Chapter XI: Front Matter (11)

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.

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,

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

LA PAZ DE AYACUCHO.

THE CAPITAL OF BOLIVIA.

“The Callao painter” is something that skippers dread. Its brush is the breeze, and its pigments are in the air. It comes and goes without premonition, and its work is usually done in the night. A vessel will enter the harbor of Callao with its timbers as white as the virgin snow, and its planking as clean as holy-stone and elbow-grease can make them. The disgusted sailors may awaken in the morning and find everything covered with a brown, nasty film, which penetrates the cabin, and even the battened hatchways of the vessel, filling the air with a repulsive odor, and clinging to the wood-work until it is scraped off. It looks like a chocolate-colored frost, but does not melt in the sun. When it is damp one can remove it easily, but if it once dries it sticks like paint, and its tenacity is not easily overcome. The origin and source of this mysterious and aggravating artist is unknown, but it is peculiar to that harbor. Nowhere else is the phenomenon noticed, or at least ship-masters who have sailed the world over say that Callao is the only place where a ship can be painted inside and outside in a single night. Of course there are theories about it which may or may not hold good, and over them scientific minds have argued, and will argue interminably. Some say that the guano is forced up by vapors into the atmosphere, while others assert that it is a species of volcanic dust driven through the water by subterranean forces. However, the only point on which all agree is that it is a repulsive phenomenon, and has been the cause of more profanity than anything else which seamen encounter on the west coast. It is never noticed on land, but only in the harbor, and for a few miles up and down the shore.

The glory of Callao as a shipping centre has departed. Where formerly there were a hundred vessels in the harbor, there are only half a dozen now. The lack of trade in Peru, the poverty of the people, the enormous tariffs imposed by the Government, and the exorbitant port dues charged, have driven commerce away. Two years ago the Government in its poverty and need of funds was willing to dispose of everything it could control for spot cash, and practically sold the harbor at Callao to a French company, to whom the docks and anchorage have been leased for a term of years at two hundred thousand dollars a year. This company has the right to tax shipping to any extent it pleases, and has established a system of rules so oppressive as to drive most of the vessels away.

From Callao to Valparaiso the coast is a panorama of desolation--a constant succession of bleak and barren cliffs, with not a green or lovely thing for fifteen hundred miles. On one side is the Pacific Ocean, with its great swells sweeping almost around the globe, as regular and constant as the throbbings of the human pulse. On the other side rise the impenetrable Andes in a range whose altitude averages fifteen thousand feet, and whose peaks tower twenty and twenty-two thousand feet above the sea. Between the ocean and the mountains for a thousand miles, with a varying width from twenty to fifty miles, lies a strip of drifting sand, which no rivers water, and where rain never falls. All the water used by the inhabitants is taken from the ocean, that for mechanical purposes being used in its natural condition, and that for food being condensed into steam, and purged of its salt by machinery. There is not a well or a spring along the coast, and drinking-water is an article of merchandise, like ice or flour, costing about seven cents a gallon to the consumers.

Some distance below Callao, upon a great rock which rises from the sea, and shows an unbroken surface to the western sun, is carved the image of a candelabra--an eight-horned candlestick--about one hundred feet long and fifty feet across from end to end of the lower arms. The execution is perfect, and it is said to be carved in lines about a foot deep and a yard wide. When and how the picture came there no one can tell. The oldest sailor on the coast says that the oldest man he knew when a boy could tell nothing of its origin. They call it “The Miraculous Candlestick,” and pious Catholics say that St. James dropped it when he came to Peru and placed himself at the head of the Spaniards, at the time they were driving the Incas out of their ancient homes.

In the interior of Peru, upon a similar rock, is the imprint of a human foot as long as a pikestaff, which is supposed to mark where the Apostle alighted when he dropped down from heaven to aid in the subjugation of the heathen and the triumph of the Cross. At any rate, like the foot of St. James, this image of the Holy Candlestick, if made by human labor, must have cost months and months of toil at a time when such things were needed to impress the Indians with a reverence for the Church of Rome and the doctrines it taught. Sometimes, if the wind blows seaward, the carving is covered by the drifting sand, when the padre of the nearest village goes down with a lot of Indians to dig it out.

The first port of importance on the coast south of Callao is the town of Mollendo (pronounced _Molyendo_), the western terminus of the railway that furnishes means of communication for Bolivia and the interior of Peru to the sea. It was built in 1876 by Henry Meiggs for the Peruvian Government, at a cost of forty-four million dollars--an enormous average of one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars per mile; for it is only three hundred and twenty-five miles long. Its western terminus is the highest point now reached by steam, being something over fourteen thousand five hundred feet above the sea, although the Oroya road will be higher when it reaches the Cerro del Pasco mines. No other railway in the world can show an equal amount of excavation or such massive embankments, but the Oroya road has more tunnels. The line is now under the management of a Boston man, Mr. Thorndike, and everything is conducted upon the United States plan. Along the side of the track, for a distance of eighty-five miles, is an eight-inch iron pipe, for the purpose of supplying the stations with water, as there is none on the coast; and it is the longest aqueduct in the world, coming from springs in the mountains, seven thousand feet above the sea, to the port of Mollendo.

Across a hot, lifeless, desolate desert the railway runs one hundred and seven miles to the city of Arequipa--the name appropriately signifying “a place of rest;” and it is one of the oldest, most celebrated, and beautiful towns in Peru, situated in a small oasis in the desert, rich in its agricultural resources, and surrounded by valuable mines. Just behind the city is as magnificent and imposing a mountain as can be found anywhere in the world--the volcano Misti, 18,538 feet high, and covered with eternal snow. The city was founded by Pizarro in 1540, and has always been second to Lima in size and importance, being the political as well as the commercial capital of the Southern provinces, and the seat of a university which for nearly three hundred years has been the most famous upon the west coast in South America, and has

graduated the most eminent scholars and statesmen in the history of Peru.