354 Voyage of the Novara. 



sandy sliore. The chief exj^orts are wool and copper, the 

 latter being found at Chaipa and Atiquipa, nine miles N. of 

 Chala. 



The following morning, after passing the Barracoon of 

 Pisco, a rather dangerous passage beset with low islands be- 

 tween Barraca Head (on Sangallan Island) and Huasco Head 

 (a projecting headland of the mainland), we reached Pisco, 

 also nothing but an open roadstead, the tremendous surf in 

 which does not admit of ships approaching within two or 

 three miles of the shore. Several years before a Mr. Wheel- 

 wright had commenced to construct a mole here, to project 

 some hundreds of feet into the sea, so as to facilitate the load- 

 ing and unloading of ships and the embarkation of passen- 

 gers, but the works were still unfinished, and indeed would 

 need to be very largely added to ere the object aimed at 

 could possibly be obtained. On the declivity of Barraca 

 Head sloping seaward are visible three marks in the form of 

 crosses, which, according to tradition, were made in the sand 

 by the pious monks of former centuries. Their size must 

 indeed be colossal, since, though we passed from four to five 

 miles off, the outlines of the three figures were plainly visi- 

 ble. Well-known as this phenomenon is to everybody, no 

 one has ever had the curiosity to make an excursion thither 

 from Pisco, so as to clear up the fact of their being actually 

 the work of human hands, or, as seems more probable, 

 simply columns of drift sand, like the medanos of Arica, 



