CHAPTER LII.
The 28th of January, 1849, found us on the Peruvian coast, abreast the Island of San Lorenzo, a mountain of sand, where not a blade of grass can vegetate; and rounding Galera Cape, we were shortly moored in the port of Callao.
The bay is a wide, sweeping indentation, with Lorenzo, Fronton, and a narrow spit of land jutting from the main, serving to keep the harbor smooth from prevailing southerly winds. To the north, the spurs of the Andes approach layer upon layer to the brink of the coast, while nearer the land trends away, towards the interior, nearly plain-like—green, fertile, and pleasant to gaze upon—with the clustering towers, and spires of Lima abutting on the distant hills.
There is no difference of opinion about Callao: for it is a filthy, bustling little port, reeking in garlic and drunken mariners, alive with fleas, miserable, dirty soldiers, and their yet more slovenly wives.
The place is thriving, for steam frequents it; and on the curving quay are piled mountains of English coals, enormous heaps of wheat, great stacks of pisco, and italia jars, where Haserac, the celebrated captain, might have concealed an army of thieves with impunity. Merchandise moves backwards and forwards on railway trucks, and lazy villains in pale yellow jackets, with iron chains and anklets attached to the legs, are at work after a fashion of their own.
The houses of the port are mean and irregular, built anywhere and any how, either of adobies, boards, and on the outskirts, pleasant cottage residences, built of bullocks' hides and poles. Streets and lanes run hither and thither, and glaring English signs stare you in the face, such as the "Jibboom House," "The Lively Pig," "Jackknife Corner," and "House of Blazes." Along the beach are ranges of wicker, reed, and mat-made sheds for bathing, which are thronged during the season. But the most prominent features of Callao that attract the eye, are the round, flat turrets of the Castle, flanked on either side by long lines of curtains, bastions, embrasures, and batteries. It covers a great space, enclosing within its thick and massive case-mated walls, ranges of barracks—now happily converted into warehouses for the customs—magazines, and a large square, with a fountain in the centre. The fortification, from the nature of its position, is somewhat irregular, constructed partly on a ridge of sand, leading towards the southern arm of the bay, where in former times was the site of old Callao, before its destruction by the memorable earthquake of 1746.
There is a wide, deep moat, like to the bed of a river, encircling the fortress, with narrow channels cut on either side to the sea. This is now dry and partially filled in nearest the town. The redoubts and detached outworks are also in ruins, but yet enough remains to make us reflect, that what the old Spanish engineers left incomplete in this work would hardly be worth attempting in our day.
It was here where the last stand of the Royalists was made in New Spain—where the bloodiest foot-prints were left since the days of the Incas and Pizarro—and it was in this same castle, where the brave Rodil, with a handful of devoted followers, clung to the soil of their royal master with a tenacity and determination amounting to heroism—where horse meat sold for a gold ounce the pound, and a chicken for its weight in the same precious metal: when, hemmed in on all sides, by sea and land—surrounded but not dismayed—they still kept their assailants at bay, until gaunt famine stalked before them, and they were forced to furl the well-worn colors of their King![7] A score of Rodils, and another century might have intervened before South American patriots could have wrested the continent from the old Spaniards.
If tired of contemplating these bloody reminiscences—or bathing under the sheds and awnings, where all resemble, in their saturated black frocks and trowsers, watery nuns; or if your temper is destroyed by the fleas, you can fly to the harbor, where are sturdy merchantmen reeking in guano, smoking steamers, and heavy ships of war—and thick fogs at night—or, what is more diverting, you may watch the motions of swarms of gulls that frequent the Port. Our good surgeon, who professed to be an ornithologist, called them platoon birds. They fly in regular battalions and divisions, in strict military apportionments—led and apparently commanded by their chieftains. The reviews generally began with fishing. At some understood, feathery signal, while sailing over the bay, they wheel like a flash, and strike the water simultaneously like a shower of bullets, and not with the eyes of Argus is it possible to detect the smallest irregularity in movement, nor a stray winged soldier out of the ranks.