THE TECHNOLOGIST. [April 1, 1865. 



414 THE INDIGENOUS VEGETATION OF 



At Piura, on the margin of the river, the kitchen middings form an 

 embankment the whole length of the city, whose lowest layers may he 

 supposed contemporaneous with the establishment of Piura on its actual 

 site (1728). In that climate (as before-mentioned) it is rare that any- 

 thing rots, so that the rejectamenta, however ancient, are perfectly 

 recognisable. In 1863, the river having undermined the embankment 

 at one place, part of it fell down when the water subsided, leaving a 

 perpendicular section of about thirty feet high, where the domestic 

 habits of the Piuranos for the last 135 years might be studied in the 

 remains of their clothing, food, utensils, &c. Fragments of the stem of 

 the cana brava, the ordinary material for the walls and roofs of the 

 Indians' huts, occurred all through the mass. Cotton rags were every- 

 where common, but of coarser quality towards the base of the deposit. 

 Silk rags were scattered throughout, but more abundantly in the upper 

 strata. Towards the base sandals were common, but shoes were very 

 rare. The comparative abundance of the latter, and of the bones of 

 oxen in the upper strata, showed that the modern inhabitants of Piura 

 are both better shod and better fed than their ancestors were. 



When Peru became free of Spanish rule, the coloured races at once 

 acquired the name of citizens, and by little and little the rights of 

 citizenship ; so that at the present day (in the coast-region at least), 

 many Indians and Mestizos are landed proprietors, and a nearly pure 

 Indian (General Castella) has lately been seen occupying the presiden- 

 tial chair. The cultivation of cotton has continued to be carried. on, 

 probably on nearly the same lands and at least to an- equal extent, as 

 before the independence. But the cotton of Piura has no longer bad to 

 be sent to be manufactured in the province of Quito, a large proportion 

 of it being worked up on the spot into tocuyos, niantas, excellent saddle- 

 bags and belts woven iu gay devices of various colours, &c. ; while the 

 surplus has been exported to England, from which country the Peruvians 

 were at length free to import the calicos, muslins, &c, which they could 

 previously only obtain at exorbitant prices from the merchants of 

 Spain. 



Cotton has always been sold at Piura and the port of Payta by the 

 cargo or mule-load of 14 arrobas 14 lbs., or 364 lbs. of raw cotton, from 

 which the seeds have not yet been separated ; when it has undergone 

 that process there remains only about one-third the weight, or say 120 

 lbs. of clean cotton. Fifteen dollars the gross cargo (which is just one 

 real the pound of clean cotton) used to be considered a very remunerative 

 price, and it has been sold for exportation at as low as eight dollars ; 

 but of late it has rarely been below CO, and sometimes over 70 dollars 

 the cargo, which at 37d. the Peruvian dollar — the actual rate of exchange 

 on London— gives 22d. to 26d. for the price of a pound of cotton at 

 Payta. scarcely a remunerative price for exportation to England, where 

 it has been sold at from 27<± to 30c?. per lb. It ought, however, to be a 

 very paying business to the cotton-growers, whatever it may be to the 



