On January 31st, being in lat. S. 7.50.0, and some 15 miles from the Peruvian coast, when on my way to the South from Panama, we ran into a heavy shower of rain. Now it is much more likely to rain in lat. S. 6.27.30 and 120 miles from the shore, and this explains the reason why the guano deposits of Lobos de Tierra were not worked before. Still the quantity of rich material found there is great, and it is the only place where I came on sal ammoniac in situ; the crystals were large and beautifully formed, but somewhat opaque. During the ten days I remained there, more than 500 tons of good guano were shipped in one day, and there were some 40 ships waiting to receive more.
Like all the other guano deposits, Lobos de Tierra has to be supplied at great expense from the mainland with everything for the support of human life. It is true that the sea supplies very good fish, but man cannot live on fish alone, at least for any length of time, especially if he is engaged in loading ships with guano. The Changos, however, a race of fishermen on the Peruvian coast, do live on uncooked fish, and a finer race to look at may not be found; the colour of their skin is simply beautiful, but they are very little children in understanding. It is only fair to say that with their raw fish they consume a plentiful amount of chicha, a fermented liquor made from maize, the ancient beer of Peru: and very good liquor it is, very sustaining, and, taken in excess, as intoxicating as that of the immortal Bass. These hardy fishers visit all these islands in their balsas, great rafts formed of three tiers of large trees of light wood, stripped and prepared for the purpose in Guayaquil. They are precisely the same as those first met with by Pizarro's expedition when on his way to conquer Peru, three centuries and a half ago. The people are probably the same, except that they now speak Spanish, and are never found with gold; but now and then they do traffic in fine cottons, spun by hand, now as then, by natives of the country.
I cannot forget that it was at Lobos de Tierra I had the great pleasure of forming the acquaintance of one who represents young Peru: the new generation that, if time and opportunity be given it, may transform that land of corruption into a new nation. Here on this barren island, I found a son of one of the oldest Peruvian families, thoroughly educated, well acquainted with England and its literature, proud of his country, jealous for its honour, and keenly alive to the disgrace into which she has been dragged by the wicked men who have gone to their doom. Should this generation, represented by one whom I am allowed to call my friend – who, though born in the Guano Age is not of it, – rise into power, the rising generation in England may see what many have had too great reason to despair of, namely, a South American Republic, that shall prefer death to dishonour, and if needs must, will live on bread and onions in order to be free of debt. There is so much pleasure in hoping the best of all men, that it surely must be a duty the neglect of which, when there are substantial evidences to support it, must be a crime.
I left Lobos de Tierra with profound regret, but it was necessary to do so in order to see what remained to be seen of the precious dung in other parts of Peru. The following will be found to be a fair approximation of the quantities existing along the northern coast.
I have not visited all these small deposits, and have been content to take the report of Captain Black, the chief of the Peruvian expedition lately appointed to examine them. I have found him so faithful and trustworthy in those cases – the more important of them all – where I have had the opportunity of comparing his calculations with my own, that I have not hesitated to adopt his estimates of the least important deposits. I have considered them of value if for no other reason than to guard the public against any fresh discovery being made by interested parties.
If then we add these northern deposits to those of the south, Peru has at present in her possession, in round numbers, 7,500,000 tons of guano of 2240 lbs. to the ton.
It is not my business to suggest the possible existence of guano remaining to be discovered. I may however be allowed to say that there are certain unmistakable indications of even large deposits which may lie buried a hundred feet below the sand on the slopes of the southern shore. As those indications are the result of my own observation, I may be allowed to keep them to myself for a more convenient season.
CHAPTER IV
'However long the guano deposits may last, Peru always possesses the nitrate deposits of Tarapaca to replace them. Foreseeing the possibility of the former becoming exhausted, the Government has adopted measures by which it may secure a new source of income, in order that on the termination of the guano the Republic may be able to continue to meet the obligations it is under to its foreign creditors.'
These words form part of an assuring despatch from Don Juan Ignacio Elguera, the Peruvian Minister of Finance, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and was made public as early as possible after it was found that the January coupon could not be paid. The assurance came too late for any practical purposes, and it merely demonstrated the fact that the Peruvian Government shared in the panic which had been designedly brought to pass by its enemies as well as its intimate friends in Lima, and their emissaries in London and Paris.
The despatch demonstrates two or three other matters of importance. We are made to infer from its terms, and the eagerness with which it insists on the undoubted source of wealth the Government possesses in the deposits of nitrate, that it was unaware of the actual amount of guano still remaining in the deposits of the north and the south. We may also safely believe that the Peruvian Government did not at the time of the publication of the despatch, dream of asking the bondholders to sacrifice any of their rights; and further, in its anxiety to save its credit with England, it was hurried into a confession which it now regrets.
What spirit of evil suggested to President Pardo the idea of appealing to the charity of his creditors, immediately after allowing his finance minister to announce to all the world that the Republic was able to continue meeting its obligations to its foreign creditors even though the guano should give out, it does not much concern us to enquire. The effect of such an appeal cannot fail to be prejudicial to the credit of Peru; and men or dealers in other people's money will not be wanting who will call in question the good faith of the finance minister when he declared that the deposits of nitrate could continue what the deposits of guano had begun but failed to carry on.
Other considerations press themselves upon us. In the midst of the crisis, the President published a decree, announcing that he would avail himself of the resolution of Congress which enabled him to acquire the nitrate works in the province of Tarapaca. A commission of lawyers was at once despatched to the province to examine titles, and to fix upon the price to be paid to each manufacturer for his plant and his nitrate lands. In an incredibly short time no less than fifty-one nitrate makers had given in their consent to sell their works to the Government, and the price was fixed upon each, and each was measured, inventoried, and closed. The total sum to be paid for these establishments was 18,000,000 dols. But they remained to be conveyed. The civil power had displayed considerable activity; now that the law had to be applied things became as dull as lead, and as heavy as if they had all been made of that well-known metal. Negotiations had also to be entered into with the Lima Banks, which is an operation as delicate and as dangerous as negotiating with so many volcanoes, or any other uncertain and baseless institutions of which either nature or a civilisation supported by bits of paper can boast.
Still the world was comforted by the promise that next week all would be well, or the week after, or say the end of the month, in order to be sure. In the midst of this, General Prado, the possible future President of Peru, is despatched to Europe on a mission, the nature of which was kept a profound secret for three weeks.
Simple men, who believed in the despatch of the finance minister, knew for certain that General Prado had gone to England to raise more money on nitrate, in order that the Oroya Railway might be finished, and a station-house built somewhere in the Milky Way, which it is destined probably this marvellous line shall ultimately reach. And if London would only lend Peru, say another £10,000,000, then Lima would rejoice, and the whole earth be glad; the mountains would break out into psalms, and the valleys would laugh and sing, for would not Don Enrique Meiggs, the Messiah5 of the Andes, once more return to reign?
At any rate it is quite certain that General Prado was announced to sail on the 14th of March, when the last stroke of the pen was to be put to the conveyance of the nitrate properties. Alas! the law's delay continued, and General Prado did not sail. It is natural to suppose at all events that Prado never meant to go to London without the nitrate contracts in his pocket – which will supply a larger income to Peru than the guano in all its glory ever did, – for the purpose of asking the bondholders to be merciful. The General finally left Callao for Europe on the 21st, amidst the forebodings of his friends, and the ill-concealed joy of his foes, but without the nitrate documents being signed. Still, before he could reach London the thing would be done, and the result could be telegraphed. In the meantime the new minister to Paris and London, Rivaguero, telegraphed to Lima some favourable news, the precise terms of which, of course, were not allowed to transpire, to the effect that an arrangement had been made satisfactory to all parties.
On this, further delay takes place in the important nitrate negotiations, and that in the face of a semi-official communication to the effect that next week merchants might rely upon it that all would be well and truly finished. In the stead of this, President Pardo 'reminds the Banks of an item which up to that period had never been dreamed or thought of, except by the President himself, namely, that they, the Banks, on the security of the nitrate bonds, would have to supply to the Government so many hundred thousand dollars per month!
All at once the whole fabric of the nitrate business fell down.
Two things may be inferred from this: President Pardo hoped, believed, perhaps knew, that the bondholders would give way, and he had become convinced that he had made a mistake in buying the nitrate properties; it is also likely that he knew for certain at this time that there was guano enough for all purposes, without meddling with the important nitrate matters, and thereby destroying a great and important national industry. He may also have been desirous to bury, in an oblivion of his own making, the honest compromise contained in the despatch of Don Juan Ignacio Elguera. A further light may have dawned on the Presidential mind, namely, that it will be perfectly easy for the Government to treble the export duty on nitrate, without in the least damaging the trade or dangerously interfering with the profits of the makers, by which means the Peruvian Government would reap an annual income without trouble, or any of the thousand vexations to which it has been subjected in the export and sale of its guano.
That it was the original intention of the Government to raise a loan on the 'purchase' of the nitrate properties, is evident from the terms of the tenth article of President Pardo's decree, which may be thus translated: —
'The establishments sold to the State shall be paid for within two years, or as soon after as possible, that funds for the purpose have been raised in Europe; payment shall be by bills on London, at not more than ninety days, and at the rate of exchange of forty-four pence to the sol,' etc.
Whatever value these particulars may possess or have given to them by future events6, they will serve to show some of the peculiar features of the Peruvian Government, and to what shifts it can resort, or is compelled to make under adverse circumstances, or circumstances into which it may be brought by its enemies, or its own weakness, its inherent lack of stout-hearted honesty, and its inaptitude for what is known as business.
The nitrate deposits are well enough known. It is absolutely certain that in the year 1863 there were sold 1,508,000 cwts.; and in 1873 5,830,000 cwts. In that year the Government acknowledged to have received from the export of this article the sum of 2,250,000 dols. Should the permanent sale of nitrate reach 5,000,000 quintals per annum, there is no reason why the Government should not realise from this source at least 10,000,000 dols. a year: should it only double its present duties the amount would reach 12,000,000 dols.
The annual amount of nitrate which the fifty-one establishments proposed to be bought by the Government are capable of producing, may be set down at 14,000,000 cwts.
These establishments do not exhaust the whole of the nitrate deposits. There are several large 'Oficinas,' as they are called, which have, for their own reasons, refused to sell their properties to the State.
The region of these deposits is a wild, barren pampa, 3000 feet above the level of the sea, and contains not less than 150 square miles of land, which will yield on the safest calculation more than 70,000,000 tons of nitrate.
Why these establishments for the manufacture of this important substance are called 'oficinas' it may not be difficult to say: it is doubtless for the same reason that a cottage orné at Chorrillos, the Brighton of Lima, is called a rancho. Twenty years ago Chorrillos was to Lima what the Clyde and its neighbouring waters were to the manufacturing capital of Scotland. What Dunoon and its competitors on the Scotch coast now are, such has Chorrillos become, – the fashionable resort of rich people who have robbed nature of her simplicity and beauty by embellishing her, as they call it, with art. All that remains of the straw-thatched rancho of Chorrillos, with its unglazed windows, its mud floors, its hammocks, and its freedom, is its name. An oficina twenty or thirty years ago, was no doubt a mere office made of wood, hammered together hastily, as an extemporary protection from the sun by day, and the cold dews and airs of the night: in appearance resembling nothing else but an Australian outhouse. An oficina of to-day is a very different thing. Its appearance, and all that pertains to it, is as difficult to describe as a great ironworks, or chemical works, or any other works where the ramifications are not only numerous, but novel. The first oficina whose acquaintance I had the honour and trouble to make, was that of the Tarapaca Nitrate Company, situated near the terminus of the Iquique and La Noria Railway, in the midst of a windy plain 3000 feet above the sea, and beneath a far hotter sun than that which beats on the pyramids of Egypt.
If you take a seat in the wide balcony of the house, where the manager and the clerks of the establishment reside, and live not uncomfortably, you look down almost at your feet on what appears to be an uncountable number of vast iron tanks containing coloured liquids, a tall chimney, a chemical laboratory, an iodine extracting house, a steam-pump, innumerable connecting pipes, stretching and twisting about the vast premises as if they were the bowels of some scientifically formed stomach of vast proportions for the purpose of digesting poisons and producing the elements of gunpowder, a blacksmith's forge, an iron foundry, a lathe shop, complicated scaffolding, tramways, men making boilers, men attending on waggons, bending iron plates, stoking fires, breaking up caliche, wheeling out refuse, putting nitrate into sacks, and other miscellaneous labour, requiring great intelligence to direct and great endurance to carry on; and all beneath the fierce heat of a sun, unscreened by trees or clouds, the glare of which on the white substance which is in process of being turned over, broken, and carried from one point to another, is as painful as looking into a blast furnace. Beyond the great and busy area where all these varied operations are carried on the eye stretches across a desert of brown earth, which is terminated by soft rolling hills of the same fast colour. The appearance of this desert is that of a vast number of ant-hills in shape; and in size of the heaps of refuse which give character to the Black Country in Mid Staffordshire. Perhaps the first impression which this repulsive desert makes on the mind of a man who has seen and observed much is that of a battlefield of barbarian armies, where the slain still lie in the heaps in which they were clubbed down by their foes; or it may be likened to an illimitable number of dust-hills jumbled together by an earthquake. All this is the result of digging for caliche, and blasting it out of the sandy bed in which it has lain God only knows how long.
As the breeze springs up, and clouds of fine white dust follow the mule carts and rise under the hoofs of galloping horses, the idea of the battlefield with the use of gunpowder comes back on the memory, and is perhaps the nearest simile that can be used. And this is an oficina! one of the silliest and most inadequate of words ever used to denote what is one of the newest, and may be the largest, as it is certainly the most novel, of all modern industrial establishments.
The manufacture of caliche into nitrate of soda is not without its dangers to human life, though these are fewer than they were when men frequently fell into vats of boiling liquors, or broke their limbs in falling from high scaffolding: the latter form of danger still exists, and is almost impossible to guard against. I am free to say, however, that if the guard were possible I do not believe it would be used. There are some trades and processes which not only brutalise the labourers on whom rests the toil of carrying them on, but which no less degrade the mind of those who direct them; and the nitrate manufacture is one of these. 'Joe,' one of the house dogs, fell into one of the heated tanks of the oficina where I was staying, and his quick but dreadful death made more impression on some than did the untimely death of a man who was killed the day before at the same place. Another item in the agitated landscape which stretches from the balcony where I sat is a spacious burying-ground, walled in as a protection from dogs and carts; but these are not its only or its chief desecrators. The sky furnishes many more. This great oficina contains 1682 estacas; can produce 900,000 quintals of nitrate a year, and was 'sold' to the Government for 1,250,000 dols.
An estaca is a certain amount of ground 'staked out,' as we might say, and contains about one hundred square yards of available land.
There are other oficinas of still greater value than the one mentioned above; as, for instance, those of Gildemeister and Co., and which the Government acquired on the same terms for the same sum.
The markets for this new substance are England, Germany, the United States, California, Chile, and other countries. It is as a cultivator a formidable competitor of the guano, and is esteemed by scientific men to be much more valuable. Its price is set down at £19 the ton, although £12 and £12 10s. is its present market value. The acquisition by the Peruvian Government of this industry was patriotic, even if it were not wise. It was done with the intention of paying the foreign creditors of the Republic. Since then Peruvian patriotism has assumed another form and complexion, and what was done in an honest enthusiasm of haste is already being repented of in a leisure largely occupied with the contemplation of a patriotic repudiation of national duty and debt.
The arguments by which 'prominent' Peruvians are fortifying themselves for a step which at any moment may be taken, are neither moral nor convincing, except to themselves. 'Peru must live,' they say, which does not mean a noble form of poverty, but an altogether ignoble form of extravagance, and even wasteful magnificence. We must have our army, our navy, our President, his ministers, our judges, our priests, our ambassadors, our newspapers, stationery, bunting, gas for the plaza on feast days, wax candles for our churches by night and by day, a national police, gunpowder, jails for foreign delinquents, and railways to the Milky Way, to show to neighbouring republics and all the world that Peru is a fine nation.
There is not one of all these splendid items which, so far as the people are concerned, could not be dispensed with.
But to live, they reiterate, is the primary object and purpose of all nations, and especially republican nations, forgetting, or, what is much more likely, never having known, that death is preferable to a shamed life, and that there are times when it is clearly a duty to die.
The next argument now rapidly gaining ground in Lima is that although the guano has been hypothecated, this was contrary to Peruvian law, which distinctly lays down that nothing movable can be hypothecated; and as guano is clearly movable stuff, which can be proved to the meanest capacity – the capacity, namely, of a holder of Peruvian bonds – the Government has been breaking its own laws for a generation past, and it is now time that this illegal conduct should cease. This is backed up by reminding all men, and especially Peruvians, who will derive great comfort from it, that England having recognised the primary fact that it is the first duty of a man to live, has abolished imprisonment for debt in her own dominions, and therefore she could not exert her power to make Peru pay what she owes, if Peru officially declares that she is unable to do so. These and other like arguments are being openly discussed in the Peruvian capital. Another, and perhaps the most formidable of all these specious pleas is, that England has recently let off Turkey, and therefore there is no reason why she should not let off Peru.
It is only fair to say that there are a few thoughtful men in the City of Kings who, ambitious for their country's honour, would fain see some arrangement made that will enable Peru to pursue her present policy of internal improvement, and help these men, who for the most part are very wealthy, to remain peaceably in office for say ten years longer – or say six – but at least, for God's sake as well as your own, they appealingly persist, let it not be less than four years (in the which there shall be no hearing or harvest for bondholders and dupes of that stamp).
There is no doubt that, in the words of 'a Daniel say I,' if the bondholders would not lose all, 'then must the Jew be merciful,' let them insist on their pound of flesh, and everything denominated in their bond, they will share the fate of Shylock. The only part of that cruel rascal's fate which they need have no apprehension of sharing is, being made into Christians.
It is unquestionably to be feared that if the present Government, and the one that succeeded it in August last under the presidency of General Prado, cannot defend the country from revolt, great disaster will follow not only to the republic, but most certainly to the bondholders.
Revolt is not only possible, it is expected. An armed force led by determined men from without, aided by traitors within, and backed by unscrupulous persons who would be willing to risk one million pounds sterling on the chance of making two millions, might easily – or if not easily, yet with pains – bring back the corrupt days of Balta and Castilla, and, with shame be it said, such people can find a precedent for their proposed scheme in houses of high standing, the heads of which are doubtless looked upon as irreproachable ensamples of cultivated respectability.
[Since writing the above, General Prado has once more assumed supreme power in peace, but there have followed two attempts at revolution within the space of three little months.]