File No. 823.124/11.

The Acting Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Treasury.

Sir: With reference to previous correspondence on the subject of a sanitation expert for Iquitos, I am glad to inform you that a telegram received from the American Minister at Lima states that the President accepts the proposition of Assistant Surgeon G. M. Converse, of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, adding that should the work at Iquitos be completed in less than two years the remaining time may be employed at some other point or points in Peru. The President of Peru desires Doctor Converse to proceed at once to Iquitos via the Amazon River and says he will find the necessary papers at Iquitos upon his arrival there.

In its telegram to the Minister at Lima the Department, after recommending Doctor Converse, said that he was willing to accept [Page 1284] the position offered on the following terms: salary at one hundred pounds per month, term of office to be no less than two years, and traveling expenses to and from Iquitos and traveling expenses while engaged in this sanitary work to be paid by Peru. I insert this so that Doctor Converse may know what the President of Peru means when he says that he accepts the proposition and that if the work is completed in less than two years the remaining time may be employed elsewhere in Peru.

Please be so kind as to let me know when Doctor Converse will start and when he should arrive at Iquitos so that the Department may inform the Legation at Lima.

I have [etc.]

Huntington Wilson.