| Show THE PORT OF PERU Reasons Why Its Glory Has Departed FROM CALLAO TO THE CAPITAL An Earthquake That Swept Five Thousand Human Beings Out to Sea LIMA Peru Nov 11S90 Special correspondence cor-respondence of THE HEUXLD How different dif-ferent is this worldrenowned seaport from anything our imagination had pictured how disappointing in one sense because 1 now showing no traces of its fifteenth century cen-tury youth nor tho glamor with which history and tradition have surrounded it On the contrary it is the most cosmopolitan commonplace and matteroffact sort of cUy we have yet found in South America a place where English is spoken almost as much as Spanish and where people of all nationalities have crowded the easygoing natives to the wall so far as business is concerned Even the correct pronunciation of its name is a surprise to us for whereas wo were taught in school to say Calla o it should be rendered as if spelled Colyow with the accent strong on the last syllable Though the harbor is nothing to boast of and on our stormswept northern coast would be dignified by no such name it is one of the best on this side of the southern continent being sheltered from prevailing winds which blow from the south and southwest by the high bare island of San Lorenzo and a projecting tongue of land But tho approach to it as seen through the veil of mist that always overhangs both sea and shore in tho early morning is certainly fineWe We arrive about S a m and drop anchor a mile from the beach in a fog which tho sailors say is thick enough to cut with a knife and is attributable to the condensation condensa-tion of tropical moisture by the cold currents cur-rents of sweeping northward from Antarctic Ant-arctic regions Looming out of tho mist in dim outlines and exaggerated proportions propor-tions is A SPECTRAL FOREST MASTS and spars belonging to sailing vessels from all seas steamers storeships cokehulks and other phantom craft while to the right San Lorenzo lifts to the skies a lighthouse that is said to be more ornamental than useful and directly in front rise the cheese shaped turrets that top the famous old caste of San Felipe above whose yellow walls and massive battlements the Spanish Hag waved for the last time on this continent conti-nent To the left as through a glass darkly we see a low shore covered with yellowish verdure and trees palegreen for lack of rain rising gradually to the foothills foot-hills of the Andes The brown heights seem to stand in close ranks one behind another each tier mounting higher still beyond them all and behind a stratum of motionless cloud we faintly discern the snowy Cordillera blending with tho blue of the sky At the base of those brown hills only six miles inland lies the ultima tfmlc of our dreamsLima the City of Kings which Pizarro founded just three hundred and thirtyfive years ago Hardly had the anchor gone overboard before the steamer is surrounded by A CLAMORIXG CROWD OF MAKIXEROS or boatmen who only await the coming of the captain of the port to swarm upon the decks and besiege passengers with offers of service in rowing them and their luggage ashore but until his august permission has boon given they dare not come nearer than the law allows The autocrat of the port i always consults his own convenience about coming Ho may be sleeping late from last nights revel or chatting with friends or talcing his morning coffee at any rate he does not permit himself to be disturbed or hurried howsoever travelers may rage and impatient seamen swear and need not be expected for an hour or more Meantime while the waiting marineros are wrangling I with one another and endeavoring to secure engagements from a distance by shouting to passengers on the steamer we may as well possess our souls in patience and glean what information we can concerning the locality A communicative mate directs our attention at-tention to some sealions that are bobbing about among the shipping He tells us that it is great fun to watch them and observe ob-serve how they mock humanity In their flirtations and jealousies their lovemaking and final settling down to family life Listen a moment at any time of day and you may hear their musical voices half barking half howling Abounding all up and down this coast they have refused to be entirely driven away even from this busy harbor and have grown almost tame THERE ARE XO END OF TIIE TALES one may listen to concerning the freaks of the Callao painter as a mysterious local phenomenon is called an aggravating artist who works with invisible brushes and confines his operations solely to this harbor never going inland nor out to sea nor more than a few miles north and south All seagoers know with what care the sailors are required to scrub and clean every part of a vessel before it comes into port till every inch of it outside and in is spotless and shining as soapsuds elbow grease and holystone can make it After Af-ter all this labor imagine the disgust of the tired seamen when perhaps the very next morning after anchoring in Callao bay they awake to l find the ship coated all over from stem to stern with a greasy stick chocolatccolore film which penetrates every crack and seam and even lorces its way through the battened hatch wnjs 1 The Callao painter has been at work ALWAYS COMES IN Tue SIGHT without the slightest premonition and fills the air with repulsive odor If the slime is scrubbed while yet damp with plenty of soap and a stiff brush its stains may be removed but if allowed to dry on nottring but scraping will budge it and the cheapest cheap-est and easiest way will be to put a coat or two of paint on over it Of course there are many theories regarding this strange frost which no sun can melt Some say that it is a kind of grease forced up into the atmosphero at this particular spot by vapors beneath the sea while others attribute at-tribute it to a species of vocanic dust driven dri-ven through the water by subterranean forces On only one point arc all agreed that the sticky stinging film which is found nowhere else on earth has given just cause for more profanity than all the storms that ever blew into Callao harbor That the region is peculiarly volcanic in common with all the western slopes of the Andes is proved by the numerous upheavals upheav-als that have occurred here The worst of those on record and one of the most terri blo calamities that ever overtook any city was the great terrimotc of October 2b 17jo which swept the old port of Callao which occupied the projecting point of land to the left with all its inhabitants excepting one man into the sea It wason a warm but perfectly calm evening about 1030 oclock when a tremendous shock of earthquake I earth-quake shook both Lima and Callao doing a great deal of damage in the former city and in five minutes reducing tho former ton to-n mass of ruins Then a huge wave came rolling into the devote 1 port engulfing everything and everybody and 5000 PEOPLE PERISHED IS THE RACING c TLOOD ThoTvaters which a few minutes before had been calm as a millpond suddenly receded re-ceded to a great distance and then rolled back with such tremendous force as to sweep not only the town and its fortifications fortifica-tions and inhabitants out of existence but ascore of ships at ancnor in the harbor were destroyed Several others were borne far inland on the breast the wave which instantly receding left them Btrandedl high and dry One of these was tho Spanish manofwar St Fermin and the spot where it was stranded between the present Callao and Buena Vista is marked by a small monument Naturally it took a long time for the citizens citi-zens of Lima to recover from their panic and then they choose what was believed to be a better locality for their sea gate wherestands the modern Gallop and de F fended It by a castle in the form of a pentagon penta-gon with two round towers and a curtain cur-tain on the ocean face Tnouga carefully built to resist human invasion andmounted with cannon it would be but a plaything for the invisible but allpoteht fore s of earth air and sea and tho people tremble in their boots whenever a terrimote gives them never soslight shaking Again in 1825 Callao had a narrow escape from total to-tal destruction and many lesser shocks have done more or less damage The brief visit of tho port captain being at last concluded and the health officers I having satisfied themselves that there is no contagious disease on board we have permission to go ashore and the longde layed martneros swarm tho decks But we are not left to their tender mercies for our party includes a new minister mom the United States enroute to his South American Amer-ican mission and the fact having been duly signaled by saluting guns and flying flags we were carried to land in tho gig of manofwar with uniformed JIOWERS ROWING IX TUNE and the stars and stripes fluttering in our faces mingled with the red white and red of Peruvian bandcra It Callao looks tumbledown and shabby when viewed through a veil of mist at a miles distance how much more disappointing disappoint-ing is a closer inspection in the full glare of the sun 1 Somebody has well described it as built generally of canes plastered over with mud and painted a dirty yellow its flimsy houses stand askew with scarcely a perpendicular or horizontal line among them and look as if they were trying to straighten themselves up after a grand de baucn in a vain endeavor to toe the line of the street As there is considerable swell even in the mildest weather a long mole or breakwater has been extended out towaids the anchorage having stairs behind where all the small boats and lighters I ers receive and discharge their passengers and cargoes Tha stairs are thronged with a motley and jostling crowd mostly ragged loafers who have no business on hand but vagrant curiosity who stare at the ladies and obstruct tho landing so that we have some difficulty in forcing a path through their dirty ranks The little plaza at the end of the mole presents a strange and busy scene it being crowded with wharf bummers and idle gentlemen in dilapidated sombreros and ragged ponchos We are astonisqed to see great piles of grain and t > merchandise lying uncovered in the open air until we remember that it never rains here and there is no more moisture to be feared than that from the fogs Here are heaps of wheat from Chili waiting to be carried to the mills on tho Rhinethe river from which Lima took its name there are blocks of salt whito and rosecolored resembling re-sembling onyx brought from THE SALT QUARRIES NEAR nUACJlO Gigantic piscos or red clay jars shaped like I tne Roman amphorae and filled with italia from the valley of Pisco bales of chincona bark from forests in the far Interior Inte-rior pyramids of chancaca leaves the coarse unrefined sugar of the country wrapped in drier banana leaves through which sticky sweetness oozes to the delectation de-lectation ol swarms of flies and nearly naked children and other products dsl plas mixed confusedly with familiarlooking I bags bales and boxes from the United States and Europe Callao has a population of about 3o000 but its glory as a great commercial shipping ship-ping center has departed There are several sev-eral modern buildings of considerable architectural pretensions sandwiched among the mudplastered canes conspicuous conspicu-ous among them being the branch house of the Kew York bankers Messrs Grace Co and tho ew railway station which is also close to the mole The heat is intense vile fcmeils assail ones olfactories at every turn and as there is no drainage except such as nature provides in tho natural slope of tho soil to seaward and smart showers never fall to wash things clean tho place is proverbial unhealthy The poerty of Pera since the war and the consequent depression of her trade aswell as the enormous tariffs imposed by the government and the exorbitant port duties charged have conspired to drive commerce away from Calloa to tho corresponding corres-ponding benefit of Valparaiso the port of Chili A few years ago when the Peruvian Peru-vian government IX DIKE XEED OF FUNDS and willing to sell anything it could lay hands on for enough cash down to keep things going it practically sold this harbor of Callao to French company who leased Its docks and anchorage for a term of years for tho sum of 200000 per annum The money has been a godsend to Peru but almost death to Callao for the company com-pany has a right to tax shipping to any extent ex-tent and has established a system of rates and rules which no seamen who can help themselves will submit to As before mentioned the distance between be-tween Callao and Lima is six miles but as the latter lies 512 feet above sea level the short journey occupies more than half an hour There are two lines of road both starting from the same point but arriving different depots the capita city The one we cnoose taKes a sweep along tae shore of the harbor and around tho old yellow I yel-low castle of San Felipe which since republican repub-lican days has been rechristened La Fortaleza de la Independencia Then we meander slowly through a canebuilt suburb sub-urb and strike off in a right line past tho Aldca and the Campo Santo of Bella Vista A good deal of the way runs parallel with the camino ical or royal road of the Spaniards once well paved and lined with trees but now covered with loose stones and sand through which the bigwheeled carts of the carrctcros are dragged with difficulty by struggling mules Evidently those early grandees aid not build as well with all their stolen wealth as did their I Inca predecessors for the roads of the latter though centuries older are yet intolerably in-tolerably good condition SO SLOW IS THE ASCENT that the traveler has ample opportunity to view the country which is mainly a parched waste divided into squares by mud walls with hare and there a flatroofed casa or a field of bright green alfalfa but I I wherever water is regularly turned on it blossoms like the rose The courses of the azequias or irrigating ditches aro marked by long lines of wild canes vines flowers and willow trees There aro acres of gorgeous gor-geous nasturtions orange golden and ruby red rioting everywhere in unrivaled luxuriance luxu-riance covering ruins curtaining verandas and lining the banks of the watercourses Scattered all over the sloping plain arc mounds of adobe bricks mostly regular in shape and some of immense size These are the ruined huacos of the ancient inhabitants inhab-itants of whom wo shall have something to say by and by They have supplied vast numbers of excellent sundried bricks ready made for the construction of the modern city and adjacent villages but it is doubtful if those who used them have ever bestowea a thought upon the dead Indians 11050 careful workmanship has saved their conquerors so much labor Nearer to the capital numerous fruit and vegetable gardons surrounded by high adobe walls above which appear orange agnacate Jig mango and banana treespre sent their pleasing contrast of green and gold Then tho great gas works are reached and passing through the old city wall a portion of which has been demolished demol-ished right hero wo enter Lima by the street of San Jacinto This is one of the shabbiest dirtiest and least attractive of its avenues but wo do not know that until later on and are conscious of no little disappointment dis-appointment in the midst our excitement consequent to attaining our hearts desire in a visit to the City of the Kings The noisy train whisks us into a castlelike structure half fort half church which used to be the monastery of San Juan do Dios but Is now used for a railway station and here we will bid you goodbye for today FANNIE WAnD |
