532 SPANISH AMERICA. 



about 200,000. The manners of the people in this country do not 

 remarkably differ from those of the whole Spanish dominions. Pride 

 and laziness are the two predominant passions. It is said, by the 

 most authentic travellers, that the manners of Old Spain have dege- 

 nerated in its colonies. The Creoles, and all the other descendants 

 of the Spaniards, according to the above distinctions, are guilty of 

 many mean and pilfering vices, which a true born Castiiian could not 

 think of but with detestation. This, no doubt, in part arises from the 

 contempt in which all but the real natives of Spain are held in the 

 Indies, mankind generally behaving according to the treatment they 

 meet with from others. In Lima the Spanish pride has made the 

 greatest descents ; and many of the first nobility are employed in 

 commerce. 



Cities, manufactures, commerce. ...We join these articles be- 

 cause of their intimate connection ; for except in the cities, we shall 

 describe, there is no commerce worth mentioning. The city of Lima 

 is the capital of Peru : its situation, in the middle of a spacious and 

 delightful valley, was fixed upon by the famous Pizarro, as the most 

 proper ior a city, which he expected would preserve his memory It 

 is so well watered by the river Rimac, that the inhabitants, like those 

 of London, command a stream, each for his own use. There are 

 many very magnificent structures, particularly churches, in this city; 

 though the houses in general are built of slight materials, the equa- 

 lity of the climate, and want of rain, rendering stone houses unne- 

 cessary ; and, besides, it is found that these are more apt to suffer 

 by shocks of the earth, which are frequent and dreadful all over this 

 province. Lima is about two leagues from the sea, extends in length 

 two miles, and in breadth one and a quarter. It contains about 54,000 

 inhabitants, of whom the whites amount to a sixth part. One re- 

 markable fact is sufficient to demonstrate the wealth of this city. 

 When the viceroy, the duke de la Paluda, made his entry into Lima, 

 in 1682, the inhabitants, to do him honour, caused the streets to be 

 paved with ingots of silver, to the amount of seventeen millions ster- 

 ling. All travellers speak with amazement of the decorations of the 

 churches with gold, silver, and precious stones, which load and or- 

 nament even the walls. The merchants of Lima may be said to deal 

 with all the quarters of the world, and that both on their own accounts, 

 and as factors for others. Here all the products of the southern 

 provinces are conveyed, in order to be exchanged at the harbour of 

 Lima, for such articles as the inhabitants of Peru stand in need of; 

 the fleets from Europe and the East Indies land at the same harbour, 

 and the commodities of Asia, Europe, and America, are there bar- 

 tered for each other. What there is no immediate sale for, the mer- 

 chants of Lima purchase on their own accounts, and lay up in ware- 

 houses, knowing that they must soon find an outlet for them, since by 

 one channel or other they have a communication with almost every 

 commercial nation. But all the wealth of the inhabitants, all the 

 beauty of the situation, and fertility of the climate of Lima, are not 

 sufficient to compensate for one disaster, which always threatens, and 

 has sometimes actually befallen them. In the year 1747, a most tre- 

 mendous earthquake laid three-fourths of this city level with the 

 ground, and entirely demolished Callao, the port town belonging to 

 it. Never was any destruction more terrible or complete ; not more 

 than one of three thousand inhabitants being left to record this dread- 

 ful calamity, and he by a providence the most singular and extraordi- 



