The sunset blazes through the fissures and shoots shafts of opalescent light under the great stone bridges toward the mountainside of the candelabrum, veiled in a hazy shimmer. Defiantly gorgeous it is, all but the young moon which nestles among rushing scarlet and black clouds. A giant candelabrum, at least four hundred feet long, is hollowed deep in the rock of the sheer volcanic headland above the sea. Its trenches do not fill with drifting sand, though the natives of Pisco make periodic pilgrimages across the bay, just to be sure. Some think it is a sign of royalty, a flaunt of the Incas, or the boundary-mark of a conquered kingdom. Some say it was a warning made by the Spaniards after Pisco was sacked by English freebooters in the seventeenth century, for though now over a mile inland, it was then a coast town. Such is the equilibrium of the Peruvian coast! Others call it “the three crosses,” the{21} life-penance many years ago of a Franciscan friar named Guatemala.

Iwọoorun n tan nipasẹ awọn fissures ati awọn ọpa ti ina opalescent labẹ awọn afara okuta nla si ẹba oke ti candelabrum, ti o ni ibori ni didan didan. O jẹ ẹwa nla, gbogbo rẹ ayafi oṣupa ọdọ ti o wa larin awọ pupa ti n sare ati awọn awọsanma dudu. Candelabrum nla kan, o kere ju irinwo ẹsẹ ni gigun, ti wa ni iho jinlẹ ninu apata ti oke oke onina loke okun. Awọn iho rẹ ko kun fun iyanrin ti n lọ kiri, botilẹjẹpe awọn abinibi ti Pisco ṣe awọn irin-ajo igbakọọkan kọja okun, o kan lati rii daju. Àwọn kan rò pé ó jẹ́ àmì ìṣàkóso ọba, ìrísí àwọn ará Inca, tàbí àmì ààlà ìjọba tí a ṣẹ́gun. Diẹ ninu awọn sọ pe o jẹ ikilọ ti awọn ara ilu Sipaani ṣe lẹhin ti Pisco ti parẹ nipasẹ awọn freebooters Gẹẹsi ni ọrundun kẹtadinlogun, fun botilẹjẹpe bayi ju maili kan ni ilẹ, lẹhinna o jẹ ilu eti okun. Iru iwọntunwọnsi ti etikun Peruvian! Awọn miiran pe e ni “agbelebu mẹtẹẹta,”{21} ironupiwada igbesi-aye ni ọpọlọpọ ọdun sẹyin ti akọrin Franciscan kan ti a npè ni Guatemala.