392 PERU CHAP. 



officer to whom he could trust so important a charge. He 

 himself had good reasons for thinking so, as he had obtained 

 the presidentship by rebelling while in charge of this same 

 fortress. After we left South America, he paid the penalty 

 in the usual manner, by being conquered, taken prisoner, and 

 shot. 



Lima stands on a plain in a valley, formed during the 

 gradual retreat of the sea. It is seven miles from Callao, and 

 is elevated 500 feet above it ; but from the slope being very 

 gradual, the road appears absolutely level ; so that when at 

 Lima it is difficult to believe one has ascended even one 

 hundred feet : Humboldt has remarked on this singularly 

 deceptive case. Steep, barren hills rise like islands from the 

 plain, which is divided, by straight mud-walls, into large green 

 fields. In these scarcely a tree grows excepting a few willows, 

 and an occasional clump of bananas and of oranges. The 

 city of Lima is now in a wretched state of decay : the streets 

 are nCarly unpaved ; and heaps of filth are piled up in all 

 directions, where the black gallinazos, tame as poultr\', pick 

 up bits of carrion. The houses have generally an upper story, 

 built, on account of the earthquakes, of plastered woodwork ; 

 but some of the old ones, which are now used by several 

 families, are immensely large, and would rival in suites of 

 apartments the most magnificent in any place. Lima, the 

 City of the Kings, must formerly have been a splendid town. 

 The extraordinary number of churches gives it, even at the 

 present day, a peculiar and striking character, especially when 

 viewed from a short distance. 



One day I went out with some merchants to hunt in the 

 immediate vicinity of the city. Our sport was very poor ; but 

 I had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of one of the ancient 

 Indian villages, with its mound like a natural hill in the centre. 

 The remains of houses, enclosures, irrigating streams, and 

 burial mounds, scattered over this plain, cannot fail to give 

 one a high idea of the condition and number of the ancient 

 population. When their earthenware, woollen clothes, utensils 

 of elegant forms cut out of the hardest rocks, tools of copper, 

 ornaments of precious stones, palaces, and hydraulic works, 

 are considered, it is impossible not to respect the considerable 

 advance made by them in the arts of civilisation. The burial 



