Prado now found that the unconstitutional character of his position had only temporarily been ignored when he attempted to hold the power against General Canseco, second vice-president, who was Pezet's lawful successor. Castilla, now over seventy years old, landed in his native province, determined to unseat him. But the enfeebled frame of the aged warrior was unable to withstand fatigues and he died of exposure on the march. Canseco, however, roused Arequipa. Prado failed to take the place by assault, and gave up further opposition. Meanwhile Colonel Balta had headed a formidable insurrection in the north, and though Canseco was allowed to fill out his legal term, Balta's friends controlled the electoral college, and he was inaugurated president in August, 1868. With his accession Peru entered definitely upon a new era. The race for fortune absorbed the energies of the ruling class; cane and cotton planting, nitrate mining, railroad building under foreign direction, opened up vistas of profit without labour; social and civil intrigue replaced fighting and pronunciamentos. Castilla's liberal refunding of the old debt, the scrupulous regularity with which international obligations had been met, and the immense and increasing revenue from nitrate and guano, gave Peru credit in the money markets of Europe. Balta and his advisers were full of schemes for the material progress of the country and their own enrichment. A great railway system was projected and more than two thousand miles constructed at a cost of near forty million pounds. Enormous sums were spent on port works; expensive moles and piers built in the wave-lashed roadsteads which are Peru's only harbours; for the first time serious efforts were made to explore and develop the forested plain east of the Andes; the city of Iquitos was built at the head of deep-water navigation on the Amazon; office-holders multiplied; and new parks and public buildings embellished the cities. English capitalists eagerly took the bonds which the Peruvian government recklessly issued, and the foreign debt increased from five millions sterling to forty-nine millions before the end of Balta's term--a sum upon which two-thirds of the gross revenue would hardly suffice to pay interest. Such a debt was truly stupendous for a country most of whose population of scant two millions and a half was poor, non-commercial, non-industrial, and without other resources than a rude agriculture. Leaving out the proceeds of the guano monopoly and the nitrate royalties, the total revenues could not pay the interest. [Illustration: STATUE OF BOLIVAR--LIMA, PERU]