Lima possesses many educational and scientific bodies and establishments, and has a well-deserved claim to being a centre of culture. Its Press is one of the best in South America: its people have strong poetical leanings and administrative genius. Among the more recent of successful presidents stand forth the names of Pardo, Pierola, and Leguia. The last-named, a capable administrator, lived in London during the Great War and went through the experience of air-bombardment, when he returned to Peru to take up his second term of office.
There is a certain isolation about Lima, due to its geographical position. The other large towns of the Republic are separated from it by vast stretches of desert and Cordillera, and the railways give access to but a few points, whilst any interruption of the steamer lines along the coast cuts it off from the outside world. However, its picturesque watering-places and well-built residential suburbs extend the amenities of Lima over a wider zone.
The upper-class folk of Peru, as we behold them in their capital and other large towns, have the pleasing traits of courtesy and hospitality we are accustomed to associate with their race in marked degree. They are extremely eloquent, and aim at a high standard of civilization—that sensitive characteristic of the Spanish American. Their women have justly earned a world-wide reputation for their beauty and vivacity, their good breeding and culture, as well as their piety and high standard of family life. If the hand of semi-mediaeval custom still hampers Peru in its social customs, this is a matter which time constantly modifies.
All parts of Spain furnished the ancestors of the Peruvians—Basque, Catalonian, Andalusian, Galician, and Castillian names being encountered among them, and in viceregal days there were many titles of nobility, which fell into disuse on the advent of the Republic. Nevertheless, it is an amiable weakness of the Peruvians—as it is of many other Latin American folk—to love titles, as we see by the so frequent use of the doctorate degree. In a Peruvian Cabinet, it would be rare to discover a minister who is not addressed as "Doctor"—of laws or science—for the degree is often taken in Latin America largely as conferring some social distinction, and not necessarily with the purpose of practising this or that profession. Yet in justice to the Peruvians it must be said that they are clever professional men, whether at law, medicine or other, whilst practical science has its outlet also in the engineering profession, a considerable number of whose exponents make a study of the country's agricultural and mineral potentialities.
A pleasing feature of the Peruvians is their cordial welcome of foreigners, their desire to assimilate the things of the outside world, and strong notions of progress. It is not, however, to be supposed that their houses are readily open to the foreign visitor. Like all Latin Americans they are exclusive; and the traveller must be a caballero, a person of refinement, if he is to enter their family circle.
The main defect of the country and its governing classes is the neglect of the vast Indian and lower-class population, for this upper and enlightened class is but a small proportion of the population. The oligarchical tendencies which we find so strongly marked in Chile, in Mexico, and, indeed, in every Latin American State, are strong in Peru. These countries can never truly progress until they take their domestic responsibilities more seriously, thereby improving the economic and social status of the great bulk of poor folk whom Providence has delivered to their charge. On the contrary, they are more and more exposed to uprising and anarchy, such as that so terribly exemplified in Mexico, and farther afield in Russia. If they would preserve their culture they must extend it. It is true that these responsibilities concerning the Cholos and Indians have of recent years been more widely recognized, but much remains to be done in the field of practice. Elsewhere I venture to discuss, in the closing chapters of this book, what would appear to be the lines upon which the solution of this vital question of Spanish America should proceed.
Peru is not yet freed from the revolutionary habit, the game of politics which brings unrest and at times destruction. The sweets of office are always alluring. The game is generally played in Peru by but a few, the bulk of the people standing aloof. Its incidents are often extremely picturesque and at times operatic. A president may, one day, be in the zenith of his power, surrounded by his admirers and fellow-administrators. The next, arrested by a rival with a handful of soldiers, he may find himself on board a steamer for Panama, deported, banished and alone. This method is at least better than that which at earlier times involved political murders, some of which stand forth in the republican history of Peru.
In justice, however, it must be said that such stains on the pages of the past are not more marked in Peru than in the case of some of her neighbours in the New World. Moreover, it is useless for the European to pretend to arraign the Spanish American for these practices, whilst his own house is, or has so recently been, the scene of such dreadful disorders.
From the disorders of man here on the great Pacific coast, let us turn to the unrest of Nature. During our stay in Lima we may have experienced an earthquake shock, slight or considerable, and with others have hastily left our dwelling. Upon this coast the scourge of the earthquake and the tidal wave is at times laid heavy upon the dwellers. The destruction of Valparaiso is but a recent occurrence, as was that of San Francisco, in California. To-morrow, these or any other cities along the unstable edge of this hemisphere might be brought low from the same cause.
Here is a picture of terror from the middle of the eighteenth century. It was in Lima, the beautiful capital of Peru, when, on a summer night in October 1746, the folk of the city were leaving the temples after celebrating the fiestas of Saint Simon and Saint Jude. Rich and noble personages, escorted by their slaves, were exchanging, as was customary, friendly visits. The moon shone brilliantly from a cloudless sky; all was quiet and peaceful: the twang of a guitar or other evening whispers of the city alone broke the serenity. The bells of the convents and the church-tower clocks struck half-past ten. It was bedtime.