Note 360 — Chapter XVIII
Reading edition
The use of guano as a manure was well known to the ancient Peruvians long before the Spanish conquest. Garcilasso de la Vega, the historian of the Incas, thus describes the use made by them of the deposits of guano on the coast of Peru:—
"On the shores of the sea, from below Arequipa to Tarapaca, which is more than 200 leagues of coast, they use no other manure than that of sea-birds, which abound in all the coasts of Peru, and go in such great flocks that it would be incredible to one who had not seen them. They breed on certain uninhabited islands which are on that coast; and the manure which they deposit is in such quantities that it would also seem incredible. From afar the heaps of manure appear like the peaks of some snowy mountain range. In the time of the kings, who were Incas, such care was taken to guard these birds in the breeding season, that it was not lawful for any one to land on the isles, on pain of death, that the birds might not be frightened, nor driven from their nests. Neither was it lawful to kill them at any time, either on the islands or elsewhere, also on pain of death. Each island was, by order of the Incas, set apart for the use of a particular province, and the guano was fairly divided, each village receiving a due portion. Now in these times it is wasted after a different fashion. There is much fertility in this bird-manure."—II. lib. v. cap. iii. p. 134-5. (Madrid, 1723.)
Frezier mentions that, when he was on the coast in 1713, guano was brought from Iquique and other ports along the coast, and landed at Arica and Ylo, for the aji-pepper and other crops.—Frezier's South Sea, p. 152. (London, 1717.)