LIMA. THE CAPITAL OF PERU.
ALTHOUGH the glory of Lima has long since faded, it is easy to see how grand and beautiful the place was in the days of its ancient prosperity, when it was called “The City of the Kings.” Few places possess such historical or romantic interest as this old vice-regal, bigoted, corrupt, licentious capital of Peru, the second city founded by the Spaniards in South America, and the seat of Spanish power for more than three centuries. Pizarro selected the location, and founded the city on the 6th of January, 1535, that being the anniversary of the manifestation of the Saviour to the wise men, the Magi. The pious old cutthroat called it “The City of the Kings”—Ciudad de los Reyes. The Emperor gave the infant capital a coat of arms of his own design, being three golden crowns upon an azure field, with a star above them. But the name Lima, which was an Inca term to denote the presence of an oracle near where the city stood, was at once applied to the place by the natives, and being so much easier to pronounce, soon forced itself into common usage in spite of Pizarro and the King, and is now alone recognized.
The population of Lima is about one hundred and twenty-five thousand. It has been much larger, for during the last twelve years war and decay have been the rule, and peace and growth the exception. Before that time there had been quite a “boom,” owing to the energy of Henry Meiggs, the California fugitive, and to the introduction of railroads; but the devastation of foreign invaders and the havoc of domestic revolutionists have made Lima only a pitiful shadow of its former greatness.
LIMA AND ITS ENVIRONS.
The churches and convents and monasteries of Lima are the finest and most expensive in America, while the architecture of private structures surpasses that of any other Spanish-American city except Santiago. The old palace of Pizarro, which was erected by him when the city was founded, and in which he was assassinated, is still used for the offices of the Government; while the Senate occupies the council-chamber of the old Inquisition building, which is famous for its ceiling of carved work, and infamous for the cruel and bloody work that has been done within its walls. This ceiling was imported from Spain in the year 1560, and was carved by the monks of the mother-country as a gift to the Inquisition council of the new. Here sat the most extensive and important dependency of the Church of Rome, extending its jurisdiction over the whole of the New World, roasting heretics upon live coals or stretching them upon the rack, long after the Inquisition in Europe had ceased to exist. The torture-room, which adjoined the council-chamber, is now a retiring-room for the Senate, while the dark pockets in the walls, in which heretics were sealed up until they were smothered, are used as closets and wardrobes.
The Chamber of Deputies occupies the ancient home of the College of St. Marcas, the oldest institution of learning in America, founded by the Society of Jesus in 1551, sixty-nine years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
The San Franciscan convent and church are two of the most extensive structures in the whole of America, and cost as much as the Capitol at Washington, if not more. The whole interior is covered with the most beautiful tiles, which have stood the test of three centuries, and still surpass the best that modern genius can produce. These tiles are celebrated all over Europe, not only for the enormous quantity of them—for they cover many acres of surface—but for the beauty of their design and perfect finish. In this convent is shown the bed on which St. Francis died, the sack-cloth robe that he wore, his sandals, his rosary, and the coffin in which his body was taken to Rome. The monk who acted as our cicerone insisted that the founder of his order died in the room in which these relics were, and pointed out the exact spot where he breathed his last; but a brief cross-examination brought him up to an explanation that he meant that this room was modelled upon the one in which St. Francis died.
Lima did produce a saint, however—Santa Rosa, a woman who was famous for her wealth, her beauty, her self-abnegation, and her devotion to the Church, and was canonized by Pope Clement X. in 1671. Her remains lie in the Church of Santo Domingo, and an extensive convent has been erected in her honor. She was the only American ever canonized, and the fact that a Peruvian received this exclusive honor has made her not only the patron saint, but one of the great figures in the history of the Catholic Church on this continent. The anniversary of her birth is always celebrated throughout South America, and the third centennial, which occurred in April, 1886, was the occasion of one of the grandest demonstrations ever seen on the coast of the South Pacific.
A PERUVIAN INTERIOR.
Six months before, the most reverend archbishop at Lima, the dean of the Catholic hierarchy in Spanish America, issued an eloquent pastoral, calling upon his flock to unite with him in honoring the memory of Santa Rosa, the only American saint and the patroness of two continents. The invitation was generously responded to. The Government immediately made as liberal an appropriation of money as was possible in the depleted condition of the treasury; private citizens and corporations contributed to the funds, and a commission of distinguished persons was appointed to form a programme of the festivities. A cordial invitation was sent by the archbishop to the principal religious dignitaries in South and Central America and Mexico to visit Lima on this memorable occasion, and to accept the national hospitality.
On the 20th the ceremonies were commenced. The body of Santa Rosa was taken from its resting-place in the Church of Santo Domingo, and borne in solemn procession to the church erected in her honor. The day was declared a holiday. From every housetop flags and streamers were floating; the different legations and consulates hoisted their national emblems; flowers were strewn in the streets through which the cortege was to pass; and from the windows and balconies hung superb drapery of silk and velvet. The remains of the saint, deposited in a beautifully ornamented urn, were carried on the shoulders of the Dominican monks, and the mayor and municipality of the city, with the few remaining survivors of the War of Independence, acted as the guard of honor. The municipal and private schools of both sexes followed, the little girls charmingly dressed in white and blue, the favorite colors of Santa Rosa, and with garlands of roses in their hands. Along the route the different fire brigades had erected artistic arches from their ladders and apparatus, and as the procession passed, white doves were loosened from their fastenings, and flew gracefully amid the banners and canopies overhanging the streets. In some of the streets traversed carpets were laid down and covered with roses. Arriving at the Church of Santa Rosa of the Fathers, the precious urn was deposited on the altar, surrounded by a dazzling blaze of light, and was watched over during the night by a special guard of honor.
The next day the same ceremony was repeated, the object being to carry the remains of the saint to those places with which her life was most intimately associated. Thus the Convent of Santa Catalina, the Church of Santa Rosa of the Mine—establishments founded by the intercession of the Rose of Peru—were visited, and the final ceremonies were performed at the cathedral. The interior of the cathedral, larger than the cathedral in New York, was handsomely decorated with hangings of scarlet velvet bound with gold; the superb altar, with its pillars cased in silver, covered with lights and flowers; and the venerable archbishop, with his numerous retinue of monsignori, canons, and friars, officiated at the solemn high-mass, with the votive offering especially permitted by the Holy Father, in reply to a request from the Lima ecclesiastics.
The square without was filled by troops from the citadel of Santa Catalina, national salutes were fired, and all Lima in gala dress was in the streets. The Ministers of State, the Justices of the Supreme and Superior courts, and all of the principal authorities, joined in the procession, which, after the conclusion of the ceremony at the cathedral, proceeded to Santo Domingo to deposit the remains underneath the grand altar, where for nearly three centuries they have rested.
Santa Rosa was born at Lima in the year 1586. She was of humble parents, her father being a matchlock man in the escort of the viceroy, and her mother a woman of the lower class. She was christened under the name of Isabel, but while yet an infant the beautiful color appearing on her cheeks caused her to be called Rosa. From her earliest years she manifested a deep religious spirit, and although poor in the world’s goods, her extraordinary charity and self-sacrifice for the poor and sick brought her into the notice of the people. Refusing all the inducements and invitations to enter upon a monastic life, she steadily dedicated her efforts towards doing good. Many miraculous cures are attributed to her. She died in 1617. Shortly after her death the authorities of Lima petitioned the archbishop that the necessary investigation be initiated to establish her sanctity, and when the proofs were obtained they were laid before Pope Urban VIII. at Rome, who in 1625 sent a commission to Lima to conclude the investigation. After due consideration of the facts presented to the Holy College at Rome, Pope Clement IX., in 1668, ordered the canonization of Rosa under the title of St. Rosa of Lima.
In Lima, for a population of about one hundred and twenty thousand, there are one hundred and twenty-six Catholic churches and twelve monasteries and convents; and the same religious privileges extend all over Peru. There are two Protestant churches in the republic. One of them is in Lima, and is usually without a pastor, being of the Church of England school, and supported by the English-speaking residents; the other is at Callao, and an active young Protestant, Rev. Mr. Thompson, formerly of Philadelphia, is its pastor. The church is unsectarian, and is largely sustained by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, a British corporation which has a monopoly of commerce on the west coast, and keeps its headquarters at Callao. No attempt at Protestant missionary work has ever been made in Peru, although Mr. Thompson says the field is very inviting. His time is spent mostly among the sailors who haunt Callao by the hundreds, and in looking after the English-speaking congregation under his charge. There is no Sunday in Peru. The shops are open on that day as usual, and in the afternoon bull-fights, cock-fights, and similar entertainments are always held. The women invariably go to mass in the morning, and represent the entire family, as very few men are ever seen in the churches. Under President Prado, from 1869 to 1876, the Catholic Church was subjected to the same sort of treatment it has received in the other republics, but his successors were more hospitable towards the priests, and the Church is regaining much of its ancient influence. Some of the confiscated monasteries have been restored, and a bishop presides over the lower branch of the national legislature, having been elected by a popular vote in one of the interior cities. He is a jolly-looking old padre, rosy and rotund, and has not the appearance of suffering much mortification of the flesh.
The bones of Pizarro, the Indian butcher, lie in the crypt of the grand cathedral which he built in 1540, and which is still the most imposing ecclesiastical edifice in all America. It is said to have cost nine million dollars; and that amount may have been spent upon it, but the money came from the old Inca temples, which were robbed of their gold and silver ornaments and stripped of their carved timbers by the Spaniards. The latter never produced anything in Peru by their own efforts. They simply expended their plunder for the benefit of themselves and the Church. Of the ninety millions of dollars in silver and gold which Pizarro is said to have realized from his evangelical work among the Indians, the King of Spain got one-fifth and the Church even a larger share, so that it could afford to build cathedrals and convents as fine as those of Europe, and endow them with fabulous wealth. Prescott says that from a single Inca temple Pizarro took 24,800 pounds of gold and 82,000 pounds of silver. One of his lieutenants asked for the nails which supported the ornaments in this temple, and got 22,000 ounces of silver. It was this money that erected the magnificent churches which Lima has to-day, and which made the capital of the New World the most luxurious and profligate known to history.
Later, the marvellous products of the mines of Potosi and Cerro de Pasco added to the fabulous wealth of Peru. In 1661 La Palata, the viceroy, rode from the palace to the cathedral on a horse every hair of whose mane and tail was strung with pearls, whose hoofs were shod with shoes of solid gold, and whose path was paved with ingots of solid silver. It was during this time that the galleons from the East, “from far Cathay,” laden with gems and silks and spices, went to Callao to exchange them for the products of Potosi and Pasco; while, out of sight, on the verge of the horizon, Sir Francis Drake and the bold John Hawkins and other buccaneers lay-to in their swift-sailing cruisers to snatch the
GRAND PLAZA, LIMA.
treasure-ships as they came around the island of San Lorenzo, and carry home the booty to lay it at the feet of Elizabeth, the virgin queen of England.
But all this grandeur is gone, and the last traces of it are now to be found in the pawn-shops of Lima, which are full of rare old silver, paintings, china, and lace. The people are so poor that they are compelled to sell their jewels to get bread and meat. The stagnation of business has deprived them of their ordinary incomes from real estate, and the war has taken off the laborers, so that the sugar haciendas and the mills are idle. I met people whose incomes were formerly hundreds of thousands of dollars, from rentals and interest on investments, who are now compelled to patronize the pawn-shops, because their tenants cannot pay rent and their investments no longer produce a profit. The paper-money of the country is as valueless as the Confederate bills were during our civil war. One issue, the Incas, is entirely worthless. The Government tried to enforce its circulation by locking up men who refused to accept it as legal tender; but the merchants marked up the prices of their goods, and charged two thousand dollars a yard for calico, when the Treasury surrendered, and issued another loan which is almost as bad as the first. You give a twenty-dollar bill to your bootblack and two hundred and fifty dollars an hour for a hack. It costs about six hundred dollars a day for board at the hotel, and fifty dollars for a bunch of cigarettes.
House-owners who have leased their property for a term of years without specifying in what sort of money the rent shall be paid are compelled to accept this worthless paper at par. I met a lady whose income from rents ten years ago was more than a thousand dollars a week in gold, but now it is only the same amount in paper—scarcely enough to pay the servants—and she is selling her bric-à-brac to live. The haciendas and farms are no longer tilled, because for several years past all the laborers have been pressed into the army; and the sugar plantations are useless, for the machinery by which they were operated was destroyed by the Chilians during the recent war.
A PERUVIAN CHAMBER.
The devastation which the Chilian army created was almost equal to that caused by Pizarro when he invaded the homes of the peaceful Incas. The lines of march of the Chilians are shown by the complete destruction of everything they could break down or burn. Whole cities, villages, farms, factories, were swept away by a malicious desire to do as much injury as possible, regardless of the rights of non-combatants, and in violation of all the laws of civilized war. The beautiful winter resorts of Peru, Milleflores (its Newport) and Chorillos (its Long Branch), the residence-places of the wealthy people and the haunts of those who sought rest—where there were palaces as beautiful as those of Paris, and parks like the legendary gardens of Babylon—were entirely destroyed, not by accident, but by dynamite and other explosives. Exquisite marble statues now lie in fragments upon the ground, artistic fountains were shattered, trees were girdled, irrigating ditches destroyed, and every possible vandalism was committed, not only on the property of Peruvians, but upon that of foreigners, whose claims for damages will amount to more than Chili can ever pay.
The magnificent trees in the parks, along the boulevards, and even in the botanical garden, were cut down for fuel by the soldiers of Chili; the entire museum of Peruvian curiosities, one of the largest and finest in the world, was packed up and shipped to Santiago; the books in the National Library were thrown into sacks and sent after the museum, and historical paintings were cut from their frames as private plunder. The greatest painting of Peru—Marini’s “Burial of Atahualpa, the last of the Incas”—was stolen from the wall where it hung, but the protests of the diplomatic corps induced the Chilians to return it. The churches and private houses were stripped in a similar manner, and what could not be stolen was burned. Nothing was sacred in the eyes of these modern vandals, whose purpose was to deprive the Peruvians of everything they prized.
The evidence of a refined taste in art and music is everywhere apparent in Peru. There is scarcely a home without a piano, and the city of Lima once rivalled Madrid in its treasures of art. There remain but two notable statues—that of Columbus, in marble, representing him in the act of handing a crucifix to an Indian girl; and that of Bolivar the Liberator, upon a rearing horse, in bronze (like the statue of Jackson in Washington), which stands in front of the old Inquisition building, on the spot where heretics were burned two hundred years ago. The famous arch over the old bridge, which was erected in 1610, has been destroyed, and many other artistic ornaments of the city which have been written of again and again are gone.
INTERIOR OF A LIMA DWELLING.
The President occupies the former residence of Henry Meiggs, the Californian, who did so much for Peru. It is a magnificent structure, erected and furnished when money had no value to the owner; but, like everything else in Lima, it is only a relic of its original beauty, and as a measure of economy a corner of the lower floor is rented for a grocery.
Those who have travelled everywhere say that the women of Lima are the most beautiful in the world. There is something about the climate of the country, where rain never falls,
A PERUVIAN PALACE.
and where decay is almost unknown, that gives them a brilliancy of complexion that women of other lands do not possess. Perhaps their national costume does much to heighten their beauty, for any woman not positively ugly would look well in the embroidered manta that the ladies of Lima always wear. This manta is a shawl of black China crape, and the amount of silk embroidery upon it indicates the wealth of the wearer. Some of them are extremely beautiful and cost as much as five hundred dollars; but ordinary mantas, such as the majority wear, can be bought for fifteen or twenty dollars in Peruvian money, which is worth twenty-five per cent. less than American gold. A very common article of dyed cotton is imported from England at a cost of three or four dollars, for the use of the negro and Indian women. The manta is worn by every woman, regardless of her rank or wealth, whenever she appears on the street; but in their homes, at the opera, and when they go out to afternoon receptions or evening balls, the ladies adopt the Parisian styles, and dress with a great deal of taste.
A PERUVIAN BELLE.
The manta is square in shape and about two yards in size. It is folded so as to be triangular, and the centre of the fold is placed upon the forehead, where there is usually a bit of lace that hangs down to the eyes. One end of the manta falls down the front of the dress as far as the knee, while the other is thrown around the shoulders and fastened at the breast with an ornamental pin. Thus, usually only the face is shown; and when a maiden or a matron wishes to disguise herself, she draws the shawl up so as to cover her mouth and nose, and permit only her great black, roguish eyes to be seen. And such eyes! Always large, age never seems to dim them, and no degree of self-discipline can rob them of or subdue their coquettish appearance. The poet who wrote
“Of that dark queen
For whose mere smile a world was bartered,”
described a Lima lady. The manta is usually drawn so closely about the figure as to show its outlines with the most conspicuous distinctness, and the young women of Lima are as famous for their beauty of form as for their beauty of face.
WATCHING THE PROCESSION.
They are always slender, generally short of stature, and as graceful as sylphs; but they lose their beauty of figure with maternity, and one seldom finds a married woman more than thirty or thirty-five years of age, if she is the mother of children, who retains the statuesque grace of maidenhood. They ripen early, reach their prime at sixteen or seventeen, and generally marry at that age. At twenty-five they are fat, but they never lose the radiance of their eyes or their complexion. Their stoutness comes from the lack of exercise and the excessive use of sweetmeats, for they spend their lives in rocking-chairs, munching dulces, as they call confectionery.
There is a romantic story about the manta which explains the reason that it is always black. The Peruvian women never wear colors in the street, and this custom is observed by the aristocracy as well as by the peasantry; nor do they ever wear bonnets except at an opera, and there very seldom. The same is true of the women of Ecuador and Chili, although in the city of Valparaiso, which is the most modern in its customs and in the style of living of any place on the west coast, the use of the manta is gradually dying out, and it is worn only at church. No woman with a bonnet on will be admitted to any Catholic church on the west coast. Sometimes strangers wear them in, but the sextons and ushers invariably ask that they be removed. Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren, of Washington, in her book called “South Sea Sketches,” relates that she was ordered out of a church because she was wearing a bonnet, and misunderstanding what was said to her, took no notice of the command until quite a commotion was raised, when some lady explained its cause. A bonnet is called a gorra in Spanish, and Mrs. Dahlgren was very much amused at its similarity to the familiar Irish ejaculation.
It is said that the custom of wearing the manta originated among the Incas, but that they wore colors until the assassination of Atahualpa, their king, by the Spaniards under Pizarro. Then every woman in the great empire, which stretched from the Isthmus of Panama to the Strait of Magellan, abandoned colors and put on a black manta, and it has since been worn as perpetual mourning for “the last of the Incas.” There is probably some truth in this story, for in the graves of the Incas that have been destroyed by scientific resurrectionists, have been found female mummies with mantas of brilliant colors wrapped around them, and fastened
THE DAUGHTER OF THE INCAS.
with pins very much like those worn at the present day. It is also true that the natives, the peons of Peru and Ecuador, the descendants of the Incas, never wear anything except black, and still celebrate with impressive and appropriate ceremonies the anniversary of the day on which Atahualpa was strangled. In Chili the custom has died out, for the Inca empire was never able to sustain itself there against the savage Araucanian tribes of Indians who inhabited the southern range of the Andes.
The Inca women in Peru and Ecuador are not at all pretty. They are dwarfish in stature, broad across the shoulders, and resemble in feature the squaws of the North American tribes, except that they have the almond-shaped eyes of the Mongolians; and it is probably true, as urged by the antiquarians, that the Incas were of the same origin as the Chinese, for their customs, their adeptness at all sorts of ingenious work, and their manner of living bear a striking resemblance to those of the interior provinces of the Chinese empire. The Incas have had their blood diluted by intermarriage with the lower grades of the Spanish race, and it is very difficult to find pure natives now. The people of the mixed race are called cholos.
It is the transplanted Spanish rose, the pure Castilian type, that blooms with the greatest beauty in the gardens of Peru. The climate has refined it, and has clarified the dark olive tint that is found in Castile. The greatest beauties in Lima are the descendants of the oldest families—those of the longest residence in the country—and their loveliness appears not only to have been transmitted from generation to generation, but to have been enhanced thereby. This is true not alone of the aristocrats, for some of the loveliest girls belong to the humbler families, and are found in the tenement-houses, clothed in the shabbiest garments, which serve only to heighten their loveliness, and to make them fair prey for the wolves that prowl around in Lima as they do everywhere else. The fate of these girls, if described, would make a chapter more horrible to contemplate than the disclosures recently made in London. Their beauty is a fatal gift, and their poverty and ignorance make them an easy prey to the tempter. Seldom are they allowed to remain at home after the age of fourteen or fifteen, when they become the mistresses of the haughty dons. But the social laws of Spanish America are so liberal that these women are treated much better than in lands of higher civilization, for it is not only expected that every
RUINS OF THE WAR.
man who can support a mistress will do so, but his reputation will suffer among his fellows if he does not.
Just now the country is prostrated, the effect of a long series of wars during which it was robbed of everything that the army of Chili could carry away; so that there is very little gayety and not much display of dress. But the people retain the relics of their former prosperity, and the ladies of the present generation have inherited the treasures their mothers bought and wore at the time when money was so plenty. Much of this finery—the jewels and laces—has gone to the pawnbrokers, and many of the most aristocratic families in the republic are now living upon its proceeds. The women are, like the French, very skilful in dress-making, and everything they wear is becoming. They imitate the Parisian styles with the greatest ingenuity, and have remarkable taste in making over old clothes.
The pawnshops are full of beautiful things. Here are toilet sets of solid silver, beautifully chased, including the meaner vessels of the bedroom, which betoken the luxury and extravagance of an age when the mines of the Andes were pouring out silver, and the guano-beds of the sea were being turned into gold. Similar reminiscences of ancient glory can be seen to-day in the toilets of the ladies, in the heirlooms which they wear on their wrists, on their breasts, and in their ears, as well as in the rich, old-fashioned fabrics which their grandmothers wore before them, made in the days when people did not intend things to wear out.
It is very difficult to secure admission to the aristocratic circles of Peru. They are as exclusive as any such circle in the world, and social laws are rigid. But an American who goes to Lima with good letters of introduction will be received with cordial hospitality, and be admitted to circles which the resident, however rich and respectable, can never enter. American naval officers are especially welcome, and the Peruvian belles are as strongly attracted by the glitter of brass buttons as are their sisters in the United States. Since the war there have been few public balls and few receptions, as the people are living from hand to mouth, with little hope to brighten the commercial horizon; but when you bring a letter to a Peruvian gentleman, his house and all his belongings “are at your disposition, señor,” and he is offended unless you accept his hospitality, although you may be aware that he has to pawn some heirloom to pay for the dinner he gives you.
INTERIOR OF THE ORDINARY SORT OF HOUSE.
The ancient social restrictions which make it a breach of decorum for a gentleman to meet a lady alone until after marriage, still exist in Peru. If you call at the residence of Señor Bustamente you must ask for him, and if he is not at home you may leave your compliments for the ladies of the family, but under no circumstances ask to see them. If he is
A VERY COMMON SPECTACLE.
at home your welcome will be cordial, and you will be asked to a seat upon the sofa, which is always reserved for guests, and is the place of honor. You will be entertained by him until the ladies appear one by one, for they always stop to dress. No Spanish-American lady is ever ready to receive a caller. The lady of the house and her daughters will chat with you about the opera and the bull-fight and the latest scandal, and will perform brilliantly upon the piano, but beyond that her powers of entertainment do not go. If you can get Señorita Dolores over in the corner—and she will be delighted with a tête-à-tête—you will find that she knows nothing whatever about the world beyond her own limited circle of acquaintance. She has not the vaguest idea of the United States, and does not know whether Paris is in America, or New York in England. She will look at you with her great eyes with the most childish innocence, and ask if the bullfights in New York are as exciting as those of Lima, and if there is as agile a picador in the States as Señor Rubio. When you tell her that bull-fighting is not recognized as a legitimate amusement in New York, she will exclaim “Santa Maria!” and ask what entertainment you have when the opera-house is closed. Then, when you say that eight or ten theatres are always open, she will cry out to papa across the room to take her to New York by the next steamer.
The señorita got her education at a convent, has learned to embroider, to play the piano, to dance, and has committed to memory the lives of the saints; and there her accomplishments end. She is so beautiful that you are sorry you explored her mind; you feel guilty of having exposed her ignorance; you wish that you could simply sit and look at her, a picture of loveliness, forever; but when you ask her to dance, and she moves away with you in a waltz or mazourka, you discover that however empty her head may be, the education of her feet has not been neglected. No one who has ever waltzed with a Peruvian girl will wish for another partner. She is simply animated gracefulness, and her endurance is remarkable. She clings a little closer than our girls would consider consistent with propriety, and dances with an abandon that would call out a remonstrance from a watchful mamma in the States. She gives her whole mind and soul to it, regardless of consequences, and sighs when the music ceases, as if there were nothing more in life to enjoy.
A PERUVIAN MILK-PEDDLER.
The air and light of Lima are very favorable for photography, and the city has galleries as fine as any in New York. The reception-rooms, corridors, show-windows, and even the ceilings, are lined with portraits of belles of the town, which are on sale not only there but at the news-stands and printshops. In Havana and Venezuela, to have the photograph of a young lady is equivalent to the announcement of an engagement, but in Peru it signifies nothing. You can buy the portraits of your neighbors’ daughters anywhere in town, and their popularity is estimated by the number sold. Lima girls, with their great black eyes and shapely figures, make fine subjects for a photographer, and strangers usually take home collections of the pictures of beauties. The photograph dealers have their portraits put up in covers ready for the market, like views of Niagara Falls or Coney Island.
Milk is peddled about Lima by women, who sit astride a horse or a mule, with a big can hanging on either side of the saddle. When they ride up to a door-way they give a peculiar shrill scream, which the servants within recognize.
Most of the embroidery and other similar work in Lima is done by the nuns, who are very expert at it. They make the finest sort of lace, embroider towels, napkins, handkerchiefs, and skirt-fronts for dresses on silk and velvet. At some of the shops you can buy dress patterns; that is, skirt-fronts, sleeves, collar, cuffs, belt, etc., embroidered in the finest possible style, and ready to make up. It is one of the ancient customs handed down from the days of the viceroys. The nuns make most of the confectionery sold in the city, moulding the unrefined sugar into artistic shapes, coloring it to imitate nature, and flavoring it to suit the palate.
The fashionable entertainment in Peru is bull-baiting. The bull is not killed, as in Spain and Mexico and other countries, and no horses are slaughtered in the ring. The animal is simply teased and tortured to make a Liman holiday. The young men of the city do the baiting, and it is regarded as a very high-toned sort of athletic sport, like polo at Newport. The young ladies take darts made of tin, decorate them with ribboned lace and rosettes, and give them to their lovers to stick into the hide of the bull. The great feat is to cast these darts so as to strike the bull in the fore-shoulder or in the face, and in order to do it he who throws them must stand before the animal’s horns. Active young fellows perform very dexterously, but it takes nerve and agility, and at times fair señoritas have seen their lovers badly gored.
Another form of entertainment is what is called Buena Noche, or “Good Night.” Then the band plays in the principal plaza, fireworks are exploded at the expense of the shopkeepers and saloon-men, whose profits are increased,
MINDLESS OF CARE.
hucksters surround the place with tables, selling cakes, candies, ice-cream, and peanuts, and all the populace come out to gossip and flirt. These festivals furnish about the only opportunity for Vilkins to get a word alone with his Dinah, for on a “Buena Noche” he can offer her his arm, and promenade up and down the plaza, murmuring soft nothings in her ear as long as she will hear them, or until the great bell of San Pedro strikes midnight, when there are a hustle and a bustle, and everybody goes home.
Some of the largest and finest stores in Lima are owned and managed by Chinese merchants, who have the monopoly of the trade in mantas and silk dress-goods. Italians usually keep the bodegas and eating-houses. There are half a dozen large American mercantile establishments, and the house of Grace Brothers, of which Mr. William R. Grace, ex-mayor of New York, is the head, practically monopolizes the foreign trade of Peru. Much of the business in the interior is done by itinerant peddlers, who carry their wares on their backs, and tramp over the whole continent from the Isthmus to Patagonia. There is also a class of itinerant doctors of Indian blood, called collahuayas, who travel on foot from Bogota, in Colombia, to Buenos Ayres, carrying the news from place to place, and practising a sort of voodoo system over the sick. They are well known throughout the country, and exercise a remarkable influence among the natives, who entertain them as guests of distinction wherever they go.
All the benevolent institutions of Lima are supported by a “Sociedad de Beneficencia,” an organization of citizens who raise money by private subscriptions, and by bull-fights, cock-fights, and lotteries. The Penitentiary is a noble building, erected on the plan of the Philadelphia House of Correction, by a Philadelphia architect, the prisoners in which are engaged in making uniforms, shoes, and other equipments for the army. Capital punishment is abolished in Peru, but political offenders are tried by military courts, and shot when found guilty of conspiracy or treason. There are in the prison one hundred and thirty-five unhanged murderers serving out life sentences.
There are four daily newspapers in Lima, in which are published cablegrams from all parts of the world. They are edited with ability, but their writers indulge in the grandiose, florid style that sounds very funny to the plain-spoken American. One of the editors was sent to jail and fined five hundred dollars, besides having his paper suppressed, for making some reflections upon the acts of Congress; but as soon as he got out of prison he started another paper, and he is now blazing away in the most fearless manner, just as if the penitentiary were not half empty and the Government in need of convict labor. The papers make their appearance on the street about ten o’clock at night, and are cried by newsboys, who make as much racket as our own. In the morning carriers deliver copies to regular subscribers. Advertising patronage seems to be pretty good in Lima, for the newspapers have about two pages of display “ads.” to every one of reading matter; but they do not get good rates, and times are so hard that the merchants give very little cash, but require the editors to “trade it out” in the country fashion. Advertising is always an index to commerce, and the condition of Peru is illustrated by the fact that almost every merchant in Lima is selling out at cost—gran realization, they call it. Credit is not given at the stores except to the Government, and that is compulsory. The foreign merchants will not sell to the authorities except for cash, and the native merchants do not want to, for only in one instance in a hundred are they ever paid.
All the houses in Lima are built on the earthquake plan—either of great thick walls of adobe, or mere shacks of bamboo reeds, lashed together by thongs of rawhide, and plastered within and without with thick layers of mud. This style of architecture will answer in a country where it never rains, and where cyclones never come, but if a good pour should fall in Lima, much of the town would be washed into the river Rimac and carried out to sea. There is never more than one entrance to a house, and that is protected first by a great iron grating, and then by solid doors. The windows are covered with bars. This was done as a precaution against bandits in early times, and against revolutionists in later days; and a very essential precaution it has been, for during the time of the viceroy bands of robbers came down from the mountains, and hordes of pirates from the sea. Through the single entrance passes every one who comes and goes—the butcher, the baker, the priest who comes to shrive the dying, and the young man to whom Mercedes is engaged.
The roofs of the dwellings are always perfectly flat, and among the common people are used as barn-yards and henneries. In many cases a cow spends all her days on the roof of her owner’s residence, being taken up when a calf, and taken down at the end of life as fresh beef. In the mean time she is fed on alfalfa, and the slops from the kitchen. Chicken-coops are still more common on the roofs of dwellings, and in the thickly populated portions of the town your neighbors’ cocks waken you at daylight with reminders of St. Peter.
Lima is a poor place to sell umbrellas, for along the coast from the northern boundary of Peru, far south-west to the end of the Chilian desert, rain never falls. There is a disagreeable, dismal, sticky, rheumatic dew, however, which is worse than a shower; for during the winter season, beginning in April and ending in October, it penetrates the thickest clothing, and gives one the sensation described by Mantilini as “demnition moist.” The thermometer is pretty regular, however, and ranges from sixty to eighty degrees Fahrenheit during the year, January being the hottest month, and July the coolest. Pulmonary complaints are unknown, but fevers are very common, and the mortality among infants is pitiable. At Callao yellow-fever is usually endemic, and there are three or four deaths every week among the marine population, as the sanitary regulations are not well enforced, and the city is dirty.
The chamber occupied by the Peruvian House of Deputies is a long, narrow apartment in what was formerly the University of St. Mark, the oldest institution of learning in America, having been founded in 1551, and confiscated by the Government from the Church in 1869. The spectators sit in a very high, narrow gallery over the heads of the representatives, who are arranged in two rows of chairs, without desks, around the three walls of the chamber, the presiding officer and clerks having the fourth wall at their back. The centre of the room is occupied by a long table, at one end of which sits the presiding officer, who is a priest (with an appearance of having lived on the fat of the land), and at the other end a crucifix is placed, upon which the members of Congress are sworn to support the Constitution. When a formal speech is made, the orator stands upon a platform, with a desk or table before him, and a running debate is participated in by members from their chairs.
The Senate Chamber is in the old Inquisition building, just across the Plaza de Bolivar, in which one hundred heretics are said to have been burned to death, and thousands publicly scourged.
The people of Peru entertain the most cordial sentiments towards the United States, which is the more remarkable because of the feeling prevalent in all classes that the administration of President Garfield was the cause of many of the losses and much of the misery which they suffered during the war with Chili. They cannot be convinced that they were not trifled with and betrayed at the most critical period of their history, and that Mr. Blaine was not responsible. Without entering into the controversy as to whether Mr. Blaine authorized General Hurlbut to interfere, or whether General Hurlbut’s action was voluntary, it is nevertheless true that the moment he stepped in Chili held back, and the moment he withdrew she renewed the devastation of her sister republic with a hundred-fold more energy than before. If our Government had taken the same stand in the war between Chili and Peru that she occupied regarding the troubles in the Central American States, thousands of lives, property worth millions of dollars, and the richest resources of Peru might have been saved. Mr. Blaine’s original attitude was that the
VIEW OF CUZCO AND THE NEVADO ASUNGATA FROM THE BROW OF THE SACSAHUAMAN.
United States would not tolerate the dismemberment of Peru, and that was clearly and plainly announced, with a wholesome effect. All at once the protest was withdrawn, without warning, without any premonition, and then, with a knife at her throat and a revolver at her heart, Peru consented to surrender the coveted provinces.
General Hurlbut had been condemned for acting imprudently, for getting our Government into a scrape without excuse, for committing it to a policy that was not tenable; but no one can visit Peru and see the results of the war without respecting the memory of General Hurlbut. He acted from the noblest impulses, in behalf of humanity, in defence of civilization. Whether he tried to put a stop to the war with or without authority, he was justified in doing so—justified in trying to prevent the burning of defenceless cities, the murder of non-combatants, the robbery of homes, and the despoliation of everything that was sacred.
Peru was overcome, conquered, and resistless. Her army was destroyed, and her citizens, who had attempted to defend her capital with what weapons they could gather, were smitten down like grass before the scythe. There was scarcely a voice to be raised in defence of the women and children. Then the pillage commenced. Dynamite and petroleum were the weapons of Chili, and millions of dollars’ worth of private property was swept away daily, until the Chilians got tired of murder, of rapine, of pillage and devastation. It was these which General Hurlbut tried to prevent, and had our Government supported him, or at least had not interfered, he would have been successful. As it is, the Chilians laugh and the Peruvians mutter curses, when “the foreign policy of the United States” is mentioned. It is said that Hurlbut exceeded his instructions, and much of the blame of failure was thrown upon him. He was a proud and sensitive man, and felt censure keenly. His disgrace, and the neglect of his Government to sustain him in the attitude he had taken, not only shortened but ended his life, and he died in Lima a broken-hearted man. But he has been canonized by the people of Peru as a political saint, and they worship his memory as they do that of Bolivar—the Washington of South America, the man who gave liberty to five republics. They regard Hurlbut as the noblest of all Americans. His portrait hangs in their parlors, and is still for sale at the photograph galleries and picture stores. His funeral was attended by the greatest demonstration Peru has ever witnessed, and the grateful people would erect a statue to him if they had money enough left to pay the expense.
When Chili conquered Peru, Admiral Lynch, the Irishman who commanded the Chilian army, set up General Iglesias as “provisional President until the pacification of the country.” General Caceres, who commanded a division of montañes, or mountaineers, refused to surrender, and rejected the terms of peace dictated by Chili. He retired to the Andes, and carried on a guerilla warfare as long as the Chilian army was in Peru. When Lynch and his legions retired, Caceres turned his attention to the government with the alliterative title which the Chilians left in Lima, and for three years kept Iglesias busy defending the coast and the capital from his assaults. Business was almost entirely suspended; commerce was stagnant, because Peruvians were producing nothing, and had no money to pay for imported goods. The people lived on the pawn-shops, and the Government, deprived of its revenues, resorted to extreme conscription and confiscation measures. Caceres hovered around Lima for three years with his army of Indian guerillas, doing little fighting, but producing terror everywhere. Iglesias had no force to suppress his rival, and could only defend the capital and chief seaports against attack.
In the centre of Lima, as in all Spanish-American towns, is a plaza, or public square, with a fountain and statuary in the centre, and the palace, the cathedral, the archbishop’s residence, the municipal offices, and other public institutions facing it on the four sides. Into this plaza, the very heart of the city, in August, 1885, the Government troops permitted Caceres and his mountaineers to come; but they had
BETWEEN BATTLES, BALLS.
sufficient notice of his approach to enable them to place sharp-shooters in the towers of the churches, cannon on the roof of the palace, and musketeers on the roofs of all the buildings around it. The buildings are two stories high, with the front walls reaching two or three feet above the roof, so that those who participated in this novel defence of the city had good breastworks to protect them. When Caceres came into the plaza he was met with volleys from all sides, and the pavements were strewn with the dead. He made a desperate struggle, but his Indians, few of whom had ever been in a city before, and none of whom had ever been under fire, scattered and were lost in the labyrinth of narrow streets, where they were pursued and killed by cavalrymen, who plunged out of the palace at full gallop when it was seen that the forces of Caceres were wavering. Of the three thousand men who came with the mountain general, two thousand lay dead or wounded upon the pavements of Lima before the battle was two hours old, and with the rest, who were called together by trumpeters, Caceres retired to Arequipa to prepare for another campaign.
On the last day of December, 1885, he repeated the attack with better success, and captured the city, ending a seven years’ war in Peru. A provisional government was organized until April, when Caceres was elected constitutional President, and has since, in a thorough, wise, and patriotic way, been trying to restore a crushed and devastated nation.
General Andres Caceres, the successful leader, the chosen President of Peru for a term ending April, 1890, is a man about fifty years of age, a native of the ancient town of Ayacucho, and the son of a colonel of the army of Chili. His mother was a Peruvian, and his father spent the later years of his life in Peru. The mother had Indian blood in her veins, and from her Caceres has inherited much of the Indian disposition and character which have given him his popularity among the montañes who followed his standard in the struggle. At an early age Caceres entered the army, and having by his daring energy and military skill won the confidence and admiration of President Castilla, was sent to Europe to learn the art of war in the French and German military schools. Upon his return he was detailed for duty as an engineer, but when the war with Chili broke out he was made a general of division, and was perhaps the most successful officer in the Peruvian army.
Don Miguel Iglesias, the head of the government which Caceres tried so long to overthrow, is a descendant of one of the oldest and most aristocratic families of Peru, and before the war with Chili he occupied several posts of eminence and honor, having been Secretary of the Treasury, and afterwards Secretary of War. He is a plantador, or planter, and lives at the old town of Caxamarca, which the readers of Prescott’s story of the Conquest will remember as the seat of Atahualpa. During the war with Chili General Iglesias also took a prominent part, but was not considered a successful military leader, having no taste or inclination in that direction. After the downfall of the Calderon government Iglesias was made provisional President, and continued to exercise power for four years, but lacked the energy and ability necessary to meet the crisis; and although the people generally regarded him as an honest and patriotic man, he lost their confidence, and the victory of Caceres was welcomed.
Another of the leading men of Peru is Don Nicolas Pierola, who has been a conspicuous figure in the political dramas and military tragedies that have been enacted during the last ten years, and will continue to be heard from in the future. He has had a most remarkable career, having been four times banished from the republic. Pierola is a son-in-law of the ill-starred Emperor Iturbide of Mexico, whose daughter he met while a student in Paris. His life has been a romantic one, and illustrates the ups and downs of South American politics. Pierola père was a famous scientist and littérateur, and was the intimate friend and co-worker of Humboldt, Sir Humphry Davy, Doctor Von Tschudi, the Austrian philosopher, and other men of that age. He was for a long time a professor of natural sciences at the University of Madrid, and returned to Peru, his native country, to pursue his inquiries into the traditions of the Incas, and to preside over the university at Arequipa, the second city in Peru. He had something to do with politics too, and was the Peruvian Minister of Finance for several years.
A WARRIOR AT REST.
Pierola the younger, who was educated in Europe, is one of the most accomplished and able men in South America. He commenced life as an editor, and in 1864 became the manager of El Tiempo, the organ of President Pezot, who was overthrown by a revolutionary army under General Prado. The latter banished the young and ardent editor until he was himself overthrown. Then Pierola returned to Peru, and became the Minister of Finance under President Balta, being the ruling spirit of the administration, and inaugurating the vast system of public improvements under Henry Meiggs. Prado again led a successful revolution, and in 1878 Pierola was banished for the second time. When the war with Chili broke out he returned to Peru, and tendered his allegiance and his sword to the man who had driven him into exile. His services were accepted, and he became the commander of a regiment, and afterwards a general of division.
In December, 1879, President Prado deserted his post and secretly fled from the country, leaving a proclamation on his desk which authorized the Vice-President to exercise the duties of the office “until he had returned from the transaction of some very urgent and important business which demanded his presence abroad.” The army of Chili had been successful in several battles, and was marching upon the capital. The army of Peru had been practically destroyed; its ports were blockaded, its treasury was empty, and the President, Prado, had fled from the results of his blundering imbecility. He has never returned, and is understood to be in Europe.
There was a mere gleam of hope left for Peru, and the people called on Pierola to become their leader. A junta or convention of leading men was quickly called, and the power of military and political chief, which is the polite way of describing a dictator, was conferred upon Pierola. He had no money, no ammunition, and only the frightened remnants of a demoralized army; but he made the best fight he could, and compelled the Chilian army to stop the carnival of devastation they had begun. When Peru was conquered the Chilian Government would not recognize Pierola as dictator, and in the absence of Prado, the constitutional President, set up a dummy administration of their own choice, with which terms of peace were made, forfeiting the strip of territory containing the deposits of guano and nitrate of soda. This was what
GATE-WAY TO THE ANDES.
Chili desired, and for this she made the war. Her Government knew that Pierola would never consent to sacrifice the richest portion of the republic, hence it refused to treat with him, and caused his banishment for the third time.
Pierola went to France again, and remained in exile until May, 1885, when he was sent for by the business men of Lima, who endeavored to secure a suspension of hostilities between Caceres and Iglesias, the leaders of the rival factions of Peru, and to place Pierola in power, in order to restore peace to the country and revive its paralyzed trade and industries. He returned reluctantly, and his friends arranged to have him proclaimed President, but the Iglesias Government hearing of the plot, banished him for a fourth time, shortly before Caceres captured the city. Pierola is now in France, but expects to return to Peru, and do his share towards restoring the country. This can be done only by the introduction of foreign capital and labor, as the land-owners and merchants of Peru are bankrupt, and the native laboring element largely reduced by the casualties of almost thirteen years of constant warfare. A large amount of English and American capital is already going into the country, and will tempt labor to follow. The most important act of the Government has been to contract with Mr. Michael P. Grace, of New York, recently, for the completion of the famous Oroya railroad, and the development of the Cerro del Pasco mines.
A quarter of a century ago an unknown man, a fugitive from justice, arrived at the port of Callao, and appeared among the Spaniards, as Manco Capac, at once the Adam and the Christ of the Incas, appeared to the Indians two thousand years before. As the mysterious and deified Manco Capac taught the Indians a knowledge of the agricultural and mechanical arts, this unknown man taught their successors to build railroads, and stands to-day as the ideal of Yankee enterprise and engineering genius. He plunged the Government of Peru into a debt that will never be paid, but laid the foundations for a system of internal development that would bring the republic great wealth if peace could be only secured.
HENRY MEIGGS.
Everybody has heard of Henry Meiggs, the partner of Ralston, the California banker, who drowned himself in the Golden Gate, the friend of Flood, O’Brien, Mackey, Sharon, and one of the princes of the golden era of ’49. Bret Harte has written of him, and Mark Twain has used him as a text. He committed forgeries in San Francisco years ago, and when his crime was discovered he took a boat and rowed out into the bay; but instead of jumping overboard, as Ralston did twenty years afterwards, he climbed upon the deck of a schooner, purchased her, and sailed away from the scene of his remarkable career. He went to Peru, bringing much of his wealth and all of his irresistible energy with him. These he applied to the difficulties that had staggered that country, and overcame them. He sent back money to California to reimburse with good interest those who lost by his forgeries, but remained away till he died, one of the richest, most influential, and famous men on the coast. From Ecuador to Patagonia, through Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, Meiggs’s enterprises extended, and the result is a series of railroads at right angles with the coast, connecting the interior of the country with the seaports, and giving the estates, and the mines in the mountains, the sugar haciendas, and the nitrate beds, easy outlets to the ocean. Nearly every port on the west coast has its little railroad, from twenty to two hundred and fifty miles in length, some of them reaching into the very heart of the Andes, the arteries of the continent’s commerce, and intended to make profitable possessions which would otherwise have no worth.
The Oroya road, which Meiggs left incomplete, has been counted as the eighth wonder of the world, for there is nothing in the Rocky Mountains or the Alps which compares with it as an example of engineering science, or presents more sublime scenery. But neither scenic grandeur nor engineering genius can alone make a railroad pay, particularly if it goes nowhere. In this instance the money gave out, and Meiggs died when the road was only partially completed, there remaining fifty miles between the present terminus (Chicla) and the point which was aimed at—the mines of Cerro del Pasco, one of the richest and most extensive silver deposits in the world. Most of the grading and tunnelling between Chicla and the mines has been completed, and it only remains to lay the ties and rails and put in the bridges to send a locomotive over the Andes into the great valley which stretches north and south between the two Cordilleras. This Mr. Grace has agreed to do. The completion of the line to the mining regions will cost ten million dollars, but that portion already constructed and in operation, with all its rolling stock, station-houses, and equipments of every sort, he gets for practically nothing, as under the conditions of a ninety-nine years’ lease he has the use of the railroad and all that belongs with
THE HEART OF THE ANDES.
it free for the first seven years, and pays but twenty-five thousand dollars per year rental for the property during the remainder of the term. In other words, Mr. Grace gets a property which cost twenty-seven million six hundred thousand dollars, eighty-six miles of railroad already equipped and in operation, fifty miles of the most expensive tunnelling and grading in the world for nothing, provided he will complete the line. And more than this, he gets the Cerro del Pasco silver mines, which were worked for centuries by the Jesuits, and have yielded hundreds of millions of dollars even under the primitive system of working which was applied to them by the monks and the native Indians. They were discovered by a native, who while watching sheep on the hills was overtaken by night. He piled together a few stones, under the lee of which he built a fire. In the morning he noticed that the heat had split some of the stones, and he was attracted by something shining from what had been the interior of one of them. He picked up the stone, and took it home to show to his friends. The bright substance was found to be silver, and the great mines of the Cerro del Pasco were discovered.
From 1630 to 1824 the mines of the Cerro del Pasco are said to have produced nearly twenty-seven thousand two hundred tons of pure silver. The ore is not in fissure veins, but in an enormous mass, similar to the carbonates of Leadville, and yields from forty to one hundred dollars per ton. It is worked at a cost of three dollars per ton. Even the tailings, which the priests and Indians have left during the two and a half centuries they have been digging away in their rude manner, can be shipped to New York at a profit, and they amount to millions of tons, with silver enough in them, it is estimated, to pay the cost of constructing the road, and to afford it a business that will pay the expense of operating.
AN INCA REMINISCENCE.
About ten per cent. of the Cerro del Pasco district is now occupied by native miners, who are pegging along in the old-fashioned way, losing more silver than they gain in their operations, and securing about one-quarter of the profit they could obtain by the use of improved machinery. Their mines are constantly flooded with water, and have to be abandoned for the greater part of the year. There are also a number of old mines, which were worked first by the Jesuits and then by the Government, but which have been given up long since and allowed to fill with water. These abandoned mines Mr. Grace agrees to pump and place in working order, and when they are cleared he has the privilege of working them to his own profit for ninety-nine years. The local miners have agreed to give him twenty per cent. of their gross product for introducing pumping machinery and operating it. The same set of pumps will serve the whole district, and the revenue which will be derived from the native miners will pay the expense of keeping in order the mines which Mr. Grace will operate. It is estimated that seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars will clean up the property and pay for the necessary machinery to do thorough work, and the profits cannot be overestimated if all that is told of the mines is true.
I will not repeat the fables and tradition about these mines, of which the air is full. The El Dorado for which the world was hunting two centuries ago was but a shadow of the substance said to have been found here. Away in the heart of the Andes, almost beyond the reach of men, involving an enormous cost for transportation, and an expense of operation which miners of modern times would consider unprofitable, the priests and monks in past centuries found untold tons of treasure. The one-fifth which was always set apart for the King of Spain, and of which a record was scrupulously kept by the viceroys, reached into the millions, and the tithes which were paid to the Church amounted to millions more. During the last few decades the mines have scarcely been worked, for as large a product of silver as Peru could consume was found in more convenient localities.
COWHIDE BRIDGE OVER THE RIMAC.
The railroad was begun by Mr. Meiggs in 1870. Starting from the sea, it ascends the narrow valley of the once sacred Rimac, rising five thousand feet in the first forty-six miles to a beautiful valley, where the people of Lima have found an attractive summer resort; then it follows a winding, giddy pathway along the edge of precipices and over bridges that seem suspended in the air, tunnels the Andes at an altitude of fifteen thousand six hundred and forty-five feet—the most elevated spot in the world where a piston-rod is moved by steam—and ends at Oroya, twelve thousand one hundred and seventy-eight feet above the sea. Between the coast and the summit there is not an inch of down grade, and the track has been forced through the mountains by a series of sixty-three tunnels, whose aggregate length is twenty-one thousand feet. The great tunnel of Galera, by which the pinnacle of the Andes is pierced, will be, when completed, three thousand eight hundred feet long, and will be the highest elevation on the earth’s surface where any such work has been undertaken. Besides boring the mountains of granite and blasting clefts along their sides to rest the track upon, deep cuttings and superb bridges, the system of reverse tangents had to be adopted in cañons that were too narrow for a curve. So the track zigzags up the mountain side on the switch and back-up principle, the trains taking one leap forward, and after being switched on to another track, another leap backward, until the summit is won; so that often there are four or five lines of track parallel to each other, one above another, on the mountain side. Almost the entire length of the road was made by blasting. There is no earth in sight except what was carted for use in ballasting, and the work of grading was done, not by the pick and shovel, but with the drill and hundreds of thousands of pounds of powder.
INCA RUINS OF UNKNOWN AGE.
It is estimated that the construction of this road cost Peru seven thousand lives. Pestilence and accident, landslides, falling boulders, premature explosions, sirroche—a disease which attacks those who are not accustomed to the rare air of the high latitudes—fevers due to the deposits of rotten granite, and other causes resulted in a frightful mortality during the seven years the road was under construction; but the project was pushed on until the funds gave out. The cost in human life was no obstacle. At several points it was necessary to lower men by ropes over the edges of precipices to drill holes in rocks and put in charges of blasting-powder, and this reckless mode of construction was attended by frequent fatalities. A curious accident occurred at one point on the line, where a plumber was soldering a leak in a water-pipe. A train of mules, loaded with cans of powder, was being driven up the trail. One of them rubbed against the plumber, who struck at the animal with his red-hot soldering-iron, which in some way came in contact with the powder, and caused an explosion that blew the whole train of mules, the gang of workmen, the plumber, and everybody who was by, over the precipices, the sides and bottom of which were strewn with fragments of men and mules for a mile.
A SETTLEMENT OF THIS CENTURY.
The scenic grandeur of the Andes is presented nowhere more impressively than along the cañon of the Rimac River, which this railroad follows. The mountains are entirely bare of vegetation, and are monster masses of rock, torn and twisted, rent and shattered by tremendous volcanic upheavals. At
A CITY OF FOUR CENTURIES AGO.
the bottom of the cañon, and where it occasionally spreads out into a valley of minute dimensions, are the remains of towns and cities, whose origin is hidden in the mists of fable, and whose history is unknown. This region bears no resemblance to any other picture of nature—lifted above the rest of the world, as coldly and calmly silent, as impenetrable, as the arctic stars. Here was developed a civilization which left memorials of its advancement, genius, and industry carved in massive stone, and written upon the everlasting hills in symbols which even the earthquakes have been unable to erase. Here are the ruins of cities which were more populous than any that have existed in Peru since—evidences of industry which their destroyers were too indolent to imitate, and of a skill which could cope with everything but the destructive weapons of the invaders. A survey of their remains justifies the estimates given of their enormous population, which are that the people once herded in these narrow valleys were as numerous as those now spread over the United States. The struggle which they had to sustain themselves is shown in the traces of their industry and patience. They built their dwellings upon rocks, and buried their dead in caves, in order to utilize what soil there was for agriculture. They excavated great areas in the desert until they reached moisture enough for vegetation, and then brought guano from the islands of the sea to fill these sunken gardens. They terraced every hill and mountain side, and placed soil in the crevices of the rocks, until not an inch of surface that could grow a stalk of maize was left unproductive.
The steep mountains along the Rimac are terraced up to the very summit, these terraces being often as narrow as the steps of a stairway, and many of them are walled up with stone. They are veritable hanging-gardens, and lie on such slopes that they look as if it were impossible for any one to get foothold to cultivate them, or even for the roots of what was planted there to sustain the mighty winds which sometimes sweep down the valley.
A BIT OF INCA ARCHITECTURE.
The irrigation system of the Incas was perfect, their ditches extending for hundreds of miles, and curving around the hills, here sustained by high walls of masonry, and there cut through the living rock. They were carried over narrow valleys upon enormous embankments, and show evidence of engineering skill as great as that which lifted the Meiggs railroad above
RELIC OF A PAST CIVILIZATION.
the clouds into the mountains. Massive dams and reservoirs were erected to collect the floods that came from the melting snows, and the water was taken to localities which were rainless. Under these conditions, in this great struggle for existence, the Incas established and sustained a Government—the first in which the equal rights of every human being were recognized—and worshipped a being whose attributes were similar to those of the Christian God. The great sea, breaking with ceaseless thunder upon the rocky coast, impressed the dweller in the desert with reverence and awe, and he recognized by an equally natural logic that the sun was the source of light and happiness. Hence these two objects, the sun and the sea, were personified, and were seated upon the thrones in the magnificent pantheons of the Incas. The race which conquered them came with dripping swords and lust for plunder. Skilled in the arts of peace, but powerless in war, there was no adequate resistance, and the blood-and-gold-thirsty Pizarro rode up this valley on a mission of murder, rapine, and destruction. The towns stand as he left them, with not even an echo to break the silence. Occasionally the Spaniards built new places of residence to utilize the improvements of the Incas, but in 1882 the Chilian army came down the valley, and treated the Peruvians as Pizarro had treated the race which he found here.
RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN.
A visit to the Incas’ cemeteries, where millions of bodies are buried in the drifting sand, gives a clew to the extent of the original population, as well as to their arts, religion, and customs. The dead were preserved after the custom of ancient Egypt, and a few moments’ toil with a shovel will disclose mummies whose features are perfectly preserved, whose eyes are petrified, whose fingers are clasped with rings, and who are surrounded with such implements and utensils as those who buried them thought they would need in the other world. As the soldier takes his blanket and the cooking-kit, his food and his portable treasures, so did the doctrine of future life cause the dead Incas to be equipped for their departure from one world to another. In this rainless region, protected by the magnetic sand, nothing can decay, and the contents of the Inca graves are as well preserved as if their age were counted by days instead of centuries. Wood, vegetable, and flesh petrify, fabrics and articles of stone and clay are preserved. There is no moisture to produce decay of the bodies, and there are no insects to consume them. The contents of the sand-hills are protected from every form of destruction, and their extent has never been measured.
AN OLD SETTLER.
FRESH FROM THE TOMB.
It is still fashionable to go on resurrection expeditions to the Inca burying-grounds for mummies, and for the articles that were placed in their graves. In each grave are found articles of decoration, as well as the utensils required by the spirits to set up house-keeping in the happy land—rings and other ornaments of gold and silver, cups and platters of both metals made in quaint designs, copper articles, strings of beads, weaving and cooking apparatus, water-jugs, weapons of war, and other curiosities that interest antiquarians nowadays. Professor Ramondi, a distinguished French scientist in Lima, has a collection of Inca relics for which he was offered two hundred thousand dollars in gold by the British Museum. Under the patronage of the Government he is writing a voluminous work on the antiquities of Peru, three volumes of which have been published, and five more are yet to come.
The most curious things in Peru are the mummies’ eyes—petrified eyeballs—which are usually to be found in the graves, if one is careful in digging. The Incas had a way of preserving the eyes of the dead from decay, some process which modern science cannot comprehend, and the eyeballs make very pretty settings for pins. They are yellow, and hold light like an opal. It is an accepted theory among scientists, however, that before the burial of their mummies the Incas replaced the natural eye with that of the squid, or cuttle-fish, and that these beautiful things are shams.
