440 WJiere and How Guano is Obtained. \_Septemhery 



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The New York Evening Post furnishes the following interesting 

 account : — 



An intelligent gentleman, who has been employed in loading a ship 

 with guano at the Chincha islands, on the coast of Peru, has communi- 

 cated to us some interesting information with respect to the trade. He 

 has been at the islands at three different times ; and nearly six months 

 in all. The last time he was there was in the fall and summer of 

 1855. He says he found at times five hundred sail vessels together, 

 loadiu'i- with guano, generally large ships. One ship was 4,500 tons 

 burden. Not less than three hundred sail of vessels are now at the 

 islands loading for the United States, Spain, Portugal, France, and. Eng- 

 lish and German ports. Some cargoes are sent to Constantinople, and 

 some to Russian ports in the Black Sea. This was before the war in 

 the Crimea. The Russian trade will now open again, both from the 

 Black Sea and the Baltic. Freights are high; £6 10s. are often paid 

 per ton for Liverpool and Hampton Roads. Generally ten shillings 

 more a ton freight is paid to Europe. Al the rate at which guano is 

 BOW shipped from the Chincha islands, it will be exhausted in six or 

 eight years — not a ton will be left. Twenty thousand tons are some- 

 times removed in a single day. 



These islands are about one hundred miles north from Callao. The 

 longest of the group is two miles in length and a quarter of a mile 

 wide, but contains only a small quantity of guano. The most northerly 

 island is the smallest, being about a mile in length by half a mile in 

 breadth. Guano on this island is two hundred and fifty feet deep. The 

 island contains a Chinese settlemei^t of Coolies, about a thousand in 

 number, who are employed in digging guano and loading the vessels. 

 A task is given them each day, and if the gang fail to get out the 

 given number of wagon loads, of two tons each, a day, their bondage 

 is continued a longer period to make it up; so many months or days 

 being added as wagon-loads are wanting. 



The Coolies are cheated into the belief that they are to be shipped 

 from China to California and the gold diggings, and are further de- 

 ceived by the offer of a free passage. The knowing Chinese, or 

 the Mandarins, ship them. The ship-master carries them to the 

 Peruvian coast and sells the cargo of living Chinese to the Peruvian 

 Government for his freight money. All this time the Chinamen are 



