Archibald Smith

“ It is not less worthy the admiration of a geologist to behold, amid so much arid nakedness, the bottom of the deep glen of Yura clothed with pure green and cheering verdure, which comforts the pilgrim, and serves as a soothing restorative to the sick who, sacrificing their domestic comforts and the pleasures of society, go in search of health to the baths situated in this solitary spot. ”

“ The plantain, both long and short, and the richest tuna, or Indian fig, grow in abundance; the finest pineapples are brought from the neighbouring Montaña, where vegetation is much more rapid and vigorous than in the Vale of Huanuco. In this vale, however, the palta and cheremoya mellow on the branches in their native soil. The maguey, coffee, cotton, and vine, the pomegranate and orange, the citron, lemon, and lime, &c. flourish here; and the meanest villager, as well as the humblest lodger under a cane-roofed shed, inhales with every breath the odours of never-failing blossoms. ”

“ The kind and affable inhabitants of this city in the bosom of the Andes have their imaginations excited with the hopes of their rising glories, and their own happy valley is too narrow for their expanding desires. So full are their literati of the flattering idea that an English colony on the river Huallaga may extend its industry and enterprise to the cultivation of the great pampa del Sacramento, that they already fancy proper depôts and harbours selected, docks prepared, and ships building from the timber of their own Montaña, to carry them a voyage of pleasure and profit round the world. ”

“ But though, when engaged on long and forced marches over savage mountains and glens, one of these all-enduring and active natives hardly ever falls behind from mere fatigue, yet he has not so far forgotten the shade of his fig-tree in the bosom of the vale, or his airy home on some distant eyrie, from whence he was dragged in bonds, as not secretly to pant for his native nest; and, on long inland marches, the general or commander who is not singularly vigilant, or uncommonly beloved, has more to fear that the Indian may desert him on the journey than when engaged with the enemy. ”

“ We will not deny that the use of fruit may improve to a considerable extent the health of those persons [235] who in winter and spring have been nourished with strong and stimulating aliment, such as is calculated to disorder the digestive functions; but we are far from thinking that to the use of fruits alone are to be assigned all the good effects which the vulgar fancy they derive from them. We know that in other countries not less bounteously supplied with fruit than Chile, though not favoured with so benign a climate, epidemic diseases prevail more in summer than in winter. ”

“ In the niches of the Pantheon at Lima, the renewal of flowers week after week, and even year after year, bears witness that filial or conjugal affection is still cherished in the heart long after the object of endearment has been removed from those who only survive to deplore their own loss, and with tender sorrow pray for the spirit of the departed. Whoever has visited the cemetery of Père la Chaise, in Paris, must have been struck by the attention of the living to the dead,—the daily decorations of the grave, and the prayer offered up by pious friends ”

“ 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 [94] 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 ”

“ In short, a major-domo of a festival in a village of any consideration gets well off if one hundred and fifty or two or three hundred dollars, pay his share of the anniversary feast and procession. To sustain the pageantry of one day of drunken and profligate religious enthusiasm in honour of a favourite saint, these men foolishly entangle themselves and families in the miseries of debt and embarrassments that destroy both ease and independence, and lead to a multitude of evils naturally arising out of such degraded circumstances. ”

“ The long and upraised neck of these animals, their full and expressive eyes, the urcu, or tuft which adorns their foreheads, and the dignified air with which they look around them, as with composed and solemn step they march along in a right line like disciplined troops, form altogether a picture of such peculiar and striking beauty as must always be admired, and never can be forgotten. ”

“ It has been long an established practice in Peru to bury the dead within the [97] 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. ”

“ In Chile, Nature puts on a different appearance from what she wears in Peru and Bolivia; there, however, as in these countries, the year is divided into wet and dry—the winter and summer. But in Chile it rains, as in Colombia and the Equatorial Republic, at the same season on the mountains and coast; in which respect it differs altogether from Peru and Bolivia. In the southern extremity of this republic, at about 40° of south latitude, the rains are heavier, and of longer continuance, than in the northernmost part, where it joins the great desert of Atacama. ”

“ Good men have nothing to hope for: the few individuals who have access to our rulers are guided by none but the most sordid motives. It is the ruin of my lacerated country, that no man looks beyond his personal interest; that no one attaches himself to the government with sound intentions, or with any view except that of plunder. ”

“ Here, in summer, the air of the atmosphere is uniformly clear and cloudless; and the emanations from the earth’s surface, meeting neither clouds nor mists to impede their ascent, mingle with the other atmospherical ingredients, and diffuse themselves freely through the regions of space. ”

“ It is a subject of remark on the sugar estates of Cañete, and other parts of the coast, that the slave population, though they work in the humid cane-fields, are yet by no means so liable to ague as either the white man or Indian. One reason for this difference appears to be that the sebaceous glands of the dark races, and especially the negro, keep their skin smooth and soft with a supply of unctuous or oily matter, of rather offensive odour, but admirably fitted to guard against the evil effects of atmospherical vicissitudes. ”

“ The nights are always delightful; and the sky, when it does not rain, is pure, bright, and beautiful. The hills on the eastern side of the valley are clothed with pastures, have perennial springs and wood in their dingles and corries, and are capable of grazing cattle all the year: but opposite to these, on the western side, the hills, like those of the coast, are dull arid masses for nine months in the year, only furnishing a sparse growth of flowering shrubs and weeds on their sides ”

“ This useful citizen, who happens not to owe a dollar to any man of influence whose interest it may therefore be to interpose with the colonel or sub-prefect of the district in his behalf, has, to use his own pathetic expression, no “arrimo” or powerful support, neither friend nor protector to plead his cause with the local authorities, who, though they are enjoined by the government to enlist none but idle and vicious characters, are daily seen to sacrifice, with insolence and impunity, justice and duty to malice and caprice. ”

“ 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 [70] 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. ”

“ At Port Bermejo and Casma, between nine and ten degrees of south latitude, we are told by the Spanish coasting pilots that, dig where you will, at ten or twelve paces from the sea, you are sure of finding water at the depth of half a fathom that is not very brackish. Wells or pits, however, thus opened in different parts of the coast, are often found to dry up as they do in Lima (where they are common enough) during the dry season, which is the time when they are most required.
In northern Peru the practice of digging pits for water in the beds of rivers is very common ”

“ The government of Peru is, by its constitution, pronounced to be a popular, representative [69] 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. ”

“ As the morning sun gilds the high ridges of this happy valley, its inhabitants are animated to the [40] daily labours of the field by the cheerful voice of the prettily-plumaged inmates of their well-shaded bowers. Such, then, are some of the more prominent beauties and natural advantages of the Vale of Huanuco: and we may here mention, that the city of Huanuco is the principal seat of recreation for him who wastes his strength and frets his temper in the too often delusive pursuit of wealth in Cerro Pasco, and other inclement mining localities in the neighbourhood. ”

“ In Huanuco, wages are nominally three reals a day: but here the native planters usually run accounts with their workmen, whom they supply with such articles as clothes, spirits, maize, coca, and perhaps tobacco; though the cigar is more used by the natives of the coast, and such as use not the coca, than by the agricultural Indian. By this mode of management the poor man is commonly precipitated, before he is aware of it, into his employer’s debt, and [165] very often remains involved, and virtually a slave, for the remainder of his life ”

“ The streets of Guayaquil, being steeped in rain, become contaminated for want of police; insects swarm on every side, and vegetable and animal emanations pollute the atmosphere: malaria abounds; and fevers, dysenteries, and various gastric disorders attack the inhabitants, and especially the imprudent stranger, who, trusting in his youth and strength, and not considering that difference of climate demands corresponding difference of life, perseveres in the same habits [201] under every parallel of latitude through which he passes from one temperate zone to the other. ”

“ Peru is by no means well fitted to maintain the [240] numerous species of indigenous animals which inhabit the forests of North America, nor calculated for the multiplication of those which may be transplanted from Europe, to that prodigious extent which is observed on the broad plains and exuberant pastures of Chile and Parana. Still, however, this country, in its coast, its mountain ranges, and Montaña, comprises upon the whole a vast and beautiful variety, with which the pages of natural history will be one day enriched ”

“ As an individual, the Indian is timid, and he will sooner take a cuff than give one; but, when they assemble for mutual support, then indeed they [156] are seen to fight most valiantly, and like tame oxen, when the blood of one of their number is shed, they all become fearfully courageous. Bold and bloody battles we have seen between strong parties of the native miners in Cerro Pasco, armed for the combat with slings, stones, and clubs. ”

“ During the hot months of January and February, on the coast of Peru, the irritability of the whole system is increased, and particularly of the mucous membrane of the alimentary passages; and cholera morbus thus becomes an exceedingly common disease, for which the standard remedy is ice, or iced water.
The privilege of selling ice in the capital of Peru belongs to the government, who usually let it out for a term of years to the highest bidder. The empresario, or lessee, conveys the ice on mules from the nearest snow-clad mountains at the back of Lima ”

“ In another point of view, without supposing that the fevers which on the shores of the Pacific are termed putrid arise from the want of a due quantity of saline ingredients in the blood, it is not improbable that, when perspiration is excessive and too long continued, it may indeed carry off from the circulation more of these saline portions than can be quite compatible with a state of perfect health. We have sometimes observed horses, when hard pressed on a hot day along the sandy plains of Peru, lie down exhausted and overcome by excessive sweat and muscular exertion ”