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

V ^

PEEU IN THE GUANO AGE.

OXFOKD :

BY E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY,
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

PERU IN THE GUANO AGE

BEING A SHOET

ACCOUNT OF A EECENT 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

3£ubltsfjers in ®rtrittarg to pjer fHajestg tfje
1877

DEDICATORY LETTEE.

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

Dedicatory Letter.

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, bat also because
the effect on the moral life of the country, if she should
prove a defaulter, will be most disastrous. It is piti-
able 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 re-
garding the payment of her liabilities, nor has any
official communication been made by the Government

Dedicatory Letter.

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 expo-
sure 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.

8 Dedicatory Letter.

Let me ask you to treat with leniency any uninten-
tional 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 RICABDO PALMA, cer-
tainly 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.

PEKU 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 sig-
nifies 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

B

Peru in the Guano Age.

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.

Peru in the Guano Age.

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 every-
where 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

B 2

in the Guano Age.

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 cen-
turies 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 com-
parison with those of our own time.

XIX. A thief suffered the loss of his eyes ;

Peru in the Guano Age.

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 con-
fession he attached to his will made in the
city of Cuzco on the I5th 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/

6 First of all/ says the dying Lejesama, * before
commencing my will I declare that I have much
desired in all submission to acquaint His Catho-
lic 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 under-
stand that the said Incas governed these king-
doms on such wise that in them all there was
no thief or vicious person, nor an idle man,

Peru in the G^cano Age.

nor a bad or an adulterous woman, [if sucli
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 every-
thing 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

Peru in the G^lano Age.

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 broorn, 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

8 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 con-
science 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 them-
selves in being known was that of * Lovers of

Peru in the Guano Age.

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 Govern-
ment 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

io Peril in the Guano Age.

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

Peril, in the Giiano Age. 1 1

great progress has been made in Central Lima,
all that need be said is, that it is a wonder the
inhabitants have survived, arid 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 N
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

12 Peru in the Guano Age.

not a mere name, could never have been insti-
tuted, 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 ob-
taining 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 In-
dian'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—

Peru in the Guano Age. 13

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 Apo-
stolical. Civil marriage is illegal, and ecclesi-
astical 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 mis-
understood. 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

14 Peru in the Giiano Age.

the native races is absolutely beyond the control
of the government.

XL 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,

Peru in the Guano Age. 15

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 indi-
genous 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 wrhich 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.

1 6 Peru in the G^tano Age.

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 to-
wards 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.

in the Guano Age. 17

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 o£ the Peru-
vian 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 con-
quest 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

c

1 8 Peru in the G^lano Age.

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 recollec-
tion 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 liveli-
hood 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

Per ic in the G^tano Age. 19

bishops, priests and monks, merchant princes,
senators, judges, generals, miners, doctors, pro-
fessional thieves, and widows, and I should be
an ingrate indeed if I did not acknowledge
with profound gratitude the kindness, often-
times the affection, which I received, the liber-
ality 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 rail-
way 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 Eio 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

C 2

2O Peru in the Guano Age.

point of the royal road to Honda 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 Eonda the following day.
In came the twenty pilgrims to Honda, 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 pil-
grims, 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 com-

Peru in the Guano Age. 21

pany, I was ready to throw myself not only
into bed but into the river below.

' Dona Carmen/ said the capitaz, c shall take
you to your room.'

And with a general good-night to the pil-
grims 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 imple-
ments 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 Mar-
quis say if he knew that you had slept here in
the hay-loft or on the floor, with your saddle
for a pillow 1 '

Other expostulations followed, which were
answered with great eloquence and stately de-
termination, mixed with that grave humour
which can no more be acquired than can be
acquired the wearing of a cloak as it is worn

22 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 ques-
tionable 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 wil-
fully or ignorantly misconstrued. I do not de-
fend the method Dona Carmen took in putting
her guest at his ease, and making him feel at

Peru in the Guano Age. 23

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, how-
ever 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 character-
istics. It is born of these. It can be misin-
terpreted— 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

24 Peru in the Giiano Age.

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 mo-
ther, 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, al-
though 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, unex-
pected 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 25

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, drink-
ing, 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

26 Peru in the Guano Age.

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

Peru in the Guano Age. 27

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 diffi-
culties to the country, plunging it into conflicts
which more or less have taken the gilt off the
national honour. They have wished for them-
selves certain distinct national laws. They
have thought themselves entitled to break what-
ever laws they pleased, and when the penalty
has been enforced they have applied to their
Governments, who have always judged the ques-
tion 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 marvel-
lous 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 wish-
ing 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.

28 Peru in the Guano Age.

Within the Guano Age a British minister has
been shot at his own table in Lima while dining
with his mistress. The captain o£ 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 wTere 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 con-
nive 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 29

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 Peru-
vians than any other portion of the English com-
munity. Among these numerous officers there
are a few to be met with who can speak gram-
matical 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 Britisli 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

30 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 stand-
point, 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 commer-
cial 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.

Peru in the Guano Age. 31

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 certifi-
cate 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 con-

32 Peru in the Guano Age.

viction that captains such as these must be of
use to their employers, and are needed for pur-
poses for which ordinary criminals would be un-
fitted. 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 in-
dignities 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.

Peru in the Gitano Age. 33

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 syna-
gogue, 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 Peru-
vian 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 de-
bates ! Not, indeed, in a parliamentary arid
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

D

34 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 Govern-
ment 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 fol-
lows : ' 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 peo-
ple, we command the Viceroys, the Audiencias,
and the Governors, and we charge the Arch-
bishops and Bishops that they do all that in

D 2

36 Peru in the G^t,ano Age.

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 cost1/ 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,

1 As early as \ 1 6 14 we find Cervantes writing of these countries
as the ( refugio y amparo de los desesperados de Espana, Yglesia de
los algados, salvoconducto de los homicidas, palay cubierta de los
jugadores (a quien llaman ciertos los peritos en el arte) anagaza
general de mugeres libres, engano comun de rnuchos, y remedio
particular de pocos5 — 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.

Peru in the Gitano Age. 37

Europeans and Asiatics have been to Peru; sup-
plying 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 Govern-
ment 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.

38 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 humanis-
ing 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

Peril in the Guano Age. 39

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

40 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 per-
sonal 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,

Peru in the Guano Age. 41

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 en-
thusiastic Peruvian deputy in giving a descrip-
tion 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

42 Peru in the Gitano Age.

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 Poly-
nesians.

.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 im-
migration for a moment or so seized hold of
their warm brains, that all that was needed
to fill Peru with happy colonists was to es-
tablish 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 un-
done— 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 in the Guano Age. 43

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 solas 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 com-
pelled to listen to the tale of an Italian who
had served as chief mate on a ship freighted

44 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 Venturing accommodated me with a pass-
age 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 trouble-
some 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 pro-
posed in Congress to expel the free Chinamen
from Peru, or compel them to contract them-
selves anew1. It was known that the free

1 See a useful work ' La Condicion Juridica de los Estrangeros
en el Peru,' per Felix Cipriano C. Zegarra. Santiago, 1872. p. 136.

Peru in the Guano Age. 45

Chinamen stirred up their enslaved brethren
to revolt ; explained to them — which was per-
fectly 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
stowed upon them, while they are condemn^
to a ceaseless unremitting toil, without a ray
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 com-
fort that he will be decently buried when he
dies, much less that his grave will be watered

46 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 dis-
embarked 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 au-
thority, is one of the securities of their owners
that their abuse of their Chinese slaves will
neither be corrected or chastised. On the con-
trary, 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;

Per it, :n the Guano Age. 47

he can only free himself from the horrible con-
dition 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 unex-
pected time, and one's ears tingle with words
that an Englishman knows how to meet when
compelled to hear them.

f 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,

48 Peru in the Guano Age.

or pieces of machinery, and ihe ease and
familiarity with so repulsive a commerce which
the speech denoted, proved too well the con-
tempt 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 49

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 1 ' I enquired
in my turn.

' To make money,' was the candid reply.

* For nothing else ? V 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 1 ' I enquired
E

50 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 pur-
chased in Lima for less than £20.

Peril in the Guano Age. 51

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, c what the book
is about " ; and therefore they could not tell me.
They had read it ? '0 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

E 2

52 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 gentle-
men 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 6 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 magni-
tude for not reflecting that under the circum-
stances 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.

Peru in the Giiano Age. 53

Among all the classes of immigrants in Peru,
or in Lima its capital, the English stand first
and highest. They are certainly better repre-
sented 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 con-
struction 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

54 Peru in the Guano Age.

is a serious item in a city where there is much
sun, much dust, little water, and the lavender a
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
Comer do 9 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 Maga-
zine appears to be in greatest demand, and
certainly for the price of forty cents it is a

Pent in the Guano Age. 55

marvel of cheapness. It is well printed, pro-
fusely and often well illustrated, and the num-
bers 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 Eicar-
do 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 f 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-Kius.

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

56 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 wretched-
ness 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

Peril in the Guano Age. 57

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

58 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 Pro-
tagonist.

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.

Peru in the Guano Age. 59

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 sou], 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 contempo-
rary 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

60 Peru in the Guano Age.

which, after reading and re-reading, made his
excellency cogitate, and the result of his cogi-
tation was to send for a magistrate whom he
charged without loss of time with the apprehen-
sion 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-Bius, 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 pre-
sented 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 rela-
tives 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-Kius, and
he named him Viceroy of Peru.

Peru in the Guano Age. 61

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 ex-
hausted 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
Eogers, who took possession of Guayaquil, and
squeezed out of that municipality a pretty fat
contribution. In trying to restrain these ma-
rauders, 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,

62 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 Aca-

Peru in the Guano Age. 63

demies 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 hidingplace of this very curious book,
fatally without any result, which we suppose
to be in possession of some avaricious book-
worm, 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 pro-
digious 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-Kius, 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.

64 Peru in the Guano Age.

Speaking of the performance, our compatriot
Peralta, in one of the notes to his Lima fun-
dada, says, that it was given Tyith 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-Eius 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 Com-
merce supported the accusation, and the Monarch
resolved upon at once dismissing the Governor
of Peru from his office; but the order was re-
voked, 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 Seiior de Olim de Sentmanat was deeply

Peru in the Guano Age. 65

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 declara-
tion ; 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
F

66 Peru in the Giiano Age.

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 oppor-
tunities, 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

in the Guano Age. 67

venture to say to what lengths it might have
gone, had not His Majesty Don Philip V de-
clared that it would be for the public con-
venience, 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 men-
tioned 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 ex-
pedient which brought peace to all the litigants,
and it is possible that the culprit ate a little
blessed bread, or shared in some royal indul-
gence

F 2

68 Peru in the Guano Age.

Does the original case still exist in Spain ?
It is very likely that it has been eaten of moths,
and hence the pretext and oi^gin 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/

6 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 69

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 them-
selves 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 im-
provement 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

yo Peru in the Guano Age.

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 intelli-
gence 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.

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 same1; — the ordure
of birds — pelicans, penguins, boobies, and gulls

1 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 national, 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 conservation del
orden publico.' Which may be done into the vulgar tongue faith-
fully 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.

72 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 1.

1 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 73

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 i os. 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,

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. 1,79.

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.

74 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 tur-
bulent 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 75

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, vari-
ous 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

76 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 black-
guard, 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 77

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 wTere 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 ex-
pensive, 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

78 Per ic in the G^lano Age.

equalled in the fierceness of its heat, the horror
of its stink, and the damnation of those com-
pelled 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 ne-
cessaries 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

Peru in the G^lano Age. 79

to another page of this history, and Mr. Plimsoll,
or other shipping reformer, may learn some-
thing 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 abun-
dance 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 at-
traction to the Indians. The Indians have

8o Peru in the Guano Age.

disappeared with the lobos, the penguins and
the boobies.

One million six hundred thousand tons of
guana 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 measure-
ment, 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 Punto de Lobos I discovered two small

Peru in the Guano Age. 81

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 num-
ber 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

G

82 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 motion-
less cataract of heavy boulders covers up a large
amount of guano.

The quantity found here may be fairly esti-
mated 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 ab-
sence 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

Peril in the Guano Age. 83

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 ab-
solutely 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

G 2

84 Peru in the Guano Age.

one, be it the Government of Peru, or the house
of Messrs. Dreyfus Brothers, the present finan-
cial 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 de-
posits 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 pro-
bably the law courts will have to answer the
question. It would appear at first sight that
this charge should be paid by Dreyfus. Ac-
cording 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 enviardn

Peru in the Guano Age. 85

por su cuenta y riesgo, a los depositos huaneros .
de la Republica, los buques necesarios para
el trarisporte 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 cer-
tain 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 mis-
take, and the ships, to the amazement of the
Lima press, were allowed to depart ; some to
the Pabellon de Pica, where they still are ;

86

Peru in the Guano Age.

others to Lobos, and the rest to Huanillos. In
the meantime the following circular appeared.

' The Lima press has commented in vari6us articles on the con-
duct 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 Eu-
rope, etc. $.2,390,000

Balance in favour of our house .

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

* Vessels detained in Callaoi 10,657 tons
at 30 soles ..... 3,319,710

$.26,459,156

Which shews a balance in our favour of

Adding to this sum interest in account
current since June ....

f Cost of loading ships at the deposits

and in Callao 1,500,000

Shewing a clear balance in our favour of

$.24,181,470
$.2,286,686

3,000,000
$.5,286,686

Peru in the Guano Age. 87

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 *, that Dreyfus
had already put in their claim for the detention
of the ships. What is meant by the last item
marked with a t 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) serd, colocado por cuenta y
riesgo del gobierno abordo de las lanches desti-
nadas a la carga de dichos buques ' [or, in plain
English, fthis guano shall be placed on board
such launches as are appointed to carry it to

88 Per -u in the Guano Age.

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 ap-
pointed launches ; not because the launches were
not there; not because there was no guano at
the deposits ; — but simply because the Govern-
ment had not, for some reason or other, ful-
filled 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 weari-
ness 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 Con-
sular agent, and the agent of the house of
Dreyfus, who did all they could to provide me
with wholesome food, German beer, and clean

Peru in the Guano Age. 89

beds, I should have fled away from that much-
talked-of dunghill without estimating its con-
tents ; or like a philosophical Chinaman sought
out a quiet nook in the w^arm 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 any-
thing 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 w^orld to lay up a
store of wealth for the British farmer, and a
store of quite another sort for an immaculate
Kepublican government. One passage of the

90 Peru in the Guano Age.

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

in the Guano Age. 91

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.

92 Peru in the Gitano Age.

Will the Government of Peru occupy itself
in preserving and cultivating these busy birds ?
That Government has lived now on their pro-
duce 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 93

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 beauti-
ful 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 cura9oa
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

94 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 specu-
lation 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 re-
moving in the w^ay 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 95

scooped out affording them sufficient protection
from the f 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 apply-
ing 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 hu-
miliating. 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 Eip Van Winkle's gun on the Catskills;
the wheelbarrows collapsed with a touch. Sud-
denly 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

96 Peru in the Guano Age.

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, follow-
ing 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,

Peru in the G^tano Age. 97

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 3ist, 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

H

98 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 fer-
mented 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 Pizarrc's

Peru in the Guano Age. 99

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 ac-
quaintance of one who represents young Peru :
the new generation that, if time and oppor-
tunity 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 ac-
quainted 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

H 2

IOO

Peru in the G^lano Age.

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 ....
Macabi

7.43.20

7.4.Q.3O

79.26.20
79.28.20

400

I OOO

Gruanapi

7.4Q.3O

78.56.0

3 CQO

Chao

8.46.^0

78.46.0

800

Coreobado ....
Santa

8.57-0

9Q-) O

78.40.30
78 30 30

3,000

I OO

Bay of Ferrol . . .
El Dorado ....
Small Island Pajarros
Tortuga

9.10.0
9.I2.O
9.12.0

9.21. 3O

78.36.0
78.34.0

78.30.10

78.27.0

22,000
6,OOO
250
7OO

Mongon

Q.OQ 4O

78 2$ O

2 3 OOO

KJpngon 2nd
Mongoncillo
Cornejos. .
Erizos . .

9.40.0
9-45 30
9-53-0

9c j.. JO

78.20.0
78.16.40
78.15.0

78 ij. o

30jOOO
6,OOO
500
5 OOO

Huarmey .
2nd ditto .
Bay of Gramadal
Pescadores . .

10.00.20
IO.O2.O
10,25.0
II.48.0

78.12.0
78.11.0
78.00.30
77.15.30

500
3,000
10,000

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 ex-

Peru in the Guano Age. 101

pedition 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 Ibs. 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.

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 Goverment 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 103

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

IO4 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 com-
mission 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 establisments 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 105

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 vol-
canoes, or any other uncertain and baseless
institutions of which either nature or a civilisa-
tion supported by bits of paper can boast.

Still the world was comforted by the pro-
mise 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

106 Pent in the Guano Age.

would not Don Enrique Meiggs, the Messiah1
of the Andes, once more return to reign 1

At any rate it is quite certain that General
Prado was announced to sail on the I4th
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 con-
tinued, 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 pur-
pose of asking the bondholders to be merciful.
The General finally left Callao for Europe on
the 2ist, 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 tele-
graphed. In the meantime the new minister
to Paris and London, Eivaguero, telegraphed to
Lima some favourable news, the precise terms

1 * Haber aparecido en el Peru el hombre que sin profanacion de
la palabra se puede llamar el Mesias de los ferrocarriles para la sal-
vacion de la Republica Peruana.' — El Ferrocarril de Arequipa,
Historia, &c., Lima, 1871, p. Ixxxi.

Peru in the Guano Age. 107

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 Govern-
ment 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

io8 Peril in the Guano Age.

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 per-
fectly easy for the Goverment 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 soil etc.

Whatever value these particulars may possess

Peru in the Guano Age. 109

or have given to them by future events 1, 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 knowft
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

1 Written off Alta Villa, April 25, 1876.

no Peru in the Guano Age.

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 Chor-
rillos become, — the fashionable resort of rich
people who have robbed nature of her sim-
plicity 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

Peru in the Guano Age. in

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 Eailway, 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 un-
comfortably, you look down almost at your feet
on what appears to be an uncountable num-
ber of vast iron tanks containing coloured
liquids, a tall chimney, a chemical laboratory,
an iodine extracting house, a steam-pump, in-
numerable connecting pipes, stretching and

ii2 Peru in the Guano Age.

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, put-
ting nitrate into sacks, and other miscellaneous
labour, requiring great intelligence to direct
and great endurance to carry on ; and all be-
neath 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

in the Guano Age. 113

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 gun-
powder 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 scaf-
folding : the latter form of danger still exists,
and is almost impossible to guard against. I am

ii4 Peru in the Guano Age.

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
c 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,

Peru in the Guano Age. 115

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, Cali-
fornia, 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 los. 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 Kepublic. Since then Peru-
vian 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 con-
templation of a patriotic repudiation of national
duty arid debt.

The arguments by which c prominent ' Peru-
vians 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

I 2

n 6 Peru in the G^lano Age.

form of extravagance, and even wasteful mag-
nificence. We must have our army, our navy,
our President, his ministers, our judges, our
priests, our ambassadors, our newspapers, sta-
tionery, 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 Peru-
vian 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

Pern in the Guano Age. 117

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 Peru-
vians, 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. An-
other, and perhaps the most formidable of all
these specious pleas is, that England has re-
cently 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, am-
bitious 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

n8 Peru in the Guano Age.

four years (in the which there shall be no hear-
ing 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 every-
thing 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 the1 one that suc-
ceeded 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.

Eevolt 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 119

shame be it said, such people can find a pre-
cedent for their proposed scheme in houses of
high standing, the heads of which are doubt-
less 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.]

CHAPTER V.

HAVING set forth two principal sources of
Peruvian income, let us now proceed to a third.
When los Senores Althaus and Eosas appeared
in Paris last ' autumn as the representatives
of the Government of Peru, among other na-
tional 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
1 50 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

Peru in the G^cano Age. 121

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 mag-
nificence 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 say-
ing much, for there it took the form of a religious
delirium. The Peruvians believed that if they
offered a great a.nd wonderful railway to the

122 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 19 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 2 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.

1 For the biography of this estimable gentleman see 'El Ferro-
carril de Arequipa Historia, documentada de su origen construction
e inauguration.' — Lima, p. 96. 'Ese hombre era ENRIQUE
MEIGGS, cuyo nombre va unido inseparable e imperecedera-
mente a los trabajos mas colosales de las republicas del mar
Pacifico.'

2 For these and similar ebullitions of profanity I am indebted to
the Lima newspapers of the period, and one or two anonymous
pamphlets.

Peru in the Giiano Age. 123

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 innu-
merable, 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 age1, 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 2, and in the

1 Paz-Soldan.

2 With a liberality on a scale equal to all his achievements, Mr.

124 Peru in the Guano Age.

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.

Eobert Stephenson is reported to have said
once before a Hallway Committee : ' My Lords
and Gentlemen, you can carry a railway to the

Meiggs subscribed $50^000 for the sufferers in the terrible earth-
quake which desolated Arequipa and destroyed Arica in 1868.

Peru in the Guano Age. 125

Antipodes if you wish ; it is only a matter of
expense/ The Peruvians, aided by the arch-
priest Meiggs, ' the Messiah of railways, who
was to bring salvation to the Peruvian Ke-
public, 9 and steadfastly believing in the Meiggs'
method of transubstantiation, commenced build-
ing a railway, not to Calcutta, but to the
moon 1.

1 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."

f Reporter — u Your brother is said to be worth several millions of
dollars ? "

126 Peril, in the Gitano Age.

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 rail-
ways 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
2 7,600,000 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

' 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 con-
tracts that the Government wished him to take." '

Peru in the Gitano Age. 127

dols., the length being 107 miles1. Ilo to Mo-
quiqua, 63 miles, 6,700,000 dols. Pacasmayo to
Caxamarca, or Guadalupe, or Magdalena, 83
miles, 7,700,000 dols. Pay to 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 com-
menced their fulsome and disgusting eloquence,
which day by day held all people in suspense.
6 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.3

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

1 To which may be added $2,000,000 more for the conveyance of
water along the line nearly from Arequipa to Mollendo.

128 Peru in the Guano Age.

and firmly. He has done more than this, he has
created and conserved the habit of work in all
the nation, demonstrating by tjae 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
Peru1/

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 Eailways. 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 rail-
ways put together, and this one railway has
already earned in the first quarter of the century
of its existence more money than all the govern-
ment railways will ever earn during the next
age. Hundreds of these inflated colonels and
generals, judges, ministers of state, and accom-

1 Ferrocarril de Arequipa, pp. Ixxxi-ii.

Peru in the Guano Age. 129

plished editors, must have passed over the rail-
way, 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
c are sixteen thousand feet above the level of
the sea/ The Oroya bridges bear the same rela-
tion 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

K

130 Peru in the Guano Age.

copper mines on the Chimbote line, however,
are quite another matter. If those on the Oroya
can be demonstrated to be equajly 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 capital-
ists for the first loan to Peruvian miners or to
be invested in Peruvian mines, and the days of
faith and trust will riot 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 know-
ledge ; 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.

CHAPTER VI.

GUANO, Nitrate, and Eailways being recog-
nised as the prime sources of Peruvian great-
ness, and these having been noticed with no
scant justice, another matter remains for exami-
nation, 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 ele-
ments 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 develope these riches and make thie 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,

K 2

Peru in the Guano Age.

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 ques-
tions, 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 con-
ceived 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 elo-
quent 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 : —

Peru in the Guano Age. 133

* 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 Eepublic. 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 por-
tion 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

134 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 Eepublic, 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

Peru in the Guano Age. 135

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 Eepublic in his highly-enter-
taining and instructive book. Two of his longest
articles, however, are devoted, the first to the
subject of ' Independence/ and the second to
* Kevolution/ 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 consum-
mation 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.

1 A revolution in substance/ he says, ' is no-
thing more than the organisation of a people's
discontent/

If that be so, there has never been a revo-

136 Peru in the Guano Age.

lution 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 ten-
dencies. Prado was subsequently elected Pre-
sident 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 him-
self. Had there been among the Peruvian sol-
diers 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.

Peru in the Guano Age. 137

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 fa-
mous 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 'libe-
rated/ they became like a mob of mules without,

138 Peru in the Guano Age.

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 Kepublic.

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 in-
duced 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 in-
dustry of a free and happy people.

One immediate consequence of Castilla's eman-
cipation policy was that it speedily became a pro-
fitable business for a few adventurous persons
in Lima to proceed to China, where they kid-
napped some of the superfluous Chinese popu-
lation. This traffic prospered for a while, but
as it is the property of murder to make itself
known— somehow or anyhow — the profits fell

Peru in the Guano Age. 139

off, owing to the interference of one or two
civilised Governments. When the Celestial
Empire no longer oifered 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 Govern-
ment 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

140 Peru in the Gtiano Age.

any length. He introduced a new era into
Peruvian politics — he was the first native Pe-
ruvian 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 revolu-
tions 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 sicken-

Peru in the Guano Age. 141

ing to any one who is not a moral eunuch1.
Only those who are rich enough to escape to
Chile are saved from the above gentle process.
General Prado is one of these favoured Peru-
vians. Had not Don Manuel Pardo, the late
President, fled from Lima during the revolting
days of the Gutierrz 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 ex-
pense, 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,

1 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 Field Marshals.

142 Peru in the G^cano Age.

1 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.

f That society is not free while any of its
members are unable to express their thoughts
without hinderance.

4 That society is not free when one or more
of its industries are prohibited under the pre-
text of monopoly or privilege.

* It is not free when it cares not, or is unable
to arraign a lying magistrate.

6 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.

Peru in the Guano Age. 143

6 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 aban-
doned 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 con-
science/

144 Peru in the Guano Age.

' The greater number of our liberals/ he adds
in another place, with one of his happiest flashes
of poetic truth, of which the bpok 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 lan-
guish 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

Peru in the G^tano Age. 145

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. Every-
thing is done in secret and underground.

146 Peru in the Guano Age.

Eumour is the great agent of the Government
and mystery its chief force. So mysterious are
the ways of the Executive t^at 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 ha,ve
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 advertise-
ment 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

Peril in the Giiano Age. 147

badge of honour on the person of the owner.
Freemasonry 111 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.

L 2

148 Peru in the Guano Age.

There is nothing else to be seen. There is
not a single lighthouse or light on any danger-
ous 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,1
the Government of Peru would now be in the I
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 some-
thing 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 ex-
plicitly.

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,

Pent, in the Guano Age. 149

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 dis-
traction for the people has purposely neglected

150 Peril in the Guano Age.

this useful work of building piers, with the
benevolent design of providing a cheap amuse-
ment 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 Be-
public 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, includ-
ing 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 con-

Peru in the Guano Age. 151

taining two, sometimes more, coloured men. The
screaming, gesticulating, and brutal language
of these creatures defy description. The au-
thorities 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. Gentle-
men 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, know-
ledge and ignorance, in some form or other
brought in violent collision : the utmost free-
dom of opinion and nobody to keep the peace !

14

i 167