We looked and looked to spend all those extra pesos. She saw nothing whatsoever. We did buy the Dec. 26th Latin-American edition of Time in English for 35 pesos, but that didn't make a dent in our sheaves of Chilean money.
Then she had a brilliant idea. "Tonight is New Year's Eve. Let's buy some Chilean champagne and burgundy for the table tonight. We still have three more nights on shipboard to use any surplus."
Two fairly heavy packages and two boys to carry them about solved our peso problem.
Well, about 9 p.m. it was announced—just like that—the captain was giving a dance and New Year's party.
New Year's Day, 1950, our first and only stop was Ilo, Peru, where we took on 47 tons of canned tuna fish. Some five miles out, going to Ilo, I saw drove after drove of . . . guano birds. I had seen the snowlike tops of the rocks on shore in the distance. Guano is a fertilizer and big business down here. If it hadn't been for the guano birds there would have been no Grace Lines, now 100 years old.
Most of the west coast of South America is a desolate place. Mountains of brown bare earth and rock rise and stretch inland, parallel to the coast. It just never rains. The cold Humboldt stream sees to that. The sun shines hot, but the air is cold, even in mid-day. The towns and cities look dusty and worn, like the dry sections of the U.S. Lots of adobe-looking buildings. The whole country is drier than a rambo apple.
WHERE INQUISITION 'RELIEVED' THE RICH
We docked at Callao about 6 a.m. Jan 2 for a week's stay in Lima.
The Tagle Torre must have been a sort of Foreign Ministry. It was built about 1735, as it had tile of that date in the walls. There is a lot of brown spindled wood in its make-up, both inside and outside. All about are tremendously large heavy gold leaf mirrors. A big oil painting of Pizarro, conqueror of Peru, hangs on the wall. Just inside the patio is a monster reared-up lion's head with a beam at the top. From this beam scales were suspended to weigh gold and silver they took from the Indians, or the subjects, or both, to send to Spain. Anyway, every thing of value that was loose or could be pried loose, went to Spain.
The next stop was the Palacio de la Inquisicion. Here is where they held the inquisitions. The idea was to "inquisite" rich men, the richer the better, and the more the "take" would be. They never let facts or the truth interfere in the least. Not in the slightest degree. And so they fabricated charges out of thin air and without element of truth whatsoever, against any man, provided he was rich. . . Cut off his head, confiscate his lands, sell off the Herefords and the old mule team, take their 10 percent "cut" and send the balance to Spain. They never fooled with poor people. They were like Robin Hood, only far more so.