The Department of Junin.—The river Marañon.—General
sketch of the form of internal Government of
Peru.—Particular account of the Prefectorate or Department
of Junin.—Mines.—Agriculture.—Manufactures.—Public
Instruction.—Hospitals and Charitable
Asylums.—Vaccination.—Junta of Health.—Public
Baths.—Police.—Pantheons.—Roads.—Posts.—Public Treasury at
Pasco.—Administration of Justice.—National Militia.
Of the three inland departments of Peru, namely, Cuzco, Ayacucho, and
Junin, the latter is peculiarly distinguished by its mineral riches, and
the rise of the great river Marañon, in the lake of Lauricocha, in the
neighbourhood of Cerro Pasco. The length of this river, all its windings
included, has been reckoned not less than one thousand one hundred
leagues, of which nine hundred have been found to be navigable; and, at
the distance of several hundred miles before it reaches the ocean, (where
its mouth is one hundred and seventy or eighty miles wide,) the effect of
the tides may be distinctly marked on its banks. For a very long way—some
say two hundred miles or more—after it has entered the sea, it still
continues fresh to the taste, or, at least, to a great degree unmingled
with the retiring waters of the ocean, which it rolls back before the
unsubdued force of its own mighty stream.
The provinces of this department are Jauja, Tarma, Pasco, Cajatambo,
Huari, Huaylas, Huamalies, Conchucos, and Huanuco. Besides the precious
metals, (and quicksilver, which for some time back has been regularly
extracted from the mines of Jonta in Huamalies,) these provinces yield
a great variety of cattle and vegetable produce. Huanuco, the principal
city of the province of the same name, though no longer the seat of
opulence or aristocracy, was once one of the chief cities of Peru
under the ancient conquerors, and is at present chiefly distinguished
as the capital of the whole department of Junin. The prefect of this
jurisdiction extends his authority as far as the country of Maynas on
the north, and to the banks of the river Paro, or Beni, on the east,
passing through the intervening wilds of the Pajonal and pampa del
Sacramento, &c. along windings of the forest best known to holy fathers
and half-converted Indians. These wilds are inhabited on the south, and
in the environs of the rivers Apurimac, Mantaro, Pangoa, Perene, Camar,
and Sampoya, &c. by Campas, Piros, Mochobos, Ruanaguas, and other Indian
tribes no longer invited to share of the blessings of Christianity; and
to the north-east of the plain, or pampa of Sacramento, is the very
important missionary settlement of Sarayacu, still annexed to the
department of Junin. Neither of these outskirts of an ill-sustained
civil jurisdiction, nor the territories which thus lie very wide and
uncultivated to the east of the main provinces, ever appear to have
constituted a part of the ancient empire of the Incas. And not only by
the rugged barriers of the eastern Cordillera, but by a difference of
language, the untutored Indians of the Montaña are to this day separated
from the true children of the Sun, whose common language, as the reader
knows, is the Quichua, while the savages hitherto discovered speak almost
as many tongues as there have appeared distinct tribes among them, except
on the banks of the Ucayali, and in the vicinity of the chief missionary
settlement there, where the Pano is the general or prevailing language of
the somewhat christianized natives.
The government of Peru is, by its constitution, pronounced to be a
popular, representative government; and in theory at least, though not
in fact, the sovereignty emanates from the people, who are supposed to
delegate its exercise to the legislative, executive, and judicial powers
of the republic. It is not, however, now our intention to enter upon an
account of the general government, as we only desire to enumerate some of
the more important functions of the internal government.
OF THE OFFICE OF PREFECTS AND GOVERNORS, &C.
The superior political government of every _department_ is vested in a
prefect, under immediate subordination to the president of the republic;
that of every province is entrusted to a sub-prefect, who is immediately
subordinate to the prefect; that of the districts to a governor, who
acknowledges the sub-prefect as his superior; and in every town, or
Indian village, there is a still humbler officer called _alcalde_, who
acts under the orders of the governor of his district, and is entrusted
with the ordinary routine of local police.
To fill the appointment of prefect, sub-prefect, or governor, it is
required that the candidate should be an active citizen, not under thirty
years of age, and a man eminent for his probity.
The duties of such functionaries are,
1. To maintain public security and order in their respective territories.
2. To cause the articles of the political constitution, the laws enacted
by congress, and the decrees and commands of the executive power, to be
duly carried into effect.
3. To enforce the completion of sentences pronounced by the different
tribunals and courts of justice.
4. To take care that the functionaries subordinate to each of them shall
faithfully discharge their proper duties.
The prefects are also charged with the economical administration of
the affairs of state within their respective departments. But they are
restrained,
1. From interfering with, or in any degree interrupting, the course of
popular elections.
2. From preventing the reunion of the departmental juntas, or interfering
with these in the free exercise of their functions.
3. From taking any cognizance in judicial cases; but, should public
tranquillity urgently require that any individual should be taken up, a
prefect may command his immediate arrest,—transferring the delinquent,
accompanied with the grounds of having taken him into custody, to the
judicial magistrate or judge, within the precise term of forty-eight
hours.
DEPARTMENTAL JUNTAS.
In the capital of every department there is a junta, composed of two
members from each province. The object of these juntas is to promote
the interest of the provinces in particular, and of the departments in
general. The members are elected after the same manner with those of the
Congress or Chamber of Deputies.[11]
The prefects of the departments have to open the annual sessions of the
juntas, to report to them in writing on the state of the public affairs
of their respective jurisdictions, and to suggest such measures as appear
to them calculated to promote the general advantage of the departments.
Among the functions of this political body we may enumerate—
1. To propose, discuss, and agree about the best means of promoting the
agricultural, mining, and other branches of industry in their respective
provinces.—2. To forward public education and instruction according to
the method approved by Congress.—3. To watch over and promote charitable
institutions; and, in general, all that relates to the interior police
of the departments, except that of public security.—4. To proportion
among the provinces the amount of the assessments of each department;
and to ascertain, in case of complaint, the exact amount raised in
the particular towns by their respective municipal authorities.—5. To
determine the number of recruits for the service of the army and navy
which each province and district should provide.—6. To take care that the
chiefs of the national militia keep up good discipline in their corps,
and have them always ready for service.—7. To see that the municipal
corporations discharge their duties, and to inform the prefects of any
abuses they may detect in them.—8. To examine the accounts which it
is incumbent on the municipalities to render annually respecting the
particular funds of the towns and villages.—9. To draw up every five
years a statistical report of the departments.—10. To provide for the
reduction and civilization of the indigenous tribes on the frontiers of
any particular department, and to make it an object of special concern
to allure them within the pale of civilized society by soothing and
persuasive means.—11. To take cognizance of the imports and exports
of the departments, and to transmit their observations thereon to the
Minister of the Home Department, or _Hacienda_.—12. To apprise the
Congress of any infraction of the constitution; and further, to elect
_senators_ from the lists presented by the provincial electoral colleges.
But, to mention no more of the peculiar functions of the departmental
juntas, we may conclude by observing, that such of their proceedings as
hinge on the exercise of the powers or functions now enumerated, are
transmitted through the medium and with the remarks of the prefects to
the executive power, by whom again they are forwarded to the Congress as
matters of legislative deliberation.[12]
Having premised the above articles relative to the internal government
of the country in general, we shall now make some observations on the
state of the very important department of Junin in particular; being able
to do so, partly from personal knowledge, and partly from the report
presented by the prefect of Junin, upon opening, in 1833, the session
of the departmental junta in Huanuco; an official document whence we
consider it incumbent upon us to draw much of the substance of the
following observations, since they refer to topics with which none can be
supposed to be more conversant than the head of the local government.
MINES.
We shall here pass over the subject of mines, regarding which we have
said enough under the head of Cerro Pasco; though there is no province in
the whole department in which silver and even gold mines are not to be
found; but the chief source of production at present is Cerro Pasco.
AGRICULTURE.
Of the agriculture of the Vale of Huanuco we have already treated;
and, from what has been said, enough may be conceived of the general
state of agriculture in the Sierra. We have also alluded to Jauja, in
the preceding pages, as most productive in wheat; and abounding, as it
does, in maize, lucern, peas, beans, &c. it is considered not only as
the granary of the department to which it belongs, but also of all the
central Sierra of Peru between the two great chains of the Andes. In the
Vale of Jauja, as on the plains of Cajamarca,[13] vegetation is subject
to blight from hoar-frost, which in some years is much more destructive
to the crops than in others; but, upon the whole, the average wheat
crops are very good and abundant. Huaylas, again, like Huanuco, produces
excellent sugar; nay, that of Huaylas appears to be the finer-grained and
purer of the two; for, though the sugar-refiners in Huanuco are generally
brought from Huaylas, yet, in the hands of the same workmen, the sugar of
the former locality does not equal that of the latter in the beauty of
its crystallization.
MANUFACTURES.
The manufactures, we may cursorily remark, are in a very backward state;
and though the natives, especially of Huanuco, have shown no small
share of ingenuity in some of their mechanical contrivances, yet they
want proper masters; and, however we may admire the progress they have
made with such slender means of instruction, we cannot compare their
performances with those of Europeans in the same line. In Tarma they make
_ponchos_, or loose cloaks, of great beauty and fineness; and, on the
colder table-lands, warm but coarse blankets and ponchos, &c. are still
made by the Indians. In the valleys, goat-skins are made into cordovans;
cow-hide is made into saddle-bags, and almofrezes, or travelling-cases
for bed and bedding; mats too are manufactured from rushes, and are
very generally used as carpeting under the name of _esteras_. But the
work of silversmiths is generally in a rude state even in Pasco; for
the fine filigree work, for which inland Peru is celebrated, is made,
not in the department of Junin, but at Guamanga, in the department
of Ayacucho,—where the natives have also shown a decided talent for
sculpture, though their works cannot be said to exhibit, as yet, much
elegance or expression.
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
Without the aid of science, the arts of active life cannot duly advance
in the career of improvement, and thus society remains a stranger to
the higher refinements of civilization: hence, as the prefect of Junin
well observes, the education of youth becomes a leading object of
national interest and desire. But though in the department of Junin
there are three colleges, that of Huanuco alone fulfils its purpose of
instruction to a limited number of pupils; and there is reason to fear
that it will soon share the fate of the other colleges in Huaras and
Jauja, and be shut up for want of the necessary funds to defray its
very moderate expenses. We are assured that the masters and professors
of this recent institution, upon the foundation of which such bright
hopes have been raised, are badly remunerated for their services; and
have to contend against the perverseness of young persons whose early
habits of self-indulgence while under the parental roof, ill prepared
them to submit to the necessary restraints of a college, where the
conscientiousness of the teacher, less pliant than parental fondness,
will not sacrifice useful education to idle or vicious amusement, by
imprudently winking at the errors and misdemeanors of the scholar.
Such being the inauspicious account of the only college of the department
at present in exercise, the schools of elementary instruction do not seem
to be in a more flattering position, though official measures have been
taken to diffuse instruction among every class of the community. To the
credit of the chief of the department, commands were issued by him for
the erection of schools of elementary instruction in all the provinces,
with orders that proper reports concerning their condition should be
regularly forwarded to the prefectorate at Pasco.
To these important subjects the prefect in the _mensage_, or report, to
which we have already alluded, endeavoured to awaken the attention of the
departmental junta assembled in the city of Huanuco; when it was declared
that the method of _mutual instruction_, adopted in that capital of local
jurisdiction, in no way corresponded in its advantages or results to the
time devoted to it by the pupils, or to the hopes at first entertained of
its higher practical utility as a system.
The failure implied on this occasion may possibly have been less the
fault of the system than of those who offered to apply it; for it was
remarked as very worthy the consideration of the honourable junta, that,
in reference to many of the schools intended for the improvement of the
indigenous or Indian race, wherein they were merely taught a jargon of
Spanish which they could not comprehend, it were better for them to be
left in an untutored state of mind than to be placed under the melancholy
influence of such teachers as presided over them. These were represented
to be so imbecile, and so unacquainted with the merest rudiments of
reading, or so abandoned and drowned in vice, as to be persons utterly
unfit to guide the mind of infancy and innocence into a proper path.
The junta were therefore called upon by their prefect to appoint some
better means of instruction, which might at once serve to improve the
virtuous feelings of the individual, and promote the national cause of
civilization.
HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE ASYLUMS.
It is affecting to think that, notwithstanding the wealth of which this
department is the seat, the sick and invalid in general cannot find a
home or place of assistance under their sufferings.
In Huaras, as well as in Huanuco, there were formerly well-endowed
hospitals, but these are now fallen into such decay for want of funds
for their support, that few indeed are the sick who can be accommodated
or relieved in them; and, consequently, those in charge of these once
useful establishments are daily put to the pain of refusing admission to
a great many distressed persons, who are induced to seek their protection
in the hope of being cured of their ailments, or, if not, at least to
breathe their last in the bosom of kindness and charity.
We are told by the prefect that an asylum or house of relief for the
distressed poor never existed in the department: but, in his report
to the departmental junta, he urges with an earnestness honourable
to his feelings, that humanity calls for the immediate institution
of establishments of this kind on behalf of the wretched victims of
misfortune, whose very misery plunges them into despair. He also holds
it to be a matter of public expediency to find a fixed home, and steady
occupation, for those abandoned objects of compassion, who make traffic
of their degradation and a boast of their debasement.
VACCINATION.
In the year 1832, it was found that the small-pox had just left dismal
traces of its ravages in the department: fathers mourned their children
now dead, or so disfigured and mutilated as to become unfit for the
active business of life; the widow, too, wept for her lost husband, and
the offspring of a mutual affection were left to feel the want of a
father’s care.
Curates, and municipal bodies, most particularly intrusted with the
frequently repeated charge of preserving the vaccine fluid, unhappily
neglected a trust so important; and the heads of families, who joined
in the same carelessness, did not consider, until the fatal epidemic
swept their children from their arms, that they were ever to taste the
bitter fruit of their own improvident indifference. But to avoid the
recurrence, on any future occasion, of so dreadful and destructive a
malady, the prefect caused a supply of the precious vaccine matter to be
procured from Lima; which, if carefully propagated, may yet save victims
without number from adding to that depopulation which incessant warfare
has, of late years, caused among his fellow countrymen.
JUNTAS OF HEALTH.
It has been proposed by the same active and intelligent prefect, Don
Francisco Quiros, that juntas of health should be established in the
capitals or principal towns of the provinces of his jurisdiction, with
a view to prevent the spread of contagious diseases;—to ascertain, and
if possible correct, those physical causes and sources of disorder which
are hostile to the healthy operations of the vital functions, and
destructive to the growth of population.
It is, as we have seen, the duty of the departmental deputies to create
these institutions, to frame rules for their regulation, and appoint fit
persons for their management; while it would be the proper business of
the prefect to see the resolutions of the junta carried into execution.
We only point to such proposals as the present, to show the reader
how much such institutions are really wanted in Peru: not at all to
mislead his judgment by inducing him to believe that there is the least
appearance of their being established for a long time to come, unless,
indeed, public tranquillity be soon restored; but people must perceive
their wants before they desire to remove them, and the agitation of
questions of civil amendment may ultimately lead to real improvement in
their social condition.
PUBLIC BATHS.
In the dry and equable climate of Huanuco, bathing is not so necessary
either to cool or to refresh the body as it is found to be in more humid
and warm situations; for there is a bracing property in the dry air,
which carries off the natural perspiration almost as rapidly as it is
produced, and prevents that languor and discomfort experienced in a
sultry atmosphere, where one perspires more than the air readily absorbs.
The inhabitants of this interesting province, and especially of the
town of Huanuco, feel so little desire for the cold bath, that it is
proverbial among them, that they only bathe in the river, or the canals
of their delightful orchards, once in every year,—that is, on the day of
San Juan, the 24th of June, the same on which the inhabitants of Lima
celebrate their annual festival of Amencaes.
In the jurisdiction of Junin, however, natural warm and hot springs are
exceedingly common, as well on the mountain plains, (which are in many
places, as at Hualliay, covered with a saline incrustation,) as in the
warmer valleys; and of these none are more resorted to, by invalids and
convalescents, than the ferruginous and tepid waters of the well-known
baths of Cono, near Huariaca, and the still more celebrated sulphurous
waters of Villo, in the district of Yanahuanca. Here there are two
streams, of which the one is cold and the other hot; and being received
into a reservoir in due proportions, baths may be always provided easily
and cheaply, of any degree of temperature desired.
To make the medicinal waters of Villo—situated in a mild climate about
one day’s journey from Cerro Pasco on the one hand, and the city of
Huanuco on the other,—as available as possible to the public, the
patriotic prefect has recently taken measures to fit up convenient baths
at this place. The well-known efficacy of the sulphurous waters in
numberless instances of impaired health, the benignity of the climate in
which nature has placed them, and the vicinity of this favoured spot to
Cerro Pasco, have been the chief inducements to undertake this public
work; which must prove of the utmost importance to the neighbourhood at
large, and especially to miners and residents in the rigorous climate of
Cerro, where health is more easily lost than regained, and where good
medical attendance is rarely found.
POLICE.
Few of the municipalities of the department possess public rents and
revenues calculated to answer the purpose to which they should be
applied. But, in the absence of adequate funds and resources to forward
all the objects of a general and well-regulated municipal police, there
exists a valuable decree, which is very worthy of proper observance;
for, in virtue of it, blasphemers, and those who, by their habitual
indulgence in vice and vicious language, insult the better feelings of
the community, are consigned to labour at public works, or compelled to
sweep the streets, as the penalty of their infamous conduct. With further
view to public order, the prefect has resolved to stigmatize, when he
cannot hope at once to remove, the vice of drunkenness, in which the
lower orders in general freely indulge in days of religious processions
which are consecrated to sanctifying ends; but which the poor miner and
uneducated villager think well observed by hearing mass in a morning, and
contributing to the decoration of the saints clothed in tinselled and
showy dresses, and surrounded by waxen lights without number.
On great religious days pavilions are not unfrequently erected in
convenient situations for the reception of the effigies of the Virgin,
our Saviour, and Cross, around which all sorts of silver and other
ornaments are placed in fanciful confusion. The entrances into the
churches and chapels, even in the rigid climate of Cerro and the adjacent
_haciendas_, are lavishly adorned with beautiful lilies conveyed from
the valleys; and wreaths and festoons of flowers hang over and around
the doors of the pavilions and churches, which, when good metals are
abundant, display a richness which only a mining country can be supposed
to put within reach of the very humblest of the people. On such occasions
the labouring miner often exhibits his person bedecked in the most
gorgeous and expensive fashion; while he farcically dances, ankle-deep
(if it happen to be the wet season) in mud, as gay and as merry as a
London chimney-sweep on a May morning.
So marked is the taste for flowers among the poorest tenants of a
mud-and-cane booth in the Vale of Huanuco, that on the festival of Corpus
Christi,—a day of joy to the agricultural Indian, who always eats meat
on this day, even should he have passed the rest of the year, like an
anchorite, on vegetable diet,—the poor women and children on the sugar
estates approach the house of their _patron_ with hats, hands, and
mantles full of the sweetest blossoms, which they strew before his door,
and along his hall and corridor, as a sign of respect and rejoicing. To
such expressions of good feeling he courteously responds by ordering the
_tinaja_, or large jar of guarapo, to be placed at their disposal, under
the direction of a major-domo or corporal of the field; and then with
guitar and harp they engage in festive frolics.
But however desirous of enforcing a stricter observance of the days
devoted to the service of the church, it has not been the aim of the
prefect to check or discontinue the more innocent amusements of music
and dance, or those of bull-fights and fire-works, in which the Indian
also delights. He has struck at the principal cause of alienation from
the house of God, namely, drunkenness, by condemning all those who are
convicted of rioting or breaking the peace to sweep the streets for three
successive days; or, should this be considered too light a correction,
to labour for the same number of days in some other work of public
utility.[14]
Idle vagabonds, without useful occupation or property, and even without
country, are pronounced by the civil authorities to be found in all parts
disseminating immorality and disorder; and seeing that to temporise with
obnoxious characters of this sort is, in effect, to promote the cause
of libertinism and idleness, it has been resolved at the prefectorate
of Junin to persecute and exterminate, if they cannot amend, all such
vicious intruders on society.
PANTHEONS OR CEMETERIES.
It has been long an established practice in Peru to bury the dead within
the churches; a practice which, on the coast more especially, gave
rise to a heavy exhalation, which very naturally rendered the incense
burnt on the altar, independently of its mystical virtue, an agreeable
and seasonable corrective for the sepulchral vapours of the rich and
well-adorned temples of the metropolis.
This very unwholesome and improper custom has ceased in Lima since the
erection of its Pantheon, and the example of the great capital has
been followed in the remote departments. With few, if any, exceptions,
cemeteries are now formed in all the provinces of Junin. But in Cerro
Pasco, however, the burying-place was so very circumscribed and
neglected, that, on the arrival of Don Francisco Quiros as chief of the
department in the year 1832, there was not earth enough to cover the dead
within the Pantheon walls, which altogether presented a very loathsome
appearance. He caused the cemetery to be sufficiently enlarged, so that
there should be nothing to render this place of rest offensive. Indeed,
he expresses himself strongly on the urgency there was for the execution
of this work: and though the stinted flowers of Pasco common do not
always furnish a supply of fresh blossoms to be daily renewed over the
graves of the departed,—and though no acacia, cypress, nor willow, no yew
nor myrtle, can endure its elevated site,—Mr. Quiros enjoys the praise
and the pleasure of having raised, in this inclement region of silver
beds, a place of rest for his countrymen, which not even avarice can
disturb; and glad would he be to see the children of the deceased steal
to the graves of their fathers, there to pray over the remains of their
kindred, and thus habitually cherish feelings of piety, humility, and
hope.[15]
ROADS OF JUNIN.
Regarding the roads of the Sierra in general, enough has been said in
the preceding pages; but of Junin, in particular, it remains for us to
observe that very laudable efforts have been lately made for improving
the roads of this department: yet no regular post-houses, with suitable
accommodations for the traveller, are anywhere established; and the
communication between the more remote provinces and Pasco is exceedingly
bad. This is a great hinderance to commerce, and leads to inevitable
delay and inconvenience in the transport of goods. However discreditable
the fact may be to the corporation of miners, so little enterprise have
they shown for the improvement of a place from which so much specie has
been sent all over the world, that it is not without great difficulty,
and loss of time and cattle, that they are able to convey the ore from
the mines to the mills in the environs of Cerro; and all because of the
miserable tracks which they use as roads. By the stream of Sacrafamilia
alone, in the immediate neighbourhood of the mines, there are no fewer
than eighty-eight ingenios or mills for grinding ore, some of which
during the dry season are at a stand-still on account of the scarcity
of water, and others at all seasons are interrupted in their work from
the irregular supply of ore consequent on the bad means of conveyance.
To obviate these great drawbacks on the industry of the miners, and
general resources of the department, the prefect, some time since,
commenced a cart-road, over which the ore might be conducted by oxen
from the mines to the mills specified, through a tract neither extensive
nor precipitous; but the undertaking was a great and a novel one for
that part of the world in the year 1833, so little had such works of
general advantage hitherto called up the attention and energies of the
inhabitants.
POSTS.
The inhabitants of Cerro Pasco have the advantage of a weekly post
between their town and the capital of the republic; and a direct
correspondence twice a month with Huanuco, the capital of the department.
By these arrangements an immediate communication is also held with the
government, and the spirit of mercantile enterprise is thereby increased;
Cerro being, as the reader may readily imagine, when the mines are highly
productive, a most stirring place, visited by men of all climes, and full
of traffic and speculation.
PUBLIC TREASURY AT PASCO.
The prefects in general are, as we have seen, not only entrusted with
the maintenance of public order and security, but they are also at the
head of financial affairs in their respective departments. In times of
intestine warfare it has always happened that the Patriot government
has exceeded the natural resources of the country, crippled as they are
in all their branches by want of security, and consequently of capital.
Thus there were, at the commencement of the year 1834 particularly,
heavy arrears owing to the army, navy, and civil list. The supplies
from the mint and custom-house were deeply pledged for sums advanced to
the government; demands for payments, beyond what they could liquidate,
were made upon the local treasuries of all the departments:[16] and the
treasury of Junin had to bear its share of all the demands of a needy
government. By the report of the prefect to the departmental junta, of
session 1833, it appears that, while in office for the previous year,
he removed several abuses, regulated the accounts, and struck a fair
balance of the ingress and egress of the Pasco treasury. He does not,
however, state the amount of the departmental funds in this report, or
present any data by which we are to form an estimate of the separate or
aggregate revenue arising from the different provinces. All data of this
sort the Patriot government is deficient in; and the real rental of the
state can hardly at any time be clearly ascertained. A natural result
of this fundamental defect in their statistics is, that, not knowing
the precise extent of the population or pecuniary resources of the
departments, the annual contributions cannot be laid in a well-regulated
and just proportion to the means of each town, parish, and province. The
difficulties and obscurities in which every branch of the public revenue,
and especially of his own department, was involved, led the prefect of
Junin publicly to declare his doubts concerning the integrity of the
officers of the executive intrusted with the collection of imposts; and
he broadly hints, that, in gratifying their self-love and interest,
they forget the higher duties of the citizen. He therefore exhorts
the honourable junta to discountenance all favouritism, to exercise
a stern patriotism, and by fair inquiry to resolve the important
questions,—namely, Whether or not more be annually exacted of the
provinces than they, without injury to themselves or the state, have the
power to contribute? Whether or not they do really pay more than can be
legitimately required of them?
OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.
Justice, in all the departments, is administered in the name of the
republic; and in every town there are justices of the peace, whose
business it is to hear both sides of the question at issue, and to
endeavour to bring about an amicable termination without going formally
to law: no demand, civil or criminal, save fiscal cases and others
excepted by law, being admitted, unless this essential preliminary
attempt at reconciliation has been put into practice.
In some of the provinces of the Junin department, as those of Huaylas and
Huamalies, they have not judges duly learned and qualified in judicial
proceedings; and consequently, in those parts, the office of the judge
devolves upon the sub-prefects, who are alike ignorant of the law and
its forms of application. Hence we may suppose they must be very unfit
surrogates in such delicate matters as affect the person and property of
individuals, and the good order of society.
Justice in the civil department is ill administered in Cerro Pasco, for
which the prefect assigns a good reason; namely, that here criminal suits
continually occur to engross the time and attention of the judge, so
that it is impossible for him without assistance to attend to the ready
despatch of merely civil causes, which are less urgent. The public are
great sufferers from this imperfect judicial arrangement; and not only
an additional judge, but several more notaries public, are required for
Cerro in these times, when through the excellent management of Mr. Quiros
in superintending the drainage of the mines and general interests of the
place, rich ore shows itself more and more abundantly. The concourse of
people being increased, a greater number of interests clash together, and
civil as well as criminal suits crowd into court.
NATIONAL MILITIA.
By the articles of the political constitution of Peru, there are supposed
to be in every province bodies of national militia as the guarantee of
the internal order of the state; but, by the same constitution, the armed
force of the nation has no power of political deliberation, as it is
declared to be _essentially obedient_. Happy, indeed, might the state
be, if its army of the line and naval squadron were always obedient to
the laws, and were proof against the influence of corruption, the wily
leaders of faction, and the evils of frequent insurrection!
But in the greater part of the provinces a national militia can hardly be
said to exist, except in name; though men titled captains and colonels of
such corps are scattered about the country, and strut with their insignia
of military importance in hamlets and villages.
In a neighbourhood where the writer resided for several years in the
department of Junin, there was a villager of no small local pretension,
who held at one time, in his own person, the offices of governor and
captain of militia of his district, and, if we remember well, of
alcalde also (he being alcalde on the death of the governor whom he
succeeded); and in this way he became invested with all the authority of
a petty dictator. The province was that of Huanuco, where, through the
praiseworthy zeal of Colonel Lucar and Don Pepe (now Colonel) Echegoyen,
a troop of cavalry was always kept up in some sort of military order:
and the workmen of the different larger estates and little farms around,
were called upon to assemble on Sundays under their respective captains;
and, at assigned places, to go through some of the simplest military
evolutions, using, however, no arms or particular uniform.
These Sunday exercises were generally ill attended; and, of ten or twelve
young men on an agricultural estate, it would be usually enough if two or
three appeared at one time in the ranks. Upon one occasion, however, when
the captain of local militia in the village of Ambo had the honour of
having the additional appointment of governor conferred on him, he called
upon the writer when indisposed and in bed, and, with great appearance
of sympathy and confidential cordiality, congratulated himself upon his
promotion, because it would afford him the power, as he had the will, to
serve his neighbour. With many such smooth expressions and assurances of
kind and honest intentions, calculated to put even a misanthrope off his
guard, he ended his visit by requesting that, as it was most desirable
to keep up the military spirit of the district, he would expect of the
writer that he should use his influence in persuading the young men
on his hacienda to attend regularly at the military exercises in the
adjacent village; a proposition to which he readily acceded, as it was
agreeable to the established laws of the country. On the first or second
Sunday following, six fine young men went to attend the exercises at
Ambo; and were seized and put into prison, with many others, under strong
guard, to be marched off next day as recruits for the line.
The provincial prisons of Peru are in general very bad and insecure, and
they are less frequently used than they should be for any better purpose
than that already mentioned, viz. confining the useful and industrious
husbandman—thus diminishing a race already too scanty, and yet a race on
which the prosperity of the country mainly depends:
“Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made.
But a _bold peasantry_, their _country’s pride_,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.”
Upon this occasion, we are glad to say, that the new governor’s deceitful
conduct towards us did not serve his turn as he wished.
The writer galloped to the capital of the department, where he found
Colonel Lucar reviewing and selecting the recruits to be sent off from
Huanuco to fill up the vacancies in the army of the line; and he must
ever feel obliged to the politeness of the colonel, who instantly
despatched a peremptory order to the said captain and governor to put
our men of Andaguaylla at liberty, and to replace them from the list of
idle vagrants, and not of useful husbandmen, within the term of a very
few hours,—an order more easily given than executed, as by this time the
rumour of imprisonment and seizure for the army had gone abroad, and
young men, alarmed for their fate, fled to their woods and lurking-places.
Thus it appears that the real use of this mock militia is not to
guarantee the internal order of the department, (which would be best
secured by the absence of all troops, as the Indian population are never
so well managed as by their own local magistrates of Indian family,)
but to serve as a mask, under which to facilitate the means of raising
soldiers for the general service. The governor’s wily attempt to deceive
us under the assurances of friendship is not peculiar, for such unworthy
conduct does not disgrace one of these petty tyrants in the eyes of his
countrymen.