Whether it be true, or only a poetical way of putting it, that Yarmouth
was built on red herrings, Manchester on cotton, Birmingham on brass,
Middlesborough on pigs of iron, and the holy Roman Catholic Church in
China on Peruvian bark, it is true that the Government of Peru has
for more than a generation subsisted on guano, and the foundations
of its greatness have been foundations of the same[3];--the ordure of
birds--pelicans, penguins, boobies, and gulls of many kinds, and many
kinds of ducks, all of marine habits, and deriving their living solely
from the sea and the sky which is stretched above it.
This precious Guano, or Huano, according to the orthography of the
sixteenth century, had long been in use in Peru before Peru was
discovered by the Spaniards. It was well enough known to those famous
agriculturists, the Incas, who five centuries ago used it as a servant.
With the change which changed the Incas from off the face of the earth,
came the strangest change of all,--Guano ceased to be the servant
or helper of the native soil; it became the master of the people
who occupy it, the Peruvian people, the Spanish Peruvians who call
themselves Republicans.
No disgrace or ignominy need have come upon Peru for selling its guano
and getting drunk on the proceeds, if it had not trampled its own
soil into sand, and killed not only the corn, the trees, and flowers
which grow upon it, but also the men who cultivate those beautiful and
necessary things[4].
During the time that Peru has been a vendor of guano, it has sold
twenty million tons of it, and as the price has ranged from £12 to
£12 10_s._ and £13 the ton, Peru may be said to have turned a pretty
penny by the transaction. What she has done with the money is a very
pertinent question, which will be answered in its right place.
The amount of guano still remaining in the country amounts to between
seven and eight million tons. There are men of intelligence even in
Peru who affirm that the quantity does not reach five million tons.
One of my informants, a man intimately connected with the export and
sale of this guano, assured me that there are not at this hour more
than two million tons in the whole of the Republic, and he had the best
possible means at his disposal for ascertaining its truth. I have since
discovered, however, that men who deal in guano do not always speak
with a strict regard for the truth.
As this is one of the vexed questions of the hour to some of my
countrymen, the violent lenders of money, Jews, Greeks, infidels and
others; although I have no sympathy with them, yet on condition that
they buy this book I will give them a fair account of the guano which
I have actually seen, and where it exists.
I was sent to Peru for the express purpose of making this examination.
I may therefore expect that my statements will be received with some
consideration. They have certainly been prepared with much care, and,
I may add, under very favourable circumstances.
My visits to the existing guano deposits were made after they had
been uncovered of the stones which had been rolled upon them by the
turbulent action of a century of earthquakes, the sand which the
unresisted winds of heaven for the same period had heaped upon them
from the mainland, and the slower but no less degrading influences of
a tropical sun, attended with the ever humid air, dense mists, fogs
and exhalations, and now and then copious showers of rain. Moreover, my
visits were made after a certain ascertained quantity of guano had been
removed, and my measurements of the quantity remaining were therefore
easily checked.
Last year the Pabellon de Pica was reported to contain eight million
tons of guano. At that time it was covered from head to foot with
more than fifty feet of sand and stones. The principal slopes are
now uncovered. Before this painful and expensive process had been
completed, various other courageous guesses had been made, and
the Government engineers were divided among themselves in their
estimates. One enthusiastic group of these loyal measurers contended
for five million tons, another for three million five hundred and
twenty thousand six hundred and forty, and another, unofficial and
disinterested, placed it at less than a million tons.
My own measurements corroborate this latter calculation. There may be
one million tons of guano on the Pabellon de Pica. The exact quantity
will only be known after all the guano has been entirely removed and
weighed.
The Pabellon de Pica is in form like a pavilion, or tent, or better
still, a sugar-loaf rising a little more than 1000 feet above the
sea which washes its base. It is connected by a short saddle with the
mountain range, which runs north and south along the whole Peruvian
coast, attaining a height here of more than 5000 feet in isolated
cones, but maintaining an average altitude of 3000 feet.
When a strong north wind rages on these sandy pampas, the dust, finer
than Irish blackguard, obscures the sky, disfigures the earth, and
makes mad the unhappy traveller who happens to be caught in its fury.
A mind not troubled by the low price of Peruvian bonds, or whether even
the next coupon will be paid, might imagine that the gods, in mercy to
the idleness of man, were determined to cover up those dunghills from
human sight; and hence the floods, and cataracts of sand and dust which
have been poured upon them from above.
If it could be conceived that an almighty hand, consisting of nineteen
fingers, each finger six hundred feet long, with a generous palm
fifteen hundred feet wide, had thrust itself up from below, through
this loaf of sugar, or dry dung, to where the dung reaches on the
Pabellon, some idea might be formed of the frame in which, and on which
the guano rests.
The man who reckoned the Pabellon to contain eight million tons of
guano, took no notice of the Cyclopean fingers which hold it together,
or the winstone palm in which it rests. There are eighteen large and
small gorges formed by the nineteen stone fingers. Each gorge was
filled with a motionless torrent of stones and sand, and these had to
be removed before the guano could be touched.
So hard and compact had the guano become, that neither the stones nor
the sand had mixed with it; when these were put in motion and conducted
down into the sea below, the guano was found hard and intact, and it
had to be blasted with gunpowder to convey it by the wooden shoots
to the ships' launches that were dancing to receive it underneath.
The process was as dangerous as mining, and quite as expensive, to
the Peruvian Government; for, although the loading of the guano is
let out by contract, the contractors--a limited company of native
capitalists--will, as a matter of course, claim a considerable sum for
removing stones and sand, and equally as a matter of course they will
be paid: and they deserve to be paid. No hell has ever been conceived
by the Hebrew, the Irish, the Italian, or even the Scotch mind for
appeasing the anger and satisfying the vengeance of their awful gods,
that can be equalled in the fierceness of its heat, the horror of
its stink, and the damnation of those compelled to labour there, to a
deposit of Peruvian guano when being shovelled into ships. The Chinese
who have gone through it, and had the delightful opportunity of helping
themselves to a sufficiency of opium to carry them back to their homes,
as some believed, or to heaven, as fondly hoped others, must have had
a superior idea of the Almighty, than have any of the money-making
nations mentioned above, who still cling to an immortality of fire and
brimstone.
Years ago the Pabellon de Pica was resorted to for its guano by a
people, whoever they were, who had some fear of God before their eyes.
Their little houses built of boulders and mortar, still stand, and so
does their little church, built after the same fashion, but better,
and raised from the earth on three tiers, each tier set back a foot's
length from the other. It is now used as a store for barley and other
valuable necessaries for the mules and horses of the loading company.
If the bondholders of Peru, or others, have any desire to know
something of public life on this now celebrated dunghill, they may turn
to another page of this history, and Mr. Plimsoll, or other shipping
reformer, may learn something likewise of the lives of English seamen
passed during a period of eight months in the neighbourhood of a
Peruvian guano heap. In the meantime we are dealing with the grave
subject of measurable quantities of stuff, which fetches £12 or so a
ton in the various markets of the cultivated world.
The next deposit--of much greater dimensions, although not so well
known--is about eight miles south of the Pabellon, called Punta
de Lobos. This also is on the mainland, but juts out to the west
considerably, into the sea. I find it mentioned in Dampier--'At Lobos
de la Mar,' he says, vol. i. 146, 'we found abundance of penguins, and
boobies, and seal in great abundance.' Also in vol. iv. 178 he says,
'from Tucames to Yancque is twelve leagues, from which place they carry
clay to lay in the valleys of Arica and Sama. And here live some few
Indian people, who are continually digging this clayey ground for the
use aforesaid, for the Spaniards reckon that it fattens the ground.'
The fishing no doubt was better here than at the Pabellon, which
would be the principal attraction to the Indians. The Indians have
disappeared with the lobos, the penguins and the boobies.
One million six hundred thousand tons of guano were reported from Lobos
last year by the Government engineers. The place is much more easy of
access than the Pabellon, and no obstacle was in the way of a thorough
measurement, and yet the utmost carelessness has been observed with
regard to it. It may safely be taken that there are two millions and
a half of tons at this deposit, or series of deposits, ten in number,
all overlooking the sea. The guano is good. If the method of shipping
it were equally good the Government might save the large amount
which they at present lose. I have no hesitation in saying, that for
every 900 tons shipped, 200 tons of guano are lost in the sea by bad
management, added to the dangers of the heavy surf which rolls in under
the shoots. As at the Pabellon de Pica, so here the principal labourers
are Chinamen, and Chilenos, the former doing much more work than the
latter, and receiving inferior pay. Many of the Chinamen are still
apprentices, or 'slaves' as they are in reality called and treated by
their owners.
At Punta de Lobos I discovered two small caves built of boulders,
and roofed in with rafters of whales' ribs. The effect of the white
concentric circles in the sombre light of these alcoves had an oriental
expression. The number of whales on this coast must at one time have
been very great. They are still to be met with several hundred miles
west, in the latitude of Payta. No doubt for the same reason that the
lobos and the boobies have gone, no one knows where, so the whales have
gone in search of grounds and waters remote from the haunts of man and
steamers.
A singular effect of light upon the bright slopes of dazzling sand
which run down from the northern sides of the Point, was observed from
the heights: when the shadows of the clouds in the zenith passed over
the shining surface they appeared to be not shadows, but last night's
clouds which had fallen from the sky, so dense were they, dark, and
sharply defined. [It frequently happens in Peru, that what appears to
be substantial, is nothing better than a morning cloud which passes
away.]
Huanillos is another deposit still further south, where the guano
is good but the facilities for shipping it are few. Here are five
different gorges, in which the dung has been stored as if by careful
hands. The earthquake however has played sad havoc with the storing.
From a great height above, enormous pieces of rock of more than a
thousand tons each have been hurled down, and in one place another
motionless cataract of heavy boulders covers up a large amount of
guano.
The quantity found here may be fairly estimated at eight hundred
thousand tons.
It was easy to count ninety-five ships resting below on what, at
the distance of three miles, appeared to be a sea without motion or
ripple. At the Pabellon de Pica there were ninety-one ships, and at
Lobos one hundred and fourteen ships, all waiting for guano: three
hundred ships in all, some of which had been waiting for more than
eight months; and it is not unlikely that the whole of them may have
to wait for the same length of time. An impression has got abroad
that the reason of this delay is the absence of guano. It is a natural
inference for the captain of a ship to draw, and it is just the kind
of information an ignorant man would send home to his employers. It
is however absolutely erroneous; the delays in loading are vexatious
in the extreme, but being in Peru they can hardly be avoided. Their
cause may be set down to the sea and its dangers, the precipitous rocky
shore, the ill-constructed launches and shoots, and now and then to the
ignorance, stupidity, and obstinacy of a Peruvian official, called an
_administrador_.
Chipana, six miles further south of Huanillos, is another considerable
deposit. But as this had not been uncovered, and the place is
absolutely uninhabited and without any of the common necessaries of
life, which in Peru may be said to be not very few, I did not visit it,
and am content to take the measurement of a gentleman whom I have every
reason to trust, and on whose accuracy and ability I can rely as I have
had to rely before.
The amount of guano at Chipana may be taken at about the same as
Huanillos. If to this be added the deposits of Chomache, very small,
Islotas de Pajaros, Quebrada de Pica, Patache, and all other points
further north, up to la Bahia de la Independencia, we may safely
declare that among them all will be found not less than five million
tons of good guano.
Before proceeding to give an account of the deposits in the north, it
may be well to allude to a question of considerable importance to some
one, be it the Government of Peru, or the house of Messrs. Dreyfus
Brothers, the present financial agents of Peru. The only interest which
the question can have for the public, or the holders of Peruvian bonds,
arises from the fact of this question involving no less a sum than
£1,500,000 or even more; and if the Government of Peru has to pay it,
so much the worse will it be for its already alarmed and disappointed
creditors. Many of the three hundred ships lying off the three
principal deposits of the South, have been there for very long periods
of time, and a considerable bill for demurrage has been contracted.
The question is who is to pay the shipowners' claim, and probably the
law courts will have to answer the question. It would appear at first
sight that this charge should be paid by Dreyfus. According to the
first article of the contract between that firm and the Government of
Peru, Dreyfus was to purchase two million tons of guano, and to pay
for the same two million four hundred thousand pounds sterling. Here is
a distinct act of purchase. The guano is the property of Dreyfus. The
second article of the contract would appear to provide especially for
the case in point: 'Los compradores enviarán por su cuenta y riesgo, á
los depositos huaneros de la Republica, los buques necesarios para el
transporte del huano' [the purchasers shall send, _at their own cost
and risk_, the necessary ships to the guano deposits of the Republic
for the purpose of transporting the guano].
This would seem to be plain enough: but these ships, or the greater
part of them, came chartered by Dreyfus, not to any deposit of guano,
in the first instance, but to Callao, where they collected in that
bay, notorious now for many reported acts of singular heroism, and
other acts of a very different nature. The ships were finally detained
by command of the President of the Republic, who, acting on certain
subterranean knowledge, refused to despatch the ships, or to allow
them to proceed to the deposits. Dreyfus, the President insisted, had
already taken away all the guano that belonged to them, and therefore
the ships which they had chartered for carrying away still more should
not be allowed to go and load. At last the President appears to have
discovered his mistake, and the ships, to the amazement of the Lima
press, were allowed to depart; some to the Pabellon de Pica, where they
still are; others to Lobos, and the rest to Huanillos. In the meantime
the following circular appeared.
'The Lima press has commented in various articles on the
conduct of our house with respect to the export of guano,
and we have been charged with endeavouring to appropriate
a larger quantity than that which is stipulated in our
contracts as sufficient to cover the amounts due to us by the
Supreme Government.
These false and malevolent assertions render it necessary for
us to satisfy the public and inform the country of the state
of our affairs with the Supreme Government.
We trust that dispassionate people who do not allow their
opinions to be based on partial evidence, will do our
house the justice to which we are entitled by these few
particulars, the truth of which is proved by facts and
figures that can be authenticated by application to the
offices of the Public Treasury.
Balance in favour of our house on June
30, 1875, as per account delivered,
embracing 1,377,150 tons of guano $.24,068,156
Expenses since that date for monthly
instalments, loading, salaries in Europe,
etc. $.2,390,000
-------------
Balance in favour of our house $.26,459,156
-------------
From this sum there is to be deducted
the value of cargoes despatched up to
June, 300,092 tons at 30 soles 9,002,760
Vessels now loading, 394,966 tons at
30 soles 4,849,000
[A]Vessels detained in Callao 110,657 tons
at 30 soles 3,319,710
----------- $.24,181,470
-------------
Which shews a balance in our favour of $.2,286,686
Adding to this sum interest in account
current since June 1,500,000
[B]Cost of loading ships at the deposits
and in Callao 1,500,000
----------- 3,000,000
-------------
Shewing a clear balance in our favour of $.5,286,686
-------------
We have taken thirty soles as the average value of guano of
different qualities.
These figures prove that our house not only has not received
more than it is entitled to, even if all the vessels had left
which are at the deposits as well as those in Callao, but
that there is still a heavy balance due to us.
With respect to questions now pending, no one possesses the
right to consider his opinions of more value than those of
the tribunals of justice before which they now are, without
the least opposition on our part.
DREYFUS, HERMANOS, & CO.
_Lima, Dec. 31, 1875._
It appears from this statement [A], that Dreyfus had already put in
their claim for the detention of the ships. What is meant by the last
item marked with a [B] is uncertain; no ships are loaded in Callao. If
the Government can sustain its suit against Dreyfus on that part of the
second article of the contract mentioned above, instead of its owing
Dreyfus the 'clear balance of 5,286,686 dols.' Dreyfus is in debt to
the Government.
But there is another item in the second article which appears to
override the first: viz. 'y este (guano) será colocado por cuenta y
riesgo del gobierno abordo de las lanchas destinadas a la carga de
dichos buques' [or, in plain English, 'this guano shall be placed
on board such launches as are appointed to carry it to the ships, on
account and at the risk of the Government'].
Well, it is absolutely certain that the guano was not _colocado_, or
placed on board the appointed launches; not because the launches were
not there; not because there was no guano at the deposits;--but simply
because the Government had not, for some reason or other, fulfilled its
own part of the contract.
No answer was made by the Government to Dreyfus' circular, and the
obsequious Lima newspapers were as silent upon it as dumb dogs. I have
since heard, on high authority, that the reply of the Government is
prepared, and that it disputes Dreyfus' claims and will contest them in
a court of law.
I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the islands of the
north; glad to leave behind me the filthiness, foulness, and weariness
of the mainland in the neighbourhood of the Pabellon de Pica. Had it
not been for the true British kindness of one or two of my countrymen
and several Americans in command of guano ships, Her Majesty's Consular
agent, and the agent of the house of Dreyfus, who did all they could to
provide me with wholesome food, German beer, and clean beds, I should
have fled away from that much-talked-of dunghill without estimating its
contents; or like a philosophical Chinaman sought out a quiet nook in
the warm rocks, and with an opium reed in my lips smoked myself away to
everlasting bliss.
On my return from the south we passed close to the Chincha islands.
When I first saw them twenty years ago, they were bold, brown heads,
tall, and erect, standing out of the sea like living things, reflecting
the light of heaven, or forming soft and tender shadows of the tropical
sun on a blue sea. Now these same islands looked like creatures whose
heads had been cut off, or like vast sarcophagi, like anything in short
that reminds one of death and the grave.
In ages which have no record these islands were the home of millions
of happy birds, the resort of a hundred times more millions of fishes,
of sea lions, and other creatures whose names are not so common; the
marine residence, in fact, of innumerable creatures predestined from
the creation of the world to lay up a store of wealth for the British
farmer, and a store of quite another sort for an immaculate Republican
government. One passage of the Hebrew Scriptures, and this the only
passage in the whole range of sacred or profane literature, supplies
an adequate epitaph for the Chincha islands. But it is too indecent,
however amusing it may be, to quote.
On Sunday morning, March 26th, of the last year of grace, I first
caught sight of the beautiful pearl-gray islands of Lobos de Afuera,
undulating in latitude S. 6.57.20, longitude 80.41.50, beneath a blue
sky, and apparently rolling out of an equally blue sea. Here is the
only large deposit that has remained untouched; here you may walk about
among great birds busy hatching eggs, look a great sea-lion in the face
without making him afraid, and dip your hat in the sea and bring up
more little fishes than you can eat for breakfast.
There are eight distinct deposits in an island rather more than a mile
in length and half a mile in width. The amount of guano will be not
less than 650,000 tons.
It is not all of the same good quality, for considerable rain has at
one time fallen on these islands. Wide and deep beds of sand mark in
a well defined manner the courses of several once strong and rapid
streams. But if the poor guano, that namely which does not yield
more than two per cent. of ammonia be reckoned, the deposits on these
islands will reach a million tons.
The wiseacres who believe guano to be a mineral substance, and not the
excreta of birds, will do well to pay a visit to Lobos de Afuera. There
they will see the whole process of guano making and storing carried
on with the greatest activity, regularity, and despatch. The birds
make their nests quite close together: as close and regular, in fact,
as wash-hand basins laid out in a row for sale in a market-place; are
about the same size, and stand as high from the ground. These nests are
made by the joint efforts of the male and female birds; for there is
no moss, or lichen, or grass, or twig, or weed, available, or within a
hundred miles and more: even the sea does not yield a leaf. As a rule,
about one hundred and fifty nests form a farm. It has been computed
by a close observer that the heguiro will contribute from 4 oz. to 6
oz. per day of nesty material, the pelican twice as much. When there
are millions of these active beings living in undisturbed retirement,
with abundance of appropriate food within reach, it does not require a
very vivid imagination to realise in how, comparatively, short a time
a great deposit of guano can be stored.
Will the Government of Peru occupy itself in preserving and cultivating
these busy birds? That Government has lived now on their produce for
more than thirty years; why should it not take a benign and intelligent
interest in the creatures who have continued its existence and
contributed to its fame?
The heguiro is a large bird of the gull and booby species, but twice
the size of these, with blue stockings and also blue shoes. It does
not appear to possess much natural intelligence, and its education
has evidently been left uncared for. It will defend its young with
real courage, but will fly from its nest and its one or two eggs
on the least alarm. This, however, is not always the case. But in a
most insane manner if it spies a white umbrella approaching, it sets
up a painful shriek. Had it kept its mouth shut, the umbrella had
travelled in another direction. As the noise came from a peculiar
cave-like aperture in the high rocks, I sat down in front, watched the
movements of the bird, who kept up a dismal noise, evidently resenting
my intrusion on her private affairs. After a brief space I marched
slowly up to the bird, who, when she saw me determined to come on,
deliberately rose from her nest, and became engaged in some frantic
effort, the meaning of which I could not guess. When I approached
within ten yards of her, she sprang into the sky and began sailing
above my head, trying by every means in her power to scare me away.
When I reached the nest, I found the beautiful pale blue egg covered
with little fishes! The anxious mother had emptied her stomach in order
to protect the fruit of her body from discovery or outrage, or to keep
it warm while she paid a visit to her mansion in the skies.
Birds have ever been a source of joy to me from the time that I first
remember walking in a field of buttercups in Mid Staffordshire, some
fifty years ago, and hearing for the first time the rapturous music of
a lark. Since then I have watched the movements of the great condor on
the Andes, the eagle on the Hurons, the ibis on the Nile, the native
companion in its quiet nooks on the Murray, the laughing jackass in
the Bush of Australia, the curaçoa of Central America, the tapa culo
of the South American desert, the albatross of the South Pacific. I
can see them all still, or their ghosts, whenever I choose to shut my
eyes, a process which the poets assure us is necessary if we would see
bright colours. And now I no longer care for birds. I have seen them in
double millions at a time, swarming in the sky, like insects on a leaf,
or vermin in a Spanish bed. They are as common as man, and can be as
useful, and become as great a commercial speculation as he.
We visited the island of Macabi, lat. 7.49.30 S., long. 79.28.30, for
the purpose of seeing what good thing remained there that was worth
removing in the way of houses, tanks and tools for use on the virgin
deposits of Lobos de Afuera. Although there is not more than one
shipload of guano left, I was glad to see the place for many reasons.
It will be recollected that it was on the guano said to exist on this
and the Guañapi islands that the Peruvian Loan of 1872 was raised, and
it will be the duty of all who invested their money in that transaction
to enquire into the truth of the statements on which the loan was made.
Macabi is an island split in two, spanned by a very well constructed
iron suspension bridge a hundred feet long. The birds which had been
frightened away by the operations of the guano-loading company have
returned. The lobos probably never left the place, the precipitous
rocks and the great caverns which the sea has scooped out affording
them sufficient protection from the 'fun'-pursuing Peruvian, who
delights in killing, where there is no danger, an animal twice his
own size, and whose existence is quite as important as his own. Or if
the lobos did leave, they also have returned. This would go to prove
the statements that the birds have begun to return to the Chinchas.
When this is proved beyond any doubt, we may expect to hear of Messrs.
Schweiser and Gnat applying for another loan on the strength of the
pelicans, ducks and boobies having returned to their ancient labours on
those celebrated islands.
The spectacle presented at Macabi was humiliating. The ground was
everywhere strewn with Government property, which had all gone to
destruction. The shovels and picks were scattered about as if they had
been thrown down with curses which had blasted them. I went to pick
up a shovel, but it fell to pieces like Rip Van Winkle's gun on the
Catskills; the wheelbarrows collapsed with a touch. Suddenly I came
on a little coffin, exquisitely made, not quite eighteen inches long.
There it lay in the midst of the burning glaring rocks, as solitary and
striking as the print of a foot in the sand was to Robinson Crusoe. The
coffin was empty, and the presence of certain filthy-fat gallinazos
high up on the rocks explained the reason. A little further on were
the graves of some fifty full-grown persons, 'Asiatics,' probably,
who had purposely fallen asleep. Walking down the steady slope of
the island till I came to the edge of the sea, which rolled below me
some hundred and twenty feet, I came suddenly in front of a thousand
lobos, all basking in the sun after their morning's bath. It was a
sight certainly new, entertaining, and instructive. The young lobos
are silly little things, and look as if it had not taken much trouble
to make them; a child could carve a baby lobo out of a log, that would
be quite as good to look at as one of these. But the old fathers,
patriarchs, kings, or presidents of the herd, are as impressive as some
of Layard's Assyrian lions. Suddenly one of these caught me in his eye,
and no doubt imagining me to be a Peruvian, signalled to the rest, who,
following his lead, all rushed violently down the steep place into the
sea, and began tumbling about and rolling over in the surf like a mob
of happy children gambolling among a lot of hay-cocks in a green field.
They live on fish, and the number of fishes is as great at Macabi as
elsewhere. As I remained watching these swarthy creatures, a great
sea-lion appeared above the surface of the rolling deep looking about
him, his mouth full of fishes, just as you have seen a high-bred horse
with his mouth full of straggling hay, turn his head to look as you
entered his stable door.
My next and longer visit was to Lobos de Tierra, lat. S. 6.27.30, the
largest guano island in the world, being some seven miles long, or
more. Here are great deposits of guano, the extent and value of which
are not yet known. It is certain that there are more than eight hundred
thousand tons of good quality in the numerous deposits which have been
hitherto examined.
On January 31st, being in lat. S. 7.50.0, and some 15 miles from the
Peruvian coast, when on my way to the South from Panama, we ran into
a heavy shower of rain. Now it is much more likely to rain in lat. S.
6.27.30 and 120 miles from the shore, and this explains the reason why
the guano deposits of Lobos de Tierra were not worked before. Still
the quantity of rich material found there is great, and it is the only
place where I came on sal ammoniac _in situ_; the crystals were large
and beautifully formed, but somewhat opaque. During the ten days I
remained there, more than 500 tons of good guano were shipped in one
day, and there were some 40 ships waiting to receive more.
Like all the other guano deposits, Lobos de Tierra has to be supplied
at great expense from the mainland with everything for the support of
human life. It is true that the sea supplies very good fish, but man
cannot live on fish alone, at least for any length of time, especially
if he is engaged in loading ships with guano. The Changos, however, a
race of fishermen on the Peruvian coast, do live on uncooked fish, and
a finer race to look at may not be found; the colour of their skin is
simply beautiful, but they are very little children in understanding.
It is only fair to say that with their raw fish they consume a
plentiful amount of chicha, a fermented liquor made from maize, the
ancient beer of Peru: and very good liquor it is, very sustaining,
and, taken in excess, as intoxicating as that of the immortal Bass.
These hardy fishers visit all these islands in their balsas, great
rafts formed of three tiers of large trees of light wood, stripped and
prepared for the purpose in Guayaquil. They are precisely the same as
those first met with by Pizarro's expedition when on his way to conquer
Peru, three centuries and a half ago. The people are probably the same,
except that they now speak Spanish, and are never found with gold;
but now and then they do traffic in fine cottons, spun by hand, now as
then, by natives of the country.
I cannot forget that it was at Lobos de Tierra I had the great pleasure
of forming the acquaintance of one who represents young Peru: the new
generation that, if time and opportunity be given it, may transform
that land of corruption into a new nation. Here on this barren island,
I found a son of one of the oldest Peruvian families, thoroughly
educated, well acquainted with England and its literature, proud of his
country, jealous for its honour, and keenly alive to the disgrace into
which she has been dragged by the wicked men who have gone to their
doom. Should this generation, represented by one whom I am allowed to
call my friend--who, though born in the Guano Age is not of it,--rise
into power, the rising generation in England may see what many have had
too great reason to despair of, namely, a South American Republic, that
shall prefer death to dishonour, and if needs must, will live on bread
and onions in order to be free of debt. There is so much pleasure in
hoping the best of all men, that it surely must be a duty the neglect
of which, when there are substantial evidences to support it, must be
a crime.
I left Lobos de Tierra with profound regret, but it was necessary to
do so in order to see what remained to be seen of the precious dung
in other parts of Peru. The following will be found to be a fair
approximation of the quantities existing along the northern coast.
+-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Islands. | Latitude. | Longitude. | Quantities.|
| | | | Tons. |
+-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Malabrigo | 7.43.20 | 79.26.20 | 400 |
| Macabi | 7.49.30 | 79.28.20 | 1,000 |
| Guañapi | 7.49.30 | 78.56.0 | 3,500 |
| Chao | 8.46.50 | 78.46.0 | 800 |
| Coreobado | 8.57.0 | 78.40.30 | 3,000 |
| Santa | 9.03.0 | 78.39.30 | 100 |
| Bay of Ferrol | 9.10.0 | 78.36.0 | 22,000 |
| El Dorado | 9.12.0 | 78.34.0 | 6,000 |
| Small Island Pajaros | 9.12.0 | 78.30.10 | 250 |
| Tortuga | 9.21.30 | 78.27.0 | 700 |
| Mongon | 9.39.40 | 78.25.0 | 23,000 |
| Mongon 2nd | 9.40.0 | 78.20.0 | 30,000 |
| Mongoncillo | 9.45.30 | 78.16.40 | 6,000 |
| Cornejos | 9.53.0 | 78.15.0 | 500 |
| Erizos | 9.54.40 | 78.14.0 | 5,000 |
| Huarmey | 10.00.20 | 78.12.0 | 500 |
| 2nd ditto | 10.02.0 | 78.11.0 | 3,000 |
| Bay of Gramadal | 10.25.0 | 78.00.30 | 10,000 |
| Pescadores | 11.48.0 | 77.15.30 | 200 |
+-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+
I have not visited all these small deposits, and have been content to
take the report of Captain Black, the chief of the Peruvian expedition
lately appointed to examine them. I have found him so faithful and
trustworthy in those cases--the more important of them all--where I
have had the opportunity of comparing his calculations with my own,
that I have not hesitated to adopt his estimates of the least important
deposits. I have considered them of value if for no other reason
than to guard the public against any fresh discovery being made by
interested parties.
If then we add these northern deposits to those of the south, Peru has
at present in her possession, in round numbers, 7,500,000 tons of guano
of 2240 lbs. to the ton.
It is not my business to suggest the possible existence of guano
remaining to be discovered. I may however be allowed to say that there
are certain unmistakable indications of even large deposits which may
lie buried a hundred feet below the sand on the slopes of the southern
shore. As those indications are the result of my own observation, I may
be allowed to keep them to myself for a more convenient season.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Since writing the above I have come on the following
passage from the report of the Peruvian Minister of Finance
for 1858.
'HUANO
Tan grande es el valor de este ramo de la riqueza
nacional, que sin exajeracion puede asegurarse, que en
su estimacion y buen manejo estriba la subsistencia del
Estado, el mantenimiento de su credito, el porvenir de su
engrandecimiento, y la conservacion del órden publico.' Which
may be done into the vulgar tongue faithfully and well as
follows--So great is the value of this branch of the national
riches, that without exaggeration it may be affirmed that
on its estimation and good handling depend the subsistence
of the State, the maintenance of its credit, the future of
its increase, and the preservation of public order.--Signed,
Manuel Ortiz de Zerallos.
[4] It is hard to believe that the present dead silent sands,
which form the coast of Peru from the Province of Chincha in
the south as far as Trujillo in the north, was in the early
days so populous that Padre Melendez, quoted by Unanue,
compared one of the small valleys to an ant hill; and now
'not more than half a dozen natives can be found among its
ruins.'--See Documentos Literarios del Peru Colectados por
Manuel de Odriozola, vol. vi, p. 179.
The rapid and continued decrease of the Peruvian population
has been ascribed to civil war. This is not true. Where the
sword has carried off its thousands, the infernal stuff known
as brandy, the small pox, and other epidemics, have slain
their tens of thousands. The liberation of the slaves also
caused great mortality amongst the negroes.