine wine, most sweet bread, raisins
+and what not. Just as my partridge was ready,
+a clatter of twenty horses' hoofs was heard in
+the patio. The capitaz went out to see the
+new arrivals, who turned out to be farmers of
+the district on their way to the horse fair, which
+was to be held in Ronda the following day.
+In came the twenty pilgrims to Ronda, to
+whom I was formally introduced, and DoÃ±a
+Carmen set to work to prepare an enormous
+<i>Olla</i> for the whole company. My partridge
+was not served until the <i>Olla</i> was ready, when
+we all set to work and ate our supper in peace
+and good-will. An hour afterwards, whether
+from the effects of the delightful wine&mdash;only
+to be enjoyed in Spain, the fumes of my own
+pipe and the cigarettes of the twenty pilgrims,
+the labours of the day, or all combined,
+I fell a nodding: whereupon the good-natured
+capitaz enquired if I would not like to throw
+myself into bed. On which I rose, and declared
+with great solemnity that for my rudeness in
+having gone to sleep in such worshipful company,
+I was ready to throw myself not only
+into bed but into the river below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'DoÃ±a Carmen,' said the capitaz, 'shall take
+you to your room.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with a general good-night to the pilgrims
+and a shake of the hand with the capitaz,
+away I went in the wake of DoÃ±a Carmen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a spacious room, filled with implements
+of sport, the walls adorned with heads
+of deer and other trophies of the gun, and
+there were also unmistakeable signs of its being
+a lady's room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'DoÃ±a Carmen,' I observed in an imperative
+tone, 'this is your own room. I am an old
+traveller, and can sleep in a hay-loft or on the
+floor, with my saddle for a pillow. At any
+rate, I will not sleep here. I will not turn
+you out of your own room.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'And,' she demanded, 'what would the Marquis
+say if he knew that you had slept here in
+the hay-loft or on the floor, with your saddle
+for a pillow?'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other expostulations followed, which were
+answered with great eloquence and stately determination,
+mixed with that grave humour
+which can no more be acquired than can be
+acquired the wearing of a cloak as it is worn
+by an ancient hidalgo, or the arrangement of
+a mantilla as it is arranged on the head and
+shoulders of a high-born lady of Granada.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, as I caught up my satchel to leave
+the room, she caught me by the arm, and
+nudging me with her elbow, she said with
+much archness, 'I am coming back again,' and
+with that she swept out of the room, leaving
+me no longer with my eyes half closed in
+sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She never came back. Nor did I ever see
+her again. She never intended to come back.
+Those who think so are incapable of making
+or understanding a joke, and will never be able
+to appreciate the uncommon wit and humour of
+Spanish women. That there are shallow fools in
+the world who interpret everything they hear
+in a carnal and literal sense is the reason why
+we have so many childish, not to say unpleasant,
+stories from Spain and Peru regarding the questionable
+morals of the fair sex of those countries.
+What is meant for fun and drollery is mistaken
+for naughtiness, and much that is offered as
+a spontaneous natural hospitality has been wilfully
+or ignorantly misconstrued. I do not defend
+the method DoÃ±a Carmen took in putting
+her guest at his ease, and making him feel at
+home; I think it was a daring act of politeness,
+and it is not pretty to find so much knowledge
+of the world in the possession of a woman, however
+dexterous her use of it may be. There
+is, however, another kind of culture besides
+that which comes from reading expensive novels,
+dressing for church or dinner, and living in a
+climate somewhat cold, foggy, and changeable.
+The ladies of Peru are beautiful, natural, very
+intelligent, and fond of living an unconstrained
+life. Their climate is provocative of freedom,
+ease, and delightful idleness. Their fair speech
+and delightful wit partake of these characteristics.
+It is born of these. It can be misinterpreted&mdash;but
+only by those who know not
+their language, and do not respect their ways.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A common source of error on the subject of
+Peruvian hospitality arises from the fact that
+in Lima, for example, a foreigner, even an
+Englishman, is rarely or never invited to dine
+with a native family. With us, if we meet
+a man in Bond Street, or anywhere on the
+wing, whom we have not seen for a year, we
+ask him to come and take pot-luck with us,
+and if he is a foreigner he generally does&mdash;and
+notwithstanding the detestable anxiety of
+our wives, our pot-luck dinners are the best
+dinners that we give. What is lacking in the
+mutton we can and often do make up with the
+bottle or the pipe. This is the kind of thing
+we expect in return when we visit Lima and
+pick up a man who has thus dined with us at
+home. But the thing is impossible. In Lima
+a married man dines with his grandmother, his
+wife's grandmother, his wife's father and mother,
+together with his wife and the children,
+whom the old people love to spoil with sugar-plums.
+The ladies are only half dressed, the
+service is somewhat slatternly, the dishes, although
+excellent in their way, are such as do
+not please the weak stomachs of benighted
+Englishmen, much less the French, who have
+not made the acquaintance of the puchero, the
+ajijaco, or the omnipresent dulces. In short, a
+stranger at a Peruvian family dinner, unexpected
+and without a formal preparation, would
+be as acceptable as a dog at Mass. And when
+an Englishman is invited to one of these houses
+he never forgets the things done in his honour&mdash;the
+loads of dishes&mdash;the floods of wine&mdash;the
+magnificent dresses of the ladies&mdash;the elaborate
+display of everything;&mdash;and oh! the stately
+coldness, the searching of dark eyes, and the
+awful sense of responsibility which rests on the
+being for whom all this has been done, and who
+is the solitary cause of it all. He never accepts
+another invitation. And yet the people have
+strained every nerve to please him; they have
+made themselves ill, have spent an awful sum
+of money, and less and less believe in dining
+a man as the most perfect form of showing him
+their respect or esteem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But out of Lima, in El Campo&mdash;the country&mdash;where
+everybody is free as the air, everything
+is changed, everybody is happy, nothing goes
+wrong. The abundance is glorious, the ease
+and liberty delightful; there is nothing to
+equal it in the riding, dancing, eating, drinking,
+laughing, sleeping, dreaming, card-playing,
+smoking, joking world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+El SeÃ±or Paz Soldan, in his '<span lang="es_ES">Historia del
+Peru Independiente,</span>' says: 'Peru, essentially
+hospitable, admitted into her bosom from the
+first days of her independence thousands of
+foreigners, to whom she extended not only the
+same fellowship she afforded her own children,
+but such was the goodness of the country that
+she considered these new comers as illustrious
+personages. Men who in their native country
+had never been anything but domestic servants,
+or waiters in a restaurant, among whom there
+might perhaps be numbered one or two who, by
+their superior ability, might, after the lapse of
+twenty years, come to be master tailors or shop-men,
+have gained fortunes in Peru all at once,
+have won the hand of ladies of fortune, birth,
+riches, and social distinction. Those who have
+entered the army or navy have quickly risen to
+the highest posts. If they devote themselves
+to business, at once they become capitalists;
+and in civil and political appointments the
+foreigner is hardly to be distinguished from the
+native. The first decrees ever issued gave every
+protection and preference to foreigners resident
+in the country. They have the same right to
+the protection of the laws as Peruvians, without
+exception of persons, becoming of course bound
+by the same laws, to bear the same burdens,
+and in proportion to their fortunes to share in
+contributing to the income of the State....
+Such as have any knowledge of science, or
+special industry, or are desirous of establishing
+houses of business, can reside in perfect freedom,
+and have given to them letters of citizenship. He
+who establishes a new industry, or invents a
+useful machine hitherto unknown in Peru, is
+exempt for a whole year from paying any taxes.
+If necessary, the Government will supply him
+with funds to carry on his art; and it will give
+free land to agriculturists. And yet, strange to
+say, and more painful to confess, many of these
+foreigners have been the cause of serious difficulties
+to the country, plunging it into conflicts
+which more or less have taken the gilt off the
+national honour. They have wished for themselves
+certain distinct national laws. They
+have thought themselves entitled to break whatever
+laws they pleased, and when the penalty
+has been enforced they have applied to their
+Governments, who have always judged the question
+in an aspect the most unfavourable to the
+honour and interest of Peru.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As regards this hospitality given to English
+tailors and tailors' sons by Peru, it is quite
+true; true is it that they have married the rich
+daughters of ancient families, and made marvellous
+progress in all things that distinguished
+Dives from Lazarus. Men who would never
+have been anything but lackeys in their own
+country have become masters of lands and
+money in Peru. It is all true. Without wishing
+to disparage my own countrymen, and still
+less my countrywomen, I am bound to confess
+that the Peruvians have derived very little
+edification from their presence and example.
+Within the Guano Age a British minister has
+been shot at his own table in Lima while dining
+with his mistress. The captain of an English
+man-of-war lying in Callao was murdered in
+the outskirts of Lima while on a drunken
+spree: the murderers in both cases never being
+brought to justice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The English merchants were men noted for
+neither moral nor intellectual capacity, utterly
+innocent of any culture, or regard for it; of
+no manners or good customs that could reflect
+honour on the English name, and who gained
+fortunes after such fashion as only the practices
+of a corrupt government could sanction or connive
+at. Few English ladies have ever been
+permanently resident in Lima. It has been visited
+by one or two showy examples of the money-monger
+class; but the Lima people have not had
+the opportunity of knowing by actual contact in
+their own country the gentry of England. This
+has been a disadvantage to us and to them of
+the greatest magnitude: for while we have
+accepted the hospitality of Peru, we have not
+returned it in a manner worthy of the English
+name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor can it be said that English travellers
+who have written on Peru make any very great
+figure in the cause of truth and honesty; whilst
+the amount of literary pilfering has been almost
+as notorious as that of the pillage of the public
+treasury by native officers of state.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The commanders and petty officers of the
+Steam Navigation Company in the Pacific come
+more in contact with the better class of Peruvians
+than any other portion of the English community.
+Among these numerous officers there
+are a few to be met with who can speak grammatical
+English. No doubt, grammar to a sailor
+is an irksome thing, at any rate it is a thing of
+minor importance, and we rather like our sailors
+to be free of everything except their courage,
+their gentleness, their love of truth, and, above
+all, their glorious self-abnegation. But it is a
+pitiable sight to see a British tar with lavender
+kid-gloves on his fists, Havannah cigars in his
+great mouth, widened by an early love for loud
+oaths, rings on his fingers, and other apings of
+the fine gentleman; and it is disgusting to see
+him dressed in an authority he knows not how
+to adorn, and placed in a position which he
+can only degrade. Yet these British tars are
+looked up to as English gentlemen, and, what
+is more, as English captains; and not a few
+Peruvians come to the natural conclusion that
+it is no great thing to be an English gentleman
+after all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is very grievous to make these remarks;
+justice demands, however, that if we would
+criticise the Peruvians from an English standpoint,
+we should take into consideration the
+English example which has been placed before
+them during all the years of an Age of
+Guano.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An English sailor in every part of the commercial
+world which he visits is too often a disgrace
+to himself and a dishonour to his country. But
+in Peru he is a standing disgrace to humanity.
+When on shore, if he is not drunk, he is kicking
+up a row. His language is foul, his manners
+brutal, his associates the off-scouring of the
+people, and his appearance that of a wild beast.
+We have of late been turning our attention to
+unseaworthy ships, and the amount of wise and
+unwise talk that this important subject has
+evoked has been great and surprising. It is
+a pity that no one has thought it necessary
+to take up the subject of the unworthy sailor,
+which should include not only the ignorant,
+drunken, and grossly depraved seaman, but the
+oftentimes illiterate, ill-conditioned, and brutal
+creature called a captain, who commands him.
+There are many considerations why the captain
+of a British ship should be a man of good
+character, and there are imperative reasons
+why he should be compelled to earn a certificate
+of good conduct, as well as a certificate
+of proficiency in the science of navigation.
+The ability to represent the country whose
+flag he carries, as a man well-instructed and
+of good manners, is not the least of those
+reasons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I recently had the opportunity of becoming
+personally acquainted with nearly five hundred
+captains of merchant ships in the Pacific. I am
+ashamed to confess that the French, the Italian,
+the North American, and the Swede were
+everyway superior men to the English captains.
+There were exceptions of course; the superiority
+was not in physical force, but in intelligence, in
+manners, in the cleanliness in which they lived,
+and the sobriety of their lives. If the Pabellon de
+Pica may be compared to a pig-stye, the British
+sailors who frequent its strand may be likened
+unto swine. Indeed, it is an insult to that
+filth-investigating but sober brute to compare
+him with a being who at certain times is at
+once a madman, a drunkard, and not infrequently
+a murderer. It is not easy to escape the conviction
+that captains such as these must be of
+use to their employers, and are needed for purposes
+for which ordinary criminals would be unfitted.
+At the Pabellon de Pica a choice selection
+of these British worthies may be seen daily
+getting drunk on smuggled beer, winding up
+with smuggled brandy, wallowing among the
+filthiest filth of that foul concourse of filthy
+inhuman beings, a detestable example to all
+who witness it; and a living ensample of what
+England now is to a guano-selling people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this has come of our trying to do some
+justice to the Peruvians, and no doubt it will
+become us as quickly as possible to attend to
+the mote which is in our own eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It should likewise be borne in mind that
+the Peruvians have suffered the greatest indignities
+at the hands of successive British
+Governments. Claims for money of the most
+vexatious, frivolous and irritating nature have
+been pressed upon Peru with an arrogance equal
+only to their ridiculous extravagance. When
+at last, with great difficulty, our Government
+has been induced to submit one of these claims
+to arbitration, judgment has invariably been
+given against us&mdash;as it only could, or ought
+to have been given.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This chapter should not be closed without
+noticing the fact that for nearly fifty years the
+English have had their own burying-place at
+Bella Vista, which is midway between Lima and
+Callao, and their own church and officiating
+chaplain. The Jews likewise have their synagogue,
+the Freemasons their lodges, the Chinese
+their temples; and although liberty of worship
+is not the law of the land, the utmost toleration
+in religious matters exists. The women of Lima,
+who have retained the old religion with ten
+times more firmness than the men, are the sole
+opponents of all religious reforms in the Peruvian
+Constitution. And because it is the women
+who stand in front of their Church, guarding it
+with their lives, let us have some respect for
+them. They are a powerful and determined
+body, as courageous as they are beautiful, which
+is saying much. In times of great excitement
+they will take part in the parliamentary debates!
+Not, indeed, in a parliamentary and
+constitutional manner, but in a manner quite
+effectual. These fair champions of their Church,
+when liberty of worship, or liberty of teaching,
+or any question that touches the Roman Catholic
+faith is being debated in the assembly, proceed
+thither in the tapada attire, with only one eye
+visible, and from the Ladies' Gallery will throw
+handfuls of grass to a speaker&mdash;intimating
+thereby his relationship to one of our domestic
+quadrupeds&mdash;or garlands of tinsel, just as it
+pleases them, and as the words of the speaker
+are for or against their cause. Our own House
+of Commons should take knowledge of this, and
+pause before they remove the lattice work from
+before their Ladies' Gallery!
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/dec_p034_alt.jpg" width="153" height="53" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/dec_p035_alt.jpg" width="340" height="79" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER II.
+</h2>
+</div>
+<p>
+The Mormons are coming to Peru. Five
+hundred families of this formidable sect are
+formally announced as being on their way to
+the land of the Incas, and the Peruvian Government
+has been very liberal in its grant of free
+land: this may be called a revolution indeed.
+A Spanish law existed in Peru but little more
+than half a century ago, which ran as follows:
+'Because the inconveniences increase from
+foreigners passing to the Indies, who take up
+their residence in seaport towns and other places,
+some of whom are not to be trusted in the
+things of our holy Catholic faith, and because
+it becomes us diligently to see that no error
+is sown among the Indians and ignorant people,
+we command the Viceroys, the Audiencias,
+and the Governors, and we charge the Archbishops
+and Bishops that they do all that in
+them lies to sweep the earth of this people,
+and that they cast them out of the Indies and
+compel them to put to sea on the first occasion
+and at their own cost<a name='FA_1' id='FA_1' href='#FN_1' class='fnanchor'>[1]</a>.' We may also note
+that among these sublime laws one may be
+found which absolutely forbade the importation
+of printed books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since then it cannot be denied that Peru has
+made great progress in the matter of toleration
+to foreigners. It has not perpetuated the insane
+and suicidal policy of the nation that expelled the
+Moors, the real bone and muscle of the country,
+from its soil. And it may truly be said that what
+the Moors were to Andalusia and Southern Spain,
+Europeans and Asiatics have been to Peru; supplying
+it not only with literature and science,
+but industry also. All the great estates of Peru
+are tilled by foreigners; so are its gardens.
+All the steam ships on its coast are driven by
+foreigners; foreigners surveyed and built their
+railways, their one pier, gave them gas, and
+would give them water if the Peruvian Government
+would only be wise. There is nothing
+of importance in the whole country that does not
+owe its existence to foreign capital and foreign
+thought, and it cannot be denied that Peru
+has done much in making her laws conform
+to such a state of things. It may yet do more.
+Ten more years of peace and tranquillity will
+work wonders in a land that at present may
+be said to be practically unacquainted with both.
+Ten years will close the accursed Age of Guano.
+Practically it may be said to be closed now.
+Peru is putting her house in order: she has
+learned much in the course of the last four
+years, and with economy, persisting in her
+present course of real hard, honest work, giving
+up playing at soldiers, and keeping an expensive
+navy which is of no earthly use to her, she may
+redeem herself from her past degradation, and
+become as great as she says she is.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mormons!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If there be a country in the teeming world
+which offers a field for Mormonism, it is Peru.
+If Mormonism be a belief that it is the chief
+end of man to multiply his species, to replenish
+the earth, and find the perfection of his being
+in subduing it, Peru is the very place for
+the Mormons. One might even go the length
+of saying that it was made on purpose for
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peru, with the immensity of its territory
+and the riches that are enclosed in it, requires
+a people with a religious faith in the divinity
+of polygamy and agriculture to make the most
+of the truly wonderful land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let the Mormons leave the country in which
+they are at present looked down upon, for
+one where they will be welcomed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mormonism is not, with the exception of its
+name, new to Peru. The Incas were great
+breeders of men, they pushed their humanising
+conquests north and south; not so much
+by the power of the spear and the sling, as by
+building great storehouses of maize. They first
+reduced the people whom they would conquer
+to the verge of starvation, and then fed them
+on sweeter food than they had ever tasted
+before. Count von Moltke was not the first
+who reduced a great city by besieging it, and
+surrounding it with a vast army. This was done
+in the days before the tragedy of Ollanta had
+been rehearsed in Cuzco. What the Incas gained
+by giving corn, they maintained by teaching
+the people how to grow and cultivate it. Men
+had as many wives as they pleased, provided
+that they were able to maintain them, and
+they had no fawning immoral priests to make
+women barren and unfruitful; who preached
+godliness to the people, but practised devilry
+themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here one may be allowed to notice by
+the way, that it is a thing altogether singular
+and inconsistent that these loud-tongued
+republicans and apostles of the rights of
+women, will allow and tolerate among them
+a body of men who believe that it is God's
+will they should burn and not marry, and
+cannot think of allowing among their mighty
+respectablenesses a people who believe that it is
+God's will they should have a plurality of wives.
+Perhaps when the great Americans are tired
+of the vanity of being a hundred years old, and
+can find time to look this matter in the face
+they may reconsider their Mormon policy, and
+give up persecuting a people who at least have
+many divine examples for their way of life. If
+Mormonism be good for South America, why
+should it not be good for the North? and what
+will be nothing less than the blessing of heaven
+on Lake Titicaca, why should it be esteemed
+a curse at the Lake of Salt? Happily the logic
+of great events in the lives of nations is more
+easy to comprehend than the logic of mere
+professors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The history of colonisation in Peru is not
+interesting reading; much less so are the personal
+reports of those who have been connected
+with carrying out the various schemes of the
+Government. There were the usual delays, the
+usual difficulty in obtaining the promised funds
+at the appointed times, followed by confusion
+and disaster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first colony formed in Peru consisted of
+Germans, who established themselves at Pozuzo,
+a small district formed of mountains and valleys
+fifteen days journey north-east of Lima. The
+proposal was made in 1853, and the first batch
+of the new comers arrived in 1857. In 1870
+they numbered 360 souls, 112 of whom were
+children. Their progress had not been very
+brilliant; among them were carpenters, coopers,
+cigar-makers, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, shoe-makers,
+tailors, saddlers, machinists, and tanners.
+A priest, a grave-digger or clerk, a schoolmaster
+and an architect were also among the number.
+Each colonist was expected to cultivate a plot
+of ground measuring 33,000 yards by 13,000
+yards, on which they grew tobacco, coca, maize,
+yuca (a most delicious farinaceous root), haricot
+beans, rice, coffee, and garden stuff. The people
+lived in wooden houses, and there were among
+them all three houses of wrought stone. An enthusiastic
+Peruvian deputy in giving a description
+of this little struggling colony, concluded
+his peroration thus: 'We have an eloquent
+example in the industrious colony established
+at Pozuzo, where in the midst of savage nature
+they have erected a city which perhaps is on
+a level with any city of Europe!' On which
+it might be remarked that there is a great deal
+of the perhaps, but very little of the city in
+this statement. It is in fact nothing but a city
+of the honourable deputy's brain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next emigration was from the islands
+of the South-western Pacific&mdash;subjects of his
+Majesty the King of Hawaii, whose diplomatic
+representative in Lima demanded the return of
+these people, who did return in an unexpected
+manner, to the earth out of which they were
+taken. They all died like flies that had been
+poisoned. The Peruvian Government then
+prohibited any further immigration of Polynesians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was afterwards discovered that these people
+had been kidnapped, or, as the official report
+says, 'seduced first, and stolen afterwards.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It had been eloquently preached by many
+ardent Peruvians, now that the subject of immigration
+for a moment or so seized hold of
+their warm brains, that all that was needed
+to fill Peru with happy colonists was to establish
+liberty of worship, toleration, a free
+press, dignity&mdash;moral and intellectual&mdash;security
+to persons and property, and when these great
+things were once placed on a firm basis in
+Peru the superfluous populations of the world
+would flock to the abundance it could offer,
+together with the warm and delightful sun,
+like doves to their windows. These things not
+having been done, the other has been left undone&mdash;albeit
+not for that specific reason. The
+immigrating class, for the most part, have their
+own way of procuring information regarding
+the country which courts their presence, and
+it is quite likely that the glad tidings from
+Peru still require to be authenticated. Neither
+the Irish labourer, nor the Scotch, nor yet the
+Welsh have bestowed themselves on Peru, and
+it is to be hoped they never will until they
+can be sure of quick returns. The Cornish
+miner is well known in various localities for
+his drunkenness, his obstinacy, his cunning,
+and above all for his untruthfulness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Chinese immigration, if such it can be
+called, is the only considerable immigration that
+has ever taken place in Peru. It began as a
+commercial speculation; and there are many
+orthodox and highly respectable men in Lima
+who owe their wealth to the traffic in Chinese,
+in whose magnificent <i><span lang="es_ES">salas</span></i> a conversation on
+China is as welcome as the mention of the
+gallows in a family, one of whose members
+had been hanged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the 65,000 Chinese taken from their
+native land, 5,000 died on their way to Peru;
+they threw themselves overboard or smoked a
+little too much opium, or were shot, or all these
+causes were put together. It was once my lot
+to be seated in a very small room filled for the
+most part with guano men, where I was compelled
+to listen to the tale of an Italian who
+had served as chief mate on a ship freighted
+with Chinamen. He thought his life was once
+in danger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'And what did you under the circumstances?'
+enquired some one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I shot two of them down, <i>sacramento</i>,'
+answered the villainous-looking wretch; on
+which there was a burst of laughter that did
+not seem to me very appropriate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'And what was done with <i>you</i>?' I enquired
+in no sympathising tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Senor,' replied the assassin, 'the Captain,
+Senor Venturini, accommodated me with a passage
+in his gig to the shore, where I remained
+to make an extended acquaintance with the
+Celestial Empire.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cold insolence of this criminal suggested
+to me that I had just as well keep my troublesome
+tongue as still as possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Chinese question, as is natural that it
+should, has agitated the public mind in Lima
+not a little. At one time it assumed such
+alarming features that it was seriously proposed
+in Congress to expel the free Chinamen
+from Peru, or compel them to contract themselves
+anew<a name='FA_2' id='FA_2' href='#FN_2' class='fnanchor'>[2]</a>. It was known that the free
+Chinamen stirred up their enslaved brethren
+to revolt; explained to them&mdash;which was perfectly
+true&mdash;that according to Peruvian law
+they could not be held in bondage, and if they
+escaped they could not be recaptured. Many
+attempts at escape were made and many
+murders were the result.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+According to the Peruvian author quoted
+above, the Chinamen brought to the dung
+heaps of Peru, or its sugar plantations, are
+selected from the lowest of their race. 'The
+planters promote the natural degeneration of
+their Chinese labourers; they lodge them in
+filthy sheds without a single care being bestowed
+upon them, while they are condemned
+to a ceaseless unremitting toil, without a ray of
+hope that their condition will be ever bettered.
+For the enslaved Chinaman the day dawns
+with labour; labour pursues him through its
+weary hours, a labour which will bring no good
+fruit to him, and the shadows of night provide
+him with nothing but dreams of the tormenting
+routine which awaits him to-morrow. In his
+sickness he has no mother to attend him with
+her care; he has not even the melancholy comfort
+that he will be decently buried when he
+dies, much less that his grave will be watered
+with the sacred tears of those who loved him.
+Of the meanest Peruvian the authorities know
+where he lived, when he died, and for what cause,
+and where he is buried. But the Asiatics are disembarked
+and scattered among numerous private
+properties, their existence is forgotten, they do
+not live, rather they vegetate, and at last die
+like brutes beneath the scourge of their driver
+or the burden which was too heavy to bear.
+We only remember the Chinaman when, weary
+of being weary, and vexed with vexation, he
+arms himself with the dagger of desperation,
+wounds the air with the cry of rebellion, and
+covers our fields with desolation and blood.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great distance, observes the same author,
+of the private estates from the centre of authority,
+is one of the securities of their owners
+that their abuse of their Chinese slaves will
+neither be corrected or chastised. On the contrary,
+his influence with the local authorities
+is oftentimes such as to make them instruments
+of his designs. Between the master and the
+slave respect for the law does not exist,
+and the consequence is, that the one becomes
+more and more a despot, and the other more
+and more insolent and vicious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Escape for the Chinaman is next to impossible;
+he can only free himself from the horrible condition
+in which he finds himself by using his
+braces or his silken scarf for a halter, or the
+more quiet way of an overdose of opium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Treat the Chinaman well, and he is a valuable
+servant, and happily many thousands of such
+are to be found along the coast, in several of
+the great haciendas, and in Lima. The wages of
+a Chinese slave are 4 dols. a month, two suits
+of clothes in the year, and his keep. A free
+Chinaman as a labourer earns a dollar a day,
+and of course 'finds' himself. Now and then
+one hears strange phrases at the most unexpected
+time, and one's ears tingle with words
+that an Englishman knows how to meet when
+compelled to hear them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'How did you manage to do all that work?'
+was a question put at a dinner-table one night
+in Lima, when I was partaking of the awful
+hospitality of an English-speaking capitalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Well,' was the reply, 'I bought half-a-dozen
+Chinamen, taught them the use of the machine,
+which the devils learned much quicker than I did,
+and in less than three months I found that I could
+easily make ten thousand dollars a month,' etc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I bought half-a-dozen Chinamen!' They
+might have been so many sacks of potatoes,
+or pieces of machinery, and the ease and
+familiarity with so repulsive a commerce which
+the speech denoted, proved too well the contempt
+which such familiarity always breeds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Chinaman is not only very intelligent,
+he is even superior in his personal tastes to
+many of those who pride themselves on being
+his masters. If he has time and opportunity
+he will keep himself scrupulously clean in his
+person and dress. After his day's work, if he
+has been digging dung for example, he will
+change his clothes and have a bath before
+eating his supper. He is polite and courteous,
+humorous and ingenious. He is by no means
+a coward, but will sell his life to avenge his
+honour. It is always dangerous for a man
+twice his size to strike a Chinaman. The only
+stand-up fight I ever saw in Lima, was between
+a small Chinaman and a big Peruvian of the
+Yellow breed; and the yellow-skinned 'big 'un'
+must have very much regretted the insult which
+originated the blows he received in his face
+from the little one. The Chinamen of the
+better class, the Wing Fats; Kwong, Tung, Tays;
+the Wing Sings; the Pow Wos; the Wing Hing
+Lees, and Si, Tu, Pous, whose acquaintance I
+made, are all shrewd, courteous, gentlemanlike
+fellows, temperate in all things, good-humoured
+and kind, industrious, and exquisitely clean in
+their houses and attire. It was an infinitely
+greater pleasure to me to pass an evening with
+some of these, than with my own brandy-drinking,
+tobacco-smoking, and complaining
+countrymen, whose conversation is garnished
+with unclean oaths, whose Spanish is a disgrace
+to their own country, and their English to that
+in which they reside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My Chinese friends were greatly puzzled at
+the answer I gave to their questions why I had
+come to Peru, or for what purpose; they could
+not believe it, any more than they could believe
+that an English gentleman drank brandy for
+any other reason than that it was a religious
+observance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'And why came you to Peru?' I enquired
+in my turn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'To make money,' was the candid reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'For nothing else?' I insisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To give emphasis to his words Wing Hi rose
+from his seat, paced slowly up and down the
+room clapping his hands now behind his back,
+and now below his right knee: 'For nothing,
+nothing, nothing else,' he exclaimed, and laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Do you like Lima pretty well?' I enquired
+with some care, for a Chinaman resents direct
+questions; and the answer invariably was&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'No. Lima is no good, there is no money;'
+which many other shopkeepers not Chinamen
+can swear to, and their oaths in this instance
+are perfectly trustworthy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'You do not give credit I suppose?' and I
+kept as solemn a face as possible in putting the
+question. My solemnity was speedily knocked
+out of me by the burst of boisterous laughter
+which greeted my question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wishing to cultivate these delightful heathens,
+I purchased from time to time a few things,
+all good, all very reasonable in price. These
+were chiefly fans, pictures, paper-knives, neckties,
+and boxes. Some of their ivory carving was
+a marvel of patience and keen sight. I was
+assured that one piece, for which they asked
+the price of 300 dols., took one man two years
+to make. That one statement made it an
+unpleasant object to behold. The porcelain
+brought to Lima is of the gaudiest and most
+inferior kind. I insisted on this so much that
+at last they confessed it to be true. 'But then
+the price,' they suggested.&mdash;A pair of vases that
+would sell in Bond Street for Â£150, can be purchased
+in Lima for less than Â£20.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day I picked up a New Testament in
+Chinese, and after staying one evening with
+my celestial friends for an hour, I took it out
+of my pocket and asked them to be kind enough
+to read it for me, and tell me what it was
+about, for that in my youth my parents had not
+taught me that language and I was too old to
+learn it now. The next night our conversation
+was renewed, all being for the most part of
+the purest heathenism. They made no allusion
+to my New Testament; they evidently preferred
+to talk of other things, or to sell fans. At last
+in a tone of indifference I asked after my book,
+which one of their number produced out of a
+sweet-scented drawer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'We do not know,' they said, 'what the book
+is about'; and therefore they could not tell me.
+They had read it? 'O yes; it was not a
+cookery book, nor a song book, nor a book about
+women; but seemed to be a pot of many things
+not well boiled.' There was no laughter, all
+was as serious as melancholy itself. I was a
+little disappointed, and came away without
+buying anything. It must require great gifts
+to be a missionary to the heathen, and especially
+the heathen Chinese. I should be inclined to
+think it to be as easy to bring a rich Chinaman
+to repentance as a rich Jew. The failure of
+my New Testament to make itself understood
+was a great blow to me. They might probably
+have understood some portions of the Book of
+Genesis better; but to my regret I had not the
+means of putting that to the test.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mention of the Old Testament reminds
+me of a trivial incident which occurred one
+night in a magnificent sala in Lima, where were
+a good sprinkling of Spanish-speaking gentlemen
+and ladies, Italians and Germans, I being
+the only Englishman present. In course of the
+conversation it was demanded by some one,
+what were the two creatures first to leave the
+Ark: and it was at once answered by several
+voices 'the dove and the deer.' This appeared
+rather unsound to me, and I questioned the
+statement. So hot did the debate become, that
+it ended in a willing bet of Â£20, when after
+some difficulty a Bible was procured, and the
+dove and the raven won. The consternation
+was great. One man was candid enough to
+confess that he was an ass of no small magnitude
+for not reflecting that under the circumstances
+it could not well be a deer; but he had
+heard that such was the case, and because it
+was in the Bible felt bound to believe it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among all the classes of immigrants in Peru,
+or in Lima its capital, the English stand first
+and highest. They are certainly better represented
+than they were twenty years ago, but
+there is still much to improve. One great
+drawback to the English is the absence of a
+home, or the means of making one. The construction
+of the houses is one cause. There are
+no snug corners sacred to quiet and repose, and
+if the house be not a convent, it is something
+between a theatre and a furniture shop. Domestic
+servants are another fatal drawback, but the rent
+is the greatest of them all. The rents of some
+of the dingiest houses in the back streets are
+higher than those in Mayfair in the season,
+while the principal houses in the chief street
+are treble the amount. If I have elsewhere
+spoken sharply of my countrymen, it is because
+I think much of the land which gave them
+birth. It does not by any means follow that
+because a Peruvian child fifty years of age sells
+his soul to the devil, that an Englishman of
+four hundred should follow his example. It
+should be quite the other way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hotels are not, under the circumstances,
+unreasonable; a bachelor can live very well for
+thirty shillings a day, including fleas. Washing
+is a serious item in a city where there is much
+sun, much dust, little water, and the <i><span lang="es_ES">lavendera</span></i>
+is the companion of 'gentlemen.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+New books are not remarkably dear, but the
+assortment is limited to theology and medicine.
+There are half-a-dozen daily newspapers, which
+cost half-a-crown a day if you buy them all.
+Their joint circulation will not reach more than
+fifteen thousand copies, while of their number
+only two may be said to pay their expenses;
+only one to make any profit. This is not to
+be wondered at. I tried my best to get into
+a controversy with them, by rousing them to
+jealousy. I publicly stated that if the guano
+deposits had been in Australia, or even in
+Canada, at a time when so much doubt was
+thrown on the quantity of guano they might
+contain, some newspaper would have sent off
+its special correspondent to make a report. The
+<i><span lang="es_ES">Comercio</span></i>, the chief of the press, replied, with
+charming <i>naivete</i>: 'Why should we go to the
+expense of making a special report for ourselves
+when the Government will supply us with as
+many reports as we like?' The supply of
+English literature is very poor. Harper's Magazine
+appears to be in greatest demand, and
+certainly for the price of forty cents it is a
+marvel of cheapness. It is well printed, profusely
+and often well illustrated, and the numbers
+for the present year contain lengthy
+instalments of <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, and one or two
+original novels by American writers. There
+was not a single decent edition of the Don
+Quixote in any language to be found in all
+the shops of the city. There is evidently a
+brisk sale for very indecent photographs, and
+cheap editions of the Paul de Kock school.
+The number of new books printed in Lima is
+miserably small. The last, which has been very
+well received, is '<span lang="es_ES">Tradiciones del Peru,' por Ricardo
+Palma</span>, third series. It is exceedingly well
+written, and consists of a series of short stories
+illustrating the manners and customs of the
+early days. Here is one which for many reasons
+is worth doing into English. It is called 'A
+Law-suit against God,' and exhibits much of
+the old Spanish meal, and not a little of the new
+Peruvian leaven. It purports to be a chronicle
+of the time of the Viceroy, the Marquis de
+Castil-dos-Rius.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the archives of what was once the Real
+Audiencia de Lima, will be found the copy of
+a lawsuit once demanded by the King of Spain,
+which covers more than four hundred folios of
+stamped paper, from which with great patience
+we have been able to gather the following&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<h3>
+I.
+</h3>
+
+<p>
+God made the good man: but it would seem
+that His Divine Majesty threw aces when He
+created mankind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Man instinctively inclines to good, but deceit
+poisons his soul and makes him an egotist, that
+is to say, perverse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whosoever would aspire to a large harvest
+of evils, let him begin by sowing benefactions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such is humanity, and very right was the
+King Don Alonso the Wise, when he said&mdash;'If
+this world was not badly made, at least it
+appeared to be so.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Don Pedro Campos de Ayala was, somewhere
+about the year 1695, a rich Spanish merchant,
+living in the neighbourhood of Lima, on whom
+misfortunes poured like hail on a heath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Generous to a fault, there was no wretchedness
+he did not alleviate with his money, no
+unfortunate he did not run to console. And
+this without fatuity, and solely for the pleasure
+he had in doing good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the loss of a ship on its way from Cadiz
+with a valuable cargo, and the failure of some
+scoundrels for whom Don Pedro had been bound,
+reduced him to great straits. Our honourable
+Spaniard sold off all he possessed, at great
+loss, paid his creditors, and remained without a
+farthing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the last copper fled his last friend. He
+wished to go to work again, and applied to
+many whom, in the days of his opulence, he
+had helped, and solely to whom they were
+indebted for what they had, to give him some
+employment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it was he discovered how much truth is
+contained in the proverb which says '<i>There
+are no friends but God, and a crown in the
+pocket</i>.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even by the woman whom he had loved,
+and in whose love he believed like a child, it
+was very clearly revealed to him that now
+times had indeed changed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then did Don Pedro swear an oath, that
+he would again become rich, even though to
+make his fortune he should have recourse to
+crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chicanery of others had slain in his soul
+all that was great, noble, and generous; and
+there was awakened within him a profound
+disgust for human nature. Like the Roman
+tyrant, he could have wished that humanity
+had a head that he might get it on to a block;
+there would then be a little chopping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He disappeared from Lima, and went to settle
+in Potosi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few days before his disappearance, there
+was found dead in his bed a Biscayan usurer.
+Some said that he had died of congestion, and
+others declared that he had been violently
+strangled with a pocket handkerchief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had there been a robbery or the taking of
+revenge? The public voice decided for the
+latter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no one conceived the lie that this event
+coincided with the sudden flight of our Protagonist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the years ran on, and there came that
+of 1706, when Don Pedro returned to Lima
+with half a million gained in Potosi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he was no longer the same man, self-denying
+and generous, as all had once known
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Enclosed in his egotism, like the turtle in
+his shell, he rejoiced that all Lima knew that
+he was again rich; but they likewise knew that
+he refused to give even a grain of rice to
+St. Peter's cock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the rest, Don Pedro, so merry and
+communicative before, became changed into
+a misanthrope. He walked alone, he never
+returned a salutation, he visited no one save
+a well-known Jesuit, with whom he would
+remain hours together in secret converse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All at once it became rumoured that Campos
+de Ayala had called a notary, made his will,
+and left all his immense fortune to the College
+of St. Paul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But did he repent him of this, or was it
+that some new matter weighed heavily on his
+soul? At any rate, a month later he revoked
+his former will and made another, in which
+he distributed his fortune in equal proportions
+among the various convents and monasteries
+of Lima; setting apart a whole capital for
+masses for his soul, making a few handsome
+legacies, and among them one in favour of a
+nephew of the Biscayan of long ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those were the times when, as a contemporary
+writer very graphically says, 'the Jesuit
+and the Friar scratched under the pillows of the
+dying to get possession of a will.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not many days passed after that revocation,
+when one night the Viceroy, the Marquis de
+Castil-dos-Rius, received a long anonymous letter
+which, after reading and re-reading, made his
+excellency cogitate, and the result of his cogitation
+was to send for a magistrate whom he
+charged without loss of time with the apprehension
+of Don Pedro Campos de Ayala, whom he
+was to lodge in the prison of the court.
+</p>
+
+<h3>
+II.
+</h3>
+
+<p>
+Don Manuel Omms de Santa Pau Olim de
+Sentmanat y de Lanuza, Grandee of Spain and
+Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, was ambassador in
+Paris when happened the death of Charles II,
+and which involved the monarchy in a bloody
+war of succession. The Marquis not only presented
+to Louis XIV the will in which the
+Bewitched one carried the crown to the Duke
+of Anjou, but openly declared himself a partisan
+of the Bourbon, and also procured that his relatives
+commenced hostilities against the Archduke
+of Austria. In one of the battles, the firstborn
+of the Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius died.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is well known that the American Colonies
+accepted the will of Charles II acknowledging
+Philip V as their legitimate sovereign. He,
+after the termination of the civil war, hastened
+to reward the services of Castil-dos-Rius, and
+he named him Viceroy of Peru.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SeÃ±or de Sentmanat y de Lanuza arrived in
+Lima in 1706, and it could not be said that
+he governed well when he began to raise his
+loans and impose taxes on private fortunes,
+religious houses, and capitular bodies: but by
+this means he was able to replenish the exhausted
+treasury of his king with a million
+and a half of crowns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among the most notable events of the time
+in which he governed may be reckoned the
+victory which the pirate Wagner gained over
+the squadron of the Count de Casa-Alegre,
+thereby doing the English out of five millions
+of silver travellers from Peru. This animated
+the other corsairs of that nation, Dampier and
+Rogers, who took possession of Guayaquil, and
+squeezed out of that municipality a pretty fat
+contribution. In trying to restrain these marauders,
+the Viceroy spent a hundred and fifty
+thousand dollars in fitting out various ships,
+which sailed from Callao under the command
+of Admiral Don Pablo Alzamora. Everybody
+was anxious for the fray, even to the students
+of the colleges, all burning to chastise the
+heretics. Fortunately, the fight was never
+begun, and when our fleet went in search of
+the pirates as far as the Galapagos islands,
+they had abandoned already the waters of the
+Pacific.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The earthquake which ruined many towns
+in the province of Paruro was also among the
+great events of the same period.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among the religious occurrences worthy of
+mention were the translation of the nuns of
+Santa Rosa to their own convent, and the fierce
+meeting in the Augustine chapter-room between
+the two Fathers, Zavala the Biscayan, and
+Paz the Sevillian. The Royal Audiencia was
+compelled to imprison the whole chapter,
+thereby suppressing the greatest of disorders,
+and after a session of eighteen hours and a
+good deal of scrutiny Zavala triumphed by a
+majority of two votes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The venerable Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius was
+an enthusiastic cultivator of the muses; but as
+these ladies are almost always shy with old
+men, a very poor inspiration animates the few
+verses of his excellency with which we happen
+to have any knowledge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every Monday the Viceroy had a reunion of
+the poets of Lima in the palace; and in the
+library of the chief cosmographer, Don Eduardo
+Carrasco, there existed until within a few years
+a bulky manuscript, <i>The Flower of the Academies
+of Lima</i>, in which were guarded the
+acts of the sessions and the verses of the bards.
+We have made the most searching investigations
+for the hiding place of this very curious book,
+fatally without any result, which we suppose
+to be in possession of some avaricious bookworm,
+who can make no use of it himself, nor
+will allow others to explore so rich a treasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little Parnassus of the palace, which
+after the manner of Apollo was presided over
+by the Viceroy, was formed of Don Pedro de
+Peralta, then quite a youth; the Jesuit JosÃ©
+Buendia, a LimeÃ±o of great talent, and prodigious
+science; Don Luis Oviedo y Herrera,
+also a LimeÃ±o, and son of the poet Count de
+la Granja (author of a pretty poem on Santa
+Rosa); and other geniuses whose names are not
+worth the trouble of recording.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was during the festivities held in honour
+of the birth of the Infanta Don Luis Fernando,
+that the little Parnassus was in the height of
+its glory, and the Viceroy, the Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius,
+gave a representation at the palace
+of the tragedy of Perseus, written in unhappy
+hendecasyllables, to judge by a fragment which
+we once read. The principal of the clergy and
+aristocracy assisted at the representation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Speaking of the performance, our compatriot
+Peralta, in one of the notes to his <i>Lima fundada</i>,
+says, that it was given with harmonious
+music, splendid dresses, and beautiful decorations;
+and that in it the Viceroy not only manifested
+the elegance of his poetic genius, but also the
+greatness of his soul and the jealousy of his
+love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It appears to us that there is a good deal
+of the courtier in that criticism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Castil-dos-Rius had hardly been two years
+in his government before they accused him to
+Philip V of having used his high office for
+improper purposes, and defrauded the royal
+treasury in connivance with the <i><span lang="es_ES">contrabandistas</span></i>.
+The Royal Audiencia and the Tribunal of Commerce
+supported the accusation, and the Monarch
+resolved upon at once dismissing the Governor
+of Peru from his office; but the order was revoked,
+because a daughter of the Marquis, one
+of the Queen's maids of honour, threw herself
+at the feet of Philip V, and brought to his
+recollection the great services of her father
+during the war of succession.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But although the King appeased the Marquis
+in a way by revoking the first order, the pride
+of SeÃ±or de Olim de Sentmanat was deeply
+wounded; so much so that it carried him to his
+tomb, April 22nd, 1710, after having governed
+Peru three years and a half.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The funeral was celebrated with slight pomp,
+but with abundance of good and bad verses,
+the Little Parnassus fulfilled a duty towards
+their brother in Apollo.
+</p>
+
+<h3>
+III.
+</h3>
+
+<p>
+The anonymous letter accused Don Pedro
+Campos de Ayala of assassinating the Biscayan,
+and stealing a thousand ounces, which served
+for the basis of the great fortune he acquired
+in Potosi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What proofs did the informer supply? We
+are unable to say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Don Pedro being duly installed in the Stone
+Jug, the Mayor appeared to take his declaration;
+and the accused replied as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Mr. Mayor, I plead not guilty when he who
+accuses me is God himself. Only to Him under
+the seal of confession did I reveal my crime.
+Your worship will of course represent human
+justice in the case against me, but I shall
+institute a suit against <span class='smcap'>God</span>.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As will be seen, the distinctions of the culprit
+were somewhat casuistical, but he found an
+advocate (the marvel would have been had he
+not) prepared to undertake the case against
+God. Forensic resource is mighty prolific.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the reason that the Royal Council sought
+to wrap the case in the deepest mystery, all its
+details were devoured with avidity, and it became
+the greatest scandal of the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Inquisition, which was hand and glove
+with the Jesuits, sought diligently for opportunities,
+and resolved to have a finger in the pie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Archbishop, the Viceroy, and the most
+ingrained aristocrat of Lima society took the
+side of the Company of Jesus. Although the
+accused sustained his integrity, he presented no
+other proof than his own word, that a Jesuit
+was the author of the anonymous denunciation
+and the revealer of the secret of the confessional,
+instigated thereto by the revocation of the will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On his part the nephew of the Biscayan
+claimed the fortune of the murderer of his uncle,
+while the trustees of the various hospitals and
+convents defended the validity of the second will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the sucking lawyers spent their Latin
+in the case, and the air was filled with strange
+notions and extravagant opinions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the scandal spread; nor will we
+venture to say to what lengths it might have
+gone, had not His Majesty Don Philip V declared
+that it would be for the public convenience,
+and the decorum of the Church as
+well as for the morality of his dominions, that
+the case should be heard before his great Council
+of the Indies in Spain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The consequence was that Don Pedro Campos
+de Ayala marched to Spain under orders, in
+company with the voluminous case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And as was natural, there followed with him
+not a few of those who were favourably mentioned
+in the will, and who went to Court to
+look after their rights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peace was re-established in our City of Kings,
+and the Inquisition had its attention and time
+distracted by making preparation to burn
+Madam Castro, and the statue and bones of
+the Jesuit Ulloa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What was the sentence, or the turn which
+the sagacious Philip V gave to the case? We
+do not know; but we are allowed to suppose
+that the King hit upon some conciliatory expedient
+which brought peace to all the litigants,
+and it is possible that the culprit ate a little
+blessed bread, or shared in some royal indulgence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Does the original case still exist in Spain?
+It is very likely that it has been eaten of moths,
+and hence the pretext and origin of a phrase
+which with us has become so popular.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is said of a certain notary who much
+troubled the Royal Council in the matter of a
+will and its codicils, that when the custodian
+of such things at last produced something which
+looked like the original, he said, 'Here it is,
+but the moths have sadly eaten it.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Just our luck, my dear sir,' said an interested
+one, who was none other than the Marquis
+of Castelfuerte. And ever since, when a thing
+has disappeared we say 'No doubt the moths
+have eaten it.'
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+So much for the lawsuit against <span class='smcap'>God</span>, which
+only a Spaniard could have conceived and a
+Peruvian satirist report.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+When a commercial father sees his eldest
+son, on whom he has lavished much care and
+money that he might learn mathematics and
+such an amount of classics as will stand him in
+good stead at the fashionable training grounds
+of the world's gladiators, and the boy is seen
+to forsake figures and take to poetry, to prefer
+the gay science to that which would enable
+him to master the money article of the <i>Times</i>,
+that father will feel as great a pang as when
+a giant dies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The same feeling may actuate many a Peruvian
+bondholder when he is told that the Peruvians
+are beginning to cultivate literature. Many
+city men will disregard the thing altogether,
+or disdain to take notice of it. Many will treat
+it with resentment and contempt. What right
+have people who are in debt to busy themselves
+in writing books, in amusing themselves
+when they should be at work, and in writing
+poetry when they should be making money.
+And yet the cultivation of literature for its
+own sake by any people ought not only to
+be viewed with favour, it should be carefully
+watched, to see if it be a real national growth
+or only a momentary effort which cannot last.
+If it be the former, we shall see it in an improvement
+of public morals and manners; in
+the quickening of the national conscience and
+chastening the public taste, in an elevation of
+character and in fresh dignity being imparted to
+the common things and duties of everyday life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peru possesses a history as well as a country.
+The one remains to be written, and the other to
+be described by a Peruvian genius who shall do
+for Peru and Peruvian history what Sir Walter
+Scott did for his native land and its records.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is now high time that Peru produced her
+popular historian. One who can fire the intellect
+of his countrymen while he provides them with
+an elevating pastime, who can point out the
+way they should or should not go by showing
+them the ways they have hitherto travelled.
+If the work has been delayed, it is because
+the people have too long retained the spirit of
+the former times to make it possible for them
+to profit by any explanation of the past.
+Monarchists yet, because they have never known
+better, they have not been taught to hate
+the hateful kings who ruled them in selfishness
+and kept them in ignorance, while they have
+not learned to love with devotion and intelligence
+the freedom they possess but know not
+how to use.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When books are found in hands till then
+only accustomed to carry muskets, and the pen
+is handled by those who have hitherto only
+believed in the power of the sword, we may
+rest assured that an important change has set
+in, a silent revolution has begun, which will
+make all other revolutions very difficult if not
+impossible.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/dec_p071_alt.jpg" width="338" height="88" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER III.
+</h2>
+</div>
+<p>
+Whether it be true, or only a poetical way
+of putting it, that Yarmouth was built on red
+herrings, Manchester on cotton, Birmingham
+on brass, Middlesborough on pigs of iron, and
+the holy Roman Catholic Church in China on
+Peruvian bark, it is true that the Government
+of Peru has for more than a generation subsisted
+on guano, and the foundations of its greatness
+have been foundations of the same<a name='FA_3' id='FA_3' href='#FN_3' class='fnanchor'>[3]</a>;&mdash;the ordure
+of birds&mdash;pelicans, penguins, boobies, and gulls
+of many kinds, and many kinds of ducks, all
+of marine habits, and deriving their living solely
+from the sea and the sky which is stretched
+above it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This precious Guano, or Huano, according
+to the orthography of the sixteenth century,
+had long been in use in Peru before Peru was
+discovered by the Spaniards. It was well
+enough known to those famous agriculturists,
+the Incas, who five centuries ago used it as a
+servant. With the change which changed the
+Incas from off the face of the earth, came the
+strangest change of all,&mdash;Guano ceased to be the
+servant or helper of the native soil; it became
+the master of the people who occupy it, the
+Peruvian people, the Spanish Peruvians who
+call themselves Republicans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No disgrace or ignominy need have come upon
+Peru for selling its guano and getting drunk on
+the proceeds, if it had not trampled its own soil
+into sand, and killed not only the corn, the trees,
+and flowers which grow upon it, but also the
+men who cultivate those beautiful and necessary
+things<a name='FA_4' id='FA_4' href='#FN_4' class='fnanchor'>[4]</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the time that Peru has been a vendor
+of guano, it has sold twenty million tons of it,
+and as the price has ranged from Â£12 to
+Â£12 10<i>s.</i> and Â£13 the ton, Peru may be
+said to have turned a pretty penny by the
+transaction. What she has done with the money
+is a very pertinent question, which will be
+answered in its right place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The amount of guano still remaining in the
+country amounts to between seven and eight
+million tons. There are men of intelligence even
+in Peru who affirm that the quantity does not
+reach five million tons. One of my informants,
+a man intimately connected with the export
+and sale of this guano, assured me that there
+are not at this hour more than two million tons
+in the whole of the Republic, and he had
+the best possible means at his disposal for
+ascertaining its truth. I have since discovered,
+however, that men who deal in guano do not
+always speak with a strict regard for the truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As this is one of the vexed questions of the
+hour to some of my countrymen, the violent
+lenders of money, Jews, Greeks, infidels and
+others; although I have no sympathy with
+them, yet on condition that they buy this book
+I will give them a fair account of the guano
+which I have actually seen, and where it
+exists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was sent to Peru for the express purpose
+of making this examination. I may therefore
+expect that my statements will be received with
+some consideration. They have certainly been
+prepared with much care, and, I may add, under
+very favourable circumstances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My visits to the existing guano deposits were
+made after they had been uncovered of the stones
+which had been rolled upon them by the turbulent
+action of a century of earthquakes, the
+sand which the unresisted winds of heaven for
+the same period had heaped upon them from
+the mainland, and the slower but no less
+degrading influences of a tropical sun, attended
+with the ever humid air, dense mists, fogs and
+exhalations, and now and then copious showers
+of rain. Moreover, my visits were made after
+a certain ascertained quantity of guano had been
+removed, and my measurements of the quantity
+remaining were therefore easily checked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Last year the Pabellon de Pica was reported
+to contain eight million tons of guano. At that
+time it was covered from head to foot with more
+than fifty feet of sand and stones. The principal
+slopes are now uncovered. Before this painful
+and expensive process had been completed, various
+other courageous guesses had been made, and
+the Government engineers were divided among
+themselves in their estimates. One enthusiastic
+group of these loyal measurers contended for
+five million tons, another for three million five
+hundred and twenty thousand six hundred and
+forty, and another, unofficial and disinterested,
+placed it at less than a million tons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My own measurements corroborate this latter
+calculation. There may be one million tons of
+guano on the Pabellon de Pica. The exact
+quantity will only be known after all the guano
+has been entirely removed and weighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Pabellon de Pica is in form like a pavilion,
+or tent, or better still, a sugar-loaf rising a little
+more than 1000 feet above the sea which washes
+its base. It is connected by a short saddle with
+the mountain range, which runs north and south
+along the whole Peruvian coast, attaining a
+height here of more than 5000 feet in isolated
+cones, but maintaining an average altitude of
+3000 feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a strong north wind rages on these
+sandy pampas, the dust, finer than Irish blackguard,
+obscures the sky, disfigures the earth,
+and makes mad the unhappy traveller who
+happens to be caught in its fury. A mind
+not troubled by the low price of Peruvian bonds,
+or whether even the next coupon will be paid,
+might imagine that the gods, in mercy to the
+idleness of man, were determined to cover up
+those dunghills from human sight; and hence
+the floods, and cataracts of sand and dust
+which have been poured upon them from above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If it could be conceived that an almighty
+hand, consisting of nineteen fingers, each finger
+six hundred feet long, with a generous palm
+fifteen hundred feet wide, had thrust itself up
+from below, through this loaf of sugar, or dry
+dung, to where the dung reaches on the
+Pabellon, some idea might be formed of the
+frame in which, and on which the guano
+rests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man who reckoned the Pabellon to contain
+eight million tons of guano, took no notice of
+the Cyclopean fingers which hold it together,
+or the winstone palm in which it rests. There
+are eighteen large and small gorges formed
+by the nineteen stone fingers. Each gorge was
+filled with a motionless torrent of stones and
+sand, and these had to be removed before the
+guano could be touched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So hard and compact had the guano become,
+that neither the stones nor the sand had mixed
+with it; when these were put in motion and
+conducted down into the sea below, the guano
+was found hard and intact, and it had to be
+blasted with gunpowder to convey it by the
+wooden shoots to the ships' launches that were
+dancing to receive it underneath. The process
+was as dangerous as mining, and quite as expensive,
+to the Peruvian Government; for,
+although the loading of the guano is let out
+by contract, the contractors&mdash;a limited company
+of native capitalists&mdash;will, as a matter of course,
+claim a considerable sum for removing stones
+and sand, and equally as a matter of course
+they will be paid: and they deserve to be paid.
+No hell has ever been conceived by the Hebrew,
+the Irish, the Italian, or even the Scotch mind
+for appeasing the anger and satisfying the
+vengeance of their awful gods, that can be
+equalled in the fierceness of its heat, the horror
+of its stink, and the damnation of those compelled
+to labour there, to a deposit of Peruvian
+guano when being shovelled into ships. The
+Chinese who have gone through it, and had
+the delightful opportunity of helping themselves
+to a sufficiency of opium to carry them back to
+their homes, as some believed, or to heaven,
+as fondly hoped others, must have had a
+superior idea of the Almighty, than have any
+of the money-making nations mentioned above,
+who still cling to an immortality of fire and
+brimstone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Years ago the Pabellon de Pica was resorted
+to for its guano by a people, whoever they were,
+who had some fear of God before their eyes.
+Their little houses built of boulders and mortar,
+still stand, and so does their little church, built
+after the same fashion, but better, and raised
+from the earth on three tiers, each tier set back
+a foot's length from the other. It is now used
+as a store for barley and other valuable necessaries
+for the mules and horses of the loading
+company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If the bondholders of Peru, or others, have
+any desire to know something of public life on
+this now celebrated dunghill, they may turn
+to another page of this history, and Mr. Plimsoll,
+or other shipping reformer, may learn something
+likewise of the lives of English seamen
+passed during a period of eight months in the
+neighbourhood of a Peruvian guano heap. In
+the meantime we are dealing with the grave
+subject of measurable quantities of stuff, which
+fetches Â£12 or so a ton in the various markets
+of the cultivated world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next deposit&mdash;of much greater dimensions,
+although not so well known&mdash;is about eight
+miles south of the Pabellon, called Punta de
+Lobos. This also is on the mainland, but juts
+out to the west considerably, into the sea. I
+find it mentioned in Dampier&mdash;'At Lobos de
+la Mar,' he says, vol. i. 146, 'we found abundance
+of penguins, and boobies, and seal in great
+abundance.' Also in vol. iv. 178 he says, 'from
+Tucames to Yancque is twelve leagues, from
+which place they carry clay to lay in the valleys
+of Arica and Sama. And here live some few
+Indian people, who are continually digging this
+clayey ground for the use aforesaid, for the
+Spaniards reckon that it fattens the ground.'
+The fishing no doubt was better here than at
+the Pabellon, which would be the principal attraction
+to the Indians. The Indians have
+disappeared with the lobos, the penguins and
+the boobies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One million six hundred thousand tons of
+guano were reported from Lobos last year by
+the Government engineers. The place is much
+more easy of access than the Pabellon, and no
+obstacle was in the way of a thorough measurement,
+and yet the utmost carelessness has been
+observed with regard to it. It may safely be
+taken that there are two millions and a half
+of tons at this deposit, or series of deposits,
+ten in number, all overlooking the sea. The
+guano is good. If the method of shipping it
+were equally good the Government might save
+the large amount which they at present lose.
+I have no hesitation in saying, that for every
+900 tons shipped, 200 tons of guano are lost
+in the sea by bad management, added to the
+dangers of the heavy surf which rolls in under
+the shoots. As at the Pabellon de Pica, so
+here the principal labourers are Chinamen,
+and Chilenos, the former doing much more work
+than the latter, and receiving inferior pay.
+Many of the Chinamen are still apprentices,
+or 'slaves' as they are in reality called and
+treated by their owners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Punta de Lobos I discovered two small
+caves built of boulders, and roofed in with
+rafters of whales' ribs. The effect of the white
+concentric circles in the sombre light of these
+alcoves had an oriental expression. The number
+of whales on this coast must at one time
+have been very great. They are still to be
+met with several hundred miles west, in the
+latitude of Payta. No doubt for the same
+reason that the lobos and the boobies have
+gone, no one knows where, so the whales have
+gone in search of grounds and waters remote
+from the haunts of man and steamers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A singular effect of light upon the bright
+slopes of dazzling sand which run down from
+the northern sides of the Point, was observed
+from the heights: when the shadows of the
+clouds in the zenith passed over the shining
+surface they appeared to be not shadows, but
+last night's clouds which had fallen from the
+sky, so dense were they, dark, and sharply
+defined. [It frequently happens in Peru, that
+what appears to be substantial, is nothing
+better than a morning cloud which passes
+away.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Huanillos is another deposit still further
+south, where the guano is good but the facilities
+for shipping it are few. Here are five different
+gorges, in which the dung has been stored as
+if by careful hands. The earthquake however
+has played sad havoc with the storing. From
+a great height above, enormous pieces of rock
+of more than a thousand tons each have been
+hurled down, and in one place another motionless
+cataract of heavy boulders covers up a large
+amount of guano.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The quantity found here may be fairly estimated
+at eight hundred thousand tons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was easy to count ninety-five ships resting
+below on what, at the distance of three miles,
+appeared to be a sea without motion or ripple.
+At the Pabellon de Pica there were ninety-one
+ships, and at Lobos one hundred and fourteen
+ships, all waiting for guano: three hundred ships
+in all, some of which had been waiting for more
+than eight months; and it is not unlikely that
+the whole of them may have to wait for the
+same length of time. An impression has got
+abroad that the reason of this delay is the absence
+of guano. It is a natural inference for the
+captain of a ship to draw, and it is just the kind
+of information an ignorant man would send
+home to his employers. It is however absolutely
+erroneous; the delays in loading are vexatious
+in the extreme, but being in Peru they can
+hardly be avoided. Their cause may be set
+down to the sea and its dangers, the precipitous
+rocky shore, the ill-constructed launches and
+shoots, and now and then to the ignorance,
+stupidity, and obstinacy of a Peruvian official,
+called an <i><span lang="es_ES">administrador</span></i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chipana, six miles further south of Huanillos,
+is another considerable deposit. But as this
+had not been uncovered, and the place is absolutely
+uninhabited and without any of the
+common necessaries of life, which in Peru may
+be said to be not very few, I did not visit it,
+and am content to take the measurement of
+a gentleman whom I have every reason to trust,
+and on whose accuracy and ability I can rely
+as I have had to rely before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The amount of guano at Chipana may be
+taken at about the same as Huanillos. If to
+this be added the deposits of Chomache, very
+small, Islotas de Pajaros, Quebrada de Pica,
+Patache, and all other points further north, up
+to la Bahia de la Independencia, we may safely
+declare that among them all will be found not
+less than five million tons of good guano.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before proceeding to give an account of the
+deposits in the north, it may be well to allude
+to a question of considerable importance to some
+one, be it the Government of Peru, or the house
+of Messrs. Dreyfus Brothers, the present financial
+agents of Peru. The only interest which
+the question can have for the public, or the
+holders of Peruvian bonds, arises from the
+fact of this question involving no less a sum
+than Â£1,500,000 or even more; and if the
+Government of Peru has to pay it, so much
+the worse will it be for its already alarmed
+and disappointed creditors. Many of the three
+hundred ships lying off the three principal deposits
+of the South, have been there for very
+long periods of time, and a considerable bill
+for demurrage has been contracted. The question
+is who is to pay the shipowners' claim, and probably
+the law courts will have to answer the
+question. It would appear at first sight that
+this charge should be paid by Dreyfus. According
+to the first article of the contract
+between that firm and the Government of Peru,
+Dreyfus was to purchase two million tons of
+guano, and to pay for the same two million
+four hundred thousand pounds sterling. Here
+is a distinct act of purchase. The guano is
+the property of Dreyfus. The second article
+of the contract would appear to provide especially
+for the case in point: '<span lang="es_ES">Los compradores enviarÃ¡n
+por su cuenta y riesgo, Ã¡ los depositos huaneros
+de la Republica, los buques necesarios para
+el transporte del huano</span>' [the purchasers
+shall send, <i>at their own cost and risk</i>, the
+necessary ships to the guano deposits of the
+Republic for the purpose of transporting the
+guano].
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This would seem to be plain enough: but
+these ships, or the greater part of them, came
+chartered by Dreyfus, not to any deposit of
+guano, in the first instance, but to Callao, where
+they collected in that bay, notorious now for
+many reported acts of singular heroism, and
+other acts of a very different nature. The
+ships were finally detained by command of the
+President of the Republic, who, acting on certain
+subterranean knowledge, refused to despatch
+the ships, or to allow them to proceed to the
+deposits. Dreyfus, the President insisted, had
+already taken away all the guano that belonged
+to them, and therefore the ships which they had
+chartered for carrying away still more should
+not be allowed to go and load. At last the
+President appears to have discovered his mistake,
+and the ships, to the amazement of the
+Lima press, were allowed to depart; some to
+the Pabellon de Pica, where they still are;
+others to Lobos, and the rest to Huanillos. In
+the meantime the following circular appeared.
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+'The Lima press has commented in various articles on the conduct
+of our house with respect to the export of guano, and we have
+been charged with endeavouring to appropriate a larger quantity
+than that which is stipulated in our contracts as sufficient to cover
+the amounts due to us by the Supreme Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These false and malevolent assertions render it necessary for us
+to satisfy the public and inform the country of the state of our
+affairs with the Supreme Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We trust that dispassionate people who do not allow their
+opinions to be based on partial evidence, will do our house the
+justice to which we are entitled by these few particulars, the truth
+of which is proved by facts and figures that can be authenticated by
+application to the offices of the Public Treasury.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="Financial Statement">
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    Balance in favour of our house on June
+    30, 1875, as per account delivered,
+    embracing 1,377,150 tons of guano
+  </td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr">
+    $.24,068,156
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    Expenses since that date for monthly
+    instalments, loading, salaries in Europe,
+    etc.
+  </td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr bb">
+    $.2,390,000
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    Balance in favour of our house
+  </td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr bb">
+    $.26,459,156
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    From this sum there is to be deducted
+    the value of cargoes despatched up to
+    June, 300,092 tons at 30 soles
+  </td>
+  <td class="tdr">
+    9,002,760
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    Vessels now loading, 394,966 tons at
+    30 soles</td>
+  <td class="tdr">
+    4,849,000
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    <a name='FA_s' id='FA_s' href='#FN_s' class='fnanchor'>*</a> Vessels detained in Callao 110,657 tons
+    at 30 soles</td>
+  <td class="tdr bb">
+    3,319,710
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="bb tdr">
+    $.24,181,470
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    Which shews a balance in our favour of
+  </td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr">
+     $.2,286,686
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    Adding to this sum interest in account
+    current since June
+  </td>
+  <td class="tdr">
+    1,500,000
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    <a name='FA_c' id='FA_c' href='#FN_c' class='fnanchor'>â€ </a>Cost of loading ships at the deposits
+    and in Callao
+  </td>
+  <td class="tdr bb">
+    1,500,000
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="bb tdr">
+    3,000,000
+  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdh">
+    Shewing a clear balance in our favour of
+  </td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr bb">
+    $.5,286,686
+  </td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>
+We have taken thirty soles as the average value of guano of
+different qualities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These figures prove that our house not only has not received
+more than it is entitled to, even if all the vessels had left which are
+at the deposits as well as those in Callao, but that there is still a
+heavy balance due to us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With respect to questions now pending, no one possesses the
+right to consider his opinions of more value than those of the
+tribunals of justice before which they now are, without the least
+opposition on our part.
+</p>
+
+<p class="left45">
+<span class='smcap'>Dreyfus</span>, <span class='smcap'><span lang="es_ES">Hermanos</span></span>, &amp; <span class='smcap'>Co.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Lima, Dec. 31, 1875.</i>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+It appears from this statement <a href='#FA_s' name="FN_s" id="FN_s">*</a>, that Dreyfus
+had already put in their claim for the detention
+of the ships. What is meant by the last item
+marked with a <a href='#FA_c' name="FN_c" id="FN_c">â€ </a> is uncertain; no ships are
+loaded in Callao. If the Government can sustain
+its suit against Dreyfus on that part of the
+second article of the contract mentioned above,
+instead of its owing Dreyfus the 'clear balance
+of 5,286,686 dols.' Dreyfus is in debt to the
+Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there is another item in the second
+article which appears to override the first: viz.
+'<span lang="es_ES">y este (guano) serÃ¡ colocado por cuenta y
+riesgo del gobierno abordo de las lanchas destinadas
+a la carga de dichos buques</span>' [or, in plain
+English, 'this guano shall be placed on board
+such launches as are appointed to carry it to
+the ships, on account and at the risk of the
+Government'].
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, it is absolutely certain that the guano
+was not <i><span lang="es_ES">colocado</span></i>, or placed on board the appointed
+launches; not because the launches were
+not there; not because there was no guano at
+the deposits;&mdash;but simply because the Government
+had not, for some reason or other, fulfilled
+its own part of the contract.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No answer was made by the Government
+to Dreyfus' circular, and the obsequious Lima
+newspapers were as silent upon it as dumb dogs.
+I have since heard, on high authority, that the
+reply of the Government is prepared, and that
+it disputes Dreyfus' claims and will contest
+them in a court of law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was glad when they said unto me, let us
+go to the islands of the north; glad to leave
+behind me the filthiness, foulness, and weariness
+of the mainland in the neighbourhood
+of the Pabellon de Pica. Had it not been
+for the true British kindness of one or two
+of my countrymen and several Americans in
+command of guano ships, Her Majesty's Consular
+agent, and the agent of the house of
+Dreyfus, who did all they could to provide me
+with wholesome food, German beer, and clean
+beds, I should have fled away from that much-talked-of
+dunghill without estimating its contents;
+or like a philosophical Chinaman sought
+out a quiet nook in the warm rocks, and with
+an opium reed in my lips smoked myself away
+to everlasting bliss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On my return from the south we passed
+close to the Chincha islands. When I first saw
+them twenty years ago, they were bold, brown
+heads, tall, and erect, standing out of the sea
+like living things, reflecting the light of heaven,
+or forming soft and tender shadows of the
+tropical sun on a blue sea. Now these same
+islands looked like creatures whose heads had
+been cut off, or like vast sarcophagi, like anything
+in short that reminds one of death and
+the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In ages which have no record these islands
+were the home of millions of happy birds, the
+resort of a hundred times more millions of
+fishes, of sea lions, and other creatures whose
+names are not so common; the marine residence,
+in fact, of innumerable creatures predestined
+from the creation of the world to lay up a
+store of wealth for the British farmer, and a
+store of quite another sort for an immaculate
+Republican government. One passage of the
+Hebrew Scriptures, and this the only passage
+in the whole range of sacred or profane
+literature, supplies an adequate epitaph for the
+Chincha islands. But it is too indecent, however
+amusing it may be, to quote.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On Sunday morning, March 26th, of the
+last year of grace, I first caught sight of the
+beautiful pearl-gray islands of Lobos de Afuera,
+undulating in latitude S. 6.57.20, longitude
+80.41.50, beneath a blue sky, and apparently
+rolling out of an equally blue sea. Here is
+the only large deposit that has remained
+untouched; here you may walk about among
+great birds busy hatching eggs, look a great
+sea-lion in the face without making him afraid,
+and dip your hat in the sea and bring up more
+little fishes than you can eat for breakfast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are eight distinct deposits in an island
+rather more than a mile in length and half a
+mile in width. The amount of guano will be
+not less than 650,000 tons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is not all of the same good quality, for
+considerable rain has at one time fallen on these
+islands. Wide and deep beds of sand mark
+in a well defined manner the courses of several
+once strong and rapid streams. But if the poor
+guano, that namely which does not yield more
+than two per cent. of ammonia be reckoned, the
+deposits on these islands will reach a million tons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wiseacres who believe guano to be a
+mineral substance, and not the excreta of birds,
+will do well to pay a visit to Lobos de Afuera.
+There they will see the whole process of guano
+making and storing carried on with the greatest
+activity, regularity, and despatch. The birds
+make their nests quite close together: as close
+and regular, in fact, as wash-hand basins laid
+out in a row for sale in a market-place; are
+about the same size, and stand as high from
+the ground. These nests are made by the joint
+efforts of the male and female birds; for there
+is no moss, or lichen, or grass, or twig, or weed,
+available, or within a hundred miles and more:
+even the sea does not yield a leaf. As a rule,
+about one hundred and fifty nests form a farm.
+It has been computed by a close observer that
+the <span lang="es_ES">heguiro</span> will contribute from 4 oz. to 6 oz.
+per day of nesty material, the pelican twice
+as much. When there are millions of these
+active beings living in undisturbed retirement,
+with abundance of appropriate food within reach,
+it does not require a very vivid imagination
+to realise in how, comparatively, short a time
+a great deposit of guano can be stored.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Will the Government of Peru occupy itself
+in preserving and cultivating these busy birds?
+That Government has lived now on their produce
+for more than thirty years; why should
+it not take a benign and intelligent interest in
+the creatures who have continued its existence
+and contributed to its fame?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <span lang="es_ES">heguiro</span> is a large bird of the gull and
+booby species, but twice the size of these, with
+blue stockings and also blue shoes. It does not
+appear to possess much natural intelligence, and
+its education has evidently been left uncared
+for. It will defend its young with real courage,
+but will fly from its nest and its one or two
+eggs on the least alarm. This, however, is not
+always the case. But in a most insane manner
+if it spies a white umbrella approaching, it sets
+up a painful shriek. Had it kept its mouth
+shut, the umbrella had travelled in another
+direction. As the noise came from a peculiar
+cave-like aperture in the high rocks, I sat down
+in front, watched the movements of the bird,
+who kept up a dismal noise, evidently resenting
+my intrusion on her private affairs. After a
+brief space I marched slowly up to the bird,
+who, when she saw me determined to come on,
+deliberately rose from her nest, and became
+engaged in some frantic effort, the meaning of
+which I could not guess. When I approached
+within ten yards of her, she sprang into the sky
+and began sailing above my head, trying by
+every means in her power to scare me away.
+When I reached the nest, I found the beautiful
+pale blue egg covered with little fishes!
+The anxious mother had emptied her stomach
+in order to protect the fruit of her body from
+discovery or outrage, or to keep it warm while
+she paid a visit to her mansion in the skies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Birds have ever been a source of joy to me
+from the time that I first remember walking
+in a field of buttercups in Mid Staffordshire,
+some fifty years ago, and hearing for the first
+time the rapturous music of a lark. Since then
+I have watched the movements of the great
+condor on the Andes, the eagle on the Hurons,
+the ibis on the Nile, the native companion in
+its quiet nooks on the Murray, the laughing
+jackass in the Bush of Australia, the <span lang="es_ES">curaÃ§oa</span>
+of Central America, the <span lang="es_ES">tapa culo</span> of the South
+American desert, the albatross of the South
+Pacific. I can see them all still, or their ghosts,
+whenever I choose to shut my eyes, a process
+which the poets assure us is necessary if we
+would see bright colours. And now I no longer
+care for birds. I have seen them in double
+millions at a time, swarming in the sky, like
+insects on a leaf, or vermin in a Spanish bed.
+They are as common as man, and can be as
+useful, and become as great a commercial speculation
+as he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We visited the island of Macabi, lat. 7.49.30
+S., long. 79.28.30, for the purpose of seeing what
+good thing remained there that was worth removing
+in the way of houses, tanks and tools
+for use on the virgin deposits of Lobos de
+Afuera. Although there is not more than one
+shipload of guano left, I was glad to see the
+place for many reasons. It will be recollected
+that it was on the guano said to exist on this
+and the GuaÃ±api islands that the Peruvian Loan
+of 1872 was raised, and it will be the duty of
+all who invested their money in that transaction
+to enquire into the truth of the statements on
+which the loan was made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Macabi is an island split in two, spanned by
+a very well constructed iron suspension bridge
+a hundred feet long. The birds which had been
+frightened away by the operations of the guano-loading
+company have returned. The lobos
+probably never left the place, the precipitous
+rocks and the great caverns which the sea has
+scooped out affording them sufficient protection
+from the 'fun'-pursuing Peruvian, who delights
+in killing, where there is no danger, an animal
+twice his own size, and whose existence is
+quite as important as his own. Or if the lobos
+did leave, they also have returned. This would
+go to prove the statements that the birds have
+begun to return to the Chinchas. When this
+is proved beyond any doubt, we may expect
+to hear of Messrs. Schweiser and Gnat applying
+for another loan on the strength of the
+pelicans, ducks and boobies having returned
+to their ancient labours on those celebrated
+islands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The spectacle presented at Macabi was humiliating.
+The ground was everywhere strewn
+with Government property, which had all gone
+to destruction. The shovels and picks were
+scattered about as if they had been thrown
+down with curses which had blasted them. I
+went to pick up a shovel, but it fell to pieces
+like Rip Van Winkle's gun on the Catskills;
+the wheelbarrows collapsed with a touch. Suddenly
+I came on a little coffin, exquisitely made,
+not quite eighteen inches long. There it lay
+in the midst of the burning glaring rocks, as
+solitary and striking as the print of a foot in
+the sand was to Robinson Crusoe. The coffin
+was empty, and the presence of certain filthy-fat
+gallinazos high up on the rocks explained the
+reason. A little further on were the graves
+of some fifty full-grown persons, 'Asiatics,'
+probably, who had purposely fallen asleep.
+Walking down the steady slope of the island
+till I came to the edge of the sea, which rolled
+below me some hundred and twenty feet, I
+came suddenly in front of a thousand lobos, all
+basking in the sun after their morning's bath.
+It was a sight certainly new, entertaining, and
+instructive. The young lobos are silly little
+things, and look as if it had not taken much
+trouble to make them; a child could carve a
+baby lobo out of a log, that would be quite
+as good to look at as one of these. But the
+old fathers, patriarchs, kings, or presidents of
+the herd, are as impressive as some of Layard's
+Assyrian lions. Suddenly one of these caught
+me in his eye, and no doubt imagining me to
+be a Peruvian, signalled to the rest, who, following
+his lead, all rushed violently down the
+steep place into the sea, and began tumbling
+about and rolling over in the surf like a mob
+of happy children gambolling among a lot of
+hay-cocks in a green field. They live on fish,
+and the number of fishes is as great at Macabi
+as elsewhere. As I remained watching these
+swarthy creatures, a great sea-lion appeared
+above the surface of the rolling deep looking
+about him, his mouth full of fishes, just as you
+have seen a high-bred horse with his mouth
+full of straggling hay, turn his head to look
+as you entered his stable door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My next and longer visit was to Lobos de
+Tierra, lat. S. 6.27.30, the largest guano island in
+the world, being some seven miles long, or more.
+Here are great deposits of guano, the extent
+and value of which are not yet known. It is
+certain that there are more than eight hundred
+thousand tons of good quality in the numerous
+deposits which have been hitherto examined.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On January 31st, being in lat. S. 7.50.0, and
+some 15 miles from the Peruvian coast, when
+on my way to the South from Panama, we ran
+into a heavy shower of rain. Now it is much
+more likely to rain in lat. S. 6.27.30 and 120
+miles from the shore, and this explains the reason
+why the guano deposits of Lobos de Tierra
+were not worked before. Still the quantity of
+rich material found there is great, and it is
+the only place where I came on sal ammoniac <i><span lang="la">in
+situ</span></i>; the crystals were large and beautifully
+formed, but somewhat opaque. During the ten
+days I remained there, more than 500 tons of
+good guano were shipped in one day, and there
+were some 40 ships waiting to receive more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Like all the other guano deposits, Lobos de
+Tierra has to be supplied at great expense from
+the mainland with everything for the support of
+human life. It is true that the sea supplies
+very good fish, but man cannot live on fish
+alone, at least for any length of time, especially
+if he is engaged in loading ships with guano.
+The Changos, however, a race of fishermen on
+the Peruvian coast, do live on uncooked fish,
+and a finer race to look at may not be found;
+the colour of their skin is simply beautiful, but
+they are very little children in understanding.
+It is only fair to say that with their raw fish
+they consume a plentiful amount of chicha, a fermented
+liquor made from maize, the ancient
+beer of Peru: and very good liquor it is, very
+sustaining, and, taken in excess, as intoxicating
+as that of the immortal Bass. These hardy
+fishers visit all these islands in their balsas,
+great rafts formed of three tiers of large trees
+of light wood, stripped and prepared for the
+purpose in Guayaquil. They are precisely the
+same as those first met with by Pizarro's
+expedition when on his way to conquer Peru,
+three centuries and a half ago. The people are
+probably the same, except that they now speak
+Spanish, and are never found with gold; but
+now and then they do traffic in fine cottons,
+spun by hand, now as then, by natives of the
+country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I cannot forget that it was at Lobos de Tierra
+I had the great pleasure of forming the acquaintance
+of one who represents young Peru:
+the new generation that, if time and opportunity
+be given it, may transform that land of
+corruption into a new nation. Here on this
+barren island, I found a son of one of the oldest
+Peruvian families, thoroughly educated, well acquainted
+with England and its literature, proud
+of his country, jealous for its honour, and keenly
+alive to the disgrace into which she has been
+dragged by the wicked men who have gone to
+their doom. Should this generation, represented
+by one whom I am allowed to call my friend&mdash;who,
+though born in the Guano Age is not of
+it,&mdash;rise into power, the rising generation in
+England may see what many have had too
+great reason to despair of, namely, a South
+American Republic, that shall prefer death to
+dishonour, and if needs must, will live on bread
+and onions in order to be free of debt. There
+is so much pleasure in hoping the best of all
+men, that it surely must be a duty the neglect
+of which, when there are substantial evidences
+to support it, must be a crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I left Lobos de Tierra with profound regret,
+but it was necessary to do so in order to see
+what remained to be seen of the precious dung
+in other parts of Peru. The following will
+be found to be a fair approximation of the
+quantities existing along the northern coast.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="Guano Quantities" class="borderOn">
+<tr>
+  <th class="tdc blrb">Islands.</th>
+  <th class="tdc blrb">Latitude.</th>
+  <th class="tdc blrb">Longitude.</th>
+  <th class="tdc blrb">Quantities.<br />
+                  Tons.</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Malabrigo</td>
+  <td class="blr">7.43.20</td>
+  <td class="blr">79.26.20</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">400</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Macabi</td>
+  <td class="blr">7.49.30</td>
+  <td class="blr">79.28.20</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">1,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">GuaÃ±api</td>
+  <td class="blr">7.49.30</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.56.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">3,500</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Chao</td>
+  <td class="blr">8.46.50</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.46.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">800</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Coreobado</td>
+  <td class="blr">8.57.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.40.30</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">3,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Santa</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.03.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.39.30</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">100</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Bay of Ferrol</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.10.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.36.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">22,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">El Dorado</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.12.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.34.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">6,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Small Island Pajaros</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.12.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.30.10</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">250</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Tortuga</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.21.30</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.27.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">700</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Mongon</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.39.40</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.25.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">23,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Mongon 2nd</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.40.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.20.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">30,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Mongoncillo</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.45.30</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.16.40</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">6,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Cornejos</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.53.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.15.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">500</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Erizos</td>
+  <td class="blr">9.54.40</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.14.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">5,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Huarmey</td>
+  <td class="blr">10.00.20</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.12.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">500</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">2nd ditto</td>
+  <td class="blr">10.02.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.11.0</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">3,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Bay of Gramadal</td>
+  <td class="blr">10.25.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">78.00.30</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">10,000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="blr">Pescadores</td>
+  <td class="blr">11.48.0</td>
+  <td class="blr">77.15.30</td>
+  <td class="tdr blr">200</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>
+I have not visited all these small deposits,
+and have been content to take the report of
+Captain Black, the chief of the Peruvian expedition
+lately appointed to examine them. I
+have found him so faithful and trustworthy in
+those cases&mdash;the more important of them all&mdash;where
+I have had the opportunity of comparing
+his calculations with my own, that I have not
+hesitated to adopt his estimates of the least
+important deposits. I have considered them
+of value if for no other reason than to guard
+the public against any fresh discovery being
+made by interested parties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If then we add these northern deposits to
+those of the south, Peru has at present in her
+possession, in round numbers, 7,500,000 tons of
+guano of 2240 lbs. to the ton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is not my business to suggest the possible
+existence of guano remaining to be discovered.
+I may however be allowed to say that there
+are certain unmistakable indications of even
+large deposits which may lie buried a hundred
+feet below the sand on the slopes of the
+southern shore. As those indications are the
+result of my own observation, I may be allowed
+to keep them to myself for a more convenient
+season.
+</p>
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/dec_p102_alt.jpg" width="337" height="69" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IV.
+</h2>
+</div>
+<p>
+'However long the guano deposits may last,
+Peru always possesses the nitrate deposits of
+Tarapaca to replace them. Foreseeing the
+possibility of the former becoming exhausted,
+the Government has adopted measures by which
+it may secure a new source of income, in order
+that on the termination of the guano the
+Republic may be able to continue to meet
+the obligations it is under to its foreign
+creditors.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These words form part of an assuring despatch
+from Don Juan Ignacio Elguera, the Peruvian
+Minister of Finance, to the Minister of Foreign
+Affairs, and was made public as early as
+possible after it was found that the January
+coupon could not be paid. The assurance came
+too late for any practical purposes, and it
+merely demonstrated the fact that the Peruvian
+Government shared in the panic which had
+been designedly brought to pass by its enemies
+as well as its intimate friends in Lima, and
+their emissaries in London and Paris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The despatch demonstrates two or three other
+matters of importance. We are made to infer
+from its terms, and the eagerness with which
+it insists on the undoubted source of wealth
+the Government possesses in the deposits of
+nitrate, that it was unaware of the actual
+amount of guano still remaining in the deposits
+of the north and the south. We may also
+safely believe that the Peruvian Government
+did not at the time of the publication of
+the despatch, dream of asking the bondholders
+to sacrifice any of their rights; and further,
+in its anxiety to save its credit with England,
+it was hurried into a confession which it now
+regrets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What spirit of evil suggested to President
+Pardo the idea of appealing to the charity of
+his creditors, immediately after allowing his
+finance minister to announce to all the world
+that the Republic was able to continue meeting
+its obligations to its foreign creditors even
+though the guano should give out, it does
+not much concern us to enquire. The effect
+of such an appeal cannot fail to be prejudicial
+to the credit of Peru; and men or dealers in
+other people's money will not be wanting
+who will call in question the good faith of
+the finance minister when he declared that the
+deposits of nitrate could continue what the
+deposits of guano had begun but failed to
+carry on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other considerations press themselves upon
+us. In the midst of the crisis, the President
+published a decree, announcing that he would
+avail himself of the resolution of Congress
+which enabled him to acquire the nitrate
+works in the province of Tarapaca. A commission
+of lawyers was at once despatched to
+the province to examine titles, and to fix
+upon the price to be paid to each manufacturer
+for his plant and his nitrate lands. In an
+incredibly short time no less than fifty-one
+nitrate makers had given in their consent to
+sell their works to the Government, and the
+price was fixed upon each, and each was
+measured, inventoried, and closed. The total
+sum to be paid for these establishments was
+18,000,000 dols. But they remained to be
+conveyed. The civil power had displayed
+considerable activity; now that the law had
+to be applied things became as dull as lead,
+and as heavy as if they had all been made
+of that well-known metal. Negotiations had
+also to be entered into with the Lima Banks,
+which is an operation as delicate and as
+dangerous as negotiating with so many volcanoes,
+or any other uncertain and baseless
+institutions of which either nature or a civilisation
+supported by bits of paper can boast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still the world was comforted by the promise
+that next week all would be well, or the
+week after, or say the end of the month,
+in order to be sure. In the midst of this,
+General Prado, the possible future President
+of Peru, is despatched to Europe on a mission,
+the nature of which was kept a profound secret
+for three weeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simple men, who believed in the despatch
+of the finance minister, knew for certain that
+General Prado had gone to England to raise
+more money on nitrate, in order that the
+Oroya Railway might be finished, and a station-house
+built somewhere in the Milky Way, which
+it is destined probably this marvellous line
+shall ultimately reach. And if London would
+only lend Peru, say another Â£10,000,000, then
+Lima would rejoice, and the whole earth be glad;
+the mountains would break out into psalms,
+and the valleys would laugh and sing, for
+would not Don Enrique Meiggs, the Messiah<a name='FA_5' id='FA_5' href='#FN_5' class='fnanchor'>[5]</a>
+of the Andes, once more return to reign?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At any rate it is quite certain that General
+Prado was announced to sail on the 14th
+of March, when the last stroke of the pen
+was to be put to the conveyance of the
+nitrate properties. Alas! the law's delay continued,
+and General Prado did not sail. It
+is natural to suppose at all events that Prado
+never meant to go to London without the
+nitrate contracts in his pocket&mdash;which will
+supply a larger income to Peru than the
+guano in all its glory ever did,&mdash;for the purpose
+of asking the bondholders to be merciful.
+The General finally left Callao for Europe on
+the 21st, amidst the forebodings of his friends,
+and the ill-concealed joy of his foes, but
+without the nitrate documents being signed.
+Still, before he could reach London the thing
+would be done, and the result could be telegraphed.
+In the meantime the new minister
+to Paris and London, Rivaguero, telegraphed to
+Lima some favourable news, the precise terms
+of which, of course, were not allowed to transpire,
+to the effect that an arrangement had been
+made satisfactory to all parties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On this, further delay takes place in the
+important nitrate negotiations, and that in the
+face of a semi-official communication to the
+effect that next week merchants might rely upon
+it that all would be well and truly finished.
+In the stead of this, President Pardo 'reminds
+the Banks of an item which up to that period
+had never been dreamed or thought of, except
+by the President himself, namely, that they,
+the Banks, on the security of the nitrate
+bonds, would have to supply to the Government
+so many hundred thousand dollars per
+month!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All at once the whole fabric of the nitrate
+business fell down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two things may be inferred from this:
+President Pardo hoped, believed, perhaps knew,
+that the bondholders would give way, and he
+had become convinced that he had made a
+mistake in buying the nitrate properties; it
+is also likely that he knew for certain at this
+time that there was guano enough for all
+purposes, without meddling with the important
+nitrate matters, and thereby destroying a great
+and important national industry. He may also
+have been desirous to bury, in an oblivion of his
+own making, the honest compromise contained
+in the despatch of Don Juan Ignacio Elguera.
+A further light may have dawned on the
+Presidential mind, namely, that it will be perfectly
+easy for the Government to treble the
+export duty on nitrate, without in the least
+damaging the trade or dangerously interfering
+with the profits of the makers, by which means
+the Peruvian Government would reap an annual
+income without trouble, or any of the thousand
+vexations to which it has been subjected in the
+export and sale of its guano.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That it was the original intention of the
+Government to raise a loan on the 'purchase'
+of the nitrate properties, is evident from the
+terms of the tenth article of President Pardo's
+decree, which may be thus translated:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'The establishments sold to the State shall
+be paid for within two years, or as soon after
+as possible, that funds for the purpose have been
+raised in Europe; payment shall be by bills
+on London, at not more than ninety days, and
+at the rate of exchange of forty-four pence
+to the <i>sol</i>,' etc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whatever value these particulars may possess
+or have given to them by future events<a name='FA_6' id='FA_6' href='#FN_6' class='fnanchor'>[6]</a>, they
+will serve to show some of the peculiar features
+of the Peruvian Government, and to what shifts
+it can resort, or is compelled to make under
+adverse circumstances, or circumstances into
+which it may be brought by its enemies, or
+its own weakness, its inherent lack of stout-hearted
+honesty, and its inaptitude for what
+is known as business.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The nitrate deposits are well enough known.
+It is absolutely certain that in the year 1863
+there were sold 1,508,000 cwts.; and in 1873
+5,830,000 cwts. In that year the Government
+acknowledged to have received from the export
+of this article the sum of 2,250,000 dols. Should
+the permanent sale of nitrate reach 5,000,000
+quintals per annum, there is no reason why
+the Government should not realise from this
+source at least 10,000,000 dols. a year: should
+it only double its present duties the amount
+would reach 12,000,000 dols.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The annual amount of nitrate which the
+fifty-one establishments proposed to be bought
+by the Government are capable of producing,
+may be set down at 14,000,000 cwts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These establishments do not exhaust the
+whole of the nitrate deposits. There are
+several large 'Oficinas,' as they are called,
+which have, for their own reasons, refused to
+sell their properties to the State.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The region of these deposits is a wild,
+barren pampa, 3000 feet above the level of
+the sea, and contains not less than 150
+square miles of land, which will yield on the
+safest calculation more than 70,000,000 tons
+of nitrate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why these establishments for the manufacture
+of this important substance are called 'oficinas'
+it may not be difficult to say: it is doubtless
+for the same reason that a cottage <i>ornÃ©</i> at
+Chorrillos, the Brighton of Lima, is called a
+rancho. Twenty years ago Chorrillos was to
+Lima what the Clyde and its neighbouring
+waters were to the manufacturing capital of
+Scotland. What Dunoon and its competitors
+on the Scotch coast now are, such has Chorrillos
+become,&mdash;the fashionable resort of rich
+people who have robbed nature of her simplicity
+and beauty by embellishing her, as they
+call it, with art. All that remains of the
+straw-thatched rancho of Chorrillos, with its
+unglazed windows, its mud floors, its hammocks,
+and its freedom, is its name. An oficina twenty
+or thirty years ago, was no doubt a mere
+office made of wood, hammered together hastily,
+as an extemporary protection from the sun by
+day, and the cold dews and airs of the night:
+in appearance resembling nothing else but an
+Australian outhouse. An oficina of to-day is
+a very different thing. Its appearance, and all
+that pertains to it, is as difficult to describe
+as a great ironworks, or chemical works, or
+any other works where the ramifications are
+not only numerous, but novel. The first oficina
+whose acquaintance I had the honour and
+trouble to make, was that of the Tarapaca
+Nitrate Company, situated near the terminus
+of the Iquique and La Noria Railway, in the
+midst of a windy plain 3000 feet above the
+sea, and beneath a far hotter sun than that
+which beats on the pyramids of Egypt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If you take a seat in the wide balcony of
+the house, where the manager and the clerks
+of the establishment reside, and live not uncomfortably,
+you look down almost at your feet
+on what appears to be an uncountable number
+of vast iron tanks containing coloured
+liquids, a tall chimney, a chemical laboratory,
+an iodine extracting house, a steam-pump, innumerable
+connecting pipes, stretching and
+twisting about the vast premises as if they
+were the bowels of some scientifically formed
+stomach of vast proportions for the purpose of
+digesting poisons and producing the elements
+of gunpowder, a blacksmith's forge, an iron
+foundry, a lathe shop, complicated scaffolding,
+tramways, men making boilers, men attending
+on waggons, bending iron plates, stoking fires,
+breaking up <i>caliche</i>, wheeling out refuse, putting
+nitrate into sacks, and other miscellaneous
+labour, requiring great intelligence to direct
+and great endurance to carry on; and all beneath
+the fierce heat of a sun, unscreened by
+trees or clouds, the glare of which on the white
+substance which is in process of being turned
+over, broken, and carried from one point to
+another, is as painful as looking into a blast
+furnace. Beyond the great and busy area
+where all these varied operations are carried
+on the eye stretches across a desert of brown
+earth, which is terminated by soft rolling hills
+of the same fast colour. The appearance of
+this desert is that of a vast number of ant-hills
+in shape; and in size of the heaps of refuse
+which give character to the Black Country in
+Mid Staffordshire. Perhaps the first impression
+which this repulsive desert makes on the mind
+of a man who has seen and observed much is
+that of a battlefield of barbarian armies, where
+the slain still lie in the heaps in which they
+were clubbed down by their foes; or it may
+be likened to an illimitable number of dust-hills
+jumbled together by an earthquake. All
+this is the result of digging for <i>caliche</i>, and
+blasting it out of the sandy bed in which it
+has lain God only knows how long.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the breeze springs up, and clouds of
+fine white dust follow the mule carts and
+rise under the hoofs of galloping horses, the
+idea of the battlefield with the use of gunpowder
+comes back on the memory, and is
+perhaps the nearest simile that can be used.
+And this is an oficina! one of the silliest and
+most inadequate of words ever used to denote
+what is one of the newest, and may be the
+largest, as it is certainly the most novel, of
+all modern industrial establishments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The manufacture of caliche into nitrate of
+soda is not without its dangers to human life,
+though these are fewer than they were when
+men frequently fell into vats of boiling liquors,
+or broke their limbs in falling from high scaffolding:
+the latter form of danger still exists,
+and is almost impossible to guard against. I am
+free to say, however, that if the guard were
+possible I do not believe it would be used.
+There are some trades and processes which not
+only brutalise the labourers on whom rests the
+toil of carrying them on, but which no less
+degrade the mind of those who direct them;
+and the nitrate manufacture is one of these.
+'Joe,' one of the house dogs, fell into one of
+the heated tanks of the oficina where I was
+staying, and his quick but dreadful death made
+more impression on some than did the untimely
+death of a man who was killed the day before
+at the same place. Another item in the agitated
+landscape which stretches from the balcony
+where I sat is a spacious burying-ground, walled
+in as a protection from dogs and carts; but
+these are not its only or its chief desecrators.
+The sky furnishes many more. This great oficina
+contains 1682 estacas; can produce 900,000
+quintals of nitrate a year, and was 'sold' to
+the Government for 1,250,000 dols.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An estaca is a certain amount of ground
+'staked out,' as we might say, and contains
+about one hundred square yards of available
+land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are other oficinas of still greater value
+than the one mentioned above; as, for instance,
+those of Gildemeister and Co., and which the
+Government acquired on the same terms for
+the same sum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The markets for this new substance are
+England, Germany, the United States, California,
+Chile, and other countries. It is as
+a cultivator a formidable competitor of the
+guano, and is esteemed by scientific men to be
+much more valuable. Its price is set down at
+Â£19 the ton, although Â£12 and Â£12 10<i>s.</i> is its
+present market value. The acquisition by the
+Peruvian Government of this industry was
+patriotic, even if it were not wise. It was
+done with the intention of paying the foreign
+creditors of the Republic. Since then Peruvian
+patriotism has assumed another form and
+complexion, and what was done in an honest
+enthusiasm of haste is already being repented
+of in a leisure largely occupied with the contemplation
+of a patriotic repudiation of national
+duty and debt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The arguments by which 'prominent' Peruvians
+are fortifying themselves for a step which
+at any moment may be taken, are neither moral
+nor convincing, except to themselves. 'Peru
+must live,' they say, which does not mean a
+noble form of poverty, but an altogether ignoble
+form of extravagance, and even wasteful magnificence.
+We must have our army, our navy,
+our President, his ministers, our judges, our
+priests, our ambassadors, our newspapers, stationery,
+bunting, gas for the plaza on feast
+days, wax candles for our churches by night
+and by day, a national police, gunpowder, jails
+for foreign delinquents, and railways to the
+Milky Way, to show to neighbouring republics
+and all the world that Peru is a fine nation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is not one of all these splendid items
+which, so far as the people are concerned, could
+not be dispensed with.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to live, they reiterate, is the primary
+object and purpose of all nations, and especially
+republican nations, forgetting, or, what is much
+more likely, never having known, that death
+is preferable to a shamed life, and that there
+are times when it is clearly a duty to die.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next argument now rapidly gaining
+ground in Lima is that although the guano has
+been hypothecated, this was contrary to Peruvian
+law, which distinctly lays down that
+nothing movable <i>can</i> be hypothecated; and
+as guano is clearly movable stuff, which can
+be proved to the meanest capacity&mdash;the capacity,
+namely, of a holder of Peruvian bonds&mdash;the
+Government has been breaking its own laws
+for a generation past, and it is now time that
+this illegal conduct should cease. This is backed
+up by reminding all men, and especially Peruvians,
+who will derive great comfort from it,
+that England having recognised the primary
+fact that it is the first duty of a man to live,
+has abolished imprisonment for debt in her
+own dominions, and therefore she could not exert
+her power to make Peru pay what she owes, if
+Peru officially declares that she is unable to do
+so. These and other like arguments are being
+openly discussed in the Peruvian capital. Another,
+and perhaps the most formidable of all
+these specious pleas is, that England has recently
+let off Turkey, and therefore there is no
+reason why she should not let off Peru.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is only fair to say that there are a few
+thoughtful men in the City of Kings who, ambitious
+for their country's honour, would fain
+see some arrangement made that will enable
+Peru to pursue her present policy of internal
+improvement, and help these men, who for the
+most part are very wealthy, to remain peaceably
+in office for say ten years longer&mdash;or say six&mdash;but
+at least, for God's sake as well as your own,
+they appealingly persist, let it not be less than
+four years (in the which there shall be no hearing
+or harvest for bondholders and dupes of
+that stamp).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is no doubt that, in the words of
+'a Daniel say I,' if the bondholders would not
+lose all, 'then must the Jew be merciful,' let
+them insist on their pound of flesh, and everything
+denominated in their bond, they will share
+the fate of Shylock. The only part of that
+cruel rascal's fate which they need have no
+apprehension of sharing is, being made into
+Christians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is unquestionably to be feared that if the
+present Government, and the one that succeeded
+it in August last under the presidency
+of General Prado, cannot defend the country
+from revolt, great disaster will follow not only
+to the republic, but most certainly to the
+bondholders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Revolt is not only possible, it is expected.
+An armed force led by determined men from
+without, aided by traitors within, and backed
+by unscrupulous persons who would be willing
+to risk one million pounds sterling on the
+chance of making two millions, might easily&mdash;or
+if not easily, yet with pains&mdash;bring back the
+corrupt days of Balta and Castilla, and, with
+shame be it said, such people can find a precedent
+for their proposed scheme in houses of
+high standing, the heads of which are doubtless
+looked upon as irreproachable ensamples
+of cultivated respectability.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Since writing the above, General Prado has
+once more assumed supreme power in peace,
+but there have followed two attempts at
+revolution within the space of three little
+months.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/dec_p119_alt.jpg" width="94" height="103" alt="" />
+</div>
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/dec_p120_alt.jpg" width="324" height="55" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER V.
+</h2>
+</div>
+<p>
+Having set forth two principal sources of
+Peruvian income, let us now proceed to a third.
+When los SeÃ±ores Althaus and Rosas appeared
+in Paris last autumn as the representatives
+of the Government of Peru, among other national
+securities which those gentlemen offered
+for a further loan of money, were the railways
+of Peru. They are six in number, only one
+of which is finished according to the original
+contracts. The amount of mileage however is
+considerable, so also may be said to be their
+cost, for the Government has paid to one
+contractor alone no less a sum than one hundred
+and thirty millions of dollars. There are other
+railways whose united lengths amount to about
+150 miles; with one exception they cost little,
+and without an exception they all bring in
+much.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These do not belong to the Government.
+The Government railways cost enormous sums
+and bring in nothing; and it may safely be said
+that they will never figure, honestly, in the
+national accounts, except as items of expenditure.
+The Government of the day would only be too
+glad to become cheap carriers of the national
+produce, if there were any produce ready to
+carry. But the Government built their railways
+without considering what are the primary and
+elementary use of railways. It is incredible,
+but none the less true, that the Peruvians
+believing the mercantile 'progress' of the
+United States to spring from railways, thought
+that nothing more was needed to raise their
+country to the pinnacle of commercial magnificence
+than to build a few of these iron
+ways, and have magic horses fed with fire to
+caper along them; especially if they could get
+an American&mdash;a real go-a-head American&mdash;for
+their builder. And they did so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The railway fever has had its virulent type
+in all parts of the world where railways have
+appeared. In Peru from 1868 to 1871-2 this
+fever was perhaps more active and deadly than
+anywhere; than in Canada, even, which is saying
+much, for there it took the form of a religious
+delirium. The Peruvians believed that if they
+offered a great and wonderful railway to the
+deities of industry, great and happy commercial
+times would follow. Just as they believe that give
+a priest a pyx, a spoon, some wine, and wheaten
+bread, he can make the body and blood of
+God; so they believed that give a great American
+the required elements, he could by some equally
+mysterious power make Peru one of the great
+nations of the earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Henry Meiggs<a name='FA_7' id='FA_7' href='#FN_7' class='fnanchor'>[7]</a>, of Catskill 'city' in New
+York State, was on this occasion selected as
+the great high-priest who was to perform
+the required wonders. Give this magician a
+few thousand miles of iron rails to form two
+parallel lines, and a steam engine to run along
+them, and the vile body of the Peruvian
+Republic should be changed into a glorious
+body<a name='FA_8' id='FA_8' href='#FN_8' class='fnanchor'>[8]</a> with a mighty palpitating soul inside
+of it; the body to be of the true John Bull
+type for fatness, and the Yankee breed for
+speed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This new meaning of the doctrine of
+transubstantiation was preached to willing
+and enchanted ears. Ten thousand labourers
+of all colours and kinds were introduced into
+the country. 'By God, Sir, there was not a
+steamboat on the broad waters of the Pacific
+that did not pour into Peru as many peones as
+potatoes from Chile.' These ten thousand men
+all went up the Andes bearing shovels in their
+hands, and singing the name of Meiggs as they
+went. Millions of nails, and hammers innumerable,
+rails and barrows, sleepers and picks,
+chains, and double patent layers, wheels and
+pistons, with many thousand kegs of blasting
+powder 'let in duty free,' with all the other
+infernal implements and apparatus for making
+the most notable railway of this age<a name='FA_9' id='FA_9' href='#FN_9' class='fnanchor'>[9]</a>, poured into
+Peru marked with the name of Meiggs. You
+could no more breathe without Meiggs, than
+you could eat your dinner without swallowing
+dust, sleep without the sting of fleas or the
+soothing trumpet of musquitoes. Meiggs
+everywhere; in sunshine and in storm, on the
+sea and on the heights of the world, now called
+Mount Meiggs; in the earthquake<a name='FA_10' id='FA_10' href='#FN_10' class='fnanchor'>[10]</a>, and in the
+peaceful atmosphere of the most elegant society
+in the world. The wonderful activity on the
+Mollendo and Arequipa railway, carried on
+without ceasing, produced an ecstasy of hope,
+and also an eruption of blasphemy. Every
+valley was to be exalted; every Peruvian
+mountain, hitherto sacred to snow and the
+traditions of the Incas, should be laid low
+by the wand of Meiggs; the desert of course
+should blossom as the rose: no more iron should
+be sharpened into swords; ploughshares and
+pruning-hooks should be in such demand, that
+every blade and dagger or weapon of war in
+the old world would be required to make them.
+And a highway should be there, in which should
+be no lion, even a highway for our <span class='smcap'>God</span>.
+All this mixture of trumpery metaphors
+were poured into the ears of the enchanted
+Peruvians for the space of three years and
+more. The railway as far as Arequipa was at
+length finished, the Oroya railway was begun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It will probably never be finished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Stephenson is reported to have said
+once before a Railway Committee: 'My Lords
+and Gentlemen, you can carry a railway to the
+Antipodes if you wish; it is only a matter of
+expense.' The Peruvians, aided by the archpriest
+Meiggs, 'the Messiah of railways, who
+was to bring salvation to the Peruvian Republic,'
+and steadfastly believing in the Meiggs'
+method of transubstantiation, commenced building
+a railway, not to Calcutta, but to the
+moon<a name='FA_11' id='FA_11' href='#FN_11' class='fnanchor'>[11]</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As early as 1859 the Oroya Railway began
+to be thought of seriously, and the late
+President of Peru, with two other gentlemen
+of character, were appointed a commission to
+collect data and make calculations for a railway
+between Lima and Jauja. Nothing, however,
+was done until 1864, when Congress authorised
+the Government, Castilla then being President,
+to construct a railway to Caxamarca, with an
+annual guarantee of 7 per cent. for twenty-five
+years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The railway fever now began to increase in
+force and virulence, and in 1868 the President of
+the Republic was authorised to construct railways
+from Mollendo to Arequipa, Puno and
+Cuzco; from Chimbote to Santa or Huaraz;
+from Trujillo to Pacasmayo and to Caxamarca;
+from Lima to Jauja; and others which the
+Republic might need&mdash;a very respectable order
+to be given in one day. The Oroya Railway
+was to be 145 miles in length, and to cost
+27,600,000 dols. To Puno the length was to be
+232 miles from Arequipa, and the cost 35,000,000
+dols. From Mollendo to Arequipa, 12,000,000
+dols., the length being 107 miles<a name='FA_12' id='FA_12' href='#FN_12' class='fnanchor'>[12]</a>. Ilo to Moquiqua,
+63 miles, 6,700,000 dols. Pacasmayo to
+Caxamarca, or Guadalupe, or Magdalena, 83
+miles, 7,700,000 dols. Payto to Piura, 63 miles.
+Chimbote to Huaraz, 172 miles, 40,000,000 dols.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immediately after this small order was
+given, and Meiggs began to fill the world with
+the sound of his name, the Lima editors commenced
+their fulsome and disgusting eloquence,
+which day by day held all people in suspense.
+'As puissant as colossal are the labours of the
+administration of Col. Don JosÃ© Balta, who,
+without offence be it said, has a monomania for
+the construction of railways and public works&mdash;the
+infirmity of a divine inspiration in a head of
+the State.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What the infirmity of a divine inspiration
+may be we will not stay to enquire. Goldsmith
+was called an inspired idiot: and perhaps this
+was what the learned editor meant to say of
+Col. Balta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He goes on: 'The administration of Balta has
+converted the nation into a workshop. We say
+it in his honour that he has constructed rather
+than governed; but he has constructed well
+and firmly. He has done more than this, he has
+created and conserved the habit of work in all
+the nation, demonstrating by the argument of
+deeds that revolutions spring principally from
+idleness.' 'Balta has cast a net of railways over
+the country which has taken anarchy captive.
+Without any difficulty might it be argued that
+the time of Balta will be the Octavian Era of
+Peru<a name='FA_13' id='FA_13' href='#FN_13' class='fnanchor'>[13]</a>.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Enough of this. Suffice it to say that among
+all these oratorical colonels, generals, lawyers,
+ministers of state, and accomplished editors,
+there was not one who had the honesty or the
+pluck to stand up and declare that it was all
+false which had so eloquently been said of the
+Oroya and the Arequipa Railways. They are
+neither the railways of the age nor of the day.
+There is one short railway in South America,
+the construction of which called forth more skill,
+pluck, and endurance than all the Meiggs railways
+put together, and this one railway has
+already earned in the first quarter of the century
+of its existence more money than all the government
+railways will ever earn during the next
+age. Hundreds of these inflated colonels and
+generals, judges, ministers of state, and accomplished
+editors, must have passed over the railway,
+which, running through a tropical forest,
+connects the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean.
+Meiggs himself must have known it well; but
+neither he nor any of the inspired idiots who
+drowned him in butter had the valour to make
+mention of it by one poor word. The bridge
+over the Chagres river is of more utility, as it
+will win more enduring fame, than all the
+bridges on the Oroya, including those which
+'are sixteen thousand feet above the level of
+the sea.' The Oroya bridges bear the same relation
+to those on the Panama Railway as the
+feat of the man who walked across the Falls of
+Niagara bears to the economy of walking. As
+Blondin was the only man who made any profit
+out of that performance, so Meiggs, the Messiah
+of railways, will be the only person who will
+for some time to come profit by the building
+of the Oroya and Lima line of railway. It is
+surely impossible that all the reports one has
+been compelled to give ear to of great silver
+mines and mines of copper existing on this line
+can be false. Yet mining, especially in Peru, is
+not free from danger; it is also not a little
+mixed up with lying and cheating, and it has
+a historical reputation for exaggeration. The
+copper mines on the Chimbote line, however,
+are quite another matter. If those on the Oroya
+can be demonstrated to be equally good, and the
+silver mines only half as good and as great,
+Peru may yet lift up her head. But he will be
+a bold man that shall apply to English capitalists
+for the first loan to Peruvian miners or to
+be invested in Peruvian mines, and the days of
+faith and trust will not have passed away when
+the money shall have been subscribed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although it was a poet who said that
+</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>
+'Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,'
+</p>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>
+yet it is as true as if it had emanated from the
+Stock Exchange, the <i>Times</i> monetary article, or
+any other recognised fountain of practical knowledge;
+and as for the native edge of Peruvian
+industry, it is about as dull as that of a razor
+not made to shave but to sell&mdash;as dull, in fact,
+as the edge of a hatchet made of lead.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/dec_p131_alt.jpg" width="311" height="63" alt="" />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VI.
+</h2>
+</div>
+<p>
+Guano, Nitrate, and Railways being recognised
+as the prime sources of Peruvian greatness,
+and these having been noticed with no
+scant justice, another matter remains for examination,
+which may be said to surpass all the
+others in importance, albeit it is not so easy to
+estimate or understand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Granted that Peru has all the physical elements
+of a great nation,&mdash;such as gold and
+silver, copper and iron, and coal, oil and wine, a
+vast line of sea-coast with numerous safe bays
+and ports, rivers for internal navigation, as
+well as railroads,&mdash;has she the moral qualities
+to develop these riches and make the best use
+of them? In plain words, has Peru ceased to
+be a hotbed of revolution? is there any hope
+that the ruling classes of the Peruvian people
+will become sober, industrious, thrifty, honest,
+just and right in all their dealings, and cease
+to be a source of anxiety and disgust to their
+present and future creditors?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These may be said to be momentous questions,
+and not to be lightly answered. Any
+answer not founded on well-ascertained facts
+and indisputable knowledge should be set aside
+as vexatious and frivolous. A hasty answer, or
+one founded on aught else, could only be conceived
+in malice or prompted by motives of
+self-interest. It has, for example, during the
+past few months been comparatively easy to
+a portion of the London press to defame the
+character of Peru; to find reasons why its bonds
+should be held only as waste paper, and even to
+prove to the satisfaction of its fond and eager
+readers that she is in an utterly bankrupt state.
+The same accomplished writers, if it suited their
+purpose, could as easily prove, with their eloquent
+persuasiveness, that Peru after all is, in
+commercial phraseology, sound; she had never
+yet failed in keeping faith with her English
+friends, and is too enlightened to think of doing
+so now. True, she is in debt; but she can pay
+handsomely, and, in the powerful rhetoric of
+Bassanio, would encourage money-lenders and
+her private friends thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="o1">
+'In my school days, when I had lost one shaft,
+</p>
+<p>
+I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
+</p>
+<p>
+The self-same way with more advised watch,
+</p>
+<p>
+To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
+</p>
+<p>
+I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
+</p>
+<p>
+Because what follows is pure innocence.
+</p>
+<p>
+I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
+</p>
+<p>
+That which I owe is lost; but if you please
+</p>
+<p>
+To shoot another arrow that self way
+</p>
+<p>
+Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt
+</p>
+<p>
+As I will watch the aim, or to find both
+</p>
+<p>
+Or bring your latter hazard back again
+</p>
+<p>
+And thankfully rest debtor for the first.'
+</p>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>
+But not thus will our serious questions meet
+with satisfactory answers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first thing to be noted in the enquiry,
+perhaps, is that it is altogether a misnomer to
+call Peru a Republic. Whatever else it be, a
+Republic it certainly is not, and never has been
+a Republic. Its political constitution and its
+laws have nothing whatever to do with the
+people, nor have the people aught to do with
+them; and they care for them as they care
+for the theory of gravitation, or any other portion
+of demonstrable knowledge, from which
+they may indeed derive some animal comfort
+in its application, but the application of which
+will probably never enlighten their souls. The
+people of Peru know as much of liberty as they
+know of the Virgin Mary. The priests once
+or twice a year dress the image of the Jewish
+maiden in tawdry attire, put a tinsel crown
+on her head, and call her the Mother of God
+and the Queen of Heaven, and the people fall
+down and worship; which they are perfectly at
+liberty to do, as the impostors who lead them
+to do so may get their living in that way, as
+all other impostors obtain theirs who possess
+the people's grace. In like fashion, all that
+the people know of liberty they know thus.
+They know as much of it as an aristocrat cares
+to teach them&mdash;as a quack can tell his patient
+of medicine, or the showy proprietress of a
+showy school can teach an intelligent girl the
+use of the globes. All native-born Peruvians
+of full age have votes, at least all such as can
+read and write, or possess a certain amount of
+real property. But reading and writing are not
+by any means universal accomplishments in the
+Peruvian Republic, and there are fewer holders of
+real estate among the working classes than maybe
+found in Barbados among the coloured labourers
+of that beautiful but misgoverned island.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Don Juan Espinosa, an old Peruvian soldier,
+and one of the few South American writers
+whose literary works have been translated into
+French, if not also into English, wrote some
+twenty years ago a republican, democratic,
+moral, political, and philosophical dictionary for
+the people. Strange to say, he has given us
+no definition of a Republic in his highly-entertaining
+and instructive book. Two of his longest
+articles, however, are devoted, the first to the
+subject of 'Independence,' and the second to
+'Revolution.' The manner in which the author
+concludes the first is suggestive: 'On one day,'
+he says, 'we were all brothers and countrymen;
+brothers by blood, and countrymen of a land
+which we had just irrigated with our blood.
+O day immortal for humanity! On this day
+the Saviour of the world beheld the consummation
+of his work; he saw the spectacle which
+years before had led the way for 1824. He
+without doubt designed the camp of <span class='smcap'>Ayacucho</span>
+as the first embrace of all the races, and the
+signal also for the suppression of all human
+rivalries. Afterwards'
+</p>
+
+<hr class="broad" />
+
+<p>
+A long, broad black line stretches across the
+page as if to put it in mourning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'A revolution in substance,' he says, 'is nothing
+more than the organisation of a people's
+discontent.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If that be so, there has never been a revolution
+in Peru; a statement which will be
+doubted by nearly all who hear it for the first
+time. We may perhaps make an exception in
+the revolution which made Col. Prado dictator
+of Peru in November, 1865. No doubt the
+enthusiasm of the Peruvian people for going
+to war with Spain was genuine, and Prado,
+not at all a man of revolutionary tastes, easily
+overthrew Canseco, because of his Spanish tendencies.
+Prado was subsequently elected President
+in 1867, but was overthrown by Balta
+and Canseco the year following, and Colonel
+(now General) Prado fled to Chile for his life.
+Still, let us be thankful that we can find one
+authentic instance of Peruvian patriotism in
+the course of fifty years, and that out of the
+hundreds of revolutions which have occurred,
+one was for the good of the country&mdash;and most
+certainly to its honour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The anniversary of the 2nd of May, 1866, is
+kept with pride by every loyal Peruvian in all
+parts of the world, wherever one may find himself.
+Had there been among the Peruvian soldiers
+on that day as much knowledge of gunnery
+as there was of personal valour, not more than
+one or two ships of the Spanish fleet which
+bombarded Callao had escaped destruction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It has been contended by a few anxious
+Peruvians that the revolution made by General
+Castilla, in 1854, against General Echenique
+was also a popular revolution. Perhaps it
+was. Echenique was notoriously very fond of
+money, and it is said that so freely did he
+help himself to the proceeds of the public guano
+that the people rose against him, flocked to
+the standard of Castilla, whom they kept in
+power for twelve years, and sent Echenique
+into ignoble exile. If that could be proved in
+favour of the Peruvian people, it should be
+done at once. But no one from sheer laughter
+can discuss the question. Castilla was as fond
+of money as Echenique; Castilla, however, did
+one or two liberal things; he liberated the
+slaves, and abolished the poll-tax, and in that
+sense the revolution of 1854 may be said to
+have been a popular one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No Peruvian who supported those two famous
+acts of General Castilla's Government
+looks back upon them with anything but bitter
+regret. The negro slaves were well off&mdash;they
+were, moreover, a people with much affection
+for their masters, and slavery existed only in
+name. When the blacks, however, were 'liberated,'
+they became like a mob of mules without
+burdens, without guide or master, and they
+wandered about the earth and died miserably.
+Those who survived were certainly very little
+credit to their friends, for many of them became
+the terror of the highways which converge on
+the capital of the Republic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Indians who paid the poll-tax did then
+do some work, and they were made to feel some
+of the responsibilities of being republicans&mdash;they
+were kept under rule&mdash;they could be induced
+to labour in 'some of the richest silver
+mines in the world.' Now they will do nothing
+of the kind, and the Government has not only
+lost an income of 2,000,000 dols. a year, they
+have lost the services of the entire indigenous
+population, which may be called, in classical
+language, a pretty kettle of fish, especially for
+a country whose riches depend upon the industry
+of a free and happy people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One immediate consequence of Castilla's emancipation
+policy was that it speedily became a profitable
+business for a few adventurous persons
+in Lima to proceed to China, where they kidnapped
+some of the superfluous Chinese population.
+This traffic prospered for a while, but
+as it is the property of murder to make itself
+known&mdash;somehow or anyhow&mdash;the profits fell
+off, owing to the interference of one or two
+civilised Governments. When the Celestial
+Empire no longer offered a safe field for the
+Peruvian men-snatchers, attempts were made
+on the inoffensive people of the diocese of
+modern evangelisation, and in the course of time
+the rich people of Lima had the opportunity of
+buying a few men, women, and girls, who had
+been stolen from some of the islands of the
+Pacific. But these for some mysterious reasons
+died off, after having cost the Peruvian Government
+a serious sum of money, and some people
+their reputation. It was, however, imperatively
+necessary, owing to the demands of the British
+farmer for guano, and the exigences of the
+Government of Peru to obtain men from China
+somehow for the important work of shovelling
+Peruvian dung into European ships; and there
+may be reckoned to-day among the motley
+population of the Republic not less than 60,000
+men who cultivate sugar and pig-tails, and
+indulge in opium. This, therefore, might be
+called a popular revolution, and the friends of
+General Castilla can claim for him the honour
+and glory of having brought it about.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+General Castilla deserves to be better known;
+but this is not the place to speak of him at
+any length. He introduced a new era into
+Peruvian politics&mdash;he was the first native Peruvian
+with no Spanish blood in his veins who
+assumed supreme power. If there had been no
+guano to demoralise everybody, himself included,
+Castilla might have become a great man, and
+the Peruvian people been lifted up by him in
+the scale of humanity. As it is, Castilla and
+everybody else fulfilled the prediction of the
+Hebrew prophet in a manner that might be
+stated in Spanish, but which no gentleman can
+write in English. It should be stated that
+although Castilla had nothing of Spanish blood
+in his veins, yet his father was an Italian, and
+his mother one of the pure Indian women of
+Moquegua.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this, however, does not help us to
+answer the momentous questions with which
+this chapter opens.&mdash;If Peru is not a Republic,
+and there have not been more than two revolutions
+in the whole of its wild and chequered
+history, what is it?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peru is a Republic in name, 'governed' or
+rather farmed by groups or families of despots,
+who frequently quarrel among themselves, cut
+each other's throats, and alternately embrace
+and kiss each other, in a manner that is sickening
+to any one who is not a moral eunuch<a name='FA_14' id='FA_14' href='#FN_14' class='fnanchor'>[14]</a>.
+Only those who are rich enough to escape to
+Chile are saved from the above gentle process.
+General Prado is one of these favoured Peruvians.
+Had not Don Manuel Pardo, the late
+President, fled from Lima during the revolting
+days of the Gutierrez terror, he too would have
+gone the way of all flesh and Peruvian political
+farmers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The people of Peru, those who are to be
+distinguished from the families who farm them,
+are hard-working, industrious, sober, ignorant,
+excitable and superstitious. They are fond of
+serving their masters, they like to be called
+'children' by the great Colonels, the great
+sugar-boilers, and all who ride on horses and
+live, even though it be at other people's expense,
+in great houses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Peruvian dictionary already quoted from,
+though it does not contain the word Republic,
+does contain the history of Peru. Let us turn
+to the article 'Liberty.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'<span class='smcap'><span lang="es_ES">La libertad</span></span>,' says our brave soldier author,
+'does not consist, civilly or socially speaking,
+in each one doing what he likes. By thus
+understanding liberty some governments have
+fallen, and some people have lost what they
+had gained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Liberty consists in each one having the
+power to do, at all events, that which the law
+has not forbidden, in not damaging another in
+his rights, or property, or in his moral and
+material well-being.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'That society is not free while any of its
+members are unable to express their thoughts
+without hinderance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'That society is not free when one or more
+of its industries are prohibited under the pretext
+of monopoly or privilege.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'It is not free when it cares not, or is unable
+to arraign a lying magistrate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'That society is not free which does not
+possess political morality. This consists in&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I. Keeping the treaties and covenants made
+with other nations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'II. In submitting to the law without its
+ever supposing itself entitled to falsify it by
+cunning arts, or paltry subterfuge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'III. In holding up to scorn whatever crime
+affects the national honour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'IV. In not corrupting its institutions for
+personal considerations. A people will find it
+very difficult to maintain its freedom, which is
+without sufficient spirit to provide itself with
+good institutions, and afterwards ready to put
+so much faith in them, that it will become a
+religious duty rigorously to support them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'By what right does Spanish-America call
+itself republican, if it has not renounced the
+custom of a despotic monarchical absolutism?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'These unhappy people have given themselves
+very liberal laws, and have afterwards abandoned
+them at the caprice of men without
+having the least faith in their own institutions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'How can they thus hope to be free?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'It costs nothing, nor is it of any value to
+shout <span class='smcap'>Liberty, Liberty</span>. But that which is
+of great price, and can never be too costly, is
+to acquire liberty by means of good manners,
+by the custom of respecting the law and making
+it respected, by respecting the rights of others,
+and making them respected by all; to be just
+with all the world, and ashamed of every evil
+act. Behold, how liberty is to be acquired.
+In fine, liberty is the health of the soul, and
+he cannot be free who has not a healthy conscience.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'The greater number of our liberals,' he adds
+in another place, with one of his happiest flashes
+of poetic truth, of which the book is full, 'the
+greater number of our liberals are like musical
+instruments which do not retain the sound they
+give when played upon,' i. e. they are cracked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let it be added, that this soldier of the sword
+and of the pen who fought and bled on the
+field of battle for Peruvian civil liberty, and
+sighed, and cried in peaceful days for a freedom
+still greater and better, died poor and neglected.
+The present Peruvian Government sought all over
+Lima for complete copies of his works to send to
+Philadelphia, but it allows those whom he has
+left behind him, and who bear his name, to languish
+in obscurity and in want; and Don Manuel
+Pardo and his ministers, good in many things
+though they may be, are in others nothing better
+than cracked musical instruments. Peru is only
+a Republic in name, liberty does not exist, its
+people are not free, and the country remains at
+the mercy of men who at any moment, and in
+the most unexpected manner, can turn it into
+a hotbed of what is called revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A revolution is expected now. The man whose
+administration designed and carried through one
+of the 'railways of the age,' the personal friend
+of Meiggs, who had taken anarchy captive
+in an iron net, was shortly afterwards in
+the most cowardly, brutal, and unexpected
+way first made prisoner, while he was yet
+President, and then murdered in his jail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Great as is the love of the common people
+for their superiors, they are not to be relied
+upon in days of great excitement, and when
+there is abundance of loose change flying about.
+How could it be otherwise?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How often do ministers and public men meet
+the people in common? Never, except in a
+religious procession carrying an enormous wax
+candle a yard long, and as thick as a rolling-pin,
+or at the Theatre on el dos de Mayo, and not
+then unless there has been some pleasant news
+announced the day before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How often are the people enlightened by
+a clear and straightforward statement of the
+public accounts? Never. Does not the free
+press of Lima support the Government, or now
+and then criticise its acts in the interest of the
+people? The answer is that there is no free
+press in Lima.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No plan of the Government is ever made
+known until it has been accomplished. Everything
+is done in secret and underground.
+Rumour is the great agent of the Government
+and mystery its chief force. So mysterious are
+the ways of the Executive that itself is not
+unfrequently a mystery to itself. No Peruvian
+Government has ever had the courage to take
+the people into its confidence, and the people
+are too busy with their own personal affairs to
+think of, much less to resent, the slight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In other matters the press is busy enough.
+Some of the most biting criticisms on priests,
+on auricular confession, on the infallibility of
+the Pope and the Immaculate Conception have
+appeared in the Lima press. Their teachers,
+in brief, have ridiculed the gods of the people
+and given them none to adore. No intellectual
+society in Lima associate with priests. No priest
+is ever seen in the houses of the rich, or the
+respectable poor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Freemasonry is the fashionable religion of
+men, and men who never go to mass will
+frequent a lodge twice a week. Only the other
+day one of these lodges published an advertisement
+in the leading journal to the effect that
+a gold medal would be conferred on any brother
+mason who would adopt the orphan child of
+any who had died fighting against any form
+of tyranny, and the medal is to be worn as a
+badge of honour on the person of the owner.
+Freemasonry in Peru is an open menace of the
+Church, which with all deference to the craft,
+may be called a gross mistake. But Peruvian
+Freemasonry is like Peruvian Republicanism,
+chiefly a thing of show, and something to talk
+about by men who can talk of nothing else.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After all this it should not be difficult to
+answer the questions with which this chapter
+opens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But lest it should be thought that the greater
+part of these statements is pure rhetoric, or
+mere private opinion, and not stubborn facts,
+let us now ask two questions more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What use has Peru made of the great income
+it has derived during the past generation, from
+the national guano? What is there to show
+for the many million pounds sterling it has
+derived from this source, and from money lent
+by English bondholders?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us hasten at once to acknowledge that it
+has spent 150,000,000 dols. in railways. But let
+us also add that the greatest authority in Peru
+has stigmatised these railways as <i><span lang="es_ES">locuras</span></i>, or
+follies. This is not an encouraging beginning.
+But alas it is not only the beginning, it is
+also the end of the account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is nothing else to be seen. There is
+not a single lighthouse or light on any dangerous
+rock, or at any port difficult to make along
+the whole of its coast. All the fructifying rivers
+of the hills still steal into the sea. Had half
+the money which has been spent on the Oroya
+railway been expended on works of irrigation,
+the Government of Peru would now be in the
+possession of a respectable revenue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A morning visit to the market-place in Lima
+on any day of the week, is enough to convince
+even a Peruvian President who knows something
+else besides how to play rocambor, of the
+truth of this statement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Internal roads, excepting these 'railways of
+the age,' there are none; but there are several
+ironclads and men-of-war in the Bay of Callao,
+for what use or of what service the First Lord
+of the Admiralty himself could not tell explicitly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It might be thought by some ordinary people,
+of business habits and a little reflection, that
+a country like Peru, which can boast of as many
+seaports as it can of first-class towns and cities,
+would provide those ports with convenient
+landing-places, moles, or piers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is one good pier on the whole coast,
+which in its useless grandeur stretches out nearly
+a mile into the sea; as the Oroya railway, like
+a mighty python, creeps up the precipitous
+slopes of the Andes 'sixteen thousand feet above
+the level of the sea.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As every one knows, the Pacific is a peaceful
+sea, as quiet as a saucer of milk. But like
+almost all the things that every one knows,
+this piece of knowledge will hardly bear the
+test of experience. Twenty miles or less from
+its shore, the Pacific on the Peruvian coast,
+may be said to be as calm and placid as a man's
+unresisted vices. Put a restraint upon, or raise
+a barrier against the most modest of the man's
+wishes, and these suddenly show their strength,
+even the strength, as some have found to their
+cost, of resistless passion. It is thus with this
+Pacific sea. When it comes against a rocky
+shore, or the miserable wooden barriers which
+the Peruvian Government have put up for the
+convenience and comfort of passengers, and the
+despatch of business, it becomes more like a
+wild beast, or a watery volcano, or any other
+fierce and angry force which cannot by ordinary
+means be restrained. It is not unlikely that
+a Government fond of providing cheap distraction
+for the people has purposely neglected
+this useful work of building piers, with the
+benevolent design of providing a cheap amusement
+to those inhabitants of the ports who do
+not travel by sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is such fun to see a lady dressed in pink
+satin and blue silk boots get a sudden ducking
+in salt water, or to watch in safety from the
+shore a boat full of anxious and highly dressed
+colonels and sugar-boilers, editors and lawyers,
+get drenched to the skin, and almost robbed
+of their breath, in trying to effect a landing
+at Islay, or Mollendo, Iquique, or Chala, or
+even Callao.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If any of the readers of this brief but eventful
+history would desire to see the Peruvian Republic
+as in a microcosm, let them arrive at the
+latter chief port of the nation in a steamer, or
+a cattle ship, as a passenger steamer may now be
+called. They will see an exhibition of confusion,
+extortion, bullying, insolence, cruelty, and official
+imbecility, which cannot be equalled in any other
+part of the civilised or uncivilised world, including
+New Guinea or Eragomanga. And as it is
+now, so it was twenty years ago. A steamer,
+the European mail for example, drops its anchor
+about two miles from the shore. It is then
+surrounded by a hundred small boats, each containing
+two, sometimes more, coloured men. The
+screaming, gesticulating, and brutal language
+of these creatures defy description. The authorities
+have no control over them, the captain
+of the steamer is powerless against the invasion
+of his ship, and all passengers who have no
+friends, who know nothing of the country and
+cannot speak Spanish, are placed at the mercy
+of this swarm of harpies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here you have an epitome of Peru. Gentlemen
+and rogues jostling one another in painful
+contiguity. Gentlewomen and their opposite,
+men who work and scoundrels who prey upon
+other people's labour, priests and colonels, knowledge
+and ignorance, in some form or other
+brought in violent collision: the utmost freedom
+of opinion and nobody to keep the peace!
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/dec_p151_alt.jpg" width="131" height="135" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnotes p6'>
+<h2 class="fntitle">FOOTNOTES</h2>
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_1'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_1'>[1]</a></span> As early as 1614 we find Cervantes writing of these countries
+as the '<span lang="es_ES">refugio y amparo de los desesperados de EspaÃ±a, Yglesia de
+los alÃ§ados, salvoconducto de los homicidas, pala y cubierta de los
+jugadores (Ã¡ quien llaman ciertos los peritos en el arte) aÃ±agaza
+general de mugeres libres, engaÃ±o comun de muchos, y remedio
+particular de pocos</span>'&mdash;or, in plain English, the Indies are the
+'refuge and shield of the hopeless ones of Spain, the sanctuary of
+the fraudulent, the protection of the murderer, the occasion and
+pretext of gamesters (as certain experts in the art are called), the
+common snare of free women, the universal imposture of the many
+and the specific reparation of the few.'&mdash;<i><span lang="es_ES">El Zeloso EstremeÃ±o</span></i>. In
+<i><span lang="es_ES">La EspaÃ±ola Inglesa</span></i> he calls the Indies '<span lang="es_ES">el comun refugio de los
+pobres generosos,</span>' he had himself sought service in the colonies,
+but anything in the form of favour from the Spanish court never
+fell to the lot of Cervantes. And all men of brave hearts and high
+courage may thank God that royal people were as powerless to
+spoil or to help men of genius then as they are still.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_2'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_2'>[2]</a></span> See a useful work '<span lang="es_ES">La Condicion Juridica de los Estrangeros
+en el Peru,' per Felix Cipriano C. Zegarra</span>. Santiago, 1872. p. 136.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_3'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_3'>[3]</a></span> Since writing the above I have come on the following passage
+from the report of the Peruvian Minister of Finance for 1858.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class='footnote center'>
+'<span lang="es_ES">HUANO</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<span lang="es_ES">Tan grande es el valor de este ramo de la riqueza nacional, que
+sin exajeracion puede asegurarse, que en su estimacion y buen
+manejo estriba la subsistencia del Estado, el mantenimiento de su
+credito, el porvenir de su engrandecimiento, y la conservacion del
+Ã³rden publico.</span>' Which may be done into the vulgar tongue faithfully
+and well as follows&mdash;So great is the value of this branch of
+the national riches, that without exaggeration it may be affirmed that
+on its estimation and good handling depend the subsistence of the
+State, the maintenance of its credit, the future of its increase, and
+the preservation of public order.&mdash;Signed, Manuel Ortiz de Zerallos.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_4'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_4'>[4]</a></span> It is hard to believe that the present dead silent sands, which
+form the coast of Peru from the Province of Chincha in the south
+as far as Trujillo in the north, was in the early days so populous
+that Padre Melendez, quoted by Unanue, compared one of the small
+valleys to an ant hill; and now 'not more than half a dozen natives
+can be found among its ruins.'&mdash;See <span lang="es_ES">Documentos Literarios del Peru
+Colectados por Manuel de Odriozola</span>, vol. vi, p. 179.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+The rapid and continued decrease of the Peruvian population has
+been ascribed to civil war. This is not true. Where the sword has
+carried off its thousands, the infernal stuff known as brandy, the
+small pox, and other epidemics, have slain their tens of thousands.
+The liberation of the slaves also caused great mortality amongst
+the negroes.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_5'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_5'>[5]</a></span> '<span lang="es_ES">Haber aparecido en el Peru el hombre que sin profanacion de
+la palabra se puede llamar el <i>Mesias</i> de los ferrocarriles para la salvacion
+de la Republica Peruana.'&mdash;El Ferrocarril de Arequipa,
+Historia, &amp;c.</span>, Lima, 1871, p. lxxxi.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_6'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_6'>[6]</a></span> Written off Alta Villa, April 25, 1876.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_7'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_7'>[7]</a></span> For the biography of this estimable gentleman see '<span lang="es_ES">El Ferrocarril
+de Arequipa Historia, documentada de su origen construcion
+Ã© inauguracion.'&mdash;Lima, p. 96. 'Ese hombre era <span class='smcap'>Enrique
+Meiggs</span>, cuyo nombre va unido inseparable Ã© imperecederamente
+Ã¡ los trabajos mas colosales de las republicas del mar
+Pacifico.</span>'
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_8'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_8'>[8]</a></span> For these and similar ebullitions of profanity I am indebted to
+the Lima newspapers of the period, and one or two anonymous
+pamphlets.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_9'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_9'>[9]</a></span> Paz-Soldan.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_10'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_10'>[10]</a></span> With a liberality on a scale equal to all his achievements, Mr.
+Meiggs subscribed $50,000 for the sufferers in the terrible earthquake
+which desolated Arequipa and destroyed Arica in 1868.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_11'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_11'>[11]</a></span> It is difficult to be original in this age of metaphor. Only this
+morning, April 26, and quite by accident, I came on a little print
+which is published, I believe, in Callao, where I found the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="footnote center">
+'RAILROADS IN THE CLOUDS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+'Looking over our exchanges we found the following. It is from
+the New York <i>Sun</i> of January 16, and gives an account of Mr.
+John G. Meiggs being "interviewed" in that city.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+'Mr. John Meiggs, brother of Henry Meiggs, the "King of Peru,"
+as the millionaire contractor is called in South America, is lodging
+in the Clarendon Hotel. He is a tall, large man, past middle age,
+and with a clear penetrating hazel eye. He has an important share
+in the management of his brother's affairs. "Peru," he said, "is
+richer in the precious metals than any other country in the world.
+Our engineers in building the railroad from the coast to Puno have
+come across a hundred silver mines, any one of which might be
+profitably worked, if in the United States. If these mines are
+worked, the railroads we have built will be a blessing to the
+country."
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+'Reporter&mdash;"I understand that there are marvels of engineering
+on some of your railroads?"
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+'Mr. Meiggs&mdash;"Yes. One of our roads crosses the mountains at
+16,000 feet above the level of the sea. Some of the bridges, too,
+are very lofty, and built with a skill that would do credit to any
+part of the world."
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+'Reporter&mdash;"Your brother is said to be worth several millions of
+dollars?"
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+'Mr. Meiggs&mdash;"Whatever he obtained in Peru he has fully earned,
+and whatever he owed there or elsewhere he has paid. He has not
+been a seeker of contracts. On the contrary, he has rejected contracts
+that the Government wished him to take."'
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_12'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_12'>[12]</a></span> To which may be added $2,000,000 more for the conveyance of
+water along the line nearly from Arequipa to Mollendo.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_13'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_13'>[13]</a></span> <span lang="es_ES">Ferrocarril de Arequipa</span>, pp. lxxxi-ii.
+</p>
+
+<p class='footnote' id='FN_14'>
+<span class='label'><a href='#FA_14'>[14]</a></span> <i>Estratocracia</i> I find is the technical term by which Espinosa
+would designate the Government of Peru or a government by the
+military. This would seem to be true, seeing that since Peru
+became a Republic all its Presidents with only one exception have
+been Colonels, Generals, and Field Marshals.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Peru in the Guano Age, by Alexander James Duffield
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+Project Gutenberg's Peru in the Guano Age, by Alexander James Duffield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Peru in the Guano Age
+       Being a Short Account of a Recent Visit to the Guano
+       Deposits With Some Reflections on the Money They Have
+       Produced and the Uses to Which it has Been Applied
+
+Author: Alexander James Duffield
+
+Release Date: June 16, 2014 [EBook #45998]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERU IN THE GUANO AGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rachael Schultz, Bryan Ness, Melissa McDaniel
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+PERU IN THE GUANO AGE.
+
+
+
+
+     OXFORD:
+     BY E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY,
+     PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
+
+
+
+
+     PERU IN THE GUANO AGE
+
+     BEING A SHORT
+
+     ACCOUNT OF A RECENT VISIT
+
+     TO THE
+
+     GUANO DEPOSITS
+
+     WITH SOME
+
+     REFLECTIONS ON THE MONEY THEY HAVE PRODUCED AND THE USES TO
+     WHICH IT HAS BEEN APPLIED
+
+     BY
+     A. J. DUFFIELD
+
+
+     LONDON
+     RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON
+     Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
+     1877
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATORY LETTER.
+
+
+                                   A
+                Senor Don Juan Espinosa y de Maldonado,
+                  _Estimado y distinguido Amigo mio_:
+
+It would be most pleasant to continue this letter in the language in
+which it begins and which you taught me some five and twenty years ago,
+but I wish others to read it as well as yourself.
+
+I dedicate this little book to you for several reasons: not because
+of our common friendship, extending now over more than a quarter of a
+century, nor yet for the confidence which you have reposed in me under
+many trying circumstances during that long period, but rather because
+you are much interested in the country which the book describes, are
+intimately acquainted with all the questions it raises, and more than
+all because you have a thorough knowledge of Peru--its people and
+history;--because further, it was you who first taught me how to regard
+your countrymen, opened my eyes to their good and other qualities, and
+because also you know that here I have set down nought in malice, have
+said nothing that you do not know to be true, and drawn no inference
+from the facts of past times or the doings of living men which you
+would not sanction and endorse.
+
+With one exception.
+
+I am quite aware that you do not share in what I have said at page
+118, but this is not my own opinion--it is the candidly expressed view
+of the leading men of Lima. I know that you have always insisted upon
+Peru paying her debts, not merely because you well know that she can
+pay quite easily, but also because the effect on the moral life of
+the country, if she should prove a defaulter, will be most disastrous.
+It is pitiable beyond the power of human expression to find a single
+thoughtful Peruvian holding a contrary opinion.
+
+Since the following chapters were written several things have taken
+place which have corroborated some of my statements, and fulfilled
+more than one of my predictions. As you are aware a public meeting
+was held, a month after my departure from Lima, at the Treasurer's
+Office; at which were present the Minister of Finance and Commerce,
+the Chief Accountant, and many other officers of departments, for the
+purpose of receiving a communication from two Englishmen, setting forth
+the discovery of fresh guano deposits on the coast, in the province
+of Tarapaca. From all that could be gathered these new deposits may
+be fairly estimated as containing three million tons of guano. This
+confirms what I have said at page 101.
+
+And yet we have heard nothing new from Peru regarding the payment of
+her liabilities, nor has any official communication been made by the
+Government regarding this important discovery. If General Prado does
+not take care he will have his house pulled about his ears. One of
+the most interesting revolutions yet to be made in Peru is one in the
+interest of its honour and uprightness. If your friend General Montero
+appeals to the country in that cause he might immortalize his name and
+bring in the New Era. From the little I know of the General, however,
+I should say that such a task is too much for him. It requires a man
+broad of chest, of constant mind, of unimpeachable honour and absolute
+unselfishness to make a revolution of that sort. Still it is a good
+cry, and if Prado does not take it up himself he may come to grief when
+he least expects it.
+
+By the issue of Mr. Marsh's report from the British Consulate at Callao
+you will notice how the Consul confirms what I have said about the
+British sailor in Peru. Excessive drinking, licentious living, and
+exposure are set forth as the main causes of a deterioration in our
+merchant seamen which should attract the notice of Parliament. To send
+unseaworthy ships to sea is to bring disgrace on the national name. The
+national disgrace of sending unworthy seamen to sea appears to attract
+little notice.
+
+The chapter I read to you in MS. on 'Commercial Enterprise in Peru'
+I have purposely omitted, as also my report on the riches of its Sea.
+It will be time enough to talk of these things when the Chinese get a
+firmer footing in the country than they have at present, or when the
+Mormons have established themselves there.
+
+Let me ask you to treat with leniency any unintentional wrong thinking
+or wrong writing, but anything you discover here to be purposely
+vulgar, purposely bad, or unjust, treat it as you would treat the creed
+of a Jesuit, or a priest, or any other evil thing.
+
+          Believe me to be,
+              My dear Don Juan,
+                  Your faithful friend and servant,
+                      Q.B.S.M.
+                    A. J. Duffield.
+
+    Savile Club,
+      _February, 1877_.
+
+P. S. Let me publicly thank you for introducing to English readers
+the works of RICARDO PALMA, certainly the best writer Peru has
+produced, and eminently its first satirist. As you will see, I have
+translated one of his _Tradiciones_. Some readers at first sight might
+naturally feel inclined to suggest a transposition of the chapters
+in the 'Law-suit against God,' or to look upon the second chapter as
+altogether irrelevant to the story. But we who are in the secret know
+better, and that the official corruption which is there set forth
+is intimately connected with the catastrophe which follows, and is
+a faithful representation of public life and morals, not only in old
+Peru, but also in the Peru of the Guano Age.
+
+          _Hasta cada rata._
+
+
+
+
+PERU IN THE GUANO AGE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Although Peru may boast of its Age of Guano, it has had its Golden
+Age. This was before any Spaniard had put his foot in the country, and
+when as yet it was called by quite another name. The name of Peru,
+which signifies nothing, arose by accident or mistake. It was first
+of all spelled Piru, no doubt from Biru, the native name of one of its
+rivers. Time and use, which establish so many things, have established
+Peru; and it is too late to think of disestablishing it for anything
+else: and though it is nothing to boast of, let Peru stand. The country
+had its Stone Age, and I have brought for the Cambridge antiquaries a
+fair collection of implements of that period, consisting of lancets,
+spear-heads, and heads for arrows, exquisitely wrought in flint,
+jasper, opal, chalcedony, and other stones. They were all found in
+the neighbourhood of the Pisagua river. It is to be regretted that no
+material evidence of equal tangibility is forthcoming of the Age of
+Gold. This is generally the result of comparison founded on historical
+criticism.
+
+In the Golden Age Peru had--
+
+I. A significant name, a well-ordered, fixed, and firm government,
+with hereditary rulers. Only one rebellion occurred in twelve reigns,
+and only two revolutions are recorded in the whole history of the Inca
+Empire.
+
+II. The land was religiously cultivated.
+
+III. There was a perfect system of irrigation, and water was made the
+servant and slave of man.
+
+IV. The land was equally divided periodically between the Deity, the
+Inca, the nobles, and the people.
+
+V. Strong municipal laws enforced, and an intelligent and vigorous
+administration carried out these laws, which provided for cleanliness,
+health, and order.
+
+VI. Idleness was punished as a crime; work abounded for all; and no one
+could want, much less starve.
+
+VII. No lawsuit could last longer, or its decision be delayed more,
+than five days.
+
+VIII. Throughout the land the people everywhere were taught such
+industrial arts as were good and useful, and were also trained by a
+regular system of bodily exercises for purposes of health, and the
+defence of the nation.
+
+IX. Every male at a certain age married, and took upon himself the
+duties of citizenship and the responsibilities of a manly life: he
+owned his own house and lived in it, and a portion of land fell to him
+every year, which was enlarged as his family increased.
+
+X. Great public works were every year built which added to the strength
+and glory of the kingdom.
+
+XI. Deleterious occupations or such as were injurious to health were
+prohibited.
+
+XII. Gold was used for ornament, sacred vessels of the temple, and
+the service of the Inca in his palaces. There is a tradition that this
+precious metal signified in their tongue '_Tears of the Sun_.' Whether
+this be an ancient or a modern tradition no one can tell us. It may be
+not more than three and a half centuries old.
+
+XIII. A man ravishing a virgin was buried alive.
+
+XIV. A man ravishing a virgin of the Sun, that is, one of the vestal
+virgins of the Temple, was burnt alive.
+
+XV. It was accounted infamous for a man or woman to wear other people's
+clothes, or clothes that were in rags.
+
+XVI. Roads and bridges were among the foremost public works which bound
+the vast country together.
+
+XVII. Public granaries, for the storing of corn in case of emergency,
+were erected in all parts, and some very out-of-the-way parts of the
+kingdom.
+
+XVIII. Woollen and cotton manufactures were brought to great
+perfection. Examples of these remain to this day and will bear
+comparison with those of our own time.
+
+XIX. A thief suffered the loss of his eyes; and a creature committing
+the diabolical act of altering a water-course suffered death.
+
+And to sum up, here is the true confession of Mancio Sierra Lejesama,
+one of the first Spanish Conquistadores of Peru, which confession he
+attached to his will made in the city of Cuzco on the 15th day of
+September, 1589, before one Geronimo Sanches de Quesada, escribano
+publico, and which has been preserved to us by Espinosa in his
+'People's Dictionary,' art. 'Indio.'
+
+'First of all,' says the dying Lejesama, 'before commencing my will
+I declare that I have much desired in all submission to acquaint His
+Catholic Majesty, the King Don Philip our Lord, seeing how Catholic and
+Christian he is, and how jealous for the service of God our Saviour,
+of what touches the discharge of my soul for the great part I took in
+the discovery, conquest, and peopling of these kingdoms, when we took
+them from those who were their masters, the Incas, who owned and ruled
+them as their own kingdoms, and put them under the royal crown. And
+His Catholic Majesty shall understand that the said Incas governed
+these kingdoms on such wise that in them all there was no thief or
+vicious person, nor an idle man, nor a bad or an adulterous woman, [if
+such there had been, be sure the Spaniard would have been the first
+to find it out,] nor were there allowed among them people of evil
+lives: men had their honest and profitable occupations, in all that
+pertained to mountain or mine, to the field, the forest, or the home,
+as in everything of use all was governed and divided after such sort
+that each one knew and held to his own without another interfering
+therewith: nor were lawsuits known among them: the affairs of war,
+although not few, interfered not with those of traffic, nor yet did
+these conflict with those of seed-time and harvest, or with other
+matters whatsoever. All things from the greater to the less had their
+order, concert, and good management. The Incas were dreaded, obeyed,
+and respected by their subjects, for the greatness of their capacity
+and the excellence of their rule. It was the same with the captains
+and governors of provinces. And as we found command, and strength,
+and force to rest in these, so had we to deprive them of these by the
+force of arms to subject them to, and press them into, the service of
+God our Lord, taking from them not only all command but their means
+of life also. And by the permission of God our Lord we were able to
+subject this kingdom of many people, and riches, and lords, making
+servants of them as now we see. I trust that His Majesty understands
+the motive which moves me to this relation, that it is for the purging
+of my conscience by the confession of my guilt. We have destroyed
+with our evil example people so well governed as these, who were so
+far from being inclined to wrongdoing or excess of any sort--both men
+and women--that an Indian with a hundred thousand dollars in gold and
+silver in his house, would leave it open, or would place a broom, or
+small stick across the threshold to signify that the owner was not
+within, and with that, as was their custom, no one would enter, nor
+take thence a single thing. When they saw us put doors to our houses,
+and locks on our doors, they understood that we were afraid of them,
+not that they would kill us, but that perhaps they might steal our
+things. When they saw that we had thieves among ourselves, and men who
+incited their wives and daughters to sin, they held us in low esteem.
+So great is the dissoluteness now among these natives, and their
+offences against God, owing to the evil example we have set them in all
+things, that from doing nothing bad they have all--or nearly all--been
+converted in our day into those who can do nothing good. This touches
+also His Majesty, who will take care that his conscience has no part in
+allowing these things to continue. With this I implore God to pardon
+me, Who has moved me to declare these matters, because I am the last
+to die of all the discoverers and conquistadores; for it is notorious
+that now there exists not one other of their number, but I only either
+in this kingdom or out of it, and with that I rest, having done all I
+am able for the discharge of my conscience.'
+
+This might be called the epitaph of the Golden Age, written by one who
+knew it, and who helped to destroy it.
+
+XX. Hospitality was a passion in that time, and what had been enjoined
+and practised as a national duty became a private virtue, procuring
+intense happiness in its exercise. Instances of this are on record that
+are not equalled in the history of any other people.
+
+Lastly--and these characteristics of our Golden Age have been taken
+quite at random and as they have come to my recollection--the name by
+which the Incas most delighted themselves in being known was that of
+'Lovers of the Poor.' In this Golden Age gunpowder was unknown, and the
+people for the most part were vegetarians. Animal food was eaten by the
+soldiery and the labouring people only at the great religious feasts.
+Fish, and the flesh of alpacas, were confined to the Incas and the
+nobles. This will account for many things which subsequently occurred,
+notably their easy conquest by the fire- and meat-eating Spaniard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us now write down our comparisons of the Age of Guano with the Age
+of Gold.
+
+I. The name and form of Government, it is true, are reduced to writing,
+but the Government is, and has been from the commencement of its
+Republican history, as unstable as water. On the close of the Guano
+Age things would appear to be improving: President Pardo has completed
+the whole term of his presidential life, and this is only the second
+instance of a Peruvian Republican President having done so. It would be
+difficult to reckon up the number of revolutions which have taken place
+in the Age of Manure.
+
+II. The land is not cultivated: the things, for the most part, which
+are taken to market, are those which grow spontaneously, without art or
+industry. The people who supply the Lima market are chiefly Italians,
+while the greater part of the land is barren and unproductive. Potatoes
+and other vegetables, wheat and barley, flour, fruits, and beef, all
+come from Chile and Equador, but chiefly from the former.
+
+III. The great water-courses and system of irrigation which marked the
+Golden Age are all broken up, and the fructifying water, once stored
+for the use and service of man, first became his master, and then his
+relentless tyrant.
+
+IV. The land cannot be said to belong to any one. Certainly not to God.
+Even the Church, once a great proprietor and holder of slaves, is as
+lazy as the laziest drone in any known hive. Many of the large estates
+which flourished in the pre-Guano period have perished for lack of
+hands. The sugar plantations are exceptions for the present, but what
+will happen to them when the Chinese are all free is very uncertain. It
+may even be said to be a source of alarm to many thoughtful persons.
+
+V. Of the municipal laws, which provide for cleanliness, health, and
+public order, although great progress has been made in Central Lima,
+all that need be said is, that it is a wonder the inhabitants have
+survived, and that those who were not killed in last year's revolution
+have not been carried off by a plague.
+
+VI. Idleness among the upper classes, i.e. the whole white population,
+the descendants of Spain--those who supply the Army and Navy with
+officers, the Law with judges, the Church with bishops, and the rich
+daughters of sugar-boilers with husbands--idleness among these is the
+order of the day, and is punished by no one. Even the gods appear to
+take no notice of it, being itself a sort of god, so far as the number
+of his worshippers are concerned. To-morrow is the everlasting excuse
+for almost everybody, and yesterday has done nothing but light fools to
+dusty death; the to-morrow in which the useful and the good are to be
+done, never comes.
+
+VII. Going to law is not only an infamous passion in this Guano Age,
+it is a means of living. There must be few if any people of substance
+in Peru who have not known the bitter curse of the law's delay. I have
+known lawsuits of the most vexatious and cruel nature, and which, in
+any country where civilisation is not a mere name, could never have
+been instituted, last, not five days, but five years, and, alas!
+even fifteen years. I have myself tasted the bitterness of the law in
+this land, and been very near being lodged in a loathsome jail at the
+instance of a miscreant who had it in his power to demand my presence
+before a bribe-gorged judge. I only escaped paying heavy toll or
+hateful imprisonment by my friends obtaining the removal of the judge.
+The second was a gross attempt at extortion, from which I was saved by
+accident. Both these lawsuits, of the basest sort, had their origin
+in an injustice which is ingrained in the complexion of the people.
+The captain and crew of the _Talisman_ could bear testimony to the
+difference between the administration of law in the Golden Age and in
+the Age of Manure.
+
+VIII. The education of the people has never been seriously attempted,
+except in carrying a flimsy old musket. The Indians, who form the
+great bulk of the population, do not vote. This would involve a slight
+cultivation of the Indian's intellect, and he does not know what might
+happen to further embitter his lot if he were to discover to his rulers
+that he had a mind. He is perhaps the slyest of animals--more sly than
+a fox, more obstinate than an English mule, and as timid as a squirrel.
+
+IX. The marriage law is disgracefully abused and neglected for a
+country which boasts that its religion is that of the Holy Roman
+Apostolical. Civil marriage is illegal, and ecclesiastical marriage but
+little observed, except among the Estratocracia, the sugar-boilers,
+and such as mix in European society. The subject is one always
+difficult for a traveller to handle. To speak plainly and publicly of
+what has been acquired in private on this matter would justly provoke
+displeasure and disgust, and would not fail to be misrepresented or
+misunderstood. It may, however, be said, that if marriage be a public
+virtue, large numbers of the Peruvians of the Manure Age are not
+virtuous.
+
+X. Of the great public works in Peru, the chief during this time has
+been a penitentiary, and a railway to the moon not yet finished, all
+built by foreigners and with English money. Emigration was one of
+the most important transactions of the Golden Age. There has been no
+serious attempt at promoting either emigration or immigration: the
+migration of the native races is absolutely beyond the control of the
+government.
+
+XI. Of deleterious occupations and
+
+XII. The use of gold, all that need be said is that each man in Peru
+does what he likes in his own eyes, and what is allowed in the most
+enlightened land under the sun: and in this regard she sins in the
+universal company of the wide world; but the comparison with the Golden
+Age is not on that account the less painful.
+
+XIII. Incontinence is general, and the number of illegitimate children
+greater than those born in wedlock. The crime punishable by the
+terrible death awarded to it in the Golden Age has disappeared, for
+reasons which need not be further noticed.
+
+XIV. The scandals of the Temple or the Church have likewise changed in
+their character. I have known a bishop of the Peruvian State Church,
+sworn to celibacy, whose illegitimate children were more numerous than
+the years of his life. I have known a parish priest who had living in
+several houses more than thirty children by several women. All Peruvian
+ecclesiastics are supposed to live celibate lives, bishops, priests,
+monks and nuns; and if they do not, the irregularity is winked at, nor
+is public morality shocked, however grossly and notoriously immoral the
+lives of these persons may be.
+
+XV. The people for the most part are well dressed, but with the
+exception of the indigenous races, all wear ready-made clothing. The
+dresses of all classes are ill-made, costly, and vulgar. The coffin in
+which a Peruvian of the Guano Period is carried to his last home, is
+about the best made suit he ever wears, and the best fitting.
+
+XVI. Of roads and bridges of the present day, it would be amusing to
+write if the recollection of those I have passed over was not too
+painful. No man not born in an Age of Manure, who has travelled a
+thousand miles in the interior of Peru, or for that matter a hundred
+leagues, will ever wish to repeat the experiment. Many of these roads
+are but ruins of roads, and carry the usual aspect of roads which lead
+to ruin.
+
+XVII. There are no public granaries. People live from hand to mouth on
+what others grow for them and bring to them.
+
+XVIII. There are no woollen manufactories. All the wool of the alpaca,
+the llama, and vicuna is sent to England to be made into things which
+the growers of the staple never see, much less wear. No Peruvian of
+any social standing has had the pluck or the sense to do anything
+towards extending the cultivation of alpaca wool. It is well known
+that the produce of this beautiful and docile animal might easily
+have been increased, just as the yield of merino wool has increased
+in Australia, if only brains and industry had been brought to bear
+upon the enterprise; and instead of a yearly income of a few thousand
+dollars being derived from this source of national wealth, there might
+have been, within the limits of the Age of Guano, a net annual income
+of L20,000,000. This incredible statement is made by one who passed
+four years of his life in studying the subject.
+
+XIX. As for stealing--not that form of it which comes within the range
+of petty larceny, but the wider and more awful range of felony--it may
+be safely said, that nearly all public men have steeped themselves to
+the neck in this crime, and the common people take to it as easily and
+naturally as birds in a garden take to sweet berries. Nor is there
+sufficient justice in the country to stamp out the offence. If the
+punishment awarded to this crime in the Golden Age had been inflicted
+in the Age of Guano, there would be a very limited sale for spectacles
+in Lima or the cities of the Peruvian coast, or the towns and cities of
+the mountains.
+
+XX. It is delightful to turn to something in Peru that merits unlimited
+praise. The Golden Age was noted for its hospitality, not only as a
+social virtue practised by the people among themselves, but as extended
+to strangers. Pizarro had not been so successful in his conquest of
+Peru if he had not been so hospitably treated by the noble lady who
+entertained him on his first visit to Tumbez. The exhortation of
+Huayna Capac to his subjects to receive the bearded men--whose advent
+he announced--as superior beings, has been interpreted as the cause
+of the Spaniards' sudden success in a country that was well defended
+as well by soldiers as numerous fortresses--'Those words,' exclaimed
+an Inca noble some years afterwards, 'those last words of Inca Huayna
+Capac were our conquerors.' Among themselves it was the custom to eat
+their meals with open doors, and any passer by in need was welcomed
+in. Princesses and high-born ladies received visits from the mothers
+and daughters of the people, who provided the needle-work that was to
+occupy the time of the visit. Among English families of the better sort
+it is still a habit for a lady visitor to ask for some needle-work
+to do during her visit if it lasts more than a day--a custom that
+deserves to be enquired into. The prevalence of a similar custom in
+our Golden Age increases its importance. The traveller, especially if
+he be an Englishman, who has travelled through modern Peru, even in
+the Guano Age, who does not bear a lively recollection of kindness
+and open-hearted hospitality, is most certainly to be pitied, if
+not avoided. I am quite aware that such persons exist. I have myself
+travelled in the saddle more than two thousand miles on less than as
+many pence. The story of the impostor Arthur Orton at Melipilla is
+a case in point, and if the learned counsel who defended him is in
+need of a livelihood which cannot dispense with some of the elegances
+and charms of life, he cannot do better than follow the tracks of his
+client. I have lived in every kind of house, rancho, posta, cottage,
+quinta, and mansion, occupied by the various classes which make up the
+population of Peru. I have lived with archbishops and bishops, priests
+and monks, merchant princes, senators, judges, generals, miners,
+doctors, professional thieves, and widows, and I should be an ingrate
+indeed if I did not acknowledge with profound gratitude the kindness,
+oftentimes the affection, which I received, the liberality with which
+I was entertained, and the freedom I enjoyed. Here I am reminded of
+an incident which occurred to me in the south of Spain, and as it will
+suit a purpose it could not otherwise serve, let me relate it.
+
+I was employed to take the level of a railway that was to connect the
+Roble with the shores of the Mediterranean. The proposed line passed
+through one of the great estates of the Marquis de Blanco, and the
+Marquis gave me a letter to his capitaz or overseer, who occupied a
+house, the sight of which would have charmed the soul of an artist, on
+one of the overhanging cliffs which rose above el Rio Verde. I arrived
+late and, after twelve hours hard work beneath an Andalusian sun. I
+was well received by the capitaz and his charming wife Dona Carmen,
+who with her own hands and in my presence prepared for my supper a
+partridge and other delightful things. If the day had been hot, the
+night on the highest point of the royal road to Ronda was cold. A
+glorious wood fire added to the universal beauty of everything. A
+table was spread for me with a snowy diaper cloth. I can see it now--a
+bottle of fine wine, most sweet bread, raisins and what not. Just as
+my partridge was ready, a clatter of twenty horses' hoofs was heard
+in the patio. The capitaz went out to see the new arrivals, who turned
+out to be farmers of the district on their way to the horse fair, which
+was to be held in Ronda the following day. In came the twenty pilgrims
+to Ronda, to whom I was formally introduced, and Dona Carmen set to
+work to prepare an enormous _Olla_ for the whole company. My partridge
+was not served until the _Olla_ was ready, when we all set to work
+and ate our supper in peace and good-will. An hour afterwards, whether
+from the effects of the delightful wine--only to be enjoyed in Spain,
+the fumes of my own pipe and the cigarettes of the twenty pilgrims,
+the labours of the day, or all combined, I fell a nodding: whereupon
+the good-natured capitaz enquired if I would not like to throw myself
+into bed. On which I rose, and declared with great solemnity that for
+my rudeness in having gone to sleep in such worshipful company, I was
+ready to throw myself not only into bed but into the river below.
+
+'Dona Carmen,' said the capitaz, 'shall take you to your room.'
+
+And with a general good-night to the pilgrims and a shake of the hand
+with the capitaz, away I went in the wake of Dona Carmen.
+
+It was a spacious room, filled with implements of sport, the walls
+adorned with heads of deer and other trophies of the gun, and there
+were also unmistakeable signs of its being a lady's room.
+
+'Dona Carmen,' I observed in an imperative tone, 'this is your own
+room. I am an old traveller, and can sleep in a hay-loft or on the
+floor, with my saddle for a pillow. At any rate, I will not sleep here.
+I will not turn you out of your own room.'
+
+'And,' she demanded, 'what would the Marquis say if he knew that you
+had slept here in the hay-loft or on the floor, with your saddle for a
+pillow?'
+
+Other expostulations followed, which were answered with great eloquence
+and stately determination, mixed with that grave humour which can no
+more be acquired than can be acquired the wearing of a cloak as it is
+worn by an ancient hidalgo, or the arrangement of a mantilla as it is
+arranged on the head and shoulders of a high-born lady of Granada.
+
+At last, as I caught up my satchel to leave the room, she caught me by
+the arm, and nudging me with her elbow, she said with much archness, 'I
+am coming back again,' and with that she swept out of the room, leaving
+me no longer with my eyes half closed in sleep.
+
+She never came back. Nor did I ever see her again. She never
+intended to come back. Those who think so are incapable of making or
+understanding a joke, and will never be able to appreciate the uncommon
+wit and humour of Spanish women. That there are shallow fools in the
+world who interpret everything they hear in a carnal and literal sense
+is the reason why we have so many childish, not to say unpleasant,
+stories from Spain and Peru regarding the questionable morals of the
+fair sex of those countries. What is meant for fun and drollery is
+mistaken for naughtiness, and much that is offered as a spontaneous
+natural hospitality has been wilfully or ignorantly misconstrued.
+I do not defend the method Dona Carmen took in putting her guest at
+his ease, and making him feel at home; I think it was a daring act
+of politeness, and it is not pretty to find so much knowledge of the
+world in the possession of a woman, however dexterous her use of it
+may be. There is, however, another kind of culture besides that which
+comes from reading expensive novels, dressing for church or dinner,
+and living in a climate somewhat cold, foggy, and changeable. The
+ladies of Peru are beautiful, natural, very intelligent, and fond of
+living an unconstrained life. Their climate is provocative of freedom,
+ease, and delightful idleness. Their fair speech and delightful wit
+partake of these characteristics. It is born of these. It can be
+misinterpreted--but only by those who know not their language, and do
+not respect their ways.
+
+A common source of error on the subject of Peruvian hospitality
+arises from the fact that in Lima, for example, a foreigner, even an
+Englishman, is rarely or never invited to dine with a native family.
+With us, if we meet a man in Bond Street, or anywhere on the wing, whom
+we have not seen for a year, we ask him to come and take pot-luck with
+us, and if he is a foreigner he generally does--and notwithstanding
+the detestable anxiety of our wives, our pot-luck dinners are the best
+dinners that we give. What is lacking in the mutton we can and often
+do make up with the bottle or the pipe. This is the kind of thing we
+expect in return when we visit Lima and pick up a man who has thus
+dined with us at home. But the thing is impossible. In Lima a married
+man dines with his grandmother, his wife's grandmother, his wife's
+father and mother, together with his wife and the children, whom the
+old people love to spoil with sugar-plums. The ladies are only half
+dressed, the service is somewhat slatternly, the dishes, although
+excellent in their way, are such as do not please the weak stomachs
+of benighted Englishmen, much less the French, who have not made the
+acquaintance of the puchero, the ajijaco, or the omnipresent dulces. In
+short, a stranger at a Peruvian family dinner, unexpected and without
+a formal preparation, would be as acceptable as a dog at Mass. And
+when an Englishman is invited to one of these houses he never forgets
+the things done in his honour--the loads of dishes--the floods of
+wine--the magnificent dresses of the ladies--the elaborate display of
+everything;--and oh! the stately coldness, the searching of dark eyes,
+and the awful sense of responsibility which rests on the being for
+whom all this has been done, and who is the solitary cause of it all.
+He never accepts another invitation. And yet the people have strained
+every nerve to please him; they have made themselves ill, have spent
+an awful sum of money, and less and less believe in dining a man as the
+most perfect form of showing him their respect or esteem.
+
+But out of Lima, in El Campo--the country--where everybody is free as
+the air, everything is changed, everybody is happy, nothing goes wrong.
+The abundance is glorious, the ease and liberty delightful; there is
+nothing to equal it in the riding, dancing, eating, drinking, laughing,
+sleeping, dreaming, card-playing, smoking, joking world.
+
+El Senor Paz Soldan, in his 'Historia del Peru Independiente,' says:
+'Peru, essentially hospitable, admitted into her bosom from the first
+days of her independence thousands of foreigners, to whom she extended
+not only the same fellowship she afforded her own children, but such
+was the goodness of the country that she considered these new comers
+as illustrious personages. Men who in their native country had never
+been anything but domestic servants, or waiters in a restaurant,
+among whom there might perhaps be numbered one or two who, by their
+superior ability, might, after the lapse of twenty years, come to be
+master tailors or shop-men, have gained fortunes in Peru all at once,
+have won the hand of ladies of fortune, birth, riches, and social
+distinction. Those who have entered the army or navy have quickly risen
+to the highest posts. If they devote themselves to business, at once
+they become capitalists; and in civil and political appointments the
+foreigner is hardly to be distinguished from the native. The first
+decrees ever issued gave every protection and preference to foreigners
+resident in the country. They have the same right to the protection of
+the laws as Peruvians, without exception of persons, becoming of course
+bound by the same laws, to bear the same burdens, and in proportion
+to their fortunes to share in contributing to the income of the
+State.... Such as have any knowledge of science, or special industry,
+or are desirous of establishing houses of business, can reside in
+perfect freedom, and have given to them letters of citizenship. He
+who establishes a new industry, or invents a useful machine hitherto
+unknown in Peru, is exempt for a whole year from paying any taxes. If
+necessary, the Government will supply him with funds to carry on his
+art; and it will give free land to agriculturists. And yet, strange
+to say, and more painful to confess, many of these foreigners have
+been the cause of serious difficulties to the country, plunging it
+into conflicts which more or less have taken the gilt off the national
+honour. They have wished for themselves certain distinct national
+laws. They have thought themselves entitled to break whatever laws they
+pleased, and when the penalty has been enforced they have applied to
+their Governments, who have always judged the question in an aspect the
+most unfavourable to the honour and interest of Peru.'
+
+As regards this hospitality given to English tailors and tailors' sons
+by Peru, it is quite true; true is it that they have married the rich
+daughters of ancient families, and made marvellous progress in all
+things that distinguished Dives from Lazarus. Men who would never have
+been anything but lackeys in their own country have become masters of
+lands and money in Peru. It is all true. Without wishing to disparage
+my own countrymen, and still less my countrywomen, I am bound to
+confess that the Peruvians have derived very little edification from
+their presence and example. Within the Guano Age a British minister has
+been shot at his own table in Lima while dining with his mistress. The
+captain of an English man-of-war lying in Callao was murdered in the
+outskirts of Lima while on a drunken spree: the murderers in both cases
+never being brought to justice.
+
+The English merchants were men noted for neither moral nor intellectual
+capacity, utterly innocent of any culture, or regard for it; of no
+manners or good customs that could reflect honour on the English name,
+and who gained fortunes after such fashion as only the practices of
+a corrupt government could sanction or connive at. Few English ladies
+have ever been permanently resident in Lima. It has been visited by one
+or two showy examples of the money-monger class; but the Lima people
+have not had the opportunity of knowing by actual contact in their
+own country the gentry of England. This has been a disadvantage to us
+and to them of the greatest magnitude: for while we have accepted the
+hospitality of Peru, we have not returned it in a manner worthy of the
+English name.
+
+Nor can it be said that English travellers who have written on Peru
+make any very great figure in the cause of truth and honesty; whilst
+the amount of literary pilfering has been almost as notorious as that
+of the pillage of the public treasury by native officers of state.
+
+The commanders and petty officers of the Steam Navigation Company in
+the Pacific come more in contact with the better class of Peruvians
+than any other portion of the English community. Among these numerous
+officers there are a few to be met with who can speak grammatical
+English. No doubt, grammar to a sailor is an irksome thing, at any rate
+it is a thing of minor importance, and we rather like our sailors to
+be free of everything except their courage, their gentleness, their
+love of truth, and, above all, their glorious self-abnegation. But it
+is a pitiable sight to see a British tar with lavender kid-gloves on
+his fists, Havannah cigars in his great mouth, widened by an early
+love for loud oaths, rings on his fingers, and other apings of the
+fine gentleman; and it is disgusting to see him dressed in an authority
+he knows not how to adorn, and placed in a position which he can only
+degrade. Yet these British tars are looked up to as English gentlemen,
+and, what is more, as English captains; and not a few Peruvians come
+to the natural conclusion that it is no great thing to be an English
+gentleman after all.
+
+It is very grievous to make these remarks; justice demands, however,
+that if we would criticise the Peruvians from an English standpoint,
+we should take into consideration the English example which has been
+placed before them during all the years of an Age of Guano.
+
+An English sailor in every part of the commercial world which he visits
+is too often a disgrace to himself and a dishonour to his country.
+But in Peru he is a standing disgrace to humanity. When on shore, if
+he is not drunk, he is kicking up a row. His language is foul, his
+manners brutal, his associates the off-scouring of the people, and
+his appearance that of a wild beast. We have of late been turning our
+attention to unseaworthy ships, and the amount of wise and unwise talk
+that this important subject has evoked has been great and surprising.
+It is a pity that no one has thought it necessary to take up the
+subject of the unworthy sailor, which should include not only the
+ignorant, drunken, and grossly depraved seaman, but the oftentimes
+illiterate, ill-conditioned, and brutal creature called a captain,
+who commands him. There are many considerations why the captain
+of a British ship should be a man of good character, and there are
+imperative reasons why he should be compelled to earn a certificate of
+good conduct, as well as a certificate of proficiency in the science of
+navigation. The ability to represent the country whose flag he carries,
+as a man well-instructed and of good manners, is not the least of those
+reasons.
+
+I recently had the opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with
+nearly five hundred captains of merchant ships in the Pacific. I am
+ashamed to confess that the French, the Italian, the North American,
+and the Swede were everyway superior men to the English captains.
+There were exceptions of course; the superiority was not in physical
+force, but in intelligence, in manners, in the cleanliness in which
+they lived, and the sobriety of their lives. If the Pabellon de Pica
+may be compared to a pig-stye, the British sailors who frequent its
+strand may be likened unto swine. Indeed, it is an insult to that
+filth-investigating but sober brute to compare him with a being who at
+certain times is at once a madman, a drunkard, and not infrequently a
+murderer. It is not easy to escape the conviction that captains such
+as these must be of use to their employers, and are needed for purposes
+for which ordinary criminals would be unfitted. At the Pabellon de Pica
+a choice selection of these British worthies may be seen daily getting
+drunk on smuggled beer, winding up with smuggled brandy, wallowing
+among the filthiest filth of that foul concourse of filthy inhuman
+beings, a detestable example to all who witness it; and a living
+ensample of what England now is to a guano-selling people.
+
+All this has come of our trying to do some justice to the Peruvians,
+and no doubt it will become us as quickly as possible to attend to the
+mote which is in our own eye.
+
+It should likewise be borne in mind that the Peruvians have
+suffered the greatest indignities at the hands of successive British
+Governments. Claims for money of the most vexatious, frivolous and
+irritating nature have been pressed upon Peru with an arrogance
+equal only to their ridiculous extravagance. When at last, with great
+difficulty, our Government has been induced to submit one of these
+claims to arbitration, judgment has invariably been given against
+us--as it only could, or ought to have been given.
+
+This chapter should not be closed without noticing the fact that
+for nearly fifty years the English have had their own burying-place
+at Bella Vista, which is midway between Lima and Callao, and their
+own church and officiating chaplain. The Jews likewise have their
+synagogue, the Freemasons their lodges, the Chinese their temples;
+and although liberty of worship is not the law of the land, the
+utmost toleration in religious matters exists. The women of Lima, who
+have retained the old religion with ten times more firmness than the
+men, are the sole opponents of all religious reforms in the Peruvian
+Constitution. And because it is the women who stand in front of their
+Church, guarding it with their lives, let us have some respect for
+them. They are a powerful and determined body, as courageous as they
+are beautiful, which is saying much. In times of great excitement
+they will take part in the parliamentary debates! Not, indeed, in
+a parliamentary and constitutional manner, but in a manner quite
+effectual. These fair champions of their Church, when liberty of
+worship, or liberty of teaching, or any question that touches the Roman
+Catholic faith is being debated in the assembly, proceed thither in the
+tapada attire, with only one eye visible, and from the Ladies' Gallery
+will throw handfuls of grass to a speaker--intimating thereby his
+relationship to one of our domestic quadrupeds--or garlands of tinsel,
+just as it pleases them, and as the words of the speaker are for or
+against their cause. Our own House of Commons should take knowledge of
+this, and pause before they remove the lattice work from before their
+Ladies' Gallery!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The Mormons are coming to Peru. Five hundred families of this
+formidable sect are formally announced as being on their way to the
+land of the Incas, and the Peruvian Government has been very liberal
+in its grant of free land: this may be called a revolution indeed.
+A Spanish law existed in Peru but little more than half a century
+ago, which ran as follows: 'Because the inconveniences increase from
+foreigners passing to the Indies, who take up their residence in
+seaport towns and other places, some of whom are not to be trusted
+in the things of our holy Catholic faith, and because it becomes us
+diligently to see that no error is sown among the Indians and ignorant
+people, we command the Viceroys, the Audiencias, and the Governors,
+and we charge the Archbishops and Bishops that they do all that in them
+lies to sweep the earth of this people, and that they cast them out of
+the Indies and compel them to put to sea on the first occasion and at
+their own cost[1].' We may also note that among these sublime laws one
+may be found which absolutely forbade the importation of printed books.
+
+Since then it cannot be denied that Peru has made great progress in the
+matter of toleration to foreigners. It has not perpetuated the insane
+and suicidal policy of the nation that expelled the Moors, the real
+bone and muscle of the country, from its soil. And it may truly be said
+that what the Moors were to Andalusia and Southern Spain, Europeans and
+Asiatics have been to Peru; supplying it not only with literature and
+science, but industry also. All the great estates of Peru are tilled by
+foreigners; so are its gardens. All the steam ships on its coast are
+driven by foreigners; foreigners surveyed and built their railways,
+their one pier, gave them gas, and would give them water if the
+Peruvian Government would only be wise. There is nothing of importance
+in the whole country that does not owe its existence to foreign capital
+and foreign thought, and it cannot be denied that Peru has done much in
+making her laws conform to such a state of things. It may yet do more.
+Ten more years of peace and tranquillity will work wonders in a land
+that at present may be said to be practically unacquainted with both.
+Ten years will close the accursed Age of Guano. Practically it may
+be said to be closed now. Peru is putting her house in order: she has
+learned much in the course of the last four years, and with economy,
+persisting in her present course of real hard, honest work, giving
+up playing at soldiers, and keeping an expensive navy which is of no
+earthly use to her, she may redeem herself from her past degradation,
+and become as great as she says she is.
+
+But Mormons!
+
+If there be a country in the teeming world which offers a field for
+Mormonism, it is Peru. If Mormonism be a belief that it is the chief
+end of man to multiply his species, to replenish the earth, and find
+the perfection of his being in subduing it, Peru is the very place for
+the Mormons. One might even go the length of saying that it was made on
+purpose for them.
+
+Peru, with the immensity of its territory and the riches that are
+enclosed in it, requires a people with a religious faith in the
+divinity of polygamy and agriculture to make the most of the truly
+wonderful land.
+
+Let the Mormons leave the country in which they are at present looked
+down upon, for one where they will be welcomed.
+
+Mormonism is not, with the exception of its name, new to Peru.
+The Incas were great breeders of men, they pushed their humanising
+conquests north and south; not so much by the power of the spear
+and the sling, as by building great storehouses of maize. They first
+reduced the people whom they would conquer to the verge of starvation,
+and then fed them on sweeter food than they had ever tasted before.
+Count von Moltke was not the first who reduced a great city by
+besieging it, and surrounding it with a vast army. This was done in the
+days before the tragedy of Ollanta had been rehearsed in Cuzco. What
+the Incas gained by giving corn, they maintained by teaching the people
+how to grow and cultivate it. Men had as many wives as they pleased,
+provided that they were able to maintain them, and they had no fawning
+immoral priests to make women barren and unfruitful; who preached
+godliness to the people, but practised devilry themselves.
+
+And here one may be allowed to notice by the way, that it is a
+thing altogether singular and inconsistent that these loud-tongued
+republicans and apostles of the rights of women, will allow and
+tolerate among them a body of men who believe that it is God's will
+they should burn and not marry, and cannot think of allowing among
+their mighty respectablenesses a people who believe that it is God's
+will they should have a plurality of wives. Perhaps when the great
+Americans are tired of the vanity of being a hundred years old, and
+can find time to look this matter in the face they may reconsider their
+Mormon policy, and give up persecuting a people who at least have many
+divine examples for their way of life. If Mormonism be good for South
+America, why should it not be good for the North? and what will be
+nothing less than the blessing of heaven on Lake Titicaca, why should
+it be esteemed a curse at the Lake of Salt? Happily the logic of great
+events in the lives of nations is more easy to comprehend than the
+logic of mere professors.
+
+The history of colonisation in Peru is not interesting reading; much
+less so are the personal reports of those who have been connected with
+carrying out the various schemes of the Government. There were the
+usual delays, the usual difficulty in obtaining the promised funds at
+the appointed times, followed by confusion and disaster.
+
+The first colony formed in Peru consisted of Germans, who established
+themselves at Pozuzo, a small district formed of mountains and valleys
+fifteen days journey north-east of Lima. The proposal was made in
+1853, and the first batch of the new comers arrived in 1857. In 1870
+they numbered 360 souls, 112 of whom were children. Their progress
+had not been very brilliant; among them were carpenters, coopers,
+cigar-makers, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, shoe-makers, tailors,
+saddlers, machinists, and tanners. A priest, a grave-digger or clerk, a
+schoolmaster and an architect were also among the number. Each colonist
+was expected to cultivate a plot of ground measuring 33,000 yards by
+13,000 yards, on which they grew tobacco, coca, maize, yuca (a most
+delicious farinaceous root), haricot beans, rice, coffee, and garden
+stuff. The people lived in wooden houses, and there were among them
+all three houses of wrought stone. An enthusiastic Peruvian deputy in
+giving a description of this little struggling colony, concluded his
+peroration thus: 'We have an eloquent example in the industrious colony
+established at Pozuzo, where in the midst of savage nature they have
+erected a city which perhaps is on a level with any city of Europe!' On
+which it might be remarked that there is a great deal of the perhaps,
+but very little of the city in this statement. It is in fact nothing
+but a city of the honourable deputy's brain.
+
+The next emigration was from the islands of the South-western
+Pacific--subjects of his Majesty the King of Hawaii, whose diplomatic
+representative in Lima demanded the return of these people, who did
+return in an unexpected manner, to the earth out of which they were
+taken. They all died like flies that had been poisoned. The Peruvian
+Government then prohibited any further immigration of Polynesians.
+
+It was afterwards discovered that these people had been kidnapped, or,
+as the official report says, 'seduced first, and stolen afterwards.'
+
+It had been eloquently preached by many ardent Peruvians, now that the
+subject of immigration for a moment or so seized hold of their warm
+brains, that all that was needed to fill Peru with happy colonists
+was to establish liberty of worship, toleration, a free press,
+dignity--moral and intellectual--security to persons and property,
+and when these great things were once placed on a firm basis in
+Peru the superfluous populations of the world would flock to the
+abundance it could offer, together with the warm and delightful sun,
+like doves to their windows. These things not having been done, the
+other has been left undone--albeit not for that specific reason. The
+immigrating class, for the most part, have their own way of procuring
+information regarding the country which courts their presence, and
+it is quite likely that the glad tidings from Peru still require to
+be authenticated. Neither the Irish labourer, nor the Scotch, nor yet
+the Welsh have bestowed themselves on Peru, and it is to be hoped they
+never will until they can be sure of quick returns. The Cornish miner
+is well known in various localities for his drunkenness, his obstinacy,
+his cunning, and above all for his untruthfulness.
+
+The Chinese immigration, if such it can be called, is the only
+considerable immigration that has ever taken place in Peru. It began
+as a commercial speculation; and there are many orthodox and highly
+respectable men in Lima who owe their wealth to the traffic in Chinese,
+in whose magnificent _salas_ a conversation on China is as welcome as
+the mention of the gallows in a family, one of whose members had been
+hanged.
+
+Of the 65,000 Chinese taken from their native land, 5,000 died on their
+way to Peru; they threw themselves overboard or smoked a little too
+much opium, or were shot, or all these causes were put together. It
+was once my lot to be seated in a very small room filled for the most
+part with guano men, where I was compelled to listen to the tale of an
+Italian who had served as chief mate on a ship freighted with Chinamen.
+He thought his life was once in danger.
+
+'And what did you under the circumstances?' enquired some one.
+
+'I shot two of them down, _sacramento_,' answered the
+villainous-looking wretch; on which there was a burst of laughter that
+did not seem to me very appropriate.
+
+'And what was done with _you_?' I enquired in no sympathising tone.
+
+'Senor,' replied the assassin, 'the Captain, Senor Venturini,
+accommodated me with a passage in his gig to the shore, where I
+remained to make an extended acquaintance with the Celestial Empire.'
+
+The cold insolence of this criminal suggested to me that I had just as
+well keep my troublesome tongue as still as possible.
+
+The Chinese question, as is natural that it should, has agitated the
+public mind in Lima not a little. At one time it assumed such alarming
+features that it was seriously proposed in Congress to expel the free
+Chinamen from Peru, or compel them to contract themselves anew[2]. It
+was known that the free Chinamen stirred up their enslaved brethren to
+revolt; explained to them--which was perfectly true--that according to
+Peruvian law they could not be held in bondage, and if they escaped
+they could not be recaptured. Many attempts at escape were made and
+many murders were the result.
+
+According to the Peruvian author quoted above, the Chinamen brought to
+the dung heaps of Peru, or its sugar plantations, are selected from the
+lowest of their race. 'The planters promote the natural degeneration
+of their Chinese labourers; they lodge them in filthy sheds without
+a single care being bestowed upon them, while they are condemned to a
+ceaseless unremitting toil, without a ray of hope that their condition
+will be ever bettered. For the enslaved Chinaman the day dawns with
+labour; labour pursues him through its weary hours, a labour which
+will bring no good fruit to him, and the shadows of night provide him
+with nothing but dreams of the tormenting routine which awaits him
+to-morrow. In his sickness he has no mother to attend him with her
+care; he has not even the melancholy comfort that he will be decently
+buried when he dies, much less that his grave will be watered with
+the sacred tears of those who loved him. Of the meanest Peruvian the
+authorities know where he lived, when he died, and for what cause, and
+where he is buried. But the Asiatics are disembarked and scattered
+among numerous private properties, their existence is forgotten,
+they do not live, rather they vegetate, and at last die like brutes
+beneath the scourge of their driver or the burden which was too heavy
+to bear. We only remember the Chinaman when, weary of being weary, and
+vexed with vexation, he arms himself with the dagger of desperation,
+wounds the air with the cry of rebellion, and covers our fields with
+desolation and blood.'
+
+The great distance, observes the same author, of the private estates
+from the centre of authority, is one of the securities of their owners
+that their abuse of their Chinese slaves will neither be corrected or
+chastised. On the contrary, his influence with the local authorities
+is oftentimes such as to make them instruments of his designs. Between
+the master and the slave respect for the law does not exist, and the
+consequence is, that the one becomes more and more a despot, and the
+other more and more insolent and vicious.
+
+Escape for the Chinaman is next to impossible; he can only free himself
+from the horrible condition in which he finds himself by using his
+braces or his silken scarf for a halter, or the more quiet way of an
+overdose of opium.
+
+Treat the Chinaman well, and he is a valuable servant, and happily
+many thousands of such are to be found along the coast, in several of
+the great haciendas, and in Lima. The wages of a Chinese slave are 4
+dols. a month, two suits of clothes in the year, and his keep. A free
+Chinaman as a labourer earns a dollar a day, and of course 'finds'
+himself. Now and then one hears strange phrases at the most unexpected
+time, and one's ears tingle with words that an Englishman knows how to
+meet when compelled to hear them.
+
+'How did you manage to do all that work?' was a question put at a
+dinner-table one night in Lima, when I was partaking of the awful
+hospitality of an English-speaking capitalist.
+
+'Well,' was the reply, 'I bought half-a-dozen Chinamen, taught them
+the use of the machine, which the devils learned much quicker than I
+did, and in less than three months I found that I could easily make ten
+thousand dollars a month,' etc.
+
+'I bought half-a-dozen Chinamen!' They might have been so many sacks
+of potatoes, or pieces of machinery, and the ease and familiarity with
+so repulsive a commerce which the speech denoted, proved too well the
+contempt which such familiarity always breeds.
+
+The Chinaman is not only very intelligent, he is even superior in
+his personal tastes to many of those who pride themselves on being
+his masters. If he has time and opportunity he will keep himself
+scrupulously clean in his person and dress. After his day's work, if he
+has been digging dung for example, he will change his clothes and have
+a bath before eating his supper. He is polite and courteous, humorous
+and ingenious. He is by no means a coward, but will sell his life to
+avenge his honour. It is always dangerous for a man twice his size
+to strike a Chinaman. The only stand-up fight I ever saw in Lima, was
+between a small Chinaman and a big Peruvian of the Yellow breed; and
+the yellow-skinned 'big 'un' must have very much regretted the insult
+which originated the blows he received in his face from the little one.
+The Chinamen of the better class, the Wing Fats; Kwong, Tung, Tays;
+the Wing Sings; the Pow Wos; the Wing Hing Lees, and Si, Tu, Pous,
+whose acquaintance I made, are all shrewd, courteous, gentlemanlike
+fellows, temperate in all things, good-humoured and kind, industrious,
+and exquisitely clean in their houses and attire. It was an infinitely
+greater pleasure to me to pass an evening with some of these, than with
+my own brandy-drinking, tobacco-smoking, and complaining countrymen,
+whose conversation is garnished with unclean oaths, whose Spanish is a
+disgrace to their own country, and their English to that in which they
+reside.
+
+My Chinese friends were greatly puzzled at the answer I gave to their
+questions why I had come to Peru, or for what purpose; they could not
+believe it, any more than they could believe that an English gentleman
+drank brandy for any other reason than that it was a religious
+observance.
+
+'And why came you to Peru?' I enquired in my turn.
+
+'To make money,' was the candid reply.
+
+'For nothing else?' I insisted.
+
+To give emphasis to his words Wing Hi rose from his seat, paced slowly
+up and down the room clapping his hands now behind his back, and
+now below his right knee: 'For nothing, nothing, nothing else,' he
+exclaimed, and laughed.
+
+'Do you like Lima pretty well?' I enquired with some care, for a
+Chinaman resents direct questions; and the answer invariably was--
+
+'No. Lima is no good, there is no money;' which many other shopkeepers
+not Chinamen can swear to, and their oaths in this instance are
+perfectly trustworthy.
+
+'You do not give credit I suppose?' and I kept as solemn a face as
+possible in putting the question. My solemnity was speedily knocked out
+of me by the burst of boisterous laughter which greeted my question.
+
+Wishing to cultivate these delightful heathens, I purchased from time
+to time a few things, all good, all very reasonable in price. These
+were chiefly fans, pictures, paper-knives, neckties, and boxes. Some
+of their ivory carving was a marvel of patience and keen sight. I
+was assured that one piece, for which they asked the price of 300
+dols., took one man two years to make. That one statement made it
+an unpleasant object to behold. The porcelain brought to Lima is of
+the gaudiest and most inferior kind. I insisted on this so much that
+at last they confessed it to be true. 'But then the price,' they
+suggested.--A pair of vases that would sell in Bond Street for L150,
+can be purchased in Lima for less than L20.
+
+One day I picked up a New Testament in Chinese, and after staying one
+evening with my celestial friends for an hour, I took it out of my
+pocket and asked them to be kind enough to read it for me, and tell me
+what it was about, for that in my youth my parents had not taught me
+that language and I was too old to learn it now. The next night our
+conversation was renewed, all being for the most part of the purest
+heathenism. They made no allusion to my New Testament; they evidently
+preferred to talk of other things, or to sell fans. At last in a
+tone of indifference I asked after my book, which one of their number
+produced out of a sweet-scented drawer.
+
+'We do not know,' they said, 'what the book is about'; and therefore
+they could not tell me. They had read it? 'O yes; it was not a cookery
+book, nor a song book, nor a book about women; but seemed to be a
+pot of many things not well boiled.' There was no laughter, all was
+as serious as melancholy itself. I was a little disappointed, and
+came away without buying anything. It must require great gifts to be
+a missionary to the heathen, and especially the heathen Chinese. I
+should be inclined to think it to be as easy to bring a rich Chinaman
+to repentance as a rich Jew. The failure of my New Testament to make
+itself understood was a great blow to me. They might probably have
+understood some portions of the Book of Genesis better; but to my
+regret I had not the means of putting that to the test.
+
+The mention of the Old Testament reminds me of a trivial incident
+which occurred one night in a magnificent sala in Lima, where were a
+good sprinkling of Spanish-speaking gentlemen and ladies, Italians
+and Germans, I being the only Englishman present. In course of the
+conversation it was demanded by some one, what were the two creatures
+first to leave the Ark: and it was at once answered by several voices
+'the dove and the deer.' This appeared rather unsound to me, and
+I questioned the statement. So hot did the debate become, that it
+ended in a willing bet of L20, when after some difficulty a Bible was
+procured, and the dove and the raven won. The consternation was great.
+One man was candid enough to confess that he was an ass of no small
+magnitude for not reflecting that under the circumstances it could not
+well be a deer; but he had heard that such was the case, and because it
+was in the Bible felt bound to believe it.
+
+Among all the classes of immigrants in Peru, or in Lima its capital,
+the English stand first and highest. They are certainly better
+represented than they were twenty years ago, but there is still much to
+improve. One great drawback to the English is the absence of a home, or
+the means of making one. The construction of the houses is one cause.
+There are no snug corners sacred to quiet and repose, and if the house
+be not a convent, it is something between a theatre and a furniture
+shop. Domestic servants are another fatal drawback, but the rent is
+the greatest of them all. The rents of some of the dingiest houses in
+the back streets are higher than those in Mayfair in the season, while
+the principal houses in the chief street are treble the amount. If I
+have elsewhere spoken sharply of my countrymen, it is because I think
+much of the land which gave them birth. It does not by any means follow
+that because a Peruvian child fifty years of age sells his soul to the
+devil, that an Englishman of four hundred should follow his example. It
+should be quite the other way.
+
+The hotels are not, under the circumstances, unreasonable; a bachelor
+can live very well for thirty shillings a day, including fleas. Washing
+is a serious item in a city where there is much sun, much dust, little
+water, and the _lavendera_ is the companion of 'gentlemen.'
+
+New books are not remarkably dear, but the assortment is limited to
+theology and medicine. There are half-a-dozen daily newspapers, which
+cost half-a-crown a day if you buy them all. Their joint circulation
+will not reach more than fifteen thousand copies, while of their
+number only two may be said to pay their expenses; only one to make any
+profit. This is not to be wondered at. I tried my best to get into a
+controversy with them, by rousing them to jealousy. I publicly stated
+that if the guano deposits had been in Australia, or even in Canada,
+at a time when so much doubt was thrown on the quantity of guano
+they might contain, some newspaper would have sent off its special
+correspondent to make a report. The _Comercio_, the chief of the press,
+replied, with charming _naivete_: 'Why should we go to the expense of
+making a special report for ourselves when the Government will supply
+us with as many reports as we like?' The supply of English literature
+is very poor. Harper's Magazine appears to be in greatest demand, and
+certainly for the price of forty cents it is a marvel of cheapness.
+It is well printed, profusely and often well illustrated, and the
+numbers for the present year contain lengthy instalments of _Daniel
+Deronda_, and one or two original novels by American writers. There
+was not a single decent edition of the Don Quixote in any language to
+be found in all the shops of the city. There is evidently a brisk sale
+for very indecent photographs, and cheap editions of the Paul de Kock
+school. The number of new books printed in Lima is miserably small. The
+last, which has been very well received, is 'Tradiciones del Peru,'
+por Ricardo Palma, third series. It is exceedingly well written, and
+consists of a series of short stories illustrating the manners and
+customs of the early days. Here is one which for many reasons is worth
+doing into English. It is called 'A Law-suit against God,' and exhibits
+much of the old Spanish meal, and not a little of the new Peruvian
+leaven. It purports to be a chronicle of the time of the Viceroy, the
+Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius.
+
+In the archives of what was once the Real Audiencia de Lima, will be
+found the copy of a lawsuit once demanded by the King of Spain, which
+covers more than four hundred folios of stamped paper, from which with
+great patience we have been able to gather the following--
+
+
+I.
+
+God made the good man: but it would seem that His Divine Majesty threw
+aces when He created mankind.
+
+Man instinctively inclines to good, but deceit poisons his soul and
+makes him an egotist, that is to say, perverse.
+
+Whosoever would aspire to a large harvest of evils, let him begin by
+sowing benefactions.
+
+Such is humanity, and very right was the King Don Alonso the Wise, when
+he said--'If this world was not badly made, at least it appeared to be
+so.'
+
+Don Pedro Campos de Ayala was, somewhere about the year 1695, a
+rich Spanish merchant, living in the neighbourhood of Lima, on whom
+misfortunes poured like hail on a heath.
+
+Generous to a fault, there was no wretchedness he did not alleviate
+with his money, no unfortunate he did not run to console. And this
+without fatuity, and solely for the pleasure he had in doing good.
+
+But the loss of a ship on its way from Cadiz with a valuable cargo,
+and the failure of some scoundrels for whom Don Pedro had been bound,
+reduced him to great straits. Our honourable Spaniard sold off all he
+possessed, at great loss, paid his creditors, and remained without a
+farthing.
+
+With the last copper fled his last friend. He wished to go to work
+again, and applied to many whom, in the days of his opulence, he had
+helped, and solely to whom they were indebted for what they had, to
+give him some employment.
+
+Then it was he discovered how much truth is contained in the proverb
+which says '_There are no friends but God, and a crown in the pocket_.'
+
+Even by the woman whom he had loved, and in whose love he believed like
+a child, it was very clearly revealed to him that now times had indeed
+changed.
+
+Then did Don Pedro swear an oath, that he would again become rich, even
+though to make his fortune he should have recourse to crime.
+
+The chicanery of others had slain in his soul all that was great,
+noble, and generous; and there was awakened within him a profound
+disgust for human nature. Like the Roman tyrant, he could have wished
+that humanity had a head that he might get it on to a block; there
+would then be a little chopping.
+
+He disappeared from Lima, and went to settle in Potosi.
+
+A few days before his disappearance, there was found dead in his
+bed a Biscayan usurer. Some said that he had died of congestion, and
+others declared that he had been violently strangled with a pocket
+handkerchief.
+
+Had there been a robbery or the taking of revenge? The public voice
+decided for the latter.
+
+But no one conceived the lie that this event coincided with the sudden
+flight of our Protagonist.
+
+And the years ran on, and there came that of 1706, when Don Pedro
+returned to Lima with half a million gained in Potosi.
+
+But he was no longer the same man, self-denying and generous, as all
+had once known him.
+
+Enclosed in his egotism, like the turtle in his shell, he rejoiced that
+all Lima knew that he was again rich; but they likewise knew that he
+refused to give even a grain of rice to St. Peter's cock.
+
+As for the rest, Don Pedro, so merry and communicative before, became
+changed into a misanthrope. He walked alone, he never returned a
+salutation, he visited no one save a well-known Jesuit, with whom he
+would remain hours together in secret converse.
+
+All at once it became rumoured that Campos de Ayala had called a
+notary, made his will, and left all his immense fortune to the College
+of St. Paul.
+
+But did he repent him of this, or was it that some new matter weighed
+heavily on his soul? At any rate, a month later he revoked his former
+will and made another, in which he distributed his fortune in equal
+proportions among the various convents and monasteries of Lima; setting
+apart a whole capital for masses for his soul, making a few handsome
+legacies, and among them one in favour of a nephew of the Biscayan of
+long ago.
+
+Those were the times when, as a contemporary writer very graphically
+says, 'the Jesuit and the Friar scratched under the pillows of the
+dying to get possession of a will.'
+
+Not many days passed after that revocation, when one night the Viceroy,
+the Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, received a long anonymous letter which,
+after reading and re-reading, made his excellency cogitate, and the
+result of his cogitation was to send for a magistrate whom he charged
+without loss of time with the apprehension of Don Pedro Campos de
+Ayala, whom he was to lodge in the prison of the court.
+
+
+II.
+
+Don Manuel Omms de Santa Pau Olim de Sentmanat y de Lanuza, Grandee
+of Spain and Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, was ambassador in Paris when
+happened the death of Charles II, and which involved the monarchy in a
+bloody war of succession. The Marquis not only presented to Louis XIV
+the will in which the Bewitched one carried the crown to the Duke of
+Anjou, but openly declared himself a partisan of the Bourbon, and also
+procured that his relatives commenced hostilities against the Archduke
+of Austria. In one of the battles, the firstborn of the Marquis de
+Castil-dos-Rius died.
+
+It is well known that the American Colonies accepted the will of
+Charles II acknowledging Philip V as their legitimate sovereign. He,
+after the termination of the civil war, hastened to reward the services
+of Castil-dos-Rius, and he named him Viceroy of Peru.
+
+Senor de Sentmanat y de Lanuza arrived in Lima in 1706, and it could
+not be said that he governed well when he began to raise his loans
+and impose taxes on private fortunes, religious houses, and capitular
+bodies: but by this means he was able to replenish the exhausted
+treasury of his king with a million and a half of crowns.
+
+Among the most notable events of the time in which he governed may be
+reckoned the victory which the pirate Wagner gained over the squadron
+of the Count de Casa-Alegre, thereby doing the English out of five
+millions of silver travellers from Peru. This animated the other
+corsairs of that nation, Dampier and Rogers, who took possession
+of Guayaquil, and squeezed out of that municipality a pretty fat
+contribution. In trying to restrain these marauders, the Viceroy
+spent a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in fitting out various
+ships, which sailed from Callao under the command of Admiral Don Pablo
+Alzamora. Everybody was anxious for the fray, even to the students of
+the colleges, all burning to chastise the heretics. Fortunately, the
+fight was never begun, and when our fleet went in search of the pirates
+as far as the Galapagos islands, they had abandoned already the waters
+of the Pacific.
+
+The earthquake which ruined many towns in the province of Paruro was
+also among the great events of the same period.
+
+Among the religious occurrences worthy of mention were the translation
+of the nuns of Santa Rosa to their own convent, and the fierce meeting
+in the Augustine chapter-room between the two Fathers, Zavala the
+Biscayan, and Paz the Sevillian. The Royal Audiencia was compelled
+to imprison the whole chapter, thereby suppressing the greatest of
+disorders, and after a session of eighteen hours and a good deal of
+scrutiny Zavala triumphed by a majority of two votes.
+
+The venerable Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius was an enthusiastic cultivator
+of the muses; but as these ladies are almost always shy with old men,
+a very poor inspiration animates the few verses of his excellency with
+which we happen to have any knowledge.
+
+Every Monday the Viceroy had a reunion of the poets of Lima in the
+palace; and in the library of the chief cosmographer, Don Eduardo
+Carrasco, there existed until within a few years a bulky manuscript,
+_The Flower of the Academies of Lima_, in which were guarded the acts
+of the sessions and the verses of the bards. We have made the most
+searching investigations for the hiding place of this very curious
+book, fatally without any result, which we suppose to be in possession
+of some avaricious bookworm, who can make no use of it himself, nor
+will allow others to explore so rich a treasure.
+
+The little Parnassus of the palace, which after the manner of Apollo
+was presided over by the Viceroy, was formed of Don Pedro de Peralta,
+then quite a youth; the Jesuit Jose Buendia, a Limeno of great talent,
+and prodigious science; Don Luis Oviedo y Herrera, also a Limeno, and
+son of the poet Count de la Granja (author of a pretty poem on Santa
+Rosa); and other geniuses whose names are not worth the trouble of
+recording.
+
+It was during the festivities held in honour of the birth of the
+Infanta Don Luis Fernando, that the little Parnassus was in the height
+of its glory, and the Viceroy, the Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, gave
+a representation at the palace of the tragedy of Perseus, written
+in unhappy hendecasyllables, to judge by a fragment which we once
+read. The principal of the clergy and aristocracy assisted at the
+representation.
+
+Speaking of the performance, our compatriot Peralta, in one of the
+notes to his _Lima fundada_, says, that it was given with harmonious
+music, splendid dresses, and beautiful decorations; and that in it the
+Viceroy not only manifested the elegance of his poetic genius, but also
+the greatness of his soul and the jealousy of his love.
+
+It appears to us that there is a good deal of the courtier in that
+criticism.
+
+Castil-dos-Rius had hardly been two years in his government before
+they accused him to Philip V of having used his high office for
+improper purposes, and defrauded the royal treasury in connivance
+with the _contrabandistas_. The Royal Audiencia and the Tribunal of
+Commerce supported the accusation, and the Monarch resolved upon at
+once dismissing the Governor of Peru from his office; but the order
+was revoked, because a daughter of the Marquis, one of the Queen's
+maids of honour, threw herself at the feet of Philip V, and brought
+to his recollection the great services of her father during the war of
+succession.
+
+But although the King appeased the Marquis in a way by revoking
+the first order, the pride of Senor de Olim de Sentmanat was deeply
+wounded; so much so that it carried him to his tomb, April 22nd, 1710,
+after having governed Peru three years and a half.
+
+The funeral was celebrated with slight pomp, but with abundance of good
+and bad verses, the Little Parnassus fulfilled a duty towards their
+brother in Apollo.
+
+
+III.
+
+The anonymous letter accused Don Pedro Campos de Ayala of assassinating
+the Biscayan, and stealing a thousand ounces, which served for the
+basis of the great fortune he acquired in Potosi.
+
+What proofs did the informer supply? We are unable to say.
+
+Don Pedro being duly installed in the Stone Jug, the Mayor appeared to
+take his declaration; and the accused replied as follows:
+
+'Mr. Mayor, I plead not guilty when he who accuses me is God himself.
+Only to Him under the seal of confession did I reveal my crime. Your
+worship will of course represent human justice in the case against me,
+but I shall institute a suit against GOD.'
+
+As will be seen, the distinctions of the culprit were somewhat
+casuistical, but he found an advocate (the marvel would have been had
+he not) prepared to undertake the case against God. Forensic resource
+is mighty prolific.
+
+For the reason that the Royal Council sought to wrap the case in the
+deepest mystery, all its details were devoured with avidity, and it
+became the greatest scandal of the time.
+
+The Inquisition, which was hand and glove with the Jesuits, sought
+diligently for opportunities, and resolved to have a finger in the pie.
+
+The Archbishop, the Viceroy, and the most ingrained aristocrat of Lima
+society took the side of the Company of Jesus. Although the accused
+sustained his integrity, he presented no other proof than his own word,
+that a Jesuit was the author of the anonymous denunciation and the
+revealer of the secret of the confessional, instigated thereto by the
+revocation of the will.
+
+On his part the nephew of the Biscayan claimed the fortune of the
+murderer of his uncle, while the trustees of the various hospitals and
+convents defended the validity of the second will.
+
+All the sucking lawyers spent their Latin in the case, and the air was
+filled with strange notions and extravagant opinions.
+
+Meanwhile the scandal spread; nor will we venture to say to what
+lengths it might have gone, had not His Majesty Don Philip V declared
+that it would be for the public convenience, and the decorum of the
+Church as well as for the morality of his dominions, that the case
+should be heard before his great Council of the Indies in Spain.
+
+The consequence was that Don Pedro Campos de Ayala marched to Spain
+under orders, in company with the voluminous case.
+
+And as was natural, there followed with him not a few of those who were
+favourably mentioned in the will, and who went to Court to look after
+their rights.
+
+Peace was re-established in our City of Kings, and the Inquisition had
+its attention and time distracted by making preparation to burn Madam
+Castro, and the statue and bones of the Jesuit Ulloa.
+
+What was the sentence, or the turn which the sagacious Philip V gave
+to the case? We do not know; but we are allowed to suppose that the
+King hit upon some conciliatory expedient which brought peace to all
+the litigants, and it is possible that the culprit ate a little blessed
+bread, or shared in some royal indulgence.
+
+Does the original case still exist in Spain? It is very likely that it
+has been eaten of moths, and hence the pretext and origin of a phrase
+which with us has become so popular.
+
+It is said of a certain notary who much troubled the Royal Council in
+the matter of a will and its codicils, that when the custodian of such
+things at last produced something which looked like the original, he
+said, 'Here it is, but the moths have sadly eaten it.'
+
+'Just our luck, my dear sir,' said an interested one, who was none
+other than the Marquis of Castelfuerte. And ever since, when a thing
+has disappeared we say 'No doubt the moths have eaten it.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So much for the lawsuit against GOD, which only a Spaniard could have
+conceived and a Peruvian satirist report.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a commercial father sees his eldest son, on whom he has lavished
+much care and money that he might learn mathematics and such an amount
+of classics as will stand him in good stead at the fashionable training
+grounds of the world's gladiators, and the boy is seen to forsake
+figures and take to poetry, to prefer the gay science to that which
+would enable him to master the money article of the _Times_, that
+father will feel as great a pang as when a giant dies.
+
+The same feeling may actuate many a Peruvian bondholder when he is told
+that the Peruvians are beginning to cultivate literature. Many city
+men will disregard the thing altogether, or disdain to take notice of
+it. Many will treat it with resentment and contempt. What right have
+people who are in debt to busy themselves in writing books, in amusing
+themselves when they should be at work, and in writing poetry when
+they should be making money. And yet the cultivation of literature for
+its own sake by any people ought not only to be viewed with favour,
+it should be carefully watched, to see if it be a real national growth
+or only a momentary effort which cannot last. If it be the former, we
+shall see it in an improvement of public morals and manners; in the
+quickening of the national conscience and chastening the public taste,
+in an elevation of character and in fresh dignity being imparted to the
+common things and duties of everyday life.
+
+Peru possesses a history as well as a country. The one remains to be
+written, and the other to be described by a Peruvian genius who shall
+do for Peru and Peruvian history what Sir Walter Scott did for his
+native land and its records.
+
+It is now high time that Peru produced her popular historian. One who
+can fire the intellect of his countrymen while he provides them with an
+elevating pastime, who can point out the way they should or should not
+go by showing them the ways they have hitherto travelled. If the work
+has been delayed, it is because the people have too long retained the
+spirit of the former times to make it possible for them to profit by
+any explanation of the past. Monarchists yet, because they have never
+known better, they have not been taught to hate the hateful kings who
+ruled them in selfishness and kept them in ignorance, while they have
+not learned to love with devotion and intelligence the freedom they
+possess but know not how to use.
+
+When books are found in hands till then only accustomed to carry
+muskets, and the pen is handled by those who have hitherto only
+believed in the power of the sword, we may rest assured that an
+important change has set in, a silent revolution has begun, which will
+make all other revolutions very difficult if not impossible.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [1] As early as 1614 we find Cervantes writing of these
+     countries as the 'refugio y amparo de los desesperados
+     de Espana, Yglesia de los alcados, salvoconducto de los
+     homicidas, pala y cubierta de los jugadores (a quien llaman
+     ciertos los peritos en el arte) anagaza general de mugeres
+     libres, engano comun de muchos, y remedio particular de
+     pocos'--or, in plain English, the Indies are the 'refuge and
+     shield of the hopeless ones of Spain, the sanctuary of the
+     fraudulent, the protection of the murderer, the occasion
+     and pretext of gamesters (as certain experts in the art
+     are called), the common snare of free women, the universal
+     imposture of the many and the specific reparation of the
+     few.'--_El Zeloso Estremeno_. In _La Espanola Inglesa_ he
+     calls the Indies 'el comun refugio de los pobres generosos,'
+     he had himself sought service in the colonies, but anything
+     in the form of favour from the Spanish court never fell to
+     the lot of Cervantes. And all men of brave hearts and high
+     courage may thank God that royal people were as powerless to
+     spoil or to help men of genius then as they are still.
+
+     [2] See a useful work 'La Condicion Juridica de los
+     Estrangeros en el Peru,' per Felix Cipriano C. Zegarra.
+     Santiago, 1872. p. 136.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Whether it be true, or only a poetical way of putting it, that Yarmouth
+was built on red herrings, Manchester on cotton, Birmingham on brass,
+Middlesborough on pigs of iron, and the holy Roman Catholic Church in
+China on Peruvian bark, it is true that the Government of Peru has
+for more than a generation subsisted on guano, and the foundations
+of its greatness have been foundations of the same[3];--the ordure of
+birds--pelicans, penguins, boobies, and gulls of many kinds, and many
+kinds of ducks, all of marine habits, and deriving their living solely
+from the sea and the sky which is stretched above it.
+
+This precious Guano, or Huano, according to the orthography of the
+sixteenth century, had long been in use in Peru before Peru was
+discovered by the Spaniards. It was well enough known to those famous
+agriculturists, the Incas, who five centuries ago used it as a servant.
+With the change which changed the Incas from off the face of the earth,
+came the strangest change of all,--Guano ceased to be the servant
+or helper of the native soil; it became the master of the people
+who occupy it, the Peruvian people, the Spanish Peruvians who call
+themselves Republicans.
+
+No disgrace or ignominy need have come upon Peru for selling its guano
+and getting drunk on the proceeds, if it had not trampled its own
+soil into sand, and killed not only the corn, the trees, and flowers
+which grow upon it, but also the men who cultivate those beautiful and
+necessary things[4].
+
+During the time that Peru has been a vendor of guano, it has sold
+twenty million tons of it, and as the price has ranged from L12 to
+L12 10_s._ and L13 the ton, Peru may be said to have turned a pretty
+penny by the transaction. What she has done with the money is a very
+pertinent question, which will be answered in its right place.
+
+The amount of guano still remaining in the country amounts to between
+seven and eight million tons. There are men of intelligence even in
+Peru who affirm that the quantity does not reach five million tons.
+One of my informants, a man intimately connected with the export and
+sale of this guano, assured me that there are not at this hour more
+than two million tons in the whole of the Republic, and he had the best
+possible means at his disposal for ascertaining its truth. I have since
+discovered, however, that men who deal in guano do not always speak
+with a strict regard for the truth.
+
+As this is one of the vexed questions of the hour to some of my
+countrymen, the violent lenders of money, Jews, Greeks, infidels and
+others; although I have no sympathy with them, yet on condition that
+they buy this book I will give them a fair account of the guano which
+I have actually seen, and where it exists.
+
+I was sent to Peru for the express purpose of making this examination.
+I may therefore expect that my statements will be received with some
+consideration. They have certainly been prepared with much care, and,
+I may add, under very favourable circumstances.
+
+My visits to the existing guano deposits were made after they had
+been uncovered of the stones which had been rolled upon them by the
+turbulent action of a century of earthquakes, the sand which the
+unresisted winds of heaven for the same period had heaped upon them
+from the mainland, and the slower but no less degrading influences of
+a tropical sun, attended with the ever humid air, dense mists, fogs
+and exhalations, and now and then copious showers of rain. Moreover, my
+visits were made after a certain ascertained quantity of guano had been
+removed, and my measurements of the quantity remaining were therefore
+easily checked.
+
+Last year the Pabellon de Pica was reported to contain eight million
+tons of guano. At that time it was covered from head to foot with
+more than fifty feet of sand and stones. The principal slopes are
+now uncovered. Before this painful and expensive process had been
+completed, various other courageous guesses had been made, and
+the Government engineers were divided among themselves in their
+estimates. One enthusiastic group of these loyal measurers contended
+for five million tons, another for three million five hundred and
+twenty thousand six hundred and forty, and another, unofficial and
+disinterested, placed it at less than a million tons.
+
+My own measurements corroborate this latter calculation. There may be
+one million tons of guano on the Pabellon de Pica. The exact quantity
+will only be known after all the guano has been entirely removed and
+weighed.
+
+The Pabellon de Pica is in form like a pavilion, or tent, or better
+still, a sugar-loaf rising a little more than 1000 feet above the
+sea which washes its base. It is connected by a short saddle with the
+mountain range, which runs north and south along the whole Peruvian
+coast, attaining a height here of more than 5000 feet in isolated
+cones, but maintaining an average altitude of 3000 feet.
+
+When a strong north wind rages on these sandy pampas, the dust, finer
+than Irish blackguard, obscures the sky, disfigures the earth, and
+makes mad the unhappy traveller who happens to be caught in its fury.
+A mind not troubled by the low price of Peruvian bonds, or whether even
+the next coupon will be paid, might imagine that the gods, in mercy to
+the idleness of man, were determined to cover up those dunghills from
+human sight; and hence the floods, and cataracts of sand and dust which
+have been poured upon them from above.
+
+If it could be conceived that an almighty hand, consisting of nineteen
+fingers, each finger six hundred feet long, with a generous palm
+fifteen hundred feet wide, had thrust itself up from below, through
+this loaf of sugar, or dry dung, to where the dung reaches on the
+Pabellon, some idea might be formed of the frame in which, and on which
+the guano rests.
+
+The man who reckoned the Pabellon to contain eight million tons of
+guano, took no notice of the Cyclopean fingers which hold it together,
+or the winstone palm in which it rests. There are eighteen large and
+small gorges formed by the nineteen stone fingers. Each gorge was
+filled with a motionless torrent of stones and sand, and these had to
+be removed before the guano could be touched.
+
+So hard and compact had the guano become, that neither the stones nor
+the sand had mixed with it; when these were put in motion and conducted
+down into the sea below, the guano was found hard and intact, and it
+had to be blasted with gunpowder to convey it by the wooden shoots
+to the ships' launches that were dancing to receive it underneath.
+The process was as dangerous as mining, and quite as expensive, to
+the Peruvian Government; for, although the loading of the guano is
+let out by contract, the contractors--a limited company of native
+capitalists--will, as a matter of course, claim a considerable sum for
+removing stones and sand, and equally as a matter of course they will
+be paid: and they deserve to be paid. No hell has ever been conceived
+by the Hebrew, the Irish, the Italian, or even the Scotch mind for
+appeasing the anger and satisfying the vengeance of their awful gods,
+that can be equalled in the fierceness of its heat, the horror of
+its stink, and the damnation of those compelled to labour there, to a
+deposit of Peruvian guano when being shovelled into ships. The Chinese
+who have gone through it, and had the delightful opportunity of helping
+themselves to a sufficiency of opium to carry them back to their homes,
+as some believed, or to heaven, as fondly hoped others, must have had
+a superior idea of the Almighty, than have any of the money-making
+nations mentioned above, who still cling to an immortality of fire and
+brimstone.
+
+Years ago the Pabellon de Pica was resorted to for its guano by a
+people, whoever they were, who had some fear of God before their eyes.
+Their little houses built of boulders and mortar, still stand, and so
+does their little church, built after the same fashion, but better,
+and raised from the earth on three tiers, each tier set back a foot's
+length from the other. It is now used as a store for barley and other
+valuable necessaries for the mules and horses of the loading company.
+
+If the bondholders of Peru, or others, have any desire to know
+something of public life on this now celebrated dunghill, they may turn
+to another page of this history, and Mr. Plimsoll, or other shipping
+reformer, may learn something likewise of the lives of English seamen
+passed during a period of eight months in the neighbourhood of a
+Peruvian guano heap. In the meantime we are dealing with the grave
+subject of measurable quantities of stuff, which fetches L12 or so a
+ton in the various markets of the cultivated world.
+
+The next deposit--of much greater dimensions, although not so well
+known--is about eight miles south of the Pabellon, called Punta
+de Lobos. This also is on the mainland, but juts out to the west
+considerably, into the sea. I find it mentioned in Dampier--'At Lobos
+de la Mar,' he says, vol. i. 146, 'we found abundance of penguins, and
+boobies, and seal in great abundance.' Also in vol. iv. 178 he says,
+'from Tucames to Yancque is twelve leagues, from which place they carry
+clay to lay in the valleys of Arica and Sama. And here live some few
+Indian people, who are continually digging this clayey ground for the
+use aforesaid, for the Spaniards reckon that it fattens the ground.'
+The fishing no doubt was better here than at the Pabellon, which
+would be the principal attraction to the Indians. The Indians have
+disappeared with the lobos, the penguins and the boobies.
+
+One million six hundred thousand tons of guano were reported from Lobos
+last year by the Government engineers. The place is much more easy of
+access than the Pabellon, and no obstacle was in the way of a thorough
+measurement, and yet the utmost carelessness has been observed with
+regard to it. It may safely be taken that there are two millions and
+a half of tons at this deposit, or series of deposits, ten in number,
+all overlooking the sea. The guano is good. If the method of shipping
+it were equally good the Government might save the large amount
+which they at present lose. I have no hesitation in saying, that for
+every 900 tons shipped, 200 tons of guano are lost in the sea by bad
+management, added to the dangers of the heavy surf which rolls in under
+the shoots. As at the Pabellon de Pica, so here the principal labourers
+are Chinamen, and Chilenos, the former doing much more work than the
+latter, and receiving inferior pay. Many of the Chinamen are still
+apprentices, or 'slaves' as they are in reality called and treated by
+their owners.
+
+At Punta de Lobos I discovered two small caves built of boulders,
+and roofed in with rafters of whales' ribs. The effect of the white
+concentric circles in the sombre light of these alcoves had an oriental
+expression. The number of whales on this coast must at one time have
+been very great. They are still to be met with several hundred miles
+west, in the latitude of Payta. No doubt for the same reason that the
+lobos and the boobies have gone, no one knows where, so the whales have
+gone in search of grounds and waters remote from the haunts of man and
+steamers.
+
+A singular effect of light upon the bright slopes of dazzling sand
+which run down from the northern sides of the Point, was observed from
+the heights: when the shadows of the clouds in the zenith passed over
+the shining surface they appeared to be not shadows, but last night's
+clouds which had fallen from the sky, so dense were they, dark, and
+sharply defined. [It frequently happens in Peru, that what appears to
+be substantial, is nothing better than a morning cloud which passes
+away.]
+
+Huanillos is another deposit still further south, where the guano
+is good but the facilities for shipping it are few. Here are five
+different gorges, in which the dung has been stored as if by careful
+hands. The earthquake however has played sad havoc with the storing.
+From a great height above, enormous pieces of rock of more than a
+thousand tons each have been hurled down, and in one place another
+motionless cataract of heavy boulders covers up a large amount of
+guano.
+
+The quantity found here may be fairly estimated at eight hundred
+thousand tons.
+
+It was easy to count ninety-five ships resting below on what, at
+the distance of three miles, appeared to be a sea without motion or
+ripple. At the Pabellon de Pica there were ninety-one ships, and at
+Lobos one hundred and fourteen ships, all waiting for guano: three
+hundred ships in all, some of which had been waiting for more than
+eight months; and it is not unlikely that the whole of them may have
+to wait for the same length of time. An impression has got abroad
+that the reason of this delay is the absence of guano. It is a natural
+inference for the captain of a ship to draw, and it is just the kind
+of information an ignorant man would send home to his employers. It
+is however absolutely erroneous; the delays in loading are vexatious
+in the extreme, but being in Peru they can hardly be avoided. Their
+cause may be set down to the sea and its dangers, the precipitous rocky
+shore, the ill-constructed launches and shoots, and now and then to the
+ignorance, stupidity, and obstinacy of a Peruvian official, called an
+_administrador_.
+
+Chipana, six miles further south of Huanillos, is another considerable
+deposit. But as this had not been uncovered, and the place is
+absolutely uninhabited and without any of the common necessaries of
+life, which in Peru may be said to be not very few, I did not visit it,
+and am content to take the measurement of a gentleman whom I have every
+reason to trust, and on whose accuracy and ability I can rely as I have
+had to rely before.
+
+The amount of guano at Chipana may be taken at about the same as
+Huanillos. If to this be added the deposits of Chomache, very small,
+Islotas de Pajaros, Quebrada de Pica, Patache, and all other points
+further north, up to la Bahia de la Independencia, we may safely
+declare that among them all will be found not less than five million
+tons of good guano.
+
+Before proceeding to give an account of the deposits in the north, it
+may be well to allude to a question of considerable importance to some
+one, be it the Government of Peru, or the house of Messrs. Dreyfus
+Brothers, the present financial agents of Peru. The only interest which
+the question can have for the public, or the holders of Peruvian bonds,
+arises from the fact of this question involving no less a sum than
+L1,500,000 or even more; and if the Government of Peru has to pay it,
+so much the worse will it be for its already alarmed and disappointed
+creditors. Many of the three hundred ships lying off the three
+principal deposits of the South, have been there for very long periods
+of time, and a considerable bill for demurrage has been contracted.
+The question is who is to pay the shipowners' claim, and probably the
+law courts will have to answer the question. It would appear at first
+sight that this charge should be paid by Dreyfus. According to the
+first article of the contract between that firm and the Government of
+Peru, Dreyfus was to purchase two million tons of guano, and to pay
+for the same two million four hundred thousand pounds sterling. Here is
+a distinct act of purchase. The guano is the property of Dreyfus. The
+second article of the contract would appear to provide especially for
+the case in point: 'Los compradores enviaran por su cuenta y riesgo, a
+los depositos huaneros de la Republica, los buques necesarios para el
+transporte del huano' [the purchasers shall send, _at their own cost
+and risk_, the necessary ships to the guano deposits of the Republic
+for the purpose of transporting the guano].
+
+This would seem to be plain enough: but these ships, or the greater
+part of them, came chartered by Dreyfus, not to any deposit of guano,
+in the first instance, but to Callao, where they collected in that
+bay, notorious now for many reported acts of singular heroism, and
+other acts of a very different nature. The ships were finally detained
+by command of the President of the Republic, who, acting on certain
+subterranean knowledge, refused to despatch the ships, or to allow
+them to proceed to the deposits. Dreyfus, the President insisted, had
+already taken away all the guano that belonged to them, and therefore
+the ships which they had chartered for carrying away still more should
+not be allowed to go and load. At last the President appears to have
+discovered his mistake, and the ships, to the amazement of the Lima
+press, were allowed to depart; some to the Pabellon de Pica, where they
+still are; others to Lobos, and the rest to Huanillos. In the meantime
+the following circular appeared.
+
+     'The Lima press has commented in various articles on the
+     conduct of our house with respect to the export of guano,
+     and we have been charged with endeavouring to appropriate
+     a larger quantity than that which is stipulated in our
+     contracts as sufficient to cover the amounts due to us by the
+     Supreme Government.
+
+     These false and malevolent assertions render it necessary for
+     us to satisfy the public and inform the country of the state
+     of our affairs with the Supreme Government.
+
+     We trust that dispassionate people who do not allow their
+     opinions to be based on partial evidence, will do our
+     house the justice to which we are entitled by these few
+     particulars, the truth of which is proved by facts and
+     figures that can be authenticated by application to the
+     offices of the Public Treasury.
+
+    Balance in favour of our house on June
+      30, 1875, as per account delivered,
+      embracing 1,377,150 tons of guano                     $.24,068,156
+
+    Expenses since that date for monthly
+      instalments, loading, salaries in Europe,
+      etc.                                                   $.2,390,000
+                                                           -------------
+    Balance in favour of our house                          $.26,459,156
+                                                           -------------
+
+    From this sum there is to be deducted
+      the value of cargoes despatched up to
+      June, 300,092 tons at 30 soles            9,002,760
+
+    Vessels now loading, 394,966 tons at
+      30 soles                                  4,849,000
+
+    [A]Vessels detained in Callao 110,657 tons
+      at 30 soles                               3,319,710
+                                              -----------   $.24,181,470
+                                                           -------------
+    Which shews a balance in our favour of                   $.2,286,686
+
+    Adding to this sum interest in account
+      current since June                        1,500,000
+
+    [B]Cost of loading ships at the deposits
+      and in Callao                             1,500,000
+                                              -----------      3,000,000
+                                                           -------------
+
+    Shewing a clear balance in our favour of                 $.5,286,686
+                                                           -------------
+
+     We have taken thirty soles as the average value of guano of
+     different qualities.
+
+     These figures prove that our house not only has not received
+     more than it is entitled to, even if all the vessels had left
+     which are at the deposits as well as those in Callao, but
+     that there is still a heavy balance due to us.
+
+     With respect to questions now pending, no one possesses the
+     right to consider his opinions of more value than those of
+     the tribunals of justice before which they now are, without
+     the least opposition on our part.
+
+                        DREYFUS, HERMANOS, & CO.
+
+     _Lima, Dec. 31, 1875._
+
+It appears from this statement [A], that Dreyfus had already put in
+their claim for the detention of the ships. What is meant by the last
+item marked with a [B] is uncertain; no ships are loaded in Callao. If
+the Government can sustain its suit against Dreyfus on that part of the
+second article of the contract mentioned above, instead of its owing
+Dreyfus the 'clear balance of 5,286,686 dols.' Dreyfus is in debt to
+the Government.
+
+But there is another item in the second article which appears to
+override the first: viz. 'y este (guano) sera colocado por cuenta y
+riesgo del gobierno abordo de las lanchas destinadas a la carga de
+dichos buques' [or, in plain English, 'this guano shall be placed
+on board such launches as are appointed to carry it to the ships, on
+account and at the risk of the Government'].
+
+Well, it is absolutely certain that the guano was not _colocado_, or
+placed on board the appointed launches; not because the launches were
+not there; not because there was no guano at the deposits;--but simply
+because the Government had not, for some reason or other, fulfilled its
+own part of the contract.
+
+No answer was made by the Government to Dreyfus' circular, and the
+obsequious Lima newspapers were as silent upon it as dumb dogs. I have
+since heard, on high authority, that the reply of the Government is
+prepared, and that it disputes Dreyfus' claims and will contest them in
+a court of law.
+
+I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the islands of the
+north; glad to leave behind me the filthiness, foulness, and weariness
+of the mainland in the neighbourhood of the Pabellon de Pica. Had it
+not been for the true British kindness of one or two of my countrymen
+and several Americans in command of guano ships, Her Majesty's Consular
+agent, and the agent of the house of Dreyfus, who did all they could to
+provide me with wholesome food, German beer, and clean beds, I should
+have fled away from that much-talked-of dunghill without estimating its
+contents; or like a philosophical Chinaman sought out a quiet nook in
+the warm rocks, and with an opium reed in my lips smoked myself away to
+everlasting bliss.
+
+On my return from the south we passed close to the Chincha islands.
+When I first saw them twenty years ago, they were bold, brown heads,
+tall, and erect, standing out of the sea like living things, reflecting
+the light of heaven, or forming soft and tender shadows of the tropical
+sun on a blue sea. Now these same islands looked like creatures whose
+heads had been cut off, or like vast sarcophagi, like anything in short
+that reminds one of death and the grave.
+
+In ages which have no record these islands were the home of millions
+of happy birds, the resort of a hundred times more millions of fishes,
+of sea lions, and other creatures whose names are not so common; the
+marine residence, in fact, of innumerable creatures predestined from
+the creation of the world to lay up a store of wealth for the British
+farmer, and a store of quite another sort for an immaculate Republican
+government. One passage of the Hebrew Scriptures, and this the only
+passage in the whole range of sacred or profane literature, supplies
+an adequate epitaph for the Chincha islands. But it is too indecent,
+however amusing it may be, to quote.
+
+On Sunday morning, March 26th, of the last year of grace, I first
+caught sight of the beautiful pearl-gray islands of Lobos de Afuera,
+undulating in latitude S. 6.57.20, longitude 80.41.50, beneath a blue
+sky, and apparently rolling out of an equally blue sea. Here is the
+only large deposit that has remained untouched; here you may walk about
+among great birds busy hatching eggs, look a great sea-lion in the face
+without making him afraid, and dip your hat in the sea and bring up
+more little fishes than you can eat for breakfast.
+
+There are eight distinct deposits in an island rather more than a mile
+in length and half a mile in width. The amount of guano will be not
+less than 650,000 tons.
+
+It is not all of the same good quality, for considerable rain has at
+one time fallen on these islands. Wide and deep beds of sand mark in
+a well defined manner the courses of several once strong and rapid
+streams. But if the poor guano, that namely which does not yield
+more than two per cent. of ammonia be reckoned, the deposits on these
+islands will reach a million tons.
+
+The wiseacres who believe guano to be a mineral substance, and not the
+excreta of birds, will do well to pay a visit to Lobos de Afuera. There
+they will see the whole process of guano making and storing carried
+on with the greatest activity, regularity, and despatch. The birds
+make their nests quite close together: as close and regular, in fact,
+as wash-hand basins laid out in a row for sale in a market-place; are
+about the same size, and stand as high from the ground. These nests are
+made by the joint efforts of the male and female birds; for there is
+no moss, or lichen, or grass, or twig, or weed, available, or within a
+hundred miles and more: even the sea does not yield a leaf. As a rule,
+about one hundred and fifty nests form a farm. It has been computed
+by a close observer that the heguiro will contribute from 4 oz. to 6
+oz. per day of nesty material, the pelican twice as much. When there
+are millions of these active beings living in undisturbed retirement,
+with abundance of appropriate food within reach, it does not require a
+very vivid imagination to realise in how, comparatively, short a time
+a great deposit of guano can be stored.
+
+Will the Government of Peru occupy itself in preserving and cultivating
+these busy birds? That Government has lived now on their produce for
+more than thirty years; why should it not take a benign and intelligent
+interest in the creatures who have continued its existence and
+contributed to its fame?
+
+The heguiro is a large bird of the gull and booby species, but twice
+the size of these, with blue stockings and also blue shoes. It does
+not appear to possess much natural intelligence, and its education
+has evidently been left uncared for. It will defend its young with
+real courage, but will fly from its nest and its one or two eggs
+on the least alarm. This, however, is not always the case. But in a
+most insane manner if it spies a white umbrella approaching, it sets
+up a painful shriek. Had it kept its mouth shut, the umbrella had
+travelled in another direction. As the noise came from a peculiar
+cave-like aperture in the high rocks, I sat down in front, watched the
+movements of the bird, who kept up a dismal noise, evidently resenting
+my intrusion on her private affairs. After a brief space I marched
+slowly up to the bird, who, when she saw me determined to come on,
+deliberately rose from her nest, and became engaged in some frantic
+effort, the meaning of which I could not guess. When I approached
+within ten yards of her, she sprang into the sky and began sailing
+above my head, trying by every means in her power to scare me away.
+When I reached the nest, I found the beautiful pale blue egg covered
+with little fishes! The anxious mother had emptied her stomach in order
+to protect the fruit of her body from discovery or outrage, or to keep
+it warm while she paid a visit to her mansion in the skies.
+
+Birds have ever been a source of joy to me from the time that I first
+remember walking in a field of buttercups in Mid Staffordshire, some
+fifty years ago, and hearing for the first time the rapturous music of
+a lark. Since then I have watched the movements of the great condor on
+the Andes, the eagle on the Hurons, the ibis on the Nile, the native
+companion in its quiet nooks on the Murray, the laughing jackass in
+the Bush of Australia, the curacoa of Central America, the tapa culo
+of the South American desert, the albatross of the South Pacific. I
+can see them all still, or their ghosts, whenever I choose to shut my
+eyes, a process which the poets assure us is necessary if we would see
+bright colours. And now I no longer care for birds. I have seen them in
+double millions at a time, swarming in the sky, like insects on a leaf,
+or vermin in a Spanish bed. They are as common as man, and can be as
+useful, and become as great a commercial speculation as he.
+
+We visited the island of Macabi, lat. 7.49.30 S., long. 79.28.30, for
+the purpose of seeing what good thing remained there that was worth
+removing in the way of houses, tanks and tools for use on the virgin
+deposits of Lobos de Afuera. Although there is not more than one
+shipload of guano left, I was glad to see the place for many reasons.
+It will be recollected that it was on the guano said to exist on this
+and the Guanapi islands that the Peruvian Loan of 1872 was raised, and
+it will be the duty of all who invested their money in that transaction
+to enquire into the truth of the statements on which the loan was made.
+
+Macabi is an island split in two, spanned by a very well constructed
+iron suspension bridge a hundred feet long. The birds which had been
+frightened away by the operations of the guano-loading company have
+returned. The lobos probably never left the place, the precipitous
+rocks and the great caverns which the sea has scooped out affording
+them sufficient protection from the 'fun'-pursuing Peruvian, who
+delights in killing, where there is no danger, an animal twice his
+own size, and whose existence is quite as important as his own. Or if
+the lobos did leave, they also have returned. This would go to prove
+the statements that the birds have begun to return to the Chinchas.
+When this is proved beyond any doubt, we may expect to hear of Messrs.
+Schweiser and Gnat applying for another loan on the strength of the
+pelicans, ducks and boobies having returned to their ancient labours on
+those celebrated islands.
+
+The spectacle presented at Macabi was humiliating. The ground was
+everywhere strewn with Government property, which had all gone to
+destruction. The shovels and picks were scattered about as if they had
+been thrown down with curses which had blasted them. I went to pick
+up a shovel, but it fell to pieces like Rip Van Winkle's gun on the
+Catskills; the wheelbarrows collapsed with a touch. Suddenly I came
+on a little coffin, exquisitely made, not quite eighteen inches long.
+There it lay in the midst of the burning glaring rocks, as solitary and
+striking as the print of a foot in the sand was to Robinson Crusoe. The
+coffin was empty, and the presence of certain filthy-fat gallinazos
+high up on the rocks explained the reason. A little further on were
+the graves of some fifty full-grown persons, 'Asiatics,' probably,
+who had purposely fallen asleep. Walking down the steady slope of
+the island till I came to the edge of the sea, which rolled below me
+some hundred and twenty feet, I came suddenly in front of a thousand
+lobos, all basking in the sun after their morning's bath. It was a
+sight certainly new, entertaining, and instructive. The young lobos
+are silly little things, and look as if it had not taken much trouble
+to make them; a child could carve a baby lobo out of a log, that would
+be quite as good to look at as one of these. But the old fathers,
+patriarchs, kings, or presidents of the herd, are as impressive as some
+of Layard's Assyrian lions. Suddenly one of these caught me in his eye,
+and no doubt imagining me to be a Peruvian, signalled to the rest, who,
+following his lead, all rushed violently down the steep place into the
+sea, and began tumbling about and rolling over in the surf like a mob
+of happy children gambolling among a lot of hay-cocks in a green field.
+They live on fish, and the number of fishes is as great at Macabi as
+elsewhere. As I remained watching these swarthy creatures, a great
+sea-lion appeared above the surface of the rolling deep looking about
+him, his mouth full of fishes, just as you have seen a high-bred horse
+with his mouth full of straggling hay, turn his head to look as you
+entered his stable door.
+
+My next and longer visit was to Lobos de Tierra, lat. S. 6.27.30, the
+largest guano island in the world, being some seven miles long, or
+more. Here are great deposits of guano, the extent and value of which
+are not yet known. It is certain that there are more than eight hundred
+thousand tons of good quality in the numerous deposits which have been
+hitherto examined.
+
+On January 31st, being in lat. S. 7.50.0, and some 15 miles from the
+Peruvian coast, when on my way to the South from Panama, we ran into
+a heavy shower of rain. Now it is much more likely to rain in lat. S.
+6.27.30 and 120 miles from the shore, and this explains the reason why
+the guano deposits of Lobos de Tierra were not worked before. Still
+the quantity of rich material found there is great, and it is the only
+place where I came on sal ammoniac _in situ_; the crystals were large
+and beautifully formed, but somewhat opaque. During the ten days I
+remained there, more than 500 tons of good guano were shipped in one
+day, and there were some 40 ships waiting to receive more.
+
+Like all the other guano deposits, Lobos de Tierra has to be supplied
+at great expense from the mainland with everything for the support of
+human life. It is true that the sea supplies very good fish, but man
+cannot live on fish alone, at least for any length of time, especially
+if he is engaged in loading ships with guano. The Changos, however, a
+race of fishermen on the Peruvian coast, do live on uncooked fish, and
+a finer race to look at may not be found; the colour of their skin is
+simply beautiful, but they are very little children in understanding.
+It is only fair to say that with their raw fish they consume a
+plentiful amount of chicha, a fermented liquor made from maize, the
+ancient beer of Peru: and very good liquor it is, very sustaining,
+and, taken in excess, as intoxicating as that of the immortal Bass.
+These hardy fishers visit all these islands in their balsas, great
+rafts formed of three tiers of large trees of light wood, stripped and
+prepared for the purpose in Guayaquil. They are precisely the same as
+those first met with by Pizarro's expedition when on his way to conquer
+Peru, three centuries and a half ago. The people are probably the same,
+except that they now speak Spanish, and are never found with gold;
+but now and then they do traffic in fine cottons, spun by hand, now as
+then, by natives of the country.
+
+I cannot forget that it was at Lobos de Tierra I had the great pleasure
+of forming the acquaintance of one who represents young Peru: the new
+generation that, if time and opportunity be given it, may transform
+that land of corruption into a new nation. Here on this barren island,
+I found a son of one of the oldest Peruvian families, thoroughly
+educated, well acquainted with England and its literature, proud of his
+country, jealous for its honour, and keenly alive to the disgrace into
+which she has been dragged by the wicked men who have gone to their
+doom. Should this generation, represented by one whom I am allowed to
+call my friend--who, though born in the Guano Age is not of it,--rise
+into power, the rising generation in England may see what many have had
+too great reason to despair of, namely, a South American Republic, that
+shall prefer death to dishonour, and if needs must, will live on bread
+and onions in order to be free of debt. There is so much pleasure in
+hoping the best of all men, that it surely must be a duty the neglect
+of which, when there are substantial evidences to support it, must be
+a crime.
+
+I left Lobos de Tierra with profound regret, but it was necessary to
+do so in order to see what remained to be seen of the precious dung
+in other parts of Peru. The following will be found to be a fair
+approximation of the quantities existing along the northern coast.
+
+     +-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
+     |       Islands.        |  Latitude. | Longitude. | Quantities.|
+     |                       |            |            |    Tons.   |
+     +-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
+     | Malabrigo             |   7.43.20  |  79.26.20  |      400   |
+     | Macabi                |   7.49.30  |  79.28.20  |    1,000   |
+     | Guanapi               |   7.49.30  |  78.56.0   |    3,500   |
+     | Chao                  |   8.46.50  |  78.46.0   |      800   |
+     | Coreobado             |   8.57.0   |  78.40.30  |    3,000   |
+     | Santa                 |   9.03.0   |  78.39.30  |      100   |
+     | Bay of Ferrol         |   9.10.0   |  78.36.0   |   22,000   |
+     | El Dorado             |   9.12.0   |  78.34.0   |    6,000   |
+     | Small Island Pajaros  |   9.12.0   |  78.30.10  |      250   |
+     | Tortuga               |   9.21.30  |  78.27.0   |      700   |
+     | Mongon                |   9.39.40  |  78.25.0   |   23,000   |
+     | Mongon 2nd            |   9.40.0   |  78.20.0   |   30,000   |
+     | Mongoncillo           |   9.45.30  |  78.16.40  |    6,000   |
+     | Cornejos              |   9.53.0   |  78.15.0   |      500   |
+     | Erizos                |   9.54.40  |  78.14.0   |    5,000   |
+     | Huarmey               |  10.00.20  |  78.12.0   |      500   |
+     | 2nd ditto             |  10.02.0   |  78.11.0   |    3,000   |
+     | Bay of Gramadal       |  10.25.0   |  78.00.30  |   10,000   |
+     | Pescadores            |  11.48.0   |  77.15.30  |      200   |
+     +-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
+
+I have not visited all these small deposits, and have been content to
+take the report of Captain Black, the chief of the Peruvian expedition
+lately appointed to examine them. I have found him so faithful and
+trustworthy in those cases--the more important of them all--where I
+have had the opportunity of comparing his calculations with my own,
+that I have not hesitated to adopt his estimates of the least important
+deposits. I have considered them of value if for no other reason
+than to guard the public against any fresh discovery being made by
+interested parties.
+
+If then we add these northern deposits to those of the south, Peru has
+at present in her possession, in round numbers, 7,500,000 tons of guano
+of 2240 lbs. to the ton.
+
+It is not my business to suggest the possible existence of guano
+remaining to be discovered. I may however be allowed to say that there
+are certain unmistakable indications of even large deposits which may
+lie buried a hundred feet below the sand on the slopes of the southern
+shore. As those indications are the result of my own observation, I may
+be allowed to keep them to myself for a more convenient season.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [3] Since writing the above I have come on the following
+     passage from the report of the Peruvian Minister of Finance
+     for 1858.
+
+     'HUANO
+
+     Tan grande es el valor de este ramo de la riqueza
+     nacional, que sin exajeracion puede asegurarse, que en
+     su estimacion y buen manejo estriba la subsistencia del
+     Estado, el mantenimiento de su credito, el porvenir de su
+     engrandecimiento, y la conservacion del orden publico.' Which
+     may be done into the vulgar tongue faithfully and well as
+     follows--So great is the value of this branch of the national
+     riches, that without exaggeration it may be affirmed that
+     on its estimation and good handling depend the subsistence
+     of the State, the maintenance of its credit, the future of
+     its increase, and the preservation of public order.--Signed,
+     Manuel Ortiz de Zerallos.
+
+     [4] It is hard to believe that the present dead silent sands,
+     which form the coast of Peru from the Province of Chincha in
+     the south as far as Trujillo in the north, was in the early
+     days so populous that Padre Melendez, quoted by Unanue,
+     compared one of the small valleys to an ant hill; and now
+     'not more than half a dozen natives can be found among its
+     ruins.'--See Documentos Literarios del Peru Colectados por
+     Manuel de Odriozola, vol. vi, p. 179.
+
+     The rapid and continued decrease of the Peruvian population
+     has been ascribed to civil war. This is not true. Where the
+     sword has carried off its thousands, the infernal stuff known
+     as brandy, the small pox, and other epidemics, have slain
+     their tens of thousands. The liberation of the slaves also
+     caused great mortality amongst the negroes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+'However long the guano deposits may last, Peru always possesses
+the nitrate deposits of Tarapaca to replace them. Foreseeing the
+possibility of the former becoming exhausted, the Government has
+adopted measures by which it may secure a new source of income, in
+order that on the termination of the guano the Republic may be able to
+continue to meet the obligations it is under to its foreign creditors.'
+
+These words form part of an assuring despatch from Don Juan Ignacio
+Elguera, the Peruvian Minister of Finance, to the Minister of Foreign
+Affairs, and was made public as early as possible after it was found
+that the January coupon could not be paid. The assurance came too late
+for any practical purposes, and it merely demonstrated the fact that
+the Peruvian Government shared in the panic which had been designedly
+brought to pass by its enemies as well as its intimate friends in Lima,
+and their emissaries in London and Paris.
+
+The despatch demonstrates two or three other matters of importance.
+We are made to infer from its terms, and the eagerness with which it
+insists on the undoubted source of wealth the Government possesses
+in the deposits of nitrate, that it was unaware of the actual amount
+of guano still remaining in the deposits of the north and the south.
+We may also safely believe that the Peruvian Government did not
+at the time of the publication of the despatch, dream of asking
+the bondholders to sacrifice any of their rights; and further, in
+its anxiety to save its credit with England, it was hurried into a
+confession which it now regrets.
+
+What spirit of evil suggested to President Pardo the idea of appealing
+to the charity of his creditors, immediately after allowing his finance
+minister to announce to all the world that the Republic was able to
+continue meeting its obligations to its foreign creditors even though
+the guano should give out, it does not much concern us to enquire. The
+effect of such an appeal cannot fail to be prejudicial to the credit of
+Peru; and men or dealers in other people's money will not be wanting
+who will call in question the good faith of the finance minister
+when he declared that the deposits of nitrate could continue what the
+deposits of guano had begun but failed to carry on.
+
+Other considerations press themselves upon us. In the midst of the
+crisis, the President published a decree, announcing that he would
+avail himself of the resolution of Congress which enabled him to
+acquire the nitrate works in the province of Tarapaca. A commission
+of lawyers was at once despatched to the province to examine titles,
+and to fix upon the price to be paid to each manufacturer for his
+plant and his nitrate lands. In an incredibly short time no less than
+fifty-one nitrate makers had given in their consent to sell their works
+to the Government, and the price was fixed upon each, and each was
+measured, inventoried, and closed. The total sum to be paid for these
+establishments was 18,000,000 dols. But they remained to be conveyed.
+The civil power had displayed considerable activity; now that the
+law had to be applied things became as dull as lead, and as heavy as
+if they had all been made of that well-known metal. Negotiations had
+also to be entered into with the Lima Banks, which is an operation as
+delicate and as dangerous as negotiating with so many volcanoes, or any
+other uncertain and baseless institutions of which either nature or a
+civilisation supported by bits of paper can boast.
+
+Still the world was comforted by the promise that next week all would
+be well, or the week after, or say the end of the month, in order
+to be sure. In the midst of this, General Prado, the possible future
+President of Peru, is despatched to Europe on a mission, the nature of
+which was kept a profound secret for three weeks.
+
+Simple men, who believed in the despatch of the finance minister, knew
+for certain that General Prado had gone to England to raise more money
+on nitrate, in order that the Oroya Railway might be finished, and a
+station-house built somewhere in the Milky Way, which it is destined
+probably this marvellous line shall ultimately reach. And if London
+would only lend Peru, say another L10,000,000, then Lima would rejoice,
+and the whole earth be glad; the mountains would break out into psalms,
+and the valleys would laugh and sing, for would not Don Enrique Meiggs,
+the Messiah[5] of the Andes, once more return to reign?
+
+At any rate it is quite certain that General Prado was announced to
+sail on the 14th of March, when the last stroke of the pen was to be
+put to the conveyance of the nitrate properties. Alas! the law's delay
+continued, and General Prado did not sail. It is natural to suppose at
+all events that Prado never meant to go to London without the nitrate
+contracts in his pocket--which will supply a larger income to Peru
+than the guano in all its glory ever did,--for the purpose of asking
+the bondholders to be merciful. The General finally left Callao for
+Europe on the 21st, amidst the forebodings of his friends, and the
+ill-concealed joy of his foes, but without the nitrate documents being
+signed. Still, before he could reach London the thing would be done,
+and the result could be telegraphed. In the meantime the new minister
+to Paris and London, Rivaguero, telegraphed to Lima some favourable
+news, the precise terms of which, of course, were not allowed to
+transpire, to the effect that an arrangement had been made satisfactory
+to all parties.
+
+On this, further delay takes place in the important nitrate
+negotiations, and that in the face of a semi-official communication to
+the effect that next week merchants might rely upon it that all would
+be well and truly finished. In the stead of this, President Pardo
+'reminds the Banks of an item which up to that period had never been
+dreamed or thought of, except by the President himself, namely, that
+they, the Banks, on the security of the nitrate bonds, would have to
+supply to the Government so many hundred thousand dollars per month!
+
+All at once the whole fabric of the nitrate business fell down.
+
+Two things may be inferred from this: President Pardo hoped, believed,
+perhaps knew, that the bondholders would give way, and he had become
+convinced that he had made a mistake in buying the nitrate properties;
+it is also likely that he knew for certain at this time that there
+was guano enough for all purposes, without meddling with the important
+nitrate matters, and thereby destroying a great and important national
+industry. He may also have been desirous to bury, in an oblivion of his
+own making, the honest compromise contained in the despatch of Don Juan
+Ignacio Elguera. A further light may have dawned on the Presidential
+mind, namely, that it will be perfectly easy for the Government to
+treble the export duty on nitrate, without in the least damaging
+the trade or dangerously interfering with the profits of the makers,
+by which means the Peruvian Government would reap an annual income
+without trouble, or any of the thousand vexations to which it has been
+subjected in the export and sale of its guano.
+
+That it was the original intention of the Government to raise a loan
+on the 'purchase' of the nitrate properties, is evident from the terms
+of the tenth article of President Pardo's decree, which may be thus
+translated:--
+
+'The establishments sold to the State shall be paid for within two
+years, or as soon after as possible, that funds for the purpose have
+been raised in Europe; payment shall be by bills on London, at not more
+than ninety days, and at the rate of exchange of forty-four pence to
+the _sol_,' etc.
+
+Whatever value these particulars may possess or have given to them
+by future events[6], they will serve to show some of the peculiar
+features of the Peruvian Government, and to what shifts it can resort,
+or is compelled to make under adverse circumstances, or circumstances
+into which it may be brought by its enemies, or its own weakness, its
+inherent lack of stout-hearted honesty, and its inaptitude for what is
+known as business.
+
+The nitrate deposits are well enough known. It is absolutely certain
+that in the year 1863 there were sold 1,508,000 cwts.; and in 1873
+5,830,000 cwts. In that year the Government acknowledged to have
+received from the export of this article the sum of 2,250,000 dols.
+Should the permanent sale of nitrate reach 5,000,000 quintals per
+annum, there is no reason why the Government should not realise from
+this source at least 10,000,000 dols. a year: should it only double its
+present duties the amount would reach 12,000,000 dols.
+
+The annual amount of nitrate which the fifty-one establishments
+proposed to be bought by the Government are capable of producing, may
+be set down at 14,000,000 cwts.
+
+These establishments do not exhaust the whole of the nitrate deposits.
+There are several large 'Oficinas,' as they are called, which have, for
+their own reasons, refused to sell their properties to the State.
+
+The region of these deposits is a wild, barren pampa, 3000 feet above
+the level of the sea, and contains not less than 150 square miles of
+land, which will yield on the safest calculation more than 70,000,000
+tons of nitrate.
+
+Why these establishments for the manufacture of this important
+substance are called 'oficinas' it may not be difficult to say: it
+is doubtless for the same reason that a cottage _orne_ at Chorrillos,
+the Brighton of Lima, is called a rancho. Twenty years ago Chorrillos
+was to Lima what the Clyde and its neighbouring waters were to the
+manufacturing capital of Scotland. What Dunoon and its competitors on
+the Scotch coast now are, such has Chorrillos become,--the fashionable
+resort of rich people who have robbed nature of her simplicity and
+beauty by embellishing her, as they call it, with art. All that remains
+of the straw-thatched rancho of Chorrillos, with its unglazed windows,
+its mud floors, its hammocks, and its freedom, is its name. An oficina
+twenty or thirty years ago, was no doubt a mere office made of wood,
+hammered together hastily, as an extemporary protection from the sun by
+day, and the cold dews and airs of the night: in appearance resembling
+nothing else but an Australian outhouse. An oficina of to-day is a very
+different thing. Its appearance, and all that pertains to it, is as
+difficult to describe as a great ironworks, or chemical works, or any
+other works where the ramifications are not only numerous, but novel.
+The first oficina whose acquaintance I had the honour and trouble
+to make, was that of the Tarapaca Nitrate Company, situated near the
+terminus of the Iquique and La Noria Railway, in the midst of a windy
+plain 3000 feet above the sea, and beneath a far hotter sun than that
+which beats on the pyramids of Egypt.
+
+If you take a seat in the wide balcony of the house, where the manager
+and the clerks of the establishment reside, and live not uncomfortably,
+you look down almost at your feet on what appears to be an uncountable
+number of vast iron tanks containing coloured liquids, a tall chimney,
+a chemical laboratory, an iodine extracting house, a steam-pump,
+innumerable connecting pipes, stretching and twisting about the vast
+premises as if they were the bowels of some scientifically formed
+stomach of vast proportions for the purpose of digesting poisons and
+producing the elements of gunpowder, a blacksmith's forge, an iron
+foundry, a lathe shop, complicated scaffolding, tramways, men making
+boilers, men attending on waggons, bending iron plates, stoking fires,
+breaking up _caliche_, wheeling out refuse, putting nitrate into
+sacks, and other miscellaneous labour, requiring great intelligence
+to direct and great endurance to carry on; and all beneath the fierce
+heat of a sun, unscreened by trees or clouds, the glare of which on
+the white substance which is in process of being turned over, broken,
+and carried from one point to another, is as painful as looking
+into a blast furnace. Beyond the great and busy area where all these
+varied operations are carried on the eye stretches across a desert of
+brown earth, which is terminated by soft rolling hills of the same
+fast colour. The appearance of this desert is that of a vast number
+of ant-hills in shape; and in size of the heaps of refuse which give
+character to the Black Country in Mid Staffordshire. Perhaps the first
+impression which this repulsive desert makes on the mind of a man
+who has seen and observed much is that of a battlefield of barbarian
+armies, where the slain still lie in the heaps in which they were
+clubbed down by their foes; or it may be likened to an illimitable
+number of dust-hills jumbled together by an earthquake. All this is the
+result of digging for _caliche_, and blasting it out of the sandy bed
+in which it has lain God only knows how long.
+
+As the breeze springs up, and clouds of fine white dust follow the mule
+carts and rise under the hoofs of galloping horses, the idea of the
+battlefield with the use of gunpowder comes back on the memory, and is
+perhaps the nearest simile that can be used. And this is an oficina!
+one of the silliest and most inadequate of words ever used to denote
+what is one of the newest, and may be the largest, as it is certainly
+the most novel, of all modern industrial establishments.
+
+The manufacture of caliche into nitrate of soda is not without its
+dangers to human life, though these are fewer than they were when men
+frequently fell into vats of boiling liquors, or broke their limbs
+in falling from high scaffolding: the latter form of danger still
+exists, and is almost impossible to guard against. I am free to say,
+however, that if the guard were possible I do not believe it would be
+used. There are some trades and processes which not only brutalise the
+labourers on whom rests the toil of carrying them on, but which no less
+degrade the mind of those who direct them; and the nitrate manufacture
+is one of these. 'Joe,' one of the house dogs, fell into one of the
+heated tanks of the oficina where I was staying, and his quick but
+dreadful death made more impression on some than did the untimely death
+of a man who was killed the day before at the same place. Another item
+in the agitated landscape which stretches from the balcony where I
+sat is a spacious burying-ground, walled in as a protection from dogs
+and carts; but these are not its only or its chief desecrators. The
+sky furnishes many more. This great oficina contains 1682 estacas;
+can produce 900,000 quintals of nitrate a year, and was 'sold' to the
+Government for 1,250,000 dols.
+
+An estaca is a certain amount of ground 'staked out,' as we might say,
+and contains about one hundred square yards of available land.
+
+There are other oficinas of still greater value than the one mentioned
+above; as, for instance, those of Gildemeister and Co., and which the
+Government acquired on the same terms for the same sum.
+
+The markets for this new substance are England, Germany, the United
+States, California, Chile, and other countries. It is as a cultivator
+a formidable competitor of the guano, and is esteemed by scientific
+men to be much more valuable. Its price is set down at L19 the
+ton, although L12 and L12 10_s._ is its present market value. The
+acquisition by the Peruvian Government of this industry was patriotic,
+even if it were not wise. It was done with the intention of paying the
+foreign creditors of the Republic. Since then Peruvian patriotism has
+assumed another form and complexion, and what was done in an honest
+enthusiasm of haste is already being repented of in a leisure largely
+occupied with the contemplation of a patriotic repudiation of national
+duty and debt.
+
+The arguments by which 'prominent' Peruvians are fortifying themselves
+for a step which at any moment may be taken, are neither moral nor
+convincing, except to themselves. 'Peru must live,' they say, which
+does not mean a noble form of poverty, but an altogether ignoble form
+of extravagance, and even wasteful magnificence. We must have our army,
+our navy, our President, his ministers, our judges, our priests, our
+ambassadors, our newspapers, stationery, bunting, gas for the plaza
+on feast days, wax candles for our churches by night and by day, a
+national police, gunpowder, jails for foreign delinquents, and railways
+to the Milky Way, to show to neighbouring republics and all the world
+that Peru is a fine nation.
+
+There is not one of all these splendid items which, so far as the
+people are concerned, could not be dispensed with.
+
+But to live, they reiterate, is the primary object and purpose of all
+nations, and especially republican nations, forgetting, or, what is
+much more likely, never having known, that death is preferable to a
+shamed life, and that there are times when it is clearly a duty to die.
+
+The next argument now rapidly gaining ground in Lima is that although
+the guano has been hypothecated, this was contrary to Peruvian law,
+which distinctly lays down that nothing movable _can_ be hypothecated;
+and as guano is clearly movable stuff, which can be proved to the
+meanest capacity--the capacity, namely, of a holder of Peruvian
+bonds--the Government has been breaking its own laws for a generation
+past, and it is now time that this illegal conduct should cease. This
+is backed up by reminding all men, and especially Peruvians, who
+will derive great comfort from it, that England having recognised
+the primary fact that it is the first duty of a man to live, has
+abolished imprisonment for debt in her own dominions, and therefore
+she could not exert her power to make Peru pay what she owes, if Peru
+officially declares that she is unable to do so. These and other like
+arguments are being openly discussed in the Peruvian capital. Another,
+and perhaps the most formidable of all these specious pleas is, that
+England has recently let off Turkey, and therefore there is no reason
+why she should not let off Peru.
+
+It is only fair to say that there are a few thoughtful men in the
+City of Kings who, ambitious for their country's honour, would fain
+see some arrangement made that will enable Peru to pursue her present
+policy of internal improvement, and help these men, who for the most
+part are very wealthy, to remain peaceably in office for say ten years
+longer--or say six--but at least, for God's sake as well as your own,
+they appealingly persist, let it not be less than four years (in the
+which there shall be no hearing or harvest for bondholders and dupes of
+that stamp).
+
+There is no doubt that, in the words of 'a Daniel say I,' if the
+bondholders would not lose all, 'then must the Jew be merciful,' let
+them insist on their pound of flesh, and everything denominated in
+their bond, they will share the fate of Shylock. The only part of that
+cruel rascal's fate which they need have no apprehension of sharing is,
+being made into Christians.
+
+It is unquestionably to be feared that if the present Government,
+and the one that succeeded it in August last under the presidency of
+General Prado, cannot defend the country from revolt, great disaster
+will follow not only to the republic, but most certainly to the
+bondholders.
+
+Revolt is not only possible, it is expected. An armed force led by
+determined men from without, aided by traitors within, and backed by
+unscrupulous persons who would be willing to risk one million pounds
+sterling on the chance of making two millions, might easily--or if
+not easily, yet with pains--bring back the corrupt days of Balta and
+Castilla, and, with shame be it said, such people can find a precedent
+for their proposed scheme in houses of high standing, the heads
+of which are doubtless looked upon as irreproachable ensamples of
+cultivated respectability.
+
+[Since writing the above, General Prado has once more assumed supreme
+power in peace, but there have followed two attempts at revolution
+within the space of three little months.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [5] 'Haber aparecido en el Peru el hombre que sin
+     profanacion de la palabra se puede llamar el _Mesias_ de los
+     ferrocarriles para la salvacion de la Republica Peruana.'--El
+     Ferrocarril de Arequipa, Historia, &c., Lima, 1871, p. lxxxi.
+
+     [6] Written off Alta Villa, April 25, 1876.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Having set forth two principal sources of Peruvian income, let us
+now proceed to a third. When los Senores Althaus and Rosas appeared
+in Paris last autumn as the representatives of the Government of
+Peru, among other national securities which those gentlemen offered
+for a further loan of money, were the railways of Peru. They are six
+in number, only one of which is finished according to the original
+contracts. The amount of mileage however is considerable, so also may
+be said to be their cost, for the Government has paid to one contractor
+alone no less a sum than one hundred and thirty millions of dollars.
+There are other railways whose united lengths amount to about 150
+miles; with one exception they cost little, and without an exception
+they all bring in much.
+
+These do not belong to the Government. The Government railways cost
+enormous sums and bring in nothing; and it may safely be said that
+they will never figure, honestly, in the national accounts, except
+as items of expenditure. The Government of the day would only be too
+glad to become cheap carriers of the national produce, if there were
+any produce ready to carry. But the Government built their railways
+without considering what are the primary and elementary use of
+railways. It is incredible, but none the less true, that the Peruvians
+believing the mercantile 'progress' of the United States to spring
+from railways, thought that nothing more was needed to raise their
+country to the pinnacle of commercial magnificence than to build a
+few of these iron ways, and have magic horses fed with fire to caper
+along them; especially if they could get an American--a real go-a-head
+American--for their builder. And they did so.
+
+The railway fever has had its virulent type in all parts of the
+world where railways have appeared. In Peru from 1868 to 1871-2
+this fever was perhaps more active and deadly than anywhere; than
+in Canada, even, which is saying much, for there it took the form of
+a religious delirium. The Peruvians believed that if they offered a
+great and wonderful railway to the deities of industry, great and happy
+commercial times would follow. Just as they believe that give a priest
+a pyx, a spoon, some wine, and wheaten bread, he can make the body and
+blood of God; so they believed that give a great American the required
+elements, he could by some equally mysterious power make Peru one of
+the great nations of the earth.
+
+Mr. Henry Meiggs[7], of Catskill 'city' in New York State, was on
+this occasion selected as the great high-priest who was to perform
+the required wonders. Give this magician a few thousand miles of iron
+rails to form two parallel lines, and a steam engine to run along them,
+and the vile body of the Peruvian Republic should be changed into a
+glorious body[8] with a mighty palpitating soul inside of it; the body
+to be of the true John Bull type for fatness, and the Yankee breed for
+speed.
+
+This new meaning of the doctrine of transubstantiation was preached
+to willing and enchanted ears. Ten thousand labourers of all colours
+and kinds were introduced into the country. 'By God, Sir, there was
+not a steamboat on the broad waters of the Pacific that did not pour
+into Peru as many peones as potatoes from Chile.' These ten thousand
+men all went up the Andes bearing shovels in their hands, and singing
+the name of Meiggs as they went. Millions of nails, and hammers
+innumerable, rails and barrows, sleepers and picks, chains, and double
+patent layers, wheels and pistons, with many thousand kegs of blasting
+powder 'let in duty free,' with all the other infernal implements and
+apparatus for making the most notable railway of this age[9], poured
+into Peru marked with the name of Meiggs. You could no more breathe
+without Meiggs, than you could eat your dinner without swallowing dust,
+sleep without the sting of fleas or the soothing trumpet of musquitoes.
+Meiggs everywhere; in sunshine and in storm, on the sea and on the
+heights of the world, now called Mount Meiggs; in the earthquake[10],
+and in the peaceful atmosphere of the most elegant society in the
+world. The wonderful activity on the Mollendo and Arequipa railway,
+carried on without ceasing, produced an ecstasy of hope, and also an
+eruption of blasphemy. Every valley was to be exalted; every Peruvian
+mountain, hitherto sacred to snow and the traditions of the Incas,
+should be laid low by the wand of Meiggs; the desert of course should
+blossom as the rose: no more iron should be sharpened into swords;
+ploughshares and pruning-hooks should be in such demand, that every
+blade and dagger or weapon of war in the old world would be required to
+make them. And a highway should be there, in which should be no lion,
+even a highway for our GOD. All this mixture of trumpery metaphors were
+poured into the ears of the enchanted Peruvians for the space of three
+years and more. The railway as far as Arequipa was at length finished,
+the Oroya railway was begun.
+
+It will probably never be finished.
+
+Robert Stephenson is reported to have said once before a Railway
+Committee: 'My Lords and Gentlemen, you can carry a railway to the
+Antipodes if you wish; it is only a matter of expense.' The Peruvians,
+aided by the archpriest Meiggs, 'the Messiah of railways, who was to
+bring salvation to the Peruvian Republic,' and steadfastly believing in
+the Meiggs' method of transubstantiation, commenced building a railway,
+not to Calcutta, but to the moon[11].
+
+As early as 1859 the Oroya Railway began to be thought of seriously,
+and the late President of Peru, with two other gentlemen of character,
+were appointed a commission to collect data and make calculations for a
+railway between Lima and Jauja. Nothing, however, was done until 1864,
+when Congress authorised the Government, Castilla then being President,
+to construct a railway to Caxamarca, with an annual guarantee of 7 per
+cent. for twenty-five years.
+
+The railway fever now began to increase in force and virulence, and
+in 1868 the President of the Republic was authorised to construct
+railways from Mollendo to Arequipa, Puno and Cuzco; from Chimbote to
+Santa or Huaraz; from Trujillo to Pacasmayo and to Caxamarca; from Lima
+to Jauja; and others which the Republic might need--a very respectable
+order to be given in one day. The Oroya Railway was to be 145 miles
+in length, and to cost 27,600,000 dols. To Puno the length was to be
+232 miles from Arequipa, and the cost 35,000,000 dols. From Mollendo
+to Arequipa, 12,000,000 dols., the length being 107 miles[12]. Ilo
+to Moquiqua, 63 miles, 6,700,000 dols. Pacasmayo to Caxamarca, or
+Guadalupe, or Magdalena, 83 miles, 7,700,000 dols. Payto to Piura, 63
+miles. Chimbote to Huaraz, 172 miles, 40,000,000 dols.
+
+Immediately after this small order was given, and Meiggs began to
+fill the world with the sound of his name, the Lima editors commenced
+their fulsome and disgusting eloquence, which day by day held all
+people in suspense. 'As puissant as colossal are the labours of the
+administration of Col. Don Jose Balta, who, without offence be it said,
+has a monomania for the construction of railways and public works--the
+infirmity of a divine inspiration in a head of the State.'
+
+What the infirmity of a divine inspiration may be we will not stay to
+enquire. Goldsmith was called an inspired idiot: and perhaps this was
+what the learned editor meant to say of Col. Balta.
+
+He goes on: 'The administration of Balta has converted the nation into
+a workshop. We say it in his honour that he has constructed rather than
+governed; but he has constructed well and firmly. He has done more
+than this, he has created and conserved the habit of work in all the
+nation, demonstrating by the argument of deeds that revolutions spring
+principally from idleness.' 'Balta has cast a net of railways over
+the country which has taken anarchy captive. Without any difficulty
+might it be argued that the time of Balta will be the Octavian Era of
+Peru[13].'
+
+Enough of this. Suffice it to say that among all these oratorical
+colonels, generals, lawyers, ministers of state, and accomplished
+editors, there was not one who had the honesty or the pluck to stand
+up and declare that it was all false which had so eloquently been said
+of the Oroya and the Arequipa Railways. They are neither the railways
+of the age nor of the day. There is one short railway in South America,
+the construction of which called forth more skill, pluck, and endurance
+than all the Meiggs railways put together, and this one railway has
+already earned in the first quarter of the century of its existence
+more money than all the government railways will ever earn during the
+next age. Hundreds of these inflated colonels and generals, judges,
+ministers of state, and accomplished editors, must have passed over the
+railway, which, running through a tropical forest, connects the Pacific
+with the Atlantic Ocean. Meiggs himself must have known it well; but
+neither he nor any of the inspired idiots who drowned him in butter had
+the valour to make mention of it by one poor word. The bridge over the
+Chagres river is of more utility, as it will win more enduring fame,
+than all the bridges on the Oroya, including those which 'are sixteen
+thousand feet above the level of the sea.' The Oroya bridges bear the
+same relation to those on the Panama Railway as the feat of the man who
+walked across the Falls of Niagara bears to the economy of walking. As
+Blondin was the only man who made any profit out of that performance,
+so Meiggs, the Messiah of railways, will be the only person who will
+for some time to come profit by the building of the Oroya and Lima line
+of railway. It is surely impossible that all the reports one has been
+compelled to give ear to of great silver mines and mines of copper
+existing on this line can be false. Yet mining, especially in Peru,
+is not free from danger; it is also not a little mixed up with lying
+and cheating, and it has a historical reputation for exaggeration. The
+copper mines on the Chimbote line, however, are quite another matter.
+If those on the Oroya can be demonstrated to be equally good, and the
+silver mines only half as good and as great, Peru may yet lift up her
+head. But he will be a bold man that shall apply to English capitalists
+for the first loan to Peruvian miners or to be invested in Peruvian
+mines, and the days of faith and trust will not have passed away when
+the money shall have been subscribed.
+
+Although it was a poet who said that
+
+     'Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,'
+
+yet it is as true as if it had emanated from the Stock Exchange, the
+_Times_ monetary article, or any other recognised fountain of practical
+knowledge; and as for the native edge of Peruvian industry, it is about
+as dull as that of a razor not made to shave but to sell--as dull, in
+fact, as the edge of a hatchet made of lead.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [7] For the biography of this estimable gentleman see 'El
+     Ferrocarril de Arequipa Historia, documentada de su origen
+     construcion e inauguracion.'--Lima, p. 96. 'Ese hombre
+     era ENRIQUE MEIGGS, cuyo nombre va unido inseparable e
+     imperecederamente a los trabajos mas colosales de las
+     republicas del mar Pacifico.'
+
+     [8] For these and similar ebullitions of profanity I am
+     indebted to the Lima newspapers of the period, and one or two
+     anonymous pamphlets.
+
+     [9] Paz-Soldan.
+
+     [10] With a liberality on a scale equal to all his
+     achievements, Mr. Meiggs subscribed $50,000 for the sufferers
+     in the terrible earthquake which desolated Arequipa and
+     destroyed Arica in 1868.
+
+     [11] It is difficult to be original in this age of metaphor.
+     Only this morning, April 26, and quite by accident, I came
+     on a little print which is published, I believe, in Callao,
+     where I found the following:
+
+                       'RAILROADS IN THE CLOUDS.
+
+     'Looking over our exchanges we found the following. It is
+     from the New York _Sun_ of January 16, and gives an account
+     of Mr. John G. Meiggs being "interviewed" in that city.
+
+     'Mr. John Meiggs, brother of Henry Meiggs, the "King of
+     Peru," as the millionaire contractor is called in South
+     America, is lodging in the Clarendon Hotel. He is a tall,
+     large man, past middle age, and with a clear penetrating
+     hazel eye. He has an important share in the management of
+     his brother's affairs. "Peru," he said, "is richer in the
+     precious metals than any other country in the world. Our
+     engineers in building the railroad from the coast to Puno
+     have come across a hundred silver mines, any one of which
+     might be profitably worked, if in the United States. If
+     these mines are worked, the railroads we have built will be
+     a blessing to the country."
+
+     'Reporter--"I understand that there are marvels of
+     engineering on some of your railroads?"
+
+     'Mr. Meiggs--"Yes. One of our roads crosses the mountains at
+     16,000 feet above the level of the sea. Some of the bridges,
+     too, are very lofty, and built with a skill that would do
+     credit to any part of the world."
+
+     'Reporter--"Your brother is said to be worth several millions
+     of dollars?"
+
+     'Mr. Meiggs--"Whatever he obtained in Peru he has fully
+     earned, and whatever he owed there or elsewhere he has paid.
+     He has not been a seeker of contracts. On the contrary, he
+     has rejected contracts that the Government wished him to
+     take."'
+
+     [12] To which may be added $2,000,000 more for the conveyance
+     of water along the line nearly from Arequipa to Mollendo.
+
+     [13] Ferrocarril de Arequipa, pp. lxxxi-ii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Guano, Nitrate, and Railways being recognised as the prime sources
+of Peruvian greatness, and these having been noticed with no scant
+justice, another matter remains for examination, which may be said
+to surpass all the others in importance, albeit it is not so easy to
+estimate or understand.
+
+Granted that Peru has all the physical elements of a great
+nation,--such as gold and silver, copper and iron, and coal, oil and
+wine, a vast line of sea-coast with numerous safe bays and ports,
+rivers for internal navigation, as well as railroads,--has she the
+moral qualities to develop these riches and make the best use of them?
+In plain words, has Peru ceased to be a hotbed of revolution? is there
+any hope that the ruling classes of the Peruvian people will become
+sober, industrious, thrifty, honest, just and right in all their
+dealings, and cease to be a source of anxiety and disgust to their
+present and future creditors?
+
+These may be said to be momentous questions, and not to be lightly
+answered. Any answer not founded on well-ascertained facts and
+indisputable knowledge should be set aside as vexatious and frivolous.
+A hasty answer, or one founded on aught else, could only be conceived
+in malice or prompted by motives of self-interest. It has, for example,
+during the past few months been comparatively easy to a portion of
+the London press to defame the character of Peru; to find reasons why
+its bonds should be held only as waste paper, and even to prove to the
+satisfaction of its fond and eager readers that she is in an utterly
+bankrupt state. The same accomplished writers, if it suited their
+purpose, could as easily prove, with their eloquent persuasiveness,
+that Peru after all is, in commercial phraseology, sound; she had
+never yet failed in keeping faith with her English friends, and is too
+enlightened to think of doing so now. True, she is in debt; but she
+can pay handsomely, and, in the powerful rhetoric of Bassanio, would
+encourage money-lenders and her private friends thus:--
+
+     'In my school days, when I had lost one shaft,
+     I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
+     The self-same way with more advised watch,
+     To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
+     I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
+     Because what follows is pure innocence.
+     I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
+     That which I owe is lost; but if you please
+     To shoot another arrow that self way
+     Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt
+     As I will watch the aim, or to find both
+     Or bring your latter hazard back again
+     And thankfully rest debtor for the first.'
+
+But not thus will our serious questions meet with satisfactory answers.
+
+The first thing to be noted in the enquiry, perhaps, is that it is
+altogether a misnomer to call Peru a Republic. Whatever else it be,
+a Republic it certainly is not, and never has been a Republic. Its
+political constitution and its laws have nothing whatever to do with
+the people, nor have the people aught to do with them; and they care
+for them as they care for the theory of gravitation, or any other
+portion of demonstrable knowledge, from which they may indeed derive
+some animal comfort in its application, but the application of which
+will probably never enlighten their souls. The people of Peru know as
+much of liberty as they know of the Virgin Mary. The priests once or
+twice a year dress the image of the Jewish maiden in tawdry attire,
+put a tinsel crown on her head, and call her the Mother of God and the
+Queen of Heaven, and the people fall down and worship; which they are
+perfectly at liberty to do, as the impostors who lead them to do so may
+get their living in that way, as all other impostors obtain theirs who
+possess the people's grace. In like fashion, all that the people know
+of liberty they know thus. They know as much of it as an aristocrat
+cares to teach them--as a quack can tell his patient of medicine,
+or the showy proprietress of a showy school can teach an intelligent
+girl the use of the globes. All native-born Peruvians of full age have
+votes, at least all such as can read and write, or possess a certain
+amount of real property. But reading and writing are not by any means
+universal accomplishments in the Peruvian Republic, and there are fewer
+holders of real estate among the working classes than maybe found in
+Barbados among the coloured labourers of that beautiful but misgoverned
+island.
+
+Don Juan Espinosa, an old Peruvian soldier, and one of the few South
+American writers whose literary works have been translated into
+French, if not also into English, wrote some twenty years ago a
+republican, democratic, moral, political, and philosophical dictionary
+for the people. Strange to say, he has given us no definition of a
+Republic in his highly-entertaining and instructive book. Two of his
+longest articles, however, are devoted, the first to the subject of
+'Independence,' and the second to 'Revolution.' The manner in which the
+author concludes the first is suggestive: 'On one day,' he says, 'we
+were all brothers and countrymen; brothers by blood, and countrymen of
+a land which we had just irrigated with our blood. O day immortal for
+humanity! On this day the Saviour of the world beheld the consummation
+of his work; he saw the spectacle which years before had led the way
+for 1824. He without doubt designed the camp of AYACUCHO as the first
+embrace of all the races, and the signal also for the suppression of
+all human rivalries. Afterwards'
+     ______________________________________________________
+
+A long, broad black line stretches across the page as if to put it in
+mourning.
+
+'A revolution in substance,' he says, 'is nothing more than the
+organisation of a people's discontent.'
+
+If that be so, there has never been a revolution in Peru; a statement
+which will be doubted by nearly all who hear it for the first time. We
+may perhaps make an exception in the revolution which made Col. Prado
+dictator of Peru in November, 1865. No doubt the enthusiasm of the
+Peruvian people for going to war with Spain was genuine, and Prado,
+not at all a man of revolutionary tastes, easily overthrew Canseco,
+because of his Spanish tendencies. Prado was subsequently elected
+President in 1867, but was overthrown by Balta and Canseco the year
+following, and Colonel (now General) Prado fled to Chile for his life.
+Still, let us be thankful that we can find one authentic instance of
+Peruvian patriotism in the course of fifty years, and that out of the
+hundreds of revolutions which have occurred, one was for the good of
+the country--and most certainly to its honour.
+
+The anniversary of the 2nd of May, 1866, is kept with pride by every
+loyal Peruvian in all parts of the world, wherever one may find
+himself. Had there been among the Peruvian soldiers on that day as much
+knowledge of gunnery as there was of personal valour, not more than one
+or two ships of the Spanish fleet which bombarded Callao had escaped
+destruction.
+
+It has been contended by a few anxious Peruvians that the revolution
+made by General Castilla, in 1854, against General Echenique was also
+a popular revolution. Perhaps it was. Echenique was notoriously very
+fond of money, and it is said that so freely did he help himself to
+the proceeds of the public guano that the people rose against him,
+flocked to the standard of Castilla, whom they kept in power for twelve
+years, and sent Echenique into ignoble exile. If that could be proved
+in favour of the Peruvian people, it should be done at once. But no one
+from sheer laughter can discuss the question. Castilla was as fond of
+money as Echenique; Castilla, however, did one or two liberal things;
+he liberated the slaves, and abolished the poll-tax, and in that sense
+the revolution of 1854 may be said to have been a popular one.
+
+No Peruvian who supported those two famous acts of General Castilla's
+Government looks back upon them with anything but bitter regret. The
+negro slaves were well off--they were, moreover, a people with much
+affection for their masters, and slavery existed only in name. When
+the blacks, however, were 'liberated,' they became like a mob of mules
+without burdens, without guide or master, and they wandered about the
+earth and died miserably. Those who survived were certainly very little
+credit to their friends, for many of them became the terror of the
+highways which converge on the capital of the Republic.
+
+The Indians who paid the poll-tax did then do some work, and they were
+made to feel some of the responsibilities of being republicans--they
+were kept under rule--they could be induced to labour in 'some of the
+richest silver mines in the world.' Now they will do nothing of the
+kind, and the Government has not only lost an income of 2,000,000
+dols. a year, they have lost the services of the entire indigenous
+population, which may be called, in classical language, a pretty kettle
+of fish, especially for a country whose riches depend upon the industry
+of a free and happy people.
+
+One immediate consequence of Castilla's emancipation policy was that it
+speedily became a profitable business for a few adventurous persons in
+Lima to proceed to China, where they kidnapped some of the superfluous
+Chinese population. This traffic prospered for a while, but as it is
+the property of murder to make itself known--somehow or anyhow--the
+profits fell off, owing to the interference of one or two civilised
+Governments. When the Celestial Empire no longer offered a safe field
+for the Peruvian men-snatchers, attempts were made on the inoffensive
+people of the diocese of modern evangelisation, and in the course of
+time the rich people of Lima had the opportunity of buying a few men,
+women, and girls, who had been stolen from some of the islands of the
+Pacific. But these for some mysterious reasons died off, after having
+cost the Peruvian Government a serious sum of money, and some people
+their reputation. It was, however, imperatively necessary, owing to
+the demands of the British farmer for guano, and the exigences of the
+Government of Peru to obtain men from China somehow for the important
+work of shovelling Peruvian dung into European ships; and there may
+be reckoned to-day among the motley population of the Republic not
+less than 60,000 men who cultivate sugar and pig-tails, and indulge in
+opium. This, therefore, might be called a popular revolution, and the
+friends of General Castilla can claim for him the honour and glory of
+having brought it about.
+
+General Castilla deserves to be better known; but this is not the
+place to speak of him at any length. He introduced a new era into
+Peruvian politics--he was the first native Peruvian with no Spanish
+blood in his veins who assumed supreme power. If there had been no
+guano to demoralise everybody, himself included, Castilla might have
+become a great man, and the Peruvian people been lifted up by him in
+the scale of humanity. As it is, Castilla and everybody else fulfilled
+the prediction of the Hebrew prophet in a manner that might be stated
+in Spanish, but which no gentleman can write in English. It should
+be stated that although Castilla had nothing of Spanish blood in his
+veins, yet his father was an Italian, and his mother one of the pure
+Indian women of Moquegua.
+
+All this, however, does not help us to answer the momentous questions
+with which this chapter opens.--If Peru is not a Republic, and there
+have not been more than two revolutions in the whole of its wild and
+chequered history, what is it?
+
+Peru is a Republic in name, 'governed' or rather farmed by groups or
+families of despots, who frequently quarrel among themselves, cut each
+other's throats, and alternately embrace and kiss each other, in a
+manner that is sickening to any one who is not a moral eunuch[14]. Only
+those who are rich enough to escape to Chile are saved from the above
+gentle process. General Prado is one of these favoured Peruvians. Had
+not Don Manuel Pardo, the late President, fled from Lima during the
+revolting days of the Gutierrez terror, he too would have gone the way
+of all flesh and Peruvian political farmers.
+
+The people of Peru, those who are to be distinguished from the
+families who farm them, are hard-working, industrious, sober, ignorant,
+excitable and superstitious. They are fond of serving their masters,
+they like to be called 'children' by the great Colonels, the great
+sugar-boilers, and all who ride on horses and live, even though it be
+at other people's expense, in great houses.
+
+The Peruvian dictionary already quoted from, though it does not contain
+the word Republic, does contain the history of Peru. Let us turn to the
+article 'Liberty.'
+
+'LA LIBERTAD,' says our brave soldier author, 'does not consist,
+civilly or socially speaking, in each one doing what he likes. By thus
+understanding liberty some governments have fallen, and some people
+have lost what they had gained.
+
+'Liberty consists in each one having the power to do, at all events,
+that which the law has not forbidden, in not damaging another in his
+rights, or property, or in his moral and material well-being.
+
+'That society is not free while any of its members are unable to
+express their thoughts without hinderance.
+
+'That society is not free when one or more of its industries are
+prohibited under the pretext of monopoly or privilege.
+
+'It is not free when it cares not, or is unable to arraign a lying
+magistrate.
+
+'That society is not free which does not possess political morality.
+This consists in--
+
+'I. Keeping the treaties and covenants made with other nations.
+
+'II. In submitting to the law without its ever supposing itself
+entitled to falsify it by cunning arts, or paltry subterfuge.
+
+'III. In holding up to scorn whatever crime affects the national
+honour.
+
+'IV. In not corrupting its institutions for personal considerations.
+A people will find it very difficult to maintain its freedom, which is
+without sufficient spirit to provide itself with good institutions, and
+afterwards ready to put so much faith in them, that it will become a
+religious duty rigorously to support them.
+
+'By what right does Spanish-America call itself republican, if it has
+not renounced the custom of a despotic monarchical absolutism?
+
+'These unhappy people have given themselves very liberal laws, and
+have afterwards abandoned them at the caprice of men without having the
+least faith in their own institutions.
+
+'How can they thus hope to be free?
+
+'It costs nothing, nor is it of any value to shout LIBERTY, LIBERTY.
+But that which is of great price, and can never be too costly, is to
+acquire liberty by means of good manners, by the custom of respecting
+the law and making it respected, by respecting the rights of others,
+and making them respected by all; to be just with all the world, and
+ashamed of every evil act. Behold, how liberty is to be acquired. In
+fine, liberty is the health of the soul, and he cannot be free who has
+not a healthy conscience.'
+
+'The greater number of our liberals,' he adds in another place, with
+one of his happiest flashes of poetic truth, of which the book is full,
+'the greater number of our liberals are like musical instruments which
+do not retain the sound they give when played upon,' i. e. they are
+cracked.
+
+Let it be added, that this soldier of the sword and of the pen who
+fought and bled on the field of battle for Peruvian civil liberty,
+and sighed, and cried in peaceful days for a freedom still greater
+and better, died poor and neglected. The present Peruvian Government
+sought all over Lima for complete copies of his works to send to
+Philadelphia, but it allows those whom he has left behind him, and who
+bear his name, to languish in obscurity and in want; and Don Manuel
+Pardo and his ministers, good in many things though they may be, are in
+others nothing better than cracked musical instruments. Peru is only
+a Republic in name, liberty does not exist, its people are not free,
+and the country remains at the mercy of men who at any moment, and in
+the most unexpected manner, can turn it into a hotbed of what is called
+revolution.
+
+A revolution is expected now. The man whose administration designed and
+carried through one of the 'railways of the age,' the personal friend
+of Meiggs, who had taken anarchy captive in an iron net, was shortly
+afterwards in the most cowardly, brutal, and unexpected way first made
+prisoner, while he was yet President, and then murdered in his jail.
+
+Great as is the love of the common people for their superiors, they are
+not to be relied upon in days of great excitement, and when there is
+abundance of loose change flying about. How could it be otherwise?
+
+How often do ministers and public men meet the people in common? Never,
+except in a religious procession carrying an enormous wax candle a yard
+long, and as thick as a rolling-pin, or at the Theatre on el dos de
+Mayo, and not then unless there has been some pleasant news announced
+the day before.
+
+How often are the people enlightened by a clear and straightforward
+statement of the public accounts? Never. Does not the free press of
+Lima support the Government, or now and then criticise its acts in the
+interest of the people? The answer is that there is no free press in
+Lima.
+
+No plan of the Government is ever made known until it has been
+accomplished. Everything is done in secret and underground. Rumour
+is the great agent of the Government and mystery its chief force.
+So mysterious are the ways of the Executive that itself is not
+unfrequently a mystery to itself. No Peruvian Government has ever had
+the courage to take the people into its confidence, and the people
+are too busy with their own personal affairs to think of, much less to
+resent, the slight.
+
+In other matters the press is busy enough. Some of the most biting
+criticisms on priests, on auricular confession, on the infallibility
+of the Pope and the Immaculate Conception have appeared in the Lima
+press. Their teachers, in brief, have ridiculed the gods of the people
+and given them none to adore. No intellectual society in Lima associate
+with priests. No priest is ever seen in the houses of the rich, or the
+respectable poor.
+
+Freemasonry is the fashionable religion of men, and men who never go
+to mass will frequent a lodge twice a week. Only the other day one of
+these lodges published an advertisement in the leading journal to the
+effect that a gold medal would be conferred on any brother mason who
+would adopt the orphan child of any who had died fighting against any
+form of tyranny, and the medal is to be worn as a badge of honour on
+the person of the owner. Freemasonry in Peru is an open menace of the
+Church, which with all deference to the craft, may be called a gross
+mistake. But Peruvian Freemasonry is like Peruvian Republicanism,
+chiefly a thing of show, and something to talk about by men who can
+talk of nothing else.
+
+After all this it should not be difficult to answer the questions with
+which this chapter opens.
+
+But lest it should be thought that the greater part of these statements
+is pure rhetoric, or mere private opinion, and not stubborn facts, let
+us now ask two questions more.
+
+What use has Peru made of the great income it has derived during the
+past generation, from the national guano? What is there to show for the
+many million pounds sterling it has derived from this source, and from
+money lent by English bondholders?
+
+Let us hasten at once to acknowledge that it has spent 150,000,000
+dols. in railways. But let us also add that the greatest authority in
+Peru has stigmatised these railways as _locuras_, or follies. This is
+not an encouraging beginning. But alas it is not only the beginning, it
+is also the end of the account.
+
+There is nothing else to be seen. There is not a single lighthouse or
+light on any dangerous rock, or at any port difficult to make along the
+whole of its coast. All the fructifying rivers of the hills still steal
+into the sea. Had half the money which has been spent on the Oroya
+railway been expended on works of irrigation, the Government of Peru
+would now be in the possession of a respectable revenue.
+
+A morning visit to the market-place in Lima on any day of the week, is
+enough to convince even a Peruvian President who knows something else
+besides how to play rocambor, of the truth of this statement.
+
+Internal roads, excepting these 'railways of the age,' there are none;
+but there are several ironclads and men-of-war in the Bay of Callao,
+for what use or of what service the First Lord of the Admiralty himself
+could not tell explicitly.
+
+It might be thought by some ordinary people, of business habits and a
+little reflection, that a country like Peru, which can boast of as many
+seaports as it can of first-class towns and cities, would provide those
+ports with convenient landing-places, moles, or piers.
+
+There is one good pier on the whole coast, which in its useless
+grandeur stretches out nearly a mile into the sea; as the Oroya
+railway, like a mighty python, creeps up the precipitous slopes of the
+Andes 'sixteen thousand feet above the level of the sea.'
+
+As every one knows, the Pacific is a peaceful sea, as quiet as a saucer
+of milk. But like almost all the things that every one knows, this
+piece of knowledge will hardly bear the test of experience. Twenty
+miles or less from its shore, the Pacific on the Peruvian coast, may
+be said to be as calm and placid as a man's unresisted vices. Put a
+restraint upon, or raise a barrier against the most modest of the man's
+wishes, and these suddenly show their strength, even the strength, as
+some have found to their cost, of resistless passion. It is thus with
+this Pacific sea. When it comes against a rocky shore, or the miserable
+wooden barriers which the Peruvian Government have put up for the
+convenience and comfort of passengers, and the despatch of business,
+it becomes more like a wild beast, or a watery volcano, or any other
+fierce and angry force which cannot by ordinary means be restrained. It
+is not unlikely that a Government fond of providing cheap distraction
+for the people has purposely neglected this useful work of building
+piers, with the benevolent design of providing a cheap amusement to
+those inhabitants of the ports who do not travel by sea.
+
+It is such fun to see a lady dressed in pink satin and blue silk
+boots get a sudden ducking in salt water, or to watch in safety from
+the shore a boat full of anxious and highly dressed colonels and
+sugar-boilers, editors and lawyers, get drenched to the skin, and
+almost robbed of their breath, in trying to effect a landing at Islay,
+or Mollendo, Iquique, or Chala, or even Callao.
+
+If any of the readers of this brief but eventful history would desire
+to see the Peruvian Republic as in a microcosm, let them arrive at
+the latter chief port of the nation in a steamer, or a cattle ship,
+as a passenger steamer may now be called. They will see an exhibition
+of confusion, extortion, bullying, insolence, cruelty, and official
+imbecility, which cannot be equalled in any other part of the civilised
+or uncivilised world, including New Guinea or Eragomanga. And as it
+is now, so it was twenty years ago. A steamer, the European mail for
+example, drops its anchor about two miles from the shore. It is then
+surrounded by a hundred small boats, each containing two, sometimes
+more, coloured men. The screaming, gesticulating, and brutal language
+of these creatures defy description. The authorities have no control
+over them, the captain of the steamer is powerless against the invasion
+of his ship, and all passengers who have no friends, who know nothing
+of the country and cannot speak Spanish, are placed at the mercy of
+this swarm of harpies.
+
+Here you have an epitome of Peru. Gentlemen and rogues jostling one
+another in painful contiguity. Gentlewomen and their opposite, men who
+work and scoundrels who prey upon other people's labour, priests and
+colonels, knowledge and ignorance, in some form or other brought in
+violent collision: the utmost freedom of opinion and nobody to keep the
+peace!
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+     [14] _Estratocracia_ I find is the technical term by
+     which Espinosa would designate the Government of Peru or
+     a government by the military. This would seem to be true,
+     seeing that since Peru became a Republic all its Presidents
+     with only one exception have been Colonels, Generals, and
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Peru in the Guano Age, by Alexander James Duffield
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