ON THE PACIFIC COAST 325 



traveller who strays from these landmarks : he soon 

 gets bewildered among the medanos or shifting 

 hills of sand, and finds his grave in one of them. 

 To see the sun setting over this desert is like look- 

 ing into the red-hot mouth of a furnace, and there 

 is usually a lull in the wind at that hour ; but he 

 has barely disappeared when a rapid refrigeration 

 sets in, the night-wind sweeps over the desert, and 

 at daybreak the cold is as sensible (of course not 

 so intense) as on the paramos of the Andes. 



Piura is one of the driest places in the world, 

 and in " winter," as it is called (December to April), 

 one of the hottest. Yet it is very health)-, catarrhal 

 complaints, caused by the violent winds charged with 

 sand, being the only prevalent ones. The site is 

 a very curious one to have been chosen for a city. 

 There is a river, it is true, but for six months in the 

 year its bed is dry. It is now raining hard in the 

 Andes, where its sources are, and some time next 

 month the water is expected to reach Piura. 



March 27, 1863. . . . We are just now passing 

 through the hottest fit of weather I ever experi- 

 enced. Fancy a minimum thermometer at 85 , 

 which has usually been the lowest temperature in 

 the twenty-four hours ever since the ist of March ; 

 indeed, up to the present date, it has only three 

 times been as low as 83 . It is true that through- 

 out the same period the thermometer has never 

 risen higher than 89 ; but such sustained and 

 nearly uniform heat induces great languor. The 

 hottest part of the year is considered to be almost 

 past, and the months to come will get gradually 

 cooler. Although Piura cannot be said to have a 



