In Lima’s streets a stranger stood,
Who wrapp’d his thoughts about him
So close, that they who watched his mood.
But deemed the place without him.
Monday, March 30. We were off this morning at an early hour for Lima. The distance is only seven miles, and is travelled by a line of omnibuses, drawn by six horses, three abreast. Our companions were lieutenants S. and L. of the Congress, two Peruvian officers, a Spanish lady with a lapdog, a creole girl smoking a cigar, and a quadroon in white-kid slippers.
We passed on the right an obelisk surmounted by a cross, designating the spot to which the sea was thrown, in the great earthquake of 1746. A little further on we passed the neglected dwellings of Bellavista, projected as the new Callao, and built further inland, that it might escape the terrible fate of its predecessor. But fear soon yielded to the suggestions of commercial convenience, and Callao went back again to the strand of the sea.
After dragging along for nearly an hour, with our old vehicle buried to the axle in sand, we reached the halfway station, which consists of a dilapidated church and a grog-shop. In the ruined turrets of the one the martins had built their procreant nests; at the bar of the other stood a bare-headed monk, soliciting the change which the glass of toddy might leave. His large feet were protected by sandals, and his Roman nose was so red that one of the passengers got out a cigar.
Having breathed our steeds, we started again, when a fierce quarrel arose between the Spanish lady and her poodle. The little fellow had wet her pocket-handkerchief, and had his ears soundly boxed for the indiscretion. The quadroon took the part of the poodle, and the creole girl smoked on. We now passed several huge tumuli—the burial mounds of the aborigines. The heroic virtues which they entomb have perished. No Homer has swept his lyre in their giant shadows. The road, as we approached the city, presented on either side double rows of poplars, beneath which the Limanians take their twilight promenade. But at this time only a few donkeys were winding their way through them, buried up in grass, which they were taking to market. You saw only the burden; the animal was concealed under it, like a tortoise beneath its shell, or a mouse under a crow’s nest.
We found at the gate a sentry posted with as much solemnity as if the old bastion could still thunder out its defiance. We rattled up a broad street into the heart of the city, where we were emptied from our crazy coach into an office surrounded by boys, who vociferously claimed the privilege of transporting our baggage. The urchins had hold of it before we could even tell them where we were going. The lady with her repentant poodle, and the creole with her cigar, went their way, and we brought up at Morin’s hotel on the grand plaza. The keeper met us in the hall, welcomed us to Lima, and allotted us our apartments. Here we were then at last in the “city of kings,” and in the most sumptuous hotel which its ambition and luxury could furnish. What a transition from the storms, the sleet, and whales off Cape Horn!
Tuesday, March 31. The heart of Lima is occupied by a great public square, in the centre of which stands a fountain, the showering waters of which fall into a wide marble basin. Beneath the verandas which open on this square are the fancy shops of the city, while the Cathedral towers over all in its solemn magnificence. Around the fountain, instead of marble statues, you find donkeys, waiting to have the tanks, which are swung across their little pack-saddles, filled with water. As soon as this has been done, off they start on their destination, without leader or rein. For these two kegs of water the owner gets a real, or twelve and a half cents. Thus is Lima supplied with water; when it might be conducted by pipes through every street of the city.