The Mormons are coming to Peru. Five hundred families of this
formidable sect are formally announced as being on their way to the
land of the Incas, and the Peruvian Government has been very liberal
in its grant of free land: this may be called a revolution indeed.
A Spanish law existed in Peru but little more than half a century
ago, which ran as follows: 'Because the inconveniences increase from
foreigners passing to the Indies, who take up their residence in
seaport towns and other places, some of whom are not to be trusted
in the things of our holy Catholic faith, and because it becomes us
diligently to see that no error is sown among the Indians and ignorant
people, we command the Viceroys, the Audiencias, and the Governors,
and we charge the Archbishops and Bishops that they do all that in them
lies to sweep the earth of this people, and that they cast them out of
the Indies and compel them to put to sea on the first occasion and at
their own cost[1].' We may also note that among these sublime laws one
may be found which absolutely forbade the importation of printed books.
Since then it cannot be denied that Peru has made great progress in the
matter of toleration to foreigners. It has not perpetuated the insane
and suicidal policy of the nation that expelled the Moors, the real
bone and muscle of the country, from its soil. And it may truly be said
that what the Moors were to Andalusia and Southern Spain, Europeans and
Asiatics have been to Peru; supplying it not only with literature and
science, but industry also. All the great estates of Peru are tilled by
foreigners; so are its gardens. All the steam ships on its coast are
driven by foreigners; foreigners surveyed and built their railways,
their one pier, gave them gas, and would give them water if the
Peruvian Government would only be wise. There is nothing of importance
in the whole country that does not owe its existence to foreign capital
and foreign thought, and it cannot be denied that Peru has done much in
making her laws conform to such a state of things. It may yet do more.
Ten more years of peace and tranquillity will work wonders in a land
that at present may be said to be practically unacquainted with both.
Ten years will close the accursed Age of Guano. Practically it may
be said to be closed now. Peru is putting her house in order: she has
learned much in the course of the last four years, and with economy,
persisting in her present course of real hard, honest work, giving
up playing at soldiers, and keeping an expensive navy which is of no
earthly use to her, she may redeem herself from her past degradation,
and become as great as she says she is.
But Mormons!
If there be a country in the teeming world which offers a field for
Mormonism, it is Peru. If Mormonism be a belief that it is the chief
end of man to multiply his species, to replenish the earth, and find
the perfection of his being in subduing it, Peru is the very place for
the Mormons. One might even go the length of saying that it was made on
purpose for them.
Peru, with the immensity of its territory and the riches that are
enclosed in it, requires a people with a religious faith in the
divinity of polygamy and agriculture to make the most of the truly
wonderful land.
Let the Mormons leave the country in which they are at present looked
down upon, for one where they will be welcomed.
Mormonism is not, with the exception of its name, new to Peru.
The Incas were great breeders of men, they pushed their humanising
conquests north and south; not so much by the power of the spear
and the sling, as by building great storehouses of maize. They first
reduced the people whom they would conquer to the verge of starvation,
and then fed them on sweeter food than they had ever tasted before.
Count von Moltke was not the first who reduced a great city by
besieging it, and surrounding it with a vast army. This was done in the
days before the tragedy of Ollanta had been rehearsed in Cuzco. What
the Incas gained by giving corn, they maintained by teaching the people
how to grow and cultivate it. Men had as many wives as they pleased,
provided that they were able to maintain them, and they had no fawning
immoral priests to make women barren and unfruitful; who preached
godliness to the people, but practised devilry themselves.
And here one may be allowed to notice by the way, that it is a
thing altogether singular and inconsistent that these loud-tongued
republicans and apostles of the rights of women, will allow and
tolerate among them a body of men who believe that it is God's will
they should burn and not marry, and cannot think of allowing among
their mighty respectablenesses a people who believe that it is God's
will they should have a plurality of wives. Perhaps when the great
Americans are tired of the vanity of being a hundred years old, and
can find time to look this matter in the face they may reconsider their
Mormon policy, and give up persecuting a people who at least have many
divine examples for their way of life. If Mormonism be good for South
America, why should it not be good for the North? and what will be
nothing less than the blessing of heaven on Lake Titicaca, why should
it be esteemed a curse at the Lake of Salt? Happily the logic of great
events in the lives of nations is more easy to comprehend than the
logic of mere professors.
The history of colonisation in Peru is not interesting reading; much
less so are the personal reports of those who have been connected with
carrying out the various schemes of the Government. There were the
usual delays, the usual difficulty in obtaining the promised funds at
the appointed times, followed by confusion and disaster.
The first colony formed in Peru consisted of Germans, who established
themselves at Pozuzo, a small district formed of mountains and valleys
fifteen days journey north-east of Lima. The proposal was made in
1853, and the first batch of the new comers arrived in 1857. In 1870
they numbered 360 souls, 112 of whom were children. Their progress
had not been very brilliant; among them were carpenters, coopers,
cigar-makers, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, shoe-makers, tailors,
saddlers, machinists, and tanners. A priest, a grave-digger or clerk, a
schoolmaster and an architect were also among the number. Each colonist
was expected to cultivate a plot of ground measuring 33,000 yards by
13,000 yards, on which they grew tobacco, coca, maize, yuca (a most
delicious farinaceous root), haricot beans, rice, coffee, and garden
stuff. The people lived in wooden houses, and there were among them
all three houses of wrought stone. An enthusiastic Peruvian deputy in
giving a description of this little struggling colony, concluded his
peroration thus: 'We have an eloquent example in the industrious colony
established at Pozuzo, where in the midst of savage nature they have
erected a city which perhaps is on a level with any city of Europe!' On
which it might be remarked that there is a great deal of the perhaps,
but very little of the city in this statement. It is in fact nothing
but a city of the honourable deputy's brain.
The next emigration was from the islands of the South-western
Pacific--subjects of his Majesty the King of Hawaii, whose diplomatic
representative in Lima demanded the return of these people, who did
return in an unexpected manner, to the earth out of which they were
taken. They all died like flies that had been poisoned. The Peruvian
Government then prohibited any further immigration of Polynesians.
It was afterwards discovered that these people had been kidnapped, or,
as the official report says, 'seduced first, and stolen afterwards.'
It had been eloquently preached by many ardent Peruvians, now that the
subject of immigration for a moment or so seized hold of their warm
brains, that all that was needed to fill Peru with happy colonists
was to establish liberty of worship, toleration, a free press,
dignity--moral and intellectual--security to persons and property,
and when these great things were once placed on a firm basis in
Peru the superfluous populations of the world would flock to the
abundance it could offer, together with the warm and delightful sun,
like doves to their windows. These things not having been done, the
other has been left undone--albeit not for that specific reason. The
immigrating class, for the most part, have their own way of procuring
information regarding the country which courts their presence, and
it is quite likely that the glad tidings from Peru still require to
be authenticated. Neither the Irish labourer, nor the Scotch, nor yet
the Welsh have bestowed themselves on Peru, and it is to be hoped they
never will until they can be sure of quick returns. The Cornish miner
is well known in various localities for his drunkenness, his obstinacy,
his cunning, and above all for his untruthfulness.
The Chinese immigration, if such it can be called, is the only
considerable immigration that has ever taken place in Peru. It began
as a commercial speculation; and there are many orthodox and highly
respectable men in Lima who owe their wealth to the traffic in Chinese,
in whose magnificent _salas_ a conversation on China is as welcome as
the mention of the gallows in a family, one of whose members had been
hanged.
Of the 65,000 Chinese taken from their native land, 5,000 died on their
way to Peru; they threw themselves overboard or smoked a little too
much opium, or were shot, or all these causes were put together. It
was once my lot to be seated in a very small room filled for the most
part with guano men, where I was compelled to listen to the tale of an
Italian who had served as chief mate on a ship freighted with Chinamen.
He thought his life was once in danger.
'And what did you under the circumstances?' enquired some one.
'I shot two of them down, _sacramento_,' answered the
villainous-looking wretch; on which there was a burst of laughter that
did not seem to me very appropriate.
'And what was done with _you_?' I enquired in no sympathising tone.
'Senor,' replied the assassin, 'the Captain, Senor Venturini,
accommodated me with a passage in his gig to the shore, where I
remained to make an extended acquaintance with the Celestial Empire.'
The cold insolence of this criminal suggested to me that I had just as
well keep my troublesome tongue as still as possible.
The Chinese question, as is natural that it should, has agitated the
public mind in Lima not a little. At one time it assumed such alarming
features that it was seriously proposed in Congress to expel the free
Chinamen from Peru, or compel them to contract themselves anew[2]. It
was known that the free Chinamen stirred up their enslaved brethren to
revolt; explained to them--which was perfectly true--that according to
Peruvian law they could not be held in bondage, and if they escaped
they could not be recaptured. Many attempts at escape were made and
many murders were the result.
According to the Peruvian author quoted above, the Chinamen brought to
the dung heaps of Peru, or its sugar plantations, are selected from the
lowest of their race. 'The planters promote the natural degeneration
of their Chinese labourers; they lodge them in filthy sheds without
a single care being bestowed upon them, while they are condemned to a
ceaseless unremitting toil, without a ray of hope that their condition
will be ever bettered. For the enslaved Chinaman the day dawns with
labour; labour pursues him through its weary hours, a labour which
will bring no good fruit to him, and the shadows of night provide him
with nothing but dreams of the tormenting routine which awaits him
to-morrow. In his sickness he has no mother to attend him with her
care; he has not even the melancholy comfort that he will be decently
buried when he dies, much less that his grave will be watered with
the sacred tears of those who loved him. Of the meanest Peruvian the
authorities know where he lived, when he died, and for what cause, and
where he is buried. But the Asiatics are disembarked and scattered
among numerous private properties, their existence is forgotten,
they do not live, rather they vegetate, and at last die like brutes
beneath the scourge of their driver or the burden which was too heavy
to bear. We only remember the Chinaman when, weary of being weary, and
vexed with vexation, he arms himself with the dagger of desperation,
wounds the air with the cry of rebellion, and covers our fields with
desolation and blood.'
The great distance, observes the same author, of the private estates
from the centre of authority, is one of the securities of their owners
that their abuse of their Chinese slaves will neither be corrected or
chastised. On the contrary, his influence with the local authorities
is oftentimes such as to make them instruments of his designs. Between
the master and the slave respect for the law does not exist, and the
consequence is, that the one becomes more and more a despot, and the
other more and more insolent and vicious.
Escape for the Chinaman is next to impossible; he can only free himself
from the horrible condition in which he finds himself by using his
braces or his silken scarf for a halter, or the more quiet way of an
overdose of opium.
Treat the Chinaman well, and he is a valuable servant, and happily
many thousands of such are to be found along the coast, in several of
the great haciendas, and in Lima. The wages of a Chinese slave are 4
dols. a month, two suits of clothes in the year, and his keep. A free
Chinaman as a labourer earns a dollar a day, and of course 'finds'
himself. Now and then one hears strange phrases at the most unexpected
time, and one's ears tingle with words that an Englishman knows how to
meet when compelled to hear them.
'How did you manage to do all that work?' was a question put at a
dinner-table one night in Lima, when I was partaking of the awful
hospitality of an English-speaking capitalist.
'Well,' was the reply, 'I bought half-a-dozen Chinamen, taught them
the use of the machine, which the devils learned much quicker than I
did, and in less than three months I found that I could easily make ten
thousand dollars a month,' etc.
'I bought half-a-dozen Chinamen!' They might have been so many sacks
of potatoes, or pieces of machinery, and the ease and familiarity with
so repulsive a commerce which the speech denoted, proved too well the
contempt which such familiarity always breeds.
The Chinaman is not only very intelligent, he is even superior in
his personal tastes to many of those who pride themselves on being
his masters. If he has time and opportunity he will keep himself
scrupulously clean in his person and dress. After his day's work, if he
has been digging dung for example, he will change his clothes and have
a bath before eating his supper. He is polite and courteous, humorous
and ingenious. He is by no means a coward, but will sell his life to
avenge his honour. It is always dangerous for a man twice his size
to strike a Chinaman. The only stand-up fight I ever saw in Lima, was
between a small Chinaman and a big Peruvian of the Yellow breed; and
the yellow-skinned 'big 'un' must have very much regretted the insult
which originated the blows he received in his face from the little one.
The Chinamen of the better class, the Wing Fats; Kwong, Tung, Tays;
the Wing Sings; the Pow Wos; the Wing Hing Lees, and Si, Tu, Pous,
whose acquaintance I made, are all shrewd, courteous, gentlemanlike
fellows, temperate in all things, good-humoured and kind, industrious,
and exquisitely clean in their houses and attire. It was an infinitely
greater pleasure to me to pass an evening with some of these, than with
my own brandy-drinking, tobacco-smoking, and complaining countrymen,
whose conversation is garnished with unclean oaths, whose Spanish is a
disgrace to their own country, and their English to that in which they
reside.
My Chinese friends were greatly puzzled at the answer I gave to their
questions why I had come to Peru, or for what purpose; they could not
believe it, any more than they could believe that an English gentleman
drank brandy for any other reason than that it was a religious
observance.
'And why came you to Peru?' I enquired in my turn.
'To make money,' was the candid reply.
'For nothing else?' I insisted.
To give emphasis to his words Wing Hi rose from his seat, paced slowly
up and down the room clapping his hands now behind his back, and
now below his right knee: 'For nothing, nothing, nothing else,' he
exclaimed, and laughed.
'Do you like Lima pretty well?' I enquired with some care, for a
Chinaman resents direct questions; and the answer invariably was--
'No. Lima is no good, there is no money;' which many other shopkeepers
not Chinamen can swear to, and their oaths in this instance are
perfectly trustworthy.
'You do not give credit I suppose?' and I kept as solemn a face as
possible in putting the question. My solemnity was speedily knocked out
of me by the burst of boisterous laughter which greeted my question.
Wishing to cultivate these delightful heathens, I purchased from time
to time a few things, all good, all very reasonable in price. These
were chiefly fans, pictures, paper-knives, neckties, and boxes. Some
of their ivory carving was a marvel of patience and keen sight. I
was assured that one piece, for which they asked the price of 300
dols., took one man two years to make. That one statement made it
an unpleasant object to behold. The porcelain brought to Lima is of
the gaudiest and most inferior kind. I insisted on this so much that
at last they confessed it to be true. 'But then the price,' they
suggested.--A pair of vases that would sell in Bond Street for £150,
can be purchased in Lima for less than £20.
One day I picked up a New Testament in Chinese, and after staying one
evening with my celestial friends for an hour, I took it out of my
pocket and asked them to be kind enough to read it for me, and tell me
what it was about, for that in my youth my parents had not taught me
that language and I was too old to learn it now. The next night our
conversation was renewed, all being for the most part of the purest
heathenism. They made no allusion to my New Testament; they evidently
preferred to talk of other things, or to sell fans. At last in a
tone of indifference I asked after my book, which one of their number
produced out of a sweet-scented drawer.
'We do not know,' they said, 'what the book is about'; and therefore
they could not tell me. They had read it? 'O yes; it was not a cookery
book, nor a song book, nor a book about women; but seemed to be a
pot of many things not well boiled.' There was no laughter, all was
as serious as melancholy itself. I was a little disappointed, and
came away without buying anything. It must require great gifts to be
a missionary to the heathen, and especially the heathen Chinese. I
should be inclined to think it to be as easy to bring a rich Chinaman
to repentance as a rich Jew. The failure of my New Testament to make
itself understood was a great blow to me. They might probably have
understood some portions of the Book of Genesis better; but to my
regret I had not the means of putting that to the test.
The mention of the Old Testament reminds me of a trivial incident
which occurred one night in a magnificent sala in Lima, where were a
good sprinkling of Spanish-speaking gentlemen and ladies, Italians
and Germans, I being the only Englishman present. In course of the
conversation it was demanded by some one, what were the two creatures
first to leave the Ark: and it was at once answered by several voices
'the dove and the deer.' This appeared rather unsound to me, and
I questioned the statement. So hot did the debate become, that it
ended in a willing bet of £20, when after some difficulty a Bible was
procured, and the dove and the raven won. The consternation was great.
One man was candid enough to confess that he was an ass of no small
magnitude for not reflecting that under the circumstances it could not
well be a deer; but he had heard that such was the case, and because it
was in the Bible felt bound to believe it.
Among all the classes of immigrants in Peru, or in Lima its capital,
the English stand first and highest. They are certainly better
represented than they were twenty years ago, but there is still much to
improve. One great drawback to the English is the absence of a home, or
the means of making one. The construction of the houses is one cause.
There are no snug corners sacred to quiet and repose, and if the house
be not a convent, it is something between a theatre and a furniture
shop. Domestic servants are another fatal drawback, but the rent is
the greatest of them all. The rents of some of the dingiest houses in
the back streets are higher than those in Mayfair in the season, while
the principal houses in the chief street are treble the amount. If I
have elsewhere spoken sharply of my countrymen, it is because I think
much of the land which gave them birth. It does not by any means follow
that because a Peruvian child fifty years of age sells his soul to the
devil, that an Englishman of four hundred should follow his example. It
should be quite the other way.
The hotels are not, under the circumstances, unreasonable; a bachelor
can live very well for thirty shillings a day, including fleas. Washing
is a serious item in a city where there is much sun, much dust, little
water, and the _lavendera_ is the companion of 'gentlemen.'
New books are not remarkably dear, but the assortment is limited to
theology and medicine. There are half-a-dozen daily newspapers, which
cost half-a-crown a day if you buy them all. Their joint circulation
will not reach more than fifteen thousand copies, while of their
number only two may be said to pay their expenses; only one to make any
profit. This is not to be wondered at. I tried my best to get into a
controversy with them, by rousing them to jealousy. I publicly stated
that if the guano deposits had been in Australia, or even in Canada,
at a time when so much doubt was thrown on the quantity of guano
they might contain, some newspaper would have sent off its special
correspondent to make a report. The _Comercio_, the chief of the press,
replied, with charming _naivete_: 'Why should we go to the expense of
making a special report for ourselves when the Government will supply
us with as many reports as we like?' The supply of English literature
is very poor. Harper's Magazine appears to be in greatest demand, and
certainly for the price of forty cents it is a marvel of cheapness.
It is well printed, profusely and often well illustrated, and the
numbers for the present year contain lengthy instalments of _Daniel
Deronda_, and one or two original novels by American writers. There
was not a single decent edition of the Don Quixote in any language to
be found in all the shops of the city. There is evidently a brisk sale
for very indecent photographs, and cheap editions of the Paul de Kock
school. The number of new books printed in Lima is miserably small. The
last, which has been very well received, is 'Tradiciones del Peru,'
por Ricardo Palma, third series. It is exceedingly well written, and
consists of a series of short stories illustrating the manners and
customs of the early days. Here is one which for many reasons is worth
doing into English. It is called 'A Law-suit against God,' and exhibits
much of the old Spanish meal, and not a little of the new Peruvian
leaven. It purports to be a chronicle of the time of the Viceroy, the
Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius.
In the archives of what was once the Real Audiencia de Lima, will be
found the copy of a lawsuit once demanded by the King of Spain, which
covers more than four hundred folios of stamped paper, from which with
great patience we have been able to gather the following--
I.
God made the good man: but it would seem that His Divine Majesty threw
aces when He created mankind.
Man instinctively inclines to good, but deceit poisons his soul and
makes him an egotist, that is to say, perverse.
Whosoever would aspire to a large harvest of evils, let him begin by
sowing benefactions.
Such is humanity, and very right was the King Don Alonso the Wise, when
he said--'If this world was not badly made, at least it appeared to be
so.'
Don Pedro Campos de Ayala was, somewhere about the year 1695, a
rich Spanish merchant, living in the neighbourhood of Lima, on whom
misfortunes poured like hail on a heath.
Generous to a fault, there was no wretchedness he did not alleviate
with his money, no unfortunate he did not run to console. And this
without fatuity, and solely for the pleasure he had in doing good.
But the loss of a ship on its way from Cadiz with a valuable cargo,
and the failure of some scoundrels for whom Don Pedro had been bound,
reduced him to great straits. Our honourable Spaniard sold off all he
possessed, at great loss, paid his creditors, and remained without a
farthing.
With the last copper fled his last friend. He wished to go to work
again, and applied to many whom, in the days of his opulence, he had
helped, and solely to whom they were indebted for what they had, to
give him some employment.
Then it was he discovered how much truth is contained in the proverb
which says '_There are no friends but God, and a crown in the pocket_.'
Even by the woman whom he had loved, and in whose love he believed like
a child, it was very clearly revealed to him that now times had indeed
changed.
Then did Don Pedro swear an oath, that he would again become rich, even
though to make his fortune he should have recourse to crime.
The chicanery of others had slain in his soul all that was great,
noble, and generous; and there was awakened within him a profound
disgust for human nature. Like the Roman tyrant, he could have wished
that humanity had a head that he might get it on to a block; there
would then be a little chopping.
He disappeared from Lima, and went to settle in Potosi.
A few days before his disappearance, there was found dead in his
bed a Biscayan usurer. Some said that he had died of congestion, and
others declared that he had been violently strangled with a pocket
handkerchief.
Had there been a robbery or the taking of revenge? The public voice
decided for the latter.
But no one conceived the lie that this event coincided with the sudden
flight of our Protagonist.
And the years ran on, and there came that of 1706, when Don Pedro
returned to Lima with half a million gained in Potosi.
But he was no longer the same man, self-denying and generous, as all
had once known him.
Enclosed in his egotism, like the turtle in his shell, he rejoiced that
all Lima knew that he was again rich; but they likewise knew that he
refused to give even a grain of rice to St. Peter's cock.
As for the rest, Don Pedro, so merry and communicative before, became
changed into a misanthrope. He walked alone, he never returned a
salutation, he visited no one save a well-known Jesuit, with whom he
would remain hours together in secret converse.
All at once it became rumoured that Campos de Ayala had called a
notary, made his will, and left all his immense fortune to the College
of St. Paul.
But did he repent him of this, or was it that some new matter weighed
heavily on his soul? At any rate, a month later he revoked his former
will and made another, in which he distributed his fortune in equal
proportions among the various convents and monasteries of Lima; setting
apart a whole capital for masses for his soul, making a few handsome
legacies, and among them one in favour of a nephew of the Biscayan of
long ago.
Those were the times when, as a contemporary writer very graphically
says, 'the Jesuit and the Friar scratched under the pillows of the
dying to get possession of a will.'
Not many days passed after that revocation, when one night the Viceroy,
the Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, received a long anonymous letter which,
after reading and re-reading, made his excellency cogitate, and the
result of his cogitation was to send for a magistrate whom he charged
without loss of time with the apprehension of Don Pedro Campos de
Ayala, whom he was to lodge in the prison of the court.
II.
Don Manuel Omms de Santa Pau Olim de Sentmanat y de Lanuza, Grandee
of Spain and Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, was ambassador in Paris when
happened the death of Charles II, and which involved the monarchy in a
bloody war of succession. The Marquis not only presented to Louis XIV
the will in which the Bewitched one carried the crown to the Duke of
Anjou, but openly declared himself a partisan of the Bourbon, and also
procured that his relatives commenced hostilities against the Archduke
of Austria. In one of the battles, the firstborn of the Marquis de
Castil-dos-Rius died.
It is well known that the American Colonies accepted the will of
Charles II acknowledging Philip V as their legitimate sovereign. He,
after the termination of the civil war, hastened to reward the services
of Castil-dos-Rius, and he named him Viceroy of Peru.
Señor de Sentmanat y de Lanuza arrived in Lima in 1706, and it could
not be said that he governed well when he began to raise his loans
and impose taxes on private fortunes, religious houses, and capitular
bodies: but by this means he was able to replenish the exhausted
treasury of his king with a million and a half of crowns.
Among the most notable events of the time in which he governed may be
reckoned the victory which the pirate Wagner gained over the squadron
of the Count de Casa-Alegre, thereby doing the English out of five
millions of silver travellers from Peru. This animated the other
corsairs of that nation, Dampier and Rogers, who took possession
of Guayaquil, and squeezed out of that municipality a pretty fat
contribution. In trying to restrain these marauders, the Viceroy
spent a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in fitting out various
ships, which sailed from Callao under the command of Admiral Don Pablo
Alzamora. Everybody was anxious for the fray, even to the students of
the colleges, all burning to chastise the heretics. Fortunately, the
fight was never begun, and when our fleet went in search of the pirates
as far as the Galapagos islands, they had abandoned already the waters
of the Pacific.
The earthquake which ruined many towns in the province of Paruro was
also among the great events of the same period.
Among the religious occurrences worthy of mention were the translation
of the nuns of Santa Rosa to their own convent, and the fierce meeting
in the Augustine chapter-room between the two Fathers, Zavala the
Biscayan, and Paz the Sevillian. The Royal Audiencia was compelled
to imprison the whole chapter, thereby suppressing the greatest of
disorders, and after a session of eighteen hours and a good deal of
scrutiny Zavala triumphed by a majority of two votes.
The venerable Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius was an enthusiastic cultivator
of the muses; but as these ladies are almost always shy with old men,
a very poor inspiration animates the few verses of his excellency with
which we happen to have any knowledge.
Every Monday the Viceroy had a reunion of the poets of Lima in the
palace; and in the library of the chief cosmographer, Don Eduardo
Carrasco, there existed until within a few years a bulky manuscript,
_The Flower of the Academies of Lima_, in which were guarded the acts
of the sessions and the verses of the bards. We have made the most
searching investigations for the hiding place of this very curious
book, fatally without any result, which we suppose to be in possession
of some avaricious bookworm, who can make no use of it himself, nor
will allow others to explore so rich a treasure.
The little Parnassus of the palace, which after the manner of Apollo
was presided over by the Viceroy, was formed of Don Pedro de Peralta,
then quite a youth; the Jesuit José Buendia, a Limeño of great talent,
and prodigious science; Don Luis Oviedo y Herrera, also a Limeño, and
son of the poet Count de la Granja (author of a pretty poem on Santa
Rosa); and other geniuses whose names are not worth the trouble of
recording.
It was during the festivities held in honour of the birth of the
Infanta Don Luis Fernando, that the little Parnassus was in the height
of its glory, and the Viceroy, the Marquis de Castil-dos-Rius, gave
a representation at the palace of the tragedy of Perseus, written
in unhappy hendecasyllables, to judge by a fragment which we once
read. The principal of the clergy and aristocracy assisted at the
representation.
Speaking of the performance, our compatriot Peralta, in one of the
notes to his _Lima fundada_, says, that it was given with harmonious
music, splendid dresses, and beautiful decorations; and that in it the
Viceroy not only manifested the elegance of his poetic genius, but also
the greatness of his soul and the jealousy of his love.
It appears to us that there is a good deal of the courtier in that
criticism.
Castil-dos-Rius had hardly been two years in his government before
they accused him to Philip V of having used his high office for
improper purposes, and defrauded the royal treasury in connivance
with the _contrabandistas_. The Royal Audiencia and the Tribunal of
Commerce supported the accusation, and the Monarch resolved upon at
once dismissing the Governor of Peru from his office; but the order
was revoked, because a daughter of the Marquis, one of the Queen's
maids of honour, threw herself at the feet of Philip V, and brought
to his recollection the great services of her father during the war of
succession.
But although the King appeased the Marquis in a way by revoking
the first order, the pride of Señor de Olim de Sentmanat was deeply
wounded; so much so that it carried him to his tomb, April 22nd, 1710,
after having governed Peru three years and a half.
The funeral was celebrated with slight pomp, but with abundance of good
and bad verses, the Little Parnassus fulfilled a duty towards their
brother in Apollo.
III.
The anonymous letter accused Don Pedro Campos de Ayala of assassinating
the Biscayan, and stealing a thousand ounces, which served for the
basis of the great fortune he acquired in Potosi.
What proofs did the informer supply? We are unable to say.
Don Pedro being duly installed in the Stone Jug, the Mayor appeared to
take his declaration; and the accused replied as follows:
'Mr. Mayor, I plead not guilty when he who accuses me is God himself.
Only to Him under the seal of confession did I reveal my crime. Your
worship will of course represent human justice in the case against me,
but I shall institute a suit against GOD.'
As will be seen, the distinctions of the culprit were somewhat
casuistical, but he found an advocate (the marvel would have been had
he not) prepared to undertake the case against God. Forensic resource
is mighty prolific.
For the reason that the Royal Council sought to wrap the case in the
deepest mystery, all its details were devoured with avidity, and it
became the greatest scandal of the time.
The Inquisition, which was hand and glove with the Jesuits, sought
diligently for opportunities, and resolved to have a finger in the pie.
The Archbishop, the Viceroy, and the most ingrained aristocrat of Lima
society took the side of the Company of Jesus. Although the accused
sustained his integrity, he presented no other proof than his own word,
that a Jesuit was the author of the anonymous denunciation and the
revealer of the secret of the confessional, instigated thereto by the
revocation of the will.
On his part the nephew of the Biscayan claimed the fortune of the
murderer of his uncle, while the trustees of the various hospitals and
convents defended the validity of the second will.
All the sucking lawyers spent their Latin in the case, and the air was
filled with strange notions and extravagant opinions.
Meanwhile the scandal spread; nor will we venture to say to what
lengths it might have gone, had not His Majesty Don Philip V declared
that it would be for the public convenience, and the decorum of the
Church as well as for the morality of his dominions, that the case
should be heard before his great Council of the Indies in Spain.
The consequence was that Don Pedro Campos de Ayala marched to Spain
under orders, in company with the voluminous case.
And as was natural, there followed with him not a few of those who were
favourably mentioned in the will, and who went to Court to look after
their rights.
Peace was re-established in our City of Kings, and the Inquisition had
its attention and time distracted by making preparation to burn Madam
Castro, and the statue and bones of the Jesuit Ulloa.
What was the sentence, or the turn which the sagacious Philip V gave
to the case? We do not know; but we are allowed to suppose that the
King hit upon some conciliatory expedient which brought peace to all
the litigants, and it is possible that the culprit ate a little blessed
bread, or shared in some royal indulgence.
Does the original case still exist in Spain? It is very likely that it
has been eaten of moths, and hence the pretext and origin of a phrase
which with us has become so popular.
It is said of a certain notary who much troubled the Royal Council in
the matter of a will and its codicils, that when the custodian of such
things at last produced something which looked like the original, he
said, 'Here it is, but the moths have sadly eaten it.'
'Just our luck, my dear sir,' said an interested one, who was none
other than the Marquis of Castelfuerte. And ever since, when a thing
has disappeared we say 'No doubt the moths have eaten it.'
* * * * *
So much for the lawsuit against GOD, which only a Spaniard could have
conceived and a Peruvian satirist report.
* * * * *
When a commercial father sees his eldest son, on whom he has lavished
much care and money that he might learn mathematics and such an amount
of classics as will stand him in good stead at the fashionable training
grounds of the world's gladiators, and the boy is seen to forsake
figures and take to poetry, to prefer the gay science to that which
would enable him to master the money article of the _Times_, that
father will feel as great a pang as when a giant dies.
The same feeling may actuate many a Peruvian bondholder when he is told
that the Peruvians are beginning to cultivate literature. Many city
men will disregard the thing altogether, or disdain to take notice of
it. Many will treat it with resentment and contempt. What right have
people who are in debt to busy themselves in writing books, in amusing
themselves when they should be at work, and in writing poetry when
they should be making money. And yet the cultivation of literature for
its own sake by any people ought not only to be viewed with favour,
it should be carefully watched, to see if it be a real national growth
or only a momentary effort which cannot last. If it be the former, we
shall see it in an improvement of public morals and manners; in the
quickening of the national conscience and chastening the public taste,
in an elevation of character and in fresh dignity being imparted to the
common things and duties of everyday life.
Peru possesses a history as well as a country. The one remains to be
written, and the other to be described by a Peruvian genius who shall
do for Peru and Peruvian history what Sir Walter Scott did for his
native land and its records.
It is now high time that Peru produced her popular historian. One who
can fire the intellect of his countrymen while he provides them with an
elevating pastime, who can point out the way they should or should not
go by showing them the ways they have hitherto travelled. If the work
has been delayed, it is because the people have too long retained the
spirit of the former times to make it possible for them to profit by
any explanation of the past. Monarchists yet, because they have never
known better, they have not been taught to hate the hateful kings who
ruled them in selfishness and kept them in ignorance, while they have
not learned to love with devotion and intelligence the freedom they
possess but know not how to use.
When books are found in hands till then only accustomed to carry
muskets, and the pen is handled by those who have hitherto only
believed in the power of the sword, we may rest assured that an
important change has set in, a silent revolution has begun, which will
make all other revolutions very difficult if not impossible.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As early as 1614 we find Cervantes writing of these
countries as the 'refugio y amparo de los desesperados
de España, Yglesia de los alçados, salvoconducto de los
homicidas, pala y cubierta de los jugadores (á quien llaman
ciertos los peritos en el arte) añagaza general de mugeres
libres, engaño comun de muchos, y remedio particular de
pocos'--or, in plain English, the Indies are the 'refuge and
shield of the hopeless ones of Spain, the sanctuary of the
fraudulent, the protection of the murderer, the occasion
and pretext of gamesters (as certain experts in the art
are called), the common snare of free women, the universal
imposture of the many and the specific reparation of the
few.'--_El Zeloso Estremeño_. In _La Española Inglesa_ he
calls the Indies 'el comun refugio de los pobres generosos,'
he had himself sought service in the colonies, but anything
in the form of favour from the Spanish court never fell to
the lot of Cervantes. And all men of brave hearts and high
courage may thank God that royal people were as powerless to
spoil or to help men of genius then as they are still.
[2] See a useful work 'La Condicion Juridica de los
Estrangeros en el Peru,' per Felix Cipriano C. Zegarra.
Santiago, 1872. p. 136.