THE INCAS AND OTHER RULERS OF PERU. 25 



amounting to 280 million soles, or a par value equivalent to 

 £56,000,000 sterling. 



As we have already noted, the province of Tarapaca, 

 containing the principal nitrate districts of South America, 

 sprung into universal notoriety at the outset of the Chilian war. 

 It had been, however, highly productive, and was well known in 

 commercial and agricultural circles long before that j)eriod. The 

 fertilising qualities of nitrate of soda began to be known as early 

 as 1830, and from that period ever increasing quantities of the 

 article had been exported to Europe. It soon took rank as a 

 staple article of the world's commerce, and towards 1870 had 

 become of sufficient iiaportance to justify the construction of the 

 nitrate railways, which convey the manufactured article to the 

 coast. Since the construction of these railways, the production 

 of nitrate has enormously increased, and the annual export is 

 now fast approaching the figure of 1^^ million tons per annum. 

 The lion's share of this trade falls to the Chilian government 

 who in good or bad years relentlessly exacts its export duties 

 amounting to £2 12s. j)er ton. We, the less fortunate owners of 

 the grounds and manufacturers of the article, have to be content 

 with far less than that sum in good years, and must cheerfully 

 submit to a loss in bad ones. 



It is no doubt a fantastic notion and foreign to the traditions 

 of this grave and scientific society, but in my final reference to 

 my text, dazzled as I confess to be by the romance of my theme, 

 I may be pardoned for hinting (since I have no better explanation 

 to offer) that perhaps some forecast of the varying turns of fortune 

 I have made bold to relate may be hidden in the hieroglyphics of 

 our mysterious stone, and which, if deciphered in time, might 

 have proved useful to the men whose careers we have glanced at, 

 and to those of us whose interests are bound up with the country 

 whence it came. 



With regard to the plastic arts, as already indicated, the 

 ancient Peruvians attained to some technical excellence, their 

 artistic feeling was within certain limitations not undeveloped, 

 and indeed examples of statuary and of the potter's industry 

 which I have seen, though not notable for excellence in detail 

 and indeed too often merely grotesque and at times indecent. 



