deeply laden. Another powerful reason why sawing mills might be established with greater ease on those rivers than at Guayaquil is, that they would increase the means of subsistence among the labouring classes, and consequently would merit their protection; whereas at the latter place sawing is the occupation of a great portion of the inhabitants of the city, who make very high wages, in consequence of which any establishment detrimental to so numerous a body of artizans would be strenuously resisted, and probably attended with fatal results. It will no doubt appear surprizing to persons in England acquainted with this branch of the arts, that three quarters of a dollar, equal to about three shillings and two pence, should be paid at Guayaquil for sawing a plank from a log of wood ten or twelve inches square by eighteen feet long, the timber not being harder than the English fir. The price for timber brought down to the port of Talcahuano is very low. Liñe, somewhat resembling ash, and applicable to the same uses, may be delivered in logs twenty feet long and twelve inches square, for about one dollar each, and all other kinds of wood at similar rates; while a single inch plank from the same tree would be worth nearly double the sum at Lima. Attached to an establishment of this kind, the carrying of fire wood to Lima would be attended with considerable profit—a cargo of fire wood weighing fourteen quintals is sold here for only one dollar, while in Lima it often sells for from one to one and a half dollar per quintal.
The ship Dolores de la Tierra being ready to sail for Lima, I was ordered on board, and obliged to leave with regret an enchanting country, where I had been treated with unbounded hospitality by its inhabitants. My kind host, Don Manuel Serrano, took care to recommend me to the captain, beside which he sent on board, for my use, more provisions than would have served me for three such voyages.
The foregoing is a brief description of Conception as I saw it in the year 1803. I visited it again in 1820, and in the course of my narrative I shall have occasion to mention it at my second visit, and to contrast its appearance at those two periods.
If in my description of this part of South America I have sometimes touched on the changes that have happened or are likely to happen, it has been when speaking of places which I did not afterwards visit.
CHAPTER VII.
Leave Talcahuano in the Dolores. … Passage to Callao. … Arrival. … Taken to the Castle. … Leave Callao. … Road to Lima. … Conveyed to Prison.
My present situation was very disagreeable. The government of Conception had placed me on board a Spanish vessel, and had given orders to the captain to deliver me up, the moment he should arrive at Callao, to the governor of the fortress. At the same time he had been charged with letters, containing perhaps an account of my having landed on the Araucanian coast; of having visited part of that almost unknown territory, as also part of the province of Conception. Such it was reasonable to expect would be the information conveyed, if either the reports prevailing at that time respecting the cruel system of Spanish jealousy in their colonies were to be credited; or those which have been more recently circulated, that all foreigners would be incarcerated, sent to the mines or to places of exile, for having merely dared to tread the shores of this prohibited country. I should have desponded, had not practice taught me to regard those reports as exaggerated tales, the fictions or dreams of the biassed, and not worthy of the least belief. I was, at the time I landed, ignorant of the existence of any prohibitory laws; but I now reflected, that no doubt foreigners were not allowed to settle in a Spanish colony without having obtained those permissions and passports which are considered equally as indispensable here as in the British colonies; documents which are as essentially necessary to Englishmen as to foreigners; but I also recollected the kind treatment which I had received at Conception, as much a Spanish colony as the place of my destination; I had learned, too, that foreigners resided in this part of the country, some of whom were in the actual employ of the government; it had come to my knowledge that an Irishman, Don Ambrose Higgins, had filled the offices of Captain-General of Chile, and of Viceroy of Peru.—These reflections contributed to make me comparatively happy, and by adhering to a maxim which I had established, never to allow the shadow of future adversity to cloud the existence of present comfort, my life was always free from fear and disquietude. My stay among the pastoral indians of Arauco, for barbarous I cannot call them, had been one continued scene of enjoyment, unalloyed with any apprehension of approaching evils, and this conduct had not contributed a little to make me so welcome a guest. I had followed the same principles whilst at Conception with equal success.
The ship in which I embarked had on board eight thousand fanegas of wheat, with some other Chilean produce, and an abundance of poultry, for the Lima market; she was built at Ferrol in the year 1632, of Spanish oak, and was the oldest vessel in the Pacific; her high poop and clumsy shape forming a great contrast with some of the recently-built ships at Guayaquil, or those from Spain. The conduct of the captain, the officers and passengers, was marked with every kindness. I had a small cabin to myself, but I messed with the captain and passengers, and the eleven days which we were at sea were spent in mirth and gaiety, not a little heightened by the female part of a family going to settle in Lima. The father kindly invited me, should an opportunity present itself, to reside at his house during my stay in that city, an invitation of which I should certainly have availed myself had not circumstances prevented it. We were all anxiety to arrive at Callao, the sea-port of Lima, and although I had fewer reasons to wish it than others, still the idea of seeing something new is always pleasing, particularly to a traveller in a foreign country; besides, I had been informed on my passage that war had not been declared between England and Spain, and that the conduct of the government was to be attributed to their wish to prevent any English spies from residing at liberty in the country.
On the eleventh day after our leaving Talcahuano we made the island of San Lorenzo, which forms one side of the bay of Callao. It exhibits a dreary spectacle, not a tree, a shrub, nor even a blade of grass presents itself; it is one continued heap of sand and rock. Having passed the head land, (where a signal post was erected and a look-out kept, which communicated with Callao, through other signals stationed on the island) the vessels in the offing, the town and batteries at once opened on our view. The principal fortress, called the Royal Philip, Real Felipe, has a majestic appearance, although disadvantageously situated; it is on a level with the sea, and behind it the different ranges of hills rise in successive gradations until crowned with the distant prospect of the Andes, which in some parts tower above the clouds. These clouds, resting on the tops of the lower ranges seemed to have yielded their places in the atmosphere to those enormous masses, and to have prostrated themselves at their feet. As we approached the anchorage the spires and domes of Lima appeared to the left of the town of Callao. At the moment of landing, which is the most pleasing to travellers by sea, the passengers were all in high spirits, expecting to embrace ere long those objects of tender affection, from whom they had been separated by chance, interest, or necessity.
Previous to our coming to an anchorage, the custom-house boat with some others visited our ship, and I was sent ashore in that from the captain of the port. I was immediately conveyed to the castle, and delivered to the Governor. On my landing at Callao, I observed a considerable bustle on what may be called the pier. This pier was made in 1779, during the Viceroyalty of Don Antonio Amat, by running an old king's ship on shore, filling her with stones, sand, and rubbish, and afterwards driving round the parts where the sea washes piles of mangroves, brought from Guayaquil, and which appear to be almost imperishable in sea water. At the landing place I saw several boats employed in watering their ships, for which purpose pipes have been laid down, three feet under ground, to convey the water from a spring; hoses being attached to the spouts, the casks are filled either floating on the sea or in the boats.
The houses make a very sorry appearance; they are generally about twenty feet high, with mud walls, flat roof, and divided into two stories; the under one forms a row of small shops open in front, and the upper one an uncouth corridor. About a quarter of a mile from the landing
