386 
PERU 
CHAP. 
This poorness of the vegetation is owing to the quantity of 
saline matter with which the soil is impregnated. The Port 
consists of an assemblage of miserable little hovels, situated at 
the foot of a sterile plain. At present, as the river contains 
water enough to reach the sea, the inhabitants enjoy the 
advantage of having fresh water within a mile and a half 
On the beach there were large piles of merchandise, and the 
little place had an air of activity. In the evening I gave my 
adios, with a hearty good-will, to my companion Mariano 
Gonzales, with whom I had ridden so many leagues in Chile. 
The next morning the Beagle sailed for Iquique. 
July 12 th .—We anchored in the port of Iquique, in lat. 
2 0° 12', on the coast of Peru. The town contains about a 
thousand inhabitants, and stands on a little plain of sand at 
the foot of a great wall of rock, 2000 feet in height, here 
forming the coast. The whole is utterly desert. A light 
shower of rain falls only once in very many years; and the 
ravines consequently are filled with detritus, and the mountain¬ 
sides covered by piles of fine white sand, even to a height of a 
thousand feet. During this season of the year a heavy bank 
of clouds, stretched over the ocean, seldom rises above the 
wall of rocks on the coast. The aspect of the place was most 
gloomy ; the little port, with its few vessels, and small group of 
wretched houses, seemed overwhelmed and out of all proportion 
with the rest of the scene. 
The inhabitants live like persons on board a ship : every 
necessary comes from a distance : water is brought in boats 
from Pisagua, about forty miles northward, and is sold at the 
rate of nine reals (4s. 6d.) an eighteen-gallon cask : I bought a 
wine-bottleful for threepence. In like manner firewood, and 
of course every article of food, is imported. Very few animals 
can be maintained in such a place : on the ensuing morning I 
hired with difficulty, at the price of four pounds sterling, two 
mules and a guide to take me to the nitrate of soda works. 
These are at present the support of Iquique. This salt was 
first exported in 1830 : in one year an amount in value of one 
hundred thousand pounds sterling was sent to France and 
England. It is principally used as a manure and in the 
manufacture of nitric acid : owing to its deliquescent property 
