Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years' Residence in South America (Vol 1 of 3) / Containing travels in Arauco, Chile, Peru, and Colombia; with an account of the revolution, its rise, progress, and results

by active 1803-1825 William Bennet Stevenson

Near to Chancay, before crossing the small river, stands the old family residence of the Marquis of Villafuerte, almost in ruins; this is the case with many of the country seats belonging to the nobility of Lima, who have no idea of country pleasures, nor of rural beauties. Many of the principal country houses are built on the ruins of some ancient building of the indians: these people never encroached on cultivated lands, but fixed their residence either on the declivities where they could not procure water for irrigation, or on the tops of the hills; which is a convincing proof of their great economy, and leads us to surmise that the population of this country was very extensive before the conquest. This estate, called Pasamayo, is principally destined to the breeding of hogs for the Lima market.

Pasamayo house, standing on the top of a hill, commands a noble prospect of the sea, as well as of the valley of Chancay, in which there is a small parish of indians, called Aucayama, most delightfully situated: in 1690 the tribute roll contained three thousand seven hundred indians, but it is at present (1805) composed of only one hundred and seventy. Of this decrease in the indian population I shall have occasion to speak afterwards, when at Huacho. The valley of Chancay contains some fine plantations of cane, and sugar manufactories; as also extensive pastures of lucern for cattle; and very large quantities of maize and beans are grown in the neighbourhood.

This valley is the birth place of the celebrated Niña de la huaca, young lady of the huaca, taking her name from the huaca, the farm where she was born. She stood six feet high, which was a very extraordinary stature, as the Peruvian females are generally low. Extremely fond of masculine exercises, nothing was more agreeable to her than to assist in apprehending runaway slaves, or in taking the robbers who sometimes haunt the road between this place and Lima. She would mount a spirited horse, al uso del pais, astride, arm herself with a brace of pistols, and a hasta de rejon, a lance, and with three or four men she would scour the environs of the valley and the road to Lima, where she became more dreaded than a company of encapados, or mounted police officers. I visited her at her residence, and found her better instructed in literature than the generality of the native females; she was frank, obliging, and courteous, managing her own estate, a sugar plantation, to the best advantage, superintending the whole of the business herself.

The quantity of maize cultivated in the ravine, quebrada, and on the plains of Chancay, is very great; but the cultivators are indebted to the huano from the islands of Pisco and Chincha for their abundant harvest. I have seen the fields quite yellow, from the parched state of the plants, when they were about a foot high, having four or five leaves each, at which time they are manured, by opening a hole at the root of every three or four plants, for they grow in clusters of this number, and putting into it, with the fingers, about half an ounce of huano, which is covered with a little earth, thrown on by the foot. The field is then irrigated as soon as possible; and in the course of ten or twelve days the plants will be more than a yard high, of a most luxuriant green colour, and the stalks pregnant with the cobs of corn. A second quantity of huano is now applied in the same manner, and the ground again irrigated; and thus the most abundant crops are produced, yielding from one thousand to twelve hundred fold. The cobs are frequently fourteen and even sixteen inches long, well set with grain, and the grain very large. Beans are often planted with the maize, by which means a double crop is produced; but in this case the maize is not so prolific, nor are the beans so good, because the best quality of the bean is grown without irrigation, being sown long before the garuas disappear, and being ripe earlier than the maize.

Chancay is famous for the breeding and feeding of hogs for the Lima Market: the hogs are all black, with little or almost no hair, short snouts, small pointed ears, and of a low stature; but they become so amazingly fat, that they can scarcely walk; and as their value depends on the quantity of fat which they yield, it is the principal object of the feeder to bring them to this state as soon as possible. When killed, the whole of the body is fried, and the fat is sold as lard for culinary purposes. The consumption of lard in every part of Peru is enormous, and it is principally owing to the abundance of maize that the hacendados, farmers, enjoy this lucrative trade.

Maize grows on the ridges of the Cordilleras where the mean temperature is about 48° of Fahrenheit, and on the plains or in the valleys where it is 80°,—where the climate is adverse to rye and barley, and where wheat cannot be produced, either owing to the heat or the cold, this grain, whose farinaceous property has the greatest volume, produces its seed from 150 to 1200 fold. Thus it may be said to be the most useful grain to man; and it is peculiarly adapted to the country in which it was planted by the provident hand of nature. On this account, the maize occupies in the scale of the various kinds of cultivation a much greater extent on the new continent than that of wheat does on the old.

It has been erroneously stated, that maize was the only species of grain known to the Americans before the conquest. In Chile, according to Molina, the mager, a species of rye, and the tuca, a species of barley, were both common before the fifteenth century; and as there was neither rye nor barley, it is evident that if they were common even after the conquest, and not European grain, that they were indigenous. In Peru the bean and quinua were common before the conquest, for I have frequently found them in the huacas, preserved in vases of red earthenware. Some writers have pretended that the maize, which is also a native of Asia, was brought over by the Spaniards to their colonies in the new world. This is so evidently false, that it does not deserve contradiction: indeed, if the aborigines were destitute of maize, beans, plantains, and all those articles of food which have been said to be introduced by the Europeans, a new query would arise—on what did the numerous population of indians feed? For what purpose did they cultivate such large tracts of land, and why procure water for irrigation on the coasts of Peru with such immense labour, and such extraordinary ingenuity? Why did the Peruvians always build their houses in such sterile situations as labour could never have made fertile?

I have enumerated five varieties of maize in Peru; one is known by the name of chancayano, which has a large semi-transparent yellow grain; another is called morocho, and has a small yellow grain of a horny appearance; amarillo, or the yellow, has a large yellow opaque grain, and is more farinaceous than the two former varieties: blanco, white; this is the colour of the grain, which is large, and contains more farina than the former; and cancha, or sweet maize. The last is only cultivated in the colder climates of the sierra, mountains; it grows about two feet high, the cob is short, and the grains large and white: when green it is very bitter; but when ripe and roasted it is particularly sweet, and so tender, that it may be reduced to flour between the fingers. In this roasted state it constitutes the principal food of the serranos, mountaineers, of several provinces. It is considered a delicacy at Lima and all along the coast, and without a bag full of this roasted maize a serrano never undertakes a journey. It is sometimes roasted, and reduced to coarse flour, like the ulpa in Chile, and is then called machica.