of birds, most of them songsters. The flowers are followed by pendulous pods, six to eight inches long, containing several thin seeds immersed in a mucilaginous spongy substance which is the nutritive part. The timber is very hard and durable, and also makes excellent firewood. With the algaroba there are bushes, sometimes growing into trees, of vichaya (Capparis crotonoides), a tree called zapote del perro (Colicodendrum scabridum), and an Apocynea, with bright green lanceolate leaves, and clusters of small white flowers. Near the roots of the cordillera the vegetation becomes more dense and varied.
The fertile valleys of the coast vary in extent and in the supply of water they receive. Some rivers have their sources beyond the maritime range, and the flow is abundant and perennial. Others are less well supplied. Others, with sources in the maritime cordillera, are sometimes dry, and the supply of water is precarious.
Altogether there are forty-four coast valleys[1] along the 1400 miles of Peruvian sea-board, and, with reference to the study of the former history of the country, they may be divided into three sections. The twenty northern valleys include the territory of the Grand Chimu, whose history is still shrouded in mystery. The central twelve formed the dominions of the Chincha confederacy,
- ↑ Von Tschudi gives the number at fifty-nine, adding fifteen to the forty-four. But he must have included ravines with watercourses almost always dry, such as Asia, the quebredas of Pescadores and Manga, Pisagua, Tacama, Mexillones, and Loa; as well as branches of main rivers, such as Macara, Quiros and Somata, tribu-
