AT TACNA. 101 



watering tlieu follows, and in a fortnight after the braird is several 

 inches high. The general crop is sown about the end of June, 

 and reaped in December, the return being from 300 to 500 fold, 

 although even this might be greatly increased, were the plants 

 grown at a greater distance from each other, for more than one 

 half of them are literally smothered. This grain is a most ex- 

 hausting crop, and its success depends altogether on the applica- 

 tion of guano, a substance I shall now attempt to describe. 



Guano, or huano, is a reddish brown earth of a disagreeable 

 smell, found on several parts of the coast and the small rocky 

 island adjoining ; it is supposed by some to be the decomposed 

 excrement of sea birds, millions of which still frequent the neigh- 

 bourhood of the places where it is found, whilst others contend 

 that it is a fossil earth of a peculiar kind. The strongest argu- 

 ments are on the side of the former opinion ; the upper stratum 

 of the beds is always white, and evidently the recent deposition of 

 birds ; it is found gradually darkening in colour, as it deepens, 

 and for several feet under the surface, the bones and feathers of 

 birds are plentifully discovered in it ; nor is this all, it has been 

 examined by French chemists of eminence, who pronounce it as 

 of animal origin. Opposed to these mighty facts, is the difficulty 

 of conceiving it possible that any number of birds, even in a 

 period of time as remote as the wildest tradition of Chinese chro- 

 nology, could have suflBced to produce the guano in the immense 

 quantities in which it exists. It seems, indeed, inexhaustible ; 

 there are large hills of it hundreds of feet in height still un- 

 touched, and the supply in our time is still drawn from the very 

 same deposits that furnished the Indians with manure anterior to 

 the conquest. Numbers of small vessels are employed in carrying 

 it to the different ports, where it is generally sold at the rate of 

 from 10 to 12 reals (5s. to (3s.) per funega, nominally weighing 

 150 lbs. and is conveyed on jackasses to all parts of the country 

 within fifty leagues of the sea. 



Before using the guano it is mixed with three or four times its 

 bulk of dry horse-dung, broken down to chaff, not for the pur- 

 pose of adding any new or increased virtue to it, but to make it 

 more easily managed, and to increase the volume of the substance 

 to be handled, and thus facilitate its economical distribution. 

 When the Maize is a few inches high, owing to the poverty of the 

 exhausted soil, it always assumes the appearance of, what at home 

 is technically called, "setting up;" it gets yellow, hard, and sickly 

 looking, and this is the signal for the first application of guano. 



