Travels in the United States, etc.,: during 1849 and 1850./ By the Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley.

SALUBRITY OF PAYTA.
leaf nor blade of vegetation visible. Most of the houses are constructed of the bamboo, either slightly filled in with clay, or inter.
mixed with a few strips and shreds of hide, and the principal ones
are coated with mud inside and outside, and whitewashed: the
habitations of the Indians, like those on the Isthmus, are mere
cages of cane. It is like dwelling in a Brobdignagian wicker-basket
turned topsy-turvy, and with an immense extinguisher-like thatched
roof, in place of the bottom of the basket.
Dreary and melancholy as its appearance is, the situation of
this town is said to be particularly salubrious: the Indians live to
an exceedingly advanced age here. The profession of the healing
art has a very bad chance at Payta: a barber and a painter are said
to have followed the medical line here, and undertaken to attempt
to kill off a few of those long-lived individuals, but unsuccessfully:
draughts could not destroy them-pills could not poison them.
Before the yoke of Spain was thrown off, there was a very considerable overland commerce from the Atlantic coast to Panama,
on the Pacific: the richly-freighted argosies, heavy with gold and
treasure, always put into Payta, on their way to and from Callao
-strange as it may seem-for water, as well as provisions. Provisions and water are brought from the interior, and the latter
from some distance, for there is not a single drop of fresh drinking
water within six leagues of the place: as a shower of rain only
falls about once in three or four years, the inhabitants are entirely
dependent upon a river six leagues off, for that essential necessary
of life. Regularly every morning come in, laden with waterbarrels, mules and donkeys, which also bring into the town abundant supplies of vegetables and meat.
These two last are very reasonable in price, but the water is
extremely dear. The natives say, in Payta it is far more econlomical to drink wine; therefore, no doubt they do-whenever they
can get it. Let not Father Mathew, or any other preacher of
teetotalism come here, for Nature herself seems to oppose their
principle in this thirsty place.
The poor mules and donkeys who bring the precious liquid, and
the various articles of consumption to the town, are rarely allowed
'.o taste a drop of water until they return to the above-mentioned
river, and they are, under ordinary circurmstances, driven back
into the interior the same night. The musquito, who, alas! is
not a water-drinker (would that Father Mlathew could make him
one!), and the common house-fly, are the only creatures of the
insect tribe to be found in this place: no reptile exists there.
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