Nearly half the imports are from Great Britain. France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and a few South American countries are also represented. The character of the goods required by the Paraguayan people can be judged from the following statement of articles and their values, imported in 1886:

Whatever trade there may be indirectly between Paraguay and the United States, by way of Buenos Ayres or Montevideo, there is no record of it in our trade returns. The only intercourse between the two countries is official.

CONCLUSION.

The area of the basin of the La Plata and its tributaries, which Paraguay represents and is an interesting portion of, amounts to about 1,375,000 square miles, and is second in South America, as hitherto stated, only to the somewhat similar basin of the Amazon. Together they aggregate considerably more than 3,000,000 square miles, of exceedingly interesting character in themselves and in most of their details, but particularly so in their certain development of valuable resources and productions desirable or necessary for portions of the world, like the United States, having a different climate. Our interest in these regions will augment steadily with their development; and hence the necessity of early, continuous, and accurate information of what are their natural characteristics, conditions, productions; what they will supply to and require from other countries in large amounts; what influences, natural or artificial, retard or serve to develop them as contributors to the wants or the wealth of nations or as claimants upon foreign products of soil and labor. In this view, Paraguay and the region it represents appear to be one of the most interesting portions of South America to the agriculturists of this country.

PERU.

The Republic of Peru, on the west coast of South America, has an extent along the Pacific, from 3° 21' S., of 1,240 miles, and its breadth in the northern part is about 800 miles, narrowing southward to less than 200 along the northern line of Chile. It is bounded on the north by Ecuador, on the east by Brazil and Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. It was anciently remarkable, in its then greater extent, for the superior civilization of its people, for its peculiar agricultural development west of the Andes, and for its great mineral wealth, which is still far from being exhausted. Its present area is variously estimated at from 463,747 to 480,000 square miles. In this article the first estimate, an aggregate of estimates by departments, is assumed to be nearest the true area. It is, then, a little less in extent than Texas, New Mexico, and the Indian Territory combined.

Peru is divided into nineteen departments, and these into ninety-five provinces. The area and population of the former were reported in the last census, in 1876, to be as shown in the following statement, which presents the departments by geographical divisions according to general character and extending in order from north to south, viz:

In 1876, Peru contained territory and population that since the war with Chile pertain to the latter country. The transferred population amounted to over 51,000, the census showing in 1876 a total for the whole area of 2,673,075, of which there was an excess of males of 31,227. Of the whole, 57 per cent were Indians, 23 per cent mestizos (mixed Indian blood), 20 per cent Spanish by descent, negroes, Chinese, and foreigners. The increase of population from 1862, when an official estimate was made, to the census of 1876, was 185,359, or less than 7 per cent in fourteen years, according to deduction from the figures given in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT.

Peru declared its independence of Spain July 28, 1821, and secured it in 1824, after a less protracted struggle than that of many of the Spanish-American dependencies. By its present constitution, adopted in 1856 and revised in 1860, the Government is modeled to a considerable extent on that of the United States, the executive power being vested in a president and exercised through one or more of five cabinet ministers, and the legislative in a senate and house of representatives. There are two vice-presidents, who, like the president, are elected for four years. The senators are elected from the provinces in the proportion of one for each 30,000 inhabitants or fraction of over half that number, and the members of the lower house by the electoral colleges of the provinces of each department, at the rate of two if the department has two provinces and one more for every other two provinces in said department. Parochial electoral colleges send deputies to the provincial colleges which elect the congressional representatives and also elect the municipal councils. The nineteen departments are administered by prefects and the ninety-five provinces by subprefects, the former officials deriving their appointments from the president. The judiciary comprises a supreme court and superior and lower courts, besides the special courts of the various municipalities, unconnected with the general system.

GOVERNMENT FINANCES.

The sources of state income were formerly the guano and saltpeter deposits principally, but guano is fast disappearing and the principal nitrate sources have passed under the control of Chile, although Peru still has a dividend from their income by treaty arrangement. By the law of 1886, providing for revenue, the latter is raised from import aud export duties, modifiable on an ad valorem basis by the treasury department from time to time; from 5 per cent real-estate tax upon rental value in town and country; license of 5 per cent upon the value of productions of occupations, and a like tax upon movable capital; stamp taxes; stamped paper for addressing public officers; 30 soles (1 sol silver

=73.5 cents United States) per annum upon each mining claim; proceeds of postal service and telegraphs; duties on wills and inheritancies, excise duties, bridge tolls, etc., and a poll tax upon each male person between the ages of 21 and 60, except ecclesiastics, soldier, and sailors, of 4 soles for the coast provinces and 2 for the interior.* The income from railways, then applicable to administrative uses, has recently been assigned to a special use, as hereinafter set forth.

Estimates of Department expenses are made for biennial periods. The revenues for the year ending May 31, 1890, were in United States value $4,612,270, and the expenditures $4,330,489, the customs yield. ing $3,672,019.

The foreign debts due to British capitalists and incurred for railroadbuilding amounted in 1890 to $153,679,593 (£31,579,080), with interest in arrears since 1876. By a contract with the bondholders the railways now existing, and extensions, etc., to be constructed, are given up to their control and for their benefit for sixty-six years from January 1, 1890, in part payment of the debt; and, further, the guano of the country up to 3,000,000 tons is ceded, with a share of the income from the guano sold by Chile under treaty stipulations, and the Government is bound to pay thirty annual money installments of £80,000 ($389,320), which must be reserved in monthly sums from the customs receipts of the port of Callaó; but this last payment has not been kept up.

In connection with this contract for payment of the foreign debt there are other contracts forming parts of the extensive series, by which extensions of the railway system are to be made, immigration promoted, etc., on one hand, and, on the other, concessions of vast tracts (4,942,000 acres) of land are made to the bondholders under the name of the Peruvian Railways and Development Corporation (limited), registered in London, "it being understood that the rights and obligations of this contract," which includes the series, "can only be transferred to English companies organized and established in London." A consideration of these facts makes it apparent in some degree that no great extension of our commercial intercourse with Peru is likely to take place for the near future or upon a liberal basis.

PHYSICAL DIVISIONS.

As indicated in the division of the departments in the foregoing table of areas and population, Peru has three divisions characterized by dif ferences of soil, climate, water supply, and prominent physical features. Apparently the most prominent of these is the central or Andean division, while the Pacific or coast division and that lying east of the great mountain chains, with the Amazon as its main or only natural outlet to

See dispatch of United States Minister Buck, containing the law, in No. 90 of Consular Reports.

† Child's Spanish American Republics.

the world, are really as defined in their peculiar and different characters. The mountain or central region is wonderfully rich in minerals, such as gold, silver, platinum, copper, tin, lead, cinnabar, quicksilver, iron, and coal, and petroleum wells are now successfully worked by an American, furnishing cheap fuel to some of the railways. In this region are also fertile valleys and extensive tablelands fit for pasturage, and the valleys at least are well watered, while the eastern slopes are visited by rains. Surplus production is, however, discouraged by the lack of cheap and adequate transportation.

An article in the American Cyclopædia tersely describes the physical features of the country as follows:

The country is traversed by the Andes in two separate ranges, the Cordillera Oriental, or Andes proper, and the Cordillera Occidental, or coast ridge; to which is added a third and still more easterly chain N. of the parallel of Pasco, about 11°. The coast ridge enters the Republic from the south, and running almost parallel to the shore, at a distance of from 45 to 65 miles, unites with the Cordillera Oriental in the nudo, or mountain knot of Vilcanota, between latitude 14° and 15°, the northern limit of the great interalpine plain containing Lake Titicaca, a comparatively small portion of which belongs to Peru. The table-land of Cuzco, comprising an area of about 15,000 square miles, on the flattened crest of the Andes, has a mean elevation in the south of 11,500 feet above the sea, or about 1,000 feet more than in the north, and is divided by low transverse ridges into numerous valleys.

*

*

*

A little north of the parallel of Pasco the Andes separate into three chains. The most easterly, a small lateral branch, trending first northeast for two degrees and then curving abruptly northwest, divides the valleys of the Ucayali on the east and the Huallaga on the west, but gradually lowers until in latitude 6° 40′ it is crossed by the latter stream and finally disappears before reaching the southern bank of the Amazon. The second, or Andes proper, is the dividing line between the basins of the Huallaga and the Marañon; and the third, or Cordillera Occidental, runs between the Marañon and the coast. The coast chain and Cordillera Oriental do not again unite before the Nudo de Loja beyond the Ecuadorian frontier, the mean height of which does not exceed 6,500 feet. The valley here inclosed by them embraces some of the hottest portions of the Andine region. The tract called la costa, or the coast, between the steep ascent of the Cordillera Occidental and the Pacific, varies in width from 20 to 50 miles, and slopes towards the ocean with a very irregular surface and rapid descent, furrowed by deep depressions or gullies, which run from the mountains to the sea. These gullies are generally traversed by rivers, many of which are dry during a great part of the year. The ridges between the rivers are complete deserts, varying in breadth from 10 to 90 miles. The surface is very uneven, and is covered with hillocks of considerable size, composed of fine, light-yellow drift sand, which is often driven about with great velocity by the wind, and ascends in columns to a considerable height. All traces of a path between the river valleys are thus obliterated, and no stranger can travel from one to another without a guide, who generally directs his course by the stars at night, and by the wind during the day, which almost always blows from the south.

Relative to the region east of the mountains, which comprises about a third of Peru, Mr. Child states as follows, in the article heretofore noted:

At present this vast territory, watered by the great tributaries of the Amazon, the Marañon, Huallaga, Ucayali, Urubamba, Inambara, etc., is most inaccessible. The Peruvian officials sent there to exercise nominal rule, and often to find Brazilian officials in practical command, reach their seat of government most easily by steamer to