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PERU AS IT IS:

A RESIDENCE IN LIMA,
AND OTHER PARTS OF THE PERUVIAN REPUBLIC,
COMPRISING
AN ACCOUNT OF THE SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THAT COUNTRY.

BY ARCHIBALD SMITH, M.D.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1839.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Dorset Street, Fleet Street.

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

ERRATA.

Transcriber’s Note: The errata have been corrected but otherwise the original spelling (in both English and Spanish) has been preserved.

PERU AS IT IS.

CHAPTER I.

Site, population, and climate of Cerro Pasco.—Houses.—Coal, and other kinds of fuel.—Timber for use of the mines, &c.—Where brought from.—Fruit and provisions.—Mines.—Mantadas.—Boliches.—Habilitador.—Mint.—Returns of the mines.—Banks of Rescate.—Pasco foundery.

The town of Cerro Pasco, about fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, has its site in an irregular hollow on the northern side of a group of small hills, which commence at Old Pasco on the north-east limit of the high table-land of Bombon.

Cerro Pasco is thus situated at nearly equal distances, or about twenty leagues, from Tarma on the south and Huanaco on the north, both after their kind fertile and productive. It has the fine lake of Chinchaycocha, near old Pasco on its south; and, on the north, the outskirts of the town almost reach to a funnel-mouthed gullet which leads with a rapid descent to the village of Quinoa, three leagues distant. Its eastern and western aspects are bounded in the view by the respective ridges of the eastern and western Cordillera; and the intervening spaces between this bed of Peruvian treasure, and the stupendous barriers presented by these commanding summits, forming a grand amphitheatre, are enlivened throughout much of their extent by the innumerable herds of sheep and folds of cattle that roam and flourish upon them. Here and there are seen groups of the tame llama and shy vicuña; whilst the whole landscape is variegated with lakes, rivulets, and marshes, whose surfaces are ever rippled by the fluttering flocks of geese, ducks, snipes, plovers, water-hens, herons, yanavicas, flamingos, &c. which at their proper and appropriate seasons animate and adorn this wide expanse. Nor should we omit to mention that far towards the west, and skirting the limits of the great plains, are seen from the surrounding heights strange fragments of rock, as in the neighbourhood of Huallay, that assume to the distant eye the appearance of dark pine-trees rising under the shade of the adjacent mountains.

The waters of this mineral district are partly carried off by the famous Adit of Quiullacocha, and a considerable portion of these naturally percolate northward into the hollow of Rumillana near to Cerro, from whence starts the spring Puceoyaco, the source of the river Huallaga.

The population of Cerro Pasco is in a great degree migratory, for it increases and diminishes according as the mines are highly productive, or in a state of poverty and inundation for want of proper drainage: were the drainage perfect, the treasure that might be extracted would be incalculable. The number of inhabitants is never, perhaps, under four or five thousand, and it has been known to swell up to thrice this amount,—the most active hands happily finding accommodation under ground. When the mines were thus productive, the abode of the master-miner rang with the clink of hard dollars, as the die was kept in constant motion; and the fair sex crowded from the more genial vales, and enlivened the miners’ home with the song, guitar, and dance.

The climate of Cerro Pasco is for nearly one half the year, or from the end of November to May, exceedingly gloomy and variable. In the course of a few hours, the wind is often observed to take the round of the compass; and in the same time it changes from fair to rain, from rain to sleet, snow, hail, and rain again. The lanes, for streets they merit not to be termed, are during the greater part of these months wet and miry. The thermometer of Fahrenheit, during this period, rarely rises above 44° in the shade, and seldom falls so low as the freezing point.

But during the dry season, which reigns from May to November, it is much otherwise; and then, though the sun at noon shines forth with great power in the face of a cloudless canopy, the frosts at night are intense, and the evenings and the mornings are keenly piercing and cold. In the course of the month of August the air is so remarkably dry that the nose and fauces become parched and painful. The writer suffered so much from this troublesome affection as to find it necessary to seek a more temperate air a few leagues off, when the ailment disappeared immediately.

The severity of the climate of Cerro Pasco had little to mitigate its effects in the manner wherein houses were constructed in the time of the Spaniards. The dwellings are covered with thatch, and this is the unfortunate cause of frequent and destructive fires breaking out in the town. To avoid such accidents, one or two houses have been lately covered with lead.

It was not until the arrival of the Peruvian Mining Company, in December 1825, that the inhabitants were taught how to mitigate the evils of their inclement home by the construction of chimneys and proper fire-places, as well as glazed windows; and for the introduction of these comforts to the dwellings and firesides of the miners we have heard the company blessed, long after its agents had to forsake those regions of subterranean wealth. Though this rich district has not the natural advantages of a favourable climate, yet it possesses that by which its rigour may be softened and its effects meliorated; it has abundance of coal.

Within five miles or thereabouts of Cerro Pasco, is a coal-mine of rather inferior quality, from which Captain Hodge, a distinguished miner from Cornwall, used to supply his customers. The coal burnt at the steam-engine was conveyed about five or six miles from the coal-mine, near the pueblo of Rancas, called “La mina de las Maquinas,” and is of very superior quality. The fuel, however, which is most common in Cerro Pasco, as well as all over the frigid districts of the Sierra, is “champa” a turf (not peat) cut from the surface of the marsh-land. Charcoal becomes very expensive; and the large braseros or pans, in which the rich miners once used to burn it, (though not always with impunity, because of the deleterious effect of the carbonic acid gas evolved,) are fortunately out of fashion since the advantages of the chimneys and grates have become known.

For smelting purposes, at different mining situations in the Sierra, the ordure of quadrupeds is collected on the plains in the dry season, and used as fuel with rushes and long grass which grow on the pasture-grounds.

Heavy timber for the use of the mines and mineral haciendas, and lighter timber for house-building in Cerro Pasco, is dragged a distance of sixty miles, and over bad and uneven road, by men and oxen, from the woods of Paucartambo, at the entrance into the Montaña, to the south-east of Pasco.

Fodder is sometimes exceedingly scarce and dear in Cerro Pasco. It frequently takes six reals, or one dollar (3s. or 4s.), daily, to feed a mule or horse with “alcaser” or barley-straw cut down when green, and conducted on beasts’ backs from the small villages in adjoining glens; and it is therefore customary for those who come to Pasco on business, and have several mules or horses, to send them away to the nearest convenient pastures until required to renew their journey. Indeed, in Cerro Pasco itself are to be seen in the wet season small patches of barley which never ripens, and is cut down green; but the quantity grown is too trifling to deserve notice, except in so far as it goes to show the sort of climate in this locality. Potatoes and “alcaser” are the principal productions of Quinoa; for, though its pastures are good, the temperature of the place is too cold to produce maize: but a league or two lower down, at a village called Cajamarquilla, wheat may be grown, but in small quantity for want of sufficient arable land. At this place are numerous little gardens carefully cultivated, whence onions, cabbages, lettuces, and flowers for the use of churches and chapels, &c. are taken, and sold in Pasco market-place, which throughout the year is well supplied with a variety of fruits, plenty of good fresh meat and other provisions in abundance, from the warm and temperate valleys beneath, and lakes and plains around the mines.[1]

“No one is ignorant,” says the intelligent and active prefect, Don Francisco Quiros, in his report to the departmental junta of his jurisdiction of Junin, assembled in Huanuco in 1833,—“No one is ignorant that the richest fountain of our national wealth this day is concentrated in the immense treasures of the mineral of Pasco. Its works, conducted with intelligence and managed with economy, would be more than enough to spread abroad abundance in all the republic, enough to draw towards us the productions of the whole universe, and to increase incalculably the delights and comforts of life. But the fatality which too often persecutes what is good, has plunged us in misery. Avaricious hands, desiring to enrich themselves in a moment, have for years back paralysed our best exertions; and by the indiscreet liberality of our mineral statute, ‘ordenanza,’ permitting the labouring miners to be paid in ore, and thereby violating more and more the principles of subterranean architecture, it would seem that instead of supporting the ample domes with solid pillars, pains had been taken to bring them down. There, as in a sepulchre, our most flattering hopes will be interred, if with a strong hand abuses so enormous shall not be checked,—if a wholesome severity may not be able to restrain the scandalous practice of thieving, as well as the irregular mode of subterranean labour.”

The mine labourer can choose for himself, by the laws of the mineral district, one of two sorts of payment. He can have four reals, or two shillings, daily as a fixed hire; or he may choose to retain a certain proportion of the ore, which he breaks down from the mine and carries, (panting loudly under his burden, contained in a leathern bag or capacho,) to the surface, where the division takes place by established measure; and the women, with a pot of chicha in hand, eagerly grasped at by the overheated and half-exhausted capachero or carrier, commonly stand by the mouth of the mine to carry home the miner’s share,—a bundle of ore called “mantada.” A common workman’s daily share of metal may be worth a great deal of money, or it may be worth little or nothing. When the former is the case, the mine is said to be in “boya” or “bolla,” namely, a state of rich production, when the common labourer naturally insists upon being paid in metal; and again, when the mine does not produce good ore, or such as pays well, the labourer, who throws away his all on the pageantry of religious festivals and processions, claims his four reals per day’s work, and will have no share in his employer’s bad bargain.

At the mouth of the great mine, called the King’s mine,—“La mina del Rey,”—which rendered the family of Yjura so famous and so wealthy,—a labourer has been known in our own day to refuse eighty dollars for his mantada, which abounded in pieces of polvorilla and maciza, or ore rich in native and nearly pure silver. Native and massive silver is, however, necessarily rare, and only occurs in small and scattered portions among other metals of good quality. The better the quality of the ore, so much greater is the damage and loss from robbery sustained by the mine and master miner; and it often happens that the cost of raising the ore, extracting the silver, paying government and local duties, the repair of the underground works, supply of salt and quicksilver, together with all the expense of major-domos, and wear and tear of mining utensils, loss on cargo-mules and llamas, &c. exceed the whole returns of the mine. Hence, we have known a most intelligent, active, and distinguished master miner of Pasco, four or five of whose mines yielded mostly all the rich ore extracted from that mineral in the years 1827 and 1828, declare that, after having put about two millions of dollars in circulation from the produce of these mines, he himself was rather a loser than a gainer, notwithstanding such abundant returns.

The number of mines at Cerro usually at work since they have fallen into the hands of the Patriots are comparatively few: though in the different districts or sections of this place, known under the names Santa Rosa, Yauricocha, Caya, Yanacancha, Cheupimarca, and Matagente, there are several hundred well-known mines from which silver has been, and yet may be, plentifully dug out, provided a perfect drainage should ever be effected. The mines of late actually productive in Cerro Pasco may be said generally to amount to about thirty in number, and to be at work for about eight months in the year. Some of these are of course of inferior quality; but the metals which, by assay or experiment on the small scale, only yield six or seven marcs per cajon or box, (the marc being eight ounces, and the cajon twenty-five mules’ load of ten arrobes, or two hundred and fifty pounds each,) are found to be worth the working, provided the ore be not very difficult to extract, either on account of the character of the vein, or the depth of the workings. The metals of Santa Rosa, when they yield ten marcs of silver per cajon, and when quicksilver is at a moderate price, pay the miner better than richer ores, because they do not tempt the cupidity of the labourers, who are therefore contented with the fixed sum of four reals wages per day, instead of the mantadas or bundles of metal already mentioned.

These mantadas are purchased by a class of men called bolicheros, or owners of boliches. This boliche is, to the common grinding-mills on the mine-estates or haciendas, what the hand-mill of the Israelites was to the modern corn-mills moved by machinery: it is a kind of rocking-stone, placed on the concave surface of a larger stone well accommodated underneath. Metal, in comparatively small quantities, is ground between these two stones by a man who, with the help of a long pole, balances himself on the upper roundish and heavy stone, which by the weight and motion of his own body he keeps rocking incessantly. The metal, or ore, thus ground, is the very richest; poor or ordinary ore could not pay on this small scale: but the ore bought of the labouring miners usually enriches the bolichero, who, tempted by the prospects of a ready fortune, does not hesitate to encourage the thieving practices complained of in the departmental report of our friend the prefect of Junin, himself a native of Cerro Pasco.

The town of Cerro Pasco—of which the very “adobes,” or unburnt bricks, partly used in some of the houses, contain silver—is itself so burrowed under, that one is really in no small danger of inadvertently, and especially at night, falling into old mines, or rather pits,—sometimes superficial, sometimes deep and fathomless, and half filled with water. The mines are irregularly wrought under ground; and the experienced hands burrow like rabbits through holes not commonly known, and so come at rich metals by stealth, to be immediately exchanged for dollars at the bolicheros. The best way to prevent such plunder would be to prohibit boliches. While this species of robbery goes on, Cerro Pasco, though removed from the sphere of the earthquakes that infest the coast, is in risk of being swallowed up by the falling-in of the arches of the mines, supported on pillars frequently consisting of rich ore. The thieves pilfer from these pillars, and so weaken the supports of the whole underground fabric, that now and then entire arches fall in, sometimes producing a sacrifice of lives or other disastrous consequences.

We see the Pasco miners always in the midst of riches, and always embarrassed: they are kept in a state of continued tantalization. The miner, it is true, sometimes has immense and rapid gains, in spite of rogues and plunderers everywhere about him, at comparatively little expense of time or money; and this occasional success leads others to indulge in a hope of similar good fortune, which hurries the majority of speculators in this channel into pecuniary difficulties: for, as we have seen, the necessary outlay is often great without any compensation; and when the capital is too limited, though in the main the undertaking be a good one, ruin is near. Shopkeepers and dealers in plata-piña are tempted, by prospects of commercial advantage, to lend money to the harassed mine-owner to enable him to forward his works, and to repay the loan in piña[2] at so much per marc. Such a lender is called “habilitador:” but it unluckily happens for this capitalist that, by the custom and usage of the miner, the last “habilitador” has a claim to be first paid, which leads to the worst practical results. The miner is generally a reckless gambler, who spends money as fast as it comes to him, not in improving his mines, but in indulging his vices; and in this manner the interest of the first habilitadors may be successively postponed to the claims of the most recent, who frequently is disappointed in his turn; while the difficulties of the miner are not removed, but merely prolonged, and he is involved in everlasting disputes and litigation.

The risk, expense, and delay occasioned at all times, and more particularly in days of civil broil, by the necessity of forwarding the bars of silver from Pasco to Lima for the purpose of coinage, are felt as so many real grievances by the miner; and it is known that these causes, with the desire to avoid the payment of the established duties, have led to a contraband trade across the by-ways of the mountains to the coast, which no number of custom-house officers could prevent, even on the extravagant supposition of their being proof against bribery and corruption. The evils attendant on the existing arrangements led the legislature to pass a law for the establishment of a mint at the mines of Pasco; but this desirable object has not yet been carried into effect in a proper and efficient manner, though we understood that the prefect Quiros employed a native tradesman to erect some rude machinery by which a few hundred dollars were thrown off daily.

An extract from a memoir presented in the year 1832 to the congress in Lima by Mr. Tudela, the Peruvian minister of “Hacienda” or home affairs, may give an idea of the returns of the mines. “To animate mining industry,” says he, “one most essential thing is the convenient supply of quicksilver, with which our metals are generally extracted from their ores; because smelting is not suited for the greater number of these, neither is it used for those ores to the refining of which it is adapted.[3] The price of the quicksilver determines the profit or loss on the poorer metals; and neither exemption from duties of cobos[4] and tithes, nor any other protection which the law dispenses to the mining corporation, compensate for the expense of this article.

“In Huancavelica, Peru possesses one of the richest quicksilver mines on earth,—a mine which comprehends forty-one hills, examined and found intersected with veins, of which one part alone, that of Saint Barbara, called the “Great,” yielded five thousand quintals of quicksilver per annum for two centuries. It was, therefore, a matter of importance to inquire if it could be conveniently worked; and it has been found that, with moderate support and certain arrangements, quicksilver may be procured at sixty-five dollars per quintal.[5]

“The operations of the mints concur in proving the necessity of banks: for, granting the mint of Lima has stamped in the last three years 4,902,762 dollars, and the mint at Cuzco, in the years 1829 and 1831, 969,939 dollars, the augmentation of coinage does not correspond to that which should result from the abolition of the duties of cobos and tithes since the 26th February 1830, and the increase in the coinage at Cuzco proceeds from other causes. When these duties” (viz. cobos and tithes) “were yet exacted, in the Lima mint alone, in the year 1827, more than 2,700,000 dollars were coined; but in that year, in addition to the beneficial drainage of the Pasco mines, the contraband trade had not extended itself as afterwards it did. To diminish the evils produced by contraband trade in mining places or in their immediate environs, funds, in addition to banks of ‘Rescate,’ are necessary in the houses of coinage; with which being provided, neither the holders of bullion shall be deterred from presenting it because of the delay they experience in being paid its value, nor, if this delay be shortened, shall the treasury suffer the severe losses to which it is actually subjected. One hundred thousand dollars in the Lima mint, and fifty thousand in the mint of Cuzco, should prove sufficient to meet all difficulties.”

We may remark, that the want of such mint deposits as are alluded to by Mr. Tudela is one of the principal sources of mistrust in revolutionary times; as the possessor of bullion will rather run the risk of smuggling, than the chance either of losing all his capital, or of being long deprived of its value in hard dollars, if he carries it in the regular channel to the Lima mint. The banks of Rescate to which Mr. Tudela refers, now so much desired in Peru, are only funds deposited in certain situations, and under proper superintendence, for the miner to be thereby enabled to exchange his piña at a fixed and just value in current money, by which he is put in possession of dollars as soon as his piña is ready for the market. And this, we may venture to say, is the only sort of bank calculated to be of real service to the dissolute miner; as it encourages his industry, without putting it in his power to outrun his credit with the bank, or of ruining himself and family, and kindling the worst of passions in consequence of forfeiting his mines, which would frequently be the case if these were accepted in security for cash advances, to be spent probably in feasts, frolics, cards, and dicing, instead of being applied to the professed purpose of working his mines or improving his property.

The number of marcs[6] of silver reduced to bars, in the foundery at Cerro Pasco, from the year 1825 to 1836 inclusive, is, according to the best information, as follows:—

CHAPTER II.

Descent from Pasco to Huanuco.—Succession of works for grinding and amalgamating silver ore.—Quinoa.—Cajamarquilla.—Huariaca.—San Rafael.—Ambo.—Vale of Huanuco; its beauties and advantages.—State of agriculture in this vale, and traffic with Pasco.—The College named La Virtud Peruana.—Steam navigation on the river Huallaga, and civilization of the wild Indians of the Montaña.—Natural productions of the Montaña.

Some of the valleys in Peru, like that by Obrajillo and Canta, extend from the coast to the Cordillera: some are only a few leagues of rapid descent from the puna or lofty table-land, as Tarma, for example, from the heights of Junin; but others sink deeply into the bosom of the central Andes, or dip under the brow of the Montaña, as, for example, Guarrigancha and Huanuco, of the latter of which we purpose to offer a more particular account.

Huanuco is not to be confounded with the ancient town called Leon de Guanuco, of which the remarkable remains are still well worth visiting on the high pasture-land of Huamalies: for the city now called Huanuco, or, as some write it, Guanuco, is in a delightful valley, twenty-two leagues in a north-easterly direction from the mines of Cerro Pasco, with a descent of about seven thousand feet; thus situated, as nearly as may be, half-way in respect to altitude between Cerro Pasco and the ocean.

In the first three leagues of our descent from the mines to the vale, we pass by a number of mills for grinding metal, preparatory to its being mixed with salt and quicksilver for the purpose of amalgamation. These are situated in a narrow rocky glen; the rugged road through it lying often along the bed of the stream that wanders down it, putting a great many mills successively in motion as it is directed into troughs or canals leading to the clumsy machinery of the haciendas, to which the ore is conducted at great trouble and expense, on the backs of mules, donkeys, and llamas.

From the village of Quinoa, only three leagues from Cerro, and once celebrated for its gold mine, to the village of Cajamarquilla, two leagues lower down, the road is furrowed, deep, and miry during the wet season; but the pasture-grounds are good, and upon these the cattle of the miners are sent to feed at small expense. From two to three leagues below Cajamarquilla, of which we took notice in our account of Cerro Pasco, is Huariaca, a small town with a large plaza, or square, and very good houses. This town is the centre of a curacy and seat of a governor, with a climate analogous to that of Obrajillo on the road between Lima and Cerro, or Cerro Pasco, formerly noticed. Its artificial productions are also the same as we formerly mentioned, viz. maize, wheat, beans, potatoes, &c.; but here natural vegetation is more luxuriant, and the air exceedingly benign: the frosts are seldom so keen as to blight or wither the parks of lucern, and troublesome heat is unknown. Huariaca is endeared to the memory of many a Cornish miner, who lost his health in Cerro Pasco, and at this rendezvous for convalescence rejoiced in the smiling aspect of nature, and enjoyed the delightful feeling of returning health. The writer, in common with several of his countrymen, has to lament the premature death of the curate of this place, Dr. Don Pablo de Marticurena; whose intelligence, hospitality, and amiable disposition rendered him an object of love and respect, while his house was the home of the traveller, and the abode of charity, without distinction of creed or country. A league below Huariaca, we cross a bridge placed over the small river of Cono or Pallanchacra, a short distance above which is the famous tepid mineral well of Cono; to which, as it is in a temperate little glen, the sick have frequent recourse. On the banks of this stream we have peaches in perfection and plenty; and as we approach towards the village of Saint Rafael, a few leagues lower down, we are amused by looking up at heights topped with Indian hamlets, and at little flats and declivities under crop of wheat and potatoes, &c. and, near the river, maize. The temperature of Saint Rafael is delicious, and this locality is free from any endemic disease.

From Saint Rafael to Ambo is a distance of several leagues of hard road, sometimes running close to the river’s edge, often running along the steep, and with its rocky staircases and narrow passes subjected in time of rains to be blocked up by large stones and small trees, carried down by the mountain torrents. Where the glen expands towards the hill-tops, but closes so narrowly below as only to give room for the channel of the river, we find the road at certain narrows carried along the face of the rock; and here the craggy projections serve as supporters for poles or rafters extending along the intervening gaps, and covered with flags or brushwood laid on and coated with a little earth, thus forming an extremely awkward and narrow bridgeway suspended over the stream. At Ambo, nine leagues lower down than Huariaca, the aspect of the country is changed. Here the loud chirping (for it cannot be called croaking) of little frogs heard by night—the granadilla in elegant flowering festoons seen by day on the pacay and lucuma tree, tell the warm and thirsty traveller that he has come to the land of “guarapo,”[7] where he may enjoy the cool of the corridor, and cast off the load of his Sierra ponchos and heavy clothing.

From Ambo to the city of Huanuco we have five leagues of a charming ride; and from Ambo downwards, the Vale of Huanuco may be said to commence. In this vale the writer resided for three years. The year is, as usual, divided into the wet and dry seasons, observing the same periods of change as we have already noticed to belong to the seasons on the high Sierra. In this valley, however, snow never falls, except on the summits of the highest hills; and the thermometer of Fahrenheit is seldom seen to rise above 72° in the shade of the veranda, or wide-spreading fig-tree. In the hottest day, when every little stone on the surface of the newly-turned field glistens in the sunbeams, so as to torment the sight, the thermometer rises very high on being exposed in the open air to the direct rays of the sun; but, upon being removed into the shade, it again falls to a very few degrees above 70°; and scarcely ever throughout the whole year is it seen to sink under 66° of the night thermometer placed within doors,—thus manifesting an equability of atmospherical temperature altogether as extraordinary as it is benignant. So small, then, is the range of the thermometer in this fine locality, that the state of the internal circulation of our frame is but little disturbed by sudden changes induced by vicissitudes of temperature. To the uniform mildness of its atmosphere it may be principally owing that pulmonary consumption is as little a disease of this favoured locality as ague;[8] for we never, during the period of three years that we resided here, had occasion to know of a single instance in which this disease originated in the valley; but those who, by residing in other situations, had their lungs nearly wasted by consumption and spitting of blood, have, in different parts of this valley, found a temporary asylum which afforded a prolongation of life when entire restoration to health was physically impossible. The climate is sometimes complained of as too dry, it being only during the rainy months that the perspiration commonly becomes sensible on moderate exertion. During the greater part of the year the reflected rays of the sun on the sides of the valley would render it intolerably hot, were it not for the daily breeze that, from about 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. comes with uniform regularity from the Montaña, through the aperture in the mountains along which the river of Huanuco rolls towards the Huallaga and great Marañon.

In August and September, no perceptible dew falls; but during these months, when vegetation among the small neighbouring dales becomes scanty, the deer often steal in herds to the thickets near the river; and we have stalked them at midnight in the midst of the fields, without discovering a trace of moisture on the alfalfa leaf. The nights are always delightful; and the sky, when it does not rain, is pure, bright, and beautiful. The hills on the eastern side of the valley are clothed with pastures, have perennial springs and wood in their dingles and corries, and are capable of grazing cattle all the year: but opposite to these, on the western side, the hills, like those of the coast, are dull arid masses for nine months in the year, only furnishing a sparse growth of flowering shrubs and weeds on their sides; whilst their elevated tops alone throw forth a denser crop of sweet herbage, on which folds of cattle regale themselves in the months of January, February, and March,—at a season, as we have seen, when the uncultivated heights near the coast are scorched, and stripped of all vegetation except cacti and some bulbous plants. But the plains that spread round the base of the hills and mountains that go to form the Vale of Huanuco, are never allowed to take upon them the withered face of winter. By the aid of rivulets from the mountains, sometimes diverted from their natural channels by art, and carried, by circuitous aqueducts of many miles in extent, the numerous flats among the recesses of the heights and slopes, frequently elevated much above the lower plains, are kept ever verdant and productive, in like manner as the fields and enclosures in the bottom of the vale are fertilized by canals from the river. The best sugar-cane comes to maturity in about eighteen months or two years, and yields several cuttings of after-growth. The lucern or alfalfa, without the aid of top-dressing, gives six crops annually for an indefinite number of years; and in some favoured spots it yields a cutting in six weeks, and therefore gives eight crops yearly. The writer had a plot that yielded, at this rate, alfalfa of about a yard in height, and in good flower. The plantain, both long and short, and the richest tuna, or Indian fig, grow in abundance; the finest pineapples are brought from the neighbouring Montaña, where vegetation is much more rapid and vigorous than in the Vale of Huanuco. In this vale, however, the palta and cheremoya mellow on the branches in their native soil. The maguey, coffee, cotton, and vine, the pomegranate and orange, the citron, lemon, and lime, &c. flourish here; and the meanest villager, as well as the humblest lodger under a cane-roofed shed, inhales with every breath the odours of never-failing blossoms. As the morning sun gilds the high ridges of this happy valley, its inhabitants are animated to the daily labours of the field by the cheerful voice of the prettily-plumaged inmates of their well-shaded bowers. Such, then, are some of the more prominent beauties and natural advantages of the Vale of Huanuco: and we may here mention, that the city of Huanuco is the principal seat of recreation for him who wastes his strength and frets his temper in the too often delusive pursuit of wealth in Cerro Pasco, and other inclement mining localities in the neighbourhood. In spite of their vexations and misfortunes, few can have invested themselves with a mood so sad or so cynic as not to enjoy and partake of the enthusiastic glee and antiquated gambols of a carnival feast in Huanuco.

The agriculture of Huanuco,—though alluring to the eye of the ordinary traveller, who only glances at its rich and waving fields, enclosed within tapias or fences of mud, and hedges of the Indian fig, and aloe or maguey plants,—is in every way defective as a branch of industry. The fields owe their luxuriance to nature rather than to man, except in the single advantage of water, which he often directs and supplies to them. Manure is a thing never thought of; and the ground seldom requires it, though we see the same spot year after year under crop: but much of the soil which is considered poor might be rendered fertile, in so favourable a climate, if the people would only take the trouble of cleaning out their large cattle-pens once a year; but this would be to diverge from their accustomed routine, which they dislike to forsake. The implements of husbandry are of the rudest kind. The plough, which is slight and single-handed, is constructed merely of wood, without mould-board, which we have seen a one-handed person manage with perfect dexterity. The ploughshare is a thick iron blade, only tied when required for use by a piece of thong, or lasso, on the point of the plough, which divides the earth very superficially. Where the iron is not at hand, as frequently happens, we understand that the poor peasant uses, instead, a share made of hard iron-wood that grows in the Montaña. Harrows they have, properly speaking, none: if we remember well, they sometimes use, instead, large clumsy rakes; and we have seen them use a green bough of a tree dragged over the sown ground, with a weight upon it to make it scratch the soil. In room of the roller, of which they never experienced the advantage, they break down the earth in the field intended for cane-plants, after it has got eight or ten ploughings and cross-ploughings, with the heel of a short-handled hoe which they call “lampa;” a tool which they use with great dexterity in weeding the cane-fields and clearing aqueducts. For smoothing down the clods of earth, we have seen some Indians use a more antiquated instrument. It consisted of a soft, flat, and round stone, about the size of a small cheese, which had a hole beaten through its centre by dint of blows with a harder and pointed stone. To the stone thus perforated they fixed a long handle, and, as they swung it about, they did great execution in the work of “cuspiando” or field-levelling.

Lucern or alfalfa is daily cut down, and used green, as scores of cattle and the working oxen for the plough and sugar-mills are to be fed by it; yet the scythe is not in use among the great planters, who find it necessary to keep two or three individuals at the sickle to cut down food for herds, in the daytime fed on irrigated pastures, but at night fed in corrals or pens.

Potato-ground they are accustomed to break up on the face of steeps with deep narrow spades, to which long handles are attached, that afford good leverage. In the same manner the soil is turned up by those who have neither plough nor oxen, but who yet sow maize on the temperate flats on the hill-sides, and in the midst of thickets by mountain streams, where the soil is usually fertile, and materials for fencing are at hand. People thus circumstanced make holes in the ground with a sharp-pointed stick, where they bury the seed secure, that it may not be taken up by the fowls of the air; and that, when dropped in virgin soil, it may yield a luxuriant crop and plentiful harvest. The Indian sows the white-grained maize in preference to the yellow, (morocho,) as he considers that when toasted it makes the best “cancha,” which the poor Indian everywhere uses instead of bread; and that when boiled it makes the blandest “mote,” for so they call the simply boiled maize: it has moreover the credit of making the most savoury chicha, or beer, which they home-brew whenever they have a little surplus grain at their command. They also, as we were given to understand, make a kind of beer from the fermented juice of the maize-stalks compressed between small rollers of wood moved with the hand. The usual application of dry maize-leaves and stubble is to feed cattle, and for this purpose it is considered more fattening than either alfalfa or sugar-cane tops.

Agi, or pimento, is cultivated around the little Indian houses and gardens in the Vale of Huanuco; and without this condiment the natives hardly relish any kind of food.

The sugar-mills in this valley are, the greater number of them, made of wood, and moved by oxen. On the larger estates small brass rollers are used; but with a single exception, on the estate of Andaguaylla, where we were concerned in erecting a water-mill for the purpose of grinding sugar-cane, the proprietors adhere to the old practice of working with oxen by day and by night throughout the year, barring accidents, and feasts or holy-days.

The beautiful hacienda or estate of Quicacan, Colonel Lucar’s, is a model of industry and method after the fashion of the country; and the most distinguished family of Echegoyen have, in Colpa-grande, the finest cane-estate, as far as we know, in the interior of Peru. It extends for nine or ten miles along the fertile banks of the river, from the city of Huanuco towards the ascents that lead into the Montaña.

Respecting Huanuco, although the principal city or capital of the department to which it belongs, we have to observe, that the consumption of its agricultural produce, as well as its own internal prosperity, depends on the mineral seat of Cerro Pasco. When the population of the Cerro rises to ten or twelve thousand, every article of Huanuco produce is in high demand; but when, from any cause, the mines are not wrought, or when these are inundated from defective drainage, and the hands employed in working them are fewer in number, the Huanuqueños and other neighbouring agriculturists are greatly discouraged or actually ruined; because, deprived of this outlet for their produce, they cannot undertake the expense of sending sugar and spirits on mules to the coast. The consequence is, that they are frequently poor in the midst of plenty; like the owners of extensive herds of sheep on the high pasture-lands, whose wool is of little value to them, as it cannot pay for mule or llama carriage to the coast; and the scanty produce of the looms of the interior have little estimation, as the ruined “obrages,” or manufactories, now amply testify. The shuttle is, moreover, nearly put at rest by the cheaper articles of warm woollen as well as cotton clothing continually introduced from the stores of our English manufacturers.

A staple article of Huanuco commerce with Cerro Pasco is the coca-leaf, from their Montaña, only distant about fifteen leagues from the city; an article of which they have several crops yearly. The indigo growers in the contiguous Montaña have, we believe, forsaken their enterprise, for want of funds to proceed with the manufacture of what, from the samples produced, was considered a good article.

Much of the fruit of the Huanuco orchards is eaten at the tables of the Pasqueños, or inhabitants of Cerro; and in the convents are made excellent sweet preserves, which are highly valued, and circulated in the surrounding country as nice and most welcome presents rather than as formal articles of commerce.

Several lands formerly belonging to convents are now appropriated as endowments of the college of Huanuco, named La Virtud Peruana, which is the only school of its kind at present open in the department of Junin. This temple of Peruvian virtue, for so the Lyceum, which was formerly a convent, has been emphatically called, was installed in May 1829, under the rectorship of Doctor Don Gregorio de Cartagena; and the writer would now desire from his native country to offer to this acute and enlightened gentleman his grateful acknowledgments for the generous hospitality of which he was himself the object, when, pilgrim and stranger as he was, he knocked at the gates of the “Temple of Peruvian Virtue.” Doctor Don Gregorio de Cartagena, jointly with his distinguished relative Doctor Don Manuel Antonio de Valdizan, has the honour of being considered the founder of this college in his native city, as we learn from the speech of Doctor Don Buena Ventura Lopez, delivered in the college chapel on the day of installation, and published, with other harangues made on the same occasion, in the periodical then commenced as the first-fruits of the Huanuco press, under the very happy title of “The Echo of the Montaña.”

In the speech of Dr. Lopez, he encourages the rising generation to take the best advantage of the new path to knowledge, virtue, and honourable distinction now freely opened to them by the meritorious exertions of two of the most eminent natives of Huanuco. He exhorts his young hearers never to forget how much they owe to these patriots and benefactors:

“And you,” says he, “fortunate young men, in possession of advantages which were denied to your forefathers, let the names of your indulgent friends Valdizan and Cartagena, coupled with the obligations of this day, sink deep into your hearts: warmed as they are with feelings of the purest delight, they will readily receive the generous impression, ay, and retain it for ever.”

The kind and affable inhabitants of this city in the bosom of the Andes have their imaginations excited with the hopes of their rising glories, and their own happy valley is too narrow for their expanding desires. So full are their literati of the flattering idea that an English colony on the river Huallaga may extend its industry and enterprise to the cultivation of the great pampa del Sacramento, that they already fancy proper depôts and harbours selected, docks prepared, and ships building from the timber of their own Montaña, to carry them a voyage of pleasure and profit round the world. They imagine little steamers up to Playa-grande, or even to the falls at Casapi, or the port of Cuchero on the river Chinchao, within a couple of days’ journey of their city; and, when their wishes are realized, they calculate that their now useless and neglected copper mines shall be more precious, and draw in upon them more wealth than ever did brilliants or diamonds on their distant neighbours of Brazil. And no wonder that the natives of this Elysian valley should be overjoyed at such prospects; since their long-continued communication with the canoe-men of the Huallaga on the one side, and in former times with those of the missionaries at the port or settlement of Mayro on the other, familiarise them with the notion of navigating the Huallaga and Ucayali; while the intervening plains of Sacramento they consider to be naturally the richest and most capable of improvement of any in the world. Even the miner of Cerro Pasco finds his fancy warmed when he reflects on the prospect of a steam navigation on the Marañon. Don Jose Lago y Lemus, one of the most distinguished of the veteran miners of Pasco, published in 1831 a pamphlet in illustration of the advantages that might accrue to the republic from this navigation. In this pamphlet he endeavours to show that the portions of Peruvian territory hitherto occupied, and consisting of arid coasts and rugged mountainous districts, are not to be compared, in point of natural interest or national importance, with the immense plains and fertile Montaña or wooded deserts on the eastern frontier; and he manifests a laudable and patriotic zeal in endeavouring to arouse the attention of his countrymen to this most momentous subject.

Don Jose expresses himself thus:

“The undersigned, being convinced of the truths he lays before the public, and at the same time anxiously desiring, in virtue of his appointment, both the welfare of the department and the province which he represents, he proposes to the most honourable Junta,” (viz. the departmental Junta of Junin, assembled in the city of Huanuco,) “a project of the grandest magnitude, capable of making the entire republic prosper, and of placing her in the rank and circumstances to compete with, and be the envy of, the most powerful states in the world. It will be said truly, that we were not heretofore ignorant of the treasures and riches of the actual productions in the Montañas of the Peruvian territory; it is equally certain that the want of hands, capital, and men of enterprise, have been powerful causes why we were unable to enjoy these natural advantages. If this be our state of weakness—if its commencement be traceable to our colonial condition, and that Providence has reserved the remedy till the epoch of our freedom and an age of intellectual light, let us make every effort to reap such incalculable benefits. Commercial relations are those that enlighten the people; by this powerful magic friendships are acquired, and with the most remote inhabitants of the globe bonds of brotherhood are established. Let, then, the grand canal of the Marañon be rendered navigable for steam vessels; so that, by the diverse and lesser streams that form this great river, we may procure them entrance to the immediate environs of our cities, towns, and villages, situated on the banks of the Huallaga.

“Ah, gentlemen! What a sudden and extraordinary emotion this idea excites in my mind! My imagination already combines the ideas that suggest themselves respecting this privileged city of Huanuco. Now its spacious fields are held worthy of higher cultivation and care; its abandoned streets I see crowded with useful citizens; the banks of its ample river Huallaga present a varied and charming perspective of shipping, newly elevated towns, open tracts of woodland, and cultivated lawns. Allured by the novelty of this scene, innumerable tribes of the wild Indians will unite themselves with us; they are our brethren, and, when thus intimately brought into contact with us, they may frankly discover to our knowledge those hidden treasures of our forests which their ignorance and barbarism hitherto concealed; and, as integral parts of Peru, they will conduce to its grandeur and respectability. Gentlemen, the most vivid imagination is lost in this contemplation, and finds itself overwhelmed by the number and vastness of the objects which crowd into its thoughts.”

The above patriotic effusion, very worthy of a departmental deputy of Junin, may appear to the reader to paint in too glowing terms the capabilities and importance of the Montaña on the confines of Huanuco. But, considering the extent and fertility of the territory, the navigable nature of its principal rivers, and the generally salubrious character of its climate, we believe that he who attempts to depict its various superiorities and advantages is more likely to come short of his object, than to overrate the reality which in imagination he may desire to trace.

Those regions in the Montaña which are watered by the Huallaga, Ucayali, and Marañon, with various subsidiary rivers interspersed among the intervening grounds, have as yet been but inadequately explored, and therefore only a very imperfect account can be offered of their aspect and natural productions.

From May to November the sun shines very powerfully in the Montaña, and consequently the soil, where it is cleared of wood,—for example, in the valley of Chinchao—becomes so parched that its surface opens in chinks; but underneath it always preserves humidity, and therefore needs no irrigation. From November to May it rains much, sometimes for six or seven days without intermission.

In the rivers, alligators, tortoises, and a variety of fish are found; and these also swarm in the ponds or lakes formed during the inundations of the rainy season. The most remarkable inhabitant of these waters is the manati, sometimes called pexebuey,[9] from its supposed resemblance to the cow or ox. Like the cetaceous family to which it belongs, it suckles its young, and also feeds among the grass on the banks of the rivers.

The trees of the forest are inhabited by parrots, tanagers, and a surprising variety of birds, whose exquisite plumage vies with butterflies and flowers in the beauty, delicacy, and combination of their tints. Monkeys are so numerous as to form a chief article of animal food for the Indian hunter, dexterous in the use of the bow and arrow, or of the cerbatána, a long and hollow piece of wood through which he blows a small arrow, and hits his mark, at short distances, with fatal precision. There are very many venomous serpents. Wild-boars, deer, pumas, bears, tigers, and tapirs, frequent these forests, and are objects of the chase.

The vegetable productions of the Montaña, here considered as articles of commerce, or adopted for economical uses, are numerous. Among the valuable woods are cedar, and chonta or ebony, mahogany, walnut, and almond-tree. Edible herbs and roots, except the potato and yuca, are little cultivated; but coffee, plantains, and sugar-cane, of which a variety called the blue or azul is very luxuriant, are reared with some care, where nature indeed requires but little aid from the hand of man. The sugar-cane comes to maturity earlier than in other parts of Peru, and yields an annual crop at very little cost of production.

In the fertile vale of Chinchao, famous for its coca plantations, a few proprietors of Huanuco cultivate frijoles, or beans, for the use of the coca-gatherers: rice is also grown by the humid banks of the great rivers, and maize is everywhere sown as a necessary of life.

In the Montaña, chicha is made from maize, as in other parts of Peru; but the natives here make a drink called masata, not known in more civilized parts of the country, produced by chewing the yuca or maize, &c. and then leaving it to ferment, when, according to the quantity of water added to it, the fermented juice will be found of greater or less intoxicating power.

Indigo, as we have before noticed, is of Montaña growth, as is also tobacco.

Cotton, spun and wove into cloths of various texture by the Indians, requires no artificial assistance for its luxuriant growth. Lemons, limes, oranges, citrons, and other cooling fruit, are also productions of those parts.

The pine-apple is very abundant, as well as of delicious flavour, though it grows wild: and among the articles of spontaneous growth in the Montaña contiguous to Huanuco we may enumerate cacao or cocoa, cinnamon, guaiacum, vanilla, black wax, storax, dragon’s blood, oil of Maria, gum caraña, balsam of copaiba, copal, and many other gums, balsams, and resins. Cinchona and sarsaparilla abound in great quantity.

For the following account of medicinal plants, collected during a journey down the river Huallaga, and through part of Maynas, we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. Mathews, an English botanist, formerly mentioned.

1. Machagui huasca is a bejuco or climber, the trunk and branches of which are intensely bitter. It grows at Tarapoto, and is used as a febrifuge.

2. Diabolo huasca[10] grows at Tarapoto, and is used medicinally as a purgative.

3. Uchu sanango.—This is a species of taberna-montana, which grows at Tarapoto and Moyobamba. It is very piquant; produces a sensible degree of heat, and is used as a remedy in colds and rheumatic affections of the joints.

It is also said to be used in the preparation of the pucuna poison.—(See Humboldt.)

4. Chiri sanango.—Said to be contrary in its effects to the above; the natives hold it in some dread.

5. Calentura huasca, or shiyintu.—This is violent in its effects: it swells the gullet; produces quick, full pulse, and high fever; and in twenty-four hours after the fever the skin begins to peel off.

This remedy is taken for various complaints. The patient generally retires to his chacra, or country-house, to take medicine, where he is not liable to be molested; generally keeps his bed for eight days, and on the fifteenth day bathes. For four months it is necessary for those who take this remedy to diet themselves. On some men it produces no sensible effects.

The part of this plant used medicinally is the stem, which is roasted, pounded, and then taken in warm water or guarapo.

6. Zuquilla.—This is a thick-rooted variety of sarsaparilla.

7. Guaco grows about Tarapoto.

8. Piñon, or croton tiglium.—Three seeds of it eaten act as a drastic medicine.

9. Carpuña.—A few leaves (two or three) of this plant, put into warm spirit and water, act as a sudorific, which is employed in colds and rheumatic pains.

10. Huyusa.—The leaves of the huyusa are also used in small quantity, in form of infusion; and this remedy has the same virtues with the carpuña.

11. Tapia bark.—This is pounded into powder, and taken in cold water. It acts as a powerful emetic.

12. Yerba de San Martin.—The infusion from this plant is used for the same purpose as cubebs, or balsam of copaiba.

CHAPTER III.

The Department of Junin.—The river Marañon.—General sketch of the form of internal Government of Peru.—Particular account of the Prefectorate or Department of Junin.—Mines.—Agriculture.—Manufactures.—Public Instruction.—Hospitals and Charitable Asylums.—Vaccination.—Junta of Health.—Public Baths.—Police.—Pantheons.—Roads.—Posts.—Public Treasury at Pasco.—Administration of Justice.—National Militia.

Of the three inland departments of Peru, namely, Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Junin, the latter is peculiarly distinguished by its mineral riches, and the rise of the great river Marañon, in the lake of Lauricocha, in the neighbourhood of Cerro Pasco. The length of this river, all its windings included, has been reckoned not less than one thousand one hundred leagues, of which nine hundred have been found to be navigable; and, at the distance of several hundred miles before it reaches the ocean, (where its mouth is one hundred and seventy or eighty miles wide,) the effect of the tides may be distinctly marked on its banks. For a very long way—some say two hundred miles or more—after it has entered the sea, it still continues fresh to the taste, or, at least, to a great degree unmingled with the retiring waters of the ocean, which it rolls back before the unsubdued force of its own mighty stream.

The provinces of this department are Jauja, Tarma, Pasco, Cajatambo, Huari, Huaylas, Huamalies, Conchucos, and Huanuco. Besides the precious metals, (and quicksilver, which for some time back has been regularly extracted from the mines of Jonta in Huamalies,) these provinces yield a great variety of cattle and vegetable produce. Huanuco, the principal city of the province of the same name, though no longer the seat of opulence or aristocracy, was once one of the chief cities of Peru under the ancient conquerors, and is at present chiefly distinguished as the capital of the whole department of Junin. The prefect of this jurisdiction extends his authority as far as the country of Maynas on the north, and to the banks of the river Paro, or Beni, on the east, passing through the intervening wilds of the Pajonal and pampa del Sacramento, &c. along windings of the forest best known to holy fathers and half-converted Indians. These wilds are inhabited on the south, and in the environs of the rivers Apurimac, Mantaro, Pangoa, Perene, Camar, and Sampoya, &c. by Campas, Piros, Mochobos, Ruanaguas, and other Indian tribes no longer invited to share of the blessings of Christianity; and to the north-east of the plain, or pampa of Sacramento, is the very important missionary settlement of Sarayacu, still annexed to the department of Junin. Neither of these outskirts of an ill-sustained civil jurisdiction, nor the territories which thus lie very wide and uncultivated to the east of the main provinces, ever appear to have constituted a part of the ancient empire of the Incas. And not only by the rugged barriers of the eastern Cordillera, but by a difference of language, the untutored Indians of the Montaña are to this day separated from the true children of the Sun, whose common language, as the reader knows, is the Quichua, while the savages hitherto discovered speak almost as many tongues as there have appeared distinct tribes among them, except on the banks of the Ucayali, and in the vicinity of the chief missionary settlement there, where the Pano is the general or prevailing language of the somewhat christianized natives.

The government of Peru is, by its constitution, pronounced to be a popular, representative government; and in theory at least, though not in fact, the sovereignty emanates from the people, who are supposed to delegate its exercise to the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the republic. It is not, however, now our intention to enter upon an account of the general government, as we only desire to enumerate some of the more important functions of the internal government.

OF THE OFFICE OF PREFECTS AND GOVERNORS, &C.

The superior political government of every department is vested in a prefect, under immediate subordination to the president of the republic; that of every province is entrusted to a sub-prefect, who is immediately subordinate to the prefect; that of the districts to a governor, who acknowledges the sub-prefect as his superior; and in every town, or Indian village, there is a still humbler officer called alcalde, who acts under the orders of the governor of his district, and is entrusted with the ordinary routine of local police.

To fill the appointment of prefect, sub-prefect, or governor, it is required that the candidate should be an active citizen, not under thirty years of age, and a man eminent for his probity.

The duties of such functionaries are,

1. To maintain public security and order in their respective territories.

2. To cause the articles of the political constitution, the laws enacted by congress, and the decrees and commands of the executive power, to be duly carried into effect.

3. To enforce the completion of sentences pronounced by the different tribunals and courts of justice.

4. To take care that the functionaries subordinate to each of them shall faithfully discharge their proper duties.

The prefects are also charged with the economical administration of the affairs of state within their respective departments. But they are restrained,

1. From interfering with, or in any degree interrupting, the course of popular elections.

2. From preventing the reunion of the departmental juntas, or interfering with these in the free exercise of their functions.

3. From taking any cognizance in judicial cases; but, should public tranquillity urgently require that any individual should be taken up, a prefect may command his immediate arrest,—transferring the delinquent, accompanied with the grounds of having taken him into custody, to the judicial magistrate or judge, within the precise term of forty-eight hours.

DEPARTMENTAL JUNTAS.

In the capital of every department there is a junta, composed of two members from each province. The object of these juntas is to promote the interest of the provinces in particular, and of the departments in general. The members are elected after the same manner with those of the Congress or Chamber of Deputies.[11]

The prefects of the departments have to open the annual sessions of the juntas, to report to them in writing on the state of the public affairs of their respective jurisdictions, and to suggest such measures as appear to them calculated to promote the general advantage of the departments.

Among the functions of this political body we may enumerate—

1. To propose, discuss, and agree about the best means of promoting the agricultural, mining, and other branches of industry in their respective provinces.—2. To forward public education and instruction according to the method approved by Congress.—3. To watch over and promote charitable institutions; and, in general, all that relates to the interior police of the departments, except that of public security.—4. To proportion among the provinces the amount of the assessments of each department; and to ascertain, in case of complaint, the exact amount raised in the particular towns by their respective municipal authorities.—5. To determine the number of recruits for the service of the army and navy which each province and district should provide.—6. To take care that the chiefs of the national militia keep up good discipline in their corps, and have them always ready for service.—7. To see that the municipal corporations discharge their duties, and to inform the prefects of any abuses they may detect in them.—8. To examine the accounts which it is incumbent on the municipalities to render annually respecting the particular funds of the towns and villages.—9. To draw up every five years a statistical report of the departments.—10. To provide for the reduction and civilization of the indigenous tribes on the frontiers of any particular department, and to make it an object of special concern to allure them within the pale of civilized society by soothing and persuasive means.—11. To take cognizance of the imports and exports of the departments, and to transmit their observations thereon to the Minister of the Home Department, or Hacienda.—12. To apprise the Congress of any infraction of the constitution; and further, to elect senators from the lists presented by the provincial electoral colleges. But, to mention no more of the peculiar functions of the departmental juntas, we may conclude by observing, that such of their proceedings as hinge on the exercise of the powers or functions now enumerated, are transmitted through the medium and with the remarks of the prefects to the executive power, by whom again they are forwarded to the Congress as matters of legislative deliberation.[12]

Having premised the above articles relative to the internal government of the country in general, we shall now make some observations on the state of the very important department of Junin in particular; being able to do so, partly from personal knowledge, and partly from the report presented by the prefect of Junin, upon opening, in 1833, the session of the departmental junta in Huanuco; an official document whence we consider it incumbent upon us to draw much of the substance of the following observations, since they refer to topics with which none can be supposed to be more conversant than the head of the local government.

MINES.

We shall here pass over the subject of mines, regarding which we have said enough under the head of Cerro Pasco; though there is no province in the whole department in which silver and even gold mines are not to be found; but the chief source of production at present is Cerro Pasco.

AGRICULTURE.

Of the agriculture of the Vale of Huanuco we have already treated; and, from what has been said, enough may be conceived of the general state of agriculture in the Sierra. We have also alluded to Jauja, in the preceding pages, as most productive in wheat; and abounding, as it does, in maize, lucern, peas, beans, &c. it is considered not only as the granary of the department to which it belongs, but also of all the central Sierra of Peru between the two great chains of the Andes. In the Vale of Jauja, as on the plains of Cajamarca,[13] vegetation is subject to blight from hoar-frost, which in some years is much more destructive to the crops than in others; but, upon the whole, the average wheat crops are very good and abundant. Huaylas, again, like Huanuco, produces excellent sugar; nay, that of Huaylas appears to be the finer-grained and purer of the two; for, though the sugar-refiners in Huanuco are generally brought from Huaylas, yet, in the hands of the same workmen, the sugar of the former locality does not equal that of the latter in the beauty of its crystallization.

MANUFACTURES.

The manufactures, we may cursorily remark, are in a very backward state; and though the natives, especially of Huanuco, have shown no small share of ingenuity in some of their mechanical contrivances, yet they want proper masters; and, however we may admire the progress they have made with such slender means of instruction, we cannot compare their performances with those of Europeans in the same line. In Tarma they make ponchos, or loose cloaks, of great beauty and fineness; and, on the colder table-lands, warm but coarse blankets and ponchos, &c. are still made by the Indians. In the valleys, goat-skins are made into cordovans; cow-hide is made into saddle-bags, and almofrezes, or travelling-cases for bed and bedding; mats too are manufactured from rushes, and are very generally used as carpeting under the name of esteras. But the work of silversmiths is generally in a rude state even in Pasco; for the fine filigree work, for which inland Peru is celebrated, is made, not in the department of Junin, but at Guamanga, in the department of Ayacucho,—where the natives have also shown a decided talent for sculpture, though their works cannot be said to exhibit, as yet, much elegance or expression.

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

Without the aid of science, the arts of active life cannot duly advance in the career of improvement, and thus society remains a stranger to the higher refinements of civilization: hence, as the prefect of Junin well observes, the education of youth becomes a leading object of national interest and desire. But though in the department of Junin there are three colleges, that of Huanuco alone fulfils its purpose of instruction to a limited number of pupils; and there is reason to fear that it will soon share the fate of the other colleges in Huaras and Jauja, and be shut up for want of the necessary funds to defray its very moderate expenses. We are assured that the masters and professors of this recent institution, upon the foundation of which such bright hopes have been raised, are badly remunerated for their services; and have to contend against the perverseness of young persons whose early habits of self-indulgence while under the parental roof, ill prepared them to submit to the necessary restraints of a college, where the conscientiousness of the teacher, less pliant than parental fondness, will not sacrifice useful education to idle or vicious amusement, by imprudently winking at the errors and misdemeanors of the scholar.

Such being the inauspicious account of the only college of the department at present in exercise, the schools of elementary instruction do not seem to be in a more flattering position, though official measures have been taken to diffuse instruction among every class of the community. To the credit of the chief of the department, commands were issued by him for the erection of schools of elementary instruction in all the provinces, with orders that proper reports concerning their condition should be regularly forwarded to the prefectorate at Pasco.

To these important subjects the prefect in the mensage, or report, to which we have already alluded, endeavoured to awaken the attention of the departmental junta assembled in the city of Huanuco; when it was declared that the method of mutual instruction, adopted in that capital of local jurisdiction, in no way corresponded in its advantages or results to the time devoted to it by the pupils, or to the hopes at first entertained of its higher practical utility as a system.

The failure implied on this occasion may possibly have been less the fault of the system than of those who offered to apply it; for it was remarked as very worthy the consideration of the honourable junta, that, in reference to many of the schools intended for the improvement of the indigenous or Indian race, wherein they were merely taught a jargon of Spanish which they could not comprehend, it were better for them to be left in an untutored state of mind than to be placed under the melancholy influence of such teachers as presided over them. These were represented to be so imbecile, and so unacquainted with the merest rudiments of reading, or so abandoned and drowned in vice, as to be persons utterly unfit to guide the mind of infancy and innocence into a proper path. The junta were therefore called upon by their prefect to appoint some better means of instruction, which might at once serve to improve the virtuous feelings of the individual, and promote the national cause of civilization.

HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE ASYLUMS.

It is affecting to think that, notwithstanding the wealth of which this department is the seat, the sick and invalid in general cannot find a home or place of assistance under their sufferings.

In Huaras, as well as in Huanuco, there were formerly well-endowed hospitals, but these are now fallen into such decay for want of funds for their support, that few indeed are the sick who can be accommodated or relieved in them; and, consequently, those in charge of these once useful establishments are daily put to the pain of refusing admission to a great many distressed persons, who are induced to seek their protection in the hope of being cured of their ailments, or, if not, at least to breathe their last in the bosom of kindness and charity.

We are told by the prefect that an asylum or house of relief for the distressed poor never existed in the department: but, in his report to the departmental junta, he urges with an earnestness honourable to his feelings, that humanity calls for the immediate institution of establishments of this kind on behalf of the wretched victims of misfortune, whose very misery plunges them into despair. He also holds it to be a matter of public expediency to find a fixed home, and steady occupation, for those abandoned objects of compassion, who make traffic of their degradation and a boast of their debasement.

VACCINATION.

In the year 1832, it was found that the small-pox had just left dismal traces of its ravages in the department: fathers mourned their children now dead, or so disfigured and mutilated as to become unfit for the active business of life; the widow, too, wept for her lost husband, and the offspring of a mutual affection were left to feel the want of a father’s care.

Curates, and municipal bodies, most particularly intrusted with the frequently repeated charge of preserving the vaccine fluid, unhappily neglected a trust so important; and the heads of families, who joined in the same carelessness, did not consider, until the fatal epidemic swept their children from their arms, that they were ever to taste the bitter fruit of their own improvident indifference. But to avoid the recurrence, on any future occasion, of so dreadful and destructive a malady, the prefect caused a supply of the precious vaccine matter to be procured from Lima; which, if carefully propagated, may yet save victims without number from adding to that depopulation which incessant warfare has, of late years, caused among his fellow countrymen.

JUNTAS OF HEALTH.

It has been proposed by the same active and intelligent prefect, Don Francisco Quiros, that juntas of health should be established in the capitals or principal towns of the provinces of his jurisdiction, with a view to prevent the spread of contagious diseases;—to ascertain, and if possible correct, those physical causes and sources of disorder which are hostile to the healthy operations of the vital functions, and destructive to the growth of population.

It is, as we have seen, the duty of the departmental deputies to create these institutions, to frame rules for their regulation, and appoint fit persons for their management; while it would be the proper business of the prefect to see the resolutions of the junta carried into execution.

We only point to such proposals as the present, to show the reader how much such institutions are really wanted in Peru: not at all to mislead his judgment by inducing him to believe that there is the least appearance of their being established for a long time to come, unless, indeed, public tranquillity be soon restored; but people must perceive their wants before they desire to remove them, and the agitation of questions of civil amendment may ultimately lead to real improvement in their social condition.

PUBLIC BATHS.

In the dry and equable climate of Huanuco, bathing is not so necessary either to cool or to refresh the body as it is found to be in more humid and warm situations; for there is a bracing property in the dry air, which carries off the natural perspiration almost as rapidly as it is produced, and prevents that languor and discomfort experienced in a sultry atmosphere, where one perspires more than the air readily absorbs.

The inhabitants of this interesting province, and especially of the town of Huanuco, feel so little desire for the cold bath, that it is proverbial among them, that they only bathe in the river, or the canals of their delightful orchards, once in every year,—that is, on the day of San Juan, the 24th of June, the same on which the inhabitants of Lima celebrate their annual festival of Amencaes.

In the jurisdiction of Junin, however, natural warm and hot springs are exceedingly common, as well on the mountain plains, (which are in many places, as at Hualliay, covered with a saline incrustation,) as in the warmer valleys; and of these none are more resorted to, by invalids and convalescents, than the ferruginous and tepid waters of the well-known baths of Cono, near Huariaca, and the still more celebrated sulphurous waters of Villo, in the district of Yanahuanca. Here there are two streams, of which the one is cold and the other hot; and being received into a reservoir in due proportions, baths may be always provided easily and cheaply, of any degree of temperature desired.

To make the medicinal waters of Villo—situated in a mild climate about one day’s journey from Cerro Pasco on the one hand, and the city of Huanuco on the other,—as available as possible to the public, the patriotic prefect has recently taken measures to fit up convenient baths at this place. The well-known efficacy of the sulphurous waters in numberless instances of impaired health, the benignity of the climate in which nature has placed them, and the vicinity of this favoured spot to Cerro Pasco, have been the chief inducements to undertake this public work; which must prove of the utmost importance to the neighbourhood at large, and especially to miners and residents in the rigorous climate of Cerro, where health is more easily lost than regained, and where good medical attendance is rarely found.

POLICE.

Few of the municipalities of the department possess public rents and revenues calculated to answer the purpose to which they should be applied. But, in the absence of adequate funds and resources to forward all the objects of a general and well-regulated municipal police, there exists a valuable decree, which is very worthy of proper observance; for, in virtue of it, blasphemers, and those who, by their habitual indulgence in vice and vicious language, insult the better feelings of the community, are consigned to labour at public works, or compelled to sweep the streets, as the penalty of their infamous conduct. With further view to public order, the prefect has resolved to stigmatize, when he cannot hope at once to remove, the vice of drunkenness, in which the lower orders in general freely indulge in days of religious processions which are consecrated to sanctifying ends; but which the poor miner and uneducated villager think well observed by hearing mass in a morning, and contributing to the decoration of the saints clothed in tinselled and showy dresses, and surrounded by waxen lights without number.

On great religious days pavilions are not unfrequently erected in convenient situations for the reception of the effigies of the Virgin, our Saviour, and Cross, around which all sorts of silver and other ornaments are placed in fanciful confusion. The entrances into the churches and chapels, even in the rigid climate of Cerro and the adjacent haciendas, are lavishly adorned with beautiful lilies conveyed from the valleys; and wreaths and festoons of flowers hang over and around the doors of the pavilions and churches, which, when good metals are abundant, display a richness which only a mining country can be supposed to put within reach of the very humblest of the people. On such occasions the labouring miner often exhibits his person bedecked in the most gorgeous and expensive fashion; while he farcically dances, ankle-deep (if it happen to be the wet season) in mud, as gay and as merry as a London chimney-sweep on a May morning.

So marked is the taste for flowers among the poorest tenants of a mud-and-cane booth in the Vale of Huanuco, that on the festival of Corpus Christi,—a day of joy to the agricultural Indian, who always eats meat on this day, even should he have passed the rest of the year, like an anchorite, on vegetable diet,—the poor women and children on the sugar estates approach the house of their patron with hats, hands, and mantles full of the sweetest blossoms, which they strew before his door, and along his hall and corridor, as a sign of respect and rejoicing. To such expressions of good feeling he courteously responds by ordering the tinaja, or large jar of guarapo, to be placed at their disposal, under the direction of a major-domo or corporal of the field; and then with guitar and harp they engage in festive frolics.

But however desirous of enforcing a stricter observance of the days devoted to the service of the church, it has not been the aim of the prefect to check or discontinue the more innocent amusements of music and dance, or those of bull-fights and fire-works, in which the Indian also delights. He has struck at the principal cause of alienation from the house of God, namely, drunkenness, by condemning all those who are convicted of rioting or breaking the peace to sweep the streets for three successive days; or, should this be considered too light a correction, to labour for the same number of days in some other work of public utility.[14]

Idle vagabonds, without useful occupation or property, and even without country, are pronounced by the civil authorities to be found in all parts disseminating immorality and disorder; and seeing that to temporise with obnoxious characters of this sort is, in effect, to promote the cause of libertinism and idleness, it has been resolved at the prefectorate of Junin to persecute and exterminate, if they cannot amend, all such vicious intruders on society.

PANTHEONS OR CEMETERIES.

It has been long an established practice in Peru to bury the dead within the churches; a practice which, on the coast more especially, gave rise to a heavy exhalation, which very naturally rendered the incense burnt on the altar, independently of its mystical virtue, an agreeable and seasonable corrective for the sepulchral vapours of the rich and well-adorned temples of the metropolis.

This very unwholesome and improper custom has ceased in Lima since the erection of its Pantheon, and the example of the great capital has been followed in the remote departments. With few, if any, exceptions, cemeteries are now formed in all the provinces of Junin. But in Cerro Pasco, however, the burying-place was so very circumscribed and neglected, that, on the arrival of Don Francisco Quiros as chief of the department in the year 1832, there was not earth enough to cover the dead within the Pantheon walls, which altogether presented a very loathsome appearance. He caused the cemetery to be sufficiently enlarged, so that there should be nothing to render this place of rest offensive. Indeed, he expresses himself strongly on the urgency there was for the execution of this work: and though the stinted flowers of Pasco common do not always furnish a supply of fresh blossoms to be daily renewed over the graves of the departed,—and though no acacia, cypress, nor willow, no yew nor myrtle, can endure its elevated site,—Mr. Quiros enjoys the praise and the pleasure of having raised, in this inclement region of silver beds, a place of rest for his countrymen, which not even avarice can disturb; and glad would he be to see the children of the deceased steal to the graves of their fathers, there to pray over the remains of their kindred, and thus habitually cherish feelings of piety, humility, and hope.[15]

ROADS OF JUNIN.

Regarding the roads of the Sierra in general, enough has been said in the preceding pages; but of Junin, in particular, it remains for us to observe that very laudable efforts have been lately made for improving the roads of this department: yet no regular post-houses, with suitable accommodations for the traveller, are anywhere established; and the communication between the more remote provinces and Pasco is exceedingly bad. This is a great hinderance to commerce, and leads to inevitable delay and inconvenience in the transport of goods. However discreditable the fact may be to the corporation of miners, so little enterprise have they shown for the improvement of a place from which so much specie has been sent all over the world, that it is not without great difficulty, and loss of time and cattle, that they are able to convey the ore from the mines to the mills in the environs of Cerro; and all because of the miserable tracks which they use as roads. By the stream of Sacrafamilia alone, in the immediate neighbourhood of the mines, there are no fewer than eighty-eight ingenios or mills for grinding ore, some of which during the dry season are at a stand-still on account of the scarcity of water, and others at all seasons are interrupted in their work from the irregular supply of ore consequent on the bad means of conveyance. To obviate these great drawbacks on the industry of the miners, and general resources of the department, the prefect, some time since, commenced a cart-road, over which the ore might be conducted by oxen from the mines to the mills specified, through a tract neither extensive nor precipitous; but the undertaking was a great and a novel one for that part of the world in the year 1833, so little had such works of general advantage hitherto called up the attention and energies of the inhabitants.

POSTS.

The inhabitants of Cerro Pasco have the advantage of a weekly post between their town and the capital of the republic; and a direct correspondence twice a month with Huanuco, the capital of the department. By these arrangements an immediate communication is also held with the government, and the spirit of mercantile enterprise is thereby increased; Cerro being, as the reader may readily imagine, when the mines are highly productive, a most stirring place, visited by men of all climes, and full of traffic and speculation.

PUBLIC TREASURY AT PASCO.

The prefects in general are, as we have seen, not only entrusted with the maintenance of public order and security, but they are also at the head of financial affairs in their respective departments. In times of intestine warfare it has always happened that the Patriot government has exceeded the natural resources of the country, crippled as they are in all their branches by want of security, and consequently of capital. Thus there were, at the commencement of the year 1834 particularly, heavy arrears owing to the army, navy, and civil list. The supplies from the mint and custom-house were deeply pledged for sums advanced to the government; demands for payments, beyond what they could liquidate, were made upon the local treasuries of all the departments:[16] and the treasury of Junin had to bear its share of all the demands of a needy government. By the report of the prefect to the departmental junta, of session 1833, it appears that, while in office for the previous year, he removed several abuses, regulated the accounts, and struck a fair balance of the ingress and egress of the Pasco treasury. He does not, however, state the amount of the departmental funds in this report, or present any data by which we are to form an estimate of the separate or aggregate revenue arising from the different provinces. All data of this sort the Patriot government is deficient in; and the real rental of the state can hardly at any time be clearly ascertained. A natural result of this fundamental defect in their statistics is, that, not knowing the precise extent of the population or pecuniary resources of the departments, the annual contributions cannot be laid in a well-regulated and just proportion to the means of each town, parish, and province. The difficulties and obscurities in which every branch of the public revenue, and especially of his own department, was involved, led the prefect of Junin publicly to declare his doubts concerning the integrity of the officers of the executive intrusted with the collection of imposts; and he broadly hints, that, in gratifying their self-love and interest, they forget the higher duties of the citizen. He therefore exhorts the honourable junta to discountenance all favouritism, to exercise a stern patriotism, and by fair inquiry to resolve the important questions,—namely, Whether or not more be annually exacted of the provinces than they, without injury to themselves or the state, have the power to contribute? Whether or not they do really pay more than can be legitimately required of them?

OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

Justice, in all the departments, is administered in the name of the republic; and in every town there are justices of the peace, whose business it is to hear both sides of the question at issue, and to endeavour to bring about an amicable termination without going formally to law: no demand, civil or criminal, save fiscal cases and others excepted by law, being admitted, unless this essential preliminary attempt at reconciliation has been put into practice.

In some of the provinces of the Junin department, as those of Huaylas and Huamalies, they have not judges duly learned and qualified in judicial proceedings; and consequently, in those parts, the office of the judge devolves upon the sub-prefects, who are alike ignorant of the law and its forms of application. Hence we may suppose they must be very unfit surrogates in such delicate matters as affect the person and property of individuals, and the good order of society.

Justice in the civil department is ill administered in Cerro Pasco, for which the prefect assigns a good reason; namely, that here criminal suits continually occur to engross the time and attention of the judge, so that it is impossible for him without assistance to attend to the ready despatch of merely civil causes, which are less urgent. The public are great sufferers from this imperfect judicial arrangement; and not only an additional judge, but several more notaries public, are required for Cerro in these times, when through the excellent management of Mr. Quiros in superintending the drainage of the mines and general interests of the place, rich ore shows itself more and more abundantly. The concourse of people being increased, a greater number of interests clash together, and civil as well as criminal suits crowd into court.

NATIONAL MILITIA.

By the articles of the political constitution of Peru, there are supposed to be in every province bodies of national militia as the guarantee of the internal order of the state; but, by the same constitution, the armed force of the nation has no power of political deliberation, as it is declared to be essentially obedient. Happy, indeed, might the state be, if its army of the line and naval squadron were always obedient to the laws, and were proof against the influence of corruption, the wily leaders of faction, and the evils of frequent insurrection!

But in the greater part of the provinces a national militia can hardly be said to exist, except in name; though men titled captains and colonels of such corps are scattered about the country, and strut with their insignia of military importance in hamlets and villages.

In a neighbourhood where the writer resided for several years in the department of Junin, there was a villager of no small local pretension, who held at one time, in his own person, the offices of governor and captain of militia of his district, and, if we remember well, of alcalde also (he being alcalde on the death of the governor whom he succeeded); and in this way he became invested with all the authority of a petty dictator. The province was that of Huanuco, where, through the praiseworthy zeal of Colonel Lucar and Don Pepe (now Colonel) Echegoyen, a troop of cavalry was always kept up in some sort of military order: and the workmen of the different larger estates and little farms around, were called upon to assemble on Sundays under their respective captains; and, at assigned places, to go through some of the simplest military evolutions, using, however, no arms or particular uniform.

These Sunday exercises were generally ill attended; and, of ten or twelve young men on an agricultural estate, it would be usually enough if two or three appeared at one time in the ranks. Upon one occasion, however, when the captain of local militia in the village of Ambo had the honour of having the additional appointment of governor conferred on him, he called upon the writer when indisposed and in bed, and, with great appearance of sympathy and confidential cordiality, congratulated himself upon his promotion, because it would afford him the power, as he had the will, to serve his neighbour. With many such smooth expressions and assurances of kind and honest intentions, calculated to put even a misanthrope off his guard, he ended his visit by requesting that, as it was most desirable to keep up the military spirit of the district, he would expect of the writer that he should use his influence in persuading the young men on his hacienda to attend regularly at the military exercises in the adjacent village; a proposition to which he readily acceded, as it was agreeable to the established laws of the country. On the first or second Sunday following, six fine young men went to attend the exercises at Ambo; and were seized and put into prison, with many others, under strong guard, to be marched off next day as recruits for the line.

The provincial prisons of Peru are in general very bad and insecure, and they are less frequently used than they should be for any better purpose than that already mentioned, viz. confining the useful and industrious husbandman—thus diminishing a race already too scanty, and yet a race on which the prosperity of the country mainly depends:

“Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,

A breath can make them, as a breath has made.

But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,

When once destroyed can never be supplied.”

Upon this occasion, we are glad to say, that the new governor’s deceitful conduct towards us did not serve his turn as he wished.

The writer galloped to the capital of the department, where he found Colonel Lucar reviewing and selecting the recruits to be sent off from Huanuco to fill up the vacancies in the army of the line; and he must ever feel obliged to the politeness of the colonel, who instantly despatched a peremptory order to the said captain and governor to put our men of Andaguaylla at liberty, and to replace them from the list of idle vagrants, and not of useful husbandmen, within the term of a very few hours,—an order more easily given than executed, as by this time the rumour of imprisonment and seizure for the army had gone abroad, and young men, alarmed for their fate, fled to their woods and lurking-places.

Thus it appears that the real use of this mock militia is not to guarantee the internal order of the department, (which would be best secured by the absence of all troops, as the Indian population are never so well managed as by their own local magistrates of Indian family,) but to serve as a mask, under which to facilitate the means of raising soldiers for the general service. The governor’s wily attempt to deceive us under the assurances of friendship is not peculiar, for such unworthy conduct does not disgrace one of these petty tyrants in the eyes of his countrymen.

CHAPTER IV.

Missionary College of Ocopa.—Its foundation, utility, downfall, and decree for its restoration.—Introduction of Christianity along the rivers Marañon, Huallaga, and Ucayali, &c. by the Jesuits and Franciscans.—Letter from Friar Manuel Plaza, the last great missionary of Ocopa, to the prefect of Junin.

Could the department of Junin boast of no other advantages than those which arise from the quantity of precious metal which it annually furnishes, it would be sufficient to substantiate its superior claim to the attention, not of the Peruvian government alone, but to that of all other countries in friendly and commercial relations with Peru.

Higher sympathies, however, than such as emanate from mere pecuniary considerations, must be awakened when it is remembered, that from a corner of this department the voice of Christianity has penetrated into vast regions of heathen and savage tribes, and reached the unsettled wanderers among the thickest entanglements of the woods, which occupy a great portion of the widely extended missionary territory of Peru. From Ocopa issued forth those zealous, persevering, self-denying, and enduring men, the great object of whose lives it has been, in the midst of danger, and in the name of the Saviour, to add to the faith of the church—and to civilized society—beings whose spirits were as dark and uncultivated as the woods they occupied from the confines of the rivers Mantaro and Apurimac on the south, to the river Marañon or Amazons on the north, and from the frontier provinces of the department of Junin on the west, to the great river Ucayali on the east. The missionary college of Ocopa is situated in latitude 12° 2´ south, in the province of Jauja, and at the distance of about twelve leagues to the south-east of Tarma. It was founded in the year 1725 by the commissary of the missionaries, Frater Francisco de San Joseph, with the intention of establishing missions for the conversion of the Indians, who ranged the wild frontier-land we have just alluded to. In the years 1757-8, it was erected by a bull of his Holiness Clement XIII. and schedule of his Majesty Ferdinand VI. into a college De Propagandâ Fide.[17]

This college has attached to it a church built of stone; and we are told that great numbers flocked there in former days, when its altars were decorated with rich donations, and its ecclesiastics celebrated for their saintly character. The missionaries of this college had subordinate religious settlements, or asylums, in other provinces of the department; as, for example, Huaylas, Huanuco, and also Tarma, at a place called Vitoc, at the entrance of the Montaña. The college was originally constructed to accommodate forty monks, and towards the close of the eighteenth century, when it was under the guardianship of R. P. Fr. Manuel Sobreviela, their number was eighty-four; part of them being distributed in the different settlements, and also in the villages of the neophytes among the wilds beyond the eastern summits of the Andes. The seminary, being under royal protection, was allowed from government six thousand dollars a-year as a charity. The great revolution, which wrested the country from the hands of the Spaniards, also deprived the college of its best support. The Patriots, in the midst of war, proscriptions, confiscations, and persecutions, spared not even this useful institution; the monks dispersed when deprived of government support, and only a few hoary brethren can now be traced among the number of these fugitive fathers. One of them, barefooted and bareheaded, we sometimes visited in his humble cell at San Francisco in Lima. His thoughts, abstracted from the scenes around him, usually dwelt among the tribes of the Huallaga and Ucayali; and with an enthusiasm which brightened up the eye of venerable age, he would point out, in the aisles and cloisters of this great conventual church of his order, the paintings that commemorated the martyrdom of such of his brotherhood as fell victims to the violence of savages whom they piously laboured to turn to Christianity.

The Patriots having at length seen the national loss likely to result from neglecting the territory of the missions, and allowing the half-converted Indians to glide back again into their former savage and independent condition, for the want of officiating priests or zealous monks to continue the work of civilization, in which the Spaniards had engaged with so much spirit and success, it was resolved by the government of Peru, in March 1836, to annul the decree which, in November 1824, was passed to convert this religious college into a common school or academy of general instruction; which, however, was never established on a permanent footing. Besides other reasons of less moment which were assigned in the preamble of the decree for restoring the college to its ancient functions, it was stated that the civilization of the savage tribes of the interior, and their conversion to the holy Catholic faith, was an enterprise worthy of the intellectual light of the age we live in, and acceptable in the sight of the Almighty; that only for this purpose was the college intended at the period of its foundation; that measures had actually been taken by the government to induce missionaries to come from Europe for the re-establishment of this pious institution, and that therefore it was decreed that the missionary college of Ocopa should be placed precisely on the same footing as before the revolution, or the decree of the 1st of November 1824; that all its rents and property should be restored, and that whatever sums were assigned for the academy alluded to should be transferred to this missionary college; that the Archbishop should appoint a fit person to take charge of the college and receive all its revenues, and to pay from this fund the expenses of repairing the buildings and the passage-money of the expected European monks, whose arrival the Very Reverend Archbishop was required to encourage, while he superintended the necessary repairs of the college, and made such reforms in its regulations and rules as should best harmonize with the republican form of government. Nothing can better prove the decay of the missionary cause, and, we might perhaps add, the decay of practical religion in Peru, (since its own clergy want zeal and enterprise to act as missionaries,) than this document; and though the invitation be more immediately addressed to Spanish ecclesiastics, yet the decree is in that spirit which seems to open the door to any company or association, who, adhering to the Catholic form of religious instruction, may be pleased to extend their benevolence and Christianity to the fertile regions of the Amazons, where they may fulfil their mission far removed from the scenes of political anarchy or misrule, and far beyond the pale of all hostile influence which could impede the exercise of their sacred calling. Experience has long since sufficiently shown that these Indians of eastern Peru are neither incapable of intellectual improvement, nor deficient in those moral elements which form the groundwork of the social edifice; and if ever they should be instructed, and guided, and disciplined in the way of life, according to the Gospel, by active, honest, and enlightened teachers, who know that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, there may yet be exhibited on the banks of Ucayali, and on the fine plain del Sacramento, a great and virtuous people, concerned to know and to do their respective duties, where now cruel barbarism and savage superstition hold their cheerless sway.

To give a full historical account of the transactions of the missionaries of Ocopa, their various expeditions by different routes and with varying success,—or to enter into the interior economy of their college, and details of its discipline,—would be too copious a matter for the narrow space we have allotted for this subject, which in itself is one of no ordinary interest. And, to detach the history of the missionary exertions of the Jesuits of Quito and San Borja from the labours of the Franciscans of Lima and Ocopa,—to define the precise limits of the conversions by each of these religious orders independently of the other,—would not be free of intricacy; nor does it appear to be necessary to establish the degree of honour due to each, for they both toiled in the same thorny vineyard, and the latter creditably continued what the former had happily commenced. But, to give an idea of the origin of these missions, it may be well to refer back to the discovery of those regions in which they were planted.

The mouth of the Marañon was discovered by Vicente Yanes Pinzon, at the close of the fifteenth century; but Orellana, the Lieutenant-general of Gonzalo Pizarro, Governor of Quito, was the first to sail down its stream, from the point where the Napo joins it, to the ocean, in an armed vessel built at the place of embarkation on the latter river by order of Pizarro, who had himself undergone great hardships, and sacrificed most of his followers on an expedition of inland discovery. Orellana commenced this voyage in the year 1540 or 1541.

Some of the natives were friendly towards him, and others in canoes opposed his progress; and, as the men of one particular tribe were aided by their women in the combat, the Spanish captain gave their female warriors the name of Amazonas,—whence the appellation “Amazons,” which this great river still retains.

Another expedition, under Pedro de Ursua, was undertaken in 1560; but he and most of his followers fell victims to an ambuscade laid for them by the Indians. In 1602, Father Rafael Ferrier, a Jesuit missionary, descended the Marañon to the river Napo, which Orellana had navigated about sixty years before; and on his return to Quito, communicated his discoveries, and his ideas concerning the natives he had seen.

In the year 1616, some Spanish soldiers, stationed on the frontiers of Quito, pursued some Indians into their canoes on the Marañon; in the pursuit they descended this river till they came to the Maynas,—a tribe of Indians who showed such a disposition to amity and to become Christians, that, on the return of the soldiers to the frontier station of Santiago de las Montañas, so favourable a report was made of them to the Viceroy of Peru, that in 1618 he appointed Don Diego Baca de Vega as Governor of Maynas and Marañon; who was the first to subdue the people of these territories, and subject them to the dominion of Spain.

In 1638, according to Alçedo, the Jesuit fathers, Gaspar Cuxia and Lucas de la Cueva, settled several missions in the country of Maynas on both shores of the Marañon, which continued to flourish until the abolition of the useful society of Jesuits in 1767.[18]

At first the capital of Maynas was San Francisco de Borja, which, according to Ulloa, is situated in latitude 4° 28´ south, and 1° 54´ east, of the meridian of Quito. In this city an insurrection of the native Indians took place in the year 1635, which was happily quelled by the indefatigable Jesuits: but afterwards the town of Laguna on the east bank of the Huallaga, in latitude 5° 13´ south, became the principal seat or capital of the missions of Maynas, which extend from St. Borja along both sides of the river Marañon, embracing many villages or settlements, to the frontier possessions of Brazil at Tabatingo. From the Marañon the patriarchal government of the missionaries extended southward along the river Ucayali, and among several of the tribes on its banks, or in the adjacent woods, such as the Cocamas, Piros, and Conibos or Conivos Indians, whom the Jesuits of Quito had in a great measure converted to the faith; but they again revolted, and returned to their original wandering and savage mode of life, having put their pastors to death. After this unfortunate event, several fruitless efforts—especially in the year 1695, and also in 1764,—were made to reconvert these tribes, till at length the Franciscan missionaries of the college of Ocopa succeeded to a great extent in this hazardous undertaking.

But long before the establishment of this college of their order, two Franciscans,—the Fathers Andres de Toledo and Domingo Breda, both bent on making converts to the faith,—left Quito in the year 1636, and, having surmounted the greatest hardships by land and water, arrived at Para. They reported their arrival and discoveries to Santiago Raimundo de Noroña, Governor of San Luis de Marañon, in the united service of Spain and Portugal, for both countries were then under the sovereignty of the crown of Spain. The result of the intelligence thus derived was a further survey up the river, under the command of the Portuguese captain, Texera: and an account of the whole of these proceedings being transmitted from the Audiencia at Quito to the Count of Chinchon, Viceroy of Peru, he in the year 1639 sent back the flotilla of Texera to Para, conveying thither the Fathers Christoval de Acuña, and Andres de Artieda, Jesuits of Quito, and other able men, commissioning them, among other things, to survey minutely the river Marañon and its banks, and, having done so, to embark for Spain, and lay their account before the Council of the Indies; all which they accomplished in a creditable manner.

As early as the year 1631, Franciscan missionaries visited the environs of the river Huallaga, made converts, and entered the country of the Panataguas. Contiguous to Huanuco, and probably within the territorial limits of this ancient tribe, is situated at present the important and civilized Indian town called Panao, which is included in the curacy of Santa Maria del Valle.

From the Panataguas are supposed to have sprung several other tribes of distinct denominations, which had spread over the adjacent country, wherein Christianity had made but slow progress.

From the city of Huanuco the fathers of Ocopa penetrated, by Panao, Muña, and Pozuzo, to the port on the river Mayro, where they formed one of their earliest settlements: from this place they appear to have descended in canoes to the rivers Pachitea and Ucayali. This course is well marked on the map of those parts, published in Lima, in the year 1791, by the literary society entitled “Sociedad de Amantes del Pais de Lima.” This excellent map of the territory of the missions in Peru was dedicated to his Catholic Majesty, Charles the Fourth, Emperor of the Indies, by the said society, and the reverend fathers of the missionary college of Ocopa; whose superior or guardian, Fr. Manuel Sobreviela, enriched it with a plan of the rivers Huallaga and Ucayali, and of the pampa del Sacramento. In the above route from Huanuco, the Franciscans from the time they left their last christianized settlement, Pozuzu, (some years ago depopulated by the small-pox,) had to contend with the Amajes, Carapachos, Callisecas, and other savage tribes, occupying the territory between Pozuzo and the mouth of the Pachitea. From this spot, namely, where the Pachitea joins the Ucayali, to the river Sarayacu, which enters the Ucayali in latitude 6° 45´ south, several streams descend from the plains of Sacramento to join the Ucayali,—such as the Aguaytia, De Sipivos, and Manoa, the environs of which are inhabited or frequented by various tribes of Indians known by the names Sipivos, Conibos, Manoas, and Serebos, &c. Among these they made some converts; but the principal nation are the Panos, who inhabit the neighbourhood of the Sarayacu, and form a great part of the population of the town of the same name, which is the superior, or rather, at present, the only seat of the Franciscan missions on the Ucayali. This mission, founded by the Franciscan, Father Girbal, in 1791, was visited in February 1835 by Lieutenant W. Smyth and Mr. F. Lowe, in their journey “undertaken with a view of ascertaining the practicability of a navigable communication with the Atlantic by the rivers Pachitea, Ucayali, and Amazon.” They found it under the guardianship of the venerable Father Manuel Plaza, whose account of these parts forms an interesting document in the Mercurio Peruano. The climate of Sarayacu is described by this excellent missionary as more free from ague and dysentery than the settlements in low, sultry, and humid situations on the banks of the river Marañon; and Lieutenant Smyth and Mr. Lowe, who give an interesting account of the actual state of the mission, observe that “the climate seems very much like that of the island of Madeira;” and, like the city of Huanuco on the Huallaga, it is refreshed in the dry season by breezes that blow along the river.

All the other missionary settlements in these parts having been abandoned since the downfall of the college of Ocopa, the consequence has been, that the Indians of those settlements have collected round their only remaining spiritual father and friend, Padre Plaza, at Sarayacu, where the population has thus been swelled to the number of about two thousand; and these semi-barbarous tribes honour their faithful pastor, and are very attentive to the service of their church, which is performed partly in the Latin and partly in the Pano tongue. Lieutenant Smyth and Mr. Lowe not being able to realize the object of their expedition by entering the Montaña at Pozuzo, and descending by the Mayro, returned to Huanuco, and descended by the river Huallaga, till they arrived at the river Chipurana, in the province of Maynas, which, according to the missionaries, enters the Huallaga in latitude 6° 30´ south. They ascended the Chipurana as far as they found it navigable; and thence, partly by land and partly by water, they proceeded to Sarayacu, in expectation of being able, through the guidance of Padre Plaza, to effect their expedition up the Pachitea,—an undertaking in which they unfortunately did not succeed, on account of the inundation of the rivers during the wet season, which lasts from November to May, and also for want of a sufficient supply of effects to exchange for the provisions necessary for the support of an escort of the mission Indians, without which the enterprise is not safe, nor indeed practicable, at any season. Nevertheless, Padre Plaza, before the visit of Lieutenant Smyth and Mr. Lowe, wrote to advise the government of his opinion regarding the communication with the district of his mission by the port of Mayro; and his letter on this subject was published at Cerro Pasco, after accounts had been received of the failure of the expedition undertaken by the gentlemen now mentioned, in company with the Peruvians, Major Beltran and Lieutenant Azcarate. It is to be feared that this reverend monk is too much stricken in years to be much longer able to preserve his usefulness; and, what is yet more to be lamented, at his death it is probable that all the labours of himself and his predecessors in the same field of conversion and civilization will have been thrown away. Friar Manuel Plaza is not likely to have a successor from the school of Ocopa, notwithstanding the decree respecting its restoration, while Peru continues to exhaust its best resources in war, either civil or defensive, against neighbouring states. To enable that country to consolidate its internal strength, and attend to the practical improvements of civil and religious institutions, it must have what the majority of its citizens sincerely long for,—an interval of quiet. Until domestic peace be acquired, the peace of the Gospel is not likely to be sent forth afresh to subdue the turbulent spirit of the Cashivo, or to replant and renew the settlements and friendships that were formerly established by the emissaries from Ocopa; friendships now for the most part forgotten, and settlements no longer to be traced, except on the map of their wide-spreading mission-land, already alluded to as dedicated by their order and the literati of Lima to the King of Spain. But since then the dynasty of kings has been destroyed; and zeal for the missionary cause, except in name and speculation, has almost vanished from the land, where it would appear that patriotism can only thrive on the ruins of all the best institutions of former days: and when the writer of the following letter shall be no more, the name of king and Saviour, if not also of friend[19] and patriot, may soon cease to be heard or honoured among the woods and glades in the now isolated and forlorn mission of the Ucayali.

“Peruvian Republic.—Mission of the Ucayali.

”Sarayacu, 14th December 1834.

“To the Sub-prefect of Huanuco.

“On the 20th of November last, I replied to the prefect, D. Francisco Quiros, regarding the project of the Supreme Government, which was sent to me by you, 24th September of this present year; and I answered, with the least possible delay, by the Moyobamba post. But, lest that letter should have been in any way mislaid or lost, I think it advisable, as it related to an affair of so much importance, to forward a duplicate of the same, which is as follows:—

“RESPECTED SIR,

“This very day came to my hands your note of the 18th of September of the present year; and having carefully perused it, I have to inform your honour, (Vuesa Señoria,) with the greatest sincerity, that the project adopted by the Supreme Government, of penetrating to the river of Pachitea by the port of Mayro, is the best and safest plan, because of the advantages that would accrue to the republic from opening the navigation of that river; for, from its junction with the Ucayali, up the stream to Mayro, is only a passage of seven or eight days; and from the latter place to Pozuzo, by land, is but an intermediate distance of fourteen leagues.[20] But there is one obstacle which, as long as it exists, will almost certainly interfere with the enjoyment of a safe traffic on the river Pachitea; namely, that on its banks are situated the pagan Cashivos, cruel cannibals who live on human flesh,—sometimes availing themselves of much cunning and artifice to deceive passengers; and at other times, with all the fierceness of the wild beasts of the forest, fearlessly attacking them, as was proved in two expeditions undertaken from this place by Father Girbal, who the first time only advanced to the nearest huts, when he was compelled to return on account of the scarcity of arms, and the small escort given him by the government. He afterwards advanced to their last encampments (rancherias), whence he returned without having realized his purpose of striking the Mayro, where people waited his arrival with provisions and whatever else was required: and since this last expedition, which was made in the year 1797, no further active measures have been attempted.

“The neighbouring nations of Conivos and Sipivos, who reside by the inland streams of the Ucayali, though they constantly endeavour to drive away these cruel enemies, have never succeeded; for so far is it otherwise, that they suddenly break into the houses, and, not satisfied with putting their inmates to death, carry off the dead bodies to celebrate their banquets with, for the Cashivos have an innate appetite for human flesh.[21] The project of entering by the Mayro is the most attainable of any other, because, in descending the water, the vessels keep the centre of the river, so that they cannot be reached by the arrows from the banks at point-blank shot: besides, by merely discharging a few fire-arms, they disperse; and as, happily, they do not use canoes, they cannot intercept the passage, or do us material injury. And further, the descent to this point is accomplished in two days only; for which reason it is very necessary that I should have seasonable advice, the time being as nearly as possible fixed, to prevent any disappointment as to our meeting; when, according to the plan proposed by the commissioners, an expedition may be made with every precaution from this point, for the purpose of clearing the passage of so destructive and indomitable a people; and in this way the frontier towns may be able to proceed in extracting from the Montaña its precious productions.

“Actuated by this desire, and that of rendering happy the inhabitants of the Ucayali, I have now, for the space of thirty-four years, felt it my duty to live in these missions; and God grant that my eyes may yet see the prosperity of these regions, since my expedition to the Pangoa failed of producing the advantages expected from it.[22]

“This expedition I undertook merely to please the fathers of Ocopa; but that the intercourse thus commenced would be of short duration, it was easy to conjecture from the great distance which separated the mission from the college; the difficult and dangerous navigation of the head-streams—cabezeras—of the Ucayali; and lastly, the discordant opinions of the European fathers.

“But the day has now arrived when my wishes will be verified through the skilful arrangements of the Supreme Government; and to the best of my power I will contribute to the success of the enterprise, not only by assisting the commissioners, but also by accompanying them on the expedition, old as I am.

“All the above considerations I submit to your notice for your information and government.—God protect your Honour!

“As the letter which I have alluded to may possibly have miscarried, it will give me great satisfaction to know that this has come to your hands.

“God protect you!

“Fray Manuel Plaza.”

CHAPTER V.

Christianized Indians of the Interior.—Their condition and character.—Hardships imposed on them.—Desire of revenge.

Tangur, in the curacy of Caina, and department of Junin, is one of those villages so common on the elevated slopes which overlook temperate valleys in the interior of Peru. In this small village, as we are informed by a gentleman who for several years visited it in the character of curate, there are two distinct municipalities, each possessing its separate church and magistrates.

These separate people, who speak the same Quichua language, do not associate together, nor do they even hold their religious festivals on the same day. The origin of this separation of interests, tradition informs us, is as far back as the time of the Incas, when some convicts, ordered from Quito, settled at this place, and formed a distinct family; which has here subsisted since that remote period, without ever mingling its blood with that of its neighbours, or entering into communion or alliance with any other people. This is the more remarkable, as it is the ordinary practice in other remote villages of the interior for the whole body of men to co-operate in any great work, such as constructing bridges for their common good, or building houses for the convenience of individuals; on which occasions one party conducts stones and turf, another builds the walls, a third conveys timber from the distant woods,[23] and a fourth cuts and lays on the thatch &c. The unanimity in this case, and the want of it in that of Tangur, are equally characteristic of that love which the Indian entertains for the usages of his predecessors in all things. In nothing does he approve of innovation; in his condition he has not yet known any durable or real amelioration, and in nothing does he desire change. In his local prejudices, habits, and daily pursuits, he only thinks, feels, and acts just as others did before him. If the general revolution has been in any degree useful to the poor uninformed Indian of Peru, who has already sunk from the short-lived excitement of patriotic enthusiasm into the dejection of a military despotism,—if it has really improved his prospects, it has been by rousing him, for a while at least, from his wonted apathy to the general concerns and conveniences of life; opening to his view a wider range of imitation and desire, and thus breaking in upon the hereditary routine of his customs and habits, to which, till now, he has adhered with the unvarying constancy of mere instinct.

The christianized Indians of the Inca dynasty, whose native tongue is Quichua,—for we do not at present speak of the savage, or half-christianized Pano, and other yet unsettled tribes of the Montaña,—are said to be an indolent race; but we have had the opportunity of knowing that their exertions will increase as the prospect of bettering their condition expands, and that in general their labour is only conducted in a slothful manner when it is compulsory, or to themselves unproductive. We have had ample opportunity to know, that when they labour by “tarea” or piece-work, and are sure of their wages, they work remarkably well. On their own little farms they are truly hard labourers; and, if they were not so often pounced upon by enemies to industry, the fruit of it would be seen in their growing prosperity. It is those who tyrannize over them who accuse them of laziness, duplicity, and natural perverseness of disposition. Of such persons we may be allowed to ask, Have they ever afforded the Indian any rational encouragement to honesty and industry? Have they ever, by fair dealing, persevered in the experiment of deserving the confidence, of conciliating the affections, or of calling forth the kindly sympathies of these humbler sons of the soil? What virtue, except patience, were they permitted to disclose under Spanish oppression—(would it were mitigated under the patriot system!)—when their masters supplied them with the necessaries of life just on what terms they pleased, and when the Indians could realize no property, however much they redoubled their toil, for in general the fruit of their labour was not their own?

The Indians for the most part are an agricultural people, for more live by tillage than mere pasturage or any other occupation. Many of the modern villages in the temperate climate of the interior were, not many years ago, large farms, possessed by Europeans or their creole descendants; but the labourers, set free at the revolution in consequence of the confiscation of the goods and property of their fugitive or ruined masters, have continued to cultivate the land for their own maintenance, till by degrees their families have swelled into villages, and at length assumed the important character of municipalities. With a few years of undisturbed peace, and exemption from undue exactions, small villages may thus arise and become considerable towns, wherever the locality happens to afford sufficient scope for cultivation. But as it often occurs that the Indian hamlet is erected on a pinnacle, or on the brow of a hill, around which there is but little suitable soil for the spread of agricultural industry, the consequence is that the father divides and subdivides the same piece of ground among the rising members of his progeny, till at length the means of subsistence become too scanty for the support of the whole family, and, the supernumeraries must seek employment in the mines or elsewhere, as they best may.

The mechanic arts are little needed by Indians who construct their own huts, and, with the exception of their coarse felt-hats, shape their own dress, which in warm situations consists of sandals of raw hide, wide trowsers or breeches open at the knee, a shirt, vest, and sometimes a jacket, and over all a poncho. In cold exposed localities, as Cerro Pasco, they always wear warm woollen stockings and a jacket; not omitting the poncho, which is the indispensable covering by day as well as by night throughout the Sierra. Besides such drawbacks on the growth of Indian population as arise from the want of efficient medical assistance, and the occasionally destructive effects of epidemic diseases, other causes have been frequently assigned, and especially an excessive passion for intoxicating liquors. This propensity operates strongly with the miner, stationed, as he is, in high and frigid localities, where he is much exposed to wet under ground, and to nocturnal frost or snow above it. Here the action of intoxicating drink, particularly when indulged in by those not born in very elevated regions, superadded to the usual effects of a highly rarefied atmosphere, and other causes of a less general character, tend greatly to shorten human life. But in the warm and temperate valleys which intervene between the coast and the Cordilleras this vice is by no means so prevalent as at the mines, where money circulates freely, and all manner of temptation is to be encountered. For though agua-ardiente, guarapo, and chicha usually abound in such places, yet it must not be forgotten that the peones or day-labourers of these favoured climates seldom have reals to spend; and that, when they have no money, their credit does not usually extend so far as to enable them to be often intoxicated. For about three years we had seldom less than a score, and frequently as many as fifty or sixty of these Indians, working under the eye of a major-domo; and, except upon some saint-day or festival, we do not recollect having any complaint made to us on the score of drunkenness. Licentiousness is usually stated as a further source of depopulation among all classes and castes in Peru: but, whatever be the true explanation of the fact, we think that evils springing from such fountains of impurity show themselves comparatively little in the Indian constitution; and though strict regularity of conduct cannot be claimed on the part of the Indian family, yet the modesty of their ancient mamaconas is still remembered among them; and it is a characteristic which to this day honourably distinguishes the Indians from their more cultivated masters, that with them conjugal infidelity is discouraged, punished, and felt to be a crime.

Incessant warfare and intestine broils, by keeping up continued agitation, are at this day as destructive and desolating to the aborigines of Peru, and to the general industry and prosperity of the country, as was formerly the compulsory system of working in the mines, and manufactories or “obrages,” under the Spanish conquerors. The factious and seditious spirit which has gone abroad in the republic is an excuse for a standing army, which in its turn becomes the fertile nursery, or, at least, frequent instrument of faction; and, what is worse, military licence is rapidly pervading all classes of society, and destroying the only true sources of population, which are domestic virtues, domestic habits, and simplicity of life. We shall dwell no longer on such causes, already too well known as principal sources of depopulation in Peru; but, before we quit the subject, it occurs to us to mention that during a litigation, in which the question at issue was to be partly determined by the evidence of tradition and ancient usage, a number of witnesses of the most advanced age in the Vale of Huanuco were called in to give their testimony, of whom several were from seventy to ninety years of age, and, with only one exception, in which the blindness of age came on in an European by birth, all of them were hale old people, and generally of Indian race.

We would remark of these Indians, that although for centuries they have endured oppression with the mute meekness of the lamb bound for sacrifice, they are by no means dead to feelings of domestic tenderness, or insensible to the natural ties of kindred or of country, whence they are violently torn when led away as recruits. Wanderers from their native soil, wherever the public service or the will of an usurper leads, they brood over the loss of the genial freedom, simple habits, and peaceful enjoyments that once were their own, when they herded their flocks or cultivated their corn and pumpkins. In an hospital, on the coast, we have seen some of these poor fellows unable to speak a sentence of Spanish to the physician who prescribed for their relief; and, in a few extreme instances, despair sunk the powers of life, and a hopeless love of home exhausted their spirits. We have seen one very young lad thus affected who refused food and medicine, until in silent sorrow he expired, a victim to nostalgia, or a love of home, and a broken heart. These hapless beings, whose devotedness to early attachments and associations bespeaks the warmth and fidelity of their affections, though cherished under a cold and apparently a passionless exterior, we found to be indeed reserved, but sagacious; and, when not under any unusual excitement, their minds, though not cheerful, were serene. Their exterior mien always struck us as solemn, and even sad; but this may be partly the effect of the awfully grand and sublime scenery so familiar to their view, which imparts a solemn and contemplative turn to the thoughts of the mountaineer, and influences his moral feelings in such a manner as stamps a certain air of mental gravity on his general deportment and expression. As an individual, the Indian is timid, and he will sooner take a cuff than give one; but, when they assemble for mutual support, then indeed they are seen to fight most valiantly, and like tame oxen, when the blood of one of their number is shed, they all become fearfully courageous. Bold and bloody battles we have seen between strong parties of the native miners in Cerro Pasco, armed for the combat with slings, stones, and clubs. At festivals, too, when roused by drink or enraged by jealousy, they lacerate and maul each other: and the meek-looking, dumpy, Indian woman becomes equally exasperated and vehement if in her quarrels any one should cut away a tress of her long and coarse black hair; for the cutting of these tresses is an odious mark of female dishonour, to which women of every caste in the land,—except the woolly-headed blacks and mulattas, on whom nature has not bestowed these ornaments,—are most acutely and painfully sensitive.[24]

From the beagle-courage of the Indian, who, like these gentle animals, fights better in company with others than singly, his military character stands very high; and a regiment of Indians when conducted by gallant officers, as was the case during the war of Peruvian independence, are sure to prove indomitably brave and hardy. The dark and zambo soldier of the coast, when urged forward on a rapid Sierra march, is very apt to sink under the pressure of fatigue, conjoined with pinching cold and inevitable privations, to which he has been little accustomed in the warm and humid “potreros” or enclosures near the sea. But the Indian foot-soldier is superior to such obstacles; and with only the support of a pouch of coca, and a bag of toasted maize, he will continue his march wherever the llama can keep its footing over ledges of rock, and rugged recesses so wild and so land-locked, that, as the dwellers in these solitudes say, it would seem difficult for the birds of the air to escape from them. But though, when engaged on long and forced marches over savage mountains and glens, one of these all-enduring and active natives hardly ever falls behind from mere fatigue, yet he has not so far forgotten the shade of his fig-tree in the bosom of the vale, or his airy home on some distant eyrie, from whence he was dragged in bonds, as not secretly to pant for his native nest; and, on long inland marches, the general or commander who is not singularly vigilant, or uncommonly beloved, has more to fear that the Indian may desert him on the journey than when engaged with the enemy.

In every village of the intermediate valleys, the white vagabond and roguish mestizo have “padrinos,” or protecting friends of their own caste in petty authority, holding the commission of captain of volunteers, governor, or alcalde, or something more subordinate still; but the more industrious Indian, who tills his own piece of ground, and peaceably labours to rear his little group of helpless children, is constantly the victim of oppression. This useful citizen, who happens not to owe a dollar to any man of influence whose interest it may therefore be to interpose with the colonel or sub-prefect of the district in his behalf, has, to use his own pathetic expression, no “arrimo” or powerful support, neither friend nor protector to plead his cause with the local authorities, who, though they are enjoined by the government to enlist none but idle and vicious characters, are daily seen to sacrifice, with insolence and impunity, justice and duty to malice and caprice. The native inhabitants are therefore searched out and dragged from their houses, or from the caves and fastnesses where they have sought concealment. Torn from their forlorn and destitute families, carried away as recruits on every new levy of conscripts, they are bound like galley-slaves, and then driven along, a spiritless crew, hopeless and helpless, from the recesses and glens of the interior to the coast, or elsewhere, as circumstances may require, there to die of ague or dysentery, or, if they survive the usual effects of great changes of climate and diet, to be harshly trained for the exercise of war.

It is a law of the country, contained in article 6th of the Constitution, that the common rights of citizenship be suspended towards the notoriously vagrant, the gambler, the drunkard, and the married man who without cause abandons his wife, or who is divorced on account of his own misconduct. The rich and influential can, when they please, easily evade such laws as these; but, among the peculiar hardships imposed upon the Indian of the interior, it is not the least that he may be seized for a soldier on the alleged ground of his being “mal-casado,” or habitually cohabiting with a woman to whom he has not been previously bound by the bonds of regular marriage. It is not impartial justice that he should be punished in this manner for a delinquency which is almost authorized by the practice of his superiors. These poor people pair together naturally, and at an early age; and would, we think, frequently render their union more binding by marriage, if they could afford it. That this may be understood, it is necessary to say that the curate’s fees for the performance of matrimonial and burial service vary in amount with the caste and complexion of the parties. The fee for marrying an Indian is lower than that assigned for the marriage of a mestizo, and the white man pays more than either. One consequence of this arrangement is, that it is often difficult to ascertain the class of the proposed bridegroom; and the curate may sometimes be induced to raise the beardless Indian to the rank of the scanty-bearded mestizo, and the latter has in his own person great ambition to be thought an “hombre blanco” or white man. The poor agricultural Indian of the Sierra has commonly enough to do to provide himself with his coca,[25] a hoe, and a chopping-knife, the tools that he usually works with; and seldom indeed has he got on hand as many dollars as would enable him to pay even the lowest rate of marriage fees. Now, he who cannot pay without difficulty the priest for marrying him in a Christian manner, thinks it can be no great harm to imitate others around him whose example ought to be worthy of imitation; and, ignorant of the language which Scripture addresses to his conscience, he contracts a marriage sanctioned by custom, though not by religion.

Another hardship in the Indian’s situation is, that he has often great trouble to pay the customary tribute or capitation tax, from which even the superannuated are not always exempt, though the Treasury professes not to receive contributions from the aged. When we resided in the Vale of Huanuco, men have come to us from the distant province of Conchucos, imploring work, to be paid for not in produce but in money, which is scarce in Conchucos, that they might be enabled to return with a few dollars to satisfy the collector of revenue, not less inexorable in his demands than the corregidor used to be in exacting the royal tribute, of which this vestige yet remains. On the coast, a day-labourer’s wages may be six reals or a dollar, according to circumstances; but in remote parts of the interior, as in the province to which we have referred, wages are very low,—for example, a real or sixpence per day. In Huanuco, wages are nominally three reals a day: but here the native planters usually run accounts with their workmen, whom they supply with such articles as clothes, spirits, maize, coca, and perhaps tobacco; though the cigar is more used by the natives of the coast, and such as use not the coca, than by the agricultural Indian. By this mode of management the poor man is commonly precipitated, before he is aware of it, into his employer’s debt, and very often remains involved, and virtually a slave, for the remainder of his life; while his sons after him are made to take upon themselves the burden under which the father sank to his grave. But the same grinding system involves even the better sort of men who are looked upon with respect in their own humble sphere, and permitted to prefix Don as a shining handle to their name,—they also are victims to ruinous custom and superstitious rites; for they are called upon in their turn to bear the expense of being the major-domos of the feasts which are celebrated in honour of the tutelar saint of the village to which they belong.

To defray the expense of these public entertainments, the major-domos have in most instances not only to spend all their savings, but to borrow, and to run up their credit with the sellers of fruit and preserves, the butcher, the baker, the distiller, and chicheras, or women that make the country beer, and sell the malt, called jorra, made of maize. In short, a major-domo of a festival in a village of any consideration gets well off if one hundred and fifty or two or three hundred dollars, pay his share of the anniversary feast and procession. To sustain the pageantry of one day of drunken and profligate religious enthusiasm in honour of a favourite saint, these men foolishly entangle themselves and families in the miseries of debt and embarrassments that destroy both ease and independence, and lead to a multitude of evils naturally arising out of such degraded circumstances. We have ourselves employed in weeding our cane-fields an honest and industrious family thus reduced to great privation; from which the children could never expect to emerge, after the death of an industrious father, except by the utmost prudence, perseverance, and industry on their own part, and friendly support on the part of their employer.

To conclude these remarks on the Indian’s condition, we have shown that evil example in high places, religious abuses, the exactions of the collector of revenue, and also of the priest, (whom, by the by, the state should deliver from this degrading necessity, by giving him an adequate income out of the tithes which it has appropriated to itself,) the arbitrariness of petty governors, alcaldes, and village captains, together with the restless and overweening ambition of military despots that allow their country no repose,—we have shown that these causes, collectively, tend to render the Indian race—which forms the bulk of the Peruvian nation—insecure in their persons and property, distrustful and cringing in their character, degraded in their morals, and heirs direct to civil and religious bondage.

The curates who reside in the mountain glens and deep corries feel assured, from the well-known feelings cherished by their flocks, that when the day arrives when these uneducated men of the hills shall understand what are their own political rights and physical strength, and shall be commanded by bold and sagacious leaders of their own blood and kind, they will fearfully and cruelly avenge their wrongs on all “advenedizos,” all exotics!—on their white oppressors and sable interlopers![26]

CHAPTER VI.

War of Independence.—Unsettled state of the country at the close of 1835 and early in 1836.—Gamarra’s Government.—Insurrections.—Guerilla and Freebooters.—Foreign Marines.—Lima invaded from the castles of Callao, under command of Solar.—Orbegoso enters Lima.—Castles of Callao taken by assault.—Battle of Socabaya.—Salaverry taken prisoner.—Execution.—Public tranquillity hoped for under the protection of Santa-Cruz.

Having in the preceding chapters attempted to give a correct idea of the general aspect of Peru, and of the social condition of its inhabitants, we will subjoin a brief sketch of the anarchy into which it fell about the close of the year 1835 and beginning of 1836.

From the year 1810, when first the Patriot flag was triumphantly carried into upper Peru by the spirited Buenos-Ayreans, the natives of lower Peru, or that which is now called the Peruvian Republic, had the path to freedom boldly pointed out to their view. But in Lima, where Spanish influence and loyalty were strongly concentrated, it was not until 1819, when Lord Cochrane appeared with a liberating squadron on the shores of Peru, and the Chilean and Buenos-Ayrean forces in the year following landed on the same coast under the command of General San Martin, that the national spirit of the Peruvian people declared itself in that joyful welcome, and effective support of their proposed deliverers and fellow patriots, which struck dismay into the councils, and confusion into the operations of their proud oppressors. Then, indeed, were kindled all the horrors of civil strife and warfare in this once opulent and peaceful country; and these sanguinary struggles never ceased, until, aided by the Colombian troops, and the directing mind of the great Liberator Bolivar, the Peruvians were at length enabled to throw off the chains of despotism which for more than three centuries they had submissively worn,—chains of which they will long bear evident marks on their national and domestic character; for the battle of Ayacucho, which was gloriously fought and won by the Patriots on the 9th day of December 1824, and which terminated the great liberating campaigns of Peru, has not yet secured prosperity to that distracted country. But the Peruvians, having thrown off the tameness of bondage, and assumed the name of freemen, have yet harder work before them than the expulsion of the Spaniards: they have to finish their own work of regeneration; to surmount all the intestine difficulties and reconcile all the discordant elements which originate among themselves; they have to free their community of noisy demagogues that poison the public press, and discontented agitators who, affecting the purest zeal for the commonwealth, have an eye only to their own interest, and whose object is change—they care not what, so long as it may benefit themselves. How far they are yet from having realized the final advantages they proposed to derive from their great, and, so far, successful revolutionary struggle, is plainly discovered in times of public disturbance, when all classes suffer more or less severely from grinding contributions and wanton exactions.

The wealth of the “hacendado,” or landed proprietor, is dissipated in every turmoil; and the less affluent farmer, or “chacarero,” is arrested in his labour, and has his arm paralysed by indigence and violence. Predatory troops, as well as government hirelings, seize and drive off his cattle, lead astray his slaves, press or frighten away his free labourers, destroy his crops, and pillage his granaries; and should the spoliated countryman, or country gentleman, be able to rally his spirits and renew his exertions so as to recover the shock of one year’s depredation, the repetition of the like violence, or an aggression yet more destructive, on the following year, consigns him to hopeless beggary. The miners likewise, though a greatly privileged corporation, are for the most part destitute of real capital; yet, in these times, misnamed patriotic, they are a prey to unjust collectors of tribute, who, on fixing any particular miner’s contribution at a certain sum in current money, which he is unable to pay, take care to recover the amount in piña. Now, the extortioner asserts that the miner’s piña, though truly excellent, is very badly purified,—that it is of “mucha merma,” or sustains great loss of weight in fusion; and, under this false pretence, again comes upon the miner, and obliges him to make up the alleged deficiency: this, in fact, is a surplus, over and above the demands of the government, which swaggering colonels, or other such commissioned pilferers, appropriate without scruple to their own unworthy purposes. Such acts of violence and villany in times of petty revolutions lead to the worst consequences; for they not only occasion great private distress, but create such a general distrust in the government and its rapacious agents, as frequently prevents the miners from remitting silver bars to Lima, when otherwise it might be their interest to do so; and this oppression causes a contraband trade, for which, indeed, the open coasts of the country afford all imaginable facility. Nor should it be here overlooked that, as a common consequence of the frequent public broils in this republic, the small merchant or retail dealer often feigns, on the convenient plea of bad times, an utter incapacity to pay the wholesale foreigner in Lima who credits him with goods. Should a person of this character once get into the interior with a respectable stock on hand, he is sure to play the part of a gentleman in feasting and dancing, &c.; and it may take some trouble not only to get him to render fair accounts, but to hunt him out of the town or village where, under the pretext of transacting business, he is pleased to locate himself. In short, so great is the disorder in every department of the social and political system in Peru, that, to express the sentiments of a friend of ours, and a distinguished Peruvian statesman, “In Peru there cannot for a long time to come be any other than a military government; every state pretends to regulate itself by a moral government; but, as we have little or no morality in our land, the bayonet must inevitably direct us. Here we have no industry; there is not more than one man in ten that labours for his bread: and putting out of the question the ‘empleados,’ or those who fill public stations under government, and who are supported at the cost of the state, there is not one in thirty of those mannikins who are daily seen loitering about the streets that live by their own proper industry. Give to the Indian, in whose arm rests our physical strength, an idea of his wants; let him know the conveniences of civilized life; in short, enlighten the mass of our people so as to let them understand something at least of the nature and end of government, and then we shall not have daily revolutions. But, situated as we are at present, we have neither capital, industry, nor private security. All is insecure; all is loose and common, unhinged, unprotected, and without order. Good men have nothing to hope for: the few individuals who have access to our rulers are guided by none but the most sordid motives. It is the ruin of my lacerated country, that no man looks beyond his personal interest; that no one attaches himself to the government with sound intentions, or with any view except that of plunder.”

The mountain Indian in particular, whose knowledge and usefulness our patriotic friend would fain improve and enlarge, long inured to servitude, and only acquainted with the rudest arts of life, has never arrived at a correct idea of the extent of his privations, or of the nature of those primary political rights which, by skilful combination and promises, (though himself too ignorant to reason on the merits of the cause,) he was at length goaded forward to assert, and for some time to sustain with manly energy. Thus have the meekest and most submissive of men, through vigorous exertions on the part of the few who conceived and originated the plan of their independence, been stirred up to despite their unjust rulers, and trained to the use of fire-arms, at the very sight of which they formerly trembled. The effect of such education must for some time be productive of disorder; for, to apply a homely illustration, the fire that is lit by the husbandman to destroy overgrown and noxious weeds, cannot always be checked before it scorches the cane or the corn field; and so it is with hostile passions, which when once excited, though for a good and patriotic purpose, cannot always be quelled at pleasure, or at once restrained within the limits of perfect order and rational liberty. Of this the recent history of Peru affords ample evidence, for, since the close of General Gamarra’s troubled government, there has scarcely been a lull of temporary peace in that ill-fated country.[27] It is asserted by those who best knew this influential man’s counsels, that, during his four years’ rule, he crushed no fewer than fourteen conspiracies more or less matured against his person or government: yet at the expiration of his lawful term of presidentship, to which dignity his artful schemes conducted him on the ruin of his predecessor, the beloved General La Mar, he had scarcely relinquished his high office in January 1834, when he was seen to rear the standard of rebellion, and hasten the downfall of his country by authorizing insurrection with his example. Although frustrated in this shameful revolt, in the year following he was again at the head of an armed faction, and in open and sanguinary rebellion. But finally, after the disastrous battle of Yanacocha, and total dispersion of his surviving partisans, he came to Lima for refuge against the united and victorious force of his legitimate foes, the Peruvian president Orbegoso, with his Bolivian ally, Santa-Cruz. And here in the capital, while receiving the condolence of his mortified friends, and mourning the loss of his heroic wife, the renowned Panchita,[28] whose heart in his utmost adversity was presented to him by a confidential female friend, enclosed in a glass,—he had little leisure to weep over it. Ere his awakened sorrow was soothed, he was arrested on a rough military warrant, and, in company with several of his friends or adherents, once more hurried away into banishment by the stern orders of the impetuous General Salaverry, a rival leader, less artful and wary, but more active and daring than himself.

Lest anything should be wanting to crown the accumulated miseries of a distracted and afflicted people, his excellency the provisional president of the republic, Don Jose Louis Orbegoso, in his address to the Peruvians, dated Tarma, January 4th, 1836, and published in the Redactor of Lima on the 9th day of the same month, solemnly affirmed and promulgated that “the very laws, dictated with the pure intention of securing happiness to the commonwealth, had concentrated within themselves the elements of her destruction. These laws had proved a safeguard to the seditious, and had been the bulwarks of rebellion. Through their operation the executive had been forced to feel the volcano at its feet, though unable to prevent an eruption. Yes, under the overseeing eye of the government, the revolutions had been hatched and brought forth, reared and strengthened into maturity.”

This acknowledgment, from a president duly invested with extraordinary or dictatorial powers, renounced every rational idea of government, and virtually declared the incapacity of the supreme authority to protect the person, property, or rights of the citizen, or to sustain the necessary subordination of society. By this government, which so frankly declared its own imbecility, men either faithless or inept were, perhaps for want of better, appointed to fill offices of high trust and power; and in this way was kindled the train of that sanguinary revolution, which, in the year 1835, burst forth like the flaming combustibles and poisonous eructations of an overwhelming volcano; spreading consternation, outrage, and desolation over the wide range of its fearful sweep. But, during the whole of this tumultuous period, the Limenian mob, made up, though it be, of mixed and most variegated castes, illustrated by their example how slow the mind is to cast off early and deeply rooted habits; for, after the lapse of so many years of civil dissension, they showed that, as a whole, they still retained the feelings of public subjection (unfortunately not turned to account by any steady government) to which, in olden times, they were habituated under the jurisdiction of the Spaniards. For several days during this period there was no sort of police in the capital. The government and garrison had abandoned it, and shut themselves up within the fortress and castles of Callao; but yet the populace showed a singular measure of forbearance, and the instances of outrage and pillage committed in the streets were exceedingly few.

At this conjuncture of danger and uncertainty, foreign property in the capital was guarded by marines, English, French, and American, from their respective vessels of war on the station: but, for several months previously to these days of general panic and dismay, the capital had been the theatre of daily broils; the banditti and soldiery being engaged in ceaseless though irregular contest for the mastery both within and without the walls. The inhabitants were affected with a sort of nervous infirmity, or morbid susceptibility of impression, proceeding from the unsubdued feeling of impending danger.

E l’aspettar del male è mal peggiore

Forse, che non parrebbe il mal presente:

Pende, ad ogn’aura incerta di romore,

Ogni orecchia sospesa ed ogni mente;

E un confuso bisbiglio entro e di fuore

Trascorre i campi e la città dolente.

Tasso.

A pillar of dust rising in the distance, or the smoke of burning weeds in the neighbouring farms, were sure to be attributed by the anxious spectator in the city to the less harmless fire of musketry and skirmishers. On the appearance of any such sign, notice was immediately given from the lofty steeple of La Merced, or the arcade of the bridge opposite the palace balconies. If a playful black boy was seen to gallop on his donkey by the trees of the old Alameda, or suburbs of Malambo, then some mercachifle or pregonero[29] would instantly give the alarm, which was conveyed by the vocal brotherhood with the rapidity of lightning—and “Hay viene el negro Escobar y los ladrones!” (Here comes the negro Escobar and the robbers!) was soon ringing through all parts of the city—whereupon in every direction would follow the running tumult of “Cierra puertas!”—shut doors!—and then the creaking and heavy clash of massy doors, and the jarring of chains and bolts, as every street and area entrance were closed and barricaded. During these moments of self-imprisonment, suspense, and anxiety, the streets were entirely abandoned by the unarmed populace; and the noise from the pavement, caused by the gently progressive motion of an ambling hack, was exaggerated in fancy, so as to imitate the clang and tread of a hundred horses. It produced the same startling effect in the over-excited imagination of those within, (who, to see what passed without, hardly ventured to peep through a key-hole, or from the corner of a latticed balcony,) as the unwelcome rattling of a wheeled carriage or the dull Pantheon car, on the morning succeeding a desolating earthquake, never fails to produce on sensitive frames while under the still abiding influence of recent alarm. Under such circumstances of general consternation it was that the timely arrival of irregular troops, “montonera,” under the command of a Patriot general, Vidal, delivered Lima out of the hands of a formidable band of freebooters under the celebrated negro Escobar, who had already begun the work of depredation, and whose sanguinary disposition, if excited by drink or excess, threatened to realize the worst anticipations of the dismayed citizens. In this very condition of infuriated exultation and inebriety, being in the act of plundering a house in open day, he was surprised, and in less than an hour afterwards shot in the plaza; where, only the day before, he had showed off very proudly under the balconies of the archbishop’s palace, mounted on a magnificent black steed, which he had taken by force from the prelate’s own stable. But now in his last moments his only intelligible prayer was said to be that he might receive forgiveness from the archbishop, whose sacred dignity he had so recently insulted; and, probably, of all the unhappy Peruvians who are brought to suffer death at the “banquillo,” there falls not one but shows some mysterious respect for the church; and the greatest criminal among them is never, perhaps, entirely forgetful of his tutelar saint. Whatever their career of life may have been, their faith, well or ill founded, yields them hope at the last hour; and it is allowed by those who witness their tragic end, that they generally die the death of the wicked with the composure of martyrs.

On the day that General Vidal, with his orderly montonera, entered at the invitation of the municipality—“cabildo,”—for the protection of the terrified city, it was interesting to observe the contrast presented by the negro Cimarones, when arrayed in the cathedral square of the capital by the side of the freemen of Huamantanga, and the poor but independent Indians of Yuyos, who, of all their tribe and fellow aborigines, are the least passive under political oppression. In the laughing negroes, the perpetual motion of their long and dangling limbs, never at rest in the saddle, betokened an exuberance and locomotive waste of nervous energy; while, on the other hand, the contemplative-looking and compact little Indian, mounted on his hardy nag, just emerged from the solitary and rugged wilds of the mountains, though surrounded with the novelty and excitement of a great city in confusion, never for a moment lost the composure and serenity of his countenance and demeanour.[30] These highland bands, together with a few other brave but undisciplined volunteers, inspired the lower orders of the Limenians with that transient enthusiasm to which, on extraordinary occasions, they have more than once shown themselves capable of being raised; and simultaneously they rushed to arms as the bells from every spire tolling the solemn “llamada a fuego,” or the alarm of conflagration, summoned them to the defence of their beloved Lima, which was menaced and ultimately attacked by a formidable sortie from the castles of Callao. The assailants were led on by Solar the governor, and cousin to the spurious president, Salaverry, whose illegitimate cause, now on the eve of being lost for ever, his less energetic relative but faintly sustained. It is worthy of remark, that even on this momentous occasion, the spirit-stirring 6th of January 1836, the patrician youth—“los hijos de familia”—took no active part. Educated with the utmost tenderness of indulgence, they are more inclined to love than arms. In short, the business of their life is pleasure.

Until the last memorable rally and sanguinary struggle at Socabaya, near Arequipa, under that Limenian lusus naturæ, General Felipe Santiago Salaverry, the military name of the Patriot officers of Peru had been rapidly sinking into utter contempt. By far the greater number of their spirited and intelligent country-women decried the turncoat fraternity, and regretted that they themselves were not born to carry arms, that they might redeem the fallen honour of their country. These degenerate officers seemed to take pleasure in calling every now and then the attention of the public to their vile “pronunciamientos,” or open abjuration of honourable allegiance to those placed in just authority over them. Such vain and faithless vaunters, whose proudest achievements were but to forsake their duty, bind their chiefs, and desolate their native land, became the objects of public scorn, and were despised even by the softer sex, as being fitter to wield the distaff than the sword.

But Salaverry, a man of vast though ill-directed energy and reckless spirit, made the sky re-echo to his shout of war to the death! And such complete ascendency did he acquire over the minds of his countrymen, by his almost insane impetuosity and appalling executions,[31] that he not only constrained them to a state of awe and submission, but, what is more remarkable, inspired them, when he pleased, with martial ardour, and made them emulate the deeds of Zepita, Junin, and Ayacucho. During the gloomy reign of the black banner, and continuance of the revolution of Salaverry, the Limenian women, uneasy beneath the accumulating evils of political oppression, made their way into the ranks of the insurgents. Disguised in their mysterious “mantos,” they circulated patriotic proclamations, and whispered abroad the low and solemn murmur of public opinion; until at length, on the famous 6th of January 1836, when the populace rushed to the walls, it was shouted aloud from every mouth,—ay, the cannon’s mouth,—to the confusion of rapacious upstarts struggling for ascendency. And still the women played their part—as they raised the whirlwind, so they rode on it; for, without any metaphor, they were to be seen armed and on horseback amidst the crowd.

Two days after this display of popular feeling so unusual in Lima, the provisional president made his entrance into the city amid loud rejoicings that nothing could exceed. A few weeks after this event, the eminently brave General Moran by a gallant assault forced the castles of Callao, then under the command of the insurgent Solar, to capitulate; and, on the 7th of February, General Salaverry lost the hard-contested battle of Socabaya, also called Altos de la Luna, or Heights of the Moon, a name singularly in character with that high and lunatic excitement which hurried to his doom this enthusiastic child of ambition. He escaped from the field of action with many of his officers, and the remainder of his wearied troops; and, when nearly in sight of their shipping at Islay, they were taken prisoners by our countryman, General Miller, under circumstances which demanded on the part of this very distinguished officer the exercise of that active vigilance, coolness, intrepidity, and self-possession, for which he has been so remarkable throughout his honourable military career.

On Thursday, February 18, 1836, General Salaverry, and eight of his principal officers, were by sentence of court-martial condemned to death; and, accordingly, were publicly shot in the great square of Arequipa. This event, though lamented by a few, was matter of rejoicing to the many, who now looked forwards to the re-organization of the political state of Peru under the protection of General Santa Cruz, the President of Bolivia.

CHAPTER VII.

On Climate and Disease.—Panama, Guayaquil, Peru, and Chile.

For those who propose to cross the Isthmus of Panama, or visit the shores of the Pacific, it may be interesting to be made in some degree acquainted with the influence of particular climates, and the sort of illness which they are most likely to experience at the principal commercial ports, particularly to the south of the line. On this account the author now offers some general hints on these subjects, having it in view to publish as a separate treatise a practical account of the diseases of Peru, described as they occur at different altitudes, in the diversified climate of that country.

The seasons at Panama are divided into wet and dry: the rainy season begins towards the latter end of May, and continues till November; and from November to June, or the latter end of May, is the dry season. At Panama, agues, fevers, bilious and gastric complaints are common in the wet season; but the yellow fever, or “Vomito negro,” very rarely has been known to pass the mountain barriers which separate the Atlantic from the Pacific. At Cruces the traveller may enjoy a better and safer climate, during the wet and unhealthy months, (when the thermometer never, perhaps, falls below 90°,) than either at Panama or Chagres.

To the north of the Isthmus, along the shores of Central America and Mexico, as far at least as the northern tropic, the climate is considered “malsano,” or exceedingly unhealthy; a fact well known to those who trade with Realejo, San Blas, and Mazatlan, where very dangerous remittent fevers prevail.

To the southward of the Isthmus on the shores of Colombia, in about 2° south latitude, we find the port and city of Guayaquil, of well-known commercial importance. Here, the climate is considered unhealthy during the wet season, when the air is sultry and oppressive; but in the dry season Guayaquil is not reckoned particularly sickly. The rain commences in light showers in December, is very heavy in February, and dwindles away in April. From May to December is the dry season.

The wet season, being the hottest, would naturally be considered as summer; but here, as in other places of seasonal or periodical rains, the wet season is called “invierno,” or winter, and the dry season “verano,” or summer; yet the latter is cooler than the former, and allows one to wear warmer clothing than would be agreeable in the rainy months.