case that they will march twenty or thirty miles over a dusty road,
carrying a child on their back, without water or food. When the latter
is scarce they eat leaves of the coca-tree, which when mixed with lime
are said to be very palatable and nourishing. Each woman carries a
little bag of lime round her neck, into which she dips her fingers and
draws out a few grains of powder to leaven a lump of leaves she is
constantly chewing. The poor children have the hardest time, for they
are always without rest or shelter, and often without food. But it is
the experience they are born into, and they know nothing of a better
life. The officers told me that the children often die on the march,
when their mothers strip the clothes from them, and throw the bodies
into the sand or woods, without even a burial or a tear, glad to be
relieved of an encumbrance by death.
With the battalion which boarded our steamer at Payta were two women and
thirty children. They were quartered upon the hurricane-deck, without
any shelter but the starlit tropic sky, and were packed in, men and
women together, like steers in a cattle-car. Water and food were
furnished them, the latter consisting only of frijoles and tortillas.
Instead of complaining of their beds upon the surface of the shelterless
deck, the soldiers told me that it was the most comfortable place they
had found for months, and would be glad to stay there always; but the
passengers and officers of the ship would have objected, as the stench
that came from them was something horrible, resembling that which is
usually noticed in a crowded emigrant-car.
One night, on the unsheltered deck of the vessel, without surgical
assistance or even the knowledge of the officers or crew, a child was
born. The mother wrapped it in an old blanket and laid it down upon the
boards. Thirty-six hours afterwards she, with the rest of the party,
climbed down th ship’s side on a ladder, got into a launch in which
there was scarcely standing-room, and was towed to shore, where a long
and tiresome march into the mountains was to be begun the same night. On
her arms was the baby, and on her back was a bag which looked as if it
weighed fifty or sixty pounds. She was a mere girl, perhaps sixteen or
seventeen years of age, and they said it was her first baby, of which
she, like all young mothers, was uncommonly proud. This appeared to be a
commonplace occurrence, for it was scarcely noticed by the other women
or men of the crowd, and when I asked an officer which of his company
was the father of the child, he replied, “_Dios sabe_” (God knows). He
said there had been four similar accouchements in his company within six
months, and that he thought the mothers and babies were all doing well.
“Will the child live?” I asked the surgeon.
“Live? yes; you couldn’t drown it.”
The custom of having rabonas with the army grew out of the habit the
Indians had of taking their wives to war, and the marital ties became
slackened by common consent. The Government not only licenses but
encourages the practice, as it makes the men more contented, and, as a
sanitary measure, the surgeons say, is beneficial. The ratio of disease
is very small in the armies where the rabonas are allowed, as compared
with that in others, and any experienced surgeon can see why this is so.
All the private soldiers in South America, at least upon the west coast,
are Indians or negroes, and all the officers white. A white man, a
Spaniard, whatever be his station in life, cannot be forced or persuaded
to carry a musket. During the defence of Lima against the army of Chili,
however, lawyers, merchants, clerks, and everybody, regardless of caste
or condition, served in the ranks as they did during our war, but
without uniform. They would fight in defence of their homes, but were
too proud to wear the uniform of a common soldier. Hence the rank and
file is composed chiefly of Indians, or _cholos_, a term which is used
to designate the mixed race descended from the ancient and aboriginal
Inca and his conqueror the Spaniard. There are very few full-blooded
Indians in the country, for during the three hundred and fifty years of
Spanish supremacy the original inhabitants were almost entirely
exterminated. There are a good many negroes and Chinamen in Peru who are
mixed with the natives indiscriminately, and they all go to compose the
cholos.
There are military schools for the education of officers, and the line
and staff of the armies are made up of the sons of the aristocracy, as
in Germany and England. They wear a very gaudy uniform, and always
appear in it, whether on duty or not. Officers are never seen in
anything but full military dress, with plenty of gold lace and
“flubdubs.”
The soldiers are all “volunteers.” Conscription is forbidden by the
constitution of most of the republics, and a “volunteer” is an Indian
who is captured on the highway, or in a saloon, or at his home, and
locked up until there are enough to send to headquarters, where he is
taken before a recruiting-officer, and made to sign a statement setting
forth that he “volunteered” to serve his country as long as his services
are needed. Then his hands are tied behind him, and he is lashed to a
dozen or more other “volunteers,” who are driven down to the garrison,
where uniforms are put on them, muskets furnished, and they are turned
over to a drill-sergeant, who puts them through the simple tactics until
they know how to carry a gun and fire it. I saw a drove of about one
hundred and fifty of these “volunteers” come into Lima one day, tied up
like chickens or turkeys in bunches of ten each, with an escort of
twenty men, who had probably gone through the same process of
“volunteering” a year or so before, and rather enjoyed the remonstrances
of the conscripts. Behind the column came seventy-five or so women,
weeping and chattering, and some of them had children tugging at their
hands and skirts. The women could stay with their husbands if they
liked, and become rabonas, and probably most of them did. With such
material composing its army did Peru attempt to defend its coast and
cities, with their enormous wealth, against assault by Chili.
[Illustration: LOOKING SEAWARD.]
The soldiers of Chili are of an entirely different sort. They are
naturally belligerent, and in the late war with Peru were promised free
license to plunder. The soldiers of Peru were peaceable, quiet,
inoffensive cholos, a silent, suffering race of people who had served
under a system of peonage all their lives, had no idea what they were
fighting for, and made as weak a defence as possible. Whenever they met
the Chillanos in battle they always fled, even when they outnumbered the
enemy; for the Chillano, reckless, daring, and combative, never remained
in line of battle, but always fought with a charge and a whoop, carrying
everything before him, taking no prisoners, but cutting the throat of
every man he could reach.
The battle of Arica is a good example of all the engagements of the war
between Chili and Peru. South of that town, which lies upon the Pacific
coast, rises a great hill or promontory twelve hundred feet, and almost
perpendicular, out of the sea, and then slopes off at a steep grade to
the plain behind it. Upon the peak of this precipice the Peruvians
placed a heavy battery for the protection of the city, manned by about
twelve hundred soldiers. The Chillano men-of-war came in one day and
engaged this fort in an artillery duel at long range which lasted until
nightfall. During the darkness about two thousand soldiers were landed
above the town; they flanked it, and creeping carefully to the foot of
the hill, lay until daylight, when they dashed up the slope with a
fearful charge. The cannon were all turned seaward, and were useless;
the men were surprised in their sleep, and the demoralization among the
Peruvians was so great that scarcely a shot was fired. Being shut off
from escape, they jumped over the precipices into the sea, preferring
drowning to having their throats cut with the knives of the Chillanos,
who always carry them for that purpose. This was known, and always will
be known, as the Arica massacre, for nearly three-fourths of the
Peruvians were slaughtered.
The island of San Lorenzo, which was once the seat of a powerful
fortress, protects the harbor of Callao, the second port on the Pacific
coast of South America in population and commercial importance. It is
the headquarters of the steamship lines and of the great mercantile
houses, and the population is about one-half of foreign birth. One can
hear all the languages of the earth spoken at Callao, and when we
[Illustration: A BOATMAN ON THE COAST.]
arrived upon the dock there was a group to illustrate the cosmopolitan
character of the citizens. A Chinaman, an Arab, a negro, and a Frenchman
were sitting upon a box, while around them were clustered Spaniards,
Englishmen, Irishmen, Germans, and Italians. The city is irregular and
shabby-looking, but has been a place of great wealth. Millions after
millions of dollars’ worth of silver have been shipped from here by the
Spaniards--silver stolen from the temples of the Incas, or dug from the
mines which they operated before the Spaniards came. It was here that
the old buccaneers used to rendezvous and waylay the galleons on their
way to Spain. Of recent years the importance of Callao has very much
decreased. A constant succession of wars and revolutions in Peru has
destroyed its commerce; and although there is usually a great deal of
shipping in the harbor, the present amount of trade is below that of the
past. There are two lines of railroad to Lima, the capital of the
republic, which lies six miles up in the foot-hills of the Andes.
LIMA.
THE CAPITAL OF PERU.
Although the glory of Lima has long since faded, it is easy to see how
grand and beautiful the place was in the days of its ancient prosperity,
when it was called “The City of the Kings.” Few places possess such
historical or romantic interest as this old vice-regal, bigoted,
corrupt, licentious capital of Peru, the second city founded by the
Spaniards in South America, and the seat of Spanish power for more than
three centuries. Pizarro selected the location, and founded the city on
the 6th of January, 1535, that being the anniversary of the
manifestation of the Saviour to the wise men, the Magi. The pious old
cutthroat called it “The City of the Kings”--_Ciudad de los Reyes_. The
Emperor gave the infant capital a coat of arms of his own design, being
three golden crowns upon an azure field, with a star above them. But the
name Lima, which was an Inca term to denote the presence of an oracle
near where the city stood, was at once applied to the place by the
natives, and being so much easier to pronounce, soon forced itself into
common usage in spite of Pizarro and the King, and is now alone
recognized.
The population of Lima is about one hundred and twenty-five thousand. It
has been much larger, for during the last twelve years war and decay
have been the rule, and peace and growth the exception. Before that time
there had been quite a “boom,” owing to the energy of Henry Meiggs, the
California fugitive, and to the introduction of railroads; but the
devastation of foreign invaders and the havoc of domestic revolutionists
have made Lima only a pitiful shadow of its former greatness.
[Illustration: LIMA AND ITS ENVIRONS.]
The churches and convents and monasteries of Lima are the finest and
most expensive in America, while the architecture of private structures
surpasses that of any other Spanish-American city except Santiago. The
old palace of Pizarro, which was erected by him when the city was
founded, and in which he was assassinated, is still used for the offices
of the Government; while the Senate occupies the council-chamber of the
old Inquisition building, which is famous for its ceiling of carved
work, and infamous for the cruel and bloody work that has been done
within its walls. This ceiling was imported from Spain in the year 1560,
and was carved by the monks of the mother-country as a gift to the
Inquisition council of the new. Here sat the most extensive and
important dependency of the Church of Rome, extending its jurisdiction
over the whole of the New World, roasting heretics upon live coals or
stretching them upon the rack, long after the Inquisition in Europe had
ceased to exist. The torture-room, which adjoined the council-chamber,
is now a retiring-room for the Senate, while the dark pockets in the
walls, in which heretics were sealed up until they were smothered, are
used as closets and wardrobes.
The Chamber of Deputies occupies the ancient home of the College of St.
Marcas, the oldest institution of learning in America, founded by the
Society of Jesus in 1551, sixty-nine years before the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth.
The San Franciscan convent and church are two of the most extensive
structures in the whole of America, and cost as much as the Capitol at
Washington, if not more. The whole interior is covered with the most
beautiful tiles, which have stood the test of three centuries, and still
surpass the best that modern genius can produce. These tiles are
celebrated all over Europe, not only for the enormous quantity of
them--for they cover many acres of surface--but for the beauty of their
design and perfect finish. In this convent is shown the bed on which St.
Francis died, the sack-cloth robe that he wore, his sandals, his rosary,
and the coffin in which his body was taken to Rome. The monk who acted
as our cicerone insisted that the founder of his order died in the room
in which these relics were, and pointed out the exact spot where he
breathed his last; but a brief cross-examination brought him up to an
explanation that he meant that this room was modelled upon the one in
which St. Francis died.
Lima did produce a saint, however--Santa Rosa, a woman who was famous
for her wealth, her beauty, her self-abnegation, and her devotion to
the Church, and was canonized by Pope Clement X. in 1671. Her remains
lie in the Church of Santo Domingo, and an extensive convent has been
erected in her honor. She was the only American ever canonized, and the
fact that a Peruvian received this exclusive honor has made her not only
the patron saint, but one of the great figures in the history of the
Catholic Church on this continent. The anniversary of her birth is
always celebrated throughout South America, and the third centennial,
which occurred in April, 1886, was the occasion of one of the grandest
demonstrations ever seen on the coast of the South Pacific.
[Illustration: A PERUVIAN INTERIOR.]
Six months before, the most reverend archbishop at Lima, the dean of the
Catholic hierarchy in Spanish America, issued an eloquent pastoral,
calling upon his flock to unite with him in honoring the memory of Santa
Rosa, the only American saint and the patroness of two continents. The
invitation was generously responded to. The Government immediately made
as liberal an appropriation of money as was possible in the depleted
condition of the treasury; private citizens and corporations contributed
to the funds, and a commission of distinguished persons was appointed to
form a programme of the festivities. A cordial invitation was sent by
the archbishop to the principal religious dignitaries in South and
Central America and Mexico to visit Lima on this memorable occasion, and
to accept the national hospitality.
On the 20th the ceremonies were commenced. The body of Santa Rosa was
taken from its resting-place in the Church of Santo Domingo, and borne
in solemn procession to the church erected in her honor. The day was
declared a holiday. From every housetop flags and streamers were
floating; the different legations and consulates hoisted their national
emblems; flowers were strewn in the streets through which the cortege
was to pass; and from the windows and balconies hung superb drapery of
silk and velvet. The remains of the saint, deposited in a beautifully
ornamented urn, were carried on the shoulders of the Dominican monks,
and the mayor and municipality of the city, with the few remaining
survivors of the War of Independence, acted as the guard of honor. The
municipal and private schools of both sexes followed, the little girls
charmingly dressed in white and blue, the favorite colors of Santa Rosa,
and with garlands of roses in their hands. Along the route the different
fire brigades had erected artistic arches from their ladders and
apparatus, and as the procession passed, white doves were loosened from
their fastenings, and flew gracefully amid the banners and canopies
overhanging the streets. In some of the streets traversed carpets were
laid down and covered with roses. Arriving at the Church of Santa Rosa
of the Fathers, the precious urn was deposited on the altar, surrounded
by a dazzling blaze of light, and was watched over during the night by a
special guard of honor.
The next day the same ceremony was repeated, the object being to carry
the remains of the saint to those places with which her life was most
intimately associated. Thus the Convent of Santa Catalina, the Church of
Santa Rosa of the Mine--establishments founded by the intercession of
the Rose of Peru--were visited, and the final ceremonies were performed
at the cathedral. The interior of the cathedral, larger than the
cathedral in New York, was handsomely decorated with hangings of scarlet
velvet bound with gold; the superb altar, with its pillars cased in
silver, covered with lights and flowers; and the venerable archbishop,
with his numerous retinue of monsignori, canons, and friars, officiated
at the solemn high-mass, with the votive offering especially permitted
by the Holy Father, in reply to a request from the Lima ecclesiastics.
The square without was filled by troops from the citadel of Santa
Catalina, national salutes were fired, and all Lima in gala dress was in
the streets. The Ministers of State, the Justices of the Supreme and
Superior courts, and all of the principal authorities, joined in the
procession, which, after the conclusion of the ceremony at the
cathedral, proceeded to Santo Domingo to deposit the remains underneath
the grand altar, where for nearly three centuries they have rested.
Santa Rosa was born at Lima in the year 1586. She was of humble parents,
her father being a matchlock man in the escort of the viceroy, and her
mother a woman of the lower class. She was christened under the name of
Isabel, but while yet an infant the beautiful color appearing on her
cheeks caused her to be called Rosa. From her earliest years she
manifested a deep religious spirit, and although poor in the world’s
goods, her extraordinary charity and self-sacrifice for the poor and
sick brought her into the notice of the people. Refusing all the
inducements and invitations to enter upon a monastic life, she steadily
dedicated her efforts towards doing good. Many miraculous cures are
attributed to her. She died in 1617. Shortly after her death the
authorities of Lima petitioned the archbishop that the necessary
investigation be initiated to establish her sanctity, and when the
proofs were obtained they were laid before Pope Urban VIII. at Rome, who
in 1625 sent a commission to Lima to conclude the investigation. After
due consideration of the facts presented to the Holy College at Rome,
Pope Clement IX., in 1668, ordered the canonization of Rosa under the
title of St. Rosa of Lima.
In Lima, for a population of about one hundred and twenty thousand,
there are one hundred and twenty-six Catholic churches and twelve
monasteries and convents; and the same religious privileges extend all
over Peru. There are two Protestant churches in the republic. One of
them is in Lima, and is usually without a pastor, being of the Church of
England school, and supported by the English-speaking residents; the
other is at Callao, and an active young Protestant, Rev. Mr. Thompson,
formerly of Philadelphia, is its pastor. The church is unsectarian, and
is largely sustained by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, a British
corporation which has a monopoly of commerce on the west coast, and
keeps its headquarters at Callao. No attempt at Protestant missionary
work has ever been made in Peru, although Mr. Thompson says the field is
very inviting. His time is spent mostly among the sailors who haunt
Callao by the hundreds, and in looking after the English-speaking
congregation under his charge. There is no Sunday in Peru. The shops are
open on that day as usual, and in the afternoon bull-fights,
cock-fights, and similar entertainments are always held. The women
invariably go to mass in the morning, and represent the entire family,
as very few men are ever seen in the churches. Under President Prado,
from 1869 to 1876, the Catholic Church was subjected to the same sort of
treatment it has received in the other republics, but his successors
were more hospitable towards the priests, and the Church is regaining
much of its ancient influence. Some of the confiscated monasteries have
been restored, and a bishop presides over the lower branch of the
national legislature, having been elected by a popular vote in one of
the interior cities. He is a jolly-looking old padre, rosy and rotund,
and has not the appearance of suffering much mortification of the flesh.
The bones of Pizarro, the Indian butcher, lie in the crypt of the grand
cathedral which he built in 1540, and which is still the most imposing
ecclesiastical edifice in all America. It is said to have cost nine
million dollars; and that amount may have been spent upon it, but the
money came from the old Inca temples, which were robbed of their gold
and silver ornaments and stripped of their carved timbers by the
Spaniards. The latter never produced anything in Peru by their own
efforts. They simply expended their plunder for the benefit of
themselves and the Church. Of the ninety millions of dollars in silver
and gold which Pizarro is said to have realized from his evangelical
work among the Indians, the King of Spain got one-fifth and the Church
even a larger share, so that it could afford to build cathedrals and
convents as fine as those of Europe, and endow them with fabulous
wealth. Prescott says that from a single Inca temple Pizarro took 24,800
pounds of gold and 82,000 pounds of silver. One of his lieutenants asked
for the nails which supported the ornaments in this temple, and got
22,000 ounces of silver. It was this money that erected the magnificent
churches which Lima has to-day, and which made the capital of the New
World the most luxurious and profligate known to history.
Later, the marvellous products of the mines of Potosi and Cerro de Pasco
added to the fabulous wealth of Peru. In 1661 La Palata, the viceroy,
rode from the palace to the cathedral on a horse every hair of whose
mane and tail was strung with pearls, whose hoofs were shod with shoes
of solid gold, and whose path was paved with ingots of solid silver. It
was during this time that the galleons from the East, “from far Cathay,”
laden with gems and silks and spices, went to Callao to exchange them
for the products of Potosi and Pasco; while, out of sight, on the verge
of the horizon, Sir Francis Drake and the bold John Hawkins and other
buccaneers lay-to in their swift-sailing cruisers to snatch the
[Illustration: GRAND PLAZA, LIMA.]
treasure-ships as they came around the island of San Lorenzo, and carry
home the booty to lay it at the feet of Elizabeth, the virgin queen of
England.