jNOf ICES OP PEllU. 



207 



6ach other at right angles. The courses of the streets do not 

 follow the cardinal points, but vary from east to south-east ; 

 "a precaution taken by the founder," says the poet Valdes, 

 ^Uhat the walls might cast a shade both in the morning and 

 afternoon." Including thirty in the suburb called El Cercado, 

 the city contained, in 1791, no less than two hundred and nine 

 squares, and three hundred and fifty -five streets.* Since that 

 time, little or no improvement has been made; not a single 

 new dwelling having been built within the walls during the last 

 thirty years. Through the centre of nearly all the streets, runs 

 a stream of water, three feet wide, which is a sort of cloax or re- 

 ceptacle for all kinds of filth thrown out from private dwellings. 

 The streets are paved with round pebbles, and the narrow 

 trottoir with flat stones, in such bad repair, however, that it 

 is painful for the feet of the stranger who presses them. This 

 plan extends to the suburb of San Lazaro, which is separated 

 from the city proper by the Rimac. It contains the plaza del 

 Acho, or bull ring, the Alameda del Acho, and the Alam6da 

 de los Descalzos, which was finished in 1611, during the vice- 

 royship of the Marques de Monte Claros. 



The city is divided into four quarteles, and each one of 

 these into thirty-five barrios. For each barrio an alcalde, a 

 functionary similar to a Philadelphia magistrate, is selected 

 from amongst its inhabitants. The clerical division is into 

 eight parishes. 



The houses are generally of one story, yet there are many 

 dwellings of two, which, for extent and magnificence, are com- 

 parable to palaces. The walls are of mud and cut straw, 

 worked up together, moulded into large sized bricks, dried in 

 the sun. That the walls may be more capable of resisting the 

 frequent earthquakes, stout pieces of timber are worked in 

 them, and when a second story is raised, it is constructed of 

 stout, split reeds, wattled together, and then plastered over 

 with mud. The roofs are flat, made of mats, covered over 

 with an inch or two of earth — enough to absorb the gdrua 

 which falls during the winter. From a height the city resem- 



• Mercurio Peruano. vol. 1. p. 90. 



