244 THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC. 



cities, that the moral character of the plebeian mass may be 

 most correctly estimated, for the reason that misery and 

 penury surely follow quick in the footsteps of vice. 



Notwithstanding the number of hospitals and charitable 

 institutions of Lima, there is no city where more alms are 

 bestowed on individual mendicants than in this. There is 

 not a square in which one does not meet squalid wretches, 

 maimed or blind, crying in most piteous tones, <<Una limos- 

 nita, por el amor de Dios" — " Una limosna por un pobre ciego 

 que quiere pan, por el amor de mi Senora Maria Purisima" — 

 " Alms, for the love of God — Alms for a poor blind man who 

 wants bread, for the love of my Lady Mary the Most Pure." 

 Saturday is beggars' day, and also the day of duns, when 

 merchants' clerks visit debtors to solicit payment. The doors 

 of the rich are beset for charity, but they only give to a cer- 

 tain few whom they patronize. These are professional mendi- 

 cants. In 1832, one of those wretches died rather than give 

 two "reales" for medicine, and after his death 80,000 dollars in 

 hard cash were found under his bed ! 



The building which was once occupied by the Inquisition, is 

 now a jail for common felons. The cells formerly used for 

 confining the victims of inquisitorial torments, are so arranged 

 that no two doors open into the same passage, which is between 

 them. They are eight feet square and ten or twelve high, and 

 without light. On one side is an adobe bench, and over it a 

 daub of the Virgin and a Crucifix. In some of them the marks 

 of fire, where the victims were toasted, still remain, the judg- 

 ment halls, with their secret panels and machinery for moving 

 the head and eyes of the image of our Saviour, are now the 

 offices of the jailors and military guard which protect it. 



The Inquisition, with all its horrors, was established at Lima 

 in 1569, and exercised the same functions as in Spain, until it 

 was destroyed in 1821 by San Martin. 



One of its halls is occupied by the public museum, which 

 contains several Peruvian mummies, some Indian curiosities, 

 and a valuable collection of minerals. The whole is badly ar- 

 ranged and extremely dirty. It is under the charge of a sci- 



