The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-11-23
,ne particular room in the Jefe's house,
which WAS kent on PURPOSE for

one particular room in the Jefe's house,
which was kept on purpose for
THE ACCOMMODATION OF WHITE TRAVELLERS.
All who came were put into 1t and well
guarded, were the party large or small.
The Jefe supplied them with food, but i'm
mediately Informed them that on no &C
count, whatever their business, would they
be allowed to remain in the village more
than twenty-fOur hours. The Chilca In
dams are an industrious community, many
of them being employed as farm hands IN
the neighboring valley Of Mala, others
working on their own account as mule
teers and fishermen, while the women
braid colored straws into pretty baskets
and cigar cases. There is a widespread
tradition among all the coast Indians that
ages before the appearance OF Nance
Capac, the country was inhabited by race
of giants, who came from over the western
ocean in great canoes of blown-up skins.
Landing first near Guayaquil, Ecuador,
they gradually overspread the country;
and to this day the fossil bones of mann
moths and mastodons, which are often
found imbedded in the hard clay, are
pointed out as proof of the existence OF
those mythical personages
Such are the general characteristics OF
that portion of Peru between the cordll-
leras and the sea- with its perpetual alter
The length of the shore line, not following
the innumerable bays and indentations, but
REcKoNED AS THE CROW FLIES.
from Rio Tambez, which separates the re-
public from that of Ecuador, to the Rio
Loa, which marked its southern boundary
until Chill lately took off a small piece, is a
little over 1000 English miles Coming
down from Panama, the wooded shores Of
Ecuador no sooner disappear than the as
pect of the continent in entirely changed.
High, bare rocks, frayed and crumbllng,
line the beach, and beyond stretches q
wilderness of sand, beside which Sahara
would be a blooming garden. 1t IS the very
dominion of desolation, strewn with bleach
ing skeletons left by the old-time whalers
and the bones of nlules and horses that
starved to death by the wayside, its eternal
silence broken 'only by the short, quick
bark of sea lions and the screams of water
fowl.
For the most part the sand is hard, swept
smooth by the winds; but in many places
il has drifted up into mounds, called Med
amos. Each heap is crescent shaped, with
the bow of the crescent toward the wind,
as regular and sharp in outline as the new
moon. Whenever these medanos happen
to have core of rock they are permanent;
but most Of them vary in shape with the
varying winds.
BRAVE MEN, AS WELL AS BOLD,
must those old conquistadores have been,
when, knowing nothing of the then unex
plored better country beyond the noun
tains, they sailed slowly along the borders
of this valley of death, against prevailing
winds and the great Antarctic current.
Surely nothing but consuming avarice and
an unquenchable love of adventure could
have led them on.
The largest of the deserts is that called
Sechura, near Payti. in northen Peru; and
it is reported that during cloudless nights
the sound of sweet music is heard, myster-
iously waited across the sands. The eli
mate where rain never falls is not so OPP
pressive as might be inferred, because
every night refreshing dews descend in
abundance. In ancient times the beautiful
| valleys were even more densely populated
| than now, by meu who exhausted the ut
most capabilities of every oasis, and even
| extended their cities out into the deserts,
| leaving many monuments of their skill and
greatness. Under pressure of peculiar
| conditions and limited means they devel-
oped social and industrial sytem which
modern apostles of economical organiza-
lions might study with profit and admira-
| ton.
AS most of the valleys were separated
| from one another by impossible mountain
walls at one end and trackless sands at the
other, their inhabitants constituted each an
independent community, maintaining little
relationship with one another. Each had it's
separate government, and being relatively
weak, it fell an easy prey to the advancing
| Spaniard. And thus it was that the Con-
quistadores encountered no more serious
opposition, though collectively there were
enough Indians here to have wiped from off
the face of the earth force ten times as
powerful. FANNIE 3, WARD.