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NOTICES OP PERU. 405 



beautifully fine one he had brought with him. To his unspeak- 

 able joy, the offer was accepted ! For a time, the king's segar- 

 r6ro was the admiration and theme of conversation with the 

 whole Spanish court. The friar at once sent to Peru, and im- 

 ported the finest cigar boxes that had ever been seen in all 

 Spain, and such was the rage and fashion for these segarr6ros, 

 that they sold for fifty, and even a hundred dollars each, and 

 many Indians grew rich by plaiting them ! But the most im- 

 portant result of the exchange was^ that his majesty appointed 

 the young man to an office near his person^ which was no doubt 

 turned to advantage, both by the confessor and his winning 

 nephew ! 



One Sunday, we mounted our horses at seven o'clock in the 

 morning, and set off for Chiclayo. The road winds first among 

 algarrobo trees and lag€ons, in which were several storks and 

 a variety of white herons feeding ; and the trees were filled 

 with wild pigeons. Near Chiclayo, the road was enclosed be- 

 tween green hedges, running through fields of sugar cane and 

 rice. 



The entrance to the town is through a gateway, with square 

 white pillars, and over a short bridge, thrown across an ace- 

 quia or ditch. The first building is a large one, called <^Fac- 

 toria de Tobacos,'^ where, during the Spanish colonial govern- 

 ment, tobacco was bought by the Real Hacienda, or Royal 

 Treasury, and packed up in long rolls, about two inches in 

 diameter, called ^^mazos." A million of these rolls were an- 

 nually exported to Chile, where this tobacco is esteemed and 

 still purchased by the Estanco or monopoly, though it is not 

 used in Peru. The price was fixed by the Direccion General 

 de Lima," at seventy-five dollars for a thousand rolls, which 

 were sold at the same rate per hundred, yielding a large profit 

 to the government. Though the building has changed masters, 

 at is still used for drying and packing tobacco for exportation. 



Chiclayo is smaller than Lambayeque, which it closely re- 

 sembles in general appearance, the population, lately very 

 much increased, not exceeding eight thousand souls. The 

 plaza is a parallelogram, having a church on one corner. On 

 •one side of it is a small apothecary shop, tenanted by a tall 



