362 Voyage of the Novara. 



into the State treasury. Nothing is done for making roads 

 or railways so as to furnish intercourse with the fertile pro- 

 vinces of the interior, or to raise and encourage agriculture 

 or commerce. Just as this revenue does not result from the 

 energy or industrial activity of the people, it is expended 

 without any object of utility to show for it. The Govern- 

 ment pockets the dues as a monopoly, and expends the sums 

 thus obtained in avaricious schemes of aggrandizement, or 

 warlike expeditions against Ecuador and Bolivia, which keep 

 the country in perpetual hot water, and only add to its bur- 

 thens. The guano duties go in gunpowder ! Lightly won, 

 as liglitly gone ! 



During the nine days of our voyage between Valparaiso 

 and Callao de Lima there were some musicians on board, 

 who gave us a concert on deck every evening. As we left the 

 Chincha Islands some frolicsome young Peruvians, disregard- 

 ing the discord of the flute and violin, and unmindful of the 

 timeless tuneless twanging of the two harps, got up a dance. 



In the com'se of the night we ran into Callao harbour, and 

 when I came on deck, in the cool of the morning, I found 

 we were already lying at anchor in this spacious and secure 

 port. The tradition that with a calm sea and a clear sky it 

 is possible to perceive the ruins of the old town, with its 

 houses and church-towers, which sank here suddenly in 1746 

 by the shock of an earthquake, has survived to the present 

 day, and is told to every new-comer, who greedily swallows 

 it down, though not one of the narrators has ever beheld the 



