476 



LADY ANA DE OSORIO. 



1875. Count of Chinchon. Mr. Markham leads one to infer (p. 23) 



that the widowed countess during her abode in Madrid was 



attached to the Court of Margaret, Queen of Philip III. ; but 



this must be an error, as the Queen died in 1611. 



The Counts of The Counts of Chinchon, who were descended from an 



Chinchon. anc i en t family of Catalonia, derived their title from a small 

 town in the province of Madrid, about twenty-four miles south- 

 east of the capital. Mr. Markham, who visited Chinchon in 

 October, 1866, discourses pleasantly of his trip thither by 

 omnibus from Madrid across a high table-land, intersected by 

 deep valleys of fertile cultivated ground. These valleys, known 

 in Spanish by the name of vega, possess a rich alluvial soil, 

 but are by no means healthy, being infected by the germs of 

 ague and intermittent fever. Chinchon itself occupies a hollow 

 in the plateau lying between the vegas of Tajuna and Jaraina, 

 and is estimated to have a population of 6,000 souls. On the 

 southern side of the town is the old castle of the Counts of 

 Chinchon, once a noble residence, but now a complete ruin, 

 having been dismantled, together with the church, by the 

 French during the Peninsular War. 

 The Story of But to return to the history of Lady Ana. In 1628, that is 



Lady Ana. ^ gav ^ seven vears a ft er h er second marriage, her husband, the 

 Count of Chinchon, was nominated Viceroy of Peru ; and in 

 consequence of this appointment he proceeded in company with 

 his consort to South America, arriving at Lima on January 

 14th of the following year. The chief events of the Count's 

 viceroyalty were the rebellion in the Callao, the navigation of 

 the Amazon, and the discovery of Peruvian bark. The last 

 named is described by Mr. Markham in the following terms : 



" But the most notable historical event in this Viceroy's time 

 was the cure of his Countess, in the year 1638, of a tertian 

 fever, by the use of Peruvian bark. The news of her illness at 

 Lima reached Don Francisco Lopez de Canizares, 1 who was then 

 Corregidor of I/oxa, and who had become acquainted with the 

 febrifuge virtues of the bark. ... A Jesuit is said to have been 

 cured of fever at Malacotas, near Loxa, by taking the bark 



1 In Mr. Markharo's Travels in Peru and India (1862), p. 5, this person is 

 called Don Juan Lopez de Canizares. 



