NOTICES OF PERU. 



379 



and a plate laid upon the breast, into which several cuarti- 

 llos" were thrown. In this situation, I am told, the bodies of 

 malefactors are frequently exposed for many hours, to obtain 

 alms from the passers-by to pay the expenses of interment. 



To judge from this instance, public punishment for crime is 

 useless in Lima ; for not more than eighty persons, besides the 

 troops, witnessed the execution — indeed the plaza appeared to 

 be as gay during the whole scene as if nothing unusual was 

 going forward. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Huanchaco — Balsas — Landing — Port — Road to Truxlllo — The Grand Chimu, 

 and his war with the Incas — City of Truxillo — "El Qaipos del Chimu" — 

 A nunnery and a nun — Pacasmayo — Spinning — Ride to San Pedro — A Go- 

 vernor — A Colonel — Hospitable reception. 



Huanchaco, or Guanchaco, is situated in 8° 4' south lati- 

 tude, close to the beach, upon which the sea breaks with so 

 much violence that the ordinary boats of a ship cannot land, 

 even when the ocean is most tranquil. The anchorage is about 

 two miles distant, and communication is held with the shore 

 by large launches, and a peculiar kind of balsa, made of straw, 

 which the fishermen call caballito," from the manner they 

 ride upon it through the breakers. It consists of two large 

 bundles of straw or rushes, made of a conical shape, bound 

 close together, leaving a small space or hole towards the large 

 end, in which small parcels are sometimes carried ; the apex 

 of the cone is turned up in a slender point, like the toes of the 

 shoes worn by our great-great-grand-mammas, in times of old. 

 The balsero sits astride this little vessel or caballito when in 

 the surf, for better security, and when he gains the open sea, 

 a la Turque^ in the hollow or space just mentioned. A straw 



