320 SOUTH AMERICA- THE ANDES llEGIONS. 



in 1874 as many as 372 vessels shipped over 300,000 tons, and in 1883 nothing 

 remained. 



South of the Rio Santa the semicircular curves of the shore-line offer better 

 and more sheltered anchorage than farther north. On El Ferrol Bay the new 

 town of Chimbote has sprung up, amid the shapeless ruins and graves of an old 

 city of the Yunca Indians. This place was a mere fishing hamlet before the year 

 1871, when it was chosen as the first station of th-e Huaraz line, which ascends 

 the Rio Santa valley, and the construction of which rapidly drew a considerable 

 population of Peruvians, Europeans and Chinese to the district. Unlike most of 

 the other coast lines, this railway already penetrates into the heart of the Cor- 

 dilleras, ascending the long Huaraz (Huaylas) valley to the mining town of Recuay, 

 at the source of the Rio Santa, 11,000 feet above sea-level. The earthenware 

 found in the Chimbote graves resembles the Etruscan potteries, being made of a 

 whitish clay embellished with red and black designs. 



Hnamz, capital of the department of Ancachs, also stands at a height of over 

 10,000 feet, in a cold region, but with an equable climate, where water never 

 freezes. The district abounds in ruins dating from pre-Columbian times. In 

 the walls of the modern cemetery have been built in numerous old sculptured 

 blocks, all brought from a plateau facing Huaraz on the slopes of the Cordillera 

 Negra. Many of these stones represent deformed or grotesque human figures, 

 their heads encircled by a kind of coronet, and rods or sceptres in their hands. 

 Other blocks, found both here and in many other parts of Peru, are hollowed out 

 like cattle-troughs, and were probably graves, being about the normal size of the 

 Quichuas. 



Tungay, in the same basin, stands on a torrent over against Huascan, giant of 

 the Peruvian Andes. Almost daily avalanches of snow are seen from the village 

 rushing down the slopes from precipice to precipice, and so rapidly transformed 

 to clouds of dust that the vapours are dispersed and the outlines of the mountain 

 again revealed before the long echoes of the crashing masses reach the ears of the 

 spectators. A short distance below Yungay flows the Ancachs brook from which 

 the department takes its name, in memory of the decisive victory here gained by 

 the republicans over the royalists. Yungay itself was officially named Ancachs, 

 but in popular usage retains its old title. 



Lower down, the cheerless town of Caraz lies in a fertile district where is 

 cultivated the cliamha variety of the potato, which matures in three months, that is, 

 in half the time of the ordinary kinds. This tuber grows wild on the surrounding 

 slopes, though not so profusely as in the upper Santa valley. Near Caraz is a 

 quicksilver-mine, which also contains argentiferous lead. But the chief resource 

 of Caraz are its coal-beds, of excellent quality, cropping out on the left bank of 

 the river. Coal also occurs at HuayJm, farther down the valley, where the Rio 

 Santa begins to trend north-westwards on its course through the Western Cor- 

 dillera to the Pacific. 



Above the last gorges the Santa is joined by the Man ta, or Chuquicara, which 

 traverses a mining district inhabited by an impoverished population living in 



