The Inhabitants Live Like Persons On Board A Ship:
Every
necessary comes from a distance:
Water is brought in boats
from Pisagua, about forty miles northward, and is sold at
the rate of nine reals (4s. 6d.) an eighteen-gallon cask: I
bought a wine-bottle full for threepence. In like manner
firewood, and of course every article of food, is imported.
Very few animals can be maintained in such a place: on the
ensuing morning I hired with difficulty, at the price of four
pounds sterling, two mules and a guide to take me to the
nitrate of soda works. These are at present the support of
Iquique. This salt was first exported in 1830: in one year an
amount in value of one hundred thousand pounds sterling,
was sent to France and England. It is principally used as a
manure and in the manufacture of nitric acid: owing to its
deliquescent property it will not serve for gunpowder. Formerly
there were two exceedingly rich silver-mines in this
neighbourhood, but their produce is now very small.
Our arrival in the offing caused some little apprehension.
Peru was in a state of anarchy; and each party having
demanded a contribution, the poor town of Iquique was in
tribulation, thinking the evil hour was come. The people
had also their domestic troubles; a short time before, three
French carpenters had broken open, during the same night,
the two churches, and stolen all the plate: one of the robbers,
however, subsequently confessed, and the plate was recovered.
The convicts were sent to Arequipa, which though the capital
of this province, is two hundred leagues distant, the government
there thought it a pity to punish such useful workmen,
who could make all sorts of furniture; and accordingly
liberated them. Things being in this state, the churches were
again broken open, but this time the plate was not recovered.
The inhabitants became dreadfully enraged, and declaring
that none but heretics would thus "eat God Almighty," proceeded
to torture some Englishmen, with the intention of
afterwards shooting them. At last the authorities interfered,
and peace was established.
13th. - In the morning I started for the saltpetre-works,
a distance of fourteen leagues. Having ascended the steep
coast-mountains by a zigzag sandy track, we soon came in
view of the mines of Guantajaya and St. Rosa. These two
small villages are placed at the very mouths of the mines;
and being perched up on hills, they had a still more unnatural
and desolate appearance than the town of Iquique. We did
not reach the saltpetre-works till after sunset, having ridden
all day across an undulating country, a complete and utter
desert. The road was strewed with the bones and dried skins
of many beasts of burden which had perished on it from
fatigue. Excepting the Vultur aura, which preys on the
carcasses, I saw neither bird, quadruped, reptile, nor insect.
On the coast-mountains, at the height of about 2000 feet
where during this season the clouds generally hang, a very
few cacti were growing in the clefts of rock; and the loose
sand was strewed over with a lichen, which lies on the surface
quite unattached. This plant belongs to the genus
Cladonia, and somewhat resembles the reindeer lichen. In
some parts it was in sufficient quantity to tinge the sand,
as seen from a distance, of a pale yellowish colour. Further
inland, during the whole ride of fourteen leagues, I saw only
one other vegetable production, and that was a most minute
yellow lichen, growing on the bones of the dead mules. This
was the first true desert which I had seen: the effect on me
was not impressive; but I believe this was owing to my
having become gradually accustomed to such scenes, as I
rode northward from Valparaiso, through Coquimbo, to Copiapo.
The appearance of the country was remarkable, from
being covered by a thick crust of common salt, and of a
stratified saliferous alluvium, which seems to have been
deposited as the land slowly rose above the level of the sea.
The salt is white, very hard, and compact: it occurs in water
worn nodules projecting from the agglutinated sand, and is
associated with much gypsum. The appearance of this superficial
mass very closely resembled that of a country after
snow, before the last dirty patches are thawed. The existence
of this crust of a soluble substance over the whole face of
the country, shows how extraordinarily dry the climate must
have been for a long period.
At night I slept at the house of the owner of one of the
saltpetre mines. The country is here as unproductive as
near the coast; but water, having rather a bitter and brackish
taste, can be procured by digging wells. The well at this
house was thirty-six yards deep: as scarcely any rain falls,
it is evident the water is not thus derived; indeed if it were,
it could not fail to be as salt as brine, for the whole
surrounding country is incrusted with various saline substances.
We must therefore conclude that it percolates under ground
from the Cordillera, though distant many leagues. In that
direction there are a few small villages, where the inhabitants,
having more water, are enabled to irrigate a little land,
and raise hay, on which the mules and asses, employed in
carrying the saltpetre, are fed. The nitrate of soda was now
selling at the ship's side at fourteen shillings per hundred
pounds: the chief expense is its transport to the sea-coast.
The mine consists of a hard stratum, between two and three
feet thick, of the nitrate mingled with a little of the sulphate
of soda and a good deal of common salt. It lies close beneath
the surface, and follows for a length of one hundred and
fifty miles the margin of a grand basin or plain; this, from
its outline, manifestly must once have been a lake, or more
probably an inland arm of the sea, as may be inferred from
the presence of iodic salts in the saline stratum.
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