380 The Andes and the Amazons. 



Iquitos, the only village of size and enterprise on the 

 Maranon, is of recent origin. It was founded by the sur- 

 vivors of a massacre at Borja in 1841. In 1851,Herndon 

 counted 227 inhabitants ; it now numbers 2000,* English, 

 Anriericans, Portuguese, Peruvians, Indians, and nonde- 

 scripts, the last forming a numerous class ; for, excepting 

 a dozen lawful marriages, the rest are accidental unions. 

 At least four fifths are half-breeds of Indian and white. 

 The " city " stands on a bank of dark clay (containing a 

 multitude of fossil shells and a layer of lignite), sixty-five 

 feet above the average river, and three hundred and fifty 

 above the sea. The houses generally are built of cane, 

 plastered with mud and whitewashed, one story high, and 

 strung together, not so much to economize space as the ex- 

 pense of putting up an additional wall. The streets are in 

 their native state, and overgrown with grass. The mean 

 temperature is 80° ; and at night the mercury never falls 

 below 60°. The climate is unusually healthy ; the diseases, 

 such as exist, chiefiy la tinta (dark blotches on the skin), 

 abscess, fever, dysentery, and catarrh, being due to improp- 

 er food and drink, and want of cleanliness. But Sodom 

 would shine alongside of Iquitos in point of morality and 

 temperance. 



The government works, established in 1864, are the 



* The author of A Journey across South America, which purports to have 

 been made recently, betrays himself by saying that Iquitos consists of only 

 thirtj'-five huts. Such it was in 1846. This work of "Paul Marcoy," so 

 capitally written and splendidly illustrated, is one of the most remarkable im- 

 positions on the literary world. All dates are carefully excluded, and the 

 English translator, Kich, coolly palms it off as a late expedition ; whereas 

 it was evidently made up from Count Castelnau's narrative, or by one of his 

 party. The route and main incidents, as the death of Father Bobo, and the 

 dispatch of D'Osey to Lima, are precisely parallel ; the views of villages are 

 as they looked thirty years ago ; mention is made of the reigning king of 

 France (Louis Philippe); "Count de la Blanche Epine" is a caricature of 

 Castelnau; and "Marcoy" descended the Amazons in a schooner, which he 

 would not have done after 1853, when steamers were introduced. 



