The Change, However,
From The Sterile Coast Of Peru To That Fertile Land Is Described
As Taking Place Rather Abruptly In The Latitude Of Cape Blanco,
Two Degrees South Of Guayaquil.
Callao is a filthy, ill-built, small seaport.
The inhabitants,
both here and at Lima, present every imaginable shade of
mixture, between European, Negro, and Indian blood. They
appear a depraved, drunken set of people. The atmosphere
is loaded with foul smells, and that peculiar one, which may
be perceived in almost every town within the tropics, was
here very strong. The fortress, which withstood Lord Cochrane's
long siege, has an imposing appearance. But the
President, during our stay, sold the brass guns, and proceeded
to dismantle parts of it. The reason assigned was,
that he had not an officer to whom he could trust so important
a charge. He himself had good reason for thinking
so, as he had obtained the presidentship by rebelling while
in charge of this same fortress. After we left South America,
he paid the penalty in the usual manner, by being conquered,
taken prisoner, and shot.
Lima stands on a plain in a valley, formed during the
gradual retreat of the sea. It is seven miles from Callao,
and is elevated 500 feet above it; but from the slope being
very gradual, the road appears absolutely level; so that when
at Lima it is difficult to believe one has ascended even one
hundred feet: Humboldt has remarked on this singularly deceptive
case. Steep barren hills rise like islands from the
plain, which is divided, by straight mud-walls, into large
green fields. In these scarcely a tree grows excepting a few
willows, and an occasional clump of bananas and of oranges.
The city of Lima is now in a wretched state of decay: the
streets are nearly unpaved; and heaps of filth are piled up
in all directions, where the black gallinazos, tame as poultry,
pick up bits of carrion. The houses have generally an upper
story, built on account of the earthquakes, of plastered
woodwork but some of the old ones, which are now used by several
families, are immensely large, and would rival in suites
of apartments the most magnificent in any place. Lima, the
City of the Kings, must formerly have been a splendid town.
The extraordinary number of churches gives it, even at the
present day, a peculiar and striking character, especially
when viewed from a short distance.
One day I went out with some merchants to hunt in the
immediate vicinity of the city. Our sport was very poor;
but I had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of one of the
ancient Indian villages, with its mound like a natural hill in
the centre. The remains of houses, enclosures, irrigating
streams, and burial mounds, scattered over this plain, cannot
fail to give one a high idea of the condition and number of
the ancient population. When their earthenware, woollen
clothes, utensils of elegant forms cut out of the hardest rocks,
tools of copper, ornaments of precious stones, palaces, and
hydraulic works, are considered, it is impossible not to respect
the considerable advance made by them in the arts of
civilization. The burial mounds, called Huacas, are really
stupendous; although in some places they appear to be natural
hills incased and modelled.
There is also another and very different class of ruins,
which possesses some interest, namely, those of old Callao,
overwhelmed by the great earthquake of 1746, and its
accompanying wave. The destruction must have been more
complete even than at Talcahuano. Quantities of shingle
almost conceal the foundations of the walls, and vast masses
of brickwork appear to have been whirled about like pebbles
by the retiring waves. It has been stated that the land subsided
during this memorable shock: I could not discover any
proof of this; yet it seems far from improbable, for the
form of the coast must certainly have undergone some change
since the foundation of the old town; as no people in their
senses would willingly have chosen for their building place,
the narrow spit of shingle on which the ruins now stand.
Since our voyage, M. Tschudi has come to the conclusion,
by the comparison of old and modern maps, that the coast
both north and south of Lima has certainly subsided.
On the island of San Lorenzo, there are very satisfactory
proofs of elevation within the recent period; this of course
is not opposed to the belief, of a small sinking of the ground
having subsequently taken place. The side of this island
fronting the Bay of Callao, is worn into three obscure terraces,
the lower one of which is covered by a bed a mile in
length, almost wholly composed of shells of eighteen species,
now living in the adjoining sea. The height of this bed is
eighty-five feet. Many of the shells are deeply corroded, and
have a much older and more decayed appearance than those
at the height of 500 or 600 feet on the coast of Chile. These
shells are associated with much common salt, a little sulphate
of lime (both probably left by the evaporation of the
spray, as the land slowly rose), together with sulphate of
soda and muriate of lime. They rest on fragments of the
underlying sandstone, and are covered by a few inches thick
of detritus. The shells, higher up on this terrace could be
traced scaling off in flakes, and falling into an impalpable
powder; and on an upper terrace, at the height of 170 feet,
and likewise at some considerably higher points, I found a
layer of saline powder of exactly similar appearance, and
lying in the same relative position. I have no doubt that this
upper layer originally existed as a bed of shells, like that on
the eighty-five-feet ledge; but it does not now contain even a
trace of organic structure. The powder has been analyzed
for me by Mr. T. Reeks; it consists of sulphates and muriates
both of lime and soda, with very little carbonate of
lime.
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