Note 4 — Chapter III
Reading edition
It is hard to believe that the present dead silent sands, which form the coast of Peru from the Province of Chincha in the south as far as Trujillo in the north, was in the early days so populous that Padre Melendez, quoted by Unanue, compared one of the small valleys to an ant hill; and now 'not more than half a dozen natives can be found among its ruins.'—See Documentos Literarios del Peru Colectados por Manuel de Odriozola, vol. vi, p. 179.
The rapid and continued decrease of the Peruvian population has been ascribed to civil war. This is not true. Where the sword has carried off its thousands, the infernal stuff known as brandy, the small pox, and other epidemics, have slain their tens of thousands. The liberation of the slaves also caused great mortality amongst the negroes.