By the morning of the 19th we had made the port of Pisco — a pretty town near a valley, teeming with vegetation, where the best oranges on the Pacific coast are grown. They are large, luscious and cheap — we bought three hundred for two dollars.
Large quantities of wine and rum are made here, and sent to Callao and other ports along the coast. They distil also a pure aromatic liquor from the Italian grape, called Italia de Pisco. It is put up in carrot-shaped earthen jars, each holding about three gallons — and is much esteemed by connoisseurs of good liquor — making, it is said, a delicious punch.
The Chincha Islands, three in number, lie ten miles off in a north-western direction from Pisco. Not a green thing grows on all their vast extent and depth of fertilizing guano, which restores life and vigor to so many thousands of exhausted acres.
Passing out of the bay to the south, our attention was arrested by a curiously-shaped cross, apparently made of light-colored stones, set in the sloping rock of the cliff, and some two hundred feet from top to bottom. It commemorates an affair between the Spaniards and Indians in the old times, and is a place of annual solemnities with the devout, led thither by the priests.
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