The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-21 00:00:00

Products and Trade of Peru.

Mr Cocks, the British Acting Consul, states in
his report this year on the trade of Islay that,
though little has been done as yet in the cultivation
of cotton in that part of Peru, vast quantities of
land are lying waste in the valleys on the coast in
that southern district of the country, and which
cannot be made available for any produce so likely
to be profitable as cotton. The cost of conveyance
has hitherto been a bar to cultivation of this plant
in the interior, but it is proposed to cultivate it in
the fertile valley of Jambo, which is within two or
three leagues of Megia. Megia is about 12 leagues
south of Islay, and is intended to be substituted for
that place as the future port of this part of Peru.
A railroad is in progress from Megia to Arequipa.
The imports of Islay in 1863 amounted to 2,100,698
dole., and the exports to 2,630,890 dole. ; the exports
chiefly wool and bark, the imports cotton and
woollens, paying a duty of 20 per cont. Among the
minor exports likely to increase is ratania, the root
of a bush growing in the environs of Aequipa ; it is
a stringent, and yields a red dye, is used in medicine,
and, it is believed, in the " manufacture" of port
wine. The imports are kept down by protective
duties, even though there is no interest to protect.
For instance, there is an import duty of id per lb.
on flour, and this in a country producing hardly
any wheat; were it not for large supplies from
Chili, the inhabitants of the coast of Perucould not
well live. Only immigration, or rather colonisa.

tion, and railroads are wanted to develope the abun-
dant resources of this remarkable country. Peru
is one vast mine, of which the hand of man hitherto
has only scratched the surface. The great eastern
Peruvian territory especially has been much over.
looked. Two parts, the department of the Amazo-
nas and the littoral province of Loreto, are among
the richest in Peru. There can be little doubt that
the short sighted policy of Brazil will be changed,
and that the Amazon river at no distant period will
be open to all nations; and when the railroad of
the west coast of Peru shall also be extended into
the centre of the country, the rich products of the
interior will have a chance of egress to Europe, and
the manufactures of Europe an equal chance of in-
gress. The Montana, or region of the woods, pos-
sesses sources of inexhaustible wealth in the richness
of its vegetation, the colossal sin, and peculiar
character of its trees, its balsamic and medicinal
products, its fruits and substances exotic to all other
countries. The department of Amazonas is rich in
plants and vegetables. Among them are sour cane,
which properly prepared cures the intermittent
fever ; coffee equal to that of Caravaya, which is
perhaps the best in the world ; cotton, tobacco, bar-
basco, the root of which is used by the savages for
fishing, because thrown into the water it operates as
a narcotic; sami, the leaves of which give a blue dye;
huito, or jagus, a high and thin shrub, of the trunk
of which spoons are made, and the fruit dyes the
hair a strong black; llanchama, the bark of which is
soflexible that after cutting and pounding it stretches
like cloth; quimba, a tree 40ft high, its fruit not un-
like cotton ; sapsja, a tree like palm, the leaves of
whichfrom their hardness serve for combs,opaque like
tortoiseshell. The province of Loreto, in the north
of Peru, is so extensive that it almost equals in sun.
face all the rest of the departments put together.
It produces the plantain, serving instead of bread,
of which there is none. The sugar cane grows with
the greatest luxuriance, and it is sufficient to plant
it once to have constant yields from the roots.
Coca yields six crops a year. This is a plant de-
serving to be more generally known on account of
its extraordinary qualities. A Peruvian will en.
dure the severest labour while chewing its leaves,
and accompany a horse or mule for days together
up hill and down, and through the deepest sand,
with scarcely any other refreshment than chewing
coca. Its effects are said to be truly surprising. Tea
or a decoction of the leaves of this plant is a most
wholesome, refreshing, and agreeable beverage.
Tobacco is cultivated the whole length of the Hul-
loga, and yields magnificent crops, part of which is
e \ ported to Brazil. Cotton grows almost sponta-
neously in the neighbourhood of the houses, and
serves the inhabitants ; gray shirting is an article
of exchange in this province. Coffee grows with
extraordinary luxuriance, the branches being borne
dow❑ with the weight of numerous berries. The
population of the province of Loreto, counting all
the Indians reduced or submitted to the Govern-
ment is about fifty thousand, and there are thirty
or forty thousand savages. Its commerce is yet in
its infancy ; the exports are almost wholly by the
Amazon, the ireporis chiefly from the Pacific ports,
owing to Brazilian import duties. In Moyobamba,
the capital of Loreto, more than three thousand
women are occupied in spinning cotton, the clews
or balls of which are current money. The Amazon,
the Ucayali, and the Pachitea are navigable for a
great distance. So stupendous is the mass of water
which the monarch of riTers bears to the Atlantic