The Ecuador banks do a profitable business in international exchange. The Guayaquil institutions regularly pay 14 and 15 per cent dividends. Their deposits in the period from 1898 to 1904 rose from 20,688,000 to 31,492,000 sucres.
CHAPTER V
PERUVIAN SHORE TOWNS
Pizarro’s Landing-Place at Tumbez—Last Sight of the Green Coast—Paita’s Spacious Bay—Lively Harbor Scenes—An Interesting and Sandy Town—Its Climatic and Other Legends—Future Amazon Gateway—Sugar and Rice Ports—Eten and Pacasmayo—Transcontinental Trail—Cajamarca—Chimbote’s Naval Advantages—Supe’s Attractions—Ancon’s Historic Treaty—Callao’s Excellent Harbor—Importance of the Shipping—Customs Collections—Pisco’s Varied Products—Rough Seas at Mollendo—Bolivian and Peruvian Commerce for the Canal.
WE steamed out of the Guayas River and into the Zambelli Channel for Tumbez by moonlight one evening. A hazy ridge lay directly in front of us, “Isla de Plata,” or little Silver Island, where the Spanish pirates buried their plunder. The gold and silver have not yet been found. So many treasure islands with the buried booty of the buccaneers lie off the Pacific coast that one does not have time to stop and exploit them all.
I always take a long look at Tumbez. There is not much to see,—a low crest of mountains somewhere inland; a long line of sandy beach bordered by mangroves and algaroba trees; a slit in the fringe of foliage, which is the mouth of the river; and a monotonous stretch of watery greenness. Back among the bushes, hidden, is the port. A few small sail-launches are hovering around, and after a time the port official comes out to the ship in one of them.
Tumbez is historic. Somewhere among these mangrove trees Pizarro and his hardy followers penetrated with their boat one day and began that wonderful march known as the Conquest of Peru. And Tumbez lies just over the line from Ecuador in what is still Peru and what was then the Empire of the Incas. Pizarro stretched his iron claws not only south to Cuzco but north to Quito. But I shall not recount history. Tumbez may be viewed to revive historic memories, but also it should claim a lingering look in order to keep alive a sense of the freshness of Nature. After it there is no green on the coast,—only rugged mountain masses, sand-hills, and towering snow-peaks. After Tumbez the coast chains of the Andes and the sublimity of Nature at rest, frowning but always majestic. Sometimes the brown cliffs with cavernous mouths rising sheer from the water, and then the plateau between this wall and the Coast Range. Oftener the sandy plain stretching from the shore to the lower flanks of the Cordilleras; beyond, the table-land; and then the lofty profiles of everlasting hills made loftier to the sight by the one range having another for its background.
The view of Paita after entering the expansive bay is a vision ranged by sand-hills. To the left are a hazy mountain, and a long reach of earth platforms, rocks, sand, and clay, rising longitudinally. To the right the land mounts to one level with torn sides like gravel viscera. The whole forms the rim of a bowl. The town hangs over the water’s edge like a drooping willow tree. The buildings are cream-colored.
The harbor is full of life. There are many small schooners and floats for loading cattle, sail rafts, and bobbing canoes with keg-like anchors. A cloud of whirling sea-gulls hangs over the bay seeking the spoils of the kitchen refuse. The captain of the port in brilliant uniform comes out with his crew in their white caps, blue blouses, and red trousers, as though they were manning a Roman emperor’s barge. The steamer is received, and then twoscore rowboats make for the vessel. The pirates board it. They are the fleteros, or boatmen, who must be braved and pacified at every port on the Pacific, for there is no other means of getting ashore. “A tierra, a tierra, Señor,—To land, to land, Sir,” they cry. One of them has you before you know it, and you are in the town.
Meantime the women pirates have swarmed over the ship. They have all kinds of wares for sale, clay drinking-vessels, knick-knacks, limes and other fruits, and the Panama hats, for the manufacture of which this district is celebrated. But we may leave them while we go ashore. There are a custom-house and government warehouse, good piers and wharves, and a passable hotel. A group of stocky soldiers, in part police and in part army, are in blue uniforms with heavy cartridge belts. All their faces are of the Indian type.