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yards wide, the lower part of which is undermined, and forms a passage by which the waves rush into the great tinajon, or bowl, with a mighty roar; and, dashing themselves against the rocky sides, throw back clouds of white spray. The only vegetation near the coast consists of lowly little Mesembryanthema, scattered about at long intervals, and an occasional stonecrop (Sedum).

During our stay at Islay we enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Wilthew, H.B.M. Consul, and his wife, to whom we were indebted for much thoughtful kindness. The rest of the inhabitants consist of Peruvian officials, agents of commercial houses in Arequipa, and a few shopkeepers and artisans, besides the muleteers and other birds of passage, and the porters and boatmen of mixed Indian and negro extraction. The supplies for the market come almost entirely from the rich valley of Tambo, some leagues down the coast.

On March 6th, our mules and horses having arrived, we started for Arequipa in the morning, a distance of ninety miles, and, crossing the country near Islay, entered a gorge in the mountains, which winds up to the great desert above, at the commencement of which there is a grove of dusty olive-trees. This dismal ravine, with arid scarped mountains rising up on either side, here and there a tall gaunt cactus, and everywhere a dense cloud of white dust, leads up to a little post-house built of canes, called the "Tambo de Guerreros," eighteen miles from Islay.

Guerreros is at the head of the gorge leading down to Islay; and, from a rising ground a little beyond the tambo,5 the great desert of Arequipa opens upon the view, bounded by a range of mountains which are crowned by the snowy peak of the volcano. At this point there is a wooden cross which marks the grave of a poor soldier belonging to the

5 “Tambo" is a Spanish corruption of the Quichua word Tampu, an inn or post-house.

fugitive army of Salaverry, in 1836, who, worn out with fatigue and thirst, had here sunk down to die, and had been lightly covered over with sand. The flesh was in perfect preservation. We then entered the great desert of Arequipa, extending to the horizon on the right and left, and ending in front at the foot of the rocky range of mountains separating the sandy waste from the fertile campiña of Arequipa. The desert consists of hard ground, without a blade of vegetation, affording good riding; but it is covered at short intervals with mounds of the finest white sand, from twenty to thirty feet high, all in the shape of a half-moon, with their horns pointing north-west, and thus denoting the prevailing wind. They are called Medanos. These Medanos shift their positions, and the breeze, whirling the sand in eddies on their summits, often causes a singing noise in the early dawn. Frequently they form athwart the road, which has to deviate in a half-circle, and rejoin the old track on the other side; but they all resemble each other exactly, and afford no landmark to the lost or benighted traveller.

In the centre of the desert is the post-house or tambo of La Joya, twenty miles from Guerreros, kept by an Englishman, whose homely name of Jimmy Eyres has been converted into the more grandiloquent and euphonious Spanish one of Don Santiago Casimiro de los Ayres. Water and fodder for the beasts are brought from a great distance, and their price is of course proportionately high; but, considering its position in the midst of a desert and many leagues from all supplies, the little tambo, consisting of several rooms of deal planking roughly knocked together, was very comfortable.

Starting at four on a bright starlight morning, the perfect stillness and the wild grandeur of the boundless desert were very impressive, while there was a delicious freshness in the cool air. As the sun rose behind the mighty cordilleras

which bounded the view, the whiteness of their snowy peaks became quite dazzling. Immediately in front was the perfect cone of the volcano of Arequipa; to the right the glorious peaks of Charcani and Chuquibamba; to the left the remarkable range of Pichupichu. It is probable that in no part of the world is so sublime a view of mountain peaks to be found as is presented at early dawn from this desert. But its sublimity is similar to that which is witnessed in a sunrise at sea; it fills the mind with an idea of vastness and grandeur, while it wants all the details which usually accompany and form no small part of the enjoyment derived from ordinary mountain scenery. Yet here, while gazing on those magnificent peaks, with no middle distance and no foreground, save the flat sea-like wilderness, we felt that any addition would have marred the simple glories of this unparalleled view. The desert is between 4000 and 5000 feet above the sea, and the cordillera peaks are, some more, some a little less, than 20,000 feet in height; so that, within a distance of under forty miles, we beheld mountains rising upwards of 16,000 feet from the point on which we stood: of no other mountains in the world could such a view be obtained. In this land of the Incas Nature has done her work on a truly gigantic scale.

The desert, from Guerreros to the entrance to the gorge leading through the rocky hills which divide it from the plain of Arequipa, is upwards of forty miles across, while its length from the transverse valley of Tambo to that of Vitor must be about sixty. During the greater part of the day we were threading our way through arid mountain gorges, and up and down zigzag rocky paths strewn with the bones and carcasses of mules, under a scorching sun. A little pale purple Nemophila, a small Crucifer, and the weird Cacti, the appropriate inhabitants of the desert, are the only plants of this cheerless region; and a few obscene gallinazos, float

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