The first of these has arisen from disputes with her neighbours respecting boundaries. On her southern frontier the ambitious policy of Bolivar created a small republic, from no reason or motive that was apparent, beyond the childish vanity of having a country called after his name. This country was to all intents and purposes a part of Peru. Her people, her languages, her traditions and feelings were the same, and, until the latter part of the last century, she had formed a part of the Peruvian viceroyalty. No good end was attained by this division; while disputes respecting a doubtful unsurveyed boundary, jealousies and misunderstandings arising from all imported goods from Europe having to be landed at the Peruvian port of Arica, and conveyed to Bolivia across Peruvian territory, has created a hostile feeling, embittered year by year, between people who should have lived as brothers under a single government. On her northern frontier Peru has the little republic of Ecuador, until 1830 a portion of Colombia; which possesses the only good port, with the exception of Callao, on the western coast of South America, that of Guayaquil. This port has always been coveted by Peru; and the question of the frontier was further confused by the civil jurisdiction in Peru and Quito, during Spanish times, having been divided by one line, and the ecclesiastical by another. The generally recognised rule for deciding the frontiers between the South American Republics is the _uti possidetis_, as regards the former colonial jurisdictions, at the time of the war of independence. These frontier disputes, carried on with feelings embittered by former jealousies, led to a war between Colombia and Peru in 1828,[354] in which the latter republic was worsted; and a campaign, ending in a treaty, between Peru and Bolivia at the same time. The second and more disastrous cause for civil dissensions was the question between a federal and a centralized form of republican government. Peru enjoyed a period of peace between the war with Colombia in 1828 and the year 1834; but between the latter period and the year 1844 the unfortunate country was subject to a constant series of civil wars and insurrections. The ten years between 1834 and 1844 was Peru's most miserable time. Her public men were corrupt, pusillanimous, and selfishly ambitious; she was given up to be torn and distracted by wretched military adventurers; and the marches of armies, with their system of forced recruiting, banished all attempts at advancement or improvement from the country. Yet even during this dark interval there was a space of two years, when General Santa Cruz established his dream of a federal republic under the name of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, during which the land enjoyed peace and some signs of revived prosperity. The able and vigorous administration of Santa Cruz, whose mother was an Indian chieftainess, was the one bright spot in this dreary waste of anarchy.