362 ff PERU. [cHar. XVI 
Port, distant eighteen leagues from the town. There is very 
little land cultivated down the valley ; its wide expanse supports 
a wretched wiry grass, which even the donkeys can hardly eat. 
This poorness of the vegetation is owing to the quantity of saline 
matter with which the soil is impregnated. The Port consists of 
an assemblage of miserable little-hovels, situated at the foot of a 
sterile plain. At present, as the river contains water enough to 
reach the sea, the inhabitants enjoy the advantage of having fresh 
water within a mile and a half. On the beach there were large 
piles of merchandise, and the little place had an air of activity. 
In the evening I gave my adios, with a hearty good-will, to my 
companion Mariano Gonzales, with whom I had ridden so many 
leagues in Chile. The next morning the Beagle sailed for 
Iquique. 
July 12th.—We anchored in the port of Iquique, in lat. 
20° 12’, on the coast of Peru. The town contains about a thou- 
sand inhabitants, and stands on a little plain of sand at the foot 
of a great wall of rock, 2000 feet in height, here forming the 
coast. The whole is utterly desert. A light shower of rain falls 
only once in very many years; and the ravines consequently are 
filled with detritus, and the mountain-sides covered by piles of 
fine white sand, even to a height of a thousand feet. During this 
season of the year a heavy bank of clouds, stretched over the 
ocean, seldom rises above the wall of rocks on the coast. The 
aspect of the place was most gloomy; the little port, with its few 
vessels, and small group of wretched houses, seemed overwhelmed 
and out of all proportion with the rest of the scene. 
The inhabitants live like persons on board a ship: every ne- 
cessary comes from a distance: water is brought in boats from 
Pisagua, aout forty miles northward, and is sold at the rate of 
nine reals (4s. 6d.) an eighteen-gallon cask: I bought a wine- 
bottle full for threepence. In like manner firewood, and of course 
every article of food, is imported. Very few animals can be 
maintained in such a place: on the ensuing morning I hired with 
difficulty, at the price of four pounds sterling, two mules and a 
guide to take me to the nitrate of soda works. These are at 
present the support of Iquique. This salt was first exported in 
1830: in one year an amount in value of one hundred thousarid 
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