FISHERIES AND GUANO INDUSTRY OF PERU. 341 
HISTORY AND PRESENT STATE OF THE FISHERIES. 
Many of the present methods employed in the capture or preservation of 
fishes probably date back to a very remote time; for it is interesting to note 
that Peru not only claims an ancient fishery but offers some evidence to indi- 
cate that centuries ago the fishery and related industries had a relatively high 
degree of organization. The interesting story is often told of the system of 
transportation of fresh fish from the coast to the royal home in Cuzco, a region 
where fresh sea fish is never available now. 
Through the earliest writers we know of the appreciation and use by the 
earlier Peruvians of the guano deposits of the coast for their great agricultural 
industries. The rigorous edicts for the protection of the guano-producing birds 
were evidence of admirable foresight and antedated by centuries any further 
effort to preserve the birds. Relics of pottery and gold are found buried in 
the sand or in the guano, and it is an interesting fact that modern explorations 
upon the coast and islands indicate that the villages necessarily supported by 
the fishery or guano-working industries possessed a degree of wealth that could 
have resulted only from an industry of relatively high development. 
The great shell heaps and the islands and causeways of shells in the estuary 
region of the Gulf of Guayaquil testify to an early fishery of oysters and clams 
pursued in no rude or half-measure way. A thousand years of the present 
oyster fishery would not leave a trace comparable to these. 
In short, it is probable that the ancient Peruvians were as competent in 
the fishery as in agricultural, textile, and other industries. Nevertheless, what- 
ever may have been the condition in this earlier period, this industry, like all 
others, certainly fell to a very low stage after the conquest. During the past 
few years new fishermen have come in, new methods have been introduced, 
and better facilities have appeared; and yet the industry is but poorly devel- 
oped, and its condition is distinctly unsatisfactory. 
In attempting to give a brief account of the fishing industry as it is now 
carried on, it is not necessary that modernly introduced methods should receive 
more than the mention. It may be of value, however, to speak more fully of 
those forms of fisheries which may be presumed to have continued in use since 
the pre-Columbian period—those which are not borrowed but are actually and 
historically ‘‘ home industries.’ 
FISHING CRAFT. 
It would seem natural that a people who could construct magnificent 
buildings and walls of stone that endure to our present admiration, would have 
fashioned good wooden boats, if the forests of timber had been available; but 
with the coast region desert and barren except for the scrubby growth of alga- 
roba, with its dense and heavy wood, the ordinary materials of boat construction 
