NOTICES OF PERU. 



415 



their progeny. The main street now presents a busy appear- 

 ance; houses are being built, and others are falling under the 

 march of improvement. Whalemen are swaggering before the 

 doors of the pulperias, and talking of their exploits with ^Mhe 

 fish/' Children are sprawling about in the sand at play, and 

 their parents seem to be sleeping in the thresholds. At the 



Union Sociable," according to the advertisement on the 

 door, may be h: d Uillar y Cafe" — Billiards and Coffee; this 

 is the fashionable resort, and the balls are never at rest. The 

 female part of the community spend a large portion of time 

 swinging in straw hammocks. At night, in the summer, the 

 whole population seem to live in the street; after wearying 

 themselves with dancing to the tinkling of guitars by moon- 

 light, in spite of the dews, they stretch themselves out on the 

 ground before the doors to sleep. In all parts of South Ame- 

 rica, the people live to enjoy themselves, and the common 

 people indulge more generally in innocent amusements than 

 those of similar classes in the United States ; national music, 

 perhaps, has a tendency to amuse the populace, and prevent it 

 from resorting to sensual dissipation ! 



Paita, which was discovered by Pizarro, is the sea port of 

 Piura, also founded by the conqueror in 1532, and called San 

 Miguel.* Piura is fourteen leagues in the interior, built on a 

 river of the same name. It is celebrated for the salubrity of its 

 climate, and visited by numbers of valetudinarians, to drink of 

 the waters of the river, which are said to be strongly impreg- 

 nated with sarsaparilla, that grows abundantly on its banks. 

 The town contains ten thousand inhabitants, and is a market 

 for European and American goods, which are there sold and 

 sent to the different villages in the neighborhood. 



The exports from Paita are cinchona bark, rhatany, silver, 

 and wool. 



Paita has figured in the history of the buccaneers from the 

 earliest periods, and has suffered as much from their invasions 

 as any other port in the Pacific. It was sacked on the 24th of 

 November 1741, by Lord Anson, who is now familiarly 



* Herrera. 



