444 FROM LIMA T*0 VALPARAISO. 



or three churches, and a sufficient numher of houses to cover half a mile square. As the 

 ground is sloping, and the churches occupy the higher portion, its appearance from the hay is 

 quite imposing; hut on nearer inspection there is nothing attractive ahout either of them, and 

 one is soon willing to escape from the glare of whitened walls along its narrow and hot streets. 

 I should suppose its population less than 1,500 souls, mostly Indians and half-castes, employed 

 in the conveyance of goods and provisions as far as the interior of Bolivia, 300 leagues distant. 

 Several large foreign commercial houses have agencies here, and there are a few Spanish Creole 

 merchants connected with estahlishments at Tacna a city of 9,000 people, 36 miles distant in 

 a N.N.E. direction. Recently a railroad has heen projected between the two places, and the 

 contracts for its construction entered into await execution only until the country shall again 

 become tranquil. To render the bay more secure, and obtain smoother water for landing goods, 

 they have commenced filling in between the morro and islet, using for the purpose masses of 

 rock blasted from the bluff, to be filled in with the sand now lying over the old town. There is 

 already a convenient mole near the custom-house, where launches may discharge, unless the 

 wind blow freshly. Eight English and French vessels were lying in the bay with goods, and 

 awaiting cargoes. The exports consist of large quantities of Peruvian bark, alpaca and other 

 wool, and copper and silver, both in ores and bars, sent from Bolivia. 



A mile to the south of the morro is a burial-place of the ancient Peruvians, whose graves have 

 been so perseveringly violated by foreigners, notwithstanding the prohibition against it, that there 

 are few if any bodies left. Numbers were carried off by the officers f a French ship-of-war some 

 years since. Following universal custom, a friend endeavored to obtain one of the mummies for 

 me, and succeeded in finding a tomb of masonry containing five bodies a man, a woman, two 

 children, and a dog ; but they all fell to pieces on exposure to the air, and he could only send 

 me the earthen and wooden vessels, household implements, provisions, &c., interred with them. 

 Of these an interesting account will be found in the report of Thomas Ewbank, Esq., Appendix 

 E. All the bodies found in these tombs are in a sitting posture with the knees close to the chin, 

 the elbows at the sides, and hands near the face. They are wrapped with many folds of coarse 

 woollen or cotton cloth, and, though dark-colored and shrunken, are usually in good preser- 

 vation. The nitre contained in the earth is supposed to contribute to this. A tradition still 

 remains among the Indians of the vicinity, that some families caused themselves to be buried 

 alive rather than submit to the rule of Atahualpa. Some ten miles from the city there is 

 another place supposed to have been used for interments ; and as this has never been disturbed, 

 we shall probably learn of interesting ethnological researches before the completion of the 

 Tacna road. Soon after my visit, an accomplished friend wrote me: "After my next campaign 

 to Peru, I shall be able to present you something of interest, as I know of an extensive burial- 

 ground near Tacna entirely occupied by Indians who were interred long before the conquest. 

 On the bare face of the sloping mountain at whose base these tombs are, I noticed huge charac- 

 ters traced in the sand. They can be perceived with great distinctness, and could be read with the 

 unassisted eye if one understood them at the distance of ten to fifteen miles. The whole side 

 of the mountain, or hill, as they call it in this country of colossal Cordilleras, is covered with 

 them. They appear to be written as are Chinese characters, in vertical lines. Some of them 

 must be ten or twelve hundred feet in length I mean each character is of that size, and 

 it looks as fresh as if just made. When first seen, I thought them windings and zigzags made 

 by mules traversing the inclined face of the hill; but the mistake was discovered before inquir- 

 ing of any one. Every person in Tacna from whom information was sought, assured me that 

 they were ancient Indian records." None of the travellers known to me make mention of this 

 gigantic specimen of picture-writing. 



There is another object of interest more immediately in the vicinity of Arica. It is a cave 

 whose extremity no one now living has ever seen; and the Indians say that fish were conveyed 

 through it for the Incas all the way to Cuzco. A few years since an old Spaniard came to 

 Arica who had been somewhat famed for appropriating other people's goods to himself on the 



