“The Callao painter” is something that skippers dread. Its brush is the breeze, and its pigments are in the air. It comes and goes without premonition, and its work is usually done in the night. A vessel will enter the harbor of Callao with its timbers as white as the virgin snow, and its planking as clean as holy-stone and elbow-grease can make them. The disgusted sailors may awaken in the morning and find everything covered with a brown, nasty film, which penetrates the cabin, and even the battened hatchways of the vessel, filling the air with a repulsive odor, and clinging to the wood-work until it is scraped off. It looks like a chocolate-colored frost, but does not melt in the sun. When it is damp one can remove it easily, but if it once dries it sticks like paint, and its tenacity is not easily overcome. The origin and source of this mysterious and aggravating artist is unknown, but it is peculiar to that harbor. Nowhere else is the phenomenon noticed, or at least ship-masters who have sailed the world over say that Callao is the only place where a ship can be painted inside and outside in a single night. Of course there are theories about it which may or may not hold good, and over them scientific minds have argued, and will argue interminably. Some say that the guano is forced up by vapors into the atmosphere, while others assert that it is a species of volcanic dust driven through the water by subterranean forces. However, the only point on which all agree is that it is a repulsive phenomenon, and has been the cause of more profanity than anything else which seamen encounter on the west coast. It is never noticed on land, but only in the harbor, and for a few miles up and down the shore. The glory of Callao as a shipping centre has departed. Where formerly there were a hundred vessels in the harbor, there are only half a dozen now. The lack of trade in Peru, the poverty of the people, the enormous tariffs imposed by the Government, and the exorbitant port dues charged, have driven commerce away. Two years ago the Government in its poverty and need of funds was willing to dispose of everything it could control for spot cash, and practically sold the harbor at Callao to a French company, to whom the docks and anchorage have been leased for a term of years at two hundred thousand dollars a year. This company has the right to tax shipping to any extent it pleases, and has established a system of rules so oppressive as to drive most of the vessels away. [Illustration: WHERE PERU’S WEALTH CAME FROM.]