The lofty table-lands of the cordillera of the Andes produce sufficient maize, wheat, and sugar for home consumption; but their chief exportable wealth is to be found in the vast flocks of sheep and alpacas which find pasture on those grassy uplands, and in the veins and washings of silver and gold. About 400,000_l._ worth of wool is annually exported, of which 5,017,100 lbs., valued at 287,339_l._, were embarked from the port of Islay in 1859, and 4,214,000 lbs. in 1860. The export of specie amounted to about 200,000_l._ in 1859, of which 34,705_l._ were exported from Islay, and 32,000_l._ from Arica. But of this a portion is in coined money and _chafalonia_, or old plate.
Besides the raising of the various valuable products suitable to the coast valleys and the _sierra_, the vast forests to the eastward of the Andes, and the great fluvial highways which flow through them to the Atlantic, offer an inexhaustible field for Peruvian enterprise. The incredible resources of this portion of Peru are only now beginning to be fully appreciated, though ten, and even twenty years ago, there were evident symptoms of the first early pulsations of life and commerce on the mighty river Amazons and its tributaries. Petty traders, the pioneers of a stirring future, were then busy, each in his little traffic; canoes laden with hammocks, hats, wax, sarsaparilla, copaiba, and other products of the forest, found their way to Para at the mouth of the Amazons, and returned with European manufactured goods.
But of late years an immense stride in advance has been taken; and in 1857 a Brazilian company was working eight steamers on the Amazons and its tributaries, conveying passengers, and bearing up and down a ceaseless ebb and flow of commerce. Measures were adopted in 1853 to connect the Brazilian line of steamers with a Peruvian line navigating the upper waters, and two small steam-vessels were sent out from New York for the purpose, called the "Tirado" and "Huallaga." The revolution of 1854 temporarily put a stop to these efforts, and the two steamers were left to rot at Nauta, 2300 miles up the Amazons. Latterly, however, steps have again been taken to supply the Peruvian tributaries of the Amazons with steam navigation, and thereby to encourage settlement, attract commerce, and thus develop the incalculable wealth of Peru's Amazonian provinces.