438 



LIMA. 

 Population of Lima. 



In 1851 an official publication states that the province was estimated (in that year) to contain 

 85,116 persons, of whom about one third were whites; one seventh native Indians, without 

 admixture of blood; rather more than one half half-castes; the remainder foreigners. Of the half- 

 castes one fourth were slaves. From 1600 until 1746 the increase was steady and quite rapid. 

 In the latter year epidemic diseases, following the great earthquake, swept off above 6,000 

 people; and it was not until 1781 that the census again showed 60,000. By 1810 the number 

 had augmented to 87,000 ; since which time epidemics, revolutions, and banishments have 

 caused great fluctuations, and the tendency still continues rather to diminution than increase. 

 At the commencement both of summer and winter, putrid fevers, consumption, dysentery, and 

 diseases of the liver, prevail to much extent, and make rapid progress with the invalid. These 

 disorders the physicians attribute to debilitation of the nervous system, arising from the absence 

 of electricity in an atmosphere which storms never and high winds rarely disturb. Thunder 

 and lightning are never known. Without such currents to renovate and purify the air, dense 

 and loaded as it is with moisture during successive months, a mortality exists greatly dispro- 

 portioned to the number of inhabitants. 



Near as is Lima to the equator, the temperature is pleasant, its range being from 61 to 85 

 Fahrenheit, with a mean of 77 during the summer months, and 63. 5 during those of winter. 

 The prevalent winds are from south and southeast, though they sometimes blow from east and 

 north ; the former is a cold, and the latter an exceedingly sultry wind, if of several hours' dura- 

 tion. From April to October a heavy and damp mist hangs almost perpetually over the city, 

 and this is the only deposition of moisture. At times it is so dense that puddles of water collect 

 in little hollows of the roofs and streets, though never in sufficient quantity to penetrate through 

 the stratum of clay covering the former. By nine or ten o'clock the deposition ceases, and 

 everything dries ; and the sun becomes indistinctly visible through the warmer hours of the 

 day. At night the curtain again descends near the surface. The vicinity of the Cordilleras 

 and ocean sensibly modify the temperature ; and in summer, though there is much clear weather, 

 it is rarely very oppressive. A flood in the Rimac at this season is not unfrequently preceded 

 some hours by the heaviest drizzling mists ever known. 



Earthquakes are very frequent, though no disastrous shock has taken place for more than a 

 century. The most remarkable occurred in 1582, 1586, 1609, 1630, 1655, 1678, 1687, 1690, 

 1697, 1699, 1716, J 1725, 1734, 1743, 1746, 1806, 1828. That of 1746, destroying Callao and 

 a large part of Lima, has already been referred to. Next to it, the most considerable were 

 those of 1586, 1630, 1687, 1716, and 1806. 



Within a few years manufactories of cotton, wool, and glass have been established in the 

 suburbs of the city ; to protect which, government imposed enormous duties on similar articles 

 of foreign production. But they had all languished to the date of my visits, owing to import- 

 ation by the foreign merchants, before the law went into effect, of a quantity of goods sufficient 

 to last six or seven years. Thus they were still able to undersell the domestic manufacturer; 

 and it was believed that the whole of the companies would fail prior to the time when the 



