April 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



NORTHERN PERU. 413 



form) of G. barbadense which yields cotton of a reddish brown colour. 

 If a number of seeds taken from pods of perfectly white cotton be sown 

 together, afew ofthe plants are sure to produce only brown cotton, and the 

 browner it is the shorter and more brittle the staple ; so that the brown 

 cotton plant is a mere degeneration from the white. And yet the tint 

 is rather pretty — to the Indian's eye, so much so, that he formerly con- 

 sidered it sacred, and limited its use to his priests and Incas, and to his 

 dead ; and at the present day he weaves it alternately with the ordinary 

 white cotton, in stripes and checks, in his mantas and listados. At Tara- 

 poto, in Maynas, the people weave a strong listado for trousers, and a 

 still stouter manta for shoes and slippers, both with alternate stripes of 

 white and brown cotton. These fabrics are largely used there, and are 

 exported to other parts of Peru, and also to Brazil. I have had garments 

 of them and found them very pleasant and durable wear. The brown 

 stripes preserve their colour after any number of washings ; it is true 

 they begin to wear rather earlier than the white, but even so it was im- 

 possible to get in Maynas any English or North American cottons as 

 durable as the native fabrics.* 



Some time after the dominion had passed from the Incas to the 

 Spaniards, a decree went forth from Madrid that the inhabitants of 

 Peru proper and Chili should dedicate themselves to mining and agri- 

 culture, and to the making of wine from the recently introduced grape, 

 but might not set up obrajes, or factories for the weaving and dyeing of 

 cloth. This latter branch of industry was to be carried on in Quito 

 (now Ecuador), where it was forbidden to mine or to grow grapes for 

 making wine. Thus it happened that, until the early part of the pre- 

 sent century, the wool and cotton raised at Piura used to be sold chiefly 

 to manufacturers of Loja, Cuenca, and Quito, having been first spun 

 into coarse thread, called " pabilo," and made into balls of the value of a 

 real (one-eighth of a dollar) and of a pound weight each, which gives 

 12^ dollars for the value of a quintal; but sometimes clean cotton was 

 worth as much as 14 or 15 dollars the quintal. From Quito the wool 

 was returned to Peru in bayetas or serges, ponchos, &c, and the cotton 

 chiefly in tocuyo, a coarse fabric which sold at a real the vara, and was 

 used for bags, sails, &c, as well as for the commoner kinds of garments. 

 The Indians, however, appear to have been allowed to reserve enough of 

 the raw material to make their own simple garments, or at least those of 

 the women, which often consisted solely of the anaco, a sort of tunic 

 not unlike a friar's gown, confined at the waist by a cord or belt. 



* For exportation to Europe it is necessary to reject the brown cotton, or at 

 least to keep it apart from the white. I was told by a cotton-dealer in Peru, that 

 he had lately found a good market in France for his brown cotton, at a rather 

 lower price than the white, but still a remunerative one. 



Nankin is a similar variety of Chinese cotton, of a rather paler brown than the 

 Peruvian, but equally permanent in colour. 



