Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-21
A RAINLESS REGION.
The North Peruvian Deserts, Which,
Strangely Enough, Offer
BIG FIELDS FOR MONEY-MAKIEG,
Inexhaustible Petroleum Deposits and Great
Beds of Guano,
REMARKABLE CLIMATIC CONTRASTS

REMARKABLE CLIMATIC CONTRASTS
The Peruvian coast from the Chiliar
| frontier at the river Sama to the Ecuador
| line, is virtually rainless, but the physical
aspects of the phenomenon are less con
spicuous there than in the southern reache,
of barren cliff and desert plateau from africa
to Coquimbo. The mountainous seawall re-
cedes; the sand dunes widen. and the fertile
valleys through which the Andean streams
trickle sluggishly are fresh in their verdure.
Some Of these oases in the maritime desert
are sugar plantations under cultivation q
few miles from the sea. From the Bay of
Callao there is a far-reaching vista of fertile
bottom lands, where several valleys are inter-
locked and walled up in the East by the spurs
of the Cordillera. Pisco, with its sandy bar.
rens, is the gateway to the vineyards of Yea,
where delicious grapes are raised for wine.
At Chimbote, says New York Tribune
correspondent writing from Payta, days s
run from Callso, there is one of the best
harbors to be found on the coast. and there
is an admirable site for 1ourishing city on
shores protected from the high surf and
w1de-rolling swell of the Pacific, but, owing
to a perversity of human nature, peculiar to
the rainless belt, there is no shipping in the
BAY and there is no town where there ought
to be one.
Higher up the coast there are rivers which
have worn a passage through the maritime
range and bring foaming torrents from the
e L.
the northern province of Piura, where the
seaboard is rounded out into the western
most promontories of South America, there
is the largest and most sterile of the Peruv-
ian deserts-a region pierced by three rivers
which never run dry, yet bare and unpro-
ductive. This is the last of these coast
Saharas to be seen as one journeys north
ward to Panama. The Gulf OF Guayaquil
is the limit of the rainless belt, which
stretches southwark and eastward 1000
miles.
A DREARY REGION.
The Chilian desert coast is bordered by a
continuous line of red and gray palisades.
1t is barren and monotonous, yet always
bold, and sometimes not without elements
of rugged majesty. The Peruvian coast has
no compensating scenic advantages for its
hills are in the background yelled with
mists, and their shadowy shapes are without
picturesqueness of outline, differing mark
edly from the majestic mountains on the
Atlantic seaboard. Low, shelving slopes
and in ragged shingles of spongy beach, over
which focks of guano birds are constantly
circling in their fishing excursions. Even
the glimpses OF the river valleys are disap-
pointing, for these are often very narrow near
the sea, and such vegetation as there may be
has an unnatural hue as if it were nourished
by foul drainage, instead of water filtered
from the snow beds of the Andean SUBMITS.
The Chilian towns of Tarapaca are mex
pressibly dreary, but there are signs of life,
hustle and commercial activity to be dis
cerned in their streets and roadsteads.
Even the climate degenerates as one goes
north. Iquique, while compelled to pay
cents gallon for distilled sea water, and
denied all glimpses of the world of vegeta-
ton, apart from the geranium stands in its
seaside beer saloons, has an equable and drv
climate, which cannot be excelled. The
Peruvian coast has all the desolating effects
of rainiess zone without the compensating
advantage of dryness. From May to Octo-
Der there is fog, and the air is often raw.
At Lima the mists are a substitute for rain,
and ranges of hills, barren at other periods,
are clothed with verdure, yellow lilies and
wildhowers for a few weeks in Nav and
June. Even in the heated term there is q
sense of dampness, and the atmospheric
condition familiarly known in New York as
humidity is reproduced. At sea, mist is in
frequent from October to April, but during
the remainder of the year navigation of the
Peruvian coast is rendered both difficult and
dangerous BY dense fogs.
ONLY ONE TREE VISIBLE.
Payta. on the northern edge of the Peru
vian seaboard, is remarkably free from fog,
and has a climate almost as dry as that OF
1quique. The temperature is higher, since
the equator lies only 30 to the north, but
the heat is not so intense as it is on the same
parallel on the Atlantic side. The town
stands at the base of yellow sand hills, sur
rounded by genuine deserts. A more dreary
and melancholy port cannot be found on
the seaward edge of the Sahara. Captain
Hullah, of the Coquimbo, produced a glass
which enabled me to see one tree on dis
tant hill, but that was the only sign Of
in that scene of desola-
tion. The houses are built of
reeds plastered together " with mud.
reeds and straws, and the sidewalks are fall
ing apart and ragged with rents. In dusty
plaza there is a church with frame towers
coated with adobe. One mean and dreary
street leads into another meaner and dreari- |
er, until the naked slopes of the sand hills
are reached. The town has population of
s, 900, mainly Indians and hali-breeds. 1t
once had large share in the Guayaquil hat |
industry, but the natives in the interior no
longer send their stocks to shops where |
goods cannot be sold. It is the chief ship |
ping point for the interior, and is connected |
by railway with Piura, larger town; but, |
these advantages, its COM
merce and industries seem to be wasting |
away from sheer inanition.
The American Vice Consul explained to |
me why the town is now languishing. It is |
the outlet for cotton district, which is de,
pendent upon heavy rainfall that occurs
once in seven years. Ordinarily there are |
only few light showers in the course of the
winter, and often there is no rain at all from
the beginning to the end of the year; but
there is a month of drenching
rainfall. Then the rivers overflow their
banks, the valleys are inundated, and the
soil is fertilized for the crops of several sue
cessive years. Those are years of plenty,
when two bountiful cotton crops can be
raised in a season, and when even the hill
sides fanking the coast are covered with
verdure.
The enriched soil retains sufficient
moisture from these freshets to yield abund-
antly for three or four years. Then follow
years of scarceness, when cotton fails and all |
other crops are light and unsatisfactory. !,
The last rainy season occurred in 1884.
Three cotton crops have failed in succession,
and until the exhausted soil is enriched BY
there can be no hope of i'm
provement. The planters in the valleys are
anxiously looking for the seventh years