Other members of the club felt the same about rowing in the bay; and a fortnight after the Chilean vessels appeared in the offing, the governing board decided to close the boat-house until peace should be declared and normal conditions be restored in Callao. So the shells, practice boats, canoes, and the sail-boat were carefully housed in the large covered barge that was anchored a short distance from shore; the doors were securely fastened, and Pedro, the keeper, was told he would have to seek other employment. The members removed their effects from the lockers in the apartments which had been rented from the owner of the Baños del Oroya, and the lease to these shore quarters was surrendered. But the Callao Rowing Club did not disband. The organization was maintained, and to-day it is a flourishing athletic association, famous up and down the West Coast.
In naval parlance ships are “darning the needle” when they steam back and forth before a harbor, out of the reach of shore batteries, yet near enough to prevent entrance and departure of vessels. This is what the Chileans did day after day, week after week, and month after month, and it became an accustomed sight to see their low, black hulls in the offing, steam rising lazily from the funnels.
The vessels first on blockade duty were the Blanco Encalada, which flew the admiral’s pennant, the Huascar, the Angamos, the Pilcomayo, and the Mathias Cousino. Others were added after a time, and there were frequent changes in the squadron; but the little Huascar was kept on the station as an aggravation to the Peruvians. The Angamos was a cruiser of a modern type and armed with one rifle gun, which, reports said, could throw a shell from Callao to Lima—eight miles.
The monotony of the blockade was broken after the first month by a short bombardment of Callao, which was brought about by the Chucuito forts opening upon a steam launch from the Blanco Encalada, that ran in close to La Punta, evidently to reconnoitre the shore battery there. The shots from the land guns were fired at six o’clock in the evening, and the Chilean squadron steamed into the harbor one hour later. The first broadside from out in the bay was followed by a panic in the seacoast city and a wild rush of the residents to escape into the environs. Among the thousands who fled from their homes were Mr. Dartmoor and the members of his family and Captain Saunders and Carl. After that exciting night, most of which was passed in the fields, they and many others moved to Lima and only visited Callao during the day.
Little damage was done by the bombardment; only a few houses were destroyed, and no loss of life was reported. But the brief engagement was signalled by as remarkable an incident as any ever related concerning war times, and the story thereof is told in Callao to this day. Immediately after dinner that evening the daughter of an American bookseller sat down before the piano in the parlor of her father’s home and commenced playing. After rendering one of Mozart’s compositions she swung around on the stool, in order that she might easily reach for more sheet music, and the motion brought her feet and lower limbs from beneath the instrument. At that instant the Blanco Encalada opened fire out in the bay, and a shot from one of her guns, flying shoreward, pierced the side of this residence, cut through the piano stool, as neatly as would a buzz-saw, crushed the lower part of the piano, and made its exit through another wall. The young woman fell upon the floor unharmed. Had she not swung partly around her legs would have been shot away. No other residence of any consequence was struck that night, the dwellings destroyed being ramshackle structures.
One week later an attempt was made at midnight to destroy the monitor Atahuallpa with a torpedo, but side-nets had been lowered around the war-ship, and the submarine engine was caught in the meshes, where it exploded, throwing water on board. The report caused alarm in the city, but investigation proved that no damage had been done. Attempts were made later in January to destroy the Union, and they also failed. Short bombardments became of more frequency, and those who remained in Callao grew accustomed to the gun-fire and the whistling of shot and shell.
Thus passed the late summer and early spring of 1880. With each succeeding week the value of food products increased, for no supplies came into port, and the irrigated lands were not of sufficient area to furnish all vegetable products that were required. Demand was made on the interior, but the means of transportation were so poor that articles thus brought commanded almost prohibitive prices. Eggs were sold for two and three dollars a dozen, and meat became worth almost that sum per pound; potatoes, even in the land of their birth, brought fancy prices, and milk and butter were soon not obtainable. But rice and corn were in plenty, so that, although the majority were compelled to deny themselves a variety of diet, there was no fear of starvation.
CHAPTER XVI.
JOHN LONGMORE’S REVENGE.
Señor Cisneros returned from the interior toward the latter end of January, and immediately after the report of the surveyor and the deputy inspector had been filed, a patent was issued to the Bella Mining Company of Callao and New York, to dig ores from the district which had been chartered and to extract precious metals therefrom.
Beyond this action, which secured the claim, nothing could be done until peace should be declared. Hope-Jones and Ferguson undoubtedly had interested capitalists of the United States, but it was impossible for the Englishman and American to reenter Callao; and it was equally impossible for them to communicate with their associates in Peru, because all mail service had ceased with the establishment of the blockade.