RIDE TO CALLAO. 



117 



schooner^ the Peru/^ in which I intended to 

 embark that nighty had been ordered on no 

 account to leave her moorings under the guns 

 of the fort : so that probably her real des- 

 tination to Payta had been mentioned in the 

 letter to Guayaquil. I lost no time after this in 

 having the signal hoisted^ and down I walked 

 with my baggage to the pier, to wait the 

 arrival of a boat. It was full half an hour 

 before any boat left the ship^s side, for the 

 signal had not been perceived; but at last three 

 shoved off, one of which was full of armed 

 marines, and in another appeared the com- 

 modore and Colonel Wilson, who had left Cho- 

 rillos on a visit to the Blonde. 



The marines were intended to protect the 

 property of an Englishman near Callao from 

 the monteneros, and I had the satisfaction of 

 seeing them marched off in their clean white 



