LANDING AT CALLAO. 6i 



and the passengers. After we had been duly mar- 

 shalled and inspected — the first-class passengers on 

 the spar-deck, the others on the main-deck — the 

 welcome announcement, " Admitted to pratique," ran 

 through the ship. Not much time was lost in moving 

 up to the proper moorings in the harbour, some two 

 miles distant, and about noon we were set on land 

 close to the custom-house. 



The boatmen, the porters, and the nondescript 

 hangers-on about the quays of a port, formed a 

 strange and motley assemblage, in whose countenances 

 three very distinct types of humanity — the European, 

 the negro, and the South American Indian — were 

 mingled in the most varied proportions, scarcely one 

 denoting an unmixed origin. The arrangements at 

 Callao are convenient for strangers. The custom- 

 house officers, though unbribed, gave no trouble, and 

 the rather voluminous luggage of six English pas- 

 sengers was entrusted to a man who undertook for 

 ten soles (about thirty-three shillings) to convey the 

 whole to the chief hotel in Lima. No time was left 

 to see anything of Callao. A train was about to start ; 

 and in half an hour we were carried over the level 

 space — about seven and a half miles — that separates 

 Lima from the port of Callao. 



Occupied by the forces of her victorious rival, and 

 shorn of most of the almost fabulous wealth that once 

 enriched her inhabitants, Peru can, even in her present 

 ruined state, show a capital city that impresses the 

 stranger. It is true that the buildings have no archi- 

 tectural merit, that most of the streets are horribly ill- 

 paved, and that at present there is little outward 



