Under the name of Santo Toribio an hospital for incurable patients was established in the year 1669, by Don Domingo Cueto.
In 1702 it was consigned to the superintendence of an order of monks, called the padres Belemitas, and in 1822 it was incorporated with the hospital of San Lazaro. The latter establishment was founded by Anton Sanchez, in the year 1563, and was exclusively destined for leprous patients. Persons afflicted with cutaneous diseases, and especially maladies of a contagious nature, are sent thither.
In the convent of San Pedro there is a small hospital for poor priests. Attached to it is a dispensary, from whence the poor were supplied gratuitously with medicines, at the time when the convent was in the possession of the Jesuits.
Lima also possesses a Foundling Hospital. Luis Ojeda, who humbly took to himself the title of Luis el Pecador (Luis the Sinner), bequeathed all his fortune to the foundation of this establishment, which received the name of "Collegio de Santa Cruz de los niños expositos."[8]
The refuge for female penitents was founded in the year 1670 by the viceroy, Count de Lemos. The funds were derived from a legacy bequeathed for that object by Don Francisco Arcain in 1572. The establishment has but few inmates.
In former times it was the custom in Lima to bury the dead in graves dug within the churches; but the heat of the climate, and the difficulty of making the graves sufficiently deep, rendering this practice exceedingly objectionable, the viceroy, Don Jose Fernando Abascal, determined on making a burial place beyond the boundaries of the city. A piece of ground was allotted for the purpose, and it was consecrated on the 1st of January, 1808. It is called the Cementerio gèneral or Panteon, and is situated eastward of the city on the high road leading to the Sierra de Tarma. It consists of two gardens, very prettily planted, and inclosed by high walls. Along the walls, on the inner side, there are niches, about a thousand in number, ranged in sixteen different classes, and they may be purchased by those who wish to possess them. Many of them belong to families and convents. The graves are watched and kept in order by criminals who are condemned to this duty as a punishment. It is calculated that it will be five years before this cemetery is filled. When room is wanting, the niches which have been first occupied will be cleared, and the bones deposited in a bone-house, of simple but appropriate construction. At the entrance of the Panteon there is a neat little chapel, where the funeral obsequies are performed. Burials are permitted to take place only in the morning; and when a funeral retinue arrives too late, the body remains uninterred until the following morning. The rich are buried in coffins, the poor merely in winding sheets, which are made after the pattern of the habits worn by the barefooted friars of the order of San Francisco.
The grand square of Lima, the Plaza Mayor, though not in the centre of the city, is nevertheless the central point of its life and business. It is 426 feet distant from the Rimac, and presents a regular quadrangle, each side of which is 510 feet long. From each of the four corners two handsome straight streets run at right angles. There is no pavement, but the ground is covered with fine sand. The cathedral and the archbishop's palace occupy the eastern side of the square. The latter adjoins the sanctuary, and has rather a fine façade. The windows of the principal apartments open into a balcony, commanding a view of the Plaza.
On the north side of the square stands the government palace, formerly the residence of the all-powerful viceroys. Its exterior aspect is mean. It is a square building, and the front next the Plaza is disfigured by a long range of shabby little shops (called La rivera), in which drugs are sold.[9] These shops are surmounted by a balcony. A large double door opens from the Plaza into the great court-yard of the palace. Along the western side of the building there are also a number of little shops occupied by saddlers and dealers in old iron. The street, running in this direction, is called the Old Iron Street (Calle del Fierro Viego). The principal entrance to the palace is on this side. On the south the building has no entrance, and it presents the gloomy aspect of a jail. On the east a door opens into a small yard or court, within which are the office and prison of the police. A few long flag-staffs, fixed on the roof of the palace, do not add to the beauty of the edifice. The interior of the building corresponds with its outward appearance, being at once tasteless and mean. The largest apartment formerly bore the name of the Sala de los Vireyes. It is now used as a ball room when entertainments are given by the government. Under the Spanish domination this room was hung round with portraits of the viceroys, the size of life.[10] The series of vice-regal portraits from Pizarro to Pezuela, forty-four in number, completely filled the apartment at the time when the patriot army in Lima revolted, and consequently the last viceroy, Don Jose de la Serna, who owed his elevation to the military revolution, could not have a place assigned for his portrait among those of his predecessors.[11] The other apartments of the palace are small and inelegant. Some of the rooms are used as government offices.
The present palace was, as far as I have been able to ascertain, built about the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the great earthquake of 1687 it was almost totally destroyed, but it was subsequently restored. The palace which Don Francisco Pizarro built for his own residence, stood, not on the site of the existing edifice, but on the southern side of the Plaza, on the spot where now a narrow dirty alley, called the Callejon de petateros, forms a communication between the Plaza and the Silversmith's street (Calle de Plateros). It was in that old palace that Juan de Herada, the friend and partisan of Don Diego de Almagra, carried into effect his plot against Pizarro. On the 26th of June, 1546, the viceroy was seated at table with a party of his friends, when the insurgents surrounded the palace, shouting "Death to the tyrants!" Pizarro, though warned of his danger, had scarcely time to seize his sword. One of his principal officers, Don Francisco de Chavez, was killed at the door of the apartment, and several of the viceroy's friends and servants escaped by the windows. Among others who attempted to save themselves in this way was Pizarro's counsellor, Juan de Velasquez. Only on the previous evening this man had been heard to declare that no one would be found bold enough to join in an insurrection as long as he held in his hand his staff of authority. This declaration was in a certain measure verified, for Velasquez, whilst descending from the window, held his staff between his teeth, that he might be the better able to support himself with his hands. Martin Pizarro, together with two noblemen and two pages, were the only persons who remained faithful to the viceroy. The latter, with the bravery of a lion, made a long stand against his assailants. "Courage, brother! Down with the traitors!" exclaimed Martin Pizarro, who, the next moment, lay dead at the viceroy's feet. At length Pizarro, exhausted by his efforts to defend himself, could no longer wield his hitherto victorious sword: he was overpowered, and one of his assailants having stabbed him in the throat, he fell, mortally wounded. With his last faltering accents he implored the aid of a confessor; and after losing the power of utterance he traced with his finger, on the ground, the sign of the cross, kissed it repeatedly, and breathed his last. Such was the sad end of one of the greatest heroes of his age;[12] a man guilty of many crimes, but also unjustly accused of many of which he was innocent. His acts were consistent with the spirit of his age, and were influenced by the frightful circumstances in which he was placed. In short, there can be little doubt that Pizarro was "better than his fame."
The west side of the Plaza Mayor is occupied by the Cabildo, or senate-house (formerly called the Casa Consistorial), together with the city jail, and a row of houses of no very handsome appearance. The south side is filled by a range of private dwelling-houses, with balconies looking to the Plaza. The houses, both on the west and south sides of the square, are built above a colonnade, in which there are numerous shops.