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INTRODUCTORY. 



7 



The object of the department in assigning you to this service is with 

 the view of directing you to explore the Valley of the Amazon, should 

 the consent of Brazil therefor be obtained ; and the information you 

 are directed to obtain is such as would tend to assist and gtride you in 

 such exploration, should you be directed to make it. 



As this service to which you are now assigned may probably in- 

 volve the necessity of the occasional expenditure of a small amount 

 on government account, you are furnished with a bill of credit for 

 one thousand dollars, for which you will account to the proper office. 



Also, enclosed you will find a letter of introduction to Messrs. Clay 

 and McClung, charges d'affaires near the governments of Peru and 

 Bolivia. 



Respectfully, &c, 



WILLIAM A. GRAHAM. 



As I had obtained from my Santiago and Valparaiso friends — par- 

 ticularly from General Ballivian — all the information that I would be 

 likely to get in the cities of Bolivia, I determined to proceed to Lima, 

 and accordingly embarked on board the mail boat of the 26th. 



My residence in Valparaiso had made new friends and established 

 new ties, that I found painful to break; but this is the lot of the 

 navy officer : separated from his family for years, he is brought into 

 the closest and most intimate association with his messmates, and 

 forms ties which are made but to be broken, generally by many years 

 of separation. Taken from these, he is thrown among strangers, and 

 becomes dependent upon their kindness and hospitality for the only 

 enjoyments that make his life endurable. Receiving these, his heart 

 yearns towards the donors; and my Valparaiso friends will readily 

 believe that I was sad enough when compelled to leave them. 



I arrived in Lima on the 6th of February. This city has changed 

 greatly since I was here, twenty years ago. Though we had bull- 

 fights on the accession of the new President, General Echenique, 

 (which accession, strange to say, took place without popular tumult, 

 except a small outbreak at Arequipa, resulting in the immediate 

 imprisonment at Lima of the opposing candidate, General Vivanco,) 

 yet the noble amphitheatre was not crowded as in old times with the 

 elite and fashion of Lima, but seemed abandoned to the vulgar. 

 The ladies have given up their peculiar and most graceful national 

 costume, the "Saya y Manto," and it is now the mark of a ragged 

 reputation. They dress in the French style, frequent the opera, and, 

 instead of the "Yerba de Paraguay," called Matte, of which they 



