The Cathedral has more than Pizarro’s remains. It possesses the manuscript records of the Municipality of Lima. They are bound in modern calf, though the original parchments are sear and rusty and yellow. There is also a modern library which is open to the public. I found among its attractions, in one of the stairway vestibules, a unique painting on the wall typifying life in Lima in the sixteenth century. It represents a scene in the plaza. It pictures the gay cavalier of Spain in his fancy habiliments; the sedate matron demurely wearing the historic mantilla; the maid in the same head-dress, but coquettish and answering the sly glances of the cavalier; the native Indian race in groups of individuals; women market-venders; the Indians from the country with the llamas and burros,—all as we may guess it was in the sixteenth century and much of it as it is to-day with the native race.
Interior of Cathedral, Lima
Lima’s earthquake record is a continuous one from 1683, when the great trembling was experienced, until the present day. One of the most memorable of these seismic disturbances was that of October, 1746. The memoirs of the viceroy, Count Superunda, tell a curious story of those days of wonder and terror and the scenes enacted,—how debtors sought for their creditors in order to pay them; how enemies became reconciled and embraced one another in fraternal forgiveness; how slanderers on their knees besought the pardon of those whom they had slandered; and how courteous cavaliers, seeking injured husbands who until then had been ignorant of their wives’ transgressions, asked forgiveness, which the injured husband, in spite of his surprise, would grant with an effusive embrace. A strange picture of morals—ten years after the Inquisition had burned Madame Castro for being a Jewess!
The balconies and arcades of Lima, the façades and graceful arches, are Andalusian, yet there is a trace of Greece in the adaptations of Doric and Ionic columns. The paseos, or walks and drives, the parks and gardens, in their grace and symmetry are Moorish again; so are the kiosks.
The Palace, or Government Building, which is to be supplemented by a new structure, is neither archaic nor modern. It is somewhere midway between two epochs. The tree which Pizarro planted, a fig, is in one of the inner courts. I saw the tree, but was more interested in the pictures in the anteroom of the Foreign Office—old prints of American subjects. One of them was of Washington crossing the Delaware.
In the Palace is a portrait of Joaquin Castilla, one of the sturdy characters in Peruvian history. He was a Spanish soldier without education but of great natural ability who joined the patriots in the struggle for independence and afterwards became President. He had the humor of Sancho Panza. Once a delegation of women waited on him. The request they had to make related to some matter of administration to which an answer would be embarrassing. The old warrior, though he was of low birth, had all the courtesy of a Castilian hidalgo. “Why, ladies,” he said, “you chatter like birds, all trying to talk at once. Now let’s have silence and let one of you speak for all.” A pause. “Let the oldest lady speak.” The tradition is that the delegation at once filed out and bothered the grim soldier no more.
I have encountered many evidences of poverty in Lima, but the poorer classes seem to be contented. When the nights are chilly, they gather their blankets or shawls around them, according to the sex, and huddle in the Plaza. When the day is bright, they bask in the sunshine. The beggars are a nuisance in their obtrusiveness, but they are tolerated.
On a down voyage a party of young foreigners persuaded the captain to hurry the ship into Callao Saturday night, so that they could get ashore and go over to Lima to attend the Sunday bull-fight. The spectacle did not meet their expectations, which had been whetted by what they had seen in Spain. Once the bull-fight in Lima was a recognized social institution and was very brilliant, but its glory has faded. Humane impulses have found place in the municipal regulations, and the horrible spectacle of the bull goring a few poor old horses is not permitted. This takes away much of the excitement. The bull-fight has to be tolerated, and the President of the Republic attends the function given in his honor, but I noticed in the newspaper accounts that it was an indifferent affair. In time the bull-fight will entirely disappear. The races, which are popular, will take its place.
The lottery will stay longer. The drawings are held on the public square every week. The lottery is legalized, and a portion of the proceeds goes to the charitable institutions. That is why it is so difficult to grapple with this evil which demoralizes all classes.