198 FROM TANAMA KO BODEGAS. 



catastrophe that they seemed disposed any moment to in- 

 stitute. It being the hour of moi-ning mass, our guide led 

 lis directly to the church. It was a unique sti'ucture, and 

 faithfully characteristic in that it was maintaining its pe- 

 culiar position in utter defiance of all laws of gravitation. 

 Without, it was plastered with "mud, and thickly thatched ; 

 tlie interior was pewless, but ornamented with mutilated 

 tissue paper. About a hundred worshippers, chiefly wom- 

 en, were assembled, and in the absence of seats were kneel- 

 ing or squatting upon the floor. As Fletcher has observed 

 among the Brazilians, so here praying is mostly done by 

 the women. A negro, armed with a ruinously-impaired 

 drum, composed the orchestra. The exercises conducted 

 by the priest were unmeaning genuflections and crossings, 

 with various manipulations and kisses of the cmcifix and 

 Bible. There was not one word of instruction for the poor 

 Indian, or a single admonition to the sinful Spaniard. 



From the church we strolled on through several nar- 

 row streets, and, clambering up the clifls back of the town, 

 found ourselves upon the sands of the great Peruvian des- 

 ert. Treeless and verdureless, it stretched away in vast 

 undulations, with nothing to arrest the eye save long 

 trains of donkeys loaded with kegs of water, wending their 

 way over the glaring waste. All the water used in Paita 

 is brought from the Piura River, a stream many leagues 

 inland, born among the snows of the sierras. 



The fossil specimens of marine fauna, which enter large- 

 ly into the formation of the cliflT, and which are identical 

 with species now inhabiting the waters, tell us that this 

 desert long constituted the ocean-bed ; but that internal 

 forces, so active along the western shore of this continent, 

 hav-e elevated it to its present jjosition. Portions of this 

 coast have been lifted nearly one hundred feet during the 

 last three hundred years. Shells are found high upon the 

 western slope of the Andes along a line of two thousand 



