108 HORTICULTURE 



ridges, in October and November, gets a little guanu afterwards, 

 and tlie produce is reaped iu thousands from January till May. 



Oranges, Lemons, Limes, Guavas, Pacays, Plantains, and 

 Granadillas (the egg-shaped fruit of a Passion flower, with a pulp 

 exactly like a Gooseberry), are all grown in small quantities in 

 Tacna, but the principal supply of them, and other tropical 

 fruits, is derived from the warmer valleys in the province. 



Postscript. — In the above hasty sketch, I find no notice has 

 been taken of two important productions, viz. Cotton and the 

 Sugar-Cane. Cotton is grown in considerable quantities ; it is 

 of the perennial kind, and forms a dwarf tree of eight or ten feet 

 high. The plants are raised from seed, and begin to bear when 

 two years old; iOOlbs of the Cotton, as taken from the plant, 

 weigh only 40lbs. when separated from the seed. The Sugai-- 

 cane grown in Tacna is sold to and eaten by the lower class of 

 people, and is never manufactured. 



The climate of Tacna is one of the finest in the world ; 

 although 6° within the southern tropic the extremes of heat 

 common to the same latitude, in other parts of the world, are 

 here unknown. The fervid rays of a vertical sun are tempered 

 by the daily trade-wind sweeping over the bosom of the Pacific 

 ocean on the west ; while to the east, and at the distance of only 

 about forty miles, rise the mighty snow-covered turrets of the 

 Andes, whose pure atmosphere of everlasting frost also lends its 

 influence in tempering the solar rays. But much of the modera- 

 tion of the climate depends on the open nature of the country 

 in the immediate neighbourhood ; in other valleys, only a few 

 leagues off", which are shut in by high hills on either side, the 

 free circulation of air is impeded, the direct rays of the sun are 

 strengthened by the reflected heat from the inclosing hills, and 

 the temperature at certain seasons is insuff'erably warm. Every 

 modification of climate is to be met with in Peru; in open 

 situations, at 2000 feet above the level of the sea, we have the 

 genial temperature of Tacna ; at double that height, the region 

 where Wheat begins to be cultivable ; at 6000 feet a region of 

 perpetual spring ; at 8000 feet the Fig-tree becomes stunted and 

 dwarfish, but AVheat is in its native climate ; and at 10,000 feet 

 we are on the high plains of the Cordillei'a, in the region of 

 Condors and Guauacors and Viccenas ; where the Indians rear 

 their flocks of llamas and sheep on the scanty vegetation, and 

 extort from the unwilling soil a miserable half-ripened crop of 

 Barley and Quinua for their own subsistence. But even here 



