If any of the readers of this brief but eventful history would desire to see the Peruvian Republic as in a microcosm, let them arrive at the latter chief port of the nation in a steamer, or a cattle ship, as a passenger steamer may now be called. They will see an exhibition of confusion, extortion, bullying, insolence, cruelty, and official imbecility, which cannot be equalled in any other part of the civilised or uncivilised world, including New Guinea or Eragomanga. And as it is now, so it was twenty years ago. A steamer, the European mail for example, drops its anchor about two miles from the shore. It is then surrounded by a hundred small boats, each containing two, sometimes more, coloured men. The screaming, gesticulating, and brutal language of these creatures defy description. The authorities have no control over them, the captain of the steamer is powerless against the invasion of his ship, and all passengers who have no friends, who know nothing of the country and cannot speak Spanish, are placed at the mercy of this swarm of harpies. Here you have an epitome of Peru. Gentlemen and rogues jostling one another in painful contiguity. Gentlewomen and their opposite, men who work and scoundrels who prey upon other people's labour, priests and colonels, knowledge and ignorance, in some form or other brought in violent collision: the utmost freedom of opinion and nobody to keep the peace! FOOTNOTE: [14] _Estratocracia_ I find is the technical term by which Espinosa would designate the Government of Peru or a government by the military. This would seem to be true, seeing that since Peru became a Republic all its Presidents with only one exception have been Colonels, Generals, and End of Project Gutenberg's Peru in the Guano Age, by Alexander James Duffield