434 The Andes and the Amazons. 



Peru must look for an advauce. It is a fact that the re- 

 ceipts at the custom-house in Callao have increased by 

 one million of soles every year since the beginning of the 

 Oroya Railroad. 



On the coast, the majority of the sailing-vessels are An- 

 glo-Saxon. There are a few French and German steam- 

 ers, and a " White Star Line ;" biit the " Pacific Steam 

 N'avigation Company," founded by an American, the late 

 Mr. Wheelwright, is the most prosperous navigation com- 

 pany in the world. It is British power on the Pacific. It 

 has a fleet of seventy steamers, some of them the largest 

 afloat, with an aggregate tonnage of over 200,000. The 

 six best harbors of Peru are Payta, Chimbote, Callao, Is- 

 lay, Arica, and Iquique. But all are roadsteads opening 

 to the north ; and of each it can be said, as a captain sar- 

 castically remarked of Mollendo, " the harbor is entered as 

 soon as the ship turns Cape Horn." 



The wealth of Peru lies mainly in the following produc- 

 tions : 



Guano. — This valuable fertilizer, whose virtues were 

 known to the Incas, but rediscovered in 1836, comes no 

 longer from the Chincha, Guanape, and Macabi islands, 

 which have been pretty thoroughly scraped. It is now 

 shipped from the Lobos Islands, at the rate of 600 tons per 

 day. The principal deposits yet untouched are those of 

 Yiejas Island, Lobillo Island, Huanillo Island, Huauillo 

 Point, White Point, Pabollon de Pica, Chiapana Bay, and 

 on the main -land near Iquique. The guano now in the 

 market is inferior to that of Chincha, containing five per 

 cent, less of ammonia. Peru owns but four millions of 

 tons (the rest being mortgaged to Dreyfus & Co.), worth 

 $35 a ton where it lies, or £13 a ton in Liverpool. In 

 1871, nearly 400,000 tons vpere sold (almost one third to 

 Great Britain), netting £2,785,641. The mining is done 



