1839.] COMMERCE. 147 



alternate with each other. The great and mysterious agents 

 of decay and reproduction are incessantly at work. If, at 

 one moment, Nature seems to sicken and die, at the next, 

 borrowing, as it were, renewed beauty, life and loveliness, 

 from death itself, she springs forth again, like the Phenix 

 from its funeral pyre. The fertile oases of the coast country 

 are liberally sprinkled with tropical flowers, not more rich in 

 color than agreeable in fragrance ; and even in the Sierra, 

 amidst rushes, and mosses, and syngenesia, may be seen the 

 purple gentian, the brown calceolaria, the echino and ananas 

 cactus. The different varieties of cacti can scarcely be 

 enumerated ; their Proteiin shapes and divers hues excite the 

 wonder and admiration of the traveller ; and in many in- 

 stances, where the vegetation is otherwise scant and sickly, 

 they clothe the landscape in rare and beautiful apparel- 

 ling. 



(8.) Peru not only carries on her own commerce through 

 her seaports, but she is the great entrepot of the adjacent 

 state of Bolivia* The total value of Peruvian and Bolivian 

 produce shipped through the ports of Peru, in 1837, amounted 

 to near seven and a half millions of dollars. The principal 

 articles of export were bark, bullion and copper ore, hides, 

 seal skins, and vicuna, alpaca, and sheeps' wool. The im- 

 ports for the same period were also about seven and a half 

 millions. Two thirds of the imports, and rather more than 

 that proportion of the exports, belong to Peru alone. For 

 the past ten years the foreign commerce has increased but 

 slowly, and in some years has sensibly declined. Great Bri- 

 tain enjoys by far the better part of the Peruvian trade ; the 

 United States, in 1847, exported goods only to the amount 

 of $227,537, and imported from Peru $396,223. 



Internal commerce languishes under the numerous disad- 

 vantages which have long obstructed its successful prosecu- 

 tion. In the days of the Incas, anterior to the Spanish con- 

 quest, there were several great roads traversing the country, 



* Koliva has but one small seaport- -hat of Cobija, or La Mar. 



