[CHAPTER X]
PERU'S WARM-HEARTED GREETING
Gracious and Artistic and Inspired by Cordial Friendship—Sailors in the Bullring—Work of the Matadors Considered From a Nautical Point of View—Interchange of Good Wishes by Admiral Thomas and President Pardo—Charms of a City That Survives From the Middle Ages—Trip 15,000 Feet Up the Andes—Remains of Pizarro—Journalistic Compliments and Official Entertainments.
On Board U.S.S. Louisiana, U. S. Battle Fleet,
Off Callao Harbor, Feb. 29.
PERU remembered!
Almost as trite as the saying that corporations have no souls, or that politics makes strange bed fellows, is another that in international affairs the friends of yesterday may be the foes of to-day, and that nations, as nations, have no memories. If it is true, Peru is the rule proving exception. Her gracious welcome to the American fleet, from the first acclaim of greeting to the last farewell, was marked by a sincerity that was peculiar in the exchange of international courtesies.
There was reason for this. Of all South American countries none is more devotedly the friend of the United States than Peru. In the time of Peru's direct distress, when the hell horrors of war left her plundered, sacked, pillaged, as no nation in modern times has been despoiled; when she was bereft of nearly her entire population of early manhood; when dynamite and the torch were employed in a heartless exhibition of brutality to mark as permanently as possible the pathway of a mocking conquerer; when the vandalism of victory even destroyed the trees of botanical gardens, robbed altars of decorations, cut paintings from frames to make bonfires, pillaged the savings of children, destroyed civic utilities for the sake of wanton destruction; when the conqueror struck the most terrible blow that a conqueror can strike, the violation of the sanctity of homes—and be it remembered that the women of Peru are declared by all authority to be the most beautiful, proud and high spirited in the world—when all this was done, the first nation to comfort, to advise, to shield was the United States.
True, once or twice the United States seemed to falter and Peru almost cried out with bitterness because of it, but there was another handclasp with sincere words of real friendship back of it and Peru emerged from her trial grateful and steadfast. That was a quarter of a century ago and Peru said she would remember. Her hospitality to the great American fleet proved that she did. She is no longer poverty stricken. She is fairly well-to-do and things are looking better all the time. She lives in comfort. She even wears colors occasionally. She has young men again and their energy is making for prosperity and advancement all around. To the American fleet Peru said as plainly as could be:
"I am truly glad to see you. We can't do as much for you in the way of entertainment as our hearts could wish. We can't lavish wealth upon you, but such as we have is yours, all yours. We have remembered."