380 Voyage of the Nov ar a. 



a deep impression on all present, nevertheless gave much 

 offence to the President, who rose and replied, in a tone of 

 considerable asperity, that the Rector's view was erroneous, 

 and that a proper military force was as indispensable as a 

 good system of education; that it least of all became the 

 Rector to touch upon such a topic in that place and such 

 presence. 



Under the present political regime^ it is out of the question 

 to look for anything like intellectual vigour in Lima, so sparse 

 are the elements of such. There is an utter absence of that 

 sympathy, interest, and support which is necessary to its 

 existence, alike on the part of Government and of society at 

 large.* Works, such as Manuel Fuentes' valuable " Estades- 

 tica General de Lima " (General Statistics of Lima), can only 

 be considered as solitary special performances. Also in the 



* A Peruvian author, Don J. A. Delavalle, gives in one of his works the following 

 severe, yet faithful, portraiture of the state of letters in his native country : — " En un 

 pais en el que el cultivo de las letras ni constituye una profesion, ni crea una posi- 

 cion social, ni procura lo necesario— no decimos para lucrar con ella — para conseguir 

 el sustento para la vida, nos admiraremos de que haya quien escriba en Lima, y repu- 

 taremos como extraordinario el niimero de obras que han salido de sus prensas en I860, 

 por muy pequeno que este haya sido. Sin proteccion, pues, y sin estimulo, ni oficial, 

 ni social, ^ que se podra esperar de las letras Peruanas ? " ( Translation of the foregoing.) 

 " In a country where the cultivation of letters is not a profession by itself, where 

 literature confers no social position, and barely procures the necessaries of life, — we 

 do not speak of realizing competence and independence, — we marvel there should 

 be any one in Lima who writes at all, and we consider little less than extraordinary 

 the number of books which have issued from its press in I860, insignificant as the 

 sum total may be. Without protection, without influence, and without stimulus, 

 official or social, who can suffer himself to hope for a better future for Peruvian 

 literature?" (Compare Peru in I860, in the National Annual Register, by Alfredo 

 G. Leubel, Lima, 1 86 1.) 



