PERUVIAN REGIONS. 



147 



cording to the people of the country around, this would have been a 

 " temblon," or powerful shock, " but did not get to the surface." 



The second shock, a slight one, or a " temblada," took place about 

 IO2 P.M. on the 5th of June; and was generally perceived at Lima by 

 persons within doors ; its reality was confirmed in a few moments, by 

 the customary ringing of bells. 



The third shock, also a " temblada," took place about 8 a.m. on the 

 10th of June: there seemed a continued shaking of the floor and 

 walls, unaccompanied, as far as I could perceive, with any noise ; but 

 on this point, there were different opinions. Accounts of damage by 

 this earthquake at Ica and other places Northward, as the breaking 

 of earthen jars resting against each other, soon reached Lima ; and 

 were published officially in the Gazette. 



The tides of the ocean are manifest only against its shore ; and it 

 may be borne in mind, that the atmosphere has something like a 

 shore in the chain of the Andes ; which, for some thousands of miles, 

 walls off half its weight. (I subsequently heard a statement in a 

 letter from Lima, that magnetic change, the falling of the iron bar 

 from the horse-shoe magnet, had been remarked just previous to 

 earthquakes. 



Back of Callao, half a mile from and some twenty feet above the sea, 

 stands a cross ; said to mark the spot, to which a Spanish frigate was 

 carried by the great wave during the earthquake of 1746. Another 

 cross, half way to Lima, was pointed out as marking the extreme 

 limit, the place where the water stopped. Neither of these monu- 

 ments has an inscription : and it being on record, that persons were 

 saved on a " rampart" of the fortress at Callao, the vertical height 

 there of the inundation could hardly have exceeded forty or fifty feet. 



After leaving Peru we heard, in the course of our voyage, of earth- 

 quake waves in various parts of the Pacific : and at the Hawaiian 

 Islands, of local earthquakes that are unquestionably connected with 

 volcanoes. 



The general vegetable growth. As in other Desert-regions, the 

 vegetable growth in Lower Peru is of two kinds : that of the arid 

 upland ; and that of the lowland, infiltrated by river-water. Certain 

 botanical features prevailed however throughout, over both upland 

 and lowland. 



Negative features. We had again entered the Tropics ; yet there 

 were no traces of Tropical luxuriance. There was no forest-growth. 



