Peru: a land of contrast

John Stuart Mill · en
Facts make their own appeal. But direct assault is not the only means
of approach. Sometimes subtleties are best observed by looking at
something else. It is often easier to see the beauty, the full glitter
and glance of a thing in another object, as the play of colors in
the aurora borealis is better perceived by turning the eyes aside.
Sometimes one or two minor points chosen from an embarrassment of
interesting details are all the imagination needs, as a plant selects
only those elements from air and soil which can be used in perfecting
its tissue of stem and leaf and flower.

It can only be hoped that this book about Peru may succeed in even
suggesting its unique appeal.




PART I

IN THE DESERT

                  “I love all waste
    And solitary places; where we taste
    The pleasure of believing what we see
    Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be;
    And such was this wide ocean, and this shore
    More barren than its billows.”

                SHELLEY




CHAPTER I

ALONG SHORE


The surface of the ocean is unruffled. Only the heaving of its great
body suggests the power beneath. But when it confronts the desert
cliffs, backed by the world-weight of the Andes, the force which has
been gathering all the way from Australia, so mighty that it can
be compared to nothing but itself, snarls into uncontrolled fury,
rebellious, but acknowledging the limit of its power.

The “Peaceful Ocean” lies next to a land of geological unrest; the
coast rising, subterranean torment breaking out in earthquakes, hurling
cliffs into the sea. Even the busy modern port of Callao partakes of
the mystery of this elemental land. The white ships anchored in the
clear water of its harbor gradually turn dull brown. Might it be the
crater of an extinct volcano?

No wonder the people on such a shore build bamboo cages plastered with
refuse and mud to live in, temporary for them as the present stage
is transient in the history of the land on which they live. Their
object-lessons are warring natural forces. No wonder they are brutal,
slinging cattle on board steamers by the horns, casting a stone between
the eyes of a bullock to make him turn around. Even their little
children play at bull-fights with horns of defunct cattle. The soil of
this “sea-gnawn” shore affords not one necessity for human existence,
not even a drop of water. There are no real harbors, only niches in the
jagged coast. But few lighthouses indicate danger, and the desert is
chilled by winds from the Antarctic pole.

Far out, a low cloud is skimming the surface of the gray water,
advancing in waves of blackness. From one end a shower falls; at the
other, a column rises from the water to meet the on-rushing mass, “a
great oval, rolling forwards over the sea.” It comes nearer and nearer,
till the shore shimmers as through heat waves. The quiet is complete
except for the noise of millions of laboring wings.

[Illustration: SEALS OF THE PALOMINOS ISLANDS.]