PERU. 227 



1814, reached Peru in the early part of 1815, shortly 

 after which one of the engines was at work in the 

 Mint at Lima, within two years from the giving the 

 order for it in England; for in the early part of the 

 latter year Trevithick wrote to one of his men : 



"I am sorry to find by Mr. Uville's letter that the Mint 

 engine does not go well. I wish you had put the fire under the 

 boiler and through the tube, as I desired you to do, in the 

 usual way of the old long boilers, then you might have made 

 your fire-place as large as you pleased, which would have 

 answered the purpose, and have worked with wood as well as 

 with coal, and have answered every expectation. 



" I always told you that the fire-place in the boiler was large 

 enough for coal, but not for wood, and desired you to put it 

 under it. The boiler is strong enough and large enough to 

 work the engine thirty strokes per minute, with 30 Ibs. of 

 steam to the inch. I hope to leave Cornwall for Lima about 

 the end of this month, and go by way of Buenos Ayres, and 

 cross over the continent of South America, because I cannot get 

 a passage ; none of the South Sea whalers will engage to take 

 me to Lima, they say that they may touch at Lima or they 

 may not, in the whole course of their voyage ; therefore, unless 

 I give them an immense sum of money for my passage, they 

 will not engage to put me on shore at Lima, and for me to risk 

 a passage in that way, and to be brought back again to England 

 after two years' voyage, without seeing Lima, would be a very 

 foolish trip ; therefore to make a certainty, I shall take the 

 first ship for Buenos Ayres, preparations for which 1 have 

 already made." l 



The whole of the machinery having been sent off, 

 Trevithick was prepared to make his way across the 

 then little-known continent of South America in its 

 broadest part, from Buenos Ayres to Cerro de Pasco. 2 



1 Unfinished rough draft of letter by Trevithick. 



- Sec Trcvithick's letter, December 9th, 1815, vol. ii., p. 31. 



