180 TOWN OF CALLAO [1824. 



Delano, who received his information from an antiquated survivor, " the 

 sea broke over the ground where it stood for several days successively 

 after it happened. This," he adds, " so entirely destroyed the soil 

 that it has never collected since so as to produce a spire of grass." 

 Captain Delano was here in 1805, nineteen years before my visit ; and 

 on surveying the site of the former town, he says, " The sight was 

 shocking to a man of sensibility to see the piles of human bones that 

 lie here. The principal remains or signs of a town were the brick 

 arches and stoned cellars which were not destroyed by the earthquake. 

 My companions informed me that some of the arches were the ruins 

 of prisons, where all the foreigners, as well as the lower order of the 

 Spanish people, were confined. These arches were filled with human 

 bones, as were also most of the cellars, without any kind of covering 

 over them. The reason, as I was informed, that the arches were so 

 filled with the bones was, that there were people employed to pick them 

 up as fast as they worked out of the gravel, and put them into these 

 cellars and arches, but they had not yet put them all in. I presume 

 we saw many cart-loads strewed all over the ground, besides those that 

 were already picked up and deposited." The same earthquake almost 

 totally destroyed the city of Lima. 



Callao road, bay, or harbour is the largest, safest, and most beautiful 

 of any in the South Seas.* It contains no rocks, and the water is very 

 deep. As the winds which prevail here during the winter always 

 blow from some point between the south-east and the south, but most 

 generally from the south, the water in the bay is always tranquil, being 

 sheltered by Callao Point and the island of St. Lorenzo. The river 

 of Lima, which discharges itself into the sea under the walls of Callao, 

 furnishes an abundance of good water ; and the loading and unloading 

 of vessels are facilitated by a mole furnished with cranes, &c. 



The turbulent state of the times during the revolutions and counter- 

 revolutions which had distracted South America for several years pre- 

 vious to my visiting its western coast, had greatly retarded the growth 

 of her cities, and the prosperity of the inhabitants. While under the 

 government of the Spanish viceroys, the cities and towns of Peru were 

 more populous than at present. In the year 1810 the population of 

 Callao was estimated at five thousand ; but in 1829 the Rev. Mr. Stewart 

 reports it to be about two thousand. When I visited it in 1824, as 

 related in this journal, it was difficult to form any accurate estimate. 

 Most of its males were in the patriot army, and many of its inhabitants 

 had removed to more tranquil situations. 



As the seaport of Lima, Callao has been a place of considerable 

 commerce, and will no doubt become so again when the new republics 

 have once settled down on a permanent basis. Before the provinces 

 threw off the Spanish yoke, Lima was the general emporium of the 

 viceroyalty, and the common factory for commerce of every kind. On 

 the arrival of a fleet at Callao with European commodities, the merchants 

 of Lima would forward to their correspondents in other cities such ar- 

 ticles as they had received commissions to purchase, and reserve the 



* The Pacific Ocean was first called the South Seas, because the Spaniards crossed the Isthmus 

 of Darien from north to south when they discovered it. 



