OXFORD: BY E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. PERU IN THE GUANO AGE BEING A SHORT ACCOUNT OF A RECENT VISIT TO THE GUANO DEPOSITS WITH SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE MONEY THEY HAVE PRODUCED AND THE USES TO WHICH IT HAS BEEN APPLIED BY A. J. DUFFIELD LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen 1877...

Á Señor Don Juan Espinosa y de Maldonado , Estimado y distinguido Amigo mio : It would be most pleasant to continue this letter in the language in which it begins and which you taught me some five and twenty years ago, but I wish others to read it as well as yourself. I dedicate this little book to you for several reasons: not because of our common friendship, extending now over more than a quarter of a century, nor yet for the confidence which you have reposed in me under many trying circumstan

Although Peru may boast of its Age of Guano, it has had its Golden Age. This was before any Spaniard had put his foot in the country, and when as yet it was called by quite another name. The name of Peru, which signifies nothing, arose by accident or mistake. It was first of all spelled Piru, no doubt from Biru, the native name of one of its rivers. Time and use, which establish so many things, have established Peru; and it is too late to think of disestablishing it for anything else: and though

God made the good man: but it would seem that His Divine Majesty threw aces when He created mankind. Man instinctively inclines to good, but deceit poisons his soul and makes him an egotist, that is to say, perverse. Whosoever would aspire to a large harvest of evils, let him begin by sowing benefactions. Such is humanity, and very right was the King Don Alonso the Wise, when he said—'If this world was not badly made, at least it appeared to be so.' Don Pedro Campos de Ayala was, somewhere about

Don Manuel Omms de Santa Pau Olim de Sentmanat y de Lanuza, Grandee of Spain and Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, was ambassador in Paris when happened the death of Charles II, and which involved the monarchy in a bloody war of succession. The Marquis not only presented to Louis XIV the will in which the Bewitched one carried the crown to the Duke of Anjou, but openly declared himself a partisan of the Bourbon, and also procured that his relatives commenced hostilities against the Archduke of Austria

The anonymous letter accused Don Pedro Campos de Ayala of assassinating the Biscayan, and stealing a thousand ounces, which served for the basis of the great fortune he acquired in Potosi. What proofs did the informer supply? We are unable to say. Don Pedro being duly installed in the Stone Jug, the Mayor appeared to take his declaration; and the accused replied as follows: 'Mr. Mayor, I plead not guilty when he who accuses me is God himself. Only to Him under the seal of confession did I reveal

Whether it be true, or only a poetical way of putting it, that Yarmouth was built on red herrings, Manchester on cotton, Birmingham on brass, Middlesborough on pigs of iron, and the holy Roman Catholic Church in China on Peruvian bark, it is true that the Government of Peru has for more than a generation subsisted on guano, and the foundations of its greatness have been foundations of the same [3] ;—the ordure of birds—pelicans, penguins, boobies, and gulls of many kinds, and many kinds of ducks

'However long the guano deposits may last, Peru always possesses the nitrate deposits of Tarapaca to replace them. Foreseeing the possibility of the former becoming exhausted, the Government has adopted measures by which it may secure a new source of income, in order that on the termination of the guano the Republic may be able to continue to meet the obligations it is under to its foreign creditors.' These words form part of an assuring despatch from Don Juan Ignacio Elguera, the Peruvian Minis

Having set forth two principal sources of Peruvian income, let us now proceed to a third. When los Señores Althaus and Rosas appeared in Paris last autumn as the representatives of the Government of Peru, among other national securities which those gentlemen offered for a further loan of money, were the railways of Peru. They are six in number, only one of which is finished according to the original contracts. The amount of mileage however is considerable, so also may be said to be their cost, f

Guano, Nitrate, and Railways being recognised as the prime sources of Peruvian greatness, and these having been noticed with no scant justice, another matter remains for examination, which may be said to surpass all the others in importance, albeit it is not so easy to estimate or understand. Granted that Peru has all the physical elements of a great nation,—such as gold and silver, copper and iron, and coal, oil and wine, a vast line of sea-coast with numerous safe bays and ports, rivers for in