GUANO ISLAND. 



CHAPTER TV. 



THE PERUVIAN SAND-COAST. 



Its desolate Character — The Mule is here the 'Ship of the Desert.' — A Ship- 

 wreck and its Consequences — Sand-Spouts — Medanos — Summer and Winter 

 — The Garuas— The Lomas — Change produced in their Appearance during the 

 Season of Mists — Azara's Fox — Wild Animals — Birds — Reptiles — The 

 Chincha or Guano Islands. 



BETWEEN the Cordilleras to the east and the Pacific to the 

 west extends, from 3° to 21° S. lat., 540 leagues long 

 and from 3 to 20 leagues broad, a desert coast, the picture 

 of death and desolation. Traversed by spurs of the mighty 

 mountain-chain, which either gradually sink into the plain, or 

 form steep promontories washed by the ocean, it rises and falls 

 in alternate heights and valleys, where the eye seldom sees any- 

 thing but fine drift-sand or sterile heaps of stone. 



Only where, at considerable intervals, some rivulet, fed by a 

 glacier or a small mountain lake, issues from the ravines of the 

 Andes to lose itself after a short course in the Pacific, green belts, 

 like the oases of the African desert, break the general monotony, 

 and appear more charming from the contrast with the nakedness 

 of the surrounding waste. The planter carefully husbands the 

 last drop of water from those scanty streams ; for, as the tribes 



