Just as we were starting from Payta, I received a splendid basketful of cherimoyas from the British Consul. I was not, of course, able to thank him for his thoughtful courtesy, to my great regret, but we shall stop there again on our return.

These cherimoyas were exceedingly fine, and they are so popular a fruit and have so tempting an appearance, that I am quite provoked with myself for not being able to like them; but such is the case nevertheless.

Our next stoppage was at Lambayeque, where there seemed to be neither port nor harbour : an apparently miserable assemblage of huts and hovels, with a very few houses of higher pretensions, stood on the beach : this is the landingplace for Lambayeque, the town itself of that name being about seven miles in the interior.

The little village on the beach is exposed to the mighty swell of the mile-long waves of the Pacific, that rise far away at sea into huge rolling billows, and then tower into foamycrested and mountainous breakers, which plunge down on the trembling shore, after a terrific sweep, in surges of long-resounding thunder.

Here, as well as at Payta, they make use of that singular and useful contrivance, the balsa, which is a large pile of logs of some light and suitable wood, crossing and recrossing each other in layers, and very strongly lashed together.