110 APPEARANCE OF THE TOWN. [1839. 



Real Felipe, bnt since the Revolution it has been called El 

 Castillo de la Indepcndencia ; — it has two round towers, 

 wide, but not high, spacious courtyards, and a deep ditch 

 which can be filled with water from the sea. The southern 

 fortification is called El Castillo del Sol. Before the War of 

 Independence, the two together mounted four hundred pieces 

 of cannon, many of them of very large calibre ; but they are 

 now dismantled and decayed ; the armaments have disap- 

 peared ; the cross and shield of Castile and Leon no longer 

 float above their ruins, and the galeOns which once poured 

 an unbroken tide of wealth into the coffers of old Spain have 

 forever vanished. Gloomy witnesses are these relics of the 

 past, of ancient Castilian pride, and power, and wealth — of 

 modern lethargy and retrogradation ! 



Callao is comparatively of modern origin. The ancient 

 town bearing the same name stood a little nearer the ocean, 

 and was completely destroyed and submerged by the dread- 

 ful earthquake of 1746; it contained, at that time, four 

 thousand inhabitants, barely two hundred of whom escaped. 

 It has often been said that the old town could be seen beneath 

 the waves, on a calm day and with a clear sky; and Captain 

 Wilkes seems to have adopted this opinion, probably without 

 a very careful examination, in his Narrative of the Exploring 

 Expedition.* Dr. Von Tschudit and other intelligent travel- 

 lers have repeatedly examined the Mar brava — the spot de- 

 signated as the locality of the ruins — but without discovering 

 the least trace of these chateaux en Espag-ne. The story is, 

 doubtless, all a mere fiction, originating like many another 

 marvel, which, though equally unfounded, has not been with- 

 out believers. 



Modern Callao is situated on the north side of a projecting 

 tongue of land. It contains about five thousand inhabitants, 



CD ' 



and begins to wear the appearance of a populous town; yet 

 it is damp and dirty in the winter, dry and dusty in the sum- 

 mer, and excessively filthy at all seasons of the year. The 



* Vol. I. p. 235. f Travels in Peru, (Wiley and Putnam's edition.) p. 33. 



