Show TWO CITIES OF PERU1 Some Graphic Pen Pictures of Southern Character THE STREET CARS WITH ALL A Place Where here Are Ko Cemeteries Blooming Maidens One Hundred Years Old Life on Miipboard Ox SHIPBOARD August 30 1890 Special Spe-cial correspondence of Tan HcnAU Life on board one of these great English steamers that ply the Southern Pacific has its peculiar features but is by no means unpleasant Tho threestory habitation aJoat on a vrasto of waters with its crowd of tassengers its living cargo of horses cattle sheep and fowls and its tons of fruit end other freight is a miniature village separated from the rest of the world and forced to rely upon its own resources for sustenance and amusement There is no better place for the study of human nature because the frailties and inconsistencies with which our common humanity is af ihcted as well as tho occasional gleams of Godliness that redeem tho poorest specimens speci-mens from utter unworthiness arc more plainly apparent where there is so little cLance for privacy or concealment Lire other small communities whose ways of life are narrow and monotonous J GOOD DIAL OF GOSSIP IS 1UFE bat generally not of the envenomed sort that taints the atmosphere of many other vi isc delightful country places as the slime of toads and serpents would poison the purest spring People on a long voyage are inclined to pair off at once into small cliques drawn together by those mysterious laws of mental attraction which everybody feels but none can explain remaining always grouped together at the table on the shady side of the deck singing songs in the moonlight moon-light playing games of chess whist and hocliambcau or going ashore at the various ports Each little party secretly considers itself as tho criterion by which to judge of all things worthy of emulation and is disposed dis-posed to bo extremely critical concerning the manners and motives of outsiders ana more difficult would it be for one to cut loose from one clique and establish himself peimanently in another than for an unknown un-known plebeian without money or influence in-fluence to gain admittance to the exclusive circles of Murray Hill I Yet outwardly all is serene as a summer morning Everybody greets every body else wherever met with smiling recognition and if one is ill the entire community vies with each other in kind attentions Among other noticeable characters in our daily is drcjiiatte personae A llEVY OF TOOXO LADIES who came on board an Puna the Cape May of Ecuador They are evidently sisters land the daughters of wealth Howerer cold tho seavinds blow they appear every day in thinnest dresses of white mull with sk blue sashes and breast knots their shining black hair braided down their backs and tied at the ends with blue ribbon Scorning wraps of any ort with bare heads and slippered feet how they stare at the fan el gowns thick boots gloves hats and jackets of la Inicncanos with looks that plainly say From what part of the uncivilized un-civilized world do theie heathen come And when the duenna is mercifully seasick sea-sick with what gusto do they engage in desperate flirtations with the young ship doctor and a couple of handsomu bullfighters fighters the latter being wonderfully bedecked with diamonds each wearing his hair braided into the bobbing pigtail which betokens his profession Besides the daily slaughter of pigs poultry and sheep to supply the larder every second third day a cow is killed on the lower deck which the animals share ith tie freight and steerage passengers j These vessels are so constructed that the I dining salon aud all the staterooms open upon the second deck while the upper one I is mainly kept clear for promenading and dancing Thero are two or three large openings in the middle deck securely I fenced around by iron railings through which tho winches work when freight and baggage is received or unloaded I happens that the frequent cowkillings goon go-on directly below one of these openings in full view of whoever cares to witness the bloody erformance It is significant of difference in character between THE IATIX AND AXGLOSAXOX RACES that while every one of the thickshod un sentimentallooking American girls flees from all sight and sound of the butchery and thinks of it only with horror the whole bevy of fair Ecuadoreans in their angelic white robes and blue ribbons hangover hang-over the railing from first to las t evincing me prciaiesfc uojoyuiunu 01 ovury uo tail from the time the poor beast is knocked down and its throat cut till its skinned and disembowelled carcass hangs up in the shape of meat Since the charming senoritas cannot possibly feel I the scientific or surgical interest in the matter that may actuate their attending cavaliers the doctor and the picdore their taste for blood shedding must have been inherited in-herited from their bullfighting forefathers of Old Castle who intermarried with the savages of the New World At every port an army of local officials comes on board to improve the opportunity of a square meal and a drink or two at the expense of the steamship company They wear gorgeous red breeches bright swords and plenty of brief authority and there is usually one > of thorn to about every half dozen packages of merchandise There is tho captain of the port and all his retinue the governor of the district with his entire staff the comandantc of the military garrison gar-rison and several of his subordinates and last and by no means least either in numbers num-bers or importance the collector of customs cus-toms and battalion of inspectors till the decks are fairy swarming with them As tho arrival of a steamer is the one event that breaks THE MONOTONY OF WEIR LIVES They worth never fail to celebrate it for all i is Most of the ports are mere collections of mud huts inhabited by tho officials aforesaid afore-said employees of tho various steamship companies and a few fishermen Wo stop at every one of them to take on the produce I pro-duce of the neighboring valleys mainly sugar cotton cocoa wine and coffee for I shipment to Liverpool and Germany or to points lower down the coast Nearly every port has its railway line running to rich plantations interior and as there are no harbors on this coast but only open roadsteads road-steads expensive iron piers have been built out over tho surf in most places from i which the merchandise is transferred to barges or lighters and taken by them to the ships which anchor 0 mile or more from shore Where there is no pier lighters arc run through the surf when the tide is highest They are oaded at low tide and then floated of t buoys to await the arrival of vessels There are always plenty of row boats to take passengers ashore at reasonable prices when bargained bar-gained for before starting and the tourist misses a good deal who does not avail himself him-self of every opportunity to put his feet upon terra firma in several places the women have beautiful beau-tiful straw baskets cigar cases and Panama Pan-ama hats of their own manufacture to sell besides a variety of fruit cheese dul cies poor pottery and other truck They have not the remotest idea ofT of-T B VALUE OF 3IOKEY and are habitually imposed upon by local hinders who take their wares at a merely nominal rate in exchange for the necessaries neces-saries of life and sell them again at an enormous advance on tho original price It is difficult for 0 stranger to buy anything of these people because they are imbued with the idea that all foreigners are walking walk-ing gold mines who may as well pay one price as another I asked an old woman the price of a little straw basket Fifteen dollars she replied Finding that would not do she gracefully dropped to fifty cents about double the sum that a local dealer would have given her The northernmost town of Peru is Tum bez interesting only from the fact that here Pizarro was met bythe lIne messen < T > gers whom King Atahualpa had sent out to inquire the obiect of the white mans visit Back of the town are some extensive I exten-sive petroleum deposits which were known to the Indians long before the coming of the Spaniards Sinco time out of mind the oil had been used for lubricating and coloring col-oring purposes but the natives were entirely en-tirely ignorant of its real character and value until a Mr Larkins from Western unt New York came down here to peddle kerosene ker-osene and then it was immediately recog I nized as the same stuff A little farther down is Paita or Payta as it is sometimes spelled the ocean sate oi the fertile valley of Plum which with its town of the same name lies sixty miles away ACROSS TIE DESERT OF SECQORA and close to the cordillera Being completely surrounded by bare sand bluffs except the little space to seaward there is not a traco of vegetation anywhere in sight All the water that is used is brought from more than thirty miles away formerly on the backs of mules but now through an iron pipe Though lying within the socalled rainless belt of Peru it is said that smart showers occasionally fall here say one in three or four years To form a tolerably correct idea of the appearance appear-ance of Paita you have only to imagine a a collection of the mud nests of the barn swallow somewhat enlarged and turned bottom side up Its queer shops and houses are set close together mainly on one street near the beach their wickerwork frames so thinly plastered over with mud that a passerby might thrust his fingers through 1 and roofed with a matting of braided rushes tied on the rafters Some of them are twostoried and very well furnished being occupied by agents of foreign commercial com-mercial houses who are paid extraordinary salaries for consenting to a residence here There is a big bamboo cathedral and tho most notable objects in it are an image of tho Virgin with chains on her wrists and a to me unknown saint who carries a hatchet Paita has nn cemetery and it is said that none is needed as nobody ever dies hereabouts here-abouts they dry up in course of centuries and blow away into the desert We are informed that the publicspirited citizens wore very DESIROUS OF STARTING A GRAvEYARD a few years ago having heard that such an institution is a feature of all firstclass towns They laid out an enclosure but even motives of patriotism could not induce in-duce anybody to be interred alive Finally a vessel came along which had a man onboard on-board at the point of death and as ho had neither friends or money the captain was easily persuaded to put him ashore to start the new cemetery But no sooner had he reached land than he began to mend and in a short time was as robust tme as the rest of them I The term old citizen citi-zen is no misnomer in Paita where the average age is said t be well on into the second century There are blooming maidens hero of seventy and eighty frisky boys of a hundred or more and flower girls of twice three score and tenso they tell us One is struck by the extraordinary number num-ber of gaunt halfstarved dogs that Ho sleeping upon the sandheaps or go prowling prowl-ing about in the most dispirited manner A comical story is sometimes imposed upon credulous travelers to the effect that what has caused these canines to look so lean l In nt 1k nf fnnr h1thfl nnt 00 uu U uu u u u uu distance they have to go for water I was gravely assured by 0 barefooted native that every morning before sunrise all the dogs of the village assemble in the plaza they march together in 1 body to the river thirty miles away where they drink enough to satisfy them for twentyfour hours and then slowly return being quite worn out by the time they have reached home Paita is a place of CONSIDERABLE COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE chiefly on account of being the only outlet from Piura valley Thero is a commodious i commodi-ous custom house built of iron and a long mole The place used to be a favorite resort re-sort for whalers and their rendezvous for supplies and repairs in days when those huge fish were more numerous in those waters than now Landing is comparatively compara-tively easy here and the tourist should not fail to go ashore i only to see how well people can live in swallows nesst One who tried it wrote as follows We traversed trav-ersed the narrow paloerey streets haL ha-L tween the comicaihouses of cane andjmud mounted the palegrav cliffs and looked out upon the vast plain of palegray sand that stretches away for sixty miles We were thirsty on returning from this palegray expedition and were told that the water we drank to wash out our palogray reminiscences reminis-cences had been brought from a distance of thirty miles on the back of a pale gray donkey don-key A rather more interesting coast town is Pacasmayo also surrounded by sandhills and deserts with fib glimpse of vegetation as far as the eye can reach The surf is always heavy here and often dashes over the lofty halml long pier Going ashore i in rough weather is no childs play but we ventured it Our boatman was a coal black Jamaica negro with a mouth like a trapdoor but to his presence of mind and trumpetlike orders to two or three helpers we probably owe our lives at the present moment A sudden wind sprang up rendering ren-dering the rudder of no more use than a straw and about the onlv thin that could bo done was to keep the little at which was fearfully knocked about by the billows I lows from being driven to the bottom by i receiving one broadside BEING THOROUGHLY DRENCHED WITH SPRAT we sought the consulate to dry ourselves and wait for tho gale to subside And here an agreeable suprise awaited us For more than twenty years Mr B H Kauffmann a brother of tho owner of the Washington Evening Star has been the American consul con-sul at Pacasmayo He lives in a big airy house not far from the beach whose bam booroofed veranda commands a splendid view of the rolling surf and the measure i loss blue beyond I is a cozy home furnished fur-nished with all that good taste and money can buy in this part of the world including f line pictures dainty China and a French piano making one forget that trackless deserts and a treacherous ocean environ on every side Mrs Kauffmann was a Lima belle and there are several very pretty children who are being educated at home by an English governess The young daughter who excels in music is a striking strik-ing specimen of the blending of the two races showing the white skin and fair hair nf the SAirnn with the soft exnressive eyes fine form and tiny bands and feet of the Peruvian mother Among the sights of Pacasmayo especial mention should bo made of a street car menton propelled by wind I runs on rails like other oars but has neither horse mule engine en-gine nor any motive power except the viewless hands of the air playing in a sail which can be raised or lowered t suit emergencies just like that of a yacht There are brakes of course and right merrily mer-rily does this queer land ship scud along from the town to the end of tho long pier I when the wind happens to be in the right direction And now there are no more stops to be made before Calloa the port of Lima where we shall bid a happy adieu for sometime some-time to the ocean of which we are heartily tired FANNIE B WAnD |