A few words here about Peru will, I think, not be amiss, although it was some time later before I learnt what an interesting place it was. The name at once brings back to memory the fascinating history of the Inca kings, of the fabulous wealth of cities paved with gold, the gorgeous temples, the tropical forests, and the brave exploits of that great pirate chief Pizarro. It is in itself a remarkable country. Situated on the western side of the Andes mountains, and bounded on the north by Eucador, on the east and south by Brazil, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the Andes run north and south, dividing the country into high and low Peru. Between the mountains and the coast lies Low Peru, forming an inclined plane from thirty to sixty miles in breadth, which is mostly a sandy barren desert, owing to the total absence of rain, and the climate here is very torrid. Above six thousand feet of altitude vegetation flourishes, and at about ten thousand feet, a mixture of perpetual spring and autumn prevails, and here there are frequent showers of rain. At an altitude of fourteen thousand feet the snow line is reached, and there the snow is to be seen all the year round, although the successive summers’ heat do their best to melt both ice and snow. The only animals I ever met with were the llama, guanaco, vicuna, and the alpaca, but in the woods there are the jaguar, puma and several other wild animals. In the woods, up the mountains are found many very beautiful birds, and the rivers swarm with fish and alligators. In the warmer regions, up on the mountains where there is rain there is also an abundance of maize, cotton, indigo, yams, cocoa, tobacco, some very fine fruits, bark, vanilla sarsaparilla, and many other things. The mountainous districts are rich in metals, gold, silver, copper, lead ore, white silver ore, and in places virgin silver in threads, tin, quicksilver, coal and nitrate of soda. Emeralds and other precious stones are also found, also the stone of the Incas, a marcasite, capable of the highest polish. When first discovered by the Spanish, the Peruvians were intellectually far in advance of any other race on the American continent. They knew the arts of architecture, sculpture, mining, the working of precious metals and jewels, they cultivated their land, they were properly clothed, and had a regular system of government, and both civil and religious laws. It was in the year 1821 that, tired of the tyranny and intolerance of Spain, they revolted, and again achieved their independence.
The glamour of those ancient days lingers around the capital of Lima, but the illusion disappears quickly with a glimpse at the Spanish capital, its narrow streets paved with cobble stones, its numerous churches gaudy with coloured plaster and florid carvings.
The only attraction in Lima is found in the Cathedral Plaza. Here the Gothic cathedral with its façade of innumerable pillars and carved figures of saints, stands raised on a wide platform. The bronze bells hung in either tower send forth mellow and sonorous tollings, but the shadow of decay that lies like a blight over all things in Peru has laid its hand on this imposing looking structure, and it cannot be entered for fear the roof should fall in. But Peru has no money to spare even to repair this, the chief place of worship of the faithful. The cathedral and the archbishop’s palace take up the whole of the east side of the Plaza, on the north side are the Viceroy’s Palace, Courts of Justice and Public Offices, while on the west side are the Town Hall and City Prison, and on the south side there are large private houses with stone fronts and massive porticoes. A curious feature of their domestic architecture are the “miradors” or carved wooden balconies, projecting over the street from the second story of the houses. From the seclusion of these lattice woodwork structures, seeing, yet not seen, the Spanish ladies watch the life in the streets below. During carnival week Lima is given up to wild revelry for three days and the “miradors” are put to some curious uses, one being to rain down water from a jug or basin on to the heads of the passers by. All this gaiety, however, ends on Shrove Tuesday, and Ash Wednesday sees the churches filled with black-robed women.
In the centre of the Plaza stands a very ornamental and massive band-stand, where the town band plays choice selections every evening from six until ten o’clock. Here all the beauty and talent of the city gathers, and promenades up and down in the cool piazzas to the strains of the music. Here the young, dark-eyed Castilian beauties, under the protection of a black-hooded duenna stroll demurely through the arcades, the transparency of the lace mantilla heightening the charm of their liquid eyes, as with coquettish airs and graces they peep from behind their beautiful fans, flirting with the young hidalgos as they pass.
I spent three weeks altogether in Lima. The first was given entirely to roaming about the city. It was, of course, all new, strange and interesting to me, and I soon found that it was not nearly so large as it looked, as every transverse street revealed the mountains at their extremity, and the peaked foothills that fill the plain round the city. Flagstaffs and crosses seem to be a kind of natural emblem, the flagstaffs are used for decorating the streets with flags on Sundays and festivals, and the latter satisfy the superstitious inclinations of the people, who imagine that the shadow of a cross protects and blesses the household. Most of the houses are built of wood and adobe, the mud brick of the country; it is used for the houses, the public buildings, and the churches; when these are plastered over with mud plaster, they look like a whitewashed wall left in its natural state, but it is simply a mud wall. The same material is used for the very startling coloured fronts of the churches and the interiors, with their cheap velveteen hangings, glass chandeliers, and gaudy paper flowers are worthy of the exterior.
The Column of Victory with its handsome bas-relief surrounding the base, in memory of the repulsed invasion of the Spaniards in 1866 is worthy of better surroundings than the one storied adobe dwellings amongst which it stands.
I found the native police a constant source of amusement. Each man is armed with a side sword and musket, a chair is placed on his beat for him to sit upon when he is tired, and when on night duty, he sits and sleeps most of the time, while his wife sits on the ground at his side. Gangs of British and American seamen play all manner of tricks upon them, one being to tie them to the chair without their knowing it, and also if the wife is asleep too they try to fasten her with a rope to the sleeping husband, then they would steal the muskets from them, and decamp, and after a while one of the number would return to find the sleepers awake and trying frantically to get loose and follow the intruders whose part in the escapade was to start running away as soon as the policeman caught sight of them. Needless to say they were never caught.
After a delightful three weeks spent between Lima and some friends who lived a few miles out, my uncle sent me word that my ship had sailed, and, as I had enjoyed my holiday, and seen all there was to be seen in the capital of Peru, and now felt ready for work, he proposed to introduce me to the officials of the famous Oroya Railway then in course of construction from Monserrat on the outskirts of Lima, over the Andes Mountains, through the valley of the River Rimac, and down the eastern slope to the Indian City of Oroya at the headwaters of the Amazon. I was delighted, and thanked him most heartily. I said good-bye to the friends I had been staying with, also to the dark-eyed little Peruvian signorita, to whose charms my boyish heart had fallen a victim, and met my uncle at Lima. He at once took me to the superintendent of the Oroya who engaged me to work on the bridges as a rigger of scaffolding, etc., and I was told to be ready to go up the mountain on the following day with a breakdown gang.