396 Voyage of the Nopcira. 



excursion, I had only a few days more left before I was to 

 take steamer again en route to Panama^ which I employed 

 in riding about to examine all that was best worth seeing 

 in the environs, and making a few parting calls. 



One of the finest promenades in Lima is the Alameda Nueva, 

 opened about two years previous, which lies on the road to 

 Amancaes on the further bank of the Rimac, which divides 

 the city into two unequal parts, of which, however, far the 

 larger one, constituting indeed the city proper, lies on the 

 left or southern bank. After the romantic descriptions I had 

 read of tlie Rimac, I found myself woefully undeceived by the 

 reality. Of the thundering rapids below the bridge, of which 

 Castelnau gives us such a picturesque sketch, I found not a 

 trace visible, the greater part of the river-bed, 150 to 200 feet 

 wide, being quite dry, with a wretched little driblet of water 

 trickling through it. The season of the year may, however, 

 have contributed to this disenchanting prospect, and in 

 August and September, when the melting snows and violent 

 rain-storms of the neighbouring Cordilleras swell the brooks 

 and rivers, they possibly impart a more imposing and lively 

 aspect to the Rimac. The stone bridge over the river, which 

 forms the communication with the suburb of San Lazaro, is a 

 handsome structure, built in 1638 — 1640, from the designs of 

 an Augustine monk, and cost nearly half a million dollars. 



The Alameda Nueva consists of a long, wide lane, with pretty 

 garden nurseries and flower-beds on either side, interspersed 

 with tasteful marble statues life-size, the whole enclosed in an 



