tities which have been used by the Peruvians | guano, and, at the next step, in it up to our

themselves.

knees.

A recent traveller in the country asserts that The guano is regularly stratified; the lower guano was used in the time of the Incas, and that strata are solidified by the weight of the upper, the Spaniards learned its use from the Indians, and have acquired a dark red color, which bewho employed it constantly. It is chiefly applied comes gradually lighter towards the surface. On in Peru to the cultivation of maize and potatoes. the surface it has a whitey-brown light crust, The mode of applying the manure differs from that very well baked by the sun; it is a crust containing generally adopted in England. After the plants eggs, being completely honeycombed by the birds, appear above the ground, a small trench is opened, which scratch deep, oblique holes in it to serve as in some cases round each root, in others, along the nests, wherein eggs, seldom more than two to lines. In this trench a small quantity of guano is each nest, are deposited. These holes often runplaced, and slightly covered with earth; the whole ning into each other, form long galleries with several field is then laid under water, and allowed to re-entrances, and this mining system is so elaborately main in that condition for a certain number of carried out, that you can scarcely put a foot on hours from twenty to twenty-four. The water is any part of the islands without sinking to the knee then drained off, and the effect of the process is and being tickled with the sense of a hard beak soon manifest in the rapid growth of the plants. digging into your unprotected ankles. The eggWhere a sufficient supply of water cannot readily shells and the bones and remains of fish brought by be procured, other means of irrigation are adopted, the old birds for their young, must form a conbut the guano is never sown broadcast, as in Eng-siderable part of the substance of the guano, land. The name itself is Indian, originally huanu, which is thus in a great measure deposited beneath signifying the excrement of animals, but altered the surface, and then thrown out by the birds. to huano by the Spanish Peruvians; and, owing Having, with some difficulty and the loss of to their strong aspiration of the h, the English sundry inches of skin from our legs, reached the have taken the word from their lips in the shape summit of the island, we descend the side leadof guano. It is found on all parts of the coast of ing to the diggings, and soon arrive at the capital. South America, even so far south as Cape Horn; It stands on a small space cleared of guano, and but that obtained from the Chincha Islands is the consists of twenty or thirty miserable shanties, most highly prized, probably for its extreme dry-each formed by four slender posts driven into the ness, as the islands lie within those latitudes in ground, with a flat roof of grass matting and pieces which-on that coast-rain never falls. of the same material stretched on three sides, the other side being left open. Scarcely an article of furniture do these town residences contain, except a few rude benches, two or three dirty cookingpans, and some tin pots. In one or two of the huts stands a small botiga" (a curiously shaped earthen jar) filled with pisco, the spirit before mentioned. The beds are simply thin mats, and only a few of the inhabitants possess the usual red blanket of the Peruvian.

who have taken a fancy to the island, and call themselves pilots, as they profess to moor and take charge of the ships during the business of loading.

And now, having anchored between the north and middle islands, at the latter of which we are to load, we will borrow the boat and have a closer look at the huge muck heap. Pulling half round the island to the landing-place, we step ashore on a narrow slip of sandy beach, which appears to be cleared from the surrounding rocks for our special convenience. Our appearance disturbs thousands of the web-footed natives; these thousands count with the old hands as nothing, for they tell us Clothes seem to be almost discarded; an old that the shipping have driven all the birds away. poncho and a ragged pair of calico trowsers, form Sailing above us is a flock of pelicans, hovering the dress of the aristocracy, but many are all but over the clear water like hawks, which they re-entirely naked. One hut of greater pretensions semble in their mode of darting down or stooping than the rest is occupied by two English sailors, on their prey. One of these every instant drops from the flock as though a ball had whistled through his brain, but, after a plunge, he is soon seen rising to the surface with a fish struggling in his capacious pouch. Nearer to us, whirling round our heads, are gannets, mews, mutton-birds, divers, gulls, guano-birds, and a host of others whose names are unknown to the vulgar. On the detached rocks and the lower edge of the islandmember of a pretty numerous convocation-stands the penguin, the parson-bird of the sailor, whose good name is fairly earned by his cut-away black coat, white tie, and solemn demeanor. His short legs planted far back, and his long body, do not fit him for a walk ashore; but he will sit for hours on a little rock just washed by the waves, apparently in such deep absence of mind, that passersby are tempted to approach in hope of catching him. Just as the boat nears him, and a hand is already stretched out to grasp his neck, away he goes head over heels in a most irreverent and ridiculous manner, dives under the boat, and shows his head again about a quarter of a mile out at sea, where the sailor may catch him who can, for he is the fastest swimmer and the best diver that ever dipped. Stepping over the mortal remains of several sea-lions, in a few strides we are on the

Close to the town is a rough and steep path to the sea, up which are brought the provisions and water, the latter supplied by the shipping in turns. On the north island is a similar but larger collection of dwellings; there, too, resides the commandant, a military-looking old gentleman-one of the high aristocracy, for he lives in a house that has a window in it. On the north island are about two hundred men, on the middle about eighty, usually; the number varying with the demand for guano. These people are nearly all Indians, and appear to be happy enough in their dusty territory; though everything about them, eatables included, is impregnated with guano. They earn plenty of money, live tolerably well according to their taste, work in the night and smoke or sleep all day. To get rid of their wages they take an occasional trip to Pisco, where they spend their money much in the same fashion as sailors, substituting pisco and chincha (maize beer) for rum and ale, and the guitar and fandango for the fiddle and hornpipe.

In getting the guano, the diggers have commenced originally at the edge of the precipitous

in the very middle of the party, rises a black, ugly head, and instantly all is confusion-a dozen unfortunates are swallowed in a mouthful. Other heads, equally ugly, pop up in unexpected places, and you can distinctly hear the snapping of the sea-lion's jaws as he works through the flying shoal, and finishes a dinner worthy of a cardinal in Lent. It is not, however, all small fry; whales often come gambolling between the islands, rolling and playing in the sun, and sometimes leaping clean out of the water, into which their huge shake the sea itself, and turns the surface into one great frothy washing-tub, amidst the suds of which the giant slowly sinks, throwing up his broad black flukes as if in derision of the lookers-on.

side of the island, and worked inland; so that the cutting now appears like the face of a quarry worked into the side of a hill. The steep, perpendicular face of the rock, which rises from the sea like a wall, and the boldness of the shore-there is seven fathom water close in—have afforded great facilities to the loading of ships. On the top of the cliff is a large enclosure formed of stakes, firmly bound together by strong chains passed round the whole. This enclosure is capable of holding four or five hundred tons of guano. It is made wide, and open at the upper end, and grad-bodies descend again with a crash that seems to ually slopes down to a point on the extreme verge of the precipice, where a small opening is left; exactly fitting which is a large canvas shute or pipe, which hangs down the face of the rock, nearly to the water. The ship, having taken in by means of her boats enough guano to ballast her, hauls in to this shute, the end of which is taken aboard and passed down the hatchway. The guano is thus poured into the hold in a continuous stream, at the rate of about three hundred and fifty tons a day; the enclosure being filled by the Indians during the night. They carry the whole of the guano down on their backs in bags taking about eighty pounds at each journey.

Some are employed in pushing the guano down the shute, at the mouth of which is stationed an Indian, who, by tightening a rope passed round it, regulates or stops the descent of the manure. To various parts of the long pipe ropes are attached, and which lead to the different mast-heads of the ship, and thence on deck, where each rope is tended by a man who, by successive hauling on and slacking it, keeps the shute in motion, and thus hinders it from choking. This choking, however, now and then occurs; and it is then a difficult and tedious matter to set right again, as the pressure binds the guano into a compact mass, which can sometimes only be liberated by cutting the shute open. Birds are frequently carried down Into the ship's hold; and at one of the islands, an Indian, accidentally slipping in, was forced through the shute, and taken out at the other end quite dead. On each island there are two enclosures and two shutes, one much smaller than the other, being used only for loading boats.

But now our work begins in earnest. Ballast is hoisted up and thrown over the side, and the long boat is busily employed in bringing guano to replace it. Most unpleasant work that is. I was one of the boat's crew, and, since of course much rivalry exists between the ships, that all desire priority in trading, we were at work night and day, leaving our ship at night and remaining under the shute until morning, so as to obtain the first load for our boat. I shall not soon forget the dismal hours we passed there. Close to us-every surge of the boat sending her into its mouth-was a dark ravine, into which the sea poured with one continuous roar. A few fathoms distant stood an isolated rock, every wave dashing boldly up it, and then falling back in sheets of foam, and scattering all around it showers of heavy spray. On our right, moored to the rocks, lay a loading ship, her warps and cables slacked for the night, leaving some twenty feet of dark water between her and the huge black cliff; the base of the cliff marked by the bright line of light which ever glitters on the broken wave of the Pacific. Glancing aloft, we saw, rising and falling with the ship's motion, the long white shute, like a fairy footpath up the rock; whilst, drawn upon the clear blue sky, were lifts, and braces, bowlines, stays, and all the maze of rigging so familiar to the sailor. And there, beyond, lay the dark sister island; her shores, too, lighted by the white ocean-fire, which, in a long din surf-line, marked the more distant coast of After making ourselves fully acquainted with the great continent itself, from which rose in the all the economy of the island, we retrace our moonlight the stupendous masses of the Cordilleras. painful path to the boat, and pull off to the ship, Before morning, the heavy dew and heavier sprays where, the day being Sunday, there is no work had thoroughly diluted the romance of our position, going on, and we can amuse ourselves with the and when day dawned, we were glad to get the scenery around us. Every little hollow in the shute into the boat, and cheer ourselves by shoutislands has been gradually filled up, until the ing, in horrible Spanish, to its Indian guardian to surface is nearly levelled; the general dark brown let go the guano. In a few minutes down came hue singularly broken by scattered projecting the shower, and eyes, mouth, and nose were filled crags, white with huanu blanco-newly-deposited with the pungent dust, which continued to pour guano. Round the base of the islands little rocky in until the boat was loaded to the water's edge, peninsulas jut out, bored through in many places and its occupants looked like a portion of the cargo. by the constant washing of the Pacific, whose One old salt, whose bushy black whiskers and long gentle waves have insinuated themselves many hair contained enough manure to satisfy a small yards into the solid rock, and have formed caverns farm, very energetically cursed all the farmers in which are the resort of numerous sea-lions. The the world for employing sailors to do their dirty time of these hermits seems to be divided between work, instead of coming themselves and carting dozing in their gloomy-looking cells, and making home the guano in their own broad-wheeled hungry irruptions on the shoals of little fish which wagons. The boat being loaded, we pulled her frequently pass through the channels. I have often watched these little fellows-packed in such dense masses that they seem to have scarcely room to swim in-moving rapidly along, a spray of them every moment leaping from the water and glittering for an instant in the sun; all evidently ignorant of the neighborhood of an enemy. Suddenly,

slowly off to the ship, where our cargo, having been filled into bags, took the place of the discharged ballast. This sort of work continued for about three weeks, before our turn to haul under the larger shoot arrived.

Our bill of fare aboard would have attractions for some people. Turtle was our commonest dish,

as the skipper found it cheaper to give a dollar | lying between Callao and Lima, eager to wash out for a turtle weighing fifty or sixty pounds, than to the alloy of guano with which our skins had been supply us constantly with the contractor's beef amalgamated at the diggings. from Pisco. Our turtle soup, however, would not have passed muster at Guildhall, though thick enough for sailors. Then we had camotes, a sort of sweet potato, which attains a very large size and is generally liked by Englishmen; yuca, a root resembling a parsnip; frijoles, fish, muttonbirds; plenty of seasoning, such as tomatoes, Chili peppers, and aji; and abundance of fruit-melons, grapes, bananas, chirimoyas, alligator pairs, &c.; the meat boat being always well supplied with articles of this kind. It brought also, occasionally, a few bladders of pisco, which, being contraband, were smuggled with the due formalities.

From the Athenæum.

town of Poughkeepsie," comes next; but concernHomes of American Authors; comprising Anec-ing the author of "The Dutchman's Fireside,"

dotical, Personal, and Descriptive Sketches. By various Writers. New York, Putnam & Co.; London, Sampson Low & Co.

WHETHER We English be in fault or not as having set the example is of small consequence to the fact, that among the Americans respect for privacy seems to have at best a weak and exceptional existence. Mr. Howitt's indiscretions in print regarding the "homes and haunts" of our Moores, Procters, Tennysons-their trim gardens, their studies, and their manners of studying-are here outdone with a confused solemnity of purpose, and a concurrence on the part of many writers, so striking as to assure every one that the subject has been one near and dear to all concerned in it.

Poets and philosophers, in truth, have much to suffer in these days of electrical communication and Bude light. They must now sit on the tripod pro bono publico. They can no longer beat their wives in a back parlor without some prying mirror betraying the fact to the sun, who "whips out" a ray on the spot-and behold! the castigation becomes a Talbotype "book-plate" ready for the next coming Christmas offering. We are now made familiar with the very animal from which are to come the pork-chops bespoken to furnish the night-mare that is to fit up the horror for the fifth act of the great melo-dramatist's coming melodrama. These revelations bring their drawback with them. Enthusiasm and curiosity have "kissed each other" until the most vacant creature who stands in need of sensations which his own poor and hunger-bitten life cannot yield him goes forth licensed to trespass, and pry, and interrupt the gifted, under plea of a hero-worship"-pleading honest admiration as the excuse for flagrant intrusion. Let a great and poetical people like the Americans look to these things a little more earnestly than they have hitherto done. The determination to acquire is an excellent spring of energy-but the reserve which admits liberty for retreat, and which permits contemporary genius to work as it will, to live as it will, to dream as it will-is necessary, we think, to the prosperous, if not to the possible, existence of genius. We must not have our Shakspeare "hounded out" and compelled to create his Ariels in the presence of a full theatre. We are contented not to know of what stuff our Milton's "singing-robes" are made, or who was the tailor, provided we have the song-a "Nativity Hymn" -an" Allegro"-a "Samson"-as may be.

Having thrown out a morsel of counsel-which, however light in manner, is serious in meaning, and not beneath the consideration of a great people eager to naturalize every refinement of intellectual culture-let us proceed to treat this handsomely decorated gift-book according to its own humor-and wander about among its pages and pictures without again saying By your leave," or apologizing if we open the doors of the most secret chambers of Irving, Bryant, Longfellow, Hawthorne. Since these chambers are thrown up to the public gaze, we may as well explore these pleasant mysteries as our neighbors.

66

The book of authors begins with Audubon; concerning whose life, manners, and conversation there is nothing told which has not been better told in the Athenæum. Mr. Paulding's home, a modern composition of bow-windows, verandahs, and venetian blinds, situated "about eight miles above the

again, we learn little except that "he is surrounded by a growing family of grandchildren," and is something of a réactionnaire-thinking that "the world is quite as apt to move backwards as forwards," and "fully persuaded that the ancients were as wise as the moderns." His house, it may be observed, seems somewhat at variance with his philosophies.

The scenery of the Hudson appears to inspire Transatlantic writers to their best flights. Some of the most vivid and temperate passages of description that we recollect in their light literature refer to the highlands of that haunted river. Thus, the third "home" visited-that of Mr. Washington Irving-contributes some of its most agreeable pages to this volume. The article is further enriched by one of Geoffry Crayon's own pleasant letters, addressed to the editor of the "Knickerbocker;" and by a wood vignette of "Sleepy Hollow,"-which, though not altogether corresponding with Fancy's vision of the scene of Rip Van Winkle's slumber, is pleasing both as a picture and as a work of Art.

The home of Mr. Bryant in Queen's County shall be described a little more at length from the book before us :

The house stands at the foot of a woody hill, which shelters it on the east, facing Hempstead Harbor, to which the flood tide gives the appearance of a lake, bordered to its very edge with trees, through which, at intervals, are seen farm-houses and cottages, and all that brings to mind that beautiful image, "a smiling land." The position is well chosen, and it is enhanced in beauty by a small artificial pond, collected from the springs with which the hill abounds, and lying between the house and the edge of the harbor, from which it is divided by an irregular embankment, affording room for a plantation of shade-trees and fine shrubbery. Here again Friend Richard was doing what he little thought of; for his only intenthe United States, whose wheel for many a year furtion was to build a paper-mill-one of the earliest in nished employment to the outlet of the pond. The mill was burnt once and again-by way of hint, perhaps, that beauty is use enough; and the visitor cannot but hope it will never be rebuilt. The village at the head of the harbor was long called North Hempstead, but as there were already quite Hempsteads enough in Queen's county to perplex future topographers, the inhabitants united in desiring a more distinctive title, and applied to Mr. Bryant for his aid in choosing one.

This is not so easy a matter as it seems at first glance; and in defect of all express guidance in the history of the spot, and desiring, too, associations, Mr. Bryant proposed Roslyn-the town a name at once musical in itself and agreeable in its annals declaring that when the British evacuated the island in 1781, "The Sixtieth, or Royal American Regiment, marched out of Hempstead to the tune of Roslyn Castle." The name is not too romantic for the place, for a more irregular, picturesque cluster of houses can hardly be found-perched here and there on the hill sides, embowered in foliage, and looking down upon a chain of pretty little lakes, on the outlet of which, overhanging the upper point of the harbor, is an old-fashioned mill, with its pretty rural accessories. One can hardly believe this a bit of Long Island, which is by no means famed for romantic scenery. After Richard Kirk's time other Quakers in succession became proprietors of the great farmhouse and the little paper-mill, but at length they were purchased by Joseph W. Moulton, Esq., author of a history of New York, who, not relishing the plainness of the original style, surrounded the house with square col

ture.

spread in the adjoining room. Perhaps the poet pleased himself with the fancy of graciously and profusely entertaining his foreign subjects in the ambassadorial person of his guest."That is fame," he said, upon reading in some tourist's volume that a copy of the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers had been found by him at Niagara. The modesty of his American visitor might recognize in the cordiality of his reception and treatment Lord Byron's acknowledgment of his American fame.

From this point, without preamble or apology, the curious reader shall be conveyed by us into the sanctum sanctorum of the author of "The Lives of Ferdinand and Isabella" :

amns and a heavy cornice. These help to shade a wide and ample piazza, shut in still more closely by tall trees and clustering vines, so that from within the house is one bower of greenery, and the hottest sun of July leaves the ample hall and large rooms cool and comfortable at all times. The library ocoupies the north-west corner-that which in our artist's sketch appears at the left-and we need hardly say that of all the house this is the most attractive spot-not only because, besides ample store of books, it is supplied with all that can minister to quiet and refined pleasure-but because it is, par excellencethe haunt of the poet and his friends. Here, by the great table covered with periodicals and literary novelties, with the soft, ceaseless music of rustling leaves, and the singing of birds making the silence sweeter, the summer visitor may fancy himself in the very On entering the library from the drawing-room, woods, only with a deeper and more grateful shade; the visitor sees at first no egress except by the door and "when wintry blasts are piping loud," and the through which he had just passed; but, on his attenwhispering trees have changed to whirling ones, a tion being called to a particular space in the populous bright wood fire lights the home scene, enhanced in shelves, he is, if a reading man, attracted by some comfort by the hospitable sky without, and the domes- rows of portly quartos and goodly octavos, handsomely tic lamp calls about it a smiling or musing circle, for bound, bearing inviting names, unknown to Lowndes whose conversation or silence the shelves around af-or Brunet. On reaching forth his hand to take one ford excellent material. The collection of books is not of them down, he finds that while they keep the word large, but widely various; Mr. Bryant's tastes and of promise to the eye, they break it to the hope, for pursuits leading him through the entire range of lit- the seeming books are nothing but strips of gilded erature, from the Fathers to Shelley, and from Courier leather pasted upon a flat surface, and stamped with to Jean Paul. In German, French, and Spanish, he titles, in the selection of which, Mr. Prescott has inis a proficient, and Italian he reads with ease; so all dulged that playful fancy which, though it can rarely these languages are well represented in the library. appear in his grave historical works, is constantly He turns naturally from the driest treatise on politics animating his correspondence and conversation. or political economy, to the wildest romance or the is, in short, a secret door, opening at the touch of a most tender poem-happy in a power of enjoying all spring, and concealed from observation when shut. that genius has created or industry achieved in litera- A small winding staircase leads to a room of moderate extent above, so arranged as to give all possible advantage of light to the imperfect eyes of the historian. Here Mr. Prescott gathers around him the books and manuscripts in use for the particular work on which he may be engaged, and few persons, except himself and his secretary, ever penetrate to this studious retreat. In regard to situation, few houses in any city are superior to this. It stands directly upon the out, moulded into an exhilarating variety of surface, common, a beautiful piece of ground, tastefully laid and only open to the objection of being too much cut up by the intersecting paths which the time-saving habits of the thrifty Bostonians have traced across it Mr. Prescott's house stands nearly opposite a small sheet of water, to which the tasteless name of Frog Pond is so inveterately fixed by long usage, that it can never be divorced from it. Of late years, since the introduction of the Cochituate water, a fountain Upon leaving the vessel, Lord Byron asked Mr. has been made to play here, which throws up an Bancroft to visit him at his villa, Montenero, near obelisk of sparkling silver, springing from the bosom the city, to which, a day or two after, he went. of the little lake, like a palm-tree from the sands, They talked of many things, Lord Byron naturally producing, in its simple beauty, a far finer effect than asking endless questions of America. He denied the the costly architectural fancies of Europe, in which charge of Goethe about Manfred, and said that he the water spurts and fizzles amid a tasteless crowd had never read Faust. He had just written the let- of sprawling Tritons and flopping dolphins. Here a ter upon Pope, and, in conversation, greatly extolled beautiful spectacle may be seen in the long afternoons his poetry. Without saying brilliant or memorable of June, before the midsummer heats have browned things, Byron was a fluent and agreeable talker. It the grass, when the crystal plumes of the fountain are was in the year 1821, and he was writing Don Juan. waving in the breeze, and the rich, yellow light of the People call it immoral," said he, "and put Roderick slow-sinking sun hangs in the air and throws long Random in their libraries." So of Shelley: "They shadows on the turf, and the Common is sprinkled, call him an infidel," said Lord Byron, "but he is far and wide, with well-dressed and well-mannered more Christian than the whole of them." When his crowds-a spectacle in which not only the eye but visitor rose to leave, the poet took down a volume con- the heart also may take pleasure, from the evidence taining the last cantos he had then written of the which it furnishes of the general diffusion of material poem, and wrote his name in them, as a remembrance comfort, worth, and intelligence. The situation of "from Noel Byron." But Ambrosia was that day the house admirably adapts it also for a winter resi allotted to the young American, for as they passed dence. The sun, during nearly his whole course, slowly through the saloon, the host bade him tarry a plays on the walls of the houses which occupy the moment, and leaving the room immediately returned western part of Beacon Street, and the broad pave with the Countess Guiccioli. She, too, smiled, and ment in front is, in the coldest weather, clear of içe gliding into the mazy music of Italian speech, led the and snow, and offers an inviting promenade even to listener on, delighted. Again he rose to go, but a ser- the long dresses and thin shoes which so many of our vant threw open a door and discovered a collation | perverse wives and daughters will persist in bringing

Up to this point we have had to do with domiciliary guides who perform their inquisition as sober ciceroni should do without endeavoring to draw attention to themselves, by their rapturesepithets and citations of verse, suitable for the tíme, place, or person. But the home of the late ambassador, the excellent historian, Mr. Bancroft, boasts a groom of the chambers who has a more euphuistic tongue than those who went before him. We have pages of high-flown writing about the young American student at home and in Europe; -as may be guessed from the following notice of an interview betwixt the traveller and Lord Byron, which took place at Genoa :