246 PERU. 
and fancy articles are sold. Between the columns, next the Plaza, 
are many lace and fringe-workers, &c. ; and without these again 
are sundry cooks, fresco-sellers, &c., who are frying savoury cakes 
and fish for their customers, particularly in the morning and late in 
the evening. 
The Arcades are about five hundred feet long, well paved with 
small stones, interlaid with the knuckle-bones of sheep, which pro- 
duces a kind of mosaic pavement, and makes known the date of its 
being laid down as 1799. This place for hours every day is the great 
resort, and one has a full insight to every store, as they are all doors, 
and consequently quite exposed to their remotest corner. The second 
story is occupied as dwellings. 
The Palace of the Viceroy occupies the north side of the Plaza. 
The lower part of it is a row of small shops, principally tinkers and 
smallware dealers. On the east side is the Archbishop's Palace and 
the Cathedral. 
The fountain in the centre of the Plaza is a fine piece of work, and 
was erected, according to the inscription, in 1600, by Don Garcia 
Sarmiento Sotomayer, the Viceroy and Captain-General of the 
kingdom. 
11 El que bebe de la pila sequenda in Lima," is the usual saying. 
" He that drinks of the fountain will not leave Lima." 
The Cathedral is a remarkable building, not only from its size, but 
its ornaments. Most of the decorations are in bad taste, and I should 
imagine its former riches in the metals and precious stones have 
contributed chiefly to its celebrity. Certainly those ornaments which 
are left cannot be much admired. 
Its great altar, composed of silver, might as well be of lead or 
pewter, for all the show it makes. In a chapel on one side of the 
building, there is a collection of portraits of the Archbishops. They 
are good faces, well painted, and all are there but the one who at the 
breaking out of the revolution, proved faithful to his sovereign and 
the Spanish cause. They all have had the honour, except him, 
to be interred in niches, in the crypt, under the great altar. Many 
of the coffins are open, exposing the dried-up remains of the saints, 
clothed in leather jackets and shoes, which the sacristan made no 
difficulty about disposing of for a trifle. Two skulls and a hand 
were obtained. There is some good carving about the choir of the 
Cathedral. 
