At the back of the world

by George Pugh; Jennie Pugh

Many years after this terrible calamity, some men were surveying this great island that had been thrown up by the earthquake, and on the top they found an old fishing boat, and the name still decipherable upon her, and in the boat were the nets and lines and the bleached bones of their owner.

The island was called after the old Spanish fisherman, San Lorenzo, whose end was so sad and lonely, and it now forms the bay and harbour of the present town of Callao, which is built about three miles from the position of the old town.

Callao is a typical Spanish American town, and in the native quarters the houses are, with few exceptions, low and flat-roofed, built of adobe, but in the business portion, European and American enterprise is quite apparent in the large banks and public buildings.

Of all places on the earth, Callao, in 1871, was the most immoral and degraded. It reeked with vice and infamy. As I said before there were about a hundred sailing ships in the bay, with over two thousand seamen on board—all long voyagers, and about two-thirds of these men were on shore every night. The police force was simply a farce, they winked at crime and immorality in the most open fashion. Every third house in the place was a drinking den, and the majority of the men about the town were runners, crimps, and vile cast offs from other lands. All the human derelicts of the Pacific seemed to have joined that gathering of beachcombers who infested the place, and nearly every class of outcast, from an absconding bank official to a runaway sailor, was to be met with in those streets. Robbery and murder were the order of the day, seamen were drugged, stolen from their ships, and shanghaied aboard outward-bound ships, minus clothes and money. So-called blood money was paid to the crimps by the shipmasters to secure them a crew when they were ready to sail. Say, for instance, a shipmaster wanted a crew of twenty men to work the ship from Callao to Liverpool—a four months passage. He would be compelled to engage the services of one of the boarding-house crimps, or runners, to supply him with the men. Also he would have to advance three months’ wages to each man. This was paid over to the crimps. The men would be taken from the boarding-house to the Consul’s to sign the ship’s articles, they being in such a drugged, drunken condition as to be utterly unconscious of what agreement they were signing. The men were put on board the same night in a dead stupor, often without any clothes but what they had on, and nothing whatever to protect them during the long dreary voyage round the Horn, only to arrive in Liverpool or London penniless, robbed of three month’s wages before they left Callao, and the remaining month’s money owing to the captain for clothes and tobacco supplied during the voyage. It was also no uncommon thing for some shipmasters to participate in the plunder of the men they engaged as their share of the spoil. I remember one ship that came into Callao while I was there. Her captain always carried a well-filled slop-chest on board, and charged three times the value for all goods to be sold. He paid one shilling and sixpence per pound for tobacco from bond, and sold it to the crew for five shillings per pound. But on this particular voyage all his crew were Scandinavians, and would not buy anything from him, so he decided to get even with them. On arriving at Callao, he got in touch with a noted crimp, and the consequence was that night he gave each man five shillings to spend; in the bum-boat they went ashore, and that was the last that was ever seen of them by their late captain. The crimp was on the look-out for them, and he took them to a free and easy drinking den. They were all drugged, and shanghaied on board a large American ship that sailed at daylight. All their effects were left on board their old ship, the wages due to them were confiscated by their captain, and the amount entered in his slop chest book as goods supplied to them. Then, when he was ready for sea, he took a percentage of the new crew’s advance. (This is a positive fact). But thank God, all shipmasters at that time were not like that one, but there were a good many of them. I trust my readers will pardon this digression, but it will give them an idea of what being a sailor meant in those days. I will now return to my story:

We were several days at anchor before we commenced to discharge the cargo and during that time I was employed as boatman in our small dingy, rowing the captain about from the ship to the shore, and to and from various ships in the harbour. Many of these had been on the coast, and at the Chincha and Guanape Islands eight and ten months, and their stores were often pretty well all used up. Now Captain Glasson, being an old trader out to the west coast, and especially to Peruvian ports, was an ardent trader, or, to give it its proper name, smuggler, and on this voyage he had three hundred pounds worth of trade on board, consisting of cases of spirits, tobacco, clothing, cheap jewellery, coils of rope, rolls of canvas, etc. I was employed mostly at night, sleeping during the heat of the day, and I used to deliver the cases of spirits and other things to the various ships, whose masters had bought them from our captain during the day. Many a stiff chase I had from the harbour guards’ boat, but I always managed to evade capture, and enjoyed it. Each time I evaded them with the contrabands in the boat, I became more daring, and this was how we managed it. I had a canvas bag, with pockets inside and lead at the bottom to weight it. The bottles of brandy, etc., were placed in the pockets, the mouth was securely tied, and about sixteen fathoms of signal halliard line was attached to the bag. The plug in the bottom of the boat had a piece of cord fastened to it, which was left hanging in the water beneath the boat. After leaving the ship with, perhaps, two dozen bottles of brandy in the bag, I would be seen by the guard boat, then the fun began, for they immediately gave chase. Now I always managed to keep a certain amount of water in the bottom of the boat, and when I found the guard boat overtaking me, I ceased rowing, quietly dropped the bag over the side and started bailing the boat out. Up came the Guardiana.

“What have you got there?” he would ask, as he shot alongside, looking in the boat.

“Can’t you see what I have got?” I would reply saucily. “Water.”

“Where are you going?” was the next question.

“For the captain,” I would reply.

“Caramba!” he would mutter and sheer off.