;}j6 Voyage of the Novara. 



sea, the most north-easterly of which has been the most strip- 

 ped. Here also is the chief village, consisting of upwards of 

 100 wooden huts, inhabited by some 200 to 250 persons. In 

 1858 there were some 2000 men living on the islands, while 

 several hundred ships at a time would be lying at anchor 

 in the harbour, loading with the valuable excretions of innu- 

 merable sea-fowls, of which the islands chiefly consist. Wlien 

 we visited them, the depredations had somewhat fallen off, 

 the number of labourers was diminishing, and tliere were 

 only a few vessels in the harbour. 



The islands have a melancholy, naked, barren look; the 

 same substance which, in smaller quantity, contributes so 

 powerfully to promote the productiveness of the soil, to which 

 it is applied, liere stifles all vegetation, by reason of its very 

 abundance, and fails to show any trace of that fertilizing 

 principle which lies concealed within it. 



The northern island is about 4200 feet long, and 150Q to 

 1800 feet wide. Its height is from 150 to 180 feet. The 

 Huanu* consisting of the excrement of various descriptions 

 of sea-birds, chiefly sea-mews, sea-ravens, divers, and laridce^ 

 forms strata, sometimes of a greyish brown, sometimes of a 

 rusty red colour, which at some points attain a thickness of 

 120 feet. Tlie huts of the settlers are erected on the very 



* The ordinary mode of writing the word "Guano" is erroneous, as already re- 

 marked by Tschudi, as the Quichua language, to which the word belongs, is deficient 

 in the consonant G, among others. The Spaniards first converted into a G the 

 strongly aspirated H of the original, while the last syllable " nu," which so frequently 

 terminates the words adopted from the Quichua, was changed by them into " no." 



