LIMA. 435 



the collection already obtained is miserly, and the establishment reflects little credit on the 



country. 



Government appropriates other two rooms in the same edifice to an academy of drawing, pay- 

 ing the ilin ctor $600 per annum to instruct pupils gratuitously on four evenings of each week. 

 Meet ion of li lied and engraved sketches and models has been obtained for their use. 



A university, chartered by decree about the middle of the sixteenth century, was endowed by 

 Pope Pius V. with all the privileges enjoyed by the renowned institution at Salamanca. At 

 one time its professors were the ablest and most assiduous in all South America ; but, as with all 

 ecclesiastic instructors, more attention was given ethical and scholastic than more immediately 

 utilitarian subjects. Now, their chairs are only nominal, and the corporation confers degrees 

 earned by students at the colleges of Santo Toribio and San Carlos. The former is exclusively 

 appropriated to theological students; geography, physics, mathematics, drawing, music, 

 modern languages, and law, are taught at the latter. Santo Toribio has the greater number of 

 graduates ; there are few students at San Carlos. Santo Tomas, a normal school on the Lan- 

 casterian system, and the high school of San Lazaro, have about 250, and the primary schools 

 2,600 pupils of both sexes. 



A medical college was founded in 1810, with seven professors. In 1834 Dr. Ruschenberger 

 thought it in a languishing state ; though from being attached to extensive hospitals, and no 

 prejudices existing against dissections, it might in other hands have become a flourishing 

 school. Seven years later, Dr. Von Tschudi says it well deserved the name Colejio de la Mede- 

 cina de la Independencia, which had been conferred on it in 1826 ; for, certainly, medicine was 

 taught there with a singular independence of all rules and systems. He thought the professors 

 had never received any regular instruction, and their scanty share of knowledge was communi- 

 cated to the students in a very imperfect manner. A school of obstetrics for females has 18 

 pupils ; a like number having passed satisfactory examinations during the seventeen years that 

 it has been in operation. A lying-in hospital is connected with this, where the poor are as- 

 sisted gratuitously, and subsequently afforded succor during ten days. The number of births 

 at the latter institution in the year ending September 30, 1851, was 245 ; death from parturi- 

 tion, 1 ; abortions, 33. Twins were born in February, March, and May. 



From the number of placards about the plaza one might infer that there is a succession of 

 public amusements in which the stranger at Lima may participate. Such, however, is not the 

 fact ; closer inspection of the notices proving that the majority of them refer to religious rather 

 than to secular affairs. The theatre is open only a part of the year ; the arena for bull-fights 

 only once a week during a part of the summer. Cock-fights and lotteries alone are perennial. 

 In 1835 the foreign merchants established a board of commerce, and have now a library connected 

 with their rooms, where American, English, and other foreign books and periodicals are regu- 

 larly received on the arrival of the steamer from the north. This is open every day, and the 

 transient resident, readily obtaining access through one of the directors, finds it the most relia- 

 ble source of recreation. 



The theatre building, in the rear of the convent of San Augustin, is not remarkable among 

 the houses about it; nor is its interior especially elegant or commodious. It has three tiers of 

 seatless boxes, those of each tier separated from the others by close partitions. Each lessee 

 for the season conveys the number of chairs he stipulates for. The benches of the pit are 

 divided into stalls, each of which is numbered, and they are more comfortable than the boxes. 

 One large double box in the centre of the first tier is retained by the municipal authorities, 

 and another (a stage-box) by the President. The stage is small, the scenery indifferent, and the 

 house is rarely more than half lighted. Its orchestra is usually good ; and when some of the 

 best second-rate opera-singers make visits to the capitals along the west coast, as they do occa- 

 sionally, all the beauty and fashion of Lima crowd to hear them. Generally, however, the 

 actors of comedies and tragedies attract small audiences; and to sit out their performances, under 

 the persecutions of the insects that swarm about all long-closed houses, the foreigner at least 

 needs the hide of a rhinoceros. 



