PERUVIAN SHORE TOWNS
_Pizarro’s Landing-Place at Tumbez--Last Sight of the Green
Coast--Paita’s Spacious Bay--Lively Harbor Scenes--An
Interesting and Sandy Town--Its Climatic and Other
Legends--Future Amazon Gateway--Sugar and Rice Ports--Eten
and Pacasmayo--Transcontinental Trail--Cajamarca--Chimbote’s
Naval Advantages--Supe’s Attractions--Ancon’s Historic
Treaty--Callao’s Excellent Harbor--Importance of the
Shipping--Customs Collections--Pisco’s Varied Products--Rough
Seas at Mollendo--Bolivian and Peruvian Commerce for the Canal._
We steamed out of the Guayas River and into the Zambelli Channel
for Tumbez by moonlight one evening. A hazy ridge lay directly in
front of us, “Isla de Plata,” or little Silver Island, where the
Spanish pirates buried their plunder. The gold and silver have not
yet been found. So many treasure islands with the buried booty of
the buccaneers lie off the Pacific coast that one does not have
time to stop and exploit them all.
I always take a long look at Tumbez. There is not much to see,--a
low crest of mountains somewhere inland; a long line of sandy beach
bordered by mangroves and _algaroba_ trees; a slit in the fringe of
foliage, which is the mouth of the river; and a monotonous stretch
of watery greenness. Back among the bushes, hidden, is the port.
A few small sail-launches are hovering around, and after a time
the port official comes out to the ship in one of them.
Tumbez is historic. Somewhere among these mangrove trees Pizarro and
his hardy followers penetrated with their boat one day and began
that wonderful march known as the Conquest of Peru. And Tumbez
lies just over the line from Ecuador in what is still Peru and
what was then the Empire of the Incas. Pizarro stretched his iron
claws not only south to Cuzco but north to Quito. But I shall not
recount history. Tumbez may be viewed to revive historic memories,
but also it should claim a lingering look in order to keep alive
a sense of the freshness of Nature. After it there is no green on
the coast,--only rugged mountain masses, sand-hills, and towering
snow-peaks. After Tumbez the coast chains of the Andes and the
sublimity of Nature at rest, frowning but always majestic. Sometimes
the brown cliffs with cavernous mouths rising sheer from the water,
and then the plateau between this wall and the Coast Range. Oftener
the sandy plain stretching from the shore to the lower flanks of the
Cordilleras; beyond, the table-land; and then the lofty profiles
of everlasting hills made loftier to the sight by the one range
having another for its background.
The view of Paita after entering the expansive bay is a vision ranged
by sand-hills. To the left are a hazy mountain, and a long reach
of earth platforms, rocks, sand, and clay, rising longitudinally.
To the right the land mounts to one level with torn sides like
gravel viscera. The whole forms the rim of a bowl. The town hangs
over the water’s edge like a drooping willow tree. The buildings
are cream-colored.
The harbor is full of life. There are many small schooners and
floats for loading cattle, sail rafts, and bobbing canoes with
keg-like anchors. A cloud of whirling sea-gulls hangs over the
bay seeking the spoils of the kitchen refuse. The captain of the
port in brilliant uniform comes out with his crew in their white
caps, blue blouses, and red trousers, as though they were manning a
Roman emperor’s barge. The steamer is received, and then twoscore
rowboats make for the vessel. The pirates board it. They are the
_fleteros_, or boatmen, who must be braved and pacified at every
port on the Pacific, for there is no other means of getting ashore.
“_A tierra, a tierra, Señor_,--To land, to land, Sir,” they cry.
One of them has you before you know it, and you are in the town.
Meantime the women pirates have swarmed over the ship. They have
all kinds of wares for sale, clay drinking-vessels, knick-knacks,
limes and other fruits, and the Panama hats, for the manufacture
of which this district is celebrated. But we may leave them while
we go ashore. There are a custom-house and government warehouse,
good piers and wharves, and a passable hotel. A group of stocky
soldiers, in part police and in part army, are in blue uniforms
with heavy cartridge belts. All their faces are of the Indian type.
The life of Paita is seen in the market-place among the chattering
women venders and their customers. All is animated, good-natured,
obliging, but it is chiefly Indian with very little of the Spanish
trace. The houses are of mortar, adobe, wild cane, or bamboo laths,
some having mud roofs, and they are not bad dwellings. We go on
a trip of exploration and find a really clean town--that is, as
clean as a town can be that is swept by constant sand-storms--and
evidences of good local administration. A hum like all the bees
of the universe proves to be merely the murmur from the open
school-room. There are two churches, one of cathedral architecture
and a more modern one with a wooden steeple like a Congregational
meeting-house in New England. In the plaza a forlorn but determined
effort is made to coax Nature. Some palm blades are enclosed, and
around the borders are scraggy carnations and scrub roses, while in
the centre are Kansas sunflowers. Many of the dwellings also have
climbing vines, dusty yet still green.
Paita is historic in the annals of the West Coast on account of
the legends that have been grouped around it. Most of them relate
to its dryness. The rain is said never to fall. This is not quite
correct, but difficulty is experienced in finding when a shower
may be expected. On my first visit after returning to the ship I
casually mentioned at the dinner-table the information given me
by an old inhabitant that it rained every seven years. The polite
German merchant from Lima corrected me with an apology. “You didn’t
quite understand the gentleman,” he said. “He told you that it
hadn’t rained for seven years and they didn’t look for rain for
another seven years.” After a while the Swiss drummer came aboard
just in time for coffee. “Think of it,” he remarked, “it only rains
in this place once in twenty-one years.” From later and reliable
sources of information I learned that rainfall can be looked for
with a reasonable degree of expectation about every fourteen years
in the Piura desert, though the moisture sometimes dries before it
reaches Paita and the coast. The mean annual temperature is 77°
Fahrenheit.
One of the legendary libels which has clustered around Paita is
that of the endless flock of goats. The basis of this legend is
that the goats are driven down to the port to water, and by the
time they get back in the foothills they are so thirsty they have
to return, and thus the procession is continuous. Seeing a long
flock of them filing through one of the town streets and waiting
in vain for the rear-guard to pass, the legend does seem to have a
basis in truth, but it is a perversion or exaggeration of facts.
Another libel is that the little dwarf palm which is seen at the
top of the highest hill is not a palm at all, but only a slab of
boards painted in imitation, so that the inhabitants may believe
that a tree can grow in that soil. Actually it is a palm and not a
painted post. Moreover, there are real trees. I found a group of
the hardy pepper trees just back of the town, where the foothills
branch off, and also some acacias, or thorn bushes.
But while it is libelled, Paita also accepts some of the stories
which are circulated concerning it. One is that of the English
consul or commercial agent who had lived there forty years. When his
pension and retirement came, he went to his old home in England,
announcing that he would spend his remaining days in the grassy
downs where his boyhood had been passed and would be laid away in
the green cemetery of his native village. In six months he was back
in Paita, declaring that it was the only place in the world in which
to live and die. In the course of nature the old gentleman passed
away at a very advanced age, and was given the largest funeral that
Paita ever had known.
Passing from these legends, Paita, which is now a town of 5,000 or
6,000 inhabitants, has a future as the emporium of northern Peru.
It will be the Pacific gateway to the Panama Canal for the Amazon
country. Its splendid sheltered bay, with all the facilities for
docks and wharves and sea-room for the commercial fleets of a dozen
nations, assures its future greatness. It once was the rendezvous of
the Yankee whaling-fleets. The railroad runs 60 miles back to Piura,
the largest interior city of northern Peru, which has a population
of 15,000. Piura is the centre of the cotton-growing district, and
with the extension of the irrigating systems the cotton product
alone will give Paita a considerable commerce. The total of its
imports and exports is between $1,400,000 and $1,500,000 annually.
The certainty of the railway being extended as far as the Pongo, or
Falls of Manserriche on the Marañon River 400 miles distant, is to
be viewed as one means of diverting the rubber and other commerce
of the Amazon from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The railway may be
built before the Canal is completed.
Paita is the petroleum port. The oil fields lie between it and Tumbez
at Talara. The Pennsylvania oil-drillers whom I met on two visits
were graphically frank. They thought the petroleum possibilities
were great, but they had a poor opinion of the English and French
companies. The sulphur beds are near the Bay of Sechura, and are
connected with the port of Bayovar by a railway thirty miles long.
A night out from Paita and the morning discloses a sandy shore with
round bluffs. After traversing what seems a causeway, there are
rocks with a salt crystalline surface. “Guano,” briefly says the
experienced traveller, “the Lobos Islands.” “But where is the port
of Eten?” “Eten is over there,” pointing to a shell-like side of
the hill. A smashing surf is beating, and nothing can be seen but
the outline of a pier. Finally heavy surf-boats with strong-armed
crews to handle the long oars make their appearance. The passengers
are disembarked by means of crane and basket and are hauled up
to the pier by the same agency. Eten is the outlet for the sugar
and rice of the Lambayeque region, and a railroad spur runs a few
miles back in the interior to Ferrenafe. Its yearly commerce is
$1,300,000. The Yuncas Indian dialect is spoken in this region. It
antedates the Quichua, which was the language of the Inca tribes.
From Eten to Pacasmayo there is a low beach or no beach at all,
with the mountains humped up at the foot of conical jagged peaks,
beyond which are more peaks in regular order, the Coast Range of the
Andes. Pacasmayo bathed in the sunlight and lying at the foot of a
high mountain, presents a very pretty picture. The surf is heavy,
but the _caballitos_, or grass canoes, of the natives, are at home
in the tumbling waves, and the going ashore is not an unpleasant
experience barring the ever present possibility of an upset. The
jetty which aids commerce was built by an American company. Pacasmayo
ships large quantities of sugar from the valleys beyond and also
some rice and fruits. Its oranges are famous. I never saw so many
sea-birds as are in this vicinity. The pelicans hang like clouds,
and often they dash for the water like an inverted whirling pyramid.
Porpoises are numerous, while some seals and whales are found in
these waters.
Pacasmayo was the seaport for the transcontinental trail or route
to the Amazon which was followed both by the natives and the early
Spaniards. The road led over the Cordilleras to Yurimaguas on the
Huallaga River. Various projects have been attempted for the purpose
of securing through steam and river navigation. An American company
has received liberal land grants and other concessions from the
Peruvian government. The traffic is large enough to justify building
a railway line from Cajamarca to connect with one of the existing
coast spurs.
Cajamarca lies across the Continental Divide in the valley of the
Marañon River. It is a town of 12,000 or 15,000 inhabitants, and
is the centre of a large commerce. Freight rates by burros to the
coast, the only present means of transportation, amount to $7 per
ton. Historically Cajamarca has an attractiveness all its own. It
was here that the usurping Inca emperor Atahualpa, who seized his
brother Huascar’s birthright, hospitably received Pizarro, and,
simple savage that he was, propounded the question which puzzled
other untutored minds in other parts of the world during that epoch
of discovery and conquest: By what right could the great man called
the Pope give to the other great man called the King of Spain power
and jurisdiction over land where he himself held no control?
Beyond Pacasmayo is the little sugar-loading port of Huanchaco.
When the vessel puts in there, it is worth while going ashore and
taking the diligencia (stage) or a horse across to Trujillo, for
the road leads through a _huaca_, or ancient burial and treasure
ground of the Incas. There is not much to see except the mud
walls, but the short journey is a good introduction to the old
civilization. Trujillo is a very pretty and active little place on
a small river. The railroad runs down to Salaverry on the jutting
slope of the mountain, the summit of which is marked by a cross.
It is the fourth port of Peru in point of trade, the commerce
being about $2,500,000 each twelvemonth. There is a cemetery which
tourists seek in order to read the inscription, “_Se prohibe pasar
la muralla los botes_--boats are forbidden to pass over the wall.”
From this it may be understood that this graveyard sometimes is
under water. From the sea Salaverry is an open roadstead nestling
by a little cub of a mountain which crouches at the feet of a big
mother mountain. All the time the towering peaks of the Andes are
growing in grandeur.
Chimbote, the next port, as yet has little commercial importance,
because the coal and other mineral wealth of the country back
of it have not been developed. It has great prospects in the
future, possibly as an American naval station, for the Peruvian
government, it is understood, is anxious to grant the United States
certain privileges there. It lies nearly midway between Panama
and Valparaiso. The Bay of Ferrol, of which Chimbote is the port,
is protected by a large number of islets. Its waters are always
tranquil and seem more those of a lake in the interior than of
the sea. The bay measures seven miles by five, and at all points
offers anchorage of the first order. It is deep and a very large
number of vessels of the heaviest tonnage could at all times find
a shelter. Quays and wharves could easily be erected. The railway
extends to Suchiman, a distance of thirty-two miles. It is to be
prolonged to Recuay, and some day may form an important link in
transcontinental communication to the affluents of the Amazon. The
ruins of the Inca aqueduct at Chimbote possess an interest alike
for tourists and for engineers.
Farther down the coast is the landing-place of Supe. I know Supe
well. Five days were passed there once, not, the officials said, in
quarantine, but simply under observation for the bubonic plague. The
hamlet has artesian wells and a lighthouse, due to the public spirit
of the planters. It ships cotton, sugar, cane rum, and rice. It also
has a _huaca_. Several of my fellow-voyagers went ashore and dug in
the graveyard. They came back with their finds,--pottery vessels
looking suspiciously new and some of which, as they afterwards
admitted, they bought from the natives. The visitor is allowed to
dig up the pottery himself. The villagers are hospitable. They made
no objection when the ship’s doctor unearthed a skeleton and left
them a gratification, or hush money, for the privilege of carrying
it off. His bribery was fruitless, for the captain of the _Tucapel_,
complaining already of ill-luck and sailors’ superstitions, gave him
the choice of dropping the skeleton overboard or of being dropped
overboard himself.
Ancon is one of the minor ports sometimes utilized for commerce when
Callao is under quarantine. When the fog rises, a perspective is
disclosed of sandy mountains and of palm trees along the shore. The
bay is a fine one. Seals and whales frequent it without disturbing
the bathers, for Ancon is a resort to which all Lima comes by
taking the railroad for thirty miles through the winding paths that
penetrate and surmount the overlapping white sand-hills. Ancon is
famous historically as the place in which the treaty of peace with
Chile was signed when that victorious nation was exacting terms,
and it is the Treaty of Ancon to which reference is so often made
in the discussion of the still unsettled Tacna-Arica question.
To enter the port of Callao, the vessels follow a semicircular course
around the rocks to get within the shelter of the island of San
Lorenzo and the long sandy tongue of land. It is sometimes stated
that the island of San Lorenzo was split off from the mainland by
an earthquake, but geology gives no support to this assumption. Of
recent years the government has initiated many improvements in the
bay. One of the best is a fine new navy mole, and as the warships
of all nations make Callao their frequent station, this improvement
is appreciated. There are also the _darsena_, or system of wharves
and piers, controlled by the government, and the floating iron dock
which was constructed by a French company. This dock has a capacity
of 5,000 tons. A new contract between the government and the company
in 1905 relieved commerce of many burdens. Callao is a fine port.
The plaza in the centre, with its blending of tropical trees and
statuary, forms a refreshing picture. The custom house is the most
pretentious building, but there are other tasteful structures. The
population of Callao is 30,000, but in the daytime it seems to be
larger, as many of the people doing business at the port live at
Lima, which is only nine miles inland and is connected by an electric
trolley and two steam railways. The foreign commercial colony is
a large one. Much of its social life centres in the English Club.
All the commerce of central Peru passes through Callao. The shipping
is extensive. Enterprising Chinese merchants have established a
direct line to Hongkong via Panama, but the ships flying the English
flag exceed all the other nations. Callao is visited annually by
more than 1,000 coasting-vessels, steamers, and sailing-ships,
with a cargo tonnage of 175,000 to 200,000 for discharge. England
is first in the shipping, Chile next, and Germany third. The
maritime movement is more active than at any port south of Panama
except Valparaiso. With the completion of the Canal its commercial
importance will be prodigiously enhanced. At present nearly half
the trade of Peru pays tribute to its shipping, and the bulk of
the revenues of the country are collected in its custom house. For
the last year for which statistics are given, its foreign commerce
amounted to $16,908,000 out of a total for the whole Republic of
$37,058,000. The imports were about $13,000,000 and the exports
$4,350,000. The coastwise traffic, in which foreign vessels are
permitted to engage, centres in this port.
From Callao south are a large number of open roadsteads which hardly
deserve to be called vessel landings, for they are entirely without
harbor facilities. By means of lighters and small craft, freight
and passengers are loaded and unloaded through the surf. Cerro de
Azul means “blue hills,” but the place is not very blue except for
ship-captains. It is a shipping-port for sugar and cattle which
are driven in from the interior. Lomas is another wretched little
place. Chala is an attractive coast village, chiefly a cattle-loading
port. The region is noted for the production of the granadilla
fruit. The granadilla is similar to the mandrake, or May apple.
Pisco is a thriving port, with an open bay sheltered by rocky
islets. Among these are the Chinchas, or guano islands, which are
yet capable of exploitation. The beach, with smooth rounded hills
in the background, bends like a scythe. There is green vegetation,
which is always grateful, and palm, olive, pine, and other trees.
The beach is possible for bathing, but the sharks are too numerous
to make it enjoyable.
The town lies about a mile back from the port, with which it is
connected by a mule tramway. The commerce exceeds $1,100,000 yearly.
A railroad runs from Pisco to Ica, forty miles. It follows a rich
valley in which there are many fine haciendas, or plantations. The
products are both tropical and temperate. They include cotton,
sugar-cane, alfalfa, and corn. A big cotton field on the edge of
the port looks like a small section of North Carolina. Pisco is
noted especially for the vineyards, which extend to Ica and beyond.
From these grapes is made the wine called Italia. It is enclosed in
queer-looking oval-shaped earthen jars, some of them of enormous
size. The best brandy that is to be had anywhere in South America
takes its name from Pisco. It is a grape brandy. The pure article
is superior to French cognac, but, alas! the art of adulteration
has been learned, and the real distillation of the grape juice is
not often procured.
The district around Pisco is famous for its variety of tropical
fruits, including bananas and _paltas_, or alligator pears. The
Pisco watermelons also are noted. In the markets of Lima they are
what the Georgia watermelons are in the markets of New York. I never
tasted finer ones. The whole of the surrounding country, when it can
be watered, is of enormous fertility. A vast irrigation scheme has
been projected for the region which extends south. There is a high
range of blue-veiled, cloud-shrouded mountains, and then the plain
of Noco, which spreads down to the gentle bluffs that overlap the
sea. This plain parallels the coast as far as Tambo de Mora, and
all of it is capable of irrigation. Tambo de Mora has some ancient
tombs or burial-grounds and high mounds marked with crosses right
on the edge of the village. Its shipments are cotton in bales, and
liquors in casks and barrels.
Mollendo, which is the railway outlet of southern Peru and of
northern and central Bolivia, is one of the three worst ports on the
West Coast. Iquique and Antofagasta farther down dispute the claims,
but it is impossible to see on what grounds. They are positive and
comparative while Mollendo is simply superlatively worst. Seen
from the sea, the town looks well enough, spreading on the flat
slope of the hill, with its party-colored houses glistening in
the sunlight. On a feast day or national holiday the many foreign
flags flying indicate the presence of numerous consuls, which is a
sure indication of commercial importance. It is the getting into
the port through the open roadstead that is terrifying. There is
a causeway, and in order to land it is necessary to pass through
this rocky opening. Sometimes the vessels have to wait several days
before they can transfer their cargo to the lighters.
[Illustration: View of Mollendo Harbor and Railway Yards]
For voyagers there is only one way, and that is to risk life and
the hope of further voyaging to the care of the strong-armed native
rowers. Long practice has enabled them deftly to grab the passenger
from the ship’s ladder and stow him or her in their craft. The
manœuvres are repeated until all who are courageous enough are in
the boat. Then it is a question of breasting the breakers. The first
time I went ashore there were three Peruvian women aboard. One was
an old lady who made the trip to Lima twice a year; the others were
wives of local merchants. The dame began her “Ave Marias.” The
younger women were less devout. Every moment they exclaimed, “_Jesu
Maria_” and “_Madre de Dios_,” but in the tone of a man swearing.
A huge breaker swept over the boat and gave us all a bath. Then
the craft danced on the crest of the next one like a cork. The
aged lady became more calm, though she continued to pray. Later,
when we were safely ashore, she confided to me that she always was
terrified till the first ducking, and after that she felt that the
shore would be reached.
The sea is not always quite so bad, but it cannot be counted on two
hours in succession to be what the natives call “_consolodora_.”
By that they mean, not tranquil or consoling, but comparatively
calm. “Comparatively” is the difference between a raging sea and
a roaring surf.
Around the point from Mollendo is the Bay of Islay, calm, sheltered,
and deep. It was once a place of importance. Now its population
consists of a few fishermen. Everyone inquires why it was not made
the port, to which one answer is that when the railroad was built
the land-owners became exorbitant in their demands, and there
was no way for the line to secure terminal facilities except by
paying more than the road was worth. Another explanation is that
the property-owners of Mollendo, by liberal subsidies and other
inducements, persuaded the railway to stop at the causeway. Whatever
the reason, Mollendo now has vested rights as a port, and the change
could not be made to Islay without encountering the most strenuous
opposition. Consequently it will not be made. Recognizing this,
the government in 1905 undertook harbor improvements for Mollendo
at an initial expense of $500,000.
Mollendo has a kind of double-jointed custom house, the first for
imports into Peru, and the second for imports which are to be
carried through Peruvian territory up to Bolivia. The exports which
come from the interior are chiefly alpaca and other wool. The last
year for which figures are given, these amounted to 71,000 Spanish
quintals, or approximately 7,200,000 pounds. A considerable quantity
of borax and minerals are exported and a small amount of coffee.
The shipments of crude rubber amount to 500,000 pounds. Mollendo
is second only to Callao in its exports and imports, the total
commerce averaging $5,000,000 annually according to the figures
of the Peruvian officials. When the Panama Canal is opened, the
major portion of the shipments from this district, which are light
freight, will have the benefit of competitive ocean rates through
the waterway with the tolls added, or around Cape Horn without
tolls but with heavier coal bills and longer time in transport.
The traffic will tend toward Panama.