86 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



of the hotels of a great city. The Fonda del Universo 

 informed the pubHc that it contained " apartamentos 

 para familias," and the rival establishments were no 

 way inferior in the stateliness of their titles and the 

 inducements offered. It must be recollected that 

 Chicla is the first halting-place on the main, almost 

 the only, line of communication between the coast 

 and a magnificent region, as large as England, and 

 teeming with natural resources — the viontafia of Central 

 Peru. Before the war the hostelries of Chicla were 

 often crowded, and the accommodation doubtless 

 appeared sumptuous to the wearied travellers who 

 had been contending with the hardships of the journey 

 from the interior, and the passage of the double range 

 of the Andes. 



I have already said that the supplies at our hotel 

 were somewhat scanty. Inquiries for eggs were met 

 by the reply that the Chilian soldiers had killed 

 all the poultry, and milk was not to be thought of, 

 because the cows had all been driven to a distance 

 to save them from the Chilians. But these were 

 only trifling inconveniences. The experience of our 

 German landlord was full of graver matter. A 

 foreigner in the interior of Peru during this abomin- 

 able war is placed between the devil and the deep sea. 

 Having no one to protect him, his property is at the 

 mercy of lawless soldiery ; he is an object of suspicion 

 to both parties, and his life is in constant peril. Our 

 host owed to a fortunate accident that he had not 

 been shot by a Peruvian party under the suspicion of 

 having given information to the enemy. He was 

 certainly no lover of the invader ; but, like every 



