BeieErER ARTICLES: 
BQLES OF TRAVEL. II. 
PAYTA AND THE DESERT REGION OF PERU. 
Wuen Mr. Barbour Lathrop, with whom the writer is traveling as 
botanical assistant, first decided to go via Panama to the west coast of 
South America, he remarked that he would show him Payta, the driest, 
ost forsaken spot in the world. He would defy even a botanist to 
fnd so much as a single living wild plant. The donkeys of Payta are 
repted, like the locusts during early days in Kansas, to eat any green 
paint in sight, 
Fayta lies less than five degrees south of the equator in the dry 
eg of Peru, on a Coast, steadily rising from the sea in some parts, which 
tas risen as much as forty feet within historic times. So infrequent 
2h the rains On this coast that, when they do come, the whole native 
Population, with crucifixes and musical instruments, goes out to wel- 
“me the river as it slowly forces its way along the bed which for 
| Pe - been as dry as the surrounding desert. This coming 
; h generat * leates heavy rains on the west slope of the Andes and 
¥ followed by showers in the region about Payta. 
mS left Panama it was rumored there had been rain at Payta. 
: we aes Lathrop’s disappointment, these rumors were verified 
Pte sal ee off the coast, and with the glasses discovered in one 
; alleys a green algaroba shrub (Prosopis). By looking 
; ing Noon e 
7 kiled 1 Ss rain had fallen for eight years. The seventh year had 
a form, after . aud a strip of land on each side which is overflowed 
io ty the hy Subsidence of the stream, which runs only a month or 
vated land of the country back of Payta. The long 
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