i3S-] BAY OF CALLAO. 265 



slowly rose above the level of the sea. The salt is white, very hard, 

 and compact : it occurs in water-worn nodules projecting from the 

 agglutinated sand, and is associated with much gypsum. The appear- 

 ance of this superficial mass very closely resembled that of a country 

 after snow, before the last dirty patches are thawed. The existence 

 of this crust of a soluble substance over the whole face of the country 

 shows how extraordinarily dry the climate must have been for a long 

 period. 



At night I slept at the house of the owner of one of the saltpetre 

 mines. The country is here as unproductive as near the coast ; but 

 water, having rather a bitter and brackish taste, can be procured by 

 digging wells. The well at this house was thirty-six yards deep : as 

 scarcely any rain falls, it is evident the water is not thus derived ; indeed 

 if it were, it could not fail to be as salt as brine, for the whole surround- 

 ing country is incrusted with various saline substances. We must there- 

 fore conclude that it percolates underground from the Cordillera, though 

 distant many leagues. In that direction there are a few small villages, 

 where the inhabitants, having more water, are enabled to irrigate a 

 little land, and raise hay, on which the mules and asses, employed in 

 carrying the saltpetre, are fed. The nitrate of soda was now selling at 

 the ship's side at fourteen shillings per hundred pounds : the chief expense 

 is its transport to the sea-coast. The mine consists of a hard stratum, 

 between two and three feet thick, of the nitrate mingled with a little of 

 the sulphate of soda and a good deal of common salt. It lies close 

 beneath the surface, and follows for a length of one hundred and fifty 

 miles the margin of a grand basin or plain ; this, from its outline, 

 manifestly must once have been a lake, or more probably an inland 

 arm of the sea, as may be inferred from the presence of iodic salts in 

 the saline stratum. The surface of the plain is 3,300 feet above the 

 Pacific. 



July iqth. We anchored in the Bay of Callao, the seaport of Lima, 

 the capital of Peru. We stayed here six weeks, but from the troubled 

 state of public affairs, I saw very little of the country. During our 

 whole visit the climate was far from being so delightful as it is generally 

 represented. A dull heavy bank of clouds constantly hung over the 

 land, so that during the first sixteen days I had only one view of the 

 Cordillera behind Lima. These mountains, seen in stages, one above 

 the other, through openings in the clouds, had a very grand appearance. 

 It is almost become a proverb, that rain never falls in the lower part of 

 Peru. Yet this can hardly be considered correct; for during almost 

 every day of our visit there was a thick drizzling mist, which was 

 sufficient to make the streets muddy and one's clothes damp ; this 

 the people are pleased to call Peruvian dew. That much rain does not 

 fall is very certain, for the houses are covered only with flat roofs made 

 of hardened mud ; and on the mole ship-loads of wheat were piled up, 

 being thus left for weeks together without any shelter. 



I cannot say I liked the very little I saw of Peru ; in summer, how- 

 ever, it is said that the climate is much pleasanter. In all seasons, 



