He Said Much More As To The Blindness Of The English,
In Suffering The French Pedlars To Carry On, Uninterruptedly, The Most
Considerable Branch Of Traffic In The World.
Before leaving me, he
desired me to carry his ship two or three leagues out to sea, and then
To turn her adrift, on purpose to deceive the governor and the king's
officers; and, if I would meet him at Hilo (Ilo,) about twenty-five
leagues to the north-westwards, he would purchase from me any coarse
goods I had to dispose of, which might be done there with all imaginable
secrecy. At this time also, the master of the small bark came off in a
balsa. This is an odd sort of an embarkation, consisting of two large
seal skins, separately blown up, like bladders, and made fast to pieces
of wood. On this he brought off two jars of brandy and forty dollars;
which, considering his mean appearance, was as much as I could expect.
One part of his cargo was valuable, being a considerable quantity of
excellent dried fish.
The port of Arica, formerly so famous for the great quantities of
silver shipped from thence, is now much diminished in its riches, and
appears mostly a heap of ruins, except the church of St Mark, and two or
three more, which still look tolerably well. What helps to give it a
very desolate appearance is, that the houses near the sea are only
covered with mats. Being situated on the sea-shore, in an open
roadstead, it has no fortifications of any kind to defend or command the
anchorage, the Spaniards thinking it sufficiently secured by the heavy
surf, and the rocky bottom near the shore, which threaten inevitable
destruction to any European boats, or other embarkation, except what is
expressly contrived for the purpose, being the balsas already
mentioned. To obstruct the landing of an enemy, the Spaniards had
formerly a fort and entrenchments, flanking the storecreeks; but being
built of unburnt bricks, it is now fallen to ruins. In 1680, when
Dampier was here, being repulsed before the town, the English landed at
the creek of Chacota, to the south of the head-land, whence they
marched over the mountain (Gordo) to plunder Arica. Earthquakes also,
which are frequent here, have at last ruined the town, and Arica is now
no more than a little village of about 150 families, most of them
negroes, mulattoes, and Indians, with very few whites. On the 26th
November, 1605,[266] the sea, violently agitated by an earthquake,
suddenly overflowed, and broke down the greatest part of the town, and
the ruins of its streets are to be seen at this day. What remains of
Arica is not now liable to such an accident, being situated on a little
rising ground at the foot of the head-land. Most of the houses are only
constructed of a sort of fascines, made of flags or sedges, bound
together, called totora, set up on end, crossed by canes and leather
thongs; or are made of canes set on end, having the intervals filled
with earth. The use of unburnt bricks is reserved for churches and the
stateliest houses; and as no rain ever falls here, they are only covered
with mats, so that the houses seem all in ruins when seen from the sea.
The parish church, dedicated to St Mark, is handsome enough. There are
also three religious houses, one a monastery of seven or eight
mercenarians, a second is an hospital of the brothers of St John of
God, and the third a monastery of Franciscans, who formerly had a house
a short way from town, in the pleasantest part of the vale, near the
sea.
[Footnote 266: Perhaps this date ought to have been 1705. - E.]
The vale of Arica is about a league wide next the sea, all barren ground
except where the old town stood, which is divided into small fields of
clover, some small plantations of sugar-canes, with olive-trees and
cotton-trees intermixed, and several intervening marshes, full of the
sedges of which they build their houses. Growing narrower about a league
eastward at the village of St Michael de Sapa, they begin to cultivate
the agi, or Guinea pepper, which culture extends over all the rest of
the vale, in which there are several detached farms exclusively devoted
to its culture. In that part of the vale, which is very narrow, and
about six leagues long, they raise yearly to the value of above 80,000
crowns. The Spaniards of Peru are so much addicted to this spice, that
they dress no meat without it, although so hot and biting that no one
can endure it, unless accustomed to its use; and, as it cannot grow in
the Puna, or mountainous country, many merchants come down every year,
who carry away all the Guinea pepper that grows in the districts of
Arica, Sama, Taena, Locumba, and others, ten leagues around, from all
of which it is reckoned they export yearly to the value of 600,000
dollars, though sold cheap. It is hard to credit that such vast
quantities should go from hence, as the country is so parched up, except
the vales, that nothing green is to be seen. This wonderful fertility is
produced by the dung of fowls, which is brought from Iquique, and
which fertilizes the soil in a wonderful manner, making it produce four
or five hundred for one of all sorts of grain, as wheat, maize, and so
forth, but particularly of this agi, or Guinea pepper, when rightly
managed. When the plants are sufficiently grown in the seed-bed to be
fit for transplanting, they are set out in winding lines like the letter
S, that the furrows for conveying the water may distribute it equally to
the roots of the plants. They then lay about the root of each plant of
Guinea pepper as much guana, or bird's dung formerly mentioned, as
will lie in the hollow of the hand.
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