Discovery of Burial Maize. 42 1 



Wlien I Avas at Payta, there were some twenty mercliant 

 ships in the harbour. The trade of the place was evidently 

 increasing. This was indicated not alone by the energy of the 

 inliabitants, but by a general well-to-do air. Large, round, 

 broad-brimmed straw, hats are annually exported to the value 

 of 400,000 dollars. Of goat-skins, the annual stock is about 

 1200 cwt. ; of herb-archel from 1500 to 2000 cwt. There are 

 also at Payta some very remunerative manufactures of castor 

 oil (from the Ricinus communis), and its cognate from the piiion 

 bean {Jatropha curcas), botb of which are found in large quan- 

 tities in the interior. By an iron machine worked by steam 

 some 85 gallons of the oil are made daily, part of which is 

 used in the country for lamps and in tlie preparation of soap ; 

 but by far the largest portion is exported to the United States. 



A few weeks before I reached Payta, there had been acci- 

 dentally found in a cave among the bare sand-hills which 

 form the naked desolate environs of the town, a quantity of 

 maize, which was supposed to have formed part of a stock 

 which had been placed here by the Incas. It was of a smaller 

 kind than that grown at the present day. The grains, not- 

 withstanding the centuries they had lain interred, were in 

 very tolerable preservation. All along the coast nothing was 

 spoken of but this incident, as though some great treasure 

 had been discovered, whereas it was but some 60 lbs. of maize 

 that were found. Moreover, the interest felt by the Indians 

 in this trouvaille had nothing to do with its historic suggest- 

 iveness, but because their readily-inflamed imagination pre- 



