42 ASPECTS OF TROPICAL NATURE 



gather about the large marine animals cast ashore by the 

 surf; numerous strand-birds are greedily on the look-out for 

 the shell-fish left by the retreating tide, or for the crabs and 

 sea-spiders that everywhere draw their furrows about the 

 beach; and sea-otters and seals sun themselves on the cliffs 

 along the whole coast, except in the neighbourhood of the 

 seaports, where they have been extirpated, or driven away by 

 incessant persecutions. Several promontories and islands (Punta 

 de Lobos, Isla de Lobos) owe their names to the numbers of 

 Phocae which frequent their shores. 



To the north of Chancay, steep sand-hills rise to the height 

 of 300 or 400 feet, abruptly verging to the sea. The way, 

 leading along the side of these hills, would be extremely 

 dangerous but for the unstable nature of the soil. For though 

 at each false step the mule slides with his rider towards the sea, 

 it is very easy for him to regain his footing on the yielding 

 sand. 



A large stone on one of these hills bears a striking resem- 

 blance to a sleeping sea-lion, and almost perpendicularly beneath , 

 it lies a little cove, inhabited by a number of seals. At night 

 the bark of these animals, mixing with the hollow roar of the 

 breakers, fills the traveller with a kind of involuntary terror. 



Myriads of sea-birds breed on the small islands along the 

 coast or swarm about the bays, where the fish supply them with 

 abundant food. The number of these birds, a matter formerly 

 of only local interest, is now a subject of general importance, 

 as to them are owing the deep Guano beds which, richer and 

 more useful than the silver mines of Peru, increase the harvests 

 of the English husbandman. These beds have now been worked 

 for many years with a constantly increasing energy, so that the 

 actual annual exportation of the Chincha Islands* amounts to 

 no less than half a million of tons ; yet so enormous are the 

 deposits, that, according to Castelnau, the excavations hitherto 

 made in the mass appear but as small quarries on the slopes 

 of a chain of hills. How many centuries — what numbers of 

 birds — how many legions of fishes must have been required for 

 the accumulation of these huge mounds ! 



* For a more detailed account of the Peruvian Guano Islands, see " The Sea 

 and ita Living Wonders." Second Edition, pp. 144, 147. 



