Peruvian

“ I cannot forget that it was at Lobos de Tierra I had the great pleasure of forming the acquaintance of one who represents young Peru: the new generation that, if time and opportunity be given it, may transform that land of corruption into a new nation. Here on this barren island, I found a son of one of the oldest Peruvian families, thoroughly educated, well acquainted with England and its literature, proud of his country, jealous for its honour, and keenly alive to the disgrace into which she has been dragged by the wicked men who have gone to their doom. ”

“ The Peruvian, laboring all his life for others, might be compared to the convict in a treadmill, going the same dull round of incessant toil, with the consciousness, that, however profitable the results to the state, they were nothing to him. ”

“ If we are surprised at the peculiar and original features of what may be called the Peruvian aristocracy, we shall be still more so as we descend to the lower orders of the community, and see the very artificial character of their institutions,—as artificial as those of ancient Sparta, and, though in a different way, quite as repugnant to the essential principles of our nature. ”

“ The Peruvian Indians, a hale, hardy, vigorous, intellectual race of people, were succeeded by those who soon became idle, vicious, degenerated, and imbecile. But Peru, like all the other South American states, is regaining her former potency, just in proportion as the European race decreases among them. All the labor of the country is performed by the aboriginal natives and the blacks, the few Europeans there being the merest excrescences on the body politic—consuming drones in the social hive. ”

“ Still, let us be thankful that we can find one authentic instance of Peruvian patriotism in the course of fifty years, and that out of the hundreds of revolutions which have occurred, one was for the good of the country—and most certainly to its honour. ”

“ It is on that score alone, in the acceptation which embraces the whole extent of the kingdom, that Peru is in some measure defective. A good taste, urbanity, and a social disposition, are the hereditary qualities of every Peruvian. ”

“ The Peruvian empire extended from Cuzco to Quito, and everywhere throughout the dominion were splendid cities, in which were great palaces and temples, all glittering with gold and silver, and all showing the wealth and power of the Inca. These cities were connected by great public roads that led from one end of the empire to the other, and it is said that in no country in the world were there such fine highways as those in Peru. ”

“ The Spaniards, long accustomed to treat the Peruvians as inferior beings, destitute alike of feeling and courage, forgot that even a worm will at times turn and attempt to bite the foot that presses it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who may distrust the accounts of Peruvian industry will find their doubts removed on a visit to the country. The traveller still meets, especially in the central regions of the table-land, with memorials of the past, remains of temples, palaces, fortresses, terraced mountains, great military roads, aqueducts, and other public works, which, whatever degree of science they may display in their execution, astonish him by their number, the massive character of the materials, and the grandeur of the design. ”

“ The source of this civilization is traced to the valley of Cuzco, the central region of Peru, as its name implies.7 The origin of the Peruvian empire, like the origin of all nations, except the very few which, like our own, have had the good fortune to date from a civilized period and people, is lost in the mists of fable, which, in fact, have settled as darkly round its history as round that of any nation, ancient or modern, in the Old World. ”

“ The following biographical sketches were drawn up by the authors of the Peruvian Mercury, as the commencement of a series intended to rescue from the oblivion into which they had fallen, the learned and distinguished characters by whom Peru has been adorned since the epoch of the conquest.
Father Juan Perez Menacho was born in Lima in the year 1565; his parents were equally distinguished by an illustrious descent, and by the exercise of the milder virtues. ”

“ The civilisation of the Ancient Peruvians, although in many ways analogous to that of the Aztecs, was strangely dissimilar in some of its aspects. The peoples of the two empires were totally unaware of each other's existence, and were divided by dense tracts of mountain, plain, and forest, where the most intense savagery prevailed. It seems probable that the Peruvian culture had its origin in the region of Lake Titicaca, and that it was of an indigenous character admits of little doubt. Like the Mexicans, the Peruvians had displaced an older civilisation and an older race. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We may trace in every direction the trophies of the piety of our ancestors. Hospitals, colleges, churches, asylums for orphans, endowments for young indigent females, &c. are the first monuments which present themselves to the view of the observer, when he investigates philosophically the principles of the Peruvian population. It is to be lamented that the historians who have written so copiously on Peru, have not bestowed on this subject all the attention it merits. ”

“ The Peruvians are wonderful traders, most remarkable people for exploring unknown regions and carrying on commerce to the most distant points where human beings are found. That particular Peruvian firm had foreseen that that region will some day develop to a great extent, and they had therefore established their store at the most distant point where it was possible to navigate the river without extraordinary dangers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Had not Don Manuel Pardo, the late President, fled from Lima during the revolting days of the Gutierrez terror, he too would have gone the way of all flesh and Peruvian political farmers.
The people of Peru, those who are to be distinguished from the families who farm them, are hard-working, industrious, sober, ignorant, excitable and superstitious. They are fond of serving their masters, they like to be called 'children' by the great Colonels, the great sugar-boilers, and all who ride on horses and live, even though it be at other people's expense, in great houses. ”

“ Many races went to make up the Peruvian people as they existed when first discovered by the conquering Spaniards. From the south came a civilising race which probably found a number of allied tribes, each existing separately in its own little valley, speaking a different dialect, or even language, from its neighbours, and in many instances employing different customs. ”

“ The Peruvian empire was a concretion of families, tribes, or nationalities, reduced by conquest, and their monuments, especially on the Pacific coast, as Europeans found them, have few resemblances and no identities with those of the elevated interior whence the inca race descended. ”

“ The Oriental quality, which startles one in these Spanish-American cities of the Far West is perhaps not wholly due to the Moorish influences transmitted through their Spanish colonists. Climatic and social conditions resembling those of northern Africa and southern Spain have counted for a good deal. Sunlight and dryness prescribe certain ways of building, and the Peruvian Indian resembles the Arab or the Moor in his indifference to cleanliness and comfort. Here in Arequipa, one begins to realize that Peru is in respect of population still essentially a land of the aborigines. ”

“ From the valleys of the coast region are shipped immense quantities of sugar and important cargoes of the famous Peruvian cotton, grown exclusively in this country, besides tobacco, rice, coffee, and a variety of fruits. Agriculture is the chief occupation of the people in this part of Peru, and the employment of modern methods in its development is leading to wonderful results.
The conditions that govern agriculture on the Peruvian coast are similar to those of the Nile valley, as regards the nature of the soil, climate, and fertilization. ”

“ In this way the Peruvian Commissioner seeks to excuse his country, laying stress on the term “English company and traders,” when he knows that the only representatives of the English company were its Peruvian directors and managers. The judge adds: “You must not imagine that the Indians are any less protected than the white man in Peru. Barring, of course, the times of the early Spanish conquerors, the native Indians have been treated very humanely in Peru.” ”

“ It is in this region that the greatest opportunities are offered for colonization. Of the total population, the official statistics give fifteen per cent to those of European descent; fifty per cent are of Peruvian (Indian) origin; two per cent are African, one per cent is Asiatic, and the remainder are of mixed races, chiefly European and Indian. In the predominance of the descendants of the Incas’ gentle and obedient subjects is explained the peaceable and tractable character of the masses, whose faults are rather those of indolence than of evil intention. ”

“ From those Spaniards who wrote at a time not far distant from that event we have gained much valuable knowledge concerning the contemporary condition of Peru, and a description of the principal works of these pioneers will materially assist the reader who is bent on pursuing the study of Peruvian antiquities.
Pedro de Cieza de Leon composed a geographical account of Peru in 1554, devoting the latter part of his chronicle to the subject of the Inca civilisation. This work has been translated into English by Sir Clements R. Markham, and published by the Hakluyt Society. ”

“ The most remarkable fact about the maltreatment of the South American Indians is that—admitted and specially alluded to in the Peruvian Press, as the foregoing extracts show—abuses are carried out often by the petty authorities themselves. It is painful for a foreigner, one, moreover, who has enjoyed hospitality both from the authorities and from the village priests in the interior of Peru, to record these matters, but it is manifestly a duty. ”

“ It is very difficult to secure admission to the aristocratic circles of Peru. They are as exclusive as any such circle in the world, and social laws are rigid. But an American who goes to Lima with good letters of introduction will be received with cordial hospitality, and be admitted to circles which the resident, however rich and respectable, can never enter. American naval officers are especially welcome, and the Peruvian belles are as strongly attracted by the glitter of brass buttons as are their sisters in the United States. ”

“ The "buck-niggers" and their families, of untarnished ebony hue, originally migrated into Peru from Jamaica. They do not make bad citizens, but their population is fast diminishing, their numbers becoming assimilated with the other races.
Puente Vieja, Lima, as Seen from the Bed of the Rimac
There is considerable material for argument relative to the origin of the name of the Peruvian metropolis, which nobody seems to have taken the pains to unravel. ”

“ The above specimens of Peruvian literature, given under the head of Customs and Manners, may be considered as so many views of society in that country. It only remains to add to them a sketch of domestic economy, as it refers to the education of children. This production bears the signature of Eustachio Phylomathes, and sets out as follows:
Six years ago I was united in wedlock, in this capital, to Teopiste, a beautiful and virtuous female, but possessed of the prejudices of her sex. Heaven has bestowed on me three girls and a boy. ”

“ Yet history may be thought not to gain much by this alliance with poetry; for the domain of the poet extends over an ideal realm peopled with the shadowy forms of fancy, that bear little resemblance to the rude realities of life. The Peruvian annals may be deemed to show somewhat of the effects of this union, since there is a tinge of the marvellous spread over them down to the very latest period, which, like a mist before the reader's eye, makes it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. ”

“ The Peruvians are alive to its value and possibilities, but they are poor. Days, weeks, months of arduous travel on mule-back, on foot, cutting trochas, or paths, through the impenetrable under- brush, by raft and by canoe, suffering all the hardships of the tropics, of torrential rain, burning sun, scarcity of food. ”

“ To the eye of the old Conqueror so often quoted, the number of Peruvian warriors appeared not less than 50,000; "mas de cin cuenta mil que tenia de guerra' (Relacion del Primer. Descub., Ms.) To Pizarro's secretary, as they lay encamped along the hills, they seemed about 30,000. (Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. III. p. 196.) However gratifying to the imagination to repose on some precise number, it is very rare that one can do so with safety, in estimating the irregular and tumultuous levies of a barbarian host. ”

“ But the Peruvians of the present day are a very different people from their progenitors, as they are timid and dispirited, melancholy in their temperament, severe and inexorable in the exercise of authority, wonderfully indifferent to the general concerns of life, and seeming to have little notion, or dread of death. They stand in awe of their European masters, but secretly dislike and shun their society, and they are said to be of a distrustful disposition, and though robust and capable of enduring great fatigue, yet they are very lazy. ”