During the time that Peru has been a vendor of guano, it has sold twenty million tons of it, and as the price has ranged from £12 to £12 10_s._ and £13 the ton, Peru may be said to have turned a pretty penny by the transaction. What she has done with the money is a very pertinent question, which will be answered in its right place. The amount of guano still remaining in the country amounts to between seven and eight million tons. There are men of intelligence even in Peru who affirm that the quantity does not reach five million tons. One of my informants, a man intimately connected with the export and sale of this guano, assured me that there are not at this hour more than two million tons in the whole of the Republic, and he had the best possible means at his disposal for ascertaining its truth. I have since discovered, however, that men who deal in guano do not always speak with a strict regard for the truth. As this is one of the vexed questions of the hour to some of my countrymen, the violent lenders of money, Jews, Greeks, infidels and others; although I have no sympathy with them, yet on condition that they buy this book I will give them a fair account of the guano which I have actually seen, and where it exists. I was sent to Peru for the express purpose of making this examination. I may therefore expect that my statements will be received with some consideration. They have certainly been prepared with much care, and, I may add, under very favourable circumstances. My visits to the existing guano deposits were made after they had been uncovered of the stones which had been rolled upon them by the turbulent action of a century of earthquakes, the sand which the unresisted winds of heaven for the same period had heaped upon them from the mainland, and the slower but no less degrading influences of a tropical sun, attended with the ever humid air, dense mists, fogs and exhalations, and now and then copious showers of rain. Moreover, my visits were made after a certain ascertained quantity of guano had been removed, and my measurements of the quantity remaining were therefore easily checked. Last year the Pabellon de Pica was reported to contain eight million tons of guano. At that time it was covered from head to foot with more than fifty feet of sand and stones. The principal slopes are now uncovered. Before this painful and expensive process had been completed, various other courageous guesses had been made, and the Government engineers were divided among themselves in their estimates. One enthusiastic group of these loyal measurers contended for five million tons, another for three million five hundred and twenty thousand six hundred and forty, and another, unofficial and disinterested, placed it at less than a million tons.