XXXVII.
GUANO AND THE COOLIE TRADE.
GUANO AND ITS CHARACTER.—WHERE IT IS FOUND.—THE CHINCHA ISLANDS AND THEIR WEALTH.—NOVEL PLANS OF THE PERUVIANS.—HOW THEY DIG AND LOAD GUANO.—EFFECT OF GUANO ON A STRANGER.—JARVIS’S AND HOWLAND’S ISLANDS.—THE COOLIES AND THEIR LABOR.—STORIES OF HORRIBLE CRUELTIES.—HOW THE ASIATIC SLAVE TRADE IS CONDUCTED.—MUTINY ON SHIPBOARD.—MURDER OF THE CREW.—HUMAN MINCE MEAT.—TREATMENT OF COOLIES AT WORK.—EXTENT OF THE COOLIE TRAFFIC.—PROBABLE FATE OF MISSING SHIPS.
The exhausting effect of agriculture, in many localities, renders it necessary to furnish the soil with enriching materials. From time immemorial, use has been made of the excrement of animals, of deposits in bogs and swamps, where vegetable matter has decayed, and of various mineral substances known to contain ingredients nutritious to growing plants. An important ingredient of nearly all manures is the substance known as ammonia, which is contained in large quantities in the excrement of birds. Any farmer will tell you that the space beneath his hen-roost furnishes a material more valuable, pound by pound, than any other part of his barn-yard establishment. In some parts of the world the excrement of birds is found in large quantities, but these places are few in number, for the reason that they are only in districts where there is no rain. In localities subject to rain, although the birds may be numerous, the valuable material is washed away, or, at all events, is so greatly reduced in quality as to render it worthless or nearly so.
THE CHINCHA ISLANDS.
The great deposits of bird excrement, popularly known as guano, are in tropical regions, the most important of them being at the Chincha Islands, which are situated in the Pacific Ocean, near the coast of Peru, in latitude 13° 38´ south, longitude 76° 28´ west. They are three in number, and are small, rocky, and perfectly dry. They appear to have been formed by separate inundations of lava under great pressure, and are composed of a gray and reddish colored rock that in some places presents a perpendicular wall three hundred feet above the surface of the ocean. The islands have a wild and picturesque appearance. Immense flocks of sea-birds are constantly flying around them. The walls of the islands are full of caves and arches, some of them very high, and the beating of the waves in the caves and arches can be heard a long distance.
The islands are small, no one of them being more than a mile in length. The total amount of guano upon them is estimated at forty millions of tons. It has been accumulating during thousands of years. In some places the depth is estimated at more than a hundred feet, and over nearly all the extent of the islands it is rarely at a depth of less than sixty feet. The value of guano was well known to the Peruvians of ancient times, and these immense deposits were specially cared for by the government. By command of the Incas of Peru no person was allowed, under penalty of death, to visit the islands during the breeding season of the birds, and the same penalty was inflicted upon those who killed birds at any time of the year.
According to the histories, five hundred years were required for the formation of a single inch in thickness of guano; consequently, the time required for the formation of a layer of guano a hundred feet thick must be something more than the period of life allotted to Methusaleh, or any of his contemporaries.
FIRST IMPORTATION OF GUANO.
The attention of Europe was first called to guano in 1804, by the great traveller Humboldt. He caused the substance to be analyzed, and found that it was composed of phosphates of ammonia, lime, and urate and oxalate of ammonia, together with other organic matters not determined. A few years later further attention was called to it by Sir Humphry Davy, who suggested that it might prove valuable to farmers; and it was soon after tried at St. Helena. The first shipment ever brought to Europe was in 1840, and consisted of twenty casks. It was tried, and found useful; and the next year several cargoes were taken to England, and several more to the United States. The exclusive right of digging and shipping guano for the term of nine years was sold at this time, by the government, for forty thousand dollars; but it was repudiated soon after, as the increased demand for guano developed its immense value. The monopoly was, however, revived in a little while, one firm being allowed the exclusive trade with England, and another with the United States. The demand increased so rapidly that a great many ships went into the carrying trade, and sometimes as many as two hundred ships have been waiting at the Chincha Islands for their cargoes.