To Obstruct The Landing Of An Enemy, The Spaniards Had Formerly A Fort And Entrenchments, Flanking The Storecreeks; But Being Built Of Unburnt Bricks, It Is Now Fallen To Ruins.

In 1680, when Dampier was here, being repulsed before the town, the English landed at the creek of Chacota, to the south of the head-land, whence they marched over the mountain (Gordo) to plunder Arica.

Earthquakes also, which are frequent here, have at last ruined the town, and Arica is now no more than a little village of about 150 families, most of them negroes, mulattoes, and Indians, with very few whites. On the 26th November, 1605,[266] the sea, violently agitated by an earthquake, suddenly overflowed, and broke down the greatest part of the town, and the ruins of its streets are to be seen at this day. What remains of Arica is not now liable to such an accident, being situated on a little rising ground at the foot of the head-land. Most of the houses are only constructed of a sort of fascines, made of flags or sedges, bound together, called totora, set up on end, crossed by canes and leather thongs; or are made of canes set on end, having the intervals filled with earth. The use of unburnt bricks is reserved for churches and the stateliest houses; and as no rain ever falls here, they are only covered with mats, so that the houses seem all in ruins when seen from the sea. The parish church, dedicated to St Mark, is handsome enough. There are also three religious houses, one a monastery of seven or eight mercenarians, a second is an hospital of the brothers of St John of God, and the third a monastery of Franciscans, who formerly had a house a short way from town, in the pleasantest part of the vale, near the sea.

[Footnote 266: Perhaps this date ought to have been 1705. - E.]

The vale of Arica is about a league wide next the sea, all barren ground except where the old town stood, which is divided into small fields of clover, some small plantations of sugar-canes, with olive-trees and cotton-trees intermixed, and several intervening marshes, full of the sedges of which they build their houses. Growing narrower about a league eastward at the village of St Michael de Sapa, they begin to cultivate the agi, or Guinea pepper, which culture extends over all the rest of the vale, in which there are several detached farms exclusively devoted to its culture. In that part of the vale, which is very narrow, and about six leagues long, they raise yearly to the value of above 80,000 crowns. The Spaniards of Peru are so much addicted to this spice, that they dress no meat without it, although so hot and biting that no one can endure it, unless accustomed to its use; and, as it cannot grow in the Puna, or mountainous country, many merchants come down every year, who carry away all the Guinea pepper that grows in the districts of Arica, Sama, Taena, Locumba, and others, ten leagues around, from all of which it is reckoned they export yearly to the value of 600,000 dollars, though sold cheap.

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